Sitting of 3 July 1947

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  NEWHAVEN AND SEAFORD SEA DEFENCES BILL
  Read the Third time, and passed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  PUBLIC HEALTH

    Deaf Aids
    Mr. Edward Evansasked the Minister of Health whether he proposes to provide under the National Health Service Act, non-electrical aural aids for such deaf persons as can derive more benefit from these than from electrical instruments.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): Yes, Sir.

    Regional Hospital Area Board, Birmingham
    Mr. Wyattasked the Minister of Health how many elected representatives of Birmingham will serve as members of the Birmingham Regional Hospital Area Board; and what are the professions or occupations of the remaining members of the Board.
    Mr. Bevan: One member of the city council is on the Board. The rest consist of the vice-chancellor and three members of the teaching staff of the university nine members of other local authorities, seven chairmen of voluntary hospitals, six doctors, one hospital matron, and one mental nurse.

    Children (Malnutrition Diseases)
    Mr. Jannerasked the Minister of Health the number of children suffering from malnutrition diseases in 1939, 1943 and 1946, respectively.
    Mr. Bevan: No precise statistics are available of the total number of children suffering from diseases due to malnutrition. The proportion of school children examined whose nutritional state was classified as bad was 0.5 per cent. in 1939 and 0.3 per cent. in both 1943 and 1945. The figures for 1946 are not available.

    Deaf-Blind Persons (Home Visits)
    Mr. E. Evansasked the Minister of Health how many local authorities exercise their powers under the Blind Persons Act to make special provision for the domiciliary visitation of deaf-blind persons and for the organisation of social activities on their behalf.
    Mr. Bevan: I regret that precise information is not available, but all blind welfare authorities provide for the visitation and instruction of deaf-blind persons by home teachers, and a number organise social activities for them.
    Mr. Evans: Is the Minister aware that deaf-blind people are probably the loneliest people in the world, and that it is essential that the home teaching service should be strongly supplemented in order that they can have special visitations and special functions? Will he pay a great deal of attention to this very urgent matter?
    Mr. Bevan: After the new Act comes into operation, I hope to be able to give very much additional assistance

    Hospitals (Voluntary Efforts)
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that for many years voluntary bodies have organised fêtes, bazaars and sales of work, etc., for the benefit of voluntary hospitals; and, in view of the passing of these hospitals to State responsibility next year, whether he will state his policy with regard to the continuance of such voluntary effort for the particular benefit of local hospitals.
    Mr. Bevan: When the new hospital service comes into being, the various new governing bodies will have full power to receive and hold voluntary funds from any source, independently. It must be

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    understood, however, that no charge may be made on patients for any part of the service, except for those specifically mentioned in the Act or regulations.
    Lieut.-Colonel Dower: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by "power to hold" these funds?
    Mr. Bevan: Each of the hospitals can raise funds for additional purposes, such as welfare, and things of that sort, but the main body of revenue will come from the State. It must be quite clear that no charge can be made to a patient, because the service is free.
    Mr. Sparks: Is my right hon. Friend now telling the House that under the new arrangement next year, hospital committees may themselves organise voluntary efforts, thus enabling particular hospitals to supplement their funds?
    Mr. Bevan: I made that quite clear on the Committee and Report stages of the Bill.
    Mr. Ronald Chamberlain: Would the Minister say whether the same kind of policy will be adopted in connection with district nursing associations, particularly those which will continue under the new arrangement?
    Mr. Bevan;Any county borough will, where they think fit, have the power to make arrangements with nursing associations for which, of course, they will pay. I have sent instructions to that effect.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Who will administer these funds obtained from voluntary sources?
    Mr. Bevan: The hospital management committees.
    Mr. Scollan: If a voluntary hospital were to organise a fete and raise a sum of, say, £500, would the money be used for the purpose of providing additional benefits for that hospital?
    Mr. Bevan: We are not dealing with the intermediate period between now and the coming into operation of the Act. We are dealing with the situation after the Act has been brought into operation, and, in order that the service may be as free and independent as possible, management committees of hospitals will be able to arrange funds for the welfare of the hospital as a whole, and administer them,
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    but they will in no way diminish the revenues provided by the State.
    Mr. E. Evans: Will the Minister agree that the best voluntary effort is personal service?
    Mr. Bevan: As the whole of the health service is intended to be administered by voluntary workers, I entirely agree with the hon. Member.

    Death Certificates
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Health what precautions are taken to secure that the cause of death certified upon a death certificate is correct; and, in view of the evidence at the recent coroner's trial at Southport, what steps he proposes to take to ensure that death shall not be certified from wrong or false causes.
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that the law now permits medical practitioners to issue death certificates in respect of near relatives; and if he proposes to introduce legislation to amend this practice.
    Mr. Bevan: The position under the Births and Deaths Registration Acts and Regulations is that a registered medical practitioner, who is otherwise competent in the circumstances of the particular case to give a certificate of the cause of death, is not precluded from doing so by reason of relationship to the deceased, and it is not open to the registrar of births and deaths to reject a certificate on that ground. The duties of the registrar include the duty to report to the coroner before registration deaths in certain specified categories including any which he has reason to believe to be unnatural, or accidental, or attended by suspicious circumstances, or the cause of which appears to be unknown. I do not at present contemplate amending legislation on any of these matters.
    Mr. Sparks: Is the Minister aware that the person concerned in the case at South-port, was poisoned by morphine, and that two doctors apparently certified that death was caused by a totally different complaint? In view of all the evidence, a grave suspicion is created that this was not an isolated case, and will my right hon. Friend look into the matter with a view to tightening up the regulations for certifying death?
    Mr. Bevan: I have no comment to make on the circumstances of that case, and

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    I think that in the circumstances it would be improper to do so. In any case, I would not derive a general conclusion from this particular instance.
    Wing-Commander Hulbert: Even if the law permits the state of affairs to which I have referred in my Question, does not the right hon. Gentleman think it is very undesirable?
    Mr. Bevan: It is not for a Minister to rebuke the House of Commons for the laws which it has passed.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend consider introducing a provision whereby death certificates shall be countersigned by an independent medical practitioner?
    Mr. Bevan: I do not contemplate any amendment of the law at present.
    Mr. Janner: While appreciating that this is an exceptional case, and that, as a rule, doctors give certificates with the best intentions, may I ask if my right hon. Friend will consider assisting the medical profession by asking coroners' officers, or intimating to them, that they should make as extensive inquiries as they can in such cases?
    Mr. Bevan: I can impose no duty except by legislation.

    Vaccinated Infant, Hatfield Peverel (Inquiry)
    Mr. Dribergasked the Minister of Health if he will cause a thorough investigation to be made into the case of the infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald W. Gooding, Wolsey, Maldon Road, Hatfield Peverel, Essex, who was described by the doctor in charge of the clinic attended by Mrs. Gooding as a perfect baby but who, after being vaccinated three times within seven weeks, on the third occasion with a double injection, became blind and is not expected to recover her health; what precautions he is taking against the occurrence of similar tragedies; and if the parents of this child are entitled to compensation.
    Mr. Bevan: I am making inquiries and will communicate with my hon. Friend. In the meantime, I should like to express my deep sympathy with the parents
    Mr. Driberg: While not presuming to generalise from this tragic case, on a matter on which I have no medical
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    knowledge, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is satisfied that similar results will not follow similar treatment in other cases, and will he make the result of his inquiry fully available to the House and the public?
    Mr. Bevan: With regard to the latter part of the supplementary question, if my hon. Friend will put down a Question after inquiries have been made, I will certainly give all the information at my disposal. With regard to the first part of the question, until we have had an inquiry I would not like to make any comment.

    RURAL HOUSING (COMMITTEE'S RECOMMENDATIONS)
    Mr. Digbyasked the Minister of Health if he is yet in a position to announce the intentions of the Government in regard to the implementation of the recommendations of the Hobhouse Committee on Rural Housing.
    Mr. Bevan: No, Sir. But I shall make an announcement before the end of the Session.
    Mr. Digby: Could the Minister say, in view of the urgency of this matter, whether he will make an announcement before the Summer Recess?
    Mr. Bevan: I said, before the end of then Session, but I hope it will be before the Summer Recess.
    Mr. Dumpleton: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the minority report of this Committee would probably receive far greater support?
    Mr. Bevan: I am aware of that.

    LAND ACQUISITION (VALUATIONS)
    Mr. A. Edward Daviesasked the Minister of Health what directions are given to district valuers to guide them in their valuation of properties and lands which local authorities wish to acquire!
    Mr. Bevan: District valuers apply their local knowledge under the guidance of the Chief Valuer, Inland Revenue Department. Their valuations, however, are governed by the statutory provisions relating to the compulsory acquisition of land, the interpretation of which is finally a matter for the courts.
    Mr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that at least some of the valuations presented to the local authorities are far below the current prices of the lands and properties, and that they have not the ghost of a chance of getting anywhere near the desirable properties?
    Mr. Bevan: I am not aware of any special instance, but these are valued in accordance with the Statutes, and I have no authority to intervene.

  EDUCATION

    School Milk, Hawkesbury
    Mr. Alpassasked the Minister of Education if he is aware that no milk has been supplied to the schoolchildren attending the Hawkesbury Mixed School, No. 159, since Easter; and if he will take steps to ensure that arrangements are made for a regular supply of milk to the school without further delay.
    The Minister of Education (Mr. Tom-linson): Yes. Sir, I am informed that a new supply has been arranged, beginning on 1st July.

    Independent Schools (Places)
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Minister of Education (1) how many independent schools have offered local education authorities places for pupils in the schools under their control; what is the number of these places; and how many have been taken up;
    (2) how many local education authorities have taken up places in independent schools for pupils in schools under their control; and how many have taken no action in this matter.
    Mr. Tomlinson: Of the 358 places offered by 103 recognised efficient secondary boarding schools to the Committee on Boarding Education for use in September next by local education authorities generally, 65 have so far been allocated in response to requests received by the Committee from 10 authorities. In addition, some local education authorities are taking up places under arrangements made directly with the schools.
    Mr. Lipson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the independent schools are co-operating very well in this matter, and can he explain why so small a proportion of the places offered have
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    been taken up? Is it due to the tact that many local authorities cannot afford the expense, and, if so, will he go to their assistance?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I do not think that is the case. It is due, in the main, to the fact that the notices were not received by the local authorities in time to enable them to make the necessary arrangements.
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsay: Can it also be that some of the local authorities are not prepared to see their best pupils "creamed off" from the grammar schools, thereby lowering the system of public secondary education?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Neither is it our desire, in the operation of this scheme, that the best students should be "creamed off"
    Mr. Wilson Harris: In view of the advantage to public schools by the addition of pupils from primary schools, will the right hon. Gentleman use all his influence with the local education authorities to see that these vacant places are taken up, so far as is possible?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Yes, sir

    Further Education and Training Scheme (Termination)
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsayasked the Minister of Education on what date the Further Education Training Scheme is due for termination; whether all persons serving or liable to serve before 1st January, 1949, will be eligible for grants; or on what grounds is a differentiation to be made between those called up in 1947 and those called up in 1948
    Mr. Tomlinson: As regards the first and second parts of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service in the OFFICIAL REPORT of 12th June. Having regard to the objects of the scheme, and the other forms of assistance which have recently been extended, it was not considered justifiable to continue the scheme under the present conditions of call-up. The 30th September was fixed in order to give reasonable notice and to suit, so far as possible, the convenience of students.
    Mr. Lindsay: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that those men who are called up after September this year have

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    some sort of priority when they return; and, further, is he aware that two-thirds of the students in this country are utterly dependent on their parents' income, even with the welcome advantages which have already been provided for entries to universities?
    Mr. Tomlinson: I could not go so far as to give a complete assurance to the hon. Gentleman's request in the first part of his supplementary question, but I would point out that at present, and for some time to come, 90 per cent. of the students who are accepted in the universities are ex-Service men, and I think that those ex-Service men in 1949 can rest assured that they will get a square deal.
    Miss Herbison: Is my right hon. Friend, considering, on the termination of the present scheme, some other scheme which will give similar advantages to students of this type?
    Mr. Tomlinson: Some little time ago I introduced a scheme to supplement the places which were being provided by means of State scholarships.

    Science Masters, Secondary Schools
    Mr. K. Lindsayasked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to remedy the admitted shortage of science masters in secondary schools.
    Mr. Tomlinson: As the hon. Member is aware, the science faculties at the universities are being expanded and I am confident that this will go far to meet the demand for teachers which has increased substantially in the last few years.
    Mr. Lindsay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the moment the Oxford University Appointments Board has 250 vacancies for science teachers unfilled, and that the secretary reports that some headmasters are just going to give up science teaching? This goes to the very root of the training of scientists for the future of this country. Will he, therefore, give fresh consideration either to getting science teachers released from the Services—which is the only method, I believe—or increasing their salaries which are so different from those paid in industry?
    Mr. Tomlinson: The hon. Member knows from his previous experience that the salaries question is one which is at
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    present before the Burnham Committee, and that the Minister cannot interfere. With regard to release from the Services, I should hesitate to take that action. I believe that the action that has been taken will lead to improvement in the numbers.

    Out-of-School Pursuits (Inquiry)
    Mr. K. Lindsayasked the Minister of Education whether he has yet given any terms of reference to the Advisory Council and what they are.
    Mr. Tomlinson: In October, 1946, I agreed with the Central Advisory Council for England that they should investigate and report to me upon "The Educational needs of the Young Worker." At my request the Council are just about to undertake an inquiry covered by the following terms of reference:
    "To consider and report on the natural interests and pursuits of school children out of school hours; the provision made for these outside their homes; the value of such provision and the desirability of further or different provision; and the extent to which school work and activities can and should be related to and develop these interests."

    END OF WAR (OFFICIAL DATE)
    Mr. Jannerasked the Attorney-General when he anticipates it will be possible to make a definite announcement with regard to the official date for the end of the war; and whether, in view of the number of agreements which cannot be determined until this date is known, the decision will be expedited.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Hartley Shawcross): Whether this country is at war with any other country or not is, in each case, a question of mixed fact and law. If arbitrary dates for the end of the war are to be prescribed with the object of determining the intentions of parties to agreements legislation will be required. It appears from careful inquiries which have been made that there is no widespread demand for such legislation. The reason seems to be that agreements vary so considerably in their subject matter and circumstances that any attempt to prescribe an arbitrary date would in many cases obscure the real intentions of the parties, and obstruct the interpreta-

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    tion of the agreement. In some cases parties may, for instance, have contemplated the cessation of actual hostilities. In others, the conclusion of a treaty of peace. I would remind my hon. Friend that for the purposes of certain tenancy agreements dates have already been prescribed under the Validation of War-Time Leases Act, 1944, but tenancy agreements are a limited class of contracts to which special considerations apply.
    Mr. Tanner: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for his reply, may I ask if he does not agree, with the large number of agreements which do exist in respect of which there is a conflict of opinion as to what the phrase "termination of the war" really means, that some definite date should be fixed, if need be, by legislation, so as to allow people to get on with such agreements as they have made in a practical form?
    The Attorney-General: The view at which we arrived after careful consultation with a number of bodies concerned in matters of this kind was, that to fix an arbitrary date by legislation would probably cause more difficulty than may exist at present.
    Mr. Beverley Baxter: Is it not a fact that the Government of the United States of America did declare a definite date for the end of the war, and that that has worked all right over there?
    The Attorney-General: I am afraid that that is a question of which I should require notice.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Furnace Blacks
    Mrs. Middletonasked the President of the Board of Trade what plans are being made in this country, or are contemplated, for producing furnace blacks of equal quality to channel blacks by the Statex K method.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Sir Stafford Cripps): I am not aware of any plans for making carbon black in this country by the Statex K method, or that it has yet been proved whether this method produces blacks of equal quality to channel blacks. Trial parcels are now being imported so that its qualities may be tested.

    Rubber (U.S.A. Import Restrictions)
    Mr. Thomas Reidasked the President of the Board of Trade what representations he is making to the Government of the U.S.A. for the removal of the partial restrictions imposed on the use of natural rubber in that country with a view to securing more employment and better wage conditions in our Colonies and more dollar exchange for the Empire.
    Sir S. Cripps: This matter is being raised at the current session of the Rubber Study Group in Paris.
    Mr. Reid: Is it not a fact that this synthetic rubber industry is quite uneconomic? Is not one of its objects to try to keep down the price of natural rubber, often below the cost of production in the Colonies?
    Sir S. Cripps: I think that that is a question which ought to be addressed to the Government of the United States of America, and not to this one.

    Soap Gift (Import Licence)
    Sir Robert Youngasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that schoolboys in England co-operatively correspond in the name of their schools, with schoolboys in New-Zealand; that the boys of a New Zealand school have sent to an English school a case of toilet soap; that the soap arrived at a London dock, but cannot be delivered because of import restrictions; and whether he will consummate this gesture of friendship from New Zealand by making the soap available to these boys, or to what alternative use he proposes putting it.
    Sir S. Cripps: The only case of which I am aware concerns the Senior Boys' School, Newton-le-Willows, and the necessary licence was sent to the school six weeks ago.
    Sir R. Young: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean by his answer that an absolutely free gift requires an importation licence? Is he aware that the application form sent to the school contains questions that boys cannot answer, namely, who will pay the overseas supplier, the trade description of the goods, the value of the goods, the cost of the insurance and freight, and other

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    questions of that kind? Should not these free gifts be given to these boys just in the same way as free gifts are given to other people?
    Sir S. Cripps: They were not incapable of answering the questions because they sent the application in good form to the Department, and the licence was issued thereon.
    Lieut-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Since when has soap been an acceptable gift in boys' schools?

    Timber (Levy)
    Mr. Gibsonasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the amount of the levy per standard, added to the market price of timber by his Department; why this levy is made; and whether he will consider taking early steps to reduce the amount of the levy in order to reduce the cost of house building.
    Sir S. Cripps: The amount of the levy varies for different descriptions of softwood, but for most it is £19 15s. per standard. The recent increase in timber selling prices, which was made necessary by the increased cost of imported timber, would have resulted in a windfall profit to merchants on the resale of timber they had in stock at the time of the increase. The levy, which is charged only on timber which merchants had bought from the Timber Control at the lower prices previously prevailing, is intended to withdraw this windfall profit; it is not added to the present price of timber, nor would any reduction in it reduce the cost of building.

    Clothing Coupons
    Colonel Ropnerasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to issue clothing coupons of the current issue in exchange for any of the 1945–46 issue which are not used by 1st November.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir.
    Colonel Ropner: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that his course will probably lead to some extravagance in the use of coupons, if they are to become invalid? Would it not lead in the end to greater economy if the coupons were given a new lease of life?
    Sir S. Cripps: I should have thought that that would lead to less economy, because they would be likely to be used over a longer period.

    Flannel Trousers
    Major Tufton Beamishasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the shortage of grey flannel or other lightweight long trousers is causing serious concern; what is the cause of this shortage; and if he will give an assurance that no summer weight long trousers will be exported until adequate supplies are available for the home market.
    Sir S. Cripps: This shortage is due to the increased demand brought about by demobilisation, while cloth production, especially of worsted flannel is still considerably below the prewar level, though it is gradually increasing. Export licences are not normally issued for utility garments, which represent about 80 per cent. of the total production; but the urgent need to increase textile exports makes it necessary to allow non-utility garments to be freely exported.
    Major Beamish: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that what people want is trousers and not just his promises? Does he remember that old schoolboy rhyme about the highwayman who pointed his pistol and demanded,
    "Your money or your life,
    Your trousers or your wife"?
    Is it not a fact that under this Government the British people are suffering a crushing burden of taxation, and that the Government are taking not only their money but their trousers as well?
    Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that this worsted material is far too heavy, and does not really replace flannel, and that if this shortage goes on, we shall have to wear shorts?

    Surgical Footwear Worker (Release from Army)
    Mr. Manningham-Bullerasked the President of the Board of Trade why his Department has refused to sponsor the release under Class B of 14929601 Private G. Bullock, whose services in the manufacture of surgical footwear are urgently required.
    Sir S. Cripps: Private Bullock was little more than an apprentice when he joined the Forces, at the age of 18 years, in February, 1945. He cannot be regarded as having acquired the high degree of skill and experience which alone would justify me in asking for his release.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Board of Trade Footwear Controllers at Leicester and Kettering have both recommended the release of this young man, that this young man is in medical category B 7, that he has been in the Army 28 months, that he was employed on very essential work in the manufacture of surgical boots, and that unless he is released now all the people employed in that small concern producing urgently required materials will become unemployed?
    Hon. Members: Nonsense.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, I cannot confirm all those details, but I am quite aware of the circumstances, and, in exercising my judgment on the case, I have decided that it is not such as would entitle me to put it forward.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: In view of the recommendations put forward by the Footwear Controllers, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look at the matter again, to see whether he can relax some of the red tape?
    Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: When the right hon. and learned Gentleman says that this young man is too young to have acquired skill, has he any reason to think he has not acquired skill, or does he necessarily assume that nobody young can have skill?
    Sir S. Cripps: A certain period of time -requires to elapse before the necessary skill can be acquired in a trade such as this.

    Token Imports (Dollar Expenditure)
    Mr. Keelingasked the President of the Board of Trade what dollar expenditure has been incurred on token imports of manufactured goods since their admission began last year; and what dollar expenditure on such goods is proposed during the current year.
    Sir S. Cripps: Import licences were issued in respect of 1946 under the token
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    import scheme for goods from Canada valued at £392,000 and from the U.S.A. at £178,000. I do not expect that dollar expenditure on token imports in the current year will greatly exceed these figures.
    Mr. Keeling: It is not intended to reduce them owing to the shortage of dollars?
    Sir S. Cripps: Probably not to any material extent, because they amount to a very small sum anyway.

    Travel Association Publications (Dorset)
    Mr. Byersasked the President of the Board of Trade, if he is aware that in the recent publications of the British Travel Association, particularly "The British Isles" and "Come to Britain" pamphlet No. 4, South-West England, there is no reference to the county of Dorset; and if he will ensure that this omission is rectified.
    Sir S. Cripps: I am bringing the hon. Member's suggestion to the attention of the British Tourist and Holidays Board.
    Mr. Byers: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman do that urgently, so that the attention of tourists coming to England this summer can be drawn to the attractions and beauty of this county, which has been missed out?
    Sir S. Cripps: I will draw attention to it.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Arising out of the original answer, why in the world was Dorset ever put in the South-West of England?

    Decorated. Pottery
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now permit some decoration on domestic pottery.
    Sir S. Cripps: No, Sir. The output of decorated pottery is limited by the size of the decorating labour force, and I am afraid that in present circumstances we cannot afford the loss of exports which would result from allowing its manufacture for sale on the home market.
    Mr. Skeffington: If it is impossible to allow any decoration, will my right hon. Friend consider the possibility of producing some utility brands at least, in

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    different colours, because the failure to have either decoration or colour does force up to fantastic heights the price of second-hand china?
    Sir S. Cripps: I will certainly consider it.

    British Institute of Management (Director)
    Mr. Mikardoasked the President of the Board of Trade when he anticipates that the director of the British Institute of Management will be appointed.
    Sir S. Cripps: The appointment of a director is a matter for the Council of the Institute, and I am sure that they are alive to the importance of filling the post as soon as possible.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is my right hon. Friend aware that after many months of delay during the presentation of the report and the appointment of the Council, there has now been something like six months' delay during which the Council has done nothing at all; and are we really proposing to do something for British manufacturers, or is this merely the putting up of a facade?

    Quantity.

    Country of Manufacture.

    Price.

    Delivery.

    Intended Use.

    (1) Cotton piece goods (loom state).

    64,000,000

    Japan

    6·96–17·93 pence per yd. f.o.b.Japanese port.

    Nearly 26,000,000 yds. have been landed in U.K., 13,000,000 yds. have been shipped; balance to be shipped soon.

    For finishing and re-export to Burma and certain Colonial territories

    (2) Silk and silk and rayon mixture piece goods.

    800,000 yds.

    Germany

    7s.6d.-8s.6d. per yd. to U.K. purchaser.

    About 100,000 yds. have been delivered. Delivery of balance not yet known.

    One-third for home con-sumption two - thirds for export (including export in made-up form).

    (3) Cotton yarn

    About 500 tons.

    Germany

    19 pence per lb. for processing (raw cotton sup-supplied by U.K.).

    334 tons delivered; balance to be delivered by end of year.

    Manufacture of lace for export.

    (4) Linen yarn

    75 metric tons.

    Germany

    5s. 11¼ 10s. 5d. per kilo, f.o.b.

    All delivered.

    Weaving for export.

    The above goods have been, or are being, re-sold to United Kingdom manu-
    Sir S. Cripps: I do not agree with the hon. Member that the Council has done nothing at all. It has done a great deal of preliminary work, of which there is much to be done

    Foreign Textile Goods
    Mr. Stanley Prescottasked the President of the Board of Trade the total quantity of textile goods, cotton, wool, rayon and linen, respectively, for which orders have been placed with foreign countries; the names of such countries with respective quantities and prices; the amounts which have already been delivered; when the balance of deliveries may be expected; what quantity of such goods will be made available for home consumption and what further orders are contemplated.
    Sir S. Cripps: As the answer is long and contains a number of figures, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the statement:
    Purchases of textiles by the Board of Trade over the last 12 months have been as follow:
    facturers and traders at prices which cover the costs to the Board of Trade.
    British Overseas Cottons Ltd. have recently purchased, with the approval of the Board of Trade, 6,000,000 metres of loom-state cotton piece goods in the Russian Zone of Germany at prices ranging between 1s. 7d. and 3s. 6d. per metre f.o.b. Baltic port. These goods are intended for the home market. Shipment will begin in a few weeks' time. Further purchases of German and Japanese cotton piece goods are under consideration. Some facilities have also been provided for the importation on private account under the sponsorship of Government Departments of classes of textile goods like tyre fabrics, cement bags and belting duck which are urgently needed here, or in accordance with more general arrangements made for import for re-export, token imports, and imports from countries whose economies have been disrupted by the war.

    Ladies' Walking Shoes
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware of the shortage of ladies' walking shoes; and whether any increase in supplies is contemplated.
    Sir S. Cripps: The shortage of certain types of light soled shoes is due to the world scarcity of particular types of leather. There are plentiful supplies of heavier types of walking shoes, though I appreciate that these may not always be as acceptable to ladies.

  COAL INDUSTRY

    Production Figures
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Fuel and Power whether it was upon his instructions that the East Midlands Divisional Coal Board have refused to give information to the Press as to coal production figures for the previous week.
    The Minister of Fuel and Power (Mr. Shinwell): I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave on 12th June in reply to a similar question by the hon. and gallant Member for West Edinburgh (Lieut.-Commander Hutchison).
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In view of the fact that the refusal of information referred to in my Question did not take effect until 13th June, can the right hon. Gentleman say how he answered it on 12th June?
    Hon. Members: Answer.

    Distribution, Eydon
    Mr. Manningham-Bullerasked the Minister of Fuel and Power when the hon. and learned Member for Daventry may expect a reply to his letter of 12th May with regard to complaints as to coal deliveries by inhabitants of Eydon.
    Mr. Shinwell: I much regret the delay in replying to the hon. and learned Member's letters of 12th and 27th May about coal distribution in the village of Eydon. A reply was, however, sent on 1st July. The delay was primarily due to the fact that conflicting statements were made by the merchant and certain of his customers, and it was, therefore, necessary to have a thorough local investigation made, which inevitably took some time.
    Mr. Manningham-Buller: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, thanks to the Post Office, the reply was delivered to this House this morning; that the reply is extremely unsatisfactory; and will he not allow the villagers living in the pleasant village of Eydon to transfer their custom to another merchant, as a great number of them dispute receiving the coal shown in the merchant's record?
    Mr. Shinwell: As regards the change of registration, that is another matter, and I will have to look into that if representations are made. I was not aware that the hon. and learned Member had received the letter only this morning, but I do not deny that there has been some delay in this matter. I have looked into it, and it rather seems as if there has been voluminous correspondence which may have led to delay. There have been other causes, but I have done my best in the matter
    Mr. Manningpham-Buller: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree to these customers changing their registration? Then there would be less correspondence.
    Mr. Shinwell: I could not agree to an overall change of registration, but I would, of course, consider specific cases.

    FUEL CRISIS LEAFLET
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Minister of Fuel and Power how many copies of "Fuel Crisis and You" have been printed; and what is the basis of distribution.
    Mr. Shinwell: Fourteen million two hundred and fifty thousand copies of this leaflet have been printed; distribution is on a household basis, delivery being made by the Post Office during the fortnight ending 5th July.
    Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some houses, where there is only one inhabitant, no less than 15 or 20 of these pamphlets have been put through the letterbox?
    Mr. Shinwell: No, I am not aware of that.
    Mr. Henry Usborne: Does the Minister realise that the layout and general appearance of this particular pamphlet is about as unattractive and repulsive as it could possibly be?
    Mr. Shinwell: No, I do not agree. If the hon. Member has views about what the layout should be, perhaps he would let me have them.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Minister aware that this unattractive pamphlet is appropriate to an unattractive situation?
    Mr. Shinwell: I should not imagine the noble Lord is a judge of anything that is attractive.

    U.S.A. LABOUR LEGISLATION
    Mr. Piratinasked the Minister of Labour whether he will bring to the attention of the International Labour Organisation the anti-trade union legislation which has been passed by the United States Legislature, which is in conflict with the principles of the international body.
    The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): No, Sir.
    Mr. Piratin: Does not the Minister think this is a suitable matter to raise with this organisation, in view of the fact that it has in it trade union organisations of one of the greatest Powers in the world?
    Mr. Isaacs: I think it would be most unsuitable, and would be regarded by the great trade union movement of the country to which the hon. Member referred as "one of the greatest Powers in the world," as a usurpation of their functions.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Joint Production Committees
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Labour what progress has been made in the establishment of joint production committees; and in which industries they are most strongly established.
    Mr. Isaacs: The National Joint Advisory Council have approved the principle of the setting up of joint consultative machinery, where it does not at present already exist, provided that such machinery is voluntary and advisory in character; that it does not deal with questions relating to terms and conditions of employment which are normally dealt with through the ordinary machinery of joint negotiation, and that it is left to each industry to adjust the form of machinery to its own particular circumstances. The British Employers' Confederation and the General Council of the Trades Union Congress have agreed to bring this recommendation to the notice of employers' organisations and trade unions respectively. I am consulting with the National Joint Advisory Council as to the means by which my Department can best assist in this important development. I regret I have at present insufficient information which would enable me to reply to the second part of the Question.

    Exchange Premises (Non-Official Use)
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Labour what non-official persons or bodies are permitted the use of his Department's employment exchanges and other premises; and on what terms and conditions.
    Mr. Isaacs: With one exception there are no general rules, and any application would be considered on its merits. The exception relates to the holding of meetings on employment exchange premises. That is governed by rules made by local employment committees, under regulations dating from 1917, which preclude their use for political purposes or in connection with a strike or for the recruitment of trade union members.

    Staggered Hours
    Mr. Prescottasked the Minister of Labour in respect of what industries consultations have been held under the aegis

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    of his Department regarding staggering hours in industry to ease peak loads on edectricity generation plants next winter; what decisions have been arrived at; and in respect of what other industries such consultations are proposed.
    Mr. Isaacs: The consultations have been with the National Joint Advisory Council and its committees, which are collectively representative of all industries. The engineering industry has this week reached an agreement as to the terms and conditions on which revised working hours should operate for the purpose of spreading the load. Consultation covering all industries concerned is proceeding through the machinery of the National Joint Advisory Council.

    Manchester Area
    Mr. Lester Hutchinsonasked the Minister of Labour if he will give the present figures of the number of unemployed in the Manchester area and the reasons for such unemployment; and whether there is any scheme to absorb them into industry.
    Mr. Isaacs: At 16th June the number was 5,387, representing less than 1.5 per cent. It is made up largely of workers changing their jobs and unskilled workers not fit for heavy work. Every step is taken to place them as quickly as possible after they become unemployed.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Currency Offences (Prosecutions)
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the numbers and particulars of all persons summoned by the Treasury for currency offences; and the amounts of fines and punishment in each case.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): Thirty-six people have been prosecuted this year for illegal foreign currency deals or similar offences. They were all convicted, and fines totalling £85,304 were imposed. In one case three months imprisonment was also imposed. Other cases are pending.
    Mr. Lewis: Could the Chancellor tell the House how many of those charged were miners, engineers or bricklayers?
    Mr. Dalton: Not without rather complicated research, but my hon. Friend may make as good a guess as anybody else.
    Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Could the Chancellor give any hope of a lightening of these restrictions so that bona fide travel can be undertaken?
    Mr. Dalton: For bona fide travellers, and for all bona fide Britishers who are not out to cheat their country, there are proper facilities now. I take the most severe view of all these law-breakers running away with our scarce foreign exchange resources at a time of great difficulty.
    Mr. Martin Lindsay: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that this number of 36 represents only an infinitesimal fraction of the number of people who have been abroad?
    Mr. Dalton: This represents prosecutions which have succeeded.
    Mr. Lindsay: Yes, I know.
    Mr. Dalton: Other cases are pending, as I have already said. I am sorry to say that this habit of cheating on foreign exchange abroad is pretty prevalent.
    Mr. Nicholson: Can the Chancellor say that every case which is prosecutable has been undertaken; and if, not, on what basis are the cases selected?
    Mr. Dalton: On the evidence we have as to whether the prosecution will succeed. So far, we have not got around to catching the lot.

    Natural History Museum (Directorship)
    Sir John Graham Kerrasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the increased importance of modern developments in the natural history sciences in their bearing upon public health, agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries and general culture, he will take steps to ensure that the emoluments of the Director of the Natural History Museum, the chief national centre of such sciences, shall be not less than those of the Director of the National Physical Laboratory.
    Mr. Dalton: The salary of this post was increased to £2,000, as from 1st January, 1946, in agreement with the

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    Trustees. This figure seems reasonable in relation to the salaries of comparable posts, including that of the Director of the National Physical Laboratory.
    Sir J. Graham Kerrasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the disquiet among British naturalists regarding the directorship of the Natural History Museum, he will suggest to the Trustees of the British Museum the desirability of their consulting with the Councils of the Zoological, Linnean and Royal Entomological Societies, as being the three most important natural history societies, regarding any contemplated appointment to this post.
    Mr. Dalton: I will certainly pass on the hon. Member's suggestion to the Trustees.

    Bank Advances (Agriculturists)
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether he has any figures to show the approximate total amount in aggregate which was lent by Barclays, National Provincial, Midland, Westminster and Martins Banks to agriculturists at 31st December, 1946, and 1st June, 1947.
    (2) whether he will make the necessary arrangements for publishing, in the aggregate, at the end of each month the amount outstanding by way of indebtedness from agricultural producers to the clearing banks; and whether, at the same time, he will state the approximate number of agricultural borrowers to which the sum in the aggregate is related.
    Mr. Dalton: I would refer the hon. Member to the figures given in the Analysis of Bank Advances in the Monthly Digest of Statistics.
    Mr. De la Bère: Is the Chancellor aware that there is a very substantial overdraft in advance of £50 million, and that the small farmers are totally devoid of working capital? Why are the banks charging 5 per cent. on these overdrafts? Will the right hon. Gentleman give a reply, because this is hindering the production of food at a time when we are short of food?
    Mr. Dalton: Far from hindering, we are very anxious to promote in every way the production of food. The hon. Member has asked for certain figures. He will find some interesting figures and information—I will not read it, because it has been pub lished—in the Monthly Digest.
    Mr. De la Bère: I am fully conversant with them. I want the House to know them.
    Mr. Dalton: Hon. Members can read them too.
    Major Bruce: Will the Chancellor give an assurance that he will continue the existing policy of credit expansion in the agricultural industry, and not repeat the disastrous policy of the Tory Government in the early '30's.
    Mr. Speaker: Imputations of that sort are really quite unnecessary in supplementary questions. Both sides are too fond of them.

    Sterling Area
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what countries have notified their intention of leaving the sterling area.
    Mr. Dalton: I would ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman to await the statement which I shall be making after Questions.

    Farthings (Minting)
    Mr. Gammansasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if, in view of the fact that the farthing has now no monetary value, he has considered its abolition in commercial transactions and ceasing to mint it.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): The farthing has monetary value, and should, therefore, continue to be minted.
    Mr. Gammans: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether farthings are still being minted, and if so, what happens to them?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: They are still being minted at the rate of 13½ million a year. As that is the demand made by the banks on the Mint, we can only assume that they are needed. I would remind the hon. Member that farthings are still needed in the purchase of a number of commodities, such as milk and bread

    BUREAU OF CURRENT AFFAIRS (PAPER SUPPLIES)
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how much paper the Bureau of Current Affairs received from Government sources on or after its transfer from official control.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: One hundred and twenty thousand sheets, some partly printed with background maps, were handed over at the time of transfer on the understanding that these would be replaced.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Have they been replaced?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: I am making inquiries about that, and I will let the hon. Member know as soon as I have the information.
    Mr. Wyatt: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that he will resist these mealy-mouthed attempts to attack the Bureau and curtail free speech?

    TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANTS (TRANSFERS)
    Mr. Norman Bowerasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury why temporary civil servants are being dismissed by the Ministries of Transport, Pensions and Supply, while the Ministry of National Insurance is engaged in recruiting new staff from outside the Civil Service; and whether, with a view to making the best use of available man power both in industry and the Civil Service, he will revise the present procedure so as to allow temporary civil servants who become redundant in one department to transfer to another, without loss of status or emoluments, before any new entrants are taken on.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: The procedure followed is that Departments discharging staff inform the Ministry of Labour local offices, and should advise the redundant staff of the opportunity to register for further Government employment. Those selected within three months for reemployment reckon their previous service as continuous for the purpose of pay and conditions.
    Mr. Dumpletonasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will consider the desirability of establishing an inter-departmental committee to consider and recommend a just and equitable scheme, which will provide for the orderly transfer of temporary civil servants who have become redundant in their own de-
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    partments, but whose services may be of value in other Departments which are, at present, understaffed.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: A Ministry of Labour and National Service machinery already exists for this purpose.
    Mr. Dumpleton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that when these temporary civil servants, many of Whom have done six to ten years' satisfactory service in their Department, go to the Ministry of Labour to make use of this machinery, they have to start at the bottom? Would it not be much better if some arrangement were made for orderly transfers from Departments?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: If my hon. Friend will let me have any cases which have come to his notice, I shall be glad to look into them. The situation is that if they are re-employed within three months, they carry on in the Service, and the ten years' service he mentioned would be continuous.

    POLICE DUTIES (ASCOT RACES)
    Mr. Piratinasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps were taken by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolitan area to safeguard the lives of children at busy roads and crossings when numbers of police were withdrawn from such duties during the days of the Ascot races.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): No police were withdrawn from duties in connection with the safety of school children for the purpose of the Ascot races.
    Mr. Piratin: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how it was the police in Acton informed the local schools that they would have to make their own provisions at crossings, because the police were to be taken off their normal duties?
    Mr. Ede: The police officer who made such a statement was singularly devoid of the gift of prophecy.
    Mr. Keeling: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that in the future, as in the past, every citizen will receive the protection of the police without distinction of class or age?
    Mr. Ede: As far as the number of the police will allow.
    Mr. Piratinasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many police, and from which divisions of the Metropolitan area, were withdrawn from their normal duties during the days of the Ascot races.
    Mr. Ede: A small number of detective officers were sent to Ascot, and two inspectors, two sergeants and 16 constables of T. Division were engaged inside their own division in dealing with the Ascot traffic.
    Mr. Butcher: May I ask whether there has been any increase in Communist activities during their absence?
    Mr. Mitchison: Had these officers the gift of prophecy at Ascot?
    Mr. Ede: Only detectives were sent to Ascot, and their job was to ascertain those who were prophesying a quick run for the bookmakers.

    PROSTITUTION, WEST END (INQUIRY)
    Mr. John Fosterasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, having regard to the police evidence in the recent case at the Old Bailey, resulting in the conviction of a Maltese, called Messina, for unlawful wounding, to the effect that Messina was closely associated with prostitutes in the West End of London, and that the case had arisen out of a dispute between rival gangs engaged in the white slave trade, he will appoint a commission to make inquiries into the existence of organized vice in London with a view to its suppression.
    Mr. Ede: I do not think that the appointment of a commission of inquiry would be of assistance in this matter. It is a criminal offence knowingly to live on the earnings of prostitution, and the police exercise all possible vigilance with a view to the suppression of activities of this kind. An inquiry would not help the police because their difficulties arise from the fact that though they may have good reason to suspect such activities, they are sometimes unable to obtain evidence upon which criminal proceedings could be based.
    Mr. Foster: Is it not possible to appoint a commission which could call for bank accounts and other evidence to prove the existence of organised vice? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Messina brothers are supposed to have made about £500,000 out of this vice, that they own a firm of West End estate agents and shares in an important restaurant, and have no less than 20 girls working for them? Is he further aware that one of the girls averaged £3,000 a year during the war?
    Mr. Ede: I have seen some information in regard to the other activities of these people. I do not think a commission which could be appointed to inquire into these matters could call for the bank accounts of people other than those who had been convicted of the offence. I do not think one can appoint a Royal Commission to hold a roving inquiry into bank balances, much as I should like to do so in regard to some people.
    Mr. Foster: Is the Home Secretary aware that the Act—I think it is called the Tribunal Evidence Act—exists, under which the activities of Mr. J. H. Thomas in connection with the Budget were investigated, and that it gives power to call for all books and documents?
    Mr. EderThere must be some grounds for calling for a particular book or document. If we had sufficient evidence to justify calling for such a book or document under the Act mentioned, I suspect that we should have sufficient evidence to prosecute under the existing law.
    Squadron-Leader Fleming: Is the Home Secretary satisfied that the punishment for such an offence is sufficient, in view of the fact that this man, after serving three years will come out and live on the illegal gains of this immoral life?
    Mr. Ede: The question of the punishment inflicted is a matter for the courts. The full penalty was not imposed in this case, and one must imagine that the judge —I think it was the Common Serjeant-presiding at the trial thought that he had inflicted an appropriate penalty for the offence.
    Mr. James Callaghan: Is the Home Secretary aware that Maltese residents deplore the emphasis placed on the country of origin of these wretched men? Is he aware that a large number of decent

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    citizens of Malta consider that they are prejudiced by this undue emphasis?
    Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. Am I not right in saying that no decision of a court can be criticised? Is not the previous supplementary question a criticism of the courts?
    Mr. Speaker: It is not criticism of the court, but of the sentence.
    Mr. Ede: In regard to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cardiff (Mr. Callaghan), I think it is regrettable that undue emphasis should be placed, in certain quarters, on the fact that these men happened to have been Maltese. I hope that it will not be taken as a reflection on those of Maltese origin residing in this country.
    Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: Whatever the merits of a Commission, would not the Home Secretary recognise that it shows a very unsatisfactory state of the enforcement of the law that this man was brought to trial on a charge of unlawful wounding and not on a charge of living on immoral earnings, which he had been practising so successfully for so long?
    Mr. Ede: That was the case on which we obtained the evidence on which a prosecution could be based. The figures given in the Press with regard to what he made out of prostitution, by no means agree with the facts as known to the police.
    Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. Do I understand, Mr. Speaker, your Ruling to be that it is possible to discuss by way of Question and answer or in Debate a sentence given by a judge in a court of law investigation?
    Mr. Speaker: Certainly, I think it is.? That has always been the case. Hon. Members can always protest where they consider there has been too heavy or too lenient a sentence.
    Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is it not a fact that there is an appeal pending in this case?
    Earl Winterton: That is my point.
    Mr. Speaker: If there is an appeal then the matter is sub judice.
    Mr. Wilkes: Can the Home Secretary say whether there are any powers exist-
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    ing at present which would allow him to impound or confiscate the bank balances of people found guilty of such offences, and, if not, is it his intention to ask for such powers?
    Mr. Ede: I would like notice of that question.

    APPROVED SCHOOLS (DETENTION)
    Wing-Commander Hulbertasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the number of young persons, male and female, respectively, detained in approved schools at the last convenient date, and what proportion of these have not committed any offence but are detained as in need of care and protection.
    Mr. Ede: On 31st May, 1947, 8,467 boys and 1,750 girls were detained in approved schools. No detailed analysis of these figures is readily available; but it will no doubt serve the hon. and gallant Members' purpose if I say that of the 4,044 boys and 950 girls admitted to approved schools during 1946, 470 boys and 598 girls were sent there for reasons other than the commission of an offence.
    Wing-Commander Hulbert: Would the Home Secretary make it clear that in the latter category of boys and girls no stigma whatever attaches to them for having been sent to an approved school, owing to their very bad home life?
    Mr. Ede: I think that I can give that assurance.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the figures which he has given are in excess of the accommodation for these young persons, and, if they are, what provision is being made for the excess?
    Mr. Ede: I would like notice of that question.
    Dr. Stephen Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend say that if one of these boys or girls who had not committed an offence absconds from an approved school, he or she is then considered to have committed an offence?
    Mr. Ede: I would rather like to have notice of that question.
    Wing-Commander Millington: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that although he has assured us, in answer to a previous question, that there is no stigma attached to boys and girls sent to an approved school who have committed no offence, the fact of their presence in an approved school does in itself constitute a stigma, and will he take the earliest steps to see that they are put in more suitable places?
    Mr. Ede: I hope that as accommodation becomes more readily available it may be possible to have a better classification of these children.

    ANDERSON SHELTERS (DISMANTLING)
    Mr. Bowdenasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what powers local authorities are compelling householders to dismantle and make available for collection Anderson shelters, many of which have been concreted into the ground.
    Mr. Ede: Local authorities have no power of compulsion in the matter but, in order to accelerate the recovery of shelters and so increase steel supply with the minimum expenditure of labour they have been recommended to invite householders to dismantle their shelters in readiness for collection. My attention has been drawn to a particular case, which my hon. Friend perhaps has in mind, where the local authority has exceeded the advice given by my Department. I am in communication with the authority on the matter.
    Mr. Bowden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that at least one local authority has stated that a medical certificate must be produced stating that there is infirmity before this work may be excused?
    Mr. Ede: I think that is the authority which I have in mind, and I have communicated with them.

    GREYHOUND RACING (MID-WEEK BAN)
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will be prepared to relax the ban on mid week greyhound racing where meetings will not start until after 6 p.m.
    Mr. Ede: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hynd: Can the Home Secretary explain why it is that of all the forms of public entertainment and sport, greyhound racing is the only one singled out for discrimination?
    Mr. Ede: No, Sir, it is not the only one singled out for discrimination. The only iscrimination exercised in this case is that it is the one form of sport about which legislation was required.
    Mr. Hynd: I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter again on the Adjournment.

    FIRE APPLIANCES, SOUTHGATE
    Mr. Beverley Baxterasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that the removal of fire appliances from Southgate is causing anxiety; and whether he will inquire into the matter.
    Mr. Ede: I shall, of course, be prepared to consider any representations which may be made to me on behalf of the Borough of Southgate, but I am sure the hon. Member will appreciate that in present circumstances it is necessary to make all possible economies in manpower which are consistent with efficiency.
    Mr. Baxter: Is the Home Secretary aware that in Southgate there are 70,000 people, and the very nature of the constituency means that two or three minutes are of essential importance in preventing fires from becoming conflagrations; and further will the Home Secretary say that, as these fire appliances have now been removed, he will arrange to have a test as to whether or not there is delay, which may bring about very disastrous consequences?
    Mr. Ede: Before the fire appliances were withdrawn, every effort was made— and I believe successfully—to ensure that appliances from adjoining neighbourhoods would be readily available if required.

    CHILD ADOPTION (REPORT)
    Mr. Lipsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he proposes to take to carry out the recommendations of the Gamon Committee on child adoption, including

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    the placing of adopted children in the same position as others regarding the succession to property.
    Mr. Ede: The report of this unofficial Committee, which was set up by a number of voluntary bodies interested in adoption, has been sent to me. The contents of the report will be taken into consideration when there is opportunity for amending legislation, but I am not able to hold out hope of legislation in the near future.
    Mr. Lipson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that large numbers of adopted children are at present suffering from certain disabilities, and if the recommendations of the Gamon Committee were adopted, these would be removed; and as the matter is not highly controversial would he consider, when he has considered the report, introducing legislation in another place?
    Mr. Ede: I cannot hold out any hope of legislation, and these matters, unfortunately, are not as non-controversial as the hon. Member believes.

    FOREIGN NATIONALS (BRITISH-BORN WIVES)
    Mr. Gammonsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is prepared to introduce in the near future legislation whereby the British-born wives of Polish and other foreign nationals may retain their British nationality.
    Mr. Ede: As the hon. Member will be aware, a Conference of Experts from countries of the Commonwealth met in February last to discuss nationality matters of general interest. It is proposed shortly to circulate to the Governments of the countries represented the text of a Bill based on the report of that conference, and this text will include provisions to carry out the policy of the Government already announced in regard to British-born women. In the meantime, I am not in a position to make a statement as to the date when the legislation contemplated can be introduced.

    EUROPEAN RECONSTRUCTION (ANGLO-FRENCH DECISION)
    Mr. Eden(by Private Notice} asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make on the outcome of the Paris Conference.
    The Minister of State (Mr. McNeil): I should like to give to the House the text of the following communiqué agreed by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and by Monsieur Bidault, which is being released this afternoon in Paris and in London:
    "The British and French Governments have reached the following decision in order to give prompt effect to the suggestion made by Mr. Marshall in his speech at Harvard University on 5th June that Europe should take the initiative in the work of reconstruction.
    For this purpose it is essential to draw up as quickly as possible a programme covering Europe's resources and Europe's needs. A temporary organisation needs to be set up to bring together the data on which such a programme will be based.
    The British and French Governments have therefore decided to invite all European States (with the temporary exception of Spain) who desire to participate in framing a reply to Mr. Marshall's suggestion to collaborate with them in setting up this organisation, whose task will be to draw up a programme of European reconstruction, in which the resources and needs of each country will be co-ordinated in such manner as each freely decides.
    This offer to participate in the work of the organisation will be open to all European States."
    Mr. Lipson: Will the temporary organisation which it is proposed to set up keep in close consultation with the European Economic Organisation so that the door may be left open for the cooperation of all European States?
    Mr. McNeil: I am not anxious to add to the communique or to say any more than that His Majesty's Government will not depart from the unswerving loyalty which they have offered to all United Nations organisations.
    Sir Patrick Hannon: Can the right hon Gentleman say whether he contemplates at any point in the future the inclusion of Spain? He has referred in his statement to the fact that as a temporary exception she will not be brought into the scheme for the reconstruction of Europe.
    Mr. Gallacher: In view of the tact that no other country suffered greater devastation in the war and that no country is more in need of friendship, friendly aid and co-operation than the Soviet Union, cannot the right hon. Gentleman give us some further evidence of the reasons why there was a breakdown at Paris, and particularly can he tell us what Mr. Marshall meant the other day when he said that aid for Europe would not be tolerated for political objects? Who is to decide what is a political object?
    Mr. Wilson Harris: Will the right hon. Gentleman take into consideration the difficulties which may arise in connection with the European Economic Commission if States which are not themselves prepared to accept the Marshall offer, take part in the discussions as members of that Commission?
    Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. As a Member of this House who has put a legitimate and temperate question, am I not as much entitled to an answer as the deputy-Leader of the Opposition or any other Member?
    Mr. McNeil: The deputy-Leader of the Opposition did not ask me any question, and I did not reply to the hon. Gentleman because I thought the reply was obvious. My right hon. Friend and M. Bidault are not disputing the claims which the hon. Gentleman makes for Soviet Russia, but they have gone to almost endless lengths and have incurred substantial delay to meet the claims of the Soviet Union.

    IMPORT PROGRAMME (FIGURES)
    Mr. Eden(by Private Notice} asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he could give the House the figures relating to his statement on Monday on the import programme.
    Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. I am, with permission, arranging for those figures to be circulated today and also in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    The figures are as follow:
    Imports
    1. The Economic Survey for 1947 (Cmd. 7046) set out the pattern to which
    1514
    the importing Government Departments were working for the calendar year 1947:

    Year 1947 £ million (f.o.b.)

    Food and supplies for agriculture

    725

    Raw materials and supplies for industry

    525

    Machinery and equipment (including ships)

    60

    Petroleum products

    55

    Tobacco

    50

    Consumer goods

    35

    Film remittances

    18

    1,468

    2. The provisional import programme for the year mid-1947 to mid-1948, after allowing for the cuts announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 30th June. is:

    Mid-1947 to Mid-1948 £ million(f.o.b.)

    Food and supplies for agriculture

    840

    Raw material and supplies for industry

    640

    Machinery and equipment (including ships)

    55*

    Petroleum products (including requirements of coal/oil conversion)

    80

    Tobacco

    40

    Consumer goods.

    30

    Film remittances

    I5†

    1,700

    * This represents some increase for machinery over the Economic Survey figures for 1947.

    †Excluding possible effect of film import duty.

    3. There is no significant change in the total volume of imports for the year mid-1947 to mid-1948 compared with that provided in the Economic Survey for the calendar year 1947; some items are increased and others decreased.
    4. The major change is in prices. The Board of Trade index of import prices (which for various reasons tends to underestimate the rise) has moved as follows:

    1938 = 100

    June, 1946

    …

    …

    …

    203

    September, 1946

    …

    …

    208

    December, 1946.

    …

    …

    …

    219

    March, 1947

    …

    …

    …

    229

    May, 1947

    …

    …

    …

    241

    Exports
    5. The Economic Survey set a target of 140 per cent. of 1938 export volume to be reached by the end of 1947. The

    1515
    volume of exports has been moving as follows:

    …

    …

    …

    1938 = 100

    1946:

    …

    …

    …

    3rd Quarter

    …

    …

    …

    104

    4th Quarter

    …

    …

    …

    111

    1947:

    …

    …

    …

    1st Quartet

    …

    …

    …

    100½

    April

    …

    …

    …

    98

    May

    …

    …

    …

    104

    The target of 140 per cent. will not now be reached by the end of 1947, but the Government is planning on the basis of reaching it by the middle of 1948.
    6. This would provide U.K. exports in the year mid-1947 to mid-1948 of £1,300-£1,350 million, compared with the present rate of about £1,100 million a year.
    7. To achieve this target will require a steady expansion of exports of all kinds. and in particular a growth of textile exports by the spring of 1948 to a volume at least 20 per cent. above that reached so far this year. The achievement of this target must also, of course, depend upon a reasonably free access to overseas markets.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Eden: May I ask the Leader of the House if he will tell us the Business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Yes, Sir.
On Monday, 7th July—Report stage of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill.
On Tuesday, 8th July—Supply (nth allotted Day); Committee. Debate on the Import programme.
On Wednesday, 9th July—We shall begin the Report stage of the Finance Bill.
On Thursday, 10th July—Second Reading of the Indian Independence Bill. It is proposed to present the Bill tomorrow and, if possible, copies will be made available in the Vote Office before the House rises.
On Friday, nth July—Third Reading of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill; Committee and remaining stages of the Crown Proceedings Bill [Lords'] and, if there is time, progress will be made with other Business.
Mr. Eden: In regard to Tuesday's Business, I think it will be the general desire
1516
of the House that the Debate should be as wide as possible and perhaps the Leader of the House will arrange for the Supply Vote to be taken formally and then we could have the Debate, if convenient, on the Adjournment.
Mr. Morrison: That expedient would be acceptable to us.
Colonel J. R. H. Hutchison: Can the Leader of the House say when it is proposed to allow a Debate on the Government White Paper on economic and industrial conditions in Scotland?
Mr. Morrison: That was dealt with a week or two ago, when it was indicated that that Debate would take place on one of the days customarily given to Supply in respect of Scotland?
Mr. E. Evans: Could the Leader of the House say when he expects to introduce legislation to deal with coast protection, which legislation was promised in January last by the Prime Minister?
Mr. Morrison: I am afraid I am not in a position to say.
Mr. E. Evans: I would remind the Leader of the House that this question is an exceedingly urgent one in many parts of the country. There is terrible devastation and an intolerable burden is being placed on local authorities.
Mr. Morrison: I am conscious of it and the Government attach importance to it, but I am not in a position to say anything about legislation.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: In view of the vital topic to be debated on Tuesday being compressed into one day, will the right hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of suspending the Rule for at least one hour.
Mr. Morrison: I am doubtful about mat in view of the fact that we shall have a pretty heavy week.
Mr. J. S. C. Reid: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that no selection has been made of a Supply day for the White Paper on Scotland, and I hope his answer does not mean that he is under any misapprehension in connection with it.
Mr. Morrison: I am not and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman is not under any misapprehension either. It is

1517
a perfectly legitimate matter to take on a Scottish Supply day. It is, of course, for the Opposition to decide what it will do with Supply days. As Scotland gets Supply days it is reasonable that this Debate should take place on one of them. A special arrangement was made in the case of Wales, because Wales has no Estimates.
Mrs. Wills: Will my right hon. Friend tell us if he is able to give us an opportunity of discussing the Motion on the Paper on World Federation?
[That in order to raise the standard of living of the peoples of the world and to maintain world peace, this House requests His Majesty's Government to affirm Britain's readiness to federate with any other nations willing to do so on the basis of a federal constitution to be agreed by a representative constituent assembly.]
Mr. Morrison: I am afraid not.
Mrs. Wills: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider asking Parliament to sit an extra day in order that we should discuss this matter because of its very urgent nature?
Mr. Morrison: I do not think that that will commend itself to the House. I can only suggest that if a suitable occasion arises on a Foreign Affairs Debate some of my hon. Friends, who attach great importance to it, will take the opportunity of dealing with the matter if called by Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Wilson Harris: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that world government will be breaking upon us before we have had time to talk about it?
Mr. Callaghan: The subject for Tuesday's Debate is labeled "Import Programme" and I understand from the acting Leader of the Opposition that the discussion is intended to go very wide. Is it going so wide that we can discuss the consequences of the breakdown of the talks in Paris, which include not only our import programme but a number of other matters, such as exports, as well?
Mr. Morrison: I understand the Debate arises out of a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I agree with the acting Leader of the Opposition that it would be well to have it fairly wide, but I do not think he wants the Debate to cover the whole economic field. I gather from my right hon. Friend the Minister
1518
of State that it would not be convenient to bring in the Paris talks. and I hope my hon. Friend will not wish to press that topic.

ANGLO-EGYPTIAN FINANCIAL AGREEMENT
Mr. Dalton: I will, with permission, make a statement arising out of the Financial Agreement just concluded between the United Kingdom and Egypt, on which a White Paper was made available in the Vote Office last night.
At the outset of the negotiations in London on 6th June, I made it clear that British public opinion does not recognise the moral validity of the debt of some £400 million arising out of the wartime association of Egypt and the British Commonwealth. I, therefore, urged the Egyptian representatives to make proposals for the cancellation, in whole or in part, of this war debt arising out of our war effort, so costly both in blood and treasure in defence of Egypt. The Egyptian Government have not so far felt able to respond to this appeal, but the clear judgment of His Majesty's Government is on record.
In these circumstances) we have made an interim arrangement whereby, between now and 31st December next, without any commitment thereafter, the amount released from the balances will not exceed £8 million sterling and, in addition, we shall make available to the Egyptian Government a working balance of £12 million sterling. These sums will be available for expenditure in any currency area in accordance with the terms of the Anglo-American Financial Agreement. Egypt's current earnings of sterling as from 14th July will be similarly available.
The rest of the sterling balance; now standing in the books, will, by mutual agreement between the two Governments, be frozen from now onwards, except in so far as it may be required to meet confirmed credits up to 30th June, 1947, in favour of British exporters to Egypt. It is further agreed that Egypt should cease to be a member of the Sterling Area, and should thus become subject to United Kingdom, as well as to Egyptian, exchange control arrangements. The Agreement provides for this with effect from 14th July.

1519
I am confident that this Agreement will help to consolidate, in this new chapter which is now opening, the longstanding financial and commercial relationships between London and Cairo.
I would like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to the helpful attitude displayed during these weeks of negotiation in London by the Egyptian Delegation, headed by His Excellency the Egyptian Ambassador.
Mr. Oliver Stanley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House entirely agree with his view as to the moral validity of this claim that is being made on us, and that we shall be prepared to support him in the resistance he puts up to any acceptance of a claim which we believe to be wholly unjustified? Secondly, might I ask him whether the House will be given an opportunity to debate the agreement in view of its many complicated provisions, some of which require examination and would be very difficult to deal with by question and answer?
Mr. Dalton: Such a question should, of course, be addressed to the Leader of the House, but I should just like to say that this is the first agreement of its kind and that we may be having others in the course of the next few weeks. It might be inconvenient to take them piecemeal, but that is a matter for discussion through the usual channels.
Mr. Stanley: I am asking for information. Is it not a fact that certain of the consequences of this agreement do in fact require acceptance by the House of Commons to be brought into force?
Mr. Dalton: I think not, Sir. I will certainly check up on the point, but my present impression is that that is not so.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Can the Chancellor give any indication of the additional liability due to these confirmed
1520
credits and to private assets in the National Bank of Egypt?
Mr. Dalton: Confirmed credits cannot, of course, be checked up with total precision at the moment, but we put them at about £12 million sterling for services rendered and goods supplied. The private credits are relatively small.
Sir Henry Morris-Jones: With regard to Egypt leaving the Sterling Area, can the Minister say whether that applies also to the Sudan and, if so, whether he will make the necessary concessions to British personnel in that area who may be affected by the change?
Mr. Dalton: The hon. Gentleman is raising a question which is wider than that which arises under this Agreement. The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan is, of course, linked with Egypt so far as currency is concerned and, therefore, it is technically true that the Sudan as well as Egypt is outside the Sterling Area under the Agreement, but it would be rash to draw any wide-reaching conclusions such as the hon. Gentleman seems to draw.
Dr. Segal: Is not the withdrawal of Egypt from the Sterling Area a new precedent which His Majesty's Government are not anxious to encourage?
Mr. Dalton: The simple point is that within the Sterling Area there is no exchange control. We have reached the view, and the Egyptian Government have accepted and agreed with it, that there must be exchange control in future as between this country and Egypt, particularly in respect of these sterling balances. There is no way in which this can be brought about so long as Egypt remains in the Sterling Area. Therefore, the purpose which led us to seek Egypt's agreement—which we have obtained—to her leaving the Sterling Area was to enable exchange control, which we hold to be absolutely indispensible in this case, to operate.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered:
That this day, notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No 14, Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.— [Mr. H. Morrison.]

PRIVILEGES
The following Notices of Motion stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. PICKTHORN:
"That the Report [17th June] of the Committee of Privileges be now considered."
"That this House disagrees with the Report of the Committee of Privileges, and, in particular, deprecates contractual agreements with outside bodies relating solely to a Member's work in Parliament as inconsistent with the dignity of the House, with the duty of a Member to his constituents, and with the maintenance of the privilege of freedom of speech."
Mr. Speaker: I have considered the Notice of Motion which stands on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. Member the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) but there are various complications, and, for the moment, I do not feel that I am justified in calling it. I quite realise that the hon. Member was right to put it down without undue delay, and that he has in fact done so, but there are repercussions and I have not had much time to look into the matter. I should like further time before I come to any decision.
Mr. Pickthorn: While, of course, gratefully and respectfully accepting that Ruling, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might say one sentence? I had, of course, no intention to force the extreme rule in urgency of this matter, but so far as I could very quickly read the books, I thought it might be held necessary. All I am trying to do is to make sure that the matter remains discussable and will be discussed as soon as possible.
Mr. Henderson Stewart: May I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it might be for the
1522
convenience of hon. Members if the Leader of the House indicated his own views upon this matter, which a very large section of public opinion regards as being of great importance and urgency?
Mr. H. Morrison: May I say respectfully, Mr. Speaker, that as you have indicated that you would like a little more time to consider your own position before you give a Ruling, I hardly think if would be proper for me to say anything before that Ruling is given. I should like, if I may, to express my thanks to the hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) for his courtesy in letting the Chief Whip know of his intention last night.
Earl Winterton: Is it quite clear, Mr. Speaker, that your remarks referred to the first Motion on the Order Paper and not to the second which is in an entirely different category?
Mr. Speaker: I was referring to both because the first really covers the second.
Mr. Pickthorn: I do not in the least wish to continue the matter, but I was very anxious to make it clear to the whole House. I understand, Mr. Speaker, that your Ruling, which you are withholding, so to speak, is on the question whether this a matter of that order of urgency that it must be taken on the first possible day as if it were a new act of breach of privilege. That is a matter which, I understand, is being reserved for Monday. All I want to make clear is that whatever your Ruling may be on that. Sir, it leaves unaffected the right of hon. Members on this or any side of the House to expect that the Government will make it possible to discuss this Report.
Mr. Morrison: I will endeavour to be here on Monday so that I shall be in a position to deal with the matter whichever way Mr. Speaker decides.
Mr. Speaker: I prefer to say no more until I have considered the matter.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  10TH ALLOTTED DAY
  Considered in Committee.
  [Major MILNER in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1947–48
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a further sum, not exceeding £100, be granted to His Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the following services connected with the productivity of labour for the year ending on the 31st March, 1948, namely:

  Civil Estimates, 1947–8

  £

  Class V, Vote 4, Ministry of Labour and National Service

  10

  Class V, Vote 1, Ministry of Health.

  10

  Class VI, Vote 1, Board of Trade.

  10

  Class VI, Vote 6, Ministry of Fuel and Power

  10

  Class VI, Vote 8, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries

  10

  Class VI, Vote 9, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (Food Production)
  Services)

  10

  Class VI, Vote 13, Ministry of Transport

  10

  Class VII, Vote 1, Ministry of Works.

  10

  Class X, Vote 1, Ministry of Supply

  10

  Class X, Vote 3, Ministry of Food.

  10

  £100 "

  —[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

PRODUCTIVITY OF LABOUR
3.52 p.m.
Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: It is not the least my desire or intention to enlarge the scope of this Debate, but I must begin by pointing out that the productivity of labour is only one of a trilogy of connected subjects. It must be viewed against that background, and taking as postulates the position of the connected matters. The first of those connected matters, as I am sure every quarter of the Committee will agree, is that the adverse trade balance at the moment is about £300 million more than the economic survey of January contemplated. The second is that, at the June rate of drawings on the American credit—that is, the rate of £900 million a year—those credits will be gone before Christmas. The Marshall plan was not designed to enable this country to produce too little and to live beyond its means. Those are the connected facts which must be faced.
1524
The other preliminary point which I should like the right hon. Gentleman to appreciate is that, in the line which we will endeavour to give to the discussion today, we are not abandoning in any way the main argument which we advanced on 19th March. That argument was that the Government had delayed and failed to take action for 18 months to deal with the primary problem of the maldistribution of labour and the consequent underproduction. We say today that the very success of the recruiting campaigns which have been started for various industries underlines our point that there was that delay. The absence of it might have been of great service to the country. It is true that, in spite of these difficulties and criticisms, we have to face the immediate position. The productivity of labour is important not only from the aspect of what can be done in these critical months before the dollar credits run out, but also in demonstrating to the world what Britain is prepared and is determined to do. It is in that attitude that I want to try to set the Debate today.
The right hon. Gentleman will remember that four months ago I put to him certain questions with 'regard to hours of work. I should like to take up this subject today from what, so far as I have been able to discover, is the last percentage arrangement given in the magazine of his Department for September, 1946. I would ask him, or someone else who may be responsible, to be so kind as to bring the figures up to date. I take them because they were reproduced in one of the last numbers of the London-Cambridge Economic Survey. I take them as being the latest available data. They were to this effect:

Per cent

Under 44 hours

…

…

13

44–48 hours

…

…

8

47–48 hours

…

…

28

48 hours

…

…

47

Over '48 hours

…

…

4

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): Is the percentage for the number of workers at those hours?
Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am sorry. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman will remember that in his Ministry's "Gazette" there were, I think, 225 entries from a number of industries. The percentages were averaged from these typical entries. The important point is that in September, 1946, 75 per cent. of

1525
these selected examples and then results were for over 47 or 48 hours a week. It is vitally important that we should know what change has been made in the number of industries and what effect it has had on the general picture seen in those entries in the official magazine. The last thing I desire to do on a subject as important as this, is too rashly to charge the troops of error and to leave hostages among the enemies of truth. Therefore, on this point I take an extract from the first leading article in "The Times" of Monday, because in two important regards it seems to show the dangers in which we stand on this matter of hours of work. The first extract is:
"The June coal production figures to date have borne out the worst fears. At this rate production will soon be running below that of 1946 and even the inadequate target of 200,000,000 tons for the year will certainly not be achieved."
The second extract is:
Further reductions in working hours should be resisted, not least because the effect of the five-day week in the engineering and other industries has been much more adverse than was expected."
I think that anyone who read the articles would say that the extracts which I have given have been taken fairly from their context. They deal with a vitally important point which we must consider once again in July. The White Paper says quite clearly that there should be no reduction in hours of work unless an increased output per man-year was obtained thereby. In the situation in which we find ourselves today we must know the right hon. Gentleman's view as to the continuing effect of the five-day week, not only in the coal industry, which is most important, but in the other industries where it has been tried. What industries are at present negotiating or attempting to negotiate for a five-day week, and what is the expected result? I would remind the right hon. Gentleman—I base this on the second last issue of the London and Cambridge Economic Survey—that it has never been determined by his Department whether the drop in working hours in 1919–20 had a good or a bad effect on output. That is simply unknown. I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman's Department or his predecessors of any party, because there was the excuse, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, that for 20 years there was practically no change in basic hours of
1526
working, but here, after 20 years without a change, changes are being sought for.
These changes are being sought for at a time when production is more important to the life of this nation than ever before, and I say that the time has come when we should be given an opportunity of judging whether reductions in hours of work are going to mean a reduction of output or not. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that, having considered this matter in March—as, I think he will remember, I did with such care as I could give—having considered it in the intervening period, and considering it again today, all the evidence that is available shows that these reductions to the 40-hour week are having a deteriorating effect on output. That is the first point we must face. We cannot refuse to face that point today. If the right hon. Gentleman is prepared to contradict my conclusions, I shall be very glad to examine again the position which he puts up.
Everyone will appreciate that it is impossible to consider productivity without saying something about coal. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel will appreciate that I am not trespassing on his enforced silence. I am only doing what is essential for a sensible consideration of the subject we are debating. As I see it, the position is that the general productivity is enormously and adversely affected by the poor coal production at the present time. When steel is said temporarily to be the raw material in greatest shortness of supply, that only takes us back to the same point, because as soon as we could increase our production of coal, steel would immediately come out of that unenviable position. The same position applies in Lancashire in regard to the textiles which are so necessary for our export trade. The shortness of the supply of coal makes it impossible for that industry to enlarge its production. In general, this affects our export position and our inflow of raw materials, and it is true today to say that coal is a harder currency than dollars. There is nothing—practically nothing— that we could not get were the supply better at the present time.
The right hon. Gentleman will allow that I do try not to make criticisms without putting forward some suggestions,

1527
especially in a Debate of this kind. I suggest there are two things that must be done. A new wages agreement must be examined to give greater reward to greater productivity and to penalise still further absenteeism and general inability to produce. That must be done at once. The other thing—I do not envy the right hon. Gentleman the task which I set him—is that he or somebody else must get it clear from Mr. Horner whether Mr. Horner's first objective is the economic recovery of his country, or the breaking down of capitalism in industries which are still under it. That is one of the essential matters which must be tackled.
Let us again remember the problem. I ask hon. Members opposite to consider this. One cannot ignore it. We require 250 million tons of coal in a year. That cannot be disputed. That means one of two things—either an output per manshift on the 1947 labour force of 1.46 tons or 910,000 miners in the pits. If we could get a 10 per cent. increase, it would revolutionise our economic position, but without it, I find it difficult to consider how seriously the position can be stated. I am not for a moment trying to be defeatist or to make a party point; I am really trying to approach the position as realistically as I can and with the greatest knowledge which I have been able to acquire, and to face it; and if we measure it truly in facing it, then at any rate we do not add to the difficulties and we may decrease them.
I want to pass to another point which the right hon. Gentleman will remember we raised on the last occasion. At that time I drew his attention to two statements in the "Economic Survey for 1947" at its formidable conclusion in paragraph 141. First:
"There is now no place for industrial arrangements which restrict production, prices or employment."
And a few lines further down:
"Against this background there is no justification for action by either side of industry which limits production."
I could not endorse more strongly those statements which I have read again. On the last occasion when we were discussing cognate matters, I asked whether we could not be told of some of the restrictive practices and said that they should be brought into the light of day and that we should
1528
consider whether or not they were necessary. That has not been done, and therefore I want the right hon. Gentleman to consider just some of the practices which I put to him. If he cannot give us these practices, then he might consider those which I shall give him. I am not going into great detail, but I shall try to give typical examples.
First, there is work at the docks. There you have the great difficulty of enforcing what are the terms in the agreement of working of the transfer during the working shift. In theory it ought to be possible to transfer men in the middle of an operation, either from one part of the ship to another, or from one ship to another. However, there is the greatest difficulty in getting that done at the present time. The men ask, and stick out for, being paid for the completion of one job and not being transferred. Another example is the introduction of mechanical aids. A practical example, which is probably well known to hon. Members, is that of mechanical trucks. Mechanical trucks have stood idle in the sheds for lengthy periods because it could not be agreed what diminution in the labour force was the right one to use with these mechanical trucks. That is ridiculous. If we have to get our ships turned round quickly, if we are to do any good at all, to indulge in shadow-boxing of this kind on the brink of an economic abyss is, in my view, beyond reason and beyond sense.
The third is a similar example where you have trimmers whose work can only be used in the shift when a good deal of cargo has been moved and it is a question of getting what is left into a space where the grabs will come down and take it, but who still have to be on parade and ready to work the whole shift even when there is no work for them. That is one aspect. The other aspect, which I take quite broadly, is the opposition which is still manifest in the rules of great trade unions to piece-work and bonuses and matters of that kind. I take the example of the Electrical Trades Union, the woodworkers and other building unions. This can be found where in each case there is this proclaimed opposite, contrary not only to the spirit but to the actual words of the White Paper dealing with this subject.
Again I take one or two special cases which, however, are typical of what is

1529
happening at present. What could be more absurd than when a transport operator employing, say, about 20 men, has his men away on business and he himself unloads his own wagon when it comes to Covent Garden, that he should be compelled not only to receive complaints, but to reload his wagon with his own hands so that the appropriate grade of labour will then be employed in unloading it again? That is surely an absurdity at a time like the present or, indeed, at any time. You have the same sort of thing where carpenters on building jobs are not allowed to move the wood from a job where there is nothing for them to do, to a job where it could be used and where they could work, instead of not working. That is not allowed because it is an infringement of correct grading.
I have tried to give examples, I have tried to make a fair selection from the many that have been brought to my notice, and I say that the right hon. Gentleman has the duty of combating the attitude of mind which these practices show—
Mr. Harold Davies: Up to now the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned only restrictive practices inherited by the trade union movement during the last century. Nothing has been said about restrictive practices or customs of manufacturers from the other side of industry. There must be an appeal to look at this transition period in a different light from all sides.
Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The hon. Member is perfectly right. Hon. Members will remember that the quotation I gave did not differentiate between the two sides of industry. I have always said, I say it again now, I firmly believe it, I shall always work for it, that restrictive practices must be examined and brought into the light of day wherever they appear, on whatever side of industry. It has always been my view and—if the hon. Member will allow me to mention one personal matter for a moment—he will find it expressed quite strongly in the Industrial Charter of my party of which I have the honour to be a part author. It is my view that these should be first brought into the light of day and, where they are found to be against the national interest, steps should be taken to put an end to them. I hope that satisfies the point made by the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies).
Mr. Harold Davies Mr. Harold Davies indicated assent.
Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I had intended to refer to it myself, but I am glad the hon. Member brought it out so sharply. In dealing with the productivity of labour hon. Members will appreciate the position in which I found myself. I suggested that in March and, as far as I know, no action has been taken; therefore, I thought it right today to make a fair selection from those which have been brought to my attention and to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to use his great influence— not only the influence of his position but the influence of his record, which is known to so many of his colleagues—to try to get rid of these. I am sure that the use of that great influence will be most beneficial.
We say there are four essential matters which should be dealt with in order to improve productivity at present. First, by every means, it should be encouraged by payment by results. Second, we believe it would have been a great help had the Government been able to give effect to and encourage equal pay for equal work between the sexes. Third, there should be a clearance of these restrictive practices of the type of which I have given a few examples. Fourth, there should be a removal of low level controls. The import programme which will be discussed is an admirable example of the legitimate operation of high level control and of Government policy but, below that, it is surely more than we can afford now to retain a vast network of low level controls in Government hands and to refuse to let industry operate itself? The inevitable result is that not only are the extra 300,000 civil servants who have come in since the war having a distorting effect on the general layout of our manpower, but, by their existence, they are necessitating the corresponding existence of a vast section in industry itself which cannot be used on productive work because it is dealing with work made by this vast army of civil servants. These are four practical approaches which can be made.
I wish to turn for a moment to the future, because we must make the problem as we see it quite clear to the right hon. Gentleman. I have endeavoured on three important aspects—hours of work, restrictive practices, and partly, at any rate, in regard to incentives—to show that

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in our view enough is not being done at present, and that there are lines of action which could be taken. But time is short, and if we are unable by the combination of all the methods open to us substantially to affect the adverse balance of trade at the time of the running out of the loan—which may be any time from December, 1947, to a month or two later as present conditions show—then, indeed, we must not advance backwards into the next crisis. We have to look at what is going to happen, and to be ready with measures to meet it. What we must face, to a greater or larger extent according to our efforts, is a lower availability of distributable goods, and that means, in ordinary terms, a decline in real wages and also unemployment due to shortage of raw materials. Those are facts which must be faced.
What we want to know is whether the right hon. Gentleman has now approached the problems that are corollary to that position. When that position comes, are we to have a camouflaging of unemployment, that is, bodies of labour up to the old prewar numbers and producing infinitely less? Is that going to be the line taken? Are we going to allow the maldistribution of labour to be corrected by unemployment, or are we going to take steps to correct it by the rationing of raw materials and the like? Are we going to take any positive steps, or is it to be left to unemployment and reduced purchasing power to do this redistribution for us? What are the plans for alleviating to the worker the friction which is bound to come when we get this reduction in the standard of living which less distributable goods is bound to mean? What is the new direction which incentives are to take in that very different economy from the economy we have been enjoying during the last few months?
I cannot in truth and fairness shut my eyes to these problems. I do not see how anyone who starts with what I have said are the postulates of the present position, can shut his or her eyes to them. We want to know what is the line of approach to the position. That does not in any way mean, as I hope I have made clear, that we should abate our own efforts. It means that we should increase every effort that can be made by our people, and our special task in this Chamber is to try to urge a clearing of the road along which that greater effort will progress.
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It is today our view on these benches that both on the short-term and the long-term view too little has been done. The right hon. Gentleman has said again and again how anxious he is not to disturb conditions and methods that work well at present. I sympathise with his desire, but when we come to a position of great difficulty and national danger that is not enough. Good will towards existing institutions will not do. The right hon. Gentleman has to throw every ounce of his influence, every ounce of his energy, into dealing, first, with the short-term difficulties which I have endeavoured to demonstrate, and, second, with the long-term problem which we must face. If that is done, if we face bravely but realistically the situation, we can deal with it. If we slide once again we are not only abdicating our own position, we are bringing what may be real suffering upon those who trust us.
4.26 p.m.
Mr. Frank Byers: I shall do my best to follow the restrained way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) has put forward his view on this important subject. Undoubtedly this is a big problem, a problem so big that one cannot do justice to it in the course of a short speech. The more we think about this problem of increasing the productivity of labour, the more we come to the realisation that there is no one general panacea which can be applied universally, and which will solve the problem. It is made up of a number of complicated things which have to be done in different industries. It is a psychological problem, a problem of incentives, and a problem in which one thing may work in one industry, but not in another, or may work at one time, but not at another. It is absurd to think that we can find one solution to this great complicated problem. If we recognise that, it will help us to some extent.
I wish to deal with the psychological atmosphere, what I call the psychological incentives. I do not think I am going to say anything particularly novel, but what worries me is that very few people, taking the mass of the people throughout the country, seem to realise the importance and urgency of this problem. I am not

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blaming them, but I am suggesting that we have not got over to the mass of the people how important this problem of increased production is. In other words, our propaganda and approach have failed. I do not think it is right to blame the Government for everything, nor is it right to blame the workers for everything, nor to blame management for everything. We are all in this together, and all have a responsibility.
It is my task this afternoon to see if we cannot recognise those responsibilities and get some improvement in the different branches of our organisation. The object we have to set before ourselves is the creating of a sense of urgency and national emergency on the question of productivity on a national scale, on a factory by factory basis, and an office by office basis. I do not see that happening today. I admit that it is an uphill task to create this sort of atmosphere when industries are short of fuel and raw materials, or there is a dislocation, with idle time, until materials arrive, or do not arrive, through lack of co-ordination, etc. I do not think we shall get the maximum increase in output per man-year until we have solved these shortages of raw materials.
Unfortunately, these shortages of raw materials are themselves something which we have to solve. To take coal as an example, I do not see how we shall increase the output per man-year in various industries while we are short of coal. The problem we have to solve immediately is how to increase the output per manshift in the coal industry itself. When this has been done and we have got over the shortage of fuel, it will be easier to increase the output per man-year in the other industries. On the other hand, it is quite futile to shout "Work or want" from the hoardings of this country to people who have not got the raw materials and are working on short time. I am not suggesting that we should lay the blame at anybody's door but that is an insult, even to the unintelligent.
Mr. Fairhurst: Surely the hon. Member would agree that the exhibition of the posters was to bring home the urgency of the position.
Mr. Byers: I am suggesting that it is an appeal which does not get over, when a man comes home from working four
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days instead of five and a half days a week, although he wants to work, and he is met by a huge hoarding which tells him. "Work or want," and then is "stood off" for a while. It is all very well telling that to people in factories which have materials and where production is flowing smoothly.
If we are to have posters, do not let us go in for generalisations. There are different problems to be solved. The problem in factories which have materials is an entirely different one from that in factories which have not, and when they have not got materials it is an insult to the workers in them to see that notice. If we must have posters, and I am not saying that we must, I would prefer to see something much more specific. I would prefer to see" Production is above Party "and the three leaders of the political parties appealing to specific industries to do specific things. I throw that out as a suggestion. There may be nothing in it, but I think it should be considered. I believe that if people working in the steel industry were told that if they were prepared to work, shall we say, an extra three hours per week, they would produce so many more motor cars it would have an excellent result. A generalised approach to this problem of posters is wrong; it ought to be a specific approach.
I turn to the question which has been raised of the restrictive attitude of mind of the worker. I agree with what has been said about restrictive practices on the other side of industry; I am against them, too. There is this attitude of mind, which is a very difficult one to surmount. I thought that when the war ended everybody would be agreed that we had got full employment, that we knew how to get it, and that, therefore, we were in for an era of expansionism and could do away with these restrictive practices. I was quite prepared to wait for a short number of years so as to meet the case of the man who said, "Let us see it working in practice before we really believe in full employment." I would have expected this restrictive attitude of mind to have disappeared making it possible to have people in full employment, particularly with a Government of the complexion of the present one. After all, the workers voted for this Government, and I would have expected that. But the fuel crisis last winter was

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absolutely disastrous, because it shook the confidence of the workers in full employment. It will take many years to get over that. I believe that the Government have to recognise that fact. If it happens again next winter I cannot see our getting rid of this restrictive attitude of mind for generations, because people will just not believe that there is plenty of work to go round, they will not believe that there is work to be done for hundreds of years in this country. They will say that it is "boloney." They will say, "Yes, but we shall have another crisis next winter." I believe that the Government ought, quite frankly, to take the full blame for that crisis last winter.
Mr. Arthur Alien: Which Government?
Mr. Byers: It was lack of foresight.
Mr. Harold Davies: Be reasonable.
Mr. Byers: It was lack of foresight. It has been practically admitted at that Box by different Ministers that they did not see it coming. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about the weather?"] That is the point. Every time hon. Members opposite blame it on the weather they are doing a disservice. It was not due to the weather. The weather aggravated it, but there would have been a crisis in any case. It would not have come when it did, but later. I believe that the Government were gambling on getting through. The people of the country believe that the system has failed, when in fact it was the men working the system who failed. I am not trying to score a party point on this—[Laughter.] —I hope that hon. Members opposite realise that I am trying to prove to the people of this country that we know how to get full employment, and that a mistake was made last winter. I am not at this moment blaming people for that mistake. I blamed them when they made it.
Mr. Sparks: I am interested in what the hon. Member is saying, but in view of the fact that coal production increased by nearly 6 million tons between 1945 and 1946, with fewer miners in the pits, and that the consumption of coal for new industries which were opening up increased by six million tons during that period, is the hon. Member now saying that those factors must not be taken into consideration when dealing with the fuel
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crisis? They were important factors, encouraging factors, and the hon. Member seems to me to be quite incorrect—
The Deputy-Chairman (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The hon. Member rose to ask a question, but is now making a speech.
Mr. Byers: I would like to follow up that point, but I do not think I can. The point I am trying to make is that it was clear in the fuel crisis that electricity and gas consumption was going up rapidly, and that coal was not being produced fast enough to meet it, and that therefore there would be a crisis some time. Let the Government be men and admit they did not take the necessary action in time, and that there is nothing wrong with the system. [An HON. MEMBER: "What action?"] One of their first actions could have been to have had rationing far earlier. We know that we began the winter with inadequate stocks. In any case, I am trying not to get out of Order in developing the question of coal. I am trying to say that we must give to the workers of this country the confidence that we know how to produce full employment, that we know that occasionally we shall make mistakes, but that they will not be serious mistakes.
I believe also that if we are to deal with the psychological problem of the restrictive attitude of mind, we have to prove to the worker not only that we shall have full employment, but that the Government will do their best to ensure that there is no crisis next winter, that a man does not need to spin out his work, and that there is plenty more for him when he is finished what he is doing. It is equally important that the Government should tell the country what we are trying to do. That suggestion is made in the "News Chronicle" today—that there is not the proper leadership coming from the Government. Here I believe that the Government are to blame. It is no use having fortnightly Press conferences and saying, "We think we are going on all right." People want to know what they are trying to do, the sort of pattern they are trying to build over a period of years. They want to know that if they make sacrifices today they will get real benefits tomorrow by so doing, and what those benefits will be. I believe it can be done
Next, I would like to make a suggestion, and I believe that this is the respon-

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sibility not so much of the Government as of management. I would like to see in every factory that the worker's job is directly related in his own mind to the production drive. I do not believe that it is. That is where we fail. That is not the responsibility of the Government but of the management inside the factory. We should show in some dramatic fashion, to the coalminers in a particular pit, what an increase of so many tons of coal in that pit would mean in terms of increasing the consumer goods in the shops three, four, or five months later. Those people who are responsible for putting over these dramatic forms of appeal to workers in industry ought to be able to do that. I would like to see coal related to steel, related to motor cars for export, related to what we want import. I do not believe that that is understood. It is always said in economics that the theory that imports should balance exports is the easiest thing to understand. That should be brought home to the people who do not think in those terms at present—and I do not blame them.
I suggest that the managements could play a big part in explaining the position just as was done during the war, when people were sent round the factories to explain how a man's job was related to what was taking place on the beaches of Normandy or in the air over a target area. That can still be done though we are working in a slightly different atmosphere. I was glad to see the announcement that we are to have a great increase in joint production committees. Joint consultation is very important indeed. Do not let us forget when we get joint production committees and joint consultation that, really, we are talking to the people who, probably, are aware of the urgency of the problem. We are not getting at all the workers on all the benches. That is why I have suggested that we should apply the same principle as we did in the war when the management got somebody to give a talk to relate the workers' specific jobs to the production drive and to show how they fit into the drive.
On the question of management, I should like to quote a letter from the manager of a big firm employing thousands of men. I received it only this morning. I believe that if we can get this attitude of mind to work, we shall indeed make quite a big difference to the productivity of labour. He writes:
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"You ask me what we ought to do, and I say to get more output you must always treat your men as human beings."
That is something which can be done by the management in the factories this week. They can check up on this and say to themselves, "Arc we doing the maximum to treat these men as human beings?" The letter proceeds:
They must know where the management is going and why, and where they fit in, and they must feel as well as think that their interests are yours. This requires proper consultation and discussion in order to break down the 'them' and 'us' barrier which has so often been erected in the past."
That was a lesson we learned in the Army in the very early days. We did not get the best out of the troops in a platoon or a battery of guns unless the men knew what was happening in detail on the whole front. If I have put even that one point over—it is by no means a novel point— I shall be grateful. It is the duty of every employer of labour to ask himself whether he is doing enough to take his men into his confidence and to let them know exactly what their specific jobs mean in the factory. It is his duty to tell them what the factory is doing in the production drive. It would not take them long to consider this matter. It would not cost them anything and if they put it into effect they would get a good return.
On the question of financial incentives, I agree that there must be an extension of the system of payment by results where that system will get increased production. It is no use suggesting that it can be applied throughout industry, because it cannot. The facts put before the House by the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) not long ago about the building industry show quite conclusively that increased production can be attained by adopting a certain system of payment by results. I have also spoken to representatives of firms responsible for erecting prefabricated houses, and they have proved conclusively that there is a phenomenal increase in output, and that the men are happier and make more money by having a system of payment by results. I know that there is a psychological reaction on the part of the worker. He is frightened that he is letting himself in for sweated labour and for being done down. We must recognise that the trade union movement has never been stronger than it is today. Surely, they can safeguard the interests of the workers. Why

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cannot they come forward with schemes for payment by results with proper safeguards? I believe that those schemes are being held up for lack of initiative.
What a magnificent lead it would give to the country if the leaders of the building trade unions said tomorrow morning, "This is what we reckon will increase production by 25 per cent. These are the safeguards we want, and now we are prepared to have this payment by results system. We have changed our mind from the old days. But we have now got safeguards. Our primary duty as trade unionists is to safeguard the interests of the worker." If the interests of the worker are to be safeguarded, it must not be done on a short-term basis. One must look ahead. The one thing which will wreck the interests of the workers of the country will be a failure to get the production we want. I would like to see the trade unions take the initiative in the introduction of a system of payment by results. Then, at least, we would have the safeguard that the scheme would be in the interests of the workers, because it is the job of the trade unionists to look after the workers. Do not let us wait for the management to bring forward these schemes and then say, "No, we do not like that one." Why should not the trade unions take action now and produce a proper scheme?
Sir Robert Young: Surely the hon. Member realises that in some industries schemes of payment by results have operated for a long number of years, and-that any increased production as a result of these schemes cannot be attained. I have never met a piece-worker who did not try to get the best out of his piecework in days gone by.
Mr. Byers: I said that we should introduce them in cases where they would cause increased production. In the building trade, it seems to me—
Mr. Sparks: What about the shortage of materials? The materials are not there.
Mr. Byers: I agree, but I have covered that point. There are cases where the bricks, cement and mortar are on the site and still the work is not being turned out. Hon. Members must realise that that attitude of mind is the one against which we are fighting. On every occasion, an excuse
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is found for not doing something. That is why I say that the trade union movement must take the initiative in this matter in cases where increased production will result.
Mr. Sparks: If there are no materials production cannot be increased.
Mr. Tolley: Surely the hon. Member is not suggesting that the great mass of British working class people engaged in production today are slacking, and that if we give them some monetary incentive they will work harder? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the slackers are the great mass of the people, and that without more incentive they will go on slacking?
Mr. Byers: I suggest that that is really soap-box stuff.
Mr. Tolley: Not at all.
Mr. Byers: Tests have been carried out by many firms on time workers. Managements have made a time study in their factories and discovered that where an incentive is given, where there is payment by results, they get better results. I. have no interest in this, I am not an employer of labour. It seems to me that it is a perfectly logical proposition that where that happens, where the management gets increased production, then it is up to the trade unions to take the initiative and to say, "Can we apply that system anywhere else?" Why should they not do that? The attitude of mind shown by hon. Member will not help this country or the workers to get through the problems of our time.
Mr. Sparks Mr. Sparks rose—
The Deputy-Chairman: I do not want to spoil the cut and thrust of Debate, but constant interruptions are apt to increase the length of individual speeches. That means that fewer hon. Members will be able to participate in the Debate.
Mr. Byers: I have spoken for ten minutes longer than I had intended already, but that is because of the interruptions. I have not deployed all the arguments which I wished to use.
I wish to conclude on the subject of shorter hours. The same argument holds good. Surely, the objective which we have to keep in mind is increased production. If the five-day week will produce more than five-and-a-half days, by all

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means, let us have it. We all want shorter hours and higher wages; they are natural things to demand, but the yardstick by which we have to measure is the maximum production that we are going to get. If it can be proved over a reasonable period that a five-day week produces more coal, or more anything, than five-and-a-half days, by all means let us have it, but the opposite is also true. If it does not, we must have the courage to put on the extra hours as soon as we realise that the scheme is not going to work. If we have the courage to do that, in the trade unions, in the Government and in the works— [HON. MEMBERS: "And here."] Well, I think we work more than 48 hours altogether here. I am pretty certain we do, but what we do with it is a different matter.
Can we get this approach, this realisation that the only test is maximum production? I suggest that, at all levels, there is a personal responsibility, be it management or trade union, Government or worker, it is the responsibility of each to test this problem by that yardstick. There is an almost quadripartite responsibility for making the controls work smoothly, where they are necessary, and for seeing that there is proper co-ordination, that there is a response on the part of management to create the right psychological atmosphere in their works and to treat their men as human beings, and to examine at regular intervals how they can improve their output without in any way exploiting their workers or doing them down.
There is a responsibility on the trade unions to be less conservative than they have been in the past and to be willing to make a fresh approach to this problem. The trade union movement is strong enough to safeguard the interests of the workers and to look with an entirely fresh mind on payment by results, and to look upon profit-sharing, co-partnership and all these other forms which may help to give the workers stakes in industry and a sense of responsibility in the worker himself. I believe that if we get over the psychological problem, and get down into the works to make the worker realise the part which his specific job plays in the production drive, and the urgency of the problem, not only in regard to national survival but to his own personal survival, we shall get through.
4.53 p.m.
Mr. Rhodes: I would like to speak for a few minutes as an employer of labour who, at the moment, is getting more production per man-hour than he did before the war. It has not been done in a moment by putting down plans and saying "There it is." It has been done by long years of understanding with my own workpeople, by showing them the results, where the cloth was going—and I declare my interest in this subject, as I am a wool manufacturer —what the worker received for his labour, and what profit I was getting for the goods. I have had considerable experience in this direction, because I started my business with my war gratuity after the last war, and the reason for my being here—not particularly on this side of the Committee, because that is by conviction, but for my being in the House—is on account of the intervention of my own workpeople, who put me up as a suitable candidate to represent Labour, so that I am rather an oddity.
I wish to make a few remarks, not in general terms covering the whole wide field—because it is so vast and so wide that one can talk much and get nowhere with it—but with reference to the textile industry. The subject which we have in. hand is the productivity of labour, and when I say that there are five factors— management, labour, materials, plant and space—I am not exaggerating the subject-matter. If intelligent use is made of all five factors, we are bound to have a higher rate of productivity, because one factor is dependent upon the other, though the importance of each varies according to the-conditions and circumstances in different-factories in different trades. Therefore, the field of productivity of labour opens out very wide indeed.
The Cotton and Wool Working Parties have dealt at great length and in considerable detail with the problem of productivity, and may I say modestly that most' of the best recommendations of the Cotton and Wool Working Parties have been in operation in my factory for over 12 years, including shift working very willingly undertaken. We have been told that the cotton industry is short of 164,000 workers to bring it back to prewar level, but we do not want to consider this question from the point of view of the prewar level, because, when we are

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considering it from that point of view, we are accepting a host of prejudices which went to make up what those conditions were. Let us get out of the prewar mentality altogther, and think in terms of what we need now. Similarly, the wool trade needs 20.000 more workers, but the same argument applies and it is conclusive.
We are told also that we cannot expect to get anything like the prewar production per man-hour. All these factors are known to us, and we can expect only a modest increase because of the wastage in industry and the fact that so many of the people engaged in the industries are getting a bit old. We do not need to be told of the shortage of workers. Everybody knows of it, and not least the people engaged in the industry; and the housewives and people of modest incomes all over the country know it perfectly well. What we did need to be told by these working parties was the effect of shortage on our national economy and the best way to correct it, and the recommendations of the Platt Commission, the Ever-shed Commission and the working parties have all pointed to this one thing—the need for increased production per man-hour. The White Papers which we have had have emphasised it and directed our attention to it. All these reports prove that increased production per man-hour is easily possible, and there is positive proof that the productivity of the textile industry can be increased.
The textile industry must take bold steps if it is to survive, and fulfil its functions as one of the largest exporting industries. What these reports do not -fell us is by how much output per man-hour can be increased, and we have to turn to other sources for the information, to the practical men who have been engaged in the industry, either as consultants or as actual manufacturers. On 17th May, Mr. R. J. Ely, an eminent industrial consultant, who has acquired great experience in the reorganisation and deployment of factories in the textile trade, particularly cotton, addressed the Cotton Board. He said—and this may surprise Members who represent cotton constituencies:
"The present level of utilisation of the industry's resources, in relation to the conversion of materials, having regard to the mills and sheds in their present condition, has
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resolved from what has been accomplished in 85 companies and is, on the average, just less than 65 per cent. of the attainable."
I have many figures which 1 brought from America after my visit there last year, showing comparisons in productivity there of one type of employee with another. Mr. Ely went on to say:
"This means that with the mills and sheds equipped as they are today, and with the present labour force, the productivity of the industry's resources can, on the average. be increased by 53 per cent."
That is an extraordinary statement. Hon. Members can discount, if they like, some of the reasons why Mr. Ely made such a statement by saying that he is professionally engaged in the industry. But I am prepared to back that statement by my own experience. When labour is deployed, everything is brought up to scratch, and there is introduced not only the right machines but the right methods. As re-equipping is a long-term question, what is important is that we should use our present equipment to the best advantage. Many people think that the cotton trade is decadent. Let us get rid of that idea; let us stop crying stinking fish. There are soma fine men in the cotton trade who are respected the world over. Our textile trade can play its part in our economy, and it will do its part under this Government. No other Government would have been able to satisfy the required conditions. This question of the usage of equipment was mentioned by Sir George Schuster, in a letter to the President of the Board of Trade. He said:
"It is not enough merely to seek a higher production per man-hour by wholesale re-equipment, regardless of the commercial and economic result."
How right he is. This increase can be achieved by industry as a whole, and it needs no stressing to show that it is important that we should think in terms of the buyers' market which is now almost upon us. When we read in the Press that we are buying 6 million yards of cloth from the Russian zone in Germany, 62 million yards of cloth from Japan, and spending a lot of money in France in this way, people think there is something desperately wrong. More often than not, it is something wrong with themselves. The increase of output per man-hour must be related to costs and selling prices. It is no use putting up

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prices, especially at this time, to the new level of productivity, and expecting to get away with it. There must be advantages on both sides.
I hope the committee will forgive me for mentioning my own case, but years ago I reduced my hours from 48 to 40, and increased my wages by 10s. a week. That created consternation in my district, and much unpopularity from one section of the trade, which I need not mention. Increased earnings and lower costs must accompany any change we make. This has been done in my own mills, where deployment has taken place. It has taken place in a hundred mills in the Lancashire and Yorkshire area. There has been an increased production of 40 to 50 per cent., and the average earnings of the mills have been increased by 25 per cent. Incidentally, where that has taken place labour costs have been reduced by 20 per cent. It sounds almost paradoxical, but it is true.
In Bolton, where these changes have taken place, operatives of the first ring-spinning mill to be deployed advised their union representatives that they did not work so hard, that the work was more interesting, that they liked it better, and would not return to the old conditions if requested. In some cases where new methods are being employed, even with the present shortage of labour there is a waiting list of people wishing to be employed. That shows what can be done. Why is it that the industry cannot go forward with confidence to this increased production per man-hour? It is being done slowly, but the process is far too slow, because it is being done in isolated pockets. This is not a matter for shouting across the Committee at each other, "We did this, and you did not do that." It is astonishing what can be done with progressive managements and trade union officials working together. My trade unionists speak on my platform, and I speak on theirs, and none of us has anything to be ashamed about.
It is essential—and I am only echoing what the President of the Board of Trade and right hon. Members on the Front Bench have said on so many occasions— that this deployment should be dealt with more evenly throughout the textile trades. It should be dealt with on a larger scale, and higher up. I am optimis-
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tic enough to believe that there is nothing in the way of production problems-assuming that this Debate is not going to be wasted by everyone saying that it is no use anybody doing anything because we have no coal—which cannot be overcome when managements and unions work together as teams. I say to Lancashire and Yorkshire that what is possible in one area should, in proportion to the circumstances, be possible in another. In conclusion, I would say that we must go forward boldly, discarding old, worn-out prejudices, in a joint and determined effort to achieve efficiency, as otherwise we shall have the mortification of seeing inevitable decay in the textile trade, without having made a sporting bid to win.
5.11 p.m.
Mr. Stanley Prescott: I am sure the whole Committee listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes). He speaks with authority and personal knowledge of the matter, and equally with common sense. It gives me great pleasure, and I find it very edifying, as I am sure do all other Members of the Committee, to listen to the hon. Gentleman on the too few occasions on which he addresses us.
I also would like to deal primarily with the textile industry in Lancashire. I noted with interest, but also with regret, that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne referred only in passing to the coal situation. He said it was no good saying that everything depends on coal, and that without it we cannot do anything. I would like to address a few observations to the Committee with regard to the coal situation and its effects on the textile industry, on the recruitment of labour, and on production at the present moment. At present there is a cloud hanging over the whole of the Lancashire textile industry. It is the memory of the experience of last winter, coupled with fears whether it is to be repeated this coming winter. I do not want to enlarge upon what happened last winter; unfortunately we all know it only too well; but the position now—and I speak with some knowledge of these matters—is that managements, by and large, are trying to conserve as much fuel as they can, in accordance with the insistence placed upon that matter by the Minister of Fuel and Power and the President of the Board of Trade. One

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thing that cannot be done to any great degree is to increase production and to save fuel at the same time.
I mention the following matter because it is also germane to this subject. I am informed that in the textile industry we need some 75,000 additional operatives, and that they are coming in very slowly. It is the female labour which is the slowest in coming in. I put this point to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour. The other day I asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade how many spinning mills and weaving sheds still remain closed under the wartime concentration scheme. The answer I received was that 48 spinning mills were still closed, representing some 2,500,000 spindles, and that, on the weaving side, 250 sheds were still closed, representing 73,000 looms. I think the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne and the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. E. Porter) will agree that Lancashire has its own peculiarities, its likes and dislikes, and its native suspicion of certain things. It is true to say that many of the operatives who were put out of the textile industry owing to the war-time concentration scheme would go back to their own mills if they were reopened. It would be more difficult to persuade them to go to other mills, because they have a great regard— and tradition—for the mills in which they, and often their ancestors, worked.
What, therefore, is the reason these additional mills, which were concentrated in war-time, have not been reopened? I believe the main reason is lack of fuel. It is true, of course, that in some respects, the machinery and the mills have deteriorated. It is always said that the labour shortage prevents them from being re-opned, but I do not think that the labour shortage alone has been the deciding factor. I believe there have been other shortages which have prevented many mills from reopening, even in a small way. If they get going in a small way, the operatives may come back. I put that forward for the right hon. Gentleman's consideration. What he can do about it, I do not know, because the coal situation prevents him from reopening these mills, but I think it is a point he should bear in mind when conducting his recruitment campaign for the industry.
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On the question of recruiting operatives for the industry, I would again mention the wretched poster "Work or Want." The slogan of the Labour Party used to be "Work or Maintenance." I think the poster is a horrible thing, which does no good. This campaign of urging people to greater productivity must be dealt with on a higher level and psychologically. The fuel crisis considerably injured the recruitment of labour for the textile industry. With the exception of the Austin Motor Works, the textile industry was the first to be hit by the coal crisis, and that crisis has left its mark on the minds of textile operatives who were then not back in the industry, but who might have gone back but for what happened last winter.
I have already dealt with the reopening of the mills and the effect which that would have had if it had been possible. The next point I want to make is with regard to European volunteer workers and their importation into this country for work in the textile industry. The other day, I asked a question about. these workers and the answer I received was that the Government did not know how many European volunteer workers were to be recruited in this country during the next 12 months; that, even if they did, they could not say how many would be suitable for work in the textile industry, and certainly could not say how many of them would already have had experience of that work. Surely, the Government should now know how many European volunteer workers they want to get during the next 12 months. Of that figure, they ought to say, "We will try to get so many people who are suitable for work in the industry." Surely, inquiries could be made before they came to England as to whether they had knowledge or experience of the industry. I am informed by people experienced in these matters that in Europe there are many displaced persons of whom a large percentage have experience of textiles. I do not know whether that is correct, but if it is, cannot they be included among the European volunteer workers brought to this country? I should like to have an answer on that point when the Minister replies.
There are one or two things I should like to say about the five-day week. Personally, I would be quite happy to work as little as possible, and to get as high a wage as possible for doing so. That is

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only natural. If it was in the interests of the industry and the country, and if production could be maintained, I would be in agreement with the five-day week in the textile industry, but it is common knowledge that since the five-day week was introduced six or seven months ago, there has been a considerable fall in production.
Mr. Harold Davies: The trend has been upwards all the time until this month. The hon. Gentleman's statement is not true. The graph has been going up all the time until the slight fall-off this month.
Mr. Prescott: Is the hon. Member referring to the textile industry?
Mr. Davies: No.
Mr. Prescott: I was dealing with the textile industry. The hon. Member misunderstood me.
Mr. Davies: I beg the hon. Member's pardon.
Mr. Rhodes: May I point out that it depends upon the circumstances, and that production has not gone down much more than about seven per cent.?
Mr. Prescott: I give way to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne because his technical knowledge is greater than mine. If my statement is wrong, perhaps the Minister of Labour will correct me. Taking the industry as a whole, there has been a considerable fall in production.
Mr. Davies: Considerable?
Mr. Prescott: Shall I say "substantial," then? I will not argue about the word. The fact remains 'that there has been this fall in production. Is it the policy of His Majesty's Government to support the continuance of the five-day week in the textile industry, or are the Government going to use all their endeavours to get the workers and the unions concerned to revert to the ordinary six-day week?
Mr. Edward Porter Mr. Edward Porter (Warrington) rose—
Mr. Prescott: I am not addressing my question to the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. E. Porter). I would not be so unwise. I think that not only the Committee, but Lancashire, would like to know the view of the Government.
Mr. Porter: Will the hon Gentleman allow me?
Mr. Prescott: No, I will not
Mr. Porter: I shall have to reply to the hon. Member, so he might as well give way now.
Mr. Prescott: The hon. Gentleman is assuming that he will be so fortunate as to be called—he may not be—but even if he does reply, I shall not be worried by what he says. He has made inaccurate statements in the House before, and I have no doubt he will do it again. It is no concern of mine. With regard to the engineering industry, the right hon. Gentleman will know that in the last few days they have agreed, in effect, to forego the five-day week and to accept '' staggering '' arrangements for the coming winter. I would like to know what other industries desire to follow suit. What other industries have been approached, and what replies have they given?
Another point I want to raise concerns the wallpaper industry. We hear talk of the employment of labour and increasing productivity. The greatest fear in the wallpaper industry is that, because of a lack of materials, men will have to be discharged. There is no question of increasing productivity but of "making-do" with the materials which are available. The most difficult thing about asking for increased productivity is that in some industries it is needed, and in other industries the workers become annoyed when exhorted to increase productivity, because it is quite impossible to do so.
I would like to make this offer to the right hon. Gentleman. It may be of no benefit to him, and I have no desire that he should accept it just to please me. I shall never see eye to eye with him politically, but the question of increased production is above politics, and one which hon. Members in all quarters of the Committee wish to assist. If, for example, in my constituency it would be of benefit to call a meeting of managements, workers and representatives of the trades council—with no party politics— with a view to trying to spur them on and iron out their difficulties, I would gladly assist. Personally, I doubt whether it would be of any great use, but if the right hon. Gentleman would like to bear that in mind, I think many of my hon.

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Friends would help if they were approached.
I have a certain following in Lancashire, as has the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Fuel and Power, although my following is slightly different from his. Not so long ago I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether it was the desire of his Department to further part-time work in the Lancashire cotton mills, and in a written reply the right hon. Gentleman said it was. Unfortunately, the Question was not reached for oral answer, and I could not ask a supplementary question. If necessary, I will give way on this point to the hon. Member for Warrington, who lives in Blackburn. Some time ago, in Blackburn, it was desired to get the women to go back and do part-time work in the evenings, and many volunteered. There was then the greatest possible opposition from the textile trade union in Blackburn.
Mr. E. Porter: Why?
Mr. Prescott: I do not know why, but there was. The result was that the whole scheme was dropped. That is an example of the difficulties with which one has to deal, and the right hon. Gentleman must bear it in mind. It is no good making wild and woolly statements about increasing production in the textile industry. We must be told what help we are going to get. Coal is one example. We must have a properly conducted campaign to get men and women back into the mills, and we must have some imagination, because there is none at the moment. We must also be given targets, and we must have assistance. We must not be stultified, as we have been in the past, by being told that we cannot export to dollar countries; and now that we cannot export to dollar countries we are exhorted to do so. At the moment the cotton industry is being hamstrung by lack of coal; we are not getting the proper allocation that we should get, and we are apprehensive about what will happen next winter.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Belcher): I believe I heard the hon. Gentleman say that at one period the textile industry was exhorted not to export to dollar countries. I wish he would give some indication of when that was.
Mr. Prescott: I do not know it I used the word "exhorted," but what I meant to say was this. Some months ago the most difficult thing in the world was to get an allocation in order to export textiles to dollar countries. It was difficult for the Lancashire textile people to get permission to export to dollar countries. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to correct me, I will give way. Now the exact opposite has happened. We are being told that we must export everything we can to dollar countries. At the time when we were allowed to export only a very little, we could have got into those markets; but now, when the Board of Trade are urging us to do so, the opportunity has passed. I may have used the word "exhorted," but I think what I meant to say was quite clear.
5.30 p.m.
Mr. Edelman: I was interested in the suggestion of the hon. Member for Darwen (Mr. Prescott) that he should call a conference of those people who are concerned with production in his constituency. I ventured over 18 months ago, with my colleague the hon. Member for East Coventry (Mr. Crossman), to convene a similar meeting of industrialists, workers, and trade unionists in our city which, I think, had certain favourable results. What emerged most clearly from it was that both sides of industry are eager to get on with the job of production. One thing in particular I wish to emphasise. It is that the British worker is anxious to work, and he does not require chivvying and exhortation and nagging to get on with the job. He is as eager as anybody. But I believe a great deal of our propaganda has been misplaced. It is no good urging the worker to apply more energy to his job in the hope that that alone will increase productivity. 1 feel that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Supply should address themselves with far greater force to the managements of this country, because I believe that, with our existing resources, we should be able, even within the limitations imposed on us by lack of raw materials, to increase the productivity of the individual worker if proper methods of scientific management are employed
We have only to compare the productivity per man here with the productivity of the worker in America. Some of the

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comparisons are notorious, and I shall not detain the Committee by multiplying examples. But I will quote a few. There is the well-known case of coal. The miner engaged in extracting bituminous coal produces approximately four and a half times as much as the British miner; the American anthracite miner produces approximately two and a half times as much. The reports of the working parties of the Board of Trade show extremely interesting comparisons between the productivity per man hours of British and American workers. For example, in the linoleum industry in America, the productivity of the individual worker is approximately between 50 and 1d 100 per cent. higher than that of a worker in this country. The shirt-maker in America produces approximately 50 per cent. more than the British shirt-maker. In the case of men's wear the productivity of the American worker is 25 per cent. greater. I mention these comparisons not to belittle the British worker, because I believe that, man for man, the British worker is far more energetic and far more efficient than the American worker.
Sir Arthur Salter: While I entirely agree with the hon. Member's general argument, I think it may be well to remember that there are cases in which the reverse is true. For instance, I think it is true that in shipbuilding we do better per man hour than the Americans. I do not say that that changes the hon. Gentleman's main point, but I think it is as well to mention it.
Mr. Edelman: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) for mentioning that, because it reinforces the argument I hope to develop. That argument is that in America the worker is provided with efficient tools and effective management. He is better equipped to produce more per man-hour than is the worker in this country, who in many cases is not provided with efficient and up-to-date tools and has not effective management to help him. But in the shipbuilding industry we have a great, traditional British industry, in which the Americans have not been able to catch up with Great Britain. For that reason, I urge the Minister of Labour to address himself to the managers of this country, in order that they may re-examine their
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shops, that they may look at their works and ask themselves whether they are, in fact, producing as much as they could.
I believe that if a manager looked round his workshop and asked himself, "Is this machine in the right place?"—"Is my plant maintaining a proper flow of output?"—if managements were to consider whether their raw materials were coming in at the right time and moving through the workshops in the right order, then I think that, without adding a single pound of raw material to our stocks or a single pair of hands to the labour force in Great Britain, we could produce that vital 5 per cent. of increased production which would be the equivalent of a great supplement to our labour force and, in my view, would make it unnecessary to rely, as it seems that we are doing, on the importation of workers from a broad-workers whom, in passing I would say. I welcome—who may lack the necessary skill to engage in immediate work and who may, therefore, require a period of training, despite the fact that our crisis is on us now.
After all, if it is merely a matter of brute force and the application of more physical energy, then the Chinese coolie, sweating away from dawn to dusk, would be more productive than, for example, a mechanised fanner in Canada. But we all know that, in fact, that is not so: we all know that a worker who is assisted by efficient equipment is in a far better position to raise his productivity per man-hour than the worker who, with the best of intentions, strives through a mere increase of physical energy to increase his production.
I would also address myself to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because I believe that in the coming months he, too, has a very great responsibility for increasing productivity in this country. We depend for increased output per man-hour on obtaining suitable machines. Those machines can come to us only from America. I was very glad that in his statement the other day my right hon. Friend emphasised that the import of machinery would receive high priority in the allocation of dollars.
We have today a great chance. During the war there was a long period during which our machinery had to run down and become obsolete owing to the fact that we could not replace it by imports

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from abroad; but now we have the chance of re-equipping our industry to a great extent with new machinery. I feel that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should give us an opportunity of carrying out that re-equipment by adding to the amount of dollars he is making available for the purchase of machinery abroad. I myself am unfamiliar with the textile industry, but I am told that, by automatic looms, it is possible for a single worker today to do approximately ten times the amount of work a worker could have done ten years ago. That may be an exaggeration.
Mr. Prescott: There are many complications.
Mr. Edelman: If that is so, I apologise to those hon. Members who are expert in the subject. But it is quite clear that by using improved, up-to-date methods and modern equipment, we can climb on to the shoulders of America and outstrip her, just as, in the nineteenth century, when we had a great start in the Industral Revolution, other countries climbed on to our shoulders—countries like America, Germany, and Japan—to compete with us, and, finally, to surpass us. I regard it as being a fundamental consideration today, that we should make a great effort, putting aside our natural enthusiasm for consumer goods, in order to concentrate on the import of that heavy machinery which is necessary for British industry.
I turn from that to the question of raw materials. I speak with special interest in the question of steel, because in my own constituency, where the motor industry is one on which the country relies for help in the export drive, we have today factories where there is, in fact, concealed unemployment. We have factories where people nominally working for five days a week, are, in fact, working only for between three and four days a week. Those people do not like working only three or four days a week, even when at the end of a week they receive payment for a full week's work. They want to get on with the job, because they are conscientious, patriotic people who recognise that, unless they work their country as a whole must suffer. I urge the Minister of Supply to give them the steel they vitally need.
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I do not want to pillory any individual firm, so I will not mention the name of the firm which I am about to quote as an example of the workers exceeding the management in their enthusiasm for work. A short time ago I was asked by a shop stewards' committee to visit the factory where they were employed in order to see if I could help them to get more work. They were particularly concerned by the fact that in their factory, although all the workers were anxious and eager to get on with the job of production, they were not able to do so because the work was not coming to them. When I inquired into the general situation of the factory I found that there was, in fact, an extraordinarily lackadaisical attitude on the part of the management. During the war, as was the case in many parts of the country, the management was rather spoon fed by the Government; they had as much labour as they wanted; they had large Government advances in order to engage in development contracts, and from that period of coddling there was a hangover into peacetime, when our problems are, in a sense, even more acute than during the war. The management were not giving the workers of that factory the necessary drive and inspiration which would encourage them to produce more.
For that reason, I want to address myself to the Minister of Supply, through his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, and ask whether something might not be done to stimulate the managements of this country so that they will put their backs into it and, instead of continually throwing all the blame on to the alleged lack of will amongst the workers, will recognise that they have a joint responsibility in' the industry, that it is up to them to exercise initiative and not merely to wait for the Government, and expect the Government to nurse them and to worry their heads about what should properly be the management's concerned. If there is virtue in private enterprise—and I believe there is—then let those people who are engaged in private enterprise show it by taking the initiative in the present production drive. I do not want to generalise, and I do not want to be critical of those extremely able managements who are putting their backs into the job, despite material shortages. Those people who will help the country to survive the present difficulties

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—whether they be workers or managers —are not those who sit back and moan, but those who say: "Here's a job to be done. 'Let's get on with it. and do it."
543 P.m.
Mr. Heathcoat Amory: I do not think any hon. Member on this side of the Committee will find anything in which to delight if anything we say this afternoon adds to the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour. As an employer, let me say that we are anxious to respond to the courtesy and the fairness which he and, I think, following his example, his Department show in their very difficult job of doing justice between all the different sections of industry. This afternoon we are all conscious of the gravity of the background against which this Debate is being held, and that will make us still more careful in weighing our words.
It seems to me that the Marshall offer stands out as the one bright gleam against an otherwise darkening horizon. It is a big offer from a big man, and we must respond to it in a big way. The aspect of that offer which I wish to relate to the subject under discussion this afternoon is the principle of self-help, which I understand underlies that offer. I think that is very important. Our friends the Americans know that we are short of manpower; they know that today, for a variety of reasons, productivity in British industry is very low. If we are to establish a firm claim on their assistance, I am quite sure it is important for us to do everything possible to show the Americans that we are making the utmost use of our own resources, that we are straining every nerve to help ourselves, and that we are doing so efficiently. In the early days of the war the Americans saw this country standing out against immense odds, and it was that which made them decide we were worth helping. We must make sure that they see the same spirit today as they saw in those days.
The first question I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman is whether he is satisfied that that is the impression which we, as a nation, are conveying today. I cannot help feeling that an impartial observer would have some slight doubts. I think he would have doubts on two points. He would be perplexed at some
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apparent contradictions. For example, when our problem is clearly one of underproduction, he would be surprised to see a continuing tendency apparently to go in for a five-day week, with a steady pressure maintained for shorter hours; and at the same time the Government apparently occupying a position of rather uncomfortable neutrality on this issue. That impartial observer would also see the melancholy sequence of bottlenecks and breakdowns; and in that he would see, to some extent, a failure in our national management. The lesson I deduce from this—and which I want the right hon. Gentleman to accept—is that during the last year or two the Government have steadily under-estimated both the size and the tempo of the problems which face us, and that they are still doing so today.
The Government are still running round plugging holes, instead of planning for the situation which will face us in 1948 and 1949. The record of the last year or two has been one of grappling with one crisis after another, each particular crisis only after it had broken out. As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman) said last week, it is as if on every occasion the cooks and the clerks were called out and put into the firing line to deal with one break-through after another. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will convince us today that he is now grappling with the problems which will face us next year and the year after, because I believe that in some cases they will be quite different in kind from the problems which have faced us during the last year Or two. If he does so, he will be confronted with conclusions which will call for great moral courage on his part.
I referred to the five-day week and shorter hours. I have always felt reduced working hours to be one of those compensations that could be reasonably looked for as a result of the increased mechanisation of our lives. In anything like normal conditions it is a good way of enjoying a rising standard of living. But today, are we not really trying to deceive ourselves by pretending that any general reduction of hours can mean anything else but reduced output? We must honestly face up to the situation. Of course, there are exceptions, and by taking a test over

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a quite short period it is easy to show that that is not so in particular cases; but, by and large, I think that is a truth which we must face. We cannot indefinitely reduce hours without reducing output. If in our present predicament a five-day week is justified in any particular case, then it is justified for men who have to do heavy work underground; but I sincerely suggest that on this question of hours, which is only part of the problem, the Government are not giving a bold or positive lead to the nation. The ordinary citizen finds their attitude equivocal and timid. He finds it difficult, for instance, to reconcile the almost despairing appeal for women to go back into industry with continued extensions of the five-day week. I liked very much a cartoon which appeared in this connection in one of the newspapers the other day. It was a picture which showed some men sitting down outside a factory on a Saturday morning presumably having a gossip, with the wife of one of them putting her head out of a door of a nearby house and shouting, "Come along 'Five-day Week,' 'Seven-day Week' has cooked your dinner."
I think the time has come when the Government are putting the thing the wrong way round. They are saying that shorter hours can only be approved if there is no loss of production. The time has come when they must say surely that longer hours must be worked if, by working those longer hours, there can be increased output of what the nation needs so badly. I agree with the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) that, in asking for longer hours, everything possible must be done to bring home to the people concerned what the result will be. I know the right hon. Gentleman's difficulties. I know the invigorating air of Margate seemed to have an unfortunate effect on some Trades Union Congress leaders. I would remind him that the nation is still looking to the Government for leadership. It is not clear sometimes who is at the helm, or whether anyone is. For instance, we should like to know whether Mr. Arthur Horner is really a member of the crew, or whether he is a pirate waiting for the opportunity to make the captain and the crew walk the plank.
The biggest obstacle today to increased production is undoubtedly the fact that in industry we cannot get a steady flow of
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raw materials. This, of course, is having a bad psychological effect on production, and it is making incentives very much less effective than they otherwise would be. The Government must concentrate on building up from the bottom with raw materials. We are in the situation of an army at a stage of operations which was sometimes experienced during the war. The troops are deployed and ready to fight, but the fighting has to be curtailed because of interruptions in the basic supply line. The tragedy is that we can ill spare the time for a sound build-up. I hope that the Government will concentrate on getting things right in our basic industries, upon which everything else depends, even if it means causing hardship to less essential industries. I have not time to say anything about our export trade, other than that we have only to look at the figures in the Statistical Digest to see the symptoms of our malaise. We see it there very clearly, when we find that while we are employing one and a half times more people, on manufacturing for export we are producing only the same volume as before the war. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has told us that it will be necessary to switch more of our textile production to the export trade. That is probably still possible, but every day it is becoming harder and harder to do it. The sellers' market is undoubtedly drying up, and unfortunately it is drying up most rapidly in the hard currency countries.
I want to refer specifically only to one industry, agriculture, the great dollar saver. The wages level, in agriculture seems gradually to be getting on a par with other industries, which is a good thing. The key to the future is a really imaginative rural housing plan, and pushing forward with mechanisation, which means that agricultural machinery must have a good priority for steel. In my own county total agricultural production will almost inevitably drop temporarily, but if equal priority is given to agriculture as to the coalmines, any drop in production need be only temporary. We understood that as the Germans went home agriculture was to get a good influx of Poles, but in my county we are not getting them. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell us how many Polish ex-Service men have been put into established jobs, and how many are still to come. It is extraordinary that after two years so many of them

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are still in uniform doing nothing in the way of productive work.
I am afraid that the trade unions cannot be exonerated from blame in this respect, because they have been very halfhearted about it; nor can the right hon. Gentleman himself be exonerated from blame, because he does not seem to have given effective leadership in this. It seems strange by the way that a substantial number of British personnel are still employed in staffing and maintaining Polish camps. I cannot see why any British personnel should be employed for any other purpose than, perhaps, as industrial instructors. My last request on agriculture is to ask the right hon. Gentleman to ginger up the procedure permitting satisfactory Germans to remain in this country as free men, if they voluntarily wish to do so. There seems to be some hitch here, because in my own county men who would like to stay and who would be very useful if they could stay are having to go home.
I agree with much of what the hon. Member for North Dorset said on intangible incentives, and I cordially support what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) said in regard to an extension of payment by results. The difficulty is the continuing lack of interest on the part of the trade unions, and the fact that while the Government have been giving lip service to the principle, they have been sitting dangerously on the fence on this issue. If only the unions could see it, that is the most practical way in the years to come by which they can achieve their objective of maintaining and improving the level of real wages. I should like to see a voluntary truce for three years in which the unions agree not to press for shorter hours or higher wages, except as a result of payment by results, and the employers on their part agree not to pay higher dividends. If that were done, I believe it would help very much indeed.
The last point I wish to raise concerns the Government alone, and that is their example as the largest direct employer of labour in the country. In the White Paper, we were told that it was hoped to achieve a reduction in Government staffs of 80,000, I think, by the end of this year. When I read that statement, I made a public offer to eat my only remaining hat
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if it came off, but I gather from the Prime Minister's statement the other day that both my hat and digestion are now likely to be safe. It is significant that the shortest hours are being worked today in local government offices—I believe 38 hours a week. As regards the non-industrial staffs of Government departments, some figures issued a day or two ago give much food for thought. The figures are: Admiralty, 35,000; War Office, 45,000; Air Ministry, 25,000; total for Services Ministries' staffs, 105,000; Ministry of Food, 43,000; worst of all, I think, Ministry of Supply, 41,000; Ministry of Works, 20,000, and the right hon. Gentleman's Department, 41,000. These are colossal figures. When one looks at the staffs deployed in the institutions under Government control, one sees the same disregard for economy in manpower.
To sum up: I believe that if we are to get the help which we want from the United States we must go flat out to show that we are making the utmost use of our resources and doing this efficiently. British industry will continue to work spasmodically, and at a very low rate of output, until a sound situation can be built up from the bottom, so far as the supply of raw materials is concerned. The sellers' market is weakening and import restrictions are increasing in foreign countries and, unfortunately, that will mean that easy switches to the export trade will become harder and harder. The extension of the principle of payment by results will be one of the only ways in which we can maintain the real level of wages in this country for the next few years. Let the Government treat agriculture on a par with coalmining as one of our vital basic industries. Lastly let the Government look to their own example in the use of manpower, because I believe the example which they are setting is not a very good one. I trust that the Minister of Labour will keep his eyes, not on the ground just in front of his feet, but on the horizon, which is not too far off now. For assuredly the economic difficulties that await us are going to test the resources and the resolution of the nation as a whole, and, in particular, of those on whom the responsibility of leadership falls.
6.2 p.m.
Miss Jennie Lee: The discussion today has gone on long enough for it to be apparent that the Conserva-

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tive heaven in Great Britain would be a situation in which we had no Government Departments, no Civil Service, no trade unions and no restrictions on working hours. If that is a slight exaggeration, it was certainly the general trend of their arguments. One source of encouragement for us, on these benches, after listening to the suggestions that have come from the other side, is that Britain's problems are not in the hands of hon. Members opposite. One of the brightest and most charming speeches in this Debate was that of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), and I think that from his remarks we get a glimpse of how our problems could be solved. If we could get everywhere that relationship which he has established in his mill, in fair play all round and efficiency all round, Great Britain could expect to survive the next few months and the next few years successfully, but all employers do not act as he does.
Like the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory), I am very much preoccupied with the thought of what we can do about the productivity of labour in this country, not only from the point of view of long-term plans, but to carry us over the immediate crisis through which we are going, and which is bound to deepen. We all profoundly hope that the Marshall plan will be acceptable, but when the countries of Europe get together and work out the concrete proposals, that plan has still to be sanctioned by the American Congress and the American Senate. Therefore, however wholeheartedly I and other Members in all parts of the Committee hope for a constructive plan for European recovery, it is not something which we can bank on or build on to help us over the next few months.
The thing that is concrete, and the thing we have to live with and deal with at the moment, is that in America Congress and the Senate have already decided to pass repressive labour legislation of a kind that is bound to cause widespread and continuing industrial disputes in America, which is bound to put up American prices and interfere with American supplies such as the industrial machines asked for by the hon. Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman). Certainly there will be interference of deliveries whether of machines or food.
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I leave others to deal with some of our long-term plans for new industrial management, new plants inside factories and the rest, much of which cannot possibly be carried out in the next few months. Taking the position as we have it now, our manpower now, our industry now, our dollar resources and what we can expect to have in the near future, are we doing everything we can in Great Britain to get maximum production?
I agree with hon. Members opposite that we are not, but I do not expect them to agree with me, although I shall be very pleased if they do when I indicate where, in my view, the shortcomings lie. It is bitterly hard indeed in Great Britain today for working men and women, particularly some of those growing older with a lifetime of labour behind them, to be continually asked to work more and produce more and to do so in a society that lacks the essential comradeship and essential unity that could only be experienced if every able-bodied man and woman were also working, indeed were obliged to make some useful contribution. It was very noticeable when hon. Members opposite were speaking that in dealing with what they considered trade union shortcomings, their conclusions were always positive and concrete, but when dealing with social shortcomings and employers' shortcomings there were only rapidly passed over generalisations.
I am not suggesting that it would be easy to work out a scheme in peacetime Britain which would mean that every able-bodied man and woman had to do work of some kind, and I would not even say that it would add enormously to our labour force, but I think it would have a pyschological value; not that we should tell people where they should work or what they should work at, but we should work out some scheme whereby able-bodied men and women could all at some point in the national economy be able to prove that they were doing a share of essential work. What I am suggesting now is mainly psychological. It might not add much additional manpower but psychological factors are very important while we are waiting on new machines and new factories.
I would say to my hon. Friend who is to reply to the Debate that I hope that in the mining industry we will very soon get over some of our initial difficulties

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and correct some psychological mistakes which have been made there and ought never to have been made. Coal production in the pits after the introduction of the five-day week has gone up until this last month. We cannot expect spectacular results until the green labour is trained, but all over the coalfields there has been a mistaken notion in some quarters that there is such a thing as a non-political citizen and that if the Coal Board makes appointments that are called non-political, we shall get the best results. We are not inventing new men and new relationships. In every coalfield everyone knows everyone else, and in fact what is happening is that an undue proportion of people who have had a long history of industrial conflict with the miners have been put in key positions in the very areas where those conflicts have taken place.
They should be sent to other parts of the country. I know that that is being done to a certain extent, but not enough. I could quote one important coal pit where the father had lived in a state of civil war for a generation with the miners, and when the father died the son was made the manager. I am not saying that the young man was not a first-class technical man, but it should not be forgotten that we are dealing with men—not machines— and long embittered personal relationships. In the coalmining areas there have been some very serious cases of psychological mishandling for which we are paying now. I hope it will be a temporary thing, and that we will get over it soon, because we cannot afford even the smallest mistakes in the mining industry at the present time.
I should also like my hon. Friend who is to reply to tell me why it is that, while we are still appealing for additional miners, no decision has yet been reached between his Department, the National Coal Board and the Miners' Federation about bringing into this country certain men from abroad, including some who are trained miners and who want to come here to work in the pits. Again, I am not saying that numerically these would make a vast number, and we do not want to have so many foreigners that the British coal mines will become camps for foreign or prison labour, or create an atmosphere in which the British miner will not be willing to enter the pits. We want the
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ordinary life in the pits to be a pleasant happy life, attractive to the average British worker. I cannot understand the delay in regard to a case which I have brought to the notice of the Minister of Labour and also of the Minister of Fuel and Power, of an Italian who was a prisoner here and worked on Cannock Chase and who now wants to come back and marry a local girl with whom he has fallen in love. To prove his earnestness he is working as a coal miner in Belgium, and has been in Belgian mines for months waiting to get permission to come here. I give that example knowing it is a small matter in proportion to the main problem, but those small matters add up and make us feel we are not doing everything we can even now while working towards long-term solutions.
I was hoping when hon. Members were talking with expert knowledge about the textile industry that they would say something specific about attracting women to the textile industry both in cotton and in wool. Here again, while some of us are conscious of the gravity of the situation and know that as far as possible we have got to tie up additional money in circulation with additional production, there were issued figures from the Ministry of Labour telling us that the average wage for men in industry is now just over £6and that the average wage of women in industry is not two-thirds of that amount. I am not suggesting that we can put the whole thing right at once, and I know that it is not the Government that employs labour in the woollen and textile mills. But if the Government can use their influence and if the employers and trade unions concerned would look into this question women in Great Britain would feel that they were being treated more fairly and were having some share of such progress as was being made. That is not asking anything unreasonable and would be to the general good.
I am haunted by the feeling that we are not really getting down to this business of work in Great Britain today. I am wondering if we can solve our production problem, if we can keep our homes clean, get the houses built, and the factories and agriculture manned in an atmosphere where all the time on this side of the Committee we are acutely aware of the drudgery and long hours of the past and quite properly our energy goes in the

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direction of pressing for shorter hours, better working conditions and better wages. What is going to happen if this tendency increases without some new element coming into the situation? If any Member in any part of the Committee could answer that one, I should like to hear it, because we are being caught badly in Great Britain in a transition stage in which we need more output, but we on this side of the Committee are certainly not going to part with a single piece of the hardly won protection which the working people have procured to better their standards of life.
What I am going to say now may be rather contradictory to that, but I am wondering if we might not have developed two entirely different types of work. First, there would be the work by which we earn our daily bread, and in that work everyone would want hours, conditions and wages to be carefully protected by the best possible trade union rights. At the same time, there would be another type of work in which we would not work for low wages, but where we would learn to work for nothing at all. If we are expecting help in the homes of Britain—I am not talking about luxury help but in terms of where there is illness or children in a home—and if we are expecting all the work of our new hospital service to be done by paid labour at so much an hour, I cannot see where the workers, the money or the resources are to come from. The poison in our society today, which is blinding us to one way out of our difficulties, is that we have got this class division and this atmosphere of patronage from the past.
If we can only have that sort of relationships with which I grew up, where there was plenty of service and help in the home it would point a way to the solution of our ills. In my youth we never lacked servants. We had always assistance in times of need, for under the democracy of a mining village if my mother was ill a neighbour came in and helped. There was happiness and pleasure all round in such service because my mother in turn did not think it an indignity to go next door and get down and scrub her neighbour's floor, bath the babies and do the cooking. We were friends and equals but in society as a whole today we are suffering from a false
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gentility and from an historical and economic hangover. The people who were living in bad conditions and who had to do the hardest but the most useful work were despised socially.
I noticed the other day that a' group of university students are going out from Great Britain to help to build a railway in Yugoslavia. I do not disagree with, that, because we need an international outlook as well as a national sense, and it is well that we should know what conditions are in other countries. But what is wrong with developing voluntary organisations in Great Britain both youth organisations and adult organisations of men and women, not on the basis of patronage, but for the purpose of assisting in voluntary work in homes, hospitals and in the harvest fields? In that connection I might say that I think a disgraceful amount of food is wasted in our country every year for old fashioned economic reasons. Those who have gardens in Great Britain know that when they have too much rhubarb or lettuces or fruit, their neighbour's garden is also overstocked and much is wasted. We make gifts to neighbours or to hospitals, but much more could be saved and used. I am wondering if we could seriously deal with the organisation of services through the Government or through the local authority, which by giving voluntary organisations collecting vans and other essential apparatus would organise voluntary work both for youngsters and for older people, such as calling at the gates of the cottages and of the larger houses and saying, "If you have any surplus let us collect it, we shall do any work involved in the collecting." Many people would give who have not time to do the collecting themselves. We had the unfortunate situation in Great Britain last year that when fruit was ripe and we could have been bottling it, we had not the bottles in the country to do it. That kind of waste is serious in the present critical times.
What I am saying now is largely of a tentative nature. I am not talking about years hence, but about the fact that the Marshall plan is in the stratosphere, and that America's labour laws are such as to make it certain that we shall have trouble and interference with our supplies. I am also talking about the fact that dollars are running out and that we shall be faced with a period of sharp crisis

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in this country which will not be averted by pep talks by hon. Members or representatives of employers and trade unions. I hope we shall give very careful attention to whatever can be done in the matters of mining, women's wages, the youngsters and the rest, in order to maximise production.
I believe that we need a complete psychological change of atmosphere and a feeling that, however hard men and women arc working, there is at least fair play all round. We have gone a certain distance in that direction but not far enough yet, and, in particular, we need to get back to the fact that it can be great fun to work in the proper conditions, and that we could build up a volunteer organisation for certain types of work. Above all, I suggest that we need the spirit of urgency that will make our youngsters feel not only that it may be well worth while to go and build a railway line in Yugoslavia, but also that it is infinitely worth while to add to the work by which they earn their daily bread voluntary work in spheres where they could help to maximise British production at this critical time.
6.23 p.m.
Mr. Jennings: I do not propose to follow the argument of the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee), although I am always very interested in what she says. I would like to assure her that if she thinks that there is false gentility on this side, I, for my part, feel that perhaps there is false gentility on the other side. Since the beginning of the war, at any rate, I have always been used to the situation that if there was nobody to do a job we had to do it ourselves, and that is the right angle from which to tackle the position.
There is no doubt that this country is up against it in a most desperate way, and that we must cast aside all prejudices and class criticisms. I think we might say that all sections of the community have been guilty during the last few years of criticising either the workers or the employers, but the time has now come when that should cease. We have to realise that unless something is done in this country to ensure that every section of the community is pulling its weight, we shall sink deeper and deeper into the mire, and the very standards which the hon. Lady has been discussing
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will become lower, so that we shall be in a desperate situation. I say this because I am very anxious about what is to happen to the steel industry in Sheffield, and I am rather afraid that the Government are not facing up to the issue fairly and squarely. Although I know that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister has created a great deal of respect for himself up and down the country, it is not his Department bur various other Departments which are concerned, and I have found during the last year or two that when I have applied for an import licence for a machine I have had the greatest difficulty in obtaining it. There seem to be far too many minor restrictions on industry.
I agree that we cannot cut out all controls, but there should be a great deal more elasticity in Government Departments, and those who are managing these industries must be given a freer hand to enable them to re-arrange the work if necessary and to see that a steady flow of raw materials is likely to come along. Steel is very largely dependent on the main raw material of coal, and early this afternoon I heard it said that we should not waste this Debate by discussing coal. I am afraid, however, that one of the fundamental difficulties which we are up against today is the lack of production of coal. The hon. Lady made some criticism of the organisation in the coalfields today where, for example, a manager who had caused some trouble in a mining area had died and his son had been appointed as manager in the same area, which the hon. Lady thought was not likely to create harmony. The other day, however, I read a report of a coroner's inquest where Mr. 'Hall, the Secretary of the Yorkshire Miners' Federation, asked one of the witnesses whether he agreed that the electrical equipment ought to be abolished. The witness replied, "I am afraid I do not run the coal mines in this country." Mr. Hall said, quite properly." I do not know who does."
If Mr. Hall does not know who runs the coal mines in this country the fault is at the door of the Minister of Fuel and Power, because it is the Minister who ought to tell him. If there are these difficulties and this dissatisfaction in the coalfields, and if the Coal Board is criticised for putting this man in one job and that man in another, it is high time that the Minister of Fuel and Power

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took the position into his own hands and told them exactly how serious the situation is in this country. Economically we are being placed in greater difficulty every day, and I am afraid that we are floundering about and that, as my hon. Friend said, there is a leak here which we are trying to plug up and a hole there which we are trying to repair. But we have a major difficulty and we must meet it in a major way. I feel that there is one main problem which the Government and the Minister of Labour have to face with courage and determination. It may be unpopular, but it is my view that they have to say quite definitely within the next few weeks or, at any rate, within the next month or two, whether the five-day week is or is not a success. If it is not, the Minister must see to it that we turn back to longer hours, in spite of what the hon. Lady said. If the five-day week is not a success, and if we do not return to longer hours we shall certainly not achieve greater production.
Mr. D. J. Williams: Would the hon. Gentleman say what, in his opinion, would be the effect on recruitment in the mining industry if the five-day week were abolished?
Mr. Jennings: I think that if we gave compensation in incentives, it would not have any effect at all. I think that it is high time that any restriction on the giving of incentives in industry was done away with. We ought to have payment by results, which I think would be one of the greatest incentives to higher production. There is no need for party friction in this matter. On an issue which is so-serious for this country we ought to be able to step aside from party conflicts and try to get ahead. One of my hon. Friends made the very noble suggestion that a truce should be called for five years by both sides of industry, employers and employees alike, to see what they can do by throwing their efforts into a common pool. If it means more work let them pull together and say that it will have no effect at all on the hard-earned liberties mentioned by the hon. Lady.
Mr. Sargood Mr. Sargood (Bermondsey, West) rose—
Mr. Jennings: I cannot give way again. These liberties have been hard earned and
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fought for, but surely in a crisis such as that which confronts us now, we should stand aloof from any partisan spirit and say that we are not going down but will get through. The spirit of the workers would improve, and if they were given leadership from both sides, I am quite certain that there must be ways and means of developing industry in this country. As I have said, coal is the root of most of our difficulties; let us have Mr. Horner properly instructed as to the seriousness of the position. [laughter.] Well, apparently he cannot appreciate it. Some of his statements in the country are irresponsible. I noticed that the Minister said the other day that the five-day week was in jeopardy. Let him follow that up. Let him tell us a bit more about how much it is in jeopardy and what the production will be in the next month or two. This is floundering about with the situation.
It is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour and he has to face up to it. The steel industry of Sheffield did very well during the war. The spirit of the employers and the employees there is good. A similar feeling of harmony can be created in a number of other industries. We must have fewer irresponsible statements on all sides. We should stop saying that private enterprise or that nationalisation is no good. Let us try to create a better spirit in industry. There has been far too much partisan spirit and feeling in the past. The present situation is far too serious to be dealt with on partisan lines.
I ask the Minister of Labour to get all the Departments together. Let him see that the Minister of Fuel and Power has his proper, supply of labour. I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power knows that coal is of the utmost importance and that it should be directed into the heavy industries so that we can get the raw material, and ensure that there is no lack of steel. The class of coal is very important because a type of coal supplied to one furnace or works may not be suitable for another. Let us have the greatest concentration upon the coal situation. I believe that we can get coal production increased to its 1938 figure if the spirit of the people is appealed to.
We must tell people that we are right up against it. The "Work or Want"

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poster does not explain to the people of the country how serious is the position. We must get our propaganda right into the minds of the masses of the people. They know that we are short. They have heard statements from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and from other Ministers about dollars. They know the situation is not so good but let them realise how bad it is. We have to make efforts on all sides to recover from the difficulty. We ought not to have partisan feelings. Let us try to forget some of the difficulties of the past and create a better future. That can be done if all sides are prepared to put something into the common pool.
Let us call a truce for five years. Let us cut out all restrictions among employers and employees. There are many restrictions on both sides. I could mention some in which one type of skilled man is not allowed to do another type of work while he is on the job. That is a restrictive practice. There are similar practices on the employers' side. It is high time that all these practices were cut away and that a truce was called. If the spirit of the people is appealed to in the right way and the seriousness of the situation is told to them in a frank and proper way instead of by the "Work or Want" poster, I am sure that the people will respond and that we shall get through.
6.36 p.m.
Mr. Longden (Birmingham, Deritend): I shall endeavour to adopt a rather unusual attitude. Every Member must desire to increase productivity in our country be cause he knows that it is essential. We know that our country must necessarily import much of its foodstuffs and raw materials and that we must do all we can to export such manufactured goods as we are capable of producing. At the same time, we recognise that many people are more or less unproductive or produce very little directly. We recognise that much of what we call private enterprise is incompetent in every conceivable sense. I am interested this evening in what the hon. Member for Hallam (Mr. Jennings) called the spirit of the people. It is about that I wish to speak. I believe HANSARD tomorrow will show, running right through the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who opened the Debate for the Tory Party, the thought that, while he recognises incompetencies, inefficiencies and racketeering on the part of employers,
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the class in whom backwardness is to be found is the workers. It is suggested that they lack the spirit and intention to help our country in this grave time. We may talk about nationalisation, new machinery, the need for raw materials and for better managers, but so long as we look upon the worker largely—I put it rather crudely and strongly—as a mere instrument of production, we shall never get down to the root of the trouble before us.
The whole atmosphere and attitude surrounding this question should be realised. The hon. Member who opened for the Liberal Party told us that the workers were accustomed to spin the work out and to ca'canny. It is all very well to say that we must not look into the past, but we are living the past. We are of the past. The make-up of the workers is of the past. Everything that capitalism and Imperialism are inflicting upon the world today is of the past, whether we like it or not. It is a pretty shameful past. The workers are not certain what is coming. That feeling is impeding the Labour Government, in spite of what they are endeavouring to do. The real incentives have yet to be offered to the working classes of our country. Even our own Government have a responsibility in this direction. They have to demonstrate to the workers that they know what the past has meant and what is happening now. In this matter of the production crisis, the Government have to show the workers behind them that they remember what they taught the workers in past days, and are not forgetting too much.
Something has been said about our poster, plastered all over our country in big letters, "We Work or Want." I hope the Minister will have that withdrawn—and not for the reason mentioned by the spokesman for the Liberal Party. It is quite true that the working men and machines cannot give us the goods without the raw materials. It is a psychological blunder, as some hon. Members have said. It is quite true that millions of workers have always worked and always wanted. It is no use exhorting the workers to work or want. They know they have wanted even when they have worked to the very limit of their being. This Government—which I have worked to produce to the best of my ability for a good generation, as my colleagues know —ought not to repeat the follies of the

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past. Let me quote what a Minister of the MacDonald Government, the Right Hon. J. R. Clynes, said in 1919:
"If ever there was a risk of over-production causing unemployment, there is none now. For at least a dozen years there must be conditions of shortage which, with the best energy and effort, cannot be removed. We are in arrears. We need have no fear of the supply exceeding the demand."
That is what the workers were told, and a few months later we had three million unemployed*. As to the spirit of the workers, again they wonder what will happen. They had a further experience. Another Labour leader, John Hodge, about the same year, said that the workers must increase their output or be workless and wageless. The workers wonder whether they will experience that again because, despite what this gallant Labour Government is doing, it is having to fight against the fearful mess that the system represented on that side of the House has produced. The Labour Government are up against the fact that the workers have been workless and wageless despite all the burdens they have carried. In 1930 the Right Hon. J. H. Thomas, who had supported that attitude to the workers in 1919, said in this House that one of the great anomalies of that moment was that the main cause of the world depression as well as our own, was over-production.
The workers want to know what will happen if they produce hand over fist the commodities they are now asked to produce in the field as well as in the mill and in the pit. We have to convince the working classes that this sort of thing will never recur. Capitalism does not guarantee a job to anybody unless it is profitable enough. We have to face that. Despite our talk about jobs for the people, the Government are up against that fact, and the sooner they face it the better.
Mr. Orr-Ewing: The hon. Member seems to be implying that the workers of this country, owing to suspicions based on the past, are practising a deliberate policy of ca'canny or go-slow. Does he really mean to leave that impression?
Mr. Longden: No, I think not. What I am saying is that the workers, before proceeding to do a Stakhanovite demonstration—as it were, the last ounce of their body—should be guaranteed that there
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will be no recurrence of the past. They see the rake-offs made by some firms. They see goods and foodstuffs destroyed when the cost of production has been covered—and the factories do not produce unless it is profitable, no matter what state our country happens to be in and no matter how much our people want clothing and food. This slogan of "work or want" is an imposition on the country. It is strange that sometimes even for our own sake, we can be concerned with squeezing more from the working man. It is a perpetual squeeze. It is an appalling infliction on the working class. Tories and Liberals—Tory landowners and Liberal millowners—always did drive the working class to the limit of their output, no matter what return came to them and no matter what conditions of life they experienced. Then when it no longer paid to employ the workers, they introduced machinery. Even now, the economists are talking about finding out the most productive hours in a working man's day. It is as if the working people were not human beings, but just machines wanting a little more oil. It is as if by applying to our bodies and minds the principles' of Bedeaux on productive movements we can produce a little more. It is a constant squeeze on the working class.
There are limits to human endurance and stamina. Many intelligent working people are feeling rather disquieted about the trend from democracy in our country in our time. They find the management going further and further away from them and away from the human touch. Why, for instance, have consultative councils admitted the fact that the cooperative production societies have demonstrated relatively higher outputs and higher qualities than their competitors in private industry. The reason is pretty clear. It is because that form of mutual industry is nearest to the common pool from which they can receive after having given. They know very well that it is the nearest to industrial democracy that we have got since mediaeval times, when the craft guilds governed our country better and more honourably than has ever been done since. It is therefore not enough to have social security. That existed in ancient Greece. It is not enough to rationalise private enterprise or public industry. That is as old as Greece and Rome and mediaeval Europe. It

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is not enough simply to educate our people about industrial efficiency, which is all we are promising to do.
Our Government have fought well and have done very well. I believe the Government have saved our country, not from possible or even probable, but from certain chaos. Let us be bolder, let us get rid of these stupid advertisements— "Work or Want"—and tell the people we need them to help us mutually, as we certainly do. Let us, as a Labour Government, give them a taste of the true Socialist expedients we have been promised in my life time and in the life time of those who have gone before. Give them a sight of the true aims of the Socialists. They have a right to the highest level of leisure and democracy. It is for the Government to give them constitutional experience of these things. Give the working classes of our country this inducement and they will certainly respond; they will build our country better than before.
6.51 p.m.
Sir Arthur Salter: The hon. Member for Deritend (Mr. Long-den) has ascribed the workers' psychology which is preventing full production to resentment of the past and fear of the future. I shall not at this moment contest this. It reminds us of what is the most important question at the present time, namely, whether, as the causes of past grievances are removed, the psychology which resulted originally from those grievances will itself change. We have the best possible example in the case of the most basic industry of all, the mines. It is true that the miners had great and legitimate grievances in the past, that they were underpaid, that they were improperly treated by many employers.
But what of the present? Miners now have double the earnings of the prewar period and, when every allowance is made for the difference in prices, that means both an absolute increase in purchasing power and a relative increase in relation to the other classes of workers. They have in the past suffered from long periods of unemployment; they are completely assured against any unemployment for as far as man can now foresee. They have had grievances against their employers; their employer is now the State. Miners are in fact, completely exempt from practically all the hardships
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and sufferings that every other class of worker suffers as a result of coal shortages. They have no shortage of coal in their homes; they have increased wages and, as regards food, they have not only the heavy workers' allowance, but 17 per cent. more calories in their food than other heavy workers. What will be the response to the removal of all those past grievances? I do not propose to suggest an answer now. We all hope that the answer will be the one which will increase coal production, because on that depends the future of all the workers in every other industry in the country.
I am extremely glad that this Debate has taken place today, not in terms of the alleged shortage of manpower but in terms of the productivity of labour. A great deal of harm has been done in the past in ascribing to a shortage of manpower what is really due to other causes. It is about time for someone to say, as I propose to say now definitely, that in the sense in which that term is commonly understood, there is no shortage of manpower. If we had twice the manpower we have in this country now, we should be worse off and not better.
Mr. Harold Davies: Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman say that if we had twice the manpower in the country at the present moment we should be worse off?
Sir A. Salter: I think certainly worse off. May I explain why I think that? It must be remembered that producers are also consumers, and that producers tend to have wives and dependants. The root fact is that the average producer, with his family and dependants, is, at present consuming more on the average than he is producing. That is the root fact of our position, and it is measured with great precision by the extent to which this year we are drawing upon our American and Canadian dollar credits: The phrase "shortage of manpower" is in fact used to cover three different troubles: the first trouble is maldistribution of manpower; the second is poor output by those who are employed; and the third is the interruptions in output due either to a shortage or to an inappropriate allocation of raw materials. Those are the three troubles from which we are suffering.
Of course, there are shortages of manpower in certain industries. I think it would be an extremely good thing, for

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example as has been suggested today and previously, that the shortage in the mines should be made up by the employment of ex-prisoners in this country, by the importation of displaced persons of suitable skill, and by the immigration of others who are neither displaced persons nor ex-prisoners of war, from a country like Italy, which needs coal but does not possess coal in its own soil. That would undoubtedly help our general position but, while I have frequently urged that displaced persons should be welcomed into this country, I have never pretended that if we took all the displaced persons in all the camps in Germany the net result would be an economic advantage to this country. If, however, the' are carefully selected, as having the special experience which we most need, we shall reap an economic advantage in addition to the humanitarian and political benefits. I have said that the phrase "shortage of manpower" is used to cover up three real troubles—distribution of manpower, poor output by those employed, and shortage or bad distribution of raw materials—
Mr. Dumpleton (St. Albans): Would the right hon. Member leave entirely out of account inefficiencies and lack of skill in management as another possibility?
Sir A. Salter: I did not say these were all the troubles from which the country was suffering. I said that the phrase "shortage of manpower" is commonly used to cover the troubles which really result from these three causes. I am not saying they are the whole cause of the trouble, but they are the three principal causes of our troubles at present. May I illustrate that from our basic coal industry? This is suffering from the first two of those three causes. By and large, there are indeed enough men in the coal industry to give us, if their output per man was as great as it was before the war, enough coal for our domestic and industrial needs at home.
Mr. Isaacs: With the present equipment, or with the same equipment as before the war?
Sir A. Salter: The present equipment which has been worn out, has been supplemented and improved by the new machinery of which the Parliamentary
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Secretary to the Ministry of Fuel and Power recently told us. With this aid, I should have thought that the output per man might be as great now as in the years immediately before the war. We should then have enough coal for our needs—not for export, but for our own industrial and domestic needs.
Mr. Kirkwood: Is the right hon. Member inferring that the miners are not working as hard as he would like them to work?
sir A. Salter: I do not propose to say anything in either praise or blame; I am limiting myself as far as I can to plain, statistical facts. There are many things, such as the age distribution and other factors, to be considered. But the actual number of men in the coal industry is almost the same as in the period immediately before the war, while we find that the output has gone down a very great deal. While, however, I think there would be enough men, with the full standard of output reached in the past, to meet our domestic needs, there are clearly not enough to meet the need for export. We also, therefore, require further men to be brought in, recruited as they are now being recruited, and supplemented by workers of other nationalities.
Mr. Kirkwood: The reason I put that question to the right hon. Member was because of the atmosphere he was creating. Workers outside are more intelligent than they used to be, and they resent that attitude. They are producing coal, and they resent men like the right hon. Gentleman who have never worked in a mine lecturing them, when they have done nothing but work for their lives.
Sir A. Salter: There are many who have never done manual work, but who have done work which is as hard, and has lasted as long through life, and is sometimes as beneficial to the country as the production of manual labour. But I am not now ascribing blame. My point is that in the case of the mines extra labour is needed, and in that sense there is a shortage of labour in the mines which needs to be supplemented by recruiting more miners, and I suggest recruiting them from different nationalities.
In building, again, we all know that the output per man is poor. We know

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it is partly due to a hangover from the psychology of times when there were recurrent periods of great unemployment in the industry. We also know that it is also partly due to the fact that there are frequent interruptions in the supply of raw materials. In this case I should say that of the three troubles-1 mentioned there is no shortage of manpower; there is indeed a surplus of labour in relation to the available materials; there is but a poor output. I will not now expatiate on the number of bricks laid per hour compared with America or Belgium, because the poor output is not solely due to that, but also to interruptions in the supply of raw materials.
I wish to make some brief comments as to possible remedies. In the first place, there is the question of incentives. Human nature being what it is, there is no class, although there are individuals in every class, who are likely to give of their utmost and continue to give of their utmost unless they have the incentives of both penalties and prizes. The general effect of present policy and the present situation is either to remove or to diminish both prizes and penalties. I do not say-that for the purpose of elaborating a platitude, but in order to make a positive suggestion. The extent to which an incentive can be supplied by individual piece-work rates is very limited. Many, or most, of the processes of industry do not permit of the application of that method. On the other hand, I do not think we shall get very far if we relate the general standard of wages in a big industry like coalmining or shipbuilding, or whatever it may be, to the total output of the industry. What is, I think, needed by the combined efforts of unions, managements and everyone concerned, is to increase bonus incentives in relation to small units of work. If there is a small factory of about 200 people, I think it is an extremely effective thing to get a basic wage for each class of skill, but to add a general bonus of so much per cent. if the total output of the factory increases. I wonder whether that could not be applied also to the coal industry, with the pit as the unit. I suggest that incentives related to small industries or small units in industry now offer the most useful avenue to explore.
I wish next to express the opinion that the Minister's task of getting a proper
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distribution of manpower will be increasingly impossible if the present inflationary movement continues. A great part of the world now suffers from a very serious inflation of a kind quite different from that which the world suffered after the first world war. At that time the impelling cause was usually a Budget deficit met by printing paper money. That is not the form of inflation from which we are suffering, or from which the greater part of the world is suffering, today. By and large, we have a nearly balanced Budget. I think the Chancellor was wrong in saying that we have a surplus Budget. But he might justly claim that, with the aid of the new revenue from the increase in the Tobacco Tax Duty, the Budget is not such as would itself cause inflation. But it does not correct the inflation which is resulting from an excess of expendable income over available commodities at existing prices.
So long as that situation continues, I think the Government will have an impossible task. Prices go up in one direction; they clamp on a control; the result is partly the creation of a black market, but still more the diversion of the excess purchasing power to another commodity, and so on indefinitely. The Government are always chasing a hare which twists and turns, and is never caught. The final result is bound to be that the less essential enterprise which is either uncontrolled or imperfectly controlled will be the most profitable and therefore the most attractive both to manpower and materials. I think the task of allocating by deliberate order and licence of materials will be increasingly costly impossible unless the Minister, by co-operation with the unions, can prevent this kind of inflationary spiral continuing.
Mr. Richard Adams: How can the right hon. Gentleman at one and the same time talk of increased incentives and increased taxation? Can he suggest a solution to the problem he has enunciated?
Sir A. Salter: It is too big a question to elaborate now. What I am suggesting is a wages policy. The unions need to realise that in present circumstances, with the excess of purchasing power over purchasable commodities, when they shorten hours of increase wages for a particular group of workers they are doing more harm to workers as a whole than the

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momentary benefit to the group directly affected. It would be a great advantage to union members as a whole if they would secure an increase in production which is sufficient to catch up with the increase in purchasing power before new purchasing power in created by successive wage increases.
Thirdly, whatever is done by the Government and by the workers in this direction, I do not think it is at all possible that we can balance our accounts before the existing loans run out. It is, I think, equally important that we should have some form of new loans or credits as the present loans run out, and that they should be used to a much greater extent than the present loans have been for productive as against consumption needs. I will not develop this point, because it is relevant both to the Debate of next Tuesday and also to the delicate Marshall negotiations. But if we are to look at our present problem in its proper perspective, we must realise that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have an impossible task within the framework of our present international balance of trade. Let hon. Members consider the directions in which the Chancellor told us a few days ago that he was contemplating dollar economies. I do not think that any responsible person will consider that from the three or four sources he then mentioned it is possible to secure dollar economies to the extent of as much as 10 per cent. of our dollar deficit this year. I say that in passing, as a matter which we can perhaps pursue more fully next Tuesday.
I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) that general appeals such as "Work or Want" are likely to do more harm than good. So far as there are appeals, whether by the Government or by others, they must be well-timed, specific and concrete. I cannot imagine anything likely to be much worse than a patriotic appeal which is responded by a group of workers, who then find, after a few weeks of specially hard work that they are on short time or out of work, because of causes completely outside their control, such as a shortage of raw materials. Obviously, the greatest and first emphasis should be put on such a basic necessity as coal. So far as sufficient coal is obtained to secure continuity of
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fuel supplies to other industries, the emphasis of the appeal and its direction can be changed. So again, as raw materials are assured for different industries. But a general appeal to a lot of people who are seriously threatened with unemployment through shortage of raw materials, either because they are short in the world or because we have not the dollars to buy them, may come back as a fearful boomerang a little later.
The trade unions now have a new task of equal importance to the vital task which they have pursued in the past. They have, hitherto, been engaged in securing better terms for their members in relation to the employers. But as the Lord President of the Council recently reminded the unions, candidly and courageously, there is no further progress at this moment along those lines that can really increase the standard of the workers. It is immensly more important, under present circumstances, that the dimensions of the cake to be distributed should be increased than that there should be some slight change in the shares of the existing, and it may be rapidly diminishing cake. If the trade unions, in cooperation with the Government and in consultation with each other, addressed themselves to that task, they could do more for the interests of their workers than in any other possible way.
I remember that just before the great depression between the two wars, one of the greatest economists and administrators in Central Europe said to me, "We are entering a period in which great and rapid adaptations to changing facts will be required in every country. You in England have the most elaborate and efficient economic organisation in the world, with your trade unions, your employers' federations and your industrial system. The existence of that organisation may make you, in the crisis with which the world is confronted, either the happiest or the most unhappy country. If it is used to anticipate, to forestall and correct the changes that are confronting all of us, you will be the happiest. If, on the other hand, it is used to block and delay the inevitable, you will be the un-happiest of countries."
This is the new challenge, the new constructive task for the trade unions. Can they, will they, devote themselves first to increasing production in every possible way?—not abandoning for ever, but post-

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poning till production has caught up with existing purchasing power, the piecemeal increases of particular wage rates. If they do that, they will be doing far more good for their union members than they can do in any other way, or than any other body of men, not excluding the Government, can do
7.18 p.m.
Mr. Awbery: I listened carefully and attentively to the opening speech for the Opposition made by the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe). He put his case in a very unimpassioned and reasoned way, but I would suggest that some of the arguments he used were fallacious, and if he had known the whole of the facts, he would, I think, have recognised that. I wish to take some of the arguments he has used and try to show that to him. I desire to face the problem as it faces us today. It is that we are not producing sufficient to fill the national larder, we are not paying our way. The workers in this country have for many years been in the position of not being able to pay their way. If one took a look at the pawnshops one would see that they were unable to do so. They were not able to produce. From 1920 to 1940 we were suffering from under-consumption. It now appears that we are suffering from under-production.
What is the cause of the position in which we find ourselves to day? The workers of this country are producing as much as they produced before the war if not more. We have a larger number of people in industry and they are producing more. However, we must face the position that we cannot balance our budget because we have lost our foreign investments, and our income from the carrying capacity of our ships, and our National Debt has increased from £7,000 million to £24,000 million upon which we must pay the interest. In addition, we have to make up seven years of leeway lost during the war years. Therefore, there must be a greater strain and effort to balance our accounts. We must export more to pay for the food which we must import. Otherwise, we must go without. Many people cannot understand why we export a larger variety of goods which we require today at home. The reason is that we want the food and we must send abroad things that we need in exchange for
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something which we require more urgently. We are living today partly on borrowed money and. as a Government, we are attempting to establish an equilibrium between production and consumption.
Who is to get us out of the dilemma? Who is to increase production so that we may meet our liabilities? It is not the rentier or the landlord who will help us out. It is not the people who produce nothing and get a fat living upon the production of other people. It is not even the people who invest their money. Savings are necessary and vital, but it is not the investment of money which will get us out of our difficulty. Who will do it? The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that it is the producer who will do it. He mentioned particularly the coalminer, and I agree with him. The miner, at least, has come into his own. Anyone who looks back upon the history of the mining industry and considers the treatment meted out to the miners, will understand the position. These men have never been treated in a proper manner, but now, judging from the speeches we have heard from hon. Members opposite, a real value is being placed upon the services of the miner. He is the only man who can get us out of this difficult position. The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke of the vital importance of the miner. He said coal is more important to this country today than dollars and that in the mining industry we need 910,000 men instead of the 710,000 we have at the moment. The production of this increased number of men would save the day. We must look to them. I am glad that the miners are being placed in an important position in the industrial world.
During their period of office, the Government have been trying to treat the men in this vital industry as human beings instead of cogs in a great industrial machine. After the last war these men did not count. Two hundred and fifty thousand of the men who produced this vital commodity were walking the streets unemployed and starving. Their wives and children had pinched faces. I am glad that now we are placing a true value upon these men. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also mentioned the reduction from a six-day week to a five-day week. He inferred that he would go back to the five-and-a-half-day week and would

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increase the hours of work. That was what was done after the last war. The hours of the miner were increased and his wages reduced, causing chaos throughout the industry. The inference to be drawn from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech is that if his party were in power today, they would revert to that policy and increase the number of working hours for the miner.
If we cannot produce the same quantity in five days as we could produce in six, then we must return to the six day week. But if the miners produce in five days what previously they produced in six, the Opposition immediately would say, "There you are; the miners of this country have not been pulling their weight in this industry." The right hon. and learned Gentleman then talked about the dockers and their industry—
Mr. William Shepherd: The hon. Member appears to have left the coal situation. Assuming, as I hope he does, that we cannot do without increased production, what is his proposal for increasing production if we are left with a five-day week?
Mr. Awbery: If the hon. Member will allow me to pursue my argument, I will come to that point. I did not want to take up too much time. I wish to deal with some of the points made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman on behalf of the Opposition. He dealt with the docker. If he had been more conversant with the conditions in the dock industry, I do not think he would have advanced the argument which he used. He said that production was being held up because men would not go from ship to ship. Production is not held up. It is true that men will not go from ship to ship when they have their mates standing on the stones waiting for employment. I have dealt with these men. Whenever I have found a ship requiring men and there was no labour available, the men have transferred from ship to ship; but they would not do that when there were idle men on the stones waiting to do a job. The question was also raised of a man not going from one job which is incomplete to start another. The same principle applies. A man will not leave a job half finished to go to another while his mates are on the stones.
Mr. Maclay: May I interrupt the hon. Member, because I hope to say something about this later? I think he is confusing the right hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks about what is happening at this minute with what happened before the war, when a different set of conditions prevailed.
Mr. Awbery: I am trying to discuss the position as it appears now, and not as it was ten years ago. If the hon. Member wishes me to relate the position as it was ten years ago, I can do that. The men in the dock industry have been struggling desperately for 50 years against the Tory Party and the employers to establish these conditions. They will not give away lightly the conditions which they have established after such a long struggle. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has forgotten the casual character of this job. I am pleased that at last casual labour on the dockside has been abolished. We did not receive the wholehearted support of the Opposition when the Decasualisation of Dock Labour Bill was before the House. They opposed it. Now let me raise the question of mechanical appliances—
Mr. Maclay Mr. Maclay rose—
The Chairman: I hope hon. Members will not interrupt unnecessarily, because there are a very large number of hon. Members who wish to speak, and, if there are many interruptions, it makes it impossible to call all those who would like to be called.
Mr. Awbery: I will be as brief as I can, but these questions are vital to the industry. Mechanical appliances have been mentioned. It is true that, when mechanical appliances were introduced, there was a need to negotiate a rate for operating these appliances, but while the negotiations were proceeding the work went on. I suggest to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that ships are turned round, as far as labour is concerned, much more quickly today than ever before. The right hon. and learned Gentleman also raised a point about piece-work and he knows very well that the majority of the men working on our boats have the incentive of piece-work, and they work hard because they can earn the money. The more work they do, the more pay they get.
I believe that this question of payment by results and its effect on production

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is being made into a bogy by the Opposition, because the trade union movement has no objection to payment by results, where it is practicable and possible. Since 1889, we have had piece-work and payment by results in the dock industry, and how can the trade union movement be said to oppose this, when it has been in operation for the past 50 years? Every speech delivered during the past 12 months by responsible leaders of the trade union movement has appealed to the workers for increased production, and the only people who can get the workers of this country to produce more are the trade union leaders, in whom they have the greatest confidence.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman also asked what was our remedy. I want to make two or three suggestions which might help the position. One Opposition Member suggested that there ought to be a truce in industry for five years. I have vivid recollections of the strikes between the wars, when we were pleading with Ministers in this House to help us. We asked for help and understanding, but we did not get either. Now that the trade union movement has reached the position of power which it holds today, now that the battle has been won, Opposition speakers say, "Let us have a truce so that we can set about the thing properly." What is the remedy? First, we have to remove from the minds of the workers the grave suspicions which they have felt for a considerable number of years. Many employers have a bad past to live down, and the workers in industry cannot forget it. I suggest that there should be in all industries joint consultation from the lowest level right to the top, and that these consultative committees should be given power not only of consultation but of rectifying faults. I believe that would be a step in the right direction. The next step is that the men must be treated as human beings and as co-partners in the real sense of the word. These men are indispensable, and they have been recognised as indispensable in this Debate. Why not, then, recognise them in the industrial world as co-partners?
I have been associated with the workers for a long time, and have been trying to find out what was in their minds, and this is what they tell me: the men who work the least and produce the least are
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paid the best and housed the best. We have got to do something about that. We have to do something about the control of profits in industry, because that is a matter which is agitating the minds of the workers. Then, there is the problem of propaganda. The only people who can carry on successful propaganda among the producers of this country are the people in the organisations which possess their confidence, and they are the great trade unions. They are doing that job now, and they are prepared to co-operate wholeheartedly to get the increased production that we require. One last word about a poster which has been referred to in this Debate —"We Work or Want." Some hon. Members have objected to it, and some have agreed with it, but I would say that I would very much prefer to see that poster on our hoardings than the one which I saw between the wars—"We Want Work."
7.37 p.m.
Mr. Marples: I will not follow the argument of the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery), because, to be quite honest, this Debate has not produced the recriminations which I expected it would, and it is probably better for both sides of the Committee not to attempt to follow his line but to face the future and the real facts of the situation. It is in that spirit that I will attempt to follow some of the earlier speakers. Productivity in the building trade, with which I am going to deal, because I am an employer in the building industry, depends to a large extent on many more factors than that of labour. It depends upon management to a very large extent, and, if I concentrate tonight on labour, it must not be thought that I am quite content with management as it is today, because, in my opinion, the building industry is one of the worst-managed industries in the country. There are a number of suggestions which I could make on the management side and if I do not make them tonight, it must be understood that it is because it is not an appropriate time. But it might be mentioned that in my own firm, we took one of the leading Communists and made him the assistant personnel manager. I am sorry that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) is not in his place to hear this, for the first thing that happened after the

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appointment was that a broadsheet was sent out from some remote district called Tooting stating that "Comrade So-and-So had gone over to the enemy." Still, it was an effort to do good.
Assuming that the psychological atmosphere of industry is right, it seems to me that there are only two real methods of obtaining increased production from the men. The first one is the play of economic forces, which we can either regulate or leave unregulated, as has been largely the case in the past. The other is compulsion in a police State. I do not think that we can have the latter or that anyone wants it. But the Socialist Government do not quite realise that only these two methods increase production. The Prime Minister, in a speech over the week-end, said that he has removed the incentive of fear and that he is removing the incentive of profit. It is no use the Government exhorting the people to work harder and thinking that something else will replace economic forces, because it will not. It is just no use relying on appeals for people to work for the community
It was not my intention to speak on payment by results but in view of what has already been said I would ask for the indulgence of the Committee, to repeat what I said the other night in the Adjournment Debate about accurate tests which have been carried out. Men were timed at work on ordinary rates and on piecework rates. It was on nine-inch brickwork. There are all kinds of brickwork, four-and-a-half-inch, nine-inch, sometimes left rough, sometimes pointed on one side, or on both. People talk about bricklaying quite light-heartedly. It is not realised there are many types. This particular test was carried out with nine-inch brickwork left rough both sides. On time rates the men were paid the 23. y—d. per hour; and on the piecework rate by making bricklayers subcontractors—they were paid so much a rod for their work. The result was that the men on piecework received two-and-a-half times their normal wage, and we were glad to give it to them because we were getting three times the productivity. During the war the Ministry of Works had a bonus target on nine-inch brickwork, which was 50 bricks per hour. The men I am referring to, when timed on ordinary rates, laid 66— bricks an
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hour, and, on piecework, 103— an hour. If anything, the experiment was in favour of the men working on time rates, because they used "Dun brick" which are made of concrete, are heavy and more difficult to lay. It worked out that three men on time rates were required to produce the same output as two men on piecework—
Mr. Sparks: That is assuming that the bricks were there to be laid. Supposing there had been an interruption in the supply.
Mr. Marples: The hon. Member will find in HANSARD that in February the Minister of Labour said he was satisfied that the flow of materials into the industry would be such that labour would be properly fed by materials. The production is better now than it was in February. On 28th January last, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Eccles), asked the Minister of Labour whether:
"…in view of the prospective supply of building materials, the building trade is being overmanned."
The right hon. Gentleman replied:
"No, Sir. I can assure the House that the whole scheme has been planned so that we shall not train men and find them waiting about because materials are not available. In that connection, we are making arrangements with the Ministry of Supply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January, 1947; Vol. 432, c. 749–50]
It will be seen that the point which the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) has made is irrelevant. It is a 'red herring."
Mr. Sparks: In the case I had in mind the production of a big building scheme was interrupted, first by the lack of bricks, then of cement, and then by lack of other materials. The hon. Member cannot attribute blame to the Government for that. It was due to a general shortage.
Mr. Marples: It was apparently due to faulty distribution, and that matter lies in the hands of the Ministry of Works, under the W.B.A. priority scheme, which he controls. The hon. Member should address his remarks to the Minister of Works. Another point about piecework and payment by results is that there is a distinct difference between the two, particularly in the building trade. When a man is paid on piecework his earnings are dependent entirely on his output. If he lays no bricks he gets nothing; if he lays

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50 bricks he gets a certain wage, and if he lays 100 bricks he gets twice as much. But under the payments-by-results method that is not so. He receives a basic wage based on attendance and, in addition, receives an output bonus for all output above a given target. To some extent that meets some of the objections which trade unions have raised against the piecework system in connection with bricklaying. If Members opposite say that the trades unions do not oppose this, I would remind them of Rule No. 12 of the General Rules of the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives, which categorically states:
"Piecework: The plain time rate method of payment constitutes a vital and first established principle of the Federation, and the branch is the guardian of that principle. Should piecework, or any other deviation from plain time rates operate, the Federation branch should write to affiliated branches with a view to the immediate withdrawal of labour for the enforcement of the planned time rates, and,' further, write to the regional secretary asking him to give his attention to the matter."
Since that rule has been passed trade unionists have expressed unalterable hostility to any system of payment by results.
Mr. House (St. Pancras, North): Did the hon. Gentleman ever work as a bricklayer during the trade depression?
Mr. Marples: No. I did not. If the hon. Gentleman will look at me he will realise that I am too young to have done that. But I would remind him that payment by results or piecework has been in force in the decorating and plastering trade for years. It has been a vital principle of building for many years, but it ought to be applied to other branches of building.
I would ask hon. Members opposite this question: if the men want to adopt piecework voluntarily why should the Government stop them? They want to do it, and if they are allowed to do it they will give us the output we want. My own experience has confirmed the experience of Lord Quibell. The output of his men was raised from 250 bricks a day, overall, to about 750, and the men's wages were doubled. I see no reason why the Government should not take a positive attitude about payment by results. They should give some kind of lead. But the Minister of Labour has adopted a negative attitude on this
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matter. It reminds me of a story of men who were watching a Lancashire v- Yorkshire cricket match. After watching the grim struggle for about 20 minutes they saw a batsman make a beautiful late cut to the boundary. One of the men clapped heartily. He was asked, "Are you from Lancashire?" and he said, "No." Then he was asked, "Are you from Yorkshire?" and he said "No," whereupon his questioner said, "Then mind your own bloody business" [HON. MEMBERS: "Order"]. I am sorry, Major Milner, that I used that word; it slipped out. The point I was trying to make is that that is something like the attitude of the Minister of Labour. He says, "Are you a member of the trade union?" or, "Are you a member of the Employers' Federation?" He receives "No" for an answer in both cases and then says, "Mind your own business; you are only living in the house and paying for it." Is it not time that the right hon. Gentleman took a more positive step about this question of payment by results. Why not rescind the regulation which prevents them from working by this method?
Now another point affecting wages in the building industry. There is too small a gap between the wages received by skilled and unskilled labour, and this has been increasing through the years. I have some figures here from the London and Cambridge Economic Survey, Special Memorandum No. 50. It states that in 1914, the labourer received 69½ per cent. of the wages paid to a skilled man, that in 1924 he received 75 per cent., and in 1946, 80 per cent. The proportion of wages received by the labourer compared with that received by the skilled man is becoming greater. When it is considered that the extra 20 per cent. received by the skilled man is subject to tax at the highest rate, it must be conceded that the skilled man is not getting enough compared with that received by the unskilled man. The disparity is increasing.
What is happening today is that labourers will not work on Fridays because they pay tax. While the skilled men stay on the job, the labourers go round the corner and do odd jobs for money on which they do not pay tax. I know that is true because, recently, I wanted an odd job done, and put an advertisement in a

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stationer's shop asking for someone to clean a car. I received quite a number of applications from labourers in the building trade. Indeed, there were men from my own firm coming to me and saying, "I will do it for 10s. if you do not deduct any tax." This is all quite wrong, because it means that a labourer who is doing that sort of thing is getting more money than the skilled man. No hon. Member opposite, I am sure, would like to see that happen.
Another point in connection with the cash the man receives on the site is that we have to pay more attention to his wife getting the money. I will give my reasons for saying that. We recently started a reasonably well-equipped canteen on a site where 200 men were engaged. But less than 40 of that number availed themselves of the hot meal service which the canteen offered. What really happened was that their wives said to them, "You are not having any money out of our housekeeping money." Wives are the most powerful trade union in the world, and they are not parting with one penny to which they consider they are due. Besides, they think that they know their husband's digestion better than anyone else.
If the Minister of Labour is going to reply—I see that he has now been joined by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Works—will he kindly answer the following question in regard to building materials? Will he say that both he and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Works are satisfied that the flow of materials to the industry will be sufficient to keep the labour force that can be used, employed to the utmost capacity? Remember that if payment by results is introduced, output will increase. It is an important question, not so much from the point of view of the production of materials, as from that of distribution. I believe that the point which the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) made when interrupting earlier, was mote concerned about distribution than about production. To a large extent, distribution depends upon the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Works. Personally, I am not satisfied that his system of distribution has always worked as well as it might.
Take the temporary housing programme, for example. In one place, we
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erected more than 2,000 temporary houses. We were promised the whole house complete. I listened in this House to a magnificent account of what would happen. We were told that 2,000 houses would be delivered complete on the various sites; but not one of them arrived complete. When we were short of materials, we contacted the Ministry of Works, who said that if we had our plumbers there on the Monday they would send us the materials. We had the plumbers and the labourers there on the Monday, but the materials did not arrive until 4.45 the following Wednesday afternoon. The men said, "We don't appreciate this; we are going home," or at any rate words to that effect. In such cases, the men go home, the material is not unloaded and goes back. That sort of distribution adds considerably to the cost of building. It is a vital point. I know that the Minister's reply is likely to be that he has a committee considering the matter. But that committee started too late and is taking too long to make its report. If it is going to make long-term recommendations it will, of course, take a long time, but for a short-term emergency, it would be advisable for the Minister to get a better scheme of distribution if he possibly can, and get it quickly.
Before I sit down, I want to touch on one further point—namely, the attitude of mind of most of the men. The hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) made a most passionate appeal on this question and I should have been delighted if I had heard her make such a speech in the period between the two wars. Now I have talked to quite a large number of men on different sites, and, quite frankly, their attitude of mind and their knowledge about our everyday economic affairs for the country as a whole, are simply appalling. On this occasion I am not blaming hon. Gentleman opposite or the men themselves for that; all that I say is that it literally appals me. On going round the sites last week, I was met again with the old argument, "We want an increase in wages. We want it because if the country could spend £12 million a day during the war, it can do it now." When I try to point out the difficulties, they do not believe me. They do not believe the posters. I am saying to the right hon. Gentleman in all serious-

1597
ness that the condition of mind of people in the building trade is such that exhortations and posters will not do anything. Even if the exhortations are more eloquent and the poster more attractive, it will not make any difference. I wish it would, but it will not.
I think that hon. Gentlemen opposite must take some of the blame for that state of affairs. That is not said in any vindictive spirit, because we have all got to pull together if we are to survive economically. We have got into this position through certain facts known to them. There is a book which was written by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Food in which he says that everything we produce goes to the employers and not to the men or words to that effect. All I have to say is that, having told the men not to produce more for the past 25 years, the Government and all Socialists cannot turn round and expect them to reverse their attitude within two years. It is people like the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Food who are responsible for that state of mind. Frankly, I did not want to say that this evening, but that is a fact. Now if they are going to use the same methods to get these false ideas out of the people's minds, then it is going to take another 25 years to do it. If the hon. Member for Cannock had made the speech which she made today in the years between the two wars, there would not be the class hatred that exists at the present time. I am afraid that none of these remedies about which we are talking today will take effect until such time as the men's minds are attuned to receive them, and it is with sadness that I say that only events will supply that Corrective.
7.59 p.m.
Mr. Williamson: The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) addressed his remarks mainly to the building trade. He suggested there ought to be more incentive in that trade, and that the members of the unions were opposing payment by result. He said that he knew a great deal about the building industry. If the system of payment by results were operated now, and even if it did substantially increase output at first, a shortage of materials would immediately arise which would lead to unemployment. The Minister has already explained, as was pointed out by the hon. Member when quoting an answer to a
1598
Question in the House, that the industry is manned in relation to the supply of materials. It is no use saying that we must face the future unless we are going to analyse some of the reasons for the alleged lack of enthusiasm on the part of certain workers. For example, there is grave dissatisfaction that the employers in the building trade have conceded to the workers a guaranteed week of 32 hours only. In winter and inclement weather there is no guarantee to the workers of more than 32 hours' wages in a week. It is true there can be no justification for slacking in any industry, but that applies equally to other sections besides the workers. I have not heard any hon. Members opposite speak of the necessity for greater production on the part of the whole community. The worker is quite intelligent and he reads and observes. The hon. Member for Wallasey spoke of the lack of knowledge of economics on the part of the building trade workers to whom he had spoken. Those who are in touch with the workers know that today they are taking note of economic conditions in this country to a greater extent than hitherto.
What do we mean by "payment by results"? Do we mean piecework bonuses, individual bonuses or pooled bonuses? Piecework or other bonus systems are now in operation in almost every industry in the country where they can be applied. There are many industries where piecework cannot be introduced. For instance there is transport. We must have something else besides piecework in industry. I suggest that the incentives might not be in the form of wages at all, but conditions. The first essential is that the workers should know that they are getting a fair deal and a fair share of the production. Will any hon. Gentleman opposite say that the workers are getting their fair share at present? They are entitled to a share equal to those who have invested capital. If we are to get full production, and to get the last ounce of effort out of the workers, we must concede to them the right of representation on boards of management. If they give of their best they have a right to be consulted on policy, prices and profits. Many workers will say, "If we produce more than we are producing now, what guarantee is there that we will get our fair share or that the increased production will go into

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the common pool? "They are now reading the" Financial Times "and" The Times, "and day after day they read of profits which are indecent at the present time. These are matters which must have attention. We on this side of the Committee, and the trade unions, will press that the working people today must have their place on boards of management. They must have representation. Until that is conceded, there will be some sections of British industry which will not co-operate.
Reference has been made to distribution of manpower. It would be a fine thing if we had the right workpeople in the right places all the time, but owing to the chaotic developments in industry between the war years, labour today is to some extent in the wrong places I am informed that at present about 60,000 people are unemployed in one of the North-East Coast towns. Why cannot they be engaged in industry? There is a shortage of labour in other places. One hears talk of the possibility of introducing foreign labour. I could not follow the logic of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) who said that there is no shortage of labour in the country, and then proceeded to say that we ought to import foreign labour to the mines. Until we get houses and mobility of labour, there will be shortages and unemployment in certain industries. In the meantime, it is quite clear that direction of labour, as we understand it, has been discarded and hon. Members opposite declare that they are not in favour of such a policy. In what I might call the distasteful industries, such as mines, foundries and brickworks, labour must be attracted not only by wages but by the conditions in those industries. It is not to our credit that we should have to employ foreign labour in the coalmines and in gasworks—Italians, Poles, Germans and other foreign labour. The employers, in consultation with the trades unions, must make the conditions in those industries sufficiently attractive to induce not only adults but young people to enter those industries.
Reference has been made to co-partnership. In some industries today co-partnership is in operation. But there is no evidence that co-partnership has
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itself improved production. We must get the confidence of the workers. We must instil in their minds that they are part and parcel of industry, that they have some say in the direction of industry and that they are getting their fair share out of what is produced. If that is done, I am satisfied that we will obtain the maximum production possible, Substantially, the British worker is sound, although I do not deny that there may be some slackers. It is no use having a spurt, by means of increased hours and extra effort, which might last for a short time, followed by a lag. It would be far better to have a sustained effort. That would bring greater I reduction. For that, we must have greater confidence among the workpeople.
One hon. Member suggested that the trade unions should damp down for five years their requests for improvements in wages, hours and conditions, and that if the unions did that there would be greater production. In my view, it is true, and cannot be denied, that the trade unionists in the various industries have acted with restraint in the past few years. It is 50 years ago since the 48-hour week was conceded in some industries in this country, and now 50 years afterwards, we have reduced hours to 44; and yet, at this moment, the workers are being asked to forego this hard-won concession. These hours ought to have been reduced long ago. The workers believe that, from the employers' point of view, the time is never right to reduce hours. That is why I say we must get the confidence of the workers, and rid their minds of many of the suspicions they have now. If we can do that, we shall get that greater production that will bring the nation out of its economic difficulties.
8.11 p.m.
Mr. Maclay: I know that the hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Williamson) will forgive me if, in the interests of brevity, I do not follow him in detail, but come straight to the main points to which I am anxious to draw attention in the very short time. to which I am going to try to restrict myself. I should like, first, to put right a possible misunderstanding that may arise out of the speech of the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery), who has gone out understandably requiring some sustenance. In the course of his speech, when he was

1601
talking about the scheme for the de-casualisation of dock labour, he said that hon. Members on this side voted against the original Bill that was brought in, under which the Order now being produced is made. I sought to interrupt him to correct him, but on appeal from the Chair I desisted. I should like now to correct any misunderstanding there may be about this. On the Second Reading of that Bill, which took place in November, 1945, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) said:
"We, on this side of the House, would not disagree at all with the objects for which this Bill has been drafted."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th November, 1945; Vol. 415, c. 1763.]
The Second Reading had the full support of this side. I want to put that on record so that misunderstanding should not arise. I have not had time to turn up the Debate on the Third Reading, when there was, I think, disagreement on some points of detail; but I do not think this side voted against it, and I certainly did not vote against it myself. This statement is rather necessary for the record, and it does bear on what I am going to talk about.
If, in the course of my remarks, I go into a certain amount of detail and supply facts—what I believe to be facts— I hope the Committee will forgive me, after the Debate has gone into some interesting generalisations and psychological approaches; but I want to deal with some hard and ugly facts which we are up against. One fact is that port delays to shipping throughout the world are appalling. I should like, in justification of that remark, to quote a resolution passed very recently by a meeting of representatives of trade, industry and commerce, of, I think, 22 nations at Montreux—by a meeting of the International Chambers of Commerce. They went on record as saying that they wished to draw attention to the delays to shipping of all flags at many ports throughout the world in regard to the berthing, discharging and loading of ships. They went into a little detail, and added that they recognised that
"these delays are due to a number of factors arising out of the disturbed conditions of the postwar transitional period;"
but they emphasised the fact that these delays constitute a waste of tonnage, already in short supply, with conse-
1602
quential increases in cost of transport, and impediments to the expansion of world trade. That is the general aspect of this port delay problem over the whole world. I submit that, from the point of view of the United Kingdom, the whole question is even more important, and is certainly one which comes within the terms of reference of this Debate.
Possibly the Committee will realise how serious the position is for our depleted fleet of merchant ships after the war when I say that it has been fairly accurately estimated that on an average the turn-round of ships today—that is, leaving a home port, going abroad, doing the job, and getting back—is taking at least 20 per cent. longer than it did before the war. I do not suggest for one moment that the British home ports are the only ones where delay takes place. In point of fact, the position is very serious in North America, and even more serious in South America. The congress to which I have just referred has been doing its best, through the various means at its disposal, to draw this matter to the attention of Governments, employers, workers and trade union leaders in all countries where it has any connection or influence at all, because that congress believes that the slow-down in the turn-round of shipping throughout the world is having as serious an effect as anything else in dealing with the problem of recovery, particularly in the sterling area, where there is still an acute shortage of shipping.
Let me turn to the United Kingdom. The position here is not too good. I can illustrate that by saying that in one particular port, which is a very important port in this country, it was carefully estimated that the average cargo ship was in port in 1946 almost one-third longer in time than in the immediately prewar period. That obviously leads one to try to analyse the factors which delay a ship in port. I will not elaborate any of these factors, because I want to be as quick as I can. Clearly, these factors include major repair jobs. Minor repairs are not a cause of delay, because they can be effected concurrently with the loading and discharging. But the major repairs are a serious cause of delay, partly through shortages of material, and partly through the other difficulty which we have heard discussed during this Debate.

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There is a tremendous need for men to be encouraged in every possible way to give of their best in order to turn these ships round as quickly as possible. I do not attempt to lay the blame on anybody. I believe that if the employers will devise means, particularly in the ship repairing industry, to encourage men and to give them the best possible conditions, the men will respond, and somehow or other we will get that side of the job improved. But the men must respond.
Another factor which enters into the problem is the availability of cargo for loading, but I will not go into that. Another is the removal of cargo from the docks, involving the whole of the transport system. which is affected by it; and one hopes something can be done there. But, by and large, the period of time which the ship lies in port is due mainly to the problem of loading and discharging, although the other factors are very important. I do not want to be accused of blaming the dockers, the stevedores, the employers, or anybody particularly for the whole thing, but there is no shadow of doubt but that the responsibility of the dock workers is a very big one, and if they can do anything to improve the speed at which their part of the work is done, that will be of tremendous importance, I should like to give one or two figures to show how serious this problem is for this country. In 1911 the United Kingdom owned 41.4 per cent. of the world tonnage; in 1938 the United Kingdom owned 26.2 per cent. of the world tonnage; and today, 1946, when we are just trying to recover from the war, we are down to 18.1 per cent. of the world tonnage. It is absolutely imperative that we get the last ounce of work out of every ship we have left.
I pass to a more striking statement, and I hope the Minister will refer it to his statisticians, although it may be more a job for the Minister of Transport. When I tell the Committee what can be done by saving one day in loading and one day in discharging a ship in British ports, hon. Members will realise how important it is to solve the problem which I will put to the Minister of Labour. In 1946 there were over 12,000 entrances of British ships to British ports. That, as most people know, means that they came in to discharge cargoes. In that period there were
1604
about 13,000 clearances, which means ships going out with cargo
A fairly simple calculation will show that if one day had been saved in unloading and one day in loading these ships, we should have saved the equivalent of 70 British ships working for a full year. A saving of one day at each end would gain us 70 ships, which today would cost us possibly £21 million to build, and these could carry 1¼ million tons of extra import or export cargoes. We can carry that further than our own incoming and outgoing trade. After our ships have fulfilled our own requirements, they can be released to earn us valuable hard currency, but this they cannot do until there is some improvement in the turn-round. I am glad that the Minister is here, because I wish to emphasise that if some simple facts like these could be made available to employers, merchants, trade union leaders and men—that one day's saving in loading and one day's saving in discharge could give this country an extra 70 ships—it would give us results.
Dr. Stephen Taylor: Before leaving these interesting facts, can the hon. Member explain how 1,700 more ships came out of the ports than went in?
Mr. Maclay: I can assure the hon. Member that it is a proper statement; it would, I think, be a waste of time to try to explain it. It has been prepared by statisticians from available Government statistics. It is a question of entry and clearances. The hon. Member for Central Bristol remarked that we were reaching the point of complete decasualisation of dock labour. I think it is reasonable to point out what this means. There was no responsible person before the war who liked the position in the docks. The volume of overseas trade inevitably fluctuates. Destinations, particularly of tramp ships, vary. Then there is the weather factor, which often holds up a number of ships, and then, when the weather improves, it means that they all come piling into port. The position in regard to dock workers before the war was very difficult indeed. In one week there might be full employment, while in the next week there might be no work to do. Not one responsible person could say that that was a good situation. It must be confessed

1605
freely that the solution has evaded us for a long time, but, with the coming of the war the problem had to be tackled. A system was worked out, during the war, and it worked pretty well. Since the war, efforts began to be made by employers and trade unions to carry into peacetime the system which had-proved satisfactory during the war, and to improve on it. One does not want to go into the history of the matter, but the long and the short of it has been that with the ultimate help of the Minister—whether he liked it or not he found he had to help— a scheme has been produced, which is now lying on the Table of the House of Commons. Unless something happens to that scheme, it will become law at the beginning of the month.
When that scheme comes into operation, the really bad features of prewar work in the docks will disappear. I know the Minister will not think it a waste of time to mention briefly what are its features. The essential part of the scheme is that the worker becomes registered as a dock worker, and from that moment he is assured of a constant livelihood, provided he is reasonably behaved, and subject to certain minimum requirements, which largely boil down to reporting for work. If he reports twice daily for work and there is no work available for him, and if he does that every day in the week and there is no work, he gets a minimum wage of £48s.
That is security of work. It is a vast change from the old system, and an extremely welcome one. From that figure, however, it will be realised that this scheme can prove extremely costly. The cost falls directly on the employer, and the employer will pay his share of the cost by an adjustable levy; but indirectly that cost, which may be a heavy one under certain conditions, must fall squarely on to the overseas trade of this country, whether it is imports of essential raw materials and foodstuffs or exports. Even then, this extra cost will be worth while, and may be more than balanced by the corresponding advantages provided there is a parallel improvement in working arrangements.
The right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) touched on restrictive practices in the docks. We all know that they exist; I do not think that any one of us would deny that there are these things. I would
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not myself suggest that it was a very terrible thing before the war, when the system of casual labour existed. It was perfectly understandable though not admirable that such practices grew up. But in June, 1947, we are faced with shortage of ships, an adverse balance of trade and shortage of dollars; and the old bad conditions are gone in this industry, and I hope, therefore, that these old restrictive practices will go. If this position, which I have tried to make clear with some illustrations, is put fairly and squarely to the men, I believe that they will, in a short time, be prepared to rally round and do their best to get the ships moving. I hope that the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister of Transport, the employers, and others, will find some means, dramatic if necessary, of putting forward facts such as that one day saved in the loading and discharging of cargo will give 70 extra ships. I hope that the Minister will give that consideration, and see what can be done.
8.27 p.m.
Mr. Baird: Many hon. Members opposite have emphasised that the main problem today is increased production per man-hour. I agree that is a most important problem, but I also think that the problem of making the best possible use of the labour available, and the mobilisation of all the able-bodied labour of the country, is just as important. I believe that the Government have not faced, as they might have done, this problem of the direction of labour into the right channels, and the mobilisation of labour. Today I paid a visit to Woolworths. There I saw counters laden with luxury goods and trinkets of all kinds which must have involved many men's labour for many days; and this labour could be used in a more productive way. The other day, I was in a Lyons Corner House, and two able-bodied young men, obviously ex-Service men, were wheeling around a trolley on which they were packing dirty dishes to take into the kitchen. On the other side of the social scale we get pictures in the "Tatler" of various friends of hon. Gentlemen opposite visiting Ascot and other places, and we read about ladies and gentlemen going to the Riviera and spending hundreds and thousands of pounds on holidays. [Interruption.] The problem is not the wastage of labour of the wealthy people

1607
who go to Ascot, but the wastage of the labour which they employ.
How are we to mobilise labour and direct it to the proper channels? One of my hon. Friends has said that the best incentive is to improve conditions in the industries into which we wish to attract labour. I agree, but that is a rather long-term policy and I think something could be done in the immediate future in another way. With regard to the able-bodied labour which is not suitably employed at present, it has been suggested that we should withdraw the right of such people to a ration card. That may not be a practical possibility, and even if it were —and I do not believe that the effect on the labour problem would be very great—the psychological effect on the workers would be very great indeed. However, the point I want to make is that I believe that we can do something to attract labour which is at present employed in less essential industries into other industries where it is most required by a more rigid control over the distribution of raw materials.
It was some 12 months ago that the Emergency Powers Act was withdrawn and many of the controls over raw materials, in particular metals, then lapsed entirely. The effect of this is that metals and raw materials of all kinds are now flowing into luxury industries and industries where they are not really required for the better economy of the country, and other industries which are engaged in building up our export trade are deprived of the materials which they should have. As the Committee knows, I am interested personally in the dental profession and, during the war, as the result of markets being cut off, we built up in this country a large dental manufacturing industry. Today, the whole world is asking us to supply dental chairs, X-ray machines and the like. The amount of raw materials such as steel and copper which is used in producing this dental equipment is very small compared with the export value in dollars of the goods themselves. We sent a deputation to the Ministry of Supply, who agreed that it would be a good thing if we could obtain an increased allocation of copper and castings, so that the factory concerned, which is now working only 34 hours a week could increase its output We were told that while the Ministry of Supply
1608
can advise or request a firm to supply the material to this most necessary industry, they cannot force them to do so.
The same thing happens with regard to lead. At the present time lead is in short supply for housing, but after the Emergency Powers Act lapsed the Government control over lead also disappeared, and I believe that the metal is now being allocated by the lead industry itself on the basis of prewar consumption. It is being sent today to various small firms in the Midlands and is being used for the manufacture of toy soldiers when we need it for housing. Then there is the question of glass, for which the raw material required is sand, which is in bountiful supply. Glass is controlled by two firms. In Scotland we have an unemployment problem and many thousands of people are without work, and I believe that some time ago the glass industry was approached with a view to setting up a Subsidiary factory in Scotland where the raw material was plentiful and the labour was plentiful, but because of the restrictive practices in the industry this was not done.
Mr. William Shepherd: Surely, the hon. Member should be aware that the main reason why glass production is not what it should be is, first, because of fuel difficulties and, secondly, because the necessary alkali is not obtainable?
Mr. Baird: My information is that it is not so.
Mr. W. Shepherd: Then the hon. Member has got it wrong.
Mr. Baird: The point I want to make is that if the Government give a lead and take more powers instead of reducing powers to control industry, the people in industry will respond to the lead. Before I sit down I should like to say that obviously the trade union movement at the present time is in a transition stage. Reference was made from the other side of the Committee to a book written by the Minister of Food in which he advised the workers that the more they worked the more profit there would be for the "bosses" and suggesting that they should not work so hard. I agree that it was so, and that what the Minister of Food said was right. In the past, the harder the worker worked, the more profit went to the employer, and that is still so to a certain extent.

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We on this side of the Committee must look forward, now that we are in power and likely to remain in power for a long time. [Laughter.] I do not think any other Government has had a history like ours for the two years we have been in power. We have gone to the country in by-election after by-election and we have not lost a single seat. As I was about to say before I was interrupted, if the Government gave a resolute lead the people would follow. In the past, the more the workers worked the greater the profit for the employer, but already in two years, as a result of the activities of a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, the position has altered. While the employer is making the profits, as a result of our fiscal policy, a certain proportion of the profits are taken back and go to the workers in increased social services. In that way an incentive is created, and I hope in the future that the incentive will be greater. Let me appeal to the Minister of Labour to approach his right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply to see if something could not be done to take back some of the powers which we rescinded 12 months ago, so that we can direct raw materials, which are the lifeblood of the community, into the industries where they are required. If that is done something at least will be attempted to get labour into the industries where it is most needed.
8.38 p.m.
Mr. William Shepherd: I have listened to a great number of speeches this afternoon from hon. Gentlemen opposite and I could not help thinking what a lot of reformed characters they were. There is one exception to that, the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Baird). There is on the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour. Who would have imagined 20 years ago, when he was one of the arch villains of the General Strike, that he would be an opponent of it today? Today he sits there benevolent, benign, if at times bemused. We can say of him at any rate, that whatever wrongs he may have done in the past, he has been very properly punished by being made Minister of Labour in a Socialist Government.
Many comments have been made today on the need for a new spirit. I am convinced that there is no purely industrial or economic solution to our problems.
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The need for a new spirit is most urgent, and unless we can get a change in our economic conditions or a charge of heart, there is no way out of the morass in which we are going to find ourselves. Many people have emphasised the necessity of emulating American standards of production. It is extraordinarily difficult for this country, which cannot at the present moment afford to buy essential foodstuffs or import essential raw materials, to start a campaign to get on the level of efficiency equal to that of America. We arc tied by dollar scarcity and by the hopeless position in which we find ourselves. Many hon. Members opposite say, "We shall not allow conditions which we have built up to be taken away from us." I would remind the Committee that conditions are not determined by Governments. The value of wages is not determined by Governments. Even though there may be a strong desire on the part of the present Government to maintain the present standard of living, they will find themselves driven by economic circumstances over which they will have no control. The Government have not attempted to seize hold of the economy of events. They have always had to be driven to take action, usually too late. I have been thinking upon a Socialist phrase, which stuck in my mind for a long time:
"We have solved the problem of production. It remains only to solve the problem of distribution."
How hollow and false that statement seems today; yet it is one of the statements upon which hon. Members opposite have come to power. I am sure that they now recognise, as we all do, that we must have more production if a higher standard of living is to be made permanent. I differ from some of my hon. Friends because I believe it was the duty of the Government to implement some negative form of direction of labour. Some effort should have been made to seal off industries which were grossly inflated in staff during the war, and to say that no more men should be taken into them. Those men could have been diverted to other industries. If the Government had done something 12 months ago to balance our labour position, the country would be much better off than it is at present.
It is churlish to blame the workers alone for the shortcomings of industry. Managements ate to blame in many cases. A

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bad management or a bad managing director can do much more damage to production than one worker. There are today quite a number of managers who are by no means as efficient as they should be. Moreover, there is little incentive to efficiency in present circumstances. If costs rise in a works, does the managing director say to himself, "I have to sell this article at £10"? Does he go round and sort out the difficulty or improve the methods? The tendency, with incentives as they are today, is for him simply to put 10 per cent. upon the selling price. There is no incentive to efficiency in production in the sellers' market which we have today.
There is another disincentive which must be very powerful. It is that taxation, in which hon. Gentlemen opposite rejoice, is heavy. We shall not get individuals in business to work themselves to the bone in order to be as efficient as they can, in the national interest, unless they see some reward. Who is going to bother to run a big business, with all its anxiety, when he can make as much net money by running small ones? Who is going to undertake the liability. while taxation remains at its present level? At the present moment we are entering into an entirely new phase, in which the factors which have been operative in the last 18 months are changing. We are definitely faced with a decline in purchasing power. Money is by no means as readily available for the purchase of goods as it was even three months ago. That applies not only in this country, but also to the export trade. A buyer's market is on its way.
What will be the result? It will inevitably mean that we shall have unemployment on a considerable scale in this country in the next 12 months. We are of necessity reducing importation, and if we are trying simultaneously to increase exports, it means only one thing—a lower standard of living for the workers. At the moment there exists a very large measure of under-employment and with the passing of the easy money, that under-employment will crystallise into unemployment. Firms can afford to pay at present because they are making substantial profits—I agree that profits generally are too high—but when that circumstance passes, as it is passing, firms will not be able to keep in employment people who are not fully
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employed. As a result of the restrictions on dollar resources, we shall inevitably see a positive increase in unemployment during the next 12 months.
What are the Government going to do to meet this entirely new situation, a situation unparalleled in our history, unemployment for an entirely different reason? It is no exaggeration to say that no great industrial nation has ever faced a problem of the magnitude of that which we shall have to face in the next five years. There has been talk about re-equipment. How can one afford re-equipment? One is very fortunate if one can afford the food on which to live. One is very fortunate indeed if one is able to import the materials on which to work. There is no possibility of easier times for our people. We are certainly faced with a problem of the greatest magnitude. Are we facing it with the resolve with which we ought to face it? I am quite prepared to believe that right hon. Gentlemen opposite are sincere in what they are trying to do, but hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are to some extent determined and governed by their past, and if for 40 years one has tried to inject poison into the industrial system, one cannot clear that poison out overnight. The hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) was complaining about this poison. I thought it very unwise of the hon. Lady to make that complaint, because I feel sure that she and those who are associated with her have done as much as anybody to instil the poison. We cannot clear out that poison overnight, but we must get a change of heart.
I doubt whether hon. Gentlemen opposite are effective on the factory floor. The shop stewards sabotage the Government's policy, and hon. Gentlemen opposite can do very little about it. On the whole, there is at present none of the sense of urgency and none of the national purpose which should be actuating this country. If one were a foreigner looking at this country from overseas, would one feel that this country was really getting hold of itself and getting down to the job? I am afraid that would not be the impression created. Unless we get this change of heart there is absolutely no hope for us. No great difficulty, even a great economic or material difficulty, has ever been overcome without the aid of timely spiritual forces, and I say that the only hope for us here is to galvanise the whole nation

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into action to get everybody behind a great national effort to overcome our difficulties, because we are not able—and let us face this situation frankly—to overcome our difficulties without outside aid. This country cannot exist in the next five to 10 years without outside aid. We have reached the position, through our great efforts during the war and the dissipation of our resources, when our national existence without outside aid is a complete impossibility.
If we are to justify those who are our friends overseas coming to our aid with their resources we have to show that we ourselves are making a real effort. I hope the Government will try during the next three or four months to give a lead to the country; I hope they will do something which will dramatise the situation, because all too few people now realise its seriousness and its urgency. The present situation is indeed painful to me, because I am interested in politics largely because I want to see the standard of living of the people of this country improved. I do not like to see hypocrisy and I see now the possibility clearly that the standard of living of the people of this country will go down to a level very much lower than it has been for 20 years. There is a real danger that that will happen, and it can be righted only by a national effort on a momentous scale. I hope the Government will not make this effort too late; up to now they have made almost every effort they have made too late, but, unless they can get hold of the country, get hold of themselves, and send the whole of the nation united into this battle, then the prospect for our people in the next five and 10 years is a very dull one indeed.
8.53 p.m.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter (Kingston-upon-Thames): I am sure that it is for the convenience of the Committee, and will have increased the value of this Debate, that the Minister of Labour has elected to postpone his own remarks until the close of the Debate. That is particularly fortunate in view of the subject matter of it. Few matters which are controversial in the strictly parliamentary sense have arisen, but there are many questions to which hon. Member on both sides of the Committee are anxious to have answers, and for that reason it is proper that the Minister himself shall be avail-
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able to answer them with all the authority of his office and with all his own great experience in the handling of these matters. I am fortified in the anticipation that our questions will be answered, as they have not always been answered in these Debates, by the fact that the Minister himself has been most faithful in his attendance today and, if he does not answer any of the questions that have been put to him, it will certainly not be because he has not heard them.
The question falls into two parts: First, the object, and, second, the method of dealing with it. As to the object, there is nothing between the two sides of the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council, at his Press Conference yesterday, put the matter in two sentences:
"There was one thing—a big essential thing —that we could do for ourselves. That was to increase our national output of foods and services as quickly as possible."
The matter has been put with no greater authority, but at some greater length in the economic White Paper, "The Survey for 1947" which His Majesty's Government presented to the House in February. Perhaps I might invite the attention of the Committee to two or three lines of that which are pertinent to our Debate. His Majesty's Government say in paragraph 132:
"We shall not attain the objectives described in paragraph 118 without an increase of output per man-year. In coal and in building, as shown above, output per man-year is far below prewar; in agriculture, on the other hand, it is appreciably above prewar. In manufacturing industry the evidence is not clear; the experience of different industries— and probably of different firms in the same industry—varies widely. The absence of precise facts on this vital question seriously hinders remedial action. The Government therefore propose to invite representative organisations of industry to co-operate with it in an attempt to establish the facts now that the first stages of the reconversion have been completed."
The first question I desire to put to the right hon. Gentleman is this. In February His Majesty's Government indicated very properly that they proposed to inquire in an attempt to establish the facts as to output. That was in February, and I do not think we shall seem impatient if on this side of the Committee, now that it is July, we ask what the results of that inquiry have been. Is the right hon. Gentlemen in a position to tell the Committee and the country the

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full facts in reference to the output per man-year over the whole industrial sphere? The second question—and it is more important—is this. The problem is stated, with admirable and, indeed, forceful lucidity in the White Paper, but what we desire to know is what the Government are proposing to do about it. What are the Government proposing to do to see to it that that output per man-year, which is of such vital and crucial importance, is increased? That is a question which five months after the issue of, the White Paper we are entitled to ask, and to which, in my view, we are entitled to press for an answer.
I agree with the very forceful way in which the gravity of this question was put a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Bucklow (Mr. Shepherd). In the situation in which this country stands, with the American Loan due to expire some time this winter, and with the whole standard of life of every man, woman and child in the country precariously supported for six months, and no more, on that American Loan, we are entitled to know. It is the question of all questions in our public life today. What is being done to increase that output, which alone can in time replace the support of the American loan? Our standard of life today, miserable as it is—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—may I put it this way, desirable as it is to improve it, and to improve it enormously—[An HON. MEMBER: "That is different"]—no hon. Member would dispute that—it is desperately below what we would like it to be, and what it was—with that standard of life itself dependent only, as the "Economist" so vividly put it the other day, on the fact that we have been enjoying the results of the labour of a million Americans without paying for it, no one is entitled to underestimate the gravity of finding a solution to this question. It was for that reason that it seemed to me so very unfortunate that the hon. Member for Deritend (Mr. Longden) seemed to regard the obtaining of increased output as somewhat undesirable. He seemed to regard it as undesirable that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee should stress the importance of that increase in output. If output is not increased, I have no doubt whatever that we shall see a decline in our present standards of life which no hon. Member
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in this Committee has seen in this generation. It is playing with fire for hon. Members, whatever may be the past, or whatever may be their prejudices, to decry now, in this jam in which the country is, the need for obtaining that increased output.
Various hon. Members have pointed out with force and accuracy the fact that in some, though by no means all, parts of industry, increased output is prevented or handicapped by a shortage of coal Therefore, I put once again the question which was put from these benches on 19th March, and which was not answered on that occasion. What has been done to augment the supply of labour in the mines by the introduction of foreign labour —Polish or displaced persons? So far as the Poles were concerned it was partially answered, but so far as other foreigners were concerned it has not yet been answered. In view of the key importance of coal, the Committee are entitled to be told what the right hon. Gentleman has done during the months which have elapsed since this matter was last debated.
There is another matter which is not without its importance on this subject of the productivity of labour, on which it would be of assistance if the right hon. Gentleman could give us a little information. Some months ago the right hon. Gentleman announced that he had decided that December next should be named as the end of the war period for the purposes of the Restoration of Prewar Practices Act, 1942. The Committee will recall that that Act was passed in the war, and under it prewar trade practices, for which the trade unions had fought for many years, were willingly and patriotically surrendered in order to facilitate war production. It was understood on both sides of the House in those days that those practices should be restored when the war ended, and I make no complaint that the Minister has come to the decision that for that purpose the war period shall be deemed to have ended in December next. But I think the Committee are entitled to be told what information the right hon. Gentleman has as to the effect of this step. We are entitled to know what will be the effect on production of restoring practices which were deliberately waived because of the necessity for increasing production in war.
The right hon. Gentleman has not been particularly communicative on this sub-

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ject. On 1st April last he was asked by my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn)
"whether discussions are going on with trade Unions and employers' associations for ending in December the war period for the purposes of the Restoration of Pre-war Practices Act. 1942."
The Minister replied:
"I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) on 20th December last. It is now for the two sides of each industry affected to consider jointly what arrangements for the purposes of this Act are necessary in view of the decision to end the war period in December next."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st April, 1947; Vol. 435, c. 286–7.]
On 29th April, in reply to a Question which I put to the right hon. Gentleman, he said that he had made it clear
"…that it was essential that the two sides of any industry affected should consider the matter in the meantime with a view to reaching joint agreement on the problems involved. I have no doubt that this will be done, and I am confident that the need for maximum production will be fully borne in mind in the course of any joint negotiations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th April, 1947; Vol. 436, c. 1702.]
It would be of interest if the Minister could now tell the Committee what has been the result of those negotiations, what steps have been taken to ensure that the naming of December as the date for the purposes of this Act shall not have a serious effect in restricting production.
I do not want to seem controversial, but I feel that because of the right hon. Gentleman's answer to me he did somewhat abdicate the responsibility which should fall upon him. That answer seemed to indicate that it was a matter solely for the two sides of industry. I do not think the matter can be dismissed as easily as that. It is, surely, a matter of national interest and not one merely for the two parties concerned, that at this moment productivity shall not be adversely affected by the restoration of these practices. If the right hon. Gentleman is not in a position to tell the Committee that, in these circumstances, agreements have been made which will prevent the restoration of these practices having an adverse effect on production, then I think the Committee is entitled to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that he is prepared to take the initiative, to use his unrivalled powers as a conciliator, to see that the agreement arrived at is one consistent not
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only with the interests of the parties, but with the interests of the nation.
There is another matter in this connection upon which the right hon. Gentleman could assist the Committee. It is one that has perplexed a number of hon. Members in the months which have passed since the Government White Paper was issued. In the final paragraph of the White Paper it is stated:
"There is now no place for industrial arrangements which restrict production, prices or employment. Such regulations and traditions grew up as a means of protecting those engaged in industry from the effects of a shortage of work and of empty order books."
Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to tell the Committee whether such practices on the part of labour or of management exist today? If they do exist, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the Committee what they are? I assume from the fact that the Government see fit to mention them in the White Paper that the Government must believe that they exist; but attempts to elicit from the right hon. Gentleman what these practices are, so far, have been a complete failure. If there are practices by anybody engaged in production which will really seriously affect production, then the least the right hon. Gentleman can do is to drag those practices out into the light of day so that the Committee and the country shall know exactly where they stand and exactly who is responsible.
In this connection I was a little disturbed to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Thornbury. The hon. Member for Thornbury seemed to be defending restrictive practices at the docks on the ground, perfectly valid years ago, that it was desirable to spread the work so that everybody could have some of it. I hope that no sympathy for that attitude will be expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. It is not now in the interests of—
Mr. Sparks: Is the hon. Gentleman in Order? I think he is quite wrong. The hon. Member for Thornbury (Mr. Alpass) did not say that.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am much obliged. I am told that it was the hon. Member for Central Bristol (Mr. Awbery). It is a slight geographical error by a very few miles. I am obliged to the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) for his assistance.
Mr. James Hudson: It was not a slight error to get the wrong man.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am obliged to the hon. Member for West Ealing. I am not really disposed to discuss English geography with him tonight. The point is that the hon. Member attempted to justify the existence today of practices at the docks, whose declared object was to see that more people were employed on jobs than was necessary for the doing of them effectively. I hope that the Minister of Labour will indicate his view on that subject not only to this Committee tonight but to those concerned outside in the course of a few days. It is a fact, as my right hon. and- learned Friend the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) pointed out, that such practices exist at the docks, that they do slow up the turn round of ships. The only surprise in the speech of the hon. Member for Central Bristol was that in this present situation any hon. Member of this Committee should be found who was prepared to justify it.
Yet another matter on which we should value the views of the Government, and on which we are entitled to their views, is their attitude to the system of payment by results. In the White Paper, they expressed approval in principle, but, once again, we should like to know what action they have taken to see that this system becomes more and more widely used. The power by persuasion, by the use of taxation adjustments, by all the infinite variety of pressures which are available to the Ministry of Labour and to a Minister so experienced as the right hon. Gentleman— all these could be employed to give effect to what the Government have said to be desirable. I should like to know whether the Government have taken any action to see that payment by results becomes a more widely used practice than it has been.
Up to recently, under a Defence Regulation, the Government are actually forbidding such a system in the building industry. I understand that the Defence Regulation is to go, but more is needed than the mere removal of prohibitions. What is needed is affirmative action on the part of the Government in setting an example in its own establishments and in the great nationalised industries in which it has a decisive control. It has always
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been the principle, though not always carried out, that the Government should set an example to the private employer. I think we are entitled to ask that, on a subject on which the Government have expressed their own view that the proposal is desirable, that they should, by their own action in their own establishments set an example to the private employers in the wider use of this system.
Then there is the vexed and difficult question of hours. The hon. Member for Brigg (Mr. Williamson) seemed to think that hours could be decreased at this moment because in certain industries they had not been decreased for a good many years. Such an approach to the problem seems to indicate a complete lack of appreciation of the gravity of the national situation. It may be a good thing or a bad thing that hours have not been altered in that industry for many years, but it is surely completely irrelevant to the need of increased production. I willingly concede that there may be industries, and processes within industries, in which decreased hours can in some mysterious way result in increased production, but, over a large sphere of industry, particularly those industries where semi-automatic processes are used, there could be nothing but a decrease in output per man-hour when there is a decrease in the hours worked.
I did not want to touch on the vexed problem of the five-day week in the mines, save to point cut that the results have been disappointing to all hon. Members, and, putting the matter at its lowest, do not afford any evidence for the view that decreased hours will result in increased production. Once again, we are entitled to know what the Government are doing on this question of hours. What are they doing other than offering advice on the White Paper? What are they doing in their own establishments and in the nationalised industries. So far in one great nationalised industry they have reduced hours, and that, at any rate, seems to indicate to private employers an attitude in practice very different from that which the Government have been professing in theory, and the Minister can help us further by telling the Committee of what further demands for reduced hours his Department is aware. It would be a grave reflection on the administration of the right hon.

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Gentleman's Department if one were to doubt that he is well informed about demands which, although not precisely formulated at the moment, are coming forward from the trade unions. I imagine that it is no secret to the right hon. Gentleman that certain unions are putting forward demands, such as, for instance, from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. The right hon. Gentleman, with his much wider sources of information, should tell the Committee what the Government's attitude is, and what they are doing.
I agree with what was so well said by the hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee), in the impressive speech she made earlier today. When all has been said, and everything that can be done has been done, by the provision of incentive, bonus systems, and all the rest of it, the question is fundamentally moral and one of morale. During the war, men worked a 24-hour day under the grilling sun of the desert, or in the grey wilderness of the Atlantic for half-a-crown a day because they believed that what they were doing was necessary to the survival of the way of life in which they believed, and also because they had leadership which they trusted. That is an example of the transcendental importance of the moral factor in this matter. The troubles we have encountered, low output in certain industries, absenteeism, unofficial strikes, and so on, are but indications of the wider question of the failure of the Government to give to our people the leadership which is required by the situation. They have failed to do what it is essential that democratic leaders in a democratic country should do—give the people a clear and emphatic lead, tell the country the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is in the hope that we shall get that lead, that clear, unquestioning, self-confident, bracing lead, which is demanded by the country and hoped for by half the world, that we await the speech of the right hon. Gentleman.
9.18 p.m.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): I find myself faced with a formidable task tonight, because I intend to try to answer all the questions which have been put to me. In doing so, I hope to get finished in time to make a little speech of my own, which I prepared for the occasion. I think it is right to pass the comment, first, that
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this Debate has been carried on with a remarkable absence of any attempt to make party capital out of it, and with good feeling, despite the real concern we all feel at the present situation.
I was particularly impressed by the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe), who opened the Debate. He built his case on two main points—that we should consider the adverse trade balance and the maldistribution of labour, resulting in under-production. I know that by "maldistribution" the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not mean that somebody was doing something badly, but simply that there was not proper distribution. He said that we must demonstrate to the world what Britain can do, and is determined to do. I am glad he said that, because it was my privilege, about this time last week, to speak for Britain at the International Labour Conference, at Geneva, where I told the world that we shall demonstrate what Britain can do, and is determined to do. One or two Members opposite have cried, "Calamity," and my reply to them is that if it gives them a feeling of satisfaction to do that, they may do it. But there is no calamity. There are trials, problems and tribulations, but I am sure there is no calamity.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me for information about working hours. I have been able to get the figures. In 1946, 2,000,000 workers had their hours reduced on an average by 2¾ hours a week. Between January and May, 1947, 3,370,000 other workers had their hours reduced on an average by 3½ hours a week. [An HON. MEMBER: "With the same production?"] If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make my speech, he can make his comments afterwards. I am answering questions which have been put to me. It is important to note that the first people to get their hours of work reduced were those already working the least number. Since V-J day, roughly 5,500,000 workers have had their hours reduced on an average by about three hours a week. The level to which they are coming down at present is about 44 hours a week. Some are 45, one or two 42½ some are 43, but the average level is 44.
That is after six years of war, and it is only right to compare that with what

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happened after the previous war. In 1919–20, 6,878,000 workers had their hours reduced on an average by six hours a week. We came through that war and got that amount of reduction. Up to now we have not had the same amount of reduction for the same number of people as after the last war. But it is fair to say, anticipating the answer to one of the questions put to me by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), that there are some applications pending. I may come back to that in a moment. It must be borne in mind that this does not necessarily mean loss of production, because all the time between the two wars that we have been working on the 48-hour week, new processes, new machinery, and new methods of production have been coming along, and in most industries there has been a tremendous increase of production per man. This has been due mainly to the introduction of machinery. But machines bring a greater strain, and call for greater effort on the part of the individual to keep pace with them. Sometimes the labour-aiding machine is brought in. It makes the work of the individual tending it physically lighter, but it demands a constant attention, so that what he gains in physical relief, he loses in mental strain and concentration.
May I turn for a moment to the shorter working week? I ask all hon. Members to consider the difference between the 44-hour week on a 5½day basis, and a five-day week, whether it be for 44, 45 or 48 hours. There is a good deal of difference between the two. In many cases it has been found that where a firm has reduced the working week to five days, and has knocked off four hours on the week's work, several interesting things have been noted. I am not sure of the name of the firm, but I think it was one of the large motor firms in the Luton district which first gave us some information about this. They lost four hours a week, and at first their production went down, but not by four hours. Although their men were working four hours fewer, and, theoretically, therefore, giving them 44 hours' production instead of 48, they were, in fact, giving them 45 hours' production, and production gradually went up.
On a five-day week, a firm saves, first of all, the time and cost taken in starting
1624
and stopping their factory. There is always a time-lag in starting and stopping machines. It also means that a firm has the opportunity of carrying on its maintenance and repair work on Saturday at Saturday rates, instead of on Saturday afternoon and Sunday at the additional overtime rates that would normally be paid. In the bad weather they save the cost of having to keep the factory heated on Saturdays. Another advantage is that factories requiring women workers have found that the finest attraction is to offer them a job in a factory which is working five days a week, because it gives them Saturday mornings in which to do their shopping. There is still another advantage in places like London or Birmingham, where men have to travel long distances to get to their work.
Take the case of a man who works in a big printing works in the South of London, and lives at Tottenham or Tooting. He does not come up to work on Saturdays; he is working half an hour longer on each day of the week. I am speaking of the days when they worked a 45-hour week and were putting those 45 hours into five days instead of five and a half days. The man saves his railway fare for one day,, he saves himself two hours in the morning because he can get up at eight o'clock instead of six o'clock. He could, if he liked, lie in bed until eight o'clock, and perhaps his wife would bring him a cup of tea in bed. It saves him buying a lunch while in town, and gives him an opportunity of having a mid-day meal at home. I assert that, in the long run, the five-day week will be a boon and a blessing to everybody concerned. It may take a little time, after a firm changes over, to pick up its production, but there is plenty of evidence that, eventually, production improves, the men's physique gets better and there are advantages all round. Although it may be felt that there is probably an immediate reduction in production at the moment, eventually it will rise again.
The next point referred to was that of restrictive practices. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said we should consider whether they were necessary. He gave some examples of these restrictive practices, all of which are generally known. At this point, I will also deal with the remarks of the hon. Member for

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Kingston-upon-Thames. Many of these restrictive practices had to be imposed in the old days. I myself have worked in workshops of different kinds where we had to have restrictive practices to protect ourselves. Even Parliament had to pass Acts to give us restrictive practices. One Act even prevented employers from putting the clock on and pushing it back again so that they could get a few minutes more work out of the workers. That is why all factory clocks today have to be regulated by the nearest public clock. Many of these restrictive practices were given up during the war.
The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames dealt fully with this. He said that the responsibility for dealing with the restoration of these restrictive practices rests on myself, and that it is not a matter for the two parties concerned. My suggestion to the Committee is: leave them alone. They have not come to me with any proposals for the restoration of these prewar practices. If I were to go to the employees' and workers' organisations and say, "What are you doing about the prewar restrictive practices?" the union might say, "We had forgotten all about it; we will take it up." I do not intend to say to these organisations, "Are you not going to restore these prewar practices?" I know of no negotiations taking place. They asked that they should have the authority. We gave notice that the Acts giving them the full power to bring those practices into operation again will come along at a certain time, and they could negotiate, but up to the moment I have heard of no reports which would lead me to suppose that steps are being taken in that direction. The best thing to do is to let sleeping dogs lie, and not remind them that they can restore some of these practices which we do not want to see restored.
Mr. Orr-Ewing: The right hon. Gentleman would agree, I hope, that during the war new processes, and so on, and different practices grew up. Would it not be wise of him to encourage the unions and employers to join together to see whether those new practices nave not, in fact, made some of the old restrictive practices—what we can call restrictive practices—out of date? Otherwise, he may find himself in difficulty later on.
Mr. Isaacs: My judgment is, leave them alone. If I bring them together, something new may crop up. Some old Johnny in the factory may say, "That is all right. We want the old system back again." During the war there grew up in this country a far better relationship and understanding between employers and workers, and I am quite convinced that when they sit down and examine these things the employers will agree to restore practices they think right for their workers, and that the workers will not ask for anything they think wrong. I am sure that we have today the best relationship between employers and workpeople of any country in the world.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The right hon. Gentleman said it was best to leave them alone. If he is satisfied that the restoration of some practices will seriously affect production, what then?
Mr. Isaacs: The hon Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He said it was my business to intervene. If they start their negotiations and cannot reach agreement, then, in all probability, they will bring the matter to the Minister of Labour. They bring all their troubles there. But if they have not started to talk about restoring these practices, leave them alone. If they start to talk about these things and reach no agreement, I have not the slightest doubt that advice would be given by the Ministry, not only in the interests of the parties concerned, but in the interests of the needs of the nation at the moment. Such things have been done behind the scenes in many disputes that have cropped up.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby referred to opposition to piece-rate bonuses and demarcation of jobs between the trade unions, and so on. Such disputes were bitter years ago, but all that has died down tremendously. I went on strike myself when I was 16 years of age because my "boss" cut down my piece rates on a bookbinding job, but after a certain amount of jiggery-pokery he was glad to restore the price, to our mutual advantage. But piecework rates used not to be fixed, and when men slogged away to earn a few bob extra a week and had earned a few extra bob, the piece-rates were cut down. All that practice has largely disappeared today, because

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the rates have been fixed in the shops; they are fixed on some basis agreed between trade unions and employers, and they are more honourably observed now. If an employer pays a rate of £5 and the man earns £8, the employer is sensible enough to take the view, "he is earning £8; well, I am getting the extra production, and getting it at the same rent charges and so on as if I were paying out only £5 to him."
As to demarcation, there are still problems. There used to be more. There had to be very great and strenuous efforts put forward to maintain the rights of craftsmanship. These demarcation fights, in the main, were not fought by men saying, "Others shall not do our jobs," but to protect the rights of craftsmanship. We did not want to whittle down craftsmanship and the skill of craftsmanship. The pride of a really skilled craftsman in his craftsmanship, as I am sure hon. Members opposite will agree, is a grand thing in itself. The Trades Union Congress itself has set up a Demarcation and Disputes Committee, that settles, as far as it is humanly possible to settle them, disputes between unions on demarcation. Their power is so great that if they reach a decision and one of the contending parties refuses to accept it, that party can be excluded from the Congress; and that is a very severe punishment. I happen to know something about that work, because for eight years I was chairman of the Disputes Committee; therefore, I know something about rows between unions. If anybody wants to know what a real row is like, they should go to a Demarcation Disputes Committee.
Mr. Orr-Ewing: Does that work fast enough?
Mr. Isaacs: Yes, it really does. Now and again there are some instances where the local branches decline to accept the advice of their union, and then it is a little difficult to put pressure upon the organisation whose members refuse to accept their advice.
I now turn to the-question of the maldistribution of labour. I am dealing with these points fully, because they cover some of the questions which I have been asked. The maldistribution of labour is a very awkward thing with which to deal.
1628
There is a feeling—and my hon. Friend the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Bird) referred to it—that a better distribution of labour can be obtained by slowing up the supply of materials for certain firms. Of course, that is easy. It is quite easy to stop the flow of raw materials to any firm, and to put their employees out of work; but it is not so easy to put those people into other jobs. Let me give an example. From what we have read and heard, the probabilities are that, owing to the dollar situation, the great newspapers of this country will come down to four pages instead of six pages. That will put a lot of compositors out of work. Well, the compositors can be put out of work, but they cannot be then put to work on brickmaking or bricklaying. It is quite easy to push people out of a job, but it is not so easy to make sure that they go into other jobs, even if all the factories are in handy places.
I made a note of the concluding remarks of the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby. He said that our task in the Committee is to urge the clearing of the road to progress, and that we must all exercise all our influence and energy to remove obstacles to production. I am sure all Members of the Committee will join in that, in the spirit of this Debate, in which no party point has been put forward. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Byers) referred to many matters, with several of which I think I have dealt. He also raised a most important point, however, in referring to the restrictive attitude of mind of the workers, which he said should be combated by interesting the workers through an understanding of the finished product. The hon. Member has put his finger on the vital point. A person doing routine piecework, passing a job along, with no idea of the finished article, has no interest in the job. The Coalition Government, through whichever Department was responsible during the war, took women who were making little bits and pieces for aeroplanes to see the finished product; they took those people who were making little pieces for guns to see the finished job. Those workers then saw the aeroplanes flying and the guns firing, and they went back to work more enthusiastically; they were all impressed by the fact that their little part of the job was the important part of it.

1629
That same point was brought forward very admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), who emphasised it in a different way, and made use of the same words as the hon. Member for North Dorset: treat the men as human beings. The hon. Member for North Dorset said that that is what is happening today. I can remember the time when I used to walk around the machine room, and when a foreman wanted me, he said: "Oil you, come here." That type of foreman is dead—or very nearly. Today, most overseers and foremen like to know the Christian names of the men with whom they are working. I can assure the Committee that it makes all the difference in the world if, when an overseer wants to speak to a man, instead of saying, "Here, Isaacs," he says, "Here, George." It makes all the difference in the world. That is the kind of human touch which I anticipate is operating in the works of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne. The hon. Member for North Dorset also referred to payment by results, and the initiative of the trade unions. They are taking the initiative, as I mentioned earlier. Later on I will come to the building industry, in which at the moment there seems to be some little difficulty.
I think I have said all that I need say about the problem of the five-day and the five and a half-day week. Hon. Members were interested to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, who told us about his own experiences. His point was to treat the men as human beings, and to use present equipment to the best advantage. If the present equipment in textile mills can be brought into greater productivity in the same way as it has been in that firm about which he told us, it will mean a big thing in the economy of the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby said that there has been a considerable fall in production. There is no evidence of that. There have been some slight falls and some increases—there have been falls and pick-ups. We have had no real evidence of any over-all fall in production.
That brings me to something which was said by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames. I think I had better get it off my chest now instead of later. He
1630
pointed out that the White Paper mentions an inquiry as against one year and another. That will be conducted on the basis of this year as compared with recent years, and it will be put in hand. It has not been pushed at the moment, because the Joint Consultative Committee of employers and workers is busily engaged on the question of the staggering of hours to meet the fuel position. They have done a good job there. I should like publicly to express admiration of the great engineering and shipbuilding industries which have got together and given a lead to the whole of industry on how to meet this spread-over of hours, so that work can be kept going in off-peak time without the extra costs which usually arise out of overtime.
Mr. Prescott: Before the Minister leaves the textile industry, can he say anything about recruitment of labour and volunteer European workers?
Mr. Isaacs: European voluntary workers are being found and drafted forward. They will be put into training centres. The European voluntary workers, from the displaced persons' camps in Europe, are a first-class type; they are nice, kindly people, well-educated, and we are very glad to be able to help them. We are not able to check for textile workers over there, because these people come into our hands only after they have been politically screened—it is then that we have to do the sorting out. Not many have come to us with knowledge of the textile industry, but some are being brought forward for this purpose. Many of them are very valuable for domestic institutions, and women are running the camps which are being set up for these people.
Mr. Prescott: Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything about recruitment generally of British people?
Mr. Isaacs: I am afraid that I cannot do that offhand at the moment. The position is not as good as we should like, but it is improving. It is the old question of giving a dog a bad name, and that I am afraid is what has happened. My hon. Friend the Member for West Coventry (Mr. Edelman) said that we should try to encourage new methods of production. That is being done. There are industrial efficiency advisors at the disposal of all industries which like to come along and

1631
ask for guidance. The Ministry of Works have been doing a first-class job in encouraging modern methods for house building. A visit to the Thatched Barn on the Barnet by-pass is well worth while. Mechanically hoisted scaffolding and all sorts of gadgets can be seen there, which make it possible for men to work without heavy labour, and for production to be increased without any additional burden. There are two branches in which the Government are encouraging methods of better production.
The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Amory) referred to a truce for three years. He said that there should be no wage increases or shorter hours of employment and no higher dividends. We have seen the effects of some of these truces in other countries. They have always broken down, because whatever happens by way of control of dividends or wages, there seems to be no control of prices, which fly away. The trouble with a truce is that unless every one conscientiously and sincerely accepts that truce, it is merely tying down the safety valve. If you say to people that they must not have an increase for three years, at the end of that period there is a "bust." When a wage contract is entered into for a definite period and that period ends, there is an automatic movement to go for an advance of wages. In a wages contract under which either side gives three or six months' notice to terminate, it usually goes on until there is some justification such as an increase in prices, for an increase of wages. We do not think that a truce is going to be of much benefit.
The hon. Member for Cannock (Miss Lee) spoke of the psychological aspect, and I think that some of the things she said were very true. When you get in an industry a feeling that there has been unjust treatment over a number of years, that is not easy to remove. The hon. Lady said that all able-bodied men and women should do some useful work I would like to see that happen. It is really fun to work, but it ought to be useful work. The trouble is, who is going to decide what is useful? If it were left to the hon. Lady and to me to decide, we might have a different idea from some of the hon. Members on the other side of the Committee as to what is useful work. I do not know if they would like to refer that to an arbitrator?
1632
The right hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir A. Salter) made an interesting contribution to the Debate. He talked about fixing incentives for small units of work, and so on. He made use of a reference which one can never pin down. He said we needed "a kind of wages policy." I have heard a lot about wages policy, but now it is a "kind of wages policy." That is something like the war in South Africa. When it was over, it was a "kind of a war," and it had gone on for two years. The idea is that "a kind of wages policy" should be arranged between the Government, industry and the workers. I can recollect the tragedy of the period after the first world war when our wages were being slashed by 10s., 15s. and '£1 a week. Skilled engineers in London were then getting less than £2 a week. No one came forward then with a wage regulation policy.
Sir A. Salter: I said a wages policy of this kind—a kind which would only have a general increase of wages after production had already caught up with existing purchasing power.
Mr. Isaacs: I know that the hon. Gentleman said that. The point I am making is that we were not asked to agree to a regulation of wages when they were going down, but there seems to be a desire to regulate wages now that they are going up. I draw the attention of the Committee to the positive danger that once we get a Government fixing wages our General Elections may be fought on the plea, "Vote for me, and I will get you 10 bob more." But there will never be an election on the plea "Vote for me and I will get you 10 bob off." We have seen this policy operate in other countries. In Brussels, on Friday of last week, the Prime Minister of that country and the Minister of Labour were sitting in conference facing a nation-wide strike on the question of wages which that Government has to settle. With the power of trade unions of a country getting larger and larger, I would hesitate to think what would be the fate of any Government, even this one, if the trade unions said "we cannot accept the wages fixed by the Government."
The hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) referred to different problems in the building industry. They are problems,

1633
but I can assure him that the relevant part of that Regulation 56 (A.B.) is in the same position as an article for sale at an auctioneers. It is a case of "going, going," and it will be "gone" shortly, for it is on its last lap. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that builders are only debarred from operating bonus schemes in three areas of the country, Scotland, Northern, and Manchester by agreement. This Order will go shortly, and it will make it possible for other areas to adopt bonus schemes if they desire.
Mr. Marples: Could the right hon. Gentleman give us some idea of the time when the auctioneer's "gone" will operate?
Mr. Isaacs: It is right on tap. The Order is in draft, but I cannot say when it will come into operation. It may be tomorrow or the next day, or it may not be until next week. I cannot say. I want also to refer to what was said by the hon. Member for Montrose Burghs (Mr. Maclay). He gave us a very effective description of what it means to have a rapid turn-round of ships. We do not know whether the rapid turn-round was made possible by a double day shift or a day and night shift, but what happens is very important. He referred to the de-casualisaton scheme, and I would like to correct some of my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee, for there was no real opposition to that scheme. There was some criticism of certain parts of it, but it was generally welcomed in the Committee. It is now at work, for it came into operation a short time ago, and it is a true decasualisation scheme, for the charge is based on the employer, who passes it on to his customers who, in turn, pass it through to the consumer. It is paid by the consumer who takes the goods, and it is far better that it should be spread over the whole of the community, which handles the goods rather than that it should be borne by women and children of the docker, as was the case before. Everybody will be happier for this circumstance.
We heard from the hon. Member for Bucklow (Mr. Shepherd) of the woe that was coming and which would lead to a lower standard of living for the workers. Why only the worker? If things go wrong, why should the worker only have
1634
a lower standard of living? If there is to be any real calamity, let us all enjoy it while we are about it. He then said that we must galvanise our country into action. I agree with him, but how? We are not going to do it if we are going to overdo this "Work or Want." We want to get a more optimistic spirit about the country.
There were one or two other points which were debating points, and I will not concentrate on them. If I can, I want to answer the questions put by the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, and I am afraid I will have to let my own speech go. As the White Paper said, we intend to ascertain the facts in regard to the question of production. At the moment we are concentrating upon the staggering of hours. That will definitely be taken up because we want to ascertain the facts. The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames said that we were enjoying the work of millions of Americans for no payment, and he quoted some paper, I think, the "Economist," in that connection.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I said one million
Mr. Isaacs: That may be so, but let us look at the other side of the picture. How many millions of Germans are enjoying something at the expense of our own people? So if we are living on the fruits of some Americans, we are only passing it on to others, for we are letting the Germans live on some of our production at the same time. It is not all a case of taking without giving, for we are giving to someone else. He asked about foreign labour for coalmining, and what was the position. I cannot give him any statistics at the moment, but the scheme is working well. We are training men at the rate of 300 a week. I cannot tell how many are working underground, but one trouble is to get room at the face for the raw recruits. It is felt that it would be unwise, in view of the present emergency in coal production, to take skilled men from the face to make room for the newcomer. There is no resistance by the mineworkers to the Poles or other displaced persons working in the pits. I have dealt with the question of the practice of payment by results, and I think I have answered all the questions that were put to me.

1635
I should like now to run over in catalogue form what are the Government's actions. We recognise the vital need for increased productivity. We think it can be done, first, by encouraging the managements to improve the conditions of their workers. Many of them do not want much encouragement, for they get on with the job. What we want to see attended to are such things as lighting, ventilation, safety plant and safety measures, more modern methods, and canteens. If the employers do that and the trade unions co-operate with them, we can take the next step, and that is get down to joint consultations in industry.
I am a complete and profound believer in joint works councils. I know what it has done in my own industry, and I have seen what it has done in others. I am sure by that means we can get on to more production. We are engaged on it at the moment, and we are getting out a model scheme which will go to the regions. A regional officer will be available to advise the local unions and employers to work their own schemes. It is not the Government's job to say to this or that industry, "You must adopt this or that sort of scheme." We ask them all to examine methods of payment by results and adopt them where possible.
Factory safety is a matter which greatly helps to improve production, and no one will deny that factory canteens are
of tremendous value. Before the war there were fewer than 1,000 factories which had canteens; now over 12,000 have them. A reasonable meal in the middle of the day without running all over the place to get it means a great deal to production, and it means a great deal more in the matter of the comfort and convenience of the people at home. If the "old woman" at home is happy, then the man himself will go to his work in the morning much happier. Industrial health and the training of disabled persons, the training of foremen and supervisors, all make for better working conditions and improved production. This is merely a catalogue with which I have been able to deal, and I think I have answered all the questions that were put to me. I hope the Committee will be satisfied. There is in our country today a first-class relationship between employers, workers and the Government. All parties know that the vita! need is for improved production; it is realised that it is necessary for the workers to produce more. The workers are part of the country the same as everybody else, and I am confident that they will do their best to save our land.
Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I beg to move, "That Item Class V, Vote 4, Ministry of Labour and National Service, be reduced by £5".
Question put.
The Committee divided: Ayes, 90; Noes, 208.

Division No. 294.]

AYES.

9.59 p.m

Amory, D. Heathcoat

Gage, C.

Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

Galbraith, Cmdr. T D.

Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

Beamish, Maj. T V. H

George, Maj. Rt. Hon. G. Lloyd (P'ke)

Maude, J. C.

Bennett, Sir P.

Gridley, Sir A,

Mellor, Sir J.

Birch, Nigel

Grimston, R. V.

Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

Boles, Lt.-Col. D. C. (Wells)

Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)

Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C. E.

Bossom, A. C.

Harvey, Air-Comdre. A. V.

Neven-Spence, Sir B.

Boyd-Carpenler, J. A.

Headlam, Licut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.

Nicholson, G.

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

Herbert, Sir A. P.

Nield, B. (Chester)

Challen, C.

Hogg, Hon. Q.

Noble, Comdr. A. H. P

Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.

Hollis, M. C.

Nutting, Anthony

Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. 0. E.

Hope, Lord J.

O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H.

Crowder, Capt. John E.

Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

Darling, Sir W. Y.

Hurd, A.

Ponsonby, Col. C. E

Davidson, Viscountess

Jeffreys, General Sir G.

Prescott, Stanley

Digby, S. W.

Jennings, R.

Raikes, H. V.

Dodds-Parker, A. 0.

Joynson-Hicks, Hon, L. W.

Ramsay, Maj. S

Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G, (Penrith)

Kerr, Sir J. Graham

Rayner, Brig. R

Drayson, G B.

Langford-Holt, J.

Reid, Rt. Hon. J. 9. C. (Hillhead)

Drewe, C.

Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

Ropner, Col. L.

Dugdale, Ma]. Sir T. (Richmond)

Lindsay, M. (Solihull)

Ross, Sir R. D. (Londonderry)

Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)

Fletcher, W. (Bury)

Lucas, Major Sir J.

Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

Strauss, H. G (English Universities)

Fox, Sir G.

Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)

Fraser, H. C. P. (Stone)

Manningham-Buller, R. E.

Teeling, William

Fraser, Sir I. (Lonsdale)

Marlowe, A. A. H.

Thorneycroft, G. E. P. (Monmouth)

Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir D. P. M.

Marples, A. E.

Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.

Turton, R. H.

Wheatley, Colonel M. i.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Vans, W. M. F.

Williams, C. (Torquay)

Commander Agnew and

Walker-Smith, 0.

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Mr. Studholme.

NOES.

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Gordon-Walker, P. C.

Porter, G. (Leeds)

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

Granville, E. (Eye)

Proctor, W. T.

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Grierson, E.

Randall, H. E.

Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

Griffiths, W. D, (Moss Side)

Ranger, J.

Alpass, J. H.

Guest, Dr. L. Haden

Rees-Williams, D. R

Anderson, F (Whitehaven)

Gunter, R. J.

Reid, T. (Swindon)

Attewell, H. C.

Guy, W. H.

Rhodes, H.

Awbery, S. S.

Hairs, John E (Wycombe)

Richards, R.

Ayles, W. H.

Hail, W. G.

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B

Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

Baird, J.

Hardy, E. A.

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

Barstow, P. G

Hastings, Dr Somerville

Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)

Barton, C.

Haworth, J

Rogers, G. H. R.

Battley, J. R.

Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)

Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

Bechervaise, A. E.

Herbison, Miss M.

Scollan, T.

Belcher, J. W

Hewitson, Capt. M

Scott-Elliot, W.

Berry, H.

Hobson, C. R.

Segal, Or. S.

Beswick, F.

Holman, P.

Sharp, Granville

Sing, G. H. C.

Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

Shawcross, C N, (Widnes)

Blenkinsop, A.

Hughes, H. D. (Wolverhampton, W.)

Silverman, J. (Erdington)

Blyton, W. R.

Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

Simmons, C. J.

Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W.

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Skeffington, A. M.

Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Skeffington-Lodge, T. C

Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L pl, Exch'ge)

Irving, W. J

Skinnard, F. W.

Braddock, T. (Mitcham)

Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A

Smith, C. (Colchester)

Brook, D. (Halifax)

Janner, B

Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)

Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

Jeger, G. (Winchester)

Solley, L. J.

Brown, T. J. (Ince)

Jeger, Dr S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)

Soronsen, R. W

Bruce, Maj. D, W. T.

Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)

Soskice, Maj. Sir F.

Burden, T. W.

Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)

Sparks, J. A.

Burke, W. A,

Jones, J. H. (Bolton)

Stamford, W

Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)

Kenyon, C.

Steele, T.

Byers, Frank

Key, C W.

Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)

Carmichael, James

Kinley, J.

Symonds, A. L.

Castle, Mrs. B. A.

Kirby, B. V

Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

Champion, A. J.

Layers, S.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Chetwynd, G. R

Lee, F. (Hulme)

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Cobb, F. A.

Lee, Miss J (Cannock)

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Cocks, F. S.

Leonard, W.

Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

Collindridge, F.

Leslie, J. R.

Thomas, I. 0. (Wrekin)

Colman, Miss G. M.

Lindgren, G. S.

Thomas, George (Cardiff)

Comyns, Dr. L.

Lindsay, K. M. (Comb'd Eng. Univ.)

Thurtle, Ernest

Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.

Upton, Lt -Col M

Tiffany, S.

Corbel, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)

Longden, F.

Turner-Samuels, M.

Corlett, Or. J.

Lyne, A W

Ungoed-Thomas, L

Crawley, A.

McAdam, W

Viant, S. P.

Daines, P.

McAllister, G.

Walkden, E.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

McEntee, V. La T.

Walker, G. H.

Davies, Hadyn (St. Pancras, S.W.)

McGhee, H. G.

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Diamond, J.

Mack, J. D

Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.)

Dobbie, W

McKay, J. (Wallsend)

Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)

Dodds, N. N

Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)

Weitzman, D.

Donovan, T.

McKinlay, A. S.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Daberg, T. E. N.

McLaavy, F.

White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

Mathers, G.

Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.

Dumpleton, C. W.

Mellish, R. J

Wigg, Col. G. E

Ede. Rt. Hon. J. C

Middleton, Mrs. L

Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.

Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)

Moody, A. S.

Wilkes, L.

Evans, E. (Lowestoft)

Mort, D. L.

Wilkins, W. A.

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

Nicholls, H. R (Stratford)

Willey, 0. G. (Cleveland)

Fernyhough, E.

Oliver, G. H.

Williams, D. J. (Neath)

Field, Capt. W. J.

Orbach, M.

Williams, W. R. (Heston)

Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

Paget, R. T

Williamson, T

Follick, M.

Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)

Wills, Mrs. E. A

Forman, J. C.

Parker, J.

Woodburn, A.

Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

Parkin, B. T.

Woods, G. S.

Ganley, Mrs. C. S

Pearson, A.

Young, Sir R. (Newton)

George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)

Peart, T. F.

Zilliacus, K.

Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

Platts-Mills, J. F. F.

Goodrich, H. E.

Porter, E. (Warrington)

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Mr. Snow and Mr. Popplewell.

Resolution agreed to

Original Question again proposed.
It being after Ten o'clock and objection being taken to further Proceeding,The
1638
CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

WAYS AND MEANS
[2nd July]
[Mr. HUBERT BEAUMONT in the Chair]

WAYS AND MEANS

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILM (CUSTOMS)
  Resolution reported,
  "That the Treasury shall have power by order to alter or add to Section ten of the Finance Act, 1935. so as to secure that the value of exposed cinematograph him shall for the purpose of customs duties be determined in such manner as may be provideo by the order."
  Instruction to any Committee to which the Finance Bill may be re-committed, "That they have power to make provision therein pursuant to the said Resolution."—[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

CAPITAL ISSUES AND BORROWING CONTROL ORDERS
10.10 p.m.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I beg to move,
"That the Capital Issues exemptions Order, May, 1947, a copy of which was presented on Defence (Finance) Regulations, 1939 (S.R. & O., 1947, No. 944), a copy of which Order in Council was presented on 22nd May, be annulled."
My I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, whether it would be for the convenience of the House if this and the two following Motions were taken together?
Mr. Speaker: Yes, if it would be for the general convenience of the House. It seems to me that this is rather a technical matter and I do not pretend to understand it fully. I think it would be more convenient, if the House agrees, to take the three together.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: The other Motions are:
"That the Capital Issues Exemptions Order, 1947, (S.R. & O., 1947, No. 945), dated 21st May, 1947, a copy of which was presented on 22nd May, be annulled."
and:
"That the Capital Issues Exemptions Order, 1947 (S.R. & O., 1947, No. 946), dated 21st May, 1947, a copy of which was presented on 22nd May, be annulled."
Only two issues are involved in these three Prayers. Under Order No. 944, Defence Regulation No. 6 in regard to finance is repealed except in so far as it refers to the Isle of Man. Order No. 94b modifies the requirements in respect of offers for sale in so far as no offer may
1640
be made of stocks and shares issued with-the consent of the Treasury within a period of two years from the date of such consent. Order 945, with certain very minor modifications, more or less reintroduces the provisions of Defence Regulation No. 6. It is fair to state that in broad terms we are now asked to re-impose on the community exactly the same restrictions on investment as existed during the war.
The first question we would ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is in regard to Orders 944 and 946. We understood that under the Borrowing (Control and Guarantees) Act the Treasury had every intention of relaxing completely their control over offers for sale. Very recently the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in this House that he was not satisfied with the ways in which persons were making these offers for sale. He advanced no reasons why he was dissatisfied and no concrete reasons have been given for re-imposing this. The first question we would ask is: Why has he made under Order 946 this provision that no offers for sale may be made of stocks and shares that were issued without Treasury consent within a period of two years?
It is probably due to my ignorance and nothing else, but I can find no regulation which permits of an issue of stocks or shares other than debentures without Treasury consent. In other words, the only method of raising capital permitted was unsecured loans or debentures. If that is so, the same control over those unsecured loans or debentures is retained by Order No. 946. Therefore, it would seem on the face of it that this concession, so far as the present Government are concerned, is a hollow mockery. I ask the Financial Secretary to tell us in what circumstances stocks and shares could before these Orders be issued to the value of £50,000 without the consent of the Treasury. I have found no provision whatsoever for such an issue.
I would like him to tell the House how such an issue could be made without the consent of the Treasury, and if it was made, why the Treasury should consider it necessary to introduce this restriction. It seems to me on the broad issue that if the Treasury in its wisdom permits an issue—and it must permit an issue surely that issue is justified in itself and whatever may happen subsequently is no

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matter for the Treasury. It would appear from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he thinks there are some dark and dubious streams of finance running underneath the surface. If there are, the least the Treasury can do is to tell us what they are so that we can appreciate the issue and decide whether control is necessary or not.
Of all the many trite statements the Chancellor makes in this House, those I regret most are his innuendos against lawful commercial practice, which he never tries to substantiate, but passes on as a sort of bonne bouche to his supporters behind him. We on this side of the House try to guess at what he is aiming. and he leaves his hon. Friends behind him with a sort of chocolate liqueur feeling for the satisfaction of having driven another nail into the capitalist coffin. But, if he is going to make these innuendos against private enterprise—and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury would be the first to admit that private enterprise is the only thing which is going to save this country—let him substantiate them, and not merely make dark hints without any substantiation whatever.
In regard to Order 945, I admit I am puzzled to see how the Government substantiate their claim to introduce this matter. I will quote a passage from the Chancellor's speech on the Second Reading of the Bill which was introduced with the draft order, which in turn is more or less the same as the order we are now discussing. The Chancellor said:
"The purpose of this control is simple. It is to ensure that the order of priority of schemes for the raising of new capital shall be determined by one criterion only, namely, by their relative importance in the general national interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th Feb., 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1547.]
In other words, the Chancellor maintained that by the introduction of the Bill a permanent weapon was provided to ensure that investment was related to capital under, or to be at the disposal of, the Government. If that is so, we should have expected that a list of priorities for capital investment would have been given to the Stock Exchange to show what was the policy of the Government. Yet hon. Members opposite know that as far as the Stock Exchange are concerned, we are still working on a list of 1945, and the list has only been slightly modified since that date. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer meant anything when he
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made that statement, he could only have meant that it was the intention of the Government to keep investment policy absolutely in line with the economic situation of this country. No one, whether on the benches opposite or on this side of the House, would doubt that the economic situation of the country has undergone vast changes since 1945, but there has been no change in the investment policy of His Majesty's Government. They have given no indication to those people responsible for guiding the investments of the public what the policy of the Government is.
We ask the Financial Secretary if this Measure, and the order consequent on it, are really the weapons the Chancellor of the Exchequer claimed them to be. Why is it that there is no direction of policy by hon. Members opposite? Why have they not made the slightest effort to reduce this to practical terms? It is rather like people who have asked for plenary powers and have got them, simply going to sleep like the Sleeping Beauty. I see that the Financial Secretary has taken the compliment of the Sleeping Beauty to himself. I hope he will wake up and tell us something about it tonight. We are the people who are trying to judge whether these matters are justified, but we are left without any clue as to their meaning or as to the power the Government intend to attribute to them. We were told when this Measure was introduced that the demand for capital was greatly in excess of supply. Would the Financial Secretary support that argument today? Would he still say that the demand for capital is still greatly in excess of the supply? Would he not rather say that bank deposits have gone up by over £1,000 million, that capital supply far exceeds demand today, and that if inflationary pressure is to be eased, it is necessary to bring these deposits into industry, to put them into developing industry?
I know what the Financial Secretary will say if he deigns to answer at all— that it is no use attracting money into industry unless there is the material in industry to satisfy that demand. If he uses that argument, he will surely be producing the very answer as to why all these controls are futile, because they form a vicious circle. On the one hand, he says that we cannot attract materials into industry because there is no capital.

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His colleague, possibly the Minister of Supply, or whoever it may be, says there are no materials. Does he not realise that throughout this country, particularly in relation to small firms, there is a complete lack of co-ordination between materials and capital? I know for myself, through being a Member of Parliament for one Division, that continuously to point out to the Government that in one place there are materials and in another place there is capital, but never in any circumstances are capital and the materials co-ordinated.
That seems to me to be proof of the fallacy of the policy being pursued by the Government. They have taken to themselves, in their arrogance, this idea that they can control capital and materials. Never in any circumstances do they manage to get capital and materials at the same place, so that both can work to the advantage of the community as a whole. I would quote my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Assheton) who, again in the Debate which led to this Motion, said:
"Perhaps the Chancellor knows in his heart that the Socialist system can never produce freedom and plenty, and that all it can produce is a dull equality and a gradually declining standard of life for us all."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1565-]
That is all that this system of control is doing at the moment. The Financial Secretary and the Chancellor have never produced any reason to justify the powers they have taken to themselves. They have never produced any reason whatever to show that their policy has benefited the community. They started with these large statements that it was necessary, and that they were always right. The Solicitor-General said that this system of financial control was certain, safe and sure, that it was certain to be true in 499 cases out of 500. I can only imagine that the 500th case was that which attracted attention from the benches opposite when capital was allotted to Greyhound Racing. They have never done anything to prove that their contention is true.
I would challenge the Financial Secretary to quote occasions on which he can say that the powers given to him either under Defence Regulations or under these regulations which he now proposes, have been used in the public interest. I would
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challenge him further to say whether he is satisfied that these powers will have any effect upon future capita] investment in the national interest, or on the rate of investment of new capital for the increase and enlargement of industry which has, in fact, taken place can be seen when I point out that in the first six months of this year only £70 million had been introduced into industry. That sum includes all Treasury Bills and all Government commitments. Members on the opposite side can get some idea from that as to what money is flowing, under these Regulations, into the enlargements of our productive industry.
I suggest that these powers, far from producing any improvement, far from solving our troubles, are merely acting as a complete drag against any development; are, instead of giving us a better chance to live in the new world, preventing us from taking any advantage of that which we gained in the war. Far from progressing, at the moment we are stultified and hampered by the political tenets of the Treasury who, by insisting on complete control, are preventing us from getting forward into the morrow of peace.
10.25 P.m.
Sir John Mellor: I beg to second the Motion.
Although it revokes the provisions of Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations, 1939, Order No. 944 nonetheless preserves control over public offers for sale of securities. I regard that preservation of control as a direct breach of the Chancellor's undertaking which he gave on Second Reading of what was then the Investment (Control and Guarantees) Bill, 1946. On that occasion, on 5th February, 1946, the Chancellor said:
"When this Bill is passed into law, and when the draft Order mentioned in the Command Paper has been brought into force, Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations will be revoked. One of the consequences will be that the present requirement of Treasury consent to public offers for sale of existing domestic securities will lapse."
Then he proceeded:
"There has been some misunderstanding in the past about that; so, to make it quite clear, I will repeat that when the draft order is made and the existing Regulation is revoked, the present requirement for Treasury consent to the sale of existing domestic securities will lapse."—-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th February, 1946; Vol. 418, c. 1549.]
The order to which he there referred,

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the main order under the Act to preserve the control, has been made. It is one of the orders against which we are praying tonight—Order No. 945. Though the order to which the Chancellor referred has been made and Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations has been revoked, nonetheless the control over public offers for sale of existing domestic securities is being retained. I do not think that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will dispute that on that occasion the Chancellor of the Exchequer said quite clearly that that control would lapse concurrently with the coming into effect of the main order to be made under the Borrowing (Control and Guarantees) Act. We must have an explanation of that. It seems to me the most simple clear cut breach of an undertaking which we could have in this House. On the merits of the case, I see no justification at all for preserving control of public offers for sale of domestic securities. No new money whatever is involved. Therefore, I cannot see on what ground the Treasury desire to retain these powers. It has nothing whatever to do with the direction of capital into certain industries. It can have no harmful effect at all. It is merely that certain securities change hands. I cannot see at all the logic of the Financial Secretary's explanation of how it is in the public interest that this particular control should be retained. Therefore, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what has occurred since February, 1946, to change the view of the Treasury upon this matter?
The other point to which I would like to refer is the extreme antagonism which is exhibited in the main Order, No. 945, against the capitalisation of profits or reserves. Article 4, paragraph (3) provides:
"Subject to the exemptions contained in Part II of this 'Order, a body corporate …shall not without the consent of the Treasury, issue any securities if the purposes or effects of the transaction consist of or include (a)the capitalisation of profits or reserves."
If we look at the exemptions provided in article 8, we find it specially provided in paragraph (3):
"The exemption conferred by this Article shall not apply to any issue of securities if the purposes or effects of the transaction consist of or include the capitalisation of profits or reserves."
Why is this set made by the Chancellor against the capitalisation of profits or reserves when he has repeatedly urged
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companies to retain profits in the business instead of distributing them as dividends? Indeed, he has given some practical encouragement to that course of action, practical encouragement of a rather sadistic order, because in the current Finance Bill he has imposed a special tax of 7½ per cent. on distributed profits. He has gone out of his way, indeed, to emphasise by that special Profits Tax the importance, in his view, of companies retaining profits in the business and putting them to reserve, rather than distributing them to the shareholders as dividends. It is curious, therefore, to find that not content with imposing in the same Finance Bill, which is at present before this House, a 10 per cent. stamp duty upon bonus isues, in this Order 945 he goes out of his way most drastically to control capitalisation of profits or reserves.
I cannot understand his line of action in this case either, because it is perfectly intelligible that the Chancellor in these days should desire to promote the ploughing back of profits into businesses rather than their distribution as dividends. That is a clear anti-inflationary measure. While there may be protests against it, at least if he stuck to that line and followed it consistently he would have a logical case to argue. But when we see that he first takes one course and then an opposite course, first he encourages capitalisation of reserves by the ploughing back of profits into businesses, and then he takes a course in the opposite direction, it is difficult for people to know where they stand.
One thing which is desirable is that some sort of certainty should be created. It may be that the Chancellor cannot create confidence, but at least he might create some certainty as to his policy. If he had consistently followed the policy of encouraging the ploughing back of profits into business instead of their distribution at least people in business would know where they stood, and they would at least respect his policy. But at present they are not in that position at all and it is a very great misfortune because in the past many of the finest businesses have been built up from very small beginnings through capitalisation of profits and reserves. Many businesses have started in quite a small way. They have never gone to the market for capital at all. They have never borrowed on any large scale by debentures. They have

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just gone on building up their businesses, gradually increasing their capital resources by ploughing back their profits, increasing their reserves, and capitalising those reserves from time to time by issues of bonus shares to the existing shareholders. That has been the way in which some of the best and oldest family businesses in this country have been built up. Why is it that the Chancellor in this Order, as indeed in other measures which I have mentioned, has gone directly opposite to the course which he has ostensibly encouraged. I think that we must have some explanation of what the Chancellor really means in this respect.
There is one other point about which I wish to ask a question. That is in article 12 of Order 945 we find in paragraph (1):
"Any consent granted by the Treasury under this Order…(b)…may be revoked by the Treasury."
That seems rather bald—any consent granted may be revoked. No conditions are provided at all—no qualifications. I think that we ought to ask at what stage revocation can take place because, after all, if consent is given those concerned are entitled to go ahead and arrange their business. They are entitled to take every possible measure on the assumption that the consent will stand. But how are they to know that under article 12 the consent on which they rely may not suddenly be withdrawn. For what sort of reasons does the Financial Secretary contemplate that consent will be revoked? It may be revoked for reasons possibly having no connection whatsoever with the particular business in question. It may be revoked for some reason of general policy. With the article as it stands the risk of revocation of consent is always present until the business has been entirely completed. It would be impossible for people who are concerned in this matter to go ahead with their arrangements. I feel that these Orders together, and especially Order 945, are singularly unfortunate, and I hope that the House will agree to annul them.
10.39 P.m.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I do not think the House will expect me tonight, at this late hour, to follow the two hon. Gentlemen into the by-paths that they have thought fit to enter. For example, we have had
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quite recently, on the Finance Bill, more than one long discussion on the question of bonus issues, and I hope I may not be expected tonight to answer the hon. Baronet on all the pertinent points, from his point of view, which he has made. [Interruption.]I am here to deal with these three Prayers and if I may, I will deal with them in my own way.
Sir J. Mellor: If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, certainly I am quite anxious that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should deal with this in his own way, but he started off by saying that he was not going to deal with the principal point that I made in my speech at all relevant to Order 945, for this question of capitalisation of reserves is very prominently dealt with in that. That is why I think I am entitled to have an answer tonight.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: All I said was that I did not intend to follow the two hon. Gentlemen into the by-ways into which they went. That does not necessarily mean that I will not deal in what I have to say with the main points they have raised, including bonus shares, a point which has been made more than once by the hon. Baronet the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor). These Orders hang together. Order 944 wipes out entirely, so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, the whole of Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulation 1939, and it wipes out the same regulation so far as England, Wales and Scotland are concerned, except for one particular power to which the main attention of the two speakers has been directed tonight and to which, if I may, I will devote the main part of what I have to say in reply.
It is true that, in spite of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Second Reading speech in February of last year, he has not found it possible to cancel the power contained in Regulation 6 which controls what are known as public offers for sale. This Order continues this power. It should be within the recollection of the two hon. Members that when I on the Chancellor's behalf at Question time recently announced that these Orders were about to be laid, I also said that we regretted that he had to continue this particular power. Reasons were given for this in the explanatory memorandum inserted in HANSARD for that date. Never-

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theless, I will once again give the reasons why my right hon. Friend has had to continue for a time yet, in spite of his promise, in spite of his desire to get rid of it, this particular control.
Order No. 944 ties up directly with Order No. 946. As I have already indicated, Order 944 wipes out Regulation 6 except for this particular control and then Order 946 comes along and modifies that control. One Order revokes Regulation 6 for England, Wales and Scotland, except for the power I have just mentioned, which controls public offers for sale. Whilst the other, the one I am now dealing with, exempts from control public offers for sale where the security offered is shares or stocks, which have been issued within the last two years before the offer is made and which have been issued during that period with express Treasury sanction. The public offers for sale, which come within the ambit of the powers still retained within this particular regulation, thus cover a very narrow field.
I have been asked why my right hon. Friend has decided to keep these powers for a further period. As I indicated in a reply I gave on his behalf, it was with much regret that he decided to continue this control for a while longer. The reason is that during the autumn of last year when it was anticipated that it would be revoked and as a result the power was left in abeyance and many public offers for sale were allowed, it was found that the wrong kind of offers for sale were being promoted. To members of this House, for people saw these offers advertised in the public Press, came indignant letters, and my right hon. Friend received some of them, too. It was pointed out that our resources should be devoted to the rehabilitation and re-equipment of industry after the seven stressful years of war, and not, as in these instances, put into highly speculative enterprises such as dog racing, amusement parks and so on.
My right hon. Friend at that time indicated to the House that if that kind of thing went on, quite obviously, as it was anti-social in character, no Government worth its salt—I am not quoting exactly what my right hon. Friend said —could stand by and allow that kind of thing to continue. Perhaps to underline that I might be permitted to quote the
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new instructions which quite recently were issued to the Capital Issues Committee, the body which deals for the Treasury and for Parliament with requests to make public offers for sale—
"The Committee should be prepared to recommend consent to applications in respect of such offers."
It will be seen from these opening words that it is not a total prohibition; only that Treasury consent has to be obtained, and ordinarily consent would normally be given for such a public offer of sale so long as it is not anti-social in character.
Mr. Assheton: Have these instructions been laid before the House or placed in the Library? If not, will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to arrange for them to be made available?
Mr. Glenvil Hall: Certainly that shall be done. I should like to give to the House the instructions which have been sent to the Capital Issues Committee, and which I think very concisely and clearly indicate why it is that my right hon. Friend has had to continue this power for some time yet. Here are the instructions:
"The Committee should be prepared to recommend consent to applications in respect of such offers unless it appears that the proposal is objectionable in the general public interest. For example, they should not normally recommend public offers for sale of securities of companies whose activities are concerned with greyhound racing, amusement parks, and other purposes, for which issues for new money would clearly be ineligible for consent under present circumstances. They should also recommend refusal in the case of offers which are obviously highly speculative in character.
A special category of public offer is the offer of securities of companies concerned with the textile industries. It is of great importance that in such cases the Board of Trade should be consulted, and consent should not be recommended except where that Department has expressed itself satisfied that the proposal is not open to objection."
The gist of this instruction has already been given to the House either in the course of replies to Questions by my right hon. Friend or in the actual memorandum circulated on 22nd May last. The underlying principle—and I think it is a good principle and I think I will carry hon. Members in all quarters of the House with me in this—the underlying principle is that at this time it would be unwise, when we are asking every type of legitimate business to plough back its profits, to do all it can to bring its equipment and

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machinery up to date and to renew its tools and all the rest of it, and have these powers given us by the House for this purpose, for us to allow money to be frittered away in connection with greyhound racing tracks or amusement parks or even, as happened after the last war, on highly speculative enterprises dealing with the textile industry to the detriment of the community as a whole.
Mr. Drayson Mr. Drayson (Skipton) rose—
Mr. Glenvil Hall: I am very willing to give way, but there is a limit to the number of interruptions which I think I should be subjected to, particularly at this late hour when most Members, I am sure, would like to get home.
Mr. Drayson: I would like an assurance from the Financial Secretary. The instruction he has just read suggests that he is not anxious that the maximum amount of new capital should flow into the textile industry so that we can carry out the schemes of modernisation which the President of the Board of Trade is so anxious to see carried out. Could we have an assurance about that?
Mr. Glenvil Hall: Not a bit. The hon. Member has obviously not been listening to what I have read out. The instruction to the Capital Issues Committee is that where the application was in connection with the textile industry, the Board of Trade, which surely should know something about these matters, should be consulted before the committee decided whether to reject the application or to allow it. I do not see anything wrong in that. It is for the Board of Trade as the Department responsible for the industry to see that the money goes to the right type of textile promoter. We all want to see the industry nourish and textiles produced.
The hon. Baronet the Member for Sutton Coldfield asked me one or two questions. In particular he asked me to explain why the Treasury take power to revoke any order which has been made. Obviously life is one continual change. We do not contemplate that this order will last for ever. At some time it will have to be changed. If the hon. Baronet will turn, as no doubt he has, to the Act under which this Statutory Rule and Order has been made, namely the Borrowing
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Act of 1946, he will see that Section 3 (4) lays down that
"an order made under this Act may be varied or revoked by a subsequent Order."
Therefore if his fear is that this Order may be revoked and that he will not have the chance of knowing it, I can assure him that that is quite impossible. If any change is to be made it can only be done by either varying or revoking this order by leave of Parliament, and normally the easiest way is to revoke. The great expectation is that when these Orders are changed they are changed for the better, and not for the worse. When controls are changed nowadays they are not increased; they are lightened. As a matter of fact, the reason why this Order is being produced tonight is because we are making control easier rather than heavier. It seems very unfair of Members opposite to attack my right hon. Friend because he is making things easier for their friends in the city and is carrying out the promise he made when this particular Bill was brought before the House. They are attacking us as if we were here doing something quite out of Order and fastening the powers which undoubtedly do exist more firmly round the necks of the financial interests in the city. That is not so.
Sir J. Mellor: I am sorry to interrupt, but the right hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood what I said. I referred to article 12, para. 1 (b)That says:
"any consent granted by the Treasury…may be revoked."
I certainly was not objecting to the possibility of it being revoked. I hope it will be and very soon. I was asking the right hon. Gentleman about the question of a revocation of a consent that had been given. That is my question.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: The same principle applies both to Orders and consents. In a matter of this kind the Treasury are acting on behalf of the Government and the House. We had arguments over and over again when the Bill was passing through the House, on the words to which I have referred. The hon. Baronet and others made the same complaint then to my hon. Friend. These powers are usual. They must reside in some Government Department. The Government Department to exercise them is undoubtedly the Treasury. The

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Treasury must be given power to vary or revoke if necessary consents which have been issued for one form of transaction or another. There is nothing sinister in it or out of the ordinary.
Sir J. Mellor: I wish the right hon. Gentleman would answer some of the questions I have asked him. I pointed to the uncertainty that would arise, and we ought to have some indication in regard to the circumstances in which the Treasury would revoke a consent.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: The answer I have given is the best one I can give. I have lively recollections of the Debates that took place on the Bill, and, if I may say so, the hon. Baronet interrupted other speakers just as much as he is interrupting me tonight. I can assure him that I have no desire to run away from his questions. I do not find them all that difficult. What I find difficult is to get over to him what I am trying to say. What I am trying to say is this: A consent like an Order can be revoked under the Act and we are transferring the power contained in the Act to this Order 945 so that there may be elasticity. The proper place for it to reside—I make no apology—is the Treasury, so that if necessary consents can either be enlarged, revoked or altered in exceptional circumstances. No one would dream of using the power unwisely. If it were used unwisely there is fortunately always this House and the hon. Baronet can come here on behalf of the person aggrieved and raise it as I am positive he would do.
I have only answered the main questions that have been put. Some of the questions which the hon. and gallant Gentleman put to me to begin with really do not arise under this Order. He was, if I may say so, going back to his Second Reading speech on the Borrowing Act which sets up one of these Orders. I would like to assure him and the hon. Baronet that that Order No. 945 has nothing whatever to do with offers for sale. Offers for sale do not come under the Borrowing Act or the particular Order to which hon. Members have directed attention tonight.
On the other main question they have asked, namely, Why my right hon. Friend has kept on this power to prevent—except by consent—offers for sale being made, I can only add this: We have no desire
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to prevent genuine offers for sale. What we do not want—nor, I am positive, do Members on the other side—is at this juncture in our history to see national wealth frittered away or used for antisocial purposes. There is nothing more in it than that. In answer to one more question by the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield on bonus issues, I would say that he knows as well as I do that the power taken to control the issue of bonus shares is not new. If people desire to issue bonus shares they can go to the Capital Issues Committee, and, if the request is reasonable, I have no doubt the Capital Issues Committee will in the future favourably consider it. When the Clause in the Finance Bill now before the House becomes law, the issues will pay a 10 per cent. stamp duty; there is nothing in that which can be said to be going back on what my right hon. Friend promised.
Sir J. Mellor Sir J. Mellor rose—
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Baronet has in-interrupted three times in this connection to make short speeches. In this House one does not make speeches on interruptions.
Sir J. Mellor: I was only endeavouring to correct the right hon. Gentleman to say that he entirely misunderstood what I said. I have never suggested that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had broken his promise in regard to bonus issues in this respect. I merely described it as being inconsistent. I only wish to correct that point.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: My right hon. Friend has not been inconsistent. All he does in this particular Order is to continue what has been in existence for some years—to continue the power of the Treasury to control the issue of bonus shares. There is no inconsistency there. There is consistency, because he is saying that where these are issued with consent the Exchequer should have a rake off. I think I have answered the main points about these Orders. They are very complicated, but I have given an answer to the main points that have been made. I must leave it at that and ask the House to give us these Orders.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: I would like to know about the list of priorities.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: The last Memorandum of Guidance issued to the capital issues committee was in 1945. No Memorandum of Guidance has been issued

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since. I am glad the hon. Member has raised the matter, because it gives me an opportunity to say that while that is true, having looked at the Memorandum of Guidance, we find that though the framework there set out and the priorities are still valid, it is more than two years since it was issued, and I can assure him and the House that an early opportunity will be taken to bring that Memorandum of Guidance up to date.
11.5 p.m.
Mr. Nigel Birch: I feel that the speech of the Financial Secretary deserves some sort of answer. Some of my hon. Friends have spoken of his inconsistency. I do not agree with them. He has been entirely consistent in his inconsistency. The Financial Secretary was quite right in not attempting to answer on the principle, because I think the reply the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave on the Committee stage of the Finance Bill was the answer to end all answers. The Financial Secretary could not very well deny it, and if he had repeated it he would have lowered himself to the same level.
One word on the question of the broken pledge with regard to offers for sale. The Financial Secretary gave two answers to that. The first was that it only covered a very narrow field. That is the old answer—a sin, but only a little one. The second was that the Chancellor had done this because he had received a lot of indignant letters. But might it not be that some of these letter-writers were misinformed? The right hon. Gentleman must get a lot of indignant letters every day, and he may well be able to stand a few more. The broad issue about which these letters were received would not be covered by this Order at all. In regard to what has been said about new capital, that it would be too terrible if money was put into greyhound racing shares, that does not affect this particular Order because it is not occurring. Companies cannot raise capital at all without the consent of the Treasury. Therefore, I would submit that the right hon. Gentleman's answer had no meaning.
On this question of rescinding orders, the hon. Baronet raised a pertinent point. The Financial Secretary in his reply said that we lived in a world of continual change. Nothing changes with such frequency and rapidity as Government plans.
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One day we put gilt-edged up to 102, and the next we have it down to 90. One day the balance of payments is £300,000,000, and the next it is £700,000,000. We are continually changing. But if someone acts under an order, and it is revoked afterwards, it may be that he will suffer undeserved loss. I cannot see how the national interest can be seriously affected by the Government keeping their word in all cases where they have given consents. These are not consents that last for years and years. It seems to me that on the two points the answers given by the right hon. Gentleman were not very good ones
11.8 p.m.
Mr. Charles Williams: I think the answer we have been given was a little peevish. A good many people had been left by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the understanding that there would be a gradual reduction in the severity of the use of these controls. None of us wants to see a lot of British capital—which is very scarce today because of the actions of the right hon. Gentleman—being issued for dog racing shares and that kind of thing. We all want it to go into productive industry which will give goods for export. There is no difference between us on that. But I believe the Financial Secretary has been let down by his right hon. Friend, who seems to have left him with a rather sticky job. He has got into a terrible fix owing to the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said very clearly that he is going to make the issuing of these shares a great deal easier.
Let me deal with Article 12 on page 6. Just look how wide he is making these rules. In the first place, in (a)it reads:
"Any consent—"
This is not an order but a consent by the Treasury. "…granted by the Treasury…
may be either genera) or special."
One can single out an item specially 01 it can be very wide. There one has an immense width and the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not carrying out what we thought would happen. As far as the right hon. Gentleman was concerned, he apparently thought for the purpose of his explanation that before anything was revoked one had to have an Order, but I do not think that is the plain matter. What one is revoking under (b)is consent

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of the Treasury at the Beginning of this paragraph. Really, it does not come be-fore the House and I do not think it can be inferred from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that it would come before the House
Mr. Glenvil Hall Mr. Glenvil Hall rose—
Mr. Williams: Does the right hon Gentleman wish to intervene?
Mr. Glenvil Hall: No, I thought the hon. Gentleman was on a good point. I was looking at my copy of the Act to try to turn up an answer.
Mr. Williams: I am trying to be short. Apparently the right hon. Gentleman wants time to turn up an answer, but, may I give the answer to his point? That really is that under this Order one is enabled at any time after the issue has been granted to withdraw consent simply by reason of the Treasury's action. That is the point. That is bound to lead to terrific uncertainty in the whole of the issues of capital. If one is wanting to get people to put money into secure concerns producing the goods that are needed one needs to give them a great deal more assurance than is given under the Order. It goes on to say that the Order
It goes on to say that the Order
"may be absolute or conditional."
There again one is hedged about with limits or conditions.
And again under (d)it
"may be limited so as to expire at the end of a specified period."
There again one has every conceivable kind of width or narrowness for the purpose of limiting and making it difficult for firms to start a new issue.
What worried me more than anything else the Financial Secretary said was his statement that before issuing these Orders he would refer them to the Board of Trade. I have no particular objection to that except from this point of view. When one refers a capital issue to the Board of Trade one has then two Government Departments rather than one. The Board of Trade under its present administration—and I am only referring to what the right hon. Gentleman says—have very fixed and not very good commercial ideas which may drive industry to a point which we deem to be unsuitable, and one has
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here a severe restriction which may make a bad use of the capital issues at the present time.
I commiserate with the right hon. Gentleman over the position he is in tonight. But I do say that Orders such as this, taken late at night, which affect the whole rebuilding of the capital issues of this country, might limit and circumscribe capital in such a way that I do not think that these are orders which should be issued. Because I am sure that the main effect of these Orders will be to make it more difficult to regain our export trade in any way whatever.
11.15 p.m.
Mr. Assheton: I do not propose to detain the House for more than a few minutes. But I must say that the Financial Secretary has not answered satisfactorily the pertinent points put to him by the hon. and gallant Member for Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) and the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir J. Mellor). I think that the right hon. Gentleman did not deal at all satisfactorily with the "offer to sell" business. I think the answer he should have made, and perhaps he will concur with me if I am right, is that in the case of an issue of under £50,000 there has been a certain amount of laxity perhaps which he wishes to check, and that this will give him an opportunity of checking it. But none the less it is perfectly clear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has broken a promise which he made to this House. I am sorry he had to do that, because it is always an unfortunate thing if any Chancellor of the Exchequer has to break any promise. If he breaks one promise there is always a suspicion that he may break another.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: There was complete laxity in all types of investment, not only in those of under £50,000. It was rightly assumed that this thing was coming to an end However, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer then found that he could not bring it to an end. We have had to tighten it up and to impose these Orders, Nos. 944 and 946.
Mr. Assheton: It is unfortunate that the Chancellor of the Exchequer ever made that promise. He must regret having made it. I do wish the House to agree with me that promises made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are in

1659
a very exceptional category. All promises ought to be kept; but promises made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer regarding financial matters have to be considered very carefully indeed. I hope that nothing of this sort will happen again.
The second point raised has not been answered at all. That was the question of revocation. The Financial Secretary made a very bad point in stating that revocation of a general Order had any relation to revocation of a special consent. The point about a special consent is that the authorities consent to a particular issue of capital in certain circumstances. Those concerned with that issue, in the City or elsewhere, make their own arrangements for the issue, and there is no complaint about what they are doing. When they are in the middle of making these arrangements and have entered into certain commitments in connection with them, it is wrong that the consent should be revoked. I suggest to the Financial Secretary that although he will get his Order tonight because we have not enough hon. Members to vote it down, he should look at the matter again before the Order is re-imposed and see if the provisions of 12 (1) (b,)which says:
"may be revoked by the Treasury"
ought not to be related to general, and not to special, consents. I hope the Financial Secretary will convey this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that the Chancellor will discuss the matter with the Treasury before this Order comes before us again.
The third point I want to make is that this Order shows once again the ridiculous antagonism of the Chancellor of the Exchequer towards capitalisation of reserves. I do not want to go over that ground again, but when the Chancellor says day after day that he wants businesses to be careful in distributing profits, and that he wants them to build up reserves, and then comes along with an Order like this, it suggests to anyone reading it that capitalisation of profits or reserves is in itself a bad thing. It is something which the Chancellor wants done, and yet he resists it. I do not know whether the Chancellor understands what he is talking about or not in this matter. I think the Financial Secretary does, and I hope that
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he will use all the influence he can with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to bring him round to a more reasonable frame of mind. So far as I am concerned, I think it is absolutely necessary that we should vote against Order No. 945 and although the right hon. Gentleman has not given a satisfactory explanation with regard to Nos. 944 and 946 I, for my part, do not intend that we should press these particular objections to a Division.
11.20 p.m.
Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: On the many occasions I have heard the Financial Secretary, I have never heard him make such an inadequate speech to a number of arguments from this side. He has made no attempt to answer the points we raised. So far as I gathered his main argument at the end simply followed the earlier answer of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it was to prevent investments flowing into undesirable types of business. But what he did not make was any reply to what the third order says that it is only applied to offers for sale which are controlled where the shares in question have been issued without the consent of the Treasury for a period of two years. He failed, despite the direct question I put to him, to state in what type of cases could such shares have been issued. I spent some time in trying to elicit how such cases could arise. He never made any answer to that. He never made any distinction, so far as I could see, between the flow from offers for sale and the types of shares not controlled by the Treasury and the types that are controlled. If, for example, a greyhound racing track made an offer for sale of shares issued three years ago the Treasury has no power to stop it, but if the offer was made in the last two years, it has. But, so far as the answer was concerned, he tried to make the House believe that they could control all such offers. I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman would be the first to admit that that is not so. In fact, so far as the offers to sell are concerned the only control they have is one in time and he made no attempt to justify that and show how that time factor is arrived at, or why it is done.
I took great trouble to ask the Financial Secretary certain concrete questions, and if I may say with respect, he ignored the lot. I challenge him that, if this Order is to be perpetrated at this time, ten

1661
months after we passed the Borrowing (Control and Guarantees) Bill, there is one thing only he must prove, that the powers we have had up to now in Defence Regulation 6, which he now wishes to carry on in this Order, have been of benefit to the country. But in the answer he has given tonight he has not made the slightest effort to prove it. He has not given the slightest evidence that the control of the Treasury in the capital market has been of any benefit to any industry in any part of the national well-being. We have asked, and we are entitled to ask, that where power of this sort is taken, that where the Chancellor says it is essential to our national life that such power should be taken—at least we are entitled to have some evidence from the Financial Secretary that the power has been used well. He has not made the slightest effort to prove it.
I asked him at the end of his fairly long speech to tell us why he had not even altered the list of priorities since 1945 and all he said was that he thought the 1945 list of priorities was still relevant today. Is there any hon. Member opposite or on this side of the House who believes that the list of priorities of 1945 is still relevant today—[An HON. MEMBER: "Yes."] In that case, I am glad to find that the
Financial Secretary has one supporter in this House. No one else believes, with the crisis upon us and the sudden change in circumstances, that the Government are able to say that the same priorities apply. Yet in 18 months of holding these powers they have not found it necessary to give a memorandum of guidance to the Capital Issues Committee. For these reasons I must ask hon. Members on this side of the House to vote against S.R. & O. No. 945 as a protest against the powers taken by the Government which they claim are essential and which they are completely unable to defend in this House—powers which they have never used in the national interest.
Question,
"That the Order in Council, dated 21st May, 1947, amending Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations, 1939 (S.R. & O., 1947, No. 944), a copy of which Order in Council was presented on 22nd May, be annulled":
put and negatived.
Motion made, and Question put,
"That the Control of Borrowing Order, 1947 (S.R. & O., 1947, No. 945), dated 21st May, 1947, a copy of which was presented on 22nd May, be annulled."—[Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre.]]
The House divided: Ayes, 32; Noes, 129.

Division No. 295]

AYES.

[11.26 p.m.

Assheton, Rt. Hon. R.

Hare, Hon. J H. (Woodbridge)

Ropner, Col. L.

Bennett, Sir P.

Harvey, Air-Cmdre. A. V.

Ross Sir R. D (Londonderry)

Birch, Nigel

Langford-Holt, J.

Stoddart-Scott, Col M

Bossom, A. C.

Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)

Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.

Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

Studholme, H. G.

Challen, C.

Maude, J. C.

Teeling, William

Crowder, Capt. John E.

Morrison, Maj. J. G. (Salisbury)

Wheatley, Colonel M. J

Darling, Sir W. Y.

Neven-Spence, Sir B.

Williams, C. (Torquay)

Digby, S. W.

Noble, Comdr. A. H P

Dodds-Parker, A. D

Orr-Ewing, I. L.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Drayson, G. B

Raikes, H. V.

Colonel Crosthwalte-Eyre and

Drewe, C

Ramsay, Maj. S.

Sir John Mellor.

NOES.

Adams, Richard (Balham)

Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C

Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

Bruce, Maj. D. W T.

Edwards, W. J (Whitechapel)

Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)

Burks, W. A.

Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

Castle, Mrs. B. A

Field, Capt W. J.

Alpass, J. H.

Champion, A. J.

Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)

Altewell, H. C.

Cocks, F. S.

Ganley, Mrs C S

Awbery, S. S.

Collindridge, F.

Gordon-Walker, P. C.

Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.

Collins, V. J.

Granville, E. (Eye)

Baird, J.

Colman, Miss G. M

Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)

Barstow, P. G

Cooper, Wing-Comdr. G.

Gunter, R. J

Barton, C.

Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)

Guy, W. H.

Battley, J. R.

Corlett, Dr. J.

Haire, John E. (Wycombe)

Bechervaise, A. E.

Crawley, A.

Hall, W. G.

Beswick, F.

Daines, P

Hardy, E. A.

Bing, G. H. C.

Davies, Edward (Burslem)

Hastings, Dr. Somerville

Blenkinsop, A.

Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)

Hobson, C. R.

Bowden, Flg.-Offr. H. W

Diamond, J.

Holman, P.

Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'pl, Exch'ge)

Dobbie, W

Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)

Braddock, T (Mitcham)

Dodds, N N.

Hughes, H. D. (Wolverhampton, W)

Bramall, E. A.

Driberg, T. E. N.

Hutchinson, H, L. (Rusholme)

Brook, D (Halifax)

Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)

Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

Pearson, A.

Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)

Janner, B.

Peart, Thomas F.

Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

Jeger, G. (Winchester)

Platts-Mills, J F F

Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)

Popplewell, F

Thomas, I. p. (Wrekin)

Jones, D T. (Hartlepools)

Pritt, D. N.

Ungoed-Thomas, L.

Jones, Elwyn (Plaistow)

Randall, H. E

Usborne, Henry

Kenyon, C.

Ranger, J

Vernon, Maj W. F

Lee, Miss J (Cannock)

Ridealgh, Mrs. M.

Walkden, E.

Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)

Lindgren, G. S.

Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

Wallace, H W. (Walthamstow, E.)

Lipton. Lt -Col. M

Scollan, T.

Wells, W. T. (Walsall)

Longden, F

Segal, Dr. S

White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)

Lyne, A. W.

Sharp, Granville

Whitcley, Rt. Hon. W

Mack, J. D.

Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)

Wilkins, W. A.

McKay, J (Wallsend)

Silverman, J (Erdington)

Willey, 0. G. (Cleveland)

Mathers, G.

Simmons, C J.

Williams, W R. (Heston)

Mellish, Ft. J.

Skeffington, A. M.

Wills, Mrs. E. A.

Middleton, Mrs. L.

Smith, C. (Colchester)

Woodburn, A.

Mitchison, G. R

Smith, S. H. (Hull S.W)

Woods, G. S

Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

Snow, Capt. J. W

ziiliacus, K

O'Brien, T.

Solley, L. J.

Orbach, M.

Symonds, A. L.

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Paget, R. T.

Teylor, H. B. (Mansfield?

Mr. Joseph Henderson and

Mr. Michael Stewart.

Question put, and agreed to.

CIVIL AIR ACCIDENTS (INQUIRIES)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Joseph Henderson,]
11.33 p.m.
Air-Commodore Harvey: I apologise for detaining the House at this late hour, but the subject I wish to raise is the question of inquiries into civil air accidents. Unfortunately, there have been a great number of accidents during the past 12 months both in this country and more recently in the United States, and knowing the anxiety of the public and of hon. Members on both sides of the House, I decided to take advantage of this Adjournment even though it is late.
The Air Navigation Statutory Rules and Orders, 1922 (Comd. 650), gives a guide to the Inspector-General of Accidents in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 in carrying out a preliminary investigation. It is my point, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that very little guidance is given to the Inspector-General and in any case the accident order to which I have referred is 25 years old and is completely out of date and has no bearing on conditions of civil aviation as it is today. The Minister of Civil Aviation has power to order a full legal inquiry if he so desires, but to the best of my knowledge it has only happened on three occasions—on the R101 disaster and on two other occasions. We do not want to see every air accident tied up with the legal world, for that would be costly, and, if my hon. and learned Friends present will forgive me, rather
1664
cumbersome. I would rather see aviation kept free from that type of business.
Nevertheless, the Accidents Investigations Regulations Committee held a meeting on nth February, 1944, to go into this matter to see what could be done. Mr. Morton, who is well-known in aviation circles, gave evidence and said that, in his opinion, the existing methods of investigating air accidents would very soon be out of date, particularly in operations when large aircraft were coming along. That was the view of a very experienced pilot who had 5,000 to 6,000 hours of flying. I do not think that these inquiries should be judicial in the true sense, but none the less I go so far as to say that changes should be made. It is not the fault of Air-Commodore Brown, who is Inspector-General, that the investigations are carried out in the way they are carried out. He is thought of very highly in civilian aviation circles. I would go so far as to say that the inquiries are completely unbiased. Air-Commodore Brown is given a fairly free hand by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to go into matters which pertain to accidents and bring out all the evidence.
As I see it the Inspector-General's inquiries are really fact-finding inquiries and the President has not the power to subpoena witness or take evidence on oath. That is the real weakness of the whole thing. In fact, I think the Inspector-General is in a very embarrassed position. He is employed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and he has to investigate accidents where the Ministry themselves might be involved and might well be to blame. He is really, in fact, acting as both doctor and coroner, which is not a

1665
situation which should be allowed to continue. I discussed this matter with the British Air Line Pilots' Association and with the Guild as well as with numerous pilots who are not connected with either organisation. I am told that B.A.L.P.A. actually saw the Inspector-General in November, 1946, on accidents generally and that they discussed the question with him. Two days afterwards they wrote to me putting forward certain suggestions and asking for information. Three days later they received a little buff card which was a form of acknowledgement. That was in November of last year and they have heard nothing since. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary that his Department should be improved in regard to correspondence on these very important matters. I know that it is an expanding Ministry and it has been understaffed for the past 12 months and that the industry is growing, but it is important that representations which are made to the Ministry should have proper attention given to them and replies made.
Under the present method of finding out the cause of accidents very often the pilot is to blame. He invariably gets it in the neck. After a fatal accident the pilot is seldom there to state his case. Whatever happens the pilot is usually secondary to the primary cause of the accidents. There was an accident at Speke on 16th August, 1946, and the conclusion about that accident was that it was due to faulty technique by the captain of the aircraft. I do not want to enter into the details which led up to the accident, but there was one point, apart from the weather, which was that the hangar obstructed the view from the control tower of the scene of the accident. That implicates the officials employed by the Ministry who were in the control tower, but that was not mentioned. It should have been brought out at the inquiry. Likewise there was another accident—this time a much larger one. An Avro-York crashed at Bathurst on 7th September, 1946. Actually the finding or opinion, as it is called, said that the accident occurred as a result of the captain losing control shortly after leaving the ground; the cause of the loss of control could not be determined with certainty, but that it was due to a mishandling of the controls by the captain was, it was said, the most likely explanation.
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That is a deplorable finding to bring in. It would have been far better to have said nothing when the whole thing was so obscure. Certain bodies have decided that perhaps the engine failed, which might have caused this fatal accident. There are many unfortunate accidents, such as this particular one, which are better forgotten, but I do suggest that the actual finding on that occasion was very regrettable.
Wing-Commander Millington: Has the hon. and gallant Gentleman any statistics at his disposal of the number of non-fatal accidents upon which a court of inquiry has sat and found that the pilot who was still living was responsible?
Air-Commodore Harvey: No, I have not got information and it would probably be almost impossible to obtain it. If a question was put to the Parliamentary Secretary I am sure he would be unable to give it.
Many of these accidents are near misses and it would be quite impossible to investigate all such accidents. I would like to put before the Parliamentary Secretary a few suggestions for consideration by himself and his right hon. Friends. The first is that inquiries should be held in public. The second is that they should be presided over by a president with legal qualifications. The inquiry should have power to subpoena witnesses and to take evidence on oath. The body holding such an inquiry should be entirely dissociated from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Air Ministry. It could perhaps, if necessary, come under a Law Officer of the Crown who might quite well run a small office with a team of workers to work independently of the Ministries.
We have a Civil Aviation Consultative Council of which Lord Nathan is chairman and which has 50 members. I suggest that that body should inquire into the whole method of inquiry, into air accidents and bring forward recommendations on what should be done. It is representative of the whole industry and I believe if they were to bring in evidence from outside and get down to it, we could have an up-to-date method of conducting these inquiries with as little incovenience and cost as possible to the industry as a whole.
11.43 P.m.
Mr. Beswick: As the hon. and gallant Gentleman has said, the Air Navigation Regulations under which these inquiries are held are 25 years old now. Paragraph 6 (2) says:
"The Inspector of Accidents may include recommendations for the cancellation, suspension or endorsement of any licence or certificate."
There is no expressed power for making a recommendation on the whole system of controls which has grown up since 1922 and upon which the safety of aircraft to a very large extent depends, and which now is the direct responsibility of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the employer of the Inspector. What I want to put to the Parliamentary Secretary is this. Many responsible people feel that in the case of the Speke accident, airport control was at least partly involved. Did the report of the investigator into that accident make any recommendation about the system of airport control? Had they any power to make any recommendations about the suspension of any licences in that case?
If his answer is "Yes," then I put the following question: In the Spencer Airways crash, almost all the regulations which it was possible to break were in fact broken. Now the responsibility for allowing that aircraft to take off rested with the airport authorities, who are in the employ of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department. What suggestions or recommendations were made at the inquiry as to any alteration in the methods of the airport authorities, and, if any suggestions were made, were they acted upon, and if they were acted upon could my hon. Friend say why two months afterwards another aircraft crashed into the sea in the Channel, when again we find the pilot did not have the necessary licence for flying passengers?. How did this come about? It does really seem that the organisation for which the Ministry is responsible is to some extent at fault in these accidents. Are we sure that the powers and the status of the investigating body is sufficient to make a report on the methods of his own employer, the Ministry, which will be acted upon. I have not time to make any detailed suggestions but simply support one made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman for an urgent inquiry into the system of making inquiries.
11.46 p.m.
Mr. Geoffrey Cooper: I think the House will appreciate the action of the hon. and gallant Member in having raised this matter. Otherwise, if such matters were not threshed out and remedies sought we should discourage people from using the civil air services. It seems that the system which applies to investigations is not liked by anyone— with the possible exception of the Ministry —either by the public, the pilots or the passengers.—[An HON. MEMBER: Or the Corporations.]—The important question as I see it is this: Even if the investigations are carried out in the most perfect way, what is done about the findings? Surely, this is the most important matter to consider in connection with air accidents. I raised this matter in a Question I put to the Parliamentary Secretary on 4th June, when he suggested from my Question that there was some implied criticism being levelled at the Corporations. The Parliamentary Secretary refuted that suggestion in his reply, but I do ask him to analyse the accidents which have taken place very carefully and see if he cannot bring pressure to bear on the Corporations to eliminate the difficulties which have arisen.
In the case of the accident to the British European Airways aircraft at Oslo on 7th August, it was indicated that the captain had not enough experience or adequate training in the let-down procedure. The Corporation should see that things like that are covered. In the accident to the aircraft of Scottish Airways on 19th December, 1946, it was stated that the captain had made an error of judgment in taking off when the aircraft was almost entirely covered by snow. Regulations should be made to prevent that sort of thing happening. In the accident to the South American Airways aircraft on 7th September, the captain's experience of Yorks was confined to very little flying time. He had never done a full-load take-off under similar conditions.
These points do suggest the most serious reflections upon the organizations of the Corporations and the firms concerned. I should like my hon. Friend, if he will not issue instructions—as he has the statutory powers to do—to see that the necessary instructions are issued by the Corporations to prevent the recurence of these events. We must learn from these serious accidents. I ask him

1669
to follow up the matter in all seriousness and see if something cannot be done.
11.49 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Civil Aviation (Mr. Lindgren): On behalf of my noble Friend and myself I would like to thank the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield (Air-Commodore Harvey) for raising this matter tonight. It does enable me to make a statement in regard to the general question of accidents and accident investigation procedure. I am happy about most of the speeches made tonight because there was really very little that divides us. All are agreed that we need a procedure for accident investigation which will arrive at the cause of the accident. Having found the cause of the accident, we can proceed to take measures which will prevent other accidents from similar causes. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough West (Mr. Cooper) does not surely suggest that an accident report received by the responsible air operator, whether Corporation or Charter, is not going to be thoroughly investigated. There is machinery, and it is being tightened up. It was perfectly true that some accidents have shown that crew training was not as good as it should have been. The Corporations have always taken the necessary precautions to see that this cause does not arise again.
Mr. Cooper: Has disciplinary action been taken where justified?
Mr. Lindgren: Just because a mistake has happened, it does not always mean that disciplinary action is necessary. People do not make mistakes deliberately. If there are legal proceedings, that is completely outside the question of finding out the cause of the accident.
May I deal with the question raised by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Beswick). He referred to accidents where it had been shown that the accident arose in association with the breaking of a number of established rules and regulations. It is not the inspector's function to recommend changes of rules and regulations and legislation. It is his function to find the cause of the accident, to submit the cause to the Minister, and for the Minister and his advisers to take responsibility in regard to putting forward legislation, if it is necessary. In certain cases certificates which should have been carried
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by aircraft were not carried and regulations were infringed. So action was taken to insist that those certificates be carried, although some people objected to the number of such certificates, as to airworthiness, crew, etc. that had to be carried.
The question of aircraft safety in flying to and from Guernsey had been raised. It has to be borne in mind that Guernsey is outside the scope of airport management from this country, and while control would have operated had the aircraft been required to return from this country, there was no control required by the authorities in those areas. Every accident is very seriously scrutinised by my noble Friend and his advisers in the Department and we deal with everything possible arising from them.
I was very glad that the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield appreciated the very valuable work which has been carried out by the Chief Inspector of Accidents. Having said that, it may do much to assure him in dealing with the point that, while the Chief Inspector is employed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, he does not only deal with accidents arising from civil aviation, but also with those connected with the Air Ministry, the Admiralty, and the Ministry of Supply, and he makes his reports to those Ministers in the same way as to the Minister of Civil Aviation. While there may appear on the surface to be some invidiousness in his position, I think it is more apparent than real. No one has suggested that there is any interference with him in his work, and it is obvious from the type and standard of his work that there is no such interference.
The Treasury is responsible for the manner in which these inspectors are appointed, and to whom they are responsible. The Chief Inspector of Accidents is responsible to the Ministry of Civil Aviation purely for administrative purposes. All we arc concerned about is getting at the cause of the accident, and how best to find it. The hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield, gave a brief history. They first arise under the Navigation Acts of 1920 and Regulations produced in 1922 which gave the possibility first of a preliminary investigation, and second of a court which has the powers of a court of summary

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jurisdiction. Each Minister has only used the power of the court on three occasions, the last being the case of the ill-fated R.101. Until October of last year all inquiries were in private, and only the gist of a summary of the inspectors' report was given to those directly interested. Last October my noble Friend decided, almost immediately after assuming office, that accidents should be investigated in public, and that in the vast majority of cases the report of the inspector should be published, and also that not only the conclusions, but the evidence that went to assist the inspector in arriving at his conclusions, should be made available.
I want to emphasise that these inquiries are informal inquiries to ascertain facts. They are not inquiries to allocate liability in any way. My noble Friend holds the view—and I gather the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield, whose opinions in these matters we respect, takes the same view—that a judicial inquiry is not required. But we recognise that the present machinery does need some revision and we are looking at the whole question in the light of our experience, and in the light also of the experience of other accident investigating bodies— railway, mining, marine, and others—so that we can arrive at the best way of dealing with it. We have negotiations going on at the moment wth the Chief Inspector of Accidents and the Inspector of Railway Accidents, with a view to bringing the best of the railway accident machinery into our own. One point which we are looking at very seriously
1672
is that the Radio Officers Union, B.A.L.P.A., and other unions, in the civil aviation industry who are concerned in accidents, should have the right of representation at the inquiries in exactly the same way as the N.U.R. and the other railway unions have at railway accident inquiries.
Equally we accept the suggestion, which has already been acted upon, that the matter should be submitted to the Consultative Council for Civil Aviation, and a paper is being prepared for my noble Friend to submit to them and get their views. Everything possible will be done, every point of view will be canvassed and considered, because it is our desire that we shall get a form of inquiry which will give absolute confidence to the air operators, to the men who fly the machines, to the ground staff who assist, and to the public who travel by them. If we can secure that confidence—as I said in answer to a Question—the confidence that the Minister of Transport has secured in association with railway accidents, then we shall be very happy indeed. I am grateful for the opportunity that has been provided by the hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield for me to state that we are making investigations with the possibility of changing the procedure and bringing it more into line with present day requirements. Any points put to my noble Friend will receive every consideration.
Adjourned accordingly at One Minute past Twelve o'Clock

PUBLIC HEALTH
  Medical Profession (Negotiations)
  Medical Profession (Negotiations)
  Child Care Services (Administration)
  Child Care Services (Administration)
  Smallpox, London
  Smallpox, London
EDUCATION
  Holidays
  Holidays
  Black-Listed School Buildings
  Black-Listed School Buildings
  PERMANENT HOUSES
  PERMANENT HOUSES
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Cotton and Rayon Cloth
  Cotton and Rayon Cloth
  Distribution of Industry Act
  Distribution of Industry Act
  Tourist and Holidays Board
  Tourist and Holidays Board
  Furniture Production
  Furniture Production
COAL INDUSTRY
  Domestic Supplies Leicestershire
  Domestic Supplies Leicestershire
  Anthracite Exports
  Anthracite Exports
  Colliery Offices (Furniture)
  Colliery Offices (Furniture)
  BANKSIDE POWER STATION
  BANKSIDE POWER STATION
  MINERAL DEVELOPMENT (COMMITTEE'S REPORT)
  MINERAL DEVELOPMENT (COMMITTEE'S REPORT)
  FUEL EFFICIENCY (MINISTRY'S STAFF)
  FUEL EFFICIENCY (MINISTRY'S STAFF)
  SPEEDWAY RACING, LONDON
  SPEEDWAY RACING, LONDON
EMPLOYMENT
  Trade Unions (Coal Board Recognition)
  Trade Unions (Coal Board Recognition)
  Business Courses
  Business Courses
  JURY SERVICE (EXPENSES)
  JURY SERVICE (EXPENSES)
  TAILORING AND HOSIERY (SHEARS)
  TAILORING AND HOSIERY (SHEARS)
  BUILDING INDUSTRY
  BUILDING INDUSTRY
ROADS
  Street Lighting
  Street Lighting
  Traffic, Hereford
  Traffic, Hereford
  OLD ASSEMBLY ROOMS, NEWCASTLE (DEREQUISITION)
  OLD ASSEMBLY ROOMS, NEWCASTLE (DEREQUISITION)
  INDIA DEFENCE FORCES (CLAIMS)
  INDIA DEFENCE FORCES (CLAIMS)
AFRICAN COLONIES
  Buganda Deportees
  Buganda Deportees
  Rhodesian Railways
  Rhodesian Railways
  POST OFFICE (DISMISSALS)
  POST OFFICE (DISMISSALS)

Preamble
The House met at four of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD AMMON: My Lords, before we start the business of the day and resume the Committee stage of the Town and Country Planning Bill, I would like to make a short announcement about the business for next week. If, as appears likely, we do not conclude the Committee stage of the Town and Country Planning Bill to-day, we shall, with the agreement of the Parties opposite, continue the Committee stage and hope to conclude it on Monday next, July 7. In order to make room for this change, it has been necessary slightly to alter the business now on the Order Paper for Monday next—which is of a somewhat miscellaneous character —by postponing the Committee stage of the Fire Services Bill, on which there are several Amendments to be proposed, until Friday of next week July 11, when we shall meet at eleven in the morning. Otherwise, the business for that day, and for the other days of the week, will remain as originally proposed—namely, that on Tuesday we shall take the Second Reading of the Electricity Bill, and on Wednesday and Thursday the Report stage of the Transport Bill. I am afraid it will be necessary to ask the House to sit late each night, and there will be the dinner adjournment as usual between 7 and 8.30 p.m. The House will meet on Monday next, July 7, at 2.30 p.m.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL
4.5 p.m.
House again in Committee (according to Order).
[The EARL OF DROGHEDA in the Chair.]
Clause 79:
Mineral workings.
79.—(1) In relation to development consisting of the winning and working of minerals,
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the provisions of this Act shall have effect subject to such adaptations and modifications as may be prescribed by regulations made under this Act with the consent of the Treasury.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision, any such regulations as aforesaid may provide for securing—

(a) that in the case of such land as may be prescribed by or under the regulations, no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the winning and working of any minerals in the land during a period of three years after the appointed day;

(b) that the restricted and the unrestricted values of any interest in such land as is mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be calculated for the purposes of Part VI of this Act as if any operations carried out for the winning and working of minerals during the said period of three years had been carried out before the appointed day;

(c) that the amount of any development charge payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the winning and working of minerals in accordance with planning permission granted or deemed to have been granted under Part III of this Act shall be calculated by reference to the amount of minerals got from time to time in accordance with such permission.

(3) Regulations made for the purposes of this section shall provide for securing—

(a) that where a development charge is payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the winning and working of minerals comprised in a mining lease which was in force on the appointed day, the terms of the lease may be varied. by such tribunal as may be prescribed by the regulations, so far as may be just having regard to the amount of the charge;

(b) that where a development charge is payable under the said Part VII in respect of the winning and working of minerals authorised by an order made under Part I of the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act, 1923, the provisions of the order may be varied by the Railway and Canal Commission so far as may be just having regard to the amount of the charge.

LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN had given notice of an Amendment in subsection (2), after paragraph (b), to insert:
"(c) that where—

(i) a mining lease was in force on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, having on that day an unexpired term of not less than ten years, or

(ii) minerals were being won and worked immediately before that day by a person having an interest therein otherwise than under a mining lease,

no payment shall be made under the said Part VI in respect of any interest in the minerals comprised in the said mining lease,

895
or in any minerals which form part of the same seam or deposit as that in respect of which the operations mentioned in sub-paragraph (ii) of this paragraph were being carried out and in respect of which an interest was held as mentioned in the said sub-paragraph, as the case may be, and that no development charge shall be payable under the said Part VII in respect of the winning and working of the said minerals under the mining lease referred to in sub-paragraph (i) of this paragraph or in respect of the winning and working of any minerals referred to in the said sub-paragraph (ii) in respect of which no payment has been made under the said Part VI as aforesaid."
The noble Lord said: We now come to the clause dealing with minerals. As your Lordships may remember, on the Second Reading of this Bill I suggested that this clause had somehow got into the Bill at the last moment in a rather haphazard fashion. Perhaps I might remind your Lordships that the clause starts:
"In relation to development consisting of the winning and working of minerals, the provisions of this Act shall have effect subject to such adaptations and modifications as may be prescribed by regulations made under this Act with the consent of the Treasury."
That indicates to me, whether rightly or wrongly, that as full consideration had not been given in advance in the drafting of this Bill to the case of mineral land, as had been given to the case of other land. In fact, in the case of mineral land, quite differently from the case of land for building development, we have no provision whatever for ripe mineral land.
Your Lordships will remember that last night we had a considerable discussion on what was the right test of ripeness for building development land. There was a test for that put in the Bill itself, but there is no test whatever in this Bill in regard to what is ripe mineral land. For myself, I think that may well be an oversight, into which it is right that your Lordships should look. That is why I have put down this Amendment which I am moving. Clause 79 (2) says:
"Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision,"
that is the one where any adaptations can be made—
"any such regulations as aforesaid may provide for securing—

(a) that in the case of such land as may be prescribed by or under the regulations, no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of the winning and working of any minerals in the land during a period of three years after the appointed day."

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There, I think, the three years ought to be increased, because it will certainly take three years for anybody to understand what adaptations are going to be made, and how minerals will be affected. I would like to see the period longer than three years.
Then paragraph (b) says:
"that the restricted and the unrestricted values of any interest in such land as is mentioned in the foregoing paragraph shall be calculated for the purposes of Part VI of this Act as if any operations carried out for the winning and working of minerals during the said period of three years had been carried out before the appointed day."
That does give a moratorium for the paying of any development charge on minerals for the period of three years. But I do not think that is enough. What is the position in regard to minerals? Let us remember when we are discussing this point that it is not in any way a landowners' question. It is a question that goes to the very root of the whole of our production effort in this country—certainly in the case of iron ore; certainly in the case of clay for bricks and pipes, and things of that sort; and certainly in a number of other cases which I could mention, where we have the surface minerals which enter very vitally into some of our most important fields of production.
Production is not going as well as all of us would like to see it go at the moment, but it is, at any rate, going along on fairly sensible lines in regard to the working of these minerals. Now under this Bill the whole of this is going to be put into the melting pot. I am only dealing in this Amendment with the case of minerals development that is really ripe. I am not touching the case of the man who has got minerals under his land, or on the surface of his land, which he has not attempted to develop; that will be quite outside my definition. The only ones I am attempting to deal with in this definition are those which are, in one way or another, being worked to-day. In my submission, you cannot have anything riper than that, because people either own a mining lease, or if they are operating their own minerals—as in a lot of iron ore cases, where it is being done by the user himself, and in the cases of brick and pottery works, of which I know something; we make quite a lot in Dorset—they are being worked by the owner who is using them for his own production
What I seek to do is to say that regulations may provide for securing that where
"a mining lease was in force on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, having on that day an unexpired term of not less than"—
and here I would like to move the Amendment in a slightly different form. I would like to say that the term should be "not less than three years." Quite frankly, when I put the Amendment down I thought we were going to put down another Amendment to alter the "three" to "ten" in paragraph (a). Then in subparagraph (ii) the Amendment says:
"minerals were being won and worked immediately before that day by a person having an interest therein otherwise than under a mining lease."—
that is the man who is working his own minerals, whether he is the owner of an iron ore mine, a claypit, or whatever it is—
"no payment shall be made under the said Part VI in respect of any interest in the minerals comprised in the said mining lease, or in any minerals which form part of the same seam or deposit as that in respect of which the operations mentioned in sub-paragraph (ii) of this paragraph were being carried out and in respect of which an interest was held.….no development charge shall be payable under the said Part VII in respect of the winning and working of the said minerals under the mining lease…"
My Amendment attempts to say that just as where you get ripe building land and disallow any claim on the £300,000,000 and exempt them from development charges, so in logic and in fairness we should do exactly the same in regard to minerals. I am only seeking this, as I say, for minerals that are being worked now. I am not attempting to touch any minerals which the owner previously has not sought to develop. The great advantage of this is that our industry can then go on uninterrupted knowing where it stands under its existing mining leases.
In the case of those which have not previously been developed, they may fall into the same realm as other undeveloped land and, of course, where there is not a lease in force then they will have to come into the scheme of the Bill just the same as any other undeveloped land. I claim that when for the first time we are bringing minerals into a planning Bill, the sensible way of doing it is to see that we do not interrupt what is going on at the present moment; that we let these
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leases go on and the man who has bought a piece of land in order to get the gravel, the clay, the ironstone, or perhaps the Fuller's earth out of it, to go on just as he is. In most of those cases he will certainly already have paid the development right in that land, because he will have bought it knowing that the minerals are underneath it. Let him go on working it, and let the mining leases go on. We must not have interference with this production by leaving people in a state of uncertainty over the next three or four years. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 91, line 46, at end, insert:
("(c) that where—

(i) a mining lease was in force on the seventh day of January nineteen hundred and forty-seven, having on that day an unexpired term of not less than three years, or

(ii) minerals were being won and worked immediately before that day by a person having an interest therein otherwise than under a mining lease,

no payment shall be made under the said Part VI in respect of any interest in the minerals comprised in the said mining lease, or in any minerals which form part of the same seam or deposit as that in respect of which the operations mentioned in sub-paragraph (ii) of this paragraph were being carried out and in respect of which an interest was held as mentioned in the said subparagraph, as the case may be, and that no development charge shall be payable under the said Part VII in respect of the winning and working of the said minerals under the mining lease referred to in subparagraph (i) of this paragraph or in respect of the winning and working of any minerals referred to in the said sub-paragraph (ii) in respect of which no payment has been made under the said Part VI as aforesaid.")—(Lord Llewellin.)
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: Perhaps it would be for the convenience of your Lordships if I said on this Amendment what I might have said on other Amendments standing in my name; I think that might tend towards shortening the debate. I should like to explain that the Amendments which stand in my name, and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord O'Hagan, are put down at the request of the cement industry, the chairman of whose federation I am. I would, of course, like to say that I support what my noble friend Lord Llewellin has just said. I think what he has said is borne out by the practical repercussions of the Bill as it is now drafted upon a particular industry. As shortly as possible I wish to indicate to your Lordships the

899
injury that this Bill, if it becomes law in its present form, would inflict upon the cement industry.
I am not pretending that the cement industry is affected more severely than other industries, but after all it is an important industry, an industry which the Government are seeking to expand very much at the present moment in order to supply concrete for houses, and I think it is important that we should realize how legislation is affecting these great extractive industries. The first Amendment which I have on the paper is simply to provide that where a cement manufacturer has leased a quarry, his development charge should not exceed what he is already paying in royalty. Perhaps I should explain that if you want to make cement, what you have to do is first to acquire some chalk and then some clay. You then erect very expensive machinery, fuse them together at a terrific heat, and then you grind the result to powder. That is how cement is made. But a modern cement factory costs something in the neighbourhood of £2,000,000, as my noble friend Lord O'Hagan mentioned yesterday.
Therefore, no company or person will invest £2,000,000 in this very expensive machinery unless they can first secure for themselves an adequate supply of chalk (or limestone) and clay which ought to last about sixty years at the very minimum, in order that the capital cost of the factory may be amortized. All the cement works in this country to-day either own their raw materials or else lease them. My first Amendment provides that the lessee should not be obliged to pay more in development charge than he is already paying in royalties. The justification for that was a promise the Minister gave in another place, and I would like to direct the attention of the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, to this point. The Minister said in another place on March 26 last that the mineral worker should be no worse off than he was before. Well, clearly if he is to be no worse off than he was before the royalty that he pays for his raw materials should not be increased, otherwise you are just increasing the costs of manufacture which must send up the price of cement and all similar products.
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The second Amendment deals with the question of taxation. At the present moment a person who is mining either chalk, clay, ironstone, or brickearth, can charge the royalties that he has to pay against his expenses for tax purposes. My Amendment intends to secure that that should continue. I should be grateful if the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, could tell us how he proposes to deal with that point. I am advised that the Bill at the present moment is quite vague on the matter, but surely it is very important that all manufacturers in the extractive industries should be sure as to whether they can continue to allow royalties as an expense for taxation purposes.
The third Amendment deals with the man who has bought his raw materials. The first two points deal with the man who has leased them. As to the man or company who has bought the raw materials, whether they be chalk or clay or some other material, as I understand the Bill that man or that company would be subject to an even greater tax than the man who has leased them. As I have just told your Lordships, in the case of a cement factory it is necessary to acquire raw materials for sixty years—sixty years consumption of raw materials is regarded as the minimum. Therefore you have either to purchase freehold enough land bearing these minerals to last you for sixty years, or acquire a sixty-year lease of them. All that this Amendment asks is that a company which has done this shall be excluded from development charge if the Minister is satisfied that such minerals represent reserves reasonably required for the purposes of trade or business of such company or person. I was not asking for as much as the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, who wished to take the whole formation of minerals. I agree with him, but I am only concerned in this Amendment with a much more limited scope, and I am confining myself to such supplies of minerals as the Minister is satisfied are necessary to the conduct of that business.
I should like to draw the attention of the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, to the words that the Minister used in another place when this case was argued before him. He said that
"there may be a case for special consideration in the case of a person engaged in mineral workings who owns his own land. In that

901
respect if the case were put I would be prepared to give consideration in order to put such a person in the same position, relatively, as a person who is working under a lease."
As the Bill stands at present a person who has acquired his own mineral deposits is definitely in a worse position than the person who is merely leasing them. He may be practically forced to buy them again, and it is in order to protect companies in that position that I am at this stage, at any rate, seeking an assurance from His Majesty's Government.
As the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, pointed out, this has nothing to do with the land-owning interest; but it has a great deal to do with industry. You have these great industries, cement, bricks, iron ore, and other industries of a like nature, which are all being asked by His Majesty's Government to make a special national effort to expand in the interest of housing. If you want people to put the vast sums required into a cement factory you must give them some security of tenure. Who is going to put £2,000,000 of his own money, or is going to the public to ask them for £2,000,000 to erect great and costly works if he has no security that he will be able to use the minerals which are necessary for the process at a cost which can be calculated? Finally I would remind your Lordships that everything which adds to the cost of manufacture must inevitably have its effect on the cost of the finished product.
4.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT MAUGHAM: I should like to support the Amendment, and in truth my own opinion is that the whole of the clause ought to come out. I agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin said, that it looks as if this clause is an afterthought. When you dig out of a piece of land any sort of mineral, whether it be coal or ironstone or gypsum, or any of the other things, you are not improving land, you are taking something away; you are making a hole in the land. And when you have worked out the mine, if it is a mine which consists practically entirely of such a mineral as limestone, you leave nothing. It is ridiculous to treat that as if it were in any way improving your development. "Development" is the wrong word. It is not development in the least, as the word is used in relation to the improvement of land, which was the main thing which was
902
going to be taken away from the land— owners in consideration of some compensation out of the £300,000,000; and on the other hand the Board was to get a charge.
As an old lawyer who has been concerned with things of this sort for many years, there is an enormous difference to my mind between what lawyers call the open mine and what they call a piece of land which has not yet been opened. And the reason is very largely that mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. When you are opening a mine you spend maybe thousands, maybe millions of pounds to turn it into a going concern from which a profit may perhaps be extracted, and accordingly an open mine is nothing more nor less than a factory for the production of the mineral, whatever it may be, under the surface or on the surface, if possible at a profit.
We are dealing here not with coal, because the Government have already got the coal under an Act which I had some share in passing. We are dealing here with all sorts of minerals and perhaps I may be allowed to give a summarized list of minerals we are dealing with. Metalliferous ores—I will give the number of tons extracted in the last year before the war—represented 11,000,000 old tons; salt, 2,630,000; gypsum, over 1,000,000 tons; oil shales, over 1,500,000 tons; fireclay, 2,600,000 tons. And for building and road making—vital matters in the present condition of the country—there were: limestone, 15,926,000 tons; sandstone, 4,346,000 tons; clay and shale, over 26;500,000 tons; gravel and sand, just about 22,000,000 tons; and igneous rocks, over 11,000,000 tons. (These are yearly figures.) Those vast quantities of stone are dug out of the earth at great expense. Nearly all of them require buildings or works in which men can be accommodated and machinery housed. Many require quite a lot of machinery. All these things have got to be put together at the expense of the people who undertake the operations.
I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I spend five minutes in telling you something on the subject of ironstone mining. My noble friend Lord Selborne has told you about cement, and my noble friend Lord Llewellin has told you about some other matters, such as Fuller's earth and things of that sort. Now let me tell

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you something about ironstone. Fortunately, the materials are available if you can get the right boring. My noble friend Lord Kennet was put at the head of a Committee to make a report on the restoration of land damaged by iron ore working, and he made his report in 1939. There is here a full and elaborate account of ironstone mining in the Midlands, and an examination of all the economic difficulties that arise in connexion with the business. What caused the Committee to be appointed was this, that over 90 per cent. of the ironstone which is removed in this country is taken by workings in the nature of removal of the over-burden, and it is not mining in the sense of tunnelling, as a rule. The result is that inasmuch as you destroy the surface when you remove the over-burden, you leave the land in a state of hill and dale, all the agricultural value having been taken away from it.
The Report of the Committee was a unanimous report. There was a very strong recommendation that a board should be set up for the purpose of collecting a royalty from all the workers of ironstone—from the landlord, if there was a landlord separate from a lessor, and from the local authorities, because the local authorities receive substantial sums in rates—and using the sums so collected for the purpose of restoring the surface. The amount of the surface concerned at the present time is some 80,000 acres which, if nothing is done, are going to be left in a desperate and miserable condition. The Report shows in eloquent terms how this portion of the land is being destroyed, but the Report has not yet been utilized for the purposes of an Act of Parliament, and no board has been appointed. I think that has got to be done sooner or later.
It is one of the many things which makes it unjust and improper to try to collect from these people who are doing this valuable work of supplying Britain with practically the whole of its iron at the present time. Practically none is now being imported from abroad, and makes it almost impossible, or at least more difficult, for them to carry on their business. As my noble friend Lord Selborne has pointed out, it would be almost impossible for any man to start a new business in ironstone, because he would have
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no idea how much he was going to be charged in respect of a rate or a special royalty payable to the board set up by the present Bill. Therefore, he would be in a state of uncertainty as to his finance and his prospect of recovering the very large sums necessary for the purpose of this operation of getting ironstone, or, I may say, any other particular mineral beneath the land. You have to remember that a great deal, or at any rate a substantial amount, of the materials that I have mentioned as being subject to the present Bill, if the clause goes through, consist of materials which are worked either by the landowner himself or by a lessee in quite a small way. You need not have a company to dig gravel. A person who digs gravel himself, say a builder, gets a particular area of land, probably an acre, and is allowed to dig gravel in the neighbourhood of some works on which he is engaged. There are many incidental things of that sort which can be dug by small concerns, and it will be almost impracticable, except at vast expense, to collect from them royalties on the amount of work they do.
Moreover, the Bill does not seem to recognize the fact that there are local customs involved. There is a local custom to win tin in Cornwall and in Devon, and another to dig lead in Derbyshire. Iron as well as coal may be secured in the Forest of Dean by a local custom. There are individuals who have a right to go to particular officials and get licences to dig these things. All these matters ought surely to be considered. There are, I think, 4,990 quarries in this country, as well as the individual people who do not open a quarry but simply dig the stuff they want. Are you going to attack all those people, many of whom make a very small profit by getting out materials for roads and buildings, in order to get some wholly new tax for the benefit of the Exchequer?
This claim to a charge on the digging of the minerals I have mentioned—that is to say, the whole of these materials in the land of this country excepting coal—is nothing more nor less than a tax. It is a tax intended to be paid out of the royalties which the land would presumably pay if there was a lease, and is subject to all sorts of considerations which do not apply at all in the case of the building of a house. Take, for instance, the

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reinstating of the land. How are you going to work that? This royalty ought to be applied in putting the land right again, but if you build a house you have not then got to reinstate land which you have destroyed. There really is no true analogy between the development charge as intended to be levied under the provisions of this Bill, and the use of land in the ordinary way. The so-called development charge, which, it is suggested, is going to be imposed on royalties, without any limit in the Bill, with a completely free hand being left for the amounts to be changed from time to time, and in circumstances of the utmost complexity as regards the people who are concerned, cannot properly be dealt with by regulations of this kind, It is not right that in this country the levying of tax should be open to the volition of the Minister, I do not care how able he may be. Tax should be imposed on this country only by the operations of the Houses of Parliament, and they ought to say when and if a tax ought to be imposed on people who dig materials which are in the land for the benefit of either themselves or their country.
4.41 p.m.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: I wish to support this Amendment, and also to speak rather more widely in favour of the exclusion of minerals from this Bill. I am not sure if it is considered quite convenient and appropriate to do both at the same time. When the proposal for the inclusion of materials was sprung upon another place I think that it came as a surprise there. Certainly it was a surprise to all those in the industries affected, as this was a matter which had not been previously raised in discussions. There was no forecast of it. So far as I am aware, it had not been expressly mentioned in the King's Speech, nor had it been the subject of a Government announcement, although I understand that on all other occasions when there has been a nationalization or socialization of any industry or subject of importance, a rather special point has been made of making an announcement. The Government have had much longer to consider the implications of this clause, and I hope that it is appropriate now to urge withdrawal or at least some substantial concession.
The Government, perhaps, do not regard this as nationalization, but, in effect,
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the result is the same. I submit that in this connexion there are differences from other subjects dealt with in this Bill which render it inappropriate and unnecessary. The values and the assets are not floating in the same way as are surface development rights. They are much more certain and fixed; they are generally known, and are worked as and where suitable. The noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has said that there is no provision for ripeness. I hope it is acknowledged that there is just as much reason for such provision as in the case of ripe land on the surface. This Amendment helps to make allowance for it and to bring the clause more into line with other parts of the Bill. In this way we are only helping to carry out what the Government are themselves advocating. I do hope that they will find good reason for approval. This Amendment probably falls far short of what had been hoped for by many who are associated with the working of minerals—perhaps iron ore in particular. I think it certainly falls short of what had been hoped for by many by whom I have been asked to take part in these discussions. But I feel that the Amendment is strengthened by its very moderation.
I understand that the present effect upon people who own and lease ironstone is that there will be a moratorium for three years and thereafter all financial interest will be removed. But they will be left, at the same time, with a great many other disadvantages. I suppose it is inevitable that there will be a considerable amount of work and expense falling upon them in connexion with the development charges, and all the other arrangements. Then there are the ugly results which are often inseparable from the working of these minerals. There are the injurious effects upon, and damage to, the land itself and to adjoining land, for which I do not think provision has been made, and compensation though it should be equivalent and may, in some cases, be equivalent, seems to be uncertain. I understand that there is no right to payment for what is taken from these people by the Government, but merely permission to claim on the ground of hardship for a possible percentage of their loss from the pool. Surely there should be some definite provisions of compensation for these particular industries.

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I would like to point out again what is not often realized and may often be overlooked—that this source of revenue from below the surface of the land is in all these cases a most valuable help to those who have the responsibility of equipping and improving the land. Thus, this enforced loss of revenue must mean removing money which would otherwise be available, and has generally been spent upon the land itself, and upon cottages and other buildings. Certainly, in most cases if not in all, this revenue is very much needed at all times. It is particularly needed at the present times and will be in the future, when obligations in respect of land management will be increased and their discharge insisted upon. Now it may be, in the case of the larger owners of royalties, that, naturally, a very much bigger percentage goes in taxation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in that respect they are good citizens. But I think it is also true to say that a very large majority of the people affected are the owners of farms and small owners of land, and they will feel the loss of this revenue very keenly indeed in carrying out their obligations.
The Barlow Report, the Scott Report and the Uthwatt Report have often been quoted and referred to as a background and as justification for this Bill. But when you come to minerals, surely it is the other way round. Whenever minerals are mentioned in any of those Reports, either specifically or incidentally, the argument is against inclusion, or there is an assumption that they need not be and will not be included. The noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, has drawn our attention to the effect on the surface of the land of this iron ore working and the importance in attending to this aspect of the problem. I would like to support what he says, and go farther. In the Scott Report the emphasis is on preservation of the countryside, on prevention of disfigurement and devastation, and the restoration of the surface after working. I would claim that this problem of restoration must be considered at the same time as you are dealing with minerals in a vast Bill of this nature. Surely, this is the natural place and opportunity for the planner and for co-operation between him and all
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those who are connected with the getting of ironstone. These are planning affairs and, what is more, they are recognized as matters of urgency.
There have been a tremendous number of representations on the subject over a number of years. There have been investigations on behalf of the Government and by others separately. There have been various Reports, including first of all the very valuable Kennet Report just before the war started and more recently a most useful Report, the Waters Report, with recommendations in which approval and confidence have been expressed. This Report embodied the evidence and recommendations of a joint local authority committee consisting of representatives of all the people engaged in different phrases of the industry. I suggest that it is a very valuable Report which could be implemented very easily by a short agreed Bill. I would say that all this confirms the many difficulties which arise about the restoration of the surface. But what happens? After this interval, during which this last Report has been ignored, we have instead this Bill, which removes from those concerned, from those who have and will have much of the responsibility of the costs of restoration, the source of funds so necessary for carrying it out.
Surely the restoration side and the proposals for acquisition should go together. There really is a strong practical argument here and I am sure there will be agreement that planning and finance ought to go together. I would refer also to the representations of the planning authority in the County of Northamptonshire and of the County Council and other local authorities who have protested. I urge the Government to try to tie up this with their proposals in the Bill one way or another. It will do no harm to them to take them together. I also urge in connexion with the problem to which the noble Viscount referred, the great variation which exists in conditions in all these iron ore fields, the necessity for very careful handling and common sense in the treating of each particular quarry and the necessity for co-operation between the Government, the local authority and all those on the spot.
When the Bill was first introduced, the Government did not have figures showing the total value of minerals affected and a separate valuation was strongly urged.

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There was every appearance of an underestimate by their advisers, which is another reason for reconsidering the global figure and for something being done if extra provision is needed. I would like to ask the Government if there has been any ascertainment of the total figure of these minerals. There have been large payments in Estate Duty and recently, too, in connexion with these minerals, and I should like to ask if the Government regard it as equitable to acquire these assets without payment, except for such nebulous share as may be obtained out of the pool. I believe I am correct in interpreting the remarks of leading Ministers as meaning that fair compensation for assets nationalized or socialized will always be given. In view of the many arguments which can be advanced—there are many other points, but I fear I have been too long already—I do ask the Government to look again very carefully into this matter and I trust they may find reasons for withdrawing minerals from the Bill. I hope not only that this Amendment will be accepted but that they will go even farther.
4.57 p.m.
LORD HARLECH: Could I say a word about slate quarries? There is another typical example of complexity. The Government have received quite recently a report on the difficulties of slate quarries consequent on the war and on the whole position in the industry and its needs. If the development of these quarries is to be prejudiced by anything in this Bill and fears are going to be aroused among landowners or mineral owners or mineral developers or companies, I am quite sure it is a mistake. But it is one of those cases where you do completely destroy all existing values. You have got to go to quarries like Festiniog on what were sheep farms and take the huge slate banks. Although one gets used to them, they are terribly ugly. There is no possibility of putting any future value on them once mineral workings have begun. Where minerals have been taken out it is all right.
It is the custom in this House to declare an interest. I have only a minor interest but I have one within my own property, which is an example of what I have in mind. I did own a sheep farm near Festiniog, with a charming old house at the bottom of a valley where a stream runs
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down. Right up the steep mountain I side, up in the very high land, is a sheep run, useless for anything else but for producing the little Cambrian, Welsh or mountain sheep. It is next a slate quarry. I know that I and my forbears have only received a very small ear-marking sort of rent from the neighbouring company for working the slate quarry, which is gradually approaching the area of the sheep run. The first time I ever talked to that company, I asked if they were really going to develop the slate they wanted and they said: "Oh no; it will be some years yet before we work up to your land." I said: "I hope you are not going to turn the family out of their house and destroy the sheep farm altogether? Can we come to an arrangement?" They said, "Oh, look at it. We have got to mine our slate up there, and the only place for dumping, where everything has to be pitched out and thrown down, is on top of that house and it has got to come down." You have an agricultural tenant to go and to be compensated; you have land which is now sheep land which will be permanently ruined as and when the slate is exploited for house roofing and other purposes.
This subject bristles with problems of taxation, of right of way, of compensation for various things and charges, and I do just wonder whether this clause is wise in this Bill and whether it is not a matter which has got to be made the subject of a special Bill. It does seem to me that to put into a Town and Country Planning Bill in a highly specialized way a possibly very unknown and very undefinable charge or compensation out of the pool, is not the way to deal with this problem, where the minerals which have been mentioned—slate is another typical example—completely change the whole character of the land and the neighbourhood. I think it needs an ad hoc Bill in the light of the many Committees and Commissions that have reported on it, and that this Bill is not the Bill in which to attempt to deal with the matter.
5.3 p.m.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: I do not speak as an owner of minerals, unless millions of tons of ungotten chalk in Wiltshire make me an owner, or with any expert knowledge of the subject; but there are two points I wish to make. The first is one of which your Lordships are

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well aware, but I think it ought to be repeated at this stage in this debate. It is that, whatever may happen to this clause, the getting of minerals will still continue to be subject to planning control. It does not affect that in any way. Although it has been mentioned before, I think it ought to be mentioned again.
The second point is quite a simple one, and concerns the effect of the clause as it stands upon the owner of minerals. If an owner of minerals is approached to-day by someone who wishes to work these minerals, it is interesting to realize what his reactions are. He looks at this Bill and he sees that for three years he may get his royalties on those minerals and thereafter he will be subject to a development charge of an unknown amount, though it is indicated in the Bill that that development charge may well be 100 per cent. of the royalties which he gets. His immediate reaction is to say at once: "Well, I will not give the lease to this man because at the end of three years all I shall get out of it will be no money and a good deal of derelict land." That is going to have a considerable effect on the getting of minerals which are necessary from the country's point of view—for various reasons—a very large proportion of them, as the figures given by the noble Viscount, Lord Maugham, show —for building and road making, both of which are very necessary. The owner of the land is going to be very reluctant indeed to consider leases for the getting of minerals, for the reason that he will be left with land which is virtually derelict. He will therefore prefer to maintain the land in its existing condition, probably agricultural, and draw his rents for its agricultural use.
It will be for those who have more knowledge of local authorities to say whether the compulsory powers which the local authorities will have under this Bill will enable them effectively to work those minerals if the owner will not lease in those circumstances, but it is a problem which the Government must face if this Bill goes through. It is a problem which the Amendment of Lord Llewellin mitigates somewhat, though it does not by any means remove it. Beyond that, I would emphasize what my noble friend the Duke of Buccleuch said, and that is that the getting of minerals possibly is a
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planning problem, and the restoration of the land behind the minerals is also a planning problem which is not dealt with or touched on in this Bill.
5.7 P.m.
LORD HYLTON: I would like to speak for a moment from the point of view of the highway authorities. As your Lordships know, the highway authorities have an enormous financial task in repairing and making good the King's highways every year. The effect of this Bill as it is now drawn surely must be that all materials used for road repairs will be more expensive to the user, that is, to the highway authorities, because I think it stands to reason that, if there is to be a development charge on the extraction of all road repairing materials, there must be an increase in the cost to the user.
In the South-West of England there are a very large number of small limestone quarries worked by individual owners, and personally I am not one of those owners. If there is to be a development charge, these operating owners will have to pay it to the Central Land Board and thence to the Treasury. As your Lordships know, the Treasury every year make a very large grant to the Ministry of Transport to pay back to the local highway authorities in respect of repairs to roads. You will therefore have this circle of the Treasury taking money from the operators of the quarries and at the same time having to pay probably an equivalent sum back to the highway authorities in the increased grant for the upkeep of the highways. That surely is a ridiculous position. It is administrative folly to subject the operators of these quarries to this tax and then have to repay the amount of the tax to the highway authorities. That surely does not make sense.
The same considerations will apply very largely to the increase of the cost of housing materials. Your Lordships know the immense quantities of cement which are used every year by the local authorities, the housing authorities, for the housing programmes now in course of being carried out. All these materials—the cement, the bricks, the tiles, the drains—will be more expensive to local housing authorities, and thereby you must increase the cost of building to these authorities. I think it has been pointed out that the Minister in another place said that

913
the owner-operator might be no worse off after this Bill has been passed than before. If that is so, why include this provision? If there is to be no development charge on the small operator, why should it be included in the Bill? I think that there are the very strongest reasons why this clause should be most substantially altered. I support everything that has been said by my noble friend Lord Llewellin.
5.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: I would like to add a few words on this Amendment. I do not know whether it is realized how important it is that we should not see any brake put on productive industry as the result of this Bill. Noble Lords have said that they fear an increase in the price of materials due to the development charge. We shall find it will come into the cost of steel, through iron ore, dolomite, ganister and limestone. The latter, particularly, is used in very large quantities. We shall find an increase in the cost of steel—a basic material—which will be felt through all the processes of manufacture. Similarly in the case of chemistry gypsum, salt and other materials are used in very large quantities indeed. Most of these materials are extracted by concerns who themselves own the mineral deposits, and who, I suppose, if one is right about this Bill, will have to pay a development charge. I feel that has very little to do with planning. There is no doubt that the physical disfigurement of the land must be subject to control, in the same way as is the form of buildings, and so on. I suppose the reason why this mineral clause has been added is because of the difficulty of compensating those who are prevented from working minerals by planning laws. Nevertheless, I feel that there is perhaps a rather complicated approach to it.
Some noble Lords have spoken to-day about the ownership of minerals. I must confess that I do not know the problems connected with that, but it does seem that there will be hardship on certain individuals. Granted that, would it not be better and simpler for industry and the country as a whole, to say that planning forbids the extraction of minerals from certain places? It will be bad for the individual concerned, but there will be somewhere else, and he can go and work there. It will be a matter of hardship between one individual and another. That
914
is rather rough justice, but apparently better justice than what is proposed here. For that reason, I have a little doubt in my mind as to whether this Amendment is the best solution to offer. I would add that there are planning difficulties in regard to the extraction of minerals where there are no financial considerations whatever. I have had experience in local authority matters of trying to decide whether a quarry should be allowed to go on extracting its stone for the roads. It is a small matter, but it shows that there are not only questions of compensation and financial difficulties in the way. Further, there are cases of quarrying on certain special sites which will have to be preserved. In those cases it is a question of making preservation orders, and so on, and financial considerations do not come into the matter. Again, the disfigurement of the land by open cast coal working conducted by the Government in many places, is contrary to the best interests of planning. That, I submit, is another example where financial considerations and questions of compensation do not arise. In conclusion, I hope that something will be done to make it possible for the agencies who must get these minerals for the satisfactory life of the country to get them simply and more easily than apparently they will be able to do under this clause.
THE EARL OF GAINSBOROUGH: I would like to add a few words on this Amendment. I am a mineral owner of some considerable acreage. I think it is a great pity that there is nothing in this Bill to bring about restoration of the surface. I have 1,000 acres of land where minerals may be worked, and there is no statutory provision, such as is suggested in the Waters Report, for the restoration of this land. It is agricultural and forestry land, which is very much needed at the moment, and will always be needed. I hope that something will be done to insert in this or some other Bill some statutory provision for the restoration of land.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: It is obvious from the speeches that have been made that there are a good many of your Lordships who are not altogether wedded to this clause. Yet, if we think about it, I imagine I shall have everybody's agreement when I say that there is no single aspect of our life to-day in which the

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amenities of the countryside can be more completely destroyed than by these operations, conducted without proper skill and without due regard to those amenities. Therefore, the next step is this—and here I think most of your Lordships would be in agreement. It is, at least plain that these operations must be under, and must remain under, planning control. I think the third step is this. Where you get operations under planning control, you must be able to say to a man: "No, you shall not develop that particular pit or open that particular mine"; and you must be able to say that to him without paying him compensation. That is the fundamental problem. This is the problem of compensation and betterment. If you are going to be confronted with the situation where, if you say "No" to a man, you have to pay him enormous sums of money by way of compensation, then you will not say "No," and he will develop this mine in the very place where it should not be developed. That is a state of affairs this Bill seeks to redress. Therefore, you must be able to say "No."
Speaking broadly, if you say to a man to-day that he must not work a pit or mine, you must pay him compensation. There are exceptions, of course, but I will not trouble your Lordships with them; they are all stated in the Act of 1932. A scheme cannot, except in very exceptional cases, exclude compensation. Then what have we to do? If we are right in saying that we must be able to say "No," and yet not pay compensation, is it right that if we say to a man, "Yes, you may develop there," we should let him "get away with it" altogether? The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, seemed to think that the luck of the draw should prevail in this matter, and one fellow just happens to be lucky where the other is not. Is that really logical or sensible? We came to the conclusion that it is not, and it is for that reason that we felt it necessary to introduce this clause in the Bill.
Before I go any further may I answer a question—otherwise I shall forget it—which was asked by the noble Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, as to whether I had any estimate of the value of these minerals. So far as I know, there has been no official estimate made; and the only estimate I have seen is an estimate submitted to the Institution of Mining and
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Metallurgy on July 28, 1944. I do not know whether the noble Duke has the paper. It was submitted by Professor Jones, and is based, I understand, on fifteen years' purchase of the pre-war value. On that basis, he brings out the figure of £22,000,000.
LORD HARLECH: The value of the minerals?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: £22,000,000 as the amount that would be necessary to buy out the owners. If his figure is right, that has to be brought up to date to ascertain the modern figure, but it is something, I should estimate, of the order of £30,000,000. I have my self no sort of knowledge about this, but having read the discussion which took place amongst all the other eminent professors and doctors, I noticed that most of them seemed to express agreement with the figure which Professor Jones stated.
The Government scheme, therefore, is this. We propose that we should allow the owners of the ungotten minerals to claim under Part VI on the £300,000,000 fund. I may tell the noble Duke—and I think I have said it before—that the way in which that £300,000,000 is allocated depends, as he knows, upon the scheme which in due course will be promulgated by the Treasury. As the noble Duke also knows, that scheme provides within itself for there being two or more classes—what I call the preference shareholders and the ordinary shareholders. I think, and the Minister thinks, that there is at least a case, and a strong case, for allowing the mineral people to go into the preference class, because certainly in regard to those minerals which are now being worked there is much less element of chance, speculation and float, and there is a much greater element of certainty than there is in the other case. I am not committing anybody because, of course, the scheme is not yet thought out or formulated, but I gather that the present trend of opinion is that the mineral owners should, to some extent at any rate, be placed in the preferential category. If that is so, they will claim either in whole or in part up to the full 100 per cent. on the £300,000,000 and get preferential treatment. I have never concealed from your Lordships that the extent to which the fund is exhausted in that way means that there will be less for the others.

917
Assume that we create this preferential class. The Government scheme would be that the mineral owners would claim on the fund and, having got out of the fund a certain amount of money, they would, in return for it, be called upon to pay something by way of development charge. It is quite obvious that the exaction of development charges on an onerous basis—whether in the case of cement, gravel, road material, or anything of that sort—must have a most damaging effect on the industry. By putting your charge at a sufficiently high rate you could manifestly knock the industry out altogether. That is obvious. I may assume that it would be quite obvious to the Central Land Board who, in exercising their functions, must be credited with a little elementary common sense. The mineral owners would have received moneys out of the fund and it is fair that some development charge should be paid. In this way, you will get the whole scheme on a fair basis. You will no longer have to differentiate in an arbitrary way between the man to whom you refuse compensation and the man whom you allow to work, and we believe that this is the fair and simple way of doing it.
Now I turn to my noble friend's Amendment. Of course, this Amendment is very much better, from my point of view, than the other Amendment which appears in his name, which is to leave out the clause altogether. That Amendment I could not accept, and I am bound to say that I cannot accept this Amendment either, although I do not dislike it so much as I dislike the other. Let us see what the difficulty of this Amendment is. The first test is simple enough: Was there a mining lease in force on January 7, 1947, having three years to run? Look at the second test: Minerals which were being won and worked by a person having an interest. The Amendment provides in that case that no payment shall be made under Part VI in respect of any interest in the minerals comprised in the lease or in any minerals which form part of the same seam or deposit. Now just think what that means. There is the difficulty of defining what is the area of the seam or deposit. It may run for miles; it may be 100 square miles quite easily, and I imagine, although I do not know, that in the iron ore districts that may be so.
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It means to say, therefore, that anybody who dug a little hole and got out a little iron ore is to be allowed to go on to the full extent of the seam and deposit, if you can in any way define what that seam and deposit is—and I suppose geologists can. That seems to us an absolutely impracticable solution and an argument which makes this question of current workings impossible, because you cannot define in any way to what point the actual working may carry you. You may start from John O' Groats and finish up at Land's End, and you may fairly claim. "I am following the same seam all the way through and there is no limit so long as I follow the same seam." We think that is impossible, Of course, there are no seams running all that way, but there may be seams running over very large areas. We do not believe that to be a practical solution, and we believe that the solution which I have indicated will be a fair and workable solution, more especially, I think I may say, if the royalty owners are given some kind of preferential claim on this fund.
I quite agree that this is a question where we have a general clash of opinion on what is an issue of principle of a very important kind. I can see at once that it is a very difficult question. We have given a great deal of thought to it and have come to the conclusion that our Clause 79 does afford the best solution, although I do not suggest it is perfect. I do not think anything is perfect in this unhappy world, but we believe this clause is as good as any clause anybody else can formulate. In those circumstances, I invite your Lordships to support us in adhering to the clause and I invite your Lordships, therefore, to resist the Amendment. I realize that the Amendment is not intended in any way to be a. wrecking Amendment, and I realize further that the spirit and the brevity with which the noble Lord moved this Amendment should commend it to me. If anything could, that would. We feel that this matter is fundamental, and we desire to stand on the clause in the Bill.
5.28 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am obliged to the noble and learned Viscount for the speech that he has just made. It was a very conciliatory speech, if I may say so, except in the all-important particular. The noble and learned Viscount started

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by saying that a good many of my noble friends who spoke in this House today did not seem altogether wedded to the clause. Perhaps it would be no secret if I told him that they would have been perhaps more wedded to it had I moved to delete the whole clause. But it was thought that this was a particular problem with which we should deal, for the reasons that I originally gave. The noble and learned Viscount told us what was the origin of this clause, which was that there was a necessity to give planning permission before you dug these minerals; that the planning authority ought to be able to deny permission, and that the whole scheme of this Bill was not to pay compensation if such denial were made. That does not touch my Amendment at all. My Amendment is completely within that principle. I am only dealing with minerals that are already subject to mining lease and minerals that are already being dug by their owner. So the principle that the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, enunciated as the background to this clause does not apply to my Amendment at all.
I am not going to make very many more comments. The noble and learned Viscount has given an estimate of the amount that the minerals might be worth if bought out in the way he mentions. It is interesting to realize that in the Scott Report in a footnote on page 3 occur these words:
"…the official figure of £165,580,000 as the value at the mines and quarries of minerals in 1935 in the whole of Britain.…"
That includes coal. Coal was bought out at £66,000,000 and £66,000,000 from £165,000,000 leaves something far nearer £100,000,000 than the £30,000,000 which
the Lord Chancellor has given. The estimate we make is something between £80,000,000 and £100,000,000. That is why we are somewhat reluctant to say that figures of that sort should be quoted as a preferential dividend on the £300,000,000 which was originally assessed when making any allowance for minerals at all; and the £300,000,000 was not assessed taking into account the £80,000,000 to £100,000,000. That is why we are not so easily falling to the blandishments of the Lord Chancellor when he speaks of a "preferential claim."
I am grateful to the noble and learned Viscount for realizing and expressing the view that my Amendment is not a wrecking Amendment. It is not meant to be. There is no provision for ripe minerals, and I only intended to deal with ripe minerals. If it be true that the seams stretch from John O'Groats to Land's End—which I do not believe—if they are too extensive as defined in my Amendment, that is not a matter of principle; it is a matter of degree; and some later Amendment to my Amendment on Report stage might put that small comment of mine right.
I agree with the Lord Chancellor when he says it would be extremely damaging if high development charges were charged by the Central Land Board. I feel equally that it is damaging to industry if they are left in a position where they do not know where they are. For that reason I am afraid I cannot take the advice given me by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, and I must ask the House to support me in this Amendment.
On Question, Whether the said new paragraph shall be there inserted?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 71; Not-Contents, 22.

CONTENTS.

Aberdeen and Temair, M.

Onslow, E.

Templewood, V.

Cholmondeley, M.

Radnor, E.

Trenchard, V.

Reading, M.

Selkirk, E.

Wimborne, V.

Salisbury, M.

Buckmaster, V.

Addington, L.

Abingdon, E.

Elibank, V.

Altrincham, L.

Craven, E.

Falmouth, V.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Hailsham, V.

Balfour of Inchrye, L.

Lambert, V.

Brand, L.

Dundonald, E.

Long, V.

Braye, L.

Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

Margesson, V.

Broadbridge, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Maugham, V.

Carrington, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Ridley, V.

Cherwell, L.

Lucan, E.

Simon, V.

Clanwilliam, L. (E. Clanwilliam.)

Munster, E.

Swinton, V.

Clwyd, L.

Hutchison of Montrose, L.

Remnant, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Hylton, L.

Rotherwick, L.

De L'Isle and Dudley. L.

Kenlis, L. (M. Headfort.)

Savile, L.

Dulverton, L.

Llewellin, L.

Sinha, L.

Fairfax of Cameron, L.

Lloyd, L.

Soulbury, L.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

Lyle of Westbourne, L,

Stanmore, L.

Gifford, L.

Mancroft, L.

Strathcona, and Mount Royal, L.

Grenfell, L.

Mendip, L. (V. Clifden.)

Hampton, L.

Newall, L.

Teynham, L.

Harlech, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Wolverton, L.

Hatherton, L. [Teller.]

Rankeillour, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Jowitt, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Foley, L.

Mountevans, L.

Hare, L. (E. Listowel.)

Nathan, L

Addison, V.

Henderson, L.

Piercy, L.

St. Davids, V.

Holden, L.

Quibell, L.

Kershaw, L.

Rochester, L.

Ammon, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Rothschild, L.

Chorley, L.

Marley, L.

Shepherd, L.

Dukeston, L.

Morrison, L. [Teller.]

Walkden, L. [Teller.]

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.46 p.m.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY moved in subsection (3), at the end of paragraph (a), to insert: "the liability for the restoration of the surface, the value of the land after the winning and working of the minerals, and any other relevant circumstances." The noble Duke said: Under this Amendment there are one or two rather more technical matters and, if possible, I should like to have a little information and some assurance regarding them. I think the paragraph as it stands at present is rather uncertain and will cause some apprehension. It does seem that these matters should be taken into consideration: "The liability for the restoration of the surface, the value of the land after the winning and working of the minerals, and any other relevant circumstances." There will be agreement that under a liability for restoration there may be a very heavy expenditure. There will also be agreement that the value of the land after working minerals may be worth very little; it may be worth nothing. Indeed, as in a previous clause in this Bill, it might have a minus value and be worth less than nothing. It may be worth minus ten shillings, or it may be worth minus two hundred pounds, if you have a liability for restoration.
But there are also these points in that paragraph in connexion with the variation of the terms of a lease, and the question of the tribunal: If the variation of the terms of lease are simply to do with the adjustment of expenses, and nothing further, there is probably no case for apprehen-
922
sion; but there may be visualized under this a power to extend workings to places where they were not intended. Without some safeguard there would be anxiety. In that case, one would require to know beforehand more about the tribunal, and of its nature and constitution. There would be an argument for a legal or judicial tribunal if the powers for altering the lease were extensive. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 92, line 14, at end insert the said words.—(The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think the noble Duke has a point here which is worth looking into, and I will look into it. On the other hand, I think the Amendment is rather widely phrased. So far as the liability for the restoration of the surface is concerned, of course, if that arises from a contractual obligation with the landlord, or if it arises from a planning condition known at the time of the lease, it would be taken into account in fixing the payment under the lease. A man would say to himself: "As I am going to have this onerous responsibility thrust upon me, I will pay less than I otherwise would pay." But the question may arise where a planning permission, granted after the lease, imposed on the mineral undertakers a liability for restoring the surface, and there is a case there for allowing a contract entered into beforehand to be reviewed in the light of the new liability. Any development charge imposed would have proper regard to conditions of that sort, but there may be a point of substance in that that ought to be met. It may be argued that the oppor-

923
tunity ought to be taken to adjust the lease, not because a doubtful charge has become payable, but because there are now conditions which were not in existence when the terms of the lease were settled. I am not sure that this Amendment is the right way of meeting the point, but I will give the noble Duke my assurance that I will look into the matter to see what words are needed to meet the point he has in mind.
THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH AND QUEENSBERRY: I thank the noble and learned Viscount, and I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.50 p.m.
On Question, Whether Clause 79, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT GAGE: Before we leave this clause, I would like to ask a question upon its working. It seems plain, as the noble Earl, Lord Radnor, has pointed out, that if the owners' incentive to sell is reduced there will be a strong tendency for them to clamp down on their land. I am afraid I have said this before, but it does appear that if an owner has land of agricultural value, and can only sell it at that value, or near agricultural value, then presumably he will wish to keep it for agriculture. Therefore, a good deal seems to me to depend on the application of the compulsory principle in this clause. It certainly seems to me that some fairly difficult decisions have got to be taken by someone. Someone has got to decide whether or not it is in the national interest that a particular firm should acquire a particular piece of land, and all kinds of factors might have to be taken into consideration in that connexion—the state of trade in that particular industry, the efficiency of the firm the availability of labour, and the availability of housing and so on—particularly if expansion were contemplated. And that has all got to be put up against the question of amenities.
I wonder if the noble and learned Viscount could explain the effect of subsection (4) of this clause? A question which I would like to have answered is this: Are all these decisions going to be taken by the Railway and Canal Commission? I ask that because, reading
924
on in the clause, it seems to me that these powers can only be exercised in regard to land which appears in the development plan as being land designated for compulsory acquisition—for the purpose of mining development, I presume. I must confess that I am wondering just a little bit what the responsibilities of the local planning authorities are. I am rather wondering if in addition to doing the jobs of planning, building up derelict areas, developing industrial estates, controlling advertisements, preserving buildings and trees and so forth, they have also got to be experts on mineralogy. I think that some immediate information on this subject is rather necessary.
I have not got it with me, but the Ministry of Town and Country Planning recently issued a circular to all local authorities which—I am speaking from recollection—instructed them to make a survey of the likely requirements of firms engaged in mineral extraction for some years ahead. Incidentally, firms thus approached have, in turn, approached the owners of adjacent land, and already owners are wondering what attitude they should take in regard to these inquiries, having the Bill in their minds. I think that there may be some difficulty about the local planning authorities completing their survey. That is really all I want to know. I think it is rather an important point. It is certainly a matter of interest to the local planning authorities to know if they are going to do this designation, on which everything turns in the matter of compulsory purchase, or whether that job is also going to be done by the Railway and Canal Commission or by the Minister of Fuel and Power or by anyone else.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The powers under subsection (4) are not confined to land designated as subject to compulsory acquisition, but extend to land which is shown on the plan as land which is to be used for the winning and working of minerals. The subsection says so in express terms:
"Where a development plan provides that any is to be used for the purpose of securing the winning and working of any minerals comprised therein then…"
various conditions follow. The first condition is that a person who is desirous of working minerals should go before the

925
Railway and Canal Commission. Paragraph (b) provides:
"that for the purposes of the determination by the Commission of an application for any such right, it shall be assumed that the winning and working of the minerals is expedient in the national interest."
The noble Viscount knows that the Railway and Canal Commission already have to do this task under the old Act to a certain extent.
I think the answer to his question is that we hope that the local planning authorities will undertake that their plan of the land is to be used for the purpose of securing the winning and working minerals. If they do not so undertake, then, obviously, the Minister will have to take steps to provide that there is land. Then, if the landowners will not play—and I agree that there may be many cases where they will not—you will have to have resort to the compulsory powers and go to this Tribunal, and ask that you may work the minerals. They will assess the terms, conditions, rent, and so on, at which you may work them.
VISCOUNT GAGE: So far as I can understand, my assumption was correct except that the land has not got to be designated but only shown. I am afraid that my fears about the responsibilities of local authorities are confirmed. We are people who are very suspect on all sides of the House. We are suspect by many noble Lords of being too Socialistic and by the Government of being too Conservative. I can only say that the only thing that I suspect is some form of mild insanity for ever going into this business of local planning at all.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I may add to what I have just said that the existing powers of the Railway and Canal Commission will continue. Under the provisions of the 1923 Act they have powers, and those powers operate whether land is shown on a plan or not, so that really the effect is to step up the powers where land is indicated in the plan.
Clause 79, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 80 agreed to.
5.59 p.m.
VISCOUNT ESHER VISCOUNT ESHER moved, after Clause 80, to insert as a new clause:
Land held by National Trust.
".—(1) No payment shall be made under Part IV of this Act in respect of any interest in land the fee simple absolute whereof, whether in possession or in reversion, is vested at the appointed day in the National Trust.
(2) No development charge shall be payable under Part V of this Act in respect of any operations carried out on, or any use of, land the fee simple absolute whereof, whether in possession or in reversion, is vested at the appointed day in the National Trust. Provided always that, if at any time after the appointed clay the fee simple absolute aforesaid in respect of such land shall cease to be vested in the National Trust, this subsection shall thereupon cease to apply to such land.
(3) In the case of land the fee simple absolute whereof, whether in possession or in reversion, shall become vested in the National Trust after the appointed day—

(a) no payment shall be made to the National Trust under Part IV of this Act in respect of its interest in such land;

(b) no development charge shall be payable under Part V of this Act in respect of any operations carried out on, or any use of, such land which shall take place after the fee simple absolute thereof shall have become vested in the National Trust in possession:

Provided always that, if at any time the fee simple absolute, whether in possession or in reversion, in respect of my such land shall cease to be vested in the National Trust, this subsection shall cease to apply to such land."
The noble Viscount said: The National Trust are a body which I feel sure the Government would not wish either to diminish or to undermine, and the Trust consider that they have a very reasonable case for asking that all their land, whether land already owned by them or to be acquired by them in the future, should be exempt from the provisions of the Bill. The National Trust, as your Lordships are well aware, exist for the acquisition and preservation for the benefit of the nation of land and buildings of national, architectural or historic importance, or of natural beauty, and they are recognized as a charity. The Bill, as drafted, contains, in Clause 83, certain exemptions in respect of charities. It was originally thought that this clause would include National Trust property. But it has now been ascertained from the Ministry that this is not so. No doubt the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, will be able to explain the reason for that.
Land owned by the National Trust falls into two categories. The first is inalienable land—that is, land which the Trust considers proper to be held in perpetuity for the benefit of the nation. Once a

927
resolution has been passed by the executive committee of the National Trust that it is proper for it to be held, the Trust is prohibited by law from alienating or otherwise disposing of it save by virtue of a lease. It is in the last degree unlikely that the National Trust would ever wish to develop, within the meaning of the Bill, any of its inalienable land. If no question of the development of land arises, it surely might be taken, and probably will be taken by the Government, that it is a matter of indifference whether such land should be exempted or not, since, ex hypothesi, no question of development charges would arise and no case would be made for a claim on any part of the £300,000,000 fund.
The Trust take the view that while this may be substantially the case, it is eminently desirable that the Bill itself should show that inalienable land of the National Trust is to be treated in a special way. This land is held in perpetuity for the benefit of the nation in a way that no other land is held. Crown land, generally speaking, is held with the object of producing revenue. National Trust inalienable land is held with the object of giving enjoyment and—in the widest sense of the word—education to the public. In a word, the Trust feels that its prestige, not only with the public but with past donors and prospective donors, demands that its inalienable land should be shown in the Bill to have received special treatment. We feel very strongly that if this is not the case we shall find great difficulty in future in assuring prospective donors that their land is safe from development after it has been donated. I quite realize that the Lord Chancellor will be able to put a strong legal ground for not putting this in the Bill. On the other hand, I feel that if he were to consider this from a psychological rather than from his habitual legal point of view, he would understand that it is important to reassure those rather apprehensive and nervous donors who are in process of giving property of immense value to the State by not merely stating something this afternoon but by inserting something definite in the Bill.
The second category of land is alienable land. At the present moment the Trust owns approximately 126,000 acres, of which 98½per cent. has been declared inalienable and the remainder, about 2,000
928
acres, is alienable. Alienable land falls into one of two categories. Either it is land which is substantially up to the standard of inalienability and deserves to be preserved for amenity purposes but for financial reasons the Trust cannot afford to declare it inalienable because at some future time a financial liability may arise which will require capital expenditure and such expenditure could only be met by the sale of property; or it is land held under the powers of the National Trust Act, 1937, purely for the purpose of endowment, although even this land may also have important amenity value. Land in the first class would not be sold or indeed developed within the meaning of the Bill unless some eventuality not immediately foreseen were to arise. The chance of development is, therefore, small. Endowment land of the second class is held as a concession. Generally speaking the Trust hopes that the income which it yields will be adequate for the purpose of upkeep of the property for which it is required. The Trust, however, reserve the right to develop it at any time if financial necessity arises.
There may be one or two cases where endowment land is given to the Trust on the specific understanding that if certain capital expenditure arises it should be defrayed by the sale of the land. I suggest that the Trust has a very special claim to land that is of this character. It is true that, subject to the consent of the Charity Commissioners, it would have the right to dispose of such land and turn it into cash. But though it holds land as endowments, it has the primary purpose of preserving land. It does not and is not likely to hold a bulk of town property. Endowment land consists mostly of agricultural land. Any other charity may well feel hound to be moved by purely financial considerations in deciding whether to dispose of endowment land. This is not so with the National Trust. The Trust can only sell this endowment land as a last resort, and, under the proposed clause, the sale of the freehold would incur the liability to development charge. I hope what I have said indicates sufficiently clearly the Trust argument for exemption. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 80, insert the said new clause —(Viscount Esher.)
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: I wish to support the case which has been made so

929
clearly by my noble friend Lord Esher. I do so not only on the grounds which he has put forward and which I hope the Lord Chancellor will accept, but also because a similar question must arise in connexion with the Scottish Town and Country Planning Bill. The National Trust of Scotland is not affected in exactly the same way as the English Trust, but, generally speaking, the same questions arise. If this Amendment or something of its nature is not accepted by the Government, when the Scottish Bill comes before your Lordships' House the same issue will be in jeopardy and I feel it is very important that it should he passed.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I should like to say a word in support of the Amendment. I believe this is a problem that might have been sympathetically considered by the Government. The National Trust is becoming a great national institution, an institution which has been praised by the leaders of all political Parties, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has spoken of it in high terms. All those who have spoken have stressed the desirability that houses and property of a requisite standard of beauty should be transferred to the Trust. Your Lordships know that such houses are being not only transferred but also endowed by their late owners, and this takes a tremendous burden off the rest of the community. But land will only be transferred and endowed if the people who have owned and loved these houses feel that they are permanently safeguarded in their present character. That is their main object in transferring the houses. In many cases they have a long family connexion with these houses and are willing to undergo financial sacrifice to see that, even if they cannot live in them themselves, they will be available to the rest of the community. Now, if that certainty has gone, the desire of the owner to transfer to the Trust will be very greatly reduced.
Of course, if the Trust is not exempted from the provisions of this Bill, those houses could be technically compulsorily acquired—there is no doubt about it—and the noble and learned Lord may say it is a most improbable thing to happen, but it is not an impossible thing. You have a house in the neighbourhood of a great industrial town, and very naturally a com-
930
munity centre or something of that kind, which is a very laudable object, might be wanted. This house might be chosen as the simplest place to go to, and yet that house might be most undesirable for the purpose for which it was needed, because the whole importance of it to the country and to visitors would be that it should be maintained in its present form. Therefore, I think it would be a great misfortune if it were felt that the certainty had gone.
Moreover, supposing those houses were taken over by the local authority, there would be this great disadvantage the houses might remain, they might be very well kept up by the local authority, but the contents would be gone, they would be dissipated. The main interests of those houses, after all, is to see how over the centuries there has been a growth of life in that connexion, to see how people have lived century after century, making history. It is one of the most valuable educational things. That is the sort of purpose which the National Trust does perform, and obviously for that reason it stands in rather a special position. The noble and learned Lord may say that you cannot exempt any particular portion of the land of this country or the property of this country from a Town and Country Planning Bill which is intended to be comprehensive. The land owned by Government Departments is exempted, and I think very few of us would say that Government Departments are the most fit custodians for the beauties and amenities of this country as a national trust. Therefore, if this vast exemption is given to Government Departments, who are, after all, the only people at the present time with the money to cause real harm and to be real vandals, I should have thought that a similar exception should be made in the case of the National Trust. Those very briefly are the considerations I wish to put before your Lordships. I do hope that, even if the noble and learned Viscount cannot give a positive assurance today, he would be willing to ask his colleagues to consider the matter further.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Marquess's eloquent plea did not seem to have a great deal to do with the Amendment. As to whether or not there should be a special protection so that the local planning authority cannot compulsorily acquire the property of the National Trust, I think there is a lot to be said

931
for that in theory, but that has nothing to do with this Amendment. This Amendment is about their not getting any payment under Part VI, which they somewhat annoyingly call Part IV, and not paying any development charge under Part VII, which they call Part V. That makes it a little bit more confusing, but we understand the principle.
If I really thought there was much danger of historic buildings being taken over by planning authorities—I agree the power is there—I should be the first to make representations; but I cannot help feeling that the noble Lord and his colleagues are quite powerful enough and vigorous enough people to make very proper and urgent representations. I have no doubt that, as a result of such representations, unless the circumstances were altogether peculiar, the local planning authority would receive a sharp lesson and be told not to be so foolish again; but I do not think it is a practical point. If it is a practical point, I assure the noble Marquess that I will look into it. I agree with him that we should keep our houses as lessons of living history, which is one of the most precious possessions we have. It preserves our continuity as a nation and shows how one generation hands on to another.
With regard to the payment of the development charge, with which this Amendment is concerned, the noble Viscount's remarks had nothing to do with it. The next question is the question of inalienable land. Here, the noble Viscount said he would wish that this land should not be parted with—it should not be really alienable. I agree with him, but it is less likely to be alienated according to all the arguments we have been hearing, if this Amendment is not carried. If this Amendment is carried, the purchaser would not have to pay a development charge. As the Bill stands to-day, without this Amendment, the purchaser would have to pay a development charge and would, therefore, pay less and would not tempt the National Trust to do these wicked things. And now to put them in some privileged position, not that it would really affect their minds at all, would make it slightly more lucrative for them to alienate it. Therefore, this is another barrier against alienation which the noble Lord is trying to remove, and
932
here is the noble Marquess actually asking that this barrier should be removed and asking for that when he wants to prevent alienation. I cannot feel that with regard to that part of the land—98½per cent. of the whole land, I think, was the figure—there is any argument really, except that he said "psychology": I would prefer to say "prestige." I am afraid I really cannot meet him on that.
Now, as to the other lands, I think it was something under 2,000 acres —that is the land that there is a right to alienate. It is asked that the Trust should be able to develop their land free of development charge and should be able to reap the development value if they dispose of it by way of sale or lease to a private developer. In fact, the Amendment as drafted is not to that effect, because it provides that the land, if sold, ceases to be within the subsection —the subsection ceases to apply—so that the Amendment is wrongly worded, but we could put that right. To meet the Trust it would mean exempting a private individual from development charge simply because he happened to have bought land from the Trust instead of some other person. I admire the boldness of the claim. Even Crown estates, though the Bill does not bind the Crown, are not put in that privileged position. The National Trust are asking for something quite unprecedented here. A purchaser of the Crown lands is liable to development charge in the ordinary way, and Crown revenue is correspondingly reduced because the purchaser will pay less to the Crown by reason of the fact that he has to pay a development charge.
It may well be that the Trust would be better off under the provisions of the Bill as drafted than they would be if they secured the exemptions proposed. It is not often even now that the Trust disposes of lands in order to realize the development value, whereas they will be able to claim on this amount of £300,000,000 over the whole of their land. How much they receive depends on the Treasury scheme. I have every sympathy with the National Trust. That sympathy is shared strongly by my colleagues, and no one more strongly than the two colleagues who are particularly concerned with this Bill—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of

933
Town and Country Planning. Really, the position of alienable lands is broadly similar to that of the endowment lands of the universities and the charities. The Minister feels that he could not concede anything here to the National Trust without having to make the same concession to the universities, the colleges, the churches, and the whole range of major and minor charities. This could not be done without prejudicing the effectiveness of the whole system which this Bill is designed to set up. Therefore, I am sorry to say, although I have great sympathy with the work which the noble Viscount is doing, that I cannot give way to him on this Amendment.
VISCOUNT ELIBANK: Can the noble and learned Viscount say that what he has stated will not necessarily prejudice any Amendment that may be moved on the Scottish Town and Country Planning Bill, in the light of the arguments which may be advanced from the Scottish point of view? As the noble and learned Viscount made no reference at all to the point I made, I feel that Scotland is practically closed down altogether from the point of view of their National Trust, if and when an Amendment is moved on that Bill.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We can never close Scotland down altogether! I am afraid I have no knowledge of the facts relating to Scotland, but, in so far as the arguments are applicable, no doubt they will apply.
VISCOUNT ESHER: In view of what the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has said about the alienable land, and the smallness of the quantity of it. I feel that I cannot persist with my argument in that respect. I was, of course, very susceptible to the flattery of the noble and learned Viscount when he said that the National Trust were so powerful a body that every local authority would collapse instantly if we were to protest at any of their actions; but I do feel that in these dangerous days I should be much happier if I had some words in the Bill, as well as my strong right arm, with which to meet the onslaughts of local authorities. The noble and learned Viscount has given an ingenious twist to the words of the Amendment, and has made it seem that we should lose by obtaining
934
acceptance of it. If the words of the Amendment are badly drawn, the purpose at any rate of it seems to me to be perfectly clear. It is that we desire that the inalienable land should be exempt from the operations of the Bill. The noble and learned Viscount has given an assurance to the noble Marquess that he will look into this matter. I hope that he will do so, and that he will himself bring forward some words on the Report stage which will make it clear, not only to the local authorities, but also to the prospective donors, that the inalienable land of the National Trust is, in fact, exempt. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.24 p.m.
Clause 81:
Land acquired by local authorities and development corporations for comprehensive development or re-development.
81.—(1) No payment shall be made under Part VI of this Act in respect of any interest in land, being—

(a) the interest of a local authority in land acquired or appropriated by that authority under Part I of the Act of 1944 for the purposes of the development or redevelopment of any area as a whole; or

(b) the interest of a development corporation in land acquired by the corporation under the New Towns Act, 1946.

THE EARL OF MUNSTER THE EARL OF MUNSTER had given notice of six Amendments to this clause, the first being an Amendment to omit "development or" from paragraph (a) of subsection (1) and the second an Amendment to leave out paragraph (b) of the same subsection. The noble Earl said: Of these six Amendments which stand in my name on the Paper the last four are consequential on the first two. I think it would be appropriate if I spoke on these two Amendments at the same time, and it will certainly save a good deal of discussion. There are two points in these Amendments. The first is that I seek to lay down, where virgin sites are developed by a local authority, that a development charge should be payable in precisely the same fashion as it would be if a private owner were developing an estate. If a local authority carries out a re-development of a blitzed or blighted area, then I agree with the proposal of the Government, that they should not have to pay a development charge.
If your Lordships will turn to the Third Schedule, paragraph 3, you will observe there that a private owner can build a cowshed without having to pay a development charge; but if he desires to build a cottage in which to house the cowman, then he is called upon to pay a development charge. On the other hand, if the local authority should erect a cottage for the cowman to go into they do not pay a development charge. It does seem to me that that is extremely unfair. All I seek to do here is to level it up, so that local authorities and private individuals are put in precisely the same position. Neither of them will gain an advantage, and there will not be, as there is at the moment, a concealed subsidy in aid of the local authority.
The second Amendment deals with the case of a new town under the New Towns Act, 1946. In that case, the buildings which a new towns corporation may erect are completely free from development charge. All I seek to do there is to put the new towns corporation in precisely the same position as the private owner developing a large estate. There are, then, two quite separate points, one dealing with the local authority, and the other with the new towns corporation. At the moment, not having heard the Government explanation, I am quite unable to understand why the new towns corporation should be excluded from paying the development charge. For the local authority there may be something to say—in fact, there is something to say when they are re-developing in blitzed and blighted areas. But where they are developing a building estate I maintain, in fairness to everyone, that they should be in precisely the same position as the private owner who wishes to develop a large estate. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 94, line 8, leave out ("development or").—(The Earl of Munster.)
LORD CHORLEY: I am sorry that I cannot accept these Amendments. I think that the noble Earl has rather failed to grasp the object of this clause, which is confined to schemes of comprehensive development and re-development. It is not the case of the local authority just building a cowshed, as he stated—an isolated building—
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: No, not a cowshed; a house for the cowman to live in.
LORD CHORLEY: Or a house for the cowman. This clause is concerned with large schemes of development. If the noble Earl will look at the clause as a whole, he will see that in subsections (3) and (4) a scheme of payment to and from the Treasury is provided for. Let me take first the case of the local authority. You may have a local authority dealing as a whole with a substantial area of land, part of which may be what is called "blitzed" or blighted land and the other part consisting of areas on the edge of the town—where the people who are being moved, as the houses are pulled down, are put into the new and much pleasanter houses. Obviously, the effect of this is going to be to put a burden upon the local authority. Under the new development of the "blitzed" area the houses will be much more scattered over the ground and the result will be a drain on the local authority's resources.
It is perfectly true that in regard to the newly developed area into which the people are decanted from the blighted area, the local authority should stand to make a profit. But surely the loss on the one, from the point of view of the local authority, should be balanced against the gain on the other. It may well be that at the end of the whole proceedings there is on balance a gain to the local authority. That is where subsection (3) of the clause comes in, because that provides that a scheme may be made under which the Treasury will take benefit in the form of what would be a development charge on the profit obtained by the local authority from the scheme as a whole, putting the bad part against the good. I am quite sure that in the light of that explanation the noble Earl will agree that the position of the local authority is not in any sense comparable with that of a private developer who takes a new area of land outside a town and develops it, so to speak, ab initio. He has no loss in a blighted area.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I wonder if I may interrupt the noble Lord in order to get one matter quite clear. I understand that he is talking about blitzed and blighted areas. There is one small local authority I know intimately in Surrey who are now building thirty houses

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in an urban district—in other words in one large field. If this is to be done in the future, why should that local authority be free from paying development charge?
LORD CHORLEY: The question is whether the matter is one of comprehensive development as laid down in the clause. Obviously one cannot give an opinion in a case without knowing a great deal more about it, but the clause is quite definitely directed to this sort of case. With regard to the new towns, obviously the noble Earl has a rather stronger case there, because the development corporation which will be occupied with the building of these new towns is obviously going to stand a very much better chance of making a profit on its development than is the local authority dealing with a blighted area by opening a new housing estate on the edge of its town. But even here these new towns will be largely developments of old towns, as we all know. In many of these cases, if not in the majority, in taking over, so to speak, the nucleus of the new town they will have an area which may correspond closely to the blighted area of the local authority under the earlier part of the clause.
In those circumstances, it seems to the Government perfectly reasonable and fair that the development corporation for the new town should be treated in the same way as the local authority. It will not escape for a moment, because it will come under subsection (3). If, as I imagine is probable in the case of these new towns, there is a good profit on the balance of the whole undertaking, then it will come under the scheme which will be made and contribution will in due course have to be rendered. In these circumstances the noble Earl will see that what I am sure he thought was quite an attractive proposition is not really so at all. The position of the private developer is in no sense comparable with that of the local authority or the new towns development corporation as dealt with in this particular clause.
LORD LLEWELLIN: This Amendment just shows haw impartial we are. We have been told from time to time that we are trying to deprive the Treasury of something they ought to have. In this case we come along and say that the Treasury ought to have the benefit not just of such sums as may afterwards be determined, but of the whole matter. I want
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it put down to our credit that we are in this case trying to be most helpful to the Treasury. And the noble Lord just turns us down! It is, of course, unfortunate that when we come to later clauses the fact that these people, apart from Crown lands, are an exception to the rule may possibly be prayed in aid to help those charitable institutions which do not get quite the same treatment. The only Amendment I now suggest the noble Lord might insert on the Report stage of this Bill is in subsection (3): that the development corporation shall from time to time pay to the Central Land Board such sums, if any, in lieu of development charges, as the Minister may, with the prompting of the Treasury, determine —because prompting is obviously what it is going to be.
LORD CHORLEY: May I intervene to make just two points? The noble Lord rather chaffed me yesterday about Achilles and the tortoise, on which I am glad to assure him that I was correct. But Achilles was associated with another hero who produced a wooden horse, and I am equally suspicious. I would like to inform the noble Earl that the clause does not in fact apply to a local authority who are making a housing scheme under the Housing Acts, which was the specific case he put to me.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I am obliged to the noble Lord. That certainly does answer specifically the question I put to him. There is one further point on subsection (3). As I understand it, a local authority will never know what the Central Land Board may demand from them. The Board can come down and demand any sum for development charges as the Minister may, with the consent of the Treasury, determine, if the local authority are making a profit on their new estate. Could the noble Lord tell me what is the intention of putting the provision in there to say that that money can be paid back again?
LORD CHORLEY: It is obviously necessary for the proviso to do that, because it might well be that as the scheme of development proceeds it will be found that there will not in fact be a profit, and it might show a loss.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: There is one point I should like to ask the noble Lord,

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upon which I think I may have misunderstood him. So far as I followed his remarks, he certainly spoke as if dealing with a blighted area was the sole concern of the local authority. Yesterday, in answer to the noble Duke, the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, I understood the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, to say that no development charge would be put upon any of the blighted areas, and I therefore presumed that the freeholder whose house was blighted and whose property was damaged would be fully exempt. If he is not, he may lose as much on the re-development as he gains on his war damage.
LORD CHORLEY: I think the distinction—and this answers the noble Lord's question—is that in regard to war damaged areas, which are colloquially called blitzed areas, what he says is quite right; but what are called blighted areas are areas of slum, and that sort of thing, which do not come into the same category.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 81 agreed to.
Clause 82 agreed to.
Clause 83:
Land held for charitable purposes.
83.—(1) This section applies to land an interest in which is held on charitable trusts or for ecclesiastical or other charitable purposes, being—

(a) land used for any purpose of such a nature that there is no general demand or market for land for that purpose; or

(b) land contiguous or adjacent to any such land as aforesaid, and used for any purpose ancillary to the purpose for which that land is used.

(3) In the case of land which, on the appointed day, was land to which this section applies, no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any operations carried out on the land by the person entitled to any such interest as aforesaid, or in respect of any use of the land by any such person, if the operations are carried out, or the use effected, as the case may be, for any such purpose as is mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section.
(6) Where any interest in land is held on the appointed day on charitable trusts or for ecclesiastical or other charitable purposes, then if the Minister is satisfied—

(a) that the land would have been used on that clay for any such purpose as is
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mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section but for the occurrence of war damage or but for the fact that the land was requisitioned land; or

(b) that the land is intended to be used for any such purpose as aforesaid at any time within the period of twenty years from the appointed day,

he may, at any time within the period of three years from the appointed day, direct that this section shall apply to the land as if it were used for the said purposes and as if it had been so used on the appointed day; and until any land to which such a direction relates is used for any such purpose as aforesaid, no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any such use of the land, or in respect of any such operations carried out thereon, as are mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (4) of this section.
6.39 p.m.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL VISCOUNT SAMUEL moved, in subsection (1), after "This section applies to land an interest in which," to insert "on the appointed day." The noble Viscount said: The Amendments to this clause which stand in my name and in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lyle, are numerous and somewhat complex. They all deal with the same point, and all the earlier ones are preparatory to the last one to subsection (6) of this clause. Therefore, I am sure it will be for the convenience of your Lordships if, on the first of these Amendments, we take the discussion of the whole matter. I trust that the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, will concur that this is advisable.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think that that is much the most convenient course.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: These Amendments are put down at the instance of a number of educational and other authorities. I submit this case on behalf of the university and colleges of Oxford, the university and colleges of Cambridge, the colleges and schools of Eton, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, St. Paul's, Christ's Hospital, the Harpur Trust, Guy's Hospital, the Foundling Hospital, and the Salvation Army. There are other institutions no doubt which are affected in the same way as these, and possibly some noble Lords may speak on behalf of some among them. All of these are, for the purposes of this clause, charities; and all of them are owners of land which has been bought as investments. The question raised by this Amendment is whether

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these lands should or should not be treated in the same way as lands in private ownership are treated, and whether the development values of such lands should or should not be transferred to the Central Land Board.
Let me say, in presenting this case, in the first instance, that all these charities—I must use that technical term have been free from taxation since our system of direct taxation was inaugurated 250 years ago, for the lands of such bodies have been exempted from land taxation and from all Income Tax legislation. They are, of course, exempted by the nature of the case from Death Duties. And that obviously is right, for it would be absurd for the State on the one hand to encourage the foundation of such institutions, and in modern times to give them subsidies, and on the other hand to penalize them by taxation. When the principle of the taxation of unearned increment was adopted by the Labour Government in the year 1931, which was the method then proposed for dealing with unearned increment—this Bill would attain a similar object in a different way —these institutions were included within the scope of the Bill when it was introduced. But on representations made by these authorities to the Government of that day they were taken out from the Bill and no such tax was imposed at that time. And, in fact, until this day the whole of these authorities have been exempted from such taxation, and this will be the first case setting a precedent by bringing them in.
Clause 83, however, does in certain respects give them exceptional treatment; and the Minister of Town and Country Planning, in another place, discussing this matter in the Standing Committee of that House, said that there was no disagreement about the fact that the charities referred to in these cases should get special favoured treatment and that there was no disagreement that they are, in fact, getting favoured treatment under this clause. The institutions are most grateful to the Government for having made provision in some degree. But the provision only covers a part of the ground, and perhaps not the greater part.
In order to avoid possible misunderstanding, I would mention that the Amendment now proposed is not the same
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as the Amendment proposed in the other place, which was subjected to the opposition of the Minister of Town and Country Planning. The Amendment on that occasion proposed the complete exemption of all such land, whether now owned by the charities or to be purchased in the future. That was the same as the provision under the Act of 1931. The Minister of Town and Country Planning took the strongest exception to that and based his opposition to the Amendment not wholly, but very largely, on the fact that it would propose to allow these charities to engage in land speculation in the future, and would leave them free to employ any capital that they could raise in going into the market, buying lands, and getting the advantage of any future development—with serious results, as he said, to the whole policy of the Bill. He considered that that proposal was contrary to its principle and he laid special emphasis on his opposition to that part of the proposal. That has now been abandoned and it does not appear in this Amendment. These Amendments exclude altogether any favour being extended to future purchases of land with a view to gaining a development advantage which could not be obtained by any other person, and promoting a continuance of some degree of land speculation. This clause was not discussed on Report stage in another place—it fell under the guillotine —and the promoters of these Amendments had no opportunity at that stage of presenting their revised opinion. It is only now that on their behalf I propose an Amendment which is not open to that one of the objections raised by the Minister of Town and Country Planning.
I should like also to make clear to those of your Lordships who have not closely studied this clause in the Bill that it does not in any degree touch the planning powers of the Bill in general. These charities do not ask for any exemption of any kind from the general planning provisions of the Bill. If they asked in any particular case for special consideration that would be done on the merits of the case, according to the ordinary procedure, and would not be in virtue of any statutory exemption; and no preference is asked for with regard to the submission of their properties to the ordinary planning provisions of this Bill. The point of difference is this. Under Clause 83 of the Bill, land on which a college or a hospital has in fact

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been built, or adjacent land used for any purpose ancillary to that, is exempted from these provisions with regard to development charge and development compensation. That is to say the land actually occupied, so to speak, by these institutions for their own purposes, and any further land which is used, or intended to be used for that purpose, within the next twenty years. The land which is not allowed any exemption is land of a different character—namely, land bought, perhaps, in some other part of the town or of the country as an investment, and is part of the endowments of the institution.
These institutions have been encouraged to invest precisely in that kind of land which is ripening for future development, and will bring in a later increment. All their investments have, by law, to be made with the approval, in some cases of the Ministry of Agriculture, in other cases the Ministry of Education and in others the Charity Commissioners. All these institutions have been encouraged to invest in precisely this class of property, and all these properties now held are held under the authority and with the approval of these Government Departments. These institutions, like many others, are passing through times of great financial strain, partly due to the fall in interest rates on securities which result in a steadily decreasing income, and partly due to the fall in the purchasing power of the pound, which means, of course, increasing costs in every direction. Against this rising expenditure they have all looked forward to the time when, on the other hand, the gradually increasing values of these lands will come in to support their finances. That is the situation.
I understand—indeed, I know from the discussion in another place—that the principal objection of the Government to this proposal, in the main and apart from any minor details, is that it runs counter to the underlying policy of the Bill. The Minister in another place said: "I thought we all accepted the principle that the community ought to be entitled to the benefit of increases in the value of land which the community has itself created." That is the ground on which he stood. For my own part I agree entirely. All my life in public affairs I have advocated
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that that increment should belong to the community; and the Party to which I belong has always included that in its political programme. I should certainly not support, and much less propose, any Amendment to any Bill which runs counter to that proposal.
But what is meant by "community"? That is the point to which I should ask your Lordships' to address your minds. It is not only the State and the local authorities, for in those words, the Minister of Town and Country Planning spoke of "increases in the value of land which the community has itself created." But the State and the local authorities have not themselves created these increments in land values, it is the living body of the nation as a whole which has created them; and long before the State took any interest in universities or schools, or hospitals, private initiative, or sometimes the benevolence and wisdom of kings, or cardinals, or bishops, founded these great institutions. If those institutions had never existed, it is obvious that the community would have suffered, and by their existence the community gains. Therefore if here they are allowed to retain those increments, it is not some private interest which benefits but the community in one of its aspects.
It has always been one of the most important and characteristic features of our British institutions that we have never regarded the State itself as alone representing the community, but that there are other institutions which must be similarly so regarded. We are engaged now in incorporating many institutions which are neither State nor private. The B.B.C. is the classical example. Hospitals and so on have been created by the community out of its own native energy for the benefit of the community itself. They bear much the same relation to the State as the Common Law bears to the Statute Law, and I suggest to your Lordships that it is not in the interests of the community that they should now be financially injured in the way which is proposed.
That is my case. I do not propose to enter into many minor issues or details. I would deal with one point that might perhaps be dealt with by the noble and learned Viscount, though I do not know whether he will deal with it—namely, that the definition of a "charity" for the purposes of these Acts

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is a very wide one, and that many institutions are included which are not of the same nature as those to which I have been referring, and on whose behalf I speak. However, with regard to that I would say that hardly any of these institutions own land; that the great land-owning institutions are such as those I have been mentioning. There may be a few marginal cases of institutions that would be brought in who have not got the same claim as this. If that is so, we should not object to a more limited definition. The definition of "charities" in the Bill is the Government's own choice, and if they prefer a more limited definition we should not, of course, raise any objection.
Questions of wording I do not propose to deal with at all. I admit that the Amendments which I am moving are difficult to follow. They, have to adapt themselves to the wording of the clause, which itself is extremely complicated and somewhat difficult. If the Government, between now and the Report stage, would undertake the re-drafting of the clause as a whole, while embodying the principles that I have been advocating, we should cordially welcome it, because it really needs the skilled hand of a Government draftsman to get it into its true form.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am going to say in due course that I contemplated taking the clause back and altering it in certain respects, but the distinction between what I call the "investment land" and the "operational land" is a distinction to which I must adhere.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: Then I shall not go into any question of drafting or phraseology on this occasion, but I do submit to your Lordships that the Government and Parliament will be taking a very grave decision, and a definitely wrong decision, if they propose to treat these institutions on the same footing as private landowners. All through the centuries such institutions have been endowed by gifts of land, or with money which has been invested in the land; and with the industrialization of this country, and the rapid increase of its population, these values, as we know, have enormously increased. The consequence has been that we have existing at present these great universities, colleges, schools
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and hospitals which are some of the finest features of our civilization. Also there has been, through this growth of land values, much private profit and a large development of private fortunes. It has been decided that that process shall now be stopped so far as those private fortunes are concerned, and this House, by passing the Second Reading of this Bill, assented to that principle. But the question now before the Committee, to which I hope your Lordships will give an impartial consideration, is whether or not there should be an indirect and undesired consequence of applying that principle, and serious injury done to institutions which have been created by the community, and which are now rendering to the community most beneficent service. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 95, line 38, after ("which") insert ("on the appointed day").—(Viscount Samuel.)
VISCOUNT SIMON: I have explained to the Lord Chancellor, and to my noble friend who has just spoken, that it is impossible for me to be here after the break. If your Lordships will so far indulge me I should like to say one additional word, and I will undertake that in no event shall I be the cause of delaying anybody beyond ten minutes past seven. I have this qualification for speaking, that I have for a great many years of my life, in connexion with one of the Oxford Colleges, had absolutely first-hand contact with the sort of question which is involved—in principle, of course—in the Amendment which has just been moved, and which I support. It is perfectly true that an institution such as the one I am thinking of has not only been permitted, but has been definitely encouraged, by Government Departments to invest in land which has a prospective development value. We are doing it not for the purpose of making a penny piece for any individual. We are pure trustees, and our object is one which is not in itself dishonourable, I hope, nor without public merit: it is to do the utmost we can to support education. In fact, the body for which I speak makes contribution every year, be it large or small, to such a great institution as the Bodleian Library and to education where their assistance seems to be specially needed, quite outside the bounds of the college. Anyone who

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examines our accounts will see at once that we are, in fact, discharging a work of great value to the community.
What is going to happen if this Bill remains as it stands? There is, as I understand—no doubt the Lord Chancellor will explain it at the proper time—an exception for such a college under the first words of Clause 83. I confess that I find those words very difficult to understand. But there is exemption, I gather, under Clause 83 (1) (a) for what you may call the college site, the college grounds. That I think is what is meant but, as I say, I do not find the words easy to understand. Paragraph (b) in subsection (1) speaks of:
"land contiguous or adjacent to any such land as aforesaid, and used for any purpose ancillary to the purpose for which that land is used."
I am sure those words will need to be revised, and I shall not be surprised if the Lord Chancellor agrees to that at once, because of the sort of questions that arise. Westminster School, for example, has its boat-house at Putney. I think that this paragraph is intended to secure that that boat-house at Putney should be exempt from these charges. But is it contiguous or adjacent to Westminster? Are those places on the other side of Folly Bridge, which the Lord Chancellor knows so very well—I mean the places to which you have to go for cricket or football—adjacent to the college? There will certainly have to be some revision of these words.
But this is the main question. Is this Bill really going to apply this charge in this way for the first time in the history of the imposition of burdens of an enforceable and exactable kind upon the public? Are these institutions going to be exposed for the first time to development charge, notwithstanding that they are trustees administering land, ordinary land, agricultural land, or land near towns purely for the purposes of their trusts. See what will happen if it is so. There will be a development charge—at present what it is likely to be is very vague but no doubt it will be fixed ultimately—which the trustees will have to pay. I am assuming that they get leave to develop the land, as indeed the college of which I speak has done, not only by making roads and sewers but by making and carrying out plans in
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respect of the land the result of which is to increase the funds of the educational trust. That is the object, that is the reason why the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Education have urged such institutions to work in this way. We have thereby been able greatly to increase the support which we, as trustees, can give to educational institutions, and they are by no means confined to what you might call academic institutions.
If, of course, the trustees have to pay this development charge—which may be a large one—before they can develop the land at all, then manifestly on the whole transaction they are going to have a substantially smaller sum to direct to the purposes of this educational work. I really do not think that at present their chances of getting something out of the £300,000,000 can be brought into the calculation. I have heard that minerals are to have a preferential rate. I do not know whether the institutions of which I am speaking are to have a preferential rate or not. I understood from the Second Reading speech that the £300,000,000 was intended as a sort of consolation for hard cases. My submission, and the submission of my noble friend Lord Samuel, is that it is right to make this exemption. It has always been done before. It was done by Lord Snowden in his Land Values Act of 1931. From the beginning of our legislation no one has ever sought to impose a direct tax on charity, and for a very good reason. But this Bill does impose this charge upon charitable trusts, and the consequence, undoubtedly, must be that however well they are administered—as they are now, I believe —in the interests of the community, their opportunity of doing their beneficial work is very seriously diminished. I think that that really makes a serious case for this exemption.
I quite agree with what the Lord Chancellor said in reference, I think, to a previous Amendment by the noble Viscount, Lord Esher, that this would make a considerable difference—I do not know how much—to the total amount that would be gathered in under the development charge. But already these institutions have to be subsidized by the Treasury. I cannot believe that this Government or any Government are going to see efforts for education, for higher

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education and for general education cut down; and if institutions such as I am thinking of, who are discharging their duty to the best of their ability, not in the interests of themselves or indeed of certain colleges only but of education as a whole, are by this means going to be limited in their opportunities, then I must say that I think that such a result is greatly to be regretted.
I will say little more. I am greatly obliged to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, and to other noble Lords for the opportunity of saying these few words. I feel very deeply on this matter, and I know the way in which this thing works very well. If you do this thing you will be creating a precedent, a precedent which has never existed before in reference to exactions imposed by the State on a certain class of citizens, exactions which are quite indistinguishable from tax, except that they are not defined beforehand in amount. It will be doing something which will not assist the education of the country and which will not redound to the credit of the Government who do it. I submit that this is a matter which deserves full consideration, and one which ought not to be disposed of on the grounds that it will interfere—as no doubt it would—with the full scope which the Bill now seeks to cover.
It is true that in another place, in so far as this was discussed at all, the objection principally made was that this would enable these colleges to go in for land speculation. As a matter of fact it would not, because different Government Departments concerned have to give leave in respect of every scrap of land we buy and every scrap of land we sell. We are completely under their direction as regards those matters and they see that we stand up to our trust. The point is that this Amendment is limited entirely to land held, it is true, as an investment, but held at the date here prescribed, and does not apply in the least to future charges on land at all. I will not attempt a peroration and will merely thank the Committee very much for allowing me to say this before the adjournment.
[The Sitting was suspended at ten minutes past seven o'clock and resumed at twenty minutes to nine.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We now come to this very troublesome question
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of charities and the land. I need hardly say that I have very great sympathy with the Oxford colleges and rather less for the Cambridge colleges, because I am an unworthy son of Oxford, and anything that helps them pleases me. I was surprised, when the noble Lord read out the list of the various bodies for whom he was speaking, to hear the list was so small. I have no figures, but I should have thought the amount of land held by charities must be formidable, and a very large number of most worthy persons are interested in this matter. The noble Viscount expounded, and so did Lord Simon, the case and merits of the constituents for whom he was speaking, but he said very little about the merits of his own Amendment. Perhaps he was wise; I am inclined to think he was. I submit to your Lordships that the suggestion he made is absolutely unworkable, whatever may be said for some other scheme, or about the merits of the Oxford Colleges.
I think we must differentiate between operational land and investment land. By that I mean, land which is used by colleges for purposes of their working is operational land; but land owned in various parts of the country from which they derive their income is investment land. I submit that we must maintain a sharp distinction between these two types of land. For the rest I am willing to concede that the clause, as drafted, is, to my mind, unsatisfactory. It is a piece of rococo architecture. Odd bits have been added to it at various times, and there is no very coherent basis. What I propose to do, presuming your Lordships pass the clause, is to ask the draftsman to try again and see what he can make of it. I want to make quite plain that so far as operational land is concerned, whilst there is no claim to a payment from the £300,000,000 fund, equally there is no obligation to pay any development charge. If a college wants to build a new wing, it should not have to pay a development charge for that. I want, however, to get away from the idea of "contiguous or adjacent"—I do not quite know what that means. Anybody looking after the young must look after their bodies as well as their minds, and surely college grounds and the Westminister Boat Club are all used for the purposes of the institution, whether they are contiguous or adjacent

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or not, and I regard them as being operational. And, being operational, they should be exempted from any development charge.
Investment land seems to me to come into a completely different category. I do not like to think how long ago it was when I used to go to the Albert Hall, in the days when I was a good Liberal and looked to the noble Viscount as my leader, as I still do in many things, and we used to sing:
"God gave the land to the people."
We did not say He gave it to the Oxford colleges. It was all a little obscure to whom the land was given. Lord Oman would ask, "Was it given to the early Britons or the Iceni?" He always used to ask when it was given, had it roads and drains? Passing these distinctions by, we all agreed that it should be given to the people. This Bill makes a fundamental change in the rights of landowners, and special treatment of one particular class of landowners is and would be quite illogical.
Secondly, let me say that the development charge is not a tax. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, and I regard it, and have regarded it for the last forty years, as a recovery by the community of something which the community claim as a right. Exemption from development charges, therefore, would virtually amount to an ex gratia payment from the Exchequer on land that charities happen to hold, based on the accident of planning requirements and other factors which bear no logical relation to the charities' financial needs. What I would rather say is that if further State assistance is necessary it should be given directly and based on more rational considerations than these purely accidental considerations.
Now let me turn to what the noble Viscount is seeking to do by his Amendment with regard to investment land. He did not tell us what he is seeking to do, but I will tell you what he is seeking to do. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that in respect of any piece of land —here we have again the difficulty of the unit; I call it a "piece"—a sum of £500 is paid under Part VI. What the noble Viscount proposes is this—I beg your Lordships to follow this, because I think many of you have not done so—
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that so long as the charity, in respect of that land, does not go beyond what I may call the standard of neighbouring user, it may go on developing in one way or another (always consistent with neighbouring user) for ever, without paying more than £500. If the charity has land on the front at Brighton—assuming that its Statute is alive and is not ultra vires—it can first of all start shops, if that is within the existing user; and if the shops fail it can start a hotel; and if the hotel fails it can start a dance hall, or even a pin-table. It can go on doing this for ever, and so can anybody buying land from this charity.
That is the noble Viscount's Amendment—I do not know whether he realizes it: that anybody buying land from the charity can go on developing it for ever. Whereas the object of our scheme is to try to get rid of the development rights in land, you will now have two classes of land: land in which charities are concerned, and land which anybody can buy free of development charges. I quite agree that there is the same idea with regard to local authority land, but local authority land is not for sale, and the point of Viscount Samuel's Amendment is that this land is land in regard to which these charities do a certain amount of trading.
A further question arises: how is the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, going to fix his unit? Let me assume that you have £500 under the Part VI Fund in respect of 2,000 acres of land and you are selling off one plot: how much do you attribute to that plot? If the plot is twenty acres it is £100 for the whole thing, and you cannot take £100 for the £500, because presumably the plot that goes first is the ripest and best plot. You are again in this unit difficulty and it will not work. I would suggest to the noble Viscount that he should really consider the terms of the Amendment which he has been asked to move. If he does, I think he will see—because I am not saying this without having given it very careful consideration with the aid of the advisers that I have available—that in any such scheme the charity might go on developing and re-developing and re-developing, and never exceed the £500 which was first paid. That is absolutely impracticable. What was the scheme of the clause? The scheme of the clause

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was this. It differentiated between operational and investment land; but, for my own part, I think it attached much too narrow conditions to operational land.
Let us leave the Oxford College, and consider the case of the country vicarage. The country vicarage would have escaped from this clause if it adjoined the church. But if it was half a mile away from the church, it would have been caught, because it would not have been contiguous or adjacent. That seems to me to be wrong. If it is being used for the purposes of providing a home for the parson, it ought either to escape or not escape in all cases. That is why I propose to get the Minister's approval, and get the Parliamentary draftsman, if he will be so good, to redraft this clause so that we do away with those tests. My test is a much simpler one: For what purpose is the land used? If the answer is that the land is used for the broad purposes of the charity itself, then I think it ought to be exempt from paying any development charge (I am, of course, referring only to land in the possession of the charity at the appointed day), and equally it ought not to claim under Part VI.
But when we come to investment land, our clause is much wider, I think, than some of your Lordships perhaps understood. What we said was this. It is subsection (6):
"Where any interest in land is held on the appointed day…then if the Minister is satisfied"—
I will leave out subsection (a) and read subsection (b)—
"that the land is intended to be used…at any time within the period of twenty years from the appointed day"—
let me say that I am in no way wedded to twenty years; I do not think there is any magic about that period—
"he may, at any time within the period of three years from the appointed day, direct that this section shall apply to the land…"—
that, your Lordships will note, being investment land, but being investment land in regard to which you have a real hope of developing the land within twenty years—
"and until any land to which such a direction relates is used for any such purpose as aforesaid, no development charge shall be payable under Part VII of this Act in respect of any
954
such use of the land, or in respect of any such operations carried out thereon, as are mentioned in paragraph (a) or paragraph (b) of subsection (4) of this section."
That is a very far-reaching clause. I am not tying myself to the proposition that that exact phraseology will be reproduced in the new clause. I am, however, saying this. I will ask your Lordships to withdraw the clause now, because it is more convenient to do that, and I shall on the Report stage submit a new clause to your Lordships on the lines I have indicated. That will involve consultations with the Ministers concerned, of course, and I do not in the least mind saying that in the course of those consultations I will most certainly bring to their notice the wider point which the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, made; and if his words as conveyed by me succeed in melting their hearts, so be it. I shall then put something of that sort in the new clause. But if, as I strongly suspect, the new clause will still maintain the distinction between operational and investment land, but will give to operational land its more extended meaning, I shall show this clause to your Lordships on the Report stage, and I shall confidently expect the support of your Lordships in passing it.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I think we are all glad to hear that the noble and learned Viscount is prepared to have this clause redrafted before the Report stage. For myself, when I read it I did not like the words, "contiguous or adjacent to." I was thinking of some of the instances which the noble and learned Viscount has himself cited, where it, is quite obviously just as much a part of the activities of a college to have a playing field, even if it is some mile or so outside the town, as it is to have a thing like a squash rackets court in the college itself. One is exempted and the other is not.
I also dislike very much this limited term of twenty years, because a lot of these colleges bought land some years hack and it has not yet been developed. As building goes at the present time, I do not know who could honestly say, if they were going to build a really big extension to a college, when they would be able to complete it or get a licence for it, and I think twenty years is far too short a period. If they declare their intention within three years to use that land for their own particular purposes, I do not see any reason why they should

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be asked to determine when they will put those purposes into operation by actually building upon it. That is a matter I would like the noble and learned Viscount to look into when he is having this clause redrafted.
I am one of those who are sorry that the Government have thought fit to incorporate in this Bill provisions which for the first time take away—I do not use the word "tax"—from these charitable institutions a part of their normal revenues, because whether you call it a tax or whether you do not, that in fact is what is going to happen. They have received special treatment for a very long time. The Land Tax of 1693 exempted them from the Land Tax which was then applied. The Income Tax Act of 1842—which I believe was the start of that pernicious system under which we all live —exempted these charities from Income Tax. The Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1885 exempted them from Corporation Tax (which was then invented for the first time) and the Finance Act of 1927 made special provision for them. There is also the case that has already been quoted to your Lordships, when a Land Tax was proposed in 1931 by the then Labour Government, with Mr. Philip Snowden as its Chancellor of the Exchequer. These charities were to be exempted from that tax. Whatever may be said on one side or another, it is a fact that this is the first Government since 1693, when regular taxation more or less started, to take away from these charities something upon which they rely to help the education of our people. That is a fact, and it is just as well that everybody in the Socialist Party should realize that it is a fact.
In regard to our particular discussion to-night, I should have thought—and at any rate this is what I myself personally would propose to do—that we should wait and see. I believe it was a former leader of the noble Viscount who proposed this Amendment who coined that phrase, "Wait and see." I myself would like to wait and see what this new clause looks like when the Government produce it on the Report stage. That still leaves open whether we then return to the charge and try to see that these charities are treated with that distinction which their very work deserves—work which they have
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done throughout the ages in this country. For myself—and I can speak for one or two other noble Lords—it would be of considerable advantage to us if, before the new Bill is printed (if the clause is decided upon) the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, could let us have copies, because I gather that there is going to be not too much time between the issue of the new Bill and the Report stage; and where it is a question of a whole new clause and the fitting in of Amendments, it would be very helpful if we could have an early typewritten copy.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will show the noble Lord the clause before it is finally prepared—when it is "in the cooking," as it were.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I think we should be well advised to wait and see what the new clause is. I am much obliged to the Lord Chancellor for incorporating some of these new Amendments to cover the functions of educational establishments. I should think we had better leave the matter open until we see the new draft clause that the Government are going to reproduce.
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: With regard to the drafting of the new clause, I hope that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor will take a sympathetic attitude towards the great new obligations that will be imposed upon ecclesiastical bodies by the planned development which this Bill contemplates. The dispersion of the population will necessitate the erection of a large number of new churches and of new schools. I had it in mind, had we been having a general discussion on the Amendment, to point out that there is some logical connexion in the case of ecclesiastical bodies between the incremental revenue that may result from planned development of their particular land and the increased responsibilities resulting from the dispersion of the population. It does seem opportune to remind the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, of the factors that are present in many minds on this question.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: There will be widespread regret in all parts of this Committee and throughout the country that the Government have not found it possible to accept this very moderate Amendment. I was still more

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surprised at the reason given by the noble and learned Viscount in his exposition of Labour philosophy, in what I may call the post-prandial indiscretion he was good enough to give us. He said that God gave the land to the people and not to Oxford or Cambridge colleges; but he thought that nobody in the Labour Party, or anyone else, could say who the people were. It appears to me that the only people to whom the land certainly does not belong are the people who have paid for it!
I feel that the noble and learned Viscount and the Government might at least make an exception in favour of these bodies, who acquire land for the benefit of the community. It appears that they have paid, and therefore they cannot have the benefit. I would hardly have thought that was the very best way to encourage charitable feelings in the communities. However, the noble and learned Viscount has said that he will think this matter over again, and see if he can draft an Amendment which gives at any rate some satisfaction, to those—and they are a large number of people—who are behind this Amendment. We will wait and see what that Amendment is, but I do hope that it will be possible for the Government to go a little bit further than the noble and learned Viscount was able to go in his reply to-night.
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I should like to make a few observations on what the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, has said. In the first place, he commented upon the comparatively small number of persons who were concerned in the promotion of this Amendment. I do not think that any effort was made to rope in for the Amendment a very large number. It was felt that the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the colleges and those institutions that I mentioned when moving this Amendment, could speak in the name of all the rest, and would naturally be regarded as presenting the case of the very large number of other institutions that might be affected. With respect to his criticism of the terms of the Amendment, I was somewhat surprised at the interpretation which he put upon it: that if a piece of investment land were exempted from the provisions of this Bill, then that exemption would continue for ever, no matter to whom the land was sold or otherwise
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transferred. I do not think that was the intention of the promoters of this Amendment. The intention was that the exemption should attach not to the land as such, but to the land in the ownership of the charitable institution. If the Amendment does not properly carry out that intention, a very slight and simple alteration could be effected which would prevent that unintentional expansion.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Supposing the college sold the land to somebody. That somebody who buys the land from the college would have to pay a development charge, I suppose. How would he stand Would he pay the college the whole price, and would he have to pay a development charge?
VISCOUNT SAMUEL: I should have to take legal advice before attempting a reply to that. I did not anticipate that question of exemption continuing after sale would arise at all. I have not considered in what way that intention could be carried out. However, that is a matter which we can discuss together when we come into conference—if we do come into conference on that matter—when I shall be fortified with the necessary assistance from the noble and learned Viscount's profession. He said that to give an exemption from a charge of this character would be illogical—"Why should they be treated differently from any other landowner?" The answer is: For precisely the same reason that every other landowner is liable to Income Tax, and they are not. Why are they not liable for Income Tax? Is it illogical to exempt them from Income Tax? The reason is that they stand in a special relationship to the nation as a whole, and for that reason they have always been exempted from all taxation; and if this is illogical, that also is illogical.
Furthermore, they are now being exempted from development charges and so forth, by general consent, for what the noble and learned Viscount calls "operational land"; that is to say, land which is being used for their own purposes. Why is that done? Is that illogical? Why are they not being charged on the development of their own properties exactly the same as anyone else? I should be interested to know why the noble and learned Viscount not only approves of that, but is willing to make it more extensive, and to remove

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any possible difficulties in the way of the full application of that principle. If that principle is agreed—and it is at the very basis of Clause 83—I cannot see why further application of it in another form is by nature illogical and must be rejected on grounds of principle. However, the course now proposed by the noble and learned Viscount, is not to withdraw the clause to-day, but to withdraw it when we reach the Report stage, with a view to inserting a substitute, and that substitute, he believes, will be more simply drafted than the present clause. I certainly think that might well be done. That simplification and clarification, as I have said, would also be possible with regard to this Amendment, which is difficult to understand because the clause itself is difficult to understand. When the clause itself has been tinkered with the position remains even worse. So I am glad that the noble and learned Viscount is going to have the clause drafted de novo.
I only trust that the fresh draft will be ready in good time. As the Lord Chancellor will appreciate, many have to be consulted on this matter, and various institutions have to be informed and their views ascertained. Therefore, I trust that the Lord Chancellor will be able to assure us that we shall have the draft in good time before the Report stage. The fact remains, and this is really an essential point, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has most amiably rejected our main plea. He has given a direct negative in the most charming manner. He has scuttled our ship. But I trust that the matter may be further considered. It will be well, I think, that public opinion should take the opportunity of expressing itself before the matter comes before the House again, so that we may know by that time what is the view taken, not only by the particular institutions concerned but by public opinion at large, with regard to the course taken by the Government in rejecting quite definitely, without compromise or misunderstanding, the main claim which we have put forward to-day. As things are, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.12 p.m.
LORD HAMPTON LORD HAMPTON moved, in subsection (1), after the end of paragraph (a), to insert:
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"(b) land used for the purpose of any national youth organisation (not being land which is held as an investment by any such organisation), or."
The noble Lord said: With the leave of the Committee I should like to propose this Amendment in spite of the fact that the noble and learned Viscount has indicated his intention of redrafting the clause altogether, because the Amendment covers a different point from those which we have just been discussing. I am fortified in proposing this Amendment by the fact that in the course of this Committee stage I have so far proposed two Amendments, both of which His Majesty's Government have been good enough to accept. I hope that, with his well-known sporting instincts, the learned and noble Viscount will grant me my hat trick in this case. I see certain signs of encouragement upon his face, so I will be as brief as I possibly can. I would explain that I am putting this forward in the main on behalf of two Associations that are well-known to your Lordships, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, numbering between them close on a million young people. If the Amendment is accepted, or if I have from the noble and learned Viscount some assurance which will calm a great many anxious people in these associations throughout the country with regard to this clause, it will give satisfaction to other like associations which hold land on charitable trusts.
It ought to be enough for us to know that between the two wars there has grown up a tremendous enthusiasm for camping and the open air. As was mentioned in the discussion on an earlier Amendment, this has led to a lot of abuse in unrestricted camping and upsetting of amenities; but none the less this growing love of the open air, and especially of camping, should be encouraged. No doubt the two Associations I have mentioned have been greatly responsible for this growing enthusiasm, as also has the cheap motor car, with its capacity of drawing a caravan about the country. I am dealing particularly with camping sites and sites for club rooms. Camping sites, as the Associations visualize them, are not merely fields upon which young people can enter and pitch a tent. They have to be properly developed. They must have water laid on, roads or well made cinder tracks provided; huts for

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storage of gear and proper washing and latrine facilities must exist; and in the larger camps we have to build a house where the warden in charge can remain throughout the summer—perhaps throughout the year. With club rooms it is not quite the same, but when a site is bought there have to be additions to make it fully useful. I mentioned the other day, in the discussion on Lord Addington's Amendment to Clause 11, that there has been a great deal of anxiety among landlords who have been used to letting their land for camping.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Perhaps the noble Lord is not aware of it, but I had in mind to accept his Amendment in principle.
LORD HAMPTON: I had not gathered that at all. I certainly will not weary your Lordships.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Lord has it exactly right—"Land used for the purpose of any National Youth Organisation not being land which is held as an investment" and that is exactly what I want to try and cope with in my new clause.
LORD HAMPTON: May I ask one paint? Subsection (1) limits the operation of the clause to land which is used for purposes for which there is no general demand. That is a snag which we find ourselves right up against. It is extraordinarily hard to tell whether there is a general demand or not.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: That is part of the clause I had proposed to leave out.
LORD HAMPTON: I am very grateful. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Move it.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am not sure that it matters very much whether it goes in now or not. The noble and learned Viscount has accepted it on principle, and I think we may rest assured that we shall see some provision like this in the clause.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would like the noble Lord to withdraw it. I do not want to trouble about where it comes in this clause. I will trouble about where it comes in the new clause.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 83 agreed to.
9.20 p.m.
Clause 84:
Land subject to claims for betterment under other Acts.
84. Where, on the carrying out of any development after the appointed day, any payment falls to be made to a local authority by virtue of the provisions of any Act in force at the passing of this Act, in respect of any works carried out (whether before or after the passing of this Act) by that authority, then—
LORD CHORLEY: This is substantially a drafting Amendment for the purpose of linking up this clause more effectively with Clause 46. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 97, line 24, leave out ("any Act in force at") and insert ("Section forty-six of this Act or of any Act passed before").—(Lord Chorley.)
LORD HYLTON: I beg leave to move the next Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend, Lord Saltoun. Very shortly its effect is as follows. Where street works are carried out, and subsequently taken over by the local highway authority, then the amount which the developer has to pay to the local authority for taking them over shall be taken into account when assessing development charges. It does appear that this would be a fair amount to be considered. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 97, line 26, leave out from ("Act") to ("then") in line 27.—(Lord Hylton.)
LORD CHORLEY: The noble Lord, Lord Saltoun, has found a gap, so to speak, within the ambit of this particular clause. The clause is, of course, intended to protect the local authority in respect of the collection of betterment rights, but it is perfectly true that under the Public Health Act of 1875 the local authority can either carry out the works itself or require the landowner to carry them out. In the latter event the landowner certainly ought to be protected. This clause is devoted purely to the protection of the local authority and therefore, although in principle I accept this Amendment, I would ask the noble Lord to withdraw it here. The necessary protection which we are quite prepared and glad to give ought to appear somewhere else. I am taking advice as to the right place where it should be included, and as at present advised we think it should go

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with Clause 67, subsection (2). I mention this just in case it will assist die noble Lord. We certainly accept the Amendment in principle.
LORD HYLTON: May I thank the noble Lord for his assurance? I know Lord Saltoun will be deeply grateful, and with the assurance that the noble Lord has given I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD LLEWELLIN: May I ask a question? Do the Government intend to put down a certain Amendment to deal with this point?
LORD CHORLEY: Yes; it is just a question of where we put it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 84, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 85:
Crown Land.
(2) Notwithstanding any interest of the Crown in land being Crown land as defined by this section but subject to the following provisions of this section,—
(a) a development plan approved or made under Part 11 of this Act may include proposals relating to the use of the land and may designate the land as subject to compulsory acquisition, and any power to acquire land compulsorily under Part IV of this Act may be exercised in relation to any interest therein which is for the time being held otherwise than by or on behalf of the Crown;
LORD ADDINGTON LORD ADDINGTON had given notice of four Amendments, the first being, in subsection (2) (a), to leave out "use" and insert "development."
The noble Lord said: These Amendments are designed to subject the development by Government Departments to planning control in the same way as development by other persons or bodies. This matter was mentioned in Clause 11. It was then decided that it would be more convenient to deal with it on Clause 85, so all this hangs together. The position, so far as I can understand it, is that at present Government Departments and statutory undertakers are not subject to control by the local planning authority. Their proposals for development, from the planning aspect, are dealt with by the Minister of Town and Country Planning, who has on a number of occasions stated that he exercises planning control by administrative means over develop-
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ment proposals by Government Departments. Now the coal industry and hospitals are free from direct planning control; very soon transport and electricity will be in a similar position; and before long gas, probably iron and steel, and other industries as they become nationalized. As it is there often occur cases of proposed development by Government Departments which appear to conflict with planning considerations, and, indeed, raise a public outcry.
Moreover, it has been suggested that it places the Minister of Town and Country Planning in an extremely difficult position. He has to consider and pass judgment upon the projects of other Government Departments. On the other hand, the local planning authorities are better able to give a detached judgment on these matters, and give full weight to local considerations. At the present day there is no reason why property belonging to, or used by, a Government Department or those other bodies whom I have mentioned, should not be used in such a way as to conform to the requirements of the local planning authority, and why these bodies should not be subject to the same obligation to consider the amenities of their neighbours as a private developer.
If the local planning authority are to plan their area effectively, they must be able to plan the whole of it, except perhaps where Crown land is used for defence purposes. It should be simple and cause no very great difficulty, if their plans are submitted to the expert local planning officer of the area, for any alterations he may require to be carried out (which are confirmed by the local planning committee) in order to ensure that the design is suitable for the particular site on which the building is going to be placed, and that it will be an asset to the community rather than an eyesore. Siting, presumably, will be settled generally by designation under the development plan. Here again, the exact position of a building on a site might well be subject to planning control. I would submit again that these Amendments make planning more effective, and they raise an important question of principle. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 98, line 5, leave out ("use") and insert ("development").—(Lord Addington.)
LORD CHORLEY: I think the noble Lord must realize that we cannot accept this series of Amendments. They raise the whole question of the constitutional position of the Crown. I think he will agree with me, on reflection, that this Bill is not the proper place to raise a constitutional issue of the first importance in this way by a side wind, so to speak, because it affects the Position of the Crown not only in relation to planning but over a much wider field. With that as a preliminary, may I say that I do not see how the first of the noble Lord's Amendments, which proposes to introduce the word "development" instead of the word "use" at page 98, line 5, fits in with the other of his Amendments, and in view of the definition of "development" as it is used in the earlier part of the Bill, his first Amendment really does not, as I am at present advised, seem to make sense. However, he has not dealt with that point, and I think he will probably agree with my main contention that this is not a suitable occasion upon which to raise this very fundamental constitutional question. I hope that he will be prepared to withdraw all these Amendments en bloc.
I should like to make one or two observations in regard to his speech. With a good deal of his remarks I frankly and cordially agree, because the Minister, and I think all of us, appreciate the importance of properties owned by Government Departments and the Crown being brought into proper relationship with the plans of the local planning authorities, and it is certainly the intention of my right honourable friend that as close a co-ordination as possible should be achieved. With all that part of his speech we entirely agree, but we suggest that co-ordination could be achieved perfectly satisfactorily by the administrative methods to which he himself referred.
In moving his Amendment the noble Lord made references to what would happen under the National Coal Board, the Transport Commission, the Electricity Authority and other authorities of that kind, and made the suggestion that they were in effect the Crown, and that the interests in land which they own would not be within the scope of this Bill. That, of course, is not true, and I think he has a misunderstanding of the position in regard to those great authorities which will,
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generally speaking, be bound by the provisions of this Bill. The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be that the local authority would in fact control the planning arrangements of the Crown, with an, appeal to the Minister of Town and Country Planning who is a servant of the Crown; so that if the noble Lord's Amendments were accepted you would, in effect, just be establishing a circle. I am quite sure that in the light of the observations I have made the noble Lord will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: I understood from something said the other day by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, that Ministers responsible for Crown lands could completely override the restrictions of the local authority, and could do it quite independently of the Minister of Town and Country Planning. The point I put to him was this. Suppose that the local authority have a restriction saying that on a certain piece of land nothing noxious or dangerous might be deposited, none the less the War Office could put an explosive dump on it apparently without reference at all to the other Department. I rather gather from the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that that remains the position, but I may have misunderstood the answer I received. It seems rather serious that whatever arrangements are made by the local authority, some Department may come along and override them if they see fit.
Having mentioned that, might I ask if this is a new definition of Crown land, or has this definition prevailed for some time? I looked into the Interpretation Act for a definition of Crown land and I could not find one. I understand that the original Crown lands were lands in the personal possession of the Sovereign, which were taken over some time in the reign of Queen. Victoria in exchange for a Civil List charge on the Consolidated Fund. But of course some new definition may have arisen since. If so, what is it? And is this definition the new one?
LORD CHORLEY: The noble Lord is quite right. This Bill does not apply to the Crown, and it was the object of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to make it apply to the Crown. It is perfectly true that it would be possible for the Crown to make use of a particular piece of land owned by the

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Crown in a way which was in contravention of the local authority's plan. I endeavoured to explain that the Minister of Town and Country Planning is, after all, responsible to Parliament for the administration of this Act, and he has the duty of co-ordinating the whole of this work; and obviously the type of case to which the noble Lord is referring would be gone into and by him. With regard to the definition of "Crown land" in Clause 85, this definition is in fact a standard definition which is found in other Acts of Parliament, certainly recent ones like the War Damage Act of 1943 and the Public Health Act of 1936.
THE EARL OF RADNOR: I am deeply interested in this question of the definition of "Crown land," as I have considerable interest in the activities of the Duchy of Cornwall. It is true, as the noble Lord has said, that Crown land in the past referred to those lands in which His Majesty had a direct practical interest. But developments in recent years, and particularly in recent months, have meant that the scope of Crown lands has been very greatly widened, and that Government Departments are now controlling increasingly large areas of land, which areas, being Crown land within the definition of this clause, are outside the scope of this and other Bills. This is a matter of considerable concern to a number of people.
There are two very clear distinctions given in Clause 85 (1) of the Bill. I would be the last person to suggest that there should be any invasion of the age-old rights of the strict Crown lands contained in the earlier half of the definition in that subsection, but I would like His Majesty's Government seriously to consider whether the time has not come when there should be a division between the two types of Crown land: those in which there is an interest belonging to His Majesty in right of the Crown; and those lands the interest in which belongs to a Government Department or which are held in trust for His Majesty. There is a very distinct difference between the two, and while in the former case I would like to see all their rights, and I think the Royal Prerogative, fully maintained, in the latter case I would like to see some rather stricter control applied than is applied to Crown lands. Perhaps the noble and learned
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Viscount might apply his mind to it when he has a little leisure, because it is a matter which has implications which I, with my non-legal mind, probably do not know. But it is a possible and an important change in the definition of Crown lands, which may become necessary in the very near future.
LORD RANKEILLOUR: I must thank the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, for what he has said, but it appears to me that he puts the Minister of Town and Country Planning in a very awkward position. Apparently he is responsible to Parliament for his actions, but he can only justify thorn in certain cases by giving one of his colleagues away. He can say, "Certainly I approve of this restriction proposed by the local authority, but my right honourable friend, the Secretary of State for War, is a very hard man, and I have not been able to soften his heart; therefore I have to put up with it." It does not seem a wry happy conjunction at all. But perhaps I might again ask: Has the definition of Crown lands differed in different Acts? As I say, there was nothing in the Interpretation Act of 1889 about Crown lands at all.
LORD ADDINGTON: I am a little reassured by the reply of the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. I think, however, that there is some justification for raising the matter on this Bill, because as more land is taken from the public there seems less planning control over it, and more difficulties for the Minister of Town and Country Planning in dealing with all the widely separated areas under public or semi-public control. I hope that there may be more consideration of plans and that they may be carried out by the local planning authority by administrative action, and rather less taken out of their hands and done, as it were, behind the scenes at Ministries. However, the question is obviously not one that can be pressed in your Lordships' House, and, having raised it, I intend to withdraw it, and not move the other Amendments.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CHORLEY: This is a drafting Amendment. We are really indebted to the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Maugham, for noticing this point, and this Amendment has been drafted to replace the Amendment that he has put down.
Amendment moved—
Page 98, line 37, after ("to") insert ("(and shall be determined in default of agreement, in like manner as)").—(Lord Chorley.)
Clause 85, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 86 [Agreements and arrangements relating to Crown Land]:
LORD CHORLEY: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 99, line 26, leave out ("been approved and made") and insert ("become operative").—(Lord Chorley.)
Clause 86, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 87 [Requisitioned Land]:
LORD CHORLEY: This also is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 101, line 36, leave out ("Defence Regulations") and insert ("regulations made under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939").—(Lord Chorley.)
Clause 87, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 88 agreed to.
Clause 89:
Land acquired by notice to treat served before appointed day.
(2) Where any interest in land is compulsorily acquired before the appointed day by any government department or local or public authority within the meaning of the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919, in pursuance of a notice to treat served after the passing of this Act, then—
(3) Nothing in this Part of this Act shall be construed as exempting from the payment of a development charge under Part VII of this Act any operations carried out on land acquired as is mentioned in the foregoing subsection, or any use of such land.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved to leave out subsection (3) and insert:
"and
(c) subject as hereinafter provided, nothing in this Part of this Act shall be construed as exempting from the payment of a development charge any operations carried out on the land by the person entitled to any such interest, or any use of the land by any such person:
Provided that paragraph (c) of this subsection shall not apply to any operations or uses
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of land which are exempted from the payment of a development charge by virtue of any of the provisions of Section, eighty-one of this Act."
The noble Lord said: The effect of this Amendment is to leave intact the exemption from development charge which is conferred by Clause 81 in respect of land held by local authorities for the purpose of comprehensive development—a matter which your Lordships will remember we were discussing a few minutes ago on an Amendment by the noble Earl, Lord Munster. That exemption appears inadvertently to have been removed to some extent by this clause, and the object of the Amendment is to make it quite clear that it is to stand.
Amendment moved—
Page 102, line 45, leave out subsection (3) and insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Chorley.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: This is a fairly long Amendment but I am told that it is quite all right.
LORD CHORLEY LORD CHORLEY moved, after subsection (3) to insert:
"(3) Where any interest in land is compulsorily acquired (whether before or alter the appointed day) in pursuance of a notice to treat served after the passing of this Act, and the compensation payable in respect thereof falls to be calculated in accordance with any of the provisions of Sections fifty to fifty-two of this Act, that provision shall apply, subject to any necessary modifications, for the purpose of calculating under Part VI of this Act the restricted and unrestricted values of that interest, and any calculation of those values previously made thereunder shall be adjusted accordingly."
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this Amendment is to apply in Part VI certain of the modifications of the market value rule which are contained in the three clauses of Part V which we were discussing, I think, yesterday. They are Clause 50, which deals with vacant possession where an assumed lease is brought in to affect the market value; Clause 51, which relates to war damage which is assumed to have been made good and which therefore puts the value up; and Clause 52, which deals with requisitioned land which is assumed to have been derequisitioned and therefore again puts the value up. It is necessary that these modifications should also be applied in Part VI, which deals with the distribution of the £300,000,000 fund. The object

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of this Amendment is to make this modification in Part VI.
Amendment moved—
Page 103, line 2, at end, insert the said subsection.—(Lord Chorley.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: I said that the last Amendment was a fairly long one. I was in fact dealing with all three. I think that they are all right.
LORD CHORLEY: I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 103, line 3, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
("(4) Subject as hereinafter provided, the foregoing provisions of this Section shall apply where an interest in land is acquired by agreement by any authority or person who have power or could be authorised to acquire that interest compulsorily under any enactment, as they apply where an interest in land is compulsorily acquired, and in relation to any such acquisition any reference in those provisions to the service of notice to treat shall be construed as a reference to the making of the contract, and the reference in the last foregoing subsection to compensation payable in respect of the compulsory acquisition shall be construed as a reference to the compensation which would be so payable if the land were compulsorily acquired:
Provided that—

(a) the provisions of Section fifty-one of this Act shall not apply for the purpose of calculating the restricted and the unrestricted values of any interest acquired as aforesaid except in the cases provided by subsection (2) of that Section, or by that Section as extended by subsection (1) of Section fifty-three of this Act; and

(b) where any interest in land is acquired as aforesaid before the appointed day in pursuance of a contract made after the passing of this Act, the contract may provide that subsections (2) and (3) of this Section shall not apply.")—(Lord Chorley.)

Clause 89, as amended, agreed to.
9.49 P.m.
Clause 90:
Determination of questions under Part VIII.
90. Any question whether land is land to which Section eighty, eighty-one or eighty-three of this Act applies shall be determined by the Minister.
THE MARQUESS OF READING THE MARQUESS OF READING moved to leave out "determined by the Minister," and insert:
"referred to a judge of the High Court nominated by the Lord Chancellor for the purpose in accordance with rules of Court and the decision of the judge shall be final."
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The noble Marquess said: In the enforced absence of my noble friend Viscount Buckmaster I beg to move the Amendment standing in his name. Your Lordships will observe that Clause 90 gives power to the Minister to determine questions under Clauses 80, 81 and 83 whether the land concerned is land to which those three sections apply. But this is putting a very heavy burden on the Minister and rather carries out the policy of the Government which seems to tend towards a child-like belief in the omniscience of the Minister and a more adult desire for his omnipotence.
There is a very real distinction to be drawn between the tasks to be performed under these three clauses. Your Lordships will see that Clause 80 deals with land held by local authorities for general statutory purposes, and Clause 81 with land acquired by local authorities and development corporations for comprehensive development or re-development. I concede that it is not unreasonable in those two clauses that a decision should be left with the Minister, because those are matters between him and the local authorities, and it is perhaps not in any way an excessive use of his powers that he should decide those matters; but Clause 83 is a very different proposition. That deals with land under charitable trusts. The noble and learned Viscount knows, even better than I do, that the Law Courts are full of cases—very complicated and difficult cases—about bequests for certain purposes which are brought up for decision as to whether or not those purposes constitute charitable purposes.
I strongly urge on the noble and learned Viscount that decisions taken under Clause 83 are not matters which can properly be decided by the Minister and are emphatically matters which require the decision of a Judge. The noble and learned Viscount, in the course of discussion the other day, rightly said that he did not want to put upon a Judge the function of valuation which his experience did not qualify him to discharge. That argument cannot be used in this case because this is the type of case which Judges, especially in the Chancery Division, are called upon to decide; and very often it causes them a great deal of thought and consideration before they arrive at a decision. Clauses 80 and 81

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might be left to the decision of the Minister but I would press the noble and learned Viscount as regards the decision under Clause 83, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 103, line 18, leave our line 18, and insert the said new words. —(The Marquess of Reading.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think I can concede something to the noble Marquess. I agree with him about the division between Clauses 80 and 81, on the one hand, and 83 on the other. I think Cause 83 is a matter fit for a Judge. The best way in that case is to confer the right of appeal to a Judge against the decision of the Minister. If that satisfies the noble Marquess I will see that words are put down on Report stage.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I think that is a perfectly satisfactory solution, so long as decisions are ultimately taken to a Judge. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 90 agreed to.
Clause 91 agreed to.
9.52 p.m.
Clause 92:
Other Exchequer grants to local authorities.
(3) Grants payable under regulations made for the purposes of this section shall not exceed an amount equal to sixty per cent. of the amount of the expenditure or loss in respect of which the grants are made.
LORD HENDERSON: This is a drafting Amendment. As line 18 stands, the clause may be misread as excluding from grant expenditure incurred in taking action under Clause 24, whereas the intention is to include it as eligible for grant. It is therefore thought advisable to put the matter beyond doubt. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 105, line 18, leave out ("or") and insert ("and in respect of expenditure incurred by those authorities.")—(Lord Henderson.)
LORD HENDERSON LORD HENDERSON moved, in subsection (3), to substitute "fifty per cent." for "sixty per cent." The noble Lord said: This Amendment is really consequential on the new rates of grant which are to be provided under Clause 91. The rate of grant payable to a local
974
authority under Clause 92 is intended to be the same as that applicable under Clause 91 to the final grant period in respect of the re-development of blight areas or derelict land. The range of grant applicable to Clause 92, as originally proposed, was between a maximum of 60 per cent. and a minimum of 10 per cent., according to the financial position of the local authorities concerned. The revised range will be between a maximum of 50 per cent. and a minimum of 20 per cent. On that basis, the maximum rate of grant payable under Clause 92 should be 50 per cent. instead of 60 per cent., and the Amendment seeks to achieve this. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 105, line 35, leave out ("sixty") and insert ("fifty")—(Lord Henderson.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: I suppose there is no breach of privilege when we reduce what is paid out of the money of the taxpayers. It is rather extraordinary when the elected representatives in another place who from time immemorial, as we all know, have looked after expenditure and seen that no unnecessary expenditure is made by any Government, have put in sixty and we reduce it to fifty. Are not we being rather mean?
LORD HENDERSON: The Amendment arises from the fact that the new rates of grant were announced in another place and this clause is just brought into line with the grant as accepted.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: It is still a privilege Amendment.
Clause 92, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 93:
General provisions as to Exchequer grants to local authorities.
(2) Any approval of the Minister required for the purposes of the payment of grant under section ninety-one or section ninety-two of this Act in connection with the acquisition of land may be given subject to compliance with requirements imposed by the Minister for securing that any negotiations for the acquisition of the land by the local authority will be carried out by the Valuation Office, and that any valuation of such land for the purposes of such acquisition or for any purposes of the regulations, well be made by that office.
LORD ADDINGTON LORD ADDINGTON moved, in subsection (2), at the end to insert:
"provided that any such negotiations and any such valuation as aforesaid shall not be binding upon a local authority."
The noble Lord said: This concerns a matter of valuation. It is normally the rule that where a local authority expenditure is concerned in the acquisition of land and attracts a Government grant the district valuer will negotiate on behalf of the local authority for the acquisition of the property. In doing that, however, the district valuer does not act as a plenipotentiary or even as a delegate, but merely as a representative of the local authority; he is authorized by them to negotiate terms but not to settle them.
It happens in a great many cases—in fact, invariably—that the arrangement you arrive at with the opposite side is a matter for recommendation by him to the local authority. One knows from experience of sitting on these authorities that the negotiations for land, where it is subject to Government grant, are negotiated on terms which have been arrived at by the district valuer. The local authorities are rather apprehensive that under this clause as now worded the Minister might regard it as entitling him to require the local authorities to leave the settlement of all terms in the hands of the valuation officer. That has never been the position before; and as they are a little anxious the Amendment is put down so that the position may be clarified. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 106, line 22, at end insert the said proviso.—(Lord Addington.)
LORD HENDERSON: The Bill does not alter existing practice at all. The provision follows Section 7, subsection (2) of the 1944 Act. As the noble Lord has said, the valuation officer's services are invoked in these matters, but any settlement negotiated by him is not binding on the local authority; it is subject to the approval both of the Government Department and the local authority concerned; and in practice is almost invariably accepted by them. Since Exchequer grant is payable, it is necessary for the protection of the Exchequer that the district valuer should be satisfied with the price. It is best, therefore, that he should undertake the negotiations throughout. If he does not come
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in at the start, it is likely that when he does the position will already be prejudiced, and that the price payable will involve more money than is necessary being paid from public funds. As I say, the practice under the new Act is in harmony with what is provided for in the 1944 Act. In those circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will not press his Amendment.
LORD ADDINGTON: So long as I understand that there is nothing new being adopted under this Act, I think that satisfies the fears that have been expressed.
I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 93 agreed to.
Clauses 94 and 95 agreed to.
10.2 p.m.
Clause 96:
Power of local authorities and statutory undertakers to contribute towards expenses of local planning authorities, etc.
(2) Where any expenses are incurred by a local authority in the payment of compensation payable in consequence of anything done under Part III of this Act (including any compensation payable in respect of land compulsorily acquired by virtue of Section eighteen of this Act), the Minister may, if it appears to him to be expedient so to do, require any other local authority to contribute towards those expenses such sum as appears to him to be reasonable having regard to any benefit accruing to that authority by reason of the proceeding giving rise to the compensation.
LORD ADDINGTON LORD ADDINGTON moved in subsection (2) after "authority" where that word occurs a second time, to insert "or statutory undertakers." The noble Lord said: The first subsection of this clause enables both the local authorities and the statutory undertakers voluntarily to contribute towards expenses incurred by a local planning authority. However, when it comes to the question of the Minister requiring contributions to be made, whilst taking power to compel local authorities to contribute the Minister takes no such power to compel contributions from statutory undertakers. It is thought that where in fact statutory undertakers derive benefit by performance by a local planning authority of any of their functions under Part II or Part III of this Bill, if it is equitable to compel the local

977
authorities to pay, it is equally equitable to compel the statutory undertakers to do likewise. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 108, line 5, after ("authority") insert ("or statutory undertakers"). —(Lord Addington.)
LORD HENDERSON: I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment. I think it is sufficient to say in reply to the noble Lord that up to the present there has been no power to compel contributions from statutory undertakers, and no circumstances are known which suggest that power ought now to be taken for this purpose. Statutory undertakers are responsible organizations which can be expected to recognize the justice of making a contribution under their voluntary powers towards expenses incurred by a local authority in measures from which they specially benefit. In the light of experience, and in the light of what I have said, I think the noble Lord might feel disposed not to press his Amendment.
LORD ADDINGTON: In the circumstances, I will not press the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 96 agreed to.
Clause 97 agreed to.
Clause 98 [Default powers of Minister]:
LORD HENDERSON: The next Amendment is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 109, line 43, leave out ("been approved or made") and insert ("become operative").—(Lord Henderson.)
Clause 98, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 99 agreed to.
LORD HENDERSON LORD HENDERSON moved, after Clause 99, to insert the following new clause:
"Applications for planning permission, determination of development charges, etc.
100.—(1) An application to a local planning authority for planning permission under Part III of this Act and an application to the Central Land Board for the making or confirmation of any determination under Part VII of this Act, shall be made in such manner as may be prescribed by regulations under this Act and shall include such particulars
978
and shall be verified by such evidence as may be required by the regulations or by any directions given by the local planning authority or the Board thereunder.
(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section, regulations made under this Act may provide for the combination in a single document, made in such form and transmitted to such authority as may be prescribed by the regulations, of—

(a) an application for planning permission in respect of any development;

(b) an application for a determination of the Central Land Board in respect of that development;

(c) any submission or application required to be made to a local authority in respect of that development under any enactment specified in the regulations.

(3) Any regulations made for the purposes of this section which relate to any such application or submission as is mentioned in paragraph (c) of the last foregoing subsection shall be made by the Minister and the Minister of Health, after consultation with such local authorities or associations of local authorities as appear to them to be concerned; and different provision may be made by such regulations in relation to areas in which different enactments are in force.
(4) An application or submission required to be made to a local authority under any enactment specified in such regulations as aforesaid shall, if made in accordance with the provisions of the regulations, be deemed to be valid notwithstanding anything in that enactment prescribing or enabling any authority to prescribe the form in which or the manner in which such an application or submission is to be made, but without prejudice to the validity of any application or submission made in accordance with that enactment, and without prejudice to any provision of that enactment enabling any such authority to require further particulars of the matters to which the application or submission relates."
The noble Lord said: This looks rather a formidable clause, bat in fact it is fairly simple. As the Minister stated in another place, he desired, if possible, to secure that a composite application on a single form shall be made for planning permission, bye-law permission and development charge. This will necessitate discussion with the Associations of Local Authorities concerned before it can be finally settled, but in the meantime it is desirable that power should be taken in this Bill to secure that any such composite form that may be found practicable can be validly accepted for the purposes concerned. In the light of that explanation, I do not think it is necessary for me to go through the individual subsections of the clause, and therefore I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 99 insert the said new clause. —(Lord Henderson.)
LORD ADDINGTON LORD ADDINGTON had given Notice that he would move to amend the proposed Amendment by adding, at the end:
"(5) Nothing in the regulations made under this section shall require any person to furnish plans and drawings, other than a site plan, in any case where the proposed development is sufficiently described by the particulars sent with such plan."
The noble Lord said: This is a matter we have discussed before, and it is very desirable that it should be dealt with. I understand that the matter will be dealt with in the regulations, and therefore I will not require that it shall be in the Bill. Accordingly, I will not move my Amendment.
Clause 100 agreed to.
Clause 101:
Local inquiries.
101. The Minister may cause a local inquiry to be held for the purpose of the exercise of any of his functions under this Act; and the provisions of subsections (2) to (5) of section two hundred and ninety of the Local Government Act, 1933 (which relate to the giving of evidence at, and defraying the cost of, local inquiries) shall have effect with respect to any such inquiry as if the Minister were a department for the purposes of that section.
LORD CARRINGTON LORD CARRINGTON moved after "Act," where that word first occurs, to insert:
"and before holding any such enquiry shall publish in at least one local newspaper circulating in the area, and in the London Gazette, a notice stating the general nature of the enquiry and specifying the place where such enquiry will be held, and where any particulars including any relevant map or plan may be inspected by any person, free of charge, at all reasonable hours for a period of seven days from the date of the publication of the notice."
The noble Lord said: I think the noble and learned Viscount accepted a very similar Amendment to this earlier in the Bill, and therefore I shall be very short. Clause 101 of the Bill allows the Minister to hold an inquiry if it is needed in the exercise of his functions under the Bill. What I am asking—and I think it is quite reasonable—is that if such an inquiry is held it should be advertised beforehand and that any relevant papers should be allowed to be inspected beforehand. It seems right, if the inquiry is to be con-
980
ducted properly, that all the people concerned, and the public, should be able to get the facts right. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 113, line 26, after ("act") insert the said words.—(Lord Carrington.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think it much depends upon the nature, extent and importance of the inquiry as to whether these steps should or should not be taken. I have, as the noble Lord said, accepted an Amendment already, making it plain that there shall be an inquiry in the more important class of case. In those cases, such as the refusal of the permission to make or amend a development plan which affects a large number of leases, I think a local inquiry is appropriate. These other things, however, are just questions as to whether a bungalow may be built in a certain place, or something of that sort. To have a notice in the London Gazette about it is really using a steamhammer to crush a nut.
During the nine months ended June 30 last we have had over 1,200 appeal inquiries and only 31 inquiries into proposed designation or compulsory purchases. Of the 1,231 appeal inquiries, not one half of one per cent. had any significance beyond the five mile radius. In those cases it is the Minister's practice to ask the local authority concerned to give notice of the inquiry to those owners and occupiers of property near the site who are considered by the Council to be affected. I am sure the noble Lord will agree that it would be absurd to put notices in the London Gazette about something like 1,600 inquiries annually. You would defeat your own object, for when you had an important inquiry, people would say: "That is the old stuff over again," and would never trouble to read it. Some of these inquiries are such as whether an individual bungalow may be built on a site adjoining a residential area, or whether a site may be used as a builder's yard. I am sure that that sort of thing is not the noble Lord's intention, and I suggest that he had better leave it as we have got it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I understand the difficulty about the London Gazette, but in cases of small inquiries there might be something to be said for some intimation in the local newspaper. After all, these affairs, which may

981
seem very small, often have a special interest for the people in the area; and it is important to those people that they should know that nothing is being clone in a hole-and-corner way and that every possibility is given to the people concerned to hear the case prepared and to be sure a correct decision is being reached —as in the vast majority of cases I am sure it would be. I do not know whether the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, would consider the omission of the London Gazette notice and the inclusion of one in the local newspaper.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I quite agree with the noble Marquess—of course you must see that proper notice is given. But some of these things are so very small that I think even a notice in the local newspaper would be quite unnecessary. Sometimes people in the neighbourhood would not read the local newspaper at all; you would have to advertise in one of the great dailies to get attention, and it is very likely you would not get it then. This system has worked very well. I have not heard of a single case where it was said to be "hole-and-corner." I suggest we had better leave it.
LORD CARRINGTON: The purpose of this Amendment was that we did not want these inquiries to be a hole-and-corner affair, and if the noble and learned Viscount will say that any important inquiry will be duly advertised beforehand, I shall beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Certainly.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER THE EARL OF MUNSTER moved to add the following proviso to the clause:
"Provided that every person entitled to attend any such inquiry shall have the right, by himself or by any person attending on his behalf, to present his case, to call for such evidence and to conduct such cross-examination as may be required for a full and true disclosure of the facts."
The noble Earl said: This is a somewhat important Amendment to me—and to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, for it deals with an important point of law. If the noble and learned Viscount can say now that he is prepared to accept it, it will save me the
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burden of making, and your Lordships the infliction of listening to, my explanation.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As the noble Earl fully anticipated, the answer is that I am not prepared to accept it.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Under this clause the Minister may cause a local inquiry to be held for certain purposes—namely, the exercise of his functions. At a quick glance through the Bill, I find that the Minister will hold these local inquiries under Clauses 18, 27, 29 and 98. All I want is to ensure that the individual whose case is going before the Minister—a Minister with all the power of government behind him, and all the powers of the Treasury's solicitor also, if necessary—should be granted the right to appear before that inquiry either himself, or by nominating some person to appear on his behalf to present his case and, as the words of my Amendment say, "to call for such evidence and to conduct such cross-examination" as is necessary.
Let me here say that I am not dealing with the small case such as the noble and learned Viscount just mentioned; I am concerned with the big, important matters which from time to time may come before the Minister. I am strengthened in the plea that I put before the Minister, for the provisions which I am endeavouring to insert within the Bill are in accord with the fourth recommendation of the Donoughmore Committee, and perhaps I may be permitted to read it:
"Before the decision is given, whether it be judicial or quasi-judicial each of the parties to a dispute should be given the opportunity of studying his case (not necessarily orally) and also of knowing the case which he has to meet and of answering it if he can."
Nothing would seem to be more fair than that.
The second Amendment which stands in my name, with which I think it would be convenient that I should deal in conjunction with the other Amendment, provides that the person who holds this inquiry shall make a report which shall be published. I will not read the words of my Amendment because, no doubt, the Lord Chancellor has read them. Here I am strengthened by recommendations V and VI of the Donoughmore Committee, which say that:
"Every Minister exercising a judicial or quasi-judicial function and every Ministerial

983
Tribunal exercising a judicial function should give the decision in the form of a reasoned document. This document should be available to the parties. Where the decision is purely judicial, it should take the form of a judgment; but where it is quasi-judicial, the specimen letters conveying decisions of the Minister of Health seem to us to be suitable for their purpose and as a precedent they might be generally used."
Recommendation VI says:
"In any case in which a statutory public inquiry is held in connexion with the exercise of judicial or quasi-judicial functions by Ministers, the report made by the person holding the inquiry should be published; and only the most exceptional circumstances and the strongest reasons of public policy should be held to justify a departure from this rule."
That is all I ask and I am strengthened in my plea that the Committee were quite unanimous on this point and were supported by no less a person than Mr. Laski. I feel quite certain that the noble and learned Viscount would be only too happy to associate himself with the decisions on law which were made in this report and supported by Mr. Laski. It is vital that the private individual who comes before the inquiry held by the Minister should have every conceivable opportunity of stating his case and of arguing the evidence before the court, and I cannot see why such a procedure should not be adopted in this particular clause. I trust that the noble and learned Viscount has given this a great deal of thought, because it is a matter with which I know he is very much concerned—namely, the fair treatment of any person who comes before a Court of Law or a local inquiry, and for that reason, with full confidence, I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name.
Amendment moved—
Page 113, line 31, at end insert the said new proviso.—(The Earl of Munster.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The noble Earl has discussed these two Amendments together. It was a convenient course, and if I may I will discuss both of them together. I have had a long experience of this sort of subject now, and for a long time I have, rightly or wrongly, had very definite views on this matter. None of the Acts—and they have been really legion in recent years—has contained anything like a stipulation of this type. The Donoughmore Committee said this:
"Whether the function be judicial or quasi-judicial, its exercise pre-supposes the existence
984
of a dispute and parties to the dispute, and it is this feature which separates the judicial and quasi-judicial function on the one hand from the administrative on the other."
The noble Earl will follow: on the one side there is a dispute, in which case there are parties, and on the other side are administrative matters. As I have said, none of the Acts contains this provision. As to the rights themselves, let us consider first the right of a person to present his case. It is difficult to imagine that it will be asserted in any quarter that persons entitled to attend these inquiries have been precluded from stating their case. I have never heard of such a case. Secondly, with regard to the right to call for evidence and to cross-examine. I presume that these two rights go together. I have never heard a case where it has been complained that persons who are called as witnesses have not, as the price of that, had to submit themselves for cross-examination. Of course if a person gives evidence in chief he must be cross-examined. It is the way in which the value of his evidence is tested.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Cross-examined by counsel?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This Amendment does not state counsel. It speaks of "any person attending on his behalf." A man who gives evidence in chief has always been subject to cross-examination. The complaint that has been made is this: first, that officers of the Ministry when stating the Minister's case, as they do do at these inquiries, do not do so as witnesses; and as they do not give evidence they are not subject to cross-examination. Secondly, it is complained that when the Minister holds an inquiry into objections he does not tender evidence in support of the proposals to which the objection is taken. It is obvious that the real objection is not to the officers stating the case but to the Minister not tendering evidence on behalf of his own proposals. That is the real point. It was made, I believe, in the Stevenage case, and it was made specificially some years ago in the Kingston By-Pass case. In that case the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Hewart, said this:
"No evidence was called on behalf of the Minister and as the object of the inquiry was to hear objections to the proposals, it was not essential that evidence should be called on his behalf. It was for the objectors to state their objections and to call such evidence as they

985
might think proper in support of those objections."
In the recent Stevenage case the Court of Appeal followed the case which I have just mentioned and held that "there was no obligation on the inspector to insist upon having the case in favour of the order put forward by anybody on behalf of the Minister." I hinted at this the other day when the Stevenage case was still sub judice. I think it is still sub judice to some extent, at the moment. So I will not speak very directly about it just now. It does seem to me most extraordinary, when objecting to a proposal, to complain that the other person does not give evidence in support of his proposal. If you make objections you must make a statement in support of them, and if he in answer does not choose to give evidence why should you complain? Normally, one side is only too pleased if the other does not give evidence. I suggest that the answer given in the passage from Lord Hewart's observations which I have quoted is quite clear.
On the other hand, you may take the analogy of a dispute where there are two parties contesting and the Minister, is, as it were, the referee deciding the contest.
"In such a case,"
said Lord Oaksey, in his judgment in the recent Stevenage case,
"it is obvious, it seems to me, that each of those parties must have the opportunity of calling any evidence which he wishes to call, and if he is prevented from calling such evidence then he is not being properly treated. But it cannot be said, I think, that he was under any obligation to call any particular witnesses, or any witness at all."
And I think that is obviously right. Whether you regard it as a dispute or a case for the hearing of objections, in both cars it seems to be quite obvious that the function of the body is to hear objections, and there is no reason why the case should be stated en behalf of the Minister or evidence called on behalf of the Minister.
I move to the next question, that of publicity of the report. Here also I hold strong views. It is essential that the inquiry should be public; it is equally essential that the report should not be public. So far as I differ from the Donoughmore Report, I regret it; but I do not think I differ so much. For years past the existing practice in the Civil Ser-
986
vice has been to regard the inspector's report as a confidential document for the information of the Minister, and only to publish it when there are special reasons. Let us see what the Donoughmore Committee said in regard to the distinction drawn between judicial and quasi-judicial on the one hand, and ministerial on the other. At page 106 it says:
"We do not wish to be misunderstood as recommending the adoption of any general rule that reports submitted by inspectors to their Ministers should be made available to the public."
And I am perfectly certain that if any such general rule were adopted, the report would tend to become a more formal and uninformative document, and the real position would be conveyed to the Minister orally or by letter, and that would be a most unfortunate practice. The Report continues:
"Our recommendation is to be considered as limited to those cases where a public inquiry of a judicial character has been prescribed by Parliament as a step in the process of arriving at a judicial or a quasi-judicial decision.…
Our recommendation has no application to those cases where the Minister in the ordinary course of administration may arrange for some local inquiry or investigation, the better to inform his mind before he takes some decision which is within his competence as the head of an executive Department … The ordinary processes of administration might indeed be gravely impeded were the Minister to be tied down to any particular procedure and the fact that the Minister may be armed by statute with a general power to proceed by way of local inquiry in suitable cases makes no difference so long as the matter is in essence administrative."
Let us look at Clause 101 in the Bill. It says:
"The Minister may cause a local inquiry to be held for the purpose of the exercise of any of his functions under this Act."
If there is anything which is plainly administrative, it is this. It is not judicial, it is not quasi-judicial, it is administrative, and in these circumstances I myself cite and rely on the Donoughmore Report, though I admit that in some matters they go very much further than I myself would be prepared to go. But in this case the Donoughmore Report would be in complete accord with me, and it would be a very unfortunate thing if we were to accede to this proposal. The arguments are, that the inspector's report is only one factor in the Minister's ultimate decision. The inspector is expected not only to ascertain the facts, but to advise

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the Minister on what form his decision can take, and I believe that the effect of publication in these circumstances would be to impair the confidential relations between the Minister and his officer. It is creating a strong pressure upon the Minister to implement the inspector's recommendations, and thus transferring the real power of executive decision to an official and not to the Minister. In the event of the Minister's decision conflicting with the inspector's advice—and the Minister would have to hesitate before he would go into conflict with the inspector's advice, because he knows he would "be for it"—it would create a demand for the publication of the evidence upon which the Minister came to a decision, and generally would subject him to Parliamentary criticism. In cases where no inquiry takes place, it would create a demand for publication of the evidence on which the Minister has acted. I have had considerable experience of administration, and I say quite firmly that I believe that this would be a detrimental step to take in the interests of fearless administration where the Minister, rightly or wrongly, has to take a decision on the facts as presented to him. It must be the Minister's decision, and he should not hesitate to take a decision which be believes to be right because, in one event, he will find himself exposed to Parliamentary criticism. In these matters, I agree with the Donoughmore Report, and I think it would be a very bad step to accept this Amendment.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I would like to say one word about this matter, because it is true that more and more concern is growing in the country in regard to these inquiries. I remember one some twenty years ago in which I myself took part. I was appearing for a highway authority which was claiming to take some 200 or 300 feet back from a new highway that was being made, and there were a certain number of objectors who were objecting to the land being taken, although they were not objecting to the road being built. I said to the solicitor instructing me, who was acting for the authority: "Who is going to preside over this inquiry? Whose inquiry is it?" He said, "The Ministry of Transport inspector." I said: "Have we any idea of the line the Ministry of Transport is taking on this
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matter?" He said: "They are paying 70 per cent. of the grant." And that was how I went to that inquiry, quite honestly rather ashamed that all these people had been called to make objection when I knew that the whole thing had been agreed with the Ministry of Transport long before the inquiry took place. That struck me as rather odd.
Of course, I appreciate that, if it is a purely administrative act, the Minister has to take the decision himself—that must be quite clear—but I think, and I have always thought, that there is a strong case when there are disputes of this sort, to have an independent panel of arbitrators, or whatever you like to call them (I would place them under the Lord Chancellor's department) to act in inquiries for various Government Departments. Then people would feel that they were getting justice when they appeared before these inquiries, and that the case had not really in effect been decided, as I gather the Stevenage case was decided, before the inquiry was held.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: If I may intervene, I would point out that the object of the Stevenage inquiry and of most of these inquiries is to hear objections to a provisional scheme. In 99 per cent. of the cases it is decided, but it is a provisional decision. Then the inquiry is held to hear what the objections are to that scheme—for you cannot object unless there is some provisional scheme.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I appreciate that, but I think that the time has come—after all, I am not saying this in regard to the present Government or any particular Government—to change the tendency of recent years, which has been to take more and more out of the purview of the courts of this country and put more and more into the hands of Ministers holding these inquiries. It is a tendency that we ought soon to stop. These public inquiries should be held quite impartially, and without any kind of pre-conceived idea that the scheme itself has got to go through. Although we in this country may have pigeon-holed the Donoughmore Report, it is interesting to know that our friends in the United States have considered it very carefully, because the same tendency was thought to be growing there. They have actually, in an Act called the Administrative Procedure Act; 1944, incorporated provisions very much like

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those which my noble friend has suggested should be incorporated in this Bill. I am not suggesting that we should insist on incorporating them in this particular clause, but I do say that something on the lines of what the Americans have done is the kind of action we ought to take very soon in this country in relation to this type of thing.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: May I say one word in pursuance of what the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, has said on this matter? I have had to look a little into this particular aspect of inquiries, in connexion, some of your Lordships will remember, with certain provisions of another Bill before your Lordships House. My recollection is that when this practice inquiries of began, and the power to hold them was introduced by Statute, it was a term of the section of the Statute that the person holding the inquiry should not be in the service of the particular Government Department concerned, or of any other Government Department; that he should, in fact, be an independent person. I desire to say no more at this stage than that I think it would be a very salutary measure if that practice were revived.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Perhaps I might say one further word on this, because it is a matter of some importance. The noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, said that he had given much thought to this question over a number of years, and he had come to quite definite conclusions. I am sure that is true, but I still think that they are surprising and even extraordinary conclusions. As I understand it, his thesis is that the purpose of an inquiry of this kind is to hear objections, and there is no obligation on the Minister to justify his actions at such an inquiry; it is a matter for the other party to justify his objections to the Minister. That seems to me to be a very narrow view of the purpose of these inquiries. It is not really a question of whether there is any obligation on the Minister. The question is: Is it desirable for the Minister to do such a thing? After all, the Minister is the man who is giving a decision, and he is often the person who is giving a decision, or about to give a decision, which is going to cause great bitterness of feeling, and possibly considerable hardship in the case of the local inhabitants of the place
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concerned. That is really the cause for the complaint which they put forward to the Ministry; that is the reason why they object to the scheme.
Therefore, in my view, the object of these inquiries is not merely, as the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, has said, to hear objections, but to remove grievances and to allay criticism. It is to make these people understand that the Minister has very good reasons for what he is doing. It may be that they would not agree entirely with the decision he proposes to take. That is a common feature of our national life. We have to have things explained: we think we ought to have things explained. That is the purpose of Parliament. The noble and learned Viscount, to my mind, might just as well say: "There is no obligation upon His Majesty's Government in this House to justify the measures which they are introducing; it is for the other Party to make objections to them." I have often thought, if I may say so with due deference, that the justification with which His Majesty's Government have put forward certain measures has not been very adequate. I have always slightly resented that; and that is the position of these people in these local inquiries.
I do feel that unless the Government take a wider view of these inquiries, and regard them not merely as a one-sided affair, where the representative of the Ministry comes down and hears what the local people have to say, but find means by which the local people can feel that they have heard the real reason for the decision, and can become convinced that that decision is a justifiable one, then these inquiries will be regarded as a dead letter. They will do very much more harm than good, and will leave behind a sense of rankling injustice. It is for that reason that I would strongly support the Amendment which has been moved by my noble friend. Your Lordships will notice that I have devoted myself to the first part of the Amendment. I do not wish to weary the House by going to the latter part, although I agree there also. I believe the first part to include a point of very great importance, and I would like the noble and learned Viscount to give it further consideration. If my noble friend is not satisfied with the answer, he will consider the course of reverting to the matter at a later stage of the Bill.
THE EARL OF MUNSTER: Perhaps I may say one word. I am extremely disappointed with the noble and learned Viscount's reply. I honestly thought that I should receive at least some sympathy from the noble and learned Viscount. It does seem to me that we have reached a stage now where the Minister may hold an inquiry caring very very little indeed for the individual to be inquired about. All I wanted to ensure—and I am sure the noble and learned Viscount wants it also—is that the individual should receive a fair inquiry; that every fact should be considered by the Minister; that the individual who attends, either personally or by some person on his behalf, can cross-examine anybody sent by the Minister in order to ensure that that individual has a perfectly normal and natural hearing before this inquiry; and that he is satisfied at the end of the inquiry that the decision which has been reached is fair and equitable to him in view of the evidence which has been placed before the inquiry.
That is all I am asking, and frankly I should like to divide the House on this question, because I feel I am on a strong point. But I will do this. I would like to consult my legal advisers, who have assisted me on this particular clause, and I will reserve the right—subject to the noble and learned Viscount not objecting to it—to put some Amendment down on the Report stage. Perhaps the discussion then will take place at an earlier hour in the afternoon when other legal lights may be present in the House who will, I think, support me. In those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 101 agreed to.
Clauses 102 to 106 agreed to.
10.42 p.m.
Clause 107:
Determination of disputes as to compensation, etc.
(3) Any party to any such dispute as aforesaid who is dissatisfied with the determination of the Central Land Board may, within such time and such manner as may be prescribed by regulations made under this Act, appeal to the Minister, whose decision shall be final.
LORD LLEWELLIN LORD LLEWELLIN moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "the Minister, whose decision shall be final," and insert:
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"a Tribunal consisting of a member or members of the panel constituted under Part I of the Schedule to the War Damage (Valuation Appeals) Act, 1945, selected in accordance with the provisions of Part II of that Schedule, and the provisions of Part III of that Schedule shall in so far as they relate to appeals to a Tribunal have effect in relation to appeals under this Act as if for any reference to the War Damage Commission there were substituted a reference to the Central Land Board and as if for any reference to the War Damage Act, 1943, there were substituted a reference to this Act, and the Lord Chancellor shall makes rules for regulating, subject to the provisions of that Schedule, appeals to a tribunal under this Act."
The noble Lord said: This, of course, is an Amendment in exactly similar terms to the one upon which we had a slight dispute on Clause 67, and which was inserted there. I am being quite frank with the Committee when I say that I do not think it is so important here as it was there. On the other hand, it is the kind of Amendment which, if we accept it in one place, perhaps we ought to accept in the other. I think in these cases this is the right tribunal and place. I laid a great deal more stress on this type of tribunal in Clause 67 than I do now. I think it is more important in Clause 67. I hope very much that the Government will accept the decision of this House on Clause 67. If the Lord Chancellor can hold out any indication of that I should be grateful. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 116, line 36, leave out from ("to") to the end of the clause and insert the said new words.—(Lord Llewellin.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We have had this out once, and I quite agree that it was much more germane and important in the previous case than here. The noble Lord has won his victory and I hope he is not going to rub my nose in it by making me accept this one—because I really cannot do it. I hope he will rest content with his great victory on the other occasion.
LORD LLEWELLIN: All I will say is that as long as it is never held against me that I did not move it here, I accept the reply of the noble and learned Viscount. I should hate to rub his nose in anything. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 107 agreed to.
10.47 p.m.
Clause 108:
Regulations and orders.
108.—(1) The Minister may make regulations under this Act—
(a) for prescribing the form of any notice order or other document authorised or required by this Act to be served, made or issued by any local authority;
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH moved, after "Minister" to insert:
"(after consultation with such organisations as are in his opinion representative of local authorities)".
The noble Lord said: Clause 108 provides that the Minister may make certain regulations under the Act for prescribing the form of the notice, and so on. I have no doubt that the Minister will in fact consult the local authority associations, and if so I think this provision ought to be in the Bill. This Amendment was put down in another place, but it was guillotined and never discussed. I think it ought now to have a run, and I hope the Lord Chancellor will accept it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 116, line 38, after ("Minister") insert the said words.—(Lord Balfour of Burleigh.)
LORD HENDERSON: After the noble Lord has allowed the Amendment to have a run, I hope that the answer I am going to make will lead him to call it off. The Amendment, very simply, imposes a statutory obligation on the Minister to consult local authority associations before making any of the regulations he is authorized to make under the Bill. In regard to some of the regulations such consultation would be quite unnecessary. For example, regulations concerning the procedure of the Central Land Board (Clause 2, subsection (5)) and on the assignment of rights to payments from the £300,000,000 (Clause 61 (2)). But I can give the noble Lord an assurance that it is the intention to consult the Local Authorities Associations about all regulations which in any way affect local authorities, and indeed such consultations have already been begun at official level.
LORD BALFOUR. OF BURLEIGH: I am happy to accept the noble Lord's assurance, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 108 agreed to.
Clause 109 [Assumptions as to permission for development]:
LORD HENDERSON: This is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 117, line 35, after ("class") insert ("specified in the Third Schedule to this Act"). —(Lord Henderson.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved, at the end of the clause to insert:
"(2) For the purposes of paragraph 2 of the said Third Schedule, the erection on land within the curtilage of any such building as is mentioned in that paragraph of an additional building to be used in connection with the original building shall be treated as the enlargement or the original building; and where on the appointed day any two or more buildings comprised in the same curtilage are used as one unit for the purposes of any institution or undertaking, the reference in the said paragraph 2 to the cubic content of the original building shall be construed as a reference to the aggregate cubic content of those buildings."
The noble and learned Viscount said: Paragraph 2 of the Third Schedule provides an exemption from development charge in respect of the enlargement, improvement, or other alteration of certain buildings within a 10 per cent. tolerance. As drafted, the paragraph might be interpreted as being limited to actual extensions adjoining and forming part of the original buildings. It is not intended that it should be interpreted in this narrow way. For example, it is intended that the paragraph should apply to a garage put up for use in connexion with a house whether or not it happens physically to adjoin the house. It might be separated by a few feet, or it might be at the bottom of a garden. In the same way a factory may be made up of a number of separate buildings—in some cases it is compulsory —and the exemption is intended to operate if further separate buildings are erected within the prescribed 10 per cent. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 117, line 38, at end insert the said subsection. —(Lord Henderson.)
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am very grateful to the noble Lord for this Amendment. I think it is quite right. It is right, too, on planning grounds. If you had to have your garage attached to the house it might not be the right place to put it; it is often much better if a garage, with its risk of fire, is not attached to the house. All I can say is that I believe this will com-

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pletely meet the case that my noble friend, Lord Saltoun, wanted in regard to the small man who had a little shed at the back of his premises where he carried on some small trade or other. I think that will be met, because a little shed is not likely to be more than a tenth of the original. I welcome the Amendment.
Clause 109, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 110 [Amendments and repeals]:
LORD HENDERSON: This and the next two Amendments I think I can take together, and the simple explanation of them is that they are drafting Amendments. They secure the repeal of the 1939 standard provisions of the 1944 Act as applied by other Acts, in particular the New Towns Act. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 118, line 16, at end insert ("(other than an enactment specified in Part I of the Ninth Schedule to this Act)")
Page 118, line 18, leave out ("any other enactment") and insert ("the New Towns Act, 1946, but without prejudice to any amendment of the last mentioned Act effected by this Act").—(Lord Henderson.)
LORD HENDERSON: This Amendment introduces the new Eleventh Schedule, which is a reprint of the unrepealed provisions of the 1944 Act, as amended by the Eighth Schedule to the Bill and by further Amendments to that Schedule which it is proposed to move later in the Committee. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 118, line 30, at end insert ("(6) In accordance with the foregoing provisions of this section, the Act of 1944 shall, as from the appointed day, have effect as set out in the Eleventh Schedule to this Act").—(Lord Henderson.)
On Question, Whether Clause 110, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?
10.59 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I regret having to trouble your Lordships with one point at this late hour, but I am told that this is the only proper place in which I can do it. I think it could hardly be denied that the Government's compensation and development charge scheme will produce very considerable disparity as between various classes of owner, and I submit
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to your Lordships that, in the case of owners of very small plots, this disparity will be very exaggerated. For example, take three people who have bought plots of a quarter of an acre at exactly the same time, and in exactly the same condition as regards planning consent; and suppose one of those men built before the war a small bungalow or house upon his plot, but the second man did not do so, but is still allowed to build under the development scheme of this Bill, and that the third is prevented from building under the new development plan produced under this Bill. They all started in the same way, but the first man has got a house which has gone up in value since the war. His plot has probably slightly increased in value owing to the fact that the surrounding land may be sterilized. He has had value presented to him by this Bill. The second man may be left very much as he is, particularly if his land is dead ripe for development. If it is not, he may have to pay development charge, and he may get something out of the compensation fund. But above all he has his plot and he can build. The third man, whose plot is sterilized, is left with an entirely valueless piece of land. All he can look out for is, at the end of five years, a bit of the £300,000,000.
I know a lot of these cases, and I assure the Committee that very real hardships are going to arise in the case of those people whose land is sterilized and who have to wait five years for compensation. This is the reason why I raise this matter on this clause. A lot of these people are old, and the prospect of receiving money in five years' time will not perhaps appeal to them because of the possibility that they may die in the meantime. What they want is some land, and they want that land now. I am given to understand that there was a provision in the Act of 1944 which enabled local authorities to buy land for exchange in cases of this sort, and I understand that that provision is repealed by this clause and it no longer appears in terms in this Bill. These are complicated drafting matters, but I would ask the noble and learned Viscount if his experts could look into this and see if anything can be done to meet these hard cases. I do so because I am convinced that, whatever the feelings of the Government may be towards landowners, nobody could wish

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to deal really quite savagely with one particular section of them and comparatively leniently with another. I feel that unless something is done the local authorities—who are, after all, the elected representatives of the people—may in certain cases prefer to plan badly rather than to see rank injustice done, as would appear to be possible.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I will certainly ask my experts to look into the drafting matters involved. I did not anticipate that the noble Viscount was going to raise the matter on this clause, with which, in fact, it has no direct connexion. But I am glad that he has done so, because it enables me to say that I will have this properly considered, and we will do what we can. I am afraid that our planning system involves that you must sometimes say "No" to a man. There are cases in which he must not be allowed to develop. If you are not prepared to do that, you can give up planning altogether, and have your towns as we have them to-day. That, I think, would be disastrous. On the other hand, we are providing this fund of £300,000,000 in order that those who suffer, those to whom we have to say "No," shall be able to get some compensation. I quite agree that any system you invent must to some extent involve this—that one man comes off more luckily than another. And because that is so, I agree that we should take all the steps we can to see that the difference in treatment is mitigated so far as possible by the provisions of this Bill.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I am very much obliged to the noble and learned Viscount. He will perhaps remember that I did specifically relate the point to this clause, because under this clause the provision of the 1944 Act relating to the exchange
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of land has, I understand, been repealed and I am asking that that exchange of land should still be open to the local authorities.
Clause 110, as amended, agreed to.
LORD AMMON: Before we adjourn, I hope that your Lordships understand that the first business on Monday at 2.30 o'clock will be the resumption of the Committee stage of this Bill.
House resumed.

CERTIFICATE FROM EXAMINERS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House, That the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that no further Standing Orders are applicable to the following Bill:
PUBLIC OFFICES (SITE).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
NEWHAVEN AND SEAFORD SEA DEFENCES BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.

PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1936.
Report from the Committee of Selection, That the Lord Saltoun be proposed to the House as a member of the panel of Lords to act as Commissioners under the Act during the present Session: Agreed to, and the said Lord appointed accordingly.
House adjourned at one minute past eleven o'clock.