Sitting of 20 May 1947

Preamble
The House met at Half past Two o'Clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  HAVANT AND WATERLOO URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL [Lords],
  PRESTON CORPORATION BILL,
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL,
  NEWHAVEN AND SEAFORD SEA DEFENCES BILL,
  Read a Second time, and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF PENSIONS

    Chapel Allerton Hospital
    Mr. Geoffrey Cooperasked the Minister of Pensions the total number of patients in Chapel Allerton Pensions Hospital, Leeds, at present; how many of those patients who are there under observation or for medical examination have been kept longer than one week; the number of those who have been kept there longer than one month; and what steps are taken to ensure that the medical officer in charge visits the patients daily to find out the progress of their cases, in order to avoid unnecessary delays in dealing with them.
    The Minister of Pensions (Mr. John Hynd): On 19th May there were in the hospital 283 patients, of whom three were there for observation. Two of these, including one who is about to be discharged, have been retained for more than a week
    2150
    but less than a month. In accordance with instructions, medical officers keep a daily watch on the progress of patients, and all concerned are fully alive to the desirability of completing the observation as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Cooper: Does the Minister realise that, in the case quoted, men have been in the hospital for several weeks without even seeing the doctor? Will he have this case looked into, and see if more regard can be paid to the men's human interests?
    Mr. Hynd: As the answer states, there is only one case that has been there for over a week. In this case—there could be others—it is not always necessary and desirable that the doctor should attend daily. They are placed under observation, and the doctor is there when the observations are being made.

    Personal Case
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions, in view of the further facts sent to him concerning the pensions appeal of Mr. Alexander Johnston, late R.A.F., of Hayton, Aberdeen, if he will now have his case re-opened and re-considered with a view to his pension being allowed.
    Mr. J. Hynd: I have received the further medical evidence, but I think it desirable to await a High Court judgment now pending on a similar case before reaching a decision. In the event of rejection being maintained, Mr. Johnston's case will be referred to the Special Review Tribunal.
    Mr. Hughes: If there is reasonable doubt in the case, is it not the practice of the Minister to give the benefit of it to the patient?
    Mr. Hynd: Invariably we give the benefit of the doubt to the patients. In this case there is no reasonable doubt, but, in the man's own interests, we are awaiting the results of the test case.
    Mr. Driberg: Can my hon. Friend say whether this man's appeal was rejected by an appeal tribunal; if so, whether that rejection was unanimous, and, if not, whether he will have it reconsidered in the light of Mr. Justice Denning's recent judgment?
    Mr. Hynd: The case has already been rejected, but it has been put to us for reconsideration. On the present basis it

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    is not admissible. But, as I say, in the man's own interests we are awaiting the High Court judgment.

    Diabetic Cases
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Pensions how many men have been discharged from His Majesty's Forces with diabetes or balanitis which may have been diabetic in type; and in how many of these instances and for what reasons were pensions awarded to them.
    Mr. J. Hynd: Some 3,200 members of the Forces have been discharged owing to diabetes, and of this number about 500 have been awarded pension on the ground that the disease was either precipitated or aggravated by special factors in service. Any case of balanitis occurring in a diabetic would be included in the above figures.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Personal Cases
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that a corporal, released from the R.A.S.C., particulars of whom have been sent him, has been waiting for over 15 months for a supply of shoes as he cannot wear boots for medical reasons; that he had to use his wife's coupons to enable him to purchase a pair in the meantime; when he can expect to receive the shoes; and whether the coupons so used will be refunded.
    The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Freeman): This soldier is recorded as having received his normal release outfit, including a pair of civilian shoes. He was, however, in addition entitled to keep on release a pair of the shoes which had been issued to him while serving in the Army. It so happened that at the time he left his unit in Berlin to be released he was waiting for a pair of new shoes in replacement of his old ones, which were worn out. These shoes which had to be ordered from London did not reach his unit until after his departure, and I regret that he has never received them. I have, therefore, arranged for a pair of shoes to be sent to him. The issue of clothing coupons is not a matter for my Department.
    Mr. Freeman: Will the hon. Gentleman make inquiries to see if such cases can be accelerated to avoid such delays as this of 15 months before a soldier gets his shoes? Can he inform us what steps can be taken to enable the man to reclaim the coupons his wife lost?
    Mr. Freeman: As regards the delay, this is a quite exceptional case, in which my Department made a very small administrative error, for which I apologise. As regards the coupons, that has nothing to do with me, but the allotment of coupons which a Serviceman gets on leaving the Service does allow an extra pair of shoes to be obtained.
    Mr. Garry Allighanasked the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that 2601138 Lance-Corporal R. M. Smith, No. r Company, War Office Wireless Section, and 2372768 Signalman E. R. Simmonds, Royal Signals, about whom the hon. Member for Gravesend wrote to him on 11th and 24th April, are being retained under the age and service Group 64, while Lance-Corporal Pollard and Signalman Pope, age and service Group 64, have had their group numbers reduced to 39 and 44, respectively, with immediate release, by reckoning their service on W / T reserve as service; whether there is any change in general policy with respect to reckoning W/T reserve for group assessment; and whether he will make a statement on these particular cases.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Bellenger); There is no change in the general policy with respect to the reckon-ability of periods on Class W or W/T Reserve, nor is any change contemplated. I will, with permission, circulate the detailed information asked for by my hon. Friend in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Allighan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these men were drafted on call-up to the War Office for service with Military Intelligence, and that their service in that capacity was not reckoned for their age and service grouping, but that at least two of their comrades, who were in exactly the same circumstances. did have their service so reckoned?
    Mr. Bellenger: In my answer I am explaining that matter, and, I hope, to the satisfaction of my hon. Friend.
    Following are the details:
    I am aware that in view of their age and service group number, Lance-, Corporal Smith and Signalman Simmonds are not yet eligible for release and are being retained until the date of release of their group. I regret that through an oversight, Lance-Corporal Pollard's group was reduced from 64 to 39 as the result of an incorrect re-assessment of his reckonable service under which the period spent on Class W/T Reserve was allowed to reckon. That period should not, in fact, have been reckoned. I presume that the Signalman Pope to whom my hon. Friend refers is 2601062 Signalman H. Pope. If so, he is still serving, being in group 66. His group has not been altered.
    Mr. George Wallaceasked the Secretary of State for War why 14497347 Fusilier P. Morris, 2nd Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers, B.A.O.R., is now serving a sentence in Dartmoor Prison when there was not enough evidence to justify a court-martial on the charge for which he was arrested; and if this soldier's sentence will be reviewed forthwith.
    Mr. Bellenger: It is not the case that Fusilier Morris is serving a sentence for an offence which did not justify a court martial. While he was under suspended sentence for a previous offence his conduct was unsatisfactory. It was, therefore, decided by the competent military authority that his suspended sentence should be put back into execution. The sentence was due for review recently, and I will write to my hon. Friend as soon as the result of the review has been reported to me.
    Mr. Wallace: That answer is most unsatisfactory and I must apologise to the House if my supplementary question is rather long. [Interruption.] I appeal to the House to listen, when the future happiness of a young lad is in jeopardy. Is the Minister aware that so far no information has been afforded to me or to the parents as to the original offence the boy committed; that we understood he committed the offence of being absent without leave for three days, for which he got three years; that the parents were asked by the War Office where the son was, and that that information was given; that the parents then wrote and asked for news of their son and were told
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    he was fit and well, and serving with his unit, while he had been in detention for II weeks under close arrest?
    Mr. Bellenger: I very much regret that my hon. Friend, in a rather long supplementary question, should give what he purports to be facts, but which are not quite accurate. As it would be intolerable if I took up the time of the House in going into a detailed statement— [Interruption.]—
    Mr. Gallacher: Say what you used to say in the "Sunday Pictorial."
    Mr. Bellenger: I will endeavour, as briefly as possible, to give an answer to my hon. Friend. If he wants information as to the sentence, conviction and the offence for which Fusilier Morris was originally imprisoned, I will send it to him as fully as possible in a letter. However, I can say this to my hon. Friend: Fusilier Morris is by no means an angel, as my hon. Friend has made out.

    Officers' Retirement
    Squadron-Leader Sir Gifford Foxasked the Secretary of State for War the present position with regard to Regular officers wishing to leave the Army; and the number of resignations accepted in the last 12 months and on what grounds.
    Mr. J. Freeman: On the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Chelsea (Commander Noble) on nth March. As regards the second part, the voluntary retirement of some 360 officers has been approved in the last 12 months. These applications to retire at ages under the existing voluntary retirement ages have been either for urgent compassionate reasons or in order to take up work of national importance as civilians. In addition, 77 officers have retired, having reached the age at which voluntary retirement is permitted.

    Overseas Establishments
    General Sir George Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War what British troops, military establishments and military offices still remain in Italy, Greece and North Africa respectively.
    Mr. J. Freeman: It would not be in accordance with recent practice to give this information.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Is it to be understood that there is still a state of war in Italy or in Greece, and cannot any information be given as to the British troops which it is thought necessary to keep there?
    Mr. Freeman: In the case of Italy, yes, Sir.

    Requisitioned Premises
    Sir G. Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War how many houses and buildings in this country are still under requisition by his Department; what is the necessity for their further retention; and when it is proposed that they shall he released.
    Mr. J. Freeman: My Department still holds under requisition in this country approximately 803 houses and 693 miscellaneous non-industrial buildings. These are still required to meet Army commitments which cannot be housed in War Department property, but the numbers are being progressively reduced according to the derequisitioning plan. Ninety-eight per cent. of the Army's total holdings of non-industrial buildings have already been released.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: Can the hon. Gentleman give any further information why these buildings are still required in time of peace? Are not the staffs very much swollen, and should not a great many of these establishments, which were necessary in war, now be dispensed with?
    Mr. Freeman: No, Sir. I do not think that view is at all in accordance with the facts.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will the hon. Gentleman not consider the fact that there are a great many civilians at the present moment being housed in military camps, and would it not be far better that houses should be released for them and that the various offices necessary for the military should go into the camps?
    Mr. Freeman: That is a different and very much wider question, of which I should like notice.
    Captain John Crowder: Could the hon. Gentleman say what steps he is taking to get houses in London derequisitioned for civilians, and does he not think that the troops would be very much better off in barracks or camps outside the London
    2156
    area, such as Aldershot or some other training area, than in private houses in London?
    Mr. Freeman: They would be very much better off, and that is why we have, as indicated in my answer, derequisitioned a very large number of properties, and are proceeding with that derequisitioning.

    Battalions in Suspended Animation
    Sir G. Jeffreysasked the Secretary of State for War how many Regular battalions it is proposed shortly to place in suspended animation; how these battalions are selected; for how long a time it is contemplated that they will remain in abeyance; and how it is proposed that their officers shall be disposed of.
    Mr. J. Freeman: According to present plans, 27 Regular battalions will have been placed in suspended animation by 1st July. The principal factors taken into account in selecting these battalions are the distribution of infantry battalions between home and overseas commands, and the necessity of keeping one battalion of each Regiment in being. It is not possible at present to say how long the battalions selected will remain in suspended animation. Their officers will be posted in accordance with the needs of the Service and their own qualifications and status, particular care being taken to post Regular officers suitably.
    Sir G. Jeffreys: May I ask whether, in selecting Regular battalions for this fate—and it is a fate—junior battalions of regiments should not have been first selected? Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that many very historic Regular battalions, some dating back to the time of Marlborough's battles, are now being placed in suspended animation? Further, if it is propòsed to place a very large number of these battalions in suspended animation in future, will the hon. Gentleman tell us the names of some of them, and say if he is confident that we shall not be very short of troops in an emergency?
    Mr. Freeman: That is another question.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many cavalry regiments will be in a state of suspended animation?
    Mr. Freeman: Not without notice

    Transit Camp, Calcutta
    12. Mr. David Rentonasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that soldiers are being held for six weeks at a transit camp near Calcutta, pending embarkation for the United Kingdom prior to release; and what steps he is taking to bring this waste of manpower to an end.
    Mr. J. Freeman: I am looking into this matter and will write to the hon. Member.
    Mr. Renton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have had this Question down for a fortnight, and, as this concerns a large number of British troops who are getting thoroughly "browned off," will he take steps to expedite the inquiry?

    Royal Educational Corps
    Mr. Kenneth Lindsayasked the Secretary of State for War the present strength of the Army Educational Corps; and the required establishment.
    Mr. J. Freeman: The present strength of the Royal Army Educational Corps, including personnel of other arms employed on educational duties, is 2,309 all ranks. The required establishment for the current financial year is estimated at 4,578 all ranks.
    Mr. K. Lindsayasked the Secretary of State for War what response he has had to the offer of short service commissions in the Army Educational Corps.
    Mr. J. Freeman: 268 applications for short service commissions in the Royal Army Educational Corps have been received.

    Cadet Force
    16. Mr. K. Lindsayasked the Secretary of State for War the present strength of the Army Cadet Force; and the maximum number allowed.
    Mr. J. Freeman: According to the latest available returns, the strength of the Army Cadet Force is approximately 8,000 officers and 113,000 cadets. The authorized maximum establishment is 12,500 officers and 195,000 cadets.
    Mr. Lipson: Can my hon. Friend say whether there has been any falling off in numbers?
    Mr. Freeman: Not without notice.

    South Coast Beach Clearance
    Mr. Wyattasked the Secretary of State for War what estimate he has of the quantity of iron and steel and barbed wire placed on the South coast beaches during the war and still unremoved; and what steps he is proposing to take to use troops to recover this valuable scrap.
    Mr. J. Freeman: I regret that I am unable to estimate the quantity. Although schemes for the removal by local authorities of the bulk of the steel and wire placed on beaches on the South coast have been approved, I understand that progress has been retarded by shortage of labour. There is also material on privately owned beaches on the South coast. The responsibility for removal from such beaches, where it is in the public interest, rests with the Ministry of Works. Resources of military labour are not sufficient normally to undertake this work.
    Mr. Wyatt: Is not my hon. Friend aware that we have had a substantial Army of about 400,000 at home for the last two years, a great proportion of whom have been doing nothing at all, and does he not consider that it is about time the Ministry of Works got on with this job?
    Mr. Douglas Marshall: Is the Minister aware that Par beach is not yet cleared, and that the month of May is fast drawing to its close?

    Communications to M.Ps.
    Mr. Wyattasked the Secretary of State for War why the regimental orders of the 12/25 Field Regiment, R.A., B.A.O.R., recently carried a notification to the effect that writing to Members of Parliament was a waste of time.
    Mr. J. Freeman: I have seen a copy of the order referred to by my hon. Friend. It does not say that writing to Members of Parliament is a waste of time. After stating that every soldier is entitled to write to his Member of Parliament, it goes on to say, as my right hon. Friend has before now pointed out in this House, that complaints or requests, particularly if they are concerned with compassionate leave or discharge, can usually be dealt with more quickly if the soldier takes them to his commanding officer in the first instance.

    Training Area, Netherlaw
    Mr. McKieasked the Secretary of State for War if he will make a statement regarding the proposal to acquire permanently the 5,000-acre tank training ground at Netherlaw, near Kirkcudbright.
    Mr. J. Freeman: The proposal to acquire permanently new land in this area is limited to a fraction of the area mentioned in the Question; the remainder of the training area is already owned by my Department. The proposal is at present under examination by the Interdepartmental Committee on Service Land Requirements.
    Mr. McKie: Is the hon Gentleman aware that his information regarding the ownership of the land is incorrect, that about 1,000 acres of it is some of the best agricultural land in Scotland, and that great public indignation has been aroused, in view of the pledge of the Coalition Government to restore it as soon as possible? Will he appreciate the necessity of coming to a decision as soon as possible, and will he hear all interested parties?
    Mr. Freeman: My information is that I already own 3,620 of these acres. [HON. MEMBERS: "You?"]
    Mr. Stokes: Can my hon. Friend assure the House that, having got this land, he has some decent tanks with which to train the men?

    Harvest Help (Pay)
    Mr. De la Bèreasked the Secretary of State for War whether, in connection with help which is to be given by men serving in the Army to assist agriculture during the 1947 harvest, those men who give up their leisure hours will be allowed to receive and retain any payments they may be able to obtain for services rendered in this connection.
    Mr. J. Freeman: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. De la Bère: May I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having said something, for once, that really pleases me?

    Vehicles (British Manufacture)
    Mr. Niall Macphersonasked the Secretary of State for War to what extent he intends the Army to be equipped with
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    motor transport and armoured fighting vehicles of British manufacture; and when he anticipates that that extent shall be achieved.
    Mr. Bellenger: It is the intention that eventually the Army shall be entirely equipped with motor transport and armoured fighting vehicles of British manufacture. Designs of a complete new range of British vehicles are well advanced, and these will be introduced as existing stocks are used up. These stocks include vehicles of American origin, which are likely to last for some years, and which we must continue to use as long as they can be economically maintained.
    Mr. Macpherson: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that our units overseas at the present time are adequately supplied with transport, at any rate for training, if not for operational, purposes?
    Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir.
    Major Bruce: Could my right hon. Friend give the House an assurance that we are not spending American dollars on any military equipment for this purpose?
    Mr. Bellenger: My answer indicated that. That is why we are going to produce British vehicles.

    Building Material Stores
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Secretary of State for War the names of people who asked, and dates when his Department's representatives were asked, for the release of urgently required building materials contained in the dumps in the North-West area; the dates upon which other Government Departments made representations; and the answers given.
    Mr. J. Freeman: Requests from private firms or from individuals for release of building materials are not normally dealt with by my Department. An inquiry was received from the Ministry of Works on 24th April asking whether certain asbestos sheeting and other stores held at Ditton could be made available for a Ministry of Works building programme, which was in danger of being held up. The reply was that, although there were still some surpluses to declare, the majority of the stores were required for Army projects.
    Mr. EllisSmith asked the Secretary of State for War if he will give a list of the principal building materials held in the dumps at Chester, Woolton, Hale Wood, Ditton and Widnes, and the amounts in each case.

    Item.

    Tonnage to be retained.

    Tonnage declared or in process of being declared surplus.

    Total Tonnage.

    Remarks.

    In linked depots at Woolton, Halewood, Ditton and Widnes.

    Decauville Track

    —

    15,000

    15,000

    Required for export to U.S.S.R.

    Hutting and Hutting components (including asbestos sheets, etc.)

    3,000

    —

    3,000

    These stocks are controlled by the Ministry of Works who are working out distribution Total stocks are below over all requirements of all Departments.

    Victaulic piping 6" x 4"

    5,000

    —

    5,000

    Cast Iron stove pipes

    —

    1,000

    1,000

    Water tanks

    400

    600

    1,000

    At a separate depot in Halewood.

    Corrugated galvanized Iron.

    1,100

    —

    1,000

    Demands exceed availability.

    Steel section (angles, plate, etc.).

    1,000

    —

    1,000

    Demands exceed availability.

    Water piping 3"

    600

    —

    600

    Required for use this year. In process of issue.

    Square mesh track

    250

    —

    250

    Airfield track stores. The question of retention is under Consideration.

    Road tar

    —

    200

    200

    In Command Depot at Chester.

    General building stores. Mainly 4" stoneware

    400

    100

    500

    A considerable amount of stores have already been declared surplus and re moved from the Depot. It is in course of being closed down and existing stocks are under review for retention or further disposal.

    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Secretary of State for War the number of dumps of building materials held throughout the country; the number of dumps of materials in short supply; the amounts of the chief materials at the dump along the main railway line south of Stoke-on-Trent; and why these building materials in short supply have been allowed to deteriorate.
    Mr. J. Freeman: There are in the United Kingdom 73 War Office and command stores depots, almost all of which contain some form of building materials in short supply. I assume that the depot referred to in the third part of the Question is that of Weston and Ingestree; it contains some
    Mr. J. Freeman: As the list contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the list:
    The principal building materials held are as follow:
    5,500 tons of steel hutting held on behalf of the Ministry of Works, which is required for the Government programme, and some 2,000 tons of assorted and unbalanced hutting components, whose disposal the Ministry of Works is gradually carrying out. Owing to lack of storage space, much of this material necessarily had to be stored in the open, where some deterioration is inevitable, particularly in stores of inferior quality. Lists of unserviceable stores so far produced, however, show the amounts to be negligible
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is it not a fact that these dumps contain materials which are in short supply in the building industry

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    and which are urgently required, and that housing schemes have been held up for the lack of such materials? If that is so, does it not disclose a first-class national scandal, and cannot my hon. Friend make some investigations into the matter in order to have the materials released as soon as possible?
    Mr. Freeman: I cannot accept those facts at all. I am informed that we are not holding in the dumps more of these materials than we actually require for our building projects for the current financial year.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: I have a list containing the numbers of every material in these dumps, and in view of the fact that camps were built in 1938, 1939 and 1940, in which we housed the whole of our Armed Forces and the American Forces, surely there is no longer any need to retain these dumps, because the men coming into the Forces could be housed in the camps already there? Will my hon. Friend undertake to have an investigation made into this state of affairs in order that this urgently needed material can be released for house building?
    Mr. Freeman: No, Sir. It my hon. Friend has information which is at variance with what I have given him, I will, of course, investigate it. On the facts that T have got, I am quite satisfied.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: In view of the fact that the Government are making constant appeals to the people of this country to work harder and to have regard to the national interest, will the War Office also have regard to the national interest in this matter?

    "Soldier"
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Secretary of State for War why he has decided to increase to 48 pages the size of the magazine, "Soldier," issued by his Department; what is the circulation of this publication and the profit or loss made on it; how much paper is used for an issue of the present size; and to what extent this quantity will be increased by the increase in size.
    Mr. Bellenger: I am sorry that this answer is a little long. The magazine "Soldier" was originally produced fortnightly and distributed in Rhine Army only. A number of other overseas Commands also produced periodicals. During
    2164
    1946, owing to the release of many technical personnel and the reduction in size of the Army, it became impracticable to continue "Soldier" on a fortnightly basis, and a number of periodicals in other overseas Commands had to cease production altogether. It was, therefore, decided to produce "Soldier" on a monthly basis, and to put it on sale to the forces in all Commands. The size of the pages was reduced though their number was increased in order to carry smaller illustrations and more matter of interest to Commands other than B.A.O.R. The circulation of this publication is at present 104,000, and it is sold at such a price as is estimated will cover costs of production. The quantity of paper now being used is approximately 20 tons per issue, and the additional pages will require a further four tons per issue. The total consumption of paper will, however, still be less than when the original magazine was produced fortnightly.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the publishers of this production are circularising potential advertisers with the statement that there is extra advertising space available in this production, and does he in those circumstances, consider that this substantial allocation of paper is justified?
    Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir, I think so. No doubt other periodical proprietors would not agree.

    Staff Instructors (Quarters)
    Sir Ralph Glynasked the Secretary of State for War, what steps he proposes to take to provide the necessary accommodation for the number of permanent staff instructors that will be needed for training the T.A. and auxiliary Forces; and whether he is aware that the complete lack of married quarters when the services of these non-commissioned officers are required will prevent the necessary staff being posted.
    Mr. Bellenger: There are, approximately, 1,400 married quarters in existence for permanent staff instructors, but many of these are occupied by other users. Provision was made in Estimates for 100 permanent quarters as a start to a long-term programme for quarters. In the meantime, authority has been given for the conversion of hutting to temporary married quarters, wherever possible. In

    2165
    view of the lack of quarters, single men are being posted to the greatest possible extent. Permanent staff instructors who are married will be posted, as far as can be arranged, close to their homes. Where every other expedient fails, they are being given single accommodation in Regular Army barracks until quarters can be provided for their families. Although the situation is difficult, therefore, I hope that the position suggested in the last part of the Question will not arise.
    Sir R. Glyn: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether any negotiations are taking place with the Ministry of Health so as to enable prefabricated buildings to be put up, in view of the urgency of posting non-commissioned officers?
    Mr. Bellenger: Yes, Sir, we have plans for using prefabricated buildings.

    Palestine
    Mr. David Jonesasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the discontent which arises from the fact that men in this country on leave with only five or six weeks more to serve in the Army are being sent back to Palestine; that in some cases, after a journey which normally takes nine days, the men find themselves with less than four weeks to serve before release date; and what steps he proposes to take to prevent men with such short remaining service from being sent overseas.
    Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir, I am not aware that this is happening. Soldiers are not normally granted leave to the United Kingdom from Palestine unless they will have at least four months' service to complete after their return from leave.
    Mr. Jones: Is the Minister aware that last week I received a letter from his Department seeking to justify the return of men with five weeks more to serve in Palestine, and indicating that the journey took only nine days, and that they would have at least four weeks more to serve after arrival in Palestine?
    Mr. Bellenger: If that is so, it must be a rare exception, because it conflicts with the answer I have just given.
    Mr. Jones: If I submit the letter to my right hon. Friend, will he give me the correct information?
    Mr. Bellenger: I am always willing to give correct information.
    Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that men stationed in Palestine and proceeding on leave must first sign a document that they will return to Palestine at the end of their leave?
    Mr. Bellenger: I do not know about that, but I should not think that it was unreasonable.

    Territorial Army (Cost)
    Mr. Spenceasked the Secretary of State for War what proportion of the total Army grant is allocated to the T.A.
    Mr. Bellenger: Approximately £6,150,000 net is provided in Army Estimates 1947-48 for expenditure on the Territorial Army, including the pay and maintenance of the permanent military staffs. This is about 1.6 per cent. of the total net money provision in Army Estimates.
    Mr. Spence: Is this a definite decision, or a temporary one until the right hon. Gentleman can see how the matter develops? Could he say whether it is a final figure, or whether there may be an increase?
    Mr. Bellenger: Like all Army Estimates, they only run from year to year, and are, therefore, I suppose, temporary.
    Major Legge-Bourke: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that if the Territorial Army is to be responsible for the A.A. defence of the country, it ought to have a considerably higher proportion than has been allotted to it?
    Mr. Bellenger: We have those matters fully in mind.

    Director-General, T.A.
    Mr. Spenceasked the Secretary of State for War, whether, in view of the importance attached to the role of the T.A., it is proposed to restore to the Director-General, T.A., the seat on the Army Council which he held before the war.
    Mr. Bellenger: No, Sir.

  TRIPOLITANIA AND CYRENAICA (FOOD SITUATION)
  Brigadier Mackesonasked the Secretary of State for War (1) what total amount of tonnage of cereals will have to be imported into Tripolitania and

  2167
  Cyrenaica during the coming year; when it will be required; and from which countries it will be supplied; and (2), if he will make a statement regarding the effect on this year's harvest of the drought in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica; and what estimate has been made, expressed in percentage, of the probable loss of cereals.
  Mr. J. Freeman: The drought in these territories has unfortunately had a disastrous effect on the barley crop. In Tripolitania, the crop has been virtually a complete failure. In Cyrenaica, it is estimated that nearly half the crop has been lost. 63,300 tons of cereals will have to be imported into the territories during the coming year. Of this figure 13,200 tons represent normal wheat imports into Tripolitania, the balance being emergency imports into these territories in view of the crop failure. 17,900 tons are required as early as possible, 1,900 tons monthly from June to August inclusive, 5,400 tons monthly from September to March, 1948, inclusive, and 1,900 tons in April 1948. I cannot at present say where all the required cereals will be found. Arrangements are being made for barley to be supplied from Iraq. The requirements of wheat will be met from small stocks held by His Majesty's Government in the Middle East.
  Brigadier Mackeson: In view of the very serious nature of that statement, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind, when making every endeavour, as I know he will, to deal with this acute problem, the fact that this might be used as a means of anti-British propaganda if it fails to solve this very difficult question?
  Mr. Stokes: May I ask my hon. Friend what price is being paid for barley from Iraq?
  Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend should address that Question to the Minister of Food.

  PRISONERS OF WAR

    Civilian Workers Scheme
    Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for War if, in view of misunderstandings and uncertainties among German prisoners, he will cause to be printed in German, and displayed on all prisoner-of-war camp notice boards, precise details of the scheme under which prisoners are
    2168
    to be allowed to remain in this country as civilian workers, of the kinds and amounts of goods allowed to be sent or taken to Germany by prisoners and of other matters of interest to them.
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Secretary of State for War how many German prisoners of war in this country have applied for permission to remain here; and whether they have been made fully aware of the procedure to be adopted if they desire to remain.
    Mr. J. Freeman: the number of prisoners of war wishing to remain is not yet known, as the obtaining of names is not yet complete. The precise details of the scheme under which prisoners of war may remain in this country as alien civilian agricultural workers have not yet been settled, but when they are, adequate notice board information on them will be displayed in German. The privileges which well conducted prisoners of war may enjoy are already set out in German on prisoner-of-war camp notice boards, and information regarding the parcels which prisoners of war may send is to be displayed in the same way.
    Mr. Driberg: Did my hon. Friend say "is displayed," or "is to be displayed"?
    Mr. Freeman: Is to be displayed.
    Mr. Driberg: Thank you.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that rumour is usually a lying jade as far as men in captivity are concerned?

    Repatriation
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for War how many German prisoners of war were repatriated in March and April from this country and the Middle East, respectively.
    Mr. Bellenger: From the United Kingdom, 15,477 German prisoners of war were repatriated in March, and 15,515 in April; from the Middle East, 3,997 in March, and 2,691 in April.
    Mr. Stokes: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that other requirements of shipping will not seriously interfere with the continued repatriation of these men from the Middle East?
    Mr. Bellenger: I think I have answered questions on that matter previously.

    2169
    Speaking from recollection, I think that the rate of repatriation from the Middle East will be expedited in July.
    Mr. Driberg: Will the same procedure for compassionate repatriation apply in the Middle East as in this country?
    Mr. Bellenger: I should think so

    Pay, Egypt
    Mr. Stokesasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the weekly pay of the German prisoners of war in Egypt as compared with the pay given to prisoners of war in this country for work done.
    Mr. Bellenger: German prisoners of war employed in Egypt are entitled to receive working pay and bonus credits at the same rates and under the same conditions as apply to German prisoners of war in this country.
    Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these slave labourers engaged in building camps on the Canal bank are paid a great deal more than similar slave labourers in this country and will he explain why there is this difference? If he does not know and I give him the information, will he look into it?
    Mr. Bellenger: I am always ready to receive information from my hon. Friend. But, as I have said in the answer, there is no difference.

  PUBLIC SERVANTS (POLITICAL ACTIVITIES)
  Mr. Peter Freemanasked the Prime Minister whether he is now in a position to make a statement of the intention of His Majesty's Government to amend the conditions whereby Post Office workers, local government employees, those employed by the Government in the mining and other industries, and other public servants are debarred or prejudiced by standing as candidates or taking part in local or national elections, publicly supporting or opposing any political candidate, or speaking or writing on political questions.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): This matter is still under consideration, and I have nothing to add to the reply which I gave my hon. Friend on 6th March.
  Mr. Freeman: In view of the growing number of men in Government service, will my right hon. Friend see that they will not suffer any undue civic or political disadvantages?
  Sir Waldron Smithers: If any regulations are made, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that any facilities or restriction of facilities applies equally to all grades of the Civil-Service?
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I do not think that would be reasonable. There is a great deal of difference between the position of, say, someone in the manual group at the Post Office, and, say, the permanent secretary of a Department such as the Foreign Office.

  N.A.A.F.I., GERMANY
  Colonel Wheatleyasked the Secretary of State for War when he will be in a position to supply figures giving the total value of food bought by N.A.A.F.I. in Germany for the years 1944–45 and 1945–46, respectively.
  Mr. Bellenger: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State informed the hon. and gallant Member in reply to a Question last week, this information is not readily available, and I understand from N.A.A.F.I. that it could not be produced without a disproportionate amount of work.

  NEW BUSINESSES (LICENCES)
  Mr. Stanley Prescottasked the Prime Minister in respect of how many and what kinds of, new businesses it is first necessary to obtain a licence from a Government Department, and which; how many applications for such licences have been received in the last 12 months and in respect of what categories; how many were granted; and, of the total number, how many were from ex-Servicemen and were refused.
  The Prime Minister: As the answer involves a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  Mr. Sidney Shephard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that unless an ex-Serviceman is disabled, it is almost impossible for him to start up in business on

  2171
  his own account, and is it not now time, two years after the end of he war, that the whole of this question should be reexamined?
  The Prime Minister: That is another question, and I would like to see it on the Order Paper.
  Following is the information:
  A licence is still required to deal in most foodstuffs, to retail coal or paraffin,

  Category

  Total applications received

  Total applications granted

  Applications from ex-Serviceman

  granted

  rejected

  (a)

  Food Retailers

  …

  …

  28,535

  17,375

  3,450

  73

  (a)

  Caterers: Cafes, Restaurants, etc.

  …

  …

  21,549

  14,488

  490

  13

  (a)

  Hotels, etc.

  …

  …

  9,352

  8,226

  200

  4

  (a)

  Fish Friers

  …

  …

  2,083

  963

  117

  18

  (b)

  Paraffin retailers

  …

  …

  1,126

  1,126

  558

  Nil

  (c)

  Footwear repairers

  …

  …

  7,021 (e)

  4,687

  1,841

  844

  (d)

  Building and Civil Engineering Contractors

  …

  …

  46,624

  46,624

  Not available

  NOTES.

  (a) for 12 months ending 15.1.47.

  (b) for 12 months ending 30.4.47.

  (c) for 12 months ending 31.3.47.

  (d) for 12 months ending 30.4.47.

  (e) applications received in respect of new businesses, change of ownership and change of address.

  PRODUCTION CAMPAIGN
  Mr. Fairhurstasked the Prime Minister what further steps are being taken to improve and energise the drive for production, the need for which was made so manifest in the Economic Survey, 1947.
  The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friends the Lord President of the Council, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the President of the Board of Trade have on many occasions explained both the nature of the problems facing us and the action which is being taken in consultation with both sides of industry; and I could not usefully add to their explanations in the scope of a reply to a Parliamentary Question.
  2172
  or to repair footwear. A certificate of registration is necessary in the field of building and civil engineering. The Departments concerned are the Ministries of Food, Fuel and Power, the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Works. Figures are not available, without an undue expenditure of labour, for food wholesaling or manufacture, or for coal retailing, for which licences are obtained from local fuel overseers. The information regarding the other licences is as follows;
  Mr. Fairhurst: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the major proportion of organised workers are eager to implement the Economic Survey, and will he see that, apart from national propaganda on this vital matter, a special report is submitted to industry so that it may be discussed at workshop level by workers and employers? Further, while I appreciate the importance of the national psychology, may I ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that it is at industry level, in the workshops and in the farms, that the goods are made?
  The Prime Minister: I quite agree with the importance of the points put by my right hon. Friend, and they are all under active consideration with a view to bringing these matters to workshop level.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Government Dollar Expenditure Abroad
    Mr. Benn Levyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of the £300,000,000, shown in Cmd. 7099 as Government expenditure abroad during 1946, represents an expenditure of dollars.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): Allowing for relevant dollar receipts, 9 per cent.

    Export Credit Guarantees
    Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what arrangements are in force between his Department and the Export Credits Guarantee Department to ensure that money allocated to its use is not employed to finance unrequited exports.
    Mr. Dalton: The Export Credits Guarantee Department will only guarantee credits approved by our exchange control.

    Stamped Cheques
    Mr. Ecclesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to what extent the shortage of stamped cheques is due to labour difficulties at the stamping office; and whether he will consider authorising the printers to impress the stamp in their own works under Treasury supervision.
    Mr. Dalton: These difficulties have now been settled, and arrears are being overtaken. I do not, therefore, think that the hon. Member's suggestion need be considered at present.
    Mr. Eccles: Would not the Chancellor like to save a little of the labour which is involved in the present procedure whereby cheques are printed in one place, sent in parcels to a stamping office where they are stamped, sent back in parcels to the printers and then sent out in other parcels to the banks?
    Mr. Dalton: I would like to save unnecessary labour everywhere, but I am advised that the hon. Member's suggestion would not have that effect. I have gone into the question, but the impressing of the cheque stamp is like the creation of money. It has to be subject to rather careful control against fraud, and I do rot think it would be practicable for the Revenue to provide controlling staff in all
    2174
    these various contractors' printing works to see that nothing went wrong. I have already looked at the matter from the point of view of the hon. Member's suggestion.

    U.S. Loan Drawings
    Mr. Granville Sharpasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much of the U.S. Loan to the United Kingdom was used during the first three months of 1947; what approximate amounts of this and other dollar credits were used to pay for U.S. exports to the United Kingdom and the British zone in Germany, respectively; and for what other main purposes and to what extent other dollar credits were used.
    Mr. Dalton: Drawings were 500 million dollars, supplies from the United States for ourselves 320 million dollars, and for Germany 70 million dollars. Other supplies and services also cost us dollars, but a detailed analysis of these items in this recent period is not yet available.

    Sterling Balances
    Mr. M. Philips Priceasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider taking steps to prevent, after July of this year, sterling balances held by foreigners in this country from being, under certain circumstances, converted into dollars, thereby prejudicing our financial position.
    Mr. Dalton: I would refer my hon. Friend to my replies to the hon. and gallant Member for the New Forest and Christchurch (Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre) and to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. D. Marshall) on 13th May.

  BANK FOR INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS
  Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to whom the shares in the Bank for International Settlements, formerly held by Axis or Axis satellite central banks, have been transferred; and whether such transfer was approved by His Majesty's Government.
  Mr. Dalton: No such transfers have been made so far. German and Japanese owned shares in the bank will be dealt with under the reparation settlements for these countries in-the same way as other external assets.
  Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre: Can the Chancellor of the Exchequer say what will be the procedure with regard to the Axis satellite States?
  Mr. Dalton: I think the Germans and the Japanese were the two principal criminals in the war. The other people were rather minor offenders, and hold rather minor stakes. I think these two cases will cover the point.
  Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will state the policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to the continuance of the Bank for International Settlements.
  Mr. Dalton: I have been in consultation with the United States Government on this question, but have no further statement to make at present.

  CIVIL SERVICE

    Redundancy
    Brigadier Lowasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is satisfied with the present rules for discharge of temporary civil servants on the grounds of redundancy; and whether any permanent civil servants have been discharged on grounds of inefficiency.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Glenvil Hall): I am satisfied that the Redundancy Agreement negotiated with the staff side is the best way of dealing with what is bound to be a difficult problem. The answer to the second part of the Question is, Yes, Sir.
    Mr. Jennings: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this redundancy question is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction among these people, who have done great service to the country?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: That may be so. Obviously, when someone has to go he feels dissatisfied. These discharges take place under agreement with the Whitley Council, and we are satisfied that this is the just and best way to do it.
    Brigadier Low: Will the hon. Gentleman say approximately how many permanent civil servants hae been discharged in this way?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: About 30 in the last 10 years.

    Temporary Staff
    Brigadier Lowasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether, in giving effect to those parts of the National Whitley Agreement affecting temporary civil servants, he takes into account the fact that the agreement was drawn up by a body which does not contain one temporary civil servant.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: Any Whitley agreements on matters affecting temporary civil servants are negotiated with bodies representing them.
    Brigadier Lowasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on what grounds temporary civil servants who served in the N.F.S. during the war are excluded from the increment to salaries awarded to those who served in the Armed Forces.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: I assume that the hon. Member refers to the recent award of the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal on a claim to allow temporary clerks to count incremental credit in respect of national service during the war. The grounds upon which service with the N.F.S. was excluded from the award is a matter for the tribunal.
    Brigadier Low: Could the right hon. Gentleman say whether any power resides in himself or his right hon. Friend to reconsider this question?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: No, Sir. It has been to the tribunal and, as I say, the tribunal has made its award. We can hardly interfere with that.

    Ex-Service Personnel
    Colonel Ropnerasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether perference is shown for ex-Service personnel in engaging employees for Government Departments and Government-controlled factories; and whether war service is taken into consideration when the question of redundancy arises.
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: On the non-industrial side of the Civil Service the arrangements for recruitment to established posts during the reconstruction period ensure that generous treatment is given to suitable candidates from the Forces, according to Cmd. 6567; employment is also reserved for ex-Servicemen in certain subordinate grades where possible. As to redundancy, the broad position as laid down by the

    2177
    National Whitley Council Agreement is that discharges shall be in order of shortness of service, and for this purpose any period of service in the Armed Forces counts as temporary Government service; the National Whitley Council also embodies a long-standing pledge in favour of the ex-Serviceman of the 1914–18 war. On the industrial side, the Departments concerned apply the rules agreed with the headquarters' trade unions.
    Colonel Ropner: As the right hon. Gentleman is rather indefinite, will he say whether he is satisfied that these men are being treated generously; and will he also say if any distinction is made between the ex-Servicemen of the first and second world wars?
    Mr. Glenvil Hall: Yes, Sir, the ex-Serviceman of the first world war does get complete right of way in these matters. The ex-Serviceman of the war just concluded does not, although the scales are heavily weighted in his favour

  OFFICIAL REPORT, HOUSE OF COMMONS (INDEX)
  Mr. McKieasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when the bound index to HANSARD, Session 1945–46, will be available for the Library of this House.
  Mr. Glenvil Hall: On 22nd May. I should add that a few copies with paper backs are being placed in the Library until the cloth bound edition is available on 9th June.
  Mr. McKie: Is the Financial Secretary aware that more than six months have elapsed since the close of the Session in question, and that hon. Members are caused serious inconvenience by reason of the bound index not being available, especially hon. Members on this side of the House who desire to-look up speeches of hon. Members opposite?

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Healds (Yarn Allocation)
    Mr. Stanley Prescottasked the President of the Board of Trade why the allocation of yarn for the manufacture of healds for export has been stopped; and if he will alter this decision
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Belcher): New allocations of cotton yarn for export purposes have been suspended at present in view of heavy arrears of production in the cotton industry. I am mindful, however, of the particular need of manufactures of healds and am taking steps which, I hope, will ensure that continuity of production for export is maintained.
    Mr. Prescott: Will they be permitted to have an allocation of yarn in the very near future?
    Mr. Belcher: I think so, but I should not like to say definitely.
    Mr. Prescott: Could the hon. Gentleman say what is the total amount involved?
    Mr. Belcher: I am afraid I could not without notice.
    Mr. Prescott: Is it not very small?

    Clothing Coupons
    Mr. Peter Freemanasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will now announce the number of clothing coupons that will be made available in September; and, in particular, the details of the special allocations to be made for children.
    Mr. Belcher: I am not yet in a position to say what will be the amount of the next instalment of the basic ration which will become available in November, nor can I yet add to the information which I gave to my hon. Friend on 22nd April about the childen's additional supplements.

    Paper Supplies (Propaganda)
    Major Bruceasked the President of the Board of Trade the total paper tonnage allocated during the last 12 months to the organisers of the railway company and Road Haulage Association campaign against transport nationalisation for the purpose of this campaign; and whether he will grant a similar paper allocation to any non-governmental organisation or association wishing to reply to it.
    Mr. Belcher: No paper has been licensed for this purpose.
    Major Bruce: Could my right hon. Friend say where all this paper is coming from? Is he aware that hundreds of tons of paper are being wasted for this purpose

    2179
    at the present time; and will he make inquiries to see where the printers are getting the paper, when our provincial newspapers are in need of paper?
    Mr. Belcher: The answer, of course, is that merchants and printers hold certain stocks which are not subject to licence, and if they care to sell them to the printers of these posters I cannot do anything about it.
    Mr. Gallacher: Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us how it comes about that there is so much paper available for publications of this kind, whereas it is impossible to get paper for the publication of a very important volume of the history of the Miners' Federation?
    Mr. Kendall: As there seems to be plenty of paper available for all kinds of organisations, including the Secretary of State for War who has just got an additional four tons, will the hon. Gentleman see what can be done to give newspapers started since 1940 a chance of survival by modifying Paper Control Order No. 70?
    Mr. Belcher: I am afraid that is an entirely different question. The original Question was about posters.

    Timber Supplies
    Mr. Awberyasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps are being taken to increase, during the current season, the supply of timber from Finland which has vast resources of this commodity and is anxious to increase her quota to this country.
    Mr. Belcher: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given yesterday to the hon. Member for South Aberdeen (Lady Grant).

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING

    London Population
    Mr. Sparksasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning if he is aware that the populations of London and Greater London are increasing at the rate of 45,000 persons a month; that the 1938 population will be exceeded by the end of this year; and how he proposes to check this excessive flow of people to the London area which promises to negative the intentions of the decentralisation proposals of the London plans.
    The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I am aware that this was the rate of population increase in the Greater London area during the last three months of 1946, but I understand that the rate decreased somewhat during the early months of this year. The Government have, of course, no powers to prevent people returning to London if they so choose. The Government are, however, restraining the overall increase of population by examining critically any proposal for industrial expansion in Greater London and by encouraging industrial development in other parts of the country which are in need of additional employment.
    Mr. Henry Strauss: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how an overall increase of population differs from an increase of population?

    Daccombe Valley (Use)
    Brigadier Raynerasked the Minister of Town and Country Planning whether his attention has been called to the proposed use of the highly fertile Daccombe Valley as a housing estate by the borough of Torquay; and what steps have been, or will be, taken by him to ensure the preservation of this valley for agricultural purposes.
    Mr. Silkin: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply given to him yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. No formal proposal has so far been submitted to my Department by the Torquay Borough Council. In considering any proposal for development, whether for housing or other purposes, full regard will be had to agricultural interests.
    Brigadier Rayner: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that this comparatively small piece of land produces 76,000 gallons of milk and 630 tons of food annually; will he remember that we shall need every bit of food we can grow in the future; and will he nip this project in the bud when it is referred to him in order that the present occupiers may go forward and increase their production in full confidence?
    Mr. Silkin: I will bear these and all other material considerations in mind if and when an application is made to me.

  NATIONAL INSURANCE

    Pensioners' Earnings
    Mr. D. Marshallasked the Minister of National Insurance, in view of the fact that an old age pensioner, casually employed at 20S. per week and receiving 46s. a week in total, by working longer hours and earning 30s. still receives the same weekly sum, if he will make regulations before the new scheme under the National Insurance Act comes into force to provide inducements for pensioners under the existing scheme to make their maximum contribution to the national effort without delay.
    The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Sutton (Mrs. Middleton) on 29th April. The provisions referred to are contained in the National Insurance Act and I have no power to vary them.
    Mr. Marshall: Is it not a fact that in his answer the Minister has referred to those pensions which would apply after 1948 whereas the Question I put down is very different? Will he reconsider this matter, since I cannot believe that he is suggesting that this House has not the power to meet the situation?
    Mr. Griffiths: The pensions now paid to existing old age pensioners come under the provisions of the National Insurance Act. The provisions of that Act must, therefore, apply to existing pensions.

    Old Age Pensioners (Complaints)
    Sir John Mellorasked the Minister of National Insurance if he will explain the practice of his Department in dealing with letters from old age pensioners complaining that they cannot obtain new pension books; and if he will give instructions that, when further delay is unavoidable, the pensioner shall be informed of its probable duration.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Local area officers of the assistance boards are now acting as my agents in dealing personally with those making a first claim for old age pension and also with pensioners who experience difficulty over renewal of their order books or who claim entitlement to an increase of their previous rate. It is not generally practicable to indicate in advance the time required for settlement of any indi-
    2182
    vidual case, but where it seems that there will be exceptional delay or that a new claim cannot be settled by pension date my Department endeavours to let the claimant know. Now that the difficulties which have created undue delays during recent months are being overcome, I am considering what further improvements in the supply of information can be made.
    Sir J. Mellor: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these old age pensioners have been writing to his Department for over six months, and can they not be sent something more informative than a formal acknowledgement in reply?
    Mr. Griffiths: My experience has proved to me that any arrangemet by which my Department receives letters from pensioners and writes to them in reply is the wrong way to deal with old people. I am seeking to build up an administration in which if any difficulty arises a pensioner may be seen and interviewed by an officer, which I am certain is the best way to deal with this question.
    Mr. Fairhurst: Is the Minister aware that in cases where claimants have been unable to get satisfaction after two, three or four months, and then approach their Members of Parliament, they are told they should not do so?
    Mr. Griffiths: That is the first I have heard of this. Members of Parliament have access to the Ministers and to Departments, and we do our best to clear up these matters.
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Since we are all agreed that it is not really desirable that we should have to approach the Minister in these cases, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he could suggest some form of local procedure whereby these real grievances could be more speedily remedied?
    Mr. Griffiths: As I have announced to the House, pending the building up of our own organisation, I have made an arrangement whereby officers of the assistance boards receive old age pensioners or visit them in their own homes to clear up difficulties

    Sickness Benefit
    Sir Ian Fraserasked the Minister of National Insurance where a contributor to national insurance ceases work on account of certified ill-health, whether his

    2183
    regulations entitle him to draw sickness benefit under current legislation or will provide for his sickness benefit or retirement pension under the new Act if he settles in Southern Ireland.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: A person insured under the Acts in force in the United Kingdom is not debarred from receiving sickness benefit during temporary residence in Eire. Further, if, within a certain time, he becomes insurably employed under the corresponding Eire scheme he can, under existing reciprocal arrangements, count his contribution record in the United Kingdom, for the purpose of qualifying for sickness benefit under the Eire scheme. The question of making reciprocal arrangements with the Government of Eire in relation to the benefits which are to be provided under the National Insurance Act is at present under consideration. There is no contributory old age pension scheme in Eire, but persons who have been insured under the United Kingdom Acts can continue to pay contributions on a voluntary basis if they become resident in Eire and any pension arising there from may he paid in that country.
    Sir I. Fraser: If the person concerned has spent the whole of his working life in this country and then, on retirement, goes back to live in his own country, which is Eire, can he take his pension with him?
    Mr. Griffiths: He can take with him the pension for which he has qualified at the time he left this country.

  EMPLOYMENT

    Older Workers
    Mrs. Ayrton Gouldasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that a considerable number of men and women over 45 years of age are unable to get work of any kind although they are in good health and often have useful experience; and if he will take steps to prevent this unnecessary loss of valuable manpower.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Ness Edwards): I would refer my hon. friend to the reply given to the hon. member for Taunton (Mr. Collins) on 29th April, a copy of which I am sending her.

    N.F.S. Personnel (Training)
    Mr. Westasked the Minister of Labour whether in view of the number of discharge notices recently issued to personnel in the N.F.S. in the South Wales area, he will extend to such discharged personnel facilities for training for other employment.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: The facilities provided under the Resettlement Training Schemes are already available to members of the N.F.S. who are discharged.

    Prisoners of War
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodgeasked the Minister of Labour whether in view of the fact that a considerable number of prisoners of war are anxious to stay in this country as alien civilians in employment other than agricultural, he will consider drawing up a scheme to make this possible in all those cases where there is a shortage of British labour, the prisoners are suitable for the occupation they seek and our own citizens would not in any way be adversely affected by their retention.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: No, Sir. The position remains as stated in the reply to my hon. Friend's Question on 13th May.
    Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Will not my hon. Friend look at this question again, because there are a large number of occupations in which German prisoners have experience for which there is a grave shortage of British labour, and in which they might be usefully employed?
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that his answer will enjoy the wide support of the people of this country who feel that it is time that the Germans were allowed to return to Germany and British men brought home?

    Aliens
    Mr. Sydney Silvermanasked the Minister of Labour whether he is yet in a position to make a statement about the future of the restrictions which prevent aliens resident in this country from earning their living.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: I am not clear what restrictions my hon. Friend has in mind. It is necessary, in the interests of British workers, to exercise a certain measure of control over the employment which may be taken by aliens, but I cannot admit that

    2185
    this control has the result suggested in the Question in the case of aliens who are permitted to enter or to remain in this country for the purpose of engaging in employment. If my hon. Friend has any specific cases in mind and will send me particulars I shall he glad to look into them.
    Mr. Silverman: Is not my hon. Friend aware that large numbers of aliens arc in this country and have been in this country for many years with a specific restriction endorsed on their visas that they are allowed to remain only so long as they refrain from entering into gainful employment, and is it not ridiculous that we should be scouring Europe for aliens to come here to work while there are thousands here already who are only too anxious to earn their own living and many of whom are prosecuted and imprisoned for doing so?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: I do not think it right that an alien who comes into this country on compassionate grounds should then seek to gatecrash into employment.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Would it not be in the national interest that everyone who lives in this country should be allowed to earn his living so as to eliminate parasites of every kind?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: There is a much wider consideration. If people come into this country on compassionate grounds their cases ought to be looked at entirely from the point of view of compassionate reasons. If they use compassionate grounds for coming in in the first place when their intention is to remain here permanently, surely that ought to be stated in the original application and should be dealt with by the authorities?
    Mr. Frank Byers: May I ask the Minister how in his own mind he reconciles the expression "gatecrash into employment" with the terms continuously used by Members of the Front Bench opposite about the shortage of manpower?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Very often the types of employment for which many of these aliens make a demand are employments which are completely manned.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: When a person is legitimately in this country, can the Parliamentary Secretary tell the House of one
    2186
    valid reason why that person should be kept in compulsory unemployment?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: If the person in question wants to take up employment for which British workers should have preference, I think that is a case in which he should not be allowed to take up such employment. I do give the undertaking, however, that, if the aliens who come in on compassionate grounds are prepared to go into the undermanned basic industries, we shall take a much more favourable view.
    Mr. Silverman: Before my hon. Friend again commits himself to making offensive remarks in public about people who desire to earn their living in this country—
    Mr. Ness Edwards: It was not intended to be offensive.
    Mr. Silverman: Will my hon. Friend realise that to accuse an alien, whose only desire is to make a contribution to his own upkeep by his own labours, of gatecrashing is offensive? Before he makes remarks of that kind again I hope he will consult with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and discover, as I am sure he will, that my Question was put down at the Minister's request—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—in order to enable him to make a statement about the results of his communications with the Home Office about this matter?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: With regard to gatecrashing, I thought there was rather a distinguished precedent for the use of that term. I did not mean it to be offensive. What I had in mind is that aliens who come into this country on compassionate grounds often seek to obtain employment in the musical world, in opera and so on, and that British artistes have raised the most strong objections. That is what I had in mind, and as to the communication between my hon. Friend and the Minister I know nothing about that.
    Mr. Churchill: Is it not a fact that if you try to manage everything you prove that you can manage nothing?
    Mr. Ness Edwards: There are very good precedents for that.
    Mr. Lipson: In view of what the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has said, may I ask the Parlia-

    2187
    mentary Secretary if he will now give the House the answer which his right hon. Friend intended should be given?
    Mr. Ness Edwards indicated dissent.

  LOCAL LOANS FUND (INTEREST REDUCTION)
  The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
  Mr. ERNEST DAVIES,—To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether any relief to borrowers from the Local Loans Fund is in prospect as a consequence of the redemption of three per cent. Local Loans Stock.
  At the end of Questions:
  Mr. Dalton: I will, with the permission of the House, answer Question No. 56—
  Captain Crowder: On a point of Order. May I ask for your guidance, MI. Speaker? As the hon. Member was not here to ask Question 56, does it not appear as a written answer?
  Mr. Speaker: I was not quite sure at first about that, but I think it is in Order for an answer to be given to this Question.
  Mr. Dalton: I would not have ventured to suggest answering this Question but for the fact that this is a matter of wide interest, and I thought that the House should not be deprived of the information because of the hon. Member's late arrival. I answer it with the permission of the House, of course. The answer is as follows:
  Yes, Sir. The redemption of Local Loans Stock has created a disposable surplus of £15 million in the Local Loans Fund. This surplus will be used to reduce all rates of interest on outstanding balances from the fund, in excess of 4¼ per cent. to this figure. This does not affect the so-called "Addison" loans to local authorities, where relief is already given by the Exchequer. This reduction will take effect from 1st June, 1947. Two-thirds of all the local authorities concerned, numbering nearly 2,000, will benefit from these reductions of interest rates. Most of these are small authorities, with very limited financial resources. This relief will, therefore, be both widespread
  2188
  and substantial. It is a further practical example of the benefit to the nation of cheaper money.
  Mr. Drayson: Does not the Chancellor of the Exchequer agree that this benefit to local authorities will be completely nullified by the fact that local authorities can no longer earn any money on the balances they may deposit in the banks?
  Mr. Dalton: I think that all the local authorities will get a very definite net advantage from these operations.
  Mr. Gallacher: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer continue to pursue this policy until local authorities are completely free from interest payments to the moneylenders?
  Sir I. Fraser: May I ask for your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, in regard to this innovation on the part of the Government Front Bench in the matter of dealing with Questions? This is a serious question. I am putting it to you that the rights of Private Members as regards Questions are to some extent infringed upon by the Minister, in that Question No. 89 was not called because the right hon. Gentleman preferred to answer Question 56. That may or may not be the more important Question, but this does affect the rights of Private Members in regard to Questions.
  Mr. Speaker: I do not quite follow the hon. Member's question. The Minister always has the right to answer any Question, whether it is reached or not, if he thinks it is of public importance. I have protested against this habit being pursued too frequently, but there is the right. Question 89 was not taken because the Chancellor of the Exchequer wished to answer Question 56, but because we have spent so much time on the previous Questions.
  Mr. Eden: May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on this matter? I am not objecting to what has happened, but I do not think I have heard of this Ruling before. My impression was that a Minister always has the right to make a statement if he wishes. I did not know that any Minister had the right to answer any Question on the Order Paper; otherwise Ministers might be answering Questions which on second thoughts Private Members might think ought not to be put.
  Mr. De la Bère: As Question 89 was my Question, may I have an answer to it now?
  Mr. Speaker: According to Erskine May, page 339:
  "If the Member responsible for a Question does not answer to the Speaker's call, a Minister may rise and make such statement upon the Question as the public interest demands."
  Owing to a technical error I said that a Minister is entitled to answer a Question, when I should have said that Ministers are entitled to make a public statement.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments to the National Health Service (Scotland) Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING BILL
  [ALLOTTED DAY]
  Order for Third Reading read (King's Consent signified).
  3.42 p.m.
  The Minister of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Silkin): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
  This Rill has now almost reached the end of a long and somewhat adventurous career in this House. It was introduced over four months ago, and in view of statements that may hereafter be made from the opposite benches, it may interest the House to know that although the Bill contains a large number of major principles every one of them has been considered at some stage or other during its passage through the House. In consequence of that, a considerable number of important changes have been made. For instance, the whole basis of compensation for the acquisition of land, not only in respect of planning, but for all public purposes, has been completely changed. There has been a considerable change in the machinery of local administration, of the London Clauses, of the charity Clauses, and in respect of ripe and near ripe land
  During the Second Reading, the Opposition moved a reasoned Amendment for the rejection of the Bill I have refreshed my memory of the terms of that Amendment, and I think I may say that the grounds on which it was moved have now entirely gone. No grounds remain for a similar Amendment in respect of the Third Reading, but it is, nevertheless, too much to hope that the Third Reading will go through without some such Motion
  Mr. Molson: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to explain in what respect the grounds for that reasoned Amendment have been removed?
  Mr. Silkin: If the hon. Gentleman also will refresh his memory of its terms, I think he will find that the objections raised in it have been met. I believe I may also claim that throughout the proceedings on this Bill, no one has alleged that it was unnecessary, or that it was based on wrong principles. There have been from time to time differences of opinion on relatively minor matters of machinery and so on, but there has been no major difference of opinion on the merits of the Bill.
  There is one matter with which I regret it was not possible for me to deal earlier, but about which I gave an undertaking. The House will remember that the Bill provides for the making of regulations for the purpose of giving grants to local authorities in respect of the redevelopment of extensively war-damaged and blighted areas. When the Bill was in Standing Committee there was considerable discussion on the question of what the regulations would provide. The Bill provides for payment of grants, and sets out the maximum grants, but does not deal with the details of the grants, that matter being left to the regulations. The proposed regulations were criticised by some hon. Members on two main grounds. The first ground of criticism was against the weighting system being applied in the calculation of grants for the redevelopment of extensively war-damaged areas. It was said, with considerable force, that the operations of the enemy were not due to any fault on the part of local authorities; that they constituted a national misfortune, and that it was unfair that differentiation should be made between local authorities, in respect of the repair of war damage, which ought to be a national charge. There was also criticism of the lower range of grant in respect of blighted areas.
  I promised in Committee that the Government would consider both those objections, and if the House will bear with me for a short time, I would like to tell Members the result of that consideration. The Government have accepted entirely the view of those who made the criticism as regards extensively war-damaged areas, and they have decided that payment of grants shall be not on the weighted basis, but on an equal basis to all local authorities. The grant will be paid for 60 years. For the first period of five to eight years, it will be paid on the basis of 90 per cent. For the remaining period of from 52 to
  2192
  55 years, the grant will be paid at the rate of 50 per cent. That will be paid throughout, to all local authorities. There was not the same criticism of the weighting formula as regards blighted areas, and there it will remain. But the Government have reconsidered the lowest range of grant and have decided to raise it. The new grants will, therefore, be: In the highest range, 80 per cent. for five years; 50 per cent. for the rest of the 60 years; in the lowest range, 50 per cent. for the first five years; 30 per cent. for the next seven; and 20 per cent. for the rest of the period. The grants are payable under the terms of the Bill not only in respect of areas of blitz and of blight, but in respect of most other matters for which compensation is payable by local authorities to an individual on planning grounds. There are eight different classes provided for in the payment of compensation to local authorities under the Bill. Moreover, the local authorities will have the advantage, after the appointed day, of being able to acquire land at its existing use value—that is, free of development value—and that will be a material advantage.
  The House may be interested to compare the grants to local authorities which are payable under this Bill with the grants payable under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944. Under that Act, grants were payable in respect of redevelopment of blitzed areas over a period of ten to 15 years only. This Bill extends that period to 60 years. No grant was payable in respect of redevelopment of areas of blight, and no grant was payable in respect of other planning activities of the local authorities. The regulations will provide that the grants payable under this Bill will be retrospective to any activities of local authorities carried out under the 1944 Act. I hope I may claim that the improvements which I have just announced to the House will commend themselves to the local authorities as generous, and as providing a reasonable incentive to them to carry out necessary redevelopments.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: Would the Minister say what formula will be used for calculating this weighting period?
  Mr. Silkin: The formula is still under consideration and discussion with the local authorities. I know that there was some

  2193
  objection taken to the basis of rateable value. I hope that before very long it will be possible to remove the objection to the rateable value basis. I am not in a position to say more than that, but as hon. Members know, that matter is under active consideration. So far, it has not been found possible to find any alternative to the rateable value basis as one of the components of the weighting formula.
  The Bill creates a number of new planning instruments. For the first time, with very minor exceptions, the county councils become planning authorities to whom the existing powers of the district councils will be transferred, and the Bill provides for the setting up of a new organisation—the Central Land Board—whose main function will be to assess and levy development charges in respect of developments after the appointed day. The Bill also radically changes the system of land tenure in this country. There will be, after the appointed day, and there may be today in anticipation, considerable changes in the value of land, particularly where development value is involved. It is very important that prospective purchasers between now and the appointed day, should take great care to be properly advised on the value of their land, in view of these impending changes, otherwise they may find themselves paying for the development value of land of which they may not be hereafter in a position to get the benefit. I feel that it is very important that this advice should go out to prospective purchasers, because no one wishes that, in consequence of these changes, innocent parties should suffer.
  The House may ask how all these changes are to work. In the course of the Second Reading Debate, difficulties were put forward in good faith, and I should like to assure the House that my Department and I do not view the future administration of this Bill with any sense of complacency. We are fully alive to the many difficulties which may arise. We are aware that the county councils, as I have said, are new to planning, and that, by and large, they have not at present the staff or the experience, and that the Central Land Board is not even set up. It will be an entirely new organisation with people on it who possibly have not had a planning background. Other qualifications may well be
  2194
  required, and it may not be possible to get all those in one individual. There will be a lack of trained staff among the local authorities—the county councils and the county boroughs—and I am fully conscious of the fact that, probably, in the beginning, the machine may well creak at times, in places. There will be a new technique of planning required. For the first time, planning authorities are required to make a survey. In the past, very few authorities have preceded the making of plans by a survey of the conditions in their areas. Now that will be obligatory. Very few authorities have made plans at all. The making of surveys is to a large degree in this country a new technique. There will be danger of delay. There will be the possibility of uncertainty, and perhaps the multiplicity of consents required may, in the beginning, discourage development. I am conscious of all these dangers, but I believe that to be fully alive to them and ready to face them in advance, is going a long way towards overcoming them. I do not suggest that it is going all the way, but I feel that by realising these dangers in advance we shall be better able to meet them than we would be if we were confronted with them suddenly and taken by surprise.
  I explained to the House on Second Reading that it is the intention of my Department and myself, if at all possible, to ensure that the prospective developer is not required to make separate applications to a number of different bodies; that they should be in a position to make one application and get one reply. I have gone some way in exploring that possibility, and I have every reason to believe that it will be possible to ensure that that will be done; that the prospective developer will be able to lodge his application, and within one period—I hope a short period—get a decision on his by-law application, on his ribbon development application, on his planning application, and on the development charge.
  I have also taken in hand the very difficult task of securing the planning staff which will be required both for the local authorities and for the purposes of administration. I am not at all sure that the administrative staff will not be even more difficult to secure and to train than the technical staff Of course, there is in existence a considerable body of trained technical ability and experience em-

  2195
  ployed by the existing town planning committees, and by other authorities which will become available for service with the county councils, but I am convinced that we have to go much further, not only in increasing the numbers of technical staff, but perhaps, even more, in increasing its ability and its standard. I have had a number of conversations with the universities, and I am glad to say that they are very willing to play their part in the training of technical and administrative staffs of the highest quality in order to assist in this task. I have also been in touch with the professional bodies and while it would be folly to say that the problem of staff has been solved, I should like to tell the House that I have every hope that, within a reasonably short period, staff of the requisite numbers and quality will become available.
  I realise that in the last resort, the task which this Bill is designed to secure can only be successfully carried out if the functions of town and country planning are understood and accepted by the general public. It is essential that it should be appreciated that town and country planning is not merely the preservation of the amenities of our towns and countryside, important as that is. I am afraid that in quarters where one would have expected the functions of town and country planning to be fully understood, there is still the impression that my functions and those of my Department are exclusively concerned with amenity. Of course we have all become more or less accustomed to the exercise of planning controls. Planning control at its best, has been accepted as a system of collective security on the principle "I do not interfere with your amenities, and in return you do not interfere with mine." I think that has become generally appreciated, but what has not been appreciated is that town and country planning is something very much more than that.
  It is true that this Bill makes the kind of control I have indicated more effective by removing the deterrent effect on the local authorities of the payment of compensation. The Bill, however, provides much more than that kind of control. The new conception, the wider view of planning is that planning is concerned to secure that our limited land resources are used to the best advantage of the
  2196
  nation as a whole, and it provides for resolving the often conflicting claims upon any particular piece of land. Planning must ensure that economic, industrial and social needs are met in the most efficient manner. It is a much bigger problem than one of mere amenities. It must recognise the need for land for all sorts of purposes, some of them, apparently, not very popular. We do not control planning unless we provide even for power stations, for land for the Services, for mineral works and for pylons—admittedly in the right places. There are some who object to these things wherever they happen to be. We have even got to provide for industry and housing and agriculture.
  In many of these forms of national activity, the individual Minister concerned must have his say. There are some who would say that the Minister of Town and Country Planning should be the sole arbitrator in respect of all uses of land in this country, and flattering as that may be to the position which I hold, I think hon. Members would recognise that it is not a very practical possibility and that it must be left to the individual Ministers who are concerned with the particular function of the land, to make their case for the use of land for any particular purpose. The business of town and country planning must be to reconcile conflicting claims on the use of any particular piece of land. Town and country planning must also recognise that some uses of land which are necessary for the welfare of the community, will not be carried out at all unless the community undertakes the task. So, new and considerably greater powers are conferred by this Bill on the local authorities in respect of the acquisition of land and for the carrying out of this particular purpose. I hope that the local authorities will not hesitate to use the new powers that are conferred upon them to the fullest extent possible, although on the other hand I hope that no words of mine will encourage them to acquire land or to exercise their powers merely for the sake of doing so.
  We shall no doubt see something of the Bill once more when it returns to the House from another place, but I take my temporary leave of it with complete confidence that as amended it will stand up successfully to the close scrutiny which it will undoubtedly receive. I believe that this Bill when it passes, will constitute

  2197
  one of the greatest achievements of this Government and one more example of the carrying out of their pledges. I believe indeed that it will be one of the most important landmarks in the social history of this country, and I commend it to the House for Third Reading.
  4.9 P.m.
  Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, to leave out "now", and, at the end of the Question, to add "upon this day six months."
  This wording which has achieved formal significance in our deliberations in this House is, I find, singularly appropriate to the particular circumstances in which we are debating the Third Reading of this Bill. A period of six months' duration cannot justifiably be regarded by the Government as excessive, considering the size, the scope and the technical and difficult character of this Bill. It is a Bill with far-reaching effects on every section of the population. The scanty and inadequate time we have had in which to discuss it makes this Amendment singularly appropriate in its natural meaning apart from its formal sense. The Bill to which we are asked to give the Third Reading has only lately been available to us. By constant vigilance at the Vote Office I obtained a copy of it late yesterday afternoon, and it has not been in the hands of hon. Members generally until this morning. Again, I draw attention to the difficulty created by this rushing of our Parliamentary programme, for those loyal servants of this House who have to print and circulate documents which are essential to our deliberations. Many Amendments were made to this Bill on the Report stage. Most of these Amendments were made on the suggestion of the Minister, and at this late stage, on the Third Reading, the Minister announces to us the results of his consideration of an Amendment which we moved in Committee, regarding contributions to the finances of local authorities. Personally, though I have not had time in which to study the details of what the Minister has told us, I rejoice in some features of this new proposal.
  Mr. Medland: Do not put it off for six months then.
  Mr. Morrison: I had the honour of moving the Amendment in Committee and arguing the case that, for the bombed cities, no account should be taken of the
  2198
  relative wealth of the communities concerned, but that they should be a national charge inasmuch as they suffered in the national cause, and not by any action of their own or any incident that was peculiar to their own locality. I was surprised and delighted, in moving this Amendment, to receive the cordial support of the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland). I am glad that our joint forces have been sufficient to persuade the Minister that the view which we then argued is the wise and just one. All these events, the large number of Amendments on the Report stage, and this last announcement this afternoon on this important topic, show that the Government have, to some extent, profited by discussions at other stages, on which their Guillotine Motion seemed to pour prospective contempt. Much of the Bill has gone undiscussed and I think another six months could profitably be spent on it as it now comes before us in this House.
  There are many things which could be improved during such a period as I propose for further reflection. The right hon. Gentleman just now made reference to the reasoned Amendment which we proposed on the Second Reading, and he uttered what, to me, was the amazing remark that the points to which we then drew attention were met by the Bill as it now stands. In one very important respect, on which I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman, those points have been met. I will return to that later. But think the other criticisms which were offered, as far as I can recollect them, still stand against the Bill in its final form. As I remember, we argued in our reasoned Amendment that the time allowed us for considering the Bill after printing was too short. It would be out of Order on Third Reading to pursue that topic, but I may be allowed to say that this Measure still shows signs of haste and lack of mature deliberation, and that those signs justify up to the hilt the portests of myself and my hon. Friends at various stages of this headlong process of guillotined discussion.
  Nothing has emerged, so far, to justify the figure of £300 million which we find in the Bill as the proper global figure for the loss of development rights. There is still no provision for ascertaining the proper figure by some impartial and expert investigation. The figure, therefore,

  2199
  rests on no firmer foundation than the right hon. Gentleman's assertion that his guess on this matter is as good as anybody else's. I cannot pretend that this is a satisfactory basis for a transaction of this size and importance, nor can I agree that the House should proceed upon such shifting and delusive grounds. If the total sum in the Bill is, to say the least of it, very uncertainly computed, the method of its allocation, as proposed in the Bill, remains almost equally obscure. We are told by Clause 55 (1) that payments out of the fund are to be made in accordance with a scheme which is to be prepared by the Treasury. Can we be told how long we shall have to wait for this scheme to be put before us? I hope that the period of uncertainty will be abridged more than the language of Subsection (1) indicates.
  Uncertainty is fatal to willing development. Let the House be under no illusion. It is upon the willing developer that we must rely, if we are to provide people with the homes that they now so urgently require. This uncertainty is increased by Part VII of the Bill, which relates to the imposition of development charges. Clause 66 describes the charge as being
  "of such amount (if any) as the Board may determine. …"
  Then it says that no such operations—that is to say, building—shall be carried out until not only has the Board ascertained the proper charge, but the charge has either been paid or secured to the satisfaction of the Board. I think it is unfortunate that the sanction which is used to enforce prior payment of the charge is expressed in this way. No doubt the hold-up of building operations, which is the sanction in the Bill, will hurt the would-be developer, but it will punish and hurt the community far more. I see that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Labour yesterday addressed some wise and grave words about strikes which hurt the community, women and children, and so on. He said that these strikes hurt innocent people and he hinted at evil machinations being at work. I entirely acquit the right hon. Gentleman of evil machinations. No one who has had the close association with him that I have had—for both of us, it is true, some of it was forced association, but none the less
  2200
  agreeable—no one could harbour such a suspicion about him. But I most urgently ask him and the Government, now that they have attained so far the planning purpose which is the reason for this Bill, to stand outside their Bill for a moment in the time which remains to them, and examine the Bill with fresh eyes from the point of view of its effect upon development and, particularly, house building.
  Let us remember that though town and country planning is an admirable desire and an object worthy of all our endeavours, still the provision of homes for the people at this time is an urgent and crying necessity. I am sure there is not an hon. Member in the House wherever he sits who is not daily saddened by the letters he receives from old and young on this topic, and I feel sure that if the Bill were re-examined from the point of view of its effect on the speedy provision of homes for our people, not only would housing benefit but the real interests of town and country planning would, in the long run be furthered. If there is a conflict between the necessity for houses on one hand and town and country planning on the other, both the right hon. Gentleman and I know which of these two great interests is bound to suffer.
  If such an examination were carried out, it would, I am sure, reveal the necessity for drastic amendment in some cases and at least for the imposition of a moratorium as regards the coming into effect of certain provisions of this Bill. I refer in particular to Clause 11, which defines what is meant by "development", and to the Third Schedule, wherein are set out the classes of development which are exempted from development charge. Both these parts of the Bill are so tightly drawn as to be irrelevant to our present needs in the housing world. We are not dealing with this matter at a time when housing is like a great river in flood, with an irresistible momentum which sweeps all obstacles aside. No, on the contrary we are dealing with a feeble, impotent rill or trickle of housing, one which is easily discouraged or diverted by impediments or obstacles arising from legislative or other causes
  In particular I think that the limitation on permitted development of 10 per cent. of the previous cubic content is quite anomalous in an era of rising housing

  2201
  standards. It has the further absurd result of permitting, say, the noble owner of Welbeck Abbey to add to his mansion, free of development charge, the equivalent of what most of us would consider to be a roomy and commodious mansion, whereas if a man adds a new kitchen or bathroom to a farmworker's cottage, the Bill in its present form cracks down upon him. in my view, all agricultural cottages should be taken clean out of the system of compensation and betterment with all its cumbrous uncertainty. The money involved in it is trivial, and the need for agricultural houses is urgent if our people are to be fed. The same course should be taken with all land that is now ripe for building. The tests which are imposed by Clause 78 are so rigorous as to exclude much builders' land, and it is that builders land which offers the speediest hope of homes for our people at this time of great scarcity. There should be at least a wide moratorium for such land before it becomes embroiled in the uncertainties and delays of this new system.
  The right hon. Gentleman spoke with great truth of the formidable difficulties of administration which confront him. Not only are there new authorities, but they have to administer a new law. There is not only the scarcity of planning staffs but the equal or even greater scarcity, as he properly said, of the administrative staffs. Unless the greatest care is taken, and unless the Minister is prepared to postpone the operation of some of these restrictions in the way I have suggested, he will find that this new system, with its deterrents having to be worked out by new people in a new way, when the proper staff is so short, will diminish still further the provision of housing which we are all so united in trying to stimulate.
  I have now the more grateful task of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman, the Government and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the new Part IV as it now appears in the Bill. The abandonment of the notional 1939 prices, for which we on this side of the House had consistently argued, is undoubtedly wise and will go a long way to mitigate a widespread feeling of injustice. That feeling of injustice is the very worst mental or psychological climate for good town and country planning to flourish in. I have already expressed myself on the new Clauses. I think they are unduly complicated but I remember also that the Minister has pro-
  2202
  mised to give further consideration to this point; so, beyond merely remarking that I do not think they are perfect yet and saying that we are grateful for this concession on the 1939 prices, I leave the point for the moment.
  I am conscious that there are many other matters in this Bill on which I could address the House, but I am also conscious of the fact that during the limited and truncated periods allotted for our discussions, I have myself already absorbed more than my share of the common stock of time, and I assure you, Mr. Speaker, and other hon. Members that there is a limit even to my garrulity. The Bill, in its present form, is something like a new house, all glittering with its latest coat of paint, but I part from it with the awkward feeling that the work of building has been unduly rushed and stamped in its past stages, and that there is in it much unseasoned timber. I feel fairly sure that, in its present form, it will not be long before some of this timber begins to warp and twist and bend when it reaches the atmosphere of reality; the windows will cease to run smoothly up and down in their grooves, the doors will refuse to open and shut according to the purpose of their designer; and that what may happen to the roof and foundations I am not competent to prophesy.
  There are many things in the Bill of which we do not approve. Constrained like us by this iniquitous time table, the Minister has, I feel sure, done his best within these limits to give consideration to the many points which have been raised, but in view of the arguments which I have put before the House, and in view of the past history of this Bill since it has come before us, I submit this Amendment to the House.
  4.29 p.m.
  Mr. Eric Fletcher: Having listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester (Mr. W. S. Morrison), I cannot help feeling that most of his argument was directed to what he called "the iniquitous time table" rather than the merits or demerits of the Bill. Unlike both the Minister and the right hon. Gentleman, this is the first time I have had the opportunity of addressing the House on the Bill. I was not fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, on the Second Reading, and I was not privileged to be a Member

  2203
  of the Standing Committee which dealt with the Bill. The only issue this afternoon is whether or not this Bill should be read a Third time today, or on this day six months. On that issue I do not think, having heard the two speeches that have just been made, there can be any doubt where the overwhelming balance of argument lies.
  However, I feel a good deal of sympathy with the views expressed by hon. Members about the time table, and the Guillotine Motion to which this Bill has been subjected. I speak as one who supported the Allocation of Time Order which governs the proceedings of this Bill, and I supported it for reasons for which I would support it again today. This Parliament has a great deal of legislation to be carried through, and if that legislation is to be carried through, there has to be an allocation of time of this Muse. Having said that, and having listened to much of the discussion on re-committal and Report, I think that all who take an interest in this Bill will feel that much more time could, with advantage, have been spent on discussing the provisions of the Bill. I think all will agree that the discussions which took place on re-committal and the Report stage were both instructive in principle and will be of assistance to the Minister in the administration of the Bill. I should like to take this opportunity of adding my congratulations to the Minister for the skill and ability with which he has piloted this important Measure through the House and through the Committee stage, and the patience and consideration he has given to the numerous Amendments which have been put down.
  I found the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman for the rejection of the Third Reading singularly unconvincing. Nobody can reasonably deny that our town and country planning law as it stands today, is in need of reform and improvement. Its major defects obviously are: first, that it is too static and does not admit of ready adaptation; secondly, it is too localised; thirdly, that it is mainly negative and restrictive in character. Those three major defects are all removed by this Bill. For the first time local authorities and the Minister are given real, live, positive powers of direction and planning. There are many matters of detail with which one could comment on
  2204
  in a Bill of this kind, but in a Third Reading Debate one can only mention its salient aspects. I listened with profound satisfaction to the Minister when he said just now that he and his Department would not approach the task of the administration of this Bill in any mood of complacency. I think the House will be glad to acknowledge the way in which the Minister realises the immensity of the task ahead. My approach to this Bill is that the principles it enshrines are admirable, with one exception—I would have preferred to see deleted the provision for the payment of £300 million for development rights. I would have reached the conclusion which apparently was reached, but not expressly stated, by the Uthwatt Committee, namely, that under the common law owners of land who have restrictions placed upon the user of their land are not entitled to compensation. It seems to me that in logic and in law and in common sense there is a convincing case for the view that the Government should have saved £300 million, and used it for some better purpose.
  It emerges from the discussions on this Bill and was emphasised in the speech of the Minister today that the problems of administration, both centrally and in the localities, will be immense. As the Minister said, we have to develop a new technique of planning; we have to develop a new science, we have to provide of find or train the architects, the surveyors, the planners who will implement this Bill. We are to start with a national survey. Nothing on the same scale has been attempted since Domesday Book, which was a creditable achievement for the resources and outlook of its time. The Minister has told us that the universities will co-operate in providing the specialised planners that we shall require, but it takes time to establish chairs in town and country planning, to build up a corps of people with the adequate scientific background, breadth of outlook and experience of affairs for carrying out the functions of harmonising conflicting interests, which will have to be carried out under this Bill. I think the Minister realises that planning is not an exact science. The survey may be a matter of exact, scientific presentation of ascertained facts, but the real problem will be planning which is ultimately a matter of judgment and opinion.

  2205
  The Minister mentioned Bankside and I would refer to that by way of illustrating the difficulties that arise in planning. I speak as one who has opposed the proposal for a power station at Bankside since its inception, but I am bound to say that reading the correspondence in "The Times," and listening to the argument as it has developed in another place, and elsewhere, I have realised how much can be said on both sides. I have also realised the importance of educating the public to the principles that underlie town and country planning because, although Bankside may be a particularly spectacular example of conflicting views, there will under this Bill be innumerable examples, occurring all over the country, in which legitimate business interests, legitimate industrial interests, the needs of the community for utilitarian purposes have to be balanced with aesthetic considerations and arguments based on amenities.
  In the final analysis, the decision on which arguments will prevail depends on a balanced judgment, and such judgments will have to be made all over the country by the professional advisers of county councils, and by the chairmen of town planning committees who, though elected public representatives, will have no special planning knowledge or experience. On innumerable occasions where matters concerning the use and development of land fall to be decided, there will be occasions of friction, resentment, doubt and difficulty. In securing the wise and effective administration of this Measure—which I believe will lay the foundations of a well-planned and better Britain—I urge the Minister not to neglect the importance of enunciating reasoned principles of town and country planning, and also of ensuring that the public are educated in these matters so that he may have a healthy, well-informed, critical public opinion behind him in carrying out decisions as to how the land of our country is to be utilised and developed.
  I thought the discussions which took place during the Report stage in regard to the Minister's functions under Clause 9 were particularly significant. In view of the recent decisions in the Courts on the Stevenage case and the Plymouth case, decided, it is true, under different Acts of Parliament, I am glad that this Bill puts the legal position beyond all doubt. Although a local public inquiry may be
  2206
  held, the Minister is free, either before or after the inquiry, to consult with such other persons or bodies as he may think fit, in order to inform himself on all relevant matters before finally coming to a decision. I hope that, once and for all, this House will bury the heresy that a Minister in these matters exercises judicial or quasi-judicial functions. It is most desirable in the interests of justice itself as well as of administration and public responsibility that the difference should be made clear between the ministerial functions of the Minister in matters of this kind, and judicial functions of the Judiciary.
  The Minister is not concerned merely with the rights of two parties, but has to consider the rights of all parties, the needs of the locality, and the interests of the community. He is not bound by any prescribed rules of evidence, but has to take into account any information that comes to him from any source, and duly weigh and consider it, and then in the discharge of his ministerial responsibility to reach a decision, subject to criticism in Parliament. But just as the Judiciary in this country has established an unparalleled reputation for integrity and impartiality, similarly the Minister and his Department if they are to earn public respect must not merely aim at administrative efficiency, but also do all they can to ensure that justice is done, and is thought to be done. The public must understand and appreciate that a full and impartial hearing is the object of local inquiries, and, although not finality, must play its part in forming the Minister's decision. The Minister in the discharge of his functions, whether on appeal from local authorities of otherwise, should apply principles of planning widely understood among the community. For his success in administering this Bill he must earn a reputation for acting fairly, equitably and impartially between all the interests concerned. I also hope the Minister will have the courage, where necessary, to change his mind, because one of the essential characteristics of this Bill is that planning is to be not on fixed but flexible lines. The plans of particular localities must be capable of adjustment to meet the changing needs of the future.
  A further point of detail which emerged on the Report stage and was, I thought, left in an unsatisfactory state, occurs in

  2207
  Clause 11, dealing with the control of development. Subsection (3) of Clause 11 which is introduced by the words "For the avoidance of doubt" still leaves very vague whether or not, if a single dwelling-house is divided, a material change is produced so as to bring the provisions of the Subsection into operation. Having heard the Debate on that point, I suggest that my right hon. Friend should consider the desirability of making arrangements in another place for the Bill to contain some definition of "dwelling-house" so that we shall know whether it has the same definition in this Bill as it has in the Rent Restriction Acts. There are numerous other matters to which one could refer. I would like to have said a word on the announcement the Minister made this afternoon about the contributions to local authorities. Local authorities, no doubt, will welcome that statement. Naturally, they will not think it goes far enough, and I hope that at an early stage some announcement can he made which will remove the present unsatisfactory features of the weighting formula.
  I conclude by recording my conviction that this Bill is an historic and ambitious Measure, enshrining a noble ideal, and will enable the Minister and his Department to preserve the historic beauty of these islands, to cherish the attractions of our countryside, and to see that the natural resources of our land are harboured to secure a well-planned development in the best interests of the whole population and of future generations.
  4.47 P.m.
  Mr. Henry Strauss: We are reaching nearly the final stage of this Bill and, like the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), I shall not attempt to deal with all the points on which, if there were more time, I should wish to comment. I am glad that he has not been deterred by the fact that he did not serve on the Standing Committee, but made his contribution on the Third Reading of the Bill. The trouble about this Bill is that it is so immensely complicated and difficult that it is very likely to deter hon. Members in whatever quarter of the House they sit from speaking on it, unless they have been compelled to live With it for a long time and to study it.
  2208
  One point on which all hon. Members are at one is that we all want a further Measure of town and country planning, and want it soon. Nevertheless, speaking as one who for years has advocated further Measures of town and country planning, I join with my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) in supporting the rejection of this Measure on Third Reading. In moving the Third Reading the right hon. Gentleman the Minister spoke of our reasoned Amendment on Second Reading, and suggested that most of our points had subsequently been met. I think I am right in saying that only one has been at all substantially met. I shall say nothing against the importance of that point, but congratulate the right hon. Gentleman and the Government on coming to the right decision to recognise current market values to some extent. In a speech I made during the Report stage I said that I was sorry that they had not gone further, and that they had introduced this very complicated provision regarding a notional lease, which, again, takes the matter some way from reality. Before I leave the question of the complexity of this legislation I should like to admit quite frankly that any Measure, however well framed, would be rather difficult and rather complicated, but it would not be as complicated as this. If we examine it, and try to analyse the complexities, we may well come to the conclusion that one of the reasons why it is too complex is because it is insufficiently just. When one is just one can frequently be simple, but injustice has frequently to be wrapped up in complexity.
  Among the few matters with which I wish to deal, I come first to one outstanding example, as I think, of injustice. I mentioned it on Second Reading, I mentioned it in Committee upstairs, and I return to it once more with this excuse, that a rather erroneous impression was given, perhaps inadvertently, by the hon. Member for East Islington. He mentioned the Uthwatt Report, which I think he cannot have studied recently, because he appeared to be under the impression that the Uthwatt Report would have afforded some justification, not merely for not having a sum as great as £300 million, but for not having any sum at all. Let me try to put what I have previously tried to put in Committee upstairs, and to the House,

  2209
  namely, the simple considerations governing this question of the £300 million which is to be allocated to landowners in respect of the loss caused by their being deprived of the development values in their land.
  There are two distinct questions. The first is whether the sum is sufficient, too large or too small. The other question is whether, when we have got the right sum, all who are deprived of development values should be entitled, as of right, to share in it. The view of the Uthwatt Committee was clear on both points. To deal with the second one first, the hon. Member for East Islington mentioned the fact that the Uthwatt Report made certain statements regarding what the law of England was in this matter. Let me try to sum up in my own words, as I have done before, what the Uthwatt Report, in fact, said. The relevant passages are to be found in two great groups—the paragraphs beginning with Paragraph 32 and those paragraphs that begin with Paragraph 79. The Uthwatt Committee pointed out that under the common law of England there is no right to transfer the ownership of property without compensation. They then went on to point out that where a mere restriction is made on the nature of the user of the property, the common law recognises no right to compensation, and therefore, unless that right were recognised and imposed by Statute, a person who suffered from mere interference with user would have no remedy.
  What, therefore, did the Uthwatt Committee recommend? They recommended quite distinctly that if any such universal restriction of user as deprivation of development rights involved were imposed, such as the universal restriction they recommended, and the Government, in a different form, are now enacting, the Statute should give the right to compensation, since otherwise great hardship would be caused. They did not say that the Government should only relieve hardship; they said they should give a right to compensation, since otherwise there would be hardship. I will not weary the House with all my justification for these statements. I have referred the House to the two groups of paragraphs, and they will find that that is the effect of what the Uthwatt Committee recommended.
  Mr. E. Fletcher: As the hon. and learned Member has referred to me, may
  2210
  I complete the matter by quoting from paragraph 36 of the Uthwatt Committee's Report? Before doing so, it would be fair to say that the substance of the first group of paragraphs in the Uthwatt Report to which he has referred is to make it clear that there is no common law right to compensation, that hardship would result in many cases if there were no compensation, but that it is a matter at large for Parliament to decide. I think the relevant sentence is:
  "The extent to which the common law principle ought to be modified by statute in favour of the subject is a matter of policy upon which the decision rests with Parliament."
  Mr. Strauss: Certainly. The hon. Member has quoted one sentence. I say that if one takes these paragraphs as a whole—I am most reluctant to repeat to the House everything I quoted on 19th March, 1947, in Committee—one will find that the summary I have given to the House is accurate. It is perfectly true that the Uthwatt Committee said that Parliament would have to decide, but they equally pointed out the great hardship which would ensue unless the right were recognised. If the hon. Member would look at the Report and turn to the other group of paragraphs, in particular paragraph 79 itself, he will see there:
  "Our recommendation is that the compensation to be paid should be assessed for the whole country as a single sum … the amount of such sum to be determined by reference to that fair value and such sum to be divided among claimants in accordance with the value of the development rights attached to their lands. …"
  In paragraph 82 the Report says that the amount
  "… should be fixed by the Government after taking expert advice."
  It is clear that the Uthwatt Committee contemplated that expert advice would be taken as to what the right sum was. The hon. Member will find that paragraph 83 discusses an approximate sum that had been suggested.
  Mr. E. Fletcher: It is only fair to add that the group of paragraphs beginning with paragraph 79 are introduced by a heading which begins:
  "Assumption that Compensation will be paid
  In other words, what is said is that it is a matter of policy involving public considerations whether compensation shall be

  2211
  paid at all. This group of paragraphs deals with the basis on which compensation should be paid, if paid at all.
  Mr. Strauss: I quite agree—
  Mr. James Hudson: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it in Order upon the Third Reading for an hon. Member to quote at length from a document such as the Uthwatt Report, upon issues which are not in the Bill?
  Mr. Strauss: May I point out that this matter is in the Bill? It will be found in Clause 55 (2). The figure "£300 million" is to be found in the Bill. I submit that I am therefore clearly in Order in questioning whether that sum is, or is not, sufficient. And it is on that point that I have been giving the quotations.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. and learned Gentleman has been quoting from the Uthwatt Report, which does not seem to me to have any connection with what is at present in the Bill, which is, of course, the matter which is now under discussion.
  Mr. Strauss: Upon the Second Reading the same points were involved, and the Minister quoted from the Uthwatt Report to support his claim that Clause 55 and the scheme generally in Part VI of the Bill was, to a large extent, based upon that Report. Hon. Members who have spoken have regarded £300 million as either sufficient or insufficient and have dealt with the Uthwatt Report. I am proposing to argue the adequacy—this was all that I was doing—of the figure mentioned in Clause 55, and the provisions made in the Bill for distributing that sum. I, therefore, submit with confidence that argument must be in Order.
  Mr. Gallacher: The hon. and learned Member is using the Uthwatt Report for the purpose of arguing that a statutory right of compensation should be in the Bill. I am certain that it is out of Order on the Third Reading to argue that something should now be put into the Bill.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is so. Clearly, it would not be within the scope of the Bill. I gather that the hon. and learned Member does not propose to continue that line of argument.
  Mr. Strauss: Perhaps none of these points would have arisen, if I had not had
  2212
  the courtesy to yield to the hon. Member opposite. I am attempting to argue something which is in the Bill, in Clause 55. I propose to adduce an argument which is obviously and demonstrably relevant to Subsection (2), which mentions £300 million. Perhaps I might deal first with the last intervention of the hon. Member for East Islington. He called attention to the heading of the paragraphs in the Uthwatt Report:
  "Assumption that compensation will be paid."
  The Uthwatt Committee made that assumption because, as they had previously pointed out, injustice would be caused if the Government of the day failed to pay compensation. I have pointed out that, according to every expert opinion, the sum, whatever be the right sum that should be allocated, should be paid out as a matter of right. If hon. Members will turn to Clause 55 (3) they will find that the Treasury will make a scheme providing for the distribution of that money as between certain interests:
  "or such of them as may be prescribed by the scheme."
  That is a divergence from the recommendations of the Uthwatt Report, and I say that it is wrong and unjust I am astonished at the arguments that have been used by the Government about the £300 million. The last argument used during the Report stage by the Minister of Town and Country Planning was to this effect: "I am almost certainly right, because everybody agrees that I am wrong." He pointed out that hon. Members like the hon. Member for East Islington and the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), upon whose clear-minded intervention on that occasion I congratulate him, had made it clear that any sum whatsoever paid to the landlords was wrong and that no sum at all should be given. That was their clear view and that meant that the £300 million mentioned in the Subsection should be "nil." Various other hon. Members thought that the sum should be much greater. On the Second Reading the Minister gave an idea of what lay behind his own estimate. What does the House think of the argument that, because hon. Members who believe in confiscation take the view that this sum is too much, and those who believe in compensation that it is too little, the Minister is entitled to say "I am sitting pretty. I am almost certainly

  2213
  right." It really is a fantastic argument and not worthy of the Government or of the House.
  Before I leave this point I would revert to the points raised by the Minister in the only explanation that he has, given of this figure. He gave it on the Second Reading, and it will be found in HANSARD. He based his calculation first of all on what the correct annual sum was, and he said:
  "I do not think, on that, that anyone would suggest that you should take more than 15 to 16 years' purchase for a speculative security of this kind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January, 1947; Vol. 432, c. 980.]
  When the Minister takes 15 or 16 years purchase for "a speculative security of this kind," he leaves out of account altogether the fact that in his calculation of the annual sum everything of a speculative nature had been expressly excluded. Therefore, 15 or 16 years' purchase is not enough, and every expert critic outside says that it is an utterly inadequate estimate. I have only mentioned this sum of £300 million because it is one example of what I say is the injustice of the Bill as it now stands. I wish to impress upon the House one point. Suppose I am right, and that in the working of the Statute it is found that the provision is confiscatory, then Parliament will not only have done an injustice but will have inflicted the greatest possible injury upon town and country planning in this country. Nothing will bring town and country planning into such disrepute, or will so much prevent its efficient working, as a well-established suspicion that in its working it is unjust.
  There are a few other matters I would mention. One is the haste and the difficulty caused by the fact that the Bill in its present form was available only yesterday afternoon. From those difficulties other hon. Members have suffered as well as Members on this side. As one who worked in the Department administering the law of town and country planning and as one who has studied the subject for years, I suppose I should be in as good a position as anyone to master the contents of the Bill. I say frankly that today I am not master of the contents of the Bill. I believe it is now a Bill on which nobody, with one exception, could possibly secure really high marks in a written examination. I think that one Member
  2214
  would be the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Town and Country Planning. He has at all times been master of his Bill, and within the time he has had he has always done his utmost to assist the House and the Committee.
  But because of this complication, I think I ought to allude to one Clause on which I ventured to address the Committee at some length, and that is the Clause which then appeared as Clause 80 but which now appears as Clause 83—land held for charitable purposes. From the reply that I got from the Minister in Committee, I doubted whether I had completely succeeded in proving to him that the Clause as it then stood was unsatisfactory. The Minister would not promise to meet me in any way. Nevertheless, I notice that, by Amendments moved by the Government on Report, which, of course, could not under the guillotine be explained or discussed, the Clause has been completely transformed. I do not profess to have mastered all the implication of the Clause in its present form, but if I convinced any hon. Members in Committee of the importance of this Clause, they may have some idea of what we who have studied some of these Clauses think of the fact that the Bill is leaving the House, to go to another place, with matters of that importance unexplained and undiscussed.
  There are two further matters which I think are of some importance The first is one that has been mentioned from time to time by hon. Members in all parts of the House and the Committee—planning as between different Government Departments. The machinery of the Bill is quite inadequate for that purpose. In one of the few Clauses in which there is mention of another Department in connection with planning, that Department is given powers which are quite inconsistent with good planning by the right hon. Gentleman's Department. If hon. Members wish to find it, they can turn to the reference to the Board of Trade in Clause 13, (4), where extreme powers on one topic are given to the Board of Trade. I do not say that the Board of Trade should not have important powers, and powers of making representation in all cases, on that topic, but I say they should not be supreme. I maintain that the Bill, as it now stands, falls completely between two possible theories. There is

  2215
  the theory that planning inside the Government between the various Departments is so perfect that none of these other Departments need be specifically mentioned. I think that is quite untrue, and it is not a theory that is adopted in Clause 13, (4). The other theory is that other Departments must be mentioned. If so, then the mention of a single Department in Clause 13, (4), and perhaps in one or two other places, is quite insufficient.
  The right hon. Gentleman said—and I agree with him—that amenity is not the only subject with which his Ministry must concern itself. That is true, but it is true also that amenity, both of town and country, is a subject with which it ought to concern itself. I draw the attention of the House, to illustrate the importance of the topic I am now mentioning, to the appalling thing that nearly happened to White Horse Hill the other day. I feel certain that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary took their part in securing that the Government eventually stopped the scheme, but I agree entirely with the comment made, if I remember rightly, in the "Manchester Guardian," that this incident was very much more alarming than that which excited so much interest on Bankside, because on Bankside, although I think the Government are wrong—we may have another chance of discussing that—at least there were views on either side that had to be weighed; but as we saw in the case of White Horse Hill—and innumerable cases of that sort can arise under the Bill—it is possible for the most beautiful things in this country and our greatest treasures to be ruined by another Government Department acting under its statutory powers, without the right hon. Gentleman or his Department being even consulted. Although the Parliamentary Secretary may tell me that, as a matter of administration, that will not happen, as a matter of statute law, as it will be left by the passing of this Bill, it will be possible.
  I turn now to the other matter—the last I shall mention—of the immediate effect of the Bill upon planning and the putting into operation of excellent plans that we desire. The House will find that the Clause dealing with London has now become Clause III. It was formerly Clause 105. I will not repeat the arguments I used in Committee in objecting strongly to what this Clause does in
  2216
  depriving the City of London of its planning powers, but I thought that the Minister, if he intended to maintain this purely political decision and insist upon the provisions of this Clause, would at least have been able to assure the Committee and the House that no delay in the execution of excellent plans would result there from; but the Minister cannot give any such undertaking. What happened this afternoon? In a passage of his speech which I found rather moving, because he so clearly recognised some of the difficulties he would have in putting through those reforms on which I know he has set his heart, the Minister talked about the shortage of first-rate planners, and so forth. How has the right hon. Gentleman occupied the two best planners in this country? For months at the instance of the Government and the Minister—I thought it was admirable on their part, and I did not criticise it—there were secured for the planning of the City of London Professor Holford, lent by the right hon. Gentleman's own Department for the purpose. and Dr. Holden—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I do not see why the hon. and learned Gentleman is going into details of these particular instances. Surely that is not necessary to the furtherance of his argument on the Third Reading of the Bill.
  Mr. Strauss: I have very little more to say, but the matter is directly relevant to Clause III. The result of passing that Clause in its present state was stated by the Minister in Committee, but the House has never been informed of what the Minister now says is the effect of passing Clause in. The effect is that the plan prepared by these two eminent gentlemen, which could, but for Clause III, be put into execution to the immense advantage of London, as soon as it has been adopted by the City Corporation, is indefinitely postponed. I must read what the Minister said on that subject. The passage will be found in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the proceedings of the Standing Committee on 2nd April, and this is what the right hon. Gentleman said about the City plan:
  "I admit the dilemma that a plan is actually in course of preparation, and will be ready, or is promised by the 21st April. I do not know what I am going to do with it. That plan under present conditions will have to be considered by the L.C.C. and in due course by me. It may be possible to incorporate that plan into the County of London plan; it may

  2217
  even be conceivable that in many respects some account has been taken of the County of London plan."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee "D," 2nd April, 1947, C. 1025.]
  Of course every account has been taken of the County of London plan by those eminent technicians. Here we have hon. Members in all quarters who have at heart, as I know many have, the dignity of our cities and the preservation of our countryside. They regard this Bill, and rightly regard it, as machinery. Is it good machinery? I have given a test by which it is proved to be bad machinery. Here is the Minister saying, in reply to my objections to Clause in, that he does not know what he will do with a plan prepared at his request over a period of months by the two best planners in this country. I say that a more damning admission of the futility of this machinery could not possibly be suggested. I am grateful to the House for having given me time to look up the reference. I am addressing it, I know, for the last of the many occasions on which I have thought it right to speak on this Bill. Although this Measure contains many things which those of us who have been interested in planning have long sought, it is marked by great blemishes, great injustices, and great inefficiencies. For those reasons I support its rejection.
  5.24 p.m.
  Mr. Braddock: I am sure we are all sorry to hear that that is the last of the speeches which we are to hear from the hon. and learned Gentleman on the Bill. I want to deal with two points he raised, one of them in regard to the City of London plan itself. It was fortunate that we have had the opportunity of seeing the model in this House before the hon. and learned Gentleman made his speech, and I suggest that if any justification is needed for the attitude taken by the Minister on this question, it is that model, because whatever may be the qualifications or the instructions of the people entrusted with the preparation of that plan, I think it is obvious that an abominable jumble has been made of the North bank of the river immediately adjoining St. Paul's. Whereas the view from St. Paul's to the South bank has a gracious and wide spirit about it, the opposite view is just appalling. But no more on that point.
  With a remark which the hon. and learned Gentleman made at the start of his speech I think we can all agree, and
  2218
  that was that this is a difficult and complex Bill. When one considers the conditions under which the Minister is trying to bring into being a workable Measure to deal with town and country planning, I think one must agree that it is bound to be complex. We are trying to give public authorities opportunities of planning this country properly when the land of the country is still privately owned, and that, in itself, is the basic cause of the complexity of this Bill. All of us who sat through the long Committee stage—and we appreciate the contributions that were made from both sides of the Committee—realise its complexities. To me, it is a most interesting Bill, but it has forced upon me the conclusion that at no very distant date this House will have to take in hand the nationalisation of the land of this country, because by the very nature of things—
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That question certainly does not arise on the Third Reading of this Bill.
  Mr. Braddock: The Minister said, in opening the Debate this afternoon, that important changes have taken place in the Bill. I agree that changes have taken place, but whether they are improvements or not I am very doubtful. This applies particularly to almost the latest Amendment that was made concerning the throwing-over of the 1939 basis of valuation. I can see very little justification for that. During the Report stage I asked the Minister whether the adoption of that Amendment would mean that the landowners would gain additional profits and compensation for their land, and he quite clearly stated that they would. That in itself condemns this new Clause. Personally I very much regret that it was introduced. I think it was wholly unnecessary, and I do not think there was any general demand for it either in this House or in the country. What there may have been in another place I do not know, possibly there was a demand from that sort of quarter.
  In spite of the time that has been spent on this Bill, and in spite of the long discussions we have had on many Clauses, I still find myself very uncertain with regard to two very important matters. One is how this sum of £300 million for payments to landowners is really to be used. The question is not, I suggest,

  2219
  what the Uthwatt Committee Report had to say about this matter; the question is what attitude the Government have taken in regard to it. As I see it the Government came down quite clearly on the side of the view that compensation for hardship only was due to landowners. The Minister has made it plain how that is to be dealt with—it is to be in accordance with regulations. But what does hardship mean? I suggest, and I think the country generally takes this view, that if we are taking over land and the landowner who is being dispossessed is actually suffering hardship, is actually suffering privation and loss, he is entitled to some compensation. But he is not entitled to any compensation for development rights which he did nothing to make, and which actually do not exist as a result of his own exertions. This Bill will have to be considered in the future, and if there is any determined effort by the Government to compensate landowners to the tune of £300 million, it will rouse opposition in the country, and from that point of view I believe the Bill will ultimately have to be amended.
  There is another point also which I think is important and on which I am still uncertain, and that is the delegation of duties from the planning authorities to lesser authorities. I have tried to get this clear once or twice, but I am still uncertain of what the Minister's intentions are. We must all realise, of course, that a regional plan is necessary. In the Second Reading Debate I suggested that that ought to be part of a great national plan. We have heard very little of that suggestion, but I hope that the Minister has not lost sight of it, and that we do agree that a broad regional plan is necessary. I hope that the Minister will, by regulation—I think he has the power to do so under the Bill—delegate the detailed working out of these regional plans to the local authorities. I do not see how we are going to get a Measure of this sort operating unless we do it in that way, and the Minister today made it quite clear that he appreciates the difficulties facing us in this respect. I suggest that many of the difficulties could be overcome if a good deal of delegation from the central planning authority to the lesser authorities in the regions could be effected.
  It has been suggested that there is going to be difficulty owing to the lack of plan-
  2220
  ning staff, town planners, architects and surveyors. I suggest that we are rather over-emphasising that aspect. After all, the best way to carry out planning is to make use of experience, and I suggest that we have in this country at present, a sufficient number of qualified surveyors, architects, and town planners who can be put to work on this job and who will learn the job as they are carrying it out. Take one name which is prominent in town planning at the present time, that of Sir Patrick Abercrombie. He has become a great town planner largely because he has been given the opportunities. I suggest that we have many hundreds of young men—and older men—in this country who are quite capable of taking up these duties immediately. I am, therefore, not unduly depressed by the suggestion that there is any lack of technical and professional skill, and I am sure that we shall be able to start on this job immediately.
  It is for that reason that I was surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) suggest that this Bill should be read again in six months' time. I am not a very old Parliamentarian, but I rather gather that that means that in six months' time this Bill would have to be started all over again, and that would mean that there would be a delay of at least 18 months or two years, before we could get this thing started. [HON. MEMBERS: "Longer."] It is quite possible. In my opinion, that would be a catastrophe. We cannot suffer in this country now what we suffered after the 1914–18 war. There is just the same necessity for building; there is just the same urge for it among the people of this country; and unless we have a Measure of this sort to control town planning for the benefit of the nation there will be another appalling catastrophe, such as took place after the 1914–18 war. I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, from whose observations during the Committee stage I gained great benefit, not to pursue his rejection proposal. Because I gained great benefit from his observations in Committee I was the more appalled to hear him, of all Members of the House, move such a proposal. I hope that he will withdraw it, and that this House will not divide against the Third Reading of this Bill.
  5.35 P.m.
  Mr. Basil Nield: The hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock) has put before the House several interesting points, and has, indeed, suggested Amendments to the Bill. I should have thought in those circumstances, and in view of what several hon. Members have said, that he would welcome a little further time in which to consider these matters. My object in intervening in this discussion, on a Bill which has so rightly been described as difficult and complex, is to ask the attention of the House to two quite short and specific points. They relate to the position of dock and harbour authorities under the Bill, and I would ask the Minister, either now, or in the course of the next six months, as the case may be, to give consideration to them.
  The first arises under Clause 13 (4). As the House will appreciate, it is in that Part of the Bill which deals with the control of development and permission to develop land. Clause 13 provides for the application to the local planning authority for permission to develop. The relevant part of the Subsection I would ask leave to read:
  "An application to the local planning authority for permission to develop land by the erection thereon of an industrial building of any class prescribed by regulations made for the purposes of this Subsection by the Board of Trade shall be of no effect unless it is certified by the Board that the development in question can be carried out consistently with the proper distribution of industry."
  My submission is that where dock and harbour authorities apply to a local planning authority for permission to develop, they should not be required to have the certificate of the Board of Trade. The reason for that is quite simple The places at which dock and harbour authorities can develop are, obviously, rigidly limited by geographical and technical considerations, and the development must really be related to port requirements, and is not affected by considerations such as the distribution of industry. This matter was raised in correspondence passing between the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry and the Dock and Harbour Authorities Association, and the Minister's view appeared to be that when the Board of Trade made their regulations these points I have now endeavoured to make would be considered. All I am asking is that the Minister might now
  2222
  be prepared to say that the Association shall be consulted when these regulations come to be drafted. The House will appreciate, perhaps, that the Association I mentioned embraces in itself membership all the main dock and harbour authorities in the country, and that their chief object is to assist in the proper functioning and good administration of the parts. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give the assurance for which I ask.
  The second point arises under Clause 82. This part of the Bill deals with the exemption from liability for development charges of operational land of statutory undertakers. I want the House to envisage the position where a dock or harbour authority leases operational land to tenants. and those tenants carry on operations which are consistent with, or ancillary to, the functions of the authority itself—for example, granaries or warehouses carried on under a lease. Here, my submission is that in such a case there should be exemption from the liability for development charge. The position surely is that the knowledge that operations on or uses of operational land by persons other than the Statutory authority might involve a considerable financial liability, might be a serious deterrent to development in a port. This point, again, was the subject of correspondence, and the right hon. Gentleman's Ministry said this about it:
  "It is recognised that, where a statutory undertaker grants a lease of operational land for certain purposes, in some cases no development charge should be levied. The matter can however be dealt with by the regulations to be made under Clause 62 (2) or Clause 63 (3), and the point will be considered further when these regulations are being framed."
  Even at this late stage, I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he could not consider, before this Bill becomes a Statute, whether the matter might not be amended in another place, so as to include the exemption from this charge of this operational land leased by such authorities. I cannot feel that any hon. Member will disagree when I suggest that, in the struggle for recovery and the restoration of prosperity, all who operate and work at the docks, harbours and ports have an immensely important task before them. None of us forgets the part they played in the war. I strongly urge the House and the Minister to take the

  2223
  view that to accede to the two suggestions which I have made would be to provide substantial help in the task to be undertaken by the ports around these Islands.
  5.42 p.m.
  Mr. Medland: I have listened with great interest to the speeches made in this Third Reading Debate, but most of all, of course, to the speech of the Minister in commending this Bill to the House. I regard that speech as the best Third Reading speech I have yet heard in this House, because, in it, the Minister demonstrated that all the arguments which I put to him upstairs were perfectly right, and because he has incorporated them in his new proposals and has made the position of the local authorities much more secure than it ever was before. I noticed that the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) wanted to claim, along with myself, some credit for having improved the Minister's mind, and I am delighted to be in such company. All I would say further about that is that this concession which the Minister has made to the local authorities, on the question of the grants to be paid to them for the development schemes and the reconstruction work which they undertake, will be received with the greatest satisfaction, and will, I am sure, be accepted as having met their just claims very largely indeed. I would express to my right hon. Friend, on behalf of many of the local authorities in this country, our thanks for and appreciation of what he has done in this respect.
  The Minister has told us that his new proposals with respect to these grants are for a period of five or eight years. May I suggest that he should look at that figure again? Why should he split it between five and 10? In other cases, the period will have to run up to 60 years, and it will not run at all nicely. I suggest that he should increase the figure to 10 years, and that, in all badly devastated towns, and particularly the city of Plymouth, he should give us a guarantee that, for the first 10 years of the period, he will find 90 per cent, of the cost of reconstruction. Then, of course, we shall be perfectly happy.
  The great merit of this proposal is that the Minister is taking away a most unfair method of rating, namely, that of considering the rateable value of a city by
  2224
  judging whether it is rich or poor. That was a most unfair and inequitable method. The Minister has cast it aside, for the purpose of these blitzed cities, and has proposed that the grant shall be 50 per cent., which is the same as we get for police, education, and various other local government services. I should like to address to him two questions concerning what is to be contained in the figure upon which he is going to pay 90 per cent. or 50 per cent. as the case may be. Is that to include all acquisitions of land, and will it also include all questions of clearance? Can he tell us whether his definition of "clearance" is the same as that which is applied in the 1944 Act, or is it something which is now being advocated by the present Ministry? In the 1944 Act, the terms for clearance were extremely widely drawn, and I believe there is some attempt to restrict the implications of what is meant by clearance. I should be very much obliged if, in that respect, the Minister could now give us an indication of what is contained in the basis on which grants are to be payable of 90 per cent. and 50 per cent. respectively.
  The other big alteration in this Bill, of course, is the decision to get away from the 1939 basis of valuation for compensation when sites are taken over. We discussed that at some length on Second Reading, and, very largely on skilled advice, I took the view that this would not make a great deal of difference in the case of the local authorities, but would certainly give an appearance, at least, of justice to the owners of sites which were being acquired. Some of my hon. Friends seemed to have an objection to that, but, where we are going to buy land—and if we buy it we must pay for it—let us buy it on a proper basis. There has never been any suggestion that, for public purposes, we should confiscate land. We have always held, and it has been part of the policy of the Labour Party, that we should pay compensation in this respect. I cannot see why, under these proposals, there is anything wrong in altering the basis from 1939 to 1947, particularly when development value is taken out of it. Having taken out development value, I am convinced that not very much difference is going to be made to the purchasing authority.
  I was interested in the very frank admissions which the Minister made in

  2225
  his speech. I think that those admissions were made because he is probably the greatest expert in this country on town and country planning, and the law relating to it. That distinction certainly lies between him and the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, who gave us a Bill in 1944 which was, more or less, a good Bill—more good than less. But this Bill is a great improvement upon that Measure. I think that even the right hon. Gentleman will admit that. It has been born out of the experience of trying to plan under the 1944 Act.
  I was very glad to hear the Minister express so completely and fully the difficulties which he realised we were going to be up against in operating this Measure when he decides upon the appointed day. He said that, in the beginning, the machine will possibly creak. I have not much doubt about it myself. I am pretty sure that the machine is going to creak. I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that there is one way in which he can pour a little oil on this creaking machinery. He should take notice of the fact that there is an abundant amount of planning ability in the country which can be made available to him, if he will use it and pay for it. The trouble is that the Civil Service rates of pay for technical officers and technical people are perfectly ridiculous. I believe that is the greatest deterrent to our getting proper planning officials, either at the Ministry or in the regions. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that he should go to the Treasury once more—I know his visits have been frequent, and I congratulate him upon their results—and appeal for a proper staff, in order to enable him to make what is a very fine Measure, a success. I believe that is one of the ways in which he can make it a success.
  Having said all that, I want to ask—and this was never made clear upstairs—what is to be the position in the interim period between the passing of the Act and the appointed day. I shall be glad it my right hon. Friend will tell us about that, because I am sure he has something in his mind about whether the regional set-ups which he has already created are going to take over some kind of control of the country district councils, and whether we are going to have a regional dictatorship or not. If we are, I think that it will be greatly resented by the
  2226
  country district councils, and I hope that, in that direction, he is not proposing to extend the kind of dictatorship which has recently been evident in the Town and Country Planning Ministry.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to speed up his decisions under this Bill for the granting of compulsory purchase orders more than he has been able to do under the old Act. I do not know what the delay is about, but there are cases, where local inquiries have been held and where the application has been made over five months ago, which still await the decision of my right hon. Friend's Ministry. I suggest that where a new city has to be built, and where on the decision to grant the compulsory purchase order rests the decision of a big manufacturer to acquire land in an area and to set up his factory on it, these delays ought to be avoided. At the moment, while the manufacturer has the licence to build his factory and has everything in his hands for getting on with creating his works, he has to await permission to buy the land on which to build. That is a very bad position, and I hope that it will be remedied under this Bill.
  Finally, I want to say a word about the £300 million. I have never been able to understand why the Opposition have been kicking up so much fuss in respect to this sum. It would be quite improper for me to suggest that they have never read Clause 55, because, whatever the merits of the sum might be, its amount does not seem to me to matter very much at the moment. What does matter is the fact that it has been conceded that compensation is to be paid in hardship cases and for loss of development value. Whether that compensation is to be paid after apportionment between England, Scotland and Wales, or whether it will be sufficient or not, compensation is to be paid under a scheme made by the Treasury. Under Clause 55, the scheme has to be brought to this House and discussed and approved by it. I wish that I could have got a provision into the Bill for the setting up of joint planning boards. It was a principle for which I fought very hard upstairs. This principle, however, is granted when there is talk of compensation to landlords, and is refused when we ask that it should apply to joint standing boards, which takes away the powers of local authorities

  2227
  which have been vested in them by Parliament.
  I cannot see that hon. Members opposite have very much to grumble about in regard to the £300 million. My own view that they are lucky to get £300 million, and that they ought to be very well satisfied. They should say, "We will share this out among them, and accept it as a token of your feelings towards the poor disheartened and tried landlords, who have suffered these agonies for so many years in looking after and managing land for which they have received value and for which they have never provided one halfpenny." I want again to thank the Minister for the fine job of work he has done. I am sure that the country and the local authorities who are interested in planning will agree with me. We hope that all the blandishments of the Opposition will be of no avail in another place, and that the time may soon come when this Bill will be the law of the land so that we can have, as early as possible. the appointed day for its operation.
  6.0 p.m.
  Commander Maitland: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Drake (Mr. Medland); it would be very difficult for me to do so, as I agree with so much that he has said. I should like to follow him in the technique which he has exhibited throughout the passage of this Bill because, if I may say so without offence, there are few Members in this House who talk with more common sense than the hon. Member for Drake. I feel that even more, because on several occasions he has accompanied us into the Lobby.
  Mr. Medland: I do not know that it is doing me much good
  Commander Maitland: I would like to follow his technique also because I think he has put up one of the best cases of special pleading which has been made in this House for some time. Later on in my speech, I too intend, quite unashamedly, to put up a case of special pleading to the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Town and Country Planning. The point about this Bill which has impressed me most is the astonishing lack of interest that a Bill of this importance has excited in the country during its passage. I think the "New Statesman and Nation"
  2228
  brings that fact out very clearly this week. It says;
  "It is, no doubt, unsatisfactory that such a revolutionary Measure should be debated with so little comprehension,"
  and, again:
  "Seldom have so many Clauses been understood by so few."
  I think that is, possibly, a just criticism, but I think it is due to the curtailed periods that we have had in which to consider the various Clauses, and also, of course, to the enormous amount of other legislation and murder cases which are attracting public attention at the present time.
  I want to draw attention to two points in the Bill and their effects. Clause 26 appears, on the face of it, to be an admirable Clause. It deals entirely with the powers of planning authorities to control, with the Minister's permission, the arrangements for cutting down and planting trees, and, generally speaking, the management of forests. At first sight, this would appear to be an admirable Clause, and I give this as an example of how many points there are in this Bill which need careful examination. This Clause affects another Act of Parliament, the Epping Forest Act, 1878. This is where the special pleading comes in. It may astonish the House to realise that when the Epping Forest Act was passed, there were far more excitement and interest in it than there has ever been in this great Bill. Perhaps it was because it was in the days when men believed in their rights and people fought for their freedom.
  Nevertheless, the Epping Forest Act gave the Corporation of the City of London control over Epping Forest. It also arranged democratically for these to be, on the control committee, members elected from the people living in the vicinity of Epping Forest. Throughout the years, that Act has been unchallenged. It has done a very fine piece of work. It has provided, right alongside London, probably our finest open space. The point I wish to make is that that open space has been developed not at the public expense, nor by rates, because nobody pays any rates for the upkeep of Epping Forest, but entirely by the beneficence of the Corporation of the City of London. It has been preserved as a forest, and it is not very different today from what it was when Queen Boadicea fought her battles in it.

  2229
  This Bill gives the local planning authority, in this case the Essex County Council, power, with the Minister's consent, to interfere—I use that word not in the least rudely; I mean it in the ordinary sense of the word—with the whole management of the forest. It may be said that that power will never be exercised, but here I must plead special knowledge. I served as a verderer of Epping Forest for some years, and I went into that job from a local authority thinking that almost everything that was done in connection with the forest was wrong. I did r t appreciate the traditions and the tremendous amount of knowledge necessary to manage a forest properly. It was not until later that I realised that the outside authorities, who had no internal knowledge and control, were wrong. I fear that under this Bill, pressure may be brought to bear on the Minister so that he will interfere, and some of the great traditions of Epping Forest may be lost. Every now and then we have quite deliberately to build barriers against expediency. Such a barrier was the Epping Forest Act, as may be seen by anybody who reads it. It deliberately protects the forest against all assailants, whoever they may be. We are told it is expedient that Bankside power station should be built, that White Horse Hill should have a radio station on it. We were once told, "It is expedient for us that one man should die for the people." It is always the danger of expediency with which we have to contend. The Minister would be serving the needs of this part of the country, and also conforming to the desires of a great many people, if he were able to look into this matter in the six months which we are so generously offering him in which to do it.
  The second point I wish to make was mentioned very briefly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison), and is to be found in the Third Schedule of the Bill. It is monstrous that an agricultural cottage should be affected by this Bill in such a way that the owner is prevented from increasing its original size by more than one-tenth without obtaining special permission and attracting to himself the payment of a development charge. It is true that in Committee upstairs, standing on the scaffold with the Guillotine overhead, as the right hon. Gentleman will remember, I managed, at the
  2230
  last possible moment, to ask him about this. As the Guillotine was literally falling the Minister threw me a crumb of comfort. I only hope that that can be specified more clearly when the Parliamentary Secretary winds up, and that the crumb of comfort which the Minister then threw to me will, in fact, he something worth eating.
  Finally, I must join with other hon. Members in congratulating the Minister on the way in which he has conducted this astonishingly difficult Bill through the House. It has been a magnificent exhibition of skill, and of courtesy, too; he has been extremely kind in at least listening to what we have said. I cannot quite follow what the hon. Member for Drake said in describing him as the finest Minister in the world, but if he goes on long enough I hope he may give us all we want and then perhaps he will qualify for that title. I hope, too, that in the administration of this Bill all these points, two of which I have referred to, small in themselves but meaning a great deal to many people, will be watched most carefully, so that injustices are set aside.
  6.11 p.m.
  Mr. Gallacher: In a very short time this Bill will leave the House and go to another place and will, I hope, have a happy passage on to the Statute Book. But once it gets there, where are we? In the early stages of the Bill we find that the local authorities are the planning authorities. But at the present time local authorities are so heavily burdened with debts and responsibilities of one kind and another that it will be almost impossible for many of them to assume further responsibilities, even though the Minister is prepared to make the most generous grants, and even if the Chancellor is prepared to do what he promised during the weekend, namely, to assist them by cutting down the rates of interest which local authorities have to pay on old loans.
  I have spoken with many representatives of local authorities and with planners. Indeed, I have some ideas myself about the planning of towns and cities. I have discussed many times the layout of our towns and cities. Referring for a moment to the proposed Bankside power station, I think the Minister is deserving of the highest commendation for that advance in the planning of the South bank of the names; and I hope there is to be

  2231
  similarly advantageous development right along the Thames If we are to get the towns, cities and villages that we desire—and which I am sure the Minister desires—and that we should have in this country, it will involve an enormous outlay and a burden which the local authorities can never bear, no matter what grant the Minister makes, unless he makes a 100 per cent. grant for this development in the planning of our country.
  Unfortunately, the Minister has not sufficient power for proper planning, because the Bill limits him very considerably. Only today a Question was directed to the Minister in regard to some very valuable arable land on which somebody was proposing to build, and the Minister was asked what he intended to do and whether he would prevent building on that land. In different parts of the country local authorities are already simply taking over land which is most convenient for building, but which may be most valuable arable land. Here the Minister will be in a difficulty. He can acquire adjacent or contiguous land to a particular project but I suggest that it will be necessary for him to be able to acquire land in the very widest area if we are to plan our towns, cities and villages in the way we desire, and at the same time, give the greatest possible assistance to those engaged in agriculture by not taking valuable agricultural land merely because that land happens to be convenient, or contiguous to the particular work which a local authority has in hand. The Minister must be able to exercise power over a really wide range in order to save that arable land, because everybody knows that every acre of arable usable land for food production is vitally necessary in this country. The Minister will have to think seriously about that.
  I will return to the question of local authorities and their liabilities and burdens in a moment. Meanwhile, I wish to touch on a smaller matter in connection with Clause 30. That deals with the penalties for breaking the regulations in connection with advertisements. It gives the Minister important powers, because if we are to plan and beautify our towns, villages and the countryside, it is essential that those responsible for advertisements should be controlled and directed by the Minister. Advertisements which are of use can be
  2232
  presented in such a way as to assist in improving the amenities of the countryside, but one thing which the Minister must be prepared to control and eliminate is the horrible advertisement for proprietary pills and potions which do to death so many of our people. While he may eliminate those, there is another type of advertisement which must be free from any restrictions. We must never adopt the practice of kicking down the ladder on which we ourselves climbed to a position of passing eminence. One of the most effective means of exposing the tricks of the Tories and extolling the advantages of Labour was the fly poster. The fly poster must be protected under this Bill. Maybe right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench are now too respectable for the fly poster, but some of us still value it. Also, of course, the fly poster is useful for church bazaars, and similar organisations.
  Mr. Sidney Marshall: Could the hon. Member explain to the House exactly what a fly poster is?
  Mr. Gallacher: It is a poster put up by a fly gentleman, who wants to get across an idea without paying for it.
  I now turn to the all-important question of the £300 million. During the Report stage an hon. Member tried to break my heart by saying that if we did not go beyond the £300 million there would not be very much left for the Scottish landowners. Well, that will never make me cry. I should be quite happy if the Scottish landowners had to do what so many others have had to do in years gone by when they were faced with hardship, and had to go to the Assistance Board and take whatever was given to them. At present, of course, nobody knows exactly what will happen to the £300 million, or how it is to be paid out. The Treasury can prepare a scheme, but nobody knows the principle on which the £300 million is to be allocated. It may be possible for a Tory to enunciate a principle which we do not like, but which may in altered circumstance be quite acceptable. I remember that in the last Parliament we discussed finance of the character referred to in Clause 55. It has been laid down that the £300 million does not represent, and is not meant to represent, compensation. It is an ex gratia payment out of public

  2233
  funds to meet hardship cases. That is what the House has to accept.
  I remember when we were discussing a matter of this kind in the previous Parliament one of the representatives of the Tory Party laid down the principle which was supported by my right hon. Friend opposite—I can call him "friend" for the moment—and by all other Members of the Tory Party, and which I now put to the Minister who, I hope, will carry it to the Chancellor. It was that, "we have no right to hand out public money unless we are satisfied that those who are receiving it are actually in need of it." As far as concerns these people who are having development rights taken away from them for which they never contributed anything, the scheme should be one which would place them in the position of having to prove that they are actually in need before they receive a penny of the £300 million. If that scheme were operated a great amount of the £300 million would be surplus, and instead of being wasted on people who have done nothing to deserve it, it could go to the heavily burdened local authorities in order to assist them to carry out the Minister's plans. I ask the Minister to consider that, and I would say to him. "Do not be too generous with this £300 million so far as the landowners are concerned. Take it from me, the people of Scotland will give you all the support you want in carrying through the most effective planning, even if every landowner in Scotland has to find that so far as he and his kind are concerned the workhouse is the only hope. Put the, local authorities into such a position that they can do the biggest job that was ever done. That is what the people of this country want that is what the masses of the workers by hand and brain want. It is what all intelligent people are looking to the Minister to achieve. The rest do not matter a tinker's cuss."
  6.23 p.m.
  Mr. Derek Walker-Smith: The House is always entertained by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher), although not necessarily edified. I found some difficulty in determining under which—if either—of his two definitions he himself would come—a worker by hand or a worker by brain. After listening to his speech I felt that the second must necessarily be excluded
  2234
  so that I have come to the conclusion that during the week-ends and times when the House is in Recess, the hon. Member must put in manual labour in order to come within the first of his definitions.
  Mr. Gallacher: I wish the hon. Gentleman had seen me last week-end.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: It may be that this manual labour takes the form of the fly posting which he mentioned. Anyway, I feel that we can be reasonably certain that though he may deplore the fact that the right hon. Gentlemen who sit in front of him have grown too respectable to indulge in it, it will be a very long time before the same reproach can be applied to the hon. Member for West Fife. I would have dealt in detail with the points raised by the hon. Gentleman if, as the result of listening carefully to his speech, I had a clear idea of their purport or relevance; but in the absence of that I must proceed to make one or two observations of my own
  First, let me join in saying that, like others of my hon. Friends, I feel that the Minister has acquitted himself both creditably and courteously in what has been a very difficult Committee and Report stage of this Bill owing to the Guillotine time table which was applied. Next, let me say that I propose to vote for this Amendment, not because I do not want town and country planning law to work, but because I do. I think that the Minister and the Government had here a great chance to produce a Bill which would have stood the test of time. By undue haste and for other reasons they have largely missed that opportunity; and now that we are about to part with this Bill I am bound to say that considerable parts of it are still complex where they should be clear, blurred where they should be precise, and sometimes even harsh where they should be humane.
  This Bill seems to me to be so concerned with stopping up every gap or crevice through which the possibility of bad development may creep that it is creating an atmosphere in which the possibility of good development will be largely stifled, and that is contrary to the function of true planning. After all, this is a planning Bill; and the function of planning is not the multiplication of controls but the elaboration of machinery which will provide the motive power for positive and beneficial action. Applying that to town

  2235
  and country planning it is surely not enough to be careful to preserve the ancient amenities of our countryside and cities. Town and country planning has a positive duty to see that this generation leaves a legacy of buildings for which future generations will be grateful to us, a legacy not only of great houses and public buildings but of homes for the people of a standard of design, lay-out and workmanship which will be a credit to this generation and a delight to those who live in them in the generations to come. As it stands this Bill seems to me to be in danger of failing for two main reasons. One is that it is not in all respects just, and the other that its machinery is not in all respects workmanlike. By way of illustration only, may I refer to one or two aspects which appear to me to point the criticisms that I have made? First, as regards the justice of its provisions. We have heard a good deal of reference this afternoon to the global sum of £300 million. In that respect the Bill has seen no significant improvement through its various stages. There is still an arbitrary assessment of the £300 million and we are denied the right for which we pressed in Committee and on Report for ourselves and the public to be given some idea how that sum is arrived at. There is still, if I may so phrase it, a sort of Silkin curtain between the public and the method of computation. I should like too to protest against the way in which the Minister has chosen to regard this global sum of compensation as a bargaining weapon out of which he can grant preferential claims to those interests which he happens to wish to conciliate. We have always urged that the just way to approach that—for instance in the problem of near ripe land—would have been by the exemption from liability to development charges, and not by the giving of preferential claims out of the £300 million global sum.
  Another respect in which I consider that this Bill is unjust—I do not want to give a catalogue—is in regard to the provisions for inquiries and appeals. We have had a speech from the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), in which he said that he hoped it would be made clear that the Minister is not concerned judicially in these inquiries. I do not think the public care very much about the
  2236
  technicalities of these matters; but they are concerned as to the value of inquiries which lead to nothing but departmental decisions arrived at behind closed doors. It is an astonishing thing that during the Report stage on Monday last, the Minister defended himself against an Amendment by saying that after all the Minister was bound to act in a judicial capacity, and then two days later the Attorney-General came to the House and exulted in the fact that a decision of the courts had exempted the Minister from acting even in a quasi-judicial way. The public do not understand the technicalities of these things, and they care little for them. The public are nevertheless disturbed, and take the view that the machinery prescribed for these inquiries is not serving the great purposes of justice.
  In regard to appeals, we have the astonishing situation that there is no appeal against the assessment for a development charge. The Central Land Board determine the charge in accordance with principles that as yet are shrouded in mystery, as the hon. Member for West Fife has said. Their fiat is like the laws of the Medes and Persians it changeth not. We have this extraordinary situation. A citizen can appeal against a decision of a judge of the High Court, administering a code of law which is understood, against a background of great experience and judicial training; he can even appeal on occasions against a decision of the Court of Appeal; but what he cannot do is to appeal against a decision of this new body, interpreting principles as yet undefined, with no background of judicial experience or training. On this aspect of the case, let me sum up by saying that I do not believe there can be a strong planning growth until we can root out the tares of injustice.
  The position in regard to development is that Clause 11 defines development very widely and imposes an obligation to obtain planning permission in respect of development. Clause 66 then renders all operations, for which planning permission is required, liable to a development charge, except for those limited operations set out in the Third Schedule. The House should ask itself this question: What will the consequences be on the prospect of that good development of which this country stands so very much in need? I think the consequence is bound to be a deterrent unless the levy of development charges can he shown

  2237
  to be not exorbitant, can be carried out on just and well-understood principles, and can be speedily determined. These three requirements must be satisfied if the procedure of development charges is not to be a grave deterrent to building operations in this country. We do not know yet whether the charge is likely to be exorbitant or not, because we have not been given the data upon which to form an opinion.
  It is not, however, merely the financial aspect of the development charges which is important in regard to the effect on building operations. Delays, uncertainty and the fear of injustice are the real deterrent factors upon the good developer, and the machinery in this Bill does nothing to remove the apprehensions that are entertained in regard to them. The time, for instance, for obtaining planning permission will be greatly extended by the regrettable action of the Minister on Report in flying in the face of what I would call the opinion of the local government world, in regard to interim arrangements for planning permission. It is bound, as the Bill stands, to be a long and laborious process to obtain permission for planning consent, and to ascertain the extent of the development charges. The lack of defined principles in assessing the development charges will add the fear of injustice to the uncertainty of delay. I believe that this whole business of planning consent may degenerate into a perpetual game of snakes and ladders, with all the ladders going to the Department, and all the snakes to the unfortunate developer.
  There is another matter I wish to mention on the Third Schedule which has been already referred to. It is this curious provision which lays down a flat rate of a 10 per cent. increase on existing buildings as the extent to which building operations can be undertaken without incurring liability to development charges. My right hon. Friend has already pointed out that this puts a grave penalty upon the small man and the small builder. I should like the Minister to address himself to this consideration: How can a Government, which in the realms of income and taxation puts large incomes so very much at a discount, justify the principle of levying a development charge which puts a premium on big buildings as against small buildings? It is obviously inconsistent, unjust and anti-social, and I hope that before Parliament has finished with this
  2238
  Bill the Third Schedule, upon which there has been so little discussion in the House of Commons, will receive due scrutiny and due reconsideration. I hope that this Bill as a whole will receive that degree of scrutiny and consideration which will make it in due course what it is not completely at the present time, a Bill worthy of the high purposes of planning which it sets out to serve.
  6.39 p.m.
  Mr. J. H. Hare: I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. Walker-Smith) in saying how much I, as a Member of the Standing Committee, was impressed with the great courtesy and skill with which the Minister carried out his very difficult task. I would join also with my hon. Friend in saying that the Minister, being a reasonable man, really must look again into many of the Clauses contained in this Bill. We stated on Second Reading that one of the reasons why we were voting against the Bill then, was because we were taking the Second Reading too soon for the various interests affected by this complicated piece of legislation to have time to note its contents and to make public their conclusions. That process of rush started from the moment of its Second Reading, and it has remained throughout the whole of the procedure in this House and in the Committee. The rush has continued with a vengeance, and complete disregard has been taken of the rights of Members, who as the elected representatives of the people have the right to make ordinary democratic criticism of the legislation under consideration. The Minister, in his speech, said that he felt that the vast majority of the Clauses of this Bill have been discussed in one way or another during the various stages the Bill had had to go through. I was trying to look quickly through the proceedings of the Committee stage, to find out how many Clauses were discussed.
  Mr. Silkin: I think the hon. Member will find that I said "principles," not "Clauses."
  Mr. Hare: In that case, I beg the Minister's pardon. If he had meant Clauses, my calculation shows that 52 out of 115 were not discussed, on either the Committee or Report stages. That means that this Bill has not had the detailed criticism that it deserves. The proceed-

  2239
  ings on this Measure have certainly been a field day for members of the legal profession, and I hope that those Members who belong to that excellent profession will forgive me for saying this. The battle has been fought with keen legal minds and with sharp legal tongues, but for those who are not members of that profession it has been difficult to follow the complexity of the various arguments which have been put forward. To the general public, this Bill is obscure, complicated, and completely impossible to understand, and I only wish that members of the legal profession would realise that they speak a language which ordinary mortals do not comprehend.
  Nothing has been said, so far in this Debate, about the position of farmers under this Bill. I am very concerned with the position of the farming community, who are attempting to get the best out of their land in areas which are adjacent to large cities. I am affected by that, because my constituency surrounds the great city of Ipswich on all sides, except the sea, and runs up to the boundaries of the borough. Many of my constituents will, within the next few years, be affected by the legislation we are now passing. None of us have any quarrel with designation when it is given for the purpose of warning somebody that, in the general public interest, his land may have to be taken away from him. But designation, as laid down in this Bill, really needs tidying up. In extreme cases, a farmer could be evicted within three and a half weeks of receiving his designation notice. That is not likely to occur, but it could occur. He may have to wait one, two, three, four, five or 10 years before being evicted; in fact, he may have to wait 15 to 20 years or until he dies. He will remain under sentence of designation, and yet not be disturbed from occupation of his land. I feel that it is wrong that a farmer should remain under sentence of designation once a period of, say, five or 10 years has elapsed.
  The Bill gives too much scope to local authorities to think loosely about designating land in their area of responsibility. Already, local authorities are not sufficiently encouraged to plan tidily. There is no compulsion on them to produce a budget to show their ratepayers
  2240
  the cost of their town planning schemes. Land can be earmarked by them more or less where they like, and it is human nature that they will take more land than they are likely to require for their development plans. This will have a very bad effect on the agricultural community, and on food production in areas adjacent to big towns. Is it likely that a farmer whose land has been designated will be prepared to modernise his buildings, to lay out capital, to improve the productivity of his land, and increase his livestock? Further, the farmer will not be able to get out of his holding. Nobody will buy it from him. There he will be, stuck and sterilised, without any hope except that when he is evicted he will be given a proper price for his land. Something should be done to make clearer and fairer the position of the farmer who will be affected in this way.
  I would like to turn to one other point, and to say how much I welcomed the Minister's announcement about the grants he now proposes to pay to local authorities for the redevelopment of blitzed areas. I was very impressed by the extreme cogency of the arguments which were put forward in Standing Committee, urging him to do this, and I think he deserves great credit for accepting those arguments. But I am a little disturbed that he has not gone further in raising the minimum grants for local authorities for the development of the blighted areas, areas of obsolete development and bad layout. I feel that the weighting procedure which he intends to adopt will retard the slum clearance and development of our cities. I feel that the extra increase in the grant which he is giving, the 10 per cent. over his original proposal, is still not enough. Cities like London will hesitate before they go ahead with slum clearance and development schemes, because they fear that they will not be paid enough. They fear that under this weighting procedure the Minister will treat them as being a rich authority, and make them contribute more than they can afford.
  The object of London—and the same could be said of many other great cities—is to get people out of the congested central area, to decentralise industry and population. Having thinned out the centre, they will put the people in places outside their boundary. By doing that they will increase the value of the land to

  2241
  which those people will be sent. But London will get no benefit from the increased rateable value of those outside areas. At the same time, the central area will be redeveloped at a lower rateable value, because there will be far less congestion. Therefore, I feel that some higher minimum grant should be given to local authorities on this question of obsolete development and bad layout.
  I hope that the Minister, when this Bill goes to another place, will be prepared to accept Amendments where reasonable and which will help to improve the Bill, which, he himself must admit, has been grossly hurried: So many of the provisions are still obscured by complexity that the public as a whole are still woefully in the dark as to what is coming. I hope that the Government are fully aware that unless this Bill is improved compared with the condition in which we find it today, it will be difficult to administer. The public will not have that confidence and knowledge which is essential if it is to be a success, and the Government will fail in their intention, whch I know is very dear to their heart
  6.52 p.m.
  Colonel Wheatley: It has been truly said that this is a very complex and difficult Bill for the ordinary layman to understand. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodbridge (Mr. Hare) has pointed out that this is a lawyers' Bill and that they speak a different language from that of the layman. Upstairs, some of us found it very difficult to follow all the Clauses in their real meaning. I would remind the House that on Second Reading hon. Members on both sides tried to persuade the Minister to give some consideration to the county districts in their desire to carry on their own planning, within, of course, the general schemes of the county areas. He has, I am glad to say, gone some way to meet our request, and I will only ask him, when he draws up his regulations, to give county planning authorities the right, if they so desire, to delegate their duties to the county districts, and to put into the regulations something to the effect that the county districts may themselves apply to have town planning duties delegated to them. An urban county district has probably already planned its town. It knows the intimate life of its town such as building lines and so forth, and it has taken a lot
  2242
  of trouble and care in drawing up its plans. I hope that the Minister will give the county districts an opportunity of applying for delegated powers, much in the same way as was done under the Education Act.
  The hon. Member for Woodbridge has spoken on the agricultural side of the Bill. I do not want to cover the same ground, but it seems to me that the agricultural industry, or at least part of it, will look with some gloom on this Bill. We are all impressed very much with the necessity of feeding ourselves. Every inch of land that can produce food, we are told, should produce it, but this Bill, in some respects, will deter agriculture and the full use of agricultural land. When agricultural land is designated, it will be mostly in the neighbourhood of towns, and this will put a blight on that particular land. Once land has been designated, whoever is farming it may be turned out within three weeks. It may be a tenant farmer who is farming land in the neighbourhood of a town, and he will say, "I shall leave this land; I have no security of tenure. I may be turned out at any minute, and I shall, therefore, go as soon as possible." He goes off; and what chance has the owner of the land to relet it to a farmer? That means that if agricultural land is designated in the close neighbourhood of a town that land will be taken out of agriculture.
  Clause 3 has already been referred to, and it is certainly a great deterrent to the agricultural industry. It has been pointed out that it will deter one of the most important factors in the agricultural industry, which is the provision and improvement of rural houses for the workers. If the owner of a farm wants to improve his cottages by adding one or two rooms to them, he has to pay betterment value. The owner will think a bit before he goes into that improvement. Before he can do anything at all, or draw up his plans, he has to pay the cost of the betterment, and if that cost is excessive, he has to think again whether he will go into the expense of having plans drawn up, getting contracts made, and so forth, and he may say, "I will leave this matter for another year." The owner of a farm can house his cow without any betterment payment, but he cannot house his cowman. That is putting the matter quite simply, and it seems to me to be a deterrent to the provision of houses for rural workers.

  2243
  This is bound to cast a gloom over our agricultural community.
  There is another point. If a farmer or an owner desires to reclaim land to bring it into cultivation he has to pay betterment. Anyone who has had anything to do with the reclamation of land knows that it is a very expensive game, particularly if, on top of that which he is doing at the behest of the Government to increase the production of land in this country, he has to pay betterment value before he can start the work. It is very difficult to assess that value, and I suspect that the valuers of the Central Land Board will not err on the side of letting him off cheaply. Before he can start the good work of reclaiming the land he has to get a betterment value. That is going to deter anyone, unless he is well off, from going in for land reclamation. Indeed, when reclamation has been done, it may not prove to be a success. The landowner has already paid a betterment value. Is he going to get any rebate because the scheme has not proved as successful as was first thought? It may be that a man is anxious to answer the appeal of the Government to get more land into cultivation and he may undertake a reclamation scheme on the estuary of some river. He takes a risk in so doing, but he will not take that risk if he is going to pay a betterment value. It will be problematical what the value of the land may be, and he may lose on the transaction.
  There is one other point to which I should like to refer and which has nothing to do with agriculture. It is more concerned with the administration of the Bill, and I refer to a very weak point in the Bill. I was sorry that the Parliamentary Secretary was unable, on the Report stage, to heed the appeal from all sides with regard to the interim period when we suggested that local authorities who were already planning authorities should have the duty of approving of applications. The Parliamentary Secretary, as far as I understood him, produced as his main reason for not acceding to the request, that these authorities might approve something which might upset the overall scheme of the planning area.
  In practice when these overall schemes are drawn up, in a large number of cases they will merely consist of marrying up already existing schemes. In most county
  2244
  areas—and I am talking of county areas not of county boroughs—many of these schemes are in being or are well on to being in existence. Such approvals in the interim period will not upset the main scheme, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will think this matter over and that he will remember the appeal was not made from only one side of the House. There is nothing political in it; it is purely a matter of administration.
  These are the defects in the scheme and I think the agricultural ones that I have mentioned are really blots upon it. There are many others which have already been alluded to by Members on both sides. Even the hon. Member for the Drake Division of Plymouth (Mr. Medland), although he congratulated the Minister, had many criticisms to make. Surely, if this Bill can be criticised somewhat severely from both sides of the House it is ample justification for the Amendment to put off the Third Reading of the Bill for six months, which is really a criticism of the speed with which we have been forced to deal with this Bill of 115 Clauses and 10 Schedules. As has been said by more than one hon. Member, it is a very difficult and complicated Bill, and for all these reasons I propose to support the Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison).
  7.6 p.m.
  Mrs. Middleton: I do not intend to follow the hon. and gallant Member for Eastern Dorset (Colonel Wheatley) except to say one thing with regard to the closing passages of his speech. I have not yet had very much experience in this House, but I have seen a Committee stage on the Floor of the House; I have also taken some part in the discussions on this Bill and another Bill in Standing Committee upstairs, and I have come to the definite conclusion that the better way of getting adequate discussions on Amendments is by the method of Standing Committee and sometimes by the Guillotine rather than by discussion on the Floor of the House. Further, I think that that is borne out by the fact that while the Committee stage upstairs was proceeding, we had far larger attendances than we had when the Bill has been discussed on the Floor of the House

  2245
  I have listened in vain this afternoon to very many of the speeches which have been made from the opposite side of the House for any real reason for putting clown the Amendment, which stands on the Order Paper in the name of the leaders of the Opposition, to postpone the Third Reading of this Bill for six months. Of course, we all realise that the object of the Amendment is not a six months' deferment; it really means killing the Bill as far as this Parliament is concerned, and leaving it until the party on this side of the House come in with a renewed majority after another General Election to carry the Bill into operation. Owing to a spasm of coughing from which I was suffering I was unfortunately unable to hear the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison), and so I cannot speak of the arguments which he put forward in favour of the Amendment. I have noticed, however, that some speakers from the other side of the House have asked for the reconsideration of certain points in the Bill, and quite rightly so from their point of view. But ii putting forward their arguments, they have not, so far as I can see, adduced any reason whatever for postponing the Bill for six months.
  The hon. and learned Member for Chester (Mr. Nield) asked for some information with regard to docks and dock undertakings. The hon. and learned Member for the English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) raised points concerning amenities, compensation, and those clauses of the Bill affecting the City of London Plan. The hon. and gallant Member for Horn-castle (Commander Maitland) talked to us about his desires regarding Epping Forest. However, in none of these speeches, to which I listened with great care and attention, did I find one single argument for the postponement of the Bill, and none of the points put forward by these Members gave any adequate reason for this House accepting the Amendment which has been proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury.
  Speaking for the city part of which I represent, the city of Plymouth, I want to say that the sooner the appointed day comes, the better will the citizens of Plymouth be pleased. We want this Bill put into operation. At present in the reconstruction of Plymouth we have to
  2246
  proceed under the 1944 Act. I can quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury does not want to see that Act supplanted. It is natural in the circumstances, because we all have great regard and great affection for our own babies. However, in operating that 1944 Act this is what we in Plymouth found. In making a declaratory order and the ensuing compulsory purchase orders we have had to wait a whole year for various parcels of ground which the local authority is wanting to take over. Even under the speediest procedure, which is the procedure of Section 2 (2) of that Act, it takes at least 12 months from the time when the local authority begin their operations towards the acquisition of the land before they can enter upon the land and reconstruction can begin. This may be all right for some of the more leisurely parts of the country, but when cities are faced with problems of the magnitude of those which beset my own city of Plymouth, the cities of Hull, Bristol, Coventry, Portsmouth, and Southampton, and other bombed and blitzed cities of this country, then the procedure is far too slow and cumbersome.
  I am sure that most hon. Members will be aware that it was in 1943 that the plan for Plymouth was completed. The corporation planned boldly. In doing that they took the advice of Lord Reith. They planned for agriculture, for the overspill of population and for industrial development. No section of the social, commercial and industrial life of the city was overlooked. Indeed, I think that the corporation can rightly claim that the plan has been a model for other plans since made. They have suffered delay after delay but this has not been the fault of the corporation or, in the main, the fault of the Minister. All our people have been waiting impatiently to go forward with our reconstruction proposals, and we welcome this Bill because we believe that when it becomes law, we can begin to undertake, in really serious fashion, the building of the new Plymouth on which our citizens have set their hearts.
  Some comment has been made in this Debate upon the question of 1939 values. At least one of my hon. Friends suggested that he would have welcomed the retention of the 1939 values, instead of the introduction of 1947 values. I welcome

  2247
  the acceptance of the 1947 values for the reason which the Minister gave in Standing Committee. The 1939 values are becoming more and more out of date. It is more and more difficult for people to throw their minds back to the situation which obtained in this country in 1939. But I welcome the alteration for another reason. I welcome it because those citizens of our blitzed towns and cities whose former properties come within reconstruction areas and who lost their property as a result of enemy action, will now have something which will compensate them for the cost of works awards which they lost when their properties were scheduled as being inside reconstruction areas. The rearrangement will bring a larger measure of justice to those people who suffered so terribly in our blitzed cities, though I do not think that even yet it will bring full justice.
  I also very much appreciate the indication given by the Minister that he did not altogether accept the criterion of rateable value as the sole factor for determining the financial position of any local authority. I shall not today suggest what should replace the rateable value criterion in determining the level of wealth or poverty of a city, but I am confident from comparisons that I have made myself, and others which have been shown to me, that rateable value alone is not sufficient. I am indeed glad to know that the Minister, and perhaps other Ministers in the Government, are paying attention to this matter and trying to work out a better basis of comparison between the finances of different local authorities. For those reasons, I and the citizens whom I represent welcome the Bill. The sooner it is passed into law and comes into operation, the better we shall all be pleased.
  7.17 p.m.
  Mr. Gammans: We on this side of the House very much welcome the speech of the hon. Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton). It was so long since we had heard from an hon. Member opposite, that we were beginning to wonder if they had lost all interest in the Bill. The hon. Lady has asked, I think with justification, why it is that if we on this side of the House say, as we do say, that we approve of much of what is in the Bill, and that we believe in town planning, nevertheless we
  2248
  should decide to vote against the Bill. I will endeavour to tell her, because I think that is a fair question. But first let me deal with the remarks by the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher), who seems to have disappeared from his place. I wanted to pay him a compliment. When he said that this was an historic Bill, he was quite right. It is an historic Bill. When it gets on to the statute book it will affect the destinies of people in the towns and countryside when all of us in this House have long since gone to other places. Therefore, it behoves us, before we allow this Bill to pass from this House, to make up our minds that it is a good Bill, a just Bill and one which will work.
  The real trouble about this Measure is that it is of mixed parentage. On its mother's side, if I may so describe the Minister in his absence, with great respect, I am sure there is a genuine desire to bring in a Bill which will provide for the long-term planning of our towns and country. I feel that if the Bill had been left to the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman as he has expressed them in this House, and as I know he has them in his mind, then we should have had a Bill which would have commanded the support not only of all parties in this House but of the country as well. But, unfortunately, there was another parent to this Bill. That other parent was the spirit which has disfigured so much of the legislation which has gone from this House during this Parliament, a spirit which I think is not only repugnant to the best traditions of the British people, but which, in the long run, will make much of this legislation unworkable. I would like to illustrate what I mean by this Bill itself.
  This spirit has shown itself in this Bill in a desire to pay off old grudges; a spirit of malice towards those with whom the Government differ politically; a love of regulation for its own sake; a love of meddling even when meddling is unecessary and even positively harmful; a vagueness as to how the Bill is to be operated; and a secrecy as to the real intentions of the Government in operating it. Lastly, we see in this Bill the increasing tendency in all relations between the State and the individual to weight the scales heavily in favour of the Government. The Government are not prepared to play with anyone unless they can load the dice and mark the cards.

  2249
  My only regret is that the Minister was unable to resist the blandishments of the other parent to his Bill. Had he been able to do so, we would, I think, have supported him in the Lobbies tonight, but the result of this unholy alliance is a child which we have done our best in Standing Committee to knock into shape. The Bill has had the advantage of the criticism of the candid uncles of this side of the House and the doting aunts of that side.
  Mr. Medland: A doting aunt, am I?
  Mr. Gammans: The hon. Member has sometimes wobbled from one side to the other. Our process of education has been a little too hurried. We would have liked a little more time as whole sections of the curriculum have not been dealt with at all. Without endeavouring to make a party point, I would remind the House that very long experience of Parliament has shown that Bills which go through the House of Commons without adequate consideration are seldom effective when passed into law. Whole sections of them may become, and do become, dead letters. Very often amending legislation has to be brought in. Nothing is easier than to turn the handle of the Parliamentary sausage machine, but the real acid test of this Bill is: Will it work?
  I would be the first to admit—all through this Bill my hon. Friends have admitted—that there are very many fine things about it. We have units of planning which have some regard to large scale or regional development. A genuine attempt has been made to tackle the problem of betterment and to relieve planning authorities of burdens which they cannot be expected to bear. If the Bill had concentrated on these things, it would have survived the passage of time, but the defects of this Bill will in course of time be regretted by hon. Members opposite, as they are by us now, and will prevent the Bill from doing all that all of us want it to do.
  For the benefit of the hon. Lady the Member for Sutton, who challenged us just now, I would like to tell her specifically why we cannot support the Bill tonight. First we see this desire on the part of the Government to vent spite upon the property owners over the question of compensation. We have suggested machinery for arbitration. The Government have refused it. The Minister has
  2250
  even refused to permit the Central Land Board to make known the global sums of the claims that are made against it. There can be only one reason for that action, and that is that the Government have a bad conscience and know that the sum is quite indefensible. I suppose this is all we can expect from the party opposite, which has an avowed bias against any individual who owns a bit of land, large or small. After all, the property owner is the very centre, the very totem pole, of the demonology which right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentleman opposite have built up over a number of years.
  Another reason why we shall vote against the Bill is that we also see that spirit of malice to which I referred just now. I can best illustrate that by the attitude taken towards the Corporation of the City of London. It seems to us quite indefensible that the powers of the City of London should he taken away when they are allowed to remain in the hands of, say, East Ham or a borough of far less importance. The third reason is this love of regulation for its own sake. My hon. Friends have given several illustrations of that. Perhaps the one that appeals most to me is this ridiculous provision that a man cannot turn his house into two fiats without paying a development charge. I say that that is not only unnecessary meddling but thoroughly bad planning, because it will mean in the long run that people who own one large house and would willingly have turned it into two or three flats, each with a proper kitchen and proper bathroom, will be disinclined to make these alterations, but the same number will be living in it in a state of squalor and slum. I represent a constituency in London which has many hundreds, if not thousands, of houses which are quite unsuited to house more than one family unless the owner is prepared to spend money on proper division of the house. In future why should he do so? We are discouraging the good landlord and encouraging the slum land-lord.
  There is also this ridiculous meddling in refusing to allow a man to rebuild his war damaged property and add to it by more than 10 per cent. without again being liable to a development charge. I cannnot think what is behind the mind of the Government over that perfectly absurd provision. Surely we want to

  2251
  encourage people to put up better buildings than those knocked down. Here again it is not only unnecessary meddling but discouraging the good landlord and encouraging the bad.
  Then there are the uncertain provisions regarding any change in the use of land, as, for example, the point which was argued with great vigour and sincerity by an hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House the other day with regard to the owner of a piece of land possibly making himself liable to a development charge if he allows his land to be used temporarily for a circus or something of that sort. I am not quite certain what would happen to someone who let his garden for a church fête or perhaps a garden party for the local branch of the Socialist Party, and whether he might not in those circumstances find himself in due course liable to a development charge. The Minister may say that I am talking ridiculous nonsense. I hope I am, in that sense, but why have a Bill that leaves that vagueness and uncertainty?
  There is also a vagueness and uncertainty as to the way in which development charges are to be levied. I have asked the Minister on two or three occasions: Is the development charge levied on the site or is it levied on the site plus bricks and mortar? The whole case we have heard from the other side about the justification for the development charge is that the site has been enhanced in value because of the community itself. I do not accept for one moment that only the community has enhanced the value of land, but surely, if that argument is only half right, the justification for levelling a development charge is on the site and not on the bricks and mortar. The community has certainly nothing whatever to do with any improvement in the bricks and mortar. Why is that not stated? If the development charge is levied on the site alone, it would simplify at least half of the provisions in this Bill.
  What about this uncertainty regarding ripe and near-ripe and dead-ripe land? My right hon. Friend this afternoon brought out that point with great clarity. He said that, from now on, no developer will know where he stands. I should have thought that if the Government in their corporate capacity wanted to get houses and get them keenly, and were beginning to realise that local authorities were not
  2252
  going to put them up, surely they ought to have given every possible encouragement to those developers who have land ready or near ready for building and have said, "Get on with it. We will have a moratorium for four or five years over any question of development charge on that land. Get on with the building of houses, and we will come along later on over any schemes which you may have." The amount of money which would be sacrified would be infinitesimal, but the difference in the building of houses and getting our people out of the appalling conditions in which they are now living would be enormous.
  There are also a delightful vagueness and an unnecessary differentiation between the various rates of compensation which people will get according to the period when their land is acquired. A few days ago there was a letter in "The Times" which showed that of a dozen houses in the same street, of the same type, there might be no fewer than 12 different rates of compensation payable, if those houses were acquired, according to when they were acquired and under which particular Act of Parliament. If you have that sort of uncertainty, any Bill which perpetuates it is the very negation of good legislation.
  With regard to the effect of this Bill on the private developer, may I tell the Minister that between the Second Reading and now I have taken the trouble—and I hope other hon. Gentlemen have done so—to try to find out from builders and others who have developed land between the two wars—who incidentally put up most of our houses—what will be the effect of this Bill upon their activities if it goes into law in its present shape. The answer I get from all of them is the same: that if this Bill goes into law as it now stands, to all intents and purposes it means the end of the private developer. Perhaps it is the Government's intention to get rid of the private developer—there is always one section of the community against which the cheapest of cheap sneers are levelled—but if you are going to get rid of him, do it properly and say so. There is no point in getting rid of him in a Clause of a Bill which is supposed to be a Bill to encourage building and good town planning.
  I will not repeat what I said on Second Reading, but I would make two points about the private builder. The first is

  2253
  this: let us be under no illusion. the imposition of a development charge will mean that houses will cost more because, in many cases, developers have made their profit not so much upon the house but upon the land. If they lose their profit on the land, it goes on the house, and that will mean that houses will cost more. In the long run, if houses cost a lot of money, either the rents go up or else the taxes go up, or both, for you must always unload the high cost of houses on the consumer, that is the occupier.
  My second point is this: Will any private developer he prepared, or able, to undertake development under this Bill? Let us think for a moment of the obstacles which he has to overcome. First, there is the delay in getting permission to go ahead at all. The Minister has held out to us a rosy picture of one application and a very quick answer. I hope he is right, but I fear he is not because of the extra obstacles which now have to be overcome before any permission can be obtained. Then think of the haggling which will go on as to whether the development charge they propose to levy is right or wrong—haggling, incidentally, against which there is no appeal. The man will suddenly get a note saying, "If you want to develop this piece of land, it will cost you so much." He will not know how that has been arrived at, and the first reaction any developer will have will be a sense of resentment. He will ask his friends, "How much were you charged in this county?" or "How much were you charged in that parish?" There will be a long period of haggling as to whether the sum is correct, an effort to knock it down, visits and interviews, and so on. Then there is the uncertainty he will have as to whether the scheme will be a success or not. Hon. Members opposite, in talking about private developers and business men, always assume that every venture is a howling success; they do not know, or they choose to ignore, those which are failures. There is always great uncertainty in any development scheme without having all this added to it.
  Lastly—and this is a very relevant point—in many cases there is the sheer impossibility of private developers having the money to put down for the development charge before they start. The vast
  2254
  majority of these people work on an extremely narrow margin and it will mean the end of many private developments. So what will happen under this Bill is that the State will have prevented the private individual from developing, without any certainty that the State will do any better themselves. The acid test of this Bill—and I am sorry that the hon. Lady the Member for Sutton has disappeared before hearing the answers to the questions she posed—is not merely that it prevents bad development but that it encourages good development; not merely that it preserves and improves the town and country. but also that it encourages houses to go up quickly and cheaply.
  This Bill may attain its first object, of preventing bad development, but it is not capable of encouraging good development. I would like to support the Minister, for I am as keen on planning as he is and I am quite aware of the defects of our present legislation. I agree with him that we want a new Act on the Statute Book, but we want houses and we want them quickly, and we shall not get them under this Bill. We want a Bill which is fair and just, and this Bill is not fair and just. We want a Bill which will work quickly and efficiently and this Bill will not work either quickly or efficiently. It is for those reasons that I am not able to support the Minister in the Lobby tonight.
  7.37 p.m.
  Mr. McAllister: The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) began his speech by saying that he would reply to my hon. Friend the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Mrs. Middleton) but he did not do anything of the kind. Her main criticism was that hon. Members opposite, while apparently supporting the Amendment, gave no reasons at all why this Bill should be put forward six months. Neither did the hon. Member for Hornsey. If his arguments had any substance at all, they were arguments for killing the Bill once and for all, and not for postponing it for another six months.
  Mr. Beverley Baxter: That is what the six months proposal means.
  Mr. McAllister: It is as well to be clear. I am not as old an hon. Member of this House as the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Baxter) but I understood

  2255
  that the six months was merely a formal Parliamentary device, for registering the dissent of the Opposition to giving the Third Reading to the Bill. In this case however the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) addressed himself specifically to the desirability of postponing it for six months. The hon. Member for Hornsey did not do that; he told us why the Bill was a thoroughly bad Bill, it was he said a Bill animated by malice—
  Mr. Gammans: The hon. Gentleman appreciates that at this stage of the Bill, if we disapprove of it in any major respect, that is the only course open to us. It is because we failed to persuade the Minister to accept our Amendments at an earlier stage.
  Mr. McAllister: They could have objected to the Motion, but the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury said that six months was a very good idea, whereas the hon. Member for Hornsey did not say so. He addressed us in general terms, and told us that the Bill was animated by malice. He used a curious phrase to the effect that it gave the Government loaded dice and marked cards. That is not how I see the Bill. I see it as ending the inheritance of loaded dice which the landlords of this country have always employed against the common people.
  I wonder if the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), if he speaks in the Debate, will approve of all the sentiments which the hon. Member for Hornsey used in the last part of his speech in regard to speculative builders. Let me make it quite clear; I know the term is often loosely used, and is often used as a term of abuse. I do not want to do that. I know there are good and bad among them, and that many of them are excellent people who have done useful service. But when we think of speeches made by the hon. Member for The High Peak, and the hon. and learned Member for the English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss) not only in this, but in previous Parliaments, in which they condemned ribbon development, suburban sprawl and bijou baronial bungalows on by-pass roads, are we to take it that it is now the view of the Conservative Party that all those infamies that disfigured our
  2256
  countryside between the two wars ought to be perpetuated and go unrestrained, because this new Bill introduces a little impediment?
  I do not think this Bill is six months too early; I think it is 26 years too late. Let us remember what happened between the two wars—the sprawl of London, the doubling of the land area of London as of Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, all our great cities sprawling into the countryside, and devouring agricultural land, spoiling the countryside and making life more difficult for the man in the centre of the town by taking the country further away. We all regret those things. But hon. Members on the other side of the House had power in 1920, and for many years after 1920. It is their fault, and their fault entirely, if this Bill is deficient in any respect. I waited while speaker after speaker on the other side criticised the Bill, hoping that they would put forward some really sound argument for refusing to give the Bill a Third Reading tonight. I waited in vain.
  If they had an argument at all, it was the view that the development tax would be a barrier to building development. That was the whole of the argument of the hon. Member for Hornsey. Indeed, it may be a slight barrier. I would be the last to say that if one creates a machine of this kind it would from the beginning function smoothly, and without any difficulty. But, if that is true, it is also true ·that the great barrier to proper reconstruction of our towns in the past has not been any question of a development charge, but the onerous claims for compensation which every city had to face. If in this Bill we are reversing the process and removing the compensation difficulties from our cities, and thereby putting a little difficulty on the landlord, then, if there is anything in the argument, it is not malice or meddling, but a tiny spot of poetic justice.
  In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Minister suggested that he feared the machinery would run into difficulty because of shortage of personnel. I agree that there is a shortage of personnel, and I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that he was consulting with the universities and professional town planning organisations in order to speed up the training of new personnel. I congratulate the Minister on that, and I hope that in his discussions he will seek to broaden the whole conception of the town

  2257
  planner. The town planner per se should be replaced, not by another town planner, but by a town planning team, which should include the agricultural expert, the forestry expert and an expert on landscape design and so on, so that the whole operation can go forward as a great constructive enterprise in three dimensions.
  But I must say something in qualification of that. The question of amenity has been raised today. Bankside and Epping Forest have been mentioned. I do not warn to say anything about the Bankside issue, except that in one respect the Minister has been profoundly right, and the critics have been profoundly wrong. That is that town planning could not, and should not, usurp the functions of government. It must be a great temptation, and as one studies town planning and sees how town planning affects every aspect of life, there is a tendency to assume that the town planner is the sole repository of wisdom. That is not so, and it would be doing an ill-service to the cause of town and country planning if any Minister in the post which my right hon. Friend occupies were to attempt to usurp the whole functions of government, and say that the other issues, the economic issue, the mineral issue, and the question of services, were irrelevant to the decision to he taken.
  Unless this Bill when it becomes an Act is backed by a great programme of public education, it will not succeed to the extent to which it might otherwise succeed. I know the Member has a public relations officer in his Department. I believe it would be well worth while from the point of view of the country if much larger sums of money than have yet been contemplated were spent through the Ministry on a programme of public education on town and country planning issues. I believe that would be a great service to the country as a whole. I know from my own experience that if people are presented with this picture of town and country planning as an instrument for improving human environment, it is a subject in which they can become deeply interested and about which they can become greatly excited. I think we should start with some education in this House. It is a rather shocking thing that on the Third Reading of this important Bill the attendance of hon. Members should have been so poor. It rather gives the lie to con-
  2258
  stant complaints of hon. Members opposite that we have not had time to discuss the Bill. There has been time enough for all hon. Members who have shown a passionate interest in the Bill to express their views, not only once, but several times.
  Mr. Gallacher: In regard to the question of educating the people of this country on the meaning and value of town and country planning, would the hon. Member be prepared to cut down the payment to the landlords and spend some of the £300 million on that education?
  Mr. McAllister: I think it was the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) who said that my right hon. Friend had made several excursions to the Treasury with excellent results. Let him make another excursion to the Treasury to see what he can do to secure funds for public education. Like other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, I should like to finish by congratulating the Minister on the excellent way in which he has conducted this Bill. He has shown a spirit of conciliation and moderation which has lent great distinction to his work on the Bill, and has made it a delight to serve on the Standing Committee and generally to co-operate with him in putting on the Statute Book a Bill which will open the gates of beauty wider to the common people of this country, and will redound to the credit of the Minister.
  7.52 p.m.
  Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: It would be strange if those of us who have lived with this Bill for the last four months, who have thought about it, talked about it and even dreamed about it, were not to cherish some regret as we part with it on its way to another place. It could have been so much a better Bill; it could, even in its details, have been so much improved, had more time been given for its discussion. I anticipate that if I were to follow that point further I should be out of Order, so these are but vain reflections. We must accept the Measure, as the auctioneers say, "with all faults." Where do we go from here? It is remarkable to me that there has been so little turmoil outside the confines of this House about the immense significance of this Bill,

  2259
  because it has, indeed, immense significance for all the people of this land. I believe that even yet its effect is not properly appreciated outside. It will have far-reaching effects upon the owners of property. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans) has spoken about one section in particular—the developers of property.
  I want to consider for a moment its effect on much more humble people, the ordinary small owners of quite humble property, and see what will be the effect upon them. As soon as this Bill becomes law, they will have to review the value of. their holding, whatever it may be—that piece of land they own, that land with buildings upon it, it may even be the value of the house in which they live: they will have to review its value. This will have to be done not only by individual owners, but by trustees and mortgagees, by banks and insurance companies, commercial and industrial undertakings, schools and colleges, churches, charities and clubs of every kind.
  All these individuals and organisations will have to look into the value of the property they own, not only the large landowners, but, as I say, the small landowners, the little men, the farmers, the owners of a house who have acquired, in the course of years, a building plot next door to give them a little bit of extra seclusion. They will have to look at the value of these. The widow with the "weeklies," which she has been left in a will, will certainly have to look at the value of the property if it is in an area which might be redeveloped. That review will have to be carried out very soon by these people, to determine what claim, if any, they ought to make against the fund which has been established to compensate individuals for the loss of development value. The method they will adopt will be to value their properties with reference to the prices which obtained on 7th January, 1947, the date of the introduction of this Measure.
  They will have to value, first of all, the unrestricted value of their property, and to deduct from that its restricted value for its existing use, and upon the assumption that it may only be used for those minor developments which are sanctioned in the Third Schedule to the Bill. The basis upon which this valua-
  2260
  tion is to be carried out will not be known until the regulations, which will be drawn up after this Bill becomes the law of the land, have been made by the Treasury and approved by both Houses of Parliament. Then, somewhere around the year 1951, these owners of property will have to look out for the development plans which will then begin to be deposited. They will have to look at those plans very closely indeed, and will have to see, in particular, whether their land has been scheduled for compulsory acquisition during the next 10 years, whether it is land which is designated for compulsory acquisition. Even if it has not been designated they will have to obtain permission for every change in the use of their land, and they will have to pay, in respect of those changes, development charges of unknown amounts, which will be assessed by the Central Land Board.
  In passing, I would say that we have listened this evening to one or two most excellent speeches from agriculturists, who have put the point of view of the farmer. I listened to the speech made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Dorset (Colonel Wheatley), who spoke about the effects of this Bill upon the argicultural interests. I want to know what happens in the event of there being a conflict of interest in respect of agricultural land which may be designated for compulsory acquisition during the next 10 year, and which may be the subject of a management direction under the Agricultural Bill. There might be a conflict of interest, the management direction stating that the owner of the land must put his buildings in order and must spend, possibly, a large sum on the land. Yet it will be very unwise for him to do so if that land is to be taken over by compulsory acquisition in a short time.
  Mr. Alpass: Does not the hon. Member realise that the county argricultural committees will be fully acquainted with all these facts, and that they have to advise the Minister whether money should be spent by the landlord on improvements or not?
  Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: Yes, and d am very grateful to the hon. Member for Thornbury (Mr. Alpass), who is a great authority on agriculture. I complain that the planning authority will not consult the county agricultural executive committees in making their plans. There

  2261
  is no compulsion on them to do so. One hopes that they will, as a matter of commonsense, but there is nothing in the Bill to make it incumbent upon the planning authority to go to the agricultural experts in the county to see where they should put this or that type of development, which may or may not conflict with agricultural interests.
  I do not want to appear to suggest that all these difficulties with which owners will be faced will be entirely to their disadvantage. We ought to look at the obverse in this case. Undoubtedly, there is a long-term benefit which all owners of land, large or small, will be able to reap from the orderly planning of the countryside. That planning should do much to check the unregulated urban spread which has been referred to by the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr. McAllister), to secure the preservation of the most suitable land for agriculture and forestry, and to encourage positive planning on a national basis of major industrial locations.
  In parenthesis, I hope that the Minis try of Transport is well ahead with its national road plan. I have no doubt that the Minister is in close touch with the Minister of Transport. It seems to me to be very important that the Minister of Transport should he looking at least 15 years ahead with his national road plan. That policy should be clear, and worked out even in some detail. What is the policy of the Minister, for instance, about motor ways? He ought to be thinking about it now, and the proposals ought to he on a map somewhere. Unless they are, the plans that will be made may be spoilt by the last-minute requirements of the Ministry of Transport.
  Having talked about the effects of the Bill upon owners of property, may I turn now to its effects upon the professional classes who are particularly concerned in the valuation of land? The Bill will, of course, have an immense impact upon them. I believe the Minister would be the first to admit that he has been receiving valuable suggestions from such bodies as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the Auctioneers and Estate Agents Institute, the Royal Institute of British Architects and so on, at all stages of the Bill. I am not thinking only of the work that members of those professions will have to do for the public
  2262
  authorities. The hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock) spoke rather loosely about putting people to work on development plans. He suggested that there were plenty of technicians in the country who ought to be put to work in that way. It is not quite so easy as that.
  The majority of property-owners, to whose anxieties I have been trying to draw attention, will want to be advised by professional men. The Minister himself said he would counsel them to go to professional men for advice, particularly if they wanted to sell land. These proposals in the Bill will have an inevitable effect upon the value of their property. For five years at least the private practitioners will be working under great pressure. I hope that the Minister will arrange with the other Departments concerned to have all the data assembled with reference to values on 7th January, 1947. That is going to be a very important date in land values, just as important as 31st March, 1939. It is a date to which we shall look back. We can remember very well now what values were at 7th January, 1947. We can remember the cost of road making and of building in stone or brick. We know the cost of timber per square. We will not know that so well in five or ten years hence, but we will still have to look back to that date. I hope that the Minister will take steps with the other Ministries to make all that data available.
  Experts employed by the Ministry, by the Central Land Board and by the local planning authorities will certainly be severely tested during the next five or more years. The Bill throws upon them the onus of arriving at right judgments upon the business and social implications of developments. They will have to organise and equip themselves to arrive at those judgments fairly, and expeditiously. There are two dangers ahead. The first is that sound and proper development may be hampered by undue delay in the assessment of development charges and the grant of planning permission. Secondly, we are endowing the Ministry, the Central Land Board and the local planning authorities with tremendous powers, with no clear proof that there are sufficient experts with the capacity and technical qualifications to use them aright. I am sure the House must have been delighted when the Minister told us this

  2263
  afternoon that the universities were willing to play their part along with the great professional bodies in order to foster education in town planning. I should like to see a Silkin Chair of Town and Country Planning in one of the great universities I believe that would be a fitting and by no means undeserved tribute to the Minister's handling of this Measure.
  For a few minutes I would like to consider the effect which the Measure will have upon land values. That effect will be far-reaching. Land value is made up of two elements, the value for existing use and the value for development possibilities. Development rights in land—the second element—are to be nationalised. When development rights are held under a monopoly, who will be competent to assess their worth? I believe there will be great difficulty in arriving at a correct assessment of development possibilities in the absence of a free market in-development values. The solution will be to recreate, as far as possible, the conditions which obtain in a free market; that is to say, the presence of a willing buyer and a willing seller negotiating together for the purchase and the sale of property. This pre-supposes three things. First, it presupposes direct contact between buyers and sellers; secondly, it pre-supposes, within broad limits, freedom to negotiate; and thirdly, it pre-supposes competition. I learn on very good authority that one of the possibilities which will be open to the Central Land Board, when the Bill becomes law, is that it will acquire property, by agreement one hopes, in order to put it up to auction to test the market with regard to development values. Presumably, the conditions of sale of the property will specify the type of development which will be allowed, and the auction will be held so that the market may be tested in that way. I would not have any complaint about that provided the purchase were done by agreement, but I would have very serious complaint to make if the machinery of Clause 42 were used in order to give the Central Land Board power compulsorily to acquire land to auction in that way. I would have very serious complaint to make if compulsory powers were given to it in order to carry out that process of trying out the development possibilities on defenceless guinea pigs
  Mr. Alpass: Is not that what is often done now?
  Mr. Thornton-Kemsley: No, not by compulsory powers. In conclusion, we have all moved a very long way in planning matters in the last 10 years or so. There is now general acceptance of the policy of green belts and new towns, and there are very few people who dispute the paramountcy of the public control of land use. The air raids have helped, and Scott, Barlow and Uthwatt, that trinity of blessed memory, have shed much light on the path along which the present Minister and his immediate predecessor have moved steadily forward.
  The problem which has been fundamental to this question of town and country planning almost from the beginning of time has been the extent to which the rights of individual owners to use and develop. their land as they choose can be restricted without incurring a liability to compensate them for injurious affection. It is the old familiar problem of compensation and betterment, on the solution of which so much ink has been spilled and so many words have been used. The Government have grasped this nettle firmly. I respect them for this. I have no quarrel with the broad principles of the acquisition of individual rights of development. My quarrel with them is on other grounds. I quarrel with them becase, throughout the proceedings on this Bill, they have failed completely to prove the adequacy of the sum which they have arbitrarily fixed to satisfy claims for loss of development rights, to define the selective principles upon which this sum is apparently to be distributed, to satisfy us that there will be sufficient incentive to development, and that the housing of the people will not be needlessly delayed; and finally, I blame them because in matters of this importance and complexity they have not afforded sufficient time for their full discussion in Committee or upon the Floor of the House.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Sparks: This Bill will be a landmark in history for all time, and it will rank with any of the major Measures which the Government have introduced during this Parliament. It is a Measure to clean up the relics of the past. There is not a town or city in our country that is not suffering from the haphazard unregulated development of

  2265
  bygone days; there is not a town or city that does not possess a festering sore of some kind or other; and until now local authorities have been unable to remove those festering sores, first because planning law was not sufficient to enable them to accomplish their planning purposes, and secondly, because if they were able by law to proceed, the financial liabilities involved were far too heavy for them to undertake. Consequently, in great industrial towns and cities, particularly in London and Greater London, we have great built-up areas, land covered with factory development and housing development, without any conscious planning, with lack of open spaces and of good fresh air for the people.
  The local authorities have been hamstrung in their attempts to deal with the situation. I very much welcome the passing of this Bill, because it will give the local authorities power which they have never had so far to clear the slums and areas of bad layout, and to effect a proper balance within their boundaries of industry, housing and open spaces. I believe the Bill will accomplish a great revolution in the social life of the people of our towns and cities. It will give the Greater London area power to deal with many age-old problems. Under the Greater London Plan, we shall attempt to accomplish a great change. We shall attempt to accomplish something of great historic moment in the life of this great city. We must endeavour to decentralise many of our people from the London area into the outside regions, and we must attempt also to effect industrial decentralisation. I come from an area which is situated on the edge of the North-West London industrial concentration, and it is as well to remember that, within the Greater London region, there reside 25 per cent. of the population of our country, and that the drift towards this area still continues.
  Nearly 25 per cent. of the industrial activity of the nation is centred in the Greater London area. In my own particular area we are over-industrialised. We are over-industrialised because there has been no conscious planning in the past; the local authority have been quite unable to control industrial development, and consequently factories have been built upon land which ought to have been preserved for open spaces for the population
  2266
  and they have occupied land that ought to have been used for housing the people. Now that they are established we have little power to deal with over-industrialisation, largely because of the weaknesses of town planning law and the heavy financial liabilities that would have fallen upon our shoulders if we had attempted any such planning.
  This Bill gives to local authorities like my own the power to replan their areas. It will give us the power to acquire land and redevelop not only land that has been blitzed but the black spots and the festering sores which I mentioned earlier on. It will enable us to rehouse the people from the slum areas and put them into better localities, and give them a better and fuller life in healthier surroundings with plenty of fresh air and open space. It will enable us to effect a proper distribution of industries in proportion to the population and open spaces, and it will also help us, in Greater London as a whole, to be concerned not merely with the welfare of our own smaller localities but jointly, through the good offices of the Minister, to effect that decentralisation of industry and population so urgently needed if we are to build up a better standard of community life in the Greater London region.
  I hope that the Third Reading of this Bill will be carried by this House. In fact, I am sure it will be carried; I am very surprised that the Opposition should seek to destroy this Bill, because their Amendment is nothing more or less than an attempt to sabotage a very great Measure which many hon. Members opposite have praised very highly. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester (Mr. W. S. Morrison) said that unless we could get the willing consent of the people we should not be able to obtain development of housing schemes and other desirable developments, I would like to point out that the willing consent of landlords to development has been sadly lacking for many generations. They have acquired land and they have not been willing to allow it to be developed. In my own little area we pay something up to £4,000 an acre for land required for housing purposes, and 100 years ago you could buy that land for £10 or £15 an acre. Land has been held in many parts of the country, and its development has been refused, because landowners were unwilling to sell it for developments

  2267
  which were urgently needed in the interests. of the community.
  This Bill will correct all that. It will take away from persons of that character their right to a monopoly of the land and its development. It will enable a local authority to acquire the land they require for the proper layout of their own locality. By granting this power to the local authorities it will enable them to get down to the job of removing the errors of the past and building up better towns and better cities, giving mankind a better, fuller and freer life in healthier surroundings. This, I believe, is the object of the Bill, and I believe it will be welcomed by every progressive man and woman throughout the length and breadth of this country as one of the finest Measures that this Government has ever been responsible for.
  8.25 p.m.
  Mr. Molson: The Minister, in moving the Third Reading of this Bill, claimed that it was a great and comprehensive Measure. It is because it deals with so many matters that we must regret that so little time has been given for its discussion. We do not blame the right hon. Gentleman for that, and we recognise that within the limited time available he did his best to listen. with courtesy to the suggestions the Opposition had to make. This Bill is, in the first place, a new planning Bill; in the second place it is a solution of the compensation and betterment problem, and in the third place it produces a new basis for Treasury grants. So far as the new code of planning is concerned, I agree that it is, on general lines, sound. I am glad that the new planning authorities are to be large enough to take in a reasonable planning area, and we regret that unlike most Socialist Ministers, the right hon. Gentleman was unwilling to take wider powers in order to introduce a certain flexibility in these planning areas.
  I ask him to give special attention to two matters. One is the need for a single document which will deal with all the permissions which have to be obtained for development from different Departments. We are all most anxious that there shall be no unnecessary conflict between good planning and housing development. In the second place, I hope that even now, he will look again at the problem of designation. I should like to
  2268
  feel that other Government Departments could not compulsorily acquire land, without having gone through the procedure of designation. I welcome the general outline of the provisions dealing with compensation and betterment. They are too closely similar to certain proposals which I ventured to make in the last Parliament for me to criticise them, without being inconsistent, but I feel that the Third Schedule to this Bill should be looked at by the Minister. The 10 per cent. limit on rebuilding and development is, I feel, unduly narrow.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman will not allow the division of houses into different dwelling places without special permission for development. I am sorry, too, that in the matter of agricultural land it is permissible for an owner to build a cowshed without permission, and without paying a development charge, but not to build a cottage for his cowman. I hope that in all these respects the right hon. Gentleman, who said he recognised the difficulty of administering this Measure, will make sure that these various controls are as little vexatious as possible. In his opening speech the right hon. Gentleman made the bold claim that the various grounds of complaint specified by us in our reasoned Amendment on the Second Reading had all been met. When I asked him to specify in what respects they had been met, he chose not to deal with the matter, but perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary, with his dialectical ability, will take up each one of those points and will make a convincing reply. Should he do so, then I would not find myself able to vote with my hon. Friends tonight. I find that in concluding my speech on the Second Reading I said:
  "While a Measure of this kind is necessary and the planning Clauses are, I believe, sound. I think at present that the betterment provisions are too vague and they give no guarantee against unfair discrimination; that the figure for compensation has not been justified: … "[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January. 5947: Vol. 432, c. 1018.]
  I believe that those charges are still true. I welcome the change of heart on the part of the Government in having departed from the 1939 standard of values, and since in that respect they have listened to the still small voice of reason coming from a small, but, I hope, determined Opposition, perhaps there will still be an opportunity in another place

  2269
  to improve the Measure in other respects which we criticised in our Amendment on the Second Reading.
  8.32 p.m.
  Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth: It is with some trepidation that I rise to make the final speech from these benches on this Bill, before it goes to another place. Whatever differences of opinion there may be among us as to the merits of the Bill, we are certainly agreed in all parts of the House, that it is one of the longest and most complicated Measures we have ever had to consider. In making this final Opposition speech on the Third Reading it will be necessary, to some extent, to pick and choose between various aspects of the Bill because it is obviously impossible to attempt to cover them all, however general one's remarks.
  The provisions of the Bill are not at all easily grasped, and I should like to add my thanks to the Minister for the extremely lucid way in which he has always dealt with the points which we have put to him and, if I may say so, for the great candour which he has always shown in recognising difficulties and attempting to meet them by accepting Amendments. In particular, I should like to thank him for the Amendments which he put down on the Report stage to Clause 3, dealing with directions which he is to give to the Central Land Board, and as to the report which that body is to make to Parliament. In some ways I think that those are the most important Amendments, and they were put down entirely as the result of representations from my hon. Friends on this side of the House. Although the right hon. Gentleman has gone a long way to meet us on matters of detail, nevertheless the main structure of the Bill remains almost precisely as it was when it was first introduced into this House. I think the right hon. Gentleman made a rash reference to the reasoned Amendment which was put down on the Second Reading. I looked up the records to see what were the actual points raised by that Amendment, and I think it may be of interest to the House if I refer to them very briefly now.
  We complained, in the first place, that no time had been given for local authorities to study the provisions of the Bill. So far from giving extra time for study-
  2270
  ing these provisions, after six days of very useful discussion in the Committee upstairs we were suddenly and without warning met with a Guillotine Motion on the Floor of the House. I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman can say that he met that objection. We also complained that an arbitrary sum was being provided for compensation for taking development rights, without any inquiry before the sum was finally settled. I do not think anything has been done to meet that objection. We complained further that no principles were laid down about the allocation of that sum. The Bill is still silent as to the principles to be followed. We complained, too, that there were no principles in the Bill about the levying of development charges. The Bill is still silent as to the methods of levying these charges. We complained about the continuance in force of the 1939 value, and that is the one point on which the right hon. Gentleman has met us in regard to the main structure of the Bill. We complained that the Bill involved discrimination against particular developers, and I think I can say that the Bill in that respect has remained completely unaltered. Finally, we complained of the number of matters left to be dealt with by regulation. I have attempted to check this, and as far as I can make out, there are no fewer regulations to be made under the Bill now than there was when it received a Second Reading.
  This Measure is so large and complicated that its effect and implications are not generally recognised, either in this House or outside. Those who have studied it carefully will agree that it is the most far-reaching, fundamental and basic Measure which has come before this Parliament. I should like to set out very shortly its purposes, which I do not want to exaggerate or over-simplify. The Bill sets up a system enabling the Minister of Town and Country Planning to control all land, all building and every activity on land in England and Wales. I find it difficult to think of any activity which does not require the use of land. The Bill, in fact, enables the right hon. Gentleman to control every single thing that is done in this country. Most people think that town and country planning is concerned entirely with amenities. I agree with the Minister that that is not so. I agree with him also that it should

  2271
  not be so, but the measure of control which this Bill gives over our economy generally is far too wide.
  The methods of control the Minister takes under this Bill are both direct and indirect. They are exercised, in the first place, through the Central Land Board, appointed by the Minister and bound to obey his directions. They are exercised also through the local planning authorities, who are bound to carry out a development plan, and although it is true that they may make that plan themselves, before it can become effective it has to be approved by the Minister, who can modify it to any extent. Finally, there are the powers of the right hon. Gentleman to make regulations. By these methods the Minister will be able to do exactly what he pleases with every inch of land, and every stone of every building in this country. It lies within his power to do so. It has been said that a slave cannot set foot on English soil and remain a slave. However true that may be, I believe that when this Bill becomes law there will be very little left that is not slavery for the owner of English land. The purpose of the Bill is to centralise the control of the use of all land. Some Members would object to the principle of such centralised control, whatever the expediency for such a control may be. Other Members would support the principle, whatever injustices or tyranny such control might bring forth. There may be some Members behind me who would object to that principle, but I know there are some Members behind the Minister who would support it. I think we can agree that these views are held mainly by what my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) described as the "lunatic fringe."
  Mr. Sparks: Would the hon. Member describe landlords as being members of the "lunatic fringe"?
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: I am referring to those Members of this House who would either support or reject a Bill of this kind on principle, whatever it contained. I think the great majority of Members recognise the expediency of a wide measure of planning for land. But they also recognise the difficulties, dangers, and injustices which may be involved in such a measure. There is a disposition on the part of supporters of the Government to regard us on
  2272
  this side of the House as obscurantist supporters of laissez faire in these, matters, but I ask them to consider the actual provisions of this Measure. Very little of this Bill could have been brought forward today if it had not been for the town planning legislation of the past. The hon. Member for Rutherglen (Mr McAllister) said that the Bill should have been brought forward 26 years ago. I do not believe that he really holds that view at all. I think he knows that the great bulk of this Bill has been built on the Measures which have been introduced by Tory Governments during the last 20 to 26 years. It is on the work of those Governments that the good parts of this Bill have been brought forward today.
  Mr. Sparks Mr. Sparks rose—
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: No, I cannot give way; I have very little time. I think it was Sir Isaac Newton who said, "I am not great myself, but I have stood upon the shoulders of giants." The Labour Party are not so modest. They have claimed all the good work of the last 20 to 26 years, and have added that to the few puny efforts towards good which they have made in the last couple of years. It is our duty tonight to weigh up how far the difficulties, dangers, and injustices have been met by this Bill. If we decide that they have been adequately met, we shall approve of the Bill, but if we decide that they have not we shall oppose it. We on this side have carefully considered the Bill in that light, and we have come to the conclusion that it seriously increases the practical difficulties of planning, that it creates political and economic dangers, and that it inflicts certain grave injustices. For that reason we propose to vote against the Bill tonight.
  Now to deal with the injustices. Public opinion is of course most sensitive to this aspect of the matter but in a sense, it is the least important aspect. Expropriation, even if it is unfair, does not, in itself, destroy wealth. But I venture to say that unfair expropriation is the gravest cause of public evil. If we legislate for expropriation on unfair terms, we are doing nothing short of committing a public theft and if we commit a public theft, then what becomes of private morality? It is of the utmost importance that when public needs require private rights or private property to be taken over, the compensation should be scrupulously fair.
  Mr. Sparks: It is.
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: There are two kinds of compensation payable under this Bill. There is compensation for land compulsorily acquired, and there is compensation for the development rights taken over. So far as compensation in Part IV of the Bill is concerned—that is, for land compulsorily acquired—I should like to congratulate the Government upon the change which they have made in the Bill since it was introduced. In a sense, of course, the change which they have made does not really affect the structure of the Bill. It is in a watertight compartment by itself, and whatever the basis of compensation for compulsory acquisition might be, the rest of the Bill has required very little alteration. I do not think that the change is necessarily as generous to the landlord as some hon. Members on the other side of the House appear to think. The hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock) I think opposed the change, or at any rate indicated to the Minister that he regretted it on the ground that it was being unduly generous to the landlord. I hope it may be possible for the Parliamentary Secretary to give us some indication this evening of the increase in price of land to the local authorities which may be involved. My own suspicion is that although some owners of land will stand to gain, a considerable number will stand to lose—I think quite rightly and properly. The case we made against the 1939 values was not that they were too low all round but that they were hopelessly out of date, and as a result completely unfair both to the individual concerned and to the community.
  Perhaps I may say this. The right hon. Gentleman announced his intention to make the change, as early as 13th March, but it was not until 25th April that we saw on the Order Paper six new Clauses and a new Schedule effecting the change, and within a fortnight of that we were debating it on the Floor of the House. Now it seems to me that these facts are characteristic of the attitude of the Government in this matter. They have taken six weeks to consult with their advisers—the civil servants and the draftsmen and others—as to what requires to be done to effect the change, but they make it virtually impossible for Members here, on all sides, to consult with the local authorities, with the surveyors and
  2274
  the other outside bodies who are vitally concerned in this matter. This is if I may say so a civil servants' Bill, and I think it would have been better if outside experts had had a little more opportunity of considering it and expressing their views upon it.
  I wish to say something about the compensation payable under Part V of the Bill for the taking over of development rights. The right hon. Gentleman refuses to see it as compensation at all. He claims that it is payment for hardship. I notice that when the Central Land Board are to dispose of these rights, those who wish to acquire them and develop the land will have to pay a development charge which is not a tax. On the contrary, the would-be developer will have to pay a commercial price. The right hon. Gentleman has explained on a number of occasions that the Central Land Board, in disposing of development rights, are doing nothing but selling a valuable commodity. Why is it that when the Government acquire the same commodity from the present owners, those owners are not paid a fair and uniform consideration? Either this is a commodity when the Government buy it, for which proper payment should be made, or else it never was a commodity, in which case the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's argument on the rest of the Bill, falls to the ground.
  The development rights are not mysterious, metaphysical or diabolical as some hon. Members appear to think—particularly some on the Liberal Benches, who do not seem to be here now. A development right is merely a power for a man to use his land for any purpose he pleases, subject to the general law of the country regarding nuisances and so on. The value of the development right is the present value which can be got for the land in the open market, less the value that could be got for it if it is restricted to its present use. In passing, I should like to say that when the development right has been taken away from that land, one result must inevitably follow. There would be taken away the inducement to sell the land, because the owner cannot make a profit out of it. Therefore, the owner will have no inducement whatever to try to get that land developed. The result of the buying up of those development rights, leaving the landlord with no interest in getting his land developed, will

  2275
  have a serious effect towards stopping development in the country generally.
  The point I make is that the value of a development right is the present value of that right in the owners' hands. ft may be that the land will not be developed until some future time, but the development value is a present value. The Inland Revenue have no difficulty in assessing the value of that right at any time for the purposes of Estate Duty, and I do not believe there is any mystery or difficulty surrounding this matter at all. I think when the development rights can be valued as they will have to be, we shall get a very clear picture of the total value of what is to be taken over under Part V of the Bill. Then we shall be in a very much better position to assess the total amount of compensation which should be paid for those rights.
  It is very unfortunate that the Bill is going forward including a figure which the right hon. Gentleman himself has said is really nothing but an intelligent guess. He has attempted to justify it on the ground that some say the sum is too much and others say it is too little. He has suggested that this is a nice average which is fair, but, with great respect, that argument is really nonsense. If a figure of £200 million instead of £300 million, or even a figure of £100 million only, had been in the Bill, I think the hon. Member for East Islington (Mr. E. Fletcher) and other hon. Members opposite would have objected just as much. In other words, this is not an average at all. The hon. Members who say £300 million is too much really object to any payment of compensation for this purpose.
  No one in any part of the House has attempted to justify a smaller figure than that of £300 million. The right hon. Gentleman's own actions clearly show that he appreciates that it is far less than the value of what is being taken over. He proposes to give the builders the first cut out of this sum to make their compensation precisely equal to the development charge on the greater part of the land which they hold. I agree that it is fair and proper to do that. I think that is a very right thing to do, but why give this priority to the builders?' The right hon. Gentleman says that payment out of this total sum is a payment to relieve hardship. Why should the builders
  2276
  specially be relieved of hardship. Are the builders a particularly poor, abused, down-trodden class of the community? Is that his suggestion?—Why should it be said that on grounds of hardship the builders should get special priority? Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman has made it perfectly plain. His reason—and he said so much in Committee upstairs—is that without this priority builders' costs would be increased. In other words, he admits candidly that the owners of land generally will get less than the fair compensation. That is the only inference to be drawn from the argument which he has put forward.
  He has been driven to make this exception in the case of the builders because of the impact on housing generally. I believe that before this scheme goes through the right hon. Gentleman will be driven to make a number of other exceptions. This sum will be whittled down for special reasons in no way whatever connected with hardship, and the administration of the scheme will be reduced to chaos. We on this side of the House protest against the global sum scheme partly because we think that the sum itself is entirely unrelated to the needs of the situation but more particularly we protest against the power of the Government to pick and choose amongst the beneficiaries who are to receive something under it.
  That brings me to our objections to the development charge. First, we object to the definition of development in the Bill as being far too wide. Except for maintenance and repair work, virtually every human activity is included. There will be need to get permission before starting any activity whatever when this Bill becomes law. Coupled with the need for permission, there will be the cumbrous and arbitrary procedure for paying the necessary development charge. We believe that this machinery will delay and frustrate enterprise. It may be that the underlying idea is sound. It may be—and I readily agree with my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson)—that there is the need to introduce some machinery of this kind some day; but is this the time to introduce such machinery? Surely a complication of this sort is the last thing required at the present moment when the need is to get industrial activity started again. The right hon. Gentle-

  2277
  man has supporters on his side of the House who share these views and some of them, including the hon. Member for Rutherglen have indicated that they fear very much that the machinery under this Bill will make very great difficulties for would-be developers.
  If the definition of development is too wide, the power to impose a development charge under the Bill is far wider. The Central Land Board are to have regard to the value of permission to develop and there are regulations to be made to prescribe the general principles on which they are to levy the charge, although those principles are entirely undefined in the Bill. Otherwise the Central Land Board can charge exactly what they please. Under the Bill the Board can charge, for instance, 100 per cent to private retailers who desire to acquire land for a shop and only 50 per cent. to a co-operative society for the same purpose. Or they can do the opposite, depending perhaps on the complexion of the Government giving them directions at a particular time. We believe that these powers are far too wide, that they will lead to grossly unfair discrimination and that they should not be allowed.
  I recognise that the time is going past, and if the Parliamentary Secretary is to reply before the Guillotine falls, I must bring my remarks to a close. There are many other features under this Bill to which we take exception. We wished to develop them at far greater length and would have done so had it not been for the shortness of the time which has been left to us as the result of this procedure. We object to this Bill because it contains features which we think will deter development, it contains grave injustices and will only complicate matters, and we shall go into the Lobby to vote against it.
  9.4 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning (Mr. Fred Marshall): I am very glad that tribute has been paid to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Town and Country Planning from both sides of the House for his conduct during the progress of this Bill through the Committee and Report stages. I would like to add my tribute to the Minister for his unfailing courtesy during the progress of the Bill and also for his amazing grasp of the baffling complexities of the Clauses of this Bill. In
  2278
  that respect I cannot claim to equal him. Like many other hon. Members, I suffer from the difficulties of the technical, legal jargon in which the Clauses are couched and, having a non-legal mind, I find the Bill very difficult from that point of view. I would also like to say a word of praise for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) for the way he has led the Opposition on this Bill. He has conducted himself with his usual courtesy, and I would like to couple both those names together in my tribute. It is a difficult Bill, a long Bill and an important Bill, and both right hon. Gentlemen have given of their best to what has been a rather difficult task.
  Many complaints have been made about the short time allocated to the discussion on the Committee and Report stages. The remarkable thing is that all those undiscussed Clauses have not been discussed today. Whether the Opposition regard them as being not important enough to warrant a discussion I do not know, but the discussion today has gone on the well worn lines that we heard on Second Reading and on the Committee stage, and if these alleged undiscussed Clauses are important and contain vital provisions, we have not heard them discussed on the Third Reading. I want to say a word about the time allocated to this Bill, and I do not do so with the idea of causing contention and discord. I want to content myself with a statement of fact. The fact is that when we finish today we shall have devoted no less than 90 hours discussion to this Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not on the Floor of the House."] There were about 108 Clauses and 10 Schedules. I think the hon. Member will realise that a good proportion of those Clauses were of minor importance and consequential, and I should say that, if the matter was averaged out, we have devoted enough time on this Bill to have allocated an hour to each Clause.
  Mr. Hare: Would the hon. Gentleman tell the House how many Clauses of the Bill have not been discussed at all?
  Mr. Marshall: Yes, I am coming to that point. I make this assertion, that if in the early stages of the Committee consideration of this Bill we could have come to co-operative agreement, with the Opposition and allocated the time in accordance with the varying importance of

  2279
  the Clauses, we could have got through and submitted practically every Clause to its proper scrutiny. Instead of that we used the first two or three or four meetings—
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: May I interrupt the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Marshall: I have very little time.
  Sir H. Lucas-Tooth: Does the hon. Gentleman say that the Opposition were consulted, before the imposition of the Guillotine, with a view to arriving at any time table?
  Mr. Marshall: I am saying that if we could have come to a friendly agreement with the Opposition, we could have submitted every one of these Clauses to scrutiny. There is no doubt about it that at the first four meetings of the Standing Committee we went exceptionally slowly. We were dealing with one Clause at each meeting and all the important Clauses were before us. It is quite evident that had we gone on at that rate, it would have taken a considerable time to have discussed all the Clauses of this Bill. Tributes have been paid to my right hon. Friend for his unfailing courtesy. It was not his fault, and my view is that if the Opposition have not discussed these Clauses it is, to some extent, their own fault. I thought I ought to say this because this question of lack of opportunity for discussion has been mentioned so many times during the Debate.
  The right hon. Member, in moving the rejection of the Bill, made one of his usual very able speeches. It was a speech without bitterness, and I frankly confess I always enjoy listening to him. But, I listened very carefully and failed to detect any reason why the rejection of this Bill should be moved. The right hon. Gentleman very adroitly suggested that what he was doing was to move to delay the operation of the Bill for six months. He is too old a politician to believe that. He knows very well that the ordinary procedure of this House is that when it is moved that a Bill be read
  "the Third time upon this day six months,"
  it means the virtual rejection of the Measure. It means the rejection of the Bill lock, stock, and barrel. It means that the Conservative Party by their action today are in favour of preventing
  2280
  the local authorities from receiving the benefits of the operation of the better compensation provisions of this Bill. It means that the Conservative Opposition—
  Mr. H. Strauss: —want a better Bill—
  Mr. Marshall: —are refusing today to compensate owners whose land is compulsorily acquired at current values, instead of 1939 values. It means to say that the Conservative Opposition by their actions would prevent local authorities from receiving the far more generous grants enshrined in the Bill than those in the 1944 Act. I can only say that the responsibility will be on their own heads.
  Practically every speaker of the Opposition has come round to the £300 million. On the Second Reading I had occasion to say a few things about the speech of the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Gammans). He has more or less repeated the spirit of his Second Reading speech, if not the letter, today. He referred to the "candid uncle" of the Bill, and I believe that in that description he was referring to his right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury. He rather suggested that the "candid uncle" had inspired the Bill to that extent. But the right hon. Gentleman's action today did not seem to be quite in accord with that idea. The hon. Member went on to praise the Bill for certain things it did. It took a larger area for planning, the implication being that planning over these larger areas would be done more efficiently, and that was a far better method than the old localised planning based on the old local authority planning unit.
  The hon. Member admitted that we had to some extent solved the problem of betterment in the Bill. I thought I detected from his reference to betterment that he was rather in favour of solving this problem. I know that the right hon. Gentleman in his White Paper, during the time of the Coalition Government, was very desirous of solving this question of betterment, if the White Paper could be believed. I think that the hon. Member for Hornsey felt that when he made his statement today. Another thing he implied was that the Bill was good because of the fact that it provided better grants for local authorities, and that it

  2281
  had taken off the local authorities heavy claims for compensation which they had hitherto borne under the 1932 Act. The hon. Member indicated these three or four items and suggested that they would be good features of the Bill
  Then he went on to suggest that in spite of that there were certain bad features of the Bill which compelled or induced him to vote against it. I would say that on balance his reasons for voting for the Bill were far more potent than the reasons he gave for voting against it. Let us look at one or two of the things he indicated. First, he complained that the Bill did not allow the conversion of houses into flats; secondly, that the 10 per cent. tolerance was altogether wrong, and did not allow for agricultural cottages, for example, being increased by 10 per cent. without incurring the threat of a development charge. He also said that the Bill would get rid of the private developer. I characterise that statement as utterly untrue. The private developer will not have to pay any more for his land than before—not as much. He will certainly have to pay a development charge, but the fact that he will be getting his land at the present use value, plus a development charge, will mean that these two together will just about amount to what lie paid for his land previously. The suggestion that this Bill will get rid of the private developer is simply not true.
  The hon. Member talked about the delay in getting permission for development. Through all the stages of this Bill my right hon. Friend has insisted, and has stated over and over again, that it is his desire that one application should suffice for planning permission, for the development charge and for by-law permission. It is his intention to bring that about, so that objection goes by the board.
  Mr. Gammans: If he does it
  Mr. Marshall: My right hon. Friend has stated over and over again, both in Committee and on the Report stage, his intention of doing it. The hon. Member says there will be a lot of haggling about the development charge. My view about this, which I am sure is the view of my right hon. Friend, is that the Land Board will treat this matter in a proper businesslike way, like any other business man or business board. I think that that objection to the Bill is very weak. The hon. Member
  2282
  suggested the possibility that developers would not be able to face development charges. Probably the hon. Member has forgotten Clause 68, which enables the Land Board to make proper arrangements in cases like that. They can even take a charge on the land belonging to the builder in lieu of the development charge. They can vary the payment of the development charge either by asking for it as a capital sum or as an instalment. There are all those modifications in Clause 68. Therefore, that objection goes by the board.
  The real objection of hon. Gentlemen opposite against the Bill is the £300 million. That has come out time and again in the speeches of hon. Members opposite, and the hon. Member for South Hendon (Sir H. Lucas-Tooth), in winding up the Debate for the Opposition, once more returned to the £300 million. The real opposition to the Bill is not that it is not a good planning Bill, that it does not solve the betterment problem, that it does not deal with the multitudinous and varied difficulties of planning; it is that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not believe that the £300 million is a large enough sum for the landowners of this country. My right hon. Friend is between two fires on this matter. Many hon. Members on this side of the House think that £300 million is far too heavy a sum, especially believing, as they do, and as I do, that development values have not been created by the owners of the land, but have been created by the energy of public enterprise, by the laying of sewers and the making of roads. It is for that reason that we believe this sum is adequate. On the Second Reading of the Bill, my right hon. Friend gave reasons for believing that £300 million is an adequate sum, and those reasons seemed to me to be logical and his calculations to be just.
  Mr. Gammans: He did not make any.
  Mr. Marshall: The hon. Gentleman's memory is at fault if he has forgotten them.
  Mr. Gammans: They were intelligent guesses.
  Mr. Marshall: My memory of them is pretty vivid. I shall not repeat the figures, but I feel that the calculations have stood the test, of criticism With regard to agricultural cottages, I ought to

  2283
  mention that we are looking into this matter, that we have a proposal in mind, and that this proposal has already been discussed with the Ministry of Agriculture. It is as follows. A development charge should be assessed in the ordinary way and put on an annual basis. The suggestion which we are considering is that if a certificate is given by the Minister of Agriculture that the cottage is necessary for agricultural purposes, the charge will be waived and will continue to be waived as long as that certificate is maintained. I think that will be satisfactory as far as farm cottages are concerned. and the proposal is made in response to many requests from the Opposition.
  I want now to say a few words about designation, which has been mentioned as being likely to hinder and prevent development. The hon. and learned Member for Daventry (Mr. Manningham-Buller) raised this point on several occasions in Committee, and I believe he raised it on the Report stage. It is his view, and the view of many hon. Members opposite, that designation will create an atmosphere of uncertainty on the part of the owner and the builder so far as the acquisition of land is concerned. I do not take that view, and never have. The principle of designation has been included in order that owners, developers and local authorities can secure a complete picture of the programme proposed by a development plan. In that development plan areas for industry, housing, agriculture and mineral working will all be indicated, and, of course, many more, and there will be certain areas. of that land designated as subject to compulsory purchase. My right hon. Friend has never claimed that designation eliminates all uncertainty, and I think it would be beyond the wit of man to devise any instrument that would do that, but what he does claim for it, and what I claim for it, is that it limits the threat to certain specific areas. That is my view of it, although I know the hon. and learned Member does not agree with me. It limits the threat to certain specific areas, and enables the owner to know that land has been designated and may be liable to compulsory purchase. If one compares this position, where one gets a complete picture of all the factors in a development area, with what took place under the old 1932 Act, one will recognise
  2284
  that it is infinitely better from that point of view.
  During the Second Reading my right hon. Friend made a very striking statement. He said that although less than half the country had been covered by planning schemes local authorities had zoned sufficient land in this country to house no less than 350 million people, and over all that land there would be the threat of compulsory purchase. The owners of the land would not know where this threat was going to settle, and there would be a floating uncertainty as to which land would be compulsorily acquired. Under designation the certainty is settled on definite areas of land, and while it does not eliminate all uncertainty, it clearly reduces it.
  I have only two or three minutes left. but I want to deal with one more point. I remember that on the New Towns Bill the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) taunted the Minister and myself with not being bold enough to bring in a compensation and betterment Bill. I indicated that probably in good time that Bill would be forthcoming. The hon. Member rather suggested that we were not sufficiently courageous to face up to that particular task, but I replied that the Bill would come in good time and when it did we would confidently look forward to seeing the hon. Member for The High Peak in our Lobby when the Division took place. He said "Yes, if the Bill was bold enough." I should have thought that this Bill would be bold enough for the hon. Member, and I confidently look forward to seeing him tonight in our Lobby. No adequate reason has been given for the rejection of this Bill. It is a Bill which, I am sure, will make an immense difference to planning in this country. It is one for which we have been waiting for many years. It marks the stage where planning leaves the negative principle and goes over to the positive principle. I believe that this Bill will mark a stage at which this House can say, that we have enlarged our planning policy so as to suit it to the greater compass of the nation.
  It being half-past Nine o'Clock, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Order made upon 3rd March, to put forthwith the Question necessary to bring to a conclusion the proceedings on the Third Reading of the Bill.
  Question put, "That now stand part of the Question."
  The House divided: Ayes, 297; Noes, 126.

  Division No. 217.]

  AYES

  [9.30 p.m

  Adams, Richard (Balham)

  Evans, John (Ogmore)

  Lipton, Lt.-Col. M

  Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)

  Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)

  Logan, D. G.

  Allen, A C. (Bosworth)

  Ewart, R.

  McAdam, W.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Fairhurst, F

  McAllister, G.

  Alpass, J. H.

  Farthing, W. J

  Mack, J. D.

  Anderson, A. (Motherwell)

  Fernyhough, E.

  McKay, J. (Wallsend)

  Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)

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

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

  Attewell, H. C.

  Follick, M.

  McKinlay, A. S.

  Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R

  Foot, M. M

  Maclean, N. (Govan)

  Austin, H Lewis

  Forman, J. C

  McLeavy, F.

  Awbery, S. S

  Fraser, T. (Hamilton)

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Ayles, W. H

  Gallacher, W.

  Mallalieu, J. P. W.

  Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B

  Ganley, Mrs C. S.

  Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)

  Bacon, Miss A

  George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)

  Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)

  Baird, J.

  Gibbins, J.

  Marquand, H. A.

  Balfour, A

  Gibson, C. W.

  Marshall, F. (Brightside)

  Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J

  Gilzean, A.

  Medland, H. M.

  Barstow, P. G.

  Glanville, J. E. (Consett)

  Mellish, R: J

  Bechervaise, A E.

  Gooch, E. G.

  Messer, F.

  Benson, G.

  Goodrich, H. E.

  Middleton, Mrs. L.

  Berry, H.

  Gordon-Walker, P. C

  Mikardo, Ian

  Beswick, F.

  Granville, E. (Eye)

  Mitchison; G R

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A (Ebbw Vale)

  Greenwood, A W. J (Heywood)

  Monslow, W

  Bing, G. H C

  Grenfell, D. R

  Montague, F.

  Binns, J.

  Grey, C. F.

  Moody, A. S.

  Blackburn, A R

  Grierson, E.

  Morgan, Dr. H. B.

  Blenkinsop, A

  Griffiths, D. (Rather Valley)

  Morley, R.

  Blyton, W R

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)

  Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)

  Boardman, H.

  Griffiths, W. D. (Moss Side)

  Mort, D L

  Bottomley, A. G

  Guest, Dr. L. Haden

  Murray, J D

  Bowden. Flg.-Offr. H. W.

  Gunter, R. J.

  Nally, W

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

  Guy, W. H.

  Naylor, T E

  Braddock, T (Mitcham)

  Haire, John E. (Wycombe)

  Neal, H. (Claycross)

  Bramall, E. A.

  Hall, W. G.

  Nichol, Mrs M. E. (Bradford, N.)

  Brook, D. (Halifax)

  Hamilton, Lieut.-Col. R

  Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)

  Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)

  Hannan, W. (Maryhill)

  Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)

  Brown, George (Belper)

  Hardy, E. A.

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby)

  Brown, T J. (Ince)

  Harrison, J.

  Noel-Buxton, Lady

  Buchanan, G

  Hastings, Dr. Somerville

  Oldfield, W. H.

  Burke, W. A.

  Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)

  Oliver, G H

  Butler, H. W (Hackney, S.)

  Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)

  Orbach, M.

  Byers, Frank

  Hobson, C. R.

  Paget, R. T.

  Carmichael, James

  Holman, P

  Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)

  Castle, Mrs B. A

  Holmes, H. E. (Hemsworth)

  Paling, Will T (Dewsbury)

  Chamberlain, R. A

  Hoy, J.

  Palmer, A. M. F

  Champion, A J.

  Hubbard, T.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

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

  Parker, J.

  Clitherow, Dr R

  Hughes, H. D. (W'lverh'pton, W.)

  Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)

  Cobb, F. A

  Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme)

  Paton, J. (Norwich)

  Cocks, F. S

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Pearson, A

  Coldrick, W.

  Irving, W. J.

  Pearl, Capt. T. F.

  Collindridge, F

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A

  Plaits-Mills, J. F. F.

  Collins, V. J

  Janner, B

  Porter, E (Warrington)

  Colman, Miss G. M

  Jay, D. P. T.

  Porter, G. (Leeds)

  Comyns, Or L.

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

  Price, M. Philips

  Cook, T. F.

  John, W.

  Pritt, D. N.

  Corlett, Dr, J.

  Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Corvedale, Viscount

  Jones, J. H. (Bolton)

  Pursey, Cmdr. H

  Crawley, A

  Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)

  Randall, H. E.

  Daggar, G.

  Keenan, W.

  Ranger, J.

  Davies, Clement (Montgomery)

  Kendall, W. D

  Rankin, J.

  Davies, Edward (Burslem)

  Kenyon, C.

  Rees-Williams, D. R

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield)

  Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr. E

  Reeves, J.

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Kinley, J.

  Reid, T. (Swindon)

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

  Kirby, B. V

  Rhodes, H.

  Deer, G.

  Lang, G.

  Richards, R.

  Delargy, H. J

  Lavers, S

  Robens, A.

  Diamond, J

  Lee, F. (Hulme)

  Roberts, Emrys (Merioneth)

  Dobbie, W.

  Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)

  Dodds, N. N.

  Leonard, W.

  Roberts, W. (Cumberland, N.)

  Driberg, T. E. N.

  Leslie, J. R.

  Rogers, G H. R.

  Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)

  Lever, N. H.

  Ross, William (Kilmarnock)

  Durbin, E. F. M.

  Levy, B. W.

  Royle, C.

  Dye, S.

  Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)

  Sargood, R.

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Lewis, J. (Bolton)

  Scollan, T.

  Edelman, M.

  Lewis, T. (Southampton)

  Scott-Elliot, W.

  Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)

  Lindgren, G. S.

  Segal, Dr, S.

  Edwards, W. J. (Whilechapel)

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

  Shackleton, E. A. A

  Evans, E. (Lowestoft)

  Lipson, D. L.

  Sharp, Granville

  Shawcross, Rt. Hn. Sir H (St. Helens)

  Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)

  While, C. F. (Derbyshire, W.)

  Shurmer, P.

  Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)

  Whiteley, Rt. Hon W

  Silkin, Rt. Hon. L.

  Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Silverman, J (Erdington)

  Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)

  Willey, F T. (Sunderland)

  Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)

  Simmons, C. J.

  Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Skinnard, F. W.

  Timmons, J

  Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke)

  Titterington, M F.

  Williams W R. (Heston)

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

  Turner-Samuels, M

  Williamson, T

  Sorensen, R. W

  Ungoed-Thomas, L.

  Willis, E

  Soskice, Maj. Sir F

  Usborne, Henry

  Wills, Mrs. E. A

  Sparks, J A

  Viant, S P

  Wise, Major F. J.

  Stamford, W

  Walkden, E

  Woodburn, A

  Steele, T.

  Walker, G. H

  Woods, G. S

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E)

  Wallace, G D. (Chislehurst)

  Wyatt, W.

  Strauss, G R (Lambeth, N.)

  Wallace, H W (Walthamstow, E.)

  Young, Sir R. (Newton)

  Stubbs, A E.

  Warbey, W N.

  Younger, Hon Kenneth

  Sylvester, G O

  Webb, M (Bradford, C.)

  Zilliacus, K

  Symonds, A. L.

  Wells, W T (Walsall)

  Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)

  West, D. G.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Taylor, R. J (Morpeth)

  Westwood, Rt Hon. J

  Mr. Simmons and

  Mr. Popplewell.

  NOES.

  Aitken, Hon. Max

  Glyn, Sir R.

  Nield, B. (Chester)

  Allen, Lt.-Col. Sir W (Armagh)

  Grant, Lady

  O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir H

  Amory, D. Heathcote

  Gridley, Sir A

  Orr-Ewing, I. L.

  Assheton, Rt. Hon. R

  Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)

  Pete, Brig. C. H. M

  Astor, Hon. M

  Hare, Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)

  Pickthorn, K.

  Baldwin, A. E.

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

  Pitman, I. J.

  Barlow, Sir J

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Poole. O. B. S. (Oswestry)

  Baxter, A. B.

  Hogg, Hon. Q

  Prescott, Stanley

  Bennett, Sir P

  Hollis, M. C.

  Ramsay, Maj. S.

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

  Howard, Hon. A

  Reed, Sir S. (Aylesbury)

  Bossom, A. C

  Hurd, A.

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

  Bower, N.

  Hutchison, Lt.-Cm. Clark (E'b'gh, W.)

  Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)

  Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.

  Jennings, R

  Ropner, Col. L.

  Braithwaite Lt.-Comdr. J. G.

  Kerr, Sir J. Graham

  Sanderson, Sir F.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W

  Kingsmill, Lt.-Col. W. H

  Scott, Lord W.

  Carson, E

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Shephard, S. (Newark)

  Challen, C.

  Langford-Holt, J.

  Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W

  Channon, H.

  Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.

  Smith, E. P. (Ashford)

  Clarke, Col. R. S.

  Lennox-Boyd, A. T.

  Smithers, Sir W

  Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G

  Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)

  Snadden, W. M

  Conant, Maj. R. J. E.

  Lucas, Major Sir J

  Spearman, A. C. M

  Corbett, Lieut.-Col. U (Ludlow)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.

  Spence, H R.

  Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon H F C

  MacAndrew, Col. Sir C

  Stanley, Rt. Hon. O.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col O. E

  McCallum, Maj D.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.

  Crowder, Capt. John E.

  Macdonald, Sir P. (I. of Wight)

  Strauss, H. G. (English Universities)

  Cuthbert, W. N.

  Mackeson, Brig. H. R

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. J (Moray)

  Darling, Sir W. Y

  McKie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Sutcliffe, H.

  Digby, S. W.

  Maclay, Hon. J. S

  Teeling, William

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)

  Thomas, J P. L. (Hereford)

  Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)

  Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)

  Thorneycroft G. E P (Monmouth)

  Drayson, G. B

  Maitland, Comdr. J. W.

  Thornton-Kemsley, C. N.

  Drewe, C.

  Manningham-Buller, R. E

  Thorp, Lt.-Col. R A F

  Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Marples, A. E.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Eccles, D. M.

  Marshall, D. (Bodmin)

  Walker-Smith, D

  Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter

  Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)

  Ward, Hon G. R

  Fleming, Sqn.-Ldr. E. L

  Maude, J. C.

  Wheatley, Colonel M J.

  Fletcher, W. (Bury)

  Mellor, Sir J.

  White, J. B. (Canterbury)

  Foster, J. G. (Northwich)

  Matson, A. H. E.

  Williams, C (Torquay)

  Fraser, Sir I (Lonsdale)

  Morris, Hopkin (Carmarthen)

  Willink, Rt. Hon. H. U

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

  Morris-Jones, Sir H.

  Winterton, Rt. Hon Earl

  Gage, C.

  Morrison, Rt. Hon. W S. (C'nc'ster)

  Galbraith, Cmdr. T D.

  Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C E

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Gammons, L. D

  Neven-Spence, Sir B.

  Commander Agnew and

  Mr. Studholme.

  Question put, and agreed to.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (SCOTLAND) BILL
  Lords Amendments considered.
  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (SCOTLAND) BILL

    CLAUSE 8.—(Hospital Endowments Commission.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 9, line 13, after "fit" insert:
    "being purposes relating to hospital or specialist services or to research into any such matters are are mentioned in Section seventeen of this Act."
    9.42 p.m.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Westwood): I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    This Amendment makes it cleat that the purposes to which endowments may

    2289
    be re-allocated by the Hospital Endowments Commission must be within the field of hospital and specialist services, including research.
    Lords Amendment: In line 18, at end, insert "and."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    This Amendment, together with the next Amendment, is consequential.
    Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I do not think that this Amendment is consequential. It means that the Government are accepting, at a late date, an Amendment which was proposed in the Scottish Grand Committee. It has taken them a long time to realise that we were right, but we congratulate them on realising it now.
    Lords Amendment: In page in, line 7, leave out "five," and insert "seven."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    I have always regarded it as important that the work of the Commission should be completed in the shortest possible time, because until the Commission actually review the particular endowments, those endowments can be applied only in accordance with their existing classes, which may have become inapplicable in the changed circumstances created by the Bill. As a guarantee, however, of the good faith of my intention that the Commission should complete the task themselves, I am content that their minimum period of office should be extended to seven years from five years. In that event, I confidently hope that no question of continuing the Commission in office for a further period will arise, although I must point out that there remains, in the Bill, a provision for that extension.
    Mr. Speaker: This Amendment raises a question of Privilege, and the necessary entry will be made in the Journal of the House.
    Commander Galbraith: We are very glad that the Government have seen fit to extend the term of service of the Commission in the
    2290
    hope that they may complete their work, and that it may not be necessary to extend their service beyond the period which is now laid down.

    CLAUSE 11.—(Regional Hospital Boards, Medical Education Committees and Boards of Management.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 13, line 46 at end, insert:
    "and any other body or organisation which appears to the Board to be concerned "
    9.45 P.m.
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The Bill originally required regional hospital boards when framing schemes for the setting up of boards of management for individual hospitals or for groups of hospitals, to consult universities concerned. The effect of the Amendment which we are now considering is to extend this statutory requirement to cover consultations with such other bodies and organisations as appear to them to be concerned, as, for example, local authorities, existing voluntary hospital boards, and associations and authorities and hospitals.
    Mr. J. S. C. Reid: The Government, of course, are up against a difficulty here. If they prolong their consultations too long, it will be very difficult to fit in the time-table. On the other hand, if they make a point of fitting the time-table consultation may be unduly curtailed. I hope the Minister can assure the House that he will be able to fit in all the necessary consultations and still have the machinery ready for that appointed day which he originally had in mind.
    Mr. Westwood: I can give that assurance, otherwise I would not be prepared to accept the Amendment from the other House.

    CLAUSE 14.—(Conditions of service and appointment of officers.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 17, line 6, at end, insert:
    "the number of persons nominated under this sob-paragraph being, except in such circumstances as may be prescribed, equal to one half of the total number of members of the committee."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The effect of the Amendment is to secure that the university concerned has equal representation with the hospitals themselves on advisory committees concerned with the selection of doctors for appointments to posts involved in teaching as well as clinical duties. I might point out that the Amendment is so drafted as to allow this rule to be departed from in cases where the teaching duties are relatively unimportant. in comparison with the clinical duties.
    Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I think the Amendment is an improvement in the Bill as it originally left this House but it does not in fact make a great concession. As the Secretary of State has just pointed out, even that small concession may be departed from in such circumstances as may be prescribed. We on this side of the House still feel uneasiness about the position in which the teaching appointments are left. The position in Scotland is not equal to that in England but we welcome the Amendment as a step in advance.
    Mr. Charles Williams: Might I ask one question on this matter? I would like to know if we are making it possible for a university in Scotland to have half the representation on these committees. I think we ought to know whether that is the same proportion as there is in England and Wales and Northern Ireland. If it is not approximately the same proportion, there would seem to be something wrong. We should be a little careful of this kind of thing. We should see whether matters are better adjusted in this respect in Scotland than in England. If they are we may take this as a precedent for amending another Act.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Buchanan): The short answer to my hon. Friend is this, that the Scottish Bill differs from the English Bill entirely. The set-up is different. Consequently the point as to whether it is the same in England does not arise. The setup with regard to teaching in hospitals is entirely different under our method of approach, from what it is in England.
    Question put, and agreed to.

    CLAUSE 15.—(Health Centres.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 17, line 28, leave out "services which local health," and insert "health services which local health or education."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The effect of this Amendment is to make it clear that facilities can be provided by the Secretary of State at health schools which was always my intention. This makes it still more clear.

    CLAUSE 17.—(Research.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 18. line 29, at the end, insert:
    "or to the development of medical of surgical appliances including hearing aids."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    This Amendment will not affect the administration but will be of assistance as far as research is concerned, and I feel, therefore, that the object will he acceptable to the House, because research is being carried out and we want to encourage it as far as we can.
    Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I am glad that the Government have accepted this Amendment, because both on the English Bill and on the Scottish Bill concern was expressed from all quarters of the House about the position of the deaf and their aids. It is one of the matters where we are far behind and where any assistance which the Government can give will be most valuable. I think it is encouraging that even at this late stage, the Government have recognised the necessity for including something in the Bill to draw attention to this most important question.

    CLAUSE 34.—(Arrangements for general medical services.)
    Lords Amendment; In page 27, line 9, leave out from "for" to "in," and insert:
    "securing a right to any person to choose or to change."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

    2293
    This Amendment will make it clear, as was always our intention, that a person should be entitled to change his family doctor in the new service from time to time as well as choose him originally.

    CLAUSE 43.—(Disqualification of persons providing services.)
    Lords Amendment: In page 39, line 17, after "section", insert:
    "shall be informed, as soon as may be, of the substance of any charge or complaint to which the inquiry relates and."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The effect of this Amendment is to make it clear, as was always intended, when a petitioner comes before a tribunal on a representation that he should be excluded from the services, he must be given a statement of the charge and the complaint into which the tribunal is inquiring.
    Commander Galbraith: It is indeed gratifying to find that the Government now appreciate certain matters which we placed before them during the early stages of the proceedings on the Bill, and are making absolutely clear what are the intentions of the various Clauses. This Amendment makes the position very much clearer, and we are very glad to see those words here.

    CLAUSE 77.—(Arbitration.)
    Lords Amendment; In page 59, line 12, at end, insert:
    "and at any stage in the proceedings in any such arbitration the arbiter may and shall if so directed by the Court of Session state a case for the opinion of that Court on any question of law arising in the arbitration."
    Mr. Westwood: I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
    The effect of the Amendment is to extend the procedure which is followed when arbitration is resorted to in cases of dispute. This case will arise mainly in connection with the transfer of hospitals to the Secretary of State. For example, under Clause 6 (6) covering the apportionment of voluntary hospital property which is transferred and, under Clause 7 (9), covering the apportionment of property which ranks in part as an endowment of a
    2294
    voluntary hospital, and Clause 9 (9, a) covering other questions arising as to the transfer of a property. There may be legal questions involved in connection with these arbitrations and, for those reasons, I am willing to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I am glad that the Government have accepted this Amendment. The House may be aware that, whereas in England it is the general rule that there should be appeals on points of law from arbitrators to the High Court, in Scotland the general rule is that an arbitration is final both on law and fact. Some people think that that is all right where the arbitration is entered into voluntarily by people who know what the consequences are, but I think it ought to be a general rule that a statutory compulsory arbitration should include this provision of an appeal on a point of law. I am glad to see that the Government recognise that, and I hope that in similar cases in future we shall have this kind of provision wherever there is statutory arbitration.
    Remaining Lords Amendments agreed to. (Several with Special Entries.)

  TIMBER CHARGES ORDER
  Resolved:
  "That the Timber (Charges) (No. 9) Order, 1947 (S.R. amp;O., 1947, No. 748), dated 24th April, 1947, made by the Treasury under Section z of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, and Section 5 of the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945. a copy of which Order was presented on 29th April. be approved."—[Mr. Glenvil Hall.]

  HOUSING, ESK VALLEY
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Snow.]
  9.58 p.m.
  Mr. Spearman: I am very glad to have the opportunity of raising this matter, which concerns a hamlet in the Esk Valley of Yorkshire, a quarter of a mile from the nearest road. The people there are suffering great hardship which could be removed. I realise that many hon. Members probably have constituents who have not got a road leading up to their

  2295
  houses, but I doubt whether anywhere in England there are as many as 100 people living without a road of any sort or kind leading to their hamlet. I would like to start by describing this hamlet and how the position arose.
  It consists of 34 houses, of which 32 are inhabited and two are offices. These houses were built over 100 years ago to provide accommodation for men working in the ironstone mines, which have been closed for about 70 years. There are over 100 people, consisting of old age pensioners, agricultural workers and bricklayers from the neighbouring brickworks, living there. When these houses were built they were served by the local railway, which, I believe, was one of the first in England. That railway has been out of use for a long time now and it is in such a dangerous state that it would not be safe for passengers to travel on it. However, by the goodwill of the railway company, a truck has been sent up once a fortnight with groceries for these people and with coal when that was available. Also, the authorities will send up a truck for a coffin, because even in that very healthy locality people die from time to time and there is no other manner in which the bodies can be removed. A few weeks ago in a case of serious illness, a man had to be carried on a stretcher for a mile along the railway line and through a tunnel in order to get him to the nearest village. It is, I maintain, a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, but it is going to be a good deal worse
  Because—
  It being Ten o'Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question proposed; "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. Snow.]
  Mr. Spearman: —because there is an idea that the railway may stop using the line, even for sending up a truck, owing to the cost of the maintenance of the sleepers. There is also some idea that in time there may be a change of ownership of the railways, and if that comes about I do not know whether the new owners will be particularly justified in such uneconomic expense as that entailed in keeping this line in condition fit even to send up a truck.
  2296
  What I maintain is needed is a road to the nearest high road, which is a quarter of a mile away. I realise that it is a difficult job in that it is a very steep hill and the road might be one in four, or one in five, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman—perhaps he is not accustomed to our Yorkshire hills—that that is a very frequent circumstance. In fact, the approach to each of the three nearest villages is up a hill of one in four or one in three, so there is nothing very unusual or difficult there. If a road was made to the highway, the people would have access to the nearest village of Grosmont, one and a half miles away, not altogether a satisfactory access, as it means going through a ford which is blocked for part of a year. But there is another village two miles away, with schools and a railway station, and I think two churches, and all sorts of facilities, which would then he available for them.
  The cost of this road is, I believe, something under £1,000. The agent to the estate has given me that figure and a qualified surveyor whom I consulted thought it could be done for about £750. I expect the Minister may have in mind something more expensive, but I would press on him that public authorities and Government Departments are sometimes more ambitious than is really necessary. We only want a single track road capable of taking a vehicle of some sort. The local authorities say they cannot make this road. The owner cannot do it because he says it would be more than he can afford. When we take into account that these houses are let at only 3s. 6d. or 4s. a week rent, we can see that by the time he has paid the maintenance charges there is not very much to spare, and moreover these houses will probably be demolished in a few years time because they are so very much out of the way. It would therefore be very uneconomic for the owner to spend money on this road, but he is prepared to give the land and he is also prepared to provide the stones.
  When I raised the matter in correspondence with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in the unfortunate absence through illness of the Minister, a letter I received in reply said:
  "… if the council themselves proposed to carry out the work it might well be that with the many urgent calls on labour and material at the present time they could not be given high enough priority to enable the project to proceed."

  2297
  I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that that same county council has lately received authority to spend ten or twenty times the amount involved in widening a main road. That may be the admirable thing to do and I have no criticism of it at all, but I suggest that in the present state of acute housing shortage it is more important to make houses tenable than it is to provide roads for cars to go at still greater speed.
  I suggest that this is really a housing problem. I know the Minister will agree that he has certainly not got all the houses he would like to see and perhaps I might add that we have not got all the houses we were led to expect, but I do not on this occasion want to recriminate. I want to conciliate because I want to get something out of the right hon. Gentleman. If other houses were available I would certainly not raise this matter, but I suggest that if those people did not continue to live in those conditions they would be homeless and therefore it is good business at the present time to spend the equivalent of about £30 a house on making these houses habitable. Presumably in a few years time it will be easy to replace them. Houses today are worth much more than they will be when we have the men and materials available. Therefore, it is surely worth improving the conditions to make these houses habitable, which I maintain, they are not at the present time. Moreover, if the railway is to be maintained, even under present conditions, that will be a considerable cost to the State when they own it as against the cost on making this road.
  I suggest that this is not a case for legal niceties, for what is or is not legal, but a question of urgency to get round a difficult matter. May I express to the right hon. Gentleman what my hopes are in the matter? I hope he will give the local authorities the power to make this road, and that he will make a grant towards the cost of it so as to encourage them to carry it out. I would like to make it quite clear that I am not asking for anything which will improve the value of the land for the owner, because he, I know, will not only give the land and provide the stone but he would, I am sure, give an undertaking that the rents would not be raised above the present level of 3s. 6d. or 4s.
  2298
  This is a very small matter, but I realise that small matters arc sometimes difficult. Surely, however, the right hon. Gentleman, with his great reputation for vigour and improvisation, will not be daunted by a difficulty of that sort? I have known him for a long time. It may be that his heart is in the wrong place, I often think it is, but it is a large heart and, if I may say so in the best sense of the word, a soft heart. I cannot believe that an appeal to him would be in vain where it is a question of real suffering and hardship to be avoided by energy and initiative on his part.
  10.7 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Aneurin Bevan): There is no difference between the hon. Member and myself on the main facts of the case which he has just unfolded to the House. It is true that these houses have been there for about 100 years, and I believe that the owner of the houses has been in possession of them for rather more than 70 years of that period; also that the people who occupy these houses will suffer considerable hardship when railway facilities are withdrawn from them.
  Mr. Spearman: They are suffering now.
  Mr. Bevan: And, indeed, suffer privation at the moment. There is no dispute between us there. Also I think it would be agreed that it would not pay the landlord—the owner of the houses—who is having 3s. and 4s. a week in rent for these houses to construct a road at great expense especially in view of the fact which the hon. Member mentioned, that the houses may not be occupied for a very long period. Of course, those considerations appeal to the county council also. They say, "Why should we spend large sums of money at this moment upon houses which will not be occupied for any considerable time?" So in this case the views of the public authority and the private landlord coincide.
  Of course, this is not an unusual case. We have experience after experience where landlords and private owners have constructed houses, and have not seen fit to make roadways to those houses and, consequently, have called upon the public authority to make good their own neglect. That happens not only in small

  2299
  hamlets like this, in mountain villages and in valleys of this sort; it occurs also on the urban outskirts of our cities where building societies have built estates, and have neglected to provide proper road ways to them. Now the poor mortgagors find themselves in conflict with each other about whether the roadways should be made up.
  Mr. Spearman: But is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that anywhere else in England there are over 100 people, including a large number of children, more than a mile from any village, and a quarter of a mile from the nearest road?
  Mr. Bevan: There are a considerable number of instances where landlords have constructed houses, and neglected to make roads to those houses, and then the people concerned have called upon the local authority to make good the neglect of the landlord. That happens quite frequently in many parts of Great Britain. My difficulty is that the local authority is the sole body to decide whether it will or will not make up the roadway. I have no power to coerce the local authority. The landlord can make the roadway There has been a good deal of correspondence between the landlord and the local authority on this matter. So far, the local authority says it is not prepared to spend money in this way, and I am reluctant to bring any pressure to bear on the local authority to do what it is disinclined to do, because, as I say, I have no locus in the matter. I have no power to make the road, except in very special circumstances, and the county council the sole determining body.
  Mr. Spearman: To my mind the whole difficulty is that it is a housing problem. If there were houses available I would not ask for anything, but as there are not houses available, is it not possible to give a grant? It would only amount to £30 per house.
  Mr. Bevan: I was coming to that. I do not accept the position that if a roadway is not made, the houses will not be tenanted There are large numbers of houses in Great Britain which ought not to be tenanted, but, as a consequence of our deplorable housing situation they are tenanted. We are doing our very utmost, with limited resources, to try to make the
  2300
  position better. I am not satisfied that this is a housing problem in the sense in which the hon. Member is suggesting that it is a housing problem. But, I am quite sure that these people would go on living in these houses, although in fact they would be suffering quite considerable privation by doing so.
  A number of estimates have been made. My surveyors have been on the site surveying it and have provided me with a number of different estimates. They agree with the county council that the making of an adequate roadway over the shortest route would cost about £2,000. The hon. Member says that the surveyor of the estate concerned says it would cost something like £750
  Mr. Spearman: Seven hundred and fifty pounds to £1,000.
  Mr. Bevan: Seven hundred and fifty pounds to £1,000 Of course, if we reduce the figure much further it might be within the financial competence of the landlord to make the road, if he chooses to do so. The fact is that when the local authority steps in to make a roadway it has to make an adequate roadway. It always does so. When the landlord makes a roadway, he usually puts a very superficial surface on, and does not ballast it properly. Usually there are heavy maintenance charges, which consequently fall on the local authority, who are deluded into taking the roadway over when they think the landlord has made it. The local authority looks at the maintenance cost and the landlord looks at the initial cost. That arises on many occasions. However, it does not look to me as though these people will be able to obtain houses in a more desirable place in the very near future. I, myself, would take the view that the local authority might consider the matter, and see whether it is not possible to improvise a roadway that can be used for this hamlet in the next few years. But, as I said earlier, I have no power to coerce them. I hope that continued correspondence between the hon. Member and the local authority will be more fruitful than it has hitherto been.
  Adjourned accordingly at Sixteen Minutes past Ten o'Clock.

BRITISH ARMY
  Military Tattoo, Berlin (Special Trains)
  Military Tattoo, Berlin (Special Trains)
  Leave Ration Cards
  Leave Ration Cards
  Special Campaign Pensions (Cancellations)
  Special Campaign Pensions (Cancellations)
  Alternative Site, Langdale Fell
  Alternative Site, Langdale Fell
  Married Quarters, Colchester Garrison
  Married Quarters, Colchester Garrison
  Commissions (Candidates' Training)
  Commissions (Candidates' Training)
  Marriage (German Women)
  Marriage (German Women)
  Stanford Battle Training Area
  Stanford Battle Training Area
  POLISH TROOPS, STAFFORD AND CANNOCK, WELFARE
  POLISH TROOPS, STAFFORD AND CANNOCK, WELFARE
  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS ACT, 1946 (OPERATION)
  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS ACT, 1946 (OPERATION)
PRISONERS OF WAR
  Clothing (Modification)
  Clothing (Modification)
  Official War History (Persia Command)
  Official War History (Persia Command)
  OVERSEAS PERSONNEL (FAMILY ALLOWANCES)
  OVERSEAS PERSONNEL (FAMILY ALLOWANCES)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Supplementary Clothing Coupons
  Supplementary Clothing Coupons
  Camera Films
  Camera Films
  Footwear (Retail Margins)
  Footwear (Retail Margins)
  Tanned Kips
  Tanned Kips
  British Industries Fair (Empire Exhibits)
  British Industries Fair (Empire Exhibits)
  Hotel Accommodation (Foreign Visitors)
  Hotel Accommodation (Foreign Visitors)
  Timber Supplies (European Countries)
  Timber Supplies (European Countries)
  Wool Stocks
  Wool Stocks
  Cots and Perambulators
  Cots and Perambulators
  NEW TOWNS (CONSULTATIONS)
  NEW TOWNS (CONSULTATIONS)
EMPLOYMENT
  Manufacturing Industries (Employees)
  Manufacturing Industries (Employees)
  Harvest Work (Servicemen)
  Harvest Work (Servicemen)
  Disabled Persons, Oldham
  Disabled Persons, Oldham
  Increased Wage Rates (Men)
  Increased Wage Rates (Men)
  Appointments Offices (Placings)
  Appointments Offices (Placings)
  Milk Roundsmen (London Co-operative Society)
  Milk Roundsmen (London Co-operative Society)
  Eastleigh
  Eastleigh
  East and West Ridings
  East and West Ridings
  European Volunteer Workers (Welfare)
  European Volunteer Workers (Welfare)
  NATIONAL SERVICE (UNIVERSITY STUDENTS)
  NATIONAL SERVICE (UNIVERSITY STUDENTS)
SCOTLAND
  Care of Old People (Circular)
  Care of Old People (Circular)
  Herring Industry Board
  Herring Industry Board
  Foxes
  Foxes
  Industry and Employment (White Paper)
  Industry and Employment (White Paper)
  Smallpox
  Smallpox
AGRICULTURE
  Tobacco Growing
  Tobacco Growing
  Seed Production and Plant Breeding
  Seed Production and Plant Breeding
ARMED FORCES
  Occupation Troops, Austria and Germany (Cost)
  Occupation Troops, Austria and Germany (Cost)
  BRICK AND TILE MAKING (FUEL ALLOCATION)
  BRICK AND TILE MAKING (FUEL ALLOCATION)
  Recruitment
  Recruitment
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Cyclopropane
  Cyclopropane
  Motor Industry Advisory Council (Report)
  Motor Industry Advisory Council (Report)
  Inspectorate Branches (Staff)
  Inspectorate Branches (Staff)
  FISHING VESSEL "DOVE" (LOSS)
  FISHING VESSEL "DOVE" (LOSS)
  SMALL-POX DEATHS, BILSTON
  SMALL-POX DEATHS, BILSTON
  GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE (BIRTH CERTIFICATES)
  GENERAL REGISTER OFFICE (BIRTH CERTIFICATES)
  EAST AFRICA (AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS, IMPORTS)
  EAST AFRICA (AGRICULTURAL TRACTORS, IMPORTS)
  ROYAL NAVY (MERCHANT NAVY CADETS)
  ROYAL NAVY (MERCHANT NAVY CADETS)
  FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING SCHEME (GRANTS)
  FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING SCHEME (GRANTS)
Preamble
The House met at half past two of the Clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers.

  CUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL (WATER, ETC.) BILL [H.L.]
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read 2a.
  Moved that the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Stanmore.)
  VISCOUNT ESHER: My Lords, I will not detain your Lordships on this Bill for more than a few moments, but there is a matter of some importance to which I think attention should be drawn. For more than fifty years it has been the custom to include in private water bills what is known as a Birmingham clause, giving public access for air, exercise and recreation on any common land which it is proposed to acquire and enclose. Under this Bill 150 acres of common land will be enclosed in an area of great beauty which is to be the first and most important of our National Parks. The Cumberland County Council have been strongly pressed to insert the customary Birmingham clause into this Bill, but they have refused to do so. I am sure your Lordships will agree that the principle of public access to common land must be safeguarded, and the Standing Committee on National Parks, the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Friends of the Lake District are strongly pressing for this amendment. The National Trust, which owns such large properties in the Lake District would, I feel sure, take the same view. I have been urged to move an instruction to the Committee to this effect, but I feel that that particular machinery, so effective in the recent Dedham Vale Case, should not be used too often, and I hope that what I have now said on this important matter of principle will reach the ears of the Committee.
  On Question, Bill read 2a.

  WEAR NAVIGATION AND SUNDER LAND DOCK BILL. [H.L.]
  Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  TRIBUTES TO THE LATE VISCOUNT FITZALAN OF DERWENT.
  2.38 p.m.
  THE SECRETARY or STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, I shall be pardoned, I am sure, for intervening for a moment. I ask your Lordships to remember and Pay tribute to one of the oldest members of this House, the noble Viscount, Lord Fitzalan of Derwent, who has just died at the age of 91. Many of us knew him for a great many years in active life in the Palace of Westminster. It seems strange, but it is the fact, I believe, that it is 71 years since the noble Viscount first entered the British Army, and it is 53 years since he first became a member of another place. I myself knew him well and worked with him constantly when he was Chief Whip of the Coalition Government during the latter period of the First World War. I must say that I found the noble Viscount somewhat exacting, and sometimes, perhaps, a domineering colleague, but always actuated by a keen sense of what was necessary in the interests of the House, and, above all, loyal to the highest public interest. As your Lordships know, later on the noble Viscount was the holder of the high office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and under the process of history was the last holder of that famous office. Apart from all those things, as many of your Lordships know far better than I do, the noble Viscount was constant in his service and in his loyalty to the Church of which he was so distinguished a member. I am sure your Lordships would like this tribute to be paid to the noble Viscount to-day.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, we on these Benches would wish to be associated with the noble Viscount the Leader of the House in the tribute which he has paid to one who was a most distinguished member of both Houses of Parliament. He played, perhaps, a more active part of his career in another place. He made a great reputation as a Chief Whip—often, I think, the most difficult office in which to make and hold a reputation, and the

  867
  easiest in which to lose one. As a Chief Whip he was, as I know, a strict disciplinarian; but at the same time there was a humanity and straightforwardness about him which always seemed to make the more difficult things easy and obvious. Though the noble Viscount took, perhaps, a less active part in the business of this House, he was fond of it and until the very last was always a regular attendant. Always he represented his own faith in a way which commanded the respect of every creed. He was all that is best in our public life.
  THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, we who sit on these Benches desire to associate ourselves with the tributes paid by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House and by the Opposition to the noble Viscount, Lord Fitzalan. It has been rightly said that his public life was governed by the guiding principle of duty. That in its turn was inspired by a threefold principle— love of his Church, loyalty to and respect for his Sovereign, and devotion to his country. As your Lordships know, the noble Viscount, Lord Fitzalan was the spokesman of the Roman Catholic community in this House when events which closely touched that community occurred. In speaking on such occasions he never gave offence to any who differed from his religious opinions. That in itself constitutes a remarkable achievement. We who belong to what was known in the early post-reformation days as the "Old Religion" have suffered a sore loss, the loss of a leader and of a friend. To-day that loss seems to us to be irreplaceable and we can only say "May he rest in peace."
  VISCOUNT CECIL OF CHELWOOD: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will allow me to say a few words in support of what has been said by my noble friend. Viscount Fitzalan was a very old friend of mine. I have been intimate with him for more than sixty years, and for a large part of that time we were fellow members in another place. He became, as you have been reminded, Chief Whip of the Party to which we both belonged, a position of very great difficulty politically, and perhaps even more morally. He discharged those duties with remarkable success, and without any suggestion that he ever resorted to insincerity or sharp practice. He was
  868
  the inheritor of a great tradition of public service, coming down, it may be, from those far away ages when the richest and most powerful subjects acknowledged that they held their possessions by virtue of their service to the State. That system, no doubt, had its faults, but in the hands of men like Viscount Fitzalan, and others whose loss we have recently deplored, it would produce a patriotism adorned by a devotion to public duty, which those who succeed them will find it difficult to equal and impossible to surpass.

  AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY.
  2.45 p.m.
  LORD SAVILE: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question which stands to my name in the Order Paper.
  [The question was as follows:
  To ask His Majesty's Government, (a) What is the total estimated monthly production of combine drills, ploughs, binders, sugar beet lifters; (b) What steps are His Majesty's Government taking to increase the manufacture of spare parts in this country?]
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON): My Lords, the monthly averages of the total production programmes for the year October 1, 1946, to September 30, 1947, are as follows: combined corn and fertilizer drills, 100; tractor -ploughs, 5,000; sugar beet and root lifters, 175. Production difficulties may prevent the full programmes from being completed, but it is not possible to say how far they may fall short. The production of binders is confined almost entirely to one firm, and it is regretted that the information could not be given without revealing the firm's business.
  As regards the second part of the question I am not aware of any general shortage of spare parts for machines made in this country, though temporary and local shortages of individual parts may sometimes occur. In general, British manufacturers seem to be fully alive to the need for an adequate supply of spares, and realize that these should be a first charge on capacity and materials. Their attention has been called to the point again recently. The main shortages have been of spare parts for machines of

  869
  American make. It has been possible to arrange for some of these to be made in this country, but the range of individual spares runs into many thousands, and there are serious difficulties about producing some of them here. The best hope lies, therefore, in increasing supplies from the makers of the machines, and I am glad to say that the position in this respect is showing some signs of improvement.
  LORD SAVILE: I thank the noble Earl for his reply. It was encouraging, at any rate, to hear his final remarks. I hope that priority for any of these tools and spare parts which do become available will be given to farmers and not to export. I would like to ask one supplementary question about binders being manufactured by one firm only. I do not in the least want to press the noble Earl for information about the activities of this one firm which manufacture them, but I think it is extremely unsatisfactory that binders are not produced by more than one firm. Is there any hope in the future that more firms will manufacture binders?
  THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON: I am afraid that that is a question I cannot answer. If there is a demand I presume the firms will produce them. It is a matter for the firms themselves.

  T.U.C. OFFICIAL'S VISIT TO GREECE.
  2.48 p.m.
  VISCOUNT LONG: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question which stands to my name on the Order Paper.
  [The question was as follows:
  To ask His Majesty's Government, under what auspices Mr. Tewson of the Trades Union Council was sent to Greece, and whether they can state what has. been the result of his invitation to the Greek workers in the Piraeus to absent themselves from work on May I.]
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (LORD PAKENHAM): My Lords, Mr. Tewson went to Greece under the auspices of the World Federation of Trade Unions to investigate the situation of the Greek trade unions and to report on it. As regards the second
  870
  part of the question, the noble Viscount is mistaken. Mr. Tewson did not invite Greek workers to absent themselves from work on May I.
  VISCOUNT LONG: While thanking the noble Lord for his answer, may I ask if His Majesty's Government consulted with the President of the Athens, and Piraeus workers before that reply was given? Further, is it a fact that Mr. Tewson is encouraging the Communists to become members of the Union within the trade unions of this country?
  LORD TEVIOT: Might I ask a further supplementary question arising out of the answer? Was this visit of Mr. Tewson one that was sanctioned by the Foreign Secretary?
  LORD PAKENHAM: I will look into all the matters raised by the noble Lords who have brought forward these supplementaries. Speaking front my own know-ledge, I can assure noble Lords that Mr. Tewson is a man of the highest probity, in whom I personally have the greatest confidence.
  VISCOUNT LONG: I have not said one word against Mr. Tewson's character. I merely asked the question in view of the seriousness of the situation. Having just come back, I have some knowledge, gained from information given me by the President of the trade union. If I should put down a further question in a fortnight's time, will the noble Lord be in a position then to give me a full answer?
  LORD PAKENHAM: I will always endeavour to answer fully any question raised by noble Lords. I have no doubt I shall be in a position to give an answer at the time the noble Viscount has mentioned.

  SOANE MUSEUM.
  LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I beg to ask His Majesty's Government the question standing in my name.
  [The question was as follows:
  To ask His Majesty's Government whether the grant to the Soane Museum recently announced in another place will be made conditional on the transfer of the Hogarth pictures to another gallery, or their re-hanging if possible in the Soane Museum in such a way that they may be visible.]
  LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, no condition is attached to the grant-in-aid made to the Trustees of the Soane Museum. The Private Act of 1833, under which Sir John Soane instituted the Museum, provides that the contents of the house shall remain as they were placed in his lifetime. The transfer or re-hanging of the Hogarth pictures is therefore not possible, but improvements in the lighting are under consideration.
  LORD FARINGDON: May I ask whether in future His Majesty's Government will make grants of public monies dependent on the efficient performance of the business or the task which the trustees in this case or any similar cases may have undertaken?
  LORD PAKENHAM: I will lay that suggestion before my right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I cannot accept for one moment that there has been any inefficiency on this occasion.

  PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE.
  3.52 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the consideration of the Second Report from the Select Committee read.
  The Committee reported as follows:
  1.—SPECIAL ORDERS.
  The Committee have considered the position on the Order Paper to be allotted to Motions relating to Special Orders, Special Procedure Orders and Statutory Instruments and are of opinion that such Motions shall be taken at the beginning of public business.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, on behalf of the Lord Chairman, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now approved.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES.
  Order of the Day for the consideration of the Third Report from the Select Committee read.
  The Committee reported as follows:
  1.—SALARIES AND ALLOWANCES—CONSOLIDATION OF.
  The Committee authorized consolidated scales of salary to the women employed in the Department of the Clerk of the Parliaments.
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  The Committee also sanctioned the application to the staff of the House of Lords of Treasury Establishment Officers Circulars No. 39/47 and No. 40/47 on Assimilation of Salaried Staff to the Consolidated Scales and Consolidation of Allowances respectively.
  2.—APPOINTMENT OF ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN.
  The Committee approved the appointment of Mr. C. S. A. Dobson to the office of Assistant Librarian in the place of Mr. Frank G. G. Carr, who has resigned. The appointment to date from May 5, 1947.
  3.—RETIREMENT OF MESSENGER TO CROWN OFFICE.
  The Committee sanctioned a pension and an additional allowance under the Superannuation Act, 1935, to Mr. Gilbert Howard, Messenger attending with House of Lords Writs, on his retirement from April 2, 1947, after 39 completed years' service.
  4.—APPOINTMENT OF A CLERICAL ASSISTANT IN THE PARLIAMENT OFFICE.
  The Clerk of the Parliaments informed the Committee that he had appointed Mr. Clifford Keith Stevens to fill a vacancy in the grade of clerical assistant on the staff of the Parliament Office. The appointment to date from May 5, 1947.
  The Committee sanctioned the salary payable to Mr. Stevens.
  The Committee authorized an additional post of clerical assistant in the Department of the Clerk of the Parliaments.
  5.—OFFICE ASSISTANTS AND HOUSE MESSENGERS.
  The Committee approved a revised scale of pay for Senior Office Assistants from May 1, 1947.
  The Committee also sanctioned the application to the Office Assistant and House Messenger grades of the increases in pay and assimilation terms contained in Treasury Establishment Officers Circular No. 12/47.
  6.—LORD CHANCELLOR'S MESSENGER.
  The Committee agreed to an increase of salary to the Lord Chancellor's Messenger as from 1st September, 1946.
  7.—CUSTODIANS.
  A proposal for the establishment of members of the Custodian Staff who are under 65 years of age was approved by the Committee, subject to certain details to be arranged between the Clerk of the Parliaments and the Treasury.
  8.—MEMORIAL TO THE LATE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY.
  The Committee agreed that as a memorial to the late Marquess of Salisbury a bust of him should be placed in the precincts of the House. They appointed a Sub-Committee, to consist of the Leaders of the three parties in the House, or deputies appointed by them, with the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Chairman of Committees, the Earl Fortescue and the Clerk of the Parliaments to consider details and execution of the bust, and its subsequent position.
  9.—ACCOMMODATION FOR PEERESSES.
  A Report from the Sub-Committee appointed to consider and report on the allocation of seats for peeresses in the present Chamber was laid before the Committee and agreed to.
  10.—OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD).
  The further consideration of a proposal for the weekly publication of Hansard's Lords Debates was postponed until further details of the suggestion are available.
  11.—REPAIRS TO MACE.
  The Committee approved an estimated payment for restoration of the silver-gilt Charles II Mace.
  12.—INSTALLATION OF TELEPHONE.
  The Committee approved the installation outside the Chamber of the House of a telephone fitted with a direct line to the Whitehall exchange.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.
  LORD STANMORE: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now approved.
  On Question, Motion agreed to.

  TRANSPORT BILL.
  2.55 p.m.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of the Transport Bill. I am afraid I have rather a long speech to make to the House, and in order to keep it within tolerable limits I have committed it to paper. With the consent of the House, I will keep more closely to my manuscript than is sometimes thought either graceful or proper. Before coming to the Bill itself—and when we reach it we may find ourselves not altogether in harmony concerning all its provisions—I am sure that your Lordship's' House will join in paying a tribute to all those connected with the transport services for all they did during the war and have done since the end of the war.
  Having said that, let us approach the Bill itself. Many things will be said about this Bill, some highly favourable and some slightly less favourable, but right from the outset I would submit two propositions to your Lordships. The first is clearly incontrovertible and the second difficult to resist on mature reflection. We must
  874
  all agree that this is a tremendous Bill. Parliament is being asked to transfer to public ownership the railways of the country, with all their assets and all their ancillary undertakings, including their hotels, ports, cross-Channel steamers and investments. The public under the Bill will also acquire the canals of the country on a similar basis. At the same time they will acquire the London Passenger Transport Board, which is responsible, as your Lordships will be aware, for buses and tubes in the London area. The public will also acquire 600,000 railway waggons now in private hands, in addition to a similar number which will accrue through the acquisition of the railways themselves. On the road haulage side it is estimated that upwards of 20,000 vehicles now in the hands of some 2,000 operators will be transferred to the Commission, which in addition will inherit over 10,000 vehicles of the railway companies and of companies controlled by the railways.
  It is quite true, and indeed I am anxious to allay any anxiety on this point at the earliest possible moment, that the figures I have just given for road haulage vehicles to be publicly acquired are not more than a quarter of the total "A" and "B" licence vehicles in the country; that is to say, of the vehicles now carrying for hire or reward; and the figure does not loom very large against the 306,000 "C" licence vehicles which are used by traders for their own purposes. At the same time the public acquisitions on the road haulage side are considerable, and when we add to them the acquisitions I have mentioned earlier, and when we add also certain projected schemes of reorganization—for example, bus services and ports— and when we consider all these things, we shall agree, I feel sure, that a great responsibility falls on the House for giving the most careful consideration to the Bill that is being brought forward to-day.
  I would submit at the outset that whether or not one waxes enthusiastic over these great developments, one is bound to admit, if one is at all objective and dispassionate, that something of this kind was quite inevitable. For many years before the War, as your Lordships will remember, competition between the railways and road haulage was creating a situation which was universally recognized to call for correction; and few, if any, public questions were more discussed

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  or inquired into than that of the coordination of transport. The Road Traffic Act of 1920 brought the passenger side of the road industry under licensing control, and in 1933 the Conservative Government carried the Road and Rail Traffic Act which introduced a somewhat smaller regulation over the haulage of goods by road. But this measure proved inadequate to the need, and the agitation for a "Square Deal" for the railways just before the War led the pre-war Government to promise further legislation.
  It requires very little capital investment, as we all know, to start a road haulage business, and the process of attrition of the railway revenues from merchandise traffic, due to the competition of the roads, forced the railways to quote exceptional rates in ever-increasing numbers to an extent which threatened to destroy the whole basis of the railway rates structure. The Government are satisfied that all the prewar proposals and the subsequent deals between the various interests are quite inadequate remedies. We regard them not only as inadequate but as open to an overwhelming objection. They would go a long way, if approved, to create a monopoly in goods transport, but to vest it in private hands, a situation which we do not think the House would willingly accept and which we would certainly regard as highly improper to recommend, particularly as a public subsidy might have been involved.
  We are convinced, and we hope to convince your Lordships, that there is only one remedy. We are satisfied, to put the matter in a nutshell, that any sound reorganization of our transport system must involve closer integration. We are satisfied that such integration must produce a measure of monopoly, and that such monopoly could only be tolerated if it were subjected to the public interest through the principle of public ownership. In other words the only remedy for this acute transport problem—a problem which baffled us before the war, and which would confront any Government that were in power to-day—is to introduce the principle of public and unified ownership of the railways, and of long-distance road services. In passing, your Lordships will remember that Governments of various complexions were driven to the same solution of a similar problem which existed in London. There also the real remedy had to be found
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  in unified ownership under a public board of both road and rail services.
  The noble Viscount Lord Swinton, who, I believe, is to follow me, played a most distinguished part, for which the country has every reason to be grateful to him, in bringing the Act of 1933 to the Statute Book. I am also pleased to think that when the noble Viscount has addressed the House, the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, will speak for the Liberal Party. He and I on this matter (I think I am right in saying this and I hope that I do not do the noble Lord any injustice) have something in common which we do not share with the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton. We bring to this subject the purity of virginal minds. The noble Viscount, on the other hand, has been wedded to it, in lawful matrimony, I believe, for many years, and his holy wedlock was not at all a form of holy deadlock, because his views developed and I have no reason to think that they have stopped developing. It would indeed be most unfair to accuse the noble Viscount of any element of arrested development, and when I have finished I hope that he will arise and say that even while I have been talking his mind has been moving, and he is now ready to accept, at any rate, the main principles of the argument. But time will show.
  Before passing to the main features of the Bill I would like—if by doing so I shall not be detaining the House unduly—to quote, in relation to the policy of unification of the means of internal transport, views expressed by members of your Lordships' House who held successively, and successfully, the post of Minister of Transport. The noble Lord, Lord Reith, on June 17, 1942, said:
  "I submit that there should be a national transport corporation covering railways, road transport, canals, coastwise shipping and internal air services; that the railway should be brought under unified management and become part of the corporation."
  That was said by a great Conservative, who was Minister of Transport.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: The Chancellor of the Duchy, I am sure, would not wish to do injustice either to the noble Lord, Lord Reith, or to the Conservative Party.
  LORD PAKENHAM: I would be the first to apologize to both if I have wrongly coupled them together. I shall await further enlightenment on that subject both from Lord Reith and from those who

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  speak for the Conservative Party. On the same day Lord Brabazon spoke—and he, I think, is a great Conservative. Of course, as the House knows, I was once a Conservative myself but I have become out of touch and have not got back.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: You went via the Liberal Benches?
  LORD PAKENHAM: I am afraid I took a shorter route. On the same day Lord Brabazon said:
  "I should like to see a corporation running the railways and corporations running road transport and canals and coastwise shipping, but all joined at the top in a pool, so that they could all run efficiently."
  Lord Leathers, while not going so far, stated on October 27, 1943:
  "Even if it should be proper in any postwar circumstances to proceed with the 'Square Deal' proposals, I am firmly convinced that some more radical solution has still to be found, although I am not yet able to bring forward any precise suggestions."
  We have thought it our duty to bring forward precise suggestions. We should have regarded ourselves as shirking our duty had we failed to do so. Your Lordships will, perhaps, allow me to indicate as briefly as I can their main outlines. The Bill concentrates the ownership of all the services and undertakings to be acquired in the hands of the British Transport Commission. Without this concentration of ownership and control the problem will not be solved. In our submission, separate financial interests would otherwise be bound to go on warring for their own particular concerns, without sufficient regard to the needs of the public service. Important undertakings might well not feel justified in embarking upon the investment of further capital, or indeed be able to raise it on their own credit. Common ownership and pooling of resources will remove many of the existing difficulties and will give a positive basis for technical and other developments which are needed but which must inevitably be very costly.
  Part I of the Bill sets up the British Transport Commission composed of five members, defines its relation to the Minister, and lays down the principles of its organization through functional executives which are to be the Commission's agents. The functional executives will be four in number: one for railways, one for docks and inland waterways, one for road trans-
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  port, and the fourth for London Transport system, with an hotel executive to be added at a later date. The conception behind the Commission is that it should be the central authority in which all the assets and properties of the transferred undertakings will vest, and it will be the authority which will decide and direct policy. On one side of it, however, there will be the Minister of Transport and on the other side the four functional executives.
  Take first its relationship to the Minister. It is not the intention that the Minister of Transport, on behalf of the Government, should interfere with the administration of the transport system or with the discretion of the Commission and the executives. The Government feel confident that they can rely on the Commission to carry out its general duties as defined in Clause 3. Nevertheless, it would clearly not be right to leave an organization of this magnitude aloof from the possible requirements of public policy. It is, therefore, necessary that Parliament should have the ultimate control and that the Minister should have the powers, indicated in Clause 4, of issuing general directions to the Commission on matters affecting tie national interest. These directions are required to be published unless the Minister intimates that the publication would be against the interests of national security.
  Take next the relationship of the Commission to the executives. One of the main duties of the Commission will be to control its executive agents—that is, the railway executive, the road executive, and so on —so as to secure that there should be proper co-ordination and integration between their services and the various forms of transport which they will operate, at all levels, national, regional and local. It may be said that the Bill does not tell us exactly how integration is to be secured. I quite agree. No Bill could do any such thing. The exact ways in which this aim is to be secured cannot be laid down in any Statute, and it would indeed be most undesirable to lay down some rigid framework within which all development must find its place. But because public ownership does not, automatically and without further effort, bring about integration, that does not mean that public ownership is not an essential condition of any effective integration. It is indeed a sine qua non.

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  We are fully alive, as the Commission must be alive, to the importance of not perpetuating rival and competing services, and it will be particularly necessary to see that the commercial organization, as distinct from the engineering organization of the different executives (and it is the commercial organization which will be most closely in touch with the travelling public and the traders), should be closely correlated and work in harmony together. Before leaving Part I of the Bill may I draw your attention to Clause 6—a very important clause which provides the machinery whereby the Commission will have at its side a series of consultative committees to keep it advised as to' the needs of the travelling public and of trade and industry. I would linger longer upon this clause but for the fact that my noble friend, Lord Walkden, who has had much greater experience of these matters than I have had, is going to speak later, and I understand that he will be dealing with this among other topics.
  Now I come to Part II of the Bill; that is, Clauses 12 to 38. These are the clauses which affect. the transfer of railways and canals to the Commission. The Commission will take over along with the railways the whole of the companies' assets, including a substantial proportion of the country's canal mileage, a large number of important harbours dealing with about one-third of our overseas trade, a substantial interest in passenger transport by road, together with a large business in short-distance road haulage. As for those canals which are not owned by the railways —and of course they also will be taken over—I need not say more than that every inquiry into the problem since and including the valuable report of Mr. Neville Chamberlain in 1921 has been unanimous in saying that there was no alternative to compulsory amalgamation if the canals were not to go further into decay. We cannot escape that conclusion. While we cannot encourage the hope of any large expansion of canal traffic, we believe that with the economies to be secured by amalgamation and with the aid of new capital to be raised on the basis of public credit, something can be done to restore their position.
  Part II also deals with railway waggons. Those owned by the railways will pass to the Commission, as already explained. The
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  privately owned stock, numbering about 600,000, will also pass to the Commission. No one, I think, disputes the advantages of this step. The pooling of waggons proved necessary in two wars. Terms of compensation have been agreed and are specifically set out in the Bill. Part III is concerned with transport of goods by road, a very intricate subject. It is an essential feature of any satisfactory scheme of transport integration that long-distance road haulage and the services of the railways should, in future, be regarded as complementary instead of mutually destructive, and the first step towards curing the difficulties of the past is to create a common financial interest in respect of long-distance haulage. It is probably not realized what a large field for private enterprise is left for the road haulier under the provisions of the Bill. We propose that the lest whether or not a haulier should be subject to complete acquisition by the Commission should be the proportion of his total traffic, judged either by tonnage or receipts, which is carried for distances of forty miles or upwards—that is dealt with in Clause 39—exclusive of certain traffics which are carried in tank or refrigerated vehicles, or furniture vans. The formula is, I admit, inevitably somewhat complicated, but I think it can be explained without serious inaccuracy in this way.
  Suppose the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and I myself both conduct a certain amount of road haulage business over distances of more than forty miles, and a certain amount over distances less than forty. If more than half the noble Viscount's business is conducted over distances greater than forty miles he will be nationalized, while if more than half of my business is conducted over distances of less than forty miles I shall not be compulsorily nationalized at all. That is not a completely detailed example, but it shows how the thing will work out. On the other hand if the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has a total business which would just bring him into the area of nationalization but includes substantial traffics carried in furniture vans, he may find himself free from any nationalization because he will be allowed to exclude all traffics of this special character when the calculation comes to be made.
  This criterion of forty miles certainly does not err on the short side, if the aims

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  of the Bill are to be achieved and road and rail to be co-ordinated. By taking this test we will find ourselves, on the best estimate available to me, acquiring some 2,000 undertakings operating some 20,000 vehicles in addition to something over 10,000 railway vehicles. Outside acquisition under the Bill, there will remain some 100,000 "A" and "B" vehicles, and about 300,000 "C" vehicles used by traders for the carriage of their own goods. Apart from the forty miles test there will be a twenty-five miles test of a different character. I am very anxious that these two tests should not be confused in any way. There is no question of using the twenty-five mile test to acquire vehicles, but it is essential that the British Transport Commission should be able to control haulage outside a radius of local operation, and we have provided that no haulier shall be entitled to run for distances of more than twenty-five miles from his authorized base without a permit from the Commission. Let me repeat that, to avoid any danger of misunderstanding. If most of your business is over distances less than forty miles, there is no question of your business being compulsorily acquired; but if you are an "A" or "B" licence holder you will have to get a permit to run outside a radius of twenty-five miles. That does not mean that you have to get a permit every time you go outside the radius. It will be given for a given period. The individual haulier is thus left a very substantial field of operation amounting in each case to an area of some 2,000 square miles before he requires to obtain any permit.
  LORD BEVERIDGE: Will the noble Lord answer this question, to make it quite clear? What is the definition of "short" and "long" haulage business undertakings? Is the business a long-distance undertaking if either more than half the mileage travelled or more than half the receipts relate to long-distance work. Does that not mean that since a man will naturally get larger receipts for long-distance traffic he may well be brought in as a long-distance haulier, though most of his haulage is short distance?
  LORD PAKENHAM: It is conceivable, but if the position is as the noble Lord has stated, he will have an opportunity to criticize it when it comes to his own speech.
  LORD BEVERIDGE: I am not criticizing.
  LORD PAKENHAM: If he is not criticizing, I am entirely grateful for his observation. The radius of twenty-five miles has, it is true, been criticized as miserably inadequate, but, to judge from a pamphlet published in 1943 entitled The Road Carrying Industry in the Future the leading personalities in the road haulage industry were at that time, at any rate, inclined to regard twenty miles, rather than twenty-five, as the kind of radius within which the small man should be allowed to continue. We are genuinely anxious to leave the small man a reasonable field of operation but we cannot altogether exclude the British Transport Commission from this type of business. In Many areas it may be a most useful combination with their long-distance services and their services by railway or canal. In many cases already there is an immense business of collection and delivery which is done, and always has been done, by the railway companies and their subsidiaries. In areas of this kind there will be an opportunity of close co-operation between public and private enterprise.
  Before leaving the subject of road haulage I need hardly remind your Lordships that, in order to allay the apprehension of industry, the Government have already deleted from the Bill those provisions which would have subjected to control the "C" licence holder or private trader using his vehicles for the carriage of his own goods beyond forty miles. As the Bill now stands the private trader using his own vehicles is completely unrestricted. I wish to lay great emphasis on that point. I would remind your Lordships also that the Government have inserted a provision expressly laying down the principle that where the Commission is providing regular goods transport services of different kinds between the same points, any person desiring to use these services between these points is free to choose the service which he considers most suitable for his needs. This was always the intention, but strong anxieties were expressed on the subject in another place. We were anxious to meet any reasonable doubts on this point and we feel sure that our action has given satisfaction to the trading community. So much for Part III and road haulage.

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  Part IV is concerned with passenger road transport, harbours and coastal shipping. The larger municipalities have operated trams, and more recently buses, largely within their own boundaries. Outside those boundaries, bus services have been provided on no definite plan by private undertakings, and although in recent years, amalgamations of the services into larger groups (in which the railways have been financially interested to the extent usually of 50 per cent.) have been taking place, there remains great scope for coordination of services, whether municipally or company owned, both with themselves and with the railways. The Government have not felt it right to lay down any uniform pattern for the future, nor to make it obligatory that the Commission itself shall run road passenger services. Local initiative and local enterprise have played a part in developments to meet local needs and habits of daily travel, and it is important that local contacts should not be lost.
  Further developments and improvements, however, cannot be regarded in isolation, but must be viewed as part of the whole transport system of the country. Clause 62, therefore, requires the Commission to review road passenger transport services with a view of determining for what areas they shall prepare and submit schemes. They are required to enter into full consultation with local authorities and with the operators. The schemes require the approval of the Minister, and in the event of opposition are subject to special parliamentary procedure. The Bill itself does not lay down the details of the schemes which must be fitted to the needs and circumstances of the areas selected. The passages dealing with the ports are somewhat similar in conception to those which deal with passenger road transport. That part of the Transport Bill which relates to ports proposes that the Commission shall be enabled, after full consultation with the interest concerned, to formulate schemes for reorganization. Any schemes dealing with reorganization of our ports will be the subject of full inquiry and will require the approval of Parliament if objection is maintained against them.
  Part V establishes the Transport Tribunal and the machinery for fixing transport charges. No doubt the House will look into all that very much more closely
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  later on. The Bill proposes that the British Transport Commission should draw up schemes of charges and submit them to the Transport Tribunal for approval. No doubt before doing so they will enter upon all the necessary consultations with traders and others, and in the proceedings before the Tribunal all representative bodies concerned will have ample opportunities for making representations for amendment or alteration of the schemes. I should point out that under our plan neither the Commission nor the Tribunal is subject by the Bill to rigid statutory rules such as have caused so much difficulty in the past. I know that there are those who think that it should be easy to lay down a simple basis of charging in future, but I do not think that is at all the view of the traders or of the railway experts. Quite recently, Mr. Sewell, Chairman of the Railway Panel of the Road and Rail Conference, in addressing the Institute of Transport, recorded his view:
  "That the whole question of the future charging of merchandise in transit is still very much in the laboratory stage."
  That is the fact at the moment. When the British Transport Commission is able' to direct the researches of the laboratory, free from sectional interests, it is reasonable to expect that a more satisfactory scheme of charges will result than has hitherto been the case, when there has been no sort of community of interest between road and rail. I have already detained the House somewhat longer than I intended. Other Government speakers, far more qualified than myself, will be speaking during the debate, including the Leader of the House. I will pass rapidly through the remaining part of the Bill. Part VI deals with finance, Part VII with conditions of employment, pensions, and compensation to officers and servants, an aspect to which, I know from experience your Lordships are always anxious to devote your most careful attention. Part VIII and IX deal with various consequential and miscellaneous matters.
  In these opening remarks I have deliberately refrained from dealing with compensation, a subject which has been very fully explained and debated elsewhere, and which, no doubt, will be debated with ardour and energy in this House, if necessary. We believe that the terms laid down in the Bill in this

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  respect are fair and suitable to the different cases. As is well known the basis of acquisition in the case of the railways is the market value of the securities at the beginning of November, 1946. In the case of the road hauliers, the compensation will be based on asset values, plus an allowance for the cessation of business. We believe that the terms laid down in the Bill in this respect are fair and suitable to the different cases. Nevertheless, the Minister in another place indicated his readiness to examine further one or two points of importance, but not involving major principle. At a later stage, I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to indicate to your Lordships certain directions in which the Government will be prepared to advise that no point of privilege should be raised if certain proposals we can put forward are acceptable to your Lordships.
  I have sought, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, to give you the broad picture— to show you the wood, leaving others to fill in the trees. I have, I hope, said enough to convince you that the scheme before you has been carefully worked out, and is, in its outline, well conceived to secure its purposes. But, of course, there may well be a lurking doubt in the minds of some members of the House as to whether it is necessary or desirable to have a Bill of this sort at all. As to that, I would say only this: I do not believe there is any member of the House who does not realize that things could not go on in the sphere of transport as they were before. Some great comprehensive, co-ordinating measure was quite inevitable— indeed, it is overdue. Such a measure was bound to seek to put an end to the pre-war chaos. It was bound to seek to dispose our resources in the world of transport in the fashion that approximated as nearly as possible to that in which they would be disposed by a single all-seeing management concerned only with the national advantage. For the life of me I cannot see how any measure could have escaped introducing the principle of unification of ownership which in its turn was bound to enhance the existing element of monopoly.
  The choice, in fact, is simply this. Are we to establish a private monopoly in transport or a public monopoly in the public interest? We have unhesitatingly chosen the latter course. Many com-
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  plicated issues arise in giving effect to such a project. We shall welcome, I need hardly say, the fullest consultation with your Lordships, and the full benefit of your highly expert advice, but I should be evading my duty if I implied that there could be any weakening on our choice of principle—the principle that, since there must be integration, there must be a strong element of monopoly, and it must be a monopoly in the public interest conceived on public For that choice we have the clear authority of a mandate from the electors. It is a choice to which we in the Government are wholly committed. It is one which I hope the House will consider in its most judicial temper, and in its wisdom, accept. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.(Lord Pakenham.)
  3.30 p.m.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: My Lords, it is an agreeable surprise that the Chancellor of the Duchy has, so soon, felt able to take a holiday front his German empire in order to expound to us this cumbrous and complicated Bill. I hope that his presence here and his conduct of the measure are an indication that all is quiet on the Western Front. He has undertaken a queer holiday task! He has characterized this as a tremendous Bill. It is! I should say never, in the experience of the oldest member of this House, has so strange a Bill been presented in such extraordinary circumstances. I do not think that I shall have any difficulty in establishing both counts in that charge. As the noble Lord has said, this is a Bill to nationalize rail transport, road transport, inland water transport and docks. (There is some doubt about docks—even after the noble Lord's speech.) That, I admit, is clear. But, having said that, all the rest is obscure—obscure in the Bill; obscure in spite of all the debates which have taken place in mother place and, if he will forgive my saying so, stilt obscure even after the charming speech which the noble Lord has delivered.
  The noble Lord went out of his way to say how unwise it would be to particularize on any plan—even to adumbrate the principles which would guide His Majesty's Government in this strange adventure. Any impartial observer, I think, would characterize this as a leap in the dark. The noble Lord has asked us

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  to be enthusiastic about it. I think that even the most enthusiastic supporter would admit that it was, at best, a stumble in the twilight. In the debate on the Address, the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, said that we must apply to this problem of transport a practical test. These were his actual words:
  "I agree very largely with the test which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, enunciated. That is to say, it is not primarily a question of ownership but a question of co-ordination —closer co-ordination between the railways and closer co-ordination between road and rail …."
  But no one—even after the speech of the Chancellor of the Duchy—can tell us what that co-ordination is to be; or, indeed, how all or any of the transport systems are to work after this Bill is passed. This is a Government of planners. Where is the plan?
  Let your Lordships observe the extraordinary structure of this Bill. There is the Minister: he is to have great powers. I shall have something to say about that later on—particularly in view of the rather curious statement of the noble Lord who introduced the Bill, which implied that the Minister will have very little to do. But the Minister has no plan. The Minister is to appoint a Commission of five men. We do not know who they are to be. But they are to make a plan for the whole of transport. We have no idea on what principles or lines those five "wise men" are to plan; nor have we any idea how they are to operate the vast undertakings which are to vest in them on January 1 of next year. We know only that these five men are to operate through five or more executives. But observe: although it is to operate through those executives, the Commission is not to appoint the executives. The executives are to be appointed by the Minister. Could vagueness and irresponsibility go further?
  Your Lordships may recall that in the days of the South Sea Bubble some ingenious promoters, by the issue of a prospectus, invited a credulous public to subscribe to what was entitled "A scheme hereafter to be revealed." History relates—if I remember aright—that both promoters and investors came to a "sticky" finish. Surely this is another case of the unfortunate public being in-
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  vited to subscribe to a scheme "hereafter to be revealed"? In such a fog, it is difficult to deal intelligently with the details of the Bill. I shall not deal with much detail to-day. I think I shall be more usefully employed if I try to obtain from the Government some light on important questions of principle which go to the root of the Bill, and which are still hopelessly obscure.
  Let me take first the question of responsibility, because it is vital. With whom does the responsibility really rest? There are three authorities who are to function at the same time: there is the Minister, the Commission and the executives. Under Clause 3 the Commission is charged with the duty:
  "to provide, or secure … an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport and port facilities. …"
  In fact, the Commission has to frame the plan— "the scheme hereafter to be revealed." It has also to frame the ultimate rates structure. But the Minister can give the Commission directions—not about national security; the noble Lord has his brief wrong—on any matters which he considers are in the national interest. The security part refers only to what he has to publish. He has to publish the directions in the annual report that he gives to the Commission, unless he thinks it is contrary to national security that they should be published. But he can give directions on any matter "in the national interest" or that he considers is in the national interest.
  LORD PAKENHAM: To the best of my recollection I stated the meaning of the clause as it has been read out by the noble Viscount.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: I am very much obliged. I followed the noble Lord most attentively, and I did not know what his reference was to national security. He knows that the last thing I would wish to do would be either to trip him up or to misrepresent him. We are at one. The Minister can give directions on any matter which he thinks is in the national interest. He has this general power to override and to initiate. And all through the Bill are to be found provisions that the Minister shall do this or the Minister shall do that. It even goes so far as this; that the Minister can tell the Commission what assets they are to

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  get rid of, and what they are not. If that is not interfering with ordinary management, then English has no meaning. I know it may be said that the Minister is going to do these things" after consultation" with the Commission. We have had some experience lately of what "consultation" means. The Minister of Defence executed his famous forty-eight hour volte face after "consultation" with the Chiefs of Staff—a pretty good indication of what the words "after consultation" mean. What is the real power and responsibility as between the Minister and the Commission?
  But it is not only between the Minister and the Commission that responsibility is obscure and difficulty may arise. There are the executives—five or more of them —who are to operate all these undertakings. They are the instruments through which the Commission is to carry out its policy and, as I have said, one would naturally suppose that the Commission would appoint its own instruments. Not at all: the Minister is going to appoint. But what happens if the Commission, the Minister, and the executives all have different ideas? We are all familiar with the historic question quis custodiet ipsos custodes? I am not sure whether a satisfactory answer was ever given to the question. Let me put to the noble Leader of the House another question: Quis co-ordinabit ipsos coordinatores?—Who will co-ordinate the co-ordinators? If the Government are shy of answering, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dukeston, who delights us with his speeches, will be able to enlighten us when he speaks as to whether the ultimate arbiter will be the T.U.C.
  Then there is co-ordination, of which we heard a good deal in the opening speech. The object, as the noble Lord said, is not primarily ownership, but coordination. On what principle is coordination to be established? One would suppose that, before embarking on this hazardous enterprise, the Government would have settled the lines on which they proposed to achieve co-ordination—not every detail, but the broad lines. There is no indication. Have the Government any idea about it? The noble Lord said that it would emerge as they went along. Solvitur ambulando, if I may use another Latin expression—not a bad motto for the enlarged Ministry when all the transport breaks down and we have to walk.
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  Co-ordination, as the noble Lord said, implies integration. I could understand a system under which the Government said: "We want to co-ordinate the railways and road and water transport in appropriate regions." That might indeed be integration. But, so far from doing that, the Government produce a scheme which does the exact opposite. They set up a series of parallel executives radiating from the centre—a separate executive for railways, a separate one for roads, and a separate one for docks and waterways. I always understood that the one characteristic of parallel lines was that they never met. These parallel executives are a very odd way securing co-ordination or integration.
  Then there is the question of rates policy. The noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, skated lightly over it; he said that it was in the laboratory stage. The rates; structure must be a cardinal factor in co-ordination; indeed, I should have thought it was the essence of co-ordination. The rates policy must have the most profound effect on industry, and particularly upon heavy industry. Industry is asked to plan (I do not think it wants much asking; it is only too anxious to plan); but how can it plan effectively without knowing the principles upon which rates are to be fixed, and without having some idea of what transport costs are to be? Yet the Government have given no indication of even the principles which the Commission will follow, or the principles on which the Minister is going to proceed in the interim period.
  Because, observe, this is not only a question of what the Commission is going to do after two years, or four years, or whatever period exceeding two years the Minister likes to fix. The day after this Act is passed, or certainly after the vesting day, January 1, the Minister can do anything he likes with rates under the Bill as it stands. He can put them up 100 per cent, or he can put selected rates up 100 per cent. These are the powers. Surely the Government can tell us now, while the Bill is passing through the House, what lines the Minister intends to follow in this rates structure. It is not a hard question to answer but it is an answer that every single person in agriculture and industry must know in order to plan his business. Do let the Govern-

  891
  ment of planners let us into some of the secrets of the plan.
  Let me ask this specific question also: Who is going to propose this ultimate rates structure? I know it says that the Commission will do so, but the Minister is entitled to give orders and directions to the Commission on any matter that he thinks fit in the national interest. There is no doubt that the whole rates structure is a matter very much affecting the national interest. Can the Minister tell the Commission what are the lines upon which they are to frame their rates structure? If that be so, then the power is not in the Commission, but entirely in the Minister. These things ought not to be left vague; they ought to be made clear.
  There is then the matter of road transport. The Minister said that he was dealing only with long-distance haulage. I ventured to challenge him a little on the complete accuracy of his illustration. We shall have an opportunity of going into this in more detail at a later stage, but I do think the tests which are laid down are really misleading and inequitable. It does not really turn on tonnage, as you would suppose, or only partly on tonnage. As the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge said, the great bulk of a haulier's tonnage may be carried on short-distance haul, but he will be caught up and called a long-distance haulier. Does not the twenty-five mile radius take away with one hand what the forty mile permit purports to give with the other? I do not want to go into those details; I want to take a much more general line about this road haulage. I am not against co-ordination; that is all right. I go on moving, I trust.
  LORD PAKENHAM: Slowly.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: The only difficulty is that some of us do not quite agree what constitutes progress. Running round in a circle, or, indeed, moving backwards—which is what the noble Lord, I am sorry to say, is a bit inclined to do since he ratted from the true faith —is not making much progress. There was much more progress in what we did when we were together. There is no need to nationalize road transport in order to secure co-ordination of road transport itself, or co-ordination between road and rail. Passenger road transport is already co-ordinated under the
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  Road Traffic Act, 1930. I am sorry the noble Lord treats that with contempt. It was his Government that passed the Act, and it is a good deal better Act than this one, because it was regional coordination and not co-ordination in parallel lines from Whitehall. The road hauliers are co-ordinated by the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933.
  How is nationalization going to help? All experience—and I challenge denial of this— is that over-organization in great trusts, and excessive control, defeat their object. In Germany the evidence is now complete. The Government themselves have been able to look at the inner records of what the German General Staff and the German Army felt was the cause of their defeat—over-organization. There is the most overwhelming evidence that the bottlenecks, the delays and the obstructions which are caused to road transport by over-centralization, was in Germany a potent factor in their defeat. But we do not need to go even as far afield as Germany—and the noble Lord, when he returns to his command, will be able to verify that example. In this country the same thing has been established by the most unprejudiced testimony. Sir Cyril Hurcomb, the Director-General of the Ministry of War Transport, has borne witness to the defects in the road haulage organization of 1943. Those defects were condemned, with a wealth of example and proof, by the Select Committee on National Expenditure in the following year.
  Let me just give the House one or two extracts from their Report. This is what they say:
  "Numerous cases were quoted where a convoy of empty lorries had been sent long distances while goods were waiting transport to the very areas to which it was going. — General running expenses and freight charges have in some cases been nearly doubled. … There was no settled formula of assessing a charge which was fair and reasonable. … Drivers were said to be losing heart, to be no longer interested in saving time on their trips."
  The noble Lord, Lord Ammon, was a member of that Select Committee, and it would be interesting to hear how he reconciles that admirable Report with this Bill; but perhaps that is the reason why he has not been included in the Government cast for this purpose. Is this the system which you seek to re-establish and to inflict upon the industry of this country?

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  The noble Lord said that the Bill started by nationalizing all the "C" licence holders— 300,000 of them—or putting them out of business. The Government said at the start that they could not possibly work this scheme without including the "C" licence holders. I dare say they are right—it is a very bad scheme. But the strength of the case, and public opinion, forced the Government to drop the "C" licences, and they were quite right. The very arguments which forced the abandonment of the "C" licences however—the argument that the manufacturer, the farmer, and the trader, knows his own business needs best and runs his own lorries, if that is the best way of conducting his business—apply equally to the value of the services which "A" and "B" licence holders render to the trade and industry of this country. The traders employ the independent hauliers because they get from them cheap, quick and convenient service—just what they did not get from control in the war—and transport is vital to our industrial revival.
  To get increased production at low cost, industry, agriculture and traders want certain, quick, cheap transport services as and when they need them. The variety of the transport services required is as great as the variety of trades themselves. What argument is there for nationalizing these "A" and "B" road hauliers? They give good service without cost to the taxpayer; they are regulated by the Regional Traffic Licensing Authorities to avoid wasteful duplication; they offer a free choice and service which the trader can take or not as he likes. Why should they be put out of business? They do not want compensation; they want to go on giving the service they know how to give, to venture their modest fortunes, to back their judgment and to take risks It is no consolation to these active adventurers — individualists, if you please—to become State servants. If the Government persist in this scheme there will be only one result, and that is an enormous increase in the number of "C" licences, because people will have to own their own lorries in order to do the work which at the present time they are satisfied these little road hauliers can do for them. Finally, in this connexion, if it is said that if you nationalize railways—and this has been said—you must nationalize road transport, that seems to me to be an argument against nationalizing the railways, and not
  894
  an argument in favour of nationalizing rail transport.
  Now let me turn to the ports. What do the Government really intend to do? They have set up an executive for docks and inland waterways. Why on earth are docks and inland waterways linked together? Was it because there was not enough for inland waterways by itself, and they thought they must give it something else as a make-weight? I could understand putting inland waterways and railways under the same executive, but certainly not docks. It would be a very unsound principle to put ports under the sectional direction of an executive which is itself operating inland transport. The port is the link between land transport and sea transport, and it ought to be the servant of both but under neither. What is wrong with the well-established system of Port Public Trusts? London, the Mersey, and the Clyde, have all worked admirably and to the complete satisfaction of traders, shippers, ship-owners and everybody. Here surely is the right working model.
  Nor can it be said that these Port Trusts are tainted with the profit motive. The profit motive is coming back a little into fashion now, even on the Benches opposite, but of course with the condition, quite rightly, that increased wages or increased dividends should be accompanied by increased output or cheaper production. I wonder whether it is the application of this principle which has led the Government to try and force so much legislation through, and that if you pay the members of another place more they must respond by an increased output of legislation? I think the public will probably say that they would rather have less quantity and better quality in that particular case. But surely this Port Trust system is the right one and ought to be continued and extended.
  Then the noble Lord dealt cursorily—and I am only going to say a word or two about it—with compensation. I have tried to understand the compensation provisions of this Bill. They are very varied, as varied as the different elements which are taken over. More variants have been introduced while the Bill was passing through another place, and I understand that more are to be produced in your Lordships' House. They have only one feature in common, and that is that not one of these variants, so far as I can see,

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  bears any relation to the old, simple, well-established principle of what is a fair price as between a willing buyer and a willing seller. It really seems as if the Government, have taken their inspiration from the Spanish Cloister:
  "There's a great text in Galatians
  Once you trip on it entails
  Twenty-nine distinct damnations
  One sure if another fails."
  That is about a fair estimate of the compensation. Now I would like to say a word about the vesting date. Surely the Government would be well advised to reconsider that date. Under the Bill, not only does the ownership of all the railway and canal undertakings vest in the Commission on January 1 next, but, as from that date, the railway boards and managements are dissolved and the Commission and the executives have to start afresh.
  Whether we like nationalization or not, surely we are all agreed that it is vital that there should be no breakdown or delay or hold-up in transport. We are all anxious to increase production and trade, and to make up the leeway we have lost through the coal crisis. The President of the Board of Trade has estimated that £200,000,000 of production has been lost through the coal crisis. We cannot afford to risk a similar loss through a breakdown in transport. This Commission will have a terrific job to do. You cannot, by a clause in an Act, transfer staffs as you can transfer rolling stock or securities. Surely it is folly to set a narrow time limit on the transfer of operation regardless of unknown conditions. Would it not be common sense to give the Commission the right to postpone the fixed date and continue the existing system until it is satisfied something better can be put in its place? That would be not only a proper protection for the Commission itself, but a safeguard which the whole trade and industry of the country are entitled to demand.
  I think I have justified the claim that this is a strange and obscure Bill. It will fall to us to try to make it less obscure and more workable. We shall not divide against this Bill; we shall, I am sure, give it a Second Reading—in spite of the advice which was tendered to us recently by the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, that we must be chary of giving a Second Reading to a Bill which tries to translate a political manifesto into an Act of Parliament! We shall give it a
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  Second Reading; and, when we have done that, it is equally our duty to subject it to a close, critical, constructive examination in Committee.
  In the debate on the Address, to which I have already referred, rejecting a suggestion that such a Bill ought to be preceded by a public inquiry, the Lord Chancellor said:
  "The right place to have this inquiry is in the High Court of Parliament, and the High Court of Parliament in due course will have the opportunity of pronouncing on the Bill to be introduced."
  Nobody can pretend that the Bill has received the consideration which Parliamentary inquiry demands. Thirty-one clauses and five schedules have received no consideration at all—not a line of debate. Under the operation of the guillotine other clauses have been only partly or cursorily discussed. Upwards of 200 Government Amendments have been made without any discussion at all; the Government themselves did not have a chance of explaining what they were all about. I suppose at least as many important Opposition Amendments have not even been submitted to a vote, much less to any process of debate. And this in a Bill which affects every traveller in town or country, and every business and industry in the land! Is this giving the High Court of Parliament, in the Lord Chancellor's words, the "right of inquiry and the opportunity of pronouncing"?
  I know that in this House we shall conduct our inquiry in the same fair and constructive spirit in which we have dealt with other Bills. Your Lordships will maintain the precedent and the standards you have established in other Bills, and which have won the praise of Ministers in this House. In keen and informed debate we made important amendments to the Coal Bill; and at the end of our deliberations the Lord Chancellor himself, always a keen but fair controversialist, bore witness. He said:
  "Before asking the House to agree to the Third Reading, of the Bill, I should like to say that I feel myself under a great sense of personal obligation to your Lordships for the way in which you have assisted me to handle this matter. Once we had agreed that this policy must be carried out—a policy which some of us like and some of us dislike—the difficulty was to try to devise as good a machine and as useful a Statute as we could. I realize to the full that through the discussions I have had your Lordships' collaboration, whether you agree with the policy of the Bill or not, in trying to make this a workable

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  measure. I should like to express my thanks to your Lordships."
  In the same way, at the conclusion of our debates on the Civil Aviation Bill, where again extensive Amendments were made, the Minister in charge was equally emphatic in his appreciation:
  "The Bill has occupied a considerable amount of your Lordships' time, although I believe your Lordships will agree with me that, on a Bill of such importance, not one minute too many has been spent. I should be very ungrateful if I did not express my thanks to your Lordships for the care and thought which has been given to the consideration of this Bill, and to say that I feel that many improvements have been effected in it as a result of the thought given to it."
  I know your Lordships will wish to treat this Bill in the same way, to give it the same thorough, unprejudiced, constructive consideration. Our task will be more arduous. This measure is more complicated and more obscure. Much of it comes to us with little or no consideration in another place. As the noble Lord the Chancellor of the Duchy has very fairly said, this House brings to the consideration of the Bill a wealth of knowledge and experience, as well as a determination to do what is fair and right. We shall be animated by no sectional interest. We shall seek to serve the best interests of the travelling and trading public, every one of whom is vitally interested. That will be our duty and our purpose.
  4.7 p.m.
  LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, I share the pleasure which all your Lordships must have felt in hearing the noble Lord, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in his new role of defender of the Transport Bill. It was to me a special pleasure that he should have made it an occasion for discovering a fresh point of contact and community between himself and myself. To some extent we are both virgin-minded in this matter. Perhaps I am the more virgin-minded of the two because I have not had the benefit of any kind of departmental brief on this subject. I have merely read what has been said. I have read nearly everything that was said in any other place about the Bill and I have sought to apply Liberal principles to this problem of transport.
  Let me assure the Chancellor of the Duchy that the result of this is that if there is a vote on this Bill I and my friends here will vote for its Second Read-
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  ing. That is not because we think it is a good Bill. It is rather that we have great confidence in the bracing and reformatory character of the atmosphere to which the Bill has been translated in this House. We welcome the Second Reading of the Bill because we are satisfied that transport cannot be left as it is. That this Bill does some things which are necessary and good is accepted by us on these Benches. One of them is the unification, under a national authority, of railways, canals, the road transport owned by the railways and their ancillary services—hotels and so on. That is substantially Part II of the Bill.
  The railways we recognize as a natural monopoly, and it is reasonable, in our view, that a thing which is necessarily and naturally a monopoly should be a public monopoly, rather than a private monopoly. Therefore we should be prepared to support that—not every detail of it but the principle of it—wholeheartedly. There are some things which we think are wrong. We do not think that the compensation terms proposed by the Government are just. If they are not prepared to submit the terms to an independent tribunal for judgment we should suggest, on the ground that this is a compulsory purchase, that they are bound to pay more for the stocks which they are taking over than they are proposing to pay. Another part of the Bill deals with harbours. Although we think, and shall try to show in Committee, that the powers given there are altogether too vague and too wide, and need more control than is given, the general principle of bringing harbours under the supervision of some kind of national authority we should certainly not oppose. That is in Part IV of the Bill.
  Then there is Part I, which deals with the British Transport Commission. We think you must have a transport commission, though we consider that the actual size of the Commission proposed is open to serious criticism. That, however, is a matter for Committee. There will necessarily be—and we hope that there will be—amendments of detail in all these parts of the Fill. What I want to speak about mainly is Part III, which deals with road transport. In that connexion I want to suggest that something is wanted as a change from the present position, but not in the least the change that the Government propose.

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  What is the present position of road transport? Road transport to-day operates substantially under two Acts of Parliament—The Road Traffic Act, 1930, dealing with passenger transport, and the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, dealing with goods. I will speak mainly about the latter. As we all know, there are three sets of licences, "A" "B" and "C." "A" licences are for public carriers. They are issued to a man who is to carry goods for others but not for himself: there is that one restriction about them. The "B" licences are for the man who is to carry goods for himself and also, under conditions applied in each case, for others. "C" licences are licences granted so that you may carry goods only for yourself.
  Roughly—I think the noble Lord has given the figures, and they were stated in another place—there are 86,000 "A" licences, 53,000 "B" licences, and 306,000 "C" licences —that is 445,000 altogether. With a "C" licence you are limited in what you can do; you are in fact rigidly restricted. On the other hand, entry to the class of "C" licensees is pretty free. Anyone, broadly speaking, can get one. In the case of the "A" and "B" licences, you are much more free when you get them but they are much more difficult to obtain. In order to secure one you have to prove that what you propose to do could not be done by any of the existing carriers. It is not enough to show that you have a lorry, that you want to run a service with it, that there are lots of people who want to employ you, or that you could do it more cheaply and efficiently than others. You have almost to show that the work you wish to do could not be done at all by other people. This means that this branch of the industry is, in effect, a closed industry. In order to enter it a man has to do the hardest possible thing —that is to prove a negative.
  Perhaps it is not proper to call it a monopoly, but it is an industry protected by law, and in the light of that the Government say: "We must make it—because it is a monopoly—a public rather than a private monopoly." On the other hand, the road transport interests claim that on the whole, with a few minor changes, the position should be left as it is. The Government say, indeed: "Let us take this into public hands." But
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  they do not propose to take it all, and they cannot do so. It is important to emphasize that. I suggest that what the Government propose will multiply restrictions and rules which will make difficulties for everybody concerned. As I have said, they are not to take the whole industry; they are going to take only long-distance, and not short-distance haulage. Also, they leave the "C" licences completely outside. They say that the natural step is from private monopoly to public monopoly, and that that is the only step. I want to suggest that quite a different step is possible to-day with monopolies of all kinds, whether private or public, in this particular field.
  Before I come to explaining that line, however, I hope your Lordships will allow me to try to paint a picture of this world of restrictions and negatives in which the transport industry has to live to-day. There are restrictions which say to a man who wants to go out and carry on this business: "No, you cannot." That is simply a legal restriction. Though the man can do the work, and people want to employ him, he is not allowed to do so. It is in a world of restrictions of that kind that this vital new road transport industry has to grow and develop. Take the case of the "C" licence holder. He may carry his own goods anywhere, provided that if he has no goods of his own to bring back, he brings back his vehicle empty along the roads. If there is, for example, in Town X, a trader who sends goods to Town Y, and another operator in Town Y who is sending a lot of business to Town X, each must have his own separate vehicle: that is to say, there must be two vehicles instead of one, and each vehicle must make one journey empty. The two traders cannot share their vehicles.
  That sort of thing, I suggest, makes for inefficiency because it is inefficient to run vehicles empty, and it also makes for maximum congestion on the roads as two vehicles are run where one would serve. That is the case under the "C" licences, and remember that the "C" licence is apt to be the licence most commonly held in the urban areas. It is in the built-up areas that you will find a great many of "C" licence-holders, and their vehicles will cause congestion in those areas. The Government are proposing to leave "C" licences free. That will give a strong bias in favour of development of operations

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  under "C" licences; that is to say, for the development of a system which makes for inefficiency in running vehicles half empty, and makes for congestion by duplicating vehicles.
  Now let us look at the position with regard to "A" and "B" licences. "A" licences are for the man who is to carry goods for others: not for himself. The "B" licence holder, subject to conditions, may work for himself and for others, but, as I have said, it is nearly impossible to get into this branch of the industry. But the Government are not content with that. They have a clause which is beautifully headed—indeed the heading is typical of their proposals in this Bill. Being an expansionist Government they go in for more and more restrictions. So you have Clause 52 which is headed: "Restrictions on Carriage of Goods for Hire or Reward otherwise than by Commission." A side note to it reads: "Additional restrictions on carriage of goads for hire and reward." Those words make it sound as though carrying goods for hire or reward might be a crime or a disease which somehow had to be restricted and controlled.
  What are those restrictions? One of them is that if you do not happen to be one of the undertakings taken over by the Government, then you cannot operate more than twenty-five miles from your base. If, on the other hand, you are an undertaking taken over by the Government then that nationalized undertaking can use those vehicles both for short and long-distance haulage. That is the Government's proposal. I ask if that is giving real freedom to the consumer? Is it fair competition between a nationalized undertaking and an undertaking not nationalized? People without their own vehioles will have some goods to send long-distance and some short-distance; and if a trader has some goods to go more than twenty-five miles and others only a short distance, he will be unable to put all his business into the hands of a single private undertaker. He will be driven to the national undertaking or else to split his business when he does not want to split it.
  I do not think from what has been said in another place that that last argument will much affect supporters of the Government. Their concern seems to be that national undertakings will be a financial success at almost any cost. There are
  902
  any number of additional absurd and arbitrary distinctions which have been made in laying down what may be done by private traders and what may be done only by the nationalized undertaking. All that long definition in. Clause 39 of the kind of business excluded will give rise to absurd distinctions in practice. Take furniture removing: it is excluded and therefore will be free. That means a furniture remover can take your own furniture from one house to another, but if on the way you want him to pick up a table you have bought somewhere else, apparently he cannot do it. I do not want to dwell on this because there will be plenty of time on the Committee stage for showing these absurd and arbitrary restrictions.
  I want to come to the last of the prohibitions which rule the world of road transport to-day; that is, the statutory regulation of all rates charged to consumers. We accept absolutely on these Benches, of course, the need for ensuring that any vehicle put on the road is safe. We accept completely the need for ensuring fair conditions for the people employed. We accept completely the necessity of charging licence fees which will make road traffic bear its fair share of the cost of maintaining the roads. But we ask why is it necessary to have statutory rates, minimum rates, for all road traffic? It means that in this virile, enterprising, new industry any man who can organize better so that he can carry much more cheaply than another, not by paying less wages but by more efficiency, will not be able to give his customers in rates the benefits of what he has done. He has to keep his profits for himself and the benefit of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  This whole business of fixing rates is another prohibition in this industry. How has all this world of saying "No," of restriction and of arbitrary distinctions come about? It began with the movement in 1930 to protect the invested railway capital against what was undoubtedly unfair competition of the roads. That was its origin, and that is an injustice that ought to be put right. It has largely been put right. But I am not sure, after all they have proposed about the railway stockholders, that the Government will say that defending the invested railway capital is an important reason for any part of what they are doing to-day, because in fact they are proposing to deprive railway

  903
  shareholders of something more than half of their present incomes.
  The second reason was quite simply to prevent competition. The Labour Party have become supporters of the view that competition is in itself somehow a crime. I suggest it is not. I want to put the other position; that people are not entitled to security in their present job, whatever it may be, against the competition of better methods of doing that job. You can have an expansionist economy, where there are more jobs to be done than people to do them, without it meaning that you must defend every old system against anything new. The Chancellor of the Duchy spoke as if the condition of affairs in transport before the war had been dreadfully bad. The harm, apparently, was that there was vigorous competition. Is that really harming the development of a cheaper and more efficient service to the consumers? He talked about pre-war chaos. I have no idea what he meant. There is always this talk about pre-war chaos.
  A third reason is that if we are leaving it free to enable a man who can put a really efficient lorry on the road to do it, then we should get congestion of the roads. It is possible that in certain parts you would get congestion—in London for instance—but London must be dealt with as a special problem. I suggest to the Government that what they have done about giving freedom of "C" licence—and they have been forced to do it and could not help doing it—makes the maximum congestion by allowing two lorries for one in the most crowded areas. The more I see of the present condition of transport, and I approach it from a virgin but liberal mind, the less I like it. We are against the present system and we think a new Act is needed.
  It seems to us a complete misuse of words when we find the Road Haulage Association issuing a pamphlet of which the title is "State Ownership or Free Enterprise?" When they apply "free enterprise" to an industry into which practically nobody can get, that is an absolute misuse of words. It also seems to us not really effective competition to say they want to have rates statutory, and competition in service rather than rates. I find it difficult to see how you can get effective competition in service without rates. I do not like the language used by the supporters of the present system,
  904
  but I like even less that used by supporters of the Government. They are always talking about an expanding economy, and proposing a mass of new restrictions.
  They talk of integrating the transport industry, and they are proposing to bring it into a large number of water-tight compartments with people managing it who are in strait-waistcoats. That is what they call "integration," and it is not really a good use of words. Certainly we on these Benches are not prepared to swallow blindly the Government's remedy for what we agree is the bad state of transport to-day. The Government remedy involves a vast State monopoly, but the Government have not yet shown that they are capable, or that anybody is capable, of running a vast State monopoly with sufficient space in it for initiative and experiment. They have not shown, though I hope they may in due course be able to show, that the vast State monopoly is going to be able to resist sectional pressure by its employees for continually getting more and more for themselves and charging more and more to the consumers. The real danger of their system is that the Transport Commission, which can put up prices here, there and everywhere, will put something, we will say, on the harbour dues in order to give additional wages for road transport, and then put up road transport charges in order to give additional wages to the people in the harbours.
  We are against hasty nationalization. We agree that one should nationalize the railways and their road transport, but we believe that what one ought to do with road transport is to free it for entry and have fair competition between it and the nationalized railways and roads. As the Chancellor of the Duchy has pointed out, the actual number of vehicles at issue between the scheme in the Bill and what I am proposing is not great—it is only 20,000 vehicles. The Government contemplate they will take over 30,000 vehicles altogether, of which 10,000 are with the railways and will be taken over in any case. It is a question of the ownership and control of 20,000 vehicles and, therefore, it is not an absolutely vital part of the Bill. On the other hand, what is done about those 20,000 vehicles does raise a vital issue of principle. The Chancellor of the Duchy has presented as in-

  905
  evitable this Government monopoly of all transport, or of as much transport as they are taking over, as being the last stage of the rake's progress of restriction that has gone on for the last twenty-five years. He says there is no alternative. I want to suggest to him that an alternative should be looked for.
  I suggest this also to noble Lords on this side of the House: that the time has come to call a halt to the process of ripening monopolies by conservative restrictions so they may be ready to be taken over by a Socialist Government. We believe that road transport, above all, affords a golden opportunity for taking this new and different line. There is a special reason why road transport should, if possible, be made free. Road transport is one of the industries in which it is possible for an employee of initiative to become his own boss. We believe that it is desirable to keep that opportunity as wide as possible in this country. For that reason we do not want road transport nationalized, but, as we do not want it a private monopoly in private hands, we want an industry which is really free again.
  I want to suggest a change of direction from that taken in the past twenty-five years in dealing with transport. With such study as I have been able to give to this problem, I have no doubt that this could be done, that it would be beneficial, and that there is no real argument against it. But I am not proposing that the Government should instantly accept this view, or that anyone should accept it. All I am proposing—and I shall try to do it by an Amendment we shall put down for Committee stage—is that, instead of Part III of the Bill nationalizing certain parts of the road transport, we shall have provision for an exhaustive inquiry within the next two years into the operation of the present system, and recommendations as to what should then be done to secure for the consumer, I will not say an integrated, co-ordinated system, because they are meaningless words, but the most efficient and cheapest road transport run on lines fair to other systems of transport. I suggest that that is an inquiry which has never yet been made. It would be an inquiry to look at what is happening in the road transport industry, to see whether we cannot take a new line altogether,
  906
  and to postpone the taking over of the 20,000 vehicles until we know what is the right line. I do not expect the approval of any doctrinaire Socialist, but I suggest that on its merits there is really no argument against it.
  I read with great care all that was said in another place about this Bill, and particularly what was said by the supporters of the measure. One of the arguments for the Bill was the urgency of doing something about transport. I agree there is an urgency; but if one looks at what was said by the Minister of Transport one finds that he considers that there is urgency only for dealing with the railways so that they can be restored from their war-time difficulties. It was also said that there had been a mass of inquiries. I confess that I have not found a mass of intelligent, impartial, inquiries. There has been no inquiry into the actual operation of the system we have at present on which we can judge whether it ought to continue. Finally, I want to suggest that to leave out Part III and to substitute the holding of an inquiry would not destroy the Bill, because it is only concerned with 20,000 vehicles, whose fate would have to be decided sooner or later but need not be decided in this month of May or June, or whenever it is that we shall come to a conclusion. We support the Second Reading of this Bill because we are satisfied that Transport cannot be left as it is, because some things in the Bill are good, and because, by Amendment, it can be made a means of getting this vital industry efficient and free again.
  4.28 p.m.
  VISCOUNT PORTAL: My Lords, the Chancellor of the Duchy, in his opening remarks on this Bill to-day, complimented the railways, as he always does in a most charming way, on their efficiency. As he mentioned their efficiency during the war, I can speak without any bias because that was the only time I have been absent from the railways for the last seventeen years and, therefore, I take no credit.
  LORD PAKENHAM: And after the war.
  VISCOUNT PORTAL: I thought that, after he had said this the Chancellor of the Duchy was going to help by saying he had changed his views—he has changed them before—on the question of the nationalization of railways. Instead

  907
  of that, he proceeded quickly to describe the large surgical operation that was to be carried out, a surgical operation in which he did not know which instrument he was going to use. I think that by the end of that operation my old colleague the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, will be attending the funeral of the railways. I would like to add that the speech of the Chancellor of the Duchy was, as always, full of humour and wit, and for some of us it would be a great advantage if we could gloss over some of the big points as he glossed over them by his charm and personality.
  I spoke on the nationalization of the transport industry in the debate in your Lordships' House on the King's Speech, in which it was announced that the Government proposed to bring in a Bill to nationalize the inland transport services. In that speech I begged that before so drastic a step was taken the Government would hold a public inquiry. I will quote a part of the speech the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor made in reply to me on that occasion. My noble friend, Viscount Swinton, has left this part for me to quote. The Lord Chancellor said:
  "There really is no occasion whatever for another inquiry. The facts are known."
  Since that debate the Transport Bill, as your Lordships know, was introduced and passed its Third Reading in another place, and is now before your Lordships' House. When I heard the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor say that there was no need for another inquiry and that the facts were already known, I expected—as I am sure did most noble Lords—that, when the Bill was produced, we should find that a really constructive scheme had been produced, dealing with the question of road and rail, upon which both the railway and the road interests had already reached an agreement. One found, however, that the Bill consisted of setting up a Commission which was to work out a plan, while the various transport interests—as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has already mentioned—were to be controlled by five executives working under the Commission. The usual practice, surely, is to prepare and have a plan ready before you make any drastic change of the kind contemplated. That is what you generally do in business or otherwise. But on this occasion you
  908
  are attempting to impose a major operation on an industry before you have even thought out a plan.
  I do not need to tell your Lordships that the railways are still under control, so it should have been an easy matter to continue the control until a plan had been thought out and approved. One would have thought (and this is why I differ from the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, who said the only people with whom to deal quickly are the railways; the railways are under control at the present time and therefore the Government can deal with them and keep them under control as long as they like) that two of the major considerations in the plan to be prepared would be the co-ordination of road and rail, which has not been dealt with and has been left to the Commission to think out, and also the question of financing any very large capital commitments. I can assure your Lordships that the four main line railway companies would be more than able to finance any commitments that they can carry out during the next five years. It will not be finance that will be the limiting factor; it will be materials and manpower. Anyone associated with the railways will know that this is so.
  The annual allocation at the present time for maintenance and renewals cannot be spent because it is not possible to get materials for the purpose. Your Lordships know as well as I do of the limitation of coal which is cutting down the number of trains; the limitation of timber which is restricting the renewal of sleepers, and other limitations on the repair of the permanent way and of locomotives, and so on. But I want to make my point, that the question of finance for the next four or five years is not a matter which can be raised, because at the present time the limiting factors are materials and manpower.
  What do we find? As the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has already pointed out, apparently the Government have been unable to devise any workable scheme for the co-ordination of the various forms of transport, or to reach any decision as to the principles whi h should govern the fixation of rates. All that the Bill really does is to make provision for the acquisition of the railways and canals on January I next and to appoint a Commission consisting of a Chairman and four other members with powers to acquire

  909
  long-distance road haulage undertakings; to prepare area schemes for co-ordinating passenger transport services—which apparently would not embrace long-distance road services covering more than one area—and to prepare schemes for the maintenance, development and management of trade harbours or groups of harbours. The Commission is to be charged with the duty of providing efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated (all three speakers have used that word; it is like "Puzzle Corner" on the B.B.C.) system of public inland transport, and port facilities for passengers and goods to meet the needs of the public, agriculture, commerce and industry: and they are to be assisted by five public authorities to be known as executives, the members of which are to be appointed, not by the Commission, but by the Minister. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton has already pointed out that fact, but it is a point which I should again like to emphasize because it is a very important one.
  The burden of finding a solution to the many problems involved in providing a properly co-ordinated system of transport is thus thrown upon the Commission, without any guidance from the Government. Obviously, it will require to make a comprehensive survey of the whole position before reaching a decision on the broad principles on which co-ordination should be effected. I wish to point out that, if there are members of the public who have been led to believe that they will see great advantages in the change of ownership, they are going to be sadly disappointed and disillusioned when it comes about. I am convinced of that. The revenue is dropping much lower than was anticipated, owing to the cutting down of trains caused by the fuel crisis and the lack of materials and manpower in carrying out the ordinary maintenance and repairs. Travelling, which was improving up to the autumn of last year, may, during the holiday months, well be comparable with the worst days during the war. The Minister of Transport is faced with very heavy additional expenditure which is bound to send up the rates much higher than was contemplated.
  I venture to doubt whether the Government appreciate the magnitude of the task to be carried out by the end of this year if the railways are to be vested in the Commission on January I next. The
  910
  companies will then cease to exist as separate entities except for the purpose of winding up, and new arrangements will have to be made to carry on the functions now performed by the directors; for example, decisions of policy, and the constant review of operations, sanctioning of expenditure, letting of contracts, signing of documents, payment of accounts, appointment of staff, increase of salaries, and so on, will all have to be dealt with before January I. The Commission will also be faced with many problems when they are framing schemes for the delegation of the functions to the various executive bodies.
  The railways, as has already been pointed out, are the largest hotel owners in the country. Who is to be responsible for the control of the hotel and refreshment business? Apparently the Government have decided that there is no need to set up the proposed Hotels Executive concurrently with the other executives. Presumably, the railway companies road collection and delivery services, and also their wholly-owned subsidiary road haulage companies, will come under the control of the Road Executive. I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to that point. If so, will the railway staff concerned cease to be treated as railwaymen and come under the same conditions as the staff engaged in the subsidiary road haulage undertakings? Those are all points which people do not realize. Similar questions arise in connexion with the dock and canal staff, who will presumably come under the control of the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive.
  The activities of the wholly-owned railway subsidiary companies cover a wide field, and their position will require careful consideration. Is it the intention of the Government that the Commission should dispose of all such undertakings, or parts of undertakings whose activities are not essential to the provision of a coordinated system of transport? Take, in particular, the business of Thomas Cook and Son. They have world-wide ramifications, and compete with many tourist agencies throughout the country. When the railways acquired Thomas Cook and Son, Limited, they had to give the Government an assurance that they would not discriminate in their treatment of existing agencies, whether railway-owned or otherwise, and that any dispute would,

  911
  if necessary, be referred to arbitration. What will be the position of outside tourist agencies if the Government take over Thomas Cook and Son, and Dean and Dawson's? Will the same assurances be asked of the Government as were asked of the railway companies when they took them over?
  Other questions which will have to be determined before the end of the year are the terms and conditions under which new staff are to be appointed. The conditions of service—pension, travelling facilities, promotion arrangements, and so on—are not identical on all railways. Is it proposed to introduce standard conditions for new entrants, or how will they be dealt with? Some of the noble Lords on the Government Benches will know there are different conditions, and those things will be difficult to settle. These are only some of the preliminary problems which will have to be dealt with before the end of this year.
  In conclusion, I would like to point out to your Lordships that, after the experience of the railways—when it took over five years to amalgamate and consolidate one form of transport alone—the Government are proposing to undertake a much more comprehensive and intricate task in dealing with the whole of inland transport, with the consequent dislocation which, as I see it, must follow, by making the vesting date (January 1, 1948), a fixed feast rather than a movable feast. I ask His Majesty's Government to consider very carefully whether they should not alter the vesting date, as by fixing January 1 of next year they will be put in a position which will make it very difficult to carry out this vast undertaking. In my remarks I have tried to show some of the difficulties with which they will have to contend.
  4.54 p.m.
  LORD KERSHAW: My Lords, before I touch upon the phase of this Bill to which I want to give special attention, I should like to express my thanks to the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, for assuring noble Lords on this side of the House that there will be no Division on this Second Reading. Especially, I think, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, for telling us that for the moment, at any rate, the Liberal Party will not oppose this Bill.
  LORD BEVERIDGE: Not support!
  LORD KERSHAW: Behind the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge's, assistance to us at this stage there is evidently a threat that later they may take a different line. I have been a member of this House but a short time, and I cannot but feel humility at the fact that at all times this Government, which are the representatives of the people, fully elected, should be at the mercy of the other Parties opposite. It seems to me to be quite wrong that in these days of popular government, in these days when everyone is pointing to this Mother of Parliaments as the example which all nations should follow, we should here have to wait with hated breath for the decision of the other side as to whether or not at a given point they will support, reject, or delay the measures that come from the Government.
  I remember a few days ago feeling that perhaps we were getting something like the real attitude of Parties opposite when I heard, I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, offer the complete support of his Party if only we would jettison the whole of our programme; and, further, that we should sack the Ministers, including the Prime Minister.
  LORD GIFFORD: I do not know whether this is a time for back Benchers to intervene, but I think the noble Lord opposite will have heard our noble Leader say that he did not associate himself with those remarks.
  LORD KERSHAW: I am glad the noble Lord reminded me of that; I was going to refer to it. Nevertheless, that is the position in which we are placed. I object to it as an individual new to this House, and I am entitled to express that objection. I understand that on Second Reading it is not customary to deal with the details of a Bill that may be before the House. Not only to-day, but on previous days (I think last Thursday was one of them) that rule has been honoured more 'in the breach than in the observance. I do not propose to attempt to justify the nationalization of the railways and transport as such, but I would like to remind the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, who was unable to understand what was meant by pre-war chaos, that shortly before the war there was such a thing as a "Square Deal" campaign by the railways.

  913
  I am more interested in the compensation proposals, and in particular the compensation that is proposed in relation to railway shares. I am bound to say that those proposals cannot fail to have caused a good deal of anxiety to many people. For twenty years I have been intimately connected with, and perhaps responsible for, very large trustee funds, and naturally I am fully aware what will be the effect of these proposals on those funds. But, even so, I cannot seriously argue that the proposal to take the Stock Exchange prices at certain dates is not sound, and that those prices will not reflect the intrinsic value of the securities, particularly the redeemable securities. The irredeemable securities do stand in a class apart. I felt it was worth while considering whether some amendment might not be possible in relation to the irredeemable securities.
  I think noble Lords will agree that in a nationalized scheme it would be unthinkable to continue in perpetuity a 4 or 5 per cent. rate of interest to the stockholders. If that is true, then noble Lords will have to consider at what point between that 4 or 5 per cent. rate of interest, and the rate suggested in the Bill, it would be equitable to compensate the shareholders. We know that the present aggregate yield of interest to the stockholders of railways is £40,000,000 a year, and that under the Bill it will be £22,750,000. It is not true to say, as has been said in another place, that the price of a stock regulated by the principle of supply and demand of that particular stock. I have lists—and I have no doubt other noble Lords have lists—which show that the price for a given stock is determined not only by that stock alone but by the yield on comparable securities of all kind within that class.
  The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has said that none of the methods which has been adopted applied the principle—he called it the simple principle—of a willing buyer and a willing seller. But I think I have read that in another place the opponents of the Government have estimated that the price on the Stock Exchange was not in fact a buyer and seller price. You cannot have it both ways. Arbitration has been suggested as another method, but the assessment of the value of the physical and materials assets of the railway companies is almost an impossible task. I suggest that it is impossible to
  914
  assess the future prospects of the railways. There is only the most slender hope of the income being maintained at the £40,000,000 level. Even the 1927 to 1938 average of £36,000,000 is problematical. If the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, had his way and we had the healthy competition from road transport that he desires, then the prospect would be even worse.
  It is as well to remember that the £908,000,000, which is the aggregate amount of compensation in the Bill for these stocks, represents 22.7 years' purchase on a net maintainable revenue of £40,000,000 and if von take the 1935 to 1947 average profits, the £908,000,000 represents 25 years' purchase, which is not at all a bad price for the concern of the railways. There is, in fact, a complete answer to all the alternatives which have been put forward so far, and it will be provided at the proper time. At the same time, as a back-Bencher, interested directly in this subject, I should be glad to discover an alternative which, while doing justice to the holders, does not place an unwarrantable burden on the nation as a whole.
  If an alternative is not forthcoming, for my part I shall remember some of my experiences as chairman of military services hardships committees during the war, when I saw at first hand the hardships and sacrifices imposed upon small business and professional men. I shall bear in mind, too, that the livelihoods of great numbers of people have been affected, and will continue to be affected, by developments of State activities, developments which transcend all Party divisions, and activities which would be strangled at their inception if everyone who suffered pecuniary loss had to be compensated. If some hardship is inevitable in this endeavour to rehabilitate the economic and social life of the nation, I would console myself with the thought that only through the united efforts of the whole nation in the war years are we now able to attach any real value to any of these securities about which we are speaking.
  5.5 P.m.
  LORD BRABAZON OF TARA: My Lords, this must be a very enjoyable day in the lives of the Government, and of noble Lords who support them in this country; who have for many years dreamt about the nationalization of railways.

  915
  Here we are at a stage in that process in which it has passed one House, and it is now before us for our consideration here. It must have given them even more joy to hear that this House is not to oppose the Second Reading, although curiously enough the most pungent criticism of the Bill has come from the noble Lord, Lord Kershaw. But, as we draw nearer and nearer, I wonder what the ordinary citizen, the man in the street, is thinking about it from the point of view of what he is to gain? There will be the same people running the railways, the same guards, the same managers and the same rolling stock. The only thing which will disappear, to be replaced by civil servants, will be the directors, and the ordinary passenger does not meet directors of railway companies: they are always found either in the House of Commons or the House of Lords, so it will not make very much difference to the passengers.
  I cannot believe, when one looks round the world and finds that most nationalized railways are not run as well as English railways have been run in the past, that people will be overjoyed. Of course, we are promised a lot of wonderful things in the near future. I think the railway companies could have supplied the same changes which we shall see, if they had been allowed priority in this and that. Of course, now that the Government are the owners they will, I hope, see to it that they get those improvements which are long overdue; but one cannot judge the merits or demerits of the change of that basis. I regret that the Government did not, in their wisdom, take a line which is peculiarly English; that is, one of compromise, and set up the peculiarly English system of a corporation, which is neither one thing nor the other, but a system which has been of great success in this country with such organizations as the Port of London Authority, the Electricity Board and that sort of thing.
  Had we had that, I believe there would have been much more chance of running the whole machinery more efficiently with no politics coming in at all, and we should have hail the advantage of the employees being remunerated, not as civil servants, but according to their merits and their lob, which is one of the difficulties in a nationalized system. If at a later time we could change the nationalized transport
  916
  system into a system of a corporation I believe it would be for the benefit of the country, because the transport would still belong to the Government but all that elaborate machinery of accounts would become crystal clear. When I was Minister of Transport I was always struck by the separate life which was lived by the four different companies. They seemed to run, all ignoring each other, with their own ideas on this and that; and certainly with a great lack of co-operation. When, for military reasons, we had to indulge in what I must admit was a very curious happening—that is, moving coal from north to south—it was almost impossible to get from one system to another. We had to build a new line for the Great Western on to the Southern. And unification, I must agree was overdue—nobody would dispute that, except perhaps a partisan railway director.
  On the other hand there is this argument: that already it was believed in many circles that the great L.M.S. railway was getting too big as an organization to be run as one show; and yet here we are going into something bigger still. The great Lord Stamp was an outstanding genius in running the L.M.S. It is true that he was, at one time, a civil servant, but you are not going to get a whole collection of people of that calibre. If you wanted a "Stamp" to run the L.M.S. you will want something like a super postal order to run all transport. People of that sort do not grow on trees. From what we have seen of the present nationalization endeavours, people have been appointed, for instance for the coal industry, on the ground of their political career and not of their efficiency, and we have seen the same thing happen in regard to electricity. It does not augur well for the direction of transport in this country. Everyone thinks he or she understands transport, but it is a very specialized job. If it is going to be apportioned to people with only political claims, I think it will be a pity.
  The noble Lord, Lord Kershaw spoke about the terms upon which the shareholders were to be compensated. I am not going to speak about that, but the situation is, of course, extremely difficult, because if the terms are not accepted and if the Government were to drop their guarantee, then the present receipts of the railways would depress the price of shares

  917
  to such an extent that the whole thing would be too melancholy for words. One cannot help reminding the Government that under the very hard agreement which was made with the railways during the war, the Exchequer pocketed out of the railways no less than £158,000,000. I think they can afford to be a little generous to the shareholders, remembering the enormous amount paid over during that period.
  It has been said, in this House and elsewhere, that it is wrong to touch the road hauliers. Frankly I cannot take that view. For many years now, not, of course, because of any fault of the railway companies, but because of the advance of the internal combustion engine, transport by road has eaten into the guts of the railway companies, and it will go on. And the question arises—a question which we have to decide—are you prepared to let the railways go bankrupt, and let everything go by road, or do the railways supply something which is of national importance and which ought to be kept alive? I do not think many people, apart from the extreme motorists who would like main lines turned into roads, would deny that the railways do form a most important and valuable part of our national life. But if they are to be preserved in this country, to preserve them is to co-ordinate them with road haulage. I do not say you should take them over by nationalizing, but anyone who takes over the railways without, at the same time, taking a very close hand in road haulage, is just taking over a bankrupt affair, and that is, in logic, an absurdity and nothing else.
  It is no good saying that competition in transport is always a desirable and wholesome thing. it is not. We have seen that in the traffic of London. The great Lord Ashfield early saw that there was going to be competition between the Underground and the buses, and early in the day he made a common pool into which receipts were to go to look after both. In the early days, curiously enough, the tubes paid for the buses, and later there was a switch over and ever since the buses have paid for the tubes. But for that wise arrangement the tubes of London would have been bankrupt to-day. Some unification and some pooling is of the essence of the problem. And when we come to the question of pooling I sincerely hope that at the
  918
  top there will be this pool from which the railways can draw, revivifying themselves and making themselves the finest in the world. I sincerely hope that the railway men will not play about with road transport, because they know nothing about it and they would ruin it. At the same time road transport people know nothing about running railways. For goodness sake, keep them separate. Run them as efficiently as possible, and keep that common pool at the top to feed them with the capital, initiative, and experience which they both require.
  It is only right, when one speaks on this question, to disclose exactly what one's interests are. I have, for some years, been a director of till great firm of Tillings, who own many bus companies up and down the country, and we are a little concerned about the acquisition of the bus companies. When the railways are nationalized the Government will own half of most of the bus companies in the country. The terms, however, are extremely nebulous and not such as should be put in a Bill. I hope the Government will move an Amendment to make them clear, because at present they can take over bus companies on the road haulier terms or on the railway terms, according to how the companies resemble either the hauliers or the railways. If they resemble neither, then the Government can take them over on terms which they "consider proper." The Bill really cannot be left in that shape, and in Committee I shall have some suggestions to make.
  There is another point of substance on which I would ask your Lordships to allow me to speak. It is a point upon which I feel very strongly. It is manufacture by nationalized undertakings. It was a tragedy in the past that railway companies were allowed to make their own rolling stock and carriages. If it had not been so, we should have had enormous business in the export of locomotives and railway carriages. In the London Transport Act it was specifically laid down—and this was inspired by the Labour Government—that they should not manufacture buses. In this Bill I see that the Minister, speaking in another place, said that there are two specific limitations on the Commission's powers: they will not be able to manufacture chassis for road vehicles.

  919
  Now that looks pretty clear. One would think that it was as clear as one could get anything. but it is not so, because about two paragraphs later it is stated that the Commission shall have power to continue doing anything which a company they take over did before. Some of the companies they are going to take over manufacture chassis. Therefore, I suggest that in the same part you get a perfect contradiction of what the powers are. I believe that persons who are skilled in reading Bills would confirm that what I say is correct, and I think that, rather than that it should be tested in the courts, it would be appropriate If the Minister could tell us quite early on what he means to do about this. I am certain that the Minister of Transport does not mean to be in any way deceitful about it, but the thing does look a little "fishy." Already I see, in one schedule—Schedule 15, I think it is—that the Government have absolutely annulled the embargo that there was upon the London Passenger Transport Corporation for making chassis.
  There are many other points I could go into. I have been for many years a very keen advocate of unification, and have hoped to see the transport system in this country self-supporting under a corporation, for I am certain that it can look after itself without any subsidy from the Government. So now, although I see it launched in a way that I do not like, all I say is that I hope it will be a success, even if in its launching it seems to have come a little off the rails.
  5.22 p.m.
  LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, this Transport Bill is a vast subject, and its passage into law will affect the lives of every man, woman and child in this country. I have given a great deal of thought to its ramifications during the past few weeks and, although I am a member of the Conservative Party, I have tried to look at the Bill from the widest point of view—that is to say, from the point of view of whether the Bill is in the national interest or not. The more I study it, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that it is not going to do the slightest good to any single person in this country, except perhaps to certain gentlemen who are to receive large salaries as Commissioners and executives.
  920
  I have every sympathy with the noble Lords opposite in the difficulties with which they are faced to-day—shortages of fuel, shortages of food and shortage of overseas credits, to name just a few. Speaking in this House, I have always tried to see the point of view of the other side, and I have never hesitated to do or to say what I thought right in the national interest, irrespective of Party politics. I should therefore like to ask noble Lords opposite this simple question: Do they honestly and sincerely believe that this Bill will do one single thing to improve the economic position of Great Britain at the present time? Surely, even the most ardent supporter of nationalization, if he searches his own soul and is really honest with himself, must answer "No." Whatever the merits or demerits of the Bill, it must, for a period of several years after it becomes law, cause dislocation and delay, at a time when we can least afford either. What I have just said, has, of course, been said before by people of much greater ability than myself. But when one feels sincerely and honestly that a most ghastly mistake is being made, I think it would be wrong to keep silence. I, therefore, add my humble plea to His Majesty's Government to think again before it is too late.
  I wonder whether noble Lords opposite have ever taken the trouble to study the records of nationalized undertakings in other parts of the world and other parts of the Empire, in parts where even Labour Governments have decided that many of their State trading activities and industrial undertakings cost them too much and have handed them back to private enterprise. Australia is a country I know very well, and I would like to give your Lordships one or two examples of industries which were run by State and Federal Governments and on which losses occurred. I know that the facts are true, for I was there myself, for a large part of the time.
  One of the State Governments lost more than £300,000 running trawlers and small vessels and £23,000 on running a power station. Another State lost £5,000 running hotels. Then there was the colossal loss of £2,500,000 by the Commonwealth Government on the running of a shipping line. The trams and buses of the cities of Sydney and Newcastle lost to the extent of nearly £600,000 in

  921
  a year, and that in an area of high industrialization where transport undertakings ought to be able to be run at a very good profit. A certain Judge of the High Court at an inquiry said that the Government Railways were paying from 2s. 6d. to 2s. 9d. more per ton for coal from the State mine than they would have had to pay had they bought from a privately owned mine in the same district. In a good many of the instances which I have mentioned—not, of course, that of the trains and buses—a Labour Government subsequently decided that they could not afford the Josses entailed in running the concerns as Government undertakings, and they handed them back to private enterprise which runs them profitably.
  Now I have taken particular interest in the portions of this Bill dealing with the passenger road transport industry. I have no particular interest in that industry except that I happen to be a travel agent and so I sell tickets for all kinds of vehicles. Other noble Lords will plead the case for the railways and their various ancillaries, but I think that the case for passenger road transport being run under private enterprise is the strongest of all. Indeed, I venture to say that this branch of the industry has a case to put forward which is almost unanswerable. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, in his opening remarks said that road transport had been built up on no definite plan. Of course it has been built up on no definite plan. It has been gradually built up from the days of the coach which ran between London and York, and as power operated vehicles came in (even some of the younger ones among us here can remember the first motor buses coming on the streets of London) it has gone ahead, and to-day it is perfectly co-ordinated by a body known as the Traffic Commissioners, which I think everybody will admit gives satisfaction both to the public and to the operators of passenger road vehicles.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Before the noble Lord leaves that point, will he tell your Lordships how like a monopoly the road passenger transport services of this country are at the present time?
  LORD GIFFORD: If the noble Lord will wait, some remarks I am making later will answer that point. Let us suppose that a roan concerned with public
  922
  transport should come over from America to learn some of our methods—and, believe me, in the field of public transport we can teach the Americans a great deal. I know America fairly well and there is no question about it: our system of public transport in this country is streets ahead of that in America in every possible way. The vehicles are cleaner, smarter and more regular. When this man heard that the Government intended to take over our magnificent passenger transport system, he would naturally ask a few very pertinent questions I will now suggest what a few of his questions would most certainly be, and endeavour to answer them honestly. The first question he would ask is, "Is the present passenger road transport system efficient?" And I think the answer would be unquestionably, "Yes". Then his next question would be "Are fares reasonable?" The answer to that surely must be, "Yes". The fares, of privately owned buses are well below those of the publicly owned transport vehicles in the London area. Of course, I know that there is a reason for that since the buses in London help to pay for the tubes. Still, the fares of the private operators are reasonable on the whole, and I do riot think there is any general grumbling or discontent about the fares charged.
  The third question would be, "Are vehicles in good condition?" The answer would be that considering the great shortage of, new vehicles and the fact that many of them are to-day running well past their economical life, the maintenance and freedom from breakdown has been excellent, and that in face of the vast mileages which some of these vehicles have done. You know you would think twice about buying a car which has done more than from 70,000 to 80,000 miles. I understand that quite a number of these vehicles have done over 300,000 miles and still look smart and, due to excellent maintenance, are running reliably, if not economically. Nobody can deny that the vast majority of road transport companies take pride in their vehicles. It is a delight to see the brilliant scarlet of the Midland Red coming down the road, and the bright green of the Southdown, or vehicles of any other of the great companies we all know so well, and also of small operators not so well known but who equally take a pride in their vehicles.

  923
  The next question would be, "Is cooperation between the various undertakings satisfactory?" There again the answer must be, "Yes." The licences for particular routes and the number of vehicles on that route are controlled by the Traffic Commissioners. If one operator fails to give a satisfactory service, his licence can be revoked and granted to someone else. He would then ask: "Do the public have an opportunity of making complaints or stating their needs for improved transport?" Again the answer is, "Yes," because individual citizens or bodies may make representations to the Traffic Commissioners. The next question would be, "Would the service be improved by nationalization?", and the answer is "Emphatically, no." Conditions are infinitely variable all over the country. Fares and services must be adapted to suit local requirements.
  Another question would be: "Are staff relations good?" Yes, I think even the noble Lords opposite must admit that they are. There have been, on the whole, very few disputes in the passenger road transport industry, and in cases where disputes do occur there is excellent machinery for negotiation with the trade unions in an atmosphere of mutual confidence between the heads of the industry and the trade unions concerned. Now I have finished with our American friend's questions; and with these answers in his pocket, set out in a neat little report, I imagine him going back to America, I hope in the "Queen Elizabeth," and reporting back to his chief. I suggest this is what he would say: "Say, these British are 'nuts.' They have the finest passenger transport system in the world and their Government is going to try to wreck the whole darned works."
  The road transport system is infinitely variable—and here I answer the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. There are some 1,800 operators owning one vehicle only. There are 900 operators owning two vehicles, 600 operators owning between five and ten vehicles and then, at the other end of the scale, there are 17 operators with over 500 vehicles and one which has the enormous total of over 5,000. Some of the bigger companies tell me frankly that they have come to the conclusion that some of their undertakings are too large, just as has been said just now about the L.M.S.
  924
  They consider the size of an undertaking in order to obtain maximum efficiency should be not more than 500 vehicles. This is the conclusion of men who have been in the transport business all their lives. Is it not a foregone conclusion that a great nation-wide octopus, operating 50,000 vehicles, must become unwieldy and impossible to control, even though I am told that it will be divided into a number of areas that are probably comparable to that of the London Transport?
  I was talking the other day to the general manager of one of the biggest road haulage organizations in this country, and he made to me a most pertinent remark, something which had never occurred to me before, and it caused me most seriously to think. This is what he said: "If my organization is nationalized, I shall do my best to run it efficiently if the authority desires me to do so, but in my opinion nationalization must cause a slowing down of the administrative machinery. In my present position I can authorize quite a large expenditure without reference to anybody, and the check on me, if I make a mistake or a wrong decision, is that I will lose my money or lose my job. Such a check would be removed under public ownership and must be replaced by something else. There must be strict financial control on a nationalized undertaking." I think anybody will admit that such financial control is inevitable where public money is concerned, and it is quite right. No Minister can possibly face the responsibility for unwise or extravagant expenditure made by a public servant. This is a very important point, and it is bound to mean a clogging of the administrative machine.
  The Bill allows the Commission to produce schemes for new road transport services and to take over existing services, either piecemeal or in bulk, and the services taken over by the new Commission are not subject to the regulations of the Traffic Commissioners. Surely the Traffic Commissioners should have authority over all services, whether they are run by private enterprise or by the proposed Commission, for during the interim period there will be chaos and the possibility that the private road transport operator will be unfairly treated. If this safeguard is not made, the private operator could be put out of business by having some of his routes overwhelmed

  925
  by publicly owned vehicles. I am glad the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, raised the point about the building of chassis, because I also feel that that point in the Bill is obscure, and I would request the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, to look into this before the Committee stage.
  I understand that it is not intended in this House to deal in detail with the terms of compensation, but I would say that principles have been laid down under which compensation will be granted in the case of the railways and road hauliers, although there may be differences of opinion as to the exact terms. No principle has been laid down at all, however, in the case of the passenger road transport industry, and we have the extraordinary position that the Minister is the sole arbiter with regard to compensation. I would say only this about compensation; His Majesty's Government have admitted that the passenger road transport operator has a much greater stability of profit than the road haulier, due to the regulation of fares and the regularity of the services. These enable the vehicles to be better maintained, and therefore they have a longer life. I do think there is a case for a higher rate of compensation for the passenger road transport operator than for the road haulier.
  There is one further point about the powers of the Minister. He can take over an undertaking piecemeal, which means that if he wanted he could take over the more profitable routes of a particular company, and leave them with routes they were running at a loss. I feel that the passenger road transport operator should be entitled to say—to put it shortly—" All or nothing." In other words, if the Minister wishes to take over a portion of a certain undertaking, the operator should have a chance of saying, "All right, take the lot." Before passing on, I should like to emphasize that this point about the jurisdiction of the Traffic Commissioners is most important. The new Commission should be subject to the same regulations with regard to fares as the other operators with whom they are running alongside, and to all conditions with which the Traffic Commissioners deal at the present time.
  If I may sum, up, this is what I think the passenger road transport operator is entitled to say:" We are running an
  926
  efficient service; our vehicles are clean and smart; the conditions of our staff are good, and our relationship with the appropriate trades union is also good. We are certain that a nationalized road transport undertaking cannot possibly be efficient in view of the many and varied conditions throughout the British Isles; and—most important point of all—we are giving a good service to the public." There is no doubt about it that, compared with the public transport system in any other part of the world, the system in this country is giving excellent service. I think it is quite fair to say that. There is also a very personal relationship between the local bus crews and the local people, particularly in isolated districts. The bus crews often perform small commissions for the villagers when they go to town.
  I know of one conductor who knows the sizes of the shoes of all the children in a particular village, and he used to buy the shoes when he went into town on his run. I am sure that the five Commissioners cannot keep that in their heads, with all the other things with which they have to to deal. I think, on the whole, our people are satisfied with their transport services, subject to present-day limitations with regard to the supply of new vehicles, for which we cannot blame the industry. If the people are not satisfied they have every opportunity to state their case to the Traffic Commissioners.
  There is one further point that has been touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, and it is so important that I wish to say something about it myself. That is, that supermen are rare. The man of average or above-average ability can easily be found. The chairman of a large undertaking once said to me: "It is quite easy in our organization to find a man to fill, say, a £1,000 A year job, but when we have to find a man to fill a £2,000 a year job it is very ha rd indeed. "Are we not depending upon supermen for the success of this great new transport organization? Is it possible to find men of such calibre to fill the positions of Commissioners and executives of these vast undertakings? During the war one found plenty of men fit to command a division, but it was very hard to find an Army commander In the same way, in the Navy (in which I had the honour to serve) it was easy to find an Admiral to command a squadron, but not so easy

  927
  to find an Admiral to command a fleet. One also knows that on many occasions during the last war men were appointed to high office who were not up to the very great responsibilities of that office. I suggest that in this new organization we shall be too much dependent on finding supermen, and I do not think it will work. I will end by again asking the question "What will any man, woman, or child in this country gain by the passing of this Bill?" I would suggest that the answer is "Nothing."
  5.50 p.m.
  LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, to myself, as an old railwayman, it has been a very enjoyable debate. I would like to express our thanks for the high appreciation that has been bestowed upon the railway and transport workers for the way they undertook their tremendous tasks during the war. Heaven alone knows what they went through, especially those employed in shunting yards and other outdoor work. The success with which our war transport was carried through was very remarkable indeed. I think that those who "bent their backs" have merited the encomiums which were expressed towards them. With regard to British war transport—we do not seek comparison with any other country; we did our own work in our own way regardless of what they did or did not do, or could or could not do, anywhere else—the way we did our work in this country was made possible only because all the railway companies were brought under a single control. State control was the over-all power in the matter of direction as to policy and general arrangements.
  There was a quite small body of men having executive control. There were five general managers, with Sir Alan Anderson as Chairman. That body conducted the whole of the operations under the then Minister of Transport, Lord Leathers. That single control is the real reason why the work was done so well. We wish to retain this foundation, which constitutes the framework of our plan, a plan already in existence and working very well. Therefore we feel quite confident that we can go on with it and achieve even greater results by it. Seventy-five railway directors were free to go away on "holiday." The noble Viscount, Lord Portal, has told us that he was doing other
  928
  work—very splendid work, if I may say so-for the country. There was only one railway director, and the five managers looked after the all-in work of transport during the war.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I cannot let that statement pass. The boards continued to function very much as they did before.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: The boards functioned all during the war.
  LORD WALKDEN: Yes, they continued to function in that they had their Board meetings, but the direction came from above, from quite a new source. That mechanism is now in operation and can be utilized.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: How can the noble Lord say that it would not have worked very much better under the old system?
  LORD WALKDEN: As a practical railway worker I say that, under the separate companies, it would not have worked at all. We could not have done it. It was necessary to have unification for the purposes of the war. That fact was learned in 1914. There was then a Committee of twelve with a Chairman and they did their job amazingly well. In the last war we simplified it and had a Committee of only five; and, under the Minister of Transport, that Executive Committee directed all the transport for the Government and the country.
  The first fruit of that single control was the abolition of inter-company rivalry and strife. All were united in spirit in the great national effort. All company questions disappeared. There was a simplification and unification of working arrangements. For example, there were the train planners, the men responsible for arranging the trains—exceedingly difficult work, probably the most difficult work at railway headquarters. Those men had the choice of various routes. For example, if they had trains to go to Plymouth, they could route them either via the Great Western or the South Western. If there were trains to go to Scotland they could send them either via the East Coast or West Coast. They could use alternative routes. All routes were available to be used, and those people who had to plan the train services could do their

  929
  work very much better under that system than if there were a lot of negotiations between the various companies. That was indoor planning, but the actual operative work of the railways was made easier.
  The key place is the shunting yard. There all the rolling stock was brought into common use. There was no distinction between the various companies on the question of their waggons. A waggon was just a waggon. The shunters could do their work and not be concerned with getting certain empty waggons "home" by six o'clock in the morning. All that work was simplified and the men were able to do their job as never before. In 1921 they were all deeply disappointed when they went back under separate company management, with private waggons, companies' waggons and everything else as it was in the beginning. They hope that they are not now going to have to go back to the old mixed-up system. I was grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, for indicating that his Party are not likely to kill this Bill. It would be a serious thing if they did. Under single war-time control the work of the men was made much easier. Most of their work is done in the night and a. lot of it during the war had to be done in darkness or in semidarkness. There is no harder work, especially in foggy weather, when snow is falling or on a stormy night. The work is very rough. We hope to maintain the arrangements which will enable that work to be carried out with the least possible difficulty.
  There were formerly an army of men called canvassers, and another little army serving the railway clearing houses, where they divide the receipts of two-company or three-company traffic to decimal points to see how much each company is to have. All that was done away with. There was no more division of receipts. Those men could be utilized, and were utilized on better work. The canvassers, who under the company arrangements had always been competing for traffic were put on more useful work and the indoor work was carried on with great advantage without additional staff.
  The finances under which there was payment to the shareholders from the agreed £43,000,000 a year was simplified by a block payment to each company. It was perfectly easy to make that payment
  930
  and to save an enormous amount of accountancy. Those advantages are still in operation, and we consider them very sensible. I say here and now that they ought not to be dislocated. Some of your Lordships have talked about dislocation as if this Bill would bring it about. The wrecking of this Bill would cause the dislocation of a very important piece of machinery which has been built up for national purposes and which is working splendidly. I suggest to your Lordships that it should be conserved and improved, and that there should be no going back as there was in 1921.
  The results then were disastrous for the shareholders. Shares declined to a very low level. With the decline of revenue the management had to go to the trade unions, begging them to help them keep the stocks on the trustee list. We voluntarily made an agreement with them to help the companies, that there would be certain deductions from pay, but the stocks went clown and the revenues fell further through road haulage competition, which was skimming the cream of the traffic, leaving the railway companies to carry the empties. The road hauliers do not bring back their own empties. I think the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, might bear that in mind. They take the best traffic and leave the bulky, fluffy, unprofitable traffic for the railways; which is not at all fair. The reversion in 1921 to company control was most unfortunate. The period we went through between the two wars was agonizing.
  I suggest that further reform is now urgently necessary. The position of the companies is gradually declining again. I see from the latest figures published that by the end of this year: with the diminution of revenue, the decline in net revenue may reach £32,000,000, leaving only £11,000,000 net to meet the demands of the shareholders.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: That is the the fault of the Government control which the noble Lord has been eulogizing.
  LORD WALKDEN: But how much worse it will be if we go back! Talk about labour troubles and everything else! What a pit of strife you will be in with your workpeople! But we are going to save you from that. The object of this Bill is conservation and progress in

  931
  the transport industry, "conservation" which I hope will encourage noble Lords opposite to be enthusiastic about this Bill, and "progress" which I hope will revive the Liberal Party too and remind them of their old slogans. Some of their minds seem to be deep set back in the 19th Century in the doctrines of philosophers of long ago. But this is the 10th Century, a very great period, and we want to go forward.
  The public advantages of the new system we are going to build quickly and easily from the existing set-up are many and substantial. I cannot understand any noble Lord asking: Where is the plan? 1t is before us. There will be five men, as at present, to take the high control and to decide policy, but they will be responsible to the Minister. They are to report to the Minister every year, and their reports are to be laid before both Houses of Parliament and may be the subject of discussion, which means that both Houses will have suzerainty over the whole business. That is a fortunate arrangement. As to the executives, that is quite a simple arrangement. You always have to departmentalize in every great business. They will take the different sections working under the direction of the Commission. just as they do in the various departments of the railway services to-day, they will carry on the day-to-day business; but they will be entirely without interference from politicians.
  A NOBLE LORD: Oh…
  LORD WALKDEN: It will be only the Minister. The Minister belongs to Parliament, and no one would suggest that he is going to descend to "pruggling" about amongst the day-to-day working of this vast business. He will be above all that.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: May I put one question to the noble Lord, as he has been so helpful? If the politicians are to have no concern with the executives why does not the Commission, and not the Minister, appoint the executives?
  LORD WALKDEN: Because the Minister is the link with Parliament. We do not want this to be a detached business that Parliament cannot touch. There will be no more interference with the day-to-day working than there is by politicians in the working of the Post Office. Parliament does not interfere with the postal workers, but Parliament can bring the
  932
  postal business under review. That is the advantage of this arrangement.
  Alongside this there will be something that the public have never had before: there will be a range of consultative committees—not ordinary advisory committees, which give advice if and when they are asked, but consultative committees which will have a proper constitution. Those committees will represent the transport users, and they will thereby for the first time have a say in policy and in the operation of services. There is not that representation under the present railway administration, or any other of which I know. These committees will meet not less than twice a year. They will be perfectly free and independent (this is my point to the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge) and will have the right of initiative to inquire into any transport questions, as well as such matters as may be remitted to them by the Minister or by the Commission.
  The central main consultative committee will have a Commissioner present at each meeting. It is laid down that one of the members of that committee must be a Commissioner. That being so, of course, the users will be in very direct contact with the high administration—the high policy body—and if on the consultative committee there is anyone present like my noble friend, Lord Quibell, I am sure he will have the opportunity of telling them quite straight what he thinks about anything he considers wrong. That is rather an innovation in connexion with any business or public structure of which I know. It is also all perfectly democratic; there is no dictatorship about it. There is no opportunity for sheltered bureaucracy to do what it likes, because the light of these consultative committees will be thrown upon the whole of the administration.
  The main committee will issue annual reports; they will go to the Minister and to the Commission, and they will be laid before both Houses of Parliament. Parliament will be informed regularly every year as to what is in the mind of the users of the traffic services, as well as receiving general reports from the Commissioners with their accounts, and indications as to future policy. May I assure noble Lords that there will be a separate consultative committee for Scotland and another for Wales? National sentiment and interest is very properly safeguarded in that respect.

  933
  There will also be area committees for lesser regions. These will be arranged by discussion with the Minister; they will all be supplied with secretarial assistance, and will be entitled to any information they require from the authorities. If noble Lords refer to Clause 6 of the Bill, at line 42, they will see that it is specifically provided that:
  "there shall be no part of Great Britain which is not within the area of a Transport Users Consultative Committee."
  That gives the closest contact to users of the services, both passenger and goods, also by water and by road, with those who are carrying on those services for the public. There are further new and valuable advantages provided in the Bill. For the first time in many years a Government have given some attention to the question of the canals.
  I well remember in 1906, when the great Liberal Government sailed in with a large majority, they immediately set up a Royal Commission to consider canals. A Report was prepared which represented two years of hard work; it was a splendid piece of work—a sort of family Bible, with maps and everything else; it had a great welcome from the Press, and was very popular with business people. But the Liberals with their peculiar laissez faire mentality let it all go. Had that been put into operation then, for just a few million pounds there could have been provided a great service of waterways from the Humber right through to the Severn, and from the Mersey to the Thames—a cross formation with a lot of criss-cross canals in the centre serving the Midlands, giving them the option of water or rail transport—a very valuable alternative. That would have been of value to the country when war broke out. But nothing was done about it, and the canals deteriorated.
  I would like to inform the House that the late Mr. Frank Pick (it was one of the last public duties he performed) made a survey of our canals and gave us some very valuable information. A report was prepared by him—it has not been published—which shows that a new branch of transport service could be brought into existence which would be of great value to the people and to the country. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, spoke about national defence. I want to see these canals developed, and road trans-
  934
  port organized properly—as well as our railways—so that if ever we are in trouble again with an enemy, and if ever we face another emergency, our transport system as a whole will be just as ready to deal with war circumstances as is the Royal Navy.
  On two occasions when we have had a great war the Royal Navy, the same hour that the clock struck. "war," was ready for action. The railway part of the transport services certainly had been provided for under the Act of 1871, which gave the Government power to commandeer and use it when war broke out. But not so the other forms of transport. When war broke out, the canals and the road transport were not organized or prepared, and many of the docks and harbours were in a deplorable state. Under this Bill they can all be raised to the highest possible level, and the docks and harbours built up and improved to meet requirements, so that if we are thrown out of action on one coast we shall have provision enough for big and little ships to go to another coast, either in the west or south, and a very great benefit from the standpoint of defence will accrue from these arrangements.
  I do not wish to detain your Lordships too long, because the hour is rather late, but reference has beer made to the rates and charges question. I deem it one of the most valuable provisions in this Bill that we are to have a new National Transport Tribunal to deal with rates and charges. They do want dealing with, and dealing with de novo. There needs to be a large scale simplification, because I can assure your Lordships that in the offices of railway companies, both at headquarters and at the stations, the men hardly know what to do about rates and charges because there are so many of them and they are so complicated. There are millions of rates—every little roadside station has a rate book as big as a family Bible.
  VISCOUNT SIMON: is it going to be quite simple in the future?
  LORD WALKDEN: Less complicated. With confidence in the skill of gentlemen who are familiar with railway rates and charges, we believe that rates can be built up so that any trader—and he will have a free choice to send his goods how he likes—will be able to look in a little

  935
  book and see what it will cost him to send goods, for instance, to Hull. He can send them by rail, water or road. The whole thing will be perfectly simple if the job is done properly. It will be an enormous advantage to the railway people and will save masses of labour. Their books are loaded up with outstanding debts, and railway directors ought to know that their accounts are reeking with had debts arising from disputed rates. I hope they are not counting them in the credit account, because I remember a general manager being discharged because his company found that they were loaded up with bad debts on the books which he had not disclosed and which he was reckoning as assets.
  So far as the future is concerned, we are quite confident that the Commission will be able to do a great many things to develop the service and aid the community—as the noble Lord, Lord Gifford, wished to know—in a way that the companies would never be able to do. Their credit has gone, and they cannot raise the money. I know they have a little in hand, because they were allowed to conserve some for renewals during the war, but we want a lot more than that. There is the job of electrification, requiring new capital, and they have not enough in their lockers to do that, and they cannot raise it. But as the Exchequer will be behind them, the Transport Commission can be provided with new capital at round about 2½ per cent. It may not always be at that rate; it may be 3 per cent., but we know that the railway companies could not get it at 4 or at 5 per cent. If they wanted to raise it at all they would have to issue a debenture stock; the poor, wretched ordinary shareholders would have more debenture stock wedged in between them, and the possibility of a dividend on the ordinary shares will sink lower and lower. That is what has been going on for years.
  THE EARL OF DUDLEY: The present railway companies are not limited in the least degree by financial restrictions. The only restrictions which limit them are material restrictions, and I would like to hear where the raw materials are going to come from for this wonderful scheme. Is the whole of the housing programme going to be held up? Are the railways going to get priority?
  936
  LORD WALKDEN: We have a splendid population of 47,000,000 people; we have resources and we shall get over our immediate stringencies. Materials will be available, iron, steel, bricks and mortar, and everything else, will be produced. There is nobody unemployed, and we are working as hard as we can. The country is making a tremendous effort to catch up with the awful losses caused by the war. I will not suggest for one moment that you can start electrifying the railways now, but I do suggest that the lesson of the Southern Railway, which has been almost entirely electrified, is in front of us all.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Has the noble Lord any figures about that, because I have been trying for years and years to get figures from the Southern Railway and I cannot get any.
  LORD WALKDEN: I will get them for the noble Lord if he cannot get any. The Southern stocks are better than those of any of the other railways, and if they were left alone they might have a better future than most of the other companies. The best stocks of all—if you do not mind my giving you advice—are those of the London Passenger Transport Board.
  LORD MONKSWELL: I will make a careful note of that.
  LORD WALKDEN: Their lowest stock is above that of any of the great main line companies, and that shows the value of co-ordinating road and rail, which is what has brought that about. The L.P.T.B. is almost as great as our postal service. The benefits of which I have spoken, of course, will come in time, and I am not without hope that some noble Lords here may be instrumental in bringing them about. They might very well, with their experience, lend a hand. There are many other new improvements needed. Four track lines are wanted where there are now only two. Many of my friends in another place say that when they come into London from the north of England they cannot get through in under three or four hours. Well, when you get near Knebworth there are nine tunnels, and four of them have simply two barrels so to speak, like a pair of gun barrels, one to run up and one to go down. There are many stations like Hadley Wood in a cutting, and every great train from Leeds, Scotland, Lincolnshire or

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  wherever it comes from, has to pass over a single pair of metals. There is another single pair at Potters Bar, and at Peterborough there is also only one pair of metals for the "up" trains.
  LORD MONKSWELL: But there is a relief pair of metals from a place about thirty miles out of London to Wood Green, where you can go the whole way round and avoid that.
  LORD WALKDEN: Once you are this side of Knebworth you cannot go on by the Stevenage by-pass.
  LORD MONKSWELL: Yes, you can.
  LORD WALKDEN: I think not. If anything goes wrong in one of those four tunnels all trains get held up. The simple fact is this. Just as in the case of one or two other great railways where there are four sets of metals, two up and two down, on the London and North Eastern, a very important main line railway, there ought to be four sets of metals from Doncaster to London, and then there would not be the perpetual delays which take place on that line. But, of course, the London and North Eastern Railway—of which I am really most fond, because I worked on it, and my father before me, many years ago—cannot raise the money to do this doubling of the line, or to make more tunnels, or to make wider bridges. Improvements of this sort can be brought about by us if we get the new set-up. Then, we want much more new and better rolling stock. The bulk of our rolling stock has come from the 19th Century. It is very old and shabby and not at all comfortable in comparison with the modern competitive road transport vehicles. This will all be made possible by the backing of the Treasury. The Treasury will lend without stint to the Traffic Commission.
  It has been said that there is no pronouncement from any inquiry worth quoting in favour of the policy embodied in this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said he could not find anything in any Report that would help him. Nine or ten years after the 1914–18 war a very important Royal Commission was set up. A good Conservative, Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, was Chairman, and two members of your Lordships' House wore on it—the noble Earl, Lord Clarendon, and the noble Marquess, the Marquess of Northampton. They spent two years exploring the whole subject. Their terms
  938
  of reference were wide and very important. They were asked to take into consideration the problems arising out of the growth of road traffic with a view to securing the employment of all the available means of transport, including transport by sea, coastwise, and by ferries, and to consider and report on the measures, if any, to be adopted for their better regulation and control, and, so far as was desirable in the public interest, to promote their co-ordinated working and development. These were splendid terms of reference.
  Unfortunately the members could not all agree but they left on record some very valuable findings. In Chapter VIII, on the co-ordination of transport, which we consider the most important, they indicated that if we could reach a state of affairs "whereby every passenger travelled and every ounce of goods was carried by the most economic route and form of transport," many of our transport problems would disappear. Overlapping and unnecessary services would be eliminated; there would be a complete "controlled monopoly" of all transport agencies; rail, road, canal and coastwise shipping would convey just those passengers and goods for which each was best adapted, and the savings effected would enable better services to be secured on existing routes and the establishment of services where, for economic reasons, none existed at the present time. That is ideal, and it can be realized by our Bill and only by our Bill. There is plenty of justification for bringing in this Bill.
  Here again, although there were differences on the Commission, after saying on page 150 that they found it impossible to reach unanimity on the larger questions discussed, they said:
  "We are all impressed with the immense importance of internal transport as the handmaid of British industry and we are all agreed as to the necessity of making it as cheap, easy, and efficient as possible. Some of us hold strongly that this is best obtained by the adoption of a form of nationalization of transport, or alternatively by the adoption of a national transport trust. Those of us who hold these views feel that transport should be carried on not for profit in the ordinary sense but as a great national service. Although recognizing that such a plan is not immediately possible, those of us who take this view think that it should be the aim of the Government to endeavour to accomplish it as soon as possible and practicable, and that in the meantime our transport policy should be directed to this end."

  939
  That was laid down in 1930 and I suggest we are pursuing that advice.
  It has been suggested that we have no need and ought not to bring in the independent road hauliers, that we should let the railways have what they had, and leave the others perfectly free to skim the cream of the traffic and to cut rates and kill the standard rate book. The rate book has been pretty well destroyed already by piratical hauliers who have very little regard for any principles. The Royal Commission said on page 173:
  "The nationalization of the railways has been advocated by several witnesses, but the nationalization of the railways alone, leaving other forms of transport in other hands, would certainly not produce any real co-ordination of transport. It appears to us that without unification, however it may be accomplished, no attempt to bring about complete co-ordination would be successful."
  They indicated the right thing to do, and we are following their policy in this Bill.
  From my own practical knowledge I know that the whole of the organized railway workers are waiting for the Bill to be carried; they are all behind it. You will have splendid goodwill in the transport service if you give them this measure. I know it will work. Work on the railways has been better throughout the war period than ever before. Here is our plan, the foundation of a model scheme. I say to your Lordships very earnestly that if you give this measure your benediction and help us to expedite it to the Statute Book you will be doing something that will strengthen the life of this country for either peace or war. It will be a unifying instrument in helping the country. It will give the best possible terms for transport, which is vital to the welfare of the nation. By establishing goodwill we shall be bringing about a happier and more prosperous country.
  6.28 p.m.
  LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, this is one of the most important measures ever presented to your Lordships' House, because it is bound to have a far-reaching effect on the industrial life of the country and on the well-being of every household and every man, woman and child in the community. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport recently stated that the capital cost involved was nearly one thousand million pounds, and that it was nearly six times that required
  940
  for the nationalization of the mines. That is a gigantic figure. He also said that the number of workers involved was nearly twice as great as was involved in the nationalization of the mining industry: that, in fact, this Bill was by far the biggest measure of Socialism which had ever been proposed in the world outside Russia.
  It has been pointed out that this Bill contains no properly co-ordinated plan to achieve the aim of its promoters. It is, in fact, a very poor skeleton, without even a backbone. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has referred to a speech made last week by the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack, but who is, unfortunately, not able to be in his place at the moment, in which he said that a particular Bill was, in fact, a manifesto dressed up as a Bill. The noble and learned Viscount further stated that in his opinion the Bill was "ill-conceived, ill-considered and half-baked." I would venture to suggest, with all due respect to the noble and learned Viscount, that this Bill before us to-day suffers from all these three defects—and more besides.
  If we examine the proposed control of harbours, your Lordships may well think that, with such a vast enterprise as the management and operation of harbours, His Majesty's Government would have initiated a public inquiry to determine the best method of control and regulation; but instead they have merely inserted in the Bill a direction to the Transport Commission to keep the harbours under review and submit a scheme to the Minister. There is, in fact, no plan at all to replace the present efficient system of harbour administration. The noble Lord, Lord Walkden, has said that harbours were in a deplorable state before the war. I am afraid that I cannot agree with that at all, and I think it would be difficult for him to substantiate it.
  LORD WALKDEN: Some of them were, according to the Report of the Royal Commission.
  LORD TEYNHAM: During the war years the Government had a measure of operational control over the ports, and during the blitz period I had the honour to be in charge of the convoys and merchant shipping in the Port of London, and I know how admirably the Port of London Authority carried out their work and ensured that fuel and food supplies

  941
  reached the Metropolis. But one very important fact emerged from this Government control. The Government had to employ the services of many people with wide commercial and port experience. Even then it was found that once the Government had jurisdiction over port administration and operations it was impossible to confine their supervision to a general policy; and the result was that they inevitably became involved in the details of day-to-day administration which, of course, a central Civil Service are neither trained nor organized to undertake. The majority of the harbours are already under a form of public control which we know as the trust system, which has been found to be very efficient and effective And except for the provision of a Docks and Inland Waterways Executive, as a co-ordinating authority, I presume, there is no plan in the Bill that might lead to an increase in the efficiency of harbour administration: only a pious hope that, in the process of time the Transport Commission will be able to think out a plan and present it to the Minister.
  Again, when we turn to the proposed integration of the railways and the road haulage systems, as the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, has mentioned, do we find in the Bill the basis on which their integration might he effected, a basis which must, of course, be a charges scheme or rates structure? There is nothing of the kind in the Bill, but, again, a direction to the Commission to prepare a charges scheme and rates structure to be submitted to the Transport Tribunal within two years or such longer period as the Minister may allow. This means that there is no policy at the moment at all. It means that if the Bill becomes law by January, no one in industry will know, for probably two years or longer, how transport costs are to be fixed; and without this information industry cannot plan ahead at all. It is a very serious matter. There is little doubt that the Government are anxious to press on with legislation for the nationalization and control of the means of production and distribution with a blind faith that all will be well, without waiting to see if any previous experiments are a success before embarking on fresh ones.
  They are rather like a surgeon who is anxious to perform several operations on his patient at the same time, and which,
  942
  in his opinion, are very necessary for the patient's health. The patient himself is not so sure, and wonders if the surgeon is not trying to do too much at one time, and if it might not be better for him if one operation were performed first and the results assessed before continuing with the others. But the surgeons, apparently, have made up their minds. They know that they can keep the patient under the anaesthetic of the electoral mandate only for a limited period, and they mean to do all they can while there is time. It is true that at the time of the General Election the Socialist Party put forward their ideas of nationalization of transport and, in a sense, of course, they did receive a mandate to carry out this work. But the mandate is permissive. Now that the people in the country are beginning to realize what is meant by this Bill, and how their lives may be adversely affected by it, it is very doubtful if a majority of them are in favour of these nationalization proposals.
  Your Lordships have, no doubt, heard of the Gallup Poll which is a scientific system designed to gauge public opinion by interviews with a typical cross-section of public opinion. The British Institute of Public Opinion recently carried out such a survey to ascertain the opinion of the public as to Whether road transport should be nationalized, and the result is very interesting, for it shows that only 36 per cent. are in favour of nationalization. It may be argued that this is merely a stunt figure, but the well-known periodical, the Economist, in April this year, said:
  "The record of the Gallup Poll for accuracy has, in the past, been very impressive, both in this country and in its native land."
  The Gallup Poll, is, of course, used by many Government Departments to ascertain public opinion on a variety of subjects. It is frequently used by the Ministry of Food and the Board of Trade. I think the figure I have given is a warning to the Government that the greatest care must be taken to see that this Bill, if they intend to proceed with it, will in no way interfere with the rights of the people or injure trade and industry. This Bill will require most careful consideration in Committee, and the fact that it has been very inadequately discussed in another place, owing to the operation of the guillotine, makes it all the more

  943
  necessary that it should have the most searching scrutiny and be amended where necessary.
  I propose to draw your Lordships' attention for a few minutes to the problems of the nationalization of the railways. I am not a railway expert—certainly not so expert as is the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, in these matters—but I wish to refer to the Railways Act, 1921, which involved the grouping together of a large number of companies. It is well known that this amalgamation caused a great deal of administrative upheaval, and it was many years before the present four railway groups settled down and became well established. Surely it would be a calamity at the present time to disrupt this organization which will take years to re-establish, and for very doubtful economies. In fact, it has been found from experience that the present units are as large as can be managed from a central organization. Yet this Bill sets out to establish a Commission to run not only an amalgamation of all the four railway companies but road services and ports and harbours as well. To make such a change as is contemplated in the Bill will involve immense administrative and financial dislocation at a time when the country is already in a weakened condition, will seriously obstruct and delay the work of restoration and improvement, and will have an adverse effect on the industrial life of this country.
  A comprehensive alternative plan to nationalization was negotiated between the railways and road haulage interests, which we all know as the Road-Rail Agreement. It has been argued by those who favour nationalization that the Road-Rail Agreement would set up a private monopoly which would maintain in being at the expense of the consumer the less efficient forms of transport. This is quite untrue, and a charges scheme or rates structure had been prepared which permitted competition between road and rail and—what is very important—gave full freedom of choice between the two methods of transport. I particularly wish to emphasize that point. This Transport Bill can have no such safeguard for the trader. This huge State monopoly will be able to manipulate rates and charges of road and rail so that the freedom of the trader will disappear.
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  It is true that the restrictions originally placed on the traders' own vehicles have now been taken out of the Bill, but there are many small traders who cannot afford to run their own vehicles and who will have to depend on State transport. No huge Government concern ever will organize the personal, prompt and intimate service given by the independent haulier. Many great trading concerns have been built up largely by efficient delivery service, which they have been able to offer their customers over a large area. Under nationalization these customers will have to be content with a service provided by the State, which will, perforce, be unable to give any advantage to one trader over another and therefore, by the nature of things, the delivery service will have to be of a lower standard than that to which customers have been accustomed.
  The Bill will have a grave effect on road haulage undertakings. Very few of the 60,000 "A" and "B" operators can be classed as large concerns; the opposite is the case. The majority are local men who, by hard work and thrift, have built up a business of their own and owning from two to three lorries apiece. Many of them are ex-Service men of the First World War. It is these men whose livelihood is threatened with extinction by this ill-considered Bill. It is true they are offered compensation, but that does not replace a lifetime's work, and a very large number of them are men of an age at which it is difficult for them to start a new job in life.
  What are the arguments in favour of nationalization of road haulage, and from what section do they come from? Certainly not from the lorry drivers themselves, or from the operators or industry generally. The Royal Commission which sat in 1921, and which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, on page 45 of their Report concluded:
  "The aim should be to harmonize and coordinate new and older forms of transport kith the object of obtaining from each the greatest advantage."
  There is nothing about nationalization there. The arguments for nationalization are really based on a Report of the Trades Union Congress who in 1945 issued their Report, known as The Public Operation of Transport, in which they claim that "improvement in operation" was

  945
  achieved during the war by the transport industry whilst under Government control by—as they say—" the co-ordination of the various transport services." This claim, as already mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, is blown sky-high by the Report on Road Haulage presented to Parliament by the Select Committee on National Expenditure, in which all Parties were represented and which included the noble Lord, Lord Ammon. On page 11 under paragraph 4, the Report says:
  "The trends of the figures here produced show that the general railway expenses and freight charges have in some cases been nearly doubled since the inception of the organization."
  Again, we have on page 12:
  "So much time is taken up with the filling in of forms required by the Ministries before a vehicle can set out on a journey that marked delay in starting the day's work is occasioned."
  If this was the effect of Government control during the war—which control was begun not because the industry was inefficient but because of the need of saving tyres and petrol—how much worse will be the effect during peace when the war incentive for co-operation has passed? If we examine the case of the nationalization of the railways, some important facts come to light. It is true that many people have been indifferent to, or even prepared to accept, the nationalization of the railways—which in normal circumstances they would not have done. I think there has been a great deal of misunderstanding and misconception about the state of the railways, and it has led to a feeling that all is not well with them and that perhaps, after all, nationalization might do no harm and might do good.
  If we look a little closer at the picture, and get down, to the real facts of the position, they are not hard to find. During the war years all maintenance work usually carried on by the railways in peace-time had to be suspended, except in very vital and urgent cases, and a great deal of leeway has to be made up. Trains are late, carriages are crowded and stations are in a poor condition, which has led people to believe that the railways are mismanaged and lack enterprise. The facts are that when the country was producing large quantities of coal the railways were supplied with a standard quality of high grade, but now the railways are forced to accept very poor quality and it
  946
  is difficult to keep engines steamed and at the right speed. When so much work of restoration and maintenance has to be done, surely this is not the time to experiment with State ownership of railways. They carried out a first-class job during the war, and in very grave and difficult circumstances, and I cannot help feeling that if they are permitted to carry out their plans without hindrance the country will have one of the finest rail transport systems in the world. The railways have, in fact, prepared plans for large scale development and have set aside the large sum of £120,000,000 to spend on deferred maintenance.
  State ownership in other parts of the world, as many of your Lordships know, has never been a success; nor has it produced a service approaching the efficiency of the British railways. Furthermore these railways are frequently financially unsound. It is only necessary to look at America's own brief but costly experiment of Government - controlled railways. American railways were under complete Government control for twenty-six months during the years 1918 and 1920 and cost the American taxpayer £500,000 a day until they were handed back to private enterprise. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, mentioned the centralization of transport in Germany, and I would emphasize that this centralization had a very detrimental effect on the industrial life of Germany and contributed in no small measure to the defeat of that country.
  I can see nothing in this Bill which would in any way increase the efficiency of our transport system but, on the contrary, it may well have a disturbing effect on industry and lead to an increase in rates generally. I have little doubt that if the Road-Rail Agreement were put into force, instead of nationalization as proposed under this Bill, the country would have a well-balanced and co-ordinated transport system which would have met the full needs of trade and industry. Instead, the country will be saddled with a top-heavy organization—in fact a State monopoly—controlled by five Commissioners (or five Commissars, you may call them) at the centre who are to be responsible not only for road and rail transport but for the commercial ports and harbours, and for services within these ports—a truly impossible task for five

  947
  men, however experienced and capable they may be. Transport will be enveloped in the tentacles of bureaucratic control and the whole industrial life of the country will be slowed down and strangled in a web of controls, forms and red tape.
  I am convinced that if this Bill goes on to the Statute Book in its present form it will be a disaster to our national recovery. and there is no justification whatever for interference with our present efficient transport system. I do not think it can be emphasized too strongly that not one single industry or trading organization have given their support to this Bill. On the contrary, they have protested in the strongest possible manner. And yet His Majesty's Government intend to proceed with the Bill, against the advice of all the trading interests of the country and at a time when it is of the utmost importance that our export industries should not suffer disturbance or increase in transport costs. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that your Lordships should give the fullest consideration to this Bill on the Committee stage so that trade, industry, and the public will be fully protected.
  6.50 p.m.
  THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE: My Lords, at this late hour I shall not detain you for more than a few minutes, but, following on what the noble Lord who has just sat down has said, I feel that a few words ought to be said in response to the criticism which has been levelled at the railways by those in high places. Even the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, who spoke with intimate knowledge and with great consideration, was not entirely free from that criticism. To support what the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, has said, I will give a personal illustration of efficiency and comfort on the railways. Of the last eight nights, I have spent five nights in a train, and on those five occasions I have not been more than ten minutes late at my destination. That, I think, is a tribute to the efficiency and punctuality of our main line railways.
  But the point which I particularly want to make to-night is rather a different one. The noble Lord, Lord Walkden, covered a very wide field in his comprehensive speech, and I am sure we must all have appreciated the advice he gave us with
  948
  such intimate knowledge from his personal experience. He even entertained us by including in that advice a tip for an investment. But I will not try to follow him in that wide field, though we must all of us have appreciated his extreme optimism. He said: "Give us this Bill and we cure all your ills." I feel that some of us do not quite share that optimism. We feel that the task of setting up the new machinery for taking over all these vast enterprises is not quite so simple as the noble Lord thinks, and that at least it may be queried whether the adoption of a new method of control at this period is exactly the way to cure all those evils, some of them exaggerated and some of them supposed.
  The noble Lord stressed the advantage to be gained by the common user of railway waggons which was proved during the war. That is perfectly true, but how is that taken advantage of under the Bill with regard to road transport? The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, pointed out earlier in the debate that the main effect on road transport would be to introduce a system whereby a great many lorries would come back empty because they were unable to get a return load. That is not taking advantage of common user and utilizing transport to its full advantage. The very reverse is the fact. In Scotland there is anxiety both in regard to this particular aspect, and with regard to the general system of control which will be established under the Bill. In the first place, our distances in Scotland are such as to make it impossible for the operator to work under the small radius permitted, and a very much larger limit will be necessary to make the system of road haulage in Scotland feasible and possible.
  For instance, even in the industrial belt of Scotland, the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow are so situated that a lorry cannot operate from one to the other. In order to get road transport, it would be necessary to set up a business in Falkirk, or somewhere in the middle of Scotland, and operate from the centre. You could then operate by road both to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but in order to get goods from Edinburgh to Glasgow it would mean running from Falkirk to Edinburgh for the first run, and coming back empty from the other end. I give that as a practical illustration of the difficulties created by this limitation of user.

  949
  Of course, this difficulty is enormously exaggerated when we deal with the Highlands and the north west of Scotland.
  Another point is this. Owing to the amalgamation of the Scottish Railways with their English partners, we have had some experience of the transfer of management from Scotland to London, and, although the Railway Companies have had local Boards, there has not been the same independence of action or the same instant dealing as was possible under the older arrangement. There has been this reference to London and waiting for an answer. if the whole of the transport—roach rail and water—is to be concentrated in London, what chaos there will be in Scotland… Prompt decisions are required, particularly with regard to road transport, and if any request for road transport in Aberdeen, Inverness, Dingwall, or wherever it may be, has to be referred to London in order to get permission to do something or other, it will he impossible to carry on. So we press very strongly in Scotland for a strong representative Committee.
  The noble Lord, Lord Walkden, spoke about a consultative committee, which may be set up in Scotland. We want something with more responsibility than that, something which can operate on its own, subject, of course, to the general direction of the Commission in London. But we do not want to be eternally referring matters to London, or to get long distance Whitehall control strangling in every direction the local need for transport of any of these kinds. This will be a point which, no doubt, will come up in the Committee stage, and we shall press very strongly from Scotland for something in the nature of a special committee, composed of persons of appropriate knowledge, which would work on the general lines which I have indicated. I do not wish to detain your Lordships any further, but I do press that Scotland has a need for special consideration under this Bill.
  7.0 p.m.
  LORD ROCHDALE: My Lords, the very fact that so much interest has been taken throughout the country in this Bill is sufficient evidence that the transport of this country is of vital importance to everyone, more so than in any other country of which we can think. One could develop that argument much further, but at this late hour I will refrain from doing
  950
  so. Indeed we have recently, during the early months of this year, had a very good object lesson in the effect of snow, frost and floods on our transport, to show us how absolutely dependent on transport every one of us is in our normal activities. That being so, and at a time when everything possible should be done to avoid interfering with the revival after the war of our industries, is it not strange, not that we are embarking on a great scheme of reorganization of our transport—that might well be the natural corollary of the revival of our industry—but that we art being asked to do so virtually in the dark?
  I am not one to oppose change, or even drastic change if the need for such is clearly proved, and indeed there is obviously great scope for continuing the further improvement of our transport system, a fact which I believe the leaders of that industry would be the first to admit, particularly bearing in mind the wearing—and I use that word literally—effect of the years war. But if we are to have change, then certain things are essential. Either the changes must be gradual, so as not to interfere with the steady day-to-day running of the system, or, if the changes are drastic, then they must be planned in sufficient detail beforehand so that we may all know exactly where we are going and what we are being asked to approve. That may mean a measure of compromise between the protagonists of nationalization, on the one hand, and those of private enterprise on the other, if we are to have a scheme which can carry with it the real support of the vast majority of the country, which I submit is of paramount importance if any scheme is really going to work. That is where, to my mind, the Bill falls so far short.
  We are given no indication in detail of how this Bill will work; and we do know (and there is no shadow of doubt about it) that in industry, and in the transport industry itself, there are very serious misgivings, quite apart from any considerations of compensation. The Bill goes out of its way to tell us that it hopes to provide a better and an integrated transport system. I personally would not disagree, with either of those hopes—I do not suppose any of your Lordships would. Indeed, experience has shown us, both in war and in peace,

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  that all forms of transport have their proper place, and none must be allowed to be squeezed out as the result of unfair competition arising out of an artificial set of circumstances. But how those two desirable objects—the provision of a better transport system and the proper co-ordination and integration of the various forms of transport—are to be attained, we are not really told.
  All we know is that on January 1, 1948, an as yet unknown and untried Commission is to have transferred to it the gigantic task, first of all, of taking over immediate responsibility for the running of our railways and canals, and, secondly and at the same time, of preparing a whole host of schemes—schemes for the delegation of authority to the executives; for the taking over of long-distance road haulage; for area passenger transport; for harbours; for co-ordination of working with coastal shipping; charges schemes, and so on. All those schemes have to be prepared within the integrated plan which again the Commission itself has to prepare. Whoever the members of this great Commission are to be, if only for the time clement involved—and it is to my mind primarily the time element—I believe this Herculean task is alike unfair not only to those members but also to the using public including, of course, the industry.
  I know it is extraordinarily easy to stand here and do nothing but criticize, and therefore I should like just to indicate the alternative that I would have liked to see in place of this Bill. For my own part, I would have liked to see a Bill—a quite simple measure—setting up a Commission of men experienced in the transport world, irrespective of political views, with their task in clearly defined successive steps, the first of which would be to prepare a practical blue print for British transport, a blue print that they themselves would be prepared to put into operation. They should prepare it in sufficient detail so that Parliament could see, when asked to discuss it, exactly what it was being committed to. Personally, I would have supported such a measure for three main reasons. First, I believe that such a procedure would be looked upon as a logical approach to this great national problem, and therefore would carry with it much greater confidence than the present Bill.
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  Secondly, I am confident that during the interim years before this or any other scheme can possibly get on its feet, years which are bound to be critical in the economic revival of this country, the transport industry would not be subject to the inertia which I am afraid under the present proposals is inevitable owing to the industry being undermined by dissention and uncertainty as to its future. Thirdly, it would, I believe, have given much greater hope to those who feel that, as individuals, they have something of value to contribute to British transport, that they would have an opportunity not merely as cogs in a machine but as individuals, each in the sphere which suited him best, of doing something for the country as a whole.
  I know, of course, that the Bill will go through, and it is up to us to see what we can do to improve it. Therefore, as briefly as I can, I will just mention one or two factors in the Bill as it now stands. First of all, one or two words about the executives. The Minister seems to have pinned his faith on a functional as opposed to a regional organization. He may be right. But how has he arrived at this conclusion? For my own part, I should have thought that, just as the Bill indicates in Part IV an area or regional organization for the passenger transport service, it might have been equally advisable for the road haulage of goods service to have some regional organization. Again—and this point has already been mentioned by one or two noble Lords—there is the proposed amalgamation of the docks and canals. Is this necessarily the most satisfactory arrangement? Personally I doubt it very much. I realize that the Minister has powers under the Bill to alter the number of executives by Order, as a result, presumably, of the experience that may be gained. Why not have given the Commission a free hand, in the first place, thereby saving any needless dislocation if these executives have to he changed later on, when further experience has been gained?
  I will now say a word or two about road haulage. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, mentioned a figure of 20,000 road haulage vehicles to be taken over, apart from the 10,000 or 11,000 which would also be taken over as belonging to the railways. Personally, I think that that figure is inclined to be an understatement, and for this reason: I feel it

  953
  does not take full account of the borderline firms, and it does not, perhaps, take quite into account those firms that may be partially taken over. But, be that as it may, the point that I think he was implying was that it was a relatively small figure compared with the 100,000 "A" and "B" licensed vehicles and the 380,000 "C" licensed vehicles which were not being taken over.
  But if we accept this figure of 20,000—supposing they were allowed to continue to operate under private enterprise—would they really constitute such a menace to the railways by their competition? I doubt that very much, especially when one bears in mind that by far the greater number of firms in that 20,000 are owned by the little man—the man with only a few vehicles. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, mentioned this fact when he said the 20,000 vehicles were distributed among some 2,000 firms. It is the intimate, personal attention to their clients which these small firms can give that makes them such an immensely valuable feature of our whole transport system, and makes them, complementary rather than competitive to the more staple railway services.
  It may be argued that the "A" and "B" licensed firms, who are being left out of the scheme and are allowed to operate within the twenty-five mile limit, will provide that intimate; personal service. I personally do not think that can be so, at any rate, as the Bill stands at present. The twenty-five mile limit is admittedly a perfectly arbitrary one, and if we like to be generous and concede the fact that its inclusion at all is not merely a sop to the "A" and "B" licence holders, but a genuine attempt to provide the best form of service to purely local traffic, then we have only to look at our great industrial centres—the Clyde, Lancashire, the Midlands, and even London—to realize that twenty-five miles is totally inadequate. Nor do I think the point is answered by the exclusion of the "C" licence holders, valuable and timely as that concession has been. I, for my part, would have liked to see long-distance road haulage removed from the Bill, at any rate, as a monopoly of the Commission. I want to emphasize that point, "as a monopoly of the Commission," because by suggesting that I should not object to the 11,000 already belonging to the railways remaining under the Com
  954
  mission. That would, I think, defeat the argument that has been put up by Government spokesmen, that if you remove road haulage from the Bill you are constituting a monopoly of private enterprise.
  A large concern like the Commission must inevitably work to rules and regulations; if it did not, there would be chaos. But, conversely, that implies that it is less adaptable and less flexible, which, to my mind, is the very essence of the existence of these small road haulage men who are being taken out of their private business. When, some time last year, we discussed in your Lordships' House the nationalization of civil aviation—a measure which for various reasons I did not oppose—there was there, within the limits of international agreement, an opportunity for direct competition with the many air service firms and companies of other countries. But here in this Bill there is no competition whatever; there is no yardstick of efficiency. What is more, there is not the equivalent in this Bill of the air charter companies which were in the Civil Aviation Bill—which equivalent, if there is one in the road haulage world, is surely the small long-distance road haulier.
  I realize, of course, that if private long-distance road haulage is to be allowed to continue, a fair competitive basis as between them and the railways is necessary. But a great deal of work has already been done on that. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, mentioned the Road-Rail Agreement, and I feel sure that that could be put into satisfactory operation. Again, the licensing authorities work quite satisfactorily now, and have adequate existing powers to maintain the proper balance between the facilities provided by the railways or the roads as changing circumstances might demand. In every walk of life I maintain that the individual requires some form of incentive. I do not merely refer to financial incentive, although I must admit that probably—whether we like it or not—that has the greatest appeal to people to-day. But there are other forms of incentive. There is the incentive that a craftsman, has when he takes pride in something which he is creating; there is the incentive that comes as the result of fear, as in war when one's home may be in danger.
  And there are yet other forms of incentive. There is the incentive of the

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  desire for security, even in the placid employment of some State-owned corporation. I would emphasize that there should, whenever possible, be opportunities for the type of incentive that most suits the individual, and in the form that appeals to the particular individual. I realize that in this respect there must be certain restrictions, but in this Bill, which is, of course, creating a State monopoly, opportunities for incentive are, to my mind, needlessly restricted, and restricted to the detriment of the transport system of this country.
  In conclusion I would like to recapitulate the two points on which mainly I base my objection to this Bill. First, I am convinced—and this point introduces a recognition of the importance of the human element in all these affairs—that the needless restrictions on incentive will mean that, at a time when we are being exhorted from all around us to do everything we can to produce if we are not to perish, we shall not be exploiting to the utmost all the available experience in the transport industry that we require in order that industry may have the best form of transport to serve its need. Secondly, in framing this Bill, far too little notice has been taken, when one comes to the mass of planning that the Bill will inevitably set in motion, of the absolutely inescapable factor—the time factor.
  7.20 p.m.
  VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, in speaking to your Lordships on this Bill I should, I think, declare myself as interested in one of the railway companies. I think of the Bill as having for its object not the elaborately phrased sentence which has been heard more than once, about integration, co-ordination, and so on, but simply as trying to find machinery whereby the trade and industry of this country can be provided with transport which is easily managed, where it wants it and at its cheapest. That, to my mind, is the important thing about this Bill. I was rather glad to hear the noble Lord who introduced this Bill explain his preference for nationalization, not as a political theory founded without any practical basis, but on the fact that he feared private monopoly much more than he did a public monopoly. The Road-Rail Agreement
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  which has been mentioned would not be described as a private monopoly, and it is on that point that I think the case might well be argued. One has heard it said that in matters of this sort it is up to the nationalizers to prove their case and if a case is proved there is no doubt that the logic of it must persuade all those who are concerned in the matter.
  Might I indicate very simply the principal feature of the Road-Rail Agreement, and perhaps ask the noble Lord at the end of this debate if we could have a little more explanation as to why this method of working is considered to be a private monopoly? I think "private monopoly" means the control of the supply of any commodity by one group of people linked together either financially or operationally. The proposals which the railway companies and the road transport organizations have put forward are no such thing. They envisage a modern re-arrangement of the rates structure, a re-arrangement according to uniform classifications in order to allow for different methods of carriage and different lengths of haul, so as to have the effect of offering to the trader reasonable terms for either method of transport but, at the same time, an inducement to use the most economical and the most efficient form of transport for the kind of goods and the distance of haul that he has in mind.
  That makes it possible, on the one hand, for the companies to adapt themselves to certain classes of carriage; on the other hand, it makes it possible to carry the really important basic materials of this country—such as iron ore, coal and all materials which have to be moved in large quantities—at rates which are more favourable to those basic industries. That is the important thing. Transport is one of the things which comes into the products of industry, starting from coal, steel, engineering and structural products of all kinds, and it must come in more than once in the process of manufacture. It is vital that at the very beginning, where it affects the primary operations of engineering and other industries, the cost should be kept to a minimum.
  Under this Road-Rail Agreement there was to some extent a realization of the necessity for getting over the difficulty of the cost of maintenance of tracks by the railways, as opposed to the cost of maintenance of the roads, being not met

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  entirely by the transport users but being met out of rates, and so on. That was recognized as a great difficulty, and there were suggestions for getting over it. Another important point —and this again is important in considering these proposals—was the assumption by both parties of the responsibility for carrying any traffic—whether by road vehicles or rail vehicles capable of travelling. That is the obligation which is not at present laid upon road transport by law, but which is laid upon railways by law. If both authorities were to accept that same obligation it would make it very much easier for the railways to obtain a better share of the remunerative traffic. I do not think that that is a monopoly.
  Furthermore, the proposals of the railway companies—as some of your Lordships have said—include the expenditure of a good deal of money. There was a lot of money which was not spent during the war which is due to be spent on maintenance and deferred repairs. Further than that: provided this difficulty of charging is overcome—and I suppose it can be overcome in the way I have attempted to describe—is there any reason why the railways should not be able to finance themselves and raise the money? The fact that in the past legislation has prevented them from earning the return they could on the money, does not necessarily mean that if those legislative impediments were removed they would not have the credit with which they would be able to finance themselves.
  What are we to have, under this Bill, as an alternative? One must not dismiss the alternative without considering whether it has not something better than the present system to offer. The solution seems to me to be a highly concentrated administrative system, central ownership, central control, central finance and ministerial interference at every point. I do not think that is a solution which in itself is going to help us, nor do I think it necessary that such a centralized and over-organized system is necessarily a concomitant of nationalization. One can well imagine that it could have been worked out, and could have been put into the Bill; but it has not.
  The Transport Commission is to consist of five people, and it is to have a tremendous list of duties. The noble Lord who has just sat down quoted them all—
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  the work they will lave to do and be responsible for, and the schemes they will have to carry out. They will have to be in a position to run the whole thing by the end of this year, and it seems to me doubtful whether that is possible.
  On the top of that, the Minister is in the position of revising all these points after the Commission itself has decided them. Supposing one could imagine that there was a nationalization proposal which meant the acquiring of the interest in the property of all these companies, without it having to be in the framework of a team of this kind: if one could imagine any group of individuals who would take on this responsibility, you would think that amongst themselves they could operate the business which they had acquired. But I do not believe they would do it on the principle which is here laid down. I feel that they would say to themselves: "Here is a large undertaking and some of the administrative units are already too big." I quarrel with the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, who said that the only people who thought that railways should not be amalgamated were—as I think he put it—reactionary directors. And perhaps I am one! But immediately he rather tended to contradict that by saying that the L.M.S. was a little too big; so I do not think it is a very serious matter.
  VISCOUNT SWINTON: He also said that road men—of whom he was one—knew nothing about railways.
  VISCOUNT RIDLEY: I think it has now become clear that railway organizations are at least as big as one small group of men can efficiently run and look after. I think there is also a case for cutting off Scotland and letting them have their own railway system. That is arguable, but it is rather an outlet for the nationalist feeling of the Scots. I believe that it will be found to be extremely difficult administratively to run all the railways as one unit. There will be a great deal of difficulty if you think of the other executive running the road transport. At what point in the system do the road and rail systems meet in administration, in working out timetables and so on? The Government must have considered a system whereby the whole of the two transport arrangements have to be decentralized, combined together locally, and

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  built up together from the top to the bottom.
  It seems to me that this system starts from the top—the Minister and a Transport Commission—then it goes down to five executives; and then there is nothing. To start with, of course, there will be the framework of the managerial staff in the administration of the present companies. But there is nothing to show what the railway executives are going to do with them and how they are going to make them work. That is the most important part of the Bill: national or private ownership; organization and management, to make the thing run efficiently as a practical and useful scheme.
  I should like to say something in answer to what the noble Lord, Lord Walkden, said about the benefits of the war-time railway system, the pool of common receipts, and the waggon arrangements. I would remind the noble Lord that the control agreement is still in operation. He even said that if this Bill were not accepted the benefits of war-time working would disappear. They certainly would not, as there is abundant evidence to prove. Furthermore, the plans which the railways as an alternative could produce and are producing have dealt with this question of an arrangement for the pooling of the receipts and the avoidance of a good deal of unnecessary clearing-house work. I hope this Bill will not be pushed through without the very careful thought that it really deserves to have. I doubt whether the measure could be sufficiently amended in the directions I have tried to indicate to make it provide a really good way of running the transport system of the country. The Bill seems to have the inherent weakness of over-centralization and the dangers which come therefrom. I hope that the Government, when they are discussing the progress of the Bill through this House, will seriously consider how they can alter it so as to make the system one that can really be worked.
  7.32 p.m.
  LORD MONKSWELL: My Lords, what I wish to say is entirely non-political in its character. When the first public railway was opened, in 1825, it was a break with the past at least as big as the beginning of regular air travel a century later; and, as was the case with aeroplanes in their turn, primitive railways were full
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  of technical defects. These were energetically tackled and largely eliminated during the next twenty-five years. Meanwhile, railway managers were becoming aware of the fact that railways were so vastly superior to any other form of inland transport that competition with them was impossible, and that all they needed to secure for themselves an untroubled life was to agree together to go very slow in the matter of technical progress. It was, of course, not possible to do absolutely nothing in a vital public service like the railways, and little spurts of energy were made from time to time; but right up to about 1930 the railways displayed the same sort of inertia regarding technical progress as is usually, and I think with justice, attributed to Government Departments. Certainly between 1850 and 1930 progress was not up to reasonable requirements. The railways were always kept in good physical condition but technical improvements were very slow in gaining acceptance.
  Then, round about 1930, there came a complete change. Important improvements rapidly followed one another. I do not know what the reason was, but of the fact there can be no doubt. The improvements included first and foremost almost a revolution in signalling, in consequence of which the number of signalmen was greatly reduced and the capacity of the lines at the same time greatly increased. Goods traffic was modernized by accelerating the trains, by the introduction of the container system, and by rail head distribution. Longer rail lengths were laid, and better arrangements made for measuring and correcting inequalities and improving the layout of curves. The efficiency of the steam locomotive, as measured by the horse power per ton of coal, was almost doubled. Third-class sleeping carriages and greatly accelerated long distance trains were introduced. In fact the railways turned over a completely new leaf.
  In addition to all this and, as it turned out, most important of all from a national point of view, the railways, though earning very poor dividends, continued to spend freely in keeping their roads and rolling stock in first-class condition. The consequence was that when war came the preparations which the railways had made, both for working the traffic and for rapidly repairing damage due to enemy action, were so complete that they were

  961
  able to meet every demand of the Forces. The railways—privately owned—were far better prepared for war than were the Government Departments controlled by Parliament. If the railways at that time had been controlled by a Government Department they would presumably have been no better prepared for war than were all the other Government Departments, in which case it is not too much to say that the war would probably have been lost.
  I need hardly comment on the passionate advocacy of totalitarianism of the noble Lord, Lord Walkden. We have heard that many times before. As for the railways' economic decline, the noble Lord entirely ignored the fact that inflation has increased the expenses of the railways far more than higher rates and charges have increased, their receipts. He spoke of the electrification of railways, but I fear he was not comparing like with like. He seemed to envisage the electrification of the whole of the railways of this country. So far as I know, the latest electrification on the Southern Railway cost £50,000 a mile, and I suppose that that expenditure would be at least double now. For the whole 20,000 miles of railway in the Kingdom it seems to me a staggering proposal.
  I must say a word about the road competition which occupies such a very big place in the discussion, about railway nationalization. I have never been able to find out how important that competition is. What is wanted is an estimate of how much the existence of road competition reduces the net earnings of the railways. I know of no published statistics that throw light on the subject. The Ministry of Transport must have formed some estimate, but I have never succeeded in getting any figures. It is obviously not an easy matter to decide. Road services, many of which are worked by the railways themselves, have no doubt brought into existence a good deal of completely new traffic. There has always been some road traffic that has not used the railways at all. I have always suspected that the whole matter was a case of much ado about very little. I am not much impressed by the railways' complaints about track costs. If road traffic really gets an unfair advantage in this way the obvious remedy is to increase the cost of road vehicles' licences. Railways have to pay for their own tracks, but the
  962
  economy which the ownership of these tracks produces is enormous. Three men can work a train carrying a paying load of 500 tons, for which 100 vehicles and 100 drivers would be required if moved by road.
  With regard to compensation, it must be remembered that, if this Bill passes, the railways will be taken over not only as a going concern, but as an essential part of the very existence of the country. To pretend, as certain politicians have done, that the railways have only a scrap value is absurd. It is true that after the greatest war in history they are in need of extensive repair, but the reason repairs are not proceeding as quickly as is desirable is exactly the same as the reason for the failure of the building programme and much else—lack of raw materials and manpower. It has nothing to do with nationalization. Enormous sums are due to the railways from the Government who are unable to find these sums. The replacement value of the railways is the only fair basis of compensation. Railways are, and are likely to remain, a vital part of the national equipment.
  I have endeavoured to give your Lordships a perfectly fair picture of the situation as it appears to me after a lifetime's study. From time to time, in this House, I have criticized severely defects of the privately-owned railways—usually exactly those defects that might have been expected in State-owned lines. Now that, at last, the privately-owned lines have recognized their mistakes and reformed themselves, it appears to me that it would be unpardonable to hand them over to a Government Department whose besetting sin is exactly that complacency and inertia from which the railways have now emerged.
  LORD AMMON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, Lord Nathan, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.
  Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Ammon.)
  On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.

  TRAFALGAR ESTATES BILL.
  Reported without amendment and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

  SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENTS ACT, 1932.
  Orders made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department extending Section I of the Act to the

  Borough of Scunthorpe;

  Urban District of Brierly Hill;

  Rural District of Watford;

  County Borough of Bournemouth;

  County Borough of Northampton;

  Borough of Barry:

  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act) for affirmative Resolution, and ordered to lie on the Table.

  TRANSFER OF YUGOSLAVS FROM ITALY.
  TRANSFER OF YUGOSLAVS FROM ITALY.