Sitting of 14 July 1955

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

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL [MONEY] BILL
  Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) suspended; Bill to be read the Third time forthwith.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  ABERDEEN CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
  Read the Third time and passed.
  STROMNESS HARBOUR (GUARANTEE) ORDER CONFIRMATION
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, relating to Stromness Harbour (Guarantee), presented by Mr. James Stuart; and ordered (under Section 7 of the Act) to be considered Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 28.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  EMPLOYMENT

    Engineering and Shipbuilding Industries
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the 40 years worsening relative position of craftsmen and other skilled men in the engineering industry; and whether he will appoint a committee to investigate and report.
    The Minister of Labour and National Service (Sir Walter Monckton): There have naturally been changes in relative wage rates in engineering and many other industries during the past forty years, but I see no need for the investigation suggested by the hon. Member.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Labour, in view of current unrest in the engineering industry, what action was taken by his predecessor on the Report on the Relations in the Engineering Industry, Command Paper No. 7511, of 1948.
    Sir W. Monckton: In accordance with normal practice, the Report was referred to the parties for their consideration.
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Labour if it is now intended to take any action with a view to modernising the joint consultative and negotiating machinery in the engineering and shipbuilding industry following on the Report of the Court of Inquiry in 1948, Command Paper No. 7511.
    Sir W. Monckton: The modernisation of joint machinery in these two industries, which was not specifically dealt with in the Court's recommendations, is a matter for the two sides of the industries concerned. The services of my Department are always available to advise and assist the parties if they so desire.

    Profit-sharing and Co-partnership Schemes
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement indicating the extent to which co-partnership and profit-sharing are practised in British industry.
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Labour what information he has about the extent to which profit-sharing and co-partnership schemes have been instituted in British industry; and the extent to which such schemes have increased in number since 1945.
    Sir W. Monckton: I regret that the information desired is not available. As I have already informed the House, comprehensive statistics relating to profit sharing and co-partnership are being collected by my Department and will be published as soon as they are available.
    Mr. Shepherd: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that in recent months there has been a desirable increase in the number of schemes? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer with a view to seeing whether the disabilities that now attach to some of these schemes can be removed?
    Sir W. Monckton: I quite understand the desirability of these schemes, and I am in constant touch with my right hon. Friend.
    Mr. Mikardo: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman include in the figures when he publishes them information about the number and range of producer co-operatives, which are, of course, the ideal form of co-partnership?
    Sir W. Monckton: I said in answer to a similar Question last week that I would take into account all those similar schemes and find what statistics could be produced.
    Mr. Gower: Is it not a fact that when the statistics were published before the war they included a very comprehensive list, including private industry and the Co-operative movement?
    Sir W. Monckton: I believe that that is so.
    Mr. Snow: Is the Minister aware that in some of these schemes there is no sort of financial control or recognition of the rights of the so-called co-partners to voice their opinions about financial control? Is his Department looking into the question whether tax reliefs are given to such co-partnerships where the co-partners in fact do not get the benefit of these tax reliefs?
    Sir W. Monckton: There are many kinds of schemes of this sort and I should not like to answer on that matter without notice.
    Mr. Woodburn: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman try to explain to the railways how the profit-sharing scheme will work for the railwaymen?

    Remploy, Limited
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Labour whether he will make a statement on future policy regarding the Remploy scheme.
    Mr. H. Butlerasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware of the disquiet with the present basis of Remploy, Limited; and if he will make a statement regarding future policy.
    Sir W. Monckton: As the House was informed in February last, the board invited the Organisation and Methods
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    Division of the Treasury to examine the whole organisation of the company. That Report has now been received by the board and is under examination by them. We hope shortly to discuss with the board any questions of policy arising from this survey.
    I have also to inform the House that Sir Robert Burrows, who has been chairman of Remploy, Limited, for the last six years, and to whom I and my predecessors owe a great debt of gratitude for his fine work on behalf of the severely disabled, has long been pressing to be released from this onerous post and I have now had to accede to his request. I recently appointed Mr. A. T. S. Zealley, lately director of Imperial Chemical Industries, to the board of Remploy with a view to his replacing Sir Robert Burrows.
    Mr. Zealley will, however, not be able to take on the chairmanship until some time next year, and the vice-chairman, Sir Brunel Cohen, has agreed to take over the chairmanship in the meantime, Mr. Zealley succeeding him as vice-chairman. I should like to express my gratitude to Sir Brunel for taking on this additional heavy burden in the cause of the severely disabled whom he has championed so ably throughout his life.
    I hope to announce the appointment of additional members to the board in the near future.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that in all parts of the House we join with him in the appreciation he has expressed of the retiring chairman and in his welcome to the new chairman? Will the Minister ensure that Remploy not only pursues efficiency in the light of the Report that it has received, but also seeks to establish itself as a really worth-while social service?
    Sir W. Monckton: I am very grateful to the hon. Member for the way in which he put that supplementary question. It is my wish and intention to do my best to carry out that end.
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Labour the number of disabled persons employed at Remploy factories on 1st January, 1955, and on the latest available date.
    Sir W. Monckton: The number of severely disabled persons employed in Remploy factories at 4th January, 1955, was 6,540 and at 21st June, 1955, 6,196.
    Mr. Willey: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman watch the figures carefully and do what he can to help Remploy to see that the trend is reversed, and resist the pressure that obviously comes from the Treasury?
    Sir W. Monckton: There is only one satisfactory feature about the change, and that is that the number of unemployed persons in both Sections I and II is steadily going down.
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that large contracts are offered on occasions to Remploy at prices which are insufficient to cover the cost of materials and trade union rates of wages; and what instructions his Department has given to Remploy in the matter.
    Sir W. Monckton: I assume the hon. Member is referring to Government contracts, and as I told my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on 24th March, 1955, I am aware that prices for these contracts are severely competitive. I understand, however, that the prices quoted are those at which outside trading concerns are prepared to undertake the work, and I therefore assume that they cover at least the cost of the materials and labour charges. It is entirely a matter for Remploy to decide what contracts they shall accept.
    Mr. Collins: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman inquire into this matter again? He is quite right in saying that I referred to Government Departments. May I suggest that if he inquires again he will find that very often the fixing of the price comes from a tender from Her Majesty's Prison and has no relation at all to wages and material and that very often the price does not cover wages? Is the Minister aware that that is most reprehensible? Is he aware that it has a very adverse effect on Remploy and similar institutions if at any time they are to be judged by economic considerations and not as a social service?
    Sir W. Monckton: So far as I am aware, there are no such cases. I shall be glad to look into any case which the hon. Member submits to me.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is the Minister aware that the prices of some Government contracts, notably those for the packaging of small parts, are quite generous when put out to private firms? Why is it that Remploy always seems to be offered the thin jobs and not the fat jobs by Government Departments?
    Sir W. Monckton: I was not aware of that. If the hon. Member will give me particulars, I will certainly look into them. I want to help Remploy.
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Labour the number of Section II disabled persons who are registered at the Kings-land Road, Shoredith, Employment Exchange; and how many of these are at present being trained and employed, respectively, by Remploy.
    Sir W. Monckton: On 7th July, 1955, six disabled persons, classified as being unlikely to obtain employment except under sheltered conditions (Section II) were registered as unemployed at the Shoreditch Employment Exchange. At the present time one severely disabled person previously registered at this office is employed by Remploy.
    Mr. Collins: Can the Minister say whether he contemplates setting up another Remploy factory anywhere in East or North-East London so that collectively there is an opportunity for the civilian disabled people to become occupied?
    Sir W. Monckton: I do not contemplate that at the moment. None of the people so registered is considered suitable for Remploy employment.
    Mr. Collinsasked the Minister of Labour what proportion the cost of selling bears to the total annual value of the sales of Remploy.
    Sir W. Monckton: Remploy, Limited, estimate that for the year ended 31st March, 1955, their selling costs represented about 11 per cent. of the total sales of the company.
    Mr. Collins: Does not the Minister regard this as somewhat high, bearing in mind that large parts of the Remploy turnover are, as he says, from Government Departments, where selling costs ought to be very low indeed? Will the Minister refer the matter to the attention of the new chairman for investigation?
    Sir W. Monckton: That, of course, is one of the matters which will have been looked into and referred to in the report, but I will certainly bring it to the attention of the new vice-chairman and chairman.
    Mr. Mikardoasked the Minister of Labour how many persons are registered at the Reading Employment Exchange as disabled under Section II; how many of these are at present being trained or employed by Remploy; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with the remainder.
    Sir W. Monckton: Fourteen persons classified as being unlikely to obtain employment except under sheltered conditions, Section II, are registered as unemployed at Reading Employment Exchange. There is no Remploy factory at Reading, but the employment exchange considers severely disabled persons for submission to all suitable vacancies as they arise. Since February, 1955, the exchange has placed seven severely disable persons in ordinary employment.
    Mr. Mikardoasked the Minister of Labour to what extent, and by how many employees, he expects the work of Remploy to diminish in the coming year.
    Sir W. Monckton: Since the beginning of the financial year, the number of disabled workers employed by Remploy has fallen from 6,370 to 6,196 through non-replacement of wastage. I do not intend that the number of workers should fall below 6,000 during the current year.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that Members in all parts of the House share the desire he has expressed to do his best for Remploy and will give him all the support they can if he will stand up to the Treasury, which is obviously cutting down on this job?
    Sir W. Monckton: I shall always be glad of any support in any hard cause.
    Mr. Mikardoasked the Minister of Labour what proportion of the sales of Remploy is represented by general and administrative overheads and by factory overheads, respectively; and what he estimates these proportion would be if the sales were increased by 50 per cent.
    Sir W. Monckton: It is estimated that general and administrative overheads,
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    including sales distribution overheads account for about 20 per cent. and factory overheads, including carriage and depreciation for about 45 per cent. of the total sales figure. No reliable estimate can be given of changes in these proportions as the result of an increase of 50 per cent. in sales.
    Mr. Mikardo: Is it not, however, clear that there would be some substantial reduction, and would not the best way to deal with these high overheads, which are limiting the development of Remploy sales, be to seek to create a greater turnover, even if that means putting in some more money for the work in progress and for stocks?
    Sir W. Monckton: Sales show a substantial increase, and Government Departments account for about one-third of the total sales, but overheads during the period of the increase decreased from 76·9 per cent. to 72 per cent. of the sales figure and the loss per man has not declined. That is a matter into which this report inquires and in which I hope the board will take an interest.
    Mr. E. Johnson: Can my right hon. Friend give us any idea as to how that overhead figure compares with the normal average in industry?
    Sir W. Monckton: I could no doubt get that information if my hon. Friend wants it, but one has to remember this that those responsible for running Remploy are bound to deal with some 90 factories employing between them 6,000 people, which makes a great difference.

    Sickness and Injury Schemes
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Labour what information he possesses about the extent to which sickness and injury schemes have been instituted, in British industry; and the extent to which such schemes have increased in number since 1945.
    Sir W. Monckton: I am sending my hon. Friend such information as is available in my Department.
    Mr. Gower: Whilst thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for his reply, may I ask whether he has noted that most writers on co-partnership attach great importance to these other schemes?
    Sir W. Monckton: The information will take a few days to prepare, but my hon. Friend shall have it.

    Wales
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement upon the levels of employment and unemployment in Wales; and what is his estimate of prospects during the next 12 months.
    Sir W. Monckton: It is estimated that the number in civil employment in Wales in June, 1955, was approximately 910,000. On 13th June, 1955, the number unemployed was just under 15,000, representing 1·6 per cent. of the total number of employees. This is the lowest figure since the end of the war, and I have every hope that the employment situation in Wales will continue to improve.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: What are the levels, respectively, for Caernarvonshire and Anglesey? How do they compare with the national Welsh level?
    Sir W. Monckton: I will gladly answer that Question on notice.

    Merchant Seamen, Liverpool (Re-registration)
    Mr. Loganasked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that the merchant seamen recently on strike were assured by the Shipping Federation, Mersey District, that there would be no victimisation on return to work; that, despite this, Mr. T. Comeford, 17, Eldon Place, Liverpool, and Mr. P. Hall, 7, Eldon Street, Liverpool, though categorised as very good in their discharges, have been refused re-registration; and what action he is taking as the result of the dispute which is likely to arise as a result of their discharge and consequent call up for military service.
    Sir W. Monckton: According to my information, the Shipping Federation gave no assurance in any form that all the merchant seamen who took part in the recent unofficial strike would be re-engaged. I am further informed that these two men did not receive a very good marking for their discharge from the "Saxonia" and the "Empress of Australia," respectively. I am not aware of the likelihood of a dispute arising in the circumstances referred to by the hon. Member.
    Mr. Logan: Is the Minister aware that his goodly offices were used a fortnight ago to get this strike in Liverpool settled, and that an advertisement was issued in the Press by the Federation that if the men would return there would be no victimisation? Is he also aware that the telegraphic address is given as "Nemesis," which, I understand, means the Goddess of Vengeance, which is now being put into operation against these men? Surely the Minister ought to be able to make provision for men who had good characters up to the strike, and will he use his influence with the Federation to have these men brought back and have prosperity restored to the port of Liverpool?
    Sir W. Monckton: I am not saying one word against the character of the two men at all, but I am sure the hon. Member appreciates that I can only defer them if they are in the Merchant Navy. It is as if somebody said to me, "I should like to be an underground miner. Will you therefore defer me?" This is a question of fact—is he or is he not?—and I cannot decide it.
    Mr. Mahon: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the unsatisfactory state of labour conditions on the waterfront at Merseyside, and will he therefore realise that activity of this sort is not conducive to a return to normality?
    Sir W. Monckton: I am hoping that things are improving on Merseyside, but I do not want to enter into that now.
    Mr. Logan: I am sorry to prolong this questioning, but I am anxious to see whether the Minister cannot again use his good offices in Liverpool to avoid what I am sure will happen if his advice is not given, namely, another strike? Could it not be done.
    Sir W. Monckton: The hon. Gentleman is asking me whether there is anything I can do about it. I can assure him I shall carefully watch the situation in Merseyside, and if I think there is some action which I could usefully take, I shall take it.
    Mr. Robens: In view of the statement made by my hon. Friend, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman not consider making some representations to the merchant shippers concerned with a view to reviewing the position of these two men in the interests of the industry?
    Sir W. Monckton: I will take into account what the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend have said and consider what action, if any, I ought to take.

    British Road Services Depot, Swanley
    Mr. Irvingasked the Minister of Labour how many of the men unemployed from the Swanley Depot of British Road Services have been found work as drivers; and what proportion of the 50 men who received notice he hopes will be re-absorbed as drivers in that area.
    Sir W. Monckton: Of the 51 men concerned, 37 were drivers and, while the prospects of finding employment for all of them are good, I understand that the number of local vacancies for drivers is limited.
    Mr. Irving: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation to see how many of these drivers who have been displaced because of Government policy can be re-absorbed into the trunk services which are to be retained?
    Sir W. Monckton: If the hon. Member means employment in other places than this, I will, of course, do my best.

  NATIONAL SERVICE

    Medical Rejections
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Minister of Labour the total number of men rejected for National Service during last year as being medically unfit; and if he will express this as a percentage of the total number of men examined.
    Sir W. Monckton: Some 47,000 men were found medically unfit for National Service in the year 1954; this represents 19.5 per cent. of the total number of men examined.
    Mr. Shepherd: In view of the very large number of men who are found unfit for military service, is it not wholly undesirable that individual cases should be bandied about on the Floor of this House?

    Personal Cases
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Labour why his Department called up Norman Leslie Mayall for service in the
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    Royal Air Force in view of his severe foot trouble, which necessitates a sitting-down job and exemption from all normal duties; and if he is aware that, at the time of call-up he was entered in the register of disabled persons by his Department.
    Sir W. Monckton: Mr. Mayall was medically examined on 8th October, 1953, when he volunteered for a Regular engagement; because of foot conditions which were noted in detail on his medical examination record, he was placed in Medical Grade II. It was because of those conditions that he subsequently applied for admission to the Disabled Persons Register, and was accepted on 24th November. 1953.
    Mr. Dodds: How can the Minister reconcile the fact that a man is sent to and kept in the Forces when he holds from his Ministry a disabled person's card? Since it is the Royal Air Force that seems to be so choosey about recruits, how can this system be justified when a man has not been able to do his training and has had a sit-down job all the time? Are we so hard up for recruits?
    Sir W. Monckton: I want to make plain that the mere fact that a man is on the Disabled Persons Register does not in the least mean that he is unfit for any form of work. It means that he is under a handicap, and, if he is in Section I, he is considered to be quite capable of doing useful work.
    Mr. Shinwell: If the man volunteered for a Regular engagement and was rejected, or otherwise found to be of no use in the Regular Forces, how is it possible to keep him in the Force? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not a little disturbed by such cases?
    Sir W. Monckton: The advice I had in this case did not disturb me. The man volunteered for service in the Royal Air Force. He was not accepted for that, but the advice I have is that he is fit for the work that he is called upon to do.
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister Labour why Mr. J. E. Lock was called up by his Department to serve his National Service in the Army in view of his defective eyes and feet, as well as a deformed second finger.
    Sir W. Monckton: Mr. Lock was called up because a National Service medical board was satisfied that he was fit for service. This has since been confirmed by an Army medical board.
    Mr. Dodds: Is it not a fact that this man has defective feet and defective vision and a deformed finger of the right hand? Is it not a fact that he could not continue with his training and that he cannot fire a rifle? Surely there are fitter men in the country for service.
    Sir W. Monckton: I cannot give medical advice on these matters. This man has been before a board on several occasions, and although he has been placed in Grade II (a), vision and feet, he is regarded by the doctor as fit for service.
    Mr. Shinwell: What is this half-disabled man doing? Is he peeling potatoes or running errands for officers' wives or something of that sort? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman inquire?
    Sir W. Monckton: If the right hon. Gentleman will forgive my saying so, that is more a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War.
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Labour, in view of the new evidence sent to him by the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford, in the case of Malcolm Harris, if he will have an investigation made into what happened at the medical examination.
    Sir W. Monckton: Yes, Sir. I will write to the hon. Member when I have considered the report.
    Mr. Dodds: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not think it is a shocking state of affairs that his Department should instruct a man to report to the Royal Air Force while suffering from spinal trouble, wearing a corset with steel supports, of which, he said last week, there was no evidence. Does he know that the doctor asked the man to take it off, and that this man had been attending a local hospital three times a week because of this spinal trouble and because he could not bend? Is there not something radically wrong with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Department when it asks such a man to go into the Royal Air Force?
    Sir W. Monckton: In answer to the hon. Gentleman's question last week, I gave him information which had been supplied to me. He has written a letter which makes me doubt whether that information was right. I at once decided to ask for a report on it, but I should like to see that report before I comment on it.

    Agricultural Workers
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Minister of Labour whether he will grant to agricultural workers the same deferment from National Service as is granted to merchant seamen.
    Sir W. Monckton: This is the position as regards agricultural workers born before 1933, and I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the figures I gave in my reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) on 7th July. The National Service position of agricultural workers born after 1932 was the subject of representations, recently made to me and my noble Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by a deputation from the two national farmers' unions; the representations are under consideration.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman come to an early decision on this matter in view of the fact that the number of workers in the agricultural industry has gone down by 49,000 in the last three years, that the position is becoming really critical, and that the need for increased agricultural production was never greater than at present?
    Sir W. Monckton: I will certainly look into it. I have it in mind of course, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman will know that there are other interests in agriculture which have to be consulted which do not take exactly the same view.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what is sacred about this date of 1932, and is he aware that these men are necessary on the farms while the farmers are away attending fairs, shows and markets?
    Sir W. Monckton: There is nothing sacred about the date. It was before the date that I had the honour of entering this House, but it is the date when the changes were introduced.

    National Service (Abolition)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Labour if in view of the shortage of labour in a large number of important industries, he will introduce legislation to abolish National Service.
    Sir W. Monckton: No, Sir. The need to maintain the current scheme of National Service was explained in the Statement of Defence, 1955 (Cmd. 9391) and was approved by this House after the debate on 28th April, 1955.
    Mr. Hughes: But is the Minister aware that even the "Daily Express" in a leading article is now calling attention to the waste of manpower as a result of the continuation of conscription; and now that Lord Cherwell, the National Farmers' Union and the "Daily Express" are joined together, is it not time he became more conciliatory in this matter?
    Sir W. Monckton: Now that the hon. Gentleman has added himself to all these distinguished persons, I shall certainly have to keep thinking.
    Mr. Yates: Does the Minister not think that the time has arrived when there should be a conference with those who represent industry to consider the very serious effects that the continuation of National Service is having upon our manpower and our productive resources?
    Sir W. Monckton: That is a very different question to whether National Service ought to be stopped altogether.
    Mr. Shinwell: In fact, does the present review of the tactics in warfare not indicate that ground forces are not required to the same extent, demonstrating that there is no longer any need for a two-year period of National Service, and will the right hon. and learned Gentleman continue to justify two years for the young men of this country and only 18 months for our Allies on the Continent, including the West German Government?
    Sir W. Monckton: The question I was asked to answer was whether we should abolish National Service. This is a different question and not entirely for me. I do not want to answer supplementaries on another matter.

  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Health, Welfare and Safety (Gowers Report)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in shops on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mr. Hunterasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in catering establishments on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in coal wharves on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report;
    (2) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in cinemas on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mrs. L. Jegerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in offices on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report;
    (2) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in premises outside the scope of the Factories Acts and the Mines and Quarries Act;
    (3) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in theatres on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in music-halls on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report;

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    (2) when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in the dental mechanics' workrooms on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mr. Leeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will introduce legislation to safeguard the health and provide for the safety and welfare of those employed in road passenger undertakings on the lines recommended in the Gowers Report.
    Mr. Mulleyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the need for legislation to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of office workers; and if he will make a statement of the Government's intentions in this matter.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Major Gwilym Lloyd-George): A Bill is being prepared and will be introduced as soon as time can be found for it.
    Mr. Davies: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman contending that his answer covers all these Questions, and will he say whether that Bill will include, for instance, dental mechanics' workrooms, shops and offices and locomotive sheds? Can we have a little more information?
    Major Lloyd-George: The answer I gave covered all these Questions. If the hon. Gentleman will look at them, there are about nine different callings mentioned in those Questions and they will all be dealt with in one big Bill. He will appreciate that this will be a very big Measure indeed. The Government have already announced their intention of introducing a Bill this Session on agriculture and forestry. If it is possible, there will be another Bill later—on railways. The Bill on shops, offices and other non-industrial employment will be the biggest and will take a long time to go through the House. I can speak from my experience of the Factories Bill because I was Chairman of the Standing Committee and we took well over three months.
    Mrs. Jeger: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is great impatience about this Bill among the trade unions concerned, because discussions have been going on for a long
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    time and the unions have been told for many months, and even years, now that the Bill is in process of preparation? Can he not be a little more forthcoming about some of the other categories?
    Major Lloyd-George: I thought I had made it perfectly clear that the reports cover agriculture, forestry, railways and non-industrial workers. The Government have already announced their intention on agriculture, which is regarded as the most immediate because of the increasing number of accidents occurring in a highly mechanised industry; they decided that, on the whole, this was the one that should be put through first. After that, we shall have the railway Bill, and then the much larger one, which will mean a great deal of work because of the enormous number of callings involved.
    Mr. Swingler: Has the Minister noted that the Questions ask when the legislation will be introduced? Can he not indicate how long he thinks the bigger Bill will be in course of preparation? How long will it take to draft the Bill, and will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman give an indication of when the legislation to cover these sections of workers will be introduced? Will it be in the next Parliamentary Session?
    Major Lloyd-George: It was made clear in the Gracious Speech that the biggest Bill was not expected in this, the first, Session.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are not all these Questions on the same topic, which seek to establish the right of hon. Members to supplementary questions, a type of collective resale price maintenance, and ought they not, one and all, to be brought before the Monopolies Commission?
    Mr. Speaker: I have already expressed my view that it is not a right use of the Order Paper to try to pre-empt it with Questions on a particular topic. These things happen, however, and it has happened before, although I suppose that this collection of Questions on the same subject is entirely fortuitous.

    Private Detectives
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now given further consideration to the question of the licensing

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    of private detectives; and whether he has yet reached a conclusion as to the possibilities of legislation.
    Major Lloyd-George: I have considered the suggestion that private detectives should be licensed, but I am not prepared to introduce legislation to give effect to it.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Does that reply mean that any Tom, Dick or Harry can set up as a private detective?
    Major Lloyd-George: I would not like to commit myself on the gentlemen mentioned in the Question, but, unless there is evidence of grave abuse, I am not keen to extend the licensing system.

    Heroin Manufacture
    Sir R. Boothbyasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now considered the representations of the British Medical Association against the proposed ban on the manufacture of heroin; and what action he intends to take.
    Major Lloyd-George: I received a deputation from the Council of the Association last Monday. I undertook to consult my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Health on the representations made to me.

    Electoral Registers (Postal Voting)
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the need for electors on holiday to be able to exercise their right to vote at Elections; and whether he will give consideration to proposing an amendment to Section 12 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949, so as to allow persons absent on holiday to be registered as postal voters.
    Major Lloyd-George: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave on 16th June to Questions by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing-Commander Bullus) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Cooper-Key).

    London Traffic Congestion
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the success
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    which resulted from the arrangements made by the Metropolitan Police for maintaining the traffic flow in the London area during the strike period, he will give an assurance that as far as possible these arrangements will be continued despite the conclusion of the strike until such time as essential major road developments have been completed.
    Major Lloyd-George: The success of the police in maintaining the flow of London's traffic during the recent strike was due to three main factors. The resources of the Metropolitan police were greatly augmented by the working of long hours and by reinforcements from neighbouring forces and from the special constabulary; secondly, motorists made substantial use of emergency parking areas outside the centre of London; and, thirdly, motorists co-operated in staggering their hours of work and refraining from making unnecessary journeys into the centre of London. The first two of these factors were temporary. I hope that motorists will take the third to heart. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation has already stated, the experience of the emergency is being studied in order to discover what lessons it has for normal times.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that the car parking situation in the centre of London is deteriorating again? Can he not make more Royal Parks available for car parking, as was done during the railway strike?
    Major Lloyd-George: I do not know that I should be very happy to extend car parking in the parks of London, which are among the greatest assets of the Metropolis, though I do not think anybody minded during the emergency period. Other parking spaces were in streets and outside houses, which was all right for the time being, but certainly could not be tolerated permanently.

    Parliamentary Candidates (Convicted Felons)
    Mr. Hydeasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to prevent convicted felons serving sentences of over 12 months from being candidates at Elections for the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
    Major Lloyd-George: No, Sir. This would mean making an exception, for which I am not satisfied that there is sufficient justification, from the established rule that the returning officer's jurisdiction does not extend to deciding whether a candidate is qualified or disqualified.
    Mr. Hyde: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend aware that there is a considerable body of opinion, particularly in Northern Ireland, which feels that the ballot box should not be exploited and misused in this way? Will he look at the matter again in the light of this feeling?
    Major Lloyd-George: The duties of returning officers are rigidly laid down, and it would not be easy to make any departure from them without creating great difficulties. In any case, the instances are so few that I should not have thought it necessary to take any special action.
    Mr. Ede: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind that it would be improper to impose upon returning officers the judicial decisions which would be involved, and will he take it from me that he has the full support of the Opposition for the attitude he is adopting?

    Social Clubs, Lancashire (Unlawful Gaming)
    Mr. Boardmanasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been prosecuted in Lancashire during 1955 for playing housey-housey in social clubs.
    Major Lloyd-George: I understand that proceedings have been taken during 1955 in respect of unlawful gaming at two clubs and that the number of persons involved is 115.
    Mr. Boardman: Is the Home Secretary aware that the game is a traditional pastime of the British Army, that under the name of tombola it is played in certain seaside holiday camps whose brochures advertise it as one of the aura-Lions, and that under the name of either tombola or bingo it is played in the most fashionable London clubs? Why should there be discrimination against Lancashire clubs? Is it not time the law was amended to legalise this innocent pastime?
    Major Lloyd-George: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about housey-housey. I dare say that a number of us played it in our younger days. However, those with experience of the Army know that there are different ways of playing different games. In any event, this is really a matter for the local police authorities, and in this case the chief constable took action. The number of people involved was 115. They happened to be in the clubs; they had their names taken, and I understand that they were bound over.
    Mr. Burden: What is housey-housey?
    Mr. Boardman: Surely the Minister will appreciate that a law operated on a geographical basis can only bring itself into contempt?
    Major Lloyd-George: If the hon. Gentleman really means that, he is going to have a very busy time in this House. In Lancashire responsibility for action in respect of this law falls upon the chief constable.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that there is a very reputable encyclopaedia which contains an article about the game written by the verger of a cathedral? Will he consider introducing legislation to remove this anomaly?
    Major Lloyd-George: I am not quite clear about that. Does the hon. Gentleman want legislation to amend the encyclopaedia?
    Mr. Stewart: No, to legalise the game.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: As the game is most popular among not only young people but also very elderly people in many Lancashire towns, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman have another look at the matter? Is it not ridiculous to forbid people to play an innocuous game which gives great pleasure, particularly to old people in hundreds of clubs in Lancashire?
    Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind that the full rigours of the law in this matter, as in other matters, can always be mitigated by a judicious use of the prerogative of mercy?
    Mr. D. Howell: Has the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had time to consider representations made to him by the

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    Birmingham Watch Committee following the report of the chief constable of Birmingham that the gambling laws generally are so archaic as to need complete revision, and what action does he intend to take?
    Mr. Speaker: We are now getting some way from housey-housey.

    Police (Emergency Overtime Allowances)
    Mrs. Braddockasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department to what extent the special overtime allowance announced to be paid to the Criminal Investigation Department and others in the Metropolitan Police applies to other areas such as Liverpool, Manchester and Hull, where overtime has been worked due to industrial disputes.
    Major Lloyd-George: I approved, under Regulation 27 of the Police Regulations, the payment of special allowances to detective officers below the rank of superintendent and to inspectors and chief inspectors of the uniform branch in respect of each period of twelve hours' duty performed in the Metropolitan Police District during the emergency on any day other than a weekly rest day or a bank holiday. No representations have been made to me with a view to payment of similar allowances in any other part of the country. I should be prepared to consider sympathetically an application for approval of a special allowance from any police authority in whose force the hours of duty worked during the emergency were substantially the same as in the Metropolitan Police District but the matter is one in the first instance for the police authority.
    Mrs. Braddock: I thank the Minister for that reply. Does it mean that watch committees must make application? The right hon. and gallant Gentleman must be aware that under Regulation 17, 1952, plain clothes men cannot themselves make application for overtime allowance. Am I right in thinking that the local police authority must first make a recommendation?
    Major Lloyd-George: Yes, Sir. That happened in London in respect of plain clothes men. An application was made, and it was granted. I shall be happy sympathetically to consider similar applications in respect of plain clothes men from other forces.

    Dangerous Weapons (Retail Sales)
    Mr. Dannerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that dangerous spring clip knives are being sold openly in Leicester and elsewhere and that they have been carried by members of teen-age gangs; and whether he will take steps to prohibit the import, manufacture and sale of these weapons.
    Major Lloyd-George: I understand that knives of this type are on sale in Leicester and elsewhere but I have no evidence that they are carried to any great extent by teen-age gangs. On the question of controlling the sale of such weapons, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave on 16th June last to the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Lewis).
    Mr. Janner: Has the Minister examined any of these knives, of which I have one in my hand? Does he realise that a knife of this sort is a very dangerous weapon? Will he do something about stopping the manufacture and sale of such knives?
    Mr. Speaker: If it is a dangerous weapon, the hon. Gentleman should not have brought it into the Chamber.
    Mr. Janner: If it is such a dangerous weapon, Mr. Speaker, obviously the Government should do something to stop its manufacture and sale.
    Mr. Speaker: That may be true, but the weapon could have been described in words without being brandished here.
    Mr. Janner: I have not had an answer. May I put my supplementary question to the Minister again?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has already asked his supplementary question.
    Mr. Janner: May I ask the Minister whether, as such weapons are so terribly dangerous, he will ensure that their manufacture is stopped, because, if not, serious consequences may ensue?
    Major Lloyd-George: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the question of prohibiting the sale and manufacture of dangerous weapons has been very carefully considered for a long time. It has been found practically impossible to devise a proper definition because many

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    highly lethal weapons are absolutely essential to trade and industry in this country. Under the Prevention of Crime Act, 1953, it is an offence to be in possession of an offensive weapon in a public place without lawful authority or reasonable excuse.

    Prisoners of War (Geneva Convention)
    Mr. Elwyn Jonesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when Her Majesty's Government propose to introduce the necessary legislation for ratification of the Geneva Prisoners of War Convention.
    Major Lloyd-George: It is hoped to introduce as soon as time permits the legislation necessary to enable Her Majesty's Government to ratify the Geneva Conventions.
    Mr. Elwyn Jones: How soon is that likely to be? Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the American Senate has already approved the Geneva Convention and that most other Governments, including the Governments of the Soviet Union and France, have already ratified it? Why are the British Government dragging their heels in this way about ratifying conventions which were signed as far back as 1949?
    Major Lloyd-George: I do not think I can go farther than to say in answer to the first point, that we have much to do in this Session.

    Immigration Examinations (Conference Delegates)
    Miss Baconasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that several of the delegates to the Socialist International Women's Conference, held at Transport House on 9th and 10th July, were subjected to prolonged and detailed interrogation by the immigration officers; that a woman of over 80 years of age was kept standing for 25 minutes during questioning; and if, in the interests of international good will, he will take steps to stop procedure of this kind.
    Major Lloyd-George: From the inquiries I have made it does not appear that any delegate was subjected to a lengthy immigration examination. The particular delegate mentioned in the
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    second part of the Question has been identified and I am assured that in her case the examination took less than five minutes.
    Miss Bacon: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that his information is quite different from the information I received at first hand from the woman concerned, and that it really was embarrassing for those of us who were Members of the House and hosts to these women, most of whom are well known and respected women in their own country, to hear them comparing notes of the way they were received here on Monday?
    Major Lloyd-George: I am not in a position to give the hon. Lady information other than about my immigration officers. I do not know what happened before, but the actual examination by the immigration officer took only five minutes. I made all the inquiries I could. I am making further inquiries which, I hope, will give more information. If any examination appears to be lengthy, the senior officer immediately takes the person being questioned to somewhere where he can sit down. I am assured that in this case the examination took five minutes.
    Mr. F. Noel-Baker: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman have a thorough look at the procedure adopted by immigration officers and special branch men, particularly at airports and other places of entry into the United Kingdom? Will he listen to representations made to him on this subject, if one or two of my hon. Members want to get in touch with him?
    Major Lloyd-George: Of course, I will listen to anything the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends brings forward. I am able to judge only on the information I have. For example, there are instructions that infirm and elderly people are given special consideration. But I would be happy to look at anything he brought forward, because I am quite satisfied from the information I have that the immigration officers do their duty with efficiency and great consideration.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: In view of the undesirability of these women going back to their countries with unhappy memories of this kind of thing, will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make an investigation and inform the House of its results?
    Major Lloyd-George: I will certainly do that, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will realise there may be causes of delay which have nothing whatever to do with immigration officers. It may well be that the lady in question took 25 minutes from the time she landed at the airport to the time she got to the Customs. I do not know. I was concerned only with what the immigration officers did, and my information is that they took only five minutes.
    Mrs. Braddock: Have the immigration officers any prior knowledge of the type of conference to which people from abroad are coming? Does he not think, in view of the fact that this creates very great difficulty and very great upset for people who are coming to the conference, that giving some information to immigration officers about these conferences should be considered so that these difficult situations can be avoided?
    Major Lloyd-George: I do not know whether we can give them a list of all the conferences. It would be a fairly long list, especially at this time of year. The point is that all people coming to this country, whether coming to a conference or anywhere else, should be treated properly. From the information at my disposal, I have no reason to believe that this was not done.
    Mr. S. Silverman: Why was there a complaint?
    Major Lloyd-George: Even the hon. Gentleman can be mistaken occasionally. It is possible for people to mix up the total time between arriving at the airport and going through the immigration office with the time they spend in the office. The time spent in the office in this case was five minutes. I had this Question only the day before yesterday. Further inquiries are being made, and I shall be happy to communicate with the hon. Lady when I get the result.

    FOUR-POWER CONFERENCE, GENEVA
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Prime Minister whether, before leaving for the Geneva Conference, he will inform the House of the main policy objectives of Her Majesty's Government at the Conference.
    The Prime Minister (Sir Anthony Eden): The objectives of Her Majesty's Government, and of the Governments of the United States of America and France, were outlined in the note of invitation despatched by them to the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 10th May. In this note they proposed that the Heads of the four Governments, accompanied by their Foreign Ministers, should meet for an exchange of views in a new effort to resolve the problems which confront us, and to remove the sources of conflict.
    Mr. Henderson: Will the Prime Minister make it clear to the Conference that the entire British people support the idea of peaceful co-existence, and that they are prepared to play their full part in bringing about the conditions which will lead to the abolition of war?
    The Prime Minister: That seems to be quite unexceptionable, I am glad to be able to say.
    Mr. Clement Davies: May I ask when the Prime Minister proposes to leave this country and if, as I anticipate, we shall not have the opportunity of seeing the right hon. Gentleman again before he leaves, may I assure him that he carries with him the best wishes of everybody in this country and, I believe, throughout the world, and with very full hearts we shall wish him Godspeed in his great mission?
    The Prime Minister: I am much obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I realise that this mission far surpasses the ordinary bounds of party controversy, and I can only say that I shall do my best worthily to represent our country.

    CYPRUS (STATUS)
    Mr. Bennasked the Prime Minister, following the invitations recently sent to the Greek and Turkish Governments, to what extent it is now the policy of Her Majesty's Government to renounce their claim that Cyprus is entirely within the domestic jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.
    The Prime Minister: I dealt with the subject of Cyprus in my statement in this House on 30th June, and I have nothing to add to what I said in that statement.
    Mr. Benn: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is clear that this invitation to the Greek and Turkish Governments, which we all welcome, completely destroys the juridical basis on which Her Majesty's Government refused the debate on Cyprus in the United Nations? Is not this bound to lead to a renewal of the demand for a debate, and ought there not to be one in which the people of Cyprus are represented?
    The Prime Minister: I do not follow the hon. Gentleman in any of his statements which are glosses of what I said. I prefer to stand by my own statement, which was accepted by the House, and by the terms of the invitation, which were accepted by the Greek and Turkish Governments. This House would make the greatest mistake, after both Governments have accepted the invitation, if they tried to put any other gloss on what it meant.

    KENYA SERVICE MEDAL
    Major Anstruther-Grayasked the Prime Minister how many months' service in Kenya, engaged upon operations against the Mau Mau, are required to qualify a member of the Services for a medal; and whether the period of qualification is the same for all three Services.
    The Prime Minister: For service on land in the operational area the qualifying period is three months for all three Services. For aircrew it is thirty days.
    Major Anstruther-Gray: Yes, Sir, but may I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is fair that a man should qualify for this medal after thirty days' flying, whereas it takes a soldier three months on the ground to qualify? One does not have to be braver to fly over the top of some Mau Mau than to meet them face to face, so will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the Army will get fair play in this matter?
    The Prime Minister: I do not think my hon. Friend would wish me to follow him into comparisons as to the gallantry of those in the Services, all of whom carry out their duties in different operations with real credit. The reason for this differentiation, which, of course, is not new and exists in many fields everywhere, is that the Army services are nearly always there for longer periods than that
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    which qualifies for the medal, whereas the aircrews sometimes are only there for relatively short periods. If my hon. and gallant Friend has any evidence that this differentiates unfairly on the Army, I am quite ready to look into it.

  EDUCATION

    Religious Instruction
    Mr. Remnantasked the Minister of Education the number of hours per week in local education authorities' schools allotted to religious education; and to what extent the assistance of Church of England clergy is utilised.
    The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): Present practice is surveyed in the Report on Religious Education in the Schools published last January by the Institute of Christian Education. My hon. Friend will know that the Education Act requires that the religious instruction in county schools should be undenominational.
    Mr. Remnant: Is my right hon. Friend content that sufficient education of this nature is given? Does his answer mean that Church of England clergy are not employed on this job, or are not considered suitable?
    Sir D. Eccles: Clergymen frequently come in and help with the religious instruction in Church of England schools, but, of course, in county schools the work is normally undertaken by teachers on the staff of the schools and, so far as I know, it is sincerely and well undertaken. I agree with my hon. Friend that religious instruction is of the greatest importance, and if he would care to look at the Report I have mentioned, he will see what progress has been made.

    U.N.E.S.C.O. Employees (Dismissals)
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Education what instructions he has given to the United Kingdom delegates on the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation regarding the dismissal by the Director-General of employees who refused to appear before the loyalty boards in their own countries.
    Sir D. Eccles: It is not the practice of Her Majesty's Government to disclose

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    beforehand the instructions given to United Kingdom delegates at meetings of international organisations.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: But surely the House is entitled to have some indication of the Government's attitude to this very serious problem, which is interpreted by some people as meaning persecution of international civil servants. I do not want to go into the merits of this case, but if the right hon. Gentleman is not to give us information about these instructions, how can we on this side find out the Government's attitude to this problem?
    Sir D. Eccles: I do not see how I can take that position without disclosing the instructions that would be given to our delegates, and that is contrary to normal practice. The meeting is not until 9th November, and therefore there is considerable time to think this over.

    Grant Formula (Rating Assessments)
    Mr. Blackburnasked the Minister of Education what consideration has been given to an alteration of the education grant formula in view of the increased rating assessments which will become operative next year.
    Sir D. Eccles: I shall shortly be discussing with the local authority associations an interim adjustment of the present education grant formula pending a more general review of the position after the new valuation lists have come into force.
    Mr. Blackburn: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, because I am sure local education authorities will be delighted that there is to be a review, may I ask whether in making the review he will make a formula to the advantage of the local education authorities rather than to the advantage of the Ministry?
    Sir D. Eccles: I must try to work out a formula to the advantage of all parties.

    Technical Colleges (National Awards)
    Mr. Fortasked the Minister of Education whether he will accept the recommendation of the National Advisory Council on Education for Industry and Commerce and establish a council responsible for making national awards in technology in technical colleges.
    Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir. I propose to set up the Council forthwith, and I am happy to announce that Lord Hives, chairman of Rolls Royce, has agreed to become its first chairman.
    Mr. Fort: Has my right hon. Friend had expressions of opinion from the presidents of the professional associations about this forward step which he is now taking?
    Sir D. Eccles: I am in consultation with the three gentlemen concerned, and I hope that they will give us their collaboration.
    Mr. Albu: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has made any alteration to his original plan in conformity with the views of the professional associations and almost all informed opinion in industry, which is very critical of what he proposes to do? Is he to take further steps to upgrade the limited number of technical colleges, as proposed by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee?
    Sir D. Eccles: I have taken considerable trouble in the last two months to confirm my previous view that industry was on my side, and all the investigations I have conducted show that industry very much wants an award which will attract young men and young women to sandwich courses in higher technology. Therefore, I feel fortified in having not only the advice of the National Advisory Committee, of which Sir Ronald Weeks was chairman, but also the assurance of the majority of industrialists that this is a forward step.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 18TH JULY—Consideration of the Motion relating to the Parliamentary constituency of Mid-Ulster.
Report stage of the Civil and Services Supplementary Estimates.
Debates will take place on: Class V. Vote 10. Department of Health for Scotland; Class II, Vote 2, Foreign Office Grants and Services; and on the Navy, Army and Air Supplementary Estimates.
Report stage of the Navy, Army and Air Expenditure, 1953–54.
Consideration of the Motion relating to the Greenwich Hospital and Travers' Foundation Accounts.
TUESDAY, 19TH JULY—Debate on the Health Services in Scotland until about 7 o'clock.
Afterwards, a debate will take place on an Opposition Motion relating to Training and Employment in Remploy Factories.
Consideration of the Motions to approve the Draft National Health Service (Superannuation) Regulations, and similar Regulations for Scotland.
WEDNESDAY, 20TH JULY—Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.
Debate on the Report and Accounts of the National Coal Board for 1954.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the draft Coal Industry Nationalisation (Borrowing Powers) Order.
THURSDAY, 21ST JULY—Opposition Debate on the Shortage of Scientific and Technical Manpower.
Consideration of the Motions to approve the Agriculture Act (Part I) Extension of Period Order; and the Potatoes (Guaranteed Prices) Order.
FRIDAY, 22ND JULY—Second Reading of the House of Commons Disqualification Bill.
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I announced last week that we hoped that all necessary business would be disposed of in time for the House to adjourn for the Summer Recess on Thursday, 28th July, and I can now inform the House that we shall propose that the date of reassembly be Tuesday. 25th October.
Mr. H. Hynd: The Leader of the House will remember that the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation promised to make a further statement about the sale of British Road Services lorries before the House rises for the Summer Recess. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether that statement will be made next week in time to allow supplementary questions to be put? Can he give an assurance that the statement will not be by way of a Written Answer on 28th July?
Mr. Crookshank: Without consulting the Minister, I cannot reply to the hon. Gentleman. But I will call the attention of the Minister to his question.
Mr. Ellis Smith: But do I understand that a debate is to take place on the mining industry on Wednesday and, if so, am I correct in understanding that it will be exempted business? If not, will the right hon. Gentleman consider consulting my right hon. Friend to see whether the rule can be suspended, in view of the great and controversial issues which are bound to arise?
Mr. Crookshank: The debate will be on the Report and Accounts of the National Coal Board for 1954. That will be followed by the consideration of a Motion to approve the draft Coal Industry Nationalisation (Borrowing Powers) Order.
Mr. Smith: If we are to get the best out of that debate, and satisfy all hon. Members, we should be given more time to debate such a big issue.
Mr. Crookshank: That will be considered by those concerned, but we desire to get the Borrowing Powers Order.
Mr. Glenvil Hall: May I ask the Leader of the House whether the Government have yet considered the Report of the Joint Select Committee on Private Bill Procedure, and, if so, whether we are likely to have a debate on it before

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the Summer Recess? Do the Government contemplate legislation on this matter?
Mr. Crookshank: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the matter is very complicated, and we are still considering it. I should not like to make a statement yet.
Mr. S. Silverman: Can the Leader of the House tell us what precise Motion the Government propose to table on Monday in relation to the Northern Ireland constituencies and when the Motion will be put on the Notice Paper?
Mr. Crookshank: To the best of my knowledge it is already on the Notice Paper.
Dame Irene Ward: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether we may have a debate on the Phillips Report? Is he aware that some of us are beginning to think it very odd that we are not to be allowed to debate it, as hon. Members on this side of the House want to do?
Mr. Crookshank: I note what the hon. Lady has said. It is true that a great number of very odd things happen in the House, but I cannot say when there will be a debate on that subject.
Dame Irene Ward: Does my right hon. Friend think that that is a satisfactory answer, in view of the fact that the Government had a paragraph in their Election manifesto which said that action would be taken?
Hon. Members: Answer.
Mr. Crookshank: I know from experience that it is very hard to satisfy the hon. Lady.
Mr. Ede: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have had access to the House of Commons Disqualification Bill for rather less than 48 hours; that it is very complicated and raises the highest constitutional issues? Does not he think that we should have longer to consider this Measure? The Second Reading debate is to take place on Friday. That amounts really to only half-a-day, and may prove a very inadequate period. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to consider representations to postpone the Second Reading debate, probably until the House reassembles in the autumn?
Mr. Crookshank: One of the reasons why this Second Reading debate was put down for Friday is that in the last few weeks I have been under pressure owing to the possible disqualification of certain hon. Members. That is why I wished the House to see the Bill as soon as possible. Of course, if strong representations are made, we shall, as always, consider them; but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not press us to postpone the Second Reading. On a Bill of this kind I do not think that the Second Reading debate is the time when most of the argument arises. I think that happens during the Committee stage, when we consider individual qualifications and disqualifications. All that we discuss on Second Reading is the principle of having a Bill, which might be disposed of now and a great deal of time allowed for consideration before we reach the Committee stage.
Mr. Ede: Will the right hon. Gentleman note that I am not quite satisfied with his answer? I hope that representations will be made through the usual channels.
Mr. Crookshank: The right hon. Gentleman will, of course, realise that I get representations both ways, from both sides of the House.
Mr. Brockway: May I ask the Leader of the House when the Government propose to provide an opportunity for hon. Members to discuss the Report of the Royal Commission on East Africa? Does he remember that in our last colonial affairs debate hon. Members refrained from dealing with that subject in the hope that we should be able to discuss the Report of the Commission before the Recess? What opportunity will there be?
Mr. Crookshank: All I can say is that, obviously, there will not be an opportunity next week.
Mrs. Mann: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are a great many things under consideration and a great many things under active consideration? That being the case, why does he propose that the House should go away for three months?
Mr. Crookshank: I think that probably the hon. Lady is just as pleased as anyone else.
Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why this year it is necessary to have a rather longer Recess than in previous years when I think that we returned to the House about ten days or a fortnight before it is intended that we should return on this occasion? What is the reason for it? Is there no Government business, or do hon. Members want longer holidays?
Mr. Speaker: The adjournment of the House for the period mentioned will need a Motion to be agreed to by the House, which, I think, will be the appropriate opportunity for discussing the matter. It cannot be discussed at Question Time.
Dame Irene Ward: A very good idea.
Mr. Rankin: My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brockway) said that a hope of an early debate was expressed in the last colonial affairs debate, but I would point out that it was more than a hope. We were given almost a promise that before the House rose for the Summer Recess there would be a debate on the Report of the Royal Commission on East Africa. The Lord Privy Seal has just said that the debate will not be next week. Are we to conclude, then, that the debate will be the following week?
Mr. Crookshank: No, the hon. Gentleman must not read more into what I said.
Mr. Rankin: Another broken promise.
Mr. Crookshank: I should like to have the words of the alleged promise before me before I comment on them. I certainly gave no undertaking.

BILLS PRESENTED
  DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITIES RESTRICTION
  Bill to enable Her Majesty to withdraw personal diplomatic immunities from members of the diplomatic missions of certain foreign sovereign Powers and their families; and to exclude citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies from the enjoyment of such immunities, presented by Mr. H. Macmillan; supported by Mr. Anthony Nutting, the Attorney-General, Mr. Turton, and Lord John Hope; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 26.]
  SUDAN (SPECIAL PAYMENTS)
  Bill to provide for the payment of gratuities to or in respect of certain former officials of the Government or Parliament of the Sudan; to increase the superannuation allowances of Sir Robert Howe, lately Governor-General of the Sudan; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented by Mr. H. Macmillan; supported by Mr. Anthony Nutting, Mr. Henry Brooke, Mr. Turton, and Lord John Hope; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 27.]

INDUSTRY AND EMPLOYMENT, SCOTLAND
3.44 p.m.
The Minister of Labour and National Service (Sir Walter Monckton): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland, 1954 (Command Paper No, 9410).
I count it a privilege to be allowed to speak on this occasion. I think I can say that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and I have sat through all the debates on these matters in years gone by, and if I have not as much acquaintance as I could wish to have with the area which we are discussing it is not because of my own choice. I have been frustrated on many occasions by circumstances which I have imperfectly controlled, but, at any rate, I have today a chance of looking at some of these problems.
The main part of what I hope to contribute to the debate is concerned with employment in Scotland, but, to put it in a proper setting, I should like to make a few observations about the general economic state of Scotland as disclosed in the White Paper and to do what perhaps would be more useful to right hon. and hon. Members who will take part in the discussion, bring these facts as far up to date as possible.
If one looks at industry as a whole in Scotland—there are exceptions, and I will deal with them—it is thriving and output is expanding. There has been a marked increase of activity in the engineering trades and that is an industry of prime importance to Scotland and of which I think we could find many pioneers in other countries who came from Scotland.
Then there are the shipyards, again of prime importance. Their output for last year—the year covered by the White Paper—is the highest since the war. There were fears—and I confess that I shared them—not only in relation to Scotland, but in relation to the United Kingdom shipyards as well at the end of last year about the low rate of new orders that were coming in. But it is good to see that the orders in the first four months of this year have been showing a welcome increase. A total of 130,000 gross tons and more has been recorded in the order
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books, so that the position is more satisfactory than we might have expected and is an encouraging sign.
I have said a word about engineering and about shipyards, and I will now say a word about steel. As right hon. and hon. Members will have seen from the White Paper, the output of steel in 1954 was a little below the 1953 high level. But, here again, the first four months—which is the period I can cover for 1955—show an output 7 per cent. higher than the corresponding period of 1954. Those are more satisfactory and very important signs of the state of industry in Scotland, but there is, of course, coal mining which we must take into account, where the situation is not so satisfactory.
The output last year was less by 300,000 tons, and, bringing it up to date as I have tried to do with the rest, during the first 24 weeks of this year there were half a million tons less of deep-mined coal produced than in the same period of 1954. When one searches around for reasons, that was no doubt due in part to a number of unofficial strikes which took place during that period and also due to the worsening physical conditions in many of the pits.
However, the signs are not all as bad as that. The programme of new sinking which the National Coal Board started is steadily going forward. The boring tower to prove coal reserves under the Forth is now in position off Kirkcaldy, and drilling is taking place many hundreds of feet under the sea bed. One has seen it in other parts of the world, in the Persian Gulf and in America, and it is good to see it as near home as this. So far as the position of labour in this part of the world is concerned the demands which the National Coal Board makes on manpower are able to be met. Therefore, that is not a hampering feature as it is, unhappily, in some parts of England.
That is a summary of the state of the principal industries in Scotland, but I want to relate that background to the manpower situation. In 1954, there was more employment in Scotland than ever before in peace-time. The numbers in insured employment rose by 26,000 to no fewer than 2,089,000 insured persons. That, as one would expect, found a parallel in a drop in the unemployment figures which in 1954 were considerably

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less than in 1953, and, in bringing the facts up to date, I am happy to say that the improvement is being maintained this year.
The highest figure of unemployment in Scotland in 1954 was in February when there were 74,620 unemployed persons, or 3·5 per cent. There were the usual seasonal fluctuations with the result that when we came to July of last year the figure had dropped from about 74,000 to about 49,000, or 2·3 per cent. To bring the facts before the House, I would draw attention to the comparable figures since the White Paper. In January, 1955, the number was about 65,000 compared with about 74,000 in February of the previous year. The percentage had dropped from 3·5 to 3.
To take the latest available date, if we compare the figure for June this year of about 47,000, or 2.2 per cent., with the figure for last July of 49,770, or 2.3 per cent., we see a movement in the right direction, although not a very substantial change. Therefore, looking at the figures of unemployment, which necessarily loom large in the eyes of anyone who holds my office, they show a maintaining of improvement in the early months of this year.
It is true that if we make a comparison between Scotland and Wales, the North of England or Great Britain as a whole, the situation is not so rosy. The percentage of unemployment in Scotland in January of this year was 3 per cent.; in Wales it was 2·6 per cent.; in the Northern area, 2·5 per cent., and in Great Britain as a whole 1·4 per cent.—so that Scotland had more than double the unemployment percentage for the whole country. The figure for June, 1955, in Scotland was 2·2 per cent.; in Wales, it was 1·6 per cent.; and in Great Britain as a whole, 1 per cent. Although one rejoices at the improvement, one has to remember that it is a relative one.
When we compare the various areas we are struck by some of the explanations. No doubt part of the situation is due to the geographical distribution of the industrial population in Scotland, and part to the special problem of the Highlands, to which I shall refer in a moment. Hon. Members know better than I how true it is that most of the industry in Scotland is concentrated round Glasgow and some outlying districts, including
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Dundee. In that area—which is known as the main Scottish Development Area—unemployment figures are of the highest. As I have said, the June unemployment figure for the whole of Scotland was 47,319. The area about which I am speaking accounted for 30,680 of that. The percentage there was 2·6 per cent. as against 2·2 per cent. for the whole of Scotland.
In considering why unemployment is as high as that in West and Central Scotland, several considerations have to be borne in mind. First, it is here that the heavy industries predominate, and some of the labour which is unemployed is not fit for the heavier jobs which may be available there. Secondly, in spite of the fact that new industries have been attracted to the area, there is still not sufficient alternative light employment. Many of the industries which have been attracted there have not yet reached maturity. When they get into full production it is expected that they will provide employment for some thousands more. That does not solve the problem, but it is at least a step in the right direction.
Another factor which must be remembered is that some of the industries find a lack of demand for their products in the home market at present. I have in mind such industries as the carpet industry at Ayr and the textile finishing industry at Paisley and Alexandria, industries where there has been a drop in demand. These are matters which should be borne in mind when one considers the unemployment problem in Scotland as it is affected by the geographical distribution of the working or insured population.
There remains the problem of the Highlands. Everybody who has to concern himself with that question realises that the Highlands have few towns, which are far apart from each other, and that employment is very largely confined to fishing, forestry and farming. It is difficult to attract light industries, which are discouraged by transport difficulties and distance, and the result is that there are pockets of unemployment which, although small, are troublesome.
For instance, in relation to the Development Area which comprises part of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire, the June unemployment figure was 412.

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Hon. Members may say, "That is not a very high total." It is not, but June is the best month, and it is serious enough because we cannot create new types of employment. Approval has recently been given for two small factories at Inverness—and in dealing with small numbers these small factories are of assistance—which may eventually employ about 42 people, according to the advice I have received from my officers there. That is a contribution, and a step in the right direction, but we must look about and consider how we can further improve the employment situation in Scotland.
One satisfactory feature which emerges from the White Paper is that there is a marked upward trend in new factory building. In 1954, that trend was more than maintained. Certificates were issued for nearly 5 million square feet of new factory space, which is the best figure since 1946—and that may well be exceeded this year. I want to put the position fairly, and not to exaggerate a good point, and I ought to say that about 20 per cent. of that 5 million square feet —I may not be quite right in the percentage—may be for Colvilles. If that is so, there will not be a proportionate increase in employment. We must remember that that proportion of the new factory space does not count to the good in the same way.
The projects which have been approved in the eighteen months which have elapsed since 1st January, 1954, will, we hope, provide employment for about 15,000 people—about half men and half women—when they reach full production. That is an important figure, because the unemployment figure for June, 1955, was about 47,000 and, going back further still in the year, it was somewhat under 70,000. These projects, which will provide employment for thousands of people when they are mature, will materially help to ease the position.
One welcome feature is that these recent developments are creating new employment in particularly difficult areas. Port Glasgow and Greenock is an area which is heavily dependent for employment upon shipbuilding and marine engineering, and where there is a marked lack of employment of a lighter character, especially for women. The number unemployed in June, 1955, was 1,000 fewer than at the
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end of 1953. Not only that; there are good prospects of further improvement in that area, because production has already begun in a factory making office machinery. This factory belongs to the International Business Machinery Corporation, which is an American concern. It is already employing 600 or 700 people, and will employ many more when it reaches maturity. It may be that a Sassenach should not—but others may—take credit for the fact that we are succeeding in attracting to Scotland American corporations which want to set up factories. Another American company is establishing in the same area a large-scale production of latex rubber products. That is on the industrial estate of Port Glasgow. It is hoped that that alone will provide employment for at least 500 workers, most of whom will be unskilled men and women, who are usually the hardest to fit into jobs.
I now turn to North Lanarkshire, which is the most heavily populated part of the county. During the last twelve months it has had a higher rate of unemployment than the development area as a whole. In January of this year the unemployment figure was about 7,900, or 5·7 per cent. of the insured population. In June last it was 6,098, which is 4·4 per cent. One must compare that with the overall figure for Great Britain, which is about 1 per cent, although the figure for June, 1955, showed an improvement of 1 per cent. over the comparable figure for the year before, when there were nearly 7,000 unemployed. I am told that, but for the railway strike, the figure might have been a bit better than it was. However that may be, I recognise that in North Lanarkshire there is a problem. Upon that problem my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland received a deputation yesterday, and he may wish to deal more fully with that matter himself.
A point that comes out is the desire of those who are specially interested in the area that there should be more apprenticeships and that young men and women should not have to travel undue distances to and from their work. Emphasis was also laid upon the figure of 4 per cent., which I have already given, and upon the fact that the area is declining in coal production. My officers, who have advised me on the matter and know the position, say that it is very difficult to look at a

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portion of the area in isolation and that they entertain hopes that there are jobs within reasonable distances which will account for thousands of people. They will not come all at once, but as and when they reach maturity. I do not want to say any more about that area. I recognise the difficulties and I did not have the good fortune to receive the deputation yesterday.
Another area which presents features requiring attention is Falkirk, where the principal industry is light casting. That industry accounts for some 25 per cent. of the insured population and is producing mainly domestic heating and cooking equipment, baths, sanitary fittings, and so forth. What has happened there is that the pent-up demand which existed immediately after the war has tended to fall off, partly because of changes in taste and partly because of the use of alternative materials. No doubt that industry in Falkirk is progressive and is experimenting with alternative lines of production. I understand that the housing department has been giving advice to housing authorities to use up-to-date appliances, which are, in fact, now made at Falkirk. If the industry were challenged I think it would say that it is confident of being able to work out its own salvation in that area.
I have been talking about the blacker spots and areas which are scheduled as Development Areas, but there are others which I want to mention. I will say a word about Caithness, where there are two important developments which, I hope, will help materially to provide employment in that isolated county. First is the atomic breeder reactor at Dounreay, near Thurso, which is making atomic fuel, which will provide a good deal of employment. The second is the experiment in generating electricity through the use of peat.
I have left over to this passage the problems of Buckie and Peterhead, where, it is recognised, there has been a decline in the fortunes of the fishing industry, where employment, in any case, is seasonal. Steps have been taken to provide alternative employment. Plans have been made to extend the quick-freezing industry which was established there after the war. There is a growing market for the products of that industry.
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There is no doubt that the problems of that area are partly due to its geography and partly to a shortage of manufacturing industries to provide all-the-year-round employment, with jobs for women and young persons. It is a place where the percentage figures are troublesome. In January, 1955, the unemployment figure was 2,796, or 11·5 per cent., while in June it was 1,275, or 5·2 per cent. The drop is no doubt largely for the reason I gave—seasonal employment. It is some comfort to me to know that the figures are better than those for June, 1954, when unemployment amounted to 6 per cent.
What can be done to help here? As long ago as October, 1952, the Government announced that to assist industrial development in this district financial assistance would be given by the Development Fund to suitable industrial projects. Two projects have been recently approved. One is at Peterhead, by the Peterhead Gear Company, Limited, which has been helped to extend its premises. The estimate that comes to my Ministry is that more than 100 people will get employment there. The second is at Buckie, where a new factory has been put up by Associated Electrical Industries, and where about 50 workers will be employed. These are steps in the right direction and show that those who are responsible for them are really trying to help.
That is the employment situation in the various areas in Scotland. In spite of the difficulties, and the high rate of unemployment, there is a continuous demand for certain types of labour. On 1st June, which is the latest date for which I could get figures, there were 23,000 unfilled vacancies at employment exchanges in Scotland. The principal shortage is, as one would expect, in highly-skilled engineering and shipbuilding. I hope that employers, with the active co-operation and assent of the trade unions, will do what they can to make available more apprenticeships for boys in Scotland. That is a way in which they can help to make up for some of the shortages in highly-skilled engineering and ship- building.
In agriculture, at the end of 1954, there were 1,000 more workers employed than at the end of the year before. In the distributive trades there is plenty of employment for women, for instance, in hotels and domestic employment and in

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the trade generally. One feature which has always pleased a Minister of Labour very much is that the number of unemployed disabled persons has fallen in the first five months of this year by no less than 545. It has come down to a total of 6,309. There is also a welcome decrease in the number of disabled persons who can only find work in sheltered employment. That is one of the good features of a happy employment position —and it is a happy one in spite of the difficulties which exist in the areas in Scotland to which I have tried candidly to draw attention.
The overall picture is that there are still many unsolved problems in the main Development Areas in Scotland, but that the general state of employment is satisfactory and the outlook is promising. I hope that in my small contribution to this discussion I have been able to bring the White Paper up to date, so that there is a more timely background to the discussion which will follow.
4.10 p.m.
Mr. Thomas Fraser: No matter on which side they sit, all hon. Members are obliged to the Minister for his sweeping survey, for the care with which he has prepared his amplification of the White Paper and, in particular, for his being able to come here himself today, as the Minister with such considerable responsibility for employment in Scotland, to initiate this debate.
He preceded his survey by dealing very shortly with four of our main employment industries, excluding agriculture. He mentioned the engineering trades—a marked increase in activity; and shipbuilding, with the highest output since the war. Steel output, he said, in 1954, compared with 1953, was a little down. I pause there to say that it is a little surprising that a reduction of 90,000 tons —4 per cent.—should be described as just being a little down. The White Paper describes it, I think, as a slight decrease.
The Minister went on to say that for coal the picture was not so bright; production was down by 331,000 tons in 1954 compared with 1953. That was on the black side—no doubt due to industrial disputes and all sorts of things—but that fall represented a reduction of 1.4 per cent. in production. When we bear in mind the increasing number of
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miners in Scotland being taken from production and put on the opening and development of new mines and sinkings, one appreciates that this fall in production is not at all surprising. A great many miners are employed in the older mines in Lanarkshire, where the output per man-shift is bound to go down, is going down and must continue to go down until those collieries are completely worked out and closed.
Not many of the miners who are going into the new areas are yet being employed on the production of coal. A large proportion are employed on the redevelopment of existing collieries which have a considerable life ahead of them or on the opening up of new collieries. That coal production has gone down is not surprising, but I call attention to the proposition that a fall of 1·4 per cent. in this industry is a serious thing, whereas a fall of 4 per cent. in the steel industry—in the first year of denationalisation—is regarded as a small thing and apparently of not very great significance.
The purpose of our debate is to examine how far the Government and Parliament have sought, and should seek, to influence economic trends in Scotland. We are guided by what is told to us in the White Paper and by what the Minister of Labour has said today. I should like to carry the examination a little further. I suggest that there appears to be no Government plan for the economic wellbeing of Scotland. Interesting and informative as was the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, there did not emerge from it any policy or plan for the economic betterment of Scotland.
Perhaps I might deal with one or two of our industries. The biggest employing industry is agriculture, and it is true that the Government continue to give generous assistance from public funds to it. For the country as a whole, Exchequer subsidies to agriculture amounted to £246 million during 1954–55. Of that, I estimate that Scotland's share would be about £35 million. If that estimate is disputed, I and my hon. and right hon. Friends will be delighted—as, I expect, would hon. Members opposite—to know what Scotland's share is. Even more generous subsidies are, of course, being provided in the current year.
Let us look at this assistance. Let us remember, as we have a right to, that

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there are 97,000 workers in Scottish agriculture. As the Minister of Labour has said, employment rose in the last year by 1,000; it is also true that it fell by 3,000 in the year before. I think it is generally agreed that, including overtime and perquisites, earnings average 135s. a week. That works out at £350 a year. If we multiply £350 by 97,000 workers we arrive at a figure just a little less than £35 million. An annual wage of £350 for 100,000 workers would come to £35 million; but here we have only 97,000 workers.
It is, therefore, fair to say that in this industry the wages of the workers are more than paid for by subsidies from public funds. I have made that assertion before in agricultural debates. I have had it disputed in the country but never in the House—I wonder whether, today, the Secretary of State can tell us whether I am right or not. Despite this, agricultural production appears to be declining. Tillage went down last year by 56,000 acres or 3 per cent.—almost as bad as steel.
To offset this, the Government's policy is, of course, to increase the ploughing grant from £5 to £7 10s. Their only policy is more assistance from public funds of this private industry. Other private industries have been given generous help. The privately-owned fishing industry is one. It is hoped that the Crofters (Scotland) Act will give aid to those people who have to make a living in the crofting counties. Public and private afforestation costs a lot of money, and there are other industries which receive quite a lot of help from public funds. Our concern is whether those payments from public funds are part of a carefully-thought-out integrated plan to promote the economic welfare of Scotland.
My own examination leads me to the conclusion that they are not part of any such plan. In the main, those subsidies are paid in response to pressure from private profit-making interests. Some of the subsidies are, of course, desirable in the national interest. We ourselves supported many of them and indeed, when we were in power, initiated some of them. I think that that is particularly true of agriculture, but I am bound to add that, in my view, the merchants and middle men take an undue proportion of them.
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After all, they are much sharper witted than the farmers of Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] Yes, they are much sharper witted. If hon. Gentlemen opposite take the view that none of this £35 million goes to the merchants and middle men but that it all goes to the Scottish farmers, it is all the more difficult to justify paying an amount which is more than the workers' wages out of public funds. Those hon. Members can have it whichever way they like.
I ask the House to compare this generosity to private interests with the niggardly help given to public enterprise.
Mr. John MacLeod: Surely the hon. Gentleman will agree that the Government Department of Agriculture is the biggest landowner of the lot in Scotland.
Mr. Fraser: I cannot appreciate the relevance of that interruption. Those subsidies are not given to the landowners, but to the farmers.
I invite the House to recall how the Government have treated an industry which is essential to the economic wellbeing of the whole of Scotland, and particularly the rural districts. I refer to the nationalised transport industry. I trust that when we get this statement from the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation about the lorries which have not yet been sold—a statement which, we understand, is soon to be made—we shall hear that those lorries are not to be sold. The Caledonian transport group has done magnificent work in recent years in South-West Scotland, and has been praised by private interests on all sides because its service has been so much better than that provided by private enterprise. It is a great tragedy that that group, with its lorries, garages and all maintenance equipment, was sold off at a give-away figure to private enterprise the other day. No one in South-West Scotland expects to get better service from the private enterprise firms than he gets from the Caledonian group.
Captain J. A. L. Duncan: The hon. Gentleman said a "give-away" price. What was the price?
Mr. Fraser: Perhaps the Minister will tell the hon. and gallant Member and me what the price was. I know that it was impossible to sell this group of the

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size which it was at an economic price, and, in due course, pressure was put on the British Transport Commission to sell it at a give-away price. There were no competitive offers. It was a negotiated matter, and I assert that it was sold at a give-away price.
In any case, the Caledonian group was not sold to private enterprise with a view to improving the rural road haulage service in South-West Scotland. That was not the purpose behind it. I am not saying that the Caledonian group would not have improved its service in the next four or five years. One would expect that it would go on improving, but no one can claim that the sell-off was calculated to improve the road transport service in that part of the country. We have had Questions in the House quite recently from Conservative back benchers already asking for public subsidies for private enterprise in rural transport.
I turn from the rural areas to the industrial areas, and to some of the issues raised by the Minister of Labour. He told us that there was a great need for skilled engineers. The White Paper says, in page 7, paragraph 12:
"Marked shortages of skilled men persisted in various industries, particularly engineering."
In paragraph 18, one reads:
"Greater difficulty is being experienced in obtaining apprenticeships for the increasing number of boys now desiring to enter skilled trades, particularly in the engineering industry."
I know that the right hon. and learned Gentleman appealed this afternoon to employers to take on an increased number of apprentices. But that appeal has been made for two or three years, and it has not been responded to. The Government do not seem to be thinking any more about it.
If this is a problem in Scotland as a whole, it is a particularly grievous problem in Lanarkshire, and in North Lanarkshire, about which the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke. Boys leaving school there cannot get apprenticeships in engineering. I have often heard complaints of parents of school leavers sending boys into blind alley jobs because they can get more money, but in Lanarkshire, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, the position is that parents are anxious for their boys to take up apprenticeships; but they are not
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available to them. If we are short of skilled engineers today we are no less likely to be short of them tomorrow, and if all that the Government are doing to get skilled engineers is to make another appeal to the employers, I think that that appeal is likely to fall on deaf ears.
Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for raising this matter, because I am interested in this question of the use of apprentices, which my right hon. and learned Friend also mentioned. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that the shipbuilding industry, for example, is extremely anxious to get welders and would be very glad to have a larger number of apprentices, but is handicapped by trade union rules which say that there shall not be more apprentices than one to every five journeymen. So the number of apprentices is limited by the trade union restrictions to one-fifth, or sometimes one-fourth, of the number of journeymen which a firm can afford to employ. That ties down the number of apprentices when the industry would be very glad to have more.
Mr. Fraser: I will tell the hon. Gentleman, because he was not there, that the deputation which saw the Secretary of State yesterday, and which was referred to by the Minister of Labour, put some interesting comparisons before the Ministers concerned. They showed that the number of apprentices to journeymen was much higher in other counties than in Lanarkshire. I know that shipbuilding does not take place in Lanarkshire, and I was speaking particularly of Lanarkshire. It does not seem to be trade union restriction which is stopping the increase in the number of apprentices, because we get a higher proportion of apprentices in other parts of the country.
Mr. Hutchison: I was referring only to shipbuilding and welders.
Mr. Cyril Bence: Very often the ratio of apprentices to journeymen is decided by agreement between the engineers' representatives and the employers on the principle that in many trades the number of apprentices which the journeymen can handle in training them in the craft or trade that they desire to pursue is limited. It is doubtful whether five journeymen could handle more than one apprentice.
Mr. Fraser: I appreciate my hon. Friend's greater knowledge of this industry. But this does not apply only to engineering It applies in coal mines and elsewhere. The more time that is employed in training young men to a higher skill, the less time the journeyman can devote to production. I think that the reason for this low intake in Lanarkshire in particular and in Scotland in general is probably due to the employers' insistence upon getting the most out of their journeymen in the short term.
Mr. Hutchison: That cannot be so in the shipbuilding industry, because the employers are extremely anxious to get production up and to be able to train more apprentices, so that they can have more welders. The employers' whole interest is production.
Mr. Fraser: I repeat that I was talking about Lanarkshire, and that there is no shipbuilding in Lanarkshire. The shipbuilding happens to be elsewhere. I say to the hon. Gentleman that, shipbuilding apart, there is no one who will deny the importance of engineering to the future well-being of our country. That future is being prejudiced by the inability of the Government to provide for adequate training to be given to the young people who want to become engineers and develop their skills.
May I take this matter a little further? The Government's distribution of industry policy seems to me to have gone wrong. It appears that the Government have given up any idea of pursuing a well-thought-out distribution of industry policy. There is no doubt that the Labour Government's distribution of industry policy, as implemented in the years after the war, changed the whole face of Lanarkshire. [An HON. MEMBER: "Of Scotland."] And the whole face of Scotland. The Secretary of State reminded us yesterday that 20,000 workers are now employed in Government-financed factories in Lanarkshire. We find in the White Paper that 88,000 workers are so employed in Scotland. That is no reason whatever for complacency.
In Lanarkshire, our old industries are still dying out. Collieries are still being closed. In the next ten years, more than 6,000 miners will be displaced in Lanarkshire. Please do not let hon. Members
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think that when a colliery closes, rendering 600 or 1,000 miners redundant, only 600 or 1,000 workers are thrown on to the labour market. The number is very much greater, for there are the other industries that are wholly or partly dependent upon coal-mining. There are very many ancillary industries and there is a reduction in employment in them, also. And so the figure of 6,000 men to be displaced in the next ten years may very easily be 10,000 or more industrial workers who are displaced from those coal-mines.
Let us not think for one moment that the Coal Board will take all those miners in the new coal areas. Even now, in those areas it is exceedingly difficult to get face room for the skilled miners who are being displaced, and it will continue to be difficult. The more the new mines are mechanised and the higher output per man employed at the coal face becomes possible, the more difficult it will be to find places for those miners.
In any case, many of them are not so young by the time that the colliery is closed. Many of them are not wanted in the new areas or are not altogether fit. They have suffered a certain amount of demotion in the collieries in which they have been working and they are not persons to be transferred. Still others have members of the family who work in industries outside mining and they choose to live the rest of their lives in Lanarkshire, in the hope that they will be able to find alternative employment for the last ten or fifteen years of their life in the county of their birth and in the county where other members of the family are employed. Whole communities in Lanarkshire are threatened with dereliction. The hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Patrick Maitland) has been calling attention to one community. My hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) has been calling attention to many. There are many such communities in Lanarkshire.
In dealing with the figures of unemployment, the Minister has given them as about 1 per cent. in the country as a whole, 2·2 per cent. in Scotland and between 4 and 5 per cent. in Lanarkshire. I put it to the Minister of Labour and to the Secretary of State that if the Government are serious about dealing with the position in Lanarkshire, they must resume

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the building of advance factories. It is no good saying that it is far better to wait until there is application from an industrialist who wishes to develop before we build him a factory to meet his requirements. Had we pursued that policy from 1945 onwards, we would not have been employing 20,000 people in those Government-financed factories in Lanarkshire today.
We find that when a Government-financed factory in the industrial estates or elsewhere is vacant, there are many applications. The Board of Trade considers applications from eight or ten or a dozen industrialists, of whom only one can be successful. But the other seven, nine, or eleven do not place orders for a factory to be built in Lanarkshire in the next eighteen months or two years. They go elsewhere, and very often they come to London. They make their applications here and get their industrial development certificates, and the factories go up in the South. Sometimes those industrialists go to the Continent. The fact that we are not getting those industrialists to come to Lanarkshire or to Scotland in any sufficient number is evidence enough that the present policy is not a success.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman admitted in his speech that the industrial development certificates issued last year, although they covered a bigger floor area than in any year since 1946, included Colvilles. They also included Dounreay, in Caithness. It really is too misleading. The right hon. and learned Gentleman did his utmost to avoid being accused of misleading us by bringing out that Colvilles accounted for probably about one-fifth of the total.
The Minister of State, Foreign Office, wrote a long letter to the "Glasgow Herald" during the Election campaign calling attention to the amount of factory space approved last year, but he did not say that Colvilles accounted for one-fifth of it. The public of Scotland have been encouraged to believe that there has been a great increase in factory building providing a great increase in employment opportunity last year, That is not the case.
Many people will be employed in the Colvilles development, which is a big thing—Lanarkshire welcomes it; we all welcome it. Twenty-two million pounds
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is to be spent in this great development—not for the purpose of employing more people after the development is completed. I understand that Colvilles hope to be able to increase their production considerably after development without employing any more people. I have heard it said that they will employ fewer people, but I do not make anything of that, because I do not know. I have, however, been assured that they do not intend to increase their working population as a result of this tremendous development.
A lot of the new developments in Scotland are more or less of that kind. They are not providing additional employment opportunity. No amount of debating or setting out figures can contradict what hon. Members see for themselves as they move around their own areas and make their discoveries and as they have consultations with the local office of the Ministry of Labour, with the regional office of the Board of Trade, with the employers and with the trade unions in the areas they seek to serve.
I have mentioned those industrialists who had looked to Lanarkshire, but who came South. Let us look at what is happening in Scotland and in London. According to the Digest of Statistics, new factory building approved in the six months from September, 1954, to March, 1955, the latest date to which statistics are available from the Digest—was as follows: in London 10,121,000 sq. ft.; in Scotland, over the same period, 3,580,000 sq. ft. In Great Britain as a whole the figure was 43,861,000 sq. ft.
I remember that when it was my privilege to be a member of the Government, we in Scotland were getting three times the new factory building that London was getting. We stopped London getting it. But now London is getting three times the new factory building that Scotland is getting. What is the unemployment in Scotland as compared with London? The right hon. and learned Gentleman called our attention to the unemployment in Scotland. It has come down from 62,000–63,000 at the beginning of the year, when it was 3 per cent., to just under 50,000 now, when it is 2·2 per cent. But in London it has come down from 48,000 when it was ·9 per cent., to 35,000 when it is ·7 per cent. So, with ·7 per cent.

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unemployment and 127,000 notified jobs with no workers for them, London is still getting three times the new factory accommodation that Scotland is getting.
That is a terrifying picture. I have listened to many debates in this House about the desirability of overspilling London's population into other parts of the country, into the new towns, and so on. We have listened to arguments on economic and social grounds for the better dispersal of industry and, when we have finished our discussions and when all have agreed that it would be a grand thing to have this greater dispersal of industry over the country, we find the Government issuing industrial development certificates to ensure that, instead of spilling out its industry and population, London goes on building up its industry and becoming bigger and bigger, sucking skilled workers in from every corner of the island. That will not do.
If they have the will, the Government can prevent these industries from developing in the South and can encourage them to go to Scotland and into other Development Areas where they are most needed. They are certainly needed nowhere more than they are needed in Scotland at present. We have the highest unemployment among all the Development Areas.
There are other areas in Scotland which require assistance, but before I leave the Development Areas I want to call attention to an answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) by the President of the Board of Trade on 4th July. My hon. Friend asked the President what percentage of Great Britain's total industrial building
"under construction was being carried out in Scotland at the end of each of the years from 1950 to 1954."
In reply, the President of the Board of Trade said:
"According to the latest information available to the Board of Trade, the figure at the end of each year was:

1950

…

…

…

9·0 per cent.

1951

…

…

…

10.3 per cent.

1952

…

…

…

8·3 per cent.

1953

…

…

…

6·9 per cent.

1954

…

…

…

6·0 per cent.

—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th July, 1955; Vol. 543, c. 73.]
Hon. Members can see how the figure goes down and down until, at the end of 1954, Scotland is getting only 6 per cent. Of
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the new industrial building under construction in the whole country.
Mr. Patrick Maitland: Could the hon. Gentleman carry his figures back to 1946? Does he know them?
Mr. Fraser: If I had them I should be delighted to give them.
Hon. Members will recall how we got into great trouble for refusing permission to impending developers who wished to develop in the South. I could name a great many industries which came into the Scottish Development Area after they had tried hard and long for permission to develop in London, Birmingham and elsewhere in the industrial South where we were already over-developed.
The Labour Government operated Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act with a view to assisting local authorities in the Development Areas to improve basic services. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) asked a Question of the Secretary of State on Tuesday about
"the number and value of the schemes in Scotland, approved each year since 1948, for grant in aid under Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945; and … the amount of the Government contribution."
The answer was:

Year

Number of Schemes Approved

Cost

Government Contribution

£

£

1948

…

…

18

1,059,877

562,756

1949

…

…

18

1,743,185

587,089

1950

…

…

18

2,881,448

1,019,412

1951

…

…

23

7,245,636

3,599,010

1952

…

…

1

10,816

2,750

—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th July, 1955; Vol. 543, c. 162.]
We had a change of Government in 1951 and down came the Government contribution from £3,599,010 to £2,750.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart): Hon. Gentlemen opposite had nearly bankrupted the country.
Mr. Fraser: Since 1952 we have had no schemes at all. The Secretary of State said that we had nearly bankrupted the country, but on any test hon. Members like to apply the economy and finances of the country improved when Labour

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were responsible for government in a way in which they have never improved before or since. In any case, does the right hon. Gentleman intend to defend this withholding of the powers under Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act? Does he intend to defend this refusal to build advance factories in 1955, after four years of this Government, on the ground that the Government cannot find the money to do it?
Mr. Stuart: The Labour Government stopped the building of advance factories in 1951.
Mr. Fraser: I doubt very much whether the right hon. Gentleman is correct in his facts.
Mr. Stuart: The last Labour Government had a limited scheme for 1950, I understand, but they scrapped it on financial grounds in 1951.
Mr. Fraser: I do not know what point the right hon. Gentleman wishes to argue, but I will take him further back and say that we discontinued making new factories to a large extent in 1948 because we had so much advance building under way that we wanted to complete it before we started any more. There seems nothing wrong with that. The right hon. Gentleman will find nothing in his records to suggest that the Labour Government took a decision in 1951 to discontinue advance factory building with the intention of never resuming it again.
In any case, I tell the right hon. Gentleman plainly that the Labour Opposition—indeed, this has been our policy since 1951, and I am taking him right up to July, 1955—take the view, having examined this matter very closely, that advance factory building must be resumed if Scotland is to be saved and, in particular, if the future of Lanarkshire is to be saved.
I have already spoken at great length and I must draw my remarks to a close. I ask the Minister of Labour and the Secretary of State to consider the need to introduce alternative employment in areas which are building up their mining labour force. There has to be a balance of industry in those areas. We have been told before today that that is inconsistent with Development Area policy, but it is nothing of the kind, because it is for the
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well-being of the county as a whole. We have to provide alternative employment and amenities in Fife and the Lothians if we are to attract my constituents to work in those areas.
There are other parts of the country where it is highly desirable that the Government should make themselves responsible for the provision of additional opportunities of employment. The Government ought to take the Cairncross Report out of the pigeon hole and dust it. They ought to consider the recommendations made in the Report that the Government should go into the areas where it is socially and economically desirable to provide factories and should take the necessary steps to have them provided.
I have spoken about the generous assistance given to private industry and the little assistance given to the public enterprises. Hon. Members should bear in mind the burden imposed upon the mining industry in Scotland which has to carry these hopelessly uneconomic collieries in Lanarkshire, the operation of which has to be continued in the national interest. The coal industry has to carry the cost of that without any assistance from public funds. It has to carry the cost of entering the new areas, finding locations and making new sinkings. That cost has to be borne by the mining industry without any assistance from public funds. Of course, no one imagines that a private enterprise mining industry could ever have undertaken this work with or without assistance from public funds.
Now, to add insult to injury, the Secretary of State proposes that the cost of housing the miners moving from the old mining areas into the developing areas shall also be borne by the mining industry. I understand that he has made quite clear that the scheme introduced by the Labour Government some years ago, under which about 10,000 houses were built by the Scottish Special Housing Association for miners in these developing areas, is coming to an end, and that, as it comes to an end, the mining industry will have to carry any financial burden arising from the housing of miners in these new areas.
When we compare that treatment of public enterprise industry with the treatment of free enterprise industry, to which

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I referred earlier in my speech, there will emerge, so clearly that anyone is bound to see it, the fact that there is no overall plan for the economic development of Scotland. Generous assistance is given to private industry under pressure. No assistance at all is given, even when the case is made out for it, to public industries. To the railways, the mining industry no assistance at all is given, nor even to the great redevelopment which those industries are to undertake.
In point of fact, and as I hear one of my hon. Friends whisper, the coal mining industry has been required, and will still be required, to subsidise these private enterprise industries, but the Government will not tell us by how much the public enterprise mining industry is called upon to subsidise other industries. The best that could be said for the Government is that not all of the good work started by their Socialist predecessors has been abandoned.
I have not covered the whole field, for that would take far too long, but I think I have laid the basis for a useful debate, and if the advice of the Opposition is taken in today's debate I think it will redound to the credit of the Government and will certainly be for the benefit of Scotland.
Mr. Patrick Maitland: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify one point that he made? He referred to the Cairncross Report, and suggested that it should be taken out of its pigeon-hole and dusted. Does he think that there should continue to be a kind of priority for the Development Areas, or that those areas ought to be considered on the same level with the rest of Scotland?
Mr. Fraser: I thought I had made myself clear. In the Development Areas, we need these advance factories to be built, and I think that Section 3 of the Distribution of Industry Act should be implemented. When we talk about the BuckiePeterhead area and other areas where there is a need for employment, and where unemployment is rising to between 3 and 9 per cent., I say that the Cairn-cross Report was absolutely right in suggesting that the Government should assume responsibility for steering more industry into those areas.
Mr. Maitland: I am much obliged.
4.53 p.m.
Mr. Walter Elliot: I am sure the House is greatly indebted to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour for the thoughtful contribution with which he opened the debate. May I say how much we welcome English Members to our debates, especially when they are of the calibre of my right hon. and learned Friend?
I think it is true that the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) did his utmost to put before us a picture of the position of Scotland as he saw it, but it is not a picture with which we completely agree. The hon. Gentleman did his best to focus attention on those things that seemed to him to be of primary importance, but he seemed a little grudging in the appreciation which he gave to the position in which Scotland is placed at present.
After all, let us not forget the very high level of production which we are seeing in Scotland, the remarkable expansion which is going on in many fields in our country, and the fact that this has been continued during three or four years of a Government of which the hon. Gentleman politically disapproves, and which he and his right hon. Friends did not hesitate to prophesy would be absolutely unable to keep up to the level laid down by himself and his hon. and right hon. Friends.
It is clear that in Scotland we are dealing with a rapidly developing and advancing country which owes its prosperity, not to one party or the other, but to the efforts of its people and to the new spirit which is abroad in our land, and I think it would be a thousand pities if we attempted to denigrate that or to say, for one reason or another, that the position in Scotland was declining or was not hopeful from almost every point of view.
That is the first point from which I wish to start—that we have a prosperous country in a state of high employment. I do not say that that employment is as full as it might be, but I do say that it is very much fuller than the employment which we have known in Scotland for many years past.
The hon. Member for Hamilton complained that there is no overall plan. Surely, the very existence of a high state of employment and the present prosperity

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of our country indicate that the steps which are being taken are working and are evidence of a plan. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I am as much entitled to argue that, on this side of the House, as are hon. and right hon. Gentlemen to argue the other, and I will call one or two lines of evidence in support of my case.
I was most interested in the theme that ran through the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton to the effect that our private industry was being assisted and public industry was being cold-shouldered. I am not, I think, summarising the hon. Gentleman's argument unfairly. Yet, from the beginning to the end of his full review of Scottish affairs, never did he mention electricity. Surely, nobody is suggesting that the electrical development in our country is being undertaken under private enterprise? It was taken away from private enterprise by what some of us thought were ill-judged measures on the part of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Now, nobody can say that the industry has not received support in the way of investment and to an extent utterly beyond that given to any other industry in the land.
Mr. Thomas Steele: There is a difference between a subsidy and capital expenditure.
Mr. Elliot: The hon. Member for Hamilton was talking in terms of the channelling of the capital resources of this country in one direction or another.
Nobody denies that the channelling of capital resources is one of the factors with which every developing industry has to reckon. The channelling of investment, making great capital developments possible, is a matter very large within the discretion of the Government. There has been great capital investment in electricity. It is made possible by the extremely favourable line which has been taken, by Governments of all political complexions, towards the development of the electrical industry, and more particularly the development of the hydroelectric industry in Scotland.
Mr. A. Woodburn: I think we would agree that in Scotland the major capital developments are in coal, electricity, and perhaps eventually in atomic energy
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development. I think the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) will agree that the Labour Government could claim a considerable part of that as being a hangover from the planning of the Labour Government, and that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that some hon. Gentlemen on the benches opposite have persecuted the Hydro-Electric Board and prevented any more capital development taking place.
Mr. Elliot: Now I think the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) has knocked the bottom out of the case which was so carefully built up over a considerable period by his hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton. The right hon. Member says that the major capital investments have been in electricity and coal, two great publicly-owned enterprises of our country. What becomes of the accusation that public industry has been crippled and confined as against private industry? By that single phrase the right hon. Member has disproved the whole case of the Opposition.
Hydro-electric development has certainly been criticised by hon. Members on this side of the House. That development has certainly been subjected to close review, and rightly so. Everyone agrees that it should be so subject to close review. But that attempts have been made to destroy or hamstring the electricity industry I totally deny. Much of the criticism has been launched by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) who, goodness knows, is as anxious as anyone in this House to see the development of hydro-electric schemes in Scotland.
The right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire, then, has stated—and we on this side of the House agree—that the major capital investment in Scotland has gone into coal and electricity. We all agree and, therefore, there is not really so much in the case built up by his hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton as would appear.
Mr. T. Fraser: Did not the right hon. Member hear me when, towards the end of my speech, I said the best that could be said for the Government was that they had not discontinued all the works started by their predecessors?
Mr. Elliot: I heard that, and I thought it scarcely fair to the hon. Member to

2145
repeat it. That is all very well for the hustings in Hamilton, but it is a little out of place in this House.
A hangover which has gone on through the whole period of office of one Government into the period of office of the next and that can hardly be a hangover. In my student days I had experience of hangovers, but one that went on four years and showed signs of extending to a fifth I should regard as a permanent feature of my life rather than as a hangover. It is in fact the development of a plan such as the hon. Member was demanding. There is the plan, that we should do our utmost to develop these prime movers in Scotland.
As the old miners' proverb goes,
"It a' comes aff the point of the pick."
Unless we have prime movers, the whole of the rest of our development rests on sand. Therefore I say we can quite rightly claim to have continued—if the hon. Member wishes to use that word I use it—the development of what was previously undertaken. We have not only continued it but have extended it. These great developments are going with full vigour. No one can complain for a moment that they have been limited by us in any way. Our only difficulty is to find sufficient material and skill for these developments, which are vital to the existence of our country.
I come to atomic energy. I do not think even the hon. Member will claim that plans for developing atomic energy are a hangover from the previous Government.
Mr. Fraser: Yes, I most certainly would. I would certainly assert that the plans for development of atomic energy are a hangover from what was planned by the Labour Government.
Mr. Elliot: There is nothing like bold assertion, especially when one's claim is not very sound. We know the achievements in atomic energy for which the Government of the hon. Member was famous. They were famous for the development of the atom bomb—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh yes, £100 million on the development of the atom bomb was the great achievement for which that Government will always be famous in history. They not only developed the atom bomb, but did so without reference to the House of Commons.
Mr. Woodburn: I take it that the right hon. Member has made that assertion in good faith. I was a member of the Government during the development of atomic energy. I was an Under-Secretary in the Ministry that was developing it and, during all the time I was there, until I left office, the atom bomb was not part of the programme. It is quite true that atomic bombs can be produced out of atomic energy, but in the early part of our initiation the investigation and development at Harwell was done not for atom-bomb purposes but solely for the development of atomic energy.
Mr. Elliot: The right hon. Member claims that whilst he was in office the Government were only interested in the use of Harwell and other stations and when he disappeared the Government changed their views—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] No one can deny that the atom bomb existed, and that we found it there when we came into power. Someone must have produced it. Is the right hon. Member going to suggest that it was produced by mice? Let us discuss this matter in sober earnest.
The great new developments in atomic energy were certainly not the sole fruits of the undertaking of hon. and right hon. Members opposite. A great proportion of the enormous sum spent then was spent on energy which subsequently was found to be for warlike and not peaceful ends.
We have been developing the prime movers of Scotland, coal, electricity and atomic energy—[An HON. MEMBER: "Peat."] I do not regard peat as one of the great prime movers in Scotland. That is a delusion which has led to many fortunes being lost. There are more solids in milk than in peat, and for us to carry out today what the Almighty did, hundreds of millions of years ago, when He piled six or seven thousand feet of alluvial rock on to peat and compressed it solid, seems a work of supererogation. If it were not possible to get at remunerative agricultural soil beneath, I do not think that peat development would mean very much for the development of Scotland. But that is only my private opinion.
I am not anxious to enter into too much controversy with hon. and right hon. Members opposite. Therefore, I will only say that no one can deny that in the development of coal, hydro-electricity,

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and atomic energy, the present Government have at any rate maintained and extended the work which their predecessors set out to do. There is a very generous offer to hon. and right hon. Members opposite. If they will close with that we can go on to further stages of the argument.
The hon. Member for Hamilton attempted to prove too much. He hankered for the full control and direction of resources and labour which he and his Government enjoyed in their time. I would ask him to consider whether in fact as a Lanarkshire man—he and I are both Lanarkshire born and bred—he does not think that argument might be turned against us with very great force if it were accepted as part of the political development of this country. The most congested city in the United Kingdom is Glasgow, yet we all feel that the further development of Glasgow is essential if Scotland is to flourish. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Well, I say so as a Glasgow man. I say that the further development of Glasgow is essential if Glasgow and Scotland are to flourish.
I do not wish to see Glasgow become a decaying area feeding a set of decanted towns. This argument should be further perused before we try to write off the second city of the Empire as a city whose day has gone. The same argument used against London might be used against Glasgow and might be used against Lanarkshire. I tremble to think what would happen if the full rigour of the argument of the hon. Member were applied to our country, and if people were to say, "These places should no longer have further development. Every step should be taken to squeeze industry out of them and push it into other parts of the country where development is more needed." I do not think anyone in Lanarkshire or Glasgow would accept that argument.
A certain amount of development should take place in places such as Lanarkshire and Glasgow. The hon. Member was arguing for that. In one breath he argued against new industries being allowed to develop in London and in the next in favour of new factories being developed in Lanarkshire. It was an anti-English argument.
Mr. Bence: What the right hon. Gentleman appears to be suggesting is that because in a certain area with a large population there exist, let us say for the sake of argument, five million square feet of factory space which is capable of modernisation and development, there shall be no more factory space allocated in other areas of the country where there is plenty of room.
Miss Margaret Herbison: And labour.
Mr. Elliot: The hon. Member and his hon. Friends cry out when an attempt is made to apply exactly the same argument to Lanarkshire. They cannot have it both ways. If they wish to limit factory development in area A, they must be prepared to follow the limitations in factory development in area B. I am not willing to write off the industrial dumbbell of Scotland as a place where no further development and no further new construction should take place.
Miss Herbison: Does the right hon. Gentleman then agree with things being as they are at present? Does he agree that there should be this great expansion in the London area, where the unemployment figures are much lower than they are in Scotland? The whole of the right hon. Gentleman's argument so far is that he is quite satisfied with things as they are in London and with the lack of work for our people in Lanarkshire and some parts of Glasgow.
Mr. Elliot: No, certainly not. The hon. Lady cannot draw any such conclusion from my argument.
Miss Herbison: That is the only conclusion to be drawn.
Mr. Elliot: No. One of the difficulties that I experience is that hon. Members in all parts of the House feel an absolutely irresistible impulse to join in any speech which I may be making. It must be my fault. I will do my best to make my speech less attractive, because it undoubtedly prolongs the period in which I find myself addressing the House.
I do not say that I am satisfied with the present layout. I do not say that there should not be development in Scotland. I was coming to that point later. What I say is that the development in Scotland should to some extent be in areas in which

2149
the hon. Lady and I are both interested, in Lanarkshire and in Glasgow, and that we should not allow this argument that development should not take place in certain areas simply because the Government desire, for purposes of distributing the population, to push people and enterprises into other areas. A certain amount of discretion must be allowed to the people who are carrying out these developments.
I will go further. The hon. Member quoted with approval the Cairncross Report. The basic finding of that Report was that the future of this country depended upon the private enterprise of this country. That was its most interesting conclusion, and it is to that conclusion that I would ask hon. Members opposite to direct their main attention.
We must work together. Nowadays, ten years after the war, we cannot work by the methods of compulsion which were appropriate during and immediately after the war. We must allow for a certain play of enterprise and initiative, and that was the conclusion of the Cairncross Report. That is the conclusion to which hon. Members opposite should give more weight than they have done.
Mr. James McInnes: Will the right hon. Gentleman state the number of the paragraph in the Cairncross Report which contains that conclusion? I can give the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the Report now. I should be interested to know what the paragraph is, because I have always understood that the recommendation of the Cairncross Report was that the Government should assist in guiding industry into certain locations and should contribute to the cost of erecting factories.
Mr. Elliot: I have not the Report with me. I carry most of its contents in my head, but not all of it. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that it referred with the utmost approval to the findings of a previous Report. It quotes with approval the findings of the previous Report which said that in private enterprise lies the future of Scotland.
Mr. Fraser: The right hon. Gentleman must not complain that so many of us wish to join in his speech, because his speech continues to invite hon. Members in all quarters of the House to interrupt him. Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that right hon. Friends of his have
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said at the Box that they are unable to accept the recommendations of the Cairncross Report. He said that the recommendations of the Cairncross Report had been quoted with the utmost approval——
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): These appear to me to be matters for debate and not for intervention.
Mr. Elliot: I shall do my best to confine my remarks to limits which will not invite the enthusiastic chorus which is heard whenever I attempt to address the House, although I may say that I take it as a great compliment because it seems to indicate that what I say is not without interest.
I must try to compress my remarks. We Scottish back benchers do our best to limit ourselves to a reasonable allocation of time, and therefore I shall leave out a great many of the things that I had intended to say, not because I think them of less importance, but because other Members may have things to say of far more importance.
The Government overall plan was a plan of inducement rather than a plan of compulsion. While a plan of compulsion was essential during the war, and may have been appropriate in the years immediately after the war, the plan of compulsion must give way to a much less vigorous set of orders than was possible in the war years. Indeed, the hon. Member for Hamilton admitted that in the concluding part of his period of office the Government schemes started were much fewer than the Government schemes which were started in the early stages of his period of office.
After all, we cannot get away from the fact that the country was financially in a very difficult position when we on this side of the House took office. I will say no more than that, but I am sure that it will be agreed by everyone, for, after all, it was the statement of a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was speaking to the bankers. He admitted that the state of the country was very grave indeed, and such steps as had to be taken were inevitable.
However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. High employment has continued; so has capital development. Hon. Members opposite complain of the expansion of Colvilles.
Mr. Fraser: No.
Mr. Elliot: Very well, they complain that in the figures relating to the expansion of factories the space given to Colvilles mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend occupied a disproportionate share of the total.
Mr. Bence: No.
Mr. Elliot: That is what the hon. Gentleman said.
Mr. Bence: No.
Mr. Elliot: I listened and I wrote down what the hon. Gentleman said. He said that my right hon. and learned Friend had mentioned the expansion of Colvilles, but that although a fifth of the expansion in factory space was due to the development of Colvilles alone, that development was reflected, not in expansion of employment, but in the re-equipping of existing labour. However, that is partly what investment is for—the re-equipment of existing labour. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."] Then we agree that the expansion of coal mining and the electricity industry was good and that the expansion of investment in existing industries for the purpose of bringing them up to date was also good.
Therefore, in these things the Government have been absolutely right and have the enthusiastic support of hon. Members opposite. We move towards agreement. If that is so, the denigratory tone of the concluding passages of the speech by the hon. Member for Hamilton were very unjustified. If he had ended upon that note I think that none of us would have had anything to complain about.
Mr. Fraser: I did.
Mr. Elliot: Investment in another of our great industries—agriculture—has gone on at a very great rate. The amount of machinery that has gone into the agricultural industry is colossal. It is to that that we owe the progress which we have been able to make in the industry. In that respect, I do not think that the argument of the hon. Member for Hamilton as to the proportion of the income of the agricultural industry which comes from public funds was at all justified. The income of agriculture is devoted in part to new investment, in part to the maintenance of a return on
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capital already invested, and in part to the payment of those who are employed in the industry.
The hon. Member has no right to earmark a particular section and say that this or that has been found from public funds. The nation chooses to find the price of a portion of its food out of public funds, but agriculture is developing as a whole, and increasing its investment as a whole. That is the way in which it is making itself more and more capable every year of fulfilling the further demands for food which the country makes upon it. When the programme of national investment, the planning of national investment, is being considered, the national investment which is going on in agriculture, should not be omitted.
There are many other things that might properly still be done in our country. There is the question of education at school or university or technical college. The part which is to be played in our national life by those institutions and by apprenticeship are topics to which we may reasonably devote a considerable amount of time. I shall do no more now than mention it, because I understand that we are to have an opportunity of debating these matters at length later. I agree, however, that no more important subject could be discussed on the Floor of the House, because on the increasing skill of our people the whole future of our industries depends.
In a new and developing country, such as we have in Scotland, there are certain matters to which we should give attention. There should be a touch of magnificence in the projects which we lay before our people. Nothing more far-sighted has ever been done than the great development in Edinburgh which the New Town represents. That has been an investment from which the whole of Scotland has profited for a hundred years. It seems to me that there is a place for development along similar lines in Glasgow. I think of a High Glasgow. There is a series of sites down the Firth of Clyde which is unparalleled in Europe. Developments along the lines of models of development in London which have been shown to us in the Palace of Westminster could be completely outdone by possible development in Glasgow.
Glasgow should move seawards. There, along the shores of the Firth, is the

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expanding line, the great open space, the vista—and the employment. I am not so sure about all this suggested development of light industry. It was by means of heavy industries that Scotland made her fame and will stand or fall. It may be necessary to have ancillary industries, but the day we lose our pre-eminence in heavy precision engineering will be the day when our country falls.
The heavy precision engineering of Scotland is that of the Clyde. People want to dwell beside their work. They do not want to be removed, in the evening of their days, to remote parts of the country. They want to live near their friends; where they can be visited by their relations, and see their grandchildren. The great open spaces are on the Firth of Clyde. There are the natural air spaces besides which high-building development could take place.
I beg my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to consider whether we might have prepared a series of models such as were made for High Paddington, for some of the old building areas of Glasgow. My right hon. Friend should consider whether we should not have an imaginative model of Glasgow constructed to show how we might take again the road to the sea and develop the shores of the Firth of Clyde in a way worthy of a great city, and not find ourselves marching out further and further into the nearby agricultural land.
If Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, had been laid out in a mass of small cottages, we should not have the reverence which the whole world has for the City of Edinburgh. It would be worth while developing Glasgow if only as a shop window for Scotland on the Atlantic, as the second city of the Empire, rather than that it should be a place from which population can be drawn to the inland counties such as Lanarkshire.
My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland has taken a great deal of trouble and devoted a great deal of attention to the further development of another big industry in our country—tourism—and in particular to the access to the North which is so badly lacking at the moment. His proposed road to the North, the autobahn for the Highlands, has a double interest. It has an interest not merely as a great new engineering project in Scotland but as a
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pilot scheme for the motorways which are to be built south of the Border. These will involve many difficulties, and take fifteen years to build.
The new road to the North is a project which can be carried out in a matter of months as against years for the projects in the South. Land has been bought, and the severances effected. The people are anxious to see the road instead of struggling against it.
In Scotland we have space, scenery and rain to sell. We have sold the rain in our hydro-electric schemes. Let us be as imaginative in selling the space and the scenery. Do not let us regard them as things to complain about. Do not let us say that we live in a remote area. Let people say, "Here is space and air. You are fighting for air in your congested cities. We will give you a road to travel on safely, at speeds which modern vehicles make possible." These are schemes which Scotland might well consider and might properly put into effect.
It would be easy to continue at length on the subject of the development of Scotland but it would be unfair to those hon. Members who wish to follow me. Our country is already prosperous. But, for all that, a touch of imagination, of magnificence in its new development, would and should be undertaken. That will be a task for this Parliament as well as for those which are to follow.
5.29 p.m.
Mr. J. Grimond: Of the many free-running hares started by the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), I liked the last one best. There is a great deal to be said for a touch of magnificence. I also thought, however, that the right hon. Gentleman's closing remarks drew attention to the need to think again about town and country planning. In the earlier part of his speech the right hon. Gentleman was slightly critical of planning yet, if he compares what he said earlier with his peroration, he must come to the conclusion that we cannot have these magnificent projects in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and other great cities unless we have some planning and some new ideas about it.
It is not only Edinburgh that has a magnificent situation. It is indeed not only Glasgow, because Dundee has a wonderful site on the banks of the Tay,

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and so has Aberdeen on the spur between the Don and the Dee. We have in our countryside wonderful opportunities for the touch of magnificance for which the right hon. Gentleman asks.
I myself believe that we must also have a certain amount of planning, and I rather think that planning has fallen too deeply into disrepute, possibly because some of the very ambitious plans started after the war went haywire and people became frightened of the subject. For my part, I think that in the North of Scotland we must have some planning. If, however, it is to be good planning and if it is to be effective it must meet four requirements. First, it must take account of national development. No one wants to plan against the tide of human development. National change should be guided and made to serve the end of human happiness.
Secondly, planning must be imaginative. The great atomic project at Dounreay is an example of imaginative planning. "Planning" may be the wrong word. Perhaps I should have said "imaginative development." On the other hand, I think the development area scheme in Easter Ross, in which up to date no development has taken place, is a bad example of quite unimaginative planning.
Planning must also take account of human happiness. I doubt whether there has been a more destructive political idea than the idea that the purpose of government is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Acute unhappiness caused to a small number of people is not compensated for by a small increase in the general happiness of many.
Lastly, to my mind planning must not be too centralised. I think that was the fault of many well-meaning efforts which were started after the war. They tended to treat Britain as exactly the same all over, so that Sutherland and Shetland were treated as suburbs of London. I was rather pleased to see the Minister of Labour here today because I am continually in correspondence with him about the application of the law regarding the call-up, which I think is one example of the fatal result of applying the one set of regulations all over the country.
The Regulations allow for the postponement of call-up on the ground of
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hardship long enough to enable the person called up to make arrangements for his croft to be worked. But we all know that no man in the Highlands can afford to have his croft worked by hired labour, and the only arrangement he can make is to leave the croft—to get rid of it. Yet summer after summer we have Ministers coming to our part of the world and telling us that we must keep the people on the land, especially the young people, and that we must keep the crofts in cultivation. Yet the call-up arrangements make it certain that a proportion of the young people will be called up and will leave the Highlands.
Another example of the same sort of thing is the levy which is charged to make good the losses on sales of nationalised lorries. So far as my constituency is concerned, the whole controversy about the nationalisation and denationalisation of road transport passes over us right out to sea. We did not have either, but we have to pay this levy because everybody else has to pay it. I suggest there is no possible ground in common sense for that type of legislation.
This project at Dounreay does give the Government an opportunity. I have always said that when we got effective development in the Highlands we ought to have a Highland Development Authority. Whether the House agrees with that or not, certainly this great source of power which is to grow up in the constituency of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) is an entirely new factor, and it should be treated with the type of imagination and the type of magnificence which was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove.
It could, I think, be an immense blessing to the whole area, and I think most hon. Members from the Highlands will agree on that. It could, however, also raise considerable difficulties. I should like to ask the Government some questions about what they visualise will happen. I believe the labour force which was originally required for the building was round about 2,000, but the project has been increased in size and I do not know how many more men will be employed. It would be interesting, too, to know the up-to-date estimates of the number who will be permanently employed once the project is in operation.

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Where is this labour force to come from? As far as the building of it is concerned, the labour force will be housed near the project and will be in permanent employment for a number of years. Will the crofters who register for employment be directed to do that work? As the Secretary of State knows, there are many crofters who must take seasonal employment but who rely on going back to their crofts for part of the year. Are they to be taken for the work at Dounreay, and if they do not go will they lose their benefit?
This is a matter of particular concern to me because Shetland is one of the black spots in Scotland with a high rate of unemployment, although that rate varies a great deal according to the seasons of the year. Then what is to be the effect of this scheme on the agricultural labour force in neighbouring counties? As the right hon. Gentleman knows, in many parts of the Highlands agricultural labour is very short. What is the Government's estimate of the effect of Dounreay on the supply of agricultural labour?
These problems are very difficult, but I do not believe that they are insoluble. I believe that this is the type of problem which deserves some planning and some forethought, and for which the Government should assume some responsibility and do so in time.
On the other side of the picture, where are the technicians, etc., to come from? There is at the moment throughout the North of Scotland a lack of technicians of various kinds, and I very much wish the right hon. and learned Gentleman had developed his theme of technical education, because it is not only in Glasgow that we need such education. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland has asked about the possibilities for Caithness in connection with training in atomic science; and in all sorts of ways we need a great development of technical education in the North if we are to make the most of the possibilities that the Dounreay project will open before us.
I think that if the most is to be made of it, the Government must look at the general picture and see that two conditions are fulfilled. First, I should certainly like to see subsidiary industries growing up all round Dounreay. To my mind it should be the broody hen which
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is hatching all sorts of subsidiary industries, which presumably would be prepared to spread over the North of Scotland once the power and by-products are available. I suggest also that it should afford marketing possibilities for commodities like vegetable produce, lobsters, and so on.
Secondly, I think we must see that this development is not too one-sided. One way in which, as we now know, things went wrong in the last century was that too much concentration of industry was allowed in certain places. If we could have relived our history again, we should have diversified employment in a place like Glasgow at a much earlier date, and also tried to stop Glasgow from draining the surrounding hill districts and collecting all the people into that close conglomeration on the Clyde.
In a small way, there is a similar lesson to be learned for the North. Apart from encouraging subsidiary industries, the Government really must see, if they are to make the most of the prosperity of Dounreay, that there is a complementary increase in agriculture, fishing and other employment which is now available in the area.
At this very moment we are still waiting for a freight policy, still waiting for better and cheaper transport. I do not want to pursue that subject today because I have pursued it so often and other hon. Members may mention it. Yet freight is a stumbling block to all kinds of development in the Highland area, and it is the principal reason why the population is leaving Orkney, the Shetlands and the Western Isles.
Also there is a grave lack of capital. In my experience crofters and small farmers cannot now get the capital which they need. The banks will lend immense sums of money to people who have security of one kind or another but there is not the confidence in the North to enable capital to be readily available to small enterprises. It is no use for the Government to say that that is no concern of theirs, because they have the greatest influence over financial policy and at present that influence is used to curtail advances.
In the North of Scotland there has been, if anything, too much attention paid to annual subsidies and too little to

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long-term capital investment in land reclamation, in drainage and in enlarging holdings. The Treasury in this country has a long tradition of annual finance but in many ways it is a wasteful system. If we are to get what we need in transport and roads and development to bring new life into the far North, it means capital investment, and it may mean something like a land bank such as exists in countries with similar problems.
Then there is fishing. I am rather alarmed to hear talk of the need for curtailing the size of the fishing fleet, and in the new Orders there are signs that the Government are prepared to cut down on the grant of loans if it is shown that the fleet is expanding too rapidly. I regard that as a dangerous attitude. The comparison between Faroe and my constituency is remarkable. In Faroe the population has gone up by 8,000 whereas in the Shetlands it has fallen by 6,000. This is largely due to the fishing, which the Faroese learned from the Shetlanders in the first place.
There may be an ultimate limit to the expansion of traditional methods of fishing, but if we had better transport, refrigeration, new marketing methods, and quick freezing, there is still plenty of scope for more white fish to be landed. If fish is put into the shops in good condition in the South, there are plenty of people to eat it. But although there may be an ultimate limit, there are other methods of fishing and there are other fish to be caught, and if we must reduce the size of the traditional fleets, the answer is to try these new methods.
I am often laughed at for continually talking in this House about the need to exploit the catching and marketing of basking sharks and dog-fish, but Norwegians come over by the dozen to my constituency and make thousands and thousands of pounds out of catching dogfish and basking sharks around the shores of Shetland. We do not touch these fish and we shall never do so until the White Fish Authority does more about the processing and marketing of them. Then, there are ling and cod, which are caught by the Faroese, who are in no better position to do so than the people in Shetland or Caithness or on the North-East Coast.
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However, that requires capital, and I agree that under the present share system, which is good in many ways, it is difficult to build up the capital for new developments. Yet unless the Government are prepared to build up the complementary industries we shall not get the full benefit from industrialisation in Caithness, and we shall find ourselves faced with difficult problems of concentration of the population.
The present Government have only just come into office and presumably they expect to have four or five years ahead of them. They should not be scornful about planning. They should look at some of the lessons that have been learned. They should plan for a free enterprise economy, in which I am a believer. The two things are not antagonistic, because it is apparent that in any economy today there has to be a degree of planning, but that should help, not hinder, a free economy.
There is plenty of money for investment of certain kinds today, and we have a great area in the Highlands needing development. There is no other area in Britain comparable to it. If we can get, in conjunction with Dounreay, Caithness, the White Fish Authority, and the Herring Board, a real drive for the development of agriculture and fishing in ways suited to the conditions in the far North, we may see a new era, but it is for the Government to supply the drive and the imagination in an area which requires a different system from the rest of Britain.
I hope that the Government have not dropped the Crofters Commission with a sigh. Great importance is attached in the crofting districts as to how that Commission will work, and it will be the first sign from the Government of whether they mean business in the North or not. We do not yet know who is to be the chairman, but he must be a man in the prime of life and ability.
Mr. McInnes: He has been appointed.
Mr. Grimond: There have been rumours about it. All I say is that he must have the full support of the Government because we shall succeed only if the Crofters Commission is integrated into a general plan of development and employment for the whole area, and if it works with the White Fish Authority, with the Atomic Authority, with the

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Herring Board, and the various other agencies which should be carrying out their various projects in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland under the general plan for the area.
5.46 p.m.
Mr. David J. Pryde: I thought it was a great compliment to Scotland to have the Minister of Labour open this debate in person, but a queer thought struck me: why was it essential to have one of the finest legal intellects in Europe to paint the clouds with sunshine, or otherwise try to put a face upon the White Paper? There is no doubt that the Minister presented the White Paper in a very good light. To follow him by that most astute right hon. Gentleman, the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), who is a past master in the art of laying a smoke screen, was a technique on the part of the Government worthy of a great deal of respect.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), in examining the national position I always begin on the land. Every good economist begins on the land, because everything springs from the land. In examining the White Paper closely I found that when we considered the land there was room for a great deal of apprehension.
As my hon. Friend pointed out, the tillage area in Scotland in the past year decreased, the oats acreage fell by as much as 5.6 per cent., the barley acreage fell, and the potato acreage fell. When we take into consideration the fact that the manpower in Scottish agriculture is tending more towards casual labour and becoming more dependent upon child labour; when we take into consideration that the area of hill land in Scotland is more than twice as great than in England and Wales and that the Hill Sheep Subsidy has been cut out; when we take into consideration that our agricultural workers are leaving the land because of low wages, bad housing conditions, lack of educational facilities for their children and lack of amenities for themselves, we must think about the position very carefully indeed.
It is true that the White Paper says that there is an improvement in rural water supplies, but everyone knows that any such improvement is attributable to the work of the Labour Government.
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Consequently, in taking exception to any credit which the Government try to claim for an improvement in rural Scotland, we must point out that their policy for high interest rates, with 4½ per cent. loans to local authorities, does not hold out any hope for the repopulation of our countryside.
The Minister of Labour mentioned the Highlands. As I have previously pointed out, the Highlands problem arises from private ownership of land. As with the coal industry, we have these days to reconstruct Highland life, because it is part of our country, and we can only redevelop it on the basis of an adequate transport system. The welfare of the Highlands is based upon transport. The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove spoke about a great motor road. Such a road would be of great assistance in redeveloping our glens, but more than that has to be done. There must be a Forth road bridge and a Tay road bridge and a great road right round Scotland for not only civil but also military purposes. We must recognise that industry is the key to the welfare of Scotland.
I turn now to the problem industry, mining. Here again, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite try to find a scapegoat. We can again trace the industry's present grievances to private ownership. It is in its present state because of the damage inflicted upon it by private owners between the two world wars. For ten years I have spoken about the stupendous amount of money required to be poured into the mining industry to enable it to meet the demands of the country's industry, the expansion of which was begun by the Labour Government.
The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove spoke about Scotland getting into a bad condition. It was bound to be in a bad condition in 1945, after the greatest struggle that ever shook the human race. The first Labour Government faced political and Parliamentary problems unrivalled in our history. Nevertheless, we brought the country further along the road to recovery than any other country in Europe which was engaged in the Second World War. We found that the mining industry had to be nationalised because, as Sir Charles Reid pointed out, private enterprise could not possibly find the

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money for the machinery and equipment required to reconstruct the industry.
Sixty-three collieries in Scotland have been shut down since vesting date. In 1953, eight collieries, which, between them, produced 277,000 tons of coal per year, were closed. Lanarkshire, which used to produce the bulk of the coal output of Scotland, is practically a desert. Last year £8 million was allotted to Scotland for reconstruction and redevelopment in the industry. The National Coal Board recently showed hon. Members from both sides of the House exactly what has been done since vesting day and what has to be done. This clearly showed that coal production in North Lanarkshire would be blotted out in the near future. This means that the workers there have to go into other areas, such as Ayrshire and the Lothians, if they still wish to earn their living by coal mining.
We have a geological phenomenon in the bed of the River Esk, in the Lothians. In that valley are more seams than anywhere else in Scotland. In the western portion of Midlothian, two parishes in the Calder area have been scheduled under the Distribution of Industry Act. Although the Coal Board has pointed out that by 1965 there will be 17,000 miners in the area, the Government have made no attempt to introduce subsidiary industries to Midlothian.
The miners of Lanarkshire, especially the ageing ones, are reluctant to uproot their families from places where they have been for generations and go to Midlothian, even to new houses, when they know that the Government have made not the slightest effort to provide alternative employment there for the members of their families who do not earn their living by coal mining. If there is no incentive, how can the Coal Board be expected to obtain the necessary skilled men?
Today, fewer than 36,000 skilled face workers in Scotland are producing more coal per man at the coal face than ever before. Many people are under the impression that miners are producing less than they did previously, but that is not so. The output per man-shift at the coal face is greater in Scotland than it ever has been.
The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove referred to Edinburgh. Midlothian
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County Council is building at Easthouses, eight miles south-east of Edinburgh, the largest mining town in Scotland. There the miners are showing how they can adapt themselves to the new mechanical apparatus installed by the Coal Board in an endeavour to meet the need of our expanding industry. Has not Scotland increased her distribution of coal to households and industry? Is it not true that coal is being shipped from Scotland yet being imported from England simply because it has not been possible to pour the required amount of money into our mining industry to develop the necessary coal-faces?
About £8 million is totally insufficient to meet the great demands of the industry, and hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite want to find a scapegoat. Last Monday they picked on the Minister of Fuel and Power but he has no more responsibility in the matter than my dog. He is also the victim of circumstances and history. Like the Board, he is faced with an impossible task.
The Board is being asked to do something which is financially impossible. It is asked to purchase and import coal and then sell it at less than the purchase price. It is asked to build houses. It is asked to provide amenities. Hundreds of men who had gone to Midlothian returned to Lanarkshire before the last General Election. I had to contact them and have their votes recorded by post. They returned to Lanarkshire simply because no amenities were provided in the Midlothian mining areas. I accuse the Government of having failed to provide the necessary amenities and the necessary subsidiary employment in the Midlothian area.
I want, next, to refer to shale. Here is a curious position. Here are two parishes, Kirknewton and Mid-Calder, scheduled under the Distribution of Industry Act. Here are womenfolk who travel greater distances to work than do people anywhere else in Scotland. It is quite a common occurrence for people in the industrial belt to travel as far as from Edinburgh to Glasgow, or Glasgow to Edinburgh, rather than be unemployed. The shale industry has been declining for many years and no provision has been made for the womenfolk. There is no chance of holding up incentives for recruitment to this great industry, which is

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haunted by the fear of altogether disappearing.
It is haunted by the fear of the impingement of crude oil. Is it not ironical that the natives of the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas can look forward with equanimity to oil development, while the people in the area where the oil industry was born, because the oil industry of the world was born in the Lothians, should look forward to it with the greatest fear? It will bring the inhabitants of those savage lands riches and luxury.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned carpets. He said that the carpets which he had in mind were woven in Ayr. I have in mind carpets woven in Midlothian. Here I accuse the Board of Trade. Years ago I pointed out that in Oxford Street, in London, carpets were being sold at a price which undercut carpets woven in Midlothian. These are tapestry carpets and tapestry is the working man's carpet. Until recently we were able to export them all over the world and then cotton carpets from Belgium intervened.
I investigated the position to find out how it was possible for the Belgians to export carpets to this country and undercut our prices. I was assured that it was not because of low wages. I was assured that wages were comparable with those paid in Britain. Where was the difference? Was it in the raw material? Is it a fact that the cotton which goes into the Belgian carpet is produced by the slave labour in the Belgian Congo? I do not know, but I would be interested to have that information and I am sure that the Government can supply it.
I have dealt with the land, but I have omitted to point out that £2½ million less will be spent in agriculture, forestry and fisheries in Scotland next year than was spent last year. That does not hold any hope to the farming industry. In open-cast working we have a problem which is troubling agriculture, because farmers ire bitterly complaining about the damage done by and the loss of income from opencast operations. I draw the Government's attention to the fact that compensation afforded to the farmers is cased on wartime legislation passed in he early 1940s, when the value of money vas very different from what it is today. It is time the Government turned their attention to this problem. If they do not,
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the National Farmers' Union in Scotland will be called to the assistance of the Midlothian farmers.
We require coal and the farmers know quite well that we do, but there is no reason why the Government should boast that they are the friends of agriculture and of the farmer while, at the same time, driving him into the bankruptcy court. I have shown them that their policy about mining needs to be considerably reviewed and accelerated. I have shown them that they will no longer be able to boast of building 300,000 houses a year, because local authorities are saying that it is impossible for them to take on the financial obligation of loans at 4½ per cent. I doubt very much whether the Government seriously intend to build more houses at the rate they built them recently. They were urged to do that by their own back benchers and rank and file. They did build 300,000 houses, but they have to neglect the building of hospitals, schools and halls for amenities.
That is why the Scottish Office officials are going round local authorities and getting on their knees and saying that the local authorities must try to repair old prefabricated houses to give them another five years life, because the Government are now to turn their attention to schools and hospitals and cannot possibly keep up the rate of building. The output of the building industry is a fixed quantity and not a piece of elastic that can be stretched. I think I have given the House sufficient data clearly to show that Scotland does not approve of the present Report.
6.7 p.m.
Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: The debate is ranging wide, as one would expect a debate to do when one has representatives from such divergent types of constituencies as Scotland sends to Parliament. We had the interesting contribution by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), who said that Glasgow should go up in the air. We had the equally interesting contribution by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), who invited us to follow him in what seemed to me to be the rather dangerous waters of basking sharks and dog-fish. We then had a contribution

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by the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Pryde), in the following of which I do not want to go into too much detail except to say that he was very inaccurate in a good many of the facts he gave us in pleading his case.
He said, for example, that coal output per man-shift at the face was higher than it has ever been. That is just not so. Official statistics show that in 1938 it was greater than now, and that is in spite of all the machinery that has been put into the mines to develop production. Then he criticised Her Majesty's Government for not having done much about hospitals and education. But I should like to point out that the previous Government were doing no more and were building far fewer houses. So it falls ill that it should come from his lips that he should criticise the Government by an argument which will rebound, and does rebound, with greater force upon his own party.
Through most of the speeches, nevertheless, there has run a theme, and that is particularly true of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser). That theme is of transcendental importance to Scotland. My arguments are not quite the same as his, although we arrive at nearly the same conclusion. As I have already argued in this House, I believe that the time has come when the restrictions and regulations governing industry in the Development Areas needs to be revised. The purposes of the Development Areas scheme were originally not only to absorb the unemployment rife and in existence at a higher rate there than elsewhere, but also to try to spread industry all over Scotland for the better advantage of Scottish industry in general.
We have arrived at a point where, happily, the unemployment figures for Scotland, both in the Development Areas and elsewhere, have fallen to a very small percentage of what they used to be. They are still double the figures for England and that I think is a justification for Scotland being, in this matter, treated somewhat differently from England. It is also true that the Development Area unemployment figure is, overall, not much greater than the figure for the unemployment in Scotland as a whole. There are, perhaps, pockets——
Mr. McInnes: It is double.
Mr. Hutchison: No, 2·6 per cent. unemployment in the Development Areas, compared with 2·2 per cent. unemployment in Scotland as a whole. Those are the figures which I have been given, and I understand that they are official.
Whether my figures be more favourable or the hon. Gentleman's nearer, I think it a fact that there are parts of the Development Areas in which the excessive unemployment has been largely reduced. There are other areas, as has been indicated, in Lanarkshire, and perhaps in Port Glasgow, where unemployment is still higher than it ought to be in relation to the general unemployment figure for Scotland.
I should like to see the Secretary of State for Scotland given the power to attract industry into an area where it would do the greatest good. It may well be that such an area would be a Development Area, were that area suffering from great unemployment. But it may well be not a Development Area at all. There may be places where we have what has been described as a single-horse industry —a single-horse town—where it would be an advantage to have another industry. Such places as Midlothian have been mentioned, and Glenrothes, where diversification would be of value.
At present, my right hon. Friend can offer several advantages to industry in the Development Areas. He can offer advance-built factories which have largely been absorbed. There has been an argument about whether they should be continued, but under my plan it would not be practicably possible to do so. I am asking for this power of the Secretary of State to be applicable all over Scotland, so we could not have factories all over Scotland waiting and ready for someone to take a fancy to them. The Secretary of State, as I understand, has not the power to build a factory after a site has been chosen outside a Development Area and give the facilities such as subsidised rent which he could give were it within a Development Area. I think he should have that power and that it should be left for him to decide whether it would be to the greatest good of Scotland as a whole to place a factory at, for example, Arbroath, Midlothian, or Port Glasgow.
Other advantages possessed by the Secretary of State are priority in Govern-

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ment contracts and the granting of loans on attractive terms. My right hon. Friend should have the power to use all or any of these advantages to attract industry to a non-industrial area. It may be that he could do so merely by offering priority in Government contracts. He might not have to go to the length of building a factory. I would leave that decision to him. But I think that his hands should be loosened in that matter.
I wish to pass to another theme and to touch on all these things rather lightly and quickly because my remarks are mostly of an interrogatory nature. I wish, first, to refer to the question of peat. This matter seems to be lagging behind. I brought up the question five or six years ago and asked what progress was being made in obtaining electrical power from peat. I was told that investigations were being made at that time. The production of energy from peat has been going on in Ireland, in Denmark, and in the Soviet Union for a number of years. It is true that we are told that experimentation is going on in connection with gas turbine plants both by John Brown and Company and Ruston and Hornsby.
We were told that also a year ago; but the situation brooks of no delay; whether it be atomic energy or—as would be the case—only a small contribution from peat, or the production of coal, or however it may come. One of the hungers from which this country is suffering, and will suffer in greater measure in the near future, is the hunger for energy: electric power. So I wish to know how we are getting on with this. Particularly I should like some information on the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove about What is being uncovered in the areas from which peat is being taken. I have heard rumours about disappointment with the soil beneath the peat.
I agree with my right hon. Friend that it becomes a doubtful proposition if after having taken five or six feet of peat and gone through the dewatering process, and used it for energy, we find nothing worthwhile underneath. I have not heard anything from official sources about what is being found beneath the peat and I should be glad if I could be enlightened. Is it land which will serve agricultural purposes or is the land of no value?
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The next matter to which I wish to refer is the question of nuclear power: I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House have already realised the importance of this in its peaceful uses and, alas, at present in the threat of war. We cannot afford to lag behind in this matter. I believe that this is one of the activities in which Britain might accept supranational control. I do not wish to develop that theme now, but it is one of the things in which the road can more clearly be seen for an international authority controlling all the nuclear energy produced for peaceful purposes in Western Europe.
I should be out of order were I to go further in discussing that subject. I throw it out to underline the importance of this production of electricity from nuclear energy. How are we getting on with it? I have heard it said that Dounreay is to be expanded further and I have read about a new power station at Annan. But I have only read of it unofficially. Is there to be a new station at Annan? May we hear something about that?
I wish to plead for some of the railway locomotives to be built in Scotland under the new dieselisation plan in the modernisation of our railway system. We are the only country, except India, which does not buy its locomotives from expert manufacturers. In the past, we have manufactured some, but not all, of the steam locomotives in the railway workshops. About 90 per cent., perhaps more, but certainly 90 per cent., of the activities of these workshops is concerned with repairs, research and development and I believe that the proper rôle. I plead with my right hon. Friend to steer to Scotland some of the orders for the diesel engines which are to haul the trains with increased efficiency and speed between Glasgow and Edinburgh so that the engines may be manufactured in Scotland. I am informed that that would cause no risk of redundancy in the railway work shops. The repairs, research and development with which they would still be concerned would occupy, if not 100 per cent., very nearly 100 per cent, of the labour there.
Now a word about shipbuilding. I think it was the secretary of the Boilermakers' Society who said the other day that there was the threat of boycott on ships built in Germany. That is a purblind attitude to adopt in these modern

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days. To begin with, when we have got, as we have, about two years' work for the stocks in our shipbuilding yards, then we must expect shipowners to go to those yards where they can get quicker delivery. I dare say that the prices are about the same, and, therefore, it is not reasonable to expect a shipowner to wait perhaps two or three years when he can get delivery quicker in a German yard at the present time.
An interesting article was written by three trade unionists who recently paid a visit to Germany to find out how it was that the Germans were able to build up their shipbuilding industry in the way they have been doing. Of course, I could have told them that one of the advantages which the Germans had was the question of delivery. Another is that they are getting much more flexibility in the internal economy of the labour in their workshops.
That is exactly what these three trade unionists came back and reported. They said that the German plant was more modern. Of course, that is true, because the Germans started from scratch owing to the fact that their shipbuilding yards had been demolished. It is a great advantage to be able to start an industry from scratch for a certain period, but, if the plant is not kept up to date, then somebody else may later start from scratch with that same advantage.
There are some archaic restrictions which, I believe, the T.U.C. and some of the unions are trying gradually to break down, but they are still extremely rigid and make for very expensive work. During the Election campaign, a riveter asked me why he could not become a welder. I said that I thought he could if he went the appropriate way about it. He said that he was not allowed to become a welder, that the workers are all trade-departmentalised. They are all in the Boilermakers' Society which caters for caulkers, burners, riveters and welders. According to this man, the interchange was almost impossible because if all riveters were able to become welders there would be an excess of welders. If I am wrong about that, I should like to know, because then it would show that an old demarcation which has existed for a very long time is disappearing.
Mr. Bence: The Boilermakers' Society has a system of interchange where welding is coming in and riveting is passing out. Under this system it is possible for riveters to become welders.
Mr. Hutchison: Yes, but with very strict limits on it, I understand. If the demarcation is disappearing, all well and good, because that is what I want to see. It is something which has almost completely disapeared in German yards, and its disappearance has made for the lowering of costs.
Mr. John Rankin: To take it a little further, would the hon. Gentleman agree that if the welder is able to take up the paint brush, if necessary, and if the blacksmith is able to do the work of the joiner, some other employee should do the work of the director when he is away hunting, shooting and fishing?
Mr. Hutchison: Whether or not that is provided for in the article written by the three trade unionists, it is, nevertheless, a fact that the demarcation between one trade and another in the shipbuilding industry is far too narrowly drawn. Of course, it would be ridiculous to say that a man who had never handled a paint brush could paint a ship. I am not trying to destroy a protection which has been built up in the past, but I think that in many ways it is now archaic and wants to be made less rigid.
Mr. Rankin: What about the Law Society?
Mr. Hutchison: I do not know any-think about the Law Society. That is not a red herring to be followed in the course of this debate.
I will conclude by making one more appeal, and one directed chiefly to hon. Members opposite. I believe—and I said seven or so years ago—that the trade unions have a great rôle to play. It will be well for the country if they play that rôle wisely. In my view, the trade unions have not moved as fast as the power which they have achieved in the last few years should dictate. Power has out stripped them. With power inevitable goes responsibility, and it is that sense of responsibility which I think they need and are trying to develop. We cannot have responsibility without also incurring criticism. I have already criticised one aspect of trade unionism and I want to add another.

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I appeal to hon. Members opposite to try to do something to stop the victimisation of men who want to work in spite of unofficial strikes. No one likes victimisation. It is one of the things which hon. Members opposite have fought against continuously for years.
Mr. Pryde: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that that should apply equally to both sides?
Mr. Hutchison: Yes, I do. I think that the nation hates to see the sort of thing that occasionally happens, where a man, and his family, are "sent to Coventry" because he wants to work. I agree that one has the right to withhold one's labour, but, equally one must have the right to give one's labour. I believe that it is a form of cruelty to "send people to Coventry," something which is bringing the trade unions into disrepute. I believe that if hon. Members would do what they could to try to stop this practice, they would be doing a great service to the country and to humanity, because this sort of treatment smacks of what goes on behind the Iron Curtain.
Mr. Rankin: Would the hon. Gentleman stop it in the public schools?
Mr. Hutchison: I hope that hon. Members will not regard this as being a controversial or a political argument. It is not. It is an argument in favour of humanity. Those hon. Members opposite who doubt that should read the article written by that very big-hearted individual who was the Minister of Labour in their own Government, the right hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Isaacs). The article appeared the other day in the "Sunday Dispatch," and the right hon. Gentleman ended it by pleading for the same thing as I am asking for, the casting out of hatred. He was talking about hatred and bitterness.
Britons are bad haters. What did we do in the First World War? We fought the Turk and called him "Johnny Turk." We fought the German, and we called him "Jerry.'" The French called him "Sale Boche," with a spit. Why should this sort of treatment be meted out to a man who wants nothing more than to be allowed to carry on with his work? The right hon. Member for Southwark ended his article by saying:
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"Cast it out. Every decent man and woman should have nothing to do with it."
I hope that all hon. Members will help him and me to do that.
6.30 p.m.
Mr. George Lawson: I do not wish to follow the arguments of the hon. Member for Scotstoun (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison) at great length, but I should like to say a word or two in relation to his final appeal. No one can properly understand trade unionists and trade unions unless he knows something of the background of the Trade Union movement and the efforts which ordinary working people have put into it in order to uplift their status. For many generations they were the degraded section of society; the hewers of wood and the drawers of water; the people who were treated so often as mere scum, to come and go at the orders and beckoning of the fellows at the top.
I put it to the hon. Member for Scotstoun that the position has changed so greatly during the last few years precisely because of the immense power which trade unionists have gathered unto themselves. This immense power arises out of the virtue of solidarity and of loyalty one to the other. Hon. Members opposite would probably say that the greatest crime that a man can commit is that of disloyalty; they would say disloyalty to his country, because for so long they have taken it upon themselves to be the spokesmen for the country. They regard high treason as the greatest crime.
I put it to them that as so many people regard high treason, so do thousands of others amongst the working class regard the practice of the blackleg. It may be unfortunate, but there it is; it is something which is ingrained in the viewpoint of working people. It is something from which they have suffered so much in the past. What they have built up by their efforts has been broken down; their status has been reduced, and their power weakened, because some men would rather crawl to the boss than stand by their fellow workers. In the eyes of many workers it is a crime that this practice should go on.
I am not trying to excuse it, but we must try to understand how it arises. If we are to change the situation we must establish a position in society which will endure for a considerable time. The existing position has lasted for only a few

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years. Only in the immediate post-war years have workers been able to feel that there were more jobs than men. Workers have not yet been able to get it out of their minds that they might soon—perhaps very soon—find themselves in the old position, with many more men than jobs.
The demarcation practices which the hon. Member laments have grown up as a result of the experience of working men in conflict with employers. The employer will always try to break the rate and to get his labour force so much cheaper. Why should not the working men say, "If we can establish a claim for this particular skill we shall establish it"? It is a means of monopolising a given kind of skill in order to get the best reward for that skill. Trade unions were compelled to do this in the society in which they grew up. They are a product of the private enterprise system.
Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison: I realise all that. The hon. Member is treating the matter very reasonably and broadmindedly. I know a good deal of the background to the problem, because I have had something to do with trade unionists for many years. But trade unionism has now grown up; it is no longer adolescent, and it should be able to leave behind many of these practices.
Mr. Lawson: I wish I could say that I think our present position, which has existed only since the war, will endure. During this period trade unions have shown extraordinary restraint. I did not take part in the recent debate on industrial relations, but I should like to point out that the most significant change which has come about—and which was never mentioned in that debate—is not the growth of unofficial strikes, but the return of official strikes. Trade unions are beginning to feel that they must once again resort to a weapon which they were growing out of the habit of using.
A few years ago it would have been unthinkable that an organisation such as the A.S.L.E.F. or the N.U.R. could dream of calling a strike. These strikes were called because of the change in social circumstances which has arisen very recently. Hon. Members opposite are making a virtue out of those things which trade unions have found themselves
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combating, and trade unions are not to be blamed if they feel that if the policies advocated by hon. Members opposite are allowed to work out they will find themselves where they were before.
Full employment—which is that situation where there are more jobs than men —is a product of Government action, and if it is to continue it can only be as the result of continuing Government action. Broadly speaking, this action takes the form of pumping into the stream of demand a huge volume of purchasing power —the vast pouring out of orders from the Government in one form or another. Local government and the nationalised industries are certainly pumping into circulation over 50 per cent. of the capital investment in our society.
This huge volume of Governmental expenditure in one form or another is the principal cause of the high level of employment, and to that can be added the fact that in some ways we are still living in a state of preparation for war. Take these activities, and add to them the very many other secondary ones which the Government or some other form of Governmental agency engage in, and we have the possession of full employment. The point of view expressed by hon. Members opposite, however, is, "Slash this expenditure; wipe it out as far as possible." Knowing that that is their point of view, and knowing that it is only through the force of circumstances that it is not given full rein, how can we turn to our fellow workers and say, "Scrap all those practices which you built up in the past to safeguard yourselves"? If our organisations were to be broken in power we should very quickly find ourselves being treated as we were in the past. We are not prepared to see these organisations reduced in power until we have sufficient guarantees, over a lengthy period of time, that the party opposite has changed its point of view and is acting very differently.
I now turn to my main reason for wishing to take part in the debate. I want to hark back to the closing remark made by the Minister of Labour. I do not want to attack his speech, which was quietly and reasonably delivered, but his statement that the outlook for Scotland was, on the whole, a promising one, struck me as very important. I wish I could say that I felt it was true.

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I represent a constituency which is the heart of the steel industry in Scotland, Motherwell. We have heard a great deal about a huge development taking place in Motherwell, but even when that development is completed the steel industry of Scotland will be producing proportionately less steel than now. In 1953, Scotland produced 13·1 per cent. of the United Kingdom's output of steel. In 1958, when the tremendous Motherwell scheme is completed, Scotland will be producing 11·4 of our total steel output. We want the scheme, but we must not read too much into it, because we shall not even maintain Scotland's proportionate position in steel.
That 13·1 percentage is low compared with previous percentages in Scotland. We welcome the development that is going on, but development will be more rapid elsewhere. It is not much good producing steel unless it is to be used. The principal user of Scottish steel is the shipbuilding and marine engineering industry. In 1954, this industry used 21 per cent. of Scottish steel output. I am not talking of the many ancillary industries but of the industry producing ships, which is consuming more than one-fifth of Scottish steel production.
When we think of the output of steel from Scotland we should think in terms of the output of the shipbuilding industry. According to the figures, there was a pulling up in the latter part of 1954. That continued into the earlier part of 1955. Even then the industry will receive orders substantially less than the output at present. In 1954, shipbuilding output was about 1½ million tons. Scotland's share was about 40 per cent. of this total. We must, therefore, appreciate the importance of shipbuilding in Scotland. Lack of steel held back the shipbuilding industry for a long time. So much for private enterprise steel: but I will leave that point aside.
The shipping industry, when fully engaged, and with a plentiful supply of steel, can complete about 1¾ million tons of shiping. The rate of orders for that industry, even with the recent pulling-up, is less than 900,000 tons a year. The year before it was about 400,000 tons, and the year before that about 800,000 tons. The figures mean that the industry is obtaining orders for not much more than half the capacity of the industry to produce
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ships. We have to meet two years' backlog, due to a variety of factors, but that position is not likely to be repeated.
The future of the shipbuilding industry matters very much to the steel-making industry, and to most of the other industries of Scotland. We are confronted with no alternatives. We can cut out the question of orders going to Germany because it complicates and makes more difficult the position. Orders in 1954 were inadequate for the shipbuilding industry. What is to happen to this industry if, for example, the maximum orders it can get amount to about 800,000 tons per annum, although when fully employed it can produce about 1¾ million tons of shipping per annum? It is very difficult to escape the conclusion that the shipbuilding industry is due for contraction. If that is so, it will affect the steel industry in Scotland particularly.
I think that that is a reasonable standpoint. I wish I could say that that conclusion did not confront me, but it seems inescapable. There is no evidence that shipbuilding orders can bring us up to the level of 1½ million tons. I am speaking not of next year, but of three or four years ahead, and of the position that is working itself out. That is how the nation's economy, which is based so much upon shipbuilding and heavy industry, will be affected.
What measures are the Government taking to meet this position? I can find very little evidence of any measures to meet this rising difficulty, this very great problem that confronts us. We need, not small industries, little bits and pieces here and there, but a development of other basic industries. For example, what is happening with aircraft. I know that there is the Prestwick Pioneer aircraft, but how much can we expect from that development? To what extent can it meet the contraction in shipbuilding? I should very much like to be assured that this contraction in shipbuilding is simply a wild dream, but if it is not, is the aircraft industry able to replace it?
What about heavy road vehicles? The vehicle builder was an important tradesman in Scotland but he is disappearing from our country. Some of our best craftsmen are going, because heavy vehicles are ceasing to be built in Scotland. What have the Government to offer in this connection? What about

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locomotives? I know there have been substantial orders for wagon building, but when the change-over takes place from the steam engine to the diesel engine we want Scotland to get a fair share of the new type of engine. Such industries might, to a considerable extent, counteract any contraction in the shipbuilding industry.
What is the reaction of Government supporters to these possibilities? They say that we must rely upon private enterprise. What has Scotland obtained from private enterprise? I am talking as a Scotsman about Scotsmen. It is important to note what the Scottish business man is saying. Let me refer to some words by Mr. Ian Macdonald, who is General Manager of the Commercial Bank of Scotland. In February this year, addressing the Edinburgh City Business Club, he said:
"More money has flowed from Edinburgh into North America than from Edinburgh into Scotland."
Let us remember that Edinburgh is the Scottish centre of finance, and should be a centre of enterprise. Mr. Macdonald went on to say, according to a newspaper report, that Scotland, and Edinburgh particularly, had been traditionally the home of a great many insurance companies and investment trusts, and added:
"They have undoubtedly had a most successful record of management from the proprietors' point of view. While that is true, it is also true to say that these companies have invested practically nothing at risk in Scotland. It is disappointing that so little of that finance has been used to help Scottish industry."
That is the centre of Scottish finance, yet the money is going to America—everywhere except back into Scotland.
If we turn to the Stock Exchange Year Book and look at the record of new companies registered in Scotland, it will be found that the amount of nominal capital has steeply fallen. In 1951, it was nearly £8½ million. In 1953, it was down to £3,600,000. Based on the number of new companies formed that means less than £5,000 per company. In England, in 1953, which is the latest year for which I have figures, £83,700,000 was subscribed in nominal capital to companies newly registered. If my calculation is right, twenty-three times more capital was invested in new companies in England than in Scotland. That is how the Scottish business men are behaving.
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We can point to the fact that unemployment is only about 3 per cent.—sometimes a little above, sometimes a little below—but let us recognise that year after year Scotland is losing some of her best people. People come into the country and others go out, but every year since 1948 Scotland has lost between 22,000 and 28,000 of her population. Large numbers go to England and many to other parts of the world. When we are thinking of the unemployment level the jobs available in Scotland must be taken into account.
The prospects of the jobs offered in Scotland—especially the prospects for the youngsters—are not as good as elsewhere. On the whole, the work is much less well paid and more precarious. That is the reason for emigration. It is not the romantic nonsense about the Scots wanting to people the earth. People do not come from the Highlands to Glasgow for romantic reasons but for job reasons. Nor do they go from Scotland to Birmingham, to Australia and Canada for romantic reasons but for jobs.
Development has been taking place in Scotland over the last few years, but it was greater during the period of office of the Labour Government. What are the main examples quoted by the Government? One is Grangemouth, with its oil development. How much of that was due to Marshall Aid and how much to Government prompting and assistance? Had Scotland been left to the mercies of Scottish business men how much of that development would there have been? Very little, I suggest.
There is the £20 million scheme for Colvilles. That scheme was decided on when Colvilles was nationalised, and very little in the nature of new development can be attributed to private enterprise. I understand that there has been a great deal of initiative shown with the Prestwick Pioneer aircraft. I welcome that, but to what extent has the Prestwick Pioneer and the Twin Pioneer been due to the backing of the Government?
The same applies to electronics and to the efforts of Ferranti. I cannot call Ferranti a Scottish firm—though I should like to. They have been making efforts, in conjunction with the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), and the Board of Trade have also been to the

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fore in assisting Ferranti to develop electronics in Scotland. Dounreay, again, is a Government effort. Surely the Government must see that where there is a bright side to Scotland—and, of course, there is a bright side—it is due overwhelmingly to the recent efforts of this Government—and, more especially, of the last Government.
Of the whole United Kingdom, Scotland possibly depends more than any other country on continuing Governmental action. But what are we faced with? From the other side of the House we are faced constantly with pressure to reduce that action. There is continual effort to reduce the volume of Government action—not necessarily money spent by the Government, but efforts made on the part of the Government to develop the country. More and more we are told that Scotland must depend on its private business men. I say that we cannot depend on them and that we must have intelligent Government action. That is what we plead for.
I shall not enter here into any arguments about the Development Areas or the developing areas. I simply say that the whole problem must be approached from the point of view of making the best use of Scottish manpower and resources. If Scotland is to be deprived of continuing Government assistance it will surely become a derelict area. We ask for assistance, and ask that it be given in no grudging spirit. It must be recognised that Scotland has no future if it is to be thrown back to the wolves of uncontrolled private enterprise. We want planning. I know that word has become almost a term of abuse, but I do not think we shall get prosperity except by Government action.
6.58 p.m.
Mr. John MacLeod: There is a great deal with which we can agree in the speech of the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson). The Government have been helping to attract industries into Scotland but, in a debate of this kind—and considering the position in which Scotland now finds herself—it is natural that we should have been concentrating more in the industrial belt. The object of the debate has been to get as much business and enterprise as possible into Scotland, and I think that a case has been made
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out that she is, perhaps, not getting as much as we should like her to have.
I should like to draw the debate back to the Highlands. I agree with the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) when he says that we must have some form of planning, together with private enterprise which has played, and is playing, a very important part and, of course, it must continue to do so.
My constituency is almost as large as the whole of the Scottish industrial belt. During the term of the Labour Government the Highland Development Area was formed. Most of the speakers I have heard so far have spoken of "the Development Area," but seem to have forgotten that there are two. There is the one in the industrial belt of which we have been hearing so much, and there is the other in the Highlands of which we have been hearing nothing at all. That is not surprising because, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland has said, practically no development has taken place in the Highland Development Area. A little later I want to touch upon one development about which I am very disappointed—the development of an oil meal factory. I shall raise it a little later, and I shall not apologise for doing so.
What is happening in the Highlands today? I ask the Government, what is their policy for the development of industry in the Highlands? I believe, and I have always maintained—and in this I think that I am supported by most of my Highland colleagues—that subsidiary industries are needed in the Highlands. That has been said often before. Light industries are needed in addition to our basic industries of agriculture, afforestation and fisheries.
I believe that the hon. Member for Motherwell said that the Highlander goes to Glasgow and abroad for the reason that he cannot keep a family at home. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) is quite right when he says that every farmer's son does not want to be a farmer. That is very true. We have seen that happen over the years. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland said that if we could go back over history, Glasgow and the industrial belt of Scotland would not have been allowed to develop in the way it did, if the people in control at that time

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had appreciated just what would happen by providing this tremendous concentration in this narrow belt of Scotland and neglecting the large areas of waste land in the Highlands.
As nothing is happening in the Development Area in Scotland so far as industries outside the basic industries are concerned, I believe that the Government should spend more money on those things that are in the Highlands today and which are of great advantage and benefit to the Highlands. I do not want to make a rambling speech, so I will concentrate on one or two points. The right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) mentioned that it was the wide spaces of Scotland which were virtually selling the tourist industry. The tourist industry in Scotland today is tremendously valuable. People from abroad brought £9 million last year into Scotland. That is very valuable for Scotland, and particularly valuable for the Highlands. But I think everyone agrees that before we can develop an area, whether for tourists or for industry, we have to improve communications.
I should like to ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is keeping a very close watch on the development of roads in Scotland. In April of next year he will be responsible for the roads of Scotland. I believe that the present policy is quite inadequate. I read the other day that the Government are to spend £85 million on over 300 miles of roads which will go half way up England. At the same time, it was said by the Minister of Transport, or one of his officials, that the Government could not spend money on providing a double-track road in the Highlands, and that it was not needed. I have never heard anything so ridiculous or so ludicrous.
Look at what is happening in the Highlands area. Take the Hydro-Electric Board. I am not blaming the Board for spending money on making a new road to replace the road which it has done away with. The Board is building new roads 8 ft. wide, with passing places. I am not saying that we can at present spend money on all our narrow track roads in the Highlands by widening and providing passing places. I am, however, saying that it is absolute madness to build a new road 8 ft. wide, with passing places, today
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in the Highlands, when we are trying to develop the area. How can we expect tourists to come to the Highlands when buses cannot, and are not permitted to, come up many of the Highland roads today? Yet we want to encourage tourists to the Highlands.
If a new road is to be made, surely it would be better to make a proper double-track road now, because the expense of increasing the width of that road—and this will have to be done in the years to come—will be vastly more then than it is now, when all the machinery is there. I ask the Secretary of State in all sincerity if he is really watching future development. He will be responsible for all of it, and it will mean a great deal of extra expenditure if this sort of thing is allowed to go on in Scotland and in the Highlands today. I could give other examples, but I think that I have made my point clear.
Mr. Steele: We have been waiting anxiously to know who is responsible for building this road.
Mr. MacLeod: The Hydro-Electric Board.
Mr. McInnes: The Hydro-Electric Board is simply building a power station or an aqueduct, or something of that kind. If this road was to be utilised as a main road, with buses on it, obviously the proper thing would have been for the Inverness County Council to make overtures to the Hydro-Electric Board and come to some financial arrangement with the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Mr. MacLeod: The hon. Gentleman does not really appreciate what I am talking about. I am speaking about the main road from Fort William to the North—the road to the Isles. The Hydro-Electric Board is obliged to build a road in that area, because it is an area which is to be flooded, thus making a detour necessary. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there ought to be more co-operation with other bodies.
Mr. Rankin: More planning.
Mr. MacLeod: Yes, of course, more planning. I am not against planning. But I want good plans and not some of the nonsense produced under the Labour Government.
Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman is muddled.
Mr. MacLeod: I am not muddled at all.
I support the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) when it says in its Report:
"It is the firm conviction of the Executive Committee that the Government distribution of industry policy requires modification to meet conditions which are very different from what they were at the conclusion of the Second World War."
The Report says that the Government should continue to provide facilities for industrial development for the general advantage of the community as a whole, irrespective of geographical location. That is very true. The Government should have another look at the Cairn-cross Report. These small burghs can contribute outwith the Development Areas. They have got all the facilities at their command and they should be encouraged to develop more. The Government should think again, because the present system of Highland development has proved useless. The Government really must improve these facilities to encourage industry into the area.
I should like to mention once again the Hydro-Electric Board. If we are to develop our tourist industry we must consider the development of the various amenities on which tourism depends. All the small people in the rural areas can contribute much to national well-being in the Highlands and to tourism in particular. Most Scots people want to take tourists into their houses, because there is a great lack of accommodation in the Highlands. Without proper roads potential tourists cannot get there, and without water in the houses and adequate sanitation the local people do not like to invite tourists into their houses. Without electricity they cannot do what they would like to do.
The Hydro-Electric Board is asking far too high guarantees. Why should it demand these guarantees today? People in the Highland areas are using far more electricity than the Hydro-Electric Board expected. This is only natural, because as soon as electricity is installed in a house the housewife wants a new cooker, a hair drier, and so on. Therefore, the people are using more electricity than they were expected to use. But many
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people are frightened by the high guarantees which the Hydro-Electric Board demand. There is a school consisting of two rooms in my constituency, not away out in the blue. The Hydro-Electric Board was demanding a guarantee of £95 before it would bring the electricity to that area and to the school which needed the electricity badly. I know that the cost of bringing it to the remoter houses is high, but surely there is no need for the Board to demand any guarantee at all because it knows that the people will use the electricity once it is brought into the area.
Mr. Rankin: Has the hon. Gentleman approached the Chairman of the Hydro-Electric Board? If so, what was the answer?
Mr. MacLeod: Yes, I have done so, and in most cases the guarantee is being reduced.
Mr. Rankin: Oh, well——
Mr. MacLeod: That is all very well, but my point is that if the Board can reduce the guarantee why should it try to frighten people off in the first place? In many of these cases there is no need to demand a guarantee whatsoever.
Now I turn to a Development Area in which a very serious situation is arising. The Herring Industry Board was going to arrange to put a meal-processing factory in the village of Avoch, in my constituency. I think I have mentioned this before. Just as everything was going through, when a deep-water harbour was about to be made and the whole matter was practically settled, people about three miles away said that if the factory was erected and created a nuisance by its smell they would have the factory closed. The Herring Industry Board has now written to the county council saying that the Board will not erect the factory because of this strong opposition.
Is this sort of thing to happen all over the country? Is the Board to continue to be scared if people three miles or more away object? This is so important that the Secretary of State should tell us what the position is. What is likely to be the extent of the nuisance three miles away? If my right hon. Friend cannot tell me now, will he ask the scientists to look into this question and give him an

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answer? Surely it is not impossible for the scientists to give an answer on that point. It seems to be impossible for the Herring Industry Board to do so, because I have tried to get an answer from it for the last two years.
Here we have a potential development in an area where the local farming community all support it, because this meal oil can be used to make feeding stuffs. Yet the Herring Industry Board is running away because some people three miles away say that if there is a nuisance it will demand that the factory shall be closed, and I am told that by law the Board can do it. I hope that the Secretary of State will ascertain what the nuisance, if any, is likely to be from a modern factory of this kind. I have always understood that there is very little smell at all, unless one goes inside the building, and that the nuisance outside is not likely to be very great. The only nuisance which might arise is the smoke from the chimney stack, but let no one tell me that modern scientists cannot deal with that.
It looks very much as if the Herring Industry Board had no intention of developing in that area. I hope that that is not the case. It certainly seems ridiculous that the Board should be scared by this threat. There is no development in this area at the moment, and here is one industry which should be developed there. I hope that if the Secretary of State cannot reply on this important point tonight he will obtain the information as soon as possible.
The Highlands of Scotland can play a greater part than they are playing today. We have heard a lot about Dounreay, and so on, but if the Government are not prepared to spend money on providing facilities to attract people into these areas to create new industries, more money should be spent on what already exists. As a constituent of mine said the other day, when the Hydro-Electric Board had brought light to the area, "No development has occurred here for a hundred years, so surely we must have a great credit lying to our balance as against the rest of the country." The Highlands certainly have a great credit lying idle which should be spent in the development of that area.
7.20 p.m.
Mr. James McInnes: I hope that the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) will forgive me if I do not follow him into the arguments which he advanced, because the problems of the Highlands and Islands are distinct and peculiar to those areas. I want to make some observations, however, on some points which he made. He referred, for example, to the lack of modern transport, electricity and——
Mr. John MacLeod: I have never complained about the Hydro-Electric Board, which I think has done a magnificent job. I have always supported the Board. I grant that communications in the Highlands are deplorable.
Mr. McInnes: I understood the hon. Gentleman to be condemnatory of the Hydro-Electric Board.
Mr. MacLeod: I must correct the hon. Gentleman. I said that I was not blaming the Hydro-Electric Board. It had to make this road, but surely the Government or the local authorities could have said, "We will play our part in the extra expenditure necessary to provide a reasonable road." I am not blaming the Hydro-Electric Board.
Mr. McInnes: That is one small aspect of the Board's activities to which the hon. Member referred, but he also condemned the excessive charge for installations. To that extent he was condemnatory of the Board. He gave an example of the road which the Board has made and which apparently is only 8 ft. wide.
Mr. MacLeod: The Board has not yet made it.
Mr. McInnes: The hon. Gentleman indicated that the Board had made it or proposed to make it.
That problem could have been overcome by co-ordination between the local authorities and the Secretary of State, and that is what is required in dealing with many of the Highland problems. I must confess that I am not conversant with the problems which confront the Highland community, nor do I know the solutions to them.
I want to deal, next, with the comments made by the Minister of Labour when he opened the debate. He said that in his

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opinion 1954 was a fairly prosperous year for Scotland. Output and employment had been maintained and indeed improved, and the flow of industry into Scotland in post-war years had been remarkable. I submit that against the background of general economic buoyancy to which he referred there are some aspects which are bound to cause a good deal of uneasiness. Only a few months ago the President of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce uttered a warning and said there was no ground for complacency. He said that many sections of industry in Scotland would find it extremely difficult to obtain orders in 1955. He said that one industry after another had been emphasising the intensity of foreign competition.
We read in the newspapers statements from various sources that Scottish industries are beginning to suffer from insufficient capital resources for economic development. Capital is needed for pioneer undertakings and for raising standards of equipment in existing undertakings. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) pointed out that capital exists in Scotland, and referred to the position in Edinburgh, and to capital being exported to North America.
Despite the rosy picture which the Minister of Labour painted, it would be altogether wrong of us to ignore certain aspects of our industrial production. It would be foolish to ignore the decline in ship repair work in 1954 compared with 1953. The production of shale oil decreased in 1954, as did the production of crude steel. The production of the iron-founding industry has also declined and so has the production of the woollen and worsted goods industry. All these industries have shown a decline in 1954 compared with 1953.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the unemployment position in Scotland, giving figures for various stages in various years and stating that they represented 2·6 per cent., 3·7 per cent. and so on. We must realise—and I am taking the Ministry of Labour figures for April this year—that Scottish unemployment represents 23 per cent. of the total unemployment in the whole of Great Britain. That is a very serious figure. Some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have said that the position is
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better than it ever has been, but no one set himself the task of asking why the present condition of affairs should exist in Scotland, and no one sought a solution to the question why Scotland's unemployment should be 23 per cent. of the total figure for Great Britain.
Many hon. Members have referred to the distribution and location of industry. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison) dealt almost exclusively what that aspect. I want to deal with it because I think it is vital to the economic progress of Scotland. Since the war the entire influence, encouragement, assistance, and indeed policy, of the Government has been directed towards steering industry into the Development Areas. I think that policy was right at the time, particularly when we consider it against the background of our pre-war experience and of the very heavy unemployment in those areas before the war.
I must candidly confess, however, that in analysing the Scottish industrial position—and I have been fortified in my belief by several speeches made in this debate—I think the time has come to call a halt to the policy of concentrating our industry in the Development Areas. I concede that our Development Areas, our industrial estates, and our new towns, have provided an essential diversity of industry, and that they are indeed projects of immense value, but we must realise that if we persist in this policy of putting everything into the Development Areas we shall find that our new towns, Development Areas and industrial estates will have within themselves the seeds of a new unbalance.
Let me give one or two examples of what I mean. In the Development Areas we have placed 70 per cent. of the new factories that have been built since the end of the war, despite the fact that the insured population in the Development Areas is only about 56 per cent. of the total population. Of the 87,000 people in Scotland who have been found employment in the new factories, 63,000 are in the Development Areas.
I was somewhat astonished, on going further into the matter, to find that no less than 87 per cent. of our manufacturing industries are located in the Development Areas, and in three towns outwith the Development Areas. I think that that

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is altogether wrong. I take another figure, that of our insured population. In 1952, it was 2,116,000 in Scotland, and at the end of 1954 it was 2,138,000, an increase of 22,000. More than two-thirds of that increase found its way into the Development Areas.
From these facts, and the figures that I have submitted, one can realise that any further concentration in the Development Areas is bound to have a very serious effect indeed. Personally, I am somewhat perturbed about the concentration in Glasgow. If I understood the right hon. Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) correctly, he rather implied that there was still further need for the development of the industrial resources of the great city. One must realise that Glasgow has decided, and the Secretary of State for Scotland has concurred in the decision, that it has an overspill of 300,000 people to get rid of. Yet here we are pursuing a policy of loading all available industrial resources that we have, and all the new industries we are able to attract to our country, into that area, while that city hopes to remove, in the very near future, 300,000 people from within its boundaries.
There is another aspect of the matter. We are told that the Lanarkshire coalfields will be worked out within the next year or two, and that will create a very serious problem for industry located in the West of Scotland. It will create a problem of great variety, and it will create a special problem for Glasgow, with its industries of heavy engineering and shipbuilding, in that those industries will have to get their coal supplies from the Lothians or from Fifeshire——
Mr. James Carmichael: Or from Ayrshire.
Mr. McInnes: —from Ayrshire, and that will have an effect on the industries located in that great industrial belt.
It seems to me that what we require is something along the lines suggested in the earlier part of the speech of the hon. Member for Scotstoun. We must think more about the industrial development of our country as a whole, rather than the development of any industrial areas. We require a more courageous policy that will produce a re-invigoration of our county towns and rural villages. Our
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policy must be designed, first, to accelerate the growth of industry in promising locations.
We have an example of that arising from the Buckie-Peterhead experiment. If we had not decided that Buckie and Peterhead should come under the Development Commission, I venture to suggest that not one single industry would have arrived at either Buckie or Peterhead. Many hon. Members on this side of the House have had the privilege of visiting Buckie and of obtaining a good knowledge and understanding of the position of the Peterhead Gear Company. In fact, I might indicate that the Peterhead Gear Company told us quite definitely that there was every possibility of further development and extension if we could attract industry into places like that by a policy other than the one we are pursuing at present. I think that is well worth the Government's consideration.
We must have a policy designed to make fuller use of our manpower and of our natural resources—natural resources that are probably in danger of being wasted. Let us have a policy that will tend to arrest the decline of communities and the waste of social assets in places where a little help might restore them to a thriving condition. There are towns that are seeking industries to replace those which have died out, there are towns requiring industry because of the drift of the local population, and there are expanding mining towns where no employment is being provided for the non-mining members of the family.
Glenrothes is a particular example, because Glenrothes found itself in the dual position of having miners drafted into the town without any employment being provided for the non-mining members of the miner's family, and being a new town to which little or no industry was being attracted. Surely, as the hon. Member for Scotstoun said, we can apply the Distribution of Industry Act, and all the facilities and advantages of that Act, to the attraction of industry into places like Glenrothes.
Mr. William Hamilton: My hon. Friend must be aware that it is the private vested interests around Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy which have the ear of the Government, and that is one of the many reasons why industry does not go there.
Mr. McInnes: I believe there is a good deal of truth in that. Indeed, I have heard it said by members of the new town corporation that they are experiencing the utmost difficulty with firms in Kirkcaldy and elsewhere. People have to travel considerable distances in order to get to their work in these areas.
The point I want to emphasise is that surely in places such as I have mentioned we should provide factories on the same terms as those obtaining in the Development Areas. We have to give inducements and facilities. Why cannot we apply the advantages of the Distribution of Industry Act by steering industry into the areas I have indicated?
Finally. I want to prevail on the Government to give advantages and facilities and financial inducements in dealing with the problem of slum industry. Slum industry is a very serious problem in this country. Perhaps it is more pronounced in large cities like Glasgow. There are hundreds of small firms, well-established firms with good, long-term employment prospects, housed in the most dilapidated, dingy premises that it would be possible to find. They have no space in which to develop, and are surrounded by slum tenement properties. They are anxious to obtain better accommodation but cannot find it on many industrial estates in and around the City of Glasgow. If we are to tackle this problem in the way in which it should be tackled we shall have to depart from the present static policy of steering everything into the industrial areas.
I hope I can prevail on the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the present policy of the Government, recognising that the day is now completed for the Development Areas and instead of having that flow of industry into the Development Areas he should appreciate the necessity, which is absolutely vital to the economic well-being of Scotland, for more flexibility. I hope that, in view of what has been said in this debate, the Government will adopt a policy of greater flexibility so that the country as a whole may reap the benefit instead of merely certain confined areas benefiting.
7.42 p.m.
Mr. Patrick Maitland: I should like to take up one or two points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow,
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Central (Mr. McInnes) with reference to the Cairncross Report and the development of country towns. With all he said on the latter I am in substantial agreement.
I think we have to face one point in the controversy about the Cairncross Report which has not been sufficiently stressed hitherto. If we are to put development outside the Development Areas on the same level as development inside those areas we may be in danger of wasting a considerable amount of fixed capital that is already invested in them. I refer to investment in houses, public services, and so on. When we weigh up the conflicting claims of the Cairncross Report argument and the claims of the Development Areas we might well come down in favour of the position argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Scotstoun (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison). He suggested that the Secretary of State should have wider powers and greater latitude and a number of weapons at his disposal for guiding the location of industry. But he did not suggest, and I do not think anyone would suggest, that the non-Development Areas should take priority. We should look at the two sorts of area alongside, paying due regard to capital already invested in the Development Areas in housing, services, and the like.
What I think is common ground in this annual debate on the state of the nation —unhappily only for one day this year—is that
"Society is barbarous until every industrious man can get his living without dishonest customs."
That has been said, I think, wisely. We are on common ground that the level of unemployment in Scotland is 2·2 per cent. whereas in the United Kingdom as a whole it is 1·16 per cent. It has been generally overlooked that whilst that is the case unemployment in the Development Areas is anything from 1 per cent. to 4 per cent. worse than in the rest of Scotland. That is my case for continuing attention to the needs of the Development Areas.
In this annual state of the nation's review we all try, according to our background and prejudices, to avoid expressing purely party opinion. I listened with very great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), who was the opening speaker for the

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Opposition. I should like to take up a theme which he developed. I hope I am not misrepresenting him when I say that I understood him to suggest that Scotland's share of new factories built in the United Kingdom had declined since the present Administration took office.
Mr. T. Fraser indicated assent.
Mr. Maitland: I do not dispute that, but if the hon. Member goes into the figures which are available at the Board of Trade I think he will be forced to the conclusion that that has been a continuing trend over many years. I looked into the figures and, if the House will bear with me, I will quote some of them in percentages.
Approvals for factories in Scotland in 1946 amounted to 16·6 per cent. of the United Kingdom figure for area of new factory space. In 1948 they were 11·9 per cent., in 1951, ·.6 per cent. and in the first three-quarters of last year, 5·8 per cent. I submit that that is a continuing trend. If we look at the figures for starts we find they were 16 per cent. in 1947, 10·9 per cent, in 1951, 7·4 per cent. in 1953 and 5·6 per cent. in the first three-quarters of last year. If we take completions the same trend is borne out—18 per cent. in 1946 in Scotland as against the United Kingdom figure as a whole, 11·8 per cent. in 1948, 9·7 per cent. in 1953 and 6·8 per cent. in the first three-quarters of last year.
I submit that here we have a trend which has continued under the present Administration but existed before. The only point I make about that is that I was gratified to hear the Minister of Labour give a figure of about 5 million square feet of factory building authorised in the current year. I think I heard him aright. Even when we allow for the Colvilles development, that is about I million more than in 1954. In 1950 it was 2·2 million and in 1948 1·4 million.
Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member has wrongly understood the point. The Minister gave the figure of 5 million square feet which is stated in the White Paper as the figure for 1954, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said he hoped that figure would be exceeded in 1955. The figure mentioned was the 1954 figure stated in the White Paper.
Mr. Maitland: I apologise for not having heard the Minister correctly. At any rate, the figure that we now have is a considerable improvement upon the figures for 1948 and 1950, looked at as absolute figures for Scotland rather than as percentages of the United Kingdom figures. What alarms me is that, although the absolute figure is encouraging in itself, the percentage share of the United Kingdom figure for factory space has been declining steadily since the war.
In this matter, I believe that we are not debating on party lines at all. We are looking at the matter as a Scottish council of state. I am reminded of the words of Sir Edwin Arnold:
"Pity and need
Make all flesh kin. There is no caste in blood, Which runneth of one hue; nor caste in tears. Which trickle salt with all."
We bear in mind very seriously the memory of the period of the depression. There have been cogent, serious words from hon. Members opposite to the effect, "Do not be too sure that this prosperity is going to last. We must look ahead." In this Council of State for Scotland we are all looking at the matter seriously. I believe we must so look at it irrespective of our party position. Naturally, we bring our own prejudice and background to bear upon the problem, but it seems to me that we are trying to think of it as a body.
I cannot help bearing in mind and stressing that the decline in Scotland's share of the United Kingdom factory space is not realy a party responsibility as such, because we have seen that happening under Governments of both parties. I hope that in all these matters we can develop an attitude which, while drawing its strength from the parties to which we belong, is also supra-party.
If I might, however, make one party reference in parenthesis, it is this. During the election campaign I was questioned about my view on the re-rating of industry. I said then, and I repeat, that if it is the intention of the party on the other side of this House to press for re-rating, I hope it will at the same time look sympathetically on the Sorn Committee's proposals for abolishing owners' rates; otherwise Scotland's penal rating system will do for factory building what it has already done for housing—make the Scottish position far worse than that of the United Kingdom.

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I cannot help paying particular attention to Lanarkshire's problem. I represent the relatively empty part of Lanarkshire, and I see the Development Area, as it were, from the rim. What worries me about development in Lanarkshire, and the policy pursued within the Lanarkshire Development Area, is that we have not been pursuing a balanced policy. We must make sure that when we site industry, whatever means we use to bring it there, we put it in the place most suited and most natural for it. Sir Thomas Brown once said
"When industry builds upon nature we may expect pyramids."
The new town of East Kilbride has seen a phenomenal development of industry during the past four years. My attention has been called, however, to a 10 per cent. gap between the number of houses completed at any one time and the number occupied. As the number of houses has grown the gap has remained at 10 per cent. but in absolute terms it is greater. For example, in March, 1953, 89 houses were empty; in March, 1954, 201 houses were empty; and in March this year the number was 311.
Do those figures not bear out the query put by some people associated with industry when they look at East Kilbride? They make the point that labour is now becoming hard to get on that side of Lanarkshire. This is a difficult thing to judge from the Ministry of Labour's monthly returns; but I raise the point because it is raised by industrialists looking at the new town.
The case that an unbalance of population is developing in Lanarkshire is easy to follow when one bears in mind that about 8,500 people have come to live in the new town and that in the landward areas on the opposite side of my constituency 1,500 electors, which must mean a population of about 2,500, have disappeared during the same period.
Towns like Carluke and Forth are clamouring for industry. During the past year two collieries, Castlehill and Wilson-town, have been closed. In parenthesis, may I say that while I agree with the case broadly made by the Opposition for advance factory building—I emphasise "broadly"—I am very grateful for an assurance which I received from the Board of Trade some time ago that it is prepared to consider a Government-
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financed factory for either Carluke or Forth, if a suitable project comes forward.
My attention was called recently to studies set on foot by the Clyde Valley Planning Advisory Committee and the Department of Health for Scotland into locations which might be chosen for the Glasgow overspill. I am glad that the Government have drawn the attention of the Clyde Valley Planning Advisory Committee to the English Town Development Act and that the Committee is studying the question of locating industry in, or encouraging overspill to go to, some of the smaller country places.
However, I am surprised that so far neither the Clyde Valley Committee, nor the Department of Health for Scotland in its preliminary studies, has yet given any consideration to the possibility of attracting overspill to Carluke, Forth, Law, Lanark, Biggar or Abington. In the overall picture of the prosperity or otherwise of this Development Area we would find that if some of the overspill from Glasgow were dispersed somewhat around the smaller places it would one way and another generate a degree of new local prosperity.
There is also the parlous situation in the mining industry. I profited, and I think we all profited, by some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Hamilton about it. I do not think that my hon. Friends are always quite frank about it. What is certainly true of the Scottish Division of the National Coal Board is that absenteeism is going down. It went down from 10·6 per cent. in 1953 to 9·98 per cent. in 1954. At the same time, for the reason which the hon. Member for Hamilton stressed so instructively and helpfully, output per man shift has also gone down, having declined from 1·12 per cent. to a little over 1 per cent. over the same period. One reason why it is going down is because many miners are engaged on development work which does not at once produce coal.
We must, however, bear in mind that there is a sense of human frustration in the Lanarkshire coalfield. It is, I think, the common experience, and I dare say that hon. Gentlemen opposite who have had experience of the mining industry will bear this out, that when seams get worse conditions get worse too, people become more frustrated and there is a greater incidence of strikes and difficulties of one kind and another.

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Having said all that, I would say that there is another side to the picture. In Lanarkshire we have a very considerable horticultural industry. I was told by a reputable authority yesterday that there are about 300 acres of horticultural glasshouses in the county, which represents, at 200 tons of coal per acre of glass, a considerable local consumption of coal by that industry alone. The rise in the price of coal announced the other day may amount to a ½d. a lb. on tomatoes, or even more. Taking all the other consequences in terms of freight charges and the like into consideration, that may make a considerable difference, in horticulture alone, to that element of the cost of living. Moreover, it reduces, and may eliminate, the value of the increased tariff protection which the Tory Government obtained for the growers.
There is a point about this matter which I should like very seriously to make for the attention of the Government. I have heard stories, not once but many times, from miners in Lanarkshire, who, for one reason or another, have said that they would like to work in a small licensed mine of their own as a private enterprise effort. I think that it is common ground that the smaller the mine, other things being equal, the bigger the output per man-shift, broadly speaking. Of course, the small licensed mines will never make a big contribution; but they might well make some. I have been told, not once but many times, of persons who have applied to the Coal Board for a licence to run a small private mine and have been refused.
I was told of one case recently refused, apparently for a not very convincing reason. So last Monday I put a Question to the Minister of Fuel and Power asking how many licences had been granted in Lanarkshire over the past four years, and the answer was three. I submit that here is a subject which merits inquiry. Is the common complaint that there is obstructionism on the part of the Coal Board to applications to run a licensed mine justified?
Mr. T. Fraser: I wonder if it is not the hon. Gentleman's experience that applicants for licences for small mines in his constituency, in which I live, are normally not turned down by the Coal Board, but are refused permission to
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work their mines by his noble Friend the Earl of Home?
Mr. Maitland: I am much obliged to the hon. Member. I know of one case in which there was an application to mine ground that was in fact owned by my noble Friend the Earl of Home, but it was granted to somebody else with better mining qualifications and I am not aware that that is the general difficulty in these cases.
Mr. Fraser: In my constituency, where there are many such applications, I have never once come across an applicant who had a decent field of coal who was turned down by the Coal Board, but I can give numerous examples of people refused permission to work the coal by the owner of the land.
Mr. Maitland: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman, because the cases of which I am thinking are outwith the property of the noble Earl to whom we are referring, and I have the word of the Minister of Fuel and Power himself, given on the Floor of the House last Monday, that only three licences have been given in the whole of Lanarkshire since the beginning of 1951. This matter merits thorough investigation; and I think the hon. Gentleman opposite will agree with that.
There is no reference in this White Paper to the stone-quarrying industry and to the stone-building industry. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary can tell us, when he replies, the employment figure for that industry for 1954. In 1953 it was only 4,730 for the whole of Scotland, and that was a decline. But, as I am sure the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central would confirm if he were here, the figure at one time was about 20,000 and this decline has been continuous over many years. I am disappointed that the White Paper makes no reference to it. When my hon. Friend replies, I hope that he will say what the Government have done about the Report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research on this industry. The Report was received in 1953 and was at that time, according to the Government, discussed with the Scottish Council.
Moreover, in October, 1953, I was myself assured from the Front Bench that preference would be given to the use of

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Scottish stone in all public works in Scotland. Can the Under-Secretary say in which public works since that time Scottish stone has been used? I remind him that Portland stone from the south is taken to Scotland for use in the Rolls-Royce factory at East Kilbride.
I hear complaints about the industry—in a rather minor key, because the quarry-masters are depressed and the industry has almost vanished. I received a letter from a quarrymaster in my constituency only two days ago, however. He said:
"… is there any way of getting some work up our way and keep the good work going? sales are very poor and rents, rates and taxes are getting hard to pay. We do not ask very -much if only a little may be done to help us to get out of difficulty."
One has heard that cry again and again. This time it comes from the neighbourhood of Abington. One has heard it from other parts of Lanarkshire. I dare say that the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) will bear out that there have been pleas of the same sort from her constituency. One reads of bricks being taken to Aberdeen, the city of granite.
Mr. Bence: They are bringing granite from Norway.
Mr. Maitland: This decline has been going on since the war and before it, so we cannot blame it either on Tory or Socialist planning. Let us just blame it on neglect and agree that both parties have a share in responsibility for it.
May I also make a practical suggestion? I was much struck by something which came to my notice during the Election when I went to talk to men working on the Daer water scheme. Here is a scheme of direct labour in which the County Council of Lanark is the main partner. It employs 400 men who began as unskilled workers and are now semiskilled or even skilled. The job on which they are engaged, the building of a great dam, will be finished before very long. It is easy enough for the Government and the Ministry of Labour to assure me that of course those men will be kept in mind when the scheme comes to an end.
However, what they want to know is this. Can they, as an efficient, proud, self-confident team of proven worth, be taken as a team to other work? I know that the Scottish Office has been looking
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at that. We should look in every direction and study every possibility. The other day I read that the Hamilton Town Council was to extend its direct labour activities. As the hon. Member for Hamilton is here, I feel sure that he will not miss what I am saying. I say to him and to all who can read my words: "Please remember the Daer scheme and the men up there." There is a great road development scheme at hand. Is it altogether impossible to turn this team of men on to the building of roads?
I was greatly encouraged to learn from the Minister of Transport that at last his Department is prepared to help towards dealing with a dangerous hill known as Kirkfieldbank Brae, and has called for a scheme from the county council, including a new bridge. That will involve great and expensive works. Must this team of highly-skilled men be dispersed, the machines scattered and the management dispersed as well when there is such work around the corner? Has a new team to be gathered together and the men trained to work together as these great constructive operations are undertaken? I plead with the Government to have another look at this matter, and I plead with the Lanarkshire County Council to look at the possibility of keeping what I would call the "Daer team" together and in being.
One other matter which has an effect on the distribution of facilities in Lanarkshire is the project of British Railways to establish a mechanised marshalling yard south of Glasgow. When that was first mooted there was mention in the Press of a statement by a spokesman of the Commission in Glasgow, who named Law as a possible site. That aroused some anxiety in Carstairs.
Will the Scottish Office and will the Secretary of State for Scotland, where he has responsibility for other transport matters in Scotland, discuss with the Transport Commission the advisability of an early decision about where this marshalling yard is to be sited? Those of us who are interested in trying to attract industry or get houses built in particular places in Lanarkshire, want to know where that particular contribution to our economy will go.
Some reference has been made to nuclear power. All I wish to say is that I was disappointed, when the plan for

2203
the six new nuclear power stations was announced the other day, to gather that they are, apparently, all going to the constituency of my hon. Friend who is now promoted to the Front Bench as a Parliamentary Secretary. I was hoping that we should get at least one in Lanarkshire. The site which I had suggested, although scientists may disagree with me, is the triangle of territory bounded by Carluke, Forth and Carstairs. Whether that is a good place scientifically I cannot tell. No one in this House is competent to do more than advance a claim.
Obviously, we are to have more of these power stations, and may I, through the Scottish Office, remind the British Electricity Authority that we are in a strategic position close to trunk railway routes going east and west at Carstairs. We are on an historic route, I might almost say an historic invasion route. We are not far from the sea. We are close to the industrial belt, and since any nuclear power station should be within reach of many million gallons of water, such an area deserves particular consideration. For there will shortly be a great volume of surplus water from the Daer scheme.
I have read the 1954 Report and White Paper as well as I can; but I cannot compliment the Government upon it.
Mr. Rankin: Hear, hear. There is a lot of dissention about it.
Mr. Maitland: It is anodyne. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Rankin) says there is dissention, but no one has said what I am about to say regarding this Report.
There are no comparisons in it as between Scottish figures and United Kingdom figures. The appendix tables have been getting steadily more slender since 1951, until now they have disappeared. The Report once amounted to 80 pages and now comprises 70 pages. There is nothing in it about licensed mining. There is nothing about stone building and the quarrying industry and little about horticultural costs. I invite the Government, which I support, and which gained such an overwhelming vote of confidence from the country——
Miss Herbison: In North Lanarkshire?
Mr. Maitland: —not to imagine that we are not keeping a vigilant eye upon
2204
these matters. One is reminded of Dryden's lines
"Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o'er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain."
Let not the Scottish Office imagine that, because on this side of the House we are reinforced in numbers, we shall relax our vigilance, for vigilance is the price of prosperity and success.
8.15 p.m.
Mr. John Rankin: If the amount of dissatisfaction existing on the Tory benches at present is any indication of what the position will be at the end of the year, or in eighteen months' time, it is plain that this Government will not last for the expected period of four years.
I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Lanark (Mr. Patrick Maitland) in his suggestion that the House of Commons is today more like a Council of State, seeking to draw up a blueprint for the future——
Mr. Patrick Maitland: "Blue" not "red."
Mr. Rankin: If we are to draw up that blueprint it must be planned. There must be some form of control.
If the hon. Member for Lanark, who has just made a speech in which sentence after sentence has contained an appeal to the Government to step in and do something, has now become converted to the idea of planning and the need for control to make that planning effective, I think that his contribution in the Council of State will be of some value.
Mr. Maitland: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?
Mr. Rankin: No, I am very sorry, but I have not much time——
Mr. Maitland: For one moment. to correct a misrepresentation.
I am sure, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that you will not have misunderstood my words, which were no approbation of Socialist control. I will leave the matter there, because I know that the hon. Member would like to continue with his speech.
Mr. Rankin: At any rate, the hon. Gentleman does not believe in setting the people free.

2205
If the hon. Gentleman is not proposing to try to shape the future of Scotland along lines of planning and control we on these benches will have no truck with him, or if he imagines that we can ever return to the free and unrestricted economy which nearly wrecked our nation. Were I given the choice of putting Scotland under the control of a Government, even a Tory Government, which would plan its future, I would rather do that than put it under the control, or, rather, leave it under the control, that now exists in Scotland.
It is no use anyone imagining that the Scottish economy is free. It is controlled by a small group of people whose numbers do not exceed the number of fingers on my hand. I shall not name them, but I would ask any hon. Member opposite to look at the chairmen of some of our Scottish banks, or of our great shipbuilding and engineering companies, who are, in some cases, chairmen of our industrial estates.
If we examine what is going on in some of these industrial estates today we find that the Front Bench opposite appoints men occupying such positions as chairmen of the industrial estates; then, by some strange chance, the next thing we see is that certain of these individuals become directors of the companies who are allowed to trade on those industrial estates.
I do not know what to call that, but I invite the Secretary of State for Scotland to look into that aspect of what is happening in some of these estates today. These are the men who are shaping the future of Scotland, a small oligarchy, and we can name them. It is not untrue to say that the Secretary of State will hardly make a move today without consulting that little group, and one of them in particular. That is what is called a free and unrestricted economy, the kind of economy in which the hon. Member for Lanark believes.
Mr. Maitland: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me——
Mr. Rankin: No, I am not going to give way, because I am seeking to set the hon. Gentleman a good example. He provided me with a very bad one.
The Minister of Labour today emphasised every word that I am saying. He told us that in the Development Area,
2206
which includes Glasgow and the areas surrounding it, the number of unemployed today is 2·6 per cent., the highest number in Great Britain. There is no area so sadly afflicted. The right hon. Gentleman said that the reason for that was that we had too many heavy industries.
Mr. Maitland: Will the hon. Member please give way? I simply want to deny——
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): Order.
Mr. Rankin: A mosquito can become a confounded nuisance at times. I was referring to the Minister of Labour, and I said so.
The right hon. Gentleman, as I said, pointed out that unemployment in the Development Area, of which Glasgow formed the greatest part, was 2·6 per cent. and that it was due to the fact that we had too many heavy industries in that part of Scotland.
That is only part of the truth. It is also due to another and more serious reason, the fact that in the period when our economy in Scotland was unrestricted thousands of people were walking the streets, idle and so unable properly to nourish their children. The children of those days of the depression are now the men, grown to maturity, who are working on Clydeside, and who, as a result of under-nourishment then, are physically incapable of working in the heavy industries there today. They are the direct products of the system from which we on this side of the House want to get away. As boys and girls they were half-starved, and now they cannot play their full part in the heavy industries—shipbuilding and engineering—because the only type of work for which they are physically capable is what are termed secondary jobs.
That is a very serious problem, and, therefore, as the Minister of Labour agreed, we must have more light industries in Scotland. Where are we to have them? That question brings me to my second point. It is over two years since it was decided that in Glasgow there were 300,000 people too many and that there would have to be an overspill. They would have to go to various parts of the country. It has been decided that about 30,000 of them are to go to New Cumbernauld.

2207
There seems to be a strange silence brooding over New Cumbernauld, and I should like to know whether the Secretary of State has now reached the stage when he is prepared to designate New Cumbernauld under the New Towns Act. Until that is done, I fail to see what is the next step. If the right hon. Gentleman is to do that, then what will he do about industries? Surely New Cumbernauld is not to become just a glorified dormitory area for the City of Glasgow. We must see that it becomes a new town with new industries, because not only the future of those 300,000 people is at stake, but also the future of the whole of Scotland.
The places which are to house the overspill must become towns with new industries. I ask the Secretary of State to say what he intends to do about that. Has he any plan of any kind whatsoever for shaping the future of these new towns, towns which are absolutely essential if that overspill is to be properly cared for? If new industries have to come into those new towns, has the Secretary of State—who ought to be the guardian of the future of Scotland—given any consideration to their types?
I will suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the types of new industries that might go into the new towns. First of all, and this is where the power of the Government is important, there are Government-sponsored industries. We have the example of East Kilbride, where the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has established a unit. There are Government industries which can give a lead in the new towns which we hope to see established in Scotland. That is the first point.
The second point is that there is a type of industry which is rapidly expanding in England, but which, for some reason or other, has passed Scotland completely by. It comprises the civil aviation industry and the motor industry. The Government have a vast influence in this sphere. I would remind the Secretary of State that while the Labour Government were in power they used their influence through the Ministry of Supply to get the aviation industry away from the home counties in which it was centred and moved farther north. I think I am right in saying that owing to the pressure
2208
exerted by the Labour Government when in office we were able to move the civil aviation industry as far north as Preston before they left office.
We must remember that between £500 million and £700 million in public money have been poured into the expansion and the necessary maintenance of this new and ripening industry. We do not quarrel with that, but Scotland has contributed to that amount and there is absolutely no reason why she should not get a share of the work which that industry is now providing for great tracts of England. That is the second thing that can be done by a Government which are in earnest in their attitude to this problem.
The third thing which they can do I shall not elaborate, because my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) mentioned it. I am not a great believer in moving little businesses but there are very many of these in Glasgow, and we have to make a start if we are to have a new town. These businesses are housed in conditions which many of us deplore, and deal in commodities which ought not to be dealt with in such conditions. They could easily be encouraged to move out into the new towns in order to provide the industrial employment which will be required by the population which we hope to send there. This would also prevent our roads from becoming congested and our transport system being made almost unbearable.
These are the three things that the Government can do if they are in earnest and are thinking about the problem; if they are planning, or seeking to plan, the future of our country in a sensible way.
The next point to which I want to refer concerns my own division, which is one of the greatest shipbuilding areas in Scotland. It is known all over the world as a place which produces some of the finest ships that sail today.
Mr. Bence: Hear, hear.
Mr. Rankin: I am glad to have the support of my hon. Friend and rival, the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). We know that Govan is much ahead of Clydebank in this matter. Nothing that has gone down to the seas recently can compare with the "Empress of Britain," as we all know. What

2209
annoys me is the complacency which is being shown about the shipbuilding position. I know that for the next two years we have as much as we can do. The big yards are all right, but let us not ignore the fact that even at this moment the small yards are not as happy as they should be.
We must realise that in the City of Glasgow 68,300 men are employed in shipbuilding, marine engineering and non-electrical engineering. In my own division 12,000 of these men, with their families depending upon them, are employed in three shipbuilding yards—Harlands, Fairfield and Stephens. This is a substantial number, and if anything happens to the shipbuilding industry, which provides one of our greatest exports, the effect upon Glasgow will be something that none of us will like. We shall avoid it only by planning and by imposing a certain element of control.
Where does the danger lie? The White Paper says that we are quite comfortable; that we have two years' work in hand. I accept that, but dangers are arising at the moment. Germany has been quoted as one danger. I will not enter into another argument with the hon. Member for Scotstoun (Mr. J. R. H. Hutchison), but I am certain that in maintaining the position of our shipbuilding industry we are not going to adopt the methods which he advocated and which are outlined in the newspaper report of the three trade unionists to whom he referred, and which I have here. If I had time I would like to quote some of it. I am sure that not a single hon. Member would be prepared to support that method.
Where does the danger lie? It is not only in Germany. It is true that three vessels, of 12,000 tons each and worth about £4 million, have gone to German yards, but the greater danger is the Far East. Up to the end of the financial year ended March, 1954, the foreign orders booked in Japan reached 163,000 gross tons with a value of £14 million. In the financial year ended in March, 1955, the Japanese foreign shipbuilding orders had risen from 163,000 to 800,000 gross tons, and to a value of £50 million. In other words, Japan has in one year equalled the shipbuilding exports of this country.
That is a very serious challenge. The Japanese are doing it because they have
2210
a plan. We may not think much of their plan. They have a ship-export-sugar-import plan whereby the excess profits from sugar sold in the country are used to reduce the price per ton of shipping, so that Japan may get orders in the foreign market. We may say that that is exploiting the home consumer. I shall not argue the merits of the plan. My point is that Japan has a plan which involves looking ahead and involves control, and that it is working, although at our expense.
If we wish to shape the future of Scotland, look after our shipbuilding industry and see that we do not repeat what happened in the years of depression, and look after the housing and the industry of our people, we shall not do it by scattering people here and there, as the hon. Member for Lanark said. Fancy scattering people outside. We have to place them and plan for them, and to control the amount of investment that is put into their future. We must plan, we must control investment and the location of investment. The future has to be shaped in that way. It is only by planning the future that we shall win the prosperity that we all desire for the people of our country.
8.38 p.m.
Sir David Robertson: I am sure that the House will understand the anxiety of the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Rankin) and other hon. Members who represent ship-building constituencies at the prospect that may be realised when the backlog of orders is through. Most of us are old enough to remember the hard times that struck the shipbuilding industry after the First World War, and the scheme of survival that was entered into. That should be a warning to us to take time by the forelock, if we can. I do not think anyone suggests that any Government can plan prosperity in Britain through international trade in shipbuilding in a way which will affect Japan, but if we did what the Japanese are doing, exploited our own people, or the home market, as the hon. Gentleman put it——
Mr. Rankin: Cut the price of ships——
Sir D. Robertson: Yes, and then if somebody else cut the price of ships and we joined the race, it would all come to

2211
a very sorry end. I agree with the hon. Member that it is a very important matter.
We all know that thousands of tons of shipping were lost during the war, that during that period there was no building for peaceful use and that afterwards there was a tremendous backlog of trade waiting to be tackled. That must come to an end at some time, and I think it is very timely that such hon. Members as the hon. Member for Govan should direct the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Labour and the President of the Board of Trade to this matter.
Mr. Rankin: I only want to make it clear—as I thought I had—that I did not necessarily support the Japanese scheme, said that it was just a plan.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: These interventions should not be used for debating 'purposes.
Sir D. Robertson: A fortnight ago I asked the Leader of the House if he would consider giving time for a discussion on the accounts of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board. He was somewhat facetious. He could not resist the temptation to make a joke when I said that the justification for having a debate was that the accounts had never been debated in this House. We are supposed to be trustees of the public purse, and all this money—or most of it—was money put up by the Development Board and subsequently converted into stock. I think that it is a reflection on the House of Commons—and I take my full share of blame—that we did not insist on time being given to discuss the accounts of this, the first of the national boards.
I am a strong admirer of the Board—I have seen its effects in my own constituency. I am a critic of it, too, where it fails. Tonight, I have to interpose these remarks into an industrial debate because it is my first opportunity since 1951. Three years ago the Board wanted more borrowing powers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and I opposed the Bill just to get a chance to speak about the Board and its work. We did not want to harm the Bill but to help it.
Section 2 (1, a) of the Act which created the Board states:
2212
"it shall be the duty of the Board…to provide supplies of electricity required to meet the demands of ordinary consumers…of the North of Scotland…."
I stressed that point in 1951 because I found that many of the farmers and crofters in the hinterland were without electricity, although they had been waiting for it for years. In the debate in 1951 I asserted that the Board was doing what the old local authorities or private companies were alleged to have done in the past—running the lines up "main street" and connecting the populous areas, while the farmer and crofter—the mainstay of Highland economy—were being left without supplies because their homes were not close to "main street."
I met the Chairman of the Board at that time—he was a little disturbed about my criticism—and I said to him, "Why do you not face this problem of expensive connections in the hinterland? Agree to make a certain number a year over a period of five or ten years, but do not run away from the problem. That is wrong, because you are failing in your duty as laid down by Act of Parliament." Promises were made that that would be done, but I have received a letter from a landowner near Lochinver which does not confirm them.
During the Election, I held a meeting at Lochinver at which a crofter asked why electricity could not be brought to the Brackloch and Little Assynt area which, he said, was the largest livestock rearing area in the district. I said that I did not know, but that I would find out. When I got back I communicated with the Board and was told that the costs were high but that it would look into the matter.
This is the letter which that crofter got the other day—a crofter paying £5 or £6 a year rent and having probably a small flock of sheep and cattle. It reads:
"We have been examining the possibility of providing electricity supplies in the Brack-loch and Little Assynt area. Unfortunately, the costs are very high in providing any such supplies and would amount to over £8,000.
To be justified in an expenditure of this nature the Board would require to obtain an annual revenue from the possible consumers in Brackloch amounting to £470 per year and you would be required to enter into a Seven Year Agreement with the Board whereby you undertook to use electricity to the value of £120 per year."
This man's landlord, sending that letter to me, said, "It is fantastic." I could

2213
say something much stronger. No crofter could enter into an agreement of that kind. He could not use or pay for £120 of electricity a year.
Mr. Grimond indicated assent.
Sir D. Robertson: The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) nods his head in agreement. This Board earned £331,000 in the year ended 31st December, 1954. I rejoice in that. It is called upon to pay its way. It is a good thing that it is doing so, and £331,000 may well be a reasonable net profit after all the outgoings have been paid. In addition to that, in the years in which the Board has been in operation since the end of the war, it has set aside £5½ million out of profits for redemption of stock. With this £5½ million and £331,000 profit last year 5,331 miles of line could be provided at a cost of £1,000 per mile. Why has the Board to go to the crofters and impose impossible conditions like this? Why does the Board not take the cost out of its earnings, which are so considerable? I protested about this attitude, and I am certain that I shall have the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
The main reason for taking electricity to the Highland area was to do something which had never been done in bygone days—to give everyone an equal chance of getting it. That includes the crofter. There are 75 of the finest farmers in Britain in Caithness who have been waiting for a number of years to have their farms connected for electricity. This has been denied to them because it was said that the Admiralty Radar Station at Bower requires the lines to be put underground instead of their being above ground.
There was a rumour spread round that the Admiralty objected to the connection being made. We were told that the reason we could not get it was because the Navy would not stand for it. I found that was not true. The real reason was that the Board would not undertake the job because of the high cost involved. It did nothing about it. It left the farmers high and dry, without light and power. I went to the Admiralty, and was told, "We are perfectly willing so long as the lines are put underground."
I was sympathetic to the Board about having to meet the extra cost. I felt that
2214
it should be a defence cost. I raised the matter with the Admiralty, and I said so. The Admiralty said that the law of Scotland—and it made a long investigation into it—laid down very clearly that the first-comer had the right to say what the next-corner had to do. In this case, the first-comer on the site was the Admiralty at Bower. This is not an isolated case; it is happening throughout the Highland area.
The local authority consultative committee has been interested in this problem. It had a meeting the other day in Inverness, and it stated that it was costing about £1,200 a mile to lay transmission lines because of the high costs of the present day, and it said, "This is a matter for a subsidy." It is not a matter for a subsidy. It is a thing for the Board to do and it is well capable of doing it.
Kildman Strath, one of the great historic straths leading from the Pentland Firth down to the Lowlands, has no light and power except what is on the railway. I raised that point. The reply was, "Too expensive." That will not do. We have to face these charges, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will help me to bring this about.
The Board, I think, has done well. I would much rather praise it than criticise it, and I did so during the recent Election on platform after platform. I stood behind it when there was almost a rebellion by the crofters because they were being asked to pay a guarantee of £3 for a living room. I held a public meeting, and I stood by the Board. I thought that was reasonable, and I still do. But £120 a year to a little crofter living one and a half miles from where there is electricity is altogether intolerable.
I have another Highland matter to which I want to refer. It is about the Herring Industry Board. I want to refer to the failure of that Board to conduct its operations in an orderly fashion. We had a strike of fishermen a week or two ago at Fraserburgh and Peterhead because the oil plant which was to be ready before the fishing began had not been built. That meant that there was no market for the fish. The quality at the beginning of the season was not as good as it was a little later. The curers were not ready to buy this poor-quality

2215
fish, and there was no oil factory to take it. Some of the fish was transferred to Wick, in my constituency, which was a perfectly proper course, but unhappily when the Wick fishing started the oil plant was unable to take the Wick supplies.
That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs and is a case of real mismanagement. These things are well within the compass of the Board to handle ten years after the end of the war. Much of this dissatisfaction among the herring fishermen is due to the lack of earnings, even when they are getting good catches, though perhaps not when they are getting abundant catches. I should be glad if I could have the attention of the Joint Under-Secretary of State, because he is responsible to his chief and his chief is responsible to Parliament for the herring industry.
There is a price structure for herrings. The minimum price for freshing is 91s. a cran. The price for any herrings going for freshing—that is for consumer use—is 91s. There is a price of about 70s. or 80s. for curing. There is a price of 70s. or 80s. for freezing. Then there is a drop to 40s. for oil, and that is probably where 95 per cent. of the herrings go. It seems to me that the gap between that top price, which attracts such a little sale, and this low price is far too great. There should be a buffer. Unfortunately, curing does not provide an adequate buffer for anything like an abundant catch.
Much greater exploitation should be made of the low-temperature freezing industry. I have said this before, and even today, years after I first said it in the House, one of the greatest developments in food preservation and in taking advantage of nature's bountiful crops and preserving them for the time of famine is not being used as it should be in Scotland.
Reference was made in the 1954 Report on Industry and Employment to the development of quick freezing, but the Report does not say to what extent there has been development. In Grimsby and in Yorkshire tremendous developments are taking place. At Yarmouth and Lowestoft, I am told, they are doing extraordinarily well. There are good prospects in the Moray Firth area where
2216
facilities for low-temperature freezing of herrings and other surplus produce ought to be provided.
If the Board wants peace in the herring industry it will have to provide more than a level of 40s. a cran for surplus herrings. The advantage of preservation and packaging in 8-ounce consumer packs is that there are not just four weeks in the year in which to sell the herrings fresh but eleven or twelve months to sell quick-frozen herrings.
Most of the green peas which we eat here and in other restaurants throughout Britain are frozen. The restaurant proprietor will not go to the trouble to unpod peas when he can get packets of fresh frozen peas. The development of quick freezing in horticulture and other food lines has been tremendous, and the only people who seem to be taking little advantage of it are the members of the Herring Industry Board. I urge the Minister to pay some attention to this matter.
There have been a number of references to Dounreay and to the development there, and the Government deserve great credit for having had the courage to go up to the allegedly remote Pentland Firth and create a breeder reactor for industrial purposes. Nothing has given me greater pride than to go, as I did at Easter, to see the developments there. I haunted Dounreay, both then and during the Election. When I should have been preparing ammunition to deal with hon. Members opposite, I was spending my time at Dounreay admiring the transformation which has come over the scene.
When I became candidate in my present constituency in 1949, having been Member for Streatham, unemployment in the area was running at the rate of four times more than the average for Scotland and the figure for Scotland is three times that of the figure for England. Now there are twenty jobs for every man unemployed. It is true that there is some unemployment among women.
Various hon. Members have asked how long the work will take. My information is that there will be five breeder reactors and that construction work will go on for twelve to twenty years, so that the prospect is good. There is no doubt that other industry will come into the area.

2217
There was a report in "The Times" on 25th June using the heading "Development plans threatened." It was a statement by leading officials, Mr. Rotherham and Dr. McIntosh, that their work will be hamstrung. They did not say "hamstrung"; that is my interpretation in order to save me from reading two or three paragraphs. They say they are unable to get skilled scientists, chemists, physicists, metallurgists, and development engineers, who are interested in applied research. They have vacancies at all levels from £300 to £3,000 a year.
I put down Questions to my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Works. I had to accept written Answers to them all and they all seemed inadequate. The Secretary of State referred to the fact that
"the Atomic Energy Commission has already recruited students trained in various Departments of the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, and the Governors of Robert Gordon's Technical College, Aberdeen, have indicated their willingness to provide higher level courses for any apprentices at Dounreay station who complete the more elementary courses which the education authority is planning to provide locally."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th July, 1955; Vol. 543, c. 85.]
It seems to me that we have to do very much more than that.
The report to which I have referred complained of competition by industry, but I am sure we all rejoice that industry is employing scientists, even though rather belatedly. If the Atomic Energy Commission wants these scientists it will have to compete with industry and pay equal or greater salaries in order to attract the men. It should do so because of the vital importance of this new industry to Britain. We have heard that the Lanark-shire coal fields are almost played out and we know many others which are almost played out. We know that the nation's fuel reserves will not last for another 200 years, and we have to be off the mark with a new source of power. We shall not do that by saying that our salary list is not good enough. We must compete now.
Simultaneously, we must take the brains which are available in Scotland. We have always had bright young students but they have had to go to the ends of the earth to get jobs like these. Now the jobs are available at home, but we must attract suitable students through the education
2218
authorities, and technical colleges must be provided to train them. They need not necessarily be in Glasgow. Why not set up a college at Wick or Thurso for the northern counties, from Shetland to Inverness? This will take a long time. I imagine that the theoretical and practical training of the type of men we want will take at least ten years.
The report to which I have alluded is worth reading and these questions are worth considering. It will not do for the Ministers concerned to say that they are satisfied because they have talked to somebody in Aberdeen about it. Every university in Britain, including the major universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and all the technical colleges, should be told of this and asked what are they going to do about it, but the Government should produce the money for the technical college buildings and see that they are placed in the areas where they are most wanted.
That has happened already in the case of Cumberland. Lord Adams and the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Frank Anderson) have been very assiduous in that as in other matters, and the result is that we have turned Cumberland from a distressed area to a prosperous one. A new technical college has been built at Whitehaven. Why should we not have one? Let us have one in the North, or anywhere else, so long as we have it, but do not let us just sit and dither and hope for the best.
We have been hearing a lot today about the distribution of industry, and I have myself talked a great deal upon that subject. I have talked about it because I feel that we Scots have made very poor use of our country. [Interruption.] I am going on; I have waited for a long time to make my speech today. This question of the distribution of industry is vital to us because we have not made much use of our country. We have put 80 per cent. of our population into a narrow belt, and we are now paying a high price for it in ill-health. It is one of the reasons why Scotland has had heavy unemployment, which is not something that only happened during the war. It is a question of old buildings and structures that should have been cleared out a long time ago, and of the overcrowding and the concentration of too many people in one place, with consequent ill-health.

2219
I remember the late Mr. Arthur Greenwood standing at that Box and talking of the money which he spent as Minister of Health—£300 million a year on preventable disease; that is, disease that never should have happened. I think the City of Glasgow must have had a great deal to do with that.
When I hear various hon. Members say today, "Let us go out into other places, the old towns that have declined, but where all the public services are laid on," I think that that is a very reasonable thing to do. I rejoiced when my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot) talked about building lovely flats overlooking the Clyde. New York did that, with a much less pleasant scene than Glasgow, but I feel that we cannot go on making Glasgow bigger and face taking away 300,000 people and putting them elsewhere. I think it is wrong to plant them in places like Cumbernauld and Houston. It seems to me that we are asking for trouble, because I can conceive of Glasgow growing bigger and bigger and absorbing them. When I was there in January, I looked for the football pitches upon which I used to play as a youngster, but could not find them because they have all been built upon.
Transport is the determining factor, and always has been. We have always had to pay far too much for internal transportation in Britain. We can bring things from Chile and Peru for less than it costs to bring things from Aberdeen to Glasgow. Transport is becoming our master, and increasingly so, but we could run six or seven-wagon road trains carrying 150 tons of goods, hauled by a diesel electric engine, and operated by two men —two men who might otherwise be driving a lorry to carry five or ten tons.
I do not think there is any need for pessimism. I think we have every ground for satisfaction that the results have been as good as they are, but, undoubtedly, we shall have to work a little harder, become a little more enterprising, and make better use of science, to enable us to derive the full benefits from nuclear energy.
9.4 p.m.
Mr. James H. Hoy: The speech to which we have just listened has been extremely interesting because of two suggestions it contained. It was a complete
2220
departure from the old Tory policy. When the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) referred to the work of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board he mentioned Lochinver where, I am told, there are five potential consumers who will have electricity supplied to them at a cost of £8,000.
The hon. Member was arguing that here was a nationalised industry which should not pay too much attention to cost, but should provide a service for every section of the community. We would not dispute that altogether, but I beg hon. Members opposite to realise what the argument means. This is the sort of thing they seek to extract from nationalised industry and then, on the hustings, they tell electors that these services have failed because they have not made profits.
It may be a very good thing indeed that these industries should supply modern facilities to every section of the community. Certainly, from this side of the House it has always been the argument that there are certain services we may have to supply at a financial loss but which will prove invaluable if we are to retain in our remote areas those who are willing to populate those areas. Such people are entitled to services and amenities which those in the more highly populated parts of the country are able to obtain.
I remember my right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) suggesting, a few years ago, that perhaps it might be essential, where private enterprise failed to do the job, for the Government to go into those areas and make investment so as to employ local inhabitants. Scorn was poured on that idea at the time, but that is the very argument which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland has been presenting to the House tonight. He said that if the private fishing industry fails to provide low-freezing plant to deal with catches of herring, someone must provide it——
Sir D. Robertson: The Herring Industry Board.
Mr. Hoy: The Herring Industry Board is a Government-sponsored agency. The hon. Member was saying, if private industry failed to do it, let the Government-sponsored industry take on the job.
Sir D. Robertson: The hon. Member is misrepresenting me. He overlooks the fact that the Herring Industry Board was created by this House to provide plant for the industry. That being so, let it provide the plant.
Mr. Hoy: I am not dissenting from what the hon. Member says. He is arguing that the Government should undertake this work. I am not disputing that, but when my right hon. Friend suggested it a few years ago it met with scorn in the House.
The debate opened by the Minister of Labour started under circumstances which have changed with the years. I did not think of it until the Minister used the figure, but we are seeking to set up a factory in Inverness to employ 42 people. I do not refer to that in any derogatory sense but to mark the change which has conic over the employment position in Scotland compared with pre-war days when, if anyone had dared to suggest a scheme to employ so few persons, they would have been met with hoots of derision for making the most puny effort ever suggested.
There is one reason for all this. In simple terms, it is that since the end of the war we have gone in for a considerable amount of planning. Whatever jeers and criticisms there may have been at the expense of the planners, let the House realise that without their work Scotland would not have the 90,000 new jobs which Scottish men and women are now filling. Many hon. Gentlemen opposite used to make it part of their business to pour scorn and contempt on the planners, referring to them always as "Whitehall planners." Let us now give credit to the planners for having brought about this economic freedom in Scotland.
Never was it more reflected than in a report recently issued by the Clydesdale and North of Scotland Bank, which said:
"Business activity in Scotland was maintained at a high level in 1954, and the achievements recorded in succeeding sections of this survey suggest that the economic machine was functioning with steadily mounting rhythm. As post-war capital investment schemes yielded more of their expected benefits, most Scottish industries achieved further increases both in output and productivity, but the record was uneven."
I am willing to say a little about what was uneven, but those remarks were a tribute to the Labour Government who,
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in the very difficult years just after the war, used 20 per cent. of our national income to create the industrial estates and sites which have given us the results we are enjoying today.
The Secretary of State, earlier today, interjected something about what had been left to the Conservative Government by the Labour Government. Let the Government tonight at least have the decency to say that the Labour Government left the Conservatives a heritage in industrial estates, plant and factories to which we ourselves would have been glad to succeed in 1945.
Despite all this, there is a feeling, not only in the House but in business circles throughout the country, about the future and increased competition from foreign countries. If I may refer to shipbuilding, the fears are not lessened when shipbuilding workers hear that British firms are sending orders for new tonnage to foreign countries. We rightly boast of our skill and ability to produce the finest ships in the world, so it is not very encouraging to the workers in the industry to learn that British firms are sending orders overseas.
It may be that there was some little time-lag in completing orders in the years immediately following the war, but that was a natural sequence to the war. We had a tremendous stored-up demand for new tonnage and a shortage of materials. As year succeeded year, the rhythm improved, and we were eventually able to overtake orders which had been on the books for a considerable period. It is true that Japan and Germany had certain advantages over us, but their order books are beginning to fill and the gap is narrowing.
We have some cause for concern here. It is suggested that in the shipbuilding industry we can look forward for two years. Only two years ago we were looking ahead for five years in respect of order books. There has obviously been a substantial cut. It is right that we should be concerned about it now. It is better that we should now plan to deal with the situation rather than postpone our inquiries until it may be too late. So, while I would not like to create any undue concern, all I suggest is that if we are in earnest now is the time to consider it.

2223
As one would have expected, the topic of development policy in this country was bound to arise somewhat acutely in this debate. In the years following the war we all felt it right to push into the worst areas all the new factories and new industrial assets to cope with the troubles which would arise. Let us remember that at that time those areas selected themselves, because of the appalling conditions which existed before the war. In fact, those conditions were the reason for these areas and it was right and proper that the Government of the day should give them a high amount of preference, so much so that we have provided the thousands of jobs which I have already mentioned.
It is true that over these years many of us have thought that some changes in this Development Area policy ought to be made. If I may use my own constituency as an example, we always thought that we got a raw deal by being left outside the Distribution of Industry Act. We have been arguing for a considerable time that the time has now arrived when the Act should be revised and reconsidered. Even the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) has said that it will press the Government to insist on having considerable changes made. In other words, greater flexibility is wanted and we should be allowed to put into areas which need them new industries which might we used, not only to the advantage of the area, but of the country as a whole.
I do not believe for one moment that this could not take place, because even while the Act has been in force there has been a subsidiary. I remember very well indeed that when unemployment rose by a certain figure in my constituency in the years after the war, the Board of Trade designated it a special unemployment area and gave to the firms within its borders supplies of materials at the same level as those within the Development Areas proper. If that could be done in those years, it should be possible for the Government to make that change today.
The decision rests with the Government, the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State for Scotland. Allied to it must be a decision which only the Secretary of State can make and on which we expect a comment this even-
2224
ing. That is what is to be the Government's policy in this respect and, certainly, what is to be the Government's new policy about grants under Section 3 of the Act. The Secretary of State this afternoon rode away on the suggestion that the Labour Government had cut down building advance factories. He certainly could not say the same about this particular Section, because even his own office confirmed this week, as we already knew, that the decision to withdraw these grants under Section 3 was made in February, 1952.
The reason the Government gave was that our economic position was such as to make it necessary to take that step and only grants which had already been approved would be paid, but from that date no further grants would be entertained. That argument simply cannot be sustained today, certainly not by the speeches of Members of the Government. The Government have been very happy to tell us that we are living in days of prosperity. If we have reached the state of prosperity, I suggest that now is the time for the Government to make their decision known.
I support my right hon. and hon. Friends, and some hon. Members opposite, who suggest that the Government should think again about this problem and that they should make arrangements for building a certain number of advance factories. I believe that to be a part of policy. All this means that some planning will have to be done. In view of the speeches made today by some hon. Members opposite, apparently they do not object to planning. It may be that now the election is over they are thinking differently.
If the Secretary of State for Scotland is in need of a little support for any action he may take, he may get it, even from the Solicitor-General for Scotland, who assured us in the Scottish Standing Committee last Thursday that the Tory Government even believe in control. So now we have planning and control supported by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I suggest that now is the time for the Secretary of State to take the action without which, we believe, no further progress may made in Scotland.
It is true, as was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) that as a result of this laissez faire policy, more and more factory

2225
building is going on in London and its immediate surroundings than in Scotland. The position is the reverse of what it was under a Labour Government. I suggest that if this capital expenditure is to be undertaken and the best achieved for the country, the Government must think again on this matter.
I wish to say a further word about the Hydro-Electric Board, which has come in for considerable criticism. It is true that when the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland is speaking, it is difficult to understand whether he is supporting or condemning it. We know that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), with whom he had an alliance, has made some slashing attacks on the Hydro-Electric Board. We must remember that this public authority has brought the benefits of electricity to thousands of people in that part of Scotland who would never have received them but for this great public undertaking.
Even today the Board employs 12,500 people; 2,500 under its own control and 10,000 through contractors, thus making a distinct contribution to employment in Scotland. Its existence has resulted in the starting of new industries in Scotland which have been able to supply materials for sale overseas. Not only that, but in a short time 130,000 customers out of a potential figure of 200,000 when it took over are now receiving supplies. Here is a tremendous record of service to Scotland. It is unfortunate that one case, which might not be quite so good as the others, should be given all the publicity. A great deal of good work which has been done by this undertaking is lost sight of because some hon. Members of this House put forward a case which is an exception to the rule.
It is true that the Hydro-Electric Board has a quarrel with another public industry because it has to bear all the brunt of argument about the supplying of electricity in remote areas and has complained that it is being asked to supply electricity for those engaged in forestry work at a prohibitive cost. The Secretary of State not only has responsibility for matters of electricity but for the work of the Forestry Department. I suggest that an amicable agreement be reached whereby the Forestry Commission might pay a subsidy to the electricity authority when
2226
these services are provided for its workers.
One word about the argument which we had over Loch Sloy. It is true that a damning indictment was made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, had it been true, but we have seen a denial by the chairman of the Authority. This matter is so important that, in fairness to the Hydro-Electric Board itself, I think it is only right that the Secretary of State should make a statement tonight to clear up the position.
I know that we have some things for which to be thankful, but there is one thing on which Scotland is dependent if it is to play its full part in contributing to the economic well-being of the country. There must be adequate road and transport services. We have some hope that, as a result of the Government's decision to hand back to the British Transport Commission a great chunk of the road services, we in Scotland shall be able to retain a service which will not only be of benefit to the people there, but will, in fact, make a contribution towards offsetting deficits in other sections of the transport industry.
I wish to reiterate the claim made today by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton about the Caledonian bus group which was sold in South-West Scotland. I am told that this was an absolutely first-class service. To those hon. Members who ask at what price it was sold, I would reply, let the Secretary of State tell the House tonight the price which was first asked for it and the price at which this important part of our communications was ultimately sold to the private undertaking.
I suggest to the Secretary of State that it is not too late to ask the people concerned to allow that important part of road haulage to go back into the nationalised industry. I am sure that they are men who want to play their part in the interest of the country. I am sure that they would not want to make a penny profit out of the deal, but would be quite willing to hand back the service to the Transport Commission for the price they paid for it. If we are to have a properly integrated service, then it is essential that we should have this undertaking.
I do not want to say anything about the roads and bridges that are required. The Secretary of State is well aware of

2227
the demands that we have made, and, whether it be a Forth Bridge or a Tay Bridge, he knows exactly what Scotland requires. As the right hon. Gentleman is soon to be the Minister responsible for them, perhaps he will give us tonight a preview of what his policy is to be.
On the whole, I think that this has been a very interesting debate. In a short time we have considered what has already been done for Scotland and what still requires to be done. At least one great lesson has been learned from the debate and that is that no hon. Member on either side of the House is now willing to argue that these things can be achieved without planning by the Government. For that reason, we are a little hopeful, but we certainly trust that the Secretary of State will be able to add a little more than hope.
9.30 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart): At the outset I want to say how grateful I am to the House for the very helpful and thoughtful tone of this debate. It has covered a great deal of ground and I must not waste time, because I want to do my best to give a brief general picture of the position as I see it, and to answer as many questions as time allows.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mr. Patrick Maitland) complained of a lack of statistics. That is not a thing from which I suffer, but I can tell him that the Digest of Scottish Statistics has now been published, which accounts for the fact that the White Paper is somewhat abridged in that respect.
After I have dealt briefly with the general position I hope to say something about the points which have been raised in connection with the distribution of industry and the Development Areas. I am fully alive to the fact that they are of vital importance. I also wish to deal with as many as possible of the other points which have been raised, and I can assure hon. Members that those which I cannot deal with now will be very carefully studied, and that I will endeavour to answer them by correspondence.
No maiden speech was made today, so I need not congratulate anybody upon that. I do congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kelvingrove (Mr. Elliot), however, for a very interesting
2228
speech, which caused a certain amount of interruption. I can assure hon. Members who "took part" in his speech that when I entered this House, almost 32 years ago, my right hon. Friend was in just as good form as he was today. I am glad that he is keeping it up.
I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour for taking part in the debate. He gave us an interesting survey which ranged over a wide field. I think it is right—and it is of interest to Scottish Members and to Scotland as a whole—that Ministers who are responsible for important United Kingdom Departments should take part in these reviews of our national State.
Mr. Woodburn: In case we do not have an opportunity of doing so later, on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself I should like to express our appreciation of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues have sat on the Front Bench during the whole debate today, and have taken part in it.
Mr. Stuart: I am grateful, as I am sure are my hon. Friends, for the usual courtesy displayed by the right hon. Gentleman.
I do not want the House to think that either my right hon. and learned Friend or I are endeavouring to paint a rosy picture or to be complacent, because that is not the case. We are both very well aware of the difficulties which are always cropping up and we realise that we must always be watching the position of trade and employment throughout the whole country, although I confine my activities to Scotland. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend did not—and I do not—wish to show any sign of complacency. My right hon. and learned Friend's review was, in the main, factual; he was dealing with the trade position as shown in the 1954 Report, and going a little beyond it in bringing the figures up to date. We are well aware of the constant difficulties which may confront industry throughout Great Britain in the future.
It is the case, however, that unemployment in 1954 was at its lowest level for a number of years. I am glad to say that the first half of 1955 shows a continuation of this position, although I admit that there are places where the situation

2229
is not as happy as we should wish. At some time yesterday afternoon I heard about the position in Lanarkshire, and this situation also applies in the other Development Area in the North, which was referred to by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod). As my right hon. and learned Friend dealt with that position, however, I do not wish to repeat what he said. It is difficult to attract industry there.
The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy), who has just completed his remarks, referred to the fact that an industry employing 42 people would have sounded hardly worth while bothering about some years ago. It is difficult to attract industry suitable for an area where the labour force is scattered, but at any rate we will do our best in that direction.
I hope that the slight interruption in the rise of the index of production has stopped and that it may be corrected in the second half of the current year. In spite of this hesitation, it has been encouraging to see the continued advance in production in the engineering industry which is referred to in the White Paper. Hon. Members who wish to study that point in detail, if they have not already done so, will find it in pages 37–40 of the Command Paper.
I do not wish to cover the ground which was covered by my right hon. and learned Friend, so I will pass on to the three basic industries for which anyone in my position has to bear major responsibility. These are agriculture, fishing and forestry. Agriculture has not been mentioned in this debate to any extent, so I will only say a few words about it. I will begin by expressing sympathy with the farmers in the very hard weather conditions with which they had to contend in 1954. I hope that weather conditions will be all right this year, but he would be a bold person who said that there was a continued likelihood of good weather.
Although the farmers suffered they did a very good job. In spite of the fact that the area under crops declined slightly in 1954, yields were above the average and livestock production was well maintained. The number of cattle increased by 3·8 per cent. to 1,710,000. This was almost entirely in beef herds. Since the end of 1954, the proportion of attested cattle, it is satisfactory to note, had risen by 31st March to 72·6 per cent.
2230
Hon. Members referred in the latter part of the debate to the fishing industry. The position up to date is fairly satisfactory. White fish landings have been nearly 7 per cent. higher in quantity and more than 4 per cent. higher in value than in the corresponding period of 1954. Landings of herring are so far about 5 per cent. less in volume and 9 per cent. less in value than last year, but this was largely due to a reduction in winter fishing. Since 1st April, I am glad to say, landings of herring have increased both in weight and in value over last year.
The Fisheries Act provided an additional £750,000 in grants to the Herring Industry Board to continue the oil and meal subsidy for a further period until such time as the factory is completed and the scheme is able to support itself. Good use is being made of the grant-and-loan scheme for new boats and engines. During the present year grants have been approved for 47 new boats and 23 new engines. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) asked whether we thought the fleet was becoming too big. I could not answer off-hand whether it is or not, but I agree with him that there is need for greater landings of white fish. In this grant-and-loan scheme we must get an up-to-date fleet and efficient boats.
A scheme has already been laid before the House to extend the white fish subsidy until the end of this year. Before the end of the year the rates will have to be reviewed to take into account the increase in coal prices and the much improved trading results shown by the near and middle water fleets in 1954 as compared with 1953. More time is required for this purpose and the existing subsidy will, therefore, continue for the time being—that is, until the end of the year.
Reference has been made to forestry, about which I have an announcement to make arising from the Report of Principal Taylor's Crofters Commission which, I think, will be of some interest to the House. I can report continuing progress over the whole field. During the current season the Forestry Commission has planted nearly 23,500 acres and replanted 10,500 acres of old woodland. I regret to say that the bad winter slowed down the extraction of windblown timber, and as a result we have

2231
continued the subsidy payable on timber moved to the South for mining until the end of this month.
The Highlands, of course, will always be a rural area in the main, and in conjunction with agriculture forestry will play a leading part. The Commission already holds about 70,000 acres of plantable land and nearly 175,000 acres of plantations and is employing 2,197 people in the Highland area. As Principal Sir Thomas Taylor stresses in his Report, forestry in the crofting areas is more and more seen to be of greater value and importance as an ancillary source of employment, additional to normal crofting activities.
The Government have, therefore, been considering what should be done with this end in view, and came to the conclusion that the Forestry Commission should be authorised to extend its activities in these areas even if this means, in some instances, planting on land which will give a smaller return than it normally looked for. I am accordingly asking the Commission to embark on a new scheme of planting in those areas and to aim at planting 25,000 to 35,000 acres there during the next ten years. This will, I hope, be of benefit in bringing additional employment where it is so much needed.
Hon. Members have spoken about electricity as a basic service. It is, of course, of ever-increasing importance. Added to that there is the fact that under a recent Act of Parliament the responsibility for generation, transmission and distribution throughout Scotland—and not only in the North—has been transferred to the Secretary of State for Scotland. At the end of last year the stations now belonging to the new Board in the South had a capacity of 32 per cent. above that of 1948, and since 1948 the consumers have increased by about the same proportion. The programme of development is very substantial, and at the end of March approval was given to the project for a new station at Kincardine, on the Forth which, when completed, will be much the biggest station in Scotland.
The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board has added 141,000 consumers since 1943. I think it is a very good performance that only 63,000 out of 391,000 potential consumers in that area remain to be connected to the supply.
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The Board now has 12 schemes in operation. The construction of its schemes continues to provide employment for many people in the North of Scotland. At present, 12,500 are being employed of whom 10,000 are contractors' men on construction and 2,500 on the Board's staff. The present schemes and those which will come on in the future should keep this employment going until 1965 or later, because other schemes are still, of course, under investigation. Therefore, I think that we can claim progress in this work of electrical development. I hope that in saying what I have said I have displayed my appreciation of the work which has been carried out by the North of Scotland Board, to which the hon. Member for Leith, for one, referred.
I turn to the other basic service of housing. Over 38,000 houses were completed and, although this figure is not quite as high as the record figure for the previous year, it represents a very high rate of building and reflects great credit on the housing authorities and the building industry, to whom I am extremely grateful for their co-operation. The value of work on water, sewerage and other associated schemes was a record in 1954, and more schemes have been put in hand this year.
The hon. Member for Leith also referred to roads in Scotland. As tilt House is aware, the responsibility for highways is also being transferred to me and to the Departments of the Scottish Office. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation is, on course, still responsible, and he has announced and expanded roads programme of considerable dimensions. A a result of this, we shall be able to effec a number of much-needed improvement to our highway system. I realise to the full how necessary this is to benefit industry and road users generally. My, hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty seemed to be annoyed that we were not contemplating the building of dual track carriageways, as I think the are called, in the Highlands.
I would suggest to him that some consideration in these matters must, of course, be paid to the weight of traffic on the roads. It is a rather more different problem on the Carlisle to Glasgow road or the Glasgow to Stirling road from that presented by some of the Highland roads which he had in mind.
Mr. John MacLeod: We do not want a road like that. We do not want a narrow road with passing places, which are most dangerous and quite unsuitable for present traffic, let alone development.
Mr. Stuart: I agree. I was trying to answer my hon. Friend. I said that it does depend on the weight of traffic.
Of course, we want the best roads that we can afford, and I agree with him that they are an advantage to the tourist trade. I am not ignoring what he said. I realise the importance of a satisfactory road system in the Highlands, but we cannot, of course, embark upon schemes such as those to which I am referring at the moment, which are concerned with the main trunk roads.
Atomic energy has also been referred to, and that will be of vital importance to the future not only of Britain but of the whole world and the future of civilisation. I cannot pretend to be an authority on the subject of atomic energy and its development. But I will say this: the Dounreay plant has now reached a stage where it will provide work for substantial numbers and' will be of considerable benefit to the area.
At the end of 1956, employment should reach the peak of 1,700 persons. Thereafter, with the addition of more experimental reactors on the site, there is likely to be employment for a constructional staff of some size for several years to come. As a permanent employment, the position is that there will be 700 permanent employees of whom 250 will be recruited locally and the remainder, many of whom must have specialist qualifications, will be brought in from outside. Outside the Highlands the Authority has chosen Chapelcross, near Annan, as a site for four of the six new reactors to be built. These will provide employment locally and will also, as a side issue, provide a welcome addition to our electricity supplies.
As I have already indicated, the long-term value of these developments is of far greater importance than the immediate effect, although in the particular districts concerned they will be of great importance. Undoubtedly, we are seeing here the beginning of enormous developments, and I only hope—indeed, I am sure—that Scottish engineering firms and industrialists generally will be on the alert to see if they can attract to Scotland as
2234
many orders as possible in connection with these new developments. I understand that the requirements of the Atomic Energy Authority will provide orders for a wide cross-section of Scottish engineering firms. I know that the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) is well alive to this need, and I trust that the industry will also do its best to seek future orders in this field.
I think that in the time now available I ought to turn to the question of distribution of industry. The hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred to this matter, as did other hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I may say that I listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes), because he was striking out on rather a new line of country which seemed to me to be rather different from that to which I listened from several of his hon. Friends from Lanarkshire at a deputation which I met with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and others yesterday afternoon.
I do not want to suggest that the Government have a closed mind to this problem, because conditions alter, but the hon. Member for Hamilton suggested that there was need for an overall coordinated policy for industrial development in Scotland. While I realise that planning has performed much in certain directions, I must say that I rather agree with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. One wants to do one's best to ensure that it is on sound lines. I cannot help thinking that it is very difficult to plan in advance all the things which are suggested here. After the war there was a great demand for goods of all sorts. In addition, there had been war-time bombing, and so forth, and there was a great demand for new factory space.
No one can say now, in advance, what type of factory may be wanted in any area. We must recognise that the days which I have described are past. The building of a factory which is not suitable for the industry which wishes to move into it may lead to expensive alterations in order to make the premises suit the business. In addition, a factory may remain empty, which is a bad national investment. In my personal and humble opinion, it is a very depressing

2235
amenity for an area, if amenity is the right word.
Nevertheless, a great deal of thought has been given to this question. I am not in a position tonight to make any announcement of a change in Government policy, but we will continue to use the facilities of the Distribution of Industry Acts to help industrialists to set up in the Development Areas, where unemployment is still relatively high and where diversification of industry is desirable. In other areas, obviously, we shall encourage industry which wishes to go there to do so, but it is clear that we cannot force an industry to do so. Lanarkshire is one of the areas to which the Board of Trade encourage industries to go when they are looking for new sites. One of the very first endeavours is to encourage them to go there.
Looking over the whole problem, I think the policy which the Government are at present pursuing is wise and right in the prevailing circumstances. It is obvious that when we have in, say, Lanarkshire, a higher rate of unemployment than elsewhere, then we want to encourage industry to go there. Of course, if we divide a loaf of bread into twenty slices instead of ten, the amount of bread which each person gets is less. We cannot suddenly, as if with a magic wand, increase the amount of industry seeking new premises. We are still of the opinion that the right thing to do is to encourage industries to go to the Development Areas if they wish to do so.
I was very interested to hear what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central said on the subject. I do not know whether all his hon. Friends are in line with him on this matter, but I can assure him that his remarks will be carefully studied. What I have said does not mean that there will never be any change in what we are doing. It depends on the circumstances, and we must review policy in the light of prevailing circumstances.
Turning to advance factory building, there has been no advance building since 1951 because of the need for economy in capital expenditure. In view of the time I can merely tell the House that present Government policy was explained by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade in a debate on the Development Areas on 2nd May, 1955.
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In conclusion, I thank the House for the manner in which they have dealt with this very important and far-reaching topic. I am sorry that I have been unable to answer more of the questions. I do not pretend to be complacent and I hope that the House will accept the Motion.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland, 1954 (Command Paper No. 9410).

MILITARY CORRECTIVE ESTABLISHMENT, COLCHESTER
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber.]
9.59 p.m.
Mr. C. J. M. Alport: I have asked your permission, Mr. Speaker, to raise the question of the reform of the Military Corrective Establishment at Colchester for certain definite reasons. The first is that I think that it is important that public opinion today should be reassured that the methods of maintaining discipline in the Army conform with the needs——
It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Godber.]
Mr. Alport: —of a peacetime conscripted Army. Secondly, I think it is equally important that the parents of young men being called up to serve in Her Majesty's Forces should be assured that during the time of their service they are not brought unnecessarily into contact with evil influences or subjected to unfair treatment.
A more local reason which I have for raising this question is that during the last few months there have been a number of escapes from the Military Corrective Establishment, which have caused great concern and anxiety to those who live in its neighbourhood. Indeed, there are many people on a housing estate it the vicinity who suffer a certain amour of nervous tension because it is known

2237
that among those who are serving sentence at the corrective establishment are some men with extremely bad records of a criminal and violent kind.
Some weeks ago, certain allegations were made by soldiers under sentence at the Establishment about the maltreatment meted out to them by the staff. With the agreement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, I visited this Establishment shortly afterwards to try to see for myself the conditions existing there. I must say that I saw no evidence to bear out the allegations which were made, and I think it right that it should be borne in mind that those allegations were made by extremely unreliable men, who were anxious to bring as much discredit as they could upon the Army.
I think it possible that there was, and is, a certain amount of bullying, mostly of a verbal nature, but it may be that the bullying takes other forms as well. I would also say, because I think it most important that this matter should be kept in perspective, that the staff have been subjected on numerous occasions to assault, and that the majority of the men confined in the M.C.E. are extremely un-co-operative, while some fall, as I have said, into the category of violent and confirmed criminals.
I should explain to the House that there are two establishments in the United Kingdom, one at Shepton Mallet, which is a military prison in the normal sense of the term, and the other the Military Corrective Establishment at Colchester, which is a prison without bars, or, in military parlance, a glass-house without panes, though, in actual fact, there is a good deal of pain during confinement there. It is not a pleasant place. The accommodation, I think it will be generally agreed, is not satisfactory, since it was a re-creation of what was during the war a prisoner-of-war camp.
At the time of my visit, 400 men were serving sentence, and during 1954 over 2,000 men passed through the M.C.E. Of this number, about 50 per cent. were National Service men, if we include as National Service men the three-year engagement men, who are Regular soldiers, if I may put it that way, in no more than a technical sense of the term. Another statistic which I think is worth bearing in mind by the House is that of the 400 men who were there at the time of my visit,
2238
220, or over 50 per cent., were second offenders.
The nature of these offences varies considerably. I understand that 97 had been committed for stealing, 192 for absence without leave or deserting, 4 for indecency, 10 for violence, 7 for disobedience, 9 for War Department vehicle offences, 39 for military offences, such as insubordination or striking a superior officer, and 42 for miscellaneous civil offences, such as larceny, wounding and assault. The House will recognise from those statistics that nearly 50 per cent. of the offences comprised absence without leave or desertion and that the vast majority of the offences are military offences in the normal sense of the term which would not be capable of being brought before a civilian court.
I was informed that a large number of the men found guilty of absence without leave or desertion gave as the reason for their offence some kind of family trouble at home. A smaller number comprised soldiers who, for various reasons—for instance, the spoilt only child complex, a weakness of character, or even some degree of mental deficiency—were unable to adapt themselves to normal military life. The point I am emphasising is that the problem of crime in the Army should not generally be regarded in the same terms as we regard crime in the civilian sense. The treatment and approach to it should be different, particularly in a civilian Army serving in peacetime.
I would emphasise that responsibility for this problem does not fall primarily on the shoulders of the Army, the War Office or the military authorities. In my view, it falls, to a very large extent, upon the parents of the men concerned. For instance, I was informed by the padre that about 75 per cent. of the men who passed through the M.C.E. had had at no time, to his knowledge, any previous contact with organised Christian religion. I think that that is an indication of the fact that a great majority of these men are not criminals in the civilian sense of the word, but form a social problem which has to be dealt with in a rather different way from the way in which we would normally deal with crimes in the Army.
If I may give some of the conclusions I came to as a result of the visit, I would say that the first was that no satisfactory solution has been found by the War Office

2239
since the war for the enforcement of discipline among young soldiers in a conscripted peacetime Army. I noted a marked difference between the attitude to the M.C.E. of the bona fide Regular soldier and the average National Service man. The majority of Regular soldiers accepted their punishment philosophically. They were anxious to win—and did win by good behaviour—the privileges provided through transfer from A Company, which is the company which takes initial offenders, to B Company, in which they get certain privileges such as being allowed out of camp and to attend cinemas in the evening on certain occasions. They took advantage of those opportunities and made the best of what to them was a bad job. In the end they bore no particular grudge against the Army about their treatment in the M.C.E.
On the other hand, the National Service man regarded the M.C.E. with smouldering indignation. By failing to benefit from the opportunity of training, the average National Service man tended to remain in A Company indefinitely and he left with a bitter grudge against the system which condemned him to that form of training. I would point out to the Under-Secretary of State that the number of second offence men, 220, there shows that the corrective element in the Military Corrective Establishment is not, by evidence, fully successful.
I came, secondly, to the conclusion that since the majority of the men under sentence at the M.C.E. are, in some degree, mentally retarded or psychologically maladjusted they would fall too easily under the influence of the hard core of anti-social and criminal types who find their way into the Establishment, and that, although the commandant and the staff do, their best to separate them, the present organisation makes that contact almost inevitable.
The third point is that, on the whole, in any unit in any of the Services the morale and standards depend upon the morale of the officers, warrant officers, sergeants and N.C.O.s, and I had the firm impression that there exists, particularly among the warrant officers and sergeants, an undercurrent of unease which has had a considerable effect upon their morale and esprit de corps. Although I have no direct evidence, because I have not
2240
visited any of the M.P.S.C. establishments overseas, my impression is that this applies not only to the United Kingdom but equally to other establishments overseas.
There were certain aspects of the organisation and training which were admirable. At the same time, I have no doubt that there are many things which should be done to improve the system. In the time that remains to me, I should like to give my hon. Friend some proposals—he is already familiar with some of them because I have submitted a report to the War Office—which I think might help to improve the whole system of corrective training and, indeed, of dealing with the problems of discipline in a peace-time conscripted army.
My first suggestion is that the Secretary of State for War should take steps to reorganise the M.C.E. so as to reduce to the minimum the possibility of contact between the criminal elements which must find their way through such an establishment and those who are there for technical military offences which would not be regarded with any degree of seriousness in civilian life.
There should be a reception centre to which those who are sentenced to detention should be sent, and they should 'remain there for not more than 14 days. While they are there, the commandant and staff, basing their decision not only upon the crime for which the soldier has been sentenced on that occasion but also upon his previous record, should decide whether he should serve his sentence in a corrective training battalion or in the military prison at Shepton Mallet. During the 14 days there would be little danger of evil contact or influence, and I consider that the time would be sufficient for the commandant to obtain a proper appreciation of the individual problem of the soldier.
The corrective training establishment should be regarded as a training unit in the normal sense of the term, and the soldier going there should undergo an intensive course of military and educational training under hard conditions but without the environment and atmosphere of a prison, which exists in the Military Corrective Establishment at Colchester despite its name.
The Secretary of State and his advisers should consider whether it is not time to

2241
introduce into the Army Act a new form of punishment called corrective training which would be distinct from the existing punishment of detention. I suggest that no soldier, airman or marine who is sentenced to 28 days' detention or less should go to the corrective establishment. My view upon that is borne out by the advice of a number of senior officers who have experience of the subject.
I recommend to my right hon. Friend that some reorganisation should take place in the Military Provost Staff Corps because I am certain that the whole problem can be solved ultimately only if the officers and men dealing with the matter are of the best quality obtainable and are able to maintain in a small, rather isolated corps a high standard of morale and esprit de corps. I suggest that some of the pre-war privileges should be restored to the Corps, that very great care should be taken in the selection of the officers, warrant officers and sergeants who are to form part of it and that the office of Inspector of Military Prisons, combined, I suggest, with that of Commandant of the M.P.S.C., should be restored in order to make them feel that they have somebody in high quarters at the War Office who has a special task of looking after the interests of what, as I have said, is a small Corps.
I suggest to my hon. Friend that the part which the padres and the educational staff can play in dealing with this problem is extremely valuable and useful. Every facility should be given to the padre, whether Church of England or any other denomination, to carry out their work, as they are most likely to produce the sort of results we all wish to see. Finally, I believe that although I am speaking now of a problem relatively minor in scope, it is a major problem in significance to the Army in so far as the Military Corrective Establishment at Colchester serves the whole of the Army in the United Kingdom and everybody knows of its existence by good repute, or by ill. It is, therefore, vital to the Army that that repute should be as good as possible for an Establishment of that sort.
10.17 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Fitzroy Maclean): First, I should like to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) for the interest which he has
2242
shown in this problem and for the trouble which he has taken to investigate. The problem, as his own speech has shown, is by no means a simple one, and we certainly welcome the constructive suggestions which he made on his return from his visit to the M.C.E. at Colchester and the further suggestions he has made in his speech.
Perhaps I might mention at the start, as a matter of history, that the present system which we have in these corrective establishments arose from the Prime Minister's Committee of Inquiry, which was set up under Mr. Justice Oliver in 1943. Therefore, it is not in its origin a purely military system. Since that Committee, which consisted of Mr. Justice Oliver and two other distinguished experts in these matters, was set up, we have had the benefit of a number of visits to these establishments by distinguished civilians, and we keep in touch with the latest thought on prison matters and kindred problems.
When I recently visited the M.C.E. at Colchester, I was lucky to be able to take with me the Director of Prison Administration, and he has been able to give us some very useful advice. I am glad to say that his impression was favourable, and that he felt, I think, that the Army makes a pretty good job of these difficult problems, which it has to face in common with the civil authorities.
It has been suggested that there should be a fresh inquiry into the whole problem. If I thought that necessary, I would certainly strongly support it, but having had a good look into this question I do not feel that such an inquiry is necessary at the present time, although I emphasise that our attitude in this matter is receptive, and we are very glad to have the benefit of fresh minds, such as that of my hon. Friend, turned upon it.
My hon. Friend mentioned the possibility of reorganising the establishment at Colchester. In particular he suggested that there should be a separate reception centre to which soldiers under sentence would be admitted and in which they would spend fourteen days. That, of course, would mean more accommodation and more staff, both of which are in short supply. I would remind my hon. Friend that we already have a separate reception building through which all new arrivals pass, and also that on arrival

2243
every soldier under sentence is interviewed carefully by a senior officer in order that some opinion may be formed of his background and the reasons which have brought him there.
Both at that stage and later the Commandant has wide powers to segregate the different types, and to keep what might be termed the "misfits" apart from the hardened criminals; and also to send men away to the military prison at Shepton Mallet. Here I would emphasise the distinction between a military prison, which is primarily for men who will be discharged from the Army on the completion of their sentence, and this military corrective establishment from which men will be sent back to their units, having been made into better soldiers.
It is for that reason that the M.C.E. at Colchester is divided into different wings, A Wing and B Wing. A Wing is for the new arrivals and for the hardened cases. B Wing, which is divided into the first, second and third stages, is where a man who tries can graduate from something which is more like A Wing to stage three, which comes very near to the conditions of an ordinary unit.
The virtue of that system is that it ensures so far as possible under existing circumstances—and it is true that it would be better if we had better buildings—that hardened criminals are segregated from men who have come there simply because they are misfits and cannot get used to Army life. It also enables a man to work his passage and earn better conditions of service by good conduct. We believe that, with certain exceptions—and we admit that there are exceptions—it leaves the man a better soldier than when he first enters the M.C.E.
My hon. Friend mentioned escapes, and said that the local residents were disturbed at the idea of being attacked in their homes by hardened criminals, and by the knowledge that such hardened criminals might be at liberty. I do not think that that is likely to happen. The hardened criminal generally goes to the military prison at Shepton Mallet and not to the M.C.E. Such hard cases as are there are very closely guarded.
Mr. Alport: That may be the case, but my hon. Friend will recollect that among those who escaped recently was
2244
one whom I am informed had the character of a gunman from New York, and had an extremely bad record in the Bowery; and that more than one of the soldiers who escaped has now, I understand, been subjected to a civilian sentence.
Mr. Maclean: Yes, I think that there are certain exceptions, but I was speaking generally, and I hope I am right in saying that, as a rule, my hon. Friend's constituents have not really very much to fear from that kind of thing.
Similarly, my hon. Friend mentioned bullying. Here, again, everything is done to prevent bullying. I satisfied myself when I went there that that was the case, and if any cases of bullying come to the notice of the authonities, very severe sanctions are imposed. Any cases that there are of bullying are, I think, very much the exception.
My hon. Friend had some interesting things to say about training methods. He suggested that there should be a new grade called "corrective training," but I think that it would be difficult to introduce any further gradations into the system because when men have reached stage 3 of B Wing they are really living and serving under very much the same conditions as they would be in an ordinary unit. As soon as they are suitable they are moved on.
I have an idea that when my hon. Friend went there he thought that there was rather too much drill and weapon training, that the balance was too much in favour of those things, and that there were not, perhaps, quite enough occupational and educational facilities. But, of course, our object, as I said earlier, is to make better soldiers of these men, and I think that to a large extent we succeed in doing that. On the other hand, I agree that the occupational and educational side of the training is very important, and while the present facilities are good—I went into that particularly carefully—I think that there is room for improvement. In this establishment we are seeing what we can do in the way of giving better facilities for men to learn something about mechanical engineering, carpentry and other such things. We already have a good library.
My hon. Friend mentioned religion. There, again, we fully realise the importance of that, and there are

2245
already "Padre hours." My hon. Friend made what I thought was one very good suggestion, which was that the chaplain should, if he cares to do so wear civilan clothes when on duty. That we have accepted, and I think that it will make the padre's job easier.
We are also aiming at having an educational officer. The task of the Military Provost Staff Corps is obviously not an easy one. I think there is no doubt that it would be an improvement if the two functions of the Provost-Marshal, that of Provost-Marshal and Commandant of the Corps, and his function as Inspector of Prisons could be separated. We are looking into that matter urgently to see if we can restore the old arrangement which was done away with as a measure of retrenchment soon after the war.
I mentioned the question of accommodation. I do not think that the
2246
present accommodation is ideal, but, unfortunately, like so many other things it has to take its turn in our programme of barrack development. However, that aspect is certainly being watched.
I hope that what I have said will have given hon. Members some idea of the lines on which we are working. As I have indicated, our aim is rehabilitation and correction rather than punishment. It is not a simple problem, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and for that reason we welcome visits from hon. Members or from others who are interested in prison matters.
The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.

EMPLOYMENT
  Health, Welfare and Safety (Gowers Report)
  Health, Welfare and Safety (Gowers Report)
  Industrial Disputes (Lost Working Days)
  Industrial Disputes (Lost Working Days)
  Remploy, Limited
  Remploy, Limited
  Building Operations (Accidents and Factory Inspectors)
  Building Operations (Accidents and Factory Inspectors)
  Disabled Persons
  Disabled Persons
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Foreign Husbands (United Kingdom Residence)
  Foreign Husbands (United Kingdom Residence)
  Capital Punishment
  Capital Punishment
  Surface Air-Raid Shelters
  Surface Air-Raid Shelters
  Prisoners (Letters to Members)
  Prisoners (Letters to Members)
  Murder Trial (Statement)
  Murder Trial (Statement)
  British Subjects (Passports)
  British Subjects (Passports)
  Metropolitan Police (Motor Cycle Escorts)
  Metropolitan Police (Motor Cycle Escorts)
WALES
  Council for Wales and Monmouthshire
  Council for Wales and Monmouthshire
EDUCATION
  Adult Residential College Students (Awards)
  Adult Residential College Students (Awards)
  College Students
  College Students
  Advanced Work Allowances (Capitation Grant)
  Advanced Work Allowances (Capitation Grant)
  Over-size Classes
  Over-size Classes
  School Building Programmes (Minor Projects)
  School Building Programmes (Minor Projects)
  Technical Education Projects
  Technical Education Projects
  "Enterprise Unlimited"
  "Enterprise Unlimited"
COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS
  Shipping Freight Rates, Australia
  Shipping Freight Rates, Australia
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Monopolies Commission (Report)
  Monopolies Commission (Report)
  Roumanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian Assets (Distribution)
  Roumanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian Assets (Distribution)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Warble Fly (Cattle Dressing)
  Warble Fly (Cattle Dressing)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Hospitals (Employment of Students)
  Hospitals (Employment of Students)
  Pharmacists (Salaries)
  Pharmacists (Salaries)
  Hospital Pay Beds (Allocation)
  Hospital Pay Beds (Allocation)
FUEL AND POWER
  Domestic Solid-Fuel Appliances
  Domestic Solid-Fuel Appliances
  NORTHERN RHODESIA (AFRICAN HOUSING)
  NORTHERN RHODESIA (AFRICAN HOUSING)
HOUSING, SCOTLAND
  Water Supplies and Sanitation, Ross and Cromarty
  Water Supplies and Sanitation, Ross and Cromarty
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER
  Westminster Hall (Commonwealth and Empire Law Conference)
  Westminster Hall (Commonwealth and Empire Law Conference)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Service and Civil Service Pensioners
  Service and Civil Service Pensioners
Preamble
The House met at two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
2.5 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House what is to be done about the Business of the House to-day? Some of us are bidden to a function, and, indeed, bidden to a particular place at the function at 5 o'clock. It is going to be almost impossible, I think, to get back here at 5.45. Would it not be better, therefore, if we do have to come back—of course, if we could finish the business before we depart for the function I have mentioned so that we should not have to come back, that is a consummation devoutly to be wished—that we should come back, say, at 6.15, instead of 5.45. I do not see how we can get back at 5.45.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (VISCOUNT WOOLTON): My Lords, would 6 o'clock meet your Lordships' convenience?
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, in reply to the noble and learned Earl may I say that, if your Lordships have to come back at all, I think it would be convenient that we should come back at 6 o'clock rather than at 5.45. We still hope that it may not be necessary to come back.
EARL JOWITT: I am much obliged; that is something, at any rate.

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a.
STOCK EXCHANGE CLERKS' PENSION FUND BILL
Read 2a.

KENT WATER BILL
2.7 p.m.
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, the Amendments which I have to move to the Bill are all the Amendments on the Marshalled List apart from those which stand in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham. I cannot say that all the Amendments which I am moving on behalf of the promoters of the Bill are purely drafting Amendments, but I can assure your Lordships that none of them is of much substance. They are not controversial, and, they are, in fact, agreed to by everyone concerned. I am, of course, prepared to go through the different Amendments and point out those which are slightly more than drafting Amendments, but in view of the other business on the Order Paper I feel that the House might wish me to move these Amendments en bloc; that is 10 say, to move all the Amendments standing in my name up to Part VII of the Bill. Later, when Lord Teynham's Amendments have been considered—and I think the House might wish to take those Amendments all together—I should move en bloc the rest of my Amendments. If, therefore, the House will allow me to do so I will move that Amendments Nos. 1 to 18 on the Marshalled List be agreed to.
Amendments moved—
Clause 4, page 5, line 5, leave out lines 5 and 6.
Page 6, line 37, after ("undertaking") insert ("transferred by this Act")
Clause 10, page 10, line 37, at end insert ("or so soon thereafter as they are appointed")
Clause 11, page 11, 1ine 47, after "undertaking") insert ("or part thereof")
Clause 23, page 18, line 21, leave out ("or") and insert ("and")
Clause 23, page 18, line 37, after ("undertaking") insert ("not defrayed from loan moneys")
Clause 25, page 20, line 43, leave out ("or stock") and leave out the third ("or")
Clause 25, page 20, Line 44, leave out ("stock")
Page 21, line 12, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 29, page 25, line 28, leave out ("arid")
Clause 29, page 25, line 28, after ("Peckham") insert ("arid Wrotham")
Clause 30, page 26, line 46, at end insert—
("(5) In their application to the officers and servants of the Cranbrook Company section 152 (Transfers of officers) and section 154 (Superannuation and pensions) of this Act shall have effect as if for the first day of January nineteen hundred and fifty-six there were substituted the first day of July nineteen hundred and fifty-five.")
Clause 39, page 30, line 43, after ("undertaking") insert ("or part thereof")
Clause 47, page 33, line 18, after ("undertaking") insert ("not defrayed from loan moneys")
Clause 48, page 33, line 44, after ("1930") insert ("as modified by the said Order of 1950")
Clause 49, page 34, line 31, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 49, page 34, Line 32, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 49, Page 35, line 16, leave out ("VII") and insert ("VI").—(The Earl of Drogheda.
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
LORD TEYNHAM LORD TEYNHAM had given notice of Amendments to leave out Clauses 51, 52, 53, 54 and 55, and in Clause 70, to leave out:
"and
(b) the parishes of Bobbing Iwade Lower Halstow and Newington in the rural district of Swale."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the permission of the House I should like to speak to my Amendments relating to Clauses 51 to 57 inclusive which comprise Part VII of the Water Bill and refer to the Medway area. At the same time I should like to speak also to my Amendment to Clause 70, which is consequential, in order to complete the area contained in the Chatham and District Water Company's original Bill. I wish to make it clear at the outset that I have no objection to the Kent Water Bill as a whole. My objection is only to the method proposed to be adopted in the Medway area for the amalgamation of the water units.
Many of your Lordships will no doubt recall the debate which took place on the Second Reading of the Bill. I then ventured to draw attention to the policy proposed for the Medway area which was in fact different from that for any other area. The method of amalgamation adopted by the promoters of the Bill in all areas except the Medway area has been to amalgamate small units around the principal undertakings. The largest undertaking in the Medway area is the Chatham and District Water Company; in fact 98 per cent. of the Medway area
764
water supply is company-administered and only 2 per cent. administered by local authorities. In the case of the Medway area the Bill proposes to form a water board, in spite of the fact that the largest undertaking is company-administered.
This Bill has no doubt been very carefully considered by the Select Committee to whom the Bill was referred before it reached the Floor of your Lordships' House. The Select Committee could, of course, have either amended the Bill so as to maintain company-administration in the Medway area or left it as it was, which would mean the establishment of a water board. The Select Committee, in their wisdom, chose to leave the Bill in its present state, for which, no doubt, they had very good reason. I am going to suggest that counsel for the promoters of the Bill in fact misled the Select Committee—no doubt inadvertently—by implying that the setting up of a joint board was the policy of Her Majesty's Government. On page 333, at paragraph 2 of the Minutes of Evidence of February 24 of this year, counsel for the promoters of the Bill used these words, which, with the permission of the House, I will read:
"I press upon your Lordships that the joint board idea—always our proposal—is a good idea. It is the modern trend. It is the course you might expect when you are constituting an area from four separate units —an area containing a quarter of a million people, a busy industrial area. The Minister, since the House of Commons decided the point from their aspect, has twice testified to the value of joint boards—once before the British Waterworks Association in July, 1954, and again a Minister spoke in favour of joint boards—in the House of Commons—in connection with water undertakings."
I think it cannot be denied that this statement implies that the Minister of Housing and Local Government was in fact in favour of joint boards. But a little earlier, on December 22, 1954, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, during a debate in another place on national water supplies and with particular reference to the Kent Water Bill, used these words [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 535, col. 2838]:
"I differ from my honourable friend in thinking that perhaps the best way, within the framework of local government, may be the joint board…"
Again, at a meeting of the Water Companies' Association at the Ministry of

765
Housing and Local Government on May 4 this year, the Parliamentary Secretary said that he wished to emphasise that it was not the policy of his Department to favour water boards at the expense of the companies. In reply to a statement from the President of the Water Companies' Association that it seemed from what had been said in Parliament on the Kent Water Bill that the Government had the intention of replacing the companies by boards wherever possible, the Parliamentary Secretary replied that he wished to reiterate his assurance that this was not Government policy, and he expressed regret that Government statements should have been interpreted in this way. I maintain that these Ministerial assurances are quite different from the views put forward by counsel for the promoters of the Bill. For the reasons I have given, I beg to move my Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clauses 51, 52, 53. 54 and 55.—(Lord Teynham.)
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, perhaps I should say a word on the procedural aspect of the matter. Of course, it is the absolute and undoubted right of every Member in your Lordships' House to propose an Amendment to any Bill on its Third Reading, whether it be a Public or a Private Bill. However, it is a right that is rarely exercised so far as Private Bills are concerned, and I have not been able to find many analogous cases. The last case I have been able to find is the Adelphi Estate Bill, 1933, when the Motion for the Third Reading of the Bill was challenged but later agreed to by the House. Lord Onslow, then Chairman of Committees, said at the end of his speech on that occasion [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 88, col. 151]:
"I do not think there has been a Bill rejected"—
he might, indeed, have added "or substantially amended"—
"on Third Reading after its consideration by a Select Committee, but of course it is open to the House, if it wish, to do so."
There have been a few other cases, and I should like to mention the London County Council (Spitalfields Market) Bill, 1900, a Bill which originated in the Commons and passed that House. In the Lords Committee the promoters of the Bill opened their case and called evidence. Counsel for the petitioners, the City of
766
London, then made a speech, but called no evidence. The Committee decided against the Bill. Lord Monkswell, a member of the L.C.C., moved to recommit the Bill. The Chairman of Committees, Lord Morley, said during his speech [OFFICIAL REPORT, July 10, 1900, col 1092]:
"To recommit a Bill which has been carefully considered by a Private Bill Committee is a very rare and most unusual step to take. I remember no case in which it has been I taken except where it is alleged that the Committee had refused to hear evidence either or against the Bill. I think your Lordships must give the Committee, which was an experienced Committee, and their Chairman, who is a very experienced Chairman, credit for being able to take the statements of counsel at what they are worth."
At the end of the debate Lord Monkswell withdrew his Motion.
It seems to me that everything that Lord Morley then said is equally true of this Bill. The Committee which considered it were an experienced Committee and their Chairman a very experienced Chairman. Nor should it be forgotten that Parts VII and VIII of the Bill were brought to the Committee's special attention by the debate which took place in your Lordships' House on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, on Second Reading. The Committee, I am told, took over four days to discuss these two Parts, and I am quite sure that they could estimate the statements of counsel "at what they are worth."
As to the wisdom of the Committee's decision I can say nothing, for I do not know nearly enough about the facts of the case. As Ii see it, however, the House can accept these Amendments only if it makes two assumptions: first, that the Committee, after hearing witnesses and considering Parts VII and VIII of the Bill for a long time, came to a wrong decision; and secondly, that this House is more likely to reach the proper decision after a debate of perhaps no great length and hearing no witnesses. If we decide to make these two assumptions, I myself think that we shall be breaking new and very difficult ground.
2.20 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I know nothing about this Bill; I know only in the broadest possible outline what it is, and have no sort of interest in it one way or the other. But I have had considerable experience, both in your Lordships' House and as counsel at the Bar,

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arguing matters before your Lordships' Committees. I think the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, is absolutely right to move these Amendments—there is no doubt about that: it is only a question of whether it is wise that we should agree to them. I venture to think that if we did we should deal a considerable blow at our procedure on Private Bills Committee. After all, we have an elaborate procedure. We send the Bill to a Select Committee of the House because the House is not physically capable of hearing all the arguments and evidence. The Select Committee have the whole case expounded to them by statements from counsel, though the statements, of course, are of value only in so far as they are supported by the evidence and by witnesses, who are examined and cross-examined.
The discussion on this Bill in Committee took something like twenty-eight days, and these particular clauses took four days. I am certain that the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, meant to be absolutely fair in what he said, but it was inevitable that it should be an ex parte statement—he will not mind my saying that—made in the course of a few minutes. On the strength of that, are we to overrule what our Committee have done after hearing this matter for days, after considering the evidence and so on? If we do so in this case, I would ask your Lordships to consider what is the future of the procedure of the House of Lords Committees. What is the good of people incurring great expense—as I know they did (I am glad to say) in the old days, and as they do to-day—in instructing counsel, calling witnesses to give evidence and having their case judicially considered, if, when we get through the Committee of the House of Lords, some noble Lord, as he is perfectly entitled to do, moves that we disagree with the consideration of the Committee, when we cannot know what the consideration of the Committee was and have not had time to devote ourselves to it? I think that would be most unfortunate. I can tell your Lordships, from the point of view of the Bar, that we always had the highest regard for the Committees of your Lordships' House; we always felt that if we went to a Committee of this House we had a fair deal and a fair hearing.
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I beg your Lordships, in this changing and shifting world, not to do anything which by a side wind might destroy public confidence in the Committees of this House. If your Lordships were to overrule your Committee, on the strength of half an hour's discussion by a noble Lord who does not pretend to be judicial in this matter—he has a view, of course, to which he is entitled—I venture to think that it would deal a death blow to our whole system of Private Bill procedure. I know that this Bill has been considered by a Committee of this House, and I venture to think that we ought to stand by the Committee, which has given it great consideration and gone through it with care, and come to a conclusion, be it right or wrong, after hearing the evidence of those people they desired to hear. Therefore, I support the Lord Chairman most sincerely in the observations he has made.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, that is an astounding statement from the noble and learned Earl, the Leader of the Opposition: that we in this House, after a Select Committee arrive at conclusions, merely make ourselves "rubber stamps" and do everything they want us to do without in any way questioning the reasons why they have done it. That is what has drawn me to my feet. Like the noble and learned Earl. I know nothing about this Bill, but I have been written to by those who do, and I want to ask one or two questions of the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman of Committees, or whoever on the Government Front Bench is to reply. First of all. it seems to me that, in this particular interest with regard to the Medway area, there is a different procedure from that obtaining in the other areas of Kent. I believe that over 90 per cent. of the water supplies are administered by the Chatham undertaking. Why is it that the procedure here is totally different from what it is in the other parts of Kent? It seems to me that what is being done is taking this responsibility away from private enterprise—it is no good scowling about this —and taking a step towards socialising this particular undertaking. Why should it not be left in the condition which applies to other undertakings on a big scale in that area? I should like to know why the Chatham Water Company is treated differently.

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I do not want to be controversial and I do not want to be rude to the Opposition, but I feel the greatest concern about removing any industry which is functioning properly and adequately from that condition of private enterprise into anything that can possibly be construed as towards nationalisation. We have had experience of nationalisation. We know perfectly well that the result of it is higher prices and larger staffs, and, in my view, where nationalisation has taken place the consumer has not received as good service as in the past under private enterprise. I have had personal experience of this—not in Kent, but in another area of the country—and I can assure your Lordships that there is a great danger. I am certain that the noble and learned Earl opposite is quite right in saying that the members of the Committee are men of the greatest ability, but I should like to know why they have altered their procedure in regard to this particular area. To me it strikes at a major principle of the policy of the Government and noble Lords on this side of the House. I hope that what I might call my erstwhile colleagues on the Liberal Benches will support me in this view. This seems to me to be in direct opposition to private enterprise, and something which we should deal with now, and not wait until it creeps in on various other questions of the same nature. I do not agree with the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, that, because the Bill has 'Seen before a Select Committee, we have blindly to accept their decisions. We are perfectly entitled, as the noble and learned Earl said, to raise any question that we want to raise without in any way upsetting the general conduct of the affairs of the House.
2.30 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, no-one would be more surprised than the Select Committee themselves to be told that they have been considering this question on the basis of whether they are in favour of nationalisation or not: I am sure that it was the last thing they had in their minds.
LORD TEVIOT: The noble Lord must not say that. So far as I am concerned, I did not say that they had. What I said was that it was my view of what had taken place.
LORD SILKIN: Furthermore, the case as put by the noble Lard, Lord Teynham
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had nothing to do with the merits of this particular question. He was putting it simply and solely on the basis that the Committee had been misled, advertently or inadvertently, by learned counsel when they had accepted learned counsel's statement. Then he went on to say that on such evidence as was available the learned counsel's statement was wrong. For my part, I am quite content that the House should decide this question on the case the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, put to the House: Were the Committee in fact misled by learned counsel for the promoters?
I have had some experience of litigation, and in all litigation counsel for one side and counsel for the other make statements which are not always accurate. But it does not follow that, because counsel on one side or the other made a statement which turned out to be inaccurate, the Committee decided on the basis of that statement. There may men have been contrary statements by the counsel for the objectors, establishing that the statement of counsel for the promoters was inaccurate. Therefore, I would prefer to assume that, in the four days which they devoted to this part of the Bill, this experienced Select Committee considered it carefully and attached the right weight to the statements that were made in front of them and to the evidence that they received.
But when we come to the next point, whether the statement was inaccurate, what evidence has this House that it was inaccurate? We do not know.
LORD TEYNHAM: If the noble Lord will forgive me interrupting, I have already given him in my speech certain evidence showing how it was inaccurate.
LORD SILKIN: I was about to deal with the evidence that the noble Lord put before us and to ask whether we ought to accept that as justifying a reversal of the decision of the Select Committee. What was the evidence he put before us? He said that counsel for the promoters had attributed certain statements of policy to the Minister. He then went on to say that this was incorrect because the Parliamentary Secretary appeared to have made other statements. Speaking with some experience of these matters, it would not be the first time that the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister spoke with different voices. It

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does not in the least follow that, because the Parliamentary Secretary made certain statements on certain occasions, the Minister did not make other statements on other occasions. I would rather rest the case on the fact that I would trust the Select Committee to assess these statements that were made at their true value; that they had spent four days in putting a proper evaluation on the speeches of counsel and on the evidence, and that they arrived at a reasonable conclusion. That conclusion may be what some noble Lords like, or what they dislike. Clearly the noble Lord who dislikes the decision was entitled to say so. But let us remember that this was a judicial decision, and that we ought not lightly to upset it. Indeed, while I do not suggest that we should never upset a decision of this kind, it should be done only for such reason as the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, wisely put before us—namely, that the Committee had been misled on material questions and therefore went wrong. Frankly, I can find no justification for this allegation and, looking at the matter as objectively as I can, I feel we should be wise to support the Select Committee.
2.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, having gone as far as we have on this matter, I think we ought to get some arguments to put against those put forward by my noble friend Lord Teynham. I know nothing about the arrangements in Kent, but I want to say one word about this matter because it is a principle which might apply to other Bills elsewhere. I should be the last to say that, in certain cases and in particular areas, a board of some kind, or an undertaking owned by a local authority, is not the best thing. But I should not like it to be thought that it was the Government's policy, or indeed the policy throughout the country, that in every case of the reorganising of water supplies a public board is the best thing.
Furthermore, having decided that public ownership of a certain section of water supply is in any particular case the best thing, I think your Lordships will find that there are many people, particularly those connected with local government, who have a strong objection to an organisation of the type which is known
772
as a joint board. The Board proposed here has, I see, members from eight different constituent councils. Those members on the joint Board are never the elected representatives; they are always appointed by their fellow members of other councils. I am sure that many members of your Lordships' House will have had experience of working a set-up of this kind which is composed of members of so many different councils.
I should not venture to argue the case on the merits of whether or not a Select Committee should be contradicted by this House, but I have always understood that we could make Amendments on Third Reading of Bills here. I should be glad to know the reasons why it has been stated by, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, that this was a judicial decision. I understood it to be a decision by a Committee of the House on the facts of the case and one of policy as to what was the best thing to do in this part of the County of Kent. I feel that, having gone as far as we have, my noble friend's point should be answered by facts. Those of us who are doubtful about this matter would no doubt be persuaded if we could be shown that the arrangement which is proposed was the best thing. On the other hand, perhaps our minds would be set at rest if we were told that there was no fixed policy by the Government or local authorities in general in favour of joint water boards all over the country. It is on those grounds that I feel we should have some statement.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, to a large degree the high reputation which your Lordships' House justly enjoys in the country is due to the work of its Private Bill Committees. The only relevant ground for your Lordships' over-setting a decision and a finding of one of your own appointed Committees would be if some entirely new fact emerged in the interval between the publication of the Report of the Committee proceedings and the Third Reading of the Bill in your Lordships' House. My noble friend Lord Teynham alleges nothing of the kind. Everything that he has put forward has been before this Committee—and this is the Committee which your Lordships appointed to deal with it. They have heard witnesses; they have heard counsel, and they have come to their decision. They have made a Report and

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a recommendation to your Lordships. If we were now to overset that, it appears to me that a great deal of what the noble and learned Earl who leads the Opposition has said would come to pass, and we should strike a blow at the reputation which we deservedly enjoy in the country.
There are many noble Lords opposite —there were more when we first entered the House this afternoon—who have sat with me upon these Private Bill Committees, and I can recall no case on any occasion where political principles entered into the questions that were before the Committee. They were always decided on the evidence and on the arguments of counsel in a resolutely objective manner. I should he very sorry if, in my time in this House, your Lordships were to break the rule which has been so wisely adopted by your Lordships in the past, and recommended to us by the Lord Chairman.
2.40 p.m.
LORD CORNWALLIS: My Lords, I hope I shall have to say little more than I said on the Second Reading. The noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said that he did not know Kent and therefore could not assess the merits of the case one way or the other. Well, I do know Kent, and the first thing I want to say is that this area has not been treated differently from any other area in the county. The negotiations which preceded the introduction of this Bill started in 1948, and in 1951 the local authorities and boroughs and everyone else concerned were brought into consultation with the Kent County Council. So it went on till 1953. And the sole reason why it is now suggested that this particular area should go under a joint hoard is that, after years of deliberation and months of careful study, and. I may say, foray-five days of consideration by two Select Committees, in another place and in this House, it has been considered that that particular area's needs will be served best by a joint board.
LORD TEYNHAM: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I have never heard from the Kent County Council that they had ever objected in any way to any lack of efficiency in the Chatham area.
LORD CORNWALLTS: I did not quite say that, and hope that I shall not have to; but I can give some
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evidence, if necessary, which naturally I do not want to do. May I tell the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, that, when amalgamation was first thought of and discussions had been going some time, and when it was quite obvious that this particular area could not supply its own needs (and, incidentally, the Chatham Water Company have had to tell two of the largest industrial undertakings who have gone to that area that they cannot supply their needs), when that amalgamation question was being deliberated in every possible way, the Chatham Water Company wrote to the County Council to say they did not consider it desirable or necessary to carry out the amalgamations to the extent proposed by the County Council. The company were not willing to assist the County Council in arriving at a decision by supplying fact aid information about their affairs and, furthermore, were of the opinion that the water requirements of the area were adequately served.
We have already reached the stage where those water supplies are not adequate, and therefore the area must be considerably enlarged. It may even be necessary to go outside that area to get water. People who do not know Kent do not perhaps realise that it is bounded on three sides by the sea, and that we have to provide all our own water and cannot go to other watersheds and other places to obtain supplies. I hope that this House will follow the judgment of its Select Committee. What I asked your Lordships on Second Reading was that the Chatham Bill, the Sevenoaks Bill, the Tonbridge Bill and the Kent Bill, and every other Bill dealing with water supplies in the county should be considered by the same Select Committee, who would hear all the evidence—and, I may say, the evidence of Chatham was particularly heard. I believe that five and a half days —certainly more than four—were spent on this particular area and sub-area, and a unanimous conclusion was reached. I can only tell your Lordships that, if Lord Teynham's Amendments are carried, it will make a complete mess of the Bill and I do not know quite what will happen. Therefore, I ask the House in this case to support, not a Socialist measure (I dislike the idea of politics being brought into the matter) but a step which has been approved by those who were the elected representatives of the ratepayers on the

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County Council. For when a resolution supporting Chatham was put to the County Council—a predominantly Conservative County Council, not Socialist—it was defeated by eighty votes to five. I cannot think that we ought now, at this stage, to vote against the decisions of two Select Committees and the considered judgment of the head local authority that looks after the county's affairs.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I have here the Minister's report on this Bill. I will not weary your Lordships with reading the whole of it, but it includes this statement:
"…the promoters of the Bill have considered the desirability of designating the Chatham Company as the responsible undertakers for the Medway area, rather than a joint board of local authorities. The Minister is not aware of any reason why either of these alternative forms of reorganisation should not give a satisfactory service to consumers."
I am immensely impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Cornwallis, has just said, but I am also very much impressed by the Minister's statement.
LORD CORNWALLIS: My Lords, I can only answer the noble Lord by saying that company administration, board administration and every other form of administration was discussed and thought about for months and months.
2.46 p.m.
LORD BURDEN: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will allow just one word or two from these Benches. I listened carefully to the evidence which the noble Lord. Lord Teynham, submitted, in which he said that the Committee had been misled. Frankly, I do not think the words that the noble Lord read out in any way imply that the Government were in favour of these specific proposals; nor could any reasonable body of men infer from what was said by counsel that that was the Government's position. The noble Lord, Lord Teynham, bases his case against these clauses on the suggestion that it is a question of nationalisation. If this is nationalisation, then the setting up of the Metropolitan Water Board was nationalisation; every undertaking by a local authority is nationalisation. There are many forms of boards in this country between various local authorities for specific purposes. I want to suggest to your Lordships that
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this question ought to be judged on its merits. Obviously, one cannot be conversant with all the details, but we have heard from the noble Lord who has just spoken that a predominantly Conservative County Council, knowing the facts of local government, were overwhelmingly in favour of the proposals of this Bill. Therefore, it would be a case of turning down the considered labours not only of our own Select Committee, which went into the pros and cons of the matter with the utmost care, but also of a Private Bill Committee of another place. If Lord Teynham's Amendments were carried, it would not be a blow for private enterprise; it would be a blow at sane and decent local government in Kent.
2.49 p.m.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF MUNSTER): My Lords, I think it would be appropriate if I rose at this stage of our discussions on these important Amendments to give the House some indication of the views which Her Majesty's Government hold on this matter. I agree that the proposal of the noble Lord that we should discuss all his Amendments together is the right one in these circumstances, because they all hang together, and the decision which your Lordships may take on the first one would, of course, apply to all the others as well. My noble friend who moved the first of his Amendments asks the House to delete a large number of clauses in Parts VII and VIII of the Kent Water Bill which deal, in particular, with the supply of water in the Medway and Sittingbourne areas. At the beginning of the discussion this afternoon, the House was fortunate to hear the views of the noble Earl, Lord Drogheda, who is Chairman of the Committees of this House and who, I venture to think, is very well qualified to speak on these subjects. He has suggested—and the Government fully concur—that it would in fact be most unusual to amend a Bill on Third Reading after it had been to a Committee upstairs.
This Bill has had a long and arduous journey through Parliament. Nevertheless, your Lordships, as is common practice on these Private Bills, decided to send it to a Committee upstairs, who spent no less than twenty-two days in considering its detail. Moreover, more than six days were spent in considering Parts VII and VIII of this

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Bill, and the Chatham Water Bill as well. After listening to all the arguments which were put forward by learned counsel on both sides, the Select Committee reached a unanimous decision to let the Kent Water Bill proceed but to recommend to your Lordships the rejection of the Chatham Water Bill. It is important to note that the decision which the Select Committee reached was similar to that reached in another place, where the Kent Water Bill was considered by a similar Committee for a period of twenty-three days. It is more than interesting to note that the Select Committees of both Houses sanctioned every conceivable kind of transfer, and neither House was apparently wedded to any particular form of undertaking.
After hearing all the evidence which was put before it, the Committee came to a unanimous decision and recommended that the Kent Water Bill should come before your Lordships' House for 'Third Reading. Here I venture to suggest that when a discussion takes place in your Lordships' House on decisions which have been reached by a Select Committee, it is not the duty, it is not the responsibility of—indeed it would be most unbecoming for—the Chairman of that Committee to have to defend his decision before your Lordships' Mouse. In the opinion of Her Majesty's Government it would be utterly wrong, although the House has the power and anyone is entitled to move an Amendment, to amend a measure which has been considered by a Select Committee. The noble Earl who leads the Opposition says that it would be a death blow to Select Committees. I would go even further and say that it would reduce the work of every Select Committee to a complete and utter farce, and the House might well find it difficult in the future to secure the services of any noble Lord to serve upon it. What would be the alternative? It would be for every Private Bill which is promoted in Parliament to be considered on the Floor of this House: and that, I venture to think, is a course which your Lordships would most emphatically reject.
My noble friend behind me, who moved his Amendment in the most brief and admirable manner, called in aid the observations of learned counsel for the promoters, and although I have no wish to enter into any detail, I should like to
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remind my noble friend that that was not the only evidence which the Committee heard on the Minister's views about the organisation in the Medway area. Indeed, the report made to Parliament by my right honourable friend on the Chatham Water Bill itself was read in full by learned counsel for the promoters of that Bill, and therefore the Select Committee was fully aware of the Minister's views, and it had the opportunity of considering this question in every possible detail. My only observation in reply to my noble friend Lord Teviot would be this. He asks why there was in the Medway area a different procedure from that in the other areas in Kent. I do not know. I have not read the evidence which was before the Select Committee for twenty-two clays; but I am prepared to accept the decison of that Committee, and I recommend that your Lordships as a whole should do likewise.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, I should like to be quite clear about this point. Is it a laid-down principle of this House and a matter of procedure, that once any question goes before a Select Committee of the House, we, as members of your Lordships' House, have no further responsibility at all with regard to that matter? Because that is what this means. I rose as a Back-Bencher merely to ask a question to elucidate some of my apparent misunderstandings. So far as I can make out, that is rather an improper thing to do, but I cannot see why. If a Bill is coming back to this House for final voting upon before passing into law, surely there is left to this House some responsibility, if we do not quite agree with or cannot quite understand the conclusions of a Select Committee and their reasons for arriving at those conclusions. I should like to know definitely whether we have any responsibility at all on the subject.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY): My Lords, this seems to be a point upon which the Leader of the House should give some guidance. I am sorry that I did not hear the earlier part of the discussion, but the point raised, by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, is a perfectly simple one: namely, has the House any interest—discretion is probably the right word—in this Bill once the Select. Committee has reported? The,

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answer is that the Select Committee is a Select Committee of the House, and the House is, as it were, the sovereign body in the matter. At the same time, if a Select Committee has reported, having given so many days of time to the most careful consideration of every point raised on this or any other Bill, then I should have thought there would have to be new and special considerations before the House decided to reverse a recommendation of that Committee. Otherwise, it seems to me it would knock a great hole in the whole system. The time of the whole House cannot be fully occupied with matters of this kind, and the House appoints a Committee to give special consideration to a Bill of this type. Once it has considered it, and reports to the House, if there are some special or new considerations it would, of course, be open to the House to take whatever action it thinks proper: but it would have to think most carefully before it reversed the recommendation of the Committee.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, in the first place I should like to deal with one or two points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cornwallis. I would say, as I said a few moments ago, that not even the promoters of the Bill, the Kent County Council, have had anything to say against the efficiency of company administration in the Medway area, until the noble Lord, Lord Cornwallis, suggested it in his speech, and I think in fact he gave no reasons why he thought they were inefficient. If my Amendments were to succeed there would be no difficulty in the supply of water, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Cornwallis, has said. The Chatham Water Company would again put forward this Bill for amalgamation under company structure. There is no difficulty whatsoever. The noble
Lord, Lord Silkin, said that I had not put forward sufficient evidence in the case. I should like to deal a little further with that. In the Report of the Minister of Housing and Local Government there appears this phrase:
"The proposal of the Kent County Council to replace the Chatham Companies undertaking and other undertakings in this area by a Joint Board is a departure from the general method which the Kent Bill seems to follow, the general method, with which the Minister is in broad agreement, of building the proposed new units around the principal undertaking in each area."
There, again, we have a reiteration of Government policy towards the amalgamation of water units.
I feel strongly about this matter. I have sat in your Lordships' House for some twenty years: I have been a member of a number of Select Committees as well as a chairman, and I have never yet seen a Private Bill reach the Floor of the House which is so contrary to the policy put forward by the Government of the day. There is no doubt whatever that the Water Companies' Association were assured, with particular reference to the Kent Water Bill, that the intention of Her Majesty's Government was not to replace companies by boards wherever possible; in fact, Her Majesty's Government expressed regret that statements should have been interpreted in that way. May I humbly suggest that it is the duty of this House carefully to scrutinise every Private Bill when it reaches the Floor of the House and amend it if there is reason to believe that a serious mistake has been made; and I maintain that, in this particular case, a mistake has been made. I beg to press the Amendment.
On Question, Whether the Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided:—
Contents 9 Not-Contents. 73.

CONTENTS

Goschen, V.

Birdwood, L.

Somers, L.

Long, V.

Ebbisham, L.

Teviot, L.

Ridley, V. [Teller.]

St. Levan, L.

Teynham, L. [Teller.]

NOT-CONTENTS

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Beauchamp, E.

Listowel, E.

Bessborough, E.

Lonsdale, E.

Salisbury, M. (L. President.)

De La Warr, E.

Lucan, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Fortescue, E. [Teller.]

Munster, E.

Reading, M.

Gosford, E.

Onslow, E. [Teller.]

Jowitt, E.

Radnor, E.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Lindsay, E.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

Lyle of Westbourne, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Denham, L.

Macphcrson of Drumochter, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Derwent, L.

Mancroft, L.

Gage, V.

Digby, L.

Merthyr, L.

Hall. V.

Fairfax of Cameron. L

Milner of Leeds, L.

Hereford, V.

Greenhill, L.

MonkBretton.L.

Hudson, V.

Haden-Guest, L.

Moyne, L.

Stansgate, V.

Hampton, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Woolton, V.

Harris, L.

Pethick-Lawrence, L.

Hawke, L.

Rea, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Henderson, L.

Rotherwick, L.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Hindtip, L.

Saltoun, L.

Baden-Powell, L.

Hylton, L.

Silkin, L.

Burden, L.

Jessel, L.

Sinha, L.

Carrington, L.

Kershaw, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Chesham, L.

Killearn, L.

Terrington, L.

Colgrain, L.

Lloyd, L.

Westwood, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Luke, L.

Winster, L.

Croft, L.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, with the permission of the House I will move en bloc the remainder of the Amendments standing in my name on the Marshalled List.
Amendments moved—
Clause 56, page 37, line 14, at end insert ("or so soon thereafter as they are appointed")
Clause 56, page 37, line 16, after ("Council") insert ("to be held")
Clause 57, page 37, line 38, leave out ("became") and insert ("become")
Clause 60, page 38, line 31, at end insert ("in the pound")
Clause 63, page 41, line 46, leave out ("Contribution") and nsert ("Contributions")
Clause 72, page 45, line 23, leave out ("that part of")
Clause 72, page 45, line 24, leave out ("which is situated within the limits of supply")
Clause 72, page 45, line 28, leave out ("of the said part")
Clause 72, page 45, line 36, leave out ("the said part of")
Clause 72, page 45, line 45, leave out ("Board") and insert ("Sittingbourne Council")
Clause 79, page 48, line 4, at beginning insert ("the")
Clause 83, page 48, line 40, at end insert ("or so soon thereafter as they are appointed")
Clause 83, page 49, line 2, after ("Council") insert ("to be held")
Clause 93, page 53, line 1, after ("thereof") insert ("not defrayed from loan moneys")
Clause 94, page 53, line 46, after ("water") insert ("by the Company")
Clause 95, page 54, line 12, leave out ("or stock") and leave out the third ("or")
Clause 95, page 54, line 13, leave out ("stock")
Clause 95, page 54, line 30, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 111, page 58, line 2, leave out ("the") and insert ("a")
Clause 123, page 63, line 7, after ("let") insert ("to those persons")
Clause 123, page 63, line 8, leave out ("for those purposes")
Clause 127, page 63, line 34, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 128, page 63, line 38, after ("stock") insert ("or shares")
Clause 128, page 63, line 40, after ("security") insert ("or the number of shares")
Clause 128, page 63, line 45, after ("money") insert ("shares")
page 64, line 3, after ("money") insert ("shares") and after ("has") insert ("or have")
Clause 131, page 64, line 24, leave out ("shares or stock") and insert ("or securities")
Clause 131, page 64, line 27, after ("mortgages") insert ("or")
Clause 131, page 64, line 28, leave out ("or other securities")
Clause 131, page 65, line 5, leave out ("stock") and insert ("securities")
Clause 131, page 65, line 7, after ("shares") insert ("mortgages")
Clause 131, page 65, line 11, leave out ("shares") and insert ("securities")
Clause 131, page 65, line 12, after ("shares") insert ("in the company and of mortgages and debenture stock of the company (hereinafter referred to as the holders')")
Clause 131, page 65, line 13, after("send") insert ("by post")
Clause 131, page 65, line 14, leave out ("shareholders of the company") and insert ("holders") and after ("their") insert ("last known or usual")
Clause 131, page 65, line 15, leave out ("shareholders") and insert ("the holders")
Clause 131, page 65, line 20, leave out lines 20 to 27 and insert—
("(b) the scheme shall be submitted to the meeting for approval:
Provided that unless the scheme is approved by holders representing not less than three-fourths in value of the shares mortgages or debenture stock of each class voting thereat in person or by proxy it shall be referred to an arbitrator to be

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appointed by the President of The Law Society who shall settle the scheme;
(c) the scheme approved at the meeting or if referred to an arbitrator settled by him shall be binding on all the holders.
(5) In this section the expression 'securities' means in relation to the holders of shares in a company or mortgages or debenture stock of a company whose undertaking is transferred to a board or a council the stock issued by that board or council under section 126 of this Act and in relation to the holders of shares in a company or mortgages or debenture stock of a company whose undertaking is transferred to another company the shares or debenture stock issued by that other company under section 127 of this Act.")
Clause 131, page 65, line 39, leave out ("stock") and insert ("securities")
Clause 131, page 65, line 41, leave out ("stock") and insert ("securities")
Clause 132, page 66, line 33, leave out ("stock and")
Clause 133, page 67, line 4, leave out ("or stock")
Clause 137, page 70, line 15, leave out ("is") and insert ("or shares is or are")
Clause 137, page 70, line 17, after ("stock") insert ("or dividends on such shares (as the case may be)")
Clause 140, page 71, line 7, leave out ("use") and after ("impound") insert ("use")
Clause 141, page 71, line 23, leave out ("Waterworks") and insert ("Water")
Clause 145, page 72, line 47, leave out ("may be") and insert ("were being")
Clause 154, page 78, line 47, after ("For") insert ("the")
Clause 162, page 81, line 35, leave out ("British") and insert ("Central")
Clause 163, page 82, line 7, leave out the first ("of")
Clause 164, page 82, line 20, at end insert— ("Section 49 (Inquiries by Ministers);
Section 50 (Power to revoke and vary orders);")
First Schedule, page 85, line 27, leave out ("Waterworks") and insert ("Water")
First Schedule, page 85, line 37, leave out ("(part of undertaking)")
Second Schedule, page 86, line 6, after ("year") insert ("after the year ending on the thirty-first day of March nineteen hundred and fifty-six")
Fourth Schedule, page 88, line 51, leave out ("1953") and insert ("1955")
Fourth Schedule, page 90, line 12, leave out ("1953") and insert ("1955")
Fourth Schedule, page 90, line 54, leave out ("1953") and insert ("1955")
Fourth Schedule, page 93, line 43, leave out ("1953") and insert ("1955")
Fourth Schedule, page 94, line 35, leave out ("Bay")
Fourth Schedule, page 94, line 36, leave out ("Bay")
Fourth Schedule, page 94, line 38, leave out line 38.
Fourth Schedule, page 94, line 39, after ("Waterworks") insert ("Company")
Fourth Schedule, page 94, line 44, leave out ("1922") and insert ("1902")
Page 95, leave out lines 1 to 5 and insert ("So much of section 7 (Limits of Act comprising the Gas and Water Districts) of the Canterbury Gas and Water Act, 1866 as describes the Water District ' and the following provisions of that Act (except so far as they relate to works for the supply of gas) namely").—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
THE EARL OF DROGHEDA: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

LEEWARD ISLANDS BILL [H.L.]
3.12 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Lloyd. I beg leave to introduce a Bill to constitute the Presidencies of the Leeward Islands separate colonies and to confer upon Her Majesty power to make, or to authorise the making of, emergency laws therefor and to establish courts therefor; to amend the West Indian Court of Appeal Act, 1919; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Earl Fortescue.)
On Question, Bill read 1a; and to be printed.

MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (COLNE VALLEY SEWERAGE BOARD) BILL
Read 2a (according to Order).

EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY BILL
3.14 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF READING): My Lords, your Lordships will remember that not very long ago —in fact, on December 21 last year—an Agreement was concluded, and reported to your Lordships at the time, concerning relation; between the United Kingdom and the European Coal and Steel Community. That Agreement provided for a close contact between these two parties and for discussion of matters of common interest between them. I think it was the case, both in another place and in your Lordships' House, that this Agreement was cordially welcomed on all sides.
We have had, in fact, for nearly three years past a delegation in Luxembourg, where, as your Lordships know, the headquarters of the European Coal and Steel Community is situated, and that delegation has been watching our interests and maintaining the necessary contacts with the High Authority which is the executive organ of the Community. Article 5 of the Agreement that I spoke about provides that meetings shall he held alternately at the seat of the High Authority in Luxembourg and, in London, of the Council of Association which is the body established under the Agreement to maintain contact between the two parties. In order to continue that contact between the dates of the meetings in London or Luxembourg, we shall maintain in Luxembourg a small permanent delegation and the High Authority will maintain a similar delegation in London. The short Bill which is before your Lordships is a Bill to confer, once more, certain immunities and privileges on the representatives in the United Kingdom of the High Authority and their staffs, under conditions to which I shall refer in a little more detail later on.
In the course of the protracted negotiations which preceded the conclusion of the Agreement, Her Majesty's Government accepted the view as being a reasonable one—and such, I think, it will appear to your Lordships to be—that the two delegations, the United Kingdom delegation in Luxembourg and the High
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Authority delegation in this country, should be treated alike from the point of view of the privileges and immunities accorded to each. In this case, it is not possible to use the procedure, with which your Lordships have become, possibly in your view excessively, familiar in the recent past, of proceeding by Order in Council to confer, with the assent of Parliament, certain privileges and immunities, because those Orders in Council owe their validity to, and spring from, the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) Act, 1950. But that Act applies only to organisations of which the United Kingdom is a member. The United Kingdom had accepted membership of several organisations of the kind which I brought to your Lordships' notice not very long ago, but the United Kingdom is not a member of the European Coal and Steel Community, and therefore a different procedure must necessarily be followed. The different procedure is the one which inevitably we have to adopt in this case, which is to proceed by virtue of an Act of Parliament.
I think it is also true to say—though it may be incidental to the general point—that the status and functions of the European Coal and. Steel Community delegation in London and ours in Luxembourg are perhaps rather different from those of the international organisations which we have recently been considering, and, indeed, approximate a good deal closer to the position and the functions of a diplomatic mission of a foreign sovereign Power.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, would it be a trading community at all? Would it make contracts?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: It does little more than set up this Council of Association, which is an organisation for discussion between the United Kingdom and the High Authority, and which reviews and discusses points of common interest between the two. It has little executive function of any kind; it is deliberative.
VISCOUNT HALL: My Lords, I assume that trading representatives will form part of this High Authority and will meet their opposite numbers from other European countries.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I imagine that they may come here in the

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course of meetings of the Council in order to discuss matters, but I think they would not form part of the permanent delegation. At this stage it is a little difficult to nominate the capacity in which this, that and the other member on a delegation may be here. But that is how I should foresee the composition of the delegation which we expect to receive here.
The Bill sets out shortly the privileges and immunities proposed. It is to be borne in mind that they are less in this case, in certain particulars, than those which are normally accorded foreign diplomatic missions. Indeed, they are actually less than those which hitherto as a matter of grace have been accorded to our delegation in Luxembourg during the past two and a half years of its function there. They have been reduced in response to a feeling, which we know well to be current, that wherever possible these privileges and immunities should be kept within the narrowest possible bounds, to a point at which the United Kingdom delegation in Luxembourg will actually be on a slightly lower status as regards privileges and immunities than those of other countries represented by similar delegations at the headquarters in Luxembourg. The matter has been referred to the head of our delegation in Luxembourg. That course was suggested by the Opposition in another place in the course of discussion on Second Reading of the Bill, although in fact we had already set that machinery in motion. The head of our delegation has agreed that for practical purposes the slight diminution of what would be the normal privileges and immunities can be accepted in this case.
EARL JOWITT: The head of the delegation is still Sir Cecil Weir?
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I do not know whether he has gone out of office yet. His successor has been appointed, but whether he has actually taken over, I am not absolutely sure.
The Bill provides for a lower scale than that normally accorded to foreign diplomats. It gives general juridical immunity only to the actual head of the delegation and his family. The family of no other member of the delegation is given any form of protection at all. No taxation privileges are extended to
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citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and there is no concession to domestic staff. Although this is always rather a technical subject, the question of rates is also dealt with on a special and more restricted basis than is usual in cases of this kind. I commend the Bill to your Lordships on the basis that it provides only what are the reasonable requirements of a delegation resident in this country and of such persons from the seat of the High Authority as may visit the United Kingdom for meetings of the Council of Association. So far as can be judged at present, those normally resident here will amount to no more than ten persons, but of course the number who may conic when from time to time the alternating conference is held here I cannot at the present moment prophesy with any exactitude.
I know perfectly well that these privileges and immunities are not matters which commend themselves readily to your Lordships' House. At the same time, on this occasion it was fully conceded in another place—although, of course, that does not bind your Lordships—that they are reasonably necessary and reasonable in character. If your Lordships should decide not to grant them, the position established by that refusal would be one of extreme difficulty. The United Kingdom delegation in Luxembourg would find itself the only delegation without diplomatic privilege, and the proposed delegation coming to this country from Luxembourg would inevitably feel, however little it might be the intention of the House to give that view, that their presence was unwelcome to this country, since the privileges and immunities, though actually on a slightly lesser scale than those extended to so many other people, had been refused in their case, whereas they had been accorded to what I know many of your Lordships think to be too many other bodies. In those circumstances it might well be that they would be extremely reluctant to come and the whole arrangement which is established by the Agreement, which is of great benefit to all those concerned, might easily collapse.
On this general question I have observed that the noble and learned Earl, Lord Jowitt, has carried out—I will not say his threat, but his promise, to put down a Motion, which at present stands as "No day named," for the discussion

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of the whole matter, Perhaps I may also he allowed to call your Lordships' attention to the Written Answer that appears in this morning's OFFICIAL REPORT to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Killearn, put to me, partly on my suggestion, when discussing this matter a short while ago. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a. —(The Marquess of Reading.)
3.28 p.m.
EARL JOWITT: My Lords, I have had serious doubts as to whether I should not move that your Lordships reject this Bill. In view of the day, the temperature and the time, I have decided not to do so. But I am in this dilemma: I do not want it to be thought, because I do not suggest that course, that I think this is anything but a very bad Bill. I think that we have really to take this matter up and look at it. I have put down a Motion—I have not the terms of it before me at the moment, but I have used the framework of Dunning's great Motion—asking your Lordships to say that in the opinion of this House the extension of these privileges "has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished." I believe that if your Lordships decide to pass that Motion, when we come to debate it, we shall strengthen the arms of our Government, who are placed to-day in a difficult position because of all these Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Orders —we had four of them last week and we have this Bill to-day.
The principle which pervades the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, seems to be this: that if we want to welcome these people and extend to them courtesy, we have to grant them diplomatic privileges. I believe that to be completely ill-founded. It is a completely new conception. I would point out how odd it is. If our Prime Minister, our Foreign Secretary, or the Lord Chancellor, go abroad on some mission—I used to when I was Lord Chancellor; the Foreign Secretary does it every month, and the Prime Minister not infrequently —they get no diplomatic immunity: they do not ask for it, and they do not want it. Why on earth should we give diplomatic immunity to the representative of the European Coal and Steel Community when he comes to this country? I am all in favour of the European Coal and Steel Community; I welcome the repre-
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sentatives here, and I do not want to seem to be guilty of the smallest discourtesy towards them. But I cannot think it is a necessary concomitant of showing courtesy to grant diplomatic immunity.
I will not specify times, places or people, but the granting of this diplomatic immunity has led to serious consequences. In my own experience, I have had cases where female servant, have been assaulted and have heel deprived of any sort of redress; I have had cases of shoplifting where we have been unable to do anything; and motor car incidents have been legion. The only reason why this has not become a screaming scandal at the present time is because of the quality and tolerance of our diplomatic corps. Although he has immunity, an ambassador in charge of the mission here of a friendly country, if one of his representatives has a motor car accident, is always ready to do the right thing and to assume the obligation to pay, as though he did not have that diplomatic immunity. We can rely on him to do the right thing—in my experience, he always has done. Had it not been far that, we should not have tolerated diplomatic immunity. I would point out to your Lordships again, and ask you to bear in mind, that what we call diplomatic immunity is nothing other than deprivation of rights, if looked at from the other point of view.
I do not want to say a word against the representative of the European Coal and Steel Community, but why should he not be responsible for his debts; and why should he not he responsible if he does the sort of things I have mentioned? Are not our laws reasonable and proper laws? Must we have some kind of system of capitulation in this country? I ask your Lordships to look carefully at this question—I had it when I was Lord Chancellor, and I had to concede this point. Quite frankly, I resisted the Foreign Office, so far as I could, and I used to be told in those days that the Foreign Office were being impelled by some irresistible force—they did not know quite where it came from; some back room boy sitting somewhere or other was pushing them. They said: "We are sorry. We quite see the point, but we cannot help it." The late Lord Simon, in those happy days, used to attack the whole principle. I feel, to some extent,

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that the mantle of Lord Simon has fallen on me. He said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 167, col. 296]:
"I strongly share the view which the Lord Chancellor expressed in Committee on the Bill"—
I was then the Lord Chancellor. Lord Simon then quoted my words, and the following words are a quotation from me:
"I myself feel that we have gone perhaps a little too far in this idea of extending the whole doctrine of diplomatic privilege to include all sorts of people who take part in international discussions."
Lord Simon went on to say that he agreed with the doctrine
"that we should cut down the principle or, at any rate, not extend it unnecessarily."
The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, took part in a later debate on this subject in his usual robust manner, and this is what he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 168, col. 563]
"It never occurred to me, when going all over the world to attend diplomatic conferences…that I ought to have diplomatic privilege…it never occurred to me when I was in Rapallo, that if I drove my girl friend round the coast road and ran over some respectable Italian citizen I could expect to enjoy diplomatic immunity."
Is this not a time at which we ought not to be extending these immunities? The noble Viscount said, with regard to that particular immunity, which has since been granted:
"I could not possibly support it."
My noble friend Lord Henderson was trying to get it forward, but I, as Lord Chancellor, thought discretion the better part of valour and withdrew it then to consider it further. In due course, however, I was compelled to introduce it, and we have it now.
All these people who come to talk about postal conventions have diplomatic immunity when they come here. I welcome them here; we like discussing postal questions. But I cannot see why it should be necessary to have diplomatic immunity to discuss postal questions. It is nothing to the point that our representatives have the same thing in Luxembourg. I thought it was singularly naive for the noble Marquess to tell us that Sir Cecil Weir, our representative in Luxembourg, had been approached—
THE MARQUESS OF READING: It was a suggestion made by the noble Earl's Party in another place.
EARL JOWITT: It may have been made by anybody, but in my view, it is a thoroughly bad suggestion. Why should you approach him to find out his answer? And why should he say, as he did inferentially: "I think it is necessary that I should have diplomatic immunity, so that if I run anybody down in my car I shall not have to pay"? I cannot think that it was put to him in that wad at all.
I say no more now, but this is a matter which is deeply concerning many of us at the present time. I take my stand against this practice. It is not a question of lack of courtesy, or lack of welcome to these people. I think the European Coal and Steel Community is an admirable institution, but I cannot see why the representatives should be given diplomatic immunity. The noble Marquess said that it is not a training organisation. I should have thought that the European Coal and Steel Community must make contracts. If I made a contract with them, and some dispute arose under it, I should be in a difficult position. I should have to disclose all my documents, but all their documents would be privileged. This is but another illustration—we had four of them last week—of what is going on. I ask the Government to consider that these things are not just a matter of course which they can get through the House. I beg your Lordships to consider this fact. If you pass the Motion in the terms I suggest. that this practice has gone on too long and must be diminished, it will strengthen the hands of the Government in future when they come to make all these Agreements, because they will then be able to say: "We cannot give you diplomatic immunity, because we shall have such a bad time when we get to the House of Lords if we do." I hope that in due course, when this question is raised, your Lordships will give me your support in saying that this has gone on long enough and, indeed, has gone too far.
3.39 p.m.
LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, if I may intervene for a short time, I should like to say that I am in complete agreement with what has fallen from the noble and learned Earl, the Leader of the Opposition, and I shall look forward to his Motion. I should like to ask the noble Marquess whether he or the

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Foreign Office have any information as to how this question of diplomatic immunity is regarded by other nations. One cannot help feeling that if there is a large body of opinion in this country which looks upon this diplomatic immunity with great doubt, then it must be the same in many other countries. The question may arise, if that is so—if it can be discovered to be so—whether it is not a matter which should be discussed, and perhaps decided, at a meeting of the United Nations. I do not know whether the noble Marquess can give any reply to that question, or whether perhaps he will let me have one later.
3.40 p.m.
LORD KILLEARN: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Marquess for his Written Answer. As he mentioned to your Lordships, he invited me to put down a Question, which I did, and the Answer appears in the OFFICIAL REPORT of yesterday's proceedings. I do not know whether your Lordships have yet had time to see it, but perhaps not. It gave, shall I say, quite an impressive list. It did not include accredited diplomats, but the list of organisations mentioned is quite formidable. I have been totting it up and there are twenty-nine so far. The week before last two more were added, two more last week, and to-day there are two more. That is another six.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: They are included.
LORD KILLEARN: Then that is my mistake. As the Answer specifically says, it does not cover what I might call the peripatic element, which must be considerable. I agree that it is not easy to see how it could cover them; but obviously there are more in that category than the comparatively small number shown as being resident in this country. I was frankly surprised that the number shown as being resident in the United Kingdom was so small. But if you add all "peripatetics." or whatever the right word may be, it would be much Piper. Surely, it all comes to this. This question of diplomatic privilege has to be very carefully scrutinised in each case. It has been very wide-flung. A great many of us, including myself, are inclined to suspect that it has been too easily given. After all, it is a very special status. They are not
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amenable to local jurisdiction, local taxation, and so many things. For myself, I am glad and relieved that the noble and learned Earl is bringing this matter up for thorough discussion. That might even lead to some form of inquiry to get to the bottom of this matter. There is certainly an uneasiness which I share.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, before the noble Marquess replies, could I ask him to clear up one piece of my abysmal ignorance on this subject? Are these various bodies, whose members have diplomatic immunities of various kinds, issued with diplomatic passports by which they can take goods from one country to another? If that is the case, is it not rather strange that our own diplomats, except, I think I am right in saying, ambassadors, are not issued with diplomatic passports? Therefore, there would seem no reason to issue passports to these other bodies.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: My Lords, as regards the last question which has been put, frankly I do not know what particular form of passport the various persons coming from other countries carry with them. Of course, there is in these days no such thing as a diplomatic passport in this country.
The general course of the remarks which have been made on this Bill have perhaps rather anticipated the discussion which is likely to take place on the noble and learned Earl's Motion, whenever he attaches a date to its present dateless condition. He will perhaps agree that it will be as well to-day to confine ourselves to consideration of the particular Bill which is before the House, and not wander widely into the considerable field which the remarks directed to this Bill have opened out. I want to say only one or two things. The first is in relation to a specific remark which the noble and learned Earl made, and to assure him that the European Coal and Steel Community itself does not make contracts and is not a trading organisation in any way. So that particular trouble which was afflicting him may perhaps be alleviated.
The whole tone of the noble and learned Earl's speech was that we were handing out over-generously these privileges, whereas there was no particular reason to do so that anybody could detect, and that any impulse to make this

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generous distribution came from some sort of hidden motive power in the inner recesses of the Foreign Office upon which he was unable to lay his finger. That is a quite inaccurate picture of the situation. It may be that the noble and learned Earl and other members of your Lordships' House do not like these particular privileges and immunities and do not think that they should be granted. But that does not mean that that opinion is universally held throughout the world. There are many countries which attach great importance to it and which, as a condition of entering into what are valuable agreements to this country, insist that these privileges and immunities shall form part of any accord which is entered into. Your Lordships may remember that as regards the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations there is an over-riding agreement in existence to which, so far as I remember, the then Government of which the noble and learned Earl was such an ornament gave its approval in 1947. That agreement places us under an obligation to extend to the Specialised Agencies of the United Nations the privileges which are allowed for under that agreement. It is not a question of caprice or of some strange influence working and persuading the Government to give these privileges, whereas in fact they do not wish to do anything of the kind.
The noble and learned Earl said that the mantle of the late noble and learned Viscount, Lord Simon, in this matter may have descended upon him. It may be so, but I must remind him that the Bill under which these privileges and immunities are granted to international organisations was a Bill which again the Government of which he was a member was responsible for introducing to this House and carrying through. I cannot help thinking that there there may be a slight separation of paths between him and the late noble and learned Viscount. We shall have a discussion on these subjects probably when we return refreshed to your Lordships' House. All I want to make clear to your Lordships is that this is not merely a matter of over-straining a doctrine in order to ex-
796
tend some unjustified and possibly unwanted courtesy to a body. I do not understand the noble and learned Earl when he says that it is a naïve argument, or that it is no argument, to say that these things are granted on a reciprocal basis. I should have thought it was an argument of considerable force and importance, because, perhaps wrongly, but over the course of years, the possession of diplomatic privilege has come to be looked upon as exalting the status of the person to whom it is accorded and confirming his position as being one of official responsibility and understanding.
EARL JOWITT: May I interrupt the noble Marquess for a moment to make it quite plain why I say it is of no relevance? I object to these privileges because they interfere with the right of the lieges in this country—the ordinary man in the street. They are the people I am concerned with and no one else. They are obviously not affected at all by the consideration of what our people abroad have in the way of privileges and immunities.
THE MARQUESS OF READING: I do not suggest they are, but we cannot look at this purely from the effect that it has upon the lieges of this country. These, after all, are reciprocal international privileges, and one has to look not only at the effect in this country but on the status of our own missions in foreign countries as well. You cannot reduce it merely within the confines that the noble and learned Earl was putting forward—whether people are going about doing harm to lieges of this country. I do not want at this day and at this time to carry this discussion further forward when, as I say, we are to deal with the whole matter later. I quite agree that it would be a most valuable discussion for your Lordships to have, and I trust that I shall be able to give your Lordships some useful and convincing information on the whole subject which I realise genuinely exercises the minds of many Members of your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE CORPORATION BILL
3.51 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, the Members of the International Bank, of which Her Majesty's Government is one, have decided that there is need and scope for a new International Finance Corporation. This is a Bill to enable Her Majesty's Government to take its share in this institution. The Bretton Woods Convention set up two international financial institutions, the Monetary Fund and the International Bank. The Fund exists to provide foreign exchange for members who are short of it, and the Bank is to lend money to Governments or to enterprises with a guarantee of Governments This new institution has rather different aims and objectives from the Bank. In the first place, it is something of an appendage to the Bank, in that the governors, the directors, the office and quite possibly the staff will be the same. Its aim is to provide funds for the less developed parts of the world by lending to productive enterprise without Government guarantee. It can lend money in any way except by taking up capital stock. It is hoped that it will revolve its funds by selling its investments after nursing them, and it is hoped that the 100 million dollars capital, of which our share is 14·4 million dollars, will go rather further than one would think otherwise, if that were not the case.
There are three main points which may be asked. Why is it necessary that the capital of the Corporation should be subscribed in gold or dollars? We must admit that gold or dollars is still the only entirely free international currency, and if the Corporation is to function all over the world it must function in a currency which is truly interchangeable; but we have hopes that, when operating in the sterling area, it will make loans in sterling.
Then what do we get out of this? In the wider field, any Provision for the development of the under-developed parts of the world is to our advantage. We have a scope for exporting goods corresponding to the capital which is put into those countries, and of course any raising of their standard of living is naturally to
798
our advantage, too, in the long run. No one can deny that there is a great shortage of savings throughout the world, and particularly savings likely to take risk in these under-developed parts of the world. We hope that the setting up of this Corporation will be instrumental in attracting private investment into those channels, in that the participation of the Corporations should be considered to be a sort of hall mark which may stamp the quality of the investments.
The other question is the immunities and privileges about which we have spoken at some length. I would say here, however, that as the Corporation is not expected to have an office in this country the privileges and immunities given by the British citizen in this country will be of very little account; furthermore, that as the staff is expected to be largely the same as that of the International Bank who already have these privileges, no fresh ground is really being opened up. If 75 per cent. by capital of the sub-scribers are prepared to pay their subscriptions—and we believe they are—there is no reason why this institution should not start to function next year. The clauses with the aid of the Long Title are self-explanatory. I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.— (Lord Hawke.)
3.54 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, my noble friends on these Benches authorise me to say that they are in support of the principle underlying the articles of agreement in this Bill. I do not think that the noble Lord opposite who introduced this measure, or anyone else, can claim that it is a very heroic Bill. A hundred million dollars may sound a large sum to people not acquainted with big international affairs, but it is a very small sum. It may be true that it is a rotating fund, but still, for what it is worth, it is worth proceeding on those lines. The matter of the exclusion of sterling is, I think, a little more important. I thought the noble Lord who introduced the measure here was a little less emphatic than was his right honourable friend in the other place, who said that the British Government were themselves disquieted about this matter, and still pressed for sterling to be recognised on partial equality, if not full

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equality, with the dollar in this matter. In view of those points, in spite of what I may call the minor blemishes of the proposals, we on these Benches do not intend in any way to impede the passage of the Bill through this House.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION BILL [H.L.]
3.57 p.m.
Amendments reported (according to Order).
Clause 13 [Retirement or removal of recorder]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR moved to add to the clause:
(" (3) The foregoing provisions of this section shall apply to a paid chairman or deputy chairman of the quarter sessions for the county of London as they apply to a recorder of a borough having a separate court of quarter sessions; and for the purposes of section twenty-two of the Administration of Justice (Pensions) Act, 1950. a chairman or deputy chairman vacating office in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section (as applied by this subsection) shall be treated as retiring after the end of the completed year of service in the course of which he attains the age of seventy-two years.
(4) Subsection (1) of this section shall also apply to a metropolitan stipendiary magistrate (whenever appointed) as it applies to a recorder appointed after the coming into force of this section of a borough having a separate court of quarter sessions.")
The noble and learned Viscount said: My Lords, this Amendment in my name applies the provisions of the Bill to the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the London Sessions. This is done at the request of the London County Council. I have already explained the provisions which are applied. I do not think I need take up any more of your Lordships' time. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 48, at end insert the said subsections.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
Clause 15 [Additional courts of quarter sessions in boroughs]:
EARL JOWITT EARL JOWITT moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "resolution of the borough council" and insert. "Lord Chancellor." The noble and learned Earl
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said: My Lords, I can put this Amendment very shortly. I do not expect the Lord Chancellor to accept it here and now. I merely raise the point so that it may be considered when the Bill goes to another place, because there is here rather an important issue. On the one hand, it is obvious, if you are going to have more recorders than one, that the person who ought to decide whether a further assistant recorder is necessary or not is the Lord Chancellor. He has his finger on the pulse, and he knows what the requirements of justice are. At first sight, it is odd to find that the question whether such a gentleman can be appointed depends not upon the edict or wish of the Lord Chancellor but upon the resolution of the borough council. The reason underlying it is not difficult to see. The borough council have to pay—he who pays the piper calls the tune. Consequently, it has no doubt been felt reasonable that, as the local authority have to pay, therefore they should pass the resolution appointing the recorder. And so there is raised here, on this small Amendment, the whole question of the incidence and expense of the administration of justice as between the local authority and the Exchequer, and as between the rates and the taxes.
I believe I am right in saying (the Lord Chancellor will correct me if I am wrong) that the salary of a recorder is paid by the local authority. I believe also that in certain cases—I am not sure whether in all—there is a countervailing grant made by the Exchequer towards that expense. Broadly speaking, in these matters I think the responsibility ought to rest upon the Exchequer and not upon the rates. In order that the whole matter as between the two may be considered, and for that purpose only, I beg to move the Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 14, line 13, leave out ("resolution of the borough council ") and insert (" Lord Chancellor ").—(Earl Jowitt.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I am sure all your Lordships are grateful to the noble and learned Earl for having raised this point. As he will appreciate, in this Bill we have built on the existing foundation, which is as he stated it. It starts, as he will remember, with the local authority deciding whether it will apply to have

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a recorder at all. Unless it so decides and so applies, then it does not have a recorder. It it does decide to have a separate commission of the peace of its own, then of course it pays the recorder and suggests a salary, although now the appointment is made by the Lord Chancellor. The noble and learned Earl and I remember that there was a time when the appointment was made by the Home Secretary, but it is now the Lord Chancellor's appointment.
At the moment there is a grave limitation in regard to the number of those who can sit, and as I told the noble and learned Earl, we took the existing procedure and therefore left it to the council of the borough to decide whether it would authorise the money necessary to make the additional recorder. I assure the noble and learned Earl that I will look into both his points—the first one that he adumbrated on the Committee stage, and the wider one, with regard to finance, which he adumbrated to-day. As he will understand, it requires not only making general inquiries of the association but finding out how it would work in individual cases. I shall certainly try to do that before the Bill reaches another place. On that assurance, I hope the noble and learned Earl will not pursue his Amendment to-day.
EARL JOWITT: I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 16 [Retirement of metropolitan stipendiary magistrates]:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the third Amendment is consequential on the rearrangement of the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 16 —(The Lord Chancellor.)
In the Title:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, Amendment No. 4 is also consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out (" of metropolitan stipendiary magistrates ") and insert (" or removal of chairmen and deputy-chairmen of quarter sessions and of stipendiary magistrates in London,").—(The Lord Chancellor.)

LICENSING (AIRPORTS) BILL [H.L.]
4.3 p.m.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I have to inform your Lordships that there will be a formal Sitting of the House tomorrow afternoon at half-past four to receive the Wireless Telegraphy (Blind Persons) Bill and the County Courts Bill from another place. Both these Bills the Government hope to pass into law before the Recess. The County Courts Bill has already been through your Lordships' House in the last Parliament, and was one of the unfortunates of the Dissolution. It now comes back to your Lordships from the Commons with certain Amendments, which will, I believe, largely meet the criticisms made here when the Bill was before your Lordships in the last Parliament. Noble Lords opposite have kindly promised to cooperate in the progress of this Bill to the Statute Book. The Wireless Telegraphy (Blind Persons) Bill is not expected to arouse any opposition in any quarter. We propose to take the Second Reading of this Bill on Tuesday, and the Second Reading of the County Courts Bill as first Order on Wednesday next when a Motion enabling it to have precedence will be tabled. Neither Bill is expected to occupy much parliamentary time.
CROSBY CORPORATION BILL LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
  MALTA: ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE
  MALTA: ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE