Sitting of 2 December 1954

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

SELECT COMMITTEES (APPOINTMENT)
Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask for your guidance and, if possible, assistance. I notice on the Order Paper today a number of Motions for the appointment of hon. Members to certain Select Committees. It has, of course, been customary for a very long time for those nominations, as it were, to be made on the recommendations of the Committee of Selection. I think it will be within your knowledge, Sir, that seven hon. Members on this side are, in certain circumstances, no longer represented in the usual channels. Therefore, they have no opportunity of making representations to the Committee of Selection or influencing the appointment of Members.
In the case of one of the hon. Members concerned, he has served with great distinction on the Estimates Committee for many years. I should, therefore, like to ask you how their interests in these matters may be protected or safeguarded?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member could raise that matter when we come to the appointment of the Select Committees. That comes later. The Motion is debatable and, if it is debated, the matter can be raised then. I think that it is perhaps premature to raise it now.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
  BILL PRESENTED
    DUNOON BURGH (PAVILION EXPENDITURE) ORDER CONFIRMATION
    Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Dunoon Burgh (Pavilion Expenditure); presented by Mr. J. Stuart; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 5.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Lord Privy Seal to state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
The debate on the Address in reply to the Gracious Speech will be continued on MONDAY, 6TH DECEMBER, and brought to a conclusion on TUESDAY, 7TH DECEMBER.
It would be convenient, Mr. Speaker, if you would be good enough to indicate to the House which Amendment or Amendments you propose to call and the days upon which they will be taken.
WEDNESDAY, 8TH DECEMBER and THURSDAY, 9TH DECEMBER—Second Reading: National Insurance Bill.
Committee stage: Money Resolution.
FRIDAY, 10TH DECEMBER—Second Readings: Wireless Telegraphy (Validation of Charges) Bill.
New Towns Bill.
Committee stage: Money Resolution.
Mr. Woodburn: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has given any consideration, as the Foreign Secretary promised, to the possibility of the Secretary of State far Scotland giving an explanation to the House of his proposals as outlined in the Queen's Speech? Other Ministers seem to have had the opportunity of explaining to the House their proposals, and I shall be

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glad to know whether the Secretary of State for Scotland is to have time to do so.
Mr. Crookshank: It is not so much a question of allocating time. The Minister of Education outlined the Government's general proposals with regard to legislation, and I understand that a specific question is being put down to the Secretary of State on Tuesday, which will then give him an opportunity of amplifying any points in regard to Scotland which were not covered in the references to England and Wales.
Mr. Woodburn: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, when the Secretary of State makes his statement on Tuesday, time will be allowed for Scottish Members to inquire further into those proposals? This seems a very important part of the Queen's Speech. It appears to Scottish Members that they have been treated rather less than courteously in the amount of time allocated to this question.
Mr. Crookshank: We do not allocate time. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is perhaps under a misapprehension. The debate on the Address is general, and there is no reason why hon. Members or right hon. Members should not raise any topics at any moment. There are only general indications, as I understand, of what is convenient with regard to some of the subjects during the debate.
Mr. Woodburn: Is it not usual for the House to have something to discuss? It would be very wasteful of the time of the House if hon. Members had to discuss the very nebulous suggestions in the Queen's Speech without an opportunity for the Secretary of State to explain these in detail to the House.
Miss Herbison: Is the Minister aware that when the Minister of Education was outlining the plans for English education he said that the problems of Scotland were different from those of England and Wales? When he came to deal with Scotland, only one minute was devoted—I do not think there was even a minute—to outlining plans for Scotland. Do I take it that on Tuesday there will be a statement, or just answers to a Question and answers to supplementary
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questions? If it is the latter, it simply will not suit the Scottish people, who are intensely interested in education.
Mr. Crookshank: One can always look into it.
Mr. Manuel: Really!
Mr. Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. Member prefers that I should never look into anything which happens. I said that when a Question was being addressed to the Secretary of State on Tuesday he would then be answering.
Mr. Woodburn: The Foreign Secretary, in outlining the Queen's Speech, was good enough to say that the Government would give consideration to the Secretary of State's making, in proper form, a statement which could be debated. We shall not be greedy and ask for too much time, but we are entitled to some time.
Mr. Crookshank: I accept that that is the case. This year it so happens—but I cannot anticipate what Mr. Speaker will say about the calling of Amendments. Perhaps I had better not enlarge upon that point.
Mr. Speaker: Now that the question has been raised perhaps I might indicate that I propose to call two Amendments standing in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and other right hon. Gentlemen. That dealing with instruments of mass destruction will be taken on Monday, and the Amendment dealing with social organisation will be taken on Tuesday.
Mr. Walker-Smith: On an English matter, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will give sympathetic consideration to providing a day, if not before Christmas then at any rate soon after our resumption following the Christmas Recess, for a debate on Exchequer equalisation grants?
Mr. Crookshank: I could not commit myself to that, but we shall see how we get along. I would say to my hon. Friend exactly what I said to the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn), that the debate on the Address is the annual occasion when all these matters can be raised.
Mr. Ede: Is it the intention to take the various Statutory Instruments relating to the Reports of the Boundary Commissions before Christmas? Will it be

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possible, through the usual channels, to arrange for a general discussion on the Reports of the Commissions?
Mr. Crookshank: Yes, Sir. It is the Government's intention to put those Orders before the House before Christmas. Like the right hon. Gentleman who asked the question, the Government feel that if an arrangement can be made through the usual channels for a general discussion on the issues raised, it would be a very good thing.
Mr. Woodburn: May I make a suggestion to the Leader of the House? There is still another day for the general debate on the Queen's Speech. Could not the Secretary of State for Scotland make a statement today? It would still be debatable as part of the debate on the Queen's Speech.
Mr. Crookshank: I will take note of that suggestion. The right hon. Gentleman knows that it is rather difficult, at short notice, to pledge one's colleague to make a statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Secretary of State for Scotland has not been given notice that these matters were to be raised, but I will certainly communicate to him the views of the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, the fact that the official Opposition have put down official Amendments for two days and we have found time for them does rather hamper the general debate.
Colonel Gomme-Duncan: There is considerable weight in what the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) says, because it is possible, and likely, that Oral Questions to the Secretary of State will not be reached on Tuesday, and that the subject will not come up at all.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Leader of the House aware that the continued absence from these debates of the Secretary of State for Scotland has led to the suspicion that he has either been liquidated or kidnapped? This is not the only occasion. It was so in the Civil Defence debate. The Secretary for Scotland is the missing link in all these matters. Will not the Leader of the House consider producing the Secretary of State in the
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flesh as a guarantee that there is such a person at the present time?
Mr. Crookshank: The hon. Gentleman's views are quite mistaken. It is not our practice to deal with any right hon. Gentleman or with anybody else in the way that the hon. Member suggests.
Mr. Walker-Smith: On equalisation grants, does my right hon. Friend appreciate that, though a speech on this matter would technically be in order on the debate on the Address, it would not fit very well into the pattern which has been drawn up for this debate? Will he bear that point sympathetically in mind?
Mr. Crookshank: I quite understand the point that my hon. Friend is making, but I must repeat that there is no pattern about these debates. It is merely indicated. For instance, I heard that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was to raise agricultural matters and that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries was to reply. So far as I know, there is no need for the debate to follow that line at all.
Mr. Paget: Is there any likelihood of the Government's providing time to discuss the Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment? We have been put off for a very long time about this matter. The Report took the members of the Commission some years to produce, and it deserves to be considered.
Mr. Crookshank: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman might like to make a speech about it today.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The business for next week has already been stated. These other matters can be considered later.

MOTIONS ON GOING INTO COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
No notices of Motions on going into Committee of Supply on the Navy, Army, Air or Civil Estimates to be given in anticipation of the ballot to be held on the first Thursday in February.—[Mr. Crookshank.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  QUEEN'S SPEECH

    DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS
    [THIRD DAY]
    Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [30th November]:
    That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as followeth:
    Most Gracious Sovereign,
    We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Mr. J. N. Browne.]
    Question again proposed.
    2.48 p.m.
    Mr. Thomas Williams: We make no apology at all for raising the question of agriculture. After all, agriculture is still our largest industry, employing directly about 1 million persons. Their output last year was in the region of £1,200 million. They are, therefore, entitled to be heard more frequently in this House, not only during the debates on the Queen's Speech, but on many other occasions.
    It is an opportune moment for the new Minister to make his first large agricultural speech in this House, and hon. Members in all parts of the House will welcome him when he does so. We are raising this matter because of the grave doubt and uncertainty which we know to exist in the countryside. Where there was until recently confidence and readiness to invest large sums of capital, now there is doubt, hesitation and bewilderment.
    We charge the Government with full responsibility for the change that has taken place. By importing their own special brand of economic and political theories into this industry, they have not only undermined the confidence produced by the 1947 Act, but are also indicating that they are running away from their own promise in the Conservative Agriculture Charter. The fact that, in the last quarter of a century this industry has twice saved the nation from semi-starvation, apparently means little or nothing to the present Government.
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    Were the Prime Minister addressing the Opposition, he would probably say, "Their political party nostrums are of more importance than the well-being of agriculture or the food of the people." Well, that is exactly what we think of the present Government. Their party nostrums and pleasant phrases come first and the well-being of the industry a very bad second. They are the Government, of course, and they are entitled to pursue their own policies. That is an unwritten law. Nevertheless, we are under a definite obligation to warn the nation that, if the policy of so-called freedom and the law of supply and demand is carried to its logical conclusion, it can mean disaster to the industry and a very great danger to the food supplies of the people.
    There is a very tardy recognition in the Gracious Speech that what we said last November was correct. It states:
    My Ministers recognise that the transition from control to freedom has brought problems for all engaged in farming and kindred industries.
    Those problems were foreshadowed in November last year, yet they were deliberately created by the indecent haste with which all forms of control were dismantled. We were obliged during and after the war to adopt policies which were not only likely to increase the production of food from own soil, but to ensure that the best use be made of the limited area of land.
    The confidence which was entirely absent in pre-war years was completely restored. Market and price guarantees were provided and, as every hon. Member must now know, production has now reached record levels. No Government ever took office and inherited a better policy than did the present Government. They had a combination of the 1947 Act, the Hill Farming Act and the Livestock Rearing Act—with many additions. The fact is that three years of Tory Government have shattered the confidence of the rural community from Northumberland to Cornwall and from Belfast to Inverness.
    There is no need for me to quote from the farming or any other Press. My own correspondence tells its own story. Farmers today feel that there is no such thing as a long-term policy, that continuity and stability have been completely

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    dropped, and that large-scale capital investment would be nothing short of a gamble.
    The reason for that is not far to seek—and here I am not condemning the new Minister of Agriculture. Speaking at the Farmers' Club quite recently, the Minister said that farmers knew what best to produce on their own farms. The farmer, said the Minister,
    "… saw how the markets had been moving and he formed a view of their likely future trends."
    Shades of the 1920s and 1930s. Each of 360,000 farmers must keep his eyes on home and world trends and decide whether to breed, sow or plant according to his or her estimate of world trends. That is a long day's march from stability. Agriculture is by no means a push-button industry, where production can be changed in rapid succession from one commodity to another. The methods of "pinafores today and buttons tomorrow" cannot apply to agriculture. It has the longest production cycle of any industry.
    At the same meeting, the Minister said:
    "The farmer saw before him a system of free markets in which the law of supply and demand was in force."
    Of course he does—but who invoked this new form of freedom, this unwritten law of supply and demand? How does it square with the highest priority, continuity and certainty which the Conservative Party promised when in opposition? The fact is that all their protestations and boasts of supporting Labour's long-term policy of guarantees and continuity were just insincere, as recent events have proved.
    Might I, once again, remind the House and members of the Government in particular just what the Conservative Party Agricultural Charter said? What they said in opposition can then be compared with what they are now doing in office. That Charter said:
    "That is why we are resolved to give home agricultural production the highest priority, and to introduce a sense of urgency, of continuity and of certainty into policy."
    Where is the certainty, continuity and sense of urgency and high priority? It is not in star-gazing into world trends. We can only conclude that this Conservative Agricultural Charter was a fraudulent prospectus, a vote-catching instrument
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    similar to their reducing-the-cost-of-living effort in 1951.
    I wish to make it very plain that nothing I say is a condemnation or criticism of the present Minister. He has only recently inherited the traditional policy—or lack of policy—of the Conservative Party, and we all know that any form of planning, even where agriculture is concerned, has always been anathema to that party. Agriculture is, perhaps, the most difficult of all our industries to organise on a long-term basis. We also know that the results of the Tory Party's refusal to face planning or any form of control led us to a state where farms were derelict all over the place, millions of acres of land went out of cultivation and production reached rock bottom.
    Why are we so disturbed today? Why is the industry really and genuinely worried? Since I came to this House there have been, including the right hon. Gentleman, 11 Conservative Ministers of Agriculture. With one exception—Lord Hudson's term of office during the course of the war—the so-called law of supply and demand, and complete freedom, was mainly in operation. The average term of office of those Ministers was just over two years. They were not all failures, but all failed with agriculture because they never had a chance under a Conservative Government—which never had an agricultural policy.
    The Prime Minister may have made many mistakes, he has held many offices, but he never made the mistake of becoming Minister of Agriculture in a Conservative Government. It was very bad for the succession of Ministers I have Watched come and go—they never had a chance—but it was worse for the industry, which was neither successful nor prosperous all down the years.
    The question we are obliged to ask ourselves is whether the right hon. Gentleman can succeed where the others have failed. He certainly cannot succeed simply by star-gazing into world trends, nor by relying upon 360,000 farmers doing just as they like, when they like and how they like, and switching production hither and thither. Just as we had to make a clean break with the past to restore confidence and provide stability, so, if the right hon. Gentleman

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    wishes to stay the course of two short years and a bit, he will need to satisfy the farming community that he is not only talking about the Government standing four-square behind the principles of the 1947 Act, with markets as well as prices up to the quantity of food required from our own farms, but that the Government are actually doing what they are saying.
    Might I give the right hon. Gentleman this piece of advice? Perhaps he will re-read the Conservative Charter and bring it to the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was the chairman of the committee that produced it. It might help the new Minister of Agriculture in his Cabinet discussions. I know that the more recent Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are in the habit of making almost a weekly speech pledging their troth to the principles of the 1947 Act which, they say, they will never, never desert. But they seem singularly inept in fitting those principles into the area of universal freedom that they themselves have provided.
    We have already had the pig muddle. There is anxiety on the cereal front, and even the egg marketing scheme is becoming a bit stale. As one farmer put it to me, "The millers are prepared to buy our wheat, at their price, in their time, if they need it. It is no consolation to us," said the farmer, "that the deficiency payment is safe until after the next General Election." He went on, "As regards milk and eggs, all we have to do is to train our cows and hens to produce the right quantity of milk and eggs at the right time of the year, and at the right price, and then sell them if we can." That is a point of view, but it is not a very happy state of mind for farmers to be in, and, unfortunately, that view seems to be fairly widespread.
    Certainly the pig muddle will take a lot of explaining away, and it will not do for either the Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who, by the way, seems to have appointed himself the Government's chief agricultural propagandist—to deploy the argument that we are making political capital out of a temporary difficulty. After all, the Government themselves created the diffi-
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    culty, and they deserve the condemnation that is coming to them for it.
    For years the previous Government and, indeed, hon. Members opposite have appealed to the farming community for more and more pig meat. Members of the present Government were perhaps more clamant than any other Members. The White Paper No. 8556 of 1952 said:
    "In terms of meat, a programme of this kind should lead to a progressive increase in production which, by the fourth year, might well be some 250,000 tons (mainly pig meat),"
    while the then Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Carrington, said in 1953 that the Government would like to see another million pigs by 1954–55.
    Between June, 1953. and June, 1954, there was an increase of over 1 million pigs; and then what happened? The Government, who had asked for pigs, saw that the pigs were readily forthcoming, but they made no sort of arrangement at all to market them, with the result that bacon curers could receive only about two-thirds of the pigs available after they had been produced and fed. Pigs, therefore, had to be held back on the farms and fed for several weeks, and because of the then price schedule, which perhaps was quite right, the larger the pigs grew, the smaller the price the producer got for them. No wonder, then, that the pig producers, large and small, were in a panic. They had responded to the demand for more pigs and then, as usual, this Government let them down.
    As one writer put it, it is the fruit of a blind plunge into freedom which allowed no breathing space for proper adjustment of production and marketing policy to the new conditions. Clearly, this is an example where the Government's policy for the pig industry has neither produced the stability nor permitted the efficiency which the Agriculture Act was designed to achieve. That is a very sad story, and I do not think that it is going to be as temporary as some hon. Members opposite try to make themselves believe.
    I should like the right hon. Gentleman to clarify this point when he replies, by elaborating on what he said about pigs at the Farmers' Club meeting. There he said that we could do with about the same number of pigs as we have now if qualit3, is right and the price comes down. I understand that the bacon curers can deal

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    with about 5 million pigs a year, which is just about half our consumption of bacon. Has the Minister made it clear to the industry that there is to be no extension of bacon factories in this country, and that they must adjust their production to 50 per cent. of our bacon requirements? Both the industry and the House are entitled to an answer to that important question.
    On the question of beef, mutton and lamb, the Chancellor said the other day, in one of his fairly regular agricultural speeches, indicating that his state of mind was not too happy and stable about the countryside, that the deficiency payments for beef, mutton and lamb will work out very much as the Government expected. But what the Chancellor did not say was that but for the activities of the Fatstock Marketing Corporation, dealing with approximately 40 per cent. of the value of all the livestock being slaughtered, the old auction mart system would have broken down completely, and the cost to the Exchequer could have been enormous, and the producers would have got all the blame. There is no doubt that but for the courage, determination and tenacity of the N.F.U. leaders and the loyalty of livestock producers, hasty decontrol would have proved a calamity to the industry and to the Exchequer.
    On the question of production and marketing, the Gracious Speech says:
    "They will not relax their efforts to promote the efficient production and marketing of food."
    We all agree that efficient production should be the constant aim of every farmer, but we must also agree that, thanks to the guarantees and the sense of stability that the farmers have had over the past 10 years or so, efficiency has increased at a more rapid rate than at any other period in British history.
    But what can we say about efficient marketing? While the Conservative Party were never enthusiastic about agricultural marketing—in fact, may I remind them that they voted against the Agricultural Marketing Act in 1930—in their White Paper of 1953 entitled "Decontrol of Food and Marketing of Agricultural Produce," they did visualise possible schemes for eggs, potatoes and bacon. But so far, after three years of Conservative government, no schemes have been submitted.
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    Still another promise is made in the Queen's Speech not to relax their efforts, although their efforts seem to have produced very few eggs. Might I remind the Parliamentary Secretary that in his optimistic moments in 1951, when he was writing up the Conservative Party's agricultural policy for the October election, he said in the "News Chronicle":
    "A Conservative Government would progressively improve the marketing of both agricultural and horticultural products by encouraging the formation and development of producer marketing boards. On the one hand, this would relieve the long-suffering taxpayer of the heavy cost of the Ministry of Food performing these functions, and, on the other, would ensure a progressive improvement both in economy of marketing and in quality of presentation."
    Of course, that is when the Parliamentary Secretary was in opposition and in search of votes. That was just three years ago.
    Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us when he replies why not a single scheme has emerged after that very definite and specific promise, made over three years ago. Either he or the Minister will perhaps tell us why they are still so hesitant about marketing schemes. Is it because the trading interests are too strong? Or is the Treasury barring the way? Or does it simply not matter, because the housewife has to pay? We are at least entitled to know why they make these promises and then rarely fulfil one of them.
    The farming community will read the following paragraph in the Gracious Speech with mixed feelings:
    "My Ministers recognise that the transition from control to freedom has brought problems for all engaged in farming and kindred trades."
    In other words, that is a confession of Government blunders. The second quotation reads:
    "They will not relax their efforts"—
    if any—
    "to promote the efficient production and marketing of food."
    That means exactly what it says—nothing. The last part reads:
    "These will enable stability for the industry to be combined with the flexibility of a free market so that the consumer may enjoy plentiful supplies, and the producer a fair return."
    I can only describe the third part of the reference to agriculture as just "wet and windy." To an industry which, with approximately the same number of

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    workers as it had in 1939, produced 50 per cent. more food last year, this reference to farming is little less than an insult to the industry and everybody employed in it.
    There is no reference at all in the Gracious Speech to a long-term policy, except for the somewhat vague expression of "flexible stability," whatever that elastic term may mean. There is no word likely to restore confidence to the industry or to discourage skilled workers from leaving the land. Whereas in their White Paper in 1952 the Government hoped for an increase in tillage acreage of about 1 million acres, the latest returns show a reduction of over 300,000 acres. I regard that as a portent. It is true, us the Minister will no doubt tell me, that according to the latest returns—September—livestock numbers show no signs of diminution, but that was before the pig muddle, and in any case one cannot change breeding policy overnight. We shall certainly watch the December returns with very great interest.
    So much for Tory policy in the short term. What about the long-term prospects? This Government of all Governments, always counselling others to think and look far ahead, ought to be the leaders in the star-gazing. We know that many exporting countries are consuming much more of their own produce than they consumed in the past. I need to mention only the Argentine, Australia and perhaps India. We know that world population is increasing at the rate of 85,000 a day, or 30 million a year—perhaps far in excess of the general increase in food production. We know that, at the present rate of the acquisition of land, over the next 50 or 60 years we are likely to lose another 2 million acres of cultivable land, and we know that for balance of payments reasons the saving of imports is equally as good as the expansion of exports.
    What, then, should be our approach to this grave national problem both now and in the years afterwards? I certainly do not advocate, nor, I think, does anyone else, maximum production of food in this country, regardless of cost, but rather a steady, continuous improvement in the efficiency of production and marketing, based on production policies
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    agreed by and understood by the industry and, at the same time, the Government. For this, concrete and absolute confidence is required. That confidence does not exist at the moment. Our charge against the Government, therefore, is that they have been less than frank with the industry, that they have left it in a state of uncertainty and indecision, that they constantly make promises to agriculture When in opposition and immediately proceed to break them when in office. In our view, all along the line they have been too busy looking backward to try to look forward. I believe that they are endangering the food supplies of this country in the immediate and distant future and that they are doing no less than gambling with the balance of payments problem.
    Mr. Harmar Nicholls: Could the right hon. Gentleman give his authority for stating that 2 million acres will be taken out of cultivation?
    Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman should ask the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
    3.17 p.m.
    The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. Heathcoat Amory): This is the first opportunity we have had of a general discussion on agriculture for some time and, as a rather recent entrant into the industry—I believe that "trainee" would be the appropriate word—I welcome it very much. I see around me this afternoon so many hon. Members who, I know, are very experienced and erudite in agricultural affairs that I admit to being a little awed by the very high technical pressure of the atmosphere. I realise that in this business of agriculture I have a lot to learn.
    I am glad to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). In many things concerning agriculture I am sure that we see eye to eye; in some we do not. Most of us on this side of the House have great personal respect for him. Today, however, he has given a picture of the present situation which is out of all relation to realities.
    I must say that I was surprised at the defeatism and lack of confidence which he displayed in the resilience and the ability of our agriculture. He seemed

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    to speak as if our farmers have one ambition only, which is to be told exactly what to do and what not to do, how to do it and how not to do it, and then to be given a fixed remuneration for so doing. I do not think that that is the spirit which runs through British agriculture.
    The right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to express great sympathy for me in my present position, and in the approaching termination of my political career. I do not know how that will work out, but I can tell him that I am enjoying myself at present. I want to give the House a kind of progress report on the present situation and the prospects as I see them. In so doing I shall try to answer as many of the right hon. Gentleman's questions as I can.
    The first point I want to make is perhaps rather obvious, but it is basic: during the past year or two we have moved into an entirely new situation; we have moved from a situation of food shortages to one of relative sufficiency, and new conditions call for new methods. The Government would indeed have been worthy of reproach if they had been inactive and had trusted to arrangements and methods designed to deal with a period of shortages and had relied on them to grapple with the new and entirely different set of problems which exist today and which will exist tomorrow. That would have been a classic instance of preparing for the wrong war.
    Fortunately, the Government have remained very far from inactive in these matters. By dismantling controls, ending rationing, freeing production and distribution from restrictions and devising new ways of providing price support, they have created the conditions in which British agriculture is, I believe, going to give the very best account of itself in the era of vigorous competition that lies ahead. These steps have been made possible by two things: first, the improvement both in world and home food supplies; and, secondly, the very impressive strengthening of our national economy which has taken place during the past few years.
    In the past year there have been two main achievements. I want to say this because, if I can, I want to comfort the right hon. Member and disperse the feeling of defeatism to which I referred.
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    The first achievement has been a further increase in net output. The percentages of increases over output in 1939 were: 1950–51, 43 per cent.; 1951–52, 49 per cent.; 1952–53, 52 per cent.; and 1953–54, 55 per cent. We must not count our chickens before they are hatched, and I shall have a word to say about the harvest in a moment, but that does look like progress in the right direction and up to a recent date.
    The second achievement is the changeover to new schemes of marketing and price support. Here, I should like to pay a personal tribute to the immediate predecessors in my two offices for the work they have done and on the success of the schemes they devised so carefully in consultation with the industry a year ago. Those schemes, in general, so far have worked out extraordinarily well.
    In opening the debate, the right hon. Member seemed to say, "The Government have no policy for agriculture" or, alternatively, "If they have I do not understand it" or "If I do understand it, I do not like it." That may be a fair interpretation and it is just the right start for the Opposition in a debate on the Motion for an Address. I take no objection to that at all, but I do not think the right hon. Member found time to explain to us whether he and his hon. Friends have a policy, and if so, what it is.
    Not for a moment during his speech did I get the faintest impression of what the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends would like to see done in the present state of things, or, in the event of their coming back to office, what they would do. The right hon. Member and his supporters must really face the fact that Government buying and allocation simply cannot be reconciled with free choice for the consumer. That is basic to the present policy of the Government. Government allocation means that the consumer must take what he is offered and, presumably, be content with it. Although I did not hear that this afternoon, I imagine that must be the policy of the right hon. Member for Don Valley and his right hon. and hon. Friends.
    Mr. T. Williams: Before that is let loose outside this House, the right hon. Gentleman must admit that I never referred to the word "allocation"

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    throughout my speech—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman is not going to misinterpret anything I said by putting into my mouth words which I have never uttered.
    Mr. Amory: That was the point I was trying to make. During his speech we could not get a clue as to what the policy of the right hon. Member was. Judging from what he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have said from time to time about this matter, I believe that rationing and allocation must be absolutely a central point in their policy.
    Mr. George Brown: Certainly not.
    Mr. Amory: Perhaps during the course of our debate there will be an opportunity for hon. Members opposite to explain exactly what their policy amounts to. The point I make is that any policy which involves allocation without freedom of choice is certainly not our policy.
    Mr. Brown: The Government have not got a policy at all.
    Mr. Amory: The Opposition's policy cannot give the consumer a free choice, nor can it give sufficient emphasis to improving production.
    Our policy has been shaped to meet these requirements, and I claim that it is doing so. I am very anxious that the right hon. Member should understand our policy on agriculture, so I shall describe it as succinctly as I can.
    Mr. Brown: And the best of luck to the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Amory: We believe that a strong and stable agricultural industry is as vital to us in peace as it is in war. Furthermore, we believe that is in the interests of everyone in this country, consumers and producers alike. We want as high an output of efficient home food production as we can get. There is no ceiling, but we must have regard, now and in the future, to costs and quality as well as quantity. We believe that we ought to be able to obtain a net output of about 60 per cent. above pre-war during the next few years. Secondly, we want to ensure reasonable stability in conditions of freedom and flexibility.
    Mr. Brown: What does that mean?
    Mr. Amory: Those are the objects how are they to be attained? We believe that will best be brought about—this is one aspect of the policy—if we leave freedom to farmers to decide for themselves what kind of production they will go in for to suit their particular land and circumstances. But the Government must see that they get a fair return for efficient production and the right incentives to increase efficiency still further.
    I want to describe how we are endeavouring to carry out those two objects. I would remind the House of the extent and range of assistance which we are giving the industry at present, apart from the guarantees in price, because I think that sometimes the scope and the scale are not realised. There are the grants for ploughing up grassland, for fertilisers, for the rearing of calves, for field drainage and water supply, for lime, for the assistance of marginal production, for hill farming and hill cattle, and for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis. There are others, also.
    About half the cattle in Great Britain are now attested. During the next four years we hope to extend still further the areas in Wales, Scotland and North-West of England and to start with area eradication in Southern England.
    The total we expect to spend this year on production grants is £54 million. In addition, there are our many research institutes and advisory services which are doing first-rate work. The advisory service is extending its advice into the important field of farm management, which, I think, is a very interesting development.
    Now I want to turn to the cost of that support. All this costs a lot of money, and we expect the bill for price guarantees and production grants this year to amount to substantially more than £200 million. Exactly how much it will be is impossible to say at this stage, because it depends partly on the trend of market prices. That is a large sum, and it is clearly in the interest of everyone—
    Mr. M. Follick: How much did the right hon. Gentleman say?
    Mr. Amory: Subtantially more than £200 million.
    Mr. Brown: Is it over, or less than, £250 million?
    Mr. Amory: As I have said, it is impossible to say at this stage what it will amount to. With the best will in the world, any figures that I gave now as to how the cost was running might easily be falsified by changes in the next month or two.
    Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman said "substantially more than £200 million." He must, therefore, have an idea of the rate at which the figure is now running. Is "substantially" £10 million or £70 million more? At what rate is the figure running now?
    Mt Amory: There is nothing secret in this. The best indication I can give is to say that it is running between £200 and £250 million at the present time.
    It is in everyone's interests that we should do what we can to see that this big bill to the taxpayer should gradually be reduced. I believe that if the industry can continue, and even improve upon, its very fine record during recent years of increasing its annual productivity—it has been increasing at the rate of about £20 million a year during the last three or four years—a gradual reduction in the bill to the taxpayer should be possible while maintaining stability and prosperity to the industry.
    I do not mind repeating, as often as anybody wants me to say it, that we stand by the assurances given in Part I of the Agriculture Act. We believe that the nation is getting value from this support to an industry which is steadily improving its productivity.
    Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Is there to be any check on prices in connection with what the Minister has been saying?
    Mr. Amory: I shall be dealing with that later.
    The Government have deliberately chosen this method of subsidies rather than the alternatives of, perhaps, tariffs or quota restrictions for providing a price support to the industry, because we be-believe that in our position as a great trading nation, that is the best way of providing the support. We have no intention of making any sudden, startling or arbitrary cuts in this subsidy bill to the detriment of efficient production.
    Mr. Brown: Famous last words.
    Mr. Amory: As I said, we shall look forward to a gradual reduction, in the light of the continued increasing productivity and efficiency.
    I should like to say a word about minimum prices. We have had these considerations which I have mentioned very much in mind in determining the minimum prices for livestock products for 1956–57 and 1957–58, of which details were given yesterday in reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Spearman). I need not remind the House that these minimum prices are merely an absolute floor. The guaranteed prices for those years will be fixed at the time of the Annual Review.
    I should like to turn to the methods which we are at present following in providing the price guarantee and the marketing arrangements. As I have explained, with the new conditions into which we have been moving it became essential that with the end of rationing and control there should be changes in the methods of marketing and in the forms of the guarantees.
    The new arrangements have not been in operation very long, but, on the whole, the way in which they have been working is distinctly encouraging. I have no doubt that as time goes on we shall find ways in which we can modify them advantageously, and we may even find better ways of doing the same thing. As and when those opportunities arise, we shall seize them eagerly, but I claim that the transition to free markets has been successfully accomplished and that the beneficial effects are being increasingly felt.
    Twelve commodities are covered by the guarantees in the Agriculture Act. We have now virtually established permanent schemes for three of them—milk, potatoes, and wool. Incidentally, I may remind the right hon. Member for Don Valley, since he seems to imply that we on this side of the House were not keen on marketing boards, that in all three cases it is being done with the co-operation of a producers' marketing board. During the past six months, we have also introduced arrangements for eight other commodities. I cannot deal with the whole eight, but I should like to make one or two remarks about three of them—cereals, fatstock and eggs.

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    As regards cereals, the first entirely free grain market for 15 years has been accompanied by probably the most difficut harvest for 50 years. The first lesson to be drawn from this experience of the new free market, accompanied by the unprecedented weather, is the need to study the market. The second lesson is the need, in connection with the use of combines, to make sure that there is proper provision for drying and storage. Certainly, from our experience this year, that connection cannot possibly be ignored.
    Part of the trouble this year about the very wet harvest was that many farmers found themselves without facilities for drying and storage and, therefore, threw their grain on to the market, with the result that the market became extremely weak. The Government have not been unmindful of this business. As hon. Members know, there is a rising scale of seasonal guaranteed prices to induce farmers—
    Mr. Brown: We have had that.
    Mr. Amory:—to retain their grain longer than they would otherwise do. Then, loans are available to farmers who wish to provide drying and storage facilities from the United States economic aid.
    Thirdly, there are the national silos, which this season we have been operating under Ministry of Food control—to date the silos have handled, I believe, about 90,000 tons of home-grown grain—making a charge for the service. We have decided that in future it would not be inappropriate if those silos were to be operated under co-operative arrangements by producers, and we have offered them for operation by an organisation to be promoted by the National Farmers' Union, if it would care to operate them. Further discussions on this point are proceeding.
    The trade has played its part in absorbing this year's cereal crops under very difficult conditions. The trouble has been the existence of a weak market. One hears stories of millers' rings and things like that, but I have no evidence whatever of millers' rings. What has happened is that buyers of grain, very naturally, have bought their grain at the lowest possible price; and that brings us back once again to the weak market.
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    There is very little evidence that there is a differential which cannot be justified between the price of imported grain and the prices which our producers have been getting. Even so, with all these difficulties, the evidence I have is that very little reasonably dry grain has not found a market.
    I was able to announce earlier this week that the deficiency payment for wheat in the first period will amount to £9 3s. 6d. a ton. Cheques will be sent to producers straight away. Advance payments for barley and rye will also be made as soon as possible. In view of the present strong market for oats, and the trend of rising prices, we have decided that we cannot make an advance payment for oats at present. Deficiency payments, broadly speaking on the same lines, will operate again next year.
    The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the drop in the tillage acreage—
    Mr. Brown: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was proposing to say something about the lack of drying equipment. Is he going to deal with the point later, or has he left it?
    Mr. Amory: I have left it.
    Mr. Brown: What are the Government going to do about it?
    Mr. Amory: I have said that already. I said that silos have been made available—
    Mr. Brown: They are available now.
    Mr. Amory: I do not think I can go over all that again. I have already told the right hon. Gentleman how they are being operated this year and how we suggest they could be operated in the future. The right hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair.
    Mr. Brown: I do not think I am being unfair. The Minister said—[HON. MEMBERS: "Make a speech presently."] I shall be glad to do so, if necessary. The Minister said that the weak market was in part due to the lack of drying equipment. To say that silos that exist are to be operated by somebody else is no answer to that. I asked him what he was going to do, and to indicate what the Government's policy is to make good the lack. What is he going to do about it?
    Mr. Amory: The evidence I have is that many, many farmers, acting in the light of experience this year, are now buying grain dryers and storage facilities of their own. The trade tells me that there is a very brisk demand for dryers at the present time.
    Mr. Brown: The Government are doing nothing?
    Mr. Amory: I have described what the Government are doing. The right hon. Gentleman will doubtless have a chance of saying his piece later on. It is impossible to make a speech with all these interruptions.
    Mr. Brown: Do not bother about that.
    Mr. Amory: The right hon. Member for Don Valley asked me about the drop in the tillage area. Undoubtedly, there was last year a substantial drop. We want a high level of cereal production and we are providing incentives accordingly. On the other hand, we must leave it to individual farmers to decide, each one for himself, what is the best for them to grow in the present economic circumstances.
    Therefore, it would be quite wrong for me to try to lay down an aggregate tillage acreage, however odd this may seem to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Whether or not the drop in the tillage area is serious depends entirely upon what use is made of the land that ceases to be tilled. Provided that it goes into good leys carrying a full head of livestock it can be as productive, or even more so, than tillage in the conditions in which we are now existing.
    A word about fatstock. We are coming to the end of the first stock fattening season after decontrol. Again, the results have abundantly justified the Government's decision to decontrol meat and fat-stock. For the first time for many years there has been no autumn glut of fat cattle and sheep. Week after week there has been an even and steady flow of stock coming forward to meet the needs of the trade. Prices, too, have been encouraging to producers, especially those for fat lambs, and the size of the Government's guaranteed payments has in consequence steadily gone down.
    The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley paid a tribute to the Fat-stock Marketing Corporation. I entirely
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    support him in that. Here is an example of exactly the kind of initiative that we welcome. He referred to the Fatstock Marketing Corporation's handling, I think, 40 per cent.—
    Mr. T. Williams: Of the value of fat-stock.
    Mr. Amory: I do not think that that is correct. It is nearer 20 per cent, than 40 per cent.
    Mr. Williams: On the contrary, I think it is a little in excess of 40 per cent.
    Mr. Amory: If the right hon. Gentleman is right and I am wrong the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is to wind up the debate, will correct me, and give the figures.
    Mr. Walter Elliot: The ex-Minister is wrong again.
    Mr. Williams: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman wants as much as I to be certain that we are discussing the same thing. I said the whole of the value of all the fatstock, including, of course, cattle, sheep, lambs, and pigs for bacon.
    Mr. Amory: I still think I am nearer the mark than the right hon. Gentleman, but we will settle that point later.
    One word about pigs, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. It is perfectly true that in September and October large numbers of pigs could not be accepted by the bacon factories, and those heavy pigs unsuitable for bacon ultimately had to be sold in the pork market. The result was that for some weeks the prices for pork pigs fell away to a very low level. In the meantime, they have recovered substantially, and bacon factories today, I understand, can handle all the pigs on offer.
    Some people are saying that these initial difficulties attendant on the reopening of the market, and the fear of a repetition of them next year, have destroyed confidence in the pig industry. I only can say that the latest figures that I have seen do not bear that out, after making all the allowances that one should make.
    Mr. James Callaghan: Oh, there are no troubles at all.
    Mr. Amory: I am very anxious indeed to do anything I can to ensure that the same kind of trouble does not arise next year.
    The Government are not in marketing and are not going into marketing, but there are one or two things I have been able to do. One is this. I asked the Advisory Panel, which advises me as Minister of Food, and which has on it representatives of all the interests concerned, the farmers, the auctioneers, the meat traders and curers, to consider this problem.
    Earlier this week the Panel met, and there was a unanimity of view that the market needed all the pigs now being produced. That fits in exactly with the information which I have that there are not too many pigs in the country. All the members of the Panel agreed, too, that the recent difficulties sprang from the pattern of prices for pork and bacon pigs which emerged in the early days of July. I shall consider very carefully its recommendations.
    The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the curing capacity at the factories. I want to make it quite clear that the Government have not laid down, and will not lay down, the proportion of pigs wanted for either bacon or pork. That must be settled by the market. It is exactly the kind of thing that the market settles best. If the market justifies it, no doubt the curers will be ready to increase their capacity. It is a marketing problem.
    In our policy on pigs, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, we have said that the emphasis must be on a reduction in cost and an improvement in quality. What are we doing to help? First, there is the recent introduction of the National Pig Records Scheme. I am glad to say that the farmers have started very enthusiastically. The Scheme was introduced only 10 weeks ago, but we have already 1,000 members and 14,000 recorded sows. Registrations are coming in every week, and in a year, or possibly two years, we may have at least 25 per cent. of the country's breeding pigs registered in the scheme.
    Another thing which is valuable from this point of view is that we hope to see established several up-to-date progeny testing stations on Danish lines. We hope that they will come into operation. We
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    believe that agreement will be reached shortly with the producers on this matter.
    Lastly, we feel that more guidance is required about the type of pigmeat that will be needed by the trade in the next few years. We have, therefore, appointed a Committee to advise on this matter. Sir Harold Howitt, who was a member of the Reorganisation Commission for Pigs before the war, has agreed to act as Chairman. I hope that soon I shall be in a position to announce the names of the other members, and that the Committee will get to work. The Committee will not be concerned with investigating the market problem. The problem is more a breeding question and a matter of advice to farmers on the types of pigs which are likely to be required.
    I want to touch on the possibility of an egg and poultry marketing scheme. We have often made it clear that we are in favour of producer marketing boards in appropriate cases. I think that this may well be such a case, and we are at present in discussion with the Unions on concrete proposals. I hope very much that these will shortly come to a satisfactory outcome.
    The right hon. Member for Don Valley charged us with half-heartedness over producer marketing schemes. That seems to come oddly from that side of the House. I saw no great enthusiasm for them, but rather considerable antipathy to them on that side. The charge has not been substantiated. There are now in operation boards for marketing milk, potatoes, wool, hops, tomatoes, and cucumbers. We agreed to the promotion of a board on voluntary lines for fatstock. That has not been proceeded with. We also allowed a scheme to go forward for apples and pears, and that was subsequently voted upon by the producers. Now we are giving consideration to a scheme for poultry and eggs. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would have done half as much.
    Mr. T. Williams: We had put some of the boards there.
    Mr. Amory: On the contrary, we have restored the boards—the Milk Marketing Board and the Potato Marketing Board. I ask the right hon. Member to look back at the record of his Government. He will see that on this point they have not much in the way of achievement.
    Mr. Williams: Has the right hon. Gentleman forgotten the tomato, cucumber and wool marketing schemes? Apart from what the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) did with the Milk Marketing Board in 1933, the party opposite have had no marketing scheme of any kind.
    Mr. Amory: It is just those things that I have considered. I say as a result of that consideration that I do not think that the right hon. Member and his colleagues have many achievements to their credit.
    Lieut.-Colonel Marcus Lipton: Ask the Farmers' Union.
    Mr. Amory: This scheme to deal with eggs and poultry has to be considered on its merits to ensure that it is fair to the consumer and the taxpayer as well as to the producer. Where the scheme passes those tests we shall be certainly agreeable to its official consideration and promotion. We believe that improvements in marketing are every bit as important as improvement in production.
    As for horticulture, the new tariff increases which were agreed upon and put into operation during the past year seem to be working out successfully. Horticulture has had a difficult time lately owing to the weather, though. I gather that there has been a bumper crop of watercress. That no doubt will help us when we come to calculate the aggregate net return of the industry.
    We have decided that the time has come when we should have a systematic examination of the very difficult and complex problems of horticultural marketing. There has been no comprehensive inquiry into this matter for 30 years, since the Linlithgow Committee reported. There have been many changes since then. In reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) yesterday, I said that we should be setting up such an inquiry, and that we would announce the composition and terms of reference of the inquiring body as soon as possible.
    Colonel Alan Gomme-Duncan: Will the inquiry be a United Kingdom inquiry? There is, for example, the question of the dumping of English horticultural products in Scotland.
    Mr. Amory: I should not have the nerve to set up an inquiry into the position in Scotland. [Interruption.] I beg my hon. and gallant Friend's pardon. The inquiry will be comprehensive. In that case I have got the nerve, though I believe that the greater part of the industry is in the South.
    I should like to say a few words about manpower, because I saw a reference in the Amendment to the Address to the continuing drop in manpower. That is something which I am watching with anxiety. There is still no evidence of a general shortage holding back production, but there are very real difficulties in certain localities. The decrease is partly due to the attraction of other jobs and partly to economy in the use of labour due to mechanisation and other causes.
    To get the matter into perspective, we must remember that, coincidental with the drop in manpower, we have had a very encouraging increase in output per man, but still I am deeply concerned to see that the manpower on our farms should be adequately maintained, and I shall continue to watch the matter closely. I am sure, however, that it is difficult to exaggerate the importance in this matter of good housing, water supply, and electricity and transport.
    I believe that almost as important as anything are good schools. I am delighted at the enthusiasm with which my Tight hon. Friend the Minister of Education is tackling the provision of more secondary schools in rural areas. I believe that modern farming techniques call for farmers and farmworkers with alert and well-trained minds. I am informed that it requires a very well educated person to understand some of the circulars and forms which are sent out by my Department. I had the pleasure, a week or two ago, of opening a very fine new secondary modern school, which will serve a rural area in my own county.
    It is good too that electricity is being connected up to farms and cottages now at a much faster pace.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Thanks to nationalisation.
    Mr. Amory: I am not so sure. If one looks at the dates one finds that it is thanks after quite a pause to nationalisation. The pace has been much accelerated recently.

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    The White Paper on Rural Wales which was published in November, 1953, raised the question of assistance for rural roads in livestock-rearing areas in Wales. I hope that it will not be very long before we formulate our proposals definitely and legislation is introduced.
    I should like to say a few words about the effect of the present weather.
    Mr. Douglas Marshall: Before my right hon. Friend turns away from the subject of roads, I trust that he is fully aware of the importance to agriculture and horticulture of the Tamar Bridge.
    Mr. Amory: I am fully aware of the position with regard to Tamar Bridge because my hon. Friend has already talked to me about it.
    I want to pay a real tribute of admiration to our farmers and farm workers for the way in which they have tackled the situation created by the appalling weather this season. The difficulty started with the hay crop, and in many cases it was the hay crop which was the worst damaged of all. There have been very serious effects in certain areas on certain sections of the harvest, and latterly on potatoes. I am, however, glad to say that, from the information which I have, 95 per cent. of the potato crop has now been harvested.
    There seems no likelihood of a general shortage of feed for winter keep, although there are local shortages. The trade and the National Farmers' Union are, I believe, helping to ensure that there shall be a satisfactory distribution of hay to meet those needs. I have authorised our county committees to waive requirements in connection with the hill cow and hill cattle subsidies that a proportion of the grants must be spent on improvements, and I have also reminded them of their power to grant credit for fodder.
    My advisory officers are keeping very close touch and will advise, as time goes on, what the effects on the health of our stock is likely to be. In the meantime, ploughing and drilling for winter corn is being seriously delayed. The damage to the land, I think, has not been caused so much by the extent of the flooding as by the general waterlogged condition of the land. That is something, again, which we shall have to look out for in the immediate months ahead.
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    I want to say a very real word of thanks to the members of our county committees and their district committees for the help which they have given me. I know that their work in present circumstances may in many ways be more difficult than in the days when extra output was required regardless of cost. They are rendering very valuable service to the industry and to the country.
    I also want to say one word about land. My predecessor announced that it was the Government's intention to sell any agricultural land they held unless there was some strong reason to the contrary. This policy I have started to carry out, and it will be continued. There are a number of areas of requisitioned plot land which are in the course of compulsory purchase under Section 85 of the Agriculture Act. These purchases will be completed, put together into holdings, and then, if possible, sold.
    All other land under requisition being used for farming will be derequisitioned as soon as feasible. It is not intended to refer any more land to the Agricultural Land Commission under Section 84 of the 1947 Act. But, if necessary, references will be made under Section 68 of that Act instead.
    Dispossession must still be the ultimate sanction in serious cases of bad husbandry or estate management under the 1947 Act when all other remedies have been tried and failed. We regard compulsory purchase as a procedure which ought to be used with the greatest restraint.
    I hope that this survey, compressed and incomplete as it has been, will convince the House that the Government are whole-hearted in their resolve to stand firm and steadfastly behind our farmers, farmworkers and landowners in their continued efforts to meet the needs of the nation. We are determined that full production in the agricultural industry shall be maintained. The awful weather this season has, I am afraid, brought a temporary setback, but I am confident that the industry has never been in better shape, and that when it has recovered from the present difficult season, it will renew once more the impressive progress in productivity and efficiency that it has shown during the past two or three years. The scope is there, and, I am sure, the

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    skill and the enterprise, too. Her Majesty's Government will not falter in playing their part.
    4.5 p.m.
    Mr. E. G. Gooch: I have listened during nearly 10 years here to a number of agricultural debates, and I have always hoped that during the course of those debates we could deal with agricultural problems on a nonparty basis, and thus avoid violent changes of emphasis and policy when another Government took over. But that, apparently, is impossible. The Gracious Speech says:
    "My Ministers recognise that the transition from control to freedom has brought problems …"
    and I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) has referred to this aspect of the Speech and to the problem of all engaged in farming and in the agricultural industry. I want to take it a little further, and give it, as my opinion, that not only has the process from control to freedom brought problems, but that if we are not careful the industry will be again heading for disaster.
    I read in the Gracious Speech references to efficient production and marketing, the need for stability and for a free market. All these things are supposed to add up to the kind of efficient and prosperous agriculture, and very expanding agriculture, that we had from 1945 onwards. I have always held the view that in farming there must be long-term planning and a measure of control. But the kind of control that I envisage is not the kind of control that some people suppose we are aiming at. Some suppose that if Parliament leaves the industry to its own resources, all will be well. I think that those of us from the rural areas will appreciate this point: that farming would not last long in the modern world, in face of the various economic winds that blow today, without the State continuing to take some practical interest in the industry.
    I appreciate that control in some directions can be irksome, but I think: that in relation to many aspects of farming control can also be benevolent. If the House wants an example of benevolent control I can say that we have it in the operation of the Milk Marketing Board.
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    I value the opportunity of addressing the House, because I want to say a few things from the workers' point of view. The welfare of the farmworker is bound up with the general welfare of the industry. When farmworkers make their claims, as they do from time to time, I assure the House that they make their claims with a due sense of responsibility—responsibility not merely to the industry itself, but to the nation as well.
    If I may touch on the question of farm wages, although I appreciate that the Minister has nothing to do with this matter directly, I want to tell the House that the farmworkers were originally pressing for an increase of £1 per week in the national minimum wage, and had that been secured it would have brought the farmworkers a little nearer to the rate paid to industrial workers.
    If the present proposals of the Agricultural Wages Board, which were issued yesterday, go through, then I take it that the farmworkers' wage will be increased, about mid-January to a national minimum of £6 7s. per week. In my opinion, the increase could have been greater. The Board rejected the workers' claim in June when everyone, including the farmers, expected the wage to be increased. I think I am correct in saying—and the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—that the difference between agricultural and industrial wages has increased by over 3s. to £2 15s. 8d. a week since the claim was rejected in June.
    I appreciate that the Agricultural Wages Board is a statutory body and that the Minister must not intervene in its proceedings, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government can exercise great influence on the policy of the Board by their policy in this House. I have heard the Minister say that our farmworkers are the best in the world, and so they are. Not only is that true because of their hard work and their anxiety to do their best in the industry, but also because of their output per man. When the farm is prosperous, the workers have always made an approach, I will not say to prosperity, but to a wage which makes for happiness and comfort in their homes.
    I have not given up hope of the industrial wage being paid on the farm, and I am going to claim the Minister of Agriculture as a supporter of this policy. I have been reading again the

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    address that he issued for the General Election, because I wanted to discover whether he had anything to say about my friends the farmworkers. I found that he had something very emphatic to say, and I now welcome him as a supporter. I noticed that the Minister expressed the same point of view as I have expressed today, that the wage of the farmworker should be on a par with that of the industrial worker. I am glad that he is with me, but I warn him that if he pursues his present policy he cannot possibly carry out the promise which he made to his electors.
    Mr. G. Brown: That will not worry him.
    Mr. Gooch: In the last five years, 76,000 men have left the land. It may be said that mechanisation of the farms has had a great deal to do with this, but there are many other reasons, among which is the level of the farmworker's wage. The point remains that at a time when we want to go forward with our agricultural programme all those men have left the farms. I accept the assurance given by the Minister that he has given a great deal of thought to this matter. It is extremely important. It is not a question of whether a machine can do the work; there is a human side to farming and I know that the Minister will pay as much attention to that as do many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House.
    I am glad that the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West (Mr. Bullard is here, because I want to congratulate him on the speech he made in seconding the Motion for the Address. I do so, as he knows very well, most sincerely. It was the kind of speech that I expected from a Member with his roots deep down in the soil. When a friend of mine, the late Sir George Edwards, made a maiden speech in this House a newspaper referred to his "earth clodden sentences." That was a compliment to one who had championed the cause of the farm workers for many years. I know that the remark which I have made about the hon. Member for Norfolk, South-West, will be regarded by him as a compliment to himself.
    The hon. Member did well to refer to the farmworkers' contribution in his
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    constituency, but it was a little unnecessary of him, as a Parliamentary colleague, to say:
    "It is not that part of Norfolk that hon. Members may know from holidays on the Broads or on that beautiful bow of the North Sea coast. That is the glamorous outside."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1954; Vol. 535, c. 11.]
    I have the honour to represent in this House most of the restful Broad land and practically all of the beautiful bow of the North Sea coast. I agree that it is a delightful part of the country, but it does not make an insignificant contribution to farming. I might go so far as to say that the contribution that the farmworkers in my division make to the general welfare and to abundance of agricultural production is equal to the contribution made by the farming community in the division of the hon. Member.
    In my county there is less confidence among the farmers about the future of the industry than there has been for years. That is due to what I regard as the deliberate undermining of the Labour Government's Agriculture Act, 1947. These is no effective substitute for an assured market, guaranteed prices and security of tenure for the efficient tenant farmer. Those things the farming community enjoyed under the Labour Government.
    Now I would refer to something which was not in the Gracious Speech and which, I think, ought to have been there. Farmworkers were keenly disappointed at the absence of any reference to legislation that would help to reduce the number of accidents on farms. The case for the implementation of certain recommendations in the Gowers Report has been urged again and again. Meanwhile, the risk of accidents on farms keeps mounting.
    I thought it was well to give the Minister a reminder on this subject a few days ago. When the Parliamentary Secretary replied to a Question of mine I thought there was general agreement on the form that legislation should take in regard to the Gowers Report. My hopes rose, to be dashed almost immediately by the concluding words of the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, which was to the effect that legislation must wait until Parliamentary time was available. Seeing that this subject is absent from the Gracious

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    Speech. I must conclude that Parliamentary time is not available to give the much-needed protection to the men who work machines on our farms.
    This social legislation is long overdue. We have been talking about it for at least 30 years. We are still talking about it, but the matter has still to be attended to. I was very hopeful that there would be a reference in the Gracious Speech to the Government's intention to bring forward legislation. Farmworkers who are subject to daily risks should not be put off by the reply which the Parliamentary Secretary gave to me. He said:
    "My Department is actively studying the question of accident prevention."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd November, 1954; Vol. 533, c. 95.]
    This is not the time for study only, but the time for action.
    The men who handle machines on the farms are subject to great risks. I know that there is a revised leaflet—I have one here—on the prevention of accidents. It has been issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and I hope that it will be widely circulated; but I say seriously to the right hon. Gentleman that it is not always the man who is at fault. Very often it is the machine. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will consider the point I have made.
    If it is possible to bring in legislation, even of a minor character, to help those of my friends who are handling these machines on the farm, it will be very welcome. I believe that only a few days ago the right hon. Gentleman received a letter from my local secretary of the Agricultural Workers' Union, stressing the imperative need for special legislative measures. Education and advice should be supplemented as early as possible by legislation.
    I am sorry that the Minister of Education has left the Chamber, because, having offered a few criticisms I want to give a little praise on a matter which has occupied the minds of hon. Members from agricultural areas for a long time. I hope that the representations made to the Government about secondary school facilities for children in the rural areas will result in a great expansion. I have served on the Norfolk Education Committee for some years. It has a good record, but it would have had a better record still if there had been Government
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    approval of schemes and grants. We have been restricted by the amount of money available, so if the Government really intend to tell education committees to go forward and to build as many secondary schools in the rural areas as they can, no one will be more delighted than myself.
    I was pleased to note, therefore, the indication in the Gracious Speech that the Government will pay more attention to the provision of secondary schools, village halls and playing fields in the rural areas, but, since this involves land as well as money, I hope that objections on agricultural grounds to the building of these new schools will not be advanced to the detriment of the schemes.
    Today, the man who is seeking a job in farming, or is changing his farm, is concerned not only about his pay and conditions but also about the house for his wife and the school for his children. The two big farming organisations are very keen on these points, and I hope that the proposed extension of secondary school facilities in the rural areas will continue until we can say that the child of every farmworker is assured of an advanced education. This is necessary not only for the new methods on the farms, but also so that the children of farmworkers and farmers shall be able to enjoy the finer things of life. So, in that context, I want to thank the Minister of Education for his announcement, and I shall watch with a great deal of interest what follows.
    4.23 p.m.
    Mr. Cyril Osborne: I agree with two points made by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch). First, the hon. Gentleman said he thought that farming and agricultural problems ought to be dealt with on a non-party basis as far as possible. I should like to think that every speaker in this debate will follow that suggestion. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said that the gap between the wages of farm workers and industrial workers was far too wide. I agree with him there, also.
    I am not an agricultural expert, but I represent a large agricultural constituency. There is no denying that there is a great deal of apprehension in the country on the part of both the farm-workers and the farmers. The bad harvest may be making the farmers fear

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    the future more than they would have done had the harvest been better, but they read of French wheat coming into this country at prices far below the cost of production, they read of the enormous American surpluses, and they fear that the deficiency payments may become so great that, ultimately, the taxpayer may refuse to meet them, and that we may face once more the debacle of the Wheat Act of 1921. These fears may be unfounded, but I would not be doing my duty to this House if I did not say that they existed.
    I have great sympathy with the farm-workers who ask me continuously why should they always be at the bottom of the wages ladder? When the London dock strike came to an end, newspaper headlines read "Dockers Returning to £30 a Week Wages." There is nothing a farmworker could do to get £30 a week, yet his work is as important as that of a docker, and there is no reason why he should work for about one-third of the wage paid to certain sections of the industrial workers.
    I want to answer three questions from the point of view of the consumer. First, what can we do to help the agricultural worker and the farmer? Secondly, what would it cost? Thirdly, can we afford to pay the cost? The most important thing to do—apart from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) trying all the time to get the job held previously by his right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) before his right hon. Friend is dead—is to educate the town dwellers in the wiser spending of their money and to the understanding that they have to pay a fairer price for the food produced by the agricultural worker and the farmer.
    There would be a more assured living for the farmer and higher wages for the farm worker if more reasonable prices were paid for the food they produce. Many hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite have reminded the House frequently that before the war miners were paid miserably low wages because coal was sold too cheaply. My father taught me as a boy that if the fruits of a man's labour are sold too cheaply, his employer cannot afford to pay him a decent wage. The nation has recognised this; today,
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    we are paying higher prices for coal, and there is not an hon. Gentleman opposite who protests, because he knows this is justified in that it gives the miner a decent standard of life.
    Why should not that principle be applied to food and to the farmworkers? Cheap food was all right in the days when wages generally were low, but today wages are high, and I am saying that what is good for the coalminer shall be good for the agricultural worker. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, who for years have been demanding that the nation should pay a higher wage to the miners, must agree on the same ground that the agricultural workers should have a better wage. I will give two examples of how it could be done. Today, a 14 oz. loaf of bread is sold at just over 1d. per loaf less than it costs to produce—
    Mr. G. Brown: What is the hon. Gentleman talking about?
    Mr. Osborne: If the right hon. Gentleman would keep his mouth closed for a little while and would open his ears, he might learn something; and if he were less discourteous to this House, the House would have as much respect for him as they have for his right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, instead of regarding him as about the most discourteous man on that side of the House.
    If the proper price were paid for bread it would produce an extra £47 million a year. The proposed increase in agricultural workers' wages will cost £12 million a year, so that if the nation would only pay the proper price for its bread, instead of demanding that its bread should be subsidised, the agricultural workers could have four times that amount of increase in wages on that one item alone.
    Mr. Gooch: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the consuming public are paying enough for their bread already and that there is a vast margin between what the farmer gets and what the housewife pays?
    Mr. Osborne: I will try to deal with that point if I am allowed to develop my ideas.
    Let us take the example of milk. Non-welfare milk and non-school milk is sold at about ¾d. a pint less than it costs to

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    produce. If the proper price were paid for this milk, it would put into the agricultural "kitty," for division between fanners and farmworkers, another £40 million a year, so that bread and milk together would produce £87 million extra a year. This is considerably higher than the cost of the wage demands made by the agricultural workers.
    I shall be asked to say how much it would cost. The average family of five persons consumes, to the best of my information, about 15 pints of non-welfare milk weekly. If the price were increased by ¾d. a pint, that would amount to 11d. a week. The average family of five consumes about 16 loaves a week, each weighing 14 oz., and an extra penny on each loaf would cost 1s. 4d. It would, therefore, cost the average family of five an extra 2s. 3d. a week to put into the agricultural pool an extra £87 million a year. The third question, which was asked by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North, who is so fair-minded about this matter, is: are we not paying enough already? Could the nation afford to pay more—and this is the most important of all the points I have to make.
    If the right hon. Member for Belper feels so unhappy he should leave the Chamber.
    Mr. G. Brown: Why keep picking on me?
    Mr. Osborne: I recognise that this extra burden will fall upon the women of the country and not upon the men, because the women have to pay the household bills. Is this extra cost of £87 million a year more than the nation can afford? A week or two ago I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much more food had cost us in the first two years of this Government's life, and he told me that the nation's food bill had increased by £600 million a year, of which £525 million a year was due to increased prices and £75 million a year to increased consumption.
    In those two years, wages and salaries had increased by no less by £1,647 million, so that even if the nation's food bill had increased by £525 million in those two years, there was, in extra salaries and wages, more than double and nearly three times as much to pay for it. If the housewife was getting from her husband
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    anything like the same proportion of his wages or salary as that which she got before the war, she would be "in clover," despite the increase in the food prices which she has to meet. This would also give the farmworker the extra wages for which he is pleading and would give the small fanner, whom I represent, the added security to which he is entitled.
    My final plea is that the extra cost could easily be met by the nation if the nation spent its money wisely. Last year, we spent no less than £837 million on tobacco. A packet of 20 cigarettes cost 3s. 7d. It carries a tax of 2s. 9½d., so that the real cost of 20 cigarettes is 9½d. How can the nation claim that it cannot afford to pay the proper price for its bread—an extra 1d. a loaf—when people will stand in the rain and queue for cigarettes selling at three to five times more than they are worth and when the nation is spending over £800 million a year on tobacco? There can be no defence of that policy from a moral point of view.
    Mr. W. A. Wilkins: What about those who pay 8s. or 9s. for a cigar?
    Mr. G. H. Oliver: The milk drinkers may not be the tobacco smokers.
    Mr. Osborne: I was considering the nation as a whole, for it is impossible to segregate every family. It is possible only to argue on the national figures.
    Perhaps I may take another figure, which hon. Members may or may not like. Last year we spent no less than £869 million on alcohol. May I remind the House that a pint of beer, which costs Is. 4d., carries a tax of 8½d., so that its commercial worth, even allowing for the millions which have been made in profits, is only 7½d. How can a nation which is prepared to spend that vast sum of money on beer at such a price say that it cannot afford to pay the extra ¾d. a pint on milk to meet the cost of production and to allow those who produce the milk to have a decent living wage?
    Mr. James Johnson: What is the logic of this argument? Does the hon. Member wish the House to pass legislation to prevent people from buying cigarettes or consuming beer? If not, I do not see how he could get what he desires.
    Mr. Osborne: I am trying to put some startling facts before the House. I am saying that, in view of these figures, it is unreasonable for hon. Members on either side of the House to say that the bread and the milk which ordinary people consume ought to be subsidised. A nation which can spend £2,300 million a year in fun and games cannot say that it cannot afford to pay the proper price for the bread it consumes. Since I represent those who produce that food, and since they cannot make a decent living unless we pay the proper price for what they produce, I believe that these facts ought to be brought to the attention of the country.
    I am sorry that I have been so long, but I have been interrupted. It is our task on both sides of the House to go to the country and make these facts clear. We should appeal to the nation to be prepared to pay a proper price for its basic essentials and not demand that its basic essentials should be subsidised so that it can fritter away its wages and salaries on non-essentials.
    If it is not a presumption, may I put to the House the ancient question which was asked 3,000 years ago and to which, in this modern age, we have to find an answer? It was asked so long ago:
    "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And your labour for that which satisfieth not?"
    If we could give a proper answer to that question, we could halve the agricultural problems which exist today. I beg hon. Members to forget the votes for the time being, and to tell the people the truth.
    4.40 p.m.
    Mr. A. J Champion: I do not know what the Minister will think about his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne).
    Mr. G. Brown: He has been closely watching him.
    Mr. Champion: When the Minister was about to sit down he said he felt that he had said enough to convince the House of the excellence of the Government's policy for agriculture. When he said that I wrote down that perhaps he had convinced his supporters, but no one else, certainly not the farmers of this country.
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    I little thought that I should so quickly get some support for my observation from the Government side of the House. Certain it is that the hon. Member for Louth has made it quite clear that from his experience of his agricultural constituency he is aware of the considerable amount of apprehension in the minds of farmers at this time, apprehension which must have been caused by the policies of the right hon. Gentleman whom he supports and the Front Bench behind which he sits.
    I am bound to say to the hon. Member for Louth that I did agree with him on at least one point. I refer to the necessity to ensure a decent standard of living for all those engaged in agriculture. It is absolutely vital that we should raise the standards of those engaged in agriculture, particularly agricultural workers, at least to the level that is found in the towns.
    For much too long the agricultural worker has been regarded as being at the base of the wages pyramid. He was supporting the whole structure, as it were. If his conditions were improved, if his wages went up a few shillings a week, everyone else in the structure said that he must maintain his differential vis-à-vis the agricultural worker.
    It is time we all recognised—and I am now speaking as one who knows something about representing industrial workers, because of my trade union activities in the past, and I say this to all my friends in the industrial field—that these workers in the countryside deserve conditions at least as decent as those which industrial workers enjoy. What is more, the industrial workers must be prepared to pay for them, not necessarily by doing without some of the comforts which the hon. Member for Louth condemned, but certainly by ensuring that there is an adequate return for the farming industry. To that extent I certainly agree with the hon. Member for Louth and with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch).
    The Minister's speech fitted very well into this agricultural year, because it seemed to be a very watery speech indeed. It had the substance of the watercress crop of which he seemed to be so proud. I hope that the Minister will pursue that policy, which he said he was adopting, of doing everything in his power to assist

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    those who have had difficulties with their hay crop in getting fodder for this extremely difficult winter which is now before us. I want to praise the Minister for what he said. I shall study that part of his speech with very great care to see what he did actually say, but I believe he held out some hope to the hill farmers and to others of some assistance in this coming winter.
    The Minister asked us what were our proposals for agriculture. After listening to him I can well understand why he does not want us to spend too much time examining the proposals which he has put into this Gracious Speech. It is understandable that he would rather anything should happen than that we should bring to bear upon his proposals and the work of his Government the examination and the criticism which it is the job of the Opposition to bring to this portion of the Queen's Speech.
    So far as I can tell, so far as his policy—if there is such a thing—is concerned, all that he is to do and all he is doing is to set up a number of new committees to advise him. Time after time he made reference to new committees which had been set up to go about the job of advising him in the difficulties which his predecessor and his Government have brought to this great industry.
    I am sure that he will have read "The Times" this morning, and will have read that the National Farmers' Union has made it quite clear that it does not like the right hon. Gentleman's policy for the future of prices. The Minister is going one step further towards undermining that prosperity in the farming community which was undoubtedly brought about by the Labour Government from 1945 to 1951.
    It is platitudinous to say so, but nevertheless I must say that the greatest problem facing Britain is that of keeping alive 50 million people on a small island, with a rising standard of living. We have always to consider a rising standard of living, because people have come to expect that and it is the job of all Governments to do what they can towards meeting that desire. The only way we can secure that is by making the maximum possible use of our every resource, brains, skill, and our very few raw materials. Certainly, the most valuable of our raw materials is the land.
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    The Government seem to be falling into the trap of the temporary surpluses of food which appear to exist in the world. Their policy makes it quite evident that they have fallen into that trap. We have had a few years of good harvests—and I am not talking about the harvest this year, which, unfortunately, has been bad.
    There is an inability in the world among starving peoples to buy some of the surpluses that exist. They are not real surpluses over need, but rather surpluses over effective purchasing power. There is also the fact that in the world at this moment there is an absence of war, for which we are all grateful.
    But we dare not plan for Britain on the basis of these few good harvests, the absence of war and the inability of backward pepole to buy what food happens to exist. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) this afternoon reminded us of what is happening in Australia and in the Argentine. I remind the House of the growth of the population in the United States of America, which is very heavily pressing and will continue increasingly to press upon the amount of foodstuffs produced in that great country.
    Temporarily cheap foods are a snare and a delusion, if they are obtained at the price of Britain's agriculture, if we obtain them at the price of causing difficulty and loss of confidence in our own British agriculture. The only safe thing for the Government to do is to recognise Britain's altered position vis-à-vis the world, and to plan accordingly. This will involve, as is recognised by the Labour Party, the maintenance of prosperity for both farmers and farmworkers, and the people of the towns must recognise that, and act accordingly.
    I would say, even to some Members of my own party, that they too must think of the absolute necessity of recognising the importance of the position of agriculture in relation to all this.
    It seems to me that the proper use of these resources, this raw material, this land, is vital to our future prosperity. The food that is too cheap and obtained at the expense of the producer involves, in the long run, disaster for the townsman equally with the countryman.

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    I am not afraid to go back and to discuss history, because I do not believe that we can understand the present and plan for the future unless occasionally we look back. In the nine years following the First World War we had the slump of 1921–22, the grinding down of wages, and the return of farm produce prices to 1914 levels. In those nine years we were approaching the disasters of 1930, 1931, 1932 and 1933.
    What is the difference between the nine-year period after the Second World War and the same period after the First World War? Surely it is that we have not experienced a slump, mainly because the primary producers of the world, the farming community, the miners and the fishermen, have been kept to very much higher standards than they were immediately after the first war.
    I can see a little of that position being undermined at the present time, but there is no doubt that the fact that we have not run into a major slump has been because the primary producers have been able to buy the products of the towns. If they cannot continue to do that the towns will not prosper, and slumps will be with us once more. We cannot afford again to promote low standards in our countryside. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North expressed some satisfaction about the wage award that was made yesterday. I must say that I do not think that it is enough to prevent the march from the countryside. It is not sufficient to stop this movement, which could lead to disaster.
    I recall that when I had the pleasure to stand at the Dispatch Box on the Government side for the first time, I said that the march from the countryside was going on. I excused it partly on the ground that greater mechanisation was taking place in the industry, and that is a fact. Greater mechanisation, as in all industries to some extent, is varying the manpower situation.
    However, I am not happy about the fact that this march from the countryside is continuing on such a scale. All townsmen and country workers, and certainly the Government, must recognise the danger, and do everything possible to remedy the position. I agree with my hon.
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    Friends who have said that schools and other amenities are important factors in this respect, but the primary factor is that of the wages paid to the man on the job. A satisfactory rate of pay would help to overcome many complaints about lack of amenities.
    What has happened to us under the Tories? The Gracious Speech says:
    "My Ministers recognise that the transition from control to freedom has brought problems for all engaged in farming and kindred industries."
    The Government completely fail to recognise that they cannot have it both ways. We cannot have both the so-called freedom of the 'twenties and the 'thirties, and the stability of prices and guarantee of markets which was achieved by planning under Labour.
    I should love to think that we could have both, because there are some aspects of freedom which I very much like, but in this matter we have to make a choice between the planned economy and freedom. The planned economy obviously brings to the farmer a better chance and a greater security than is possible under the so-called freedom of which we had experience in the period 1919–39. What really did frighten me in the Minister's speech was the fact that he seemed to have failed to read the lesson of history. That lesson surely is that we cannot have stability, guarantees, and so on, alongside this freedom to which the Government are rapidly heading.
    In three years the Tories have succeeded in reproducing some of the old conditions, and, as a result, they have destroyed some of the confidence of the farmers. It is no good the Minister or any one else whistling in the dark and pretending that that has not happened; it has, as the hon. Member for Louth made clear. In many other respects the Tories have reproduced the conditions of the inter-war years. The last Minister of Agriculture followed the pattern of all Tory Ministers of Agriculture, having left for the back benches after about two and a half years, which happens to be the average for Tory Ministers of Agriculture.
    We have a new Minister of Agriculture, and we wish him well. I said that when he made his first speech on an agricultural topic in the House, and I mean it. I was delighted to hear him say that he

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    had been enjoying himself "up to now." I hope that he will continue to enjoy himself, but if I remember correctly his predecessor enjoyed himself immensely up to a certain stage in his occupation of that post.
    I wonder what happened when the right hon. Gentleman was called before the Prime Minister to get his new appointment. I can imagine the scene at No. 10. The right hon. Gentleman was ushered into the presence. The Chief Whip was standing to attention just inside the room and saying, "This is Heathcoat Amory, Sir; you know, the man I recommended to take Dugdale's place." I can imagine that the Prime Minister, in something of a stage aside, said something like this, "Oh, yes. Poor old Tommy. The back benchers started chasing him, and the 1922 Committee said that he had to go. Let me see, what is this man's name?"
    After he had been told his name, he said to the present Minister, "What you have to do is to go on dismantling the structure of security established by those Socialists, and the conditions which made that possible, while at the same time pretending that everything is rosier for farmers than at any time since the Tories have had anything to do with agriculture." I imagine that he also said, "That you will find easy to do, for it is all worked out. We call it our agricultural policy, but, of course, you will find it all set out, down to the very last detail, in the files at No. 3, Whitehall Place. Good-bye, and the very best of luck."
    I gather that the new Minister has had a careful search made in the files at Whitehall Place and that he has been unable to trace the Tory agricultural policy. Like the Prime Minister's telegram to Montgomery, the policy simply does not exist. A copy could not be found because, perhaps, like that telegram, a Tory agricultural policy never existed, except in the minds of the Tories when they were in opposition from 1945 to 1951.
    I wish to plead in particular for one thing. I am sorry to note the failure of the Government to include in the Gracious Speech a reference to anything constructive about farm buildings. I believe that a careful examination of farm buildings and farm lay-outs in this country should be undertaken. Something should be done about bringing them up
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    to date and making them reasonably efficient.
    Recently I was in Denmark, and I mentioned to the gentleman who was showing me round that I thought their buildings were modern. They were new buildings. The lay-outs were up to date and much more efficient than ours. I said, "Why is it that you have these efficient buildings and lay-outs which compare so well with our own?" His answer was instructive. He said, "In Denmark we put our old farm buildings in museums. You use museum exhibits as farm buildings. If you had done the same thing in your industrial life, yours would now be a half-starved peasant, economy"—and how right he was.
    If there is one thing we need to do at this time it is to bring our farming equipment up to date. I ask the Minister to-do something to educate the farming community in this respect to encourage them, and to assist them. Less should be spent on the middleman and the hangers-on in this great industry and more on the modernisation of its equipment. If the Minister will do that during the period in which he remains in office, I am sure that he will have achieved something worth while for this great industry.
    5.2 p.m.
    Colonel Ralph Clarke: I hope that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Champion) will forgive me if I do not follow him in great detail over the many facets of his most interesting speech. I would say, however, that while all friends of the agricultural worker would agree that his wages and those of the town worker should be the same, the first thing to do is to persuade the town worker of that fact. He also needs to be persuaded that when agricultural wages rise it does not necessarily follow that all other wages in the country should rise too in order to keep the traditional difference between them.
    In opening the debate, the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) suggested—.perhaps inadvertently—that the present agricultural revival only started from the beginning of the war, and through the help given to it because of the war. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that in the years before the coming into power of the Coalition Government agricultural

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    production increased by 25 per cent, or thereabouts. Again, I would point out—because the right hon. Gentleman appeared to suggest that it was not the case—that the majority of the agricultural marketing schemes were started in that same period.
    I wish to support the Motion moved in such fitting terms by my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. J. N. Browne) last Tuesday, and to concentrate on one of the latter paragraphs of the Gracious Speech which refers to agriculture and kindred industries. I find that paragraph sympathetic, encouraging and helpful. The Government recognise the difficulties which have been forced on the industry by the transition from a wartime economy and the aftermath of war to the present freer conditions. So they promise to continue their efforts to promote efficient production and marketing under those conditions. They announced their aim for producers, which is to achieve conditions where, for the producer, a free and flexible market will be combined with sufficient basic stability deriving from the machinery of the 1947 Agriculture Act, and for the consumer, the provision of a plentiful supply of home-grown food.
    That is a programme which appeals to me, but from what I see on the Order Paper and from what I have heard said by hon. Members opposite, I gather that my view is not shared by them. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite seem unable to recognise that efficient production is much more likely in conditions of competition between vigorous and enlightened farmers. In these last few years our farmers have learned a great deal and have received much help from the Government since the agricultural revival. Now our farmers are more fitted than before the war to compete with each other and with circumstances.
    It would have been a great mistake, in my opinion, to continue in the rigid, non-competitive and riskless climate in which agriculture was called upon to exist. Such a climate is suitable only for conditions of war or emergencies arising out of war. I find the somewhat pathetic faith of hon. Gentlemen opposite in the Whitehall farmer and the infallibility of Socialist planning to be rather depressing.
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    Even more, I regret their failure to recognise the worth of other parts of the Gracious Speech, including the promise of improved housing; of more secondary schools; of village halls and playing fields in the rural areas, and improved transport facilities through new road construction. That is the most likely way to attract more workers to the land and to retain those still in the industry.
    I must admit there has been a drift of workers from the land, but it has, to some extent been compensated by increased mechanisation and the more efficient use of man-hours. I am encouraged to find that among the young workers on the land there is great knowledge and keenness and a sense of enterprise. For that, I think we owe a debt to the agricultural institutes in the counties and to the young Conservative clubs. I believe that the promised increase in rural amenities will result in the drift of workers from the land being checked, and perhaps reversed.
    Mr. Champion: The hon. and gallant Gentleman said he believed that the fact that a better type of person was coming on to the land was due to the activities of the young Conservatives' clubs. Did he mean that, or did he intend to say "young farmers' clubs"?
    Colonel Clarke: I am not certain that I heard what the hon. Member said, but I was suggesting that the young men and women who are coming on to the land are of an excellent type. They are extremely keen and are doing very well.
    Mr. Champion: To what does agriculture owe that fact?
    Colonel Clarke: I suggest that it owes it to the work of the agricultural institutes in the counties, and to the young farmers' clubs. That is what I said. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am extremely sorry if I said something else.
    Mr. Champion: The hon. and gallant Gentleman said "young Conservatives' clubs."
    Mr. Julian Snow: A freudian reactionary.
    Colonel Clarke: I want to discuss the question of amenities in a little more detail. I was very gratified with the statement made by the Minister of Education on Tuesday that the first instalment of his

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    housing drive will be the complete reorganisation of the schools in rural areas. We all know that in urban areas only about one child in 12 is denied a secondary education, but in the rural areas that proportion is increased to one in three. I know that we all deplore that fact, and I hope that the Minister's statement means the end of it.
    Not unconnected with the subject of education—because the children have to get to school—is the promise to improve our roads, which I welcome. Buses have now become an essential part of rural life—how essential can be seen by a study of any county plan, and the way in which development of active rural life follows the bus routes and stays away from the villages and hamlets lying off those routes. We all want more buses, but in many areas we cannot have them because the roads are not fit to carry them.
    The Foreign Secretary, in a new and welcome role, talked about the twisting English highways and their origin. What we really want to know is how they can be improved. One of the reasons why the minor rural roads have not been improved in the past is that in many cases the whole cost of maintenance and improvement has to be borne by the local roads and bridges authorities. No matching grant is received from central funds. It would be an encouragement to local authorities if money spent by them upon the improvement of unclassified roads were matched by some money from the Exchequer.
    In many parts of the country there are half-finished road schemes, some upon trunk roads and some upon classified county roads. I suggest that those uncompleted schemes are not only a great waste of public capital but are eyesores and frustration to motorists and local inhabitants alike. What can be more annoying than to find a village—and I can name one within 40 miles of this House—with great streams of motor cars thundering and stenching through the main street of the village, to the discomfort and danger of the inhabitants, when, just outside, there is a half-finished bypass which was started 15 or 20 years ago, the costly cuttings and levelling of which have never been used. In the case I have in mind the road is a trunk road, which would be a matter for a direct
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    grant. It is most frustrating to find these half-finished roads when, with so little extra work, so much improvement could be made.
    I now want to turn to the question of electricity in the countryside. This is not only a valuable source of power in our farms but a highly desirable amenity, bringing in its train the benefit of wireless and television, and it has now become almost a standard of civilisation, especially for younger people. It is a standard which practically everyone in the towns has already, but which a great many country people are without, and it causes a feeling among the country people that they are not being treated so fairly as those in the towns, and they would like to see the difference removed.
    I was, therefore, deeply grateful for the announcement which was made on 9th November by the Minister of Fuel and Power that last year was a record year for the electrification of farms, and that in the coming five-year programme it is hoped that 90 per cent, of the farms and 80 per cent. of the rural houses will be connected up. I hope that the British Electricity Authority will heed the advice given to them by the Minister to be venturesome, and that they will not do what they have been inclined to do in the past, namely, to refuse to spend any capital in the country unless they can see what they consider to be an immediate adequate return upon it.
    I also want to refer to the negotiations regarding the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which was referred to in the Gracious Speech. I recognise that it is impossible for our agriculture to have the protection that it would like; it is obvious that that is impossible in a country as dependent as we are upon the export trade, but I plead for a not too purist attitude in the matter. In the case of timber, there are arguments in favour of some form of import duty, and I suggest that this might be achieved by means of a levy subsidy system. It is known that both the Forestry Commission and private owners are having great difficulty in selling home-produced timber, and a committee has been set up to go into the causes of this difficulty.
    I therefore bring this question forward now only because I understand that negotiations are going on with the body usually termed G.A.T.T., and I feel that

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    the opportunity should not be missed. I am convinced that only by some form of levy subsidy can home-grown timber products obtain a fair price and the industry, which is really in its infancy in this country, be put upon a firm basis, to the advantage both of the Forestry Commission and private owners.
    This country has a great deal of money locked up in the Forestry Commission, and I think that there are three other reasons for help being given. First, since the ratio between imported and homegrown timber today is 12 to one, it will be seen that a very small levy would make all the difference. Really, the levy would hardly be noticed by the consumer. Secondly, the wheat scheme before the war, which was one of the most successful of its kind, was worked on the basis of the levy subsidy. Thirdly, an interest in industry the natural economy of which has to be warped in the interests of the nation should receive particular consideration.
    The Forestry Commission cannot operate purely as a commercial undertaking, and really was designed to provide the country with a store of timber in case of war. Naturally, that warps the economic balance. Private owners were urged to cut timber and sell it when the price was low, but, when the price had improved, an Act of Parliament was passed under which they had to have licences to cut timber—and these were very often refused—and they were therefore unable to sell it. I feel that that is an additional reason why this matter should be considered.
    I would end as I began by saying that I believe that these paragraphs in the Gracious Speech are sympathetic, encouraging and helpful to the agriculturist and to country dwellers generally. I deny the allegation that the farming community has lost confidence. I believe that, while reckoning the difficulties inherent in the present transitional situation, the go-ahead, modern and progressive-minded farmer welcomes the opportunity of showing his capabilities in this new climate and in the new economy. I believe that he will also welcome the decline in the volume of farming directed from Whitehall.
    Recently, I had the privilege of visiting another great agricultural country, where, for the last 37 years, agriculture has been
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    strictly controlled by the State. In fact, many agricultural operations are performed almost as operations of war, and people there talk of brigading their tractors and their workers in the fields. I believe it would not be over-critical of my hosts—because I am grateful to them—if I admitted feeling a sense of disappointment with the results of that policy.
    In the Press of that country and in the statements of their Ministers, it is found that agricultural production since the Revolution has only maintained the output per head of the population that it had when the new system was brought into operation. I believe that actually whereas in cereals they have held their own, in livestock production they have just failed to do so. I was rather amused to read somewhere that in that country there is also a school of thought about direction similar to mine and that some people have thought in the past that they had had too much direction of agriculture from Moscow.
    5.26 p.m.
    Mr. H. Rhodes: I will not follow the hon. and gallant Member for East Grinstead (Colonel Clarke) through the catalogue of good points or otherwise in the Gracious Speech. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) would have remained in the Chamber for a minute or two, because I wanted to address some remarks to him. However, as the hon. Member is no longer in his place, I cannot do so.
    His arguments reminded me of the baker who sued a farmer, who was also a miller, and took the dispute into court The magistrate said to the farmer, "You are accused of delivering short weight of flour to this baker. Do you use scales?" The farmer replied, "Aye, I use scales." The magistrate asked, "Do you use scales with weights?", and the farmer replied, "No." The magistrate then said, "Then how do you weigh the flour?" The farmer replied, "For every 14 lb. of flour that I weigh out for the baker, I put on t'other side seven of his 2 lb. loaves."
    But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about wool. I understand that wool, such as I hold in my hand, is a product of a farm. I understand that, when prices are

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    guaranteed, fixed and high, wool is a very valuable commodity indeed on a farm. Whether in this country or in Australia, wool is a very highly regarded product. I want to speak on one aspect of this farming industry which is causing tremendous trouble in the wool-manufacturing industry today.
    I must declare my interest. I am a woollen manufacturer and a user of wool. The wool that I use is mainly Australian wool, but, nevertheless, the illustrations that I can bring in support of my argument apply just as much to British-grown wool as Australian. I refer to the branding of wool with pitch and tar. This is no new complaint, and I have been looking up the history of the matter.
    The first time that there was a Royal Proclamation on this subject was in 1661, when King Charles issued an edict that Licences were to be issued to those people working in wool who did not put tar, pitch or paint on their fleeces. The next record to be found, in this House at any rate, is a Petition brought here in 1752 by aggrieved users of wool, who petitioned this House in order to prevent tar and pitch being used in the branding of wool.
    The last time I spoke on this subject was at 1.45 in the morning, when almost everybody else had gone home, and there were two or three of us hanging around. We had been talking on the Consolidated Fund Bill until that time in the morning, and my speech was made on the Motion for the Adjournment. The fact that the Adjournment Motion debate is limited prevented me from making the suggestions which I propose to make today.
    The first suggestion I would make is that, because of the changed circumstances which have come about over the last few years in the production of soluble branding materials for the marking of wool, the Government should, during the present Session, introduce a Bill to make it illegal to use tar, pitch, paint, or any insoluble substances on wool fleeces.
    I am not belittling the work which has been done by the Wool Federation. Neither am I belittling the actions and the attention which the present Minister took when he was a Minister at the Board of Trade and had to deal with this problem. At that time, he adopted a very sympathetic attitude, and I am hoping that this afternoon he will give me
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    a little encouragement which will enable me to go back to Yorkshire at the weekend and tell the people there that something is likely to be done.
    Neither am I belittling the efforts of the International Wool Textile Organisation. It has been trying for years, just as the manufacturers of days gone by tried, to get this matter remedied. It is not surprising that a clean wool Act was not brought in in those early days, because no proper substitute could then be found for tar, pitch or paint which would stand up to the weather that sheep have to brave on the moorlands and elsewhere, and to the rubbing and all the rest of it.
    Today, however, there is a brand of marking fluid on the market which will do the job equally well. It is because that is so that I am speaking so confidently on the matter this afternoon, knowing, as I do, that I have the backing of the trade organisations and also of my own work folk. No village in England looked on the advance of the Plague with such concern as the workpeople in a woollen factory today look upon a consignment of wool which is contaminated with pitch or paint. It is a scandal that such conditions should exist.
    The pitch or paint cannot be got rid of unless trichloride-ethylene is applied to every single spot. Very often there are a thousand or more spots on a piece once the markings are broken up, and the pitch or paint is spread by the manufacturing over the whole of a piece of cloth. As I have said, in order to get rid of the spots, this odious chemical has to be employed, a chemical which should be condemned by the factory inspector as unfit for anybody to use. I do not blame the workpeople for getting on their hind legs about it. It is a difficult and an obnoxious job, but it has to be done.
    Considerable sums of money are being lost each year because of the necessity to remove the pitch or tar used on fleeces. I have here a letter, one of many which I have received from manufacturers on the subject. It says:
    "Whilst it is quite common for us to remove some 50 or more tar spots from pieces (60 yards) made from New Zealand wool and noils, we have nearer 1,000 to contend with at times from similar pieces containing 60 per cent. of 58/60s Australian noils. Our removal of tar spots not only slows our production, but creates additional work at a time when labour is depleted, and costs our company something like £10,000 a year."

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    This is a ridiculous state of affairs when we consider that rival fibres, such as rayon, which costs only 24d. a lb., can be wrapped in cellophane, while wool costing 84d. a lb. is soiled by tar or pitch. It is ridiculous that in 1954 we should be allowing such a situation to continue.
    As I have said, the attempts made to stop the use of tar or paint in years gone by failed because no satisfactory substitute could be found for them. But the position is different now, and the time is opportune to do something about the matter. It is no use the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister for Commonwealth Relations approaching the Australian Government and asking them to do something about the wool grown in their country unless we in this country put our own house in order. Many countries have clean wool laws in operation. France introduced such a law this year; South Africa has introduced one, Eire has had one for a long time, and New Zealand has had one for a considerable period, but Australia and ourselves are lagging behind.
    In this country we have a Wool Marketing Board. I do not intend to discuss the merits or demerits of that Board, but will simply describe quite briefly the kind of thing that is going on at the present time. The wool is taken in by the Wool Marketing Board. It is sent from the farmer to the appraiser for its quality to be determined. An appraiser can be a merchant as well. He usually is. To the merchant are allocated farmers, who send their fleeces to him.
    In the case of many English and Scottish breeds of sheep, the fleeces are wrapped up with the wool inside and the skin outside. Others are wrapped in the opposite way, but in every single case the shearing from the tail is twisted into a rope and is used to tie round the fleeces. Those fleeces go to the appraiser, and are piled up at his place awaiting his inspection.
    On average, a British fleece weighs between 4 and 5 lb. According to the law as it stands at present, a farmer who has put pitch on his wool should have 4d. a lb. deducted from the price which he receives for his fleeces, and that price is between 60d. and 70d. a lb., which is a very high one.
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    Remember, we are not dealing with a low-priced synthetic product such as rayon, or even with cotton. We are dealing here with an expensive product, and the farmer is being given a fair deal. Now the appraiser does not of necessity have to open the fleece to see whether or not there is tar on it, which means that in many cases the farmer who should really have 4d. per lb. deducted from the price he receives does not suffer that penalty.
    Who is going to object to a clean wool Act? The farmer who is doing the job right and not using pitch and tar, and who qualifies for this 4d. per lb., is not going to object. Neither is the farmer who deliberately puts on the stuff and knows jolly well that he is going to get 4d. per lb. less in any case. The chap who is going to object is he who is now putting on the pitch and is illegitimately getting away with the 4d. I suggest that the objection from a farmer of that description can be ignored.
    Finally, I want to show the House what happens in the case of pitch spots. It is no laughing matter, particularly if any one has got to do the job that these lads have to do on Saturdays and Sundays
    Mr. Amory: I should like to say that I am very far from laughing. I have been a textile manufacturer myself, and I know that these things are very far from laughing matters.
    Mr. Rhodes: In my hand I hold a fine woollen cloth. It is made out of 64s Australian wool and it is beautiful stuff. It is a credit to the people who made it. One spot has been missed, and hon. Members can see it where I am pointing. But there could be thousands of those spots in a piece, and trichloride-ethylene, which is objectionable, has to be used on every spot. This is what results when the cloth is finished A string is put in it which means that a deduction is made from fee value of the piece, and if there are over 100 the manufacturer may as well not have made the piece at all.
    The same kind of thing applies to this second piece of material which I now hold in my hand, and which is going to be very fashionable next spring. Even from across the Floor of the House Members can see the damage which a which

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    a pinpoint of tar has caused. If there are thousands of these spots, it imposes tremendous anxiety on the factory which has to get rid of them. So we get the position where the raw materials are gathered together for a particular seasonal trade. Then, suddenly, it is discovered that there is pitch in them, and in trying to remove that pitch six weeks are occupied. By that time the season is gone and the order for the goods is cancelled.
    This is a serious issue of tremendous importance to the people of Yorkshire. I am speaking this afternoon on their behalf because I think it is about time that this matter was put in order. It is such a ridiculous thing, and I am sure every Member of the House would agree with me that if it could be obviated it should be. We agree that the branding should take place. If there is a good substitute for tar and pitch on the market, as there is, then it should be used, and anybody who does not use it should be prosecuted or some action should be taken against them.
    The last time I raised this subject the then Minister of Materials replied in these words:
    "If action which is not now being taken in the interests of wool consumers, represented, for example, by the British Wool Federation, is desired to be taken by this Government as regards wool produced in this country, I should be very glad to see the suggestions if the trade thinks it desirable. I will say nothing, of course, in anticipation of any such specific request."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 29th July, 1953; Vol 518; c. 1508.]
    He was aware then that the new branding fluid was approaching perfection. I have reason to believe that it will do the job now.
    All I want from the Minister tonight—and I would ask him to apply his mind seriously to this problem—is an assurance on this subject. I do not want him to bring in a clean wool Bill at once. Indeed, I do not expect it, but I hope that he will regard this speech of mine as being a reflection of the opinion held in Yorkshire, for we are determined to develop a campaign during the next few months.
    This improvement is necessary from the point of view of economy, of the production of wool, and of the happiness and well-being of the workers in our factories. I am asking the Minister tonight
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    to say that he will receive representatives of the trade, who I believe are quite determined in their minds about this matter, these representatives to include the Wool Federation or the wool textile organisations which are interested to discuss this matter, with a view to bringing in what is desperately needed in this country, and that is a clean wool Bill.
    5.46 p.m.
    Mr. J. B. Godber: I am sure that the House has listened with a great deal of attention, to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), who has been dealing with a particular aspect of the wool problem. It is not one on which I shall endeavour to follow him, but I could not help recalling, as I listened to him, that in centuries past in this House there has probably been more time devoted to discussing wool than many other subjects. At one time it was the very basis of prosperity in this country and, indeed, in my own constituency in centuries gone by it was certainly the basis of prosperity.
    I have a great deal of sympathy with the case put by the hon. Member, but I will not attempt to deal with the points he raised because I have no knowledge of them. I can say, however, that he argued his case so well that it may be that at some future date he will, if his party is returned to power, have an even closer association with wool. The Woolsack, I am sure, would be waiting for him.
    Perhaps I could again refer to the problems of the agricultural producers, which have occupied a great deal of the time in today's debate. I do not want to spend a lot of time on the various aspects of production because I have several other points I wish to make; but we should all recognise, as I am sure we do, the extraordinary difficulties of farmers all over the country who had had to cope with production during a most terrible harvest. I am sure we all sympathise very much with them in their difficulties.
    In my own constituency there are still many acres of sugar beet and even potatoes waiting to be harvested, and I do not know how many of those acres will be harvested. There is one point I must make about sugar beet. I would ask

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    my right hon. Friend, if the harvesting of it is very much longer delayed, to make absolutely certain that the factories are kept open long enough to deal with it when it conies along, because it may be some months before some of that crop can be harvested.
    As a result of this grim harvest we must expect a fall in the tillage acreage—I do not see how that can be avoided—but I hope that it will be kept to the very minimum. I feel most strongly that tillage acreage must be maintained at at least its present level. If it now suffers a temporary setback I hope chat it will be built up again. In particular, I hope that our farmers will make the utmost use of spring varieties of corn, especially spring wheats, to try to make good this autumn's losses.
    We have, in future, to look for an even greater output per acre from our grass acreage. Anything that can be done to improve the permanent grass and take the plough round the farm more frequently must be done. There are all sorts of methods that can be adopted and farmers must look to that as one method by which production can be stepped up further.
    As a number of hon. Members have referred already to the shortage of labour on our farms, there is no need for me to quote the figures again. I would only add my word of pleasure at the news we have heard today of the rise in farmworkers' wages. I am sure we are all agreed that it was very well merited. One hon. Member said that it should have been more. Perhaps that is so, but it is to be hoped that all other wages will not correspondingly rise to put the farm labourer again at the bottom of the ladder. That is obviously not good enough, when one thinks of their skill.
    If we are to expect to bring agricultural wages to a level comparabe with those in general industry we must acknowledge that even greater mechanisation is required on the farms. That is the only way, in my view, by which a greater output per man can be achieved. We must have more mechanisation if we are to see wage parity between agriculture and industry. The fanning community must face that, too, because it involves heavy capital expenditure. These things are closely connected.
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    Another aspect of manpower is the still pressing need for greater amenities in the countryside. From the time when I first sought election to a local authority—long before coming here—I have maintained that the countryman is entitled to three things which his town compatriot takes as a matter of course. They are electricity, sewerage, and mains water.
    Those three services mean more to the people of the countryside than does anything else. The one that costs the least, and probably means the most, is electricity. It is, therefore, heartening to know how much has been done in that field in the last 12 months. There has been tremendous expansion, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of Fuel and Power on what he has done.
    Nevertheless, there is a long way to go yet. Those who, like myself, represent constituencies bordering on the Fens, know how difficult it is to get electricity supplies to the very many isolated farms and cottages. It is not just a question of getting power to the farm, though we know, from the agricultural point of view, how useful to his productive efforts electricity is to the farmer.
    If we are to have contented workers it is very necessary that electricity should be supplied to their homes. It is an amenity they desire. They now have a taste for television. Farmworkers' wives are anxious to see some of the rather peculiar programmes appearing on television. I hold no brief for them myself, but there are those who seem to find them quite entertaining.
    Vital to agriculture today are the problems of marketing. There is probably a good deal of agreement on both sides of the House as to the need for sustained production, but there is wide divergence about marketing. It is time that we really cleared our minds as to just where we are going in that respect—and hon. Members opposite are a good deal more in need of clearing their minds on this matter than are we on this side.
    I would like to mention just one or two commodities. Milk is the prime example. The Milk Marketing Board, which has served us very well in the past and is now once more back in the hands

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    of the producers, is doing a very good job. Milk is the classic example of what can be done by a producers' marketing board, but the House should realise that milk has two particular and peculiar advantages which are not found in any other commodity. The first is that, although all milk may not be the same, it looks the same in the bottle. That makes it easy to market. There is no other commodity which has a uniformity, maybe artificial, but apparent from the consumers' point of view.
    The other advantage is that we are not concerned about imports. Those two things make a marketing board for milk peculiarly easy and suitable. The milk situation is satisfactory so long as the producers do not produce so much too much that a very great proportion has to go for manufacturing. That would mean a correspondingly depressed price. Only if there is an increased consumption do we want increased production. The Milk Marketing Board is doing all it can to encourage greater consumption. I think that there is nothing wrong with regard to milk.
    There are those who claim that there should be a marketing board for cereals. I have never held that view, nor have I pretended to think that it was a suitable means of marketing cereals, and, in particular, wheat. I think that the wheat quota system of pre-war days worked well, efficiently and cheaply. At that time it gave the home producer what was not, perhaps, a good price, but at least a stable return. It had the further advantage that it placed no burden on the Exchequer. In regard to wheat, particularly, I think we should return to that system, though I am not so sure about other cereals. Four-fifths of the wheat used in this country is imported and the quota system of payment on each bag of flour meant that the bulk of the expense was borne by the imports and the home farmer was sustained.
    That is how it operated before. A uniform price was given to our farmers, yet, at the same time, the by-products, which are used so extensively on farms, were not raised in price. They came cheaply to the fanner to be turned into meat in some form or other. If we are to put up the price of wheat in any other way—except by deficiency payments, which is the same sort of principle but
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    financed in a different way—it means that we are artificially increasing the price of what, to a number of farmers, is a raw material. Some farmers may welcome the higher price, however obtained, but a large number use the cereals as raw material. Artificially to increase the price of the raw material would result in an artificially higher price for the finished product in the form of meat. Therefore, I say that there are very strong reasons why we should retain a deficiency payment scheme in some form or other, preferably financed by some method such as the wheat quota, as a permanent long-term solution to the problem of cereals, and I am very glad that we have started on those lines.
    Reference has been made to the Wool Marketing Board. That is perfectly satisfactory and is working well. On the question of sugar beet, we have a clear contract price, and, so far as I understand, there are no difficulties and this scheme is working satisfactorily. On the subject of potatoes, I am sure that a marketing board for this commodity is the right solution to the problem, and I hope to see it in operation by next spring. A potato marketing board worked reasonably well before the war, and I do not see why it should not do so again.
    The point that I am making is that each commodity should be considered on its merits. That is the only way in which the question of marketing can be dealt with satisfactorily. I do not accept the hazy idea expressed on the opposite benches about commodity commissions. I want each article to be dealt with on its merits, and that is why I have referred to them separately.
    I now come to the question of fat-stock, and I have deliberately left this matter until last. I had great hopes at one time that the problem might have been solved by setting up a marketing board for this commodity. I realise however how difficult it would be 10 solve this problem. Time was short, and, in addition, there is the disadvantage that there are so many different types and cuts of meat to be provided. We have not got the level that we have with milk, potatoes, and so on. That is where a difficulty would arise with a marketing board.

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    I believe that the solution that was found was the only one possible in order to provide the security which had been promised. The security has been provided by the present scheme of deficiency payments doubly buttressed, and I welcome the efforts made by the N.F.U. and the Fatstock Marketing Corporation in this connection. They have done wonders, and we should pay a tribute to them. They have done it, perhaps, in spite of the Government as much as by their aid. I give that point freely.
    I am sorry if my right hon. Friend does not agree, but I do feel that they have not done it entirely because of the Government. I hope that the Government will help them in every possible way in expanding the scheme still further. If, in fair competition with the auctions, the Fatstock Marketing Corporation can prosper and take a larger proportion of the fatstock, it will be doing a very good tiling for the farming community and for the country as a whole. I wish the Corporation every success.
    I do not think the future can be adequately planned, unless there is a decision about the future of slaughterhouses. We have had an interim report and we are now awaiting the final report. I urge my right hon. Friend to see that we get that as soon as possible. We ought to be quite sure where new slaughterhouses are to be sited, how concentrated they should be, and whether they are to be in the producing or consuming areas, which is a very important matter.
    Such a decision cannot be based on plain economics. It might be more economical, for instance, to site these slaughterhouses in the consuming areas—I do not know—or perhaps in the producing areas. But we must remember in this connection matters of defence. It would be wrong to bring too many slaughterhouses into heavily populated areas, and, therefore, there would appear to be an advantage in keeping them in the production areas.
    I now wish to say a few words about pigs. This subject has caused headaches to a number of people in the last few months, including myself.
    Mr. Snow: A classical understatement.
    Mr. Godber: I am always modest in my statements. Pigs have undoubtedly caused anxiety. I do not think there is any point in dealing with the underlying causes, because so many people have already spoken of them, and I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman will also say something on the subject before the end of this debate. What we want is the right solution to the problem of preserving a proper balance.
    I am coming to the view that if we want a proper balance between pork and bacon pigs, they must all be bandied by one body, unless we have a forward contract scheme as was tried before the war, in which case it would have to be a forward contract scheme for both pork and bacon pigs rather than, as before the war, only for bacon pigs. There must be some means of ensuring that there is no wide swing to pork, and then to bacon, if we are to have any real stability in pig marketing.
    I ask my right hon. Friend to try to sort out that problem. I do not think I can see a clear solution, but I am quite sure that the whole matter must be handled by one body. I do not know whether the Fatstock Marketing Corporation could be used in this connection. I do not put that forward as a definite solution, but I do say that one body must have some means of control; otherwise, there will be swings from one side to the other, whatever Government is in power.
    I have covered most of the main agricultural commodities, and I have tried to show that they should be considered separately. I am sure that that is so, and I am also sure that, in the main, the policy that we are pursuing is the right one, particularly on matters like deficiency payments for cereals and fatstock.
    I should like to say a word about horticultural marketing. I was very glad to get my right hon. Friend's Written answer to a Question of mine yesterday on setting up a committee for horticultural marketing. We have had so many horticultural marketing problems. We still have to solve them, and, as my right hon. Friend said this afternoon—though, unfortunately, I was not able to hear him—we have not had a really authoritative report since the Linlithgow Interim Report on Fruit and Vegetables in 1923. I have been refreshing my memory on some of the points made in that Report, and I am amazed at the similarity of the problems

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    in those days to our present-day problems. Indeed, if one were to erase the date and substitute the present date on that Report we might have a ready-made report for present conditions. Unfortunately, it was not acted upon in those days as much as one would have liked.
    I should like to read a short extract from the Report to show how little the problem has changed in these intervening years. Paragraph 312, for example, contains a reference to Covent Garden, as follows:
    "Covent Garden is wholly inadequate to deal efficiently with the volume of produce handled. In no other market in the country is the accommodation so deficient and congestion so acute."
    That paragraph could be written with even greater force today, and that is a matter which we have got to face. Then there is:
    "Standardisation of packages. An unnecessarily large variety of packages is in common use for the marketing of fruit and vegetables and there is a wide variation in their dimensions. … This irregularity in the contents of packages partly accounts for the preference of retailers for imported produce …"
    I am afraid that in some respects that is still true. There is also:
    "Grading and packing. Immediate reform is necessary in the methods of the grower in the preparation of his produce for market. There has been considerable improvement, and improvement is still proceeding, but a general-levelling-up is needed."
    Paragraph 342 says:
    "The best hope for the future lies with the industry itself. Producers must realise that marketing is the other half of production. They must make it their business to increase their knowledge of market conditions and requirements in order to dispose of their produce in the home markets to the best advantage in competition with produce grown in other lands. Distributors, for their part, must make every effort to eliminate archaic methods and to enhance the efficiency of the general distributive system. Retail distributors, in particular …"
    This is particularly apt today—
    "… should make serious efforts in the direction of increasing turnover when supplies are abundant, by charging lower prices to the consuming public."
    Surely all these things are very relevant today. I have no doubt that the Report will be referred to by the new committee. I hope that my right hon. Friend will set up a high-powered committee with a first-class chairman, and I trust that he will announce the names of its members in the
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    very near future so that the committee can immediately get on with the job and we can have an authoritative and up-to-date report and in time take appropriate action.
    I also want to express the thoughts of producers about horticultural marketing at present. I am a member of the Tomato Marketing Board. It was the first of the regulatory boards set up after the war by the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams). The other marketing boards about which I have been talking were compulsory trading boards. The Tomato Marketing Board was set up to improve what I have been talking about—presentation, grading and packing, and standardisation. The Board was hoped to be the forerunner of others. It has been trying to do what it was set up to do.
    I regret that a vociferous minority of producers have been trying to bedevil all that the Board has been trying to do recently. It is only frank to say so. They have made it very difficult. Maybe the Board has been wrong, and, if so, I accept my full share of the blame but there has not been a willingness to give it a chance and so see what can be done. One cannot make substantial alterations in what must be largely voluntary and persuasive work in the course of 12 months. It requires years to get results. The Board has been going only four years. After it had been going two years there was carping criticism by people who had nothing to offer to put in its place. That is what I regret. I should have welcomed constructive criticism and suggestions. The difficulty we have had all along has been that some people have merely wanted to go back to the old days with complete freedom and the chaos and disparity to which reference has been made.
    I mentioned the Tomato Marketing Board merely as an example. There was brought forward later the Apple and Pear Marketing Board. That was not even accepted by the producers; they threw it out before it had had a chance. If a new committee is to be set up, I hope that the producers as much as anyone else will rally round and support the recommendations that it makes. We must get the industry working together and have the growers co-operating to improve their produce if we are to compete adequately with the foreigner.

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    I know it is easy to say that the foreigners have an advantage in that they send us only their best stuff, but I am equally certain that our producers can supply a better item if they really put their minds to it. The best grade of British produce is considerably ahead of foreign produce. There is scope for ability, and I hope the industry will show what it can do.
    The industry needs a little help. It has had some discouragement. In recent months a request was made to the Minister's standing committee for the marking of all imported pears, cherries, broccoli and cauliflowers. I have here a copy of the report of the committee set up by the Minister. The request was refused. I am bitterly disappointed not only about the conclusions but also about some of the reasons given by the committee for its decision. It argued as if a new principle was involved. My right hon. Friend knows well that this is not a new principle and that tomatoes and apples have been subject to the same marking arrangements in the past. If it is valid for them, there is no reason why it should not be valid for the other commodities. I understand that another application may be made, and if so, I hope that it will be very sympathetically considered. It is most discouraging to our growers when they are trying to make progress in this way to receive a slap in the face, which is what the committee's decision represented.
    My right hon. Friend has a number of times recently said that there are three methods whereby agriculture can be assisted—by tariff, by quota, or by subsidy, which is the method which he and the Government have accepted. He uttered some apt words at the Farmers' Club:
    "People sometimes ask why the Government do not, instead of subsidies, provide support for our home production by other means—tariffs, or import quota restrictions…in general neither of these methods of protecting our home production could be adopted by this country without very serious damage to our trade—and trade is as vital as agriculture to our continued existence."
    We all agree with that.
    "If we want to sell to other countries we must be prepared to buy from them. If we want other countries to refrain from imposing barriers to trade we must not do so either. Those are the reasons why the Government deliberately chose subsidies as a better way
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    than either tariffs or import quota restrictions of ensuring the necessary support for home food production, while at the same time ensuring food supplies to the nation at competitive prices."
    Those are very sound words, but if we accept that, surely we have not got to count the full cost of the agricultural subsidies against agriculture. If we have to do it this way, we are doing it because we shall assist the rest of the community, and industry in particular, to compete in the world markets. If that is so, part of the cost of the subsidies that we have agreed to undertake should rightly be borne by the industrial community. That ought to be readily understood, and for that reason we have every right to say that the subsidies which are given should continue.
    I know that they are now running at a very high level, but I hope my right hon. Friend will not permit them to be reduced this year of all years. He has said that increased efficiency should permit their gradual diminution, which is a fair and sound point, and I believe the farming community would accept it, but this year of all years when the fanners have had the worst possible harvest to contend with it would be disastrous. I urge upon the Minister that there should not be any diminution when the next February Price Review comes along, because the farmers need every sympathy and help to overcome this most disastrous season.
    I apologise for having kept the House so long, but I wanted to deal with these points about marketing because I believe there frequently is misunderstanding of them. I hope the Minister will give attention to these requests, particularly the last one. J feel confident that under his direction agriculture will continue to thrive.
    6.20 p.m.
    Mr. Michael O'Neill: My contribution to this debate will not be so much directed towards the policy of the Ministry of Agriculture as towards the policy of the Government generally to agricultural matters in Northern Ireland. I know that the Ministry of Agriculture here is not responsible. The Ministry which was responsible was the Ministry of Food. At the moment, we are in the process of being transferred and do not actually know where we stand.
    I should like to draw the attention of the House to the peculiar difficulties under

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    which the farmer of Northern Ireland has to operate. There is no comparison between farming in Northern Ireland and farming in England or Scotland. Our farms are small; 60 per cent. of them are under 30 acres in extent and more than 37 per cent. are under 15 acres. It can be seen that we are a community of small farmers and, as such, difficult to organise into a system of organised farming. Nevertheless, during the emergency when we had controlled prices—when fixed prices really meant fixed prices and guaranteed markets really meant guaranteed markets—we had a period of relative prosperity.
    During that period our farmers took every advantage of the facilities provided and made full use of those advantages to increase production, not only by quantity but by quality. I think the figures speak for themselves. In that period our production of agricultural produce increased five-fold. That is a remarkable tribute to small farmers of Northern Ireland. The fertility of the land considerably improved and mechanisation took place on a substantial scale. Those farmers were very wisely directed by the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture.
    Under the Agriculture Act, 1947, we farmers of Northern Ireland were guaranteed a parity of price with fanners of England and Scotland. That parity of price as we understood it was to mean that we were to get the same guaranteed price in our nearest markets in Northern Ireland as the English farmer got for his commodities in the English market. A very important point to remember is that around that time legislation was being introduced in this House for making very much increased demands on fanners by way of direct and indirect taxation. We were about to introduce the colossal National Health Service scheme and many new and increased forms of taxation. One of those forms, which I mention as an illustration, was the contribution by the self-employed to National Insurance. That was a very severe tax on these small farmers. Nevertheless, they did not complain; they accepted it.
    I doubt very much if those farmers would freely have accepted that extra taxation had they not been satisfied at that time that they were being given parity of price and that that parity of price was to be maintained. Now a new system of decontrol comes, and what do
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    we get? Within a few months the whole system of agricultural economy built up over a period of 15 years is driven into confusion and chaos. Our farmers not only find that they have not got guaranteed prices but that they have not even got guaranteed markets. One of the first commodities to come under the hammer was the grass seed market. We had a very substantial quantity of grass seed available for that market. Nevertheless, the Government here allowed grass seed to be imported from the Continent. Our grass seed decayed and, within two years, the grass seed fund depreciated to the extent of £750,000, for which we got no compensation.
    Last year we had a tremendous surplus of potatoes, but not one ton of those potatoes could be sold until the back end of the year. Then our Ministry of Agriculture had to introduce a scheme whereby the very best eating potatoes were sprayed with blackberry dye and used for feedingstuffs. The Ministry had to compensate farmers to the extent of £7 or £8 a ton.
    That was only the beginning. When the decontrol became effective in July, what happened? I heard the Minister say today that he was very happy to say that there was no glut of beef, fat cattle, or sheep at any time during the autumn of this year. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we had a very definite glut. For two or three months it was practically impossible to get our sheep sold at all. Our pig producers suffered very severely. Some of our farmers who had very extensively increased pig production and had expected to market them at £22 each had to be content with £14 or £15 each. Even so, there will be a very substantial deficiency payment.
    We have a very definite grievance in this matter, and I am anxious that the Government should give it their earliest consideration. In compensation for all these difficulties, we get £500,000. That is supposed to compensate us for all this disruption in our farming industry. I put it to any hon. Member, what is £500,000? I was present in the Stormont House of Commons when that House was-discussing what to do with this £500,000.
    Mr. Phelim O'Neill: My understanding—I should like the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. O'Neill) to confirm it—is that the sum of £500,000

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    is not a definite and final sum by any means. It is only a provisional estimate, because the final amount cannot possibly be reckoned other than retrospectively.
    Mr. O'Neill: I agree that that is so. Nevertheless, the £500,000 is an indication to the Northern Ireland farmer of what he might expect. That is the most that can be expected during the ensuing year. As I said, I was present during that debate, when it took the House of Commons at Stormont three days to decide what to do with the £500,000. A special Bill had to be brought in to deal with it, and in the course of the debate there were some very interesting revelations.
    I should like to quote from a reply given by our Minister of Agriculture to the Member for Enniskillen, a Mr. West, who, incidentally, is the Deputy-President of the Ulster Farmers' Union. Mr. West was anxious to know which Department would be responsible for maintaining the link in agricultural affairs between the Government at Westminster and the Government of Northern Ireland. This was the reply of the Rev. R. Moore, our Minister of Agriculture, which I quote from the HANSARD Report of Debates for Wednesday, 17th November, 1954:
    "There would be no point in my going across to interview the new Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries at Westminster. He is the Minister of Agriculture only for England and Wales. So far as I know, apart from the general control and authority of the British Cabinet and the Government, he has no further control or influence whatsoever here and he cannot do anything for us as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries for England and Wales, except as a Member of the Government. I have already been over there and I am beginning almost to regret that I ever went. It seems that instead of gratifying the farming community and their representatives it has only created trouble, confusion, and dissatisfaction."
    That is an embarrassing situation in which one Tory Minister meets another, but it shows the difficulties of the Minister in Northern Ireland. While I do not agree with him, I certainly have every sympathy with the difficult position in which he found himself that day. He was trying to explain to his Parliament that we in Northern Ireland would now be placed in a position equal to that of the northern counties in Scotland.
    To say the least, that is grossly unfair. There can be no comparison of the cost of marketing produce between the
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    northern counties of Scotland and the counties of, say, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry in Northern Ireland. The Northern Scottish farmer has road and rail transport available. He has the markets of England within reach and within, at most, a day's journey. He has no unloading during the transit of his produce. But consider the farmer in Enniskillen or Strabane. He loads his produce on to the rail. It has to be unloaded at Belfast, reloaded on to the boat, unloaded again at the port in England, and then reloaded again on to rail, a process involving at least two or three days. There can be no comparison in that instance as between the counties in the North of Scotland and the counties of Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry.
    I ask the Government here to give us parity of price at the port of entry in England or Scotland; that is only fair, and I honestly believe that the farmers in Northern Ireland would be quite content to accept it. When one considers all the confusion and annoyance which we have been caused and the disruption in our economy, it is only fair that the Government here should agree to give us parity of price at the port of entry in England or Scotland. That is not too much to ask. In fact, we are entitled to it, because the 1947 Act has never been repealed. At least, if the Government's attitude is not illegal, it is certainly a very bad breach of faith, and the farmers of Northern Ireland resent it very much.
    Apart from that, the system of fixing farm prices is not a fair system. It does not take into consideration the high cost of feedingstuffs in Northern Ireland. According to the report which is issued today, the Ministry of Agriculture says that the price for pigs is based on a feedingstuffs price of 29s. 10d. per cwt. We in Northern Ireland pay 34s. per cwt. for our feedingstuffs, and the Ministry says that for every penny per cwt. that feedingstuffs in Britain rise or fall in price, there will be an automatic rise or fall of a penny per score in the price of pigs at the annual review. On that basis, we are entitled to an increase in the price of pigs of 4s. 2d. per score. If the prices are fixed on a basis of 29s. 10d. per cwt., why should our prices in Northern Ireland not be based on a price of 34s. per cwt., which is the price that we actually pay for our feedingstuffs?
    Mr. P. O'Neill: I should like to get this matter right. The price of 29s. 10d. to which the hon. Member has referred applies, I believe, to straight meals, and the 34s. refers to compounds. I believe that the price mechanism is based on the straights and not on the compounds.
    Mr. O'Neill: I thought so myself until I re-read the report. It specifically refers to pig rations, and by "rations" we mean a mixed feed. Therefore, there can be no question of its being straight meal.
    Furthermore, we in Northern Ireland are faced with increased costs of production, in that we pay more for our agricultural machinery. Every tractor that goes on to a farm in Northern Ireland costs £25 more than the price to the English farmer. The English farmer has the advantage over us in that we have to pay £25 for the cost of transit from the factory in England. We have a very good case for parity of price; and if we get it at the port of entry in England or Scotland, we will be very satisfied.
    I should like to make one other point. It does not actually concern agriculture, but has an important bearing on agricultural economy. It was announced yesterday that there will be an increase of 1s. in the weekly National Insurance contribution; and I understand that this will apply also to self-employed persons. We in Northern Ireland have a great many self-employed people. We have probably a much higher proportion of them than either Scotland, England or Wales.
    In Ulster there are many thousands of small farmers. Each will be compelled to pay now more than 8s. a week. Previously his contribution amounted to about £20 a year. Now it will amount to about £22 a year. That is the contribution that the small, self-employed farmers are to be compelled to pay. It imposes upon them a very great hardship. In most cases it is more than they formerly paid in rents or taxes.
    The Northern Ireland Government, who administer it, have a system at present whereby there is exemption for farmers who occupy farms with a valuation of £10. I should like that valuation to be raised to £20. What is a farm with a valuation of £20? It is a farm of about 22 acres only, and at the most of not
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    more than 25. How can a farmer working a very small place like that make a contribution of £22 a year, especially in present circumstances, in which there is a downward tendency in prices and in which markets are disrupted, and the farmers find it difficult to keep going? I make a special appeal to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to give that little concession to the Northern Ireland farmers. I am sure they would appreciate it.
    Agriculture is our main industry in Northern Ireland, in the sense that it is the most widespread, and the kernel of the unemployment problem is in this industry, because our unemployment problem is largely the result of our failure to absorb our extra population on the land. In the last 20 years the number of people employed on the land in the Six Counties has been reduced by 50 per cent. That is simply disastrous for an agricultural country. If that tendency were to continue we should eventually have no one at all on the land. It is very important to try to retain people on the land, and one way to do it is to develop industries ancillary to agriculture.
    A few years ago I made here a suggestion to which I received no answer at all, and so I will make it again now. We should try to develop our agriculture on more modern lines and to eliminate high transport costs. We should also undertake a meat dressing industry. That would help to reduce if not to eliminate high transport costs, and it would give employment to our people. Many thousands of our people could be employed in the dressed meat industry. We should have tanneries and many other subsidiary industries. Instead of trying to ship our surplus milk to England and Scotland during the summer we should use it and our surplus eggs in a confectionery manufacturing industry. We could make fancy cakes. The English would be delighted with them. We should make sweets and chocolates.
    The all-important need is capital. The small farmers of Northern Ireland are simply not able to provide it. It must be provided for them. It would be better were the Government to provide capital for these industries instead of allowing the unemployed in Northern Ireland to be a constant drain on the unemployment fund here. At present the unemployed in Northern Ireland are a drain

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    on the unemployment fund here. The money thus spent at present would be more wisely spent on capital development. So I say that instead of allowing us to retain the £500,000 from our Imperial contribution this year the Government should say to the Government of Northern Ireland, "Keep £4 million or £5 million and spend it on capital development."
    That would be a wiser way of spending the money than keeping people on the dole, because they cannot live on the dole in Northern Ireland any better than they can live on the dole in England. The cost of living is as high there as here, and to subsist on the dole or on National Assistance is existence but not living. It is high time that this question of agriculture and employment was reviewed, and I hope sincerely that the Government during the coming year will give it their earnest consideration. If they do that we shall probably be satisfied, but if they do not they can expect nothing but very great resentment.
    6.46 p.m.
    Captain L. P. S. Orr: The whole House will agree that we have had a pleasant surprise in listening to the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. M. O'Neill). I had expected that he would have had something to say about the vexed problem of the so-called partition of Ireland. It is indeed a pleasant surprise that he has departed from that subject, and it is agreeable to see a common concern, and a sincerely felt concern, about our agricultural industry transcending the political and often bitter differences between us. It is the sort of course we should seek to pursue in future, if we can.
    I am not going to refer immediately and directly to what the hon. Member has said about Ulster agriculture, because it is my purpose to raise the rather wider question of the whole economic position in Northern Ireland. I am sorry that it should take us away from the main theme of our discussion tonight, but this is one of the few opportunities one has to carry out such a survey as I am anxious to see made.
    I would, however, say to the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster that probably the basic trouble in Ulster agriculture at the moment is the fact that when the principle
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    of the common price at the farm gate was introduced it benefited the remoter areas, of which Ulster is one, rather more than others, and that, of course, the converse applies, so that when the principle of the common price at the farm gate is removed it is the remoter areas, Ulster particularly, that feel the draught more than others. I am glad to say that that has been taken into account by the Government, and I hope to come back to that point later.
    Nearly three years ago in this House, I raised the question of unemployment in Northern Ireland, and if the House will bear with me I would quote something that I then said. I referred to the unemployment position in Ulster, and said:
    "It is serious and we are all greatly perturbed about it."
    Later in the same speech, I said:
    "The economy of Northern Ireland, upon which the prosperity of our people and employment depends, is somewhat unstable. It is based on the two major industries of shipbuilding and textiles."
    There of course I might have added agriculture.
    I went on:
    "A recession in either causes a dislocation of the labour force, and an enormous number of people are thrown out of work, as is the case at present."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th May, 1952; Vol. 500, c. 1346–9.]
    I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to deal with what was then under discussion—Purchase Tax on linen—as a matter of urgency in order to help reduce what I described then as "distress in Northern Ireland."
    At that time, unemployment in Ulster was running at between 10 per cent. and 11 per cent. of the insured population, an exceedingly high level when one compares it with the national average at which unemployment has been running in this country. The average for that year, 1952, was 10·4 per cent. of the insured population. What has happened since I raised this matter in 1952? There has been a steady reduction in unemployment. It has not been substantial or anything like sufficient, but there has been generally a steady improvement.
    In 1953, the average of unemployment went down to 8·1 per cent. of the insured population and this year it will probably work out at something under 7 per cent Unemployment in Ulster since 1952 has been reduced from 48,288 to 32,961 men

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    and women. In other words, since 1952 there have been found for workers in Ulster 15,327 more jobs. That may be satisfactory up to a point, but, as the House may have already heard, the situation is still causing us very grave concern. It is still very serious, and is still worthy of examination by the House.
    The Gracious Speech says:
    "My Ministers will continue to encourage the expansion of industry and the full employment of My People."
    We in Ulster are Her Majesty's people. We are an integral part of the United Kingdom and, therefore, we take it that that promise in the Gracious Speech means a promise to encourage full employment in Northern Ireland. We look to that promise being fulfilled.
    It may be that it could be argued that one or two of the matters to which I hope to refer are matters for the Government of Northern Ireland. The great Statute of 1920 which set up the Parliament of Northern Ireland transferred a great many matters of administration and, in a small way, of taxation to the Parliament near Belfast. While it is clearly improper for this House, having transferred some of its powers, to examine the day-to-day workings of the administration under that Parliament, nevertheless it is true that because certain major powers have been reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament, United Kingdom policy has a very considerable effect upon the economic position of Ulster.
    It is right, therefore, that from time to time we should have a general review without going into details which can be properly left to the Parliament over there. Among the powers that this House has reserved to itself are the major powers of taxation. In the year ended 31st March last the total public expenditure in Ulster amounted to almost £57 million. Yet the yield to the Ulster Exchequer of the revenue over which it has control amounted to only £4,750,000.
    That means that we in Ulster depend very largely upon our "residual share" of the taxation which is collected under the authority of this House. What is left in the Exchequer is known as the Imperial contribution. It is greatly to our credit in Ulster, and a fact which ought to be taken into consideration by the United Kingdom Government when considering our problems, that we have
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    an uninterrupted record of balanced Budgets ever since our Parliament was set up in 1920. There was a peak Imperial contribution of £36 million in 1944–45, and in the current year it is estimated that our Imperial contribution will run to about £12,500,000. That is a very considerable contribution.
    There has developed, in the financial relationship between the United Kingdom and Ulster, a principle of parity of expenditure on the social services. It is a very good principle, and it means that our social services, very rightly, have been kept in Ulster at a level similar to the level of the social services here. It is a principle which has run through all our financial relationships. Among the matters which must be very rightly taken into consideration is expenditure aimed at countering special local conditions or disadvantages. It is to that aspect of the problem that I hope to refer.
    What is the present position in Northern Ireland? The House ought to examine our difficulties. Our principal trouble, of course, is due to our geographical situation.
    Mr. Cahir Healy: Our geographical division.
    Captain Orr: I am delighted to hear the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Healy) interjecting. We love seeing him here. His character is lovable, his politics are detestable.
    Our principal difficulty, of course, is the geographical one. We suffer in a very similar way to the Highlands of Scotland in that respect. In the old clays this disadvantage was not felt by industry because the cost of labour and of freight was very much lower. While it is very right and proper that the cost of labour should have risen to a position of parity with the rest of the United Kingdom—and no one would wish it otherwise or suggest that the remedy was a reduction—transport charges have risen and have accentuated our difficulties.
    We have the short sea journey. There is, as the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster said in the case of livestock, the problem with every industry of the double handling, the loading and unloading, to undertake that short sea journey. The effect of this is that prices over there are increased. According to my estimate the

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    price of pithead coal is nearly doubled. The result is that while it may pay an established manufacturer in this country to absorb transport charges in order to gain a marginal advantage in his output, that is not the case when either a smaller producer or a subsidiary is trying to start an enterprise in Ulster. Consequently, all this makes it very difficult to carry out the Ulster Government's policy of diversifying industry.
    We ought to look briefly at what has happened, and at the efforts the Ulster Government have made. The Northern Ireland Government, as far back as 1932, started their policy of diversifying industry to overcome the fundamental problem that our employment was largely bound up in shipbuilding, textiles, and agriculture. That policy has been the basis of our economic thinking ever since, because by attracting new industries we provide work for more and more of our people.
    Mr. M. O'Neill: Can the hon. and gallant Member tell me how many new industries have been started in Tyrone since 1930?
    Captain Orr: I am sorry I have not got the figures for Tyrone, but I will get them for the hon. Member and let him have them.
    Mr. O'Neill: I can tell the hon. and gallant Member now—none.
    Captain Orr: I have got the figures for Ulster as a whole. About 150 new industries have been started since 1932, and have provided about 30,000 jobs for the Ulster people. In fact, industrial employment has increased from 139,000 in 1935 to 202,000 in 1952. Over these years industrial employment has increased to the extent of about 63,000 and since 1946, through this new industrial policy, the average gain in employment each year has been of the order of 2,333. Since 1946, the total gain from the new industrial policy has been about 18,665.
    It cannot be said, in the face of these figures, that the Ulster Government, faced with their difficult employment problem, and a difficult economic situation, have not really done their utmost to provide employment for the people. Any suggestion that the Ulster Government have been negligent or have not exerted their best efforts would be quite unjustified.
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    Inducements have been provided to bring new industries to Northern Ireland. Factories have been built for lease with rent concessions. Grants, very often of about 25 per cent, have been paid towards the cost of building factories and there have been grants towards other services such as the provision of power, water, and workers' houses. All these inducements have been given to attract industries, and it is interesting in this context, if I am not wearying the House with too many figures, to compare the factory building statistics in Ulster with those in the rest of the United Kingdom.
    The Board of Trade Journal of 2nd October, 1954, contains interesting figures of factory development in Great Britain. Comparing those with the official estimates for Northern Ireland, I find that, on a population basis, factory building in Northern Ireland averages about 5·3 square feet per head compared with 3·8 in Great Britain.
    A fairer way to judge is to compare it with one of the Development Areas. I have not got the figures before me for all of these areas, but I have a comparison which is interesting, namely, new building work under construction in the Scottish Development Area. The figure is one square foot per head of the population and covers both Government and private building, compared with 1·27 in Northern Ireland for Government building alone. On that comparison it would be fair to say that the Ulster Government have a record in this matter of which they have no reason to be ashamed.
    In addition to the figures which I have already quoted, it would be fair to say of some of the firms that have just started operations in Ulster, and who may now be employing a few hundred people, will be in a position, in the course of time, to employ perhaps a few thousands. The firms on the books of the Ulster Ministry of Commerce hope to employ an additional 6,000 men and women. That certainly applies to firms like the British Thomson-Houston Company and the Corram works at Larne.
    There are two factors affecting the employment situation to which I should draw the attention of the House. I do not want to go into them in detail, but they ought to be mentioned. The first of them is that the National Service Acts do not apply to Northern Ireland. I

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    should not like to be drawn into any argument as to whether they should apply or not, because I might cross swords with the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone or the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster.
    Mr. M. O'Neill: Or cross swords with your own constituents.
    Captain Orr: I am not going to be drawn into an argument on the subject, but it is fair to bear in mind the effect of the non-application of these Acts to Northern Ireland.
    We have estimated that there are about 11,000 young men in the 18 and 19year-old age groups, and on the estimation that 60 per cent. would be called up under conscription, and that the period of conscription would be two years, the effect would be to remove between 13,000 and 14,000 young men in these age groups from the labour market. That would have a considerable effect upon unemployment.
    The other factor which affects the problem is the question of the school-leaving age. It is hoped that in Northern Ireland we shall have reached, by 1957, a position of parity with this country, and we estimate—it is a rough estimate because it is difficult to assess—that that would probably reduce the unemployment figure by about 20,000 to 21,000.
    I said at the beginning of my speech that United Kingdom policy should be to aid us in Ulster. It is evident that the Northern Ireland Government's new industrial policy, comparatively successful though it has been, has not been sufficient of itself to prevent our employment figures running at the present rate of between 6 per cent. and 7 per cent. of our insured population.
    It is fair, in this connection, that we who come from Ulster, whatever party we belong to, should be asked, why should the United Kingdom Government come to our aid and help us at all? Leaving aside all considerations of kinship and honour, or the question of our comradeship with the rest of the United Kingdom in war and peace, there are what I might call bread-and-butter reasons for the United Kingdom Government taking a serious and intelligent interest in our affairs.
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    We meet certain essential needs of the United Kingdom economy. Our exports are on a relatively large scale compared with our population. Our linen exports to dollar markets have often been referred to in this House, as have our shipbuilding industry exports, and our exports of textile machinery, while our farm produce, for instance, topped about £60 million in 1952. We meet certain defence needs of this country in that we build warships, and aircraft, and in many other ways assist defence. Of our total industrial output in 1952 only 42 per cent. was retained in Ulster, while about 12 per cent. was directly exported, and the rest to ports in Britain.
    Successive United Kingdom Governments have been sympathetic to us, including the Labour Government, who were reasonably sympathetic to any request properly put up by the Northern Ireland Government.
    Mr. M. O'Neill: Would not the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that they were more sympathetic?
    Captain Orr: It is difficult to measure sympathy, but I would not say that. However, through the financial arrangements which have been made between us, successive United Kingdom Governments have made possible many of the incentives which the Ulster Government have been able to offer in order to attract new industries. Indeed, in many cases things could not have been done had the Joint Exchequer Board not approved.
    The Board of Trade has treated us as if we came under the Distribution of Industries Act. While it is a contentious question whether or not we should have come directly under that Act, the Board of Trade has helped us as much as it has helped Development Areas by steering industry towards us. The Ulster Government have been able to subsidise industrial coal. Admittedly, the subsidy is only about £750,000, but that could only have been given with the consent of the Joint Exchequer Board. The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster referred to the acknowledgment of our special agricultural position in the White Paper. All parties in Ulster, and anybody connected with our agriculture, will hope that the performance lives up to the promise. I cannot say more than that at present.

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    While all this has been going on, it is still not sufficient. The unemployment situation is bad, and something more imaginative, therefore, is required from the Government. The hon. Member for Mid-Ulster mentioned capital. This should be considered also, although I know of no substantial reputable industrial expansion which has been held up for shortage of capital.
    Mr. M. O'Neill: But would not the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that that is holding back the development of the dressed meat industry? Would not the National Farmers' Union be prepared to undertake a farmers' marketing scheme for produce, if the necessary capital were available?
    Captain Orr: Yes, I shall not contend with the hon. Gentleman on that point; I was merely stating how I saw the position.
    One of the troubles, though not the entire trouble, is the high cost of freight, as it is in other remote areas. Would the Government consider again the question of a flat transport subsidy on the sea route between Ulster and the mainland? One of the arguments used against this is that it would create a precedent in subsidising shipping which would react against the United Kingdom as a maritime country. There is, however, already a precedent in the MacBrayne Co. which operates to some of the Scottish Islands.
    I hope that the Government will bear in mind the possibility of more Government contracts for Ulster. We have not been unfairly treated, but one of the relevant factors which should be taken into consideration in giving contracts to such factories as, for example, Short Bros. and Harland, in Belfast, is the level of unemployment in the area. I hope, too, that in the development of nuclear energy the Government will remember that we have certain valuable mineral deposits, such as iron ore, which we might develop into a major industry if we had the power there.
    The Ulster Unionist Members recently put up some proposals, as did certain right hon. Gentlemen opposite. I hope the Government will examine all these proposals, from whatever quarter they come, in detail, and with sympathy,
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    because a long-term solution must be found. We are obliged to the Prime Minister for taking a personal interest in us and we hope that it will bear fruit—
    Mr. Callaghan: I hope that he will not send a telegram.
    Captain Orr: This is not a cry for charity. We are a proud people in Ulster, and we would not ask for charity. It is a plea for fair play, and I hope, and indeed believe, that we shall get it.
    7.18 p.m.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Far be it from me, a Welshman representing an English constituency, to enter into the differences of opinion in Northern Ireland. I hope that the Irish are grateful for the fact that it was the Welsh who civilised them. I was quite convinced from my visit when the Labour Government were in power that we did much more for Northern Ireland than has been done under a Conservative Minister of Agriculture.
    Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt?
    Mr. Davies: I assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that if I am left alone I shall be back on this seat in nine or 10 minutes. The last time I spoke on international affairs, I was interrupted so much that I took a little longer.
    Tonight we are discussing the Amendment put down on the Order Paper in the names of my right hon. and hon. Friends regretting that the confidence of the farming community has been lost, and asking that something should be done to halt the decline in the tillage acreage of this country.
    I have listened to all this debate. I heard the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne), like Jeremiah, say that the world would be better if nobody smoked and if nobody had a glass of beer, and that we could then afford to pay for other things. I could suggest that if nobody wore shoes, if nobody wore a collar and tie, and if nobody spent thousands of millions of pounds on armaments, the world would be better still. In the next nine or 10 minutes, I shall look first at agriculture and coal in relation to defence.
    We are talking about future progress. Both agriculture and coal are of paramount importance to our economy, despite the grizzling of the colliers against

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    the farmers and the grumbling of the farmers against the colliers. It is a good job we do not have the colliers doing the farming and the farmers cutting the coal, for if we did we should freeze to death and starve to death at the same time.
    Let us look at British farms. With the kind of foreign policy we have at present and with the telegrams which are flying round in the days of the hydrogen bomb, what kind of agricultural development can there be viewed in relation to defence? Are we abandoning all the props which were given to British agriculture and all the confidence that was given to it by the Labour Government? It is no good right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite saying that confidence does exist. I go into the markets in my agricultural constituency, and I listen to the grumbles of the farmers, and I also listen to the farm workers. I assure the House there is no longer confidence, and I do not see enough in the Gracious Speech to restore it.
    The Minister said that, despite the floods and everything else, we had a fine crop of watercress. Apparently, the standard of Conservatism will hack its way through the hills, valleys, and alluvial plains of Britain; but some of the plains are flooded and the hill farms are neglected. The Gracious Speech says nothing about forestry. The Labour Government did more for forestry in five years than the Conservative Party has done in 30 years. There was not a word about a forestry policy in the Gracious Speech, and yet the Government talk about defence—not that it counts anyway in view of the hydrogen bomb.
    I advise farmers and horticulturists to read an excellent article which appeared in "The Grower" a fortnight ago. I took the trouble to bring to the House the professor of biophysics at Osaki University, Japan. He spoke to hon. Members and also gave an interview to "The Grower." He described what is happening to fruit and vegetables in various parts of Japan as a result of radio-activity. Only this week we have heard of the silkworms being affected by radio-activity, and also the trees upon which they live.
    Here is the problem. We are talking about civil defence and agriculture, but we have now reached a pitch where, unless the world can agree upon a policy
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    of co-existence, we shall have co-extinction. We have a completely new weapon which alters the cellular formation and powers of reproduction of animals and vegetables. In that kind of world we must somehow or other find a policy to enable us all to live side by side.
    That was a slight diversion, but it was worth while pointing out that a nonpolitical, purely scientific person dealt with the problem of the hydrogen bomb and its effect upon fishermen in the Pacific Ocean and told me and other hon. Members what was happening to the famous valley of Japan where horticulture is carried on. We ought to bear all this in mind when we think of the present and the future.
    The Leek local authority had the foresight to build a new cattle market costing some thousands of pounds. The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) spoke about the lack of policy for slaughterhouses. I remember saying on a Prayer one night that our policy of marketing cattle and other types of stock would collapse unless we worked out a practical policy for slaughterhouses. Are slaughterhouses to be at the point of production or at the point of consumption? Is that policy being worked out?
    It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Grantham quote from the Linlithgow Report. A few weeks ago I said that Covent Garden must cost the consumer of fruit and vegetables thousands of pounds every week in petrol consumption, a cost which is represented in the price of produce. It is time the Government gave us a policy which would be expansive and would give fair marketing. While at one time or another the Labour Party have been critics of the farmer or the distributor, we have always tried to discover a method of marketing which would give a fair price to the producer and would put the commodity into the housewife's basket at a fair price.
    Today the farmer is not getting a square deal, and neither is the housewife. The Conservative Party sits in inapt and inept elegance making promises about the shopping basket and about the cost of living and about the standard of living. The Conservatives were forced to increase pensions. The standard of living is lower today and the cost of living

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    higher than ever as the result of a complete lack of policy in agriculture. However, we had a good crop of watercress apparently.
    The matter of accidents on the farm ought to be taken seriously by both sides of the House. Agriculture is becoming mechanised, and there is a tendency, because of the novelty of mechanization—I have seen this in my constituency—to neglect the machines and to leave them out in the open. I hope the farmer will not think that I am telling him how to do his work; I am looking at this matter as an ordinary individual. Nothing hurts me more than to see well built, beautifully coloured machines left out in the fields all night and in all weathers. Production would be cheapened, productivity would be increased and our economy would be aided if we had a strict policy for the protection of the machines, and this would also help to prevent accidents.
    Is it not time the Government brought about standardisation of the machines, and, in particular, standardisation of nuts, bolts and screws? How far is this being done? What consultation is there between agricultural engineering firms and the Ministry to secure standardisation? What efforts are being made not to secure lots of high-powered machines but to ensure that cheap tools and machines are put into the hands of the small farmers? Many of them have no co-operative enterprise but would welcome something on those lines. If such enterprise could be developed through the county agricultural executive committees or the Government, I believe the farmers would welcome the introduction of new types of small machines to deal with small acreages.
    I believe we have reached a stage where the meat producer, the trader and the consumer are rather upset at the sudden shock and upheaval of the so-called freedom that was thrust like a boulder into the pond of agriculture when the Government threw aside controls. The National Farmers' Union was one of the Government's strongest critics on that score. It was a hasty, doctrinaire approach suddenly to throw off controls without visualising the future. The Government now realise that.
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    I should like to know how far the Government are going in relation to potato marketing and what they hope to get out of the Potato Marketing Board. What do they hope to do in view of the floods and the shortages which may result from the floods? Some of us have spent many years discussing this problem. Whatever Government we have in power, we now require, as much as a national policy for the roads, a national policy on river drainage. This is not a party point but something that must be done.
    Nothing was more tragic when I was travelling through the Midlands last week, than to see on each side of the railway line thousands of acres of land under water. Year in and year out we tolerate that, as we tolerate the erosion of our coasts. It is time that the problem was tackled with as much energy as we tackle that of defence. That is why I deprecate the fact that—and the link will be seen in a moment—nothing was said about forestry in the Gracious Speech.
    Everyone knows that the balance of Nature has been upset in many parts of the world by men hacking away at raw materials and cutting down trees without a policy of afforestation. I believe—and this is straight off the cuff, as I have not worked it out—that we want to develop forestry as did the Labour Government. Are we progressing at the same rate as when my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was Minister of Agriculture? Do not the Government agree that a policy of afforestation helps to prevent flooding?
    For every acre of housing one gets an acre of slates. No longer is the rain absorbed into the ground as it falls. Instead it rushes into the drains, collecting at one point and causing flooding.
    I regret that we are not to divide on the Opposition Amendment. The agricultural policy of the Government has been tragic since they took office, and I sincerely hope that we shall have an opportunity for a full dress debate in the coming months, when more information will be available, especially about the policies of afforestation, floods and marketing.
    7.33 p.m.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: I hope the hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) will forgive me if I do not follow him, except in his commendable example of brevity, as I wish to turn to another industry. I should like to add my congratulations to the Government for what they have done to speed up efforts to solve this very vexed problem of rural education. I agree with others who have spoken today that it is essential for the well-being of our countryside that there should be an adequate rural education. The Minister today referred to modern farming techniques, which brings me to a point which I think will have to be borne in mind. That is that technical education is a vital part of rural education as a whole.
    The point which the hon. Member for Leek made about machinery is important. There is more and more machinery on the farms today, and therefore technical education in the maintenance of agricultural machinery is important. I understand that under present arrangements technical education is undertaken by the National Agricultural Advisory Service, but whether that should be divided between them and the Minister of Education is something that will have to be considered.
    That brings me to another form of education about which I wish to speak. I was glad to see that in the Gracious Speech for the first time since I have been in this House—since l950—a specific reference has been made to the fishing industry. It was:
    "My Ministers will continue to foster the interests of the fishing industry.…"
    It goes on to refer to a Bill for the herring industry. To foster those interests one of the most important things that has to be done is to encourage our young men to go into the industry. If this is to be done, something must be done about their education.
    I know this is being envisaged in South-West England at the moment. Devon and Cornwall have got together with the Plymouth education committees to devise a scheme of training which will come under two heads. They are that education at the technical college will be continued by the Regional Council for Further Education in the South-West, which is an off-shoot of the Ministry of
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    Education, and that practical training in fishing boats will be carried out under the guidance, I gather, of the White Fish Authority, although under the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
    There again we get the difficulties of two Ministries dealing with the same thing. They are going to have a very real problem here, because in a boat in the inshore fishing industry there is no room for passengers. In a share-fishing vessel everyone has to know his job. Anybody who has had the honour and privilege, as I have had, of going on a night's drifting knows that every man has to know his job and is highly skilled—they have no room for trainees.
    Therefore, I suggest that in the practical part of this education it has very carefully to be thought out how this is to be done and what financial help and grants are to be given. I understand that those are not yet settled. They must be adequate, if men are to be borne in these vessels, because they will not have to be a charge on the other share-fishermen. That being so, adequate maintenance allowance will have to be paid to them.
    What steps will technical education envisage? It is said that it comes under the Minister of Education. All these things will have to be very carefully thought out and have to be co-ordinated so that these young men get the best possible training before they go to sea. I think that it should be the responsibility of some Minister definitely to co-ordinate this training. I suggest that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries could be charged with this duty.
    That brings me to my next point, which is that I hope it may be possible for this Parliamentary Secretary to answer at the Box Questions on the fishing industry. This would give the fishing industry the knowledge that there was one of the Under-Secretaries to whom the Prime Minister referred in answer to the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) the other day that was specifically charged with the responsibility and duty, under the Minister, of dealing with fishery matters. It would help if he could give answers at the Box.
    Take the Icelandic dispute which has recently come up again. The hon. Member for Lowestoft and I went to Iceland

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    in 1953. When we came back we put in a report and made certain recommendations. These matters have been discussed and one feels that this problem is going to come up again very soon. I suggest that some action might possibly be taken by a neutral source to try and get the two sides together. I will say no more than that. Each side produces arguments and will not budge unless such and such a thing is done. One side says one thing and the other side another. If both sides would give some small concession, it might help to reopen negotiations. I suggest that that concession would come easier if it were made through some neutral chairman, negotiator or intermediary.
    One of the other problems to be considered when fostering the interests of the fishing industry, is the very vexed one to which many of us have referred, one that is the size of mesh. I am delighted that the Government have taken the initiative in putting the question of inspection before the other signatories of the Overfishing Convention. As I understand it, they have given it as their view that each country should be empowered to inspect the nets of foreign vessels when in their harbours.
    That has been made on the initiative of our Government, and I am very glad to hear it. I hope that they will press the matter when the meeting takes place, I understand in May next year, for I think that one prosecution would be sufficient. If one of these men who are making excuses for going to sea with the wrong size of mesh when our own fishermen have been good enough to comply and to use the right size, at considerable cost to themselves, were fined £1,000 and his gear confiscated, the trouble would probably cease at once. If that did not work, then there could be a fine of £2,000 the next time.
    The next subject which has been touched on several times is that of transport charges. This is a very important question. I am interested to learn that talks have been going on between the White Fish Authority and the Transport Commission and that some concessions have been envisaged provided that those concerned will send all their consignments by rail and give an undertaking to that effect. This is good news. I
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    shall believe it when I see it, but if it works it will be very helpful. I hope that we can have an assurance that the concession will be given to inshore fishermen as well. There are men who despatch their own shell fish, for instance, and I very much hope that the concession will be extended to them.
    Another way in which the Government can help is by means of research. This comes under two headings. First, the Government should give every support to research on quick freezing. We all know the efforts of the "Fair Try" which has had its teething troubles but which has proved I believe fairly successful. We know what the White Fish Authority is doing by way of experiments in freezing at sea the first three days of the catch.
    I hope that the Government will foster the industry by extending their research in matters of this kind. More and more housewives are taking an interest in buying frozen food. Today we can get very good frozen vegetables and fruits. The Icelanders have realised the possibilities. They have between 75 and 100 quick freezing plants all round Iceland and they are packaging fillets extremely well. I foresee the day when we will not be able to get men who can fillet and the work will be done by machines, the fillets quick frozen, and purchasers will be able to buy them throughout the country. Do not let us get left behind in this.
    There has been talk in the South-West of England of a change in the Gulf Stream. I do not know whether or not this is so, but certainly this season the pilchards have deserted us in Cornwall and other fish appear to be coming in their place. I hope that the Government will bend their energies to research into this matter and that if the pilchards have gone away the Government will be able to make suggestions about alternative types of fish to be caught.
    There is a more immediate problem of which all of us, and especially the people in Cornwall, have been forcibly reminded in the last weekend, and that is the strength of the gales at this time of the year. It is not necessary to say anything about the lifeboat men who went to sea last Saturday. Some of those men are suffering from loss of gear. I suggest that the Government might be able to help when men have lost gear through special

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    reasons such as the gales of exceptional ferocity.
    My last point is that if we are to foster the interests of the fishing industry we must get the young men into it and we must also keep in it the older men. It is all very well to say how marvellous these lifeboat men are, but if we do not foster the fishing industry we will not have the men available to man the lifeboats and to do the magnificent work that fishermen throughout the country are doing day in and day out in war and peace as the finest possible example to every other section of the community.
    7.45 p.m.
    Mr. Edward Evans: I am happy to have the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) because he has discussed one or two subjects which I had not proposed to mention but which I should now like to comment upon. He and I had a pleasant journey to Iceland when the Icelandic trouble arose over the extension of territorial waters, and I might refer to that topic later.
    The hon. Gentleman made a most important point when he spoke of the education and training of young men to enable them to enter the fishing industry. I have several times in the House stressed that the future of the industry does not depend primarily on the drifters, the trawlers, and so on, or even on the fish population of the near waters. It depends on the men that we get in the industry. Unless we can get the right type of man and give him the chance of promotion—and, in some cases as I shall say when I talk of the herring, of ownership—the fishing industry, that great strategic element in our national life, will decline, and we shall be hard put to it to man the defence ships around our coasts if another catastrophe overtakes us.
    It is nice, in this debate on agriculture, to have a whiff of sea air. The primary industries of agriculture and fishing are closely connected. The Minister, who seems to be the Pooh-Bah of the Government, is charged with responsibility for food, fish, agriculture and goodness knows what else. He must feel a heavy sense of responsibility.
    I am glad that in the Gracious Speech the Government have said something
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    about their interests in the fishing industry. The Gracious Speech says:
    "My Ministers will continue to foster the interests of the fishing industry."
    That must be one of the classic platitudes, and we can only hope that the reference to the herring industry really does mean something.
    To return to the question of education, a project has been mooted in my constituency by persons interested in all sides of the industry—the catchers, the merchants, and the rest, but primarily the catchers—to set up a school of fishery. It is a most ambitious idea. I do not think that they have yet thought out all the implications, but the main idea is to carry out this project on a fishing vessel, a vessel like the "Sir Lancelot," which is a research establishment and which does a tremendous amount of good work dealing with the scientific aspects of the industry.
    In such a vessel the man could experience the life of a fisherman at sea. The plan could be sponsored by the White Fish Authority or the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, in co-operation with the Herring Industry Board. The Ministry of Education could also come into the picture. It is an ambitious scheme, and it would be practicable if it could be taken up right from the start, and financed by the Government.
    The hon. Member for St. Ives referred to the special responsibility of a Joint Parliamentary Secretary in the Department. In view of his retreat on the Ministers of the Crown (Fisheries) Bill, I wonder whether he is now prepared to support my Ministers of the Crown (Fisheries) Bill if I reintroduce it as a Private Members' Measure. It was a most catastrophic retreat from the militant attitude of hon. Members opposite when they introduced that Bill and, at one whiff of displeasure from their Ministers, withdrew in abject terror. However, the Bill has had a resurrection.
    On the question of the size of mesh, I had a visit recently from a very disturbed net maker. He had great cause for indignation. As the Minister knows, I put a Question to him recently on the invasion of our ports by the Belgians who were fishing with a much smaller mesh than that we were allowed to use. The answer given was most reasonable—that

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    the Government were taking up the matter with the Belgian Government. The complaint of my visitor was about the meticulous care of our inspectors in measuring the gauge of the net.
    The measuring instrument must go reasonably through the mesh without the use of force. Because the inspector could just push the end through, he condemned the whole net. A great deal of indignation was aroused in the port as we felt that again we were being penalised by foreign competition. I shall be glad to send to the right hon. Gentleman the load of net which was sent to me—in fact, I shall be glad to get it off my hands.
    I wish to say something about the promise in the Gracious Speech that the Government will
    "… introduce a Bill to provide further assistance to the herring industry."
    We in Lowestoft are very anxious to know what are the proposals of the Government regarding the herring industry. East Anglia plays a very important part in that great industry, in the catching and selling of fresh herring, cured herring, and fishmeal. We are also making a gallant attempt to recapture the Continental market, especially the Russian market, so wantonly destroyed for political ends during the inter-war years, and I am glad that we are making some progress in that direction.
    Despite the great contribution from East Anglia, however, the "centre of government" in this industry is located with the Secretary of State for Scotland. We do not complain about that, so long as we are assured of fair representation on the advisory councils of the Board and on its committees. I have been at some pains to try to find out what the people concerned with the herring industry really want. It is difficult to find out what the fishing industry really wants. I have been on the periphery of it now for nearly a quarter of a century.
    It is one of those industries which are strongly individualistic. It has many special interests and it is difficult to get the industry to speak as a whole. But I had the opportunity of seeing the Government Press notice of 30th November, in which they refer to
    "… a short Bill to provide a small additional sum for grants to the Herring Industry Board
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    primarily to assist the conversion of surplus herring to oil and meal."
    Just think of those diminutives; "short Bill" and "small amount." The herring industry requires more than that. It is most discouraging when the Government make use of such diminutives.
    Surely the Government are aware that the needs of the industry require an extensive programme, and they should be prepared to provide it. In a later paragraph in the notice, it is stated:
    "The funds at present available for these purposes are likely to become exhausted in the next financial year, and the purpose of the Bill is to provide a small additional sum (not yet determined) …"
    Here is a good chance to determine the amount, to increase it, to put some vitamins into it, and to expand it into a suitable sum for the industry.
    I do not think that my friends in the industry are keen about the use of the herring for meal and oil. We should like to see the real herring play a greater part in the dietary of the people. The hon. Member for St. Ives talked about transport charges and costs, which continue to be one of the major preoccupations of all productive industries. If there is to be an easement of transport charges, I hope that we shall not have the old pernicious transport levy. That was badly conceived and badly administered, and led to a great deal of abuse. It is wrong in principle that one section of an industry might have to bolster up a part of the industry not so efficient.
    Our people would appreciate some help regarding the cost of gear. The way in which the cost of gear in the herring industry has risen is scarcely believable. Before the war drift nets cost 70s. Today the price is £20. We must remember that a drifter has a mile or more of drift nets, and all that gear may be lost in one night should a sudden gale occur. The replenishing of nets involves a tremendous expenditure, and a drain on the resources of the industry. I hope that the question of gear and running costs will be borne in mind.
    We should also like grants similar to, but perhaps not exactly on the same pattern as, the subsidies given by the White Fish Authority to trawlers in the near waters. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) is present in the

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    Chamber. He introduced those subsidies, which have proved a great boon to the industry. They have kept vessels at sea which otherwise would have been tied up. We require something similar to recompense for unremunerative voyages, and to help with the cost of replenishing gear.
    One of the major disabilities of the small man in the fishing industry, the owner of a small trawler or dual-purpose boat—the drifter trawler—is his inability to change over from coal-burning to diesel oil-burning engines. Such a change is beyond the financial capacity of the small man, and the result is obvious. It is only the highly capitalised firms which can afford to undertake this change over, and so the little men are gradually being bought out.
    That is a contradiction of the policy of the Government, who wish to see a property-owning democracy. We shall not have the small owner-worker in the fishing industry unless something is done to enable him to compete with the bigger firms. At present, we are seeing the gradual creation of a near monopoly.
    The question of distribution must be tackled—the distribution from the fish market to the fishmonger's slab and into the frying pan of the housewife. The ratio of distribution costs is too great. The producer is not getting the same balance of profit or reward as the distributor. That may be inevitable under our present system, but the Government must do something about it.
    I am glad that the Government propose to tackle the question of oil, because it is vitally important to the fishing industry. Fish, gear—everything—becomes spoilt. The problem of oil is one of the greatest in our maritime life today. I hope, as is promised in the Gracious Speech that something will be done to alleviate the misery, danger, and frustration ensuing from that great menace.
    The hon. Member for St. Ives mentioned the Icelandic trouble. Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to arrange some sort of get-together on this matter. We are losing our traditional markets. I do not think that Iceland cares "two hoots" whether she trades with us any more or not. We are losing an interchange market worth millions of pounds a year, and I urge the Government to
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    try to organise a get-together. Let our two seafaring nations remember the brotherhood of the sea, and unite to consider whether something can be done.
    We are losing our markets—including our old Russian market—to them. They are penetrating into Germany, and the ill will that has been caused can do nothing but harm to the great fishing industry. I hope that the rather timid approach which the Gracious Speech makes to this problem does not really reflect the feelings of the Government and their supporters. I hope that they will examine the matter, and see that something good is done by the Bill which they propose to produce. I am quite sure that the degree to which this matter has been pressed forward so far does not nearly approach what the industry expects and has a right to demand.
    8.0 p.m.
    Major Patrick Wall: I, also, want to speak about the second member of the Minister's family of triplets—agriculture, fisheries and food. The hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) have already dealt with many of the fishing industry's important problems, such as education, transport and herring fishing. I want to focus my remarks upon the main problem facing the distant water section of the industry, and facing not only the fishermen, but above all the merchants, retailers and fish fryers. I refer to the Icelandic dispute.
    There has recently been much publicity—amounting almost to a campaign—seeking to persuade the industry to lift the ban upon Icelandic landings. I believe that it would be a great disservice to our industry and to our country if that ban were lifted without concessions being given by the other side. Having said that, I want to make it clear, immediately, that everyone in our fishing industry wants to see the end of this unfortunate dispute. The hon. Member for Lowestoft spoke of the brotherhood of the sea. We in the Humber ports have welcomed Icelandic fishermen for generation after generation. We want to see them again, and to see the end of this long-standing dispute.

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    Our industry has always made it quite clear that it wishes to negotiate upon this problem. It has said, "Either we will negotiate now, leaving the ban upon Icelandic landings standing, together with the new Icelandic territorial limits, or we will take off the ban if Iceland withdraws to its original limits and we can then discuss the matter." But the Icelandic Government refuse to consider either alternative. They say that the ban should be lifted first, and then the matter can be discussed. I am sure that hon. Members will agree with me that giving away our main card without any kind of concession from the other side would be ridiculous.
    I should like briefly to refer to the origin of this dispute. In 1952 the Icelandic Government increased their territorial limits from three to four miles. That, however, is not the main question about which British trawlermen are grumbling. The main point at issue is that they have fixed their limits by drawing a line from cape to cape and therefore banning to British fishermen great tracts of water lying in the very large bays, especially those on the West Coast of Iceland. With these new limits it is possible for a trawler to be out of sight of land and still within the newly defined Icelandic waters.
    It can well be appreciated what a problem this causes to a trawler skipper who is trying to fix his position when he is inside waters which are claimed as territorial waters and yet is out of sight of land. Not only that, but the Icelandic Government rigorously enforce their rules that ships running for shelter in bad weather must have the fish cleared from their decks and their nets and tackle stowed and lashed down. I believe that this dispute can be settled by negotiation, if only the other side would agree to start negotiations. I am sure that a start could be made in solving the problem facing trawlers running for shelter.
    But our fishermen would need more than that. What they really want is to be able to fish under the lee of the land in bad weather. That does not mean that they would not be prepared to compromise on the question of the limits of territorial waters. They would probably even go so far as to agree to a four mile limit, provided that some modification
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    were made about the waters in the large bays of Iceland, so that in certain places they could fish under the lee of the land.
    Mr. Edward Evans: The hon. and gallant Member will surely admit that the ban is applied to Icelandic vessels as it is to ours, and that the whole aim of the ban is the conservation of fish.
    Major Wall: I was going to mention the Icelandic claim regarding the conservation of fish. Every fisherman of practically every nation realises that the conservation of fish is not only desirable but essential. We have indicated time and again to the Icelanders that we should be prepared to discuss this question. What we object to is their unilateral action in closing these bays, whether or not they are spawning grounds, without even discussing the matter. That is the crux of the problem.
    Earlier, I said that I believed that if the ban were lifted without any reciprocal action on the part of Iceland it would be a disservice to the country. I should like hon. Members to cast their minds back to the action which has taken place off the coast of South America during the last few weeks. If we should give way and allow the Icelandic Government to extend their territorial limits, where is the matter going to end? The hon. Member for Lowestoft will remember that in 1948 the Icelandic Government passed a law which permitted the extension of their territorial limits to the edge of the Continental shelf. If they implement that law many thousands of miles of fishing grounds could be denied to our vessels. I do not say that they will do so, but that they could, and they might if we give in over this question.
    I suggest to my right hon. Friend that the agreement which, we understand, has been reached with the Danish Government in relation to the Faroes shows what negotiations can do. I understand that each side has given way a little, and so, by negotiation, we have what we believe will prove to be a satisfactory agreement. I hope that my right hon. Friend will try to make the Icelandic Government see that here is a very good example of what can be done by negotiation and, by so doing, perhaps end this unnecessary and unfortunate dispute. It might be possible to persuade them to take the Faxa Bay issue to The Hague Court. I am quite sure

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    that our fishing industry would agree to lift its ban when a judgment of that court were given, whether it was for or against us.
    One of the troubles about going to The Hague Court is that judgment takes a long time, and in the meantime, unless the Icelandic limits were reduced the ban would not be lifted. It would, therefore, be much better for both sides to meet round a table on Governmental level, with, if possible, an independent chairman, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives, to try to find a basis for negotiation. I believe that the key to the whole situation is to get the Icelandic Government to talk with us. If we could do that the problem would eventually solve itself.
    I have spent rather a long time discussing the Icelandic situation, but it is vitally important, not only for the distant water section of the industry, but for the whole trade. It is important that hon. Members should understand the history of the dispute, and what would be involved if we lifted the ban on landings without concessions from the other side.
    May I briefly refer to two other points: first, the question of price. We have read a lot in the newspapers about monopolies and price rings, but it is a good thing to remind hon. Members that fish is still sold at a free auction on the quayside, so that it is rather difficult to talk in the same breath about monopolies and free auctions.
    Then there is the question of reduced winter landings, due, it is said, to this Icelandic landing ban. This affects mainly the port of Grimsby, and I am indebted to the "Fishing News" for the figures of fish landings at that port during the winter months of October to March during the past three years. It is interesting to study these figures and to see that in the winter after the ban was imposed, there were greater landings at Grimsby than was the case in the winter before the ban, and that last year the landings were only slightly less, the reason being that last winter was such an appalling one.
    I do not think it is true to say that the Icelandic ban means that we are not getting enough fish in this country, but that does not imply the opposite, that we do not want Icelandic fish. Of course we do, if we can get it, but the fact
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    that the price of fish goes up in winter is one of the facts of life. We all know the appalling storms and gales which we have had recently round our coasts and these are nothing compared with those in Icelandic waters, and that is the reason for lower landings of fish in the winter months. With less supply, obviously, the price will rise, but I think it is fair to say that the rise in fish prices compares very favourably to the rise in the prices of most other corresponding edibles—meat, and all the rest.
    The quality of fish is an important matter, and we all want to see quality improving year by year. I would just mention the scheme sponsored by the White Fish Authority of freezing at sea of which many of us have great hopes.
    May I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives and the hon. Member for Lowestoft on the subject of the size of mesh? It is absolutely exasperating for our fishermen to see foreign vessels come into our ports eight months after an international agreement has been signed and to find out that these vessels are fishing with an unauthorised size of mesh, whereas our own vessels have been re-equipped at great expense in accordance with the new law. I was very pleased that my right hon. Friend said the other day that something was to be done by way of discussing international regulations designed to permit our own inspectors and fishery cruisers to inspect the nets of foreign vessels within our territorial limits.
    In conclusion, may I thank the Minister for the interest which he has already displayed in the fishing industry? We in the Humber ports were delighted the other day, only a short time after taking over this new job, that he could find the time to pull himself away from agriculture and visit the fishing ports. With that start, we confidently expect him to continue to foster the interests of the fishing industry.
    8.13 p.m.
    Mr. James Johnson: I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Haltemprice (Major Wall) will allow me to leave the maritime areas he has been discussing, since my division is in the centre of England and I want to deal with more bucolic subjects.

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    My constituency, I suppose, is the capital of the electrical engineering industry, but I have more than 40 villages and half a thousand farmers in it. I want to disillusion the Minister from what I would term too much complacency in his good natured acceptance of the advice of his officials concerning the welfare of the farming community. When I go into local marts and see our farmers, I find that there is an enormous amount of dissatisfaction about the Government's policy in regard to deficiency payments, and I want to quote the views of two Midlands leaders of the N.F.U. who cannot be termed as persuaded to our way of thinking on this side of the House.
    I want to refer to the changed opinion which is to be found now in regard to the Government's policy as compared with the schemes introduced over five years ago when my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was Minister, and when he and his assistants had won the affection and respect of the farming community, which is the desire of all politicians but which, I am afraid, they seldom get. What a change now. May I quote from the "Royal Leamington Spa Courier" the views of two leaders of the farming community in my constituency? Alderman Hughes, Chairman of the Warwickshire Agricultural Executive Committee said this at Leamington:
    "The agricultural industry was in a more parlous state now than it bad probably ever been in. It was in a transitional stage from shortage to plenty."
    The other quotation which I wish to make is from a member of the National Executive of the National Farmers' Union, Mr. Harold Green, who, speaking at Leicester, was reported to have said:
    "It was not a bit of use farmers placing any reliance on the present Government's agricultural policy. Although, on paper, they have a guaranteed price and market, they actually have neither, and the position of the small farmer was desperate."
    That is the sad feeling in the country, and I feel that it is important that we should put this before the Minister, because he seemed a little too easy in his opening speech today. If we may laugh off any partisan statements in this Chamber, we must pay attention to statements by gentlemen of this standing, particularly in the farming community itself.
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    Why is this? I have beside me a rather famous "Blue Book" published by the Conservative Party in 1951—"Britain Strong and Free"—in which we have many statements about the policy of this Government, and in which, on page 23, they talk about guaranteeing this and that, stability and such like. But when I get about my own constituency, I find that this Government is sapping the confidence and the harmony of the countryside. I was pleased to hear of the increase in farmworkers' wages, though they have not got as much as they deserve and certainly less than they wanted. They are not now the lowest paid workers at £6 7s. a week. We must be prepared to pay them still more if, in my part of the world, the workers on the land are to remain at their jobs in an area in which there are the great car factories of Coventry and other industries in the Midlands offering well paid jobs and calling men off the land into the towns like Coventry, Leamington, Nuneaton, and so forth.
    I welcome the statement of the Minister of Education the other evening about schools in the countryside, because I have instances where first-class farmworkers with no less than five youngsters have not taken up agricultural work in the countryside around Leamington and Rugby because there was not a decent school in the village to which they were expected to go. This new push in education by the Government will go a long way towards holding them on the land.
    I find from the June returns that this year we are ploughing less land, and I think that the general figure is something like 429,000 acres less under tillage than was the case last year. It seems to me that the farmers are playing safe at the moment, because they do not know where they are going and they are pulling in their horns. I do not myself like to see what I would term the "dog-and-stick" farmer coming back today. It has always been a bad sign when we have had the dog-and-stick farmer on the land, and it is an ominous sign for the future.
    I believe that a cause of anxiety is to be found in this deficiency payment system. We get figures something like £250 million paid out of the Exchequer, and I do not know whether this or any other Government has ever paid what is virtually a blank cheque in this particular

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    way. In the future, it may be an even larger figure and an even bigger shock for the agricultural industry.
    Then there is the awful muddle and the farce of pig marketing. That has caused enormous consternation. I have heard of decent hard-working farmers who could not even get their pigs to market. I know of one case in Yorkshire where they took their pigs 40 miles before they could sell them.
    It seems that the whole matter of the deficiency payment is a somewhat crazy business. Housewives complain that they have to pay more for their meat, while farmers get no more for it. Indeed, some farmers complain that they now get less. I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) talking about turning our minds towards more efficient marketing. Whether it be a producers marketing board, like the Milk Marketing Board, or not, I am all in favour of looking at this question, because I fear that much of this leakage is going on between the housewife and the producer.
    If I may, I will again quote one of my Midland leaders, Mr. Green. When addressing farmers at Leamington, he said:
    "The future of agriculture lay not in Governments, but in a 100 per cent. loyalty to the N.F.U., which, as such, had got up to adopt a more militant attitude in dealing with the farmers' obvious enemies—the people to whom they sold their produce under the present system. Farmers would have to formulate their own marketing schemes, voluntarily if the Government would not permit compulsory plans, and the N.F.U. would also have to enter the view of co-operative purchasing for farmers."
    I welcome any suggestion for an efficient marketing in this way. I think that the Fatstock Marketing Corporation has been a wonderful success in the vacuum created by the lack of policy of this Government. Local farmers near Rugby allege that the old cliques are again appearing at the markets. When I go to my local market, I see sheep worth about £6 10s. or more being knocked down for £5 5s. or £5 10s.
    We were told today that the deficiency payment for wheat was something like £8 7s. 6d. We, the taxpayers, are having to foot the bill in this way. If the object of the Government is to get cheap food from overseas in order to cut down the cost of living, and, in particular, to give
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    the urban dweller and the factory worker cheaper food, then they are making a mistake.
    In my view, if they propose to depend on cheap supplies of food from overseas, they are making a big mistake. I believe that the days of cheap food have gone for ever. We cannot depend on cheap coolie labour or on cheap pioneer labour of Europeans in our Dominions overseas. Both deserve a fair return for their work. The shift upwards in the price of tea in Ceylon is indicative of what we can expect in future in the matter of food from overseas.
    I believe that perhaps in two years' time there may be a food shortage. Canada has had one of the worst harvests on record, and I think that the supposed surpluses being built up in the Western hemisphere is a myth. The Argentinians and others are today consuming far more of the supplies which in the past they used to send to us.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) has, in the past, gained much fame and perhaps some obloquy by attacking the food subsidies of his own past Labour Governments. He has been carrying out an unflagging "feather-bed" campaign in this connection. I would hardly accuse the Minister of being a "crypto-Evanite," but I would say that by his policy of deficiency payments, now that the urban dweller and the countryside worker know that we have a £250 million bill or more, he will, in the future widen the gap between the urban dweller and the countryside worker.
    They will get to know that in place of the old honest-to-goodness-above-the-counter £300 million subsidy, with a definite farming policy for the nation, we have now got this under the counter concealed subsidy of deficiency payments. We are paying almost as much—£250 million as opposed to £300 million—and, of course, there is now no firm policy as opposed to the decent policy of guaranteed prices which we had five or six years ago.
    Mr. H. Nicholls: Does the hon. Gentleman accept the logical consequence of what he is recommending? If the subsidy is to be paid to the housewife over the counter, does he want to bring back the ration book, because that would be inevitable?
    Mr. Johnson: I will leave that to be answered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who will be winding up this debate. If the hon. Gentleman will read the literature of my party he will see what we propose to do when we get back into power in less than 12 months' time.
    I ask the Minister to look where his policy is leading, because we need a united countryside and united urban workers if the nation is to get out of the difficulties which has confronted it over the last 10 years. To do that, we must not only pay the worker good wages, but must also give the tenant farmer stability and confidence. When I talk to our farmers, I realise that they have not got those things. The sooner we get back to the old days, and the sooner the party opposite are out of office, the better.
    8.28 p.m.
    Mr. Rupert Speir: I am sure that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) will not expect me to deal with every point that he has made. I am glad that, in his long survey, and in his criticisms of the present Government's policy, he at any rate thanked the Government for their proposed Measures for dealing with rural education and the provision of amenities in the way of halls and playing fields in the rural areas. I believe that every hon. Member representing a rural area will welcome the Government's proposals for improving these amenities, because I am sure that we are all anxious about this continuous drift from the land.
    A very considerable drift has been taking place, and it will be useless for the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), when he winds up the debate, to suggest that this drift has only taken place since this Government came to office. There was a very considerable loss of regular agricultural workers from the land between 1949 and 1951. Many of the speeches today have drawn attention to this drift, and I am glad that attention is being directed to what is such a very important subject from the point of view of the countryside.
    Various suggestions have been put forward as to the reasons for that drift and what steps should be taken to prevent it. I believe that the lack of adequate transport in the rural areas, particularly in the
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    more remote areas, is largely responsible for this loss of labour. Many farmers in the remote areas have told me that the first question by a prospective employee is, "What are the transport services like?" If the reply is that there are neither bus nor train services, the farmer's chances of getting the employee to come to his farm are exceedingly remote.
    It is also true that since the war farmers themselves have become more mobile. But, unfortunately, the more mobile that farmers become, the less they and their families use public transport, and the less remunerative public transport becomes as a result. We must face up to the fact that in these remote areas public transport no longer pays its way, but if the transport system breaks clown, the whole life of the countryside becomes threatened, disorganised, and depressed. That certainly is the position in some of the long and lonely valleys of Northumberland.
    The danger is that this drift may become cumulative in effect; it may have a snowball effect, and a vicious spiral may develop. The fewer the people who live in the rural areas, the more difficult it is to provide amenities for them; and the fewer the amenities, the greater the drift from the land. In one Northumberland valley in my constituency, the local cinema has had to be closed because the bus service has been withdrawn. That is one example of the cumulative effect of the drift. The danger point has now been reached in the depopulation of many rural areas, and the problem of depopulation now needs to be tackled on a national basis.
    If, in the coming years, as has been suggested in this debate, we are to lose still more good and valuable agricultural land, the only alternative, if we are to keep up our production, is to make better use of our marginal land. We cannot possibly hope to make better use of our marginal and hill lands unless we have adequate numbers of workers on the hill farms. At the moment, we are spending vast sums of public money in providing electricity, telephones, roads, sewers, houses, and now, also secondary schools in the rural areas.
    It is worse than useless, however, to spend these vast sums in providing those

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    amenities in the rural areas unless at the same time we deal with the problem of transport. We must get the priorities right, and all these amenities must advance together. During the past two years many representations have been made to me by local councils and other public bodies about the lack of transport and the withdrawal of bus services in the rural areas. I, in turn, have made representations both to the Minister of Transport and to the licensing authority.
    The attitude so far adopted by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation has been that it is impossible for him to force operators to run unremunerative services. He has also said that no money is available to subsidise those services, and so far he has been unwilling to do anything to prevent the Transport Commission from closing branch railway lines.
    In many parts of the country, especially in the remote districts, the operators of buses are small men, or small companies, and if the services do not pay their way there is no alternative but to withdraw them. They have not remunerative services against which they can balance the uneconomic services. Why do these bus services not pay their way? Why have so many bus routes been cancelled in the last few years? It is due partly to the enormous increase in running costs. This in turn is due partly to Government action, not only by this Government, but by the last two Socialist Governments.
    One of the major items in the cost of operating bus services is the cost of oil and petrol, and the way in which the tax on oil and petrol has been increased is fantastic. In 1946, just after the Socialist Government had taken office, the duty was 9d, per gallon. The Socialist Government put it up to 1s. 10d. a gallon.
    Mr. A. C. Manuel: What is it now?
    Mr. Speir: Now, it is 2s. 6d. [Interruption.] It is no wonder that rural buses are not pay their way, and I am very glad to have the support of hon. Members opposite in saying it is time that the duty on diesel oil, at any rate, was reduced.
    Another matter which requires attention is the closing of branch railway lines
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    by the British Transport Commission. Far too many of them have already been closed since nationalisation, and a great many more are threatened with closure. The Commission has made no attempt, has exercised no effort nor imagination, to try to run these lines in a modern way. No one in the rural areas expects either fast or frequent services, but what people there would like is some kind of service on the branch lines, and they certainly would like them kept open.
    At the moment, the Commission is doing nothing to try to operate these lines as modern requirements demand. The Commission ought to adopt a different mentality in regard to these branch lines.
    Mr. E. G. Willis:. We cannot run railways on mentality..
    Mr. Speir: The Commission ought to cut costs, and to run them with a tram mentality—it ought to turn the branch lines into light railways. Let trains run as buses on rails, and let them stop wherever passengers want to get on or off. That has been done in many other countries, and it is certainly time we attempted to do it in this country, too.
    I do not suggest that these branch lines will ever pay. The postal services in the rural areas do not pay, nor do the services provided by the banks in the rural areas, but the Post Office and the banks and, to an extent, the electricity boards look upon the services which they provide in the rural areas as essential services, and it is high time that the British Transport Commission was persuaded to adopt that kind of attitude.
    It is quite clear that there is no simple or single solution to this very real problem of rural depopulation, but it is one adversely affecting agricultural production at the present time. I realise that even today, with fewer workers on the land in England and Wales than there were before the war, we are producing 55 per cent. more food—and that is a very wonderful record—but the fact remains that the present agricultural workers are an ageing population, and comparatively few young workers are coming on to the land. Therefore, it is high time the Government gave this problem their attention. I hope that during this Session they will do their best to provide means for ensuring, in particular, that transport facilities are improved in the rural areas.
    8.38 p.m.
    Mr. Victor Collins: It is very proper for the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) to draw attention to the needs of the rural areas and to the need for stepping up production on marginal land, but whatever is done in regard to marginal lands, however much production on those lands is increased, it could not possibly make good the production that is going to be lost, if it has not already been lost, because of the policy of the present Government. One of the things about this debate that impresses me very sadly is the Minister's complete unawareness of the disastrous trends in production which have arisen as a result of the Government's policy.
    I regard increasing agricultural production as the basis of present and future national prosperity. The position at present is that the confidence of the farmers is very largely destroyed. The Minister did not accept that as a fact. He went so far as to say that the transfer to free markets had been successfully accomplished. I think that that is absolute nonsense. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman will find a practising farmer anywhere agreeing with that, or agreeing with his statement that confidence has not been destroyed.
    I have in my possession something which would convince the Minister far more than the comments in the farming papers, all of which are in agreement about the position in the industry. It is a report of a meeting in the West Country, called by Wessex Conservatives only last week. The chairman, in moving a motion, said:
    "There was unrest, uncertainty and anxiety among those engaged in agriculture. That could not be denied."
    He went on, of course, to say that the present Government have done a magnificent job, but he added:
    "Before the war farmers were extremely sensitilve and nervous of a Socialist Government, but they had found after some years of a Socialist Government, and for reasons that were obvious, that they had done very well."
    The motion was seconded by the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Crouch), who said that there was unrest among the agricultural community. He was reported as saying:
    "He did not think that they were worried about the present financial position. What they
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    were worried about was the future outlook, as so many of them remembered what had happened in the 20's and they feared that it might happen again."
    That should be far more convincing to the Minister than statements from this side of the House or in the farming Press. Farming Members opposite are saying in public that there is fear of the future, unrest, uncertainty and bewilderment.
    Mr. Manuel: Revolt.
    Mr. Collins: Perhaps revolt.
    If farmers are feeling like that, the effect on production is inevitable. It is going down. It is true that we have had bad weather and difficult harvesting. Those are risks which always occur in farming and I do not want to make anything of that argument. The things which are causing the farmers to think again are the kind of things which have happened in the case of pig production.
    The number of pigs was increased by over one million in twelve months and just at the point when we reached peak production the means of marketing and payment were altered. Farmers transferred from pork to bacon pigs in the hope of getting a fair price when the pork market collapsed, and they found that the factories could not take the pigs. We had the ridiculous situation in which farmers were offering pigs and only 50 per cent. of the pigs they offered were being taken.
    The longer the farmers kept the pigs the more they cost and the heavier they got. Then if they were a pound or two overweight they made not £20 but £13. It is completely idle to pretend that that has not already had a disastrous effect on production. There are also about 250,000 empty sows in the country from which pigs will not be bred. The Minister is fortunate in this debate that we have not yet had the December returns.
    Another point was brought to my mind by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) when he advised the Minister to give heed to the injunction:
    "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?"
    That has particular appropriateness in connection with the subsidies which the Minister said might amount to anything

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    from £200 million to £250 million. In my view the subsidies will amount to a good deal more than £250 million. We already find that the subsidy will be £10 or more per ton on wheat, amounting to 2,750,000 tons. The subsidy is already £9 3s. 6d. this morning. The subsidy will be as much as £8 per acre on 5,250,000 acres of barley and oats. We know that meat prices are costing about £1 million a week in subsidies. Earlier in the year subsidies on eggs were running at over £1 million a week. Therefore, it does not take long to arrive at a figure of about £250 million. I believe that the subsidies will amount to over £300 million.
    When we were in office and subsidies were running at about £450 million, they were used to reduce prices to the housewife. This time the housewife does not benefit by a penny from those subsidies. The farmers are aware of this. It means that the taxpayer is not only paying higher prices through the removal of controls and the consumer food subsidies, but he will have to pay through taxation in support of those subsidies which do not do him any good and which are ruining the farmer for the future. They only benefit the middle man, who is the friend of the party opposite. That kind of thing cannot go on, and those hon. Members opposite who have the interests of the countryside at heart must realise the damage that their policy is doing.
    Only this morning we read in the newspapers that the farmworkers are to get an increase of 7s. per week in the minimum wage. It has been said on this side—and I agree with it—that it is not enough for these skilled workers, who are still 50s. per week below the average earnings of other skilled workers. But it should be remembered that the entire wage bill in the farming industry is still likely to be less than the level of subsidies to the farmers. In other words, the taxpayer is paying the entire wage bill in the farming industry. When that becomes generally realised it is a situation that will not be tolerated.
    Imagine what would have been said by the Tory Party if we as a Government had suggested that the wages bill in the coal industry or in the transport industry should be paid by the taxpayer. At least some cheap coal or cheap fares would be expected in return, but the
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    position in the farming industry is that direct subsidies to the farmer are amounting to more than the wage bill of the industry but we are not getting cheap food. As has been said in another context, only an organising genius from private enterprise could produce a situation of that kind.
    I submit that this is a very serious business which arises inevitably out of the doctrinaire Tory devotion to free enterprise. The Minister calls his policy flexible stability. I have been sitting here for six hours trying to think of an article which combines those two qualities, and all I can think of is a fruit jelly. That is the kind of thing where the flexibility remains but the stability disappears when it melts, just as the farmers' confidence has melted under the storm and stress of Tory policy.
    There is one other point to which I want to refer in a few sentences, and that is the question of horticulture. The Minister has made reference to the appointment of another committee, but 30 years' ago we had a committee on horticulture, which was the principal committee on the subject, the Linlithgow Committee. The hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) this afternoon read extracts from the Report of that Committee, and those of us who know anything about horticulture know that in essence it stated all that was necessary. But the Minister has told us now that the solution after three years of Conservative rule is the appointment of another committee.
    I remember at the General Election in 1950 the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who was then the expert of the Tory Party on horticulture—some of us might think he would have been better to remain an expert on horticulture instead of advancing into the Colonies and other fields—and I were invited to state the policy of our respective parties in horticulture. The right hon. Gentleman stated then that the Conservative Party had a policy for horticulture that would work. Within a few months they had the opportunity to make it work.
    What has happened in the meantime? Nothing administratively, nothing by way of legislation, only this: that the prices of vegetables yielded one-third less in 1953 to 1954 than in 1952 to 1953. Can

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    anyone mention any other industry where, in spite of hard work, the value of its produce has gone down by 331 per cent.? This year the acreage of vegetables has declined by 15 per cent. That is a natural cause and effect.
    The Minister said not only that he would set up another committee to investigate what we already know, but that he thought tariffs would take care of the situation. Tariffs have no effect on the production of home-grown vegetables. For instance, we do not import cabbages. Most vegetables are the result of home production. And it is complete, unfettered, private enterprise. Nobody subsidises English vegetables, so all the conditions in which the party opposite delight are present in the production, distribution and sale of vegetables. Yet the value to the grower has gone down by one-third in one year and his acreage has been cut by 15 per cent.
    I suggest to the party opposite, therefore, that they have failed completely in this matter. Their actions so far have been disastrous and are causing anxiety to those of us who feel keenly for the land and believe that the prosperity of this country depends on an efficient agriculture, producing to the full what can be efficiently produced from our land. What has happened in the last three years on the land, and particularly in the last 12 months, is a disaster to this country because the party opposite, despite what they said in 1948 in their Agricultural Charter, have destroyed the farmer's guarantees and his confidence. They have cut down food production and there is a prospect of further catastrophic falls. They have put up prices to the housewife and they have forced the taxpayer to pay subsidies equal to the entire wage bill of the industry without any compensation in lower food prices.
    I make these charges and I do not think that right hon. and hon Gentlemen opposite can wriggle out of them, as the Minister succeeds in wriggling out of responsibility for bacon prices. He cannot, however, wriggle out of these charges. For these things the right hon. Gentleman has to answer to this House as, in due course, he and the Government will, to their cost, have to answer to the electorate.
    8.54 p.m.
    Major D. McCallum: The hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins) will, I know, forgive me if I do not follow his rather mournful tale about all the evil doings of the Government. My own observations in a recent by-election have been that the country is satisfied with what the Government are doing—
    Mr. Willis: Not in Scotland.
    Major McCallum: And in Scotland—and by no means confirm his gloomy views.
    I have only a few minutes in which to speak because I do not want the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) to be deprived of any of his time for winding up the debate, but knowing his good nature, I am sure he will not mind if Scotland contributes one or two words before he speaks. I understand that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is responsible for agriculture there, will wind up the debate for the Government, and I hope that he may find time to answer one or two questions about Scotland.
    The Minister of Agriculture has given a general indication of the effect of the disastrous summer and autumn upon crop conditions, and especially of winter keep prospects, in England and Wales. I wonder whether my hon. Friend can give us a general outline of the position in Scotland. I feel that certain parts of Scotland have suffered even worse than England. The summer and autumn have been disastrous, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, and also in such counties as Ayrshire.
    The hon. Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies) referred to flooding. I have often worried my hon. Friend on the subject of arterial drainage. In view of what has happened during the summer and autumn, we can imagine what conditions have been like in, for instance, the southern end of the peninsula of Kintyre. Normally the farms there are half under water during the winter, but this year they have been completely flooded.
    One of the subjects in the Gracious Speech of particular interest to Scottish Members is the Report of the Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs. I am

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    very glad to learn that its recommendations are to be acted upon, and I hope that that will be done in the fairly near future. I wonder whether my hon. Friend could give me a little information about the Report from the agricultural point of view. The Report says that the responsibility for animal health will be taken over by the Department of Agriculture for Scotland except in relation to foot-and-mouth disease, and other diseases of that nature which may lead to epidemics. I should like a little further enlightenment on that point.
    My last, and most important, point concerns the reference in the Gracious Speech to the Government's determination to introduce legislation to implement the Report of the Crofters' Commission. The lateness of the hour does not permit me to develop the subject as it ought to be developed. It is a most vital matter to the Highlands and Islands.
    The drafting of the legislation will have to be done with very great tact. The crofting community is one of the most conservative communities in the country. If there was any suspicion that any of the security given to the crofters by the 1886 Act was to be removed, and that there would not be adequate protection and safeguards, I am afraid that we should find a great deal of opposition to the Measure. I am certain that it is within the powers of the Secretary of State and his Department to make it clear to the crofting communities that the legislation will be designed to improve their conditions, to increase their security of tenure, and to make arrangements for the future of the old people.
    One of the most difficult problems of all will be that of crofters who are now too old to cultivate their land. They cannot be turned out of their houses. Whether it will be a matter of building separate communities only for the old people, or what other arrangements will in the end be made, I do not know, but I hope that the greatest care will be taken, when the Bill is introduced, to look after the old people properly.
    I want to make a plea about the type of persons to be nominated to be the chairman and members of the Crofters' Commission. I say this with all due respect, but I hope that the chairman of the Commission is not going to be a politician of any party—[An HON. MEMBER: "A non-political Tory."]—a
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    non-political Scotsman who has a background in crofting. I ask that one of the members should be able to speak Gaelic, as Gaelic is spoken by at least one-third of the crofters as their native tongue. At least one of the members should be able to understand them when they come to give evidence on their own behalf.
    That is a matter on which I feel very strongly, and I feel that if the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) had been able to be called, he would have reinforced the plea that the very greatest care should be taken in the selection of members. In bringing forward these two recommendations about Scotland in the Gracious Speech, I congratulate the Government, in contradistinction to the mournful tale which we had from the previous speaker.
    9.2 p.m.
    Mr. George Brown: We have had one of our usual, interesting agricultural debates, covering a wide ground—Northern Ireland came in the middle of it—and from our side of the House we have had two interesting speeches about which I should like to remind the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, because they did not fit into the pattern, or the main stream of the discussion. But he should remember them when he is winding up the debate.
    One was by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), who drew our attention to the very important question that will affect not only the textile industry but the wool and sheep section of our agricultural industry, and on which I am sure some comment should be made by the Government spokesman. The other was by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) on the fishing industry, to which he has given so much distinguished service and to which the Joint Under-Secretary should give a reply.
    The general debate has been raised because of what we regard as a very serious gap in the Gracious Speech. In a speech which is not to be generally regarded as over-full of important matters and good works, there is a general reference to the position of the agricultural industry which seems to us extremely thin. It takes no account of what is happening in the agri-

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    cultural industry at the moment. It takes no account of the very dangerous situation that may well be building up for the nation unless some steps are taken to deal with it.
    I have something to say about the Minister's speech—I presume he is coming back—but I will leave them until he returns. I do not complain of his absence. Obviously, he could not be here, and I shall withhold my comments until he arrives, as in due time he will.
    The really outstanding omission in all we have been told today, and in all that the Government have had to say about agriculture recently, is the failure on their part to make any clear declaration about how they now regard increasing agricultural production at home. They have changed their minds so very much in the last few years from the time of the White Paper of 1952—the first Price Review paper they produced—that now it is quite impossible to know to what extent they regard increased home food production as an urgent and important matter.
    The Minister's predecessor, who went out of office in circumstances which most of us regarded as very sad, struck a most unhappy note on which to go out when he introduced into his last speech the statement on behalf of the Government that they had now decided that food production was not as all-important as it had been two years before. Some of us said then that not only was that an absolute contradiction of all that the Government had been saying for three years, but that, once it was admitted that food production was not as important as that, all sorts of consequences flowed from it.
    Some of my hon. Friends have been twitted about proving that output is falling at a time when the Minister was able to announce that the figure—before the effect of the harvest is taken into account—was up by 55 per cent. over pre-war. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen must not read too much into that. If they wait until there is an absolute actual decline in output before they recognise that the trend is there, they will have waited until the crisis is upon us and is too severe to deal with.
    What we want hon. Members on the Government benches to recognise is that, in fact, their own announcement about the lessening importance of food produc-
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    tion, followed by the steps they have taken since, is producing a situation in which the trend of agricultural production is bound to be wholly against the national interest. The statement of the Minister today has shown no improvement at all on what his predecessor said.
    Let us look very quickly at the progress of Tory thought. It begins with the Agricultural Charter, in which some of the present occupants of the Treasury Bench had a considerable hand. In 1948, when this was issued, they were quite clear about what they wanted for British agriculture. They said:
    "… we intend to sponsor a fully productive agriculture and will give the British farmer real confidence in the future by guaranteed prices and markets for all the food he can produce…to our overall target."
    In fact, if we compare that extravagantly optimistic statement, that tremendously wide assertion of guaranteed prices and markets for all the food that the farmer can produce, with the statement of the present Minister that it is not all that important any more, we can see what a long way we have come.
    Similarly, in the 1952 Price Review White Paper, the Government set out a list of headings under the general description of "Future Production Policy." One of those was
    "Through the better use of grasslands"—
    this was the aim they were setting before the industry—
    "… release one million acres for addition to the tillage area (apart from the additional acreage already expected to be ploughed up …) A substantial part of the one million acres would carry coarse grains."
    Yet today the Minister tells us that if the tillage acreage has dropped it does not really matter in itself, that it is a question of the use to which the land is put when it has gone out of tillage; but if it has gone out of tillage it cannot be put to coarse grain, and, if it has gone out of tillage, what was the point of asking for an extra million acres only two years ago? I remember how the Tories used to wax eloquent about the alleged—often they were only alleged—sudden switches of policy when we were in office. How sudden has a sudden switch of policy to be when the Tories are in power? They asked for a million extra tillage acres in 1952, and a million extra pigs, and in 1954 they decide that they do not want either.
    Mr. Amory: I really must interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I repeat again that we have not too many pigs in this country at present. We do not in any way regret the increase in the production of pigs.
    Mr. Brown: I am coming to the statement of the Minister about pigs.
    Last night I was in Devon, where the Minister is known for other works. I was talking to 150 farmers. It is no use the Minister saying, "We do not regret the increase in pig production," because the farmers who produced them do. They have to carry the loss. They found that the Minister had not the factories in which to deal with the pigs. It meant that a million extra pigs were obtained in answer to the call for increased production, and then they were not wanted because the processing factories were not there to deal with them.
    The Minister has himself said—unless he wishes to retract it, and I will give way if he does—that not only are the million extra acres of tillage asked for in 1952 not required, but that he does not much mind if the tillage acreage drops. Presumably he does not think that the tillage acreage, or the arable cultivation which would come from it, is so important? He does not retract, and, therefore, that must be presumed to be a fair statement of his views.
    I say that the Government are "buck passing" the whole way. It is easy to say to us, "Oh, you want to tell the farmers exactly what to grow and how and where to grow it." The Minister says that he prefers to leave it to the individual farmer to decide for himself how to play his part, and where to play it. But if the farmer is to be given no lead at all as to policy, if the Government keep switching about between more tillage and less tillage, more pigs and fewer pigs, that is simply "buck passing."
    It is not a virtue, although it may be put in a virtuous way, and a high sounding principle may be made out of it. But really it is the simple old Army game of "passing the buck" down the line. In this case, the individual farmer is in the place of the Army private. He is the chap to whom everyone "passes the buck," but he has to get on with the job.
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    We were glad to hear the Minister make his first major speech at the Dispatch Box. But I hope that in the period—forecast by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) to be two years—during which he will be Minister—if he is extremely lucky—that when he looks back on his major performances at the Dispatch Box, he will have other speeches to contemplate than this one on flexible stability and watercress.
    The only contribution of the Minister to relieving the worry and anxiety of the farming community, and the only thing he could tell farmers I met in his own county last night was, "Never mind, we have had a good year for watercress." That could hardly do less justice to the problem. Someone has said that the only example of flexible stability is a jelly. I suggest that the Minister has no clue to what it means. It is a phrase which he has often used since he became Minister, but I am sure that he does not know much about it.
    Another thing that worried me about his speech was that one theme song ran the whole way through. He is going to watch everything. He is going to be a really champion nightwatchman or chief of the Observer Corps for the rest of his time. He had no constructive proposals to add to anything. He is setting up a few committees, some with chairmen and some without, but beyond that he has no proposals to make. He spoke about this worry and that anxiety, and about various problems, and he always ended up by saying, "But I shall go on watching it very closely."
    Something more than that is required, even for a new Minister who has to find his way around an industry which he has just taken over. When he said, rather cheerfully, "Anyhow, I am enjoying myself at the moment," two people came to my mind. First, Anne Boleyn said the same thing at a certain period in her career, and the result was just the same. The other person who enjoyed himself was Nero, but Rome burned just the same. The fact is that the Minister is hugely enjoying himself while farmers are worried, the industry is getting into a difficult situation, and—what worries me even more—the consumer and the taxpayer are having to bear a tremendous

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    burden. The Minister's enjoyment seems to be somewhat irrelevant in the circumstances.
    I believe that the Minister has unfortunately come into his job, and picked up—I do not think he brought it in with him—either from within the Department, which I hate to believe, or from somebody around him, a most unfortunate misapprehension. When he addressed the farmers at Saffron Walden—a meeting which I think he will agree was not altogether successful—he referred to "the dramatic change in world supplies." He has repeated that phrase several times since. I believe that he used it today.
    Mr. Amory Mr. Amory indicated dissent.
    Mr. Brown: I was taking a note of his words, and I thought that he used that phrase, but if he says he did not I accept that.
    I do not believe that he can substantiate his argument that there has been a dramatic change in world supplies. There has certainly been no dramatic change in our position in relation to world supplies. All that the Food and Agriculture Organisation says is that whereas world population has risen annually by 1½ per cent. in the last year or two, world food production, for the first time, has overtaken that rise and is now rising annually by 3 per cent. Whether or not that extra 1½ per cent. will go far towards meeting the problem of world malnutrition and underfeeding, I do not know.
    This is not only a sentimental emotional matter, but something which is at the bottom of our political problems. Whether or not this rise in production is to be regarded as so great that it makes a dramatic change in world supplies, I venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that before he uses that argument again he should look at the implications of the world situation. I think that world supplies are still dangerously low, and the Minister knows better than anybody else that if the three unusually good harvests in North America are now followed—as it is quite likely they may be—by two or three bad ones, the dramatic change will really be there, and we shall be right back where we were. It is really silly to present a policy based upon a belief that the situation has
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    dramatically changed when the change has been of such a small order.
    It is quite true that, at one stage of his speech this afternoon, the Minister said that we need the utmost production, and that the ceiling was the limit. How can the ceiling be the limit in a situation in which we are doling out enormous sums of money to make up the deficiency on the already existing production? Farmers do not believe that the ceiling can possibly be the limit.
    Although he was very coy about the actual figures, and I do not know why he should be so coy, the Minister told us, when pressed, that the cost of these subsidies and deficiency payments was £200 million, but when I pressed him further he said it was between £200 million and £250 million. He must know at what figure it is currently running, and he must know how much it has cost already in this year.
    I think it is fair to ask the Under-Secretary to be a little more frank with the House tonight. How much has the subsidy cost us in hard cash so far this year? We are already eight or nine months of the way through the financial year, and, if he will not tell us, and I gather that either he cannot or will not, will he tell us at what rate it is running now? From £200 million to £250 million there is a very big gap, and we ought to get a little nearer to it than that. My hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins) may well have been quite right. It may well be running at more than £250 million, and if the ceiling is to be the limit, it can be any figure. It may be, of course, that the Minister's coyness, inability or unwillingness to give the figure is the major criticism of the Government's so-called policy.
    I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury in one remark, in which he talked about the subsidies going to the farmers. In this situation, that is just what it is not doing. In this situation, it is going straight from the farmers to the middlemen and the dealers. In Devon last night, the Minister may like to know, at a meeting in Totnes, they told me of pigs which had been selling in the market there at 14s. per score, and had attracted substantial deficiency payments, but that

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    the same pork was being sold in shops in London at 3s. a lb., and more.
    This scheme never brought the price down to the consumer. The money neither stayed with the farmer nor went to the consumer, and this device of the Government is not a policy for backing up agriculture. When the Minister keeps warning the farmers, as he and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor have done, telling them that the Government cannot carry the cost of this much longer, because it is too high, and that the farmers themselves must get it down, he was really being outrageously unfair. Of course, it is not the farmers Who can bring this cost down; it is Government policy. This is a device to give presents to the auctioneers, merchants, and dealers.
    I met the day before yesterday a farmer from Kent, a man not in association with my party, just as none of those at the meeting in Devon last night were, who gave me one example of the effect of this scheme. He said, "I had to sell something at the beginning of this winter, and I sold some barley. When I offered it to my merchant, he said, 'I really do not want it. I can buy, and am buying, French foreign barley—'" [HON. MEMBERS: "French?"] Hon. Members should not jump. Foreign barley. [Interruption.] Really, hon. Gentlemen opposite are being a little bit silly. I shall wait, and the pause will only reduce the Minister's time.
    This merchant said, "We are able to buy foreign barley for less money, get it a little bit dryer and easier to handle, so that I really do not want yours." I am told that, in the end, the farmer did sell some at £4 a quarter. With the help of his merchant, he traced that barley through, and it ended up in the Carlsberg Brewery.
    What has happened is that we have provided the foreign currency to enable merchants to import foreign grain in order that our grower could be told, "We do not really want your barley, and we shall have to pay you a lot less than the standard price." Then the merchant sells out to an overseas brewery for an unsubsidised price. Therefore, we have profiteering at every stage.
    Mr. Archer Baldwin Mr. Archer Baldwin (Leominster)rose—
    Mr. Brown: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman.
    We, the taxpayers, have paid a very considerable deficiency payment to no purpose at all. Therefore, I say that this is an outrageous racket.
    What is worrying farmers—this is what worried the farmers in the Minister's own county last night—is that they know that this cannot go on. They know that this kind of drain is too big a burden. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer keeps warning them, and the Minister again warns them, they know very well that the likelihood of losing the payment is very much on the cards. I say quite frankly to the Minister, and to those hon. Members opposite who have heckled all the afternoon about what our policy is on this issue, that it is not our Gracious Speech which is under discussion.
    Mr. H. Nicholls: On a point of order. Is there any way, under the rules of the House, Mr. Speaker, of bringing to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman that if any heckling has taken place it was he who did it during the whole of my right hon. Friend's speech?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order.
    Mr. Brown: No doubt the hon. Gentleman has been waiting for 25 minutes to say that, and now that he has at last got it off his chest we may get along a little better.
    It is not relevant, on this occasion, to discuss what is missing from the Gracious Speech. I say that there is no way out of this absurd position, no way of guaranteeing agriculture, and no way of ensuring the utmost food production without this unlimited drain on the Exchequer, except by a return to guaranteed prices and assured markets.
    Mr. Anthony Hurd: State trading.
    Mr. Brown: Not State trading. Unless we have guaranteed prices and fix the markets for which we guarantee the prices, there is no knowing our liability. Neither is there any possible way of limiting it, or of seeing that the payment gets to the farmer, to whom we want it to get.
    I will not go through the individual muddles—we do not lay all these at the

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    door of the present Minister because he has been unlucky enough to inherit them, although he was a Minister in the previous Administration and, therefore, has some responsibility—but there is the pig muddle, the grain muddle, the livestock muddle, and the egg muddle.
    Every one of them has been the most colossal muddle ever since the hon. Member for Luton (Dr. Hill), who has sat throughout the debate today, and his right hon. and gallant Friend decided to rush the previous Minister of Agriculture off his feet and get to what they called "freedom" in no time at all. They went flatly against the advice given to them by everyone. They hared straight on.
    There has not been a single case of a turnover from the old system to the new which has not ended in a colossal muddle, and, at the end of the muddle, in a colossal payment of public money for no purpose, as I say, but to cover up the muddle they made. This Government have been the most expensive Government, in terms of public money paid out to cover up mistakes, that we have ever had.
    There is one other point about which I want to ask the Minister. I want to ask him about his remarks concerning land use. I am really rather surprised at what he said. In a casual sort of way—the charming, friendly way which he has—he made a reference today to a major change in the Act. He told us that the Government propose to refer no more areas of land to the Land Commission for inquiry, as a preliminary to possible acquisition under Section 84 of the 1947 Act. I want the House to know what that means, because that is the first major part of the Act to be abrogated completely.
    Up to now, the Government have been dropping the Act quietly and tacitly, without people understanding what was happening. Now, we have had today a major policy announcement that Section 84 is to be dropped. It is Section 84 which enables the Minister to deal with areas of agricultural land of which full and efficient use is not being made, and whose full and efficient use is prevented by reason of fixed equipment not being provided, and which it is not reasonable to expect to be provided, and so on.
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    Now we are told, therefore, that in addition to everything else that they are doing about agriculture, the Government have decided—and this is the answer to the hon. Member who raised the question about marginal land—to wipe out of existence, certainly not to use, the Section of the Act under which that very marginal land and ill-equipped land can be dealt with.
    I am bound to ask the Minister this question. If food production is still urgent, if he and his Government are still standing behind the producers, what is the purpose of deciding not to bring into cultivation, or not to enable to be brought into cultivation, large areas of land that could produce food but which are not at present able to do so because they are not properly equipped?
    The Minister went on to say that the Government would still use Section 68. But I have read that Section hurriedly, and nowhere does it contain any power for the acquisition of land. All that it does is to set up the Land Commission. All the powers under which the Minister acts are carried in later Sections. Section 68, therefore, is of no use to him in the acquisition of land. This, in fact, is a major announcement of the first open breach in the Agriculture Act, 1947.
    A lot of us have thought for some time that the Government were moving steadily to the abrogation of the Act. We thought that the only change was that, whereas in 1921 the then Tory-dominated Government did it openly—and the memory has lived on ever since—the present Government had decided to try to avoid doing it that way, and to do it covertly instead. Now, they have thrown even that discretion aside.
    We already know that the efficiency Sections are being soft-pedalled. We know that the operation of the whole machinery to help to secure efficiency is being soft-pedalled. This latest move of the Government will reinforce the feeling of those men in Devon last night, and it will reinforce what the farmers from Kent told me the day before yesterday, that the Act is now beginning to go, piece by piece. The next to go will be Part II. The guaranteed prices and assured markets have already gone, or will openly go very soon afterwards.

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    There have been a lot of crocodile tears on the other side of the House today about the position of the workers, and the need to stop the drift from the land. It is true that amenities, higher wages, and an improvement in the status of landworkers will play a large part in that. But behind it all is the fact that unless the industry is prosperous and expanding, the farmworker can no more be given the conditions he requires than the farmer can be given his.
    The reason that we have put down the Amendment, and have initiated this debate, is that we feel that there are grave reasons for the doubts, upset, and worry that exist in the industry. The trend downwards to an industry running on a lower level, and at a lower key, is certainly on. That is very bad for those engaged in the industry, and, above all, it is extremely bad for the consumers of this overpopulated little group of islands, whose food position is so vulnerable.
    I say to the Minister, on his first appearance in his present office on a major occasion here, that if he is not to follow in the long procession of 11 Tory ex-Ministers of Agriculture, whose period of office at that Ministry has been their last, or almost their last, he must take time off to think again, and to think quickly, before he makes any further major speeches.
    9.35 p.m.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. McNair Snadden): It falls to me to wind up a debate that has, I think, been both interesting and constructive. As we have had only one intervention today by a Scottsh Member—
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Where is the Secretary of State?
    Mr. Snadden:—my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Argyll (Major McCallum), I may, perhaps, be allowed first to answer the questions he put, to me. He asked if I was able to say anything about the effect of the bad weather in Scotland in the same way as my right hon. Friend referred to the damage in England and Wales. I am glad to be able to tell my hon. and gallant Friend that, although our northern climate usually is more rigorous than that south of the Border, the damage suffered in Scotland does not seem at the moment, according to the
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    information we have, to be as bad as bad been feared.
    As regards total loss, the latest estimate suggests that about 7 per cent, of the grain harvest must be written off and about 5 per cent. of the potato crop. The harvesting of grain has, of course, suffered and the keeping quality of potatoes is at the moment a matter of conjecture. Of course, we have to expect that because the yield of hay is lower winter keep problems will arise, and it is a fact that my hon. and gallant Friend's constituency, because it has a very wet climate, will very probably suffer considerably.
    Mr. Manuel: What about Ayrshire?
    Mr. Snadden: The rainfall in Ayrshire is bad enough, but I am afraid that Argyll has a heavier rainfall, and the hay crop was not secured there very well. The hill sheep farmers will be troubled by a shortage of hay if the weather requires indoor feeding, and because of the shortage of winter keep we may expect a fall in milk. However, our stock in Scotland starts the winter in fairly good condition.
    My hon. and gallant Friend asked me about the Crofters' Commission. We propose to bring in legislation, and the Secretary of State for Scotland hopes that that will take effect very soon. I cannot say any more than that, and I do not think that it would be suitable for me to refer at this stage to any of the measures in the Bill.
    As to the transfer, following the Report of the Royal Commission on Scottish Affairs, of powers to the Secretary of State for Scotland from the Minister of Agriculture, about which my hon. and gallant Friend also asked me, I can tell him that, except for epidemic diseases, the Secretary of State will be taking over all the powers in connection with animal health. The powers over the work on epidemic diseases will be shared jointly between the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, and the reason is that the Report of an important Committee made a recommendation that the central control in London should continue.
    Having dealt with Scottish matters in a very few minutes I shall now try to deal with the other points that have been

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    made in the debate. It has been a long debate, and, I think, very instructive from my point of view. I listened to it with great interest. I do not think it will be possible for me in the comparatively short time at my disposal to cover all the questions put to me. If I do not answer them all, it will be because time is short; but a note has been taken of them. I say that particularly of the questions on wool, and the fishing matters about which the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Edward Evans) spoke.
    I thought that the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) today lived up to his reputation of being a hard-hitting politician. He delivered the usual number of hard cracks at the Government, though I do not think that on examination they will be found to be very wise cracks when one takes into account what the present Government have achieved, how remarkably well they are working, and when we consider the conditions. I have listened today to a number of criticisms of the Government and, at the expense of boring the House, I think that it is time that we said something in our own defence.
    In a debate of this kind it needs emphasising that it is very largely because of the financial policies of the Government and the contributions which the farmers themselves have made that it has been found possible so soon to remove from the community the controls of austerity economics to which the right hon. Gentleman's Government committed the country when they were in power. It is also as well to remember that this Government in terms of agricultural production have been the first Government to put a stop to costs inflation. That is a point which we should remember at a time when we are pressing for lower costs of production.
    I can speak here as a producer, which is considerably more than can some of those who have been criticising us tonight. Over the period since 1951 when our predecessors were in office costs have been progressively lowered. They were £39 million at the 1952 Review and £22 million at the 1953 Review. Then came the turning point which farmers said must be reached before they could achieve maximum efficiency when, under
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    the present Government, the costs at the 1954 Review actually fell by about £5 million. That is a matter for which we can take some little credit. We also, of course, swept away food rationing.
    Food rationing was borne for 14 years with exemplary patience by the British people. I do not think that anyone in this House, and certainly not the right hon. Member for Belper, would deny that it was the right and even the duty of the present Government to remove rationing from the people at the first possible moment. If the right hon. Gentleman's Government had not done it, they would not have faced the next General Election with the same equanimity as that with which we face it. It is the key to the whole problem at the present time. We have done it with considerable courage and we have solved with considerable success a host of complex problems which came to the Government as a result of moving away from fixed prices and control.
    We have done more than keep our pledge to guarantee prices and markets to producers in the new conditions of free marketing. It is not an easy task. I do not want to be particularly provocative or to criticise the previous Government in any unfair way, but I think that we are entitled to say that when the Labour Party was in power it faced easy and straightforward conditions.
    Mr. Manuel: In 1947?
    Mr. Snadden: Yes, in 1947 there was one line of policy, which was to produce more and more of everything more or less regardless of cost or quality.
    Mr. Sydney Silverman: Is that the Government's policy now?
    Mr. Snadden: That was the 1947 policy, in order to save precious foreign exchange and to meet a time of urgent scarcity.
    If hon. Members are to be fair to the present Government they must admit that we face very different conditions, although I agree with the warning about food surpluses—that they can be here today and gone tomorrow. I am not one of those who believe that masses of food will come into the country. One bad harvest could remove the lot. We have to look at the facts as we find them.

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    Food today is more plentiful in the world generally and more readily available at lower prices. Quite obviously, neither this Government nor any other Government could produce anything regardless of cost. That would be an impossible policy. If I were asked today what is our objective, I would say that what we are aiming at is a policy that will achieve a proper balance between home food production and consumer interests, consistent with a stable and economic agricultural industry. That is how I would define it.
    Another point I should like to make on this theme before I come to the individual questions put is that in 1947, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) was Minister of Agriculture—he was a very good Minister; I always respected him and I do not remember at any time having any very teethy arguments or differences of opinion with him—the Exchequer burdens did not press heavily at all, because, in the main, prices at home were below the prices of imported products. The fact that under present conditions this Government are footing the Bill at a figure of around £200 million—I am not going to argue whether it is £200 million or £250 million—
    Mr. G. Brown: Or £300 million.
    Mr. Snadden: I am not going to be drawn on that, but the mere fact that the Government are ready to back the industry to the tune of £200 million is in itself sufficient evidence of our support of agriculture.
    Mr. Manuel: And the middleman.
    Mr. Snadden: I will come to the middleman in a moment. I only mention these considerations because they have a direct bearing on the present situation.
    It is impossible to conduct a debate of this nature unless we face up to the facts. The conditions today are vastly different from anything the right hon. Gentleman faced, and he knows that just as well as I do. If he were sitting in the place of the present Minister of Agriculture today, he would have a difficult job to put his policy through, because some of his theories would be impossible under present conditions. Fixed prices seem to me like going back to the old system of rationing and allocation, the denial of
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    consumer choice and all the things that we have swept away.
    I want now to come to some of the points that were put in the course of the debate. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Don Valley raised the question of the percentage value of livestock passing through the Fatstock Marketing Corporation. There was some difference of opinion as to what it was, and I am informed that the figure is 20 per cent., excluding bacon pigs. We cannot tell anything more than that because we have no way of checking it. I am only giving the information which was asked for, and I am not saying that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong. That is the figure in the possession of the Government, 20 per cent. excluding bacon pigs.
    Mr. T. Williams: If the hon. Gentleman does not mind me putting my side of the question for the purposes of the record, may I say that I included bacon pigs, and with bacon pigs the percentage total value of livestock slightly exceeds 40 per cent., not 20 per cent.
    Mr. Snadden: It might be, but I cannot say. I am giving the information in my possession.
    I want briefly to take up some other points. The hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Gooch) made a very interesting speech, as he always does. I should like to join with him in the tribute he paid to the workers. I think I know the farming industry as well as most people, having been in it for many years, and there is no one for whom I have a greater respect than the British farmworker. The hon. Gentleman will know that the wages issue is one for the Wages Board, and, therefore, I cannot say anything more on that subject. The point in regard to accidents on farms has been noted. Statistics are now being collected and the matter is being studied.
    The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Champion), who also makes thoughtful speeches and always has something interesting and constructive to say, asked about assistance in regard to storm damage coming under the Hill Farming Acts. My right hon. Friend tells me that he is considering this sympathetically, but I cannot say more at this moment.

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    The hon. Gentleman also raised a point in regard to minimum prices and quoted—I think from "The Times"—that there had been adverse comments by the National Farmers' Unions showing major differences. The hon. Gentleman rather deplored the fact that there had been a fall in the minimum prices published. If there has been a fall—and it is not very much—it is not the first time. Under the Government of the hon. Gentleman there were considerable falls. He will remember, as well as I do, when it was suddenly decided to lower the prices of milk and eggs and the farmers did not like it then either. Although we have not had full agreement in regard to the minimum prices, it is not in my view quite accurate for the N.F.U.s to use the words "major differences."
    The hon. Gentleman the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes) made an interesting speech about wool, which I followed with considerable interest, because I happen myself to be a breeder of sheep. I have not had time to go into this matter, as this is the first time I have heard of it, but it is in the mind of my right hon. Friend and it would seem to me to be a subject for consideration by the Wool Marketing Board, which has to be consulted on matters of this kind.
    Mr. Rhodes Mr. Rhodes indicated dissent.
    Mr. Snadden: The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. All I can tell him is that the point has been noted.
    I may have to leave one or two of the smaller points because I have not much time left and I want to deal with the other major points raised in this debate. Practically every hon. Gentleman speaking from the other side referred to a lack of confidence within the industry and said that this was endangering production. I do not believe it. I happen to be a farmer on no small scale. If there were lack of confidence, I should be feeling it, should I not? It has not prevented me from putting up a grain dryer during the past year.
    I realise that when there is a change to a freer economy farmers are a little apprehensive as to what it means. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."] It is quite natural in a time of change, but farmers have accepted the fact that fixed prices, rationing and allocation could not last
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    for ever. So there is this transitional period, and a little uncertainty at the start as to what is happening. On the other hand, it is having a good reaction in that it is making the farmer think more of how he will meet the market. Therefore, he is going in for grain drying plants and for breeding higher quality cattle—all to meet the demand, which is in line with Government policy.
    We have heard a great deal today about pigs. I do not want to be drawn again into the detail of who is to blame. To say, however, that the Government are responsible for the pig muddle is not true, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper knows perfectly well. At this stage, however, I will not blame the Fatstock Marketing Corporation or anyone else. Here we have to apply our commonsense. We are not happy about what happened in regard to pigs in the autumn. Who could be? We know that there are bound to be mistakes in changing over from a fixed price system, where the pigs could be forced upon the butcher, who kept back meat in many cases and forced the housewife to take pork instead. We cannot do that under a free market. The housewife now has freedom of choice.
    We are trying at the moment to solve the problem of pig marketing. My right hon. Friend has already said all that can be said on the subject. We are not opposed to modifications to the present arrangements in the light of experience so far, but we feel that in such a short time since decontrol, it is too early for us to take a decision and a drastic new step without giving very serious thought to the consequences. My right hon. Friend has opened discussions with all the interests concerned upon the difficult question of pig marketing and, more particularly, on ways and means of avoiding a repetition of the difficulties of a few weeks ago.
    Much was said about grain by the hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Collins). I speak more from my experience as a farmer than from my experience as a politician when I say that when prices tend to be low on any commodity we are always told that a ring has been started. I can only say that if rings are in existence or if dealers are indulging in malpractices in any way whatever, we have the machinery to deal

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    with the matter; but we ask for evidence that that is happening. So far, we have not been able to get any. The answer to anyone who accuses anybody else of malpractices, abuse and below-the-counter stuff is, "Let us have the information; we have a machine ready to deal with it." I do not know of a single case in Scotland where evidence has been produced.
    Mr. William Ross: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the statements by the Scottish National Farmers' Union were false?
    Mr. Snadden: The hon. Gentleman is slightly misinterpreting the point. I am not dealing with the point made by the Scottish N.F.U. If the hon. Member has in mind the question of the dealer, I would urge him to remember that if we removed the dealer from some of the remote markets the price would fall because local demand could not absorb the supply. In that case the Exchequer would pay more. The dealer fulfils a useful function and saves money for the taxpayers. In the remote areas we must clear the produce. The dealer who goes to the North of Scotland to bring stock away may make a loss; sometimes he makes a profit.
    The right hon. Gentleman rather suggested that the Minister had said that he really did not care whether the tillage acreage rose or fell. I have a copy of my right hon. Friend's speech here. He said exactly the opposite. He said that we wanted a high level of cereal production and were providing price incentives accordingly. The Government wish to hold tillage at the highest possible level. That is our objective. It is important to encourage ley farming, because a field of grass, if properly managed, should produce as much as tillage crops. However, we should not like it to be thought by anybody that we are complacent about tillage.
    Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Legh.]
    Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

  HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES (APPOINTMENTS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Legh.]
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. A. Blenkinsop: Tonight, I am raising the question of the appointments to hospital management committees and, in so doing, I want first to thank the Minister for coming here personally to answer this short Adjournment debate. I know it is somewhat unusual, and I know it imposes an extra burden on him. I am, therefore, all the more grateful that he feels this subject, as I do, of sufficient importance to deal with it himself.
  It is well known that this question of appointments to hospital management committees has been a matter of a good deal of argument and criticism ever since hospital management committees were set up. These hospital management committees have given extremely good service. They are manned by many thousands of voluntary helpers, and nothing that I want to say tonight should be taken as any criticism of their efforts in their own work. We are extremely grateful to them.
  In point of fact, we cannot tonight discuss any wider questions of how management committees as a whole should be elected, or how hospital boards should be elected. This is a matter that is laid down in the Act, and, clearly, all we can discuss tonight is the administration of the Act.
  But, on that question, it is important that we should still be clear as to the provisions of the Act itself. The Third Schedule of the Act lays it down that it is the responsibility of the regional hospital board to appoint hospital management committees. In so doing, the Schedule lays it down that there must be certain consultations. In the first place, now that the management committees have all been set up, there must be consultation with the management committees themselves. There must be consultation with the health executive councils; there must be consultation with the local health authorities; there must be consultation with the senior medical and dental staff in the hospitals being

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  served by the management committee, and there must be consultation with—a nice round vague phrase—other organisations.
  It is in the working out of these consultations that most criticism arises. Presumably, the object has always been to secure both efficient committees and committees that will have an effective contact with the local community. That has been expressed more than once in circulars sent cut by the Ministry.
  We need to look at the question that there has been far too much secrecy about this matter. It is quite unnecessary so far as I can see. It is true that very few people in the country understand how this works. One of the first things I want to ask the Minister is whether he does not think that regional hospital boards themselves should make rather more clear in their own area what their practice is.
  Obviously, practices vary very much throughout the country. There is no good reason, so far as I can see, why the regional hospitals boards should not let people know more about what they do and roughly what approaches they make before selecting members for management committees. A good deal of the criticism might well be overcome if there was more knowledge of just what went on. Whenever anything appears to be done in secret there is always a natural feeling that something wrong has happened.
  The second point is to what extent should the Minister himself give advice to the regional boards about how they should carry out their responsibilities under the Act in this respect. What proportions are desirable in culling members from the different bodies which regional hospital boards are expected to consult? It is expected that they will consult local health authorities. We all agree that it is most important that there should be members on hospital management committees with a wide current experience of local government work. The question is what sort of weighting should be given to their representation. Is there any advice which can be given to the regional boards about that, and should at least one of the members from the local health authorities be a medical officer of health?
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  Some might have said that all medical officers of health should serve on hospital management committees somewhere, but that is quite impracticable. Hospital management committee areas often cover a number of local authority boundaries, and in practice it would not be possible to do that. However, every encouragement should be given for a reasonable number of medical officers of health to have this closer contact with hospitals many of which they previously administered.
  Then there is the question of the health executive councils. There the problem arises whether, in consultation with health executive councils the regional hospital boards should encourage the appointment of general practitioners. Many take the view—certainly the British Medical Association take the view—that there ought to be more representation from general medicine. It will be interesting to hear the Minister's view about that.
  One of the more difficult questions is what sort of representation should be given to the senior medical staffs. Here the criticism has been made that there is too much medical representation already on the hospital management committees. This is one of the problems. It is suggested that hospital management committees essentially should be lay bodies and that the medical advice should come rather from medical advisory committees than from members of the committees themselves. The Act lays it down that there shall be this consultation and it is obvious that there should be representation of the senior medical staff, but to what extent should that representation be on the committees?
  On more than one occasion the Ministry has sent out notes of advice to regional hospital boards suggesting that they should limit the medical representation on management committees and emphasising that in the view of the Ministry at that time these committees should be lay committees to ensure their proper representation of the people in the area. I want to know whether the Minister now takes the same view or whether he has been inclined to increase the professional representation.
  Then we come to the general question of in what way should the regional hospital boards interpret their responsibility to consult other organisations. It is here that there is the most variety in

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  practice. Some boards invite a wide variety of organisations to submit suggestions and names on every possible occasion. Other boards do not invite any organisations to submit proposals. They say that they welcome any proposals from wherever they may come but they do not invite them. They do not send out any notes to different bodies to invite representation.
  It is a difficult problem to know how far one should go. It seems to me that it might be possible to offer some advice, to try to secure a little more uniformity than at present. I agree that if we want to get a membership representing the community living in the area of the hospital being served, we do not want to enforce a general national pattern—at any rate not too strictly. But we seem to have gone to the other extreme. If one looks at the figures the Minister gave, following inquiries I made of him earlier this year, it is clear that there is an extraordinary variety in the arrangements made by regional boards.
  Among the bodies which have lost representation in these last few years would appear to be the trade union organisations generally. While we have always insisted that this should not be a matter of political representation as such, I think that the Minister would agree that the trade unions represent a large proportion of the community with whom we are anxious to establish a close link. It is therefore important that the sort of background which they offer should be fully and properly represented. The suggestions I receive create in my mind the feeling that there has been a considerable change in that part of the representation in recent years.
  Apart from any wider proposals which we cannot properly discuss tonight, I should like to know whether it would be possible to have an annual delegate conference called by hospital management committees to which they would invite representatives from voluntary organisations of all kinds. This is already done in a few, areas, but not many. From such a conference one could select quite a number of people who showed a keen and active interest in hospital work and who could give valuable service to management committees.
  I suggest to the Minister that he might do more to encourage that type of annual
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  contact with the general public. It should not be in the form of ordinary public meetings, as experience suggests that they are not particularly helpful or successful. Rather, it should be in the form of a delegate conference and a real effort should be made to get as many responsible voluntary organisations as possible to send representatives. The representatives should be induced to put forward proposals beforehand. The management committee might issue a short report and general financial statement and give some indication of the way in which local voluntary bodies could assist the hospitals in the coming year.
  The small amount of experience which we have had of this type of conference suggests that here is a way in which we can bring together the more active part of the community and the local hospital. I hope that the Minister—who, I am sure, is as anxious as we are about securing the most effective link with the local community—will not allow his mind to dwell solely on the importance of major changes, which I hope that we shall have a chance of discussing at some other time, but that he will also examine the possibility of establishing a more active contact than exists at present.
  I think he would agree that there has been quite a lot of criticism upon this issue over quite a long period, and if we can get him to do anything to still that criticism., first, by advocating greater general publicity and an understanding of what is happening, and, secondly, by adopting more new methods and recruiting mew members to management committees, it would be of great value to the hospital service. We ought to pay a real tribute to all those who have been doing so much hard work, and who have sometimes been rather frustrated, on hospital management committees since they were set up.
  10.15 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Iain Macleod): When I saw that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Blenkinsop) had put down this subject for the Adjournment debate, I thought that he would have great difficulty in keeping in order, because, as he very fairly said, the Schedule to the 1946 Act, which we are really discussing,

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  could not be amended without legislation, which we cannot discuss. That Schedule lays it down that the Minister has no standing in the question of hospital management committees.
  But he left the larger questions to another day—and no doubt we shall come to them in due course—while raising some matters of the very first importance, in which, even if I have no direct responsibility, I am bound to have a considerable interest, and a duty to see that the Act is carried out. Most of the hon. Member's comments centred round the fourth of the different bodies mentioned in Part II of the Third Schedule, that is, the vague phrase—as he said—
  "such other organisations as appear to the Board to be concerned."
  It is quite true that there have been many complaints about appointments to hospital management committees. It would, indeed, be a very odd thing if there were not, because about 10,000 people are involved in these appointments, and not all of them could please everybody. It is, however, of some interest that in so far as the complaints coming to me are political in origin, I receive roughly the same number from hon. Members of this House complaining that people of Labour sympathies have been moved as I get from hon. Members complaining that people of Conservative views have been moved.
  To them all I give the same answer, and I am afraid that, in part, it must be my answer tonight. It is that I must point out that this responsibility is laid by the Act upon the regional hospital boards. It is, therefore, their business, and not a matter in which I would interfere in individual appointments. But I entirely accept what lay behind the hon. Member's very reasonable speech, namely, the suggestion that I should satisfy myself from time to time—and this debate is a very good means of answering questions upon the matter—that the Act is being properly implemented.
  As a result of the approach which the hon. Member made to me, and conversations which we had in the summer of this year, I got out for him details of the consultations that were carried out by boards. As he said, they show a most extraordinary variation, and I think I might very quickly mention those bodies which
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  are most consulted, because it is a matter which ought to go on record. There are, 14 boards in England and Wales, and only one body is common to them all, namely, trades councils.
  Twelve of them consult the Royal College of Nursing; 10 consult hospital contributory schemes; eight consult women's institutes; seven consult the British Red Cross, and local medical committees; six consult the St. John Ambulance Brigade, and business and professional women's clubs; five consult chambers of commerce and trade, branches of the B.M.A., women's standing conferences, the W.V.S., and women's Co-operative guilds. Then, a whole variety of bodies, many of very great importance, such as the leagues of hospital friends, are consulted in what would appear to be, looking at the matter nationally, rather a haphazard way.
  Perhaps I may quote from the document which I sent to the chairmen of the regional boards for one of their periodic meetings. It is an important part of what I have to say:
  "The Ministry has no desire at all to interfere with the discretion of Boards in this matter, but chairmen may care to consider whether greater uniformity, and in the case of some of the organisations concerned, more widespread consultation would not be of advantage."
  I agree that, on the face of it, it does not look wholly satisfactory, but one must remember the infinite variety in the regions, and in the problems that confront them.
  A region like East Anglia, for example, has very little in common with, say, the Manchester region, and the Sheffield region has very little in common with the Welsh region. If we take the Welsh region itself, it is not only a collection of counties, but a whole country in itself, with infinite variety between the heavy industry in South Wales and the extremely thinly-populated counties in mid-Wales and North Wales.
  Therefore, it seems to me that it would be wholly wrong to try to enforce uniformity of consultation, because, again to take the same example, it would be absurd, and indeed impossible—because they would not exist in many towns in South Wales—to attempt to consult admirable bodies such as the women's institutes, just as in Merioneth it would be extremely difficult to make effective

  461
  consultation with the townswomen's guilds. Therefore, these matters have to be left very largely to the regional boards.
  I should like to take up some of the individual points which the hon. Gentleman made. First, on the question of secrecy, by and large, I am all for allowing the Press to be present Whenever we possibly can. There are inevitably, in medical affairs, when the condition of individual patients has to be discussed, or disciplinary action is involved, discussions from which the Press have to be excluded, but, on the whole, the more information that is given and is available, the better.
  If there be any suspicion, and there may well be, about appointments to the hospital management committees, one of the best ways of dispelling it would be to let the local Press know exactly what methods are used. It is rather interesting, in connection with that point, to note that only today I received a survey covering the last three years from the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, which deals with some of these points.
  It also includes, in its appendix, a full list, not only of all the bodies which it consults—and it consults all the bodies in the document which I have quoted, which I have no doubt is a tribute to the hon. Member for Tottenham (Sir F. Messer), and to his brilliant work on the Board—but also shows from whom it had received names and the numbers of those names finally recommended for appointment. I should have thought that this admirable precedent might well be followed by some of the other boards. Many of them do this, but perhaps there will be a further improvement.
  It is also interesting to quote from this particular Board, as the hon. Gentleman raised the question of doctors, on which I shall say a special word later, that of the medical and dental staff, it received 91 names, of which 51 were appointed, local health authorities suggested 39 names, of which 15 were appointed, and other local authorities 180 names, of which 68 were appointed. These seem to me to be reasonably consistent as between the numbers sent and the numbers appointed.
  Another point to which the hon. Gentleman directed my attention was the
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  representation of doctors. He was quite right in saying that in the time of the previous Government a number of circulars was sent out—natural enough at the beginning of the scheme—to give advice on this matter. They laid it down that any implication—I think that I am quoting exactly—that the hospital management committee was a body more likely to be concerned with the interests of the staff than with those of the community would be most unfortunate.
  The hon. Gentleman asked me if I did not incline to increased medical representation. There, again, my answer must be that it is not for me to increase medical representation, though it might well be for me to become concerned if the medical representation seemed unduly high or unduly low, because, of course, we must not look at it from only one side. I have issued no circulars, and none has been issued since 1951. The position remains that I have had no evidence that appointments of medical staff to hospital management committees have been excessive in any way. It seems to me to be essentially a matter which one ought to leave to the boards themselves.
  The hon. Gentleman then made a very interesting suggestion about widening the contacts of the hospitals with voluntary bodies in the area, and with local people. I do not think that I wholly agree with him that public meetings have proved of little value. One can really only speak of these things as they concern hospitals in one's own town, but certainly in Enfield, where public meetings are held, and where representatives of many varied voluntary organisations attend, and where a recently formed League of Friends is doing very fine work for hospitals, I personally think that they are of great value indeed.
  I am quite certain that the problem here—and I am entirely with the hon. Gentleman in trying to get the hospitals more in touch with local people, and local people more in touch with hospitals—is essentially not one for solution by circular, but for ordinary human relations. Perhaps the most important human, personal relations to get right are those between the local Press and the secretary or the chairman of the hospital management committee concerned.
  I would suggest that whether the approach comes from the local Press or

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  from the hospital, those people should get together. I am sure that the Press will find that they are delighted to have them, and, on the other hand, that the hospitals will find that the Press are of infinite value to them in spreading to all local people a knowledge of the work that is being done.
  It may seem that the answer which I have given is, on the whole, a negative one. In a sense, it is, and, in a sense, the hon. Gentleman knew that it was going to be, because when he was at this Ministry, Ministers of the day gave exactly the same answers that Ministers give today, that they have no standing in the matter, and that they do not intend to question the discretion freely laid by the 1946 Act upon the regional hospital boards to take into account all bodies which they think are concerned when they make appointments to the hospital management committee.
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  But if that answer is negative, it does not follow that this debate is unhelpful. I think that it is of great value, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising it, because I am certain that secretaries of regional hospital boards will call this debate to the attention of their chairmen and boards. That will be done with the added authority that comes from the matter having been raised by somebody who had a responsibility when the Socialist Government were in power. I have no doubt that they will consider everything that has been said, and that they will look again at their own arrangements in the light of the points made to see whether they are carrying out—as I am certain they are trying to carry out—the responsibilities which the 1946 Act laid upon them.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Half-past Ten o'Clock.

  BURMA PENSIONERS (TAX COMPENSATION)
  BURMA PENSIONERS (TAX COMPENSATION)
  GERMAN ARMAMENTS AND TROOPS (SECOND WORLD WAR)
  GERMAN ARMAMENTS AND TROOPS (SECOND WORLD WAR)
  EMPLOYMENT, LANARKSHIRE
  EMPLOYMENT, LANARKSHIRE
  INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORPORATION
  INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORPORATION
Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Lord Worlingham (E. Gosford)—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

CHANGES IN DEFENCE POLICY
3.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government a Question of which I have given them private notice—namely, whether they can make a statement upon the new plan for rearming the Royal Auxiliary Air Force squadrons, and any other changes that are at present contemplated in their defence programme.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AIR (LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, for this opportunity to make a statement on certain changes in policy for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and in other fields of defence which were announced yesterday by my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence in another place. The purpose of the changes in the organisation of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force fighter squadrons is to suit modern conditions. The squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force are now equipped with fighter aircraft of the types in service with the Regular day fighter squadrons of Fighter Command. A new generation of swept-wing fighters is now coming into service which represents a marked advance in design and performance. These new aircraft and their equipment are, besides, much more complex.
Pilots of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force manage to do a great deal of flying, chiefly at week-ends, in the course of a year, but despite their skill and enthusiasm they cannot undertake as much flying as those in Regular squadrons. This must react upon the capability of the Auxiliary squadrons to fight as squadrons on the outbreak of any
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future war, especially as our fighter aircraft and, indeed, the whole air defence system develop to a more elaborate form. Thus, to re-equip the Auxiliary squadrons with Hunters and Swifts and to expect them to be able to take their place in the front line on the outbreak of a war would make quite unfair demands on the time and effort of Auxiliary pilots and ground staffs. It is, therefore, proposed to affiliate each Auxiliary squadron to a Regular squadron so as to give Auxiliary pilots the opportunity of qualifying on the new Hunter and Swift aircraft.
The Auxiliary squadrons will retain their existing town headquarters and a training flight consisting of Meteors or Vampires at their home airfield. The Auxiliary pilots will fly to the appropriate Regular airfields to carry out their training on swept-wing fighters, when this is the most convenient means of travel. By this means the squadrons will be able to continue to fulfil, in the most efficient manner practicable, their honourable rôle in the defence of the country. I must take this opportunity of recording my admiration and that of the whole Air Council for the tradition, keenness and efficiency of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force.
I should like to inform the House as well of two measures which particularly concern the Army. The development of nuclear weapons and of long-range aircraft of high speed and capable of operating at great altitude has, in the Government's view, radically reduced the effectiveness of anti-aircraft gun defences. Her Majesty's Government have, therefore, decided that it is no longer justifiable to continue to spend money or to use manpower on the present scale of anti-aircraft gun defences in the United Kingdom. They therefore intend to make drastic reductions which do not justify retention of the existing Anti-Aircraft Command structure. This will be abolished. A certain number of heavy anti-aircraft and light anti-aircraft regiments will be kept to provide anti-aircraft defence of the field forces and to protect certain vital targets at home and overseas.
The second matter concerns the organisation of the Army. During the period 1950–51 special measures were taken to increase the size of the Army in order to

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produce a rapid increase in the number of units and formations so that we could meet the additional commitments of that time, and in 1951 some additional units, including the second battalions of certain infantry regiments, were formed. There is bound to be a considerable rundown, in the strength of the Army in the next two years, due partly to the rundown of the larger intake of National Service men called up in 1952 and partly to the rut-out of Regulars. It is now hoped to bring home a number of units and formations and to create a strategic reserve. So measures of reorganisation can be contemplated far the more efficient use of manpower, and it is as part of these measures that it is planned to disband the second battalions which were formed in 1951. This process will be spread over the next two or three years. It is hard to say how the very large commitments which confronted us in 1952–53 would have been met without these extra battalions, and those regiments which have been so successful in forming the battalions deserve a warm tribute to their efficiency.
3.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, arising out of that part of the noble and gallant Lord's answer that concerns the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, may I ask whether this change does not mean that, whereas in the past the Auxiliary squadrons formed an essential part of first-line air defence and were armed on the same lines as Regular squadrons, they will henceforth be nothing more than reserve units armed with obsolete machines? Secondly, will not the result be to discourage the squadrons, to weaken their esprit de corps and to make them less attractive to National Service men who have finished their service and who are at present entering these squadrons in substantial numbers? Thirdly, does the Secretary of State remember the history of these squadrons and be splendid part they played in fighting during the war, and also—and this is a very important question—in maintaining a much-needed link between the Air Force and the general public? Lastly, will the noble Marquess the Leader of the House give an early day for the discussion of this important question? If so, having expressed my grave anxiety, I will withhold my final judgment until then, and particularly
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until I have had further discussion with the squadron of which I am honorary Air Commodore and with others, like the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenohard, with whose invaluable help we brought into operation the original scheme for the Auxiliary Air Force.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, the noble Viscount speaks with unique experience of this particular problem, and I share his anxiety about the future of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Naturally, I have most carefully considered with my colleagues how the changes we now propose will affect the Auxiliary Air Force. I do not pretend to disguise for a moment that we should all have preferred to continue in the future as we have in the past, to equip them with the same types of aircraft as those in service with the Regular squadrons of Fighter Command. But I am sure it would be quite wrong if we failed to recognise that circumstances have changed, and that we should not be doing our duty if we did not adapt the Royal Air Force to those changes. If I may lapse into Latin,
"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis".
We believe that by giving Auxiliary pilots the opportunity to qualify on modern sweat-wing aircraft and by keeping their organisation in being, as we shall do, we shall enable the Royal Auxiliary Air Force to continue to serve the cause of national defence in the most efficient way possible. I should like to record my agreement with the noble Viscount that it is of inestimable value to the Royal Air Force to have a link of this kind with the general public and with the Territorial associations; and, furthermore, it is a most valuable asset to the Air Force to be able to provide an opportunity for young men who have learnt to fly during their two years' National Service to volunteer for the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and to continue to take a prominent part in our air defences. I assure the noble Viscount that it has been our main Object in this reorganisation to preserve this link and those opportunities; and we believe that in difficult circumstances we have succeeded in doing so.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, the Government are generally kind enough to give a copy of important statements of this

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kind to the Leader of the Opposition. I make no complaint that that was not done on this occasion, but, not being an expert, I cannot make any useful comment to-day. I should like to point out that the noble Lord has not answered one question which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, put—namely, may we have an early day on which to debate this matter? Apart from the anxiety of the noble Viscount, persons like myself, with very slight knowledge, do feel some anxiety about the statement which has now been made, and I think it would be desirable that the House should have an early opportunity of discussing its grave implications.
VISCOUNT TRENCHARD: My Lords, before the noble Lord answers the last question, I would ask the Leader of the House that in fixing a day for this debate he will, so far as possible, keep it clear of general defence questions. This is an exceedingly important question and it will take nearly a whole day in itself; and if it is possible one day ought to be kept separate for debating this matter.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, as I understand it, the present and future identities of these squadrons will be retained under this reorganisation—I gather that that is so. May I ask the noble Lord this question? Is he aware that while we must all have anxiety such as has been expressed by the noble and learned Earl, on the other hand, this scheme would seem to relieve the anxieties that many people have felt about how the complexities of modern fighters and their equipment can be handled with safety and efficiency in units established on a part-time basis? Obviously, the whole matter must be debated, but this scheme does give immediate relief to some of us who have been anxious about this particular aspect.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, may I first answer the noble and learned Earl, the Leader of the Opposition. I regret that I did not furnish him with a copy of the statement. It was subject to certain last-minute amendments and I had not an opportunity of furnishing him with a copy. I apologise to the noble and learned Earl. To the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I can say that most decidedly these squadrons will
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retain their identity complete, as well as their honorary air commodores. It is very much in our minds that, so far as is possible, the pilots shall feel themselves part of the Royal Air Force. I must emphasise that the fact that they will not be re-equipped as squadrons with the most up-to-date aircraft will not prevent them from flying these aircraft. That is the point which I am sure will be looked to by all young National Service men who have spent two years in Flying Training Command and some time in the operational training units: they will have a squadron to which to belong and an opportunity of flying in swept-wing aircraft of Regular squadrons.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, I think I should absolve my noble friend Lord De L'Isle and Dudley from blame for not answering the last part of the question from the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, with regard to a debate. I asked him not to do so, because I thought it would be more proper to answer that portion myself. I entirely agree with the noble Viscount when he says that it is most desirable that we should debate these matters more fully than perhaps is possible to-day, and I should be very ready to talk to him about a possible date. I suggest to my noble friend that it would probably not be so useful to take such a debate before the production of the White Paper on Defence, because, clearly, one has to look at all these matters within the framework of general defence policy. I would therefore suggest, with that reservation, that he and I might discuss the matter further. With regard to the question of the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenchard, I shall be happy, so far as lies in my power, to have this particular problem debated separately. But what I have said, of course, applies here, too: it is impossible to dissociate this matter altogether from the framework of defence policy, but it may be desirable to have two days rather than one day for a discussion of the whole question.
LORD HORE-BELISHA: My Lords, may I ask the Secretary of State for Air a question on the aspect of his statement on which no question has been put? I quite understand that matters affecting the Auxiliary Air Force are domestic decisions, but I should like to know, with

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reference to the reduction of the number of anti-aircraft units, and therefore with regard to the conclusion that has been reached of the decreasing importance of anti-aircraft artillery, whether this aspect of the policy of Her Majesty's Government is purely domestic in its character or whether it has been the subject of discussion with the other Powers belonging to N.A.T.O., and whether the armies associated with us on the Continent of Europe are applying similar principles.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, may I ask a question? While realising that such considerations must be paramount in dealing with the future of Anti-Aircraft Command, and while agreeing with the way in which the matter has been approached by Her Majesty's Government, I would ask whether my noble friend can give an assurance that members of the Territorial Army who are now in anti-aircraft units which are to be disbanded will not be hastily discharged but will be given a further opportunity for service in the Territorial Army, which I am quite sure they would all welcome.
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, may I take first the question of the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman? It is certainly the intention of Her Majesty's Government to give those opportunities to members of the Territorial Army; I am happy to reassure him on that point. As to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, if he is distinguishing between domestic policy and N.A.T.O. I would point out that all these problems must be considered in the context of our overall defence programme and plans. I think it would be unwise today to launch into wider fields. Her Majesty's Government thought it right to make these particular decisions known to Parliament, feeling that it would be wrong to delay or risk not getting the economies we can make. It ought properly to be debated in the much wider context of our defence plans as a whole, and I hope that the noble Lord will abide in patience until we can review the whole field.
LORD HORE-BELISHA: My Lords, I am quite prepared to do that, but will the White Paper make it plain whether these Army reorganisation plans have
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been made in isolation or have been the outcome of discussions with our Allies?
LORD DE L'ISLE AND DUDLEY: My Lords, I will take the noble Lord's point of view into account when the White Paper is produced.
VISCOUNT TEMPLEWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Marquess for what he has said about the debate, may I ask whether he will keep in mind the fact that the issue which I have raised to-day is a very special one, and one which need not be confused with the wider issues of defence that will appear in the White Paper? I venture to say that, because I should like to keep my mind open as to whether it is necessary to wait until some time in the Spring for a general debate, when this question can easily be isolated.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenchard, has already asked that a special day should be given to enable the question to be isolated and I have promised that I will consider that request sympathetically. I cannot agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, that this particular question can be completely isolated from general defence policy. As the noble Viscount, with all his great experience on this question will know, every item of defence expenditure and organisation has to be correlated with all other items, and I do not think we should get so useful a debate if it were held prior to the publication of the White Paper, in which case, obviously, there would be numbers of things which could not be said by whoever had to reply for Her Majesty's Government but which could be dealt with fully later.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, is it not a fact that the practice of taking an acute issue such as this, of which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has special knowledge, and merging it into a general debate tends to reduce the value of our debates? Is it not an example of weakness in the procedure in this House whereby specific issues cannot be brought to debate?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, the noble Viscount apparently has not quite appreciated the point that I was trying to make. I said that there would be a special day if I could arrange it. Secondly, I said that when that

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special day came, it would be of value to the House to have the general framework in which this particular question could be put.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, referring to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha, may I ask whether my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air would be prepared to go a little further? After all, my noble friend asked a very specific question about policy, both national and international. He asked whether this was a domestic decision or whether it had been taken in view of much wider implications in N.A.T.O. To that question, my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air replied, as I understood, that he was not prepared to give an answer at this moment. My noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha then asked whether the matter would be dealt with in the White Paper, to which my noble friend the Secretary of State for Air said the matter would be taken into consideration. May I put it in this way, to be within Rules of Order: is he aware that, if it is not taken into consideration, when the White Paper comes to be discussed there is likely to be considerable criticism here and in another place?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, if I may answer on points arising out of what I have said, I would say that I do not think it would be useful to answer that question in isolation today: it goes a good deal outside the original Question and Answer. I do not want to anticipate what will be in the White Paper, but at the same time this matter could properly be raised on the occasion of the debate on the White Paper or on the other individual day; and of course the discussion would have to be answered in a proper manner.

OIL IN NAVIGABLE WATERS BILL [H.L.]
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to enable effect to be given to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea, 1954, and otherwise to make new provision for preventing the pollution of navigable waters by oil. I beg to move that the Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE
Message from the Commons: That they have come to the following Resolution to which they desire the concurrence of your Lordships, viz.: "That it is expedient that a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to to consider what alterations, if any, are desirable in the practice and the Standing Orders of the two Houses relating to private legislation, having special regard to the desirability of lessening the expenditure at present incurred."
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons Message be considered forthwith.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD O'HAGAN: My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth concur in the Resolution communicated by the Commons.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to; and a Message ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

ADDRESS IN REPLY TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH
3.41 p.m.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved on Tuesday by Lord Polwarth—namely, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as followeth:
"Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."
LORD ROCHDALE: My Lords, like many other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I wish to add my tribute to the three years of achievement which Her Majesty's Government can present to the country to-day and to the projects which are so well laid out in the gracious Speech. My noble friend, Lord Jessel, in the course of his speech—which I regret that I was unable to hear but which which I read afterwards with great interest—referred, in this connection, to certain ungenerous people who regarded the achievements of Her Majesty's Government as the result merely of favourable terms of trade—in other words, as he put it, of good luck. Undoubtedly we have had favourable terms of trade, but Her Majesty's Government have also had very considerable problems to overcome, and I should like to say—and I think my noble friend would agree with me—that in my view Her Majesty's Government have taken every advantage of such favourable opportunities as have been presented to them, and it is because of the advantage that they have taken of those opportunities that they have this record to show to the country. I do not want to be deterred from adding my tribute to Her Majesty's Government, despite the fact that many others have paid theirs already, because the more people who can say something to support the line Her Majesty's Government are taking now, the more it will strengthen the hands of Her Majesty's Government, particularly in dealing with the many problems which still have to be over-come.
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A great deal has been said during the last few years on the importance of new investment in industry, and this has been recognised in the last two Budgets that the Chancellor has introduced. They were clearly designed to encourage investment in industry, and I think there is ample evidence to show that a very substantial measure of success is being already achieved. It will no doubt have a snowball effect so that we shall see more results arising from it. My noble friend, Lord Jessel, spoke of the importance of new factory building. He mentioned it as a matter of urgency. I entirely agree with my noble friend, but I think we have ground for a certain amount of encouragement, even there. I should like to tell your Lordships What came to my notice only two weeks ago when a Canadian trade buying mission was visiting this country. They toured all over the country and visited a very large number of factories of one kind and another, some of them quite outside the range of the particular industries from which they were purchasing. They told me that they had visited something like eighty-five different factories. What had struck them most had been that in practically every one of them some building development of some kind, great or small, was going on.
Compared with what they had seen here two years ago, when these same individuals had been in this country, they noticed a very distinct change. They went so far as to refer to it as "a resurgence of British industry." When I inquired of them what they thought that was due to, they said, spontaneously and without any reservations, that it was undoubtedly due to the relaxation of controls and the general policy adopted by Her Majesty's Government. That is most encouraging, though it certainly does not mean that we have any room for complacency. We have to push on with new building and the installation of new machinery, and although I do not like using the term "both sides of industry"—because I always regard industry as something in which all concerned should operate as a team—in this particular case I must use it. If we are going to get the best out of our new machines it is essential for both sides of industry to be enthusiastic and earnestly to desire to get the best out of their now equipment. Here, I think there is

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cause for a good deal of encouragement. I will give one reason why I say that now. Is it not significant that today the British Productivity Council, with all its tentacles and local committees up and down the country, has as its chairman an eminent trade unionist and as its vice-chairman an eminent industrialist? To my mind that emphasises the importance of both sides of industry getting together and really trying to tackle the problem of productivity.
It seems to me that sometimes when we talk of capital investment we are inclined to refer only to buildings and machinery. Sometimes, perhaps, we may refer to ships, railways and power stations. I suggest that one other very important item mentioned in the gracious Speech must also come under the heading of "capital investment for industry" and that is roads. So I certainly welcome very warmly indeed the reference in the gracious Speech to the projects which Her Majesty's Government have in regard to new road construction. It is easy at this stage to criticise Her Majesty's Government and previous Governments, perhaps, for delays in bringing in these major proposals. Perhaps it could have been done by cutting a little here or a little there; perhaps there might have been not quite so much expenditure on power stations, or airfields, or houses and so on. It is easy to make criticisms in retrospect, but it is not so easy to prove them. I am not going to be critical here in the slightest. All I am going to say on the subject of these new projects is intended to emphasise that there is real urgency for them to be proceeded with.
My noble friend, Lord Blackford, speaking on this subject yesterday referred in, particular to the amount of agricultural land that will be wanted for some of these roads, and suggested that a great deal could be done by improvement of existing roads, by cutting out bottlenecks and so forth. Up to a point, I would agree with him, but on that very matter I cannot help thinking that at times we are inclined to waste on minor improvements a considerable amount of the money that is now being spent on the roads, and that if some of those minor improvements could be done away with and the savings added to the money used
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for new roads, on balance we should be much better off. If we can get a number of these major new roads completed they will have the effect of attracting off the ordinary roads a considerable amount of traffic, and the existing ordinary roads would not then be so grossly overloaded as they are to-day.
When I refer to new major roads I have in mind high-speed motor roads, such as have been in the minds of many of us and which I think are referred to in the Act of Parliament which was passed by the Labour Government—motor roads, for instance, between London and Birmingham, Birmingham and Manchester, North Lancashire and Liverpool, Birmingham and South Wales, and so on. I notice with great interest the reference that was made to some figures by the Foreign Secretary in another place. The day before yesterday he said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 535 (No. 1), col. 22):
"When the programme gets fully under way, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be paying out for these improvements each year as much as two or three times the amount allowed by the present programme which was laid down last year."
The full amount of expenditure laid down by the earlier programme was £14 million to £15 million a year, so I take it that the expenditure that this new programme envisages when it gets fully into its stride will be of the order of £28 million to £45 million a year, which is a substantial amount. This raises the question whether that figure represents the actual amount of effort that is going to be put into the roads in any one year or whether it represents the amount that will be spent in servicing a loan if Her Majesty's Government were to decide to finance these roads by way of loan. If it were the latter, then it might be that the actual expenditure in any one year in man-hours and material would be a much higher figure than that. I have not given the noble Viscount notice of that question so I am not expecting him to give me an answer, but perhaps he will bear it in mind and pass it on the Minister of Transport.
The question of roads cannot be divorced from another point that is mentioned in the gracious Speech—namely, the revision of the Road Traffic Acts. I have two points I want to make clear. I most strongly urge the Government to think

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again about revising the 20 miles per hour speed limit for heavy traffic up to 30 miles per hour in the case of ordinary roads. I believe fiat the case for lifting the speed limit from 20 to 30 miles per hour is absolutely unanswerable. I realise that there are delicate questions involved in that matter which I will not go into at this stage, but I want to take this point a stage further. The raising of the speed limit referred only to ordinary roads, and a moment ago I referred to high-speed, motor roads. I hope that when these new motor roads are built they will be without any restriction of speed at all, because on such roads—as in the United States and on the Continent—heavy transport vehicles can go along comfortably ,at 50 or 60 miles per hour, or even more. That is a matter of great importance to industry. May I give your Lordships an example of why it is so important? A friend of mine who has an important engineering business on the outskirts of Greater London not infrequently has to send a heavy vehicle from London to Birmingham. As matters are today, that vehicle goes to Birmingham one day, stays overnight and returns the next day. With the high-speed motor roads one sees on the Continent and other parts of the world there is no question whatever that that vehicle could do the return trip in one day. Where my friend has two of these heavy and expensive vehicles today, with proper roadways he could do the same amount of work with one.
Before I leave the subject of transport I should like to comment on another reference in the gracious Speech—that is, the proposal that the borrowing powers of the British Transport Commission shall be increased. I suppose that at this stage it would be impossible to have an indication as to how much the increase is likely to be, but I take it that the purpose is so to improve the efficiency of the railways that there will be a reasonable chance of attracting back to them from the roads some of the traffic that has been lost over the last few years. I welcome that, but my welcome is qualified by the condition that that additional expenditure will be able to increase efficiency and so attract back goods from the roads to the railways.
A matter to which I should also like to refer not specifically mentioned in the gracious Speech, but it would come
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under the heading of the intention to encourage the expansion of industry. The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, referred to it yesterday in his remarks on the Beaver Report, in connection with avoiding smoke and improving the atmosphere. I want to refer to it in a rather different context. If we have less smoke that means more efficient stoking, and that, in turn, implies a substantial saving in coal consumption for the country as a whole. I suppose that this Report has not been available long enough for us to be told whether the Government are going to accept the Report and its recommendations, but I would make this point. The saving of coal is a matter of the greatest importance today. It is a matter we have discussed in your Lordships' House on more than one occasion, but it has been drawn more particularly to our attention this autumn because we have seen that, if industry is to continue to expand as it has been doing, we need more coal, and this very autumn we have had to import more coal than we did last year to achieve that end.
I should now like to say a few words on a matter already mentioned by many noble Lords—namely, G.A.T.T. Here I should like to applaud the line of policy the Government have been taking, and particularly the personal efforts of the President of the Board of Trade. I regard the matter in this light. What manufacturer is not constantly reminded today of the ever-increasing competition in world markets? That is a fact from which we cannot escape. The question I ask myself is: under those conditions, can we hope to increase our share of existing trade? We may by greater skill and ingenuity increase it somewhat, but I do not think it is being defeatist to suggest that we cannot hope to increase our share to any major extent. After all, other trading countries must trade if they are to live. If we cannot increase our share, then how can we expand our trade, except through growing world trade? Can we hope for a growth in world trade unless all countries sincerely work towards an easing of tariff barriers?
My noble friend Lord Jessel referred to "a Commonwealth and Empire self-supporting economic unit," and I roust adroit that for a number of reasons that idea has many attractions. But is it, in fact, practicable to-day? Would even

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a unit of the size of the Commonwealth and Empire be big enough? Would it be properly balanced? How long would it take to achieve; and what is to happen meanwhile? I might mention just one country which is very much in our minds these days, from the trade point of view—I refer to Japan. Let us suppose that the Commonwealth was a self-supporting economic unit. Other countries from outside will still have to trade with us. Japan will want raw materials from us, and will have to buy those raw materials with her manufactures. If she does not, her economy is bound to go down, and we shall be handing her "on a plate" to the other side of the Iron Curtain. I entirely agree wlith my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, when he asks that we should perhaps try to get some modification of the "No new preference" rule. By all means let us try, though I am not very sanguine about success on a general scale: it raises immensely important political difficulties. We have, however, already one example where a slight modification on an individual subject has been achieved. Admittedly it was on an unbound tariff, but we may be able to gain other examples of waivers, perhaps even with bound tariffs; and by taking individual cases, we may be able to achieve what I know my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye is so keen on—namely, some benefit for the development of certain of the Colonial territories.
When people criticise the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade I think they are inclined to forget some of the benefits that we have already received from it. After all, during the three conferences on G.A.T.T. that took place in 1947, 1949 and 1951, I gather that the tariffs on 58,000 items were either reduced or bound. I see that 80 per cent. of the rates of tariff into the United States became bound under the General Agreement. One must ask oneself what would happen if G.A.T.T. were withdrawn, and if these bindings were withdrawn. The only estimate I have seen is that on the items which are at present bound the rates of tariff might go up, on an average, about 65 per cent., which would be a serious thing for British trade into the United States. There are, of course, other advantages. The General Agreement gives us a code
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of commercial rules; it gives us a forum where such matters as quantitative restrictions, imposed for balance of payments purposes, can be discussed; and after all, quota restrictions are much more damaging to trade than tariffs. It also gives us a code of standard practice for customs procedure. Those are practical advantages which we have already obtained from the Agreement. If I may again refer to the speech of my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, he referred to "immaculate G.A.T.T.", and I entirely agree with him. In my view, G.A.T.T. is by no means immaculate yet—there are plenty of anomalies and improvements that could be made. But it is, I suggest, an approach to our trading problems that seems the most likely to fulfil our need of expanding trade and economy.
That brings me to my final point: to what purpose this expanding trade and economy? The answer is given, very neatly, in one sentence of the gracious Speech, which says:
"On these sure foundations of national prosperity My Ministers will find increasing scope for pursing social policies directed to the happiness and well-being of all My People."
That seems to me to underline the fact that all the attractive schemes that to-day go to make up the Welfare State depend on one thing—national prosperity. They depend on our ability to work hard, to work with skill, enterprise and imagination, and by so doing to make profits. It is curious that so often those who stand, to gain most from the social services are the most outspoken against the advantages of industrial profits. If anyone should be tempted to criticise Her Majesty's Government for not being sincere in developing the social services, I would suggest that the Government have an unanswerable reply. They have put first things first, and have determined to build the sure foundations about which we have heard in the gracious Speech; and I for one am more than grateful.
3.58 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (VISCOUNT SWINTON): My Lords, I am sure we all agree that we have had a wide-ranging and interesting debate and that it has maintained a singularly high level. But then, of course, the mover and the seconder of the Address set us

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a high standard to live up to. If I may mention one speech, in particular, I thought that the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Dovercourt, was an absolute model of what a speech should be, not only maiden, but mature: it was brief, lucid and packed with constructive ideas. But then, the noble Lord is only half a maiden, because he graduated successfully in another place. I was also greatly interested by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Blackford, on road traffic, and that speech will certainly be taken into consideration. I have listened to a great many debates on the Address in this House and another place, but in all these years I cannot remember in either place a gracious Speech which was greeted by such a chorus of praise. It will not make us conceited, but it does rather warm our hearts.
I am sure we all welcomed what the noble and learned Earl, the Leader of the Opposition, said in opening, about how important it was, and how he would always strive, to keep foreign affairs and Commonwealth affairs above Party politics. We want to reciprocate in that regard. Many noble Lords in the course of the debate have spoken about the Commonwealth. The noble Lord, Lord Haden-Guest, said that a strong and united Commonwealth is the backbone of the United Nations. A large part of this debate has been on economic matters and I should like to devote most of my speech to them, although I think it would be convenient if before I came to the broad economic situation I answered three or four specific questions which were put to me.
Both the noble and learned Earl the Leader of the Opposition and the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of York regretted that the hydrogen bomb and the problems connected with it were not referred to more specifically in the gracious Speech. Of course, these things are never absent from our minds. On certain aspects I do not wish to add anything to what the Prime Minister said in another place yesterday. But if it be an omission from the gracious Speech that we did not refer specifically to the large amount of work that is continually being done, there was, I thought, one notable omission from the speeches both of the noble and learned Earl and the most reverend Primate in this matter: there was not a word in those speeches about
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the tremendous efforts we have made to get effective disarmament. I should like to say a word or two to the House to-day about that, because it is the heart of the problem. Unconventional weapons cannot be treated in isolation; conventional weapons, as much as unconventional weapons, must form a part of the disarmament problem.
I should like to remind the House how strenuous have been the efforts which we have been making all through this year to get a satisfactory convention. Take the long Conference in London this summer: it went on for weeks, if not for months; and the present Minister of Supply, who was then Minister of State, worked tirelessly in all those weeks. The British and the French delegations put forward a comprehensive, complete, practical plan which was accepted by the Canadians and the United States who were in conference with us but was alas! entirely rejected at that stage by Russia. That situation, with the plan, was reported to U.N.O. this summer. Noble Lords will remember that during the discussions that took place at U.N.O. in September and October the Soviet Government announced their acceptance of those Anglo-French proposals as a basis for an international disarmament treaty. That was certainly an advance. It was not possible, in spite of prolonged discussion, to discover what was the Russian attitude towards the details; and, of course, the practicability of the plan depends upon the comprehensiveness of the details, whereby the conventional and the unconventional alike are diminished in orderly sequence until, finally, the unconventional are reduced to vanishing point. The result was that a Canadian resolution was unanimously passed requiring the United Nations Disarmament Commission to do their best to make progress next year. We will certainly go on trying all the time, and while what has happened cannot give us any ground for complacency, the change—and it is a definite change—the Soviet attitude does, I think, hold out some hope for the future.
Then the noble and learned Earl referred to Palestine. He need not have apologised for speaking at length on that subject, because the vivid account he gave us, I think, interested the whole House. I am sure that visits like that

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of the noble and learned Earl are valuable. He brings to the people he visits a wide experience and a judicial mind, speaking frankly and objectively to both sides. Whilst he may think, as one often does, that he makes little impression, and they answer back—I know it so well; I dealt with those intractable problems five and twenty years ago—perhaps more sticks than one thinks. Certainly the Government would welcome any sign by either side of a willingness to discuss a settlement of any of the difficult problems. I am sure it is true—and, indeed, the noble and learned Earl agreed with it—that it is impossible to impose a settlement. For instance, the United Nations proposal for the internationalisation of Jerusalem, which looked all right, was uttterly rejected at the time by both sides. That was years ago, and it would be quite impossible to revive it. Perhaps there is a better chance over the protection of the Holy Places. But I am sure of one thing: the best hope of creating the right atmosphere lies in getting a more peaceful situation on the borders. What the noble and learned Earl said about fear is very true; but surely the commitment of the United States. France and ourselves in the Tripartite Declaration of May, 1950, is a firm and far-reaching Declaration and should give a real sense of security.
The noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, suggested that there might be a possibility of settling more refugees in Jordan. I very much doubt whether that is possible. I have not been in that country for some time, but I used to know it fairly well, and it has a great many refugees already. It is true that there is a great deal of space, but on the whole it is not space which can be made productive. But in Syria, for example, I think there would be a good deal more opportunity. The whole problem is one in which we take our share, but it is essentially a problem of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has just had its life extended for five years.
Then there was "smog," to which the noble and learned Earl referred, and which has just been referred to again. I take it that the noble and learned Earl did not refer to it importing any consideration of internal Party politics. He
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asked whether I could say anything about the Beaver Report. There are three ways in which you can deal with a report when you get it—and we have only just got this one. You can pigeon-hole it—and we certainly do not intend to do that; you can keep it for many months while you study it and make up your mind what you are going to do about it, and then publish the Report with a Government decision; or you can do what we did in this case, which I think was the wise and right thing to do: we published the Report within a few days of having received it. It is an extraordinarily interesting Report, and it makes wide and far-reaching suggestions, many of which would require legislation, some of it, I have no doubt, highly controversial. I do not mean that in a Party sense, but some of the recommendations are pretty far-reaching. It will certainly require careful consideration, because when we take action on this matter it is important that we should take the right action. Therefore, I do not think anybody in this House would expect that, within a few days of receiving the Report, we should come with a complete plan based upon it.
Now I come to G.A.T.T. and Japan. The Government recognise that Japan is one of the major trading countries and that, as has been said by many speakers, with her large population and dependence upon imports of food and raw materials, she must export in order to survive. We have no desire to thwart her legitimate export trade, or to prevent her from having access to the markets of the world on a fair and equal basis with other trading, nations. In fact, I do not think much blame can be laid at our door. We give Japan—at least, I think we do—most-favoured-nation treatment in our tariffs. We certainly treat Japan very equitably in import quotas in the United Kingdom and the Colonies, having regard to the conditions of the sterling area's balance of payments with Japan. On the other hand—and I must say this frankly—we have painful memories of the impact of unrestricted Japanese competition on our industries in the years between the wars; and we think it is our duty to do what we can to see that those conditions do not re-emerge. It is quite natural that Japan should want to enter G.A.T.T. Our own decision must depend (I quote the words that the President of

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the Board of Trade used in another place) on
"whether an acceptable basis can be found to enable us and other countries to undertake relationships within the G.A.T.T. towards Japan without any violent disturbance of exising trade patterns or the development of disruptive or unfair Japanese competition."
Our Government made certain proposals to the Japanese. I have just heard that those proposals were not accepted, though we have not yet received the particulars of the reply. We shall continue to seek a solution which would admit Japan into G.A.T.T., but it must be on conditions which will provide the necessary safeguards for our own British industry.
Now may I turn to the broad economic position and our prospects. It was convenient that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, should introduce this full debate at the beginning of a new Session: it is a good time to take stock, particularly on economic affairs, on which so much else depends. In order to see the position in true perspective, in order to appreciate the present, and indeed to appraise the future, we must look at the past. Three years ago, the United Kingdom trade balance was running at the rate of over £700 million a sear on the wrong side. Our reserves were draining away at a disastrous rate. The pound was at a discount. You could buy it, at one rate or another, in any black market in the world, and the world was beginning to lose confidence in us, though I am sure that we never lost confidence in ourselves. We could not rely on other parts of the Commonwealth to redress our own adverse trade balance. The whole of the Commonwealth sterling area, every country in it, had run, to a greater or lesser extent, into the same heavy weather. Taking the Commonwealth sterling area as a whole, the adverse balance was running at a rate of no less than £1,400 million a year in the late autumn of 1951.
We and the whole Commonwealth have made a remarkable recovery. It was recovery we made in concert and together. By the middle of 1952, both this country and the Commonwealth sterling area had wiped out the adverse balance and were running on the right side. By the end of 1952, the position was a great deal better still. It is important to remember, and to realise, how
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much that recovery was a united effort. While each Government and country and must be, responsible for its own policy and decisions and actions, there was a concerted policy; we worked it out together, and together we resolutely followed it through. From the restriction which with all of us was inevitable at the start, we have moved steadily and progressively to increasing liberalisation and to freer trade. That movement has covered the whole of our front. We are importing a great deal more. As I say, we have liberalised all our trade policy. Most of the controls have gone. We have reopened the great commercial exchanges which serve world trade, and the result has been remarkable. To our reserves which sustain the whole area and which had been draining away we have added over 1,200 million dollars—and that in spite of paying off a good deal of the gold and dollar debt. The pound is steady the world over, and confidence is restored.
In production and in exports the advance is equally striking. The year 1953 was pretty good, but 1954 is a great deal better. Our production is up 6 per cent. on what it was in 1953, and though we are consuming more to-day, we are also exporting more. Our exports this year are up on 1953 by 6 per cent. in value and by 8 per cent. in volume. I would have your Lordships observe this fact: that great advance in exports (and 1953 was an advance on the year before) has taken place in spite of three conditions which your Lordships would have supposed would, and which indeed do, militate against it. In the first place, there was a considerable recession—or, as I think is a more fashionable term now, "down turn"—in the United States economy. From a United States point of view, it was not catastrophic, but it was the kind of recession which a few years ago would almost have "knocked our economy endways." We appear to have been able to take that in our stride. The defence load which we carry not only makes a tremendous demand on our finances but also takes something like one-tenth of the total national product. Of course, the sellers' market has gone for ever, and we have been selling everywhere in keen competition in a buyers' market.

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As regards unemployment, it is a nominal 1 per cent. Wage rates have gone up by 4½ per cent. in the last twelve months, and earnings still more. In 1954, over 9 million people have received pay increases amounting to rather more than £3 million a week; and more have been announced. During the same period, retail prices have gone up by only 2 per cent. I am sure that that is why people are able to spend more and to save more; and the increase in savings this year has been most gratifying. I think that in National Savings in the last twelve months there has been an increase of something over £44 million, whereas in the previous twelve months they were down by £59 million.
That is the plain story. I come back to the theme of unity. All this—and it is a remarkable recovery—has been done by hard work and team work, and by, as a team, using all our assets, the old and the new, using the skill of our workers, and (and this is tremendously important) by an ever-growing understanding and co-operation between management and workers in factories. It has been done by applying scientific research and inventive genius—and those qualities have never been higher in this land than they are at this moment—to our industries, the old industries like steel, where we are still about as cheap and efficient producers as there are in the world; to shipbuilding, where we have the gas turbine in the tanker which has just crossed the Atlantic; to the textile industry as well as to the new industries, like chemicals and electronics. We have done it by linking up production with our network of merchanting, banking, insurance and transport; we have done it, too, by linking a century of experience and, what is perhaps still more important, a century of integrity, which has made our markets and exchanges commercial centres of the world. In that combined effort we have achieved a combination of ancient and modern, striving all the time to build upon the knowledge and goodwill of the past the accumulating experience of the present and the anticipation of the future.
A number of speakers have emphasised the need for incentives and the importance of up-to-date equipment. I certainly agree with both. Perhaps there is a little tendency to underrate the incentives
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which have already been given to individuals and to industry—for what we have received we are, just at the moment, thankful, but the memory soon fades. After all, millions of individuals have received remissions of income tax; perhaps the ones who are paying nothing at all now have forgotten about it. There have been remissions of purchase tax, though I notice that as soon as there is a remission of purchase tax, like Oliver Twist every recipient asks for more. Then, in industry the initial allowance was restored to 20 per cent. in 1953, and last year there was the investment allowance on new plant. I do not know whether it is as a result of those incentives, but we could not tell the story we do to-day of our production, at competitive prices, and of our exports, if industry was not becoming more efficient all the time. Of course, that has been done with a great deal of ploughing back of profits—as there must be: there cannot be too much of it. Investment in plant and machinery is, as far as I can get any figures, 20 per cent. higher than it was in 1948. I am told that orders for machine tools—which again is a good test to apply—are much higher this year than they were a year ago, and investment in Commonwealth development is helping indirectly.
Though this recovery, which I have sketched and of which so many others have spoken, is remarkable and is the cause of satisfaction and maybe of modest pride, it is certainly no ground for complacency. World trade has been expanding. We are holding our own in regard to our share, but I doubt if we are substantially gaining a higher proportion. Given the teamwork and efficient production and salesmanship which have proved so successful, I think our future export prospects should be good. World trade continues to run at a high level. Certainly, trade in Western Europe has shown a marked expansion. Our dollar exports fell off last year. This was, I think, due entirely to market conditions, and certainly not, from what I have seen (I saw it for myself in Canada) to any slackening of the efforts of our exporters. There are now signs of recovery in the United States, and we may hope that these exports will again increase.
The past year has seen an agreeable relaxation in import restrictions in a number of Commonwealth countries. We

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have a better chance of trade now with Persia and with Egypt. In both countries our trade has been put on a sounder footing, which ought to enable us to increase our sales. I notice that our exporters are fully conscious of the purchasing power which arises from the great oil revenues of the Middle East. I was delighted to see, as I am sure everybody was who knew of it, the very successful effort which was made by a number of firms acting together to stage a trade fair in Baghdad. I am told it was a remarkable success. Orders were received for all sorts of things. I know that our manufacturers have been active in the dollar countries of Latin America, in Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia and Cuba. So I would say that prospects are favourable if together, in a united effort, we take advantage of them. But we shall be up against the keenest competition all the time. It would be easy to lose the ground that we have won, and to lose our hold. It is a vital matter (I use that word advisedly) because it is not only our livelihood but our very life which depends on our progress being uninterrupted. Peace and harmony in industry are the foundations of that success.
My Lords, it is impossible to exaggerate the harm which can be done by a stoppage in a key industry like the docks, which not only holds up our world-wide trade but reacts on every other industry. If there is an opportunity, other countries are only too ready to step in and exploit it. No one has preached and practised, appreciated, and tried to bring that home more than some of the most responsible and respected of the trade union leaders. If such disputes are unjustified and unauthorised—and in some instances they may be instigated or fomented by people who want to sabotage our united efforts—then it is suicidal.
As in the Commonwealth, so at home at its heart, I think we are more and more realising how much we are members one of another. This theme of unity runs through the gracious Speech, as indeed it has run through all the speeches in this debate irrespective of the side of the House from which they came. The gracious Speech speaks of "a strong and united Commonwealth." The difficulties and dangers through which we have passed and which still confront us have brought the countries of the Commonwealth, each of them free, sovereign and
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independent, ever closer together. Again there is the realisation that we are all members one of another, and that when we in the Commonwealth act together—I think this was what Lord Haden-Guest had in mind—we, as a Commonwealth, are a much greater power for good, our own and other people's, in the world than when we all act separately. There is the conviction that we have taken the right road and our determination to follow it, and the unity of purpose and action we find over so wide a field. Soon, in two months, the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth will be meeting here again. No meeting could be more opportune. I am confident, as I am sure all your Lordships are, that their deliberations will still further fortify our unity and our strength.
4.30 p.m.
LORD CHATFIELD LORD CHATFIELD moved, as an Amendment the humble Address, at the end to insert:
"but regret the absence of any statement indicating the immediate commencement of a building programme to strengthen the Royal Navy and, in particular, to replace our ageing cruisers, to enable this country to meet the present serious threat to our maritime security.''
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the Amendment to the humble Address which stands in my name on the Order Paper. I do so because there is a growing feeling in the country and, naturally and unfortunately, especially in Her Majesty's Navy, over the policy of Her Majesty's Government on maritime security. I can go back a long way, but never has there been in living memory a time when the position of the Navy compared to its responsibilities was more precarious. We have not the ships; we have not the men; nor have we the aircraft that we require to fulfil those responsibilities. Due to shortage of personnel, so few men-of-war are in commission today that officers cannot even get sufficient experience at sea in command of ships and squadrons properly to qualify themselves for their higher duties.
We have had two debates on this subject in your Lordships' House this year. One was on the Statement on Defence in March, the other was the debate on the Navy Estimates in July. One would have hoped that, as a result of those two debates, we should have obtained some reassurance and some

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lessening of anxiety; but the result was exactly to the contrary. The debates took on a form which barely touched upon naval matters. The Defence debate hardly touched naval matters and the debate on the Navy Estimates contained hardly any reference to the subject with which I am dealing to-day. Particularly was this absence of reference noticeable in regard to our cruiser strength, a subject on which I wish especially to address your Lordships now, leaving others to deal with other points of our naval weaknesses.
In the debate last March, the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Alexander of Tunis, made some interesting statements covering naval matters. He said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vo1. 186, col. 364):
"… there are those enthusiasts who would like us to ignore the conventional weapons and go all out for the non-conventional. I am afraid it is not quite as simple.… The truth is that most of the weapons are several years away and we have yet to learn how successful they will turn out to be. Therefore we have got to bridge the gap between then and now. …"
The noble Earl also said on that occasion [col. 359]:
"In face of mining and submarine warfare the Royal Navy is likely to have as hazardous and difficult a task in a future struggle as it has faced before in two World Wars. If our sea communications were severed and the convoys carrying our essential supplies from overseas could not reach us, I need not remind your Lordships of the grave situation with which we should be faced. It is because of this threat that the naval construction programme is concentrated on minesweepers and anti-submarine forces. …"
The noble Earl entirely omitted any reference to the subject of our cruiser strength. He is not with us this afternoon, although I did mention to him that I was going to criticise him. I know how difficult it is for anyone to speak for other Services—I had to do it myself in 1939, defending the Air Force and the Air Ministry against criticisms. All one can do on those occasions is to speak from a brief; and I am afraid that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who is to reply to the debate, will be similarly confined.
The noble Earl, Lord Birkenhead, who replied for Her Majesty's Government in the debate on the Navy Estimates did not burke anything at all. He spoke quite clearly of the dangers with which we
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were faced at sea. He mentioned the ships that a nation which is at any rate potentially a foe—Russia—was building to-day compared with ours. He told your Lordships that Russia had increased her naval personnel from 150,000 to 750,000 men; that she was building a large number of most powerful cruisers, warships far more powerful than anything we possess or are likely to possess for many years, and that she had 3,000 naval aircraft and so on. On this particular subject, the noble Earl finished up with these words (OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 189 (No. 101), col. 181):
"These are sombre statistics which we must constantly bear in mind."
He did not say who was to bear them in mind, whether they were matters to be borne in mind by your Lordships or by the Board of Admiralty or by Her Majesty's Government. One would have thought that, having said, speaking for Her Majesty's Government, that the situation was so gloomy, he would have tried to give some reassuring facts, some little sprig of hope for your Lordships in considering these sombre matters. But the noble Earl was too honest to do that, because he knew that he had nothing to say.
It is no wonder that people in this country view with alarm the fact that a great military nation like Russia, having suddenly discovered the value of maritime security and the use of ships, though having no great maritime responsibilities of her own, is now building a large number of surface vessels of great size, power and speed, whose destination in war upon the oceans can well be imagined; whereas we, to whom maritime security and trade are vital, are doing absolutely nothing to counter those efforts on the part of a possible antagonist. It is a most amazing situation. Before the last war we were striving to get something like seven or eight times as many cruisers as the Germans could put upon the oceans to attack our trade, whereas to-day, or in a few years' time, Russia may have over thirty powerful cruisers, compared to our twenty-six. Many noble Lords who live in the country will know that one cannot catch a fox with half a foxhound: it needs a pack. And, unless some entirely new method of doing it has been devised which will be ready in time, how can we expect the Royal Navy to defend our merchant seamen, gallantly risking their

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lives for their country, with a lesser number of ships than the enemy have?
It seems to me that this is really a sombre situation. Why are Her Majesty's Government so complacent as regards our maritime security? It is a patent fact to all who study maritime defence that we have run into grave danger—that is by no means exaggerating the situation—and when, in naval matters, a nation runs into grave dangers the difficulty is that it cannot emerge from them except over a long period of time. It takes longer to provide the petty officers and men to man a ship than to build the ship herself. And it is no good the Government suddenly deciding to spend their money hoping that in a short time it will produce something which can defend the country. I feel that the present situation is a sign to-day of a decadent mentality in Her Majesty's Government on maritime defence. What happened in the peace years is happening all over again—as I thought it would. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, speaking in the debate on defence in March, suggested that there should be an independent (I think that was his word) inquiry. That suggestion was criticised. I do not wonder that the noble Viscount asked for an inquiry, but the only inquiry of any use would be an inquiry into the Government's mentality as regards their intentions about our maritime policy. And that is what I am trying to carry out to-day before your Lordships.
I should like respectfully to draw your Lordships' attention to certain very elementary principles which govern the question of maritime security. They may surprise you; but all sailors know them. The first principle is that each of the three elements, land, sea and air, in the order of their solidity has a special and unique value of its own. Each has some power it can give which the other two cannot. And, in maritime war, it is essential to extract from the three elements all that each can give. Nothing else is good enough. In defending the seas, you must not only hold the seas but you must hold the air over the seas. It is just the same as it is in regard to land: it is no good to-day having at army unless you can hold the air over that army. But although you can hold the air over the army and over the seas, that does not do away with the need for
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armies or navies. Air control is an assistant, a vital assistant, not a substitute. The nation that tries, with ships alone, or with air power alone, to hold the seas will be defeated by a nation which uses both ships and aircraft. That is a basic fact which will last for all foreseeable time.
The second point I would make to your Lordships is this. In Imperial defence it is not enough merely to defend the approaches to these islands, or even the North Atlantic. Our defence must be world-wide. It is often not understood that there are coastal areas in which ships cannot act against the enemy—their coastal areas—and that they have similar difficulty in acting against ours. It is those areas which the mine and the submarine render dangerous. Those areas of ours must be defended by anti-mine and anti-submarine ships, mine sweepers and frigates; and they must be assisted by coastal aircraft. As time goes on and weapons improve, these coastal areas are always increasing. But outside them lie the great oceans, and in those oceans we have to hold the seas and defend our merchant ships. It is impossible to do that merely by being what is called "on the defensive." There has been a lot of talk lately on this subject, and people have been saying how sad it is that the Navy is becoming a defensive Service. But the Navy always has been a defensive Service to defend the seas against an enemy. There is nothing offensive about it. That is why, I think, it is respected by our countrymen, in particular—at least, it has been in the past.
But although it is becoming a commonplace to speak about defence, the defence of the seas is not like a military defence, where men sit in trenches and wait for the enemy to attack them. It is an offensive defensive. The Navy's defensive is an offensive defensive. To pursue the enemy all over the world until it finds him and destroys him—that is the rôle of the Navy in maritime defence. Land aircraft can be of enormous value in the defence of our coastal areas, but they cannot go beyond a certain range and the limitations inevitably imposed by weather.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Would the noble and gallant Lord say what their

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range is? Would 10,000 miles be about right?
LORD CHATFIELD: The range of the coastal areas is mainly governed by the depth of water, and by the number of mines that can be laid in dangerous waters; also by the waters in which submarines can be effective and concentrated.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The noble and gallant Lord has not dealt with the question which I put. The question I put was what is the range of the aircraft; is it 10,000 miles?
LORD CHATFIELD: The range of coastal aircraft?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Any aircraft.
LORD CHATFIELD: Any aircraft?—I am talking about coastal aircraft. The noble Viscount must confine himself to my words: I am talking about coastal aircraft. I say that coastal aircraft can be of the greatest value to the Navy in defending our trade routes within their limits (the noble Viscount will admit that there are limits), but that outside those limits the Navy cannot expect to have the assistance of these aircraft all over the world of oceans. It must take with it its own aircraft in aircraft carriers, which can be always there, ready to help in holding the air over the seas wherever the ships may be—in the Indian Ocean, off the River Plate, or wherever they have to operate. Cruisers must be the basis of that offensive in the oceans, and they must be as powerful as, and more numerous than, those of the enemy if we are to be safe.
The third principle I would mention is this. Every type of ship that the enemy has we must have, because every type of ship has a special value according to the weather and according to whether it is operating, shall we say, in the Mediterranean or in the Arctic Ocean. Let me say a word about the capital ship, applying that theory to the problem, which is often discussed. The use of the capital ship is to destroy the enemy's capital ship. If the enemy has no capital ship, we need none either; but if he has one, we need two. The ships that Russia is building to-day are small capital ships of 17,000 tons heavy displacement. They have a heavy armoured belt right round them
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from bow to stern, and a speed faster than that of any other cruiser in the world. Those are the ships which our sailors have been asked to go out and meet, to defend our merchant seamen thousands of miles away, with ships which for the greater part were designed before the last war.
The duty of the cruisers is to destroy the enemy cruisers. Some of us may have read the interesting book War at Sea, the first volume of which, by Captain Roskill, is brilliantly written. It describes how, in the first two years of the war, when our armies were back in this country, the Navy was able to hold the situation at sea for us. He describes how, in the spring of 1941, the two German small battleships, the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau," ranged over the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic, interfering with our trade. It was a long time before they could be driven back to their own country. During that time, how did we defend our convoys from South Africa, the River Plate and India? By putting an old battleship in charge of each convoy—and that saved convoys on more than one occasion. That, I would suggest to your Lordships, is the principle we must bear in mind. It was exactly the same when the "Bismarck" got to sea. What would have happened if that ship had got out into our trade routes and we had not been able to sink her with the "Rodney" and the "King George V" in the Bay of Biscay?
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, may I ask a question, out of my ignorance? Would not all these questions to which the noble and gallant Lord has been referring be affected, to some extent, by the existence of the atom and hydrogen bombs?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: Oh, no.
LORD CHATFIELD: I will deal with that point all in good time. If the noble Earl will let me make my speech in my own order, I assure him that I will not disappoint him. The last principle to which I would ask your Lordships to listen is this: the fact that one weapon dominates all others is no argument for doing away with the old weapon. If the atomic shell can destroy a tank, that is no reason why we should do away

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with tanks. The answer is to have an atomic shell also, and so destroy more enemy tanks more quickly than he can destroy ours. If the fighter can shoot down the bomber, that is no reason for abolishing bombers; and if the bomber can hit the ship, that is no reason for abolishing ships. If an atomic bomb can destroy the ports, as the noble Earl has suggested—
EARL WINTERTON: I did not make any such suggestion.
LORD CHATFIELD: —or our erodromes, or even threaten our national existence, the reply is to hit the enemy with the same weapon more quickly, more violently and more efficiently. There is no other salvation in war than that. It is a case of our scientists against the enemy's scientists.
I give your Lordships these principles, for what they are worth, briefly and broadly. If they are roughly correct. I would ask why Her Majesty's Government have not given the Admiralty a proper cruiser building programme? The First Lord has told us that they are waiting on the scientists. Since the war not one new cruiser has been sent to sea. We are taking unimaginable risks. It is the old game: "do not build; wait for the scientists." But if we wait for the scientists, we shall wait for ever and never build anything. I have warned the House on that subject on many occasions since the last war. It is the old Exchequer theory: keep them waiting for their money. It was the same in past years. It hamstrung the three Services, all of them, so that we were not ready for war; and in 1939 our soldiers, sailors and airmen were sent by statesmen to fight in old ships and with inferior weapons.
EARL WINTERTON: It just does not happen to be true.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: Order, order!
LORD CHATFIELD: And it is going to happen again—old weapons and too few of them. Why was the building of three "Tiger" class cruisers suspended three years ago? Why did we not proceed to build on a programme parallel to that of the Russian navy? A British cruiser designed in, say, 1949 would be as good a ship as a Russian cruiser built in 1949. If we had
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built ship for ship with Russia from 1946 onwards, we should now have five more cruisers than we have at the present time, and each of those cruisers would be as good, ship for ship, as the one built in the other country. In the 'nineties Russia built two new cruisers—the "Rurik" and the "Rossia." We immediately built in those days two others, the "Powerful" and the "Terrible," to correspond with them. That was our policy in those days. That is how our fathers acted, egged on by Lord Tennyson, and so they preserved our maritime security.
To delay building when our potential enemy is not doing so is irresponsible, neglectful and a dangerous policy. We have lost five years which have been thrown away; and the delay piles up. When you lose the lead at sea, you may never catch it up, and your national life in an island then becomes at the mercy of the restraint of the rival Power who threatens you. We must not be guided by the imaginations of a few who, lacking guidance by the Government, quite naturally express their ideas in Parliament and the Press. Our gallant airmen (and may I remind your Lordships that speaking in this House a few years ago I advised that the Royal Air Force should be given priority of expenditure over the other two Services, because it had the greatest danger and responsibility) cannot do everything. It has to bomb the country of our enemy; it has to provide over-air cover for the Army; it has to defend this country against air attack; it has to provide aircraft for our coastal defence—that is quite enough. With all the great courage and ability of our airmen they cannot do everything.
The next war, if it comes, may not be over in a fortnight, as some suggest. Our Allied navies will not necessarily guard our trade routes for us; they have built their navies for their own purposes and their own security. The Americans have to look after the Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and the North Atlantic. We cannot trust blindly to others to do our work which we are shirking. After all, may not atomic weapons conceivably be restricted to the battlefields? I ask that an immediate programme should be given The Admiralty of large cruisers, and in sufficient numbers, because they are vital to our security. I warn you, my Lords, with all my experience and without in

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any way exaggerating, that our position is dangerous at sea—that is obvious to the whole world. Unless the Government take adequate and rapid action, it will be too late. I beg to move.
Moved, to add at the end of the proposed Address:
"but regret the absence of any statement indicating the immediate commencement of a building programme to strengthen the Royal Navy and, in particular, to replace our ageing cruisers, to enable this country to meet the present serious threat to our maritime security."—(Lord Chatfield.)
VISCOUNT CUNNINGHAM OF HYNDHOPE: My Lords, I rise to second the Amendment to the humble and loyal Address which has been moved by the noble and gallant. Lord, Lord Chatfield. He has set out most cogently and clearly and, I think, not before it was necessary, the ever-increasing danger to our position at sea through the failure to keep the Navy up to a proper strength in not providing, in particular, a steady replacement programme for our elderly cruisers. He has said that we should build ships of equal power and equal numbers to those by which our security at sea may be menaced.
May I remind your Lordships that the British Commonwealth still has the largest merchant navy at sea, and carries a proportionately high percentage of the world's trade, including our own, and the supplies to this island which are vital to our existence in time of war.
I may be told that the advent of nuclear weapons has made all our previous methods of war at sea obsolete. Nuclear weapons have undoubtedly brought great and revolutionary changes to warfare, but how far they will affect the war at sea it is hard to say. An explosive vastly more powerful than anything hitherto encountered has been produced, but it is questionable whether its use against shipping at sea would be strategically economical. In harbour, of course, it would be quite a different matter, and a much more profitable target would be our harbours and the shipping in them. The safety of our ports and bases is, of course, a prime responsibility of our air and ground forces.
To my mind the greatest danger to our shipping at sea will still be from what are now called conventional weapons.
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It is hoped that escort vessels and carrier-borne and shore-based aircraft will be able to deal with these, but there still remains the problem and the danger of the surface raider.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, has described the ships that the Russians are now building, and it is obvious that they are thinking along these lines. For what else are they building this large number of heavily armed ships, fast and, no doubt, of long endurance? If these Russian cruisers are but reasonably efficient in war we have now no cruiser that could stand up to them with any prospect of success. There are, of course, carrier-borne and shore-based planes, but we have all too few of the former, and the latter cannot replace them in far distant seas; and there will be days, perhaps even weeks, when, in spite of all the aids of science, weather will defeat strike and search aircraft. Moreover, as I think my air friends will agree, it is no easy matter to hit with a bomb or torpedo a single ship of high speed and with full manœuvring ability.
In this connection, I may mention that there have been great delays in providing the Fleet Air Arm with the modern aircraft essential for the protection of shipping at sea and for any offensive operations that they may be called upon to carry out.
Some of your Lordships may think that the danger of the surface raider has been over-stressed. In the late war, surface raiders, both warships and disguised merchant vessels, sank nearly one million tons of shipping, mostly in the broad oceans. They were a constant anxiety to the Admiralty, and considerable forces had to be locked up ready to hunt them down and protect the convoys. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, has mentioned the four great German ships, the "Scharnhorst," the "Gniesnau," the "Bismark" and the "Tirpitz." They locked up large forces out of all proportion to the damage they did to us. But if those forces had not been available, the result would have been disaster and perhaps defeat. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, has said, in those days we had fifty-eight cruisers to draw on, and now we have less than half that number. We should be sending old and out-of-date cruisers to deal with new and powerful ones—rather an unfair

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strain on the morale of our naval personnel.
There are those who claim that the safety of our sea communications can now be safely left to the air. No one would question, or wish to question, the great contribution that the air can make to this vital task, but those who have experience of it and realise the immensity of the oceans and the variability of the weather know that those who make this claim are utterly mistaken. I will give your Lordships one example only of the difficulties which would be encountered by an aircraft—that is, the question of identification. The recognition of friend from foe has sometimes baffled even a surface ship. It is easy to see that one could not expect aircraft, flying at great speed and great height, to make much of it. Their very speed would be a hindrance to them.
It may also be remarked that there is plenty of opportunity for error. At any one time in the last war there were at sea 2,500 British merchant ships and at least an equal number under other flags, many of them working directly or indirectly for us. I have no doubt that in the future aircraft will make an ever-increasing contribution to the security of our seaborne trade. But I believe that the time that they can do it alone is very far distant, and will remain far distant so long as the bulk of our supplies, raw materials and food, has to be brought to us over the sea.
There are some who would have us rely on our Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and it cannot be denied that we have already passed many of our responsibilities over to the U.S.A. But alliances run only for a short term, and we have seen, all too often, political changes bring about totally unexpected international upheavals. Of course, Britain welcomes Allies to work with her, but in the last issue the responsibility for her maritime security rests, and must always rest, with herself. She cannot afford to rely on her Allies to such an extent that, if the alliance disintegrates, she is left defenceless at sea. Can we be certain that events may not so arrange themselves that American preoccupations at a critical juncture will not necessarily be identical with ours, however friendly the relations between our two countries continue to be?
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One of our ablest writers, Sir Arthur Bryant, has written recently:
"The sea's relation to England is a kind of 'Escape me never.' At various times in our history we have tried to ignore her, but never without disaster."
It is to be hoped that the neglect of the Navy in the middle years of this century may not lead to that result.
As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, has already said, sea power allowed to decline to the extent that ours already has cannot be quickly rebuilt. To design and build good ships is a tradition and demands continuity. Break the continuity, and you lose the men who can design and build them. Each warship class develops from her predecessors. You cannot safely progress by sudden leaps; nor can we afford to let ships decay, designers and other experts go elsewhere and shipbuilding and weapon-producing plant be put to other uses, while we wait hopefully for the new design which, as we have so often been told, will solve all our problems.
With all these considerations which have been put before your Lordships in mind, I suggest that the question is not "Can we keep the Navy up to strength required of them in war?" but, "Can we afford not to?" I submit that the answer is definitely that we cannot afford not to.
The Prime Minister himself says, at the end of his great historical survey:
"We, an island power … dependent on the sea, can read the lesson and understand our own fate had we failed to master the U-boats."
The Navy's responsibilities in war extend far beyond he mastery of the U-boats, but the lesson remains the same. My Lords, I beg to second the Amendment.
5.19 p.m.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, I intervene for only a very short time, for as recently as the end of July of this year I dealt fully with naval problems and the urgent need for a fleet replacement programme, particularly of the older cruisers. There is no doubt that this need is acknowledged by everyone who is or has been associated with the Royal Navy. This debate is significant. In the first place, it is taking place on an Amendment to the Address to Her Majesty for her gracious Speech. It is sponsored by four very distinguished and gallant Admirals

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of the Fleet, each of whom has given a lifetime of valuable service to the Royal Navy and the nation. They are supported by other noble Lords who also have given great service to the Royal Navy. Indeed, with the exception of myself and my noble friend Lord Stansgate, every speaker who is to take part in the debate has given valuable service to the Royal Navy. The Board of Admiralty and Her Majesty's Government should take serious note of the speeches which will be made during the debate here to-day, and especially those of the noble Lords who have already spoken. Both have given startling figures. Not only have they spoken with great knowledge, but that knowledge is based upon a very long experience.
Like so many serving officers in the Navy at the present time, they feel a great concern, and much frustration, about the condition of the Royal Navy to-day. I am hoping that we shall have a reply from the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to some of the points which have been put, and will be put later on, during the course of this debate. If not, I hope that it will be a pointer to the First Lord when he is preparing his Estimates and his Explanatory Statement which will be submitted to Parliament in February of next year. It cannot be repeated too often that there is an urgent need of a replacement programme. In five years' time, apart from two fleet carriers and one battleship with two light fleet carriers and five cruisers, all the ships larger than a frigate will be over eighteen years old. In the First Lord's Statement two years ago it was said that if the fleet is to exist as an efficient and well-balanced fighting force, it is vital that we should have a steady replacement of new construction throughout the future.
It has already been stated by noble Lords who have spoken that there are at the present time, in accordance with the statement issued by the First Lord in February of this year, twenty-six cruisers—ten in the active fleet, one training and fifteen in reserve. I am not so sure that we have that twenty-six today. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can give us the exact numbers, because I think the "Nigeria" has been sold to India and that the "Devonshire" has already been scrapped. It is pleasing to note that the First Lord, in
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a very recent speech, mentioned that the three "Tiger" class cruisers, the "Tiger," the "Blake" and the "Defence," are now being proceeded with, with a view to their completion. What he said was this:
"Now we are ready to finish the work, and `Tiger,' 'Blake,' and 'Defence' will join 'Superb,' which has already been completed. These valuable ships have been re-designed and re-equipped. They will have a displacement similar to 'Superb' and a speed of more than thirty knots."
I would again ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, whether he can give some information as to the time when it is expected these ships will be completed. I understand that most modern fire equipment is being installed in these ships, but that they are purely gun cruisers and are not in any way prepared to deal with guided missiles.
It can be said that much work has been done in relation to the building of frigates and the conversion of a number of destroyers into very modern ships. Much has been done in relation to minesweeping and all of these smaller craft, but what is so important to-day is that this all-purpose ship, the cruiser, should be proceeded with at once. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, referred to the strength of the Russian Navy. The First Lord, in a statement issued on behalf of the Admiralty, dealt fully with the strength of the Russian Navy. Not only cruisers but every class of ship below that of a cruiser have been considerably increased. I think the First Lord also mentioned the fact that already since the conclusion of hostilities the Russians have spent a sum of something like £12,000 million upon their Navy—and that is apart from the expenditure upon their Army and their Air Force. We cannot hope to compete with an expenditure of that kind, and we have to do the best we can in all the circumstances. I agree that we shall have to wait some time to get the full effect of the scientific research which has been carried on during the past eight or ten years, but I would ask that we should have some information now as to what has been done in connection with preparing the ships to handle guided missiles.
In a report which appears in The Times to-day, it is said that the Americans already have two cruisers, the "Boston" and the "Canberra," which will come

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into service in a very short time as combatant guided-missile ships. Conversion is going on in other ships, and what is particularly interesting is that some of the old battleships are also in service in the American Navy as guided-missile experimental ships. We have four battleships in reserve in this country. They were put into reserve because it was felt that et some time they could be made useful, particularly when we are dealing with all the scientific knowledge which we have. As the guided missile appears to be the kind of weapon which is likely to take the place of the gun in the very near future, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he can give some information about the preparation which has been made, either in the building of suitable ships to act as platforms, for guided missiles or the re-conversion of any cruisers, and whether it can be contemplated that some of the battleships now in reserve will be used for that purpose.
There are many other speakers to come, including two noble and gallant Lords who are Admirals of the Fleet, who can speak with a very much greater experience than I have. Therefore I will conclude and leave the debate in the more competent hands of my noble and gallant friends. I would just say that I some times think that, when defence is being considered by Parliament, we are too apt to forget the naval aspects of our security problems. We should remember that it remains as true as ever it was that Great Britain lives by the sea, and that to lose its use during war would lead this country to defeat and to destruction.
5.31 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I have listened with the greatest interest to the noble Viscount who has just sat down. He has put before us some very important points, some of which, at any rate, I hope Her Majesty's Government will be able to answer this evening. I, too, think it is true to say that there is a widespread feeling of uncertainty in many quarters of the country as to the future of the Royal Navy, and I should like to add my support to the Amendment which has been moved by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield. In the circumstances, I too suggest that it is most necessary that we should have a debate of this kind before the issue of the White Paper, and I certainly welcome it.
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The noble Lord, Lord Chatfield, said that there never was a time when the position of the Navy was more precarious than it is now. I entirely agree with him. I believe that it is not going too far to say that unless this uncertainty is corrected or removed in the near future, the morale of the Service will begin to deteriorate. This is not a question of Service rivalry—I would emphasise that. It is a question which really hinges on the lack of an appreciation by Her Majesty's Government about the future of the Navy and the type of ship which it is to man. Of course, no one in his senses wants to build cruisers if they are unnecessary, and the claim for them is not just put forward, as some misguided people have supposed, merely because some of us may feel that the Navy is in danger of losing its traditional large ships of war. This is not the case at all.
May I ask your Lordships to examine this problem in the light of an appreciation which I now propose to put before you? In the first place, as was mentioned by the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope, there are over 2,500 British merchant ships at sea on any one day, a number which would, of course, be greatly increased by Allied ships in time of war. How is this great number of ships to be protected from disguised surface raiders? Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope told us that in the last war surface raiders sunk over one million tons of our shipping. It is all very well to argue that these raiders can be take a care of by suitable aircraft; but, as the noble Lord said, how is the aeroplane to distinguish between the disguised raider and the peaceful merchant ship? It cannot be done.
I maintain that cruisers capable of fighting a gun action or, I would say, a guided-missile action, are very necessary for the destruction of these disguised raiders; and I hope that we shall never again see the suicidal policy of arming large merchant ships as cruisers because we have not enough real cruisers to do the job. It has often been said that the aircraft carrier has superseded the cruiser. This is probably true for certain functions, such as reconnaissance; and, of course, there is no sphere of naval activity in which the air arm has not proved itself capable of taking an important part. But

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this does not mean that it can necessarily replace the cruiser altogether. It is not difficult to imagine conditions in which it would be far too great a risk to use an aircraft carrier and where a cruiser might be used instead—for example, in narrow waters.
I should also like to point out that aircraft carriers are still necessary for the protection of our convoys, in spite of the many arguments that have been put forward from time to time to the contrary. We must not forget one overriding factor, which is simply the inability of shore-based fighters to protect a convoy beyond the fighter aircraft's operational range, which is at present something under 500 miles. I think that answers the question put a short time ago by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. This statement of fact has also been entirely supported by that great soldier Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, in his recent address to the United Services Institution. The convoy must have its light fleet carriers, either with it or in the offing, to give protection when it is attacked from the air many hundreds of miles beyond the range of shore-based fighters. Apart from the cruisers, no new light fleet carriers have been laid down. Are we to have no modern light fleet carriers on a steady rebuilding programme?
Reports have reached me that officers serving in the Fleet Air Arm are very concerned about the whole position, about what their future with the Fleet is to be, and also what type of aircraft they are to fly. Undoubtedly, this feeling is having a grave effect on recruiting; and, what is more, the lack of a reasonable replacement programme for both cruisers and light fleet carriers may well have an adverse effect on the new Dartmouth College entry. The whole set up of the Services is, as we all know, bedevilled by the immense power of the nuclear weapon. I do not think it is far wrong to say that the scientific inventions of to-day could destroy the world, and that in the minds of some people conventional weapons are already obsolete. But surely we must not forget the cold war, which is with us now and may be with us for a very long time yet, and which calls for the use of conventional weapons. We have already seen this in the Korean war.
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There is no doubt that the Services are being, and must be, completely reorganised on the basis of nuclear warfare, but I suggest that we must not move too quickly and neglect the weapons we know for weapons which we do not know and which have yet to be proved. It may well be that the guided missile has progressed far more than is commonly supposed, and that the gun of the cruiser will be replaced by such a weapon; but so far we have been told nothing about it. It is known that in the war in Korea the United States Navy used a pilotless dive-bomber carrying a large explosive and fitted with a television camera on its nose and controlled from the ship which launched it. Have we such a weapon? We have never been told. No doubt many of your Lordships have read the interesting letter which appeared in The Times of yesterday, pointing out how much more information is given to the public about these matters in the United States than in this country. I suggest it is high time that Her Majesty's Government took the country a little more into their confidence and gave an indication of the rôle that Her Majesty's Navy may be expected to play in the future, and of the ships and weapons with which it is to be provided. I should like to add my support to a suggestion which was made in another place yesterday, that we should have a secret Session of both Houses of Parliament to debate defence matters, because, in the long run, Parliament is responsible for defence matters.
I should like your Lordships for a few moments to look at the broad picture of naval defence as it appears to be at the present time. I suggest that with nuclear weapons we may well have a war divided into two phases: first, the atomic phase, which may be so devastating that our ports will be out of action and the transport of the country completely demoralised, with our enemy also in a somewhat similar state; and then we may have the second phase, when our main preoccupation will be the feeding of our people, which can be carried out only by surface ships. It is then that we shall require our conventional weapons, the cruisers, to protect our ships from commerce raiders. Only recently the Admiralty indicated the strength of the Russian cruiser fleet, which no doubt would be at sea in strategic positions in the oceans of the

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world long before the war had commenced. But what the Admiralty did not tell us was what steps were to be taken to meet the Russian cruiser menace. It is a grave danger from which we cannot emerge in a short time, as has been clearly pointed out to the House by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, because a cruiser takes a long time to build and it takes a long time to train the men to man her. As a young naval cadet I remember an old Parliamentary catch-phrase which had great effect at the time when we were short of battleships. It was, I think, invented by Admiral Lord Charles Beresford:
"We want eight
And we won't wait."
May I suggest a possible equivalent for today:
"Without a fleet
We cannot eat."
5.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGAKTE: My Lords, it is with a considerable feeling of humility that I rise to address a few remarks to your Lordships on this question, in particular because no real defence debate—and this is only an aspect of defence which has been treated in this debate—can possibly stop short at the speeches which have been made and the mass of technical data that has been produced. A real defence debate must take everything into account—nuclear weapons and, even more, the political layout of the world to-day. I felt some doubt about making a speech of such wide range because I feared I might be out of order, but this is a debate on the gracious Speech, and though it might have waited until the Amendment had been disposed of I am informed that it may be better to say what I have to say now, even if it goes a little wider than would be possible or proper on this particular question.
Admirals of the Fleet have a great advantage, They have rendered inestimable service to the State. They are popular and regular attenders of this House and they speak for a Service that everybody loves, for it is traditional that we should love a sailor. My noble friend, Lord Hall, has been indoctrinated will similar feelings of loyalty at the Admiralty. But, after all, when one hears what has been said today one is entitled to ask, where does the civilian, the taxpayer,
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the ordinary person come in? This country is in very grave danger. It has never been in such grave danger—we know that. What, is to be done? The soldiers had their turn last week. They want the Germans to have another twelve divisions and they got those twelve divisions—500,000 men. Mr. Molotov (not Mr. Malenkov this time) then called in the Chinese. Now the growth in the population in China every year is 6,000,000. So if the mothers of China get together they can fill the Chinese cradles with twelve divisions in thirty days, after, of course, the necessary biological time-lag.
Now the sailors come along, and not a word has been said to-day to suggest that anything but a floating object—bottoms, I think they are called—can or should have anything but priority. We have had speech after speech delivered, all of them most interesting. We like them all, everything the Admirals of the Fleet want, everything my noble friend Lord Hall has heard of, everything that the Americans have and we have not. We should like the lot. But unfortunately there is a budget. I should like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, when he replies, to take the White Paper on Defence, showing the distribution of money, and say which item he is going to take it from. How much is it going to cost? Has he added it all up? It is no good coming to the House of Lords with imperative Resolutions to say that an immediate programme must be started unless you put something on paper to tot up that for which you ask. I admire the courage of the Admirals of the Fleet because they are putting it to the test, and the House of Lords will decide this issue to-night. The noble and gallant Lord when he replies ought to tell us how much the job is going to cost and from which Estimates the money is to come. Is it to come from the Army Estimates, from the Air Estimates, or from the Navy Estimates? Will he cut down the number of helicopters, or do the Admirals of the Fleet think pensions ought to be reduced?
It is no good my noble friend Lord, Hall, in Opposition, pretending that he is supporting a cruiser programme, unless the Labour Party, if returned to power tomorrow, would be prepared to enlarge the naval building programme. One must face practical facts—unless, of course, we

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are having a little celebration of our appreciation for the boys in navy blue. The point is a simple one. There is so much money: how are you to distribute it between the claims of the Air, the Army, the Navy and research? My noble friend, Lord Hall, said, quite truly, that I have never served in the Navy, but in my early days forty years ago I was a sort of junior officer in a sort of aircraft carrier, the "Ben-my-Chree," and I well remember it was then that I began to take an interest in the relation between the Navy and the Air Force. I heard what my captain said and what the admiral said. I was a Member of Parliament and I was so excited that I wrote to London, and when I went on leave I came to London and saw Lord Cowdray and Lord Curzon, and I know what they thought of the Air Force. The admirals thought it was a toy, something like a torpedo, a very nice thing to have. "We all ought to have one of those," they said. That was their conception of the Air Force. They never understood that air is a dominant weapon.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: May I ask the noble Viscount what year he is referring to when relating these interesting facts?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I am referring to a period about 1917 when our ship had the honour of lying alongside the "Fox," commanded by the noble and gallant Earl, off Jeddah.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: I hope the noble Viscount is not accusing me of holding those views.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I conceived from that event an affection for the noble Earl which has never been impaired in the course of my life. That is the real truth. When that war was over they tried to destroy the Air Force. We saw it happen and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, knows perfectly well that that was so, for he was the First Sea Lord. They tried to divide the Air Force and they put it under the charge of an Under-Secretary who was also responsible for the Board of Trade or the Colonies—I cannot remember which. That is perfectly true. Time and time again the Service people tried to destroy our organised air power. And the worst offender was the Navy, and the worst offender in the Navy
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was the mover of this Resolution tonight. They will say, "We are all experts." I could become an expert if I could find the time to read it all up and give it to noble Lords. There are lots of experts. I would beg people who are going to speak to read a book like that of Sir John Slessor, a terrifying book on the strategy of the next war. He certainly knows what he is talking about for he has been Chief of Air Staff. There are two questions that must be answered, and they have not been answered to-day: Where is the money to come from?; and, What about nuclear weapons? Not a word!
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I said a great deal about nuclear weapons but I am afraid the noble Viscount was not listening.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, I am sorry; I was not at that moment thinking of the noble Lord opposite. He certainly mentioned nuclear weapons, but it is a question of proportion, and I do not think any one today knows what is the right proportion. The question involves Russia; it involves politics and negotiation. In these difficult questions of defence it is not simply a matter of saying, "I should like a ship so many cubits long and so many cubits broad" (it is all set out in the sixth Chapter of Genesis). That is not enough. It is necessary to know how you are to divide your available resources between the various powers of defence and how you are to negotiate so as to put yourself in the most favourable position for defence. On that matter the Chiefs of Staff are apt to make tremendous mistakes. In reading past records it is appalling to read of the awful mistakes made by Chiefs of Staff. The noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, in his book, gives the reason why, during those agonising negotiations with Poland in 1939, we made the decision which we did, which led to such disastrous results. He said this in the book—I will quote only two short passages:
"The details must be followed"—
he was giving the details of the negotiations—
"against a background of disbelief in Russian military strength and suspicion of Russian political motives"
Then he went on to say:
"We had to depend for our estimate on the unanimous verdict of the British and French General Staff that the Russian Army was completely demoralised."

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The debate which took place yesterday in the other place turned on the immense strength of the Russians, which even threatened the Channel ports in 1945. Who was the Minister of Defence from whose office this estimate emerged in 1939? These are very important questions. If we are to depend on expert experience we must examine these things in retrospect and apply a quotient, at any rate, of credibility to what they say.
My Lords, I have nothing else to say, except one thing. Of course this country is in a very parlous position. So is every country. So is the whole of civilisation. There was a debate in another place yesterday and I heard it. I cannot quote the debate because that would be out of order, but I am entitled to quote what was said by the chief Minister, and I am entitled to quote the way the debate was reported in The Times. That is my particular intention. The matter which was discussed was a matter of defence, most vital at this moment. There were two great statesmen facing one another—Mr. Shinwell and the Prime Minister. I do not know why the debate was raised at all—I have never been able to understand that. I will give you first of all what The Times says about the prosecutor: I will tell you what they say about Mr. Shinwell. The Times says that the Prime Minister referred to
"… Mr. Shinwell, whose fairness in raising the matter he handsomely commended"
The Times goes on to say of Mr. Shinwell:
"His most charitable explanation was that Sir Winston Churchill might have confused the message with some ideas he had on the subject. …"
That is the prosecutor. The Times says:
"… the Prime Minister replied to his gentle, reluctant and good humoured probing"—
that is, the probing of the prosecutor. Then let us see how the man in the dock is dealt with by The Times. It states:
"Nobody could have been more candid … than the Prime Minister … The heavy burden of the apologetic rôle he had to play—so different from that which filled the nation's eye yesterday—was painfully apparent …"
There is a whole column of it. I think it is times a cleaner way was found of getting rid of the old man, if people want to do it.
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There is one passage in the debate which I will quote. The Prime Minister, quoting his speech at Woodford, said (OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 535 (No. 2), col. 175):
"It was in May last year that I advocated that we, with our allies, should work towards closer contact with Russia in order to make sure whether that great people had undergone any important change of mood and outlook under their new leadership. This is still my purpose."
The Prime Minister then added:
"In fact, that is the only explanation of my presence here to-day. It is still my purpose."
I believe, and I think the great bulk of the people in this country believe, that the greatest measure of defence we can have is that the Prime Minister should retain his position until this meeting with the Russians takes place. That, I believe, is the political answer to the Amendment here to-day.
Now to return for a moment to the Amendment. I said that I considered it very brave of the noble and gallant Admirals to bring it in. But what are they going to do? They have put it on the Order Paper. They cannot withdraw it. That will not be allowed. Certainly not! They must either vote for it—which I am sure they will do—or else they must submit to its being negatived by the House of Lords. They should not have come forward with these brave plans unless they thought they could carry then through. That is the situation in which they find themselves. That is why one anticipates the Division—if there is one—or the decision of the House, with so much interest.
5.56 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, in a flagship the admiral has a sentry, usually a marine—a respectable old soldier, very often with four stripes—whose duty it is to see that no one disturbs the admiral unduly, and to take messages in to him. I feel that I, as an old marine, may fulfil that rôle to-day, because while the ship was proceeding so calmly and all seemed so quiet, we had a speech of a most interesting character which the Admirals of the Fleet—and there are, I think, four of them in the House—will have to answer. So I am only filling the rôle of the sentry for a short time, and I shall not take up any of the technical details of the debate.

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I notice that Lord Chatfield's Amendment gives as the object of the additions to the Navy which he is demanding;
"to enable this country to meet the present serious threat to our maritime security."
In the old days, if I had been asked what was the threat to maritime security, and all security, I should have said: "Invasion and communications." I am not going to spend any time speaking of invasion, because as long as we have superiority in the air the smaller ships of the Navy, which I understand are being brought up to date, may well be able to deal with it. But there is the very important question of communications, and it is on the defence of communications that this debate really turns, because my noble friend—in fact every speaker—has given a most formidable description of the situation which now prevails owing to the size of the Russian fleet and its building programme. How are our communications to be maintained unless we have an adequate fleet to send against those from whom that possible threat might come? There is really only one answer, I think. I agree that we have to consider this in very wide perspective. There is the atomic weapon, but I feel that that will never be plentiful enough. The Russians, or whoever the enemy may be—any enemy—in the future will not have enough atomic weapons to go chasing convoys with them. We have to meet like with like—only with rather better. We have one advantage in having been so late. The one advantage we have is that into our new programmes we can introduce the latest types of weapons, be they nuclear or be they something different. In the last war we saw how essential it was to be able to bring troops from the Dominions and Colonies to any theatre of war, or any threatened area, and we saw, as in the Far East, that we could not do it when we lost command of the sea. The Singapore story is a very formidable memory, and it is a lesson that ought not to be forgotten.
The second paragraph of the gracious Speech begins:
"My Government are convinced that a strong and united Commonwealth can take a leading part in the councils of the nations."
That is infinitely true, but it presupposes safe communications, and if we do not build some counter to the present threat,
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we shall not have safe communications. The next paragraph says:
"My Ministers will promote the development of the Colonial Empire …"
That is a splendid phrase and I am glad that it has been used. But of what use is a Colonial Empire, of what use is the rubber and tin of Singapore, and the other resources we draw from all over the Empire, without safe communications? The second paragraph of the gracious Speech goes on to say:
"They look forward keenly to the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers to be held in London early next year."
I have been at many Commonwealth Conferences, certainly at more than any other noble Lord; I have taken an active part in them, and have kept in touch with members of the Commonwealth ever since. I should not look forward keenly to that Conference if I could not give a better picture of the state of our communications that we have had this afternoon. Time is getting on and your Lordships will not want to hear the sentry further; you will want to hear the Admirals of the Fleet and the other distinguished Members of the House who are about to reply.
6.3 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, we have had two eminent speakers, two Admirals of the Fleet, speaking on the Royal Navy and I am not going to add to that heavy barrage. I would rather launch myself as a guided missile, in spite of my somewhat unstreamlined figure, and let that missile be guided by my noble and gallant friend Lord Chatfield. In his Amendment to the humble Address, he particularly emphasised the lack of cruisers, and to my mind he has given an unanswerable argument. The life and feeding of this island are dependent on our merchant navy, and in time of war on the safe passage of our convoys. If there are in existence cruisers built in an enemy country to which we have no vessels of comparable strength, then I think those convoys would be in poor shape, and our losses at sea would be tremendous. I am not going to labour this point, because other speakers have cited examples from the time when our surface forces were much stronger. Whatever changes arise from unconventional weapons, I still feel that the danger of

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the surface raider exists as strongly as it did in previous wars.
My noble and gallant friend Lord Cunningham of Hyndhope has already made the point that if there is no continuity of building larger ships in our shipyards, the designers, craftsmen and naval architects will drift away, and when the time comes we shall not have the skill and knowledge there to build the type of ship we require. I doubt whether it is possible to match ship for ship, as has been said by some speakers, but at least a start should be made in building one or more modern cruisers. Incidentally, I would put in here a plea which I have made before in your Lordships' House. The only modern vessels of a larger size we have are known as the D Class. I wish they could be known as something more romantic and impressive. I think they might well be called "light cruisers."
When I read the noble and gallant Lord's Amendment, I was a little nervous that he was not going to say anything about the Fleet Air Arm. I am glad that he did, because that is a side of the Navy in which I am particularly interested. I think it is equally important that the Air Arm should be supplied with modern aircraft, which it undoubtedly lacks at the present time. I do not wish to keep your Lordships any longer this afternoon, except to add my humble support to the Amendment.
6.8 p.m.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, when I came to your Lordships' House this morning, deliberating whether I should venture to address your Lordships in this debate or not, I found that no fewer than four Admirals of the Fleet were to take part in it. I confess that I thought of the Irishman who, finding a street brawl going on, said to a bystander, "Is this a private fight or can anybody join in?" Speaking seriously, I think that, with their record of great service behind them, the Admirals of the Fleet have rendered today not the least of their services to the nation. They have issued a grave warning, which is certainly not to be minimised by remarks about "everybody loving a sailor."
We have had a speech from my noble friend Lord Stansgate, and we always appreciate greatly his speeches; but he took the line of attacking the Amendment
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upon the old ground: that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, and his supporters do not say where the money is to come from. I understand that the task of the sailor is to say, out of his experience, what is wanted. I am sure that as First Sea Lord, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, had many experiences of not being able to get the money for things which he felt necessary and of seeing, when war came, that some very unpleasant things happened because he had not been able to get the money for which he asked.
LORD CHATFIELD: And stood the blame.
LORD WINSTER: I entirely agree But surely the duty of the sailor is to issue the warning.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If I may say so, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, is not now a sailor but a Member of your Lordships' House.
LORD WINSTER: I am not sure, but I have an idea that the noble Marquess is wrong about that. I shall be corrected if I am wrong, but I think that an Admiral of the Fleet remains on the Active List, and therefore the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, is a sailor.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: Then he is in a very awkward situation.
LORD WINSTER: To go on with my argument, I think it is the duty of the sailor to issue the warning, and it is for the Government to take the responsibility of saying whether they believe the warning or not; and if they do believe it, then it is their task to find the money. I would put this point to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. Having heard this afternoon about the figures of our cruiser strength, and the great age of the majority of our cruisers, and putting that in contrast to, what we know of Russian naval strength in cruisers, does he or does he not think on those figures that, in the unfortunate event of our finding ourselves engaged in hostilities with Russia, we should be safe?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: The noble Lord has put that question to me, and I will put a question to him. I was in the Admiralty at one time as a private secretary. We had a doctrine then of a two-part standard: some people talked about "two keels to one." Is that what the

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noble Lord is suggesting? We have heard about Russian ships. Does he want two ships built to every one? I think the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, said ten.
LORD WINSTER: I never feel that one answers a question by putting another question. I do not propose to advance any suggestions about what I consider is our necessary cruiser strength. I merely ask my question: in view of the figures which have been quoted, does the noble Viscount consider that we should be safe in cruisers if we found ourselves engaged in hostilities with Russia? The question of how many we want to reply to the Russian threat is another question that we can debate on some other occasion. I have only one other reference to make to the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and it concerns what he said about a speech and some published statements by Sir John Slessor, and the horrors which Sir John Slessor has painted for us in a future war. My understanding of Sir John Slessor, however, is, on the contrary, that he has advanced a theory that war has abolished itself. So his news is very good tidings indeed; it is the best we have had, if he is to be believed. But I noticed, in a criticism of his book or lecture by the Spectator, that he was severely criticised on the grounds of "chop logic," or something of that nature.
I should like to put the remarks I have to make, and the speeches to which we have listened, into the framework of the speech made this year by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Thomas, about the Russian fleet. That speech attracted considerable attention; and it has since been said, by way of reassurance, that the N.A.T.O. navies combined exceed the Russian strength which the First Lord quoted. But to leave it at that would be most misleading: for, as I understand it, while the Russian fleet is nearly all in commission the greater part of the N.A.T.O. ships are in reserve; and in an emergency it would take a considerable time to get them all on an active footing. How much time shall we have if such an emergency supervenes? I remember that when the present Prime Minister was leaving the Admiralty at the time of the Dardanelles, it is said that Lord Kitchener went to see him and said to him: "At any rate, there is one thing they can never take from you; when war broke out you
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had the ships ready. "My Lords, if war came to-morrow, no one would be able to say to the Prime Minister: "Well, you had the ships ready." They are not there, and they are not ready. Again, if you look at the N.A.T.O. list of ships, you will find they are mostly old ships, whereas the Russian ships are mostly post-war. Both quantitatively and qualitatively the Russians have the advantage.
Let us look at our own fleet. The latest figures that I have seen (if there are later figures I can be corrected) are that we have 19 carriers, of which 3 are in full commission; 24 cruisers, with 10 in full commission; and 92 destroyers, with 26 in full commission. That, or thereabouts, is the position today. What of the future? We have been told this afternoon that we have nothing larger than a frigate building at the moment. To be quite accurate, as I wish to be, I believe it to be the case that there are five light carriers built, or building, for Commonwealth countries. But of these ships which I have quoted, 11 of the 24 cruisers, and 37 of the 92 destroyers, will be over age somewhere about 1960. You cannot keep a Navy at effective strength by building in fits and starts; you have to build steadily. I notice—and I think it is a fair analogy—that the chairman of the P. and O., at the launching of their latest ship, the "Iberia," the other day, in referring to the cost of that ship, said:
"It is a bit of a gamble, but you cannot stay in the shipbuilding business if you do not build ships."
That is true of the Navy: we cannot keep up our position as a naval Power unless we have a continuous building programme.
Why do we not hear of any carriers, cruisers or destroyers building or projected? What is the idea at the back of this lamentable state of affairs? Are we relying upon American strength to fulfil our deficiencies? What a tale to tell the British public, who still have a great affection for, and pride in, the British Navy, that we are not building because we are relying on another nation! If that is not the case, and if that does not explain the reason why we are not building, will the Government tell us to-day that they do, in fact, intend to face up to the situation and set in hand a building programme for the replacement of what, in a few years' time, will

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be, by naval standards, old junk? In the speech to which I have already referred, the First Lord of the Admiralty warned us of the Russian threat by quoting the figures of their fleet. But what has he done about it since? What is he doing about it? The warning he has given us, but we have heard nothing of the steps he is taking to meet his own warning; so far he has left us in the dark.
Aircraft carriers have been mentioned this afternoon. Let me say at once that I have no intention whatever of getting involved in the sea-air controversy. I do not think I have ever said an acrimonious word on that subject, and I never intend to; and I am not going to address my remarks to that this afternoon. Field Marshal Lord Montgomery has said that he sees little future for aircraft carriers. But at the moment the nations with any pretentions to sea power regard the carriers as the linch pin of their navies. "Sea power" is Perhaps rather a bad term to use nowadays, because what is known as sea power can be exercised only by a combination of air and sea. Perhaps the term "maritime power" is better. But how is the air component of maritime power to be exercised without the carrier? I have heard it said in your Lordships' House that the carrier is very vulnerable. The figures of the last war do not bear that out. The carrier can defend herself, and it is unlikely to be operating without escort when in dangerous waters. In saying this I am quite aware of the impact of modern weapons, but to be always thinking about these modern weapons really means giving up all thought of putting up a fight. What we have to do is to think unceasingly about what is the reply to the modern weapons, but, meanwhile, to get on with the current types of ships.
We may not want the 60,000 ton carriers which the Americans are building—the "Forrestal" carriers—but we want, as things are at the moment, at least three types of carrier. We want the heavy carrier for the offensive, the light carrier for merchant convoy and the ferry carrier for supply. If that is agreed, why are there no carriers on the stocks to-day? Of the carriers we have, six are either modern or are modernised and represent up-to-date equipment and effectiveness. But after those six new or modernised carriers come no fewer than tell veterans
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of World War II, upwards of fifteen years old and with a very hard life behind them. I cannot think that they would be worth modernising. One of them, the "Victorious," has been "having her face lifted" ever since 1951, and I wonder when she is to come out of the beauty parlour. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, can tell us that this afternoon. I feel that there should be some limit to this expensive and largely ineffective modernising. Let us build new ships. The Board of Admiralty should read their Bibles and stop trying to put new wine into old bottles; it has never been a very successful process. The First Sea Lord said quite recently:
"Carrier-borne aircraft remain the main striking power of the Fleet. Far from being outmoded, the full importance of the aircraft carrier has yet to snake itself felt."
That is the opinion of the present First Sea Lord, and I wonder whether, in his heart of hearts, he is really satisfied with the "built and building" figures of aircraft carriers.
I will not touch upon cruisers, because that subject has been adequately dealt with by the noble Viscount, Lord Hall. But nothing much has been said about destroyers this afternoon. The destroyers have been getting very large, and that is perhaps because of the endeavour to put all the eggs in one basket—to put all the modern equipment and the modern weapons into one ship. I wonder whether there is anything to be said for the theory of building something in the nature of specialist ships so as to economise size. The position has certainly improved as regards minesweepers and anti-submarine ships, and that is a matter for congratulation. But again, those minesweepers and anti-submarine ships represent the defensive in warfare, and we have heard this afternoon unarguably stated that the rôle of the Navy is offensive. It is the lack of a building programme for offensive ships that we are discussing to-day.
I have quoted Field Marshal Lord Montgomery who, in addition to his views about the aircraft carrier, seems to want a smaller Navy. The great trouble about Lord Montgomery—and I would not say one word to detract from his incomparable services to the country as a soldier—is that now he is what newspaper men call "news." Whatever he says and however misguided his remarks

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may be, he is news and those remarks are printed at full length, probably under a striking headline, and achieve a wide circulation. I am afraid that the Navy has for some time been failing to get the reply over to what he and other critics of the Navy have been saying. I think things may improve, for I rejoice to think that we have a First Sea Lord coming who will command just as much public attention for his remarks as does Lord Montgomery. Admiral Lord Mountbatten is not only our foremost sailor, who owes his promotions to his own merits and nothing else, but he is also a great figure in the world who has had to deal with the other great figures of the world during the greatest events the world has yet seen. I am quite sure that we can rely upon him, when he comes to the Admiralty, to put the Navy case effectively and to see that the Navy gets a fair share of the pie and no longer does Cinderella—I will not say to its two ugly sisters—which is the position to which she has been allowed largely to sink since 1945. I feel that the Navy, for various reasons, has suffered a certain diminution of prestige. But I am sure of this: that no First Sea Lord, not even Admiral Mountbatten, will be able to restore the prestige of the Navy unless he acknowledges fully the present rôle of the air. Nothing does the Navy more harm with the public than any suspicion that there is jealousy or resentment of the air arm.
Another thing which I feel is essential to the restoration of the Navy's prestige is that more consideration should be given to the Fleet Air Arm, and that the Fleet Air Arm should be fully encouraged and properly supplied. I know that things are, if anything, getting better with the Fleet Air Arm, but it has suffered severely from neglect in the past. It suffered in its earliest days through being treated rather as a new and unwanted poor relation of the Navy, thrust into what, until her advent, had been a very happy family without her. The Fleet Air Arm must be fully accepted and integrated into the Navy and its needs must be fully met; and the Navy's prestige generally will increase immensely in accordance with the efficiency of the Fleet Air Arm. Of that I feel quite certain.
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Public opinion must be educated on what is involved in what I would call the Navy's case, because at the present moment the public is very largely in ignorance of what the naval requirements are and of what the Navy's case is. In its ignorance, it is slightly prejudiced, and there has been a certain falling off in public love and esteem for the Navy. The Navy has to learn at least one lesson in that respect—what I would call the lesson of propaganda and publicity. Those methods have always been somewhat abhorrent to the Navy, but in these days they must no longer be looked upon as tainted. The Navy's future will be decided by Parliamentary influence upon the Cabinet, and Parliament itself is increasingly influenced by the Press and by radio. The Press nowadays does little for the Navy, and the day of the great naval correspondents has passed. We no longer see such names in the paper. But not even the Press and not even the radio can influence Parliament unless the Board of Admiralty knows exactly what it wants and makes out the case for what it wants. Why, for instance does the Board of Admiralty let go unnoticed statements that the Navy's rôle is now confined to defence? Let 'the Board tell the public what the Navy has got to do, how it will have to do it and what it wants to do it with. If that is clearly and lucidly put before the public and repeated frequently, I am quite sure the public will respond.
In this debate this afternoon I feel the Government have had a very grave warning which cannot be lightly set aside. Four officers of the highest professional ability and reputation will, by the time the debate is over, have reiterated this warning in the Government's ears, and, should the Government ignore it and should things go on in this way, with our ships wearing out and no ships being put on the stocks to replace them, the Government themselves will suffer a diminution of the confidence of the public.
LORD TEYNHAM: Before the noble Lord sits down, I should like to correct one point in particular. I think he said that the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery, had said in his recent speech that aircraft carriers were no longer necessary for the fleet. I have in

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my hands a verbatim report of that speech. He said:
"New weapons have not yet rendered the aircraft carrier obsolete, but they are likely, to do so in the fuure."
I think that time has not arrived yet.
LORD WINSTER: I apologise if I have done the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery, an injustice, but at the same time I think the tenor of the remarks show that he has little confidence in the aircraft carrier.
6.33 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE: My Lords, you have all listened to this debate, and so much has been said that I do not propose to add much more. There is only one point which has not been mentioned, and that is that in about six or seven years' time we shall not have any cruisers. I am sure that the public do not realise that. That is the situation. The fleet is running down to that extent. There are so many changing scenes of life, so to speak, nowadays, with the introduction of new weapons and other things happening, that it is as well to remember that there are two factors which have not changed for 500 years, and will not change in the foreseeable future. One is the vagaries of the weather, which have a greater influence at sea than on land, and the other is that our supplies will continue to come to this country in comparatively slow-moving convoys. There will be no other means of bringing supplies in the next twenty-five years. I believe that even the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Trenchard, would agree that in that short time it would not be possible to supply the country by air.
The significant thing to my mind is that two big Powers, one in the East and one in the West, are building powerful navies. Why do they do that? And there is one great Power in the middle which is letting her navy run down. As I see a future war, we shall have terrific air battles. It is vital for us to win that air battle. At the same time the Russians (or our enemy) will send out their fleets and submarines to strike at our lifelines. Those will be their tactics. And at the present time, or in the very near future, we cannot compete with them. So the Russians (or our enemies, whoever they may be) will, if they win
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on that line, be able to ground all our air forces and all our armies, and we shall starve. That is the answer.
It may be said that perhaps there ought to be new developments to safeguard our convoys. We have carried out, and are carrying out, many experiments, but, so far, nothing leads us to believe that there is any other method of protecting these convoys, which have to take to the sea in any weather for a fortnight, three weeks or four weeks, than having naval ships in close attendance all the time, with the help, when necessary, of the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Air Force. There is no other way known, and none is likely to be known in the near future, of protecting a convoy against that sort of attack.
The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, I think, mentioned the position of aircraft carriers and cruisers—they were not alternative—and that is why I brought in the weather so strongly. It depends entirely on the weather which type of vessel is used. In my "Scharnhorst" battle in the North, the wintry dark weather made use of the air by either side impossible. We could not have used an aircraft carrier, and the result was that three cruisers saved that big convoy of thirty ships. It was lucky that we had the three cruisers there, as well as the normal escort against submarines. Subsequently, other surface forces destroyed the "Scharnhorst," but if we had not had those three cruisers there, that convoy of thirty ships would have gone, with no help, or possibility of help, or search from the air. That is an example of how important it is to think of the weather; for surface ships can still be covered by the weather. As your Lordships may remember, the "Scharnhorst" and the "Gneisenau" came up the Channel unscathed, simply taking advantage of the weather. It is true that later they were damaged by mines laid by the Royal Air Force, but those had been laid three or four days beforehand.
The question of aircraft carriers is a debatable point, and always has been; but in my view one has to look upon the aircraft carrier as an advance base near to the point of danger. That is what the carrier really is. It is capable of attacking in places which are "un-get-at-able" by other means. The Fleet Air Arm was the only force, except our midget submarines,

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able to immobilise the "Tirpitz" for something like three months. That emphasises once again the offensive character of our Navy: it is an offensive Service. In my opinion we are not capable at the moment of meeting an attack on our convoys. It is said that we should not go on spending so much money on the carrier, which I described just now as an "advance base near to the point of danger." In using the carrier in that way, of course, we are merely following the policy of the Royal Air Force, because, as your Lordships will remember, on D-Day the aerodromes had to be in the South of England and the first thing the air people and Field Marshal Lord Montgomery wanted to do was to shift those bases across to France. They were shifted, of course, by the Royal Navy. It is that same policy which we follow.
I have little more to add. In the last six months I have perceived a slight sense of frustration going through the Royal Naval Service. The reason for it is lack of sea time, lack of any policy in regard to a replacement programme and lack of encouragement. As your Lordships know, too, alterations have been made in regard to the entry of men into the Navy—and the Navy knows that this was a result of purely political pressure. In the last respect, Royal Naval scholarships have been introduced, but to my mind it was scandalous that those scholarships should be subject to a means test. Surely a scholarship should go to the best boy. To go back to old history, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will not continue to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to the modern equivalent of the telescope, which is the Asdic and radar danger signals of the Royal Navy.
6.41 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, I think all your Lordships will agree that we have had a most interesting debate this afternoon. We have heard speeches from noble Lords who have a lifetime of knowledge of their subject—indeed, as has already been mentioned, no fewer than three Admirals of the Fleet have taken part in the debate.
I think the fact that they have adopted this rather unusual procedure is evidence
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of how strongly your Lordships feel on this subject. As a matter of interest, I believe that the last time an Amendment to the Address was moved in this House was about ten years ago, when it was moved by the noble and gallant Earl, Lord Cork, who I am glad to see is associated with this Amendment—he entered but was scratched at the last moment. I think that this discussion has shown that there is an impressive weight of opinion your Lordships' House on the need for a strong Navy—a weight of opinion not only amongst the most distinguished officers of that Service who have spoken but also on all sides of the House. There was indeed almost complete unanimity, except for the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, whom we all enjoyed and who enjoyed himself this afternoon.
This is the first time that I have spoken in your Lordships' House as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. To do something for the first time is always rather alarming, and it is doubly so to-day when I have to answer noble and gallant Lords whose names and reputations are household words throughout the country. I feel rather like Daniel in the lions' den, but with no faith that a comparable miracle will occur. Your Lordships will remember that Daniel said
"My God hath sent his angels and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me."
I am afraid that that is perhaps too much to ask for. At any rate, I can assure noble Lords that what has been said will be most carefully studied by the First Lord of the Admiralty and also by my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence. I should perhaps say that it is very uncommon for any statement on general defence policy to be made on this sort of occasion. Every year in February the Government of the day issue a White Paper on defence policy which is a comprehensive statement of the Government's views. It is then debated in both Houses of Parliament, and usually not long afterwards we in this House have a day's debate on the Navy Estimates. Your Lordships will remember that this year the debate was rather long delayed, taking place as recently as the end of July, when my noble friend Lord Birkenhead answered for the Government.
I think that the convenient time for Her Majesty's Government to announce

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their policy for defence and for the matter to be fully discussed in the context of both foreign and defence policy as a whole, is after the publication of the Defence White Paper. It is not possible in these days, when all questions of defence are so complicated and so interlinked the one with the other, to isolate the problems of any one service. We not only have to think of defence in terms of our own country, but must bear in mind our membership of such collective organisations as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation. This is more than ever true now, when, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, immense changes are taking place in military facts and in military thoughts, and the advent of the hydrogen bomb has fundamentally altered the entire problem of defence. We are struggling with new concepts of warfare brought about by the rapid pace of scientific development. It is the responsibility of the Government to decide how best such resources as we have should be allocated for defence. It is obviously a most difficult task. There can never, in the nature of things, be enough to meet all claims, and the problem of priorities is one of the perpetual "headaches" of any Government. However, having said that, I think it only right that I should offer a few short—what one might call interim—observations, in order to show to those of your Lordships who have spoken on this matter and who have expressed anxiety over the future of the Royal Navy, that Her Majesty's Government are fully aware of what is at stake and have taken measures to deal with this problem.
My Lords, we now have two heavy carriers. The "Eagle" and the "Ark Royal" are in commission, and three light fleet carriers of the "Hermes" class have been completed, and another one is under construction. All these ships have a much improved performance, by comparison with their pre-war or war-time counterparts. The introduction of the angled-decks and mirror sights will greatly improve operational efficiency and out down the accident rate. This is a matter of the greatest importance, not only in safeguarding human life but in preserving the very expensive aircraft with which carriers have to be equipped if they are to do their job properly. Four cruisers have been modernised since the
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war, and another is in the process of being so modernised. The completion of the three "Tiger" class cruisers whose construction was, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, mentioned, suspended to allow the installation of power-operated armament, has been announced. These ships are armed with a first-class new 6-inch gun with a revolutionary rate of fire. Four of these guns can deliver five tons of metal per minute. These ships will incorporate a radically new type of gunnery armament which will enable them to fire rapidly and accurately at both surface and air targets, by day and by night. But it may well be that these will be the last purely gun cruisers to be built.
The eight "Daring" class ships have been completed, and although they were originally designed in the latter part of the war, the designs have been brought up to date during their long period of construction, and they are very fine ships indeed. Nine new frigates have been launched and will shortly come into service. Another will be launched this week. For anti-submarine work it is essential that ships should be fast enough and modern enough to cope with any submarines they are likely to meet. We have seen in two wars how disastrous to our very survival a U-boat campaign can be, and we must he ready to meet any possible threat in the future. A large programme of modernisation and conversion has been carried out in the past three years in order to improve our antisubmarine forces. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government fully recognise, that in spite of what has been done—and the amount of work done should not be underestimated— the Fleet, and particularly its cruiser strength, is ageing, and that, as soon as it is possible to see sufficiently clearly what kind of ships will be required to meet the conditions of naval warfare in the future, important decisions will have to be made.
LORD CHATFIELD: When will that be?
LORD CARRINGTON: If the noble Lord will wait one moment, he will find that I am coming to that. I would ask those of your Lordships who criticised the Government for the delay in replacing these ships to remember once again that we are in the middle of great changes in warfare, and that to spend

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large sums of money before the consequences of those changes have been fully discussed and digested is not only imprudent but wasteful. The decisions that must be made will not be easy. The noble Viscount, Lord Hall, asked me what was the cruiser strength. The cruiser strength, excepting the cruiser "Nigeria" which, as the noble Viscount knows, has been transferred to the Indian Government, is twenty-four. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, specifically said in his speech that we should not rely upon our Allies and we should build ship for ship.
LORD CHATFIELD: My Lords, may I interrupt for one moment to say that I ought to have said we should not unduly rely on our Allies. I may have left out the word "unduly" but I must look at Hansard to-morrow morning to see whether I did.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not want to misinterpret the noble and gallant Lord, and if I have done so I apologise; but I do not think it makes any difference to the argument I was going to deploy. I would, with respect, strongly dissent from the thesis that we should plan our defences on the basis that in war we should be prepared to look after our own affairs and leave our Allies to look after theirs. It is, and must continue to be, the basis of our own defence policy that we should not fight alone but in concert with our Allies, including, of course, the United States, the strongest military power in the world. Our defence in the North Atlantic area is planned carefully and in detail with our Allies, and only by combined planning can the resources of all the West be properly used. This certainly would not happen if we all went our own way, and I suggest to your Lordships that it would be both contrary to common sense and also wasteful. The control of the sea will always remain a vital interest of this country, which lives in peace by its sea-borne trade and depends in war for its life on imports of food, oil and materials of all kinds.
The means of applying sea power in any future war must therefore always form an essential component of this country's war effort—either in local or limited wars in any part of the world
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or in any global war which should ever come upon us. It will be the duty of those who exercise sea power, in co-operation with our Allies—for there can be no question of fighting alone—to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war at sea and secure the safety of our sea-borne supplies. Though no one can say exactly how a future global war may develop, we believe that within the limits of our resources we must do our best to ensure that our forces are prepared for a war which, though initially of great intensity, may nevertheless continue for a very long time. As the war proceeds maritime power will play a rôle of ever-increasing importance.
The methods of exercising sea power have, throughout history, been subject to change with the advance of knowledge and science. In the days of the first Queen Elizabeth and for centuries afterwards the threat from surface ships was all we had to deal with, and most successfully did we deal with it by our own surface ships and by the ingenuity of the men who manned them, the officers who commanded them and the admirals who led them in battle. The first new threat to the surface forces of the Navy came with the invention of the underwater mine. This was initially a Russian weapon and it has remained a serious threat ever since those days. Then, early in this century, came the development of the submarine as a weapon of war. For the first time the submarine in the 1914–18 War became a menace to our existence. In that war we had two threats to combat at sea: one on the surface and the other beneath the surface. In the last war for the first time we saw the development of a third threat to our sea communications—from the air above the sea. This was used not only by itself but also in skilful combination with the other two. We thus now have to deal with a triple threat: on the sea, below the sea and above the sea.
In parallel with the development of new threats has come the development of new counters to them. Our surface ships were first equipped with depth charges and later with anti-submarine weapons. Aircraft carriers and their aircraft have been developed for antisubmarine work, for destroying enemy fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft and for striking at sea targets. To

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the support of these naval forces has come the land-based long-range aircraft, which can be employed not only as an anti-submarine weapon and for maritime reconnaissance but also for striking at sea targets. One of the great problems today is to determine how the balance between land-based air forces and naval forces of all kinds, including carriers and their aircraft, should properly be struck. There is no doubt in the mind of Her Majesty's Government that control of the sea and the exercise of sea power is still, and will always remain, a vital interest of the United Kingdom in war and as an instrument of our Commonwealth and foreign policy in peace.
The nature of our naval forces is, however, bound to continue to evolve. We are on the threshold of new developments in the application of guided weapons to sea warfare. As has already been announced, the Admiralty is converting a ship into what might be described as a test vehicle for guided weapon armament. The results obtained from this experimental ship will have a most important influence on future design. The results achieved obviously will govern the shape of the next generation of ships, referred to by my right honourable friend in another place yesterday. It seems unlikely that ships already in existence will be suitable for conversion to incorporate guided weapon armament. The Admiralty has already made a detailed study of the practicability of converting our existing battleships, to which the noble Viscount. Lord Hall, referred, but the extent of the work which would be required would be so great that they have decided that such a project would be quite uneconomical. What applies to battleships must apply with even greater force to ships of other types. Moreover, the economic situation will continue to set limits to the resources which the country can afford to provide for its defence forces. It has been the universal experience of recent years that new weapons cost a great deal more money than those they supersede, and there is no reason to suppose that this will not continue to be true in the future. We must therefore be reasonably satisfied that we know what we want to do before we sink great sums of money in new construction.
In making these interim comments on the basis of what your Lordships will
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know to be an incomplete knowledge and very short experience, I should not wish it to be thought that Her Majesty's Government are in any way complacent about this most important matter. As I have already said, they fully recognise the necessity, for this country, in co-operation with its Allies, to be in a position at any time to retain control of the sea. They are very conscious of the potential threats to that control. They have not failed to note the striking growth since the war in the power the Russian naval forces. In the recent past the Russians have seemed to pay little attention to the sea, but since the end of the war Russia has engaged in a very large building programme and if numbers of ships alone are the test she has emerged as a naval power second only to the United States of America. We have seen the powerful "Sverdlov" class of cruiser, of which Russia now has about twelve and is building more. We are aware of her total fleet of 500 submarines, a large proportion of which are large ocean-going vessels with a possible radius of action of something like 20,000 miles. All these are significant factors in the world situation which we cannot afford to ignore and of which full account must be taken in planning our national defence policy and in deciding, in consultation with our Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, how their collective efforts can be most effectively organised and deployed.
Detailed questions which have been raised by many members of your Lordships' House will be dealt with at a later date, I hope, in the debate on the Navy Estimates; but I can assure the House that all that has been said in this debate, and said, if I may respectfully say so, with such force and so great a wealth of knowledge and experience, will be most carefully noted and considered, and that it will be of the greatest value to Her Majesty's Government in deciding the right course of action for the future. Having said that, I hope that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, will find it possible to ask permission of your Lordships to withdraw his Amendment, and that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate—who, as I understand him, strongly objects to the Amendment—will not object to its withdrawal.
7 p.m.
LORD CHATFIELD: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord who has just replied to the Amendment for the most able way in which he has performed a very difficult task—I think for the first time since he became Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Defence. This is a difficult subject with which to deal. I cannot say that I am satisfied with all that the noble Lord has said, but the spirit of his reply was, to my mind, very satisfactory. He has promised to do all he can to draw the attention of those Ministries which are concerned to the problems which I and my colleagues who have spoken to-day have pointed out. I would only remark, on one point which the noble Lord made—that was on the old question about the difficulty of dealing with ever-improving weapons—that it is an absolutely dangerous doctrine. We simply cannot wait to build a new squadron of aircraft because designers have on the drawing board something far better. We have to go on. If we were alone in building we could wait, but if our rival is building all the time, then it is like saying to the Services: "Would you rather have no cruisers at all, or have some jolly good ones in four or five years' time?—we cannot tell you when war will start." That is what it amounts to. We cannot afford to wait; it is too dangerous. We have thrown away years.
I think the House may expect me to say something about the condemnation of the Amendment by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. I really felt as if I were back again in Whitehall and he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. How often have I been in that position before, twenty years ago, and heard the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying to me: "You do not realise that the financial dangers to this country are far greater
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than the military"! We did not accept those arguments in those days. We pressed for money to save the country if war came. And fortunately they were not so bigoted in their views as to go on saying "No." So the Defence Loans came, and the country was saved, and Lord Stansgate is here to-day. I do not want to ask noble Lords to support me to-day on my Amendment. I should regret it if from the Motion for an humble Address there were one dissentient, and I would therefore ask the House, with all due deference, if it will now give me permission to withdraw my Amendment, which has served its purpose.
7.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, on a point of Order. It is most unusual for an Amendment to be put down to an Address, especially, I believe, in this House. I object very strongly to this Amendment, and I want to vote against it. I hope that the Admirals will not strike their flag but will go into the Lobby in support of their proposal, in which case I shall follow the Government Whips. But I object to the withdrawal of the Amendment. If it cannot be voted on, it must be negatived.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): Is it your Lordships' pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Content.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: No, my Lord Chancellor.
On Question, Amendment negatived, and Motion agreed to nemine contradicente: the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves
House adjourned at five minutes past seven o'clock.