Sitting of 9 November 1955

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Accounts
    Mr. Knox Cunninghamasked the Postmaster-General the sum of money outstanding in the first quarters of the two most recent half-yearly accounts rendered to telephone subscribers in the United Kingdom; and if he will give an estimate of the sum of money which would be saved in interest charges if such accounts were rendered quarterly instead of half-yearly.
    The Postmaster-General (Dr. Charles Hill): About £12 million and an annual figure of something under £500,000 respectively.
    Mr. Knox Cunningham: Would my right hon. Friend, with that saving in mind, consider issuing these accounts quarterly instead of half-yearly?
    Dr. Hill: No. There would be a saving of £500,000. but there would also be an increased expenditure of £1½ million, with a net loss of £1 million.
    Mr. Knox Cunningham: Would my hon. Friend then consider why the public should have to subsidise the Post Office to this extent, while they pay their accounts to the gas and electricity undertakings quarterly, not half-yearly?
    Dr. Hill: I do not regard this as a subsidy. There is a most substantial saving of staff of 1,300, and, as I have said, in money of £1 million by continuing this change, made in the war years, to half-yearly accountancy.
    Mr. Knox Cunninghamasked the Postmaster-General when he will return
    1820
    to the practice of rendering quarterly instead of half-yearly accounts to telephone subscribers.
    Dr. Hill: We have considered this on several occasions, but the large increase in staff and the additional annual expenditure estimated at £1 million, which it would involve, could not be justified at present. I cannot say when it will be possible.
    Mr. Knox Cunningham: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that to many people it is a financial hardship to receive a large account every half year, and that they would prefer to pay quarterly?
    Dr. Hill: I appreciate that a number of people have said that they would prefer quarterly accounts, but that must be balanced against the expenditure of £1 million and the employment of 1,300 men.

    Installations
    Mr. P. Williamsasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the general dissatisfaction that exists about the delay experienced by those wishing to have telephone instruments installed either for business or private reasons; and whether he will make a statement.
    Dr. Hill: I fully appreciate the need to expand the telephone service. The proposals in the recently published White Paper on Post Office Development and Finance provide for the installation of nearly half a million telephones next year, and are designed to develop the service as quickly as economic circumstances permit.
    Mr. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that this will be of equal benefit in rural and in urban areas of the country?
    Dr. Hill: It is intended to improve the telephone provisions throughout the country, in urban and rural areas.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Postmaster-General aware that his speech on this subject in Scotland last weekend caused considerable dismay? Is he aware that the 38,000 who are waiting for the telephone in Glasgow did not get much encouragement? Does he not think it would be a good thing if he made representations to his fellow Ministers to spend money, instead of on the rocket range, in accelerating and improving the telephone service in Scotland?
    Dr. Hill: If the hon. Gentleman will study the White Paper recently published he will see that there are signs of hope and not of dismay in the telephone position in Scotland.

    Work (Sub-Contracting)
    Mr. P. Williamsasked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider the possibility of instructing the various telephone area managers to put out to sub-contract work which their area staff are incapable of completing in a reasonable time.
    Dr. Hill: I have considered my hon. Friend's suggestion, but Post Office staff are now capable of carrying out all the work which the available money and stores will allow.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Will the Postmaster-General, contrary to the suggestions contained in this Question, see to it that all work proper to be carried out by established postal engineering grades will continue to be carried out by them, and that the establishment will be adjusted to meet any changed requirements?
    Dr. Hill: I have dealt with the Question as, I think, the House would wish me to, as a practical question. The limiting factors are stores—in the main, stores—at the present time. Speaking practically, the Post Office staff can do the work.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Do I take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has just said that the only limiting factor in developing the telephone system now is finance?
    Dr. Hill: Finance and stores.
    Mr. P. Williams: Could my right hon. Friend explain why it is impracticable for a private householder, for example, to have the telephone moved from one room to another by a private contractor? Why could not that be done in that way in future?
    Dr. Hill: We have a magnificent engineering staff to do this job. While they are able to do it I think no other consideration should apply.

    Redditch
    Mr. Danceasked the Postmaster-General what progress is being made with the building of the automatic telephone
    1822
    exchange in Redditch and with the recabling of the area.
    Dr. Hill: We are planning to start building the new automatic exchange towards the end of next year and to open it in 1959. New cable schemes will be completed at the same time. Meanwhile, we are extending the present manual exchange.

    Increased Charges (Withdrawn Applications)
    Major Anstruther-Grayasked the Postmaster-General how many applications for new telephones have been withdrawn since the announcement of increased charges.
    Dr. Hill: The information my hon. and gallant Friend seeks is not yet available.

    Sedgefield
    Mr. Slaterasked the Postmaster-General how many applicants await the installation of telephones in the Sedgefield Parliamentary constituency; and how such figures compare with those of twelve months ago.
    Dr. Hill: Five hundred and sixty-four, including 126 whose applications are either in course of being met or under inquiry. This is an increase of 68 during the past twelve months, although some 550 new telephones have been installed in that period.
    Mr. Slater: Can the Minister state whether material has become available in larger quantities at this time for the installation of telephones? Secondly, is it not true that the new proposals set out in the White Paper will have the effect of restricting long-standing applications from people who are desirous of having a telephone installed in their premises?
    Dr. Hill: To reply to the first point, two of the exchanges in the hon. Gentleman's constituency are to have additional equipment next year and in one exchange the additional equipment will be installed in the year after. In regard to the second question, if the hon. Gentleman will study the figures in relation to telephone provision to September of this year and compare them with the programme of half a million new telephones next year and

    1823
    a slightly higher figure in subsequent years, he will find evidence of hope in the White Paper proposals.

    Development Programme
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Postmaster-General how the sum of £163 million, which he estimates will be required for development of the telephone service for the two years 1956 and 1957, compares with the present annual expenditure for the same purpose.
    Dr. Hill: The amount required from borrowed capital for the 1955–56 programme for the development of the telephone service is estimated at about £69 million. The sum of £163 million might last a little longer than two years, but much depends upon prices.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: I appreciate what my right hon. Friend says, but does he contemplate any change in long-term projects, such as the opening of the Teddington Lock exchange in 1960?
    Dr. Hill: I suggest that that is a question which my hon. Friend might desire to raise on Friday, when the Second Reading of the Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill is to take place.
    Mr. Crouchasked the Postmaster-General the estimated saving on the telephone service by the slower programme recently announced; and what alternative work will be found for the staff on account of the changed policy.
    Dr. Hill: My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. As paragraph 21 of the White Paper shows, the development programme will continue to expand though its rate of expansion will be restrained.
    Mr. Crouch: Would I be correct in assuming that the cost of labour is the greatest charge in installing telephones? If certain men are kept on this job, would my right hon. Friend see that these men are properly employed owing to the slowing down of the programme?
    Dr. Hill: I am not sure that I appreciate the point that my hon. Friend has in mind.

    Rural Areas
    Mr. Whitelawasked the Postmaster-General if he will give special priority to
    1824
    the isolated rural districts in his development programme for farm telephones and for telephone kiosks in the villages.
    Dr. Hill: There is a measure of priority for both rural kiosks and farmers' lines. If my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind, I shall be glad to make inquiry.
    Mr. Whitelaw: While appreciating what my right hon. Friend says, may I ask that while he is making his priorities he will bear in mind that in those isolated districts telephones have a very special importance in urgent cases of human and animal illness?
    Dr. Hill: I do appreciate that point, and we go a good way in the different kinds of priority which are accorded to farmers and to rural areas generally.
    Mr. Harold Davies: Does the right hon. Gentleman give to each local telephone manager, who knows local conditions, the power to decide the priorities in his district?
    Dr. Hill: In general, that is true. In cases of farmers' applications, where the number of poles involved is more than 12 or 14 the telephone manager consults the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on the application.

    Coseley
    Mr. R. Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General the circumstances which led to the request for the breaking down by the Post Office telephone service of a recently reconstructed footpath in Lady-moor Road, Coseley, Staffordshire, despite the fact that prior notice had been given to the Post Office telephone service, under the Public Utilities Street Works Act, by the Coseley Urban District Council that this work of reconstruction was to be undertaken, such notice being given in an attempt to avoid any subsequent interference with a completed reconstruction.
    Dr. Hill: Since the resurfacing in July, 1954, a number of unexpected faults have seriously interfered with the telephone service of nearby factories; some replacement of cables is, in consequence, necessary. No other solution seems possible, although I wish it had been otherwise.

  POST OFFICE

    Stamps
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that British postage stamps could be improved by including in their designs the faces of famous literary, scientific, and historic persons; that such inclusions would benefit the taxpayers and the Post Office by increasing the sales of such postage stamps to philatelists and others; and if he will consider issuing such stamps in the future.
    Dr. Hill: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hughes: Is there any immutable rule which prevents this being done in Britain? Is the Minister aware that no terrible catastrophe has followed the adoption of the practice which I recommend in other parts of the British Commonwealth? Why should Britain lag behind?
    Dr. Hill: It is traditional in this country that the head of the reigning monarch should be the basic feature of all our stamps, and I think that there is no desire to depart from that.

    Wages
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Postmaster-General what increases in wages will be given to employees of his Department to meet increased rents and Purchase Tax.
    Dr. Hill: The wages of Post Office staff are fixed primarily by reference to current rates of pay in comparable outside employment; the question of increasing wages specially for the reasons the hon. Member has in mind does not therefore arise.
    Mr. Hynd: Surely Post Office wages are not always going to follow other wages? As there is a claim before the Postmaster-General at the moment, will not he take into consideration the new difficulties about the cost of living which arise from the new impositions by the Chancellor and, perhaps, for once make an offer of a wage increase?
    Dr. Hill: The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to comment upon any outstanding claims, but he will recall that the so-called Tomlin formula, which applies to the Post Office as to the Civil Service generally, has as its main criterion
    1826
    rates of pay in comparable employment in outside industries.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is there any indication that with the new Bridgeman concept applying to the Post Office there will be a departure from the old practice of the rates of pay of Post Office employees having to follow outside rates?
    Dr. Hill: Until the Report of the Royal Commission upon the subject is published, I suggest that we cannot usefully examine that question.

    Newspapers and Magazines (Rates)
    Mr. Iremongerasked the Postmaster-General what concessions are allowed in the distribution of newspapers and magazines by the post; to what classes of organisation such concessions are available; and why the Cyclists' Touring Club does not come within such classes.
    Dr. Hill: Newspapers and magazines may be posted at newspaper and printed paper rates provided they comply with certain statutory conditions. Eligibility for such rates does not depend on the class of organisation responsible for the publication. The Cyclists' Touring Club Gazette is not eligible for the newspaper rate because one of the conditions of that rate is that publication must take place at intervals of not more than seven days.
    Mr. Iremonger: Will my right hon. Friend consider widening the scope of the regulations which are now in his province so as to bring voluntary and non-profit-making organisations within the range of their benefits?
    Dr. Hill: I have made a provisional calculation of what the loss would be to increase the period from seven to twenty-eight days, and I find that it is about £1 million.

    Increased Charges
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Postmaster-General if, in view of the injurious effect on voluntary, non-profit-making associations of the proposed increases in postal and telephone charges, he will consider exempting them from these extra charges.
    Dr. Hill: No, Sir. With every sympathy for good causes, I cannot exempt them from paying for the services they use.
    Mr. Allaun: If concessions are made to newspapers, why should they not be made to voluntary organisations? Does the Minister appreciate that one of the finest features of British life is the number and variety of its voluntary organisations? Does he further appreciate that their main difficulty is to find the "brass," and that these extra charges will finish many of them off? The trade union journals, in particular, will suffer.
    Dr. Hill: I do not dissent from what the hon. Gentleman has said upon the subject of voluntary organisations and causes, but it would be a task of immense practical difficulty—even if it were desirable—to separate certain bodies for lower and different rates of postage.
    Mr. Hydeasked the Postmaster-General if he will exempt fortnightly and monthly publications from the proposed increased charges in respect of printed papers transmitted by inland postal service.
    Dr. Hill: No, Sir.
    Mr. Hyde: Is my right hon. Friend aware that publications which are not eligible for registration as newspapers are in many cases trade journals, and that the increased charge imposes an unfair burden on industry by a tax on knowledge which is vital to our export trade? Does he not agree that there is no justification for discriminating between weekly publications and monthly publications?
    Dr. Hill: The so-called discrimination is, of course, based on the long-standing statutory definition of "newspaper." I would point out to my hon. Friend that whereas, compared with before the war, the charge for printed papers up to two ounces has increased by 200 per cent., the increase in the case of printed matter over two ounces will be 150 per cent.

    Robert Burns (Bicentenary)
    Sir T. Mooreasked the Postmaster-General if he will consider approving the issue of a special postage stamp to commemorate the bicentenary anniversary of Robert Burns, with the poet's head on it.
    Dr. Hill: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) on 26th October.
    Sir T. Moore: While, unhappily, I was not able to hear that answer, and while I
    1828
    appreciate all the difficulties in the way, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend realises that his answer will give great disappointment to many millions of Burns lovers throughout the country? Could he not have some other, perhaps bright, ideas on the subject?
    Dr. Hill: I have dealt, in reply to an earlier Question, with the commanding consideration in this matter. I will just add that, even if there were no commanding consideration, were the Post Office to contemplate issuing stamps to commemorate illustrious persons, the task of choosing among such persons would be more than could properly be accepted.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: Are there not many precedents for celebrating distinguished anniversaries in this way in Britain and in the Commonwealth? Why not now?
    Dr. Hill: The precedents in this country are that there have been only twelve special stamps issued. Each one of them has commemorated a great event and in no case has commemorated an illustrious individual.
    Mr. Alport: Would not a more proper way of commemorating this auspicious occasion be a reduction in the Excise duty on whisky?
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: If the right hon. Gentleman will not consider publishing a stamp with a picture of Robert Burns upon it, would he consider putting on one of the other stamps which are put on letters some of the short verses that Burns wrote about the Tories of his day?

    Mail Vans (Protection)
    Lieut.-Colonel Liptonasked the Postmaster-General whether he will take further steps to ensure adequate protection of mail vans.
    Dr. Hill: Further steps in this direction are continually being taken.
    Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Is it right that a driver should be sent alone with a mail van containing substantial sums of currency, as seems to be the case in view of what happened last week?
    Dr. Hill: It is right and necessary on certain occasions that the driver should be alone. In order to get this matter in perspective, it should be recognised that

    1829
    although there are 13,000 vehicles doing about 185 million miles a year, the number of mail van thefts last year was eight and the number so far this year has been five.
    Mr. Daines: Surely the right hon. Gentleman should give an assurance to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton) that not only should there be a driver and mate but also a third man.
    Mr. S. Silverman: In view of the apparent inability of the Postmaster-General to answer the Question of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brixton (Lieut.-Colonel Lipton), can he at least assure the House that security in these matters is not in the hands of the Foreign Office.

    Parcels
    Mr. Crouchasked the Postmaster-General the normal time of delivery of a parcel posted in London to the West Country.
    Dr. Hill: Parcels posted in London in the afternoon should he delivered in most towns in the West Country on the next weekday but staff shortages, railway transport difficulties, and abnormally heavy postings cause delay from time to time. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are doing all we can to eliminate these delays.
    Mr. Crouch: Is my right hon. Friend aware that very recently a parcel was posted to my constituency containing drugs for a doctor, and that it took five days to get there? The Post Office apologised and said that the delay was owing to shortage of staff, and heavy parcel deliveries at that time of the year, and that this situation would be corrected as soon as possible. How soon will it be corrected?
    Dr. Hill: I recognise that from time to time this sort of thing occurs. There have been substantial difficulties in London recently owing to congestion at Paddington and heavy postings. I am making a special study of the London position now, and I hope that we shall not have a recurrence of the kind of thing which my hon. Friend cites.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Do not West Country postmen sometimes go sick?
    Mr. Crouchasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that parcels are not accepted at all post offices on Saturday for delivery on Monday; and if he will make a statement.
    Dr. Hill: At many country sub-offices the last collection on Saturday is made between about noon and 1 p.m. and parcels accepted at these offices after this collection cannot be sent forward the same day. I shall be glad to look into any particular case of difficulty which my hon. Friend may have in mind.
    Mr. Crouch: In some post offices, the customer who goes in on Saturday at any time is told, "It is no use posting this parcel today, because no parcels go out from here on Saturdays. It will be held over until Monday." Should the post offices not accept parcels on Saturday, and dispatch them?
    Dr. Hill: It is right that the inquirer should be told, where it is the case, that there will not be a dispatch from that office on that day, but there is no question of a refusal to accept such parcels where the facts are made plain.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: I take it that this question of improving the parcel service —[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] I am asking a Question—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]. Speaker, in order to reassure the other "Speakers" there are in the House, I will repeat my Question. Will the Postmaster-General assure the House that any difficulties in connection with parcels will be examined not only by the Post Office but by the Post Office and the railways in conjunction?
    Dr. Hill: Most certainly. There is, in fact, a working party of the Post Office and the railways now inquiring into some of the London dispatch problems.

    Annual Licences (Payment)
    Mr. J. E. B. Hillasked the Postmaster-General whether he will provide facilities to enable broadcast receiving and other annual licences of like nature issued by his Department to be payable by bankers' order.
    Dr. Hill: Payment for broadcast receiving licences may already be made by bankers' orders. The system could not be used for Road Fund licences, and to

    1831
    apply it to dog, game and gun licences would create unnecessary additional work.
    Mr. Hill: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his answer, might I suggest—
    Hon. Members: Question.
    Mr. Hill: Would my right hon. Friend consider trying to devise a method whereby as many of these annual payments as possible could be synchronised and dealt with in one transaction?
    Dr. Hill: It is difficult to answer so general a question. In the individual case of receiving licences it is practicable, and it is done. In the other cases there is no widespread demand, and considerable administrative difficulties lie in the way.
    Mr. Gower: On a point of order. May I ask your guidance, Mr. Speaker, to try to avoid this constant shouting of the word "Question"? Is there not such a thing as an interrogatory statement which can be construed as a Question?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is asking me to give an abstract decision. That I always refrain from doing. I judge each question on its merits.

  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    I.T.A. (Capital and Development Programme)
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General how much capital has been passed to the Independent Television Authority to date, and at what rate of interest; and how far any new limitations have been placed upon its development programme.
    Dr. Hill: Three hundred and five thousand pounds at rates of interest varying from 31 per cent. to 5 per cent. The need for restraint in capital expenditure has been stressed with the I.T.A. as with other public authorities, and its proposals in this field will be carefully scrutinised.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: In view of the fact that only a fortnight ago the Director-General of the I.T.A. announced a vast programme of expansion and that, following upon it, there will be a vast investment by the programme contractors, will
    1832
    the right hon. Gentleman keep his eye on this matter and see that he withholds licences, in that way preventing the development of this very exorbitant programme?
    Dr. Hill: When the I.T.A. submits its programme, that programme will be scrutinised in relation to the Chancellor's request for restraint, like other programmes of public authorities.

    Car Radio Licences
    Mr. Awberyasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that the licence for a wireless set used in a car is not transferable with the car; and, as a car may change owners several times in a year, if he will make it transferable with the change of owners.
    Dr. Hill: A car radio licence, like a car driving licence, is in law a personal authority to the licensee and is not transferable with the car to another person. If the holder of a car radio licence sells his car and gets another, the licence can be made to cover his new car.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that, although the amount involved is very small, the principle is a great one? When a car changes hands the new purchaser has to buy a licence, and this may happen three or four times a year. That is quite unjust. Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the matter?
    Dr. Hill: When a man with a car radio and licence sells his car and buys another he can continue the licence. I recognise that when a man who owns a car for which he has a wireless licence sells the car and does not obtain another, and does not at that moment apply for a new licence for his home radio, there is an absence of refund which might well be regarded as a grievance. I am now examining that question with the Law Officers.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Building Operations, Manston (Stone)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is aware of the concern in Kent that 60,000 tons of stone have been brought from the north and west of England for use in

    1833
    building operations at Manston Aerodrome, Kent, when suitable stone is available in Kent where stockpiles are high and a lack of orders exists.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): The stone is wanted for resurfacing the airfield pavements. We considered very carefully whether we could use local stone but I am afraid that it is too soft.
    Mr. Dodds: Is the Minister aware that I have here copies of three Air Ministry letters, the first of which clearly indicates that proper consideration was never given, the second of which admits an appalling lack of knowledge of the general characteristics of Kentish ragstone, and the third of which, written two months later, says that the Air Ministry would be prepared to use Kentish ragstone in certain of the work that had to be done but now it is found that it cannot be used because of contractual difficulties? Is not this a deplorable state of affairs, and does not the hon. Gentleman realise that in Kent people are very much upset about this bad treatment?
    Mr. Ward: It might be if it were true, but it is not. This stone for resurfacing pavements must be strong enough to withstand the very high tyre-pressures of modern aircraft. We did laboratory tests with Kentish ragstone and found that it had a crushing value of only 85 per cent. of the minimum figure which we can accept for the work at Manston. The reply to the other point is that we did think about using ragstone in the asphalt base course in some areas where the paving had to be exceptionally thick, but we had to abandon that idea because I was advised that the areas involved were very small and the use of this ragstone would have upset the contractor's mixing programme and delayed the programme beyond the target date.
    Air Commodore Harvey: Can my hon. Friend say who will pay for this stone, and what choice the purchaser had in the matter?
    Mr. Ward: Not without notice.
    Mr. Dodds: On a point of order. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the Answer, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Personnel (Advance Release Regulations)
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air the Regulations governing the practice whereby a member of the Royal Air Force, released five days before his due release date to take up residence at college, is denied three weeks' pay, travel warrant to his home, and demobilisation civilian clothing allowance.
    Mr. Ward: The Regulations on these matters vary according to an airman's engagement, the length of his service, and the method of release if the right hon. Member will let me have details of any particular case he has in mind, I shall be glad to look into it and see whether the man has had the benefits to which he is entitled.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is a normal case of a National Service man serving his normal period and being released five days before his due release date in order to go into training college, and then having this imposed upon him? Surely, this treatment is not justifiable under the Regulations?
    Mr. Ward: I did not know until the right hon. Gentlaman rose just now that this Question concerned a National Service man. He did not say in his Question that it concerned a National Service man. The Regulation about National Service men is that they can be allowed to leave the Service early to go to college by arranging for their terminal leave to fall inside their two-year period instead of outside it; that is to say that such a man will start his terminal leave 24 days before his two-year period is up. If, on the other hand, he claims his release earlier than that 24 days, he is deemed to be prematurely released and is not entitled to terminal leave.
    Mr. Edwards: Yes, but the plain fact of this case is that this man gave notice nine months before his due release date that he had been accepted for college. Despite all this he is denied three weeks' pay, his demobilisation allowance and a travel warrant from Lincoln to South Wales. Surely, this is the sort of thing which the hon. Gentleman ought to look into very closely?
    Mr. Ward: I should be delighted to look into the matter. I have already offered to do so if the right hon. Gentleman will give me the details.
    Mr. Strachey: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that there can be no case for, in effect, fining a man because he claims the privilege, which is always granted in all the Services, of early release for educational purposes? I can quite understand that in some circumstances a man might be denied it, but surely there can be no case for giving it to him and then inflicting financial penalties upon him.
    Mr. Ward: I agree. We do all we can to help National Service men when they are starting in college but they must have taken the trouble themselves to try to get themselves into the Service in time to complete their two years beforehand. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, it is true; they must. They cannot, half way through their National Service, say that they want to be released early to go to college. These are matters which I should like to look into in connection with this case.
    Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman is, I know, aware of the expedited call-up procedure, but in this instance a matter of five days is involved. Had it been a matter of months, and had the man not applied for an expedited call-up, he should have been penalised, but here he is being fined for five days.
    Mr. Ward: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman realises how difficult it is for me to give any opinion without knowing the facts.

    Pay Parades
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air what consideration is being given to the abolition of pay parades in the Royal Air Force and for the issue of pay and allowances by means of pay packets.
    Mr. Ward: Discretion was given to all R.A.F. commands in 1947 to discontinue central pay parades and to arrange for the issue of pay by flights and sections where the nature and function of the station made this desirable. These arrangements are now being extended. The issue of pay in sealed packets is being tried out at several units, but it is too early to say whether it can be introduced as standard practice.
    Mr. Strachey: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is the content of the packet rather than the method of delivery that matters?

    Disused Airfields, Norfolk (Condition)
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is aware of the large number of derelict buildings on disused airfields in all parts of Norfolk and the weed-infested waste ground alongside and in between runways; and if he will arrange for the derelict buildings to be removed, the land put into good heart and the sites tidied up without further delay.
    Mr. Ward: Nearly all undeveloped land on the disused airfields in Norfolk still held by Government Departments is let to farmers. Any complaint of failure to cut weeds is brought to their notice and I will willingly look into any particular case to see if more effective action should be taken. We have recently reviewed our requirement for reserve airfields and all buildings on those which we must keep will be pulled down if they are not worth maintaining.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Is the Minister aware that many of these airfields are a distinct interference with agriculture, over the broad scene, and are a blot on a very beautiful county? Is not it possible to decide whether these runways are ever likely to be used again, in which case could not they be kept in better shape? If they are not likely to be used again, could not they be returned to agriculture by being broken up as soon as conditions allow?
    Mr. Ward: There are a very large number of airfields in Norfolk and some of them, as my hon. Friend knows, are still held by Government Departments, either because we are using them now or shall need to use them in the event of another war. Some airfields have been wholly derequisitioned, others have been partly derequisitioned, and most of them are, as fully as possible, used for agricultural purposes. The cost of tearing up the runways on the airfields which we have derequisitioned would be enormous. I think it has been estimated that to tear up the foundations of the buildings alone would cost about £25,000 or £30,000 per station. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, terminal compensation is paid under the Compensation Act, 1939, when we derequisition.
    Mr. Edward Evans: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the same considerations

    1837
    apply, perhaps with greater force, to some areas of Suffolk where there is an appalling waste of land through derelict airfields, and the deterioration of the buildings is quite catastrophic?
    Mr. Ward: There is very little waste of land that has not actually got concrete on it.

    Emergency Food Pack (Experiments)
    Wing Commander Bullusasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is able to make a statement about the experiments with a new emergency ration designed for use by Royal Air Force aircrew survivors in extreme heat or cold.
    Mr. Ward: This new ration has been produced by the Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine with the assistance of the Catering Branch of the Air Ministry and of many private firms. It has successfully passed laboratory and field tests in extremes of heat and cold, and we are now carrying out prolonged storage trials in Singapore, Aden and Canada. We hope that it will give aircrew a greater chance of survival than any other emergency food pack yet devised. It is already being carried in some types of Royal Air Force aircraft and by Royal Air Force mountain rescue teams.

    Training and Educational Classes, Laarbruch
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air if he is aware that trained men of the Royal Air Force Regiment at some Royal Air Force stations are often compelled to be idle for the greater portion of each day; how these men are employed at Laarbruch, Germany; how many study classes have been provided at Laarbruch and how many attend; and what attempts have been made more fully to occupy the time and energy of serving men.
    Mr. Ward: No, Sir. Units of the R.A.F. Regiment at Laarbruch, like those elsewhere, are training to a planned programme which includes large-scale field exercises and practice camps. One hundred and seventy-nine airmen from these units attend general educational classes on the station.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that information does not
    1838
    coincide with the experience of those who have been to this camp? May I inform him, from assurances given to some of us, including myself, that many of these men are wasting their time day after day, and they want something to do? Would the hon. Gentleman therefore make a particular inquiry into this allegation to see whether something more can be done to occupy these men for a much longer part of the day than I can assure him they are being occupied now?
    Mr. Ward: When the hon. Member put down his Question I called for details of the training carried out by the R.A.F. Regiment at Laarbruch, and I can find nothing at all to support his allegation. Since the beginning of June these units have taken part in two large-scale N.A.T.O. exercises; they have put on a demonstration before the Commandant-General of the regiment and they have each attended anti-aircraft practice camps. All this calls for intensive training beforehand. I may add that during this period the mechanical transport of one unit alone covered 150,000 miles, which does not sound as if they have been idle.
    Mr. Strachey: While, as a result of a recent visit to this station, I can agree with the Minister that the men there seem pretty busy, can he assure us that they are given opportunities to use the very extensive educational facilities which are in existence there?
    Mr. Ward: Yes, Sir, I can give that assurance.
    Mr. Burden: Would my hon. Friend give the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) an opportunity to go to Germany to see the position himself? Then he would be amazed at the facilities available for the men there, both from the point of view of education and entertainment.
    Mr. Sorensen: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter again at the earliest opportunity.

    Officers' Married Quarters Gibraltar
    Mr. Teelingasked the Under-Secretary of State for Air why some Royal Air Force officers' married quarters in Gibraltar are in buildings condemned for naval ratings as far back as

    1839
    1939; and what he proposes to do to remedy this situation.
    Mr. Ward: I agree that these quarters are most unsatisfactory, but the general shortage of accommodation in Gibraltar, and the acute difficulty in obtaining land for new building, have compelled us to use them. Flats are now being built to replace them, however, and will I hope be finished in about fifteen months' time.

  ROADS

    Loughton By-pass
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what will be the length of the Loughton by-pass on road A.5; when work commenced on this by-pass; and when he expects that it will be completed.
    The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter): The length of the Loughton by-pass will be about two-thirds of a mile and includes a bridge and slip roads. Work started on 9th August, 1954, and is expected to be completed by April, 1956. The work, which is being carried out by contract, was, so the contractors inform me, held up by bad weather conditions last winter.
    Mr. Johnson: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he is aware that the Alaska Highway, which is 1,600 miles long, was completed in seven months? Can he do anything to ensure that this two-thirds of a mile of road in this country is completed rather more quickly?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The Alaska Highway is a long way away. So far as this job is concerned, which involves considerable construction of embankments and of a bridge, the local authority thought that a contract date terminating in February, 1956, was reasonable. Owing to the weather last winter, the contractors will be about two months late with the contract.
    Mr. M. Lindsay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great disappointment all over the country with the extremely slow progress of his road programme?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There is no disappointment at all among those who know what is happening.
    Mr. Lindsay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that that is a very pompous reply?

    Works Programme, London
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he is taking in pursuance of his powers under Section 4 of the London Traffic Act, 1924, to ensure that the minimum inconvenience is caused by road works in the London streets.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: As laid down in the Act, I approve programmes of road works every six months, after they have been considered by the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee. I have recently made some alterations in dates at which work should be done for the purpose referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend.
    Captain Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the present policy in London seems to be to pull up every road and then put it down again? Is the aim of this to get non-skid surfaces, and if so, may we know what progress has been made and how long it is to continue?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My hon. and gallant Friend is no doubt aware that in the central London area the removal of the dangerous wood blocks and the substitution of non-skid surfaces in place of them has been effected to a very large degree. Obviously, while the work is being done there is inconvenience, there is no possibility of getting away from that. But we try to do the work quickly, and at a time that will cause the least inconvenience.

    Great Cambridge Road, Edmonton—Enfield
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when it is proposed to start work on the duplication of the Great Cambridge Road from Bury Street, Edmonton, to Carter-hatch Lane, Enfield.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Before the end of the present financial year.
    Mr. Davies: Would not the Minister agree that it would have been economic to continue the construction of the next stage of this dual carriageway rather than remove all the equipment, as has been

    1841
    done? The first part has been completed and then, instead of work continuing on the next section, the work has ceased. Why was it not continued?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: There is a great deal, in general principle, on which I agree with the hon. Gentleman. In this case, however, the contractor had very many obligations elsewhere, including the Cromwell Road extension.

    Cromwell Road Extension
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when the construction work on the Cromwell Road extension was started; what percentage of the work has already been done; and when he hopes that the whole scheme will be completed.
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation why the Cromwell Road extension will not be completed until 1959; and to what extent the limitations are financial or constructional.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Construction work started in April this year. On a cost basis about 5 per cent. of the work has been done. I cannot at present give a precise date for completion of the whole scheme, sections of which will be brought into use separately as soon as they are ready.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: While congratulating my right hon. Friend very heartily on starting this road, may I ask him to keep an eye on its progress so that it is not held up by administrative difficulties, particularly having regard to the fact that it is the gateway to such important centres as Southampton, London Airport and Twickenham?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I agree with my hon. Friend that for all those reasons this is a very important road, and that is why I am glad that we have been able to make a start on it.
    Mr. Robinson: Can the right hon. Gentleman deny the statement that this extension is not to be finished for four years—until 1959? Does not he think that with the enormous advances made in road construction machinery since before the war, that is far too long a time, and would not the interests of economy be served by hastening this work?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I said in my original answer that I was not prepared to give a precise date for completion. The reason is that on one section of this road it is necessary to remove part of a school, and until alternative accommodation for the school can be found, it is not possible for constructional work to be done on that section of the road.

    Non-Skid Surfaces (Investigations)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what experiments he has made of different non-skid surfaces for roads; and his conclusions.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: In conjunction with the Road Research Laboratory, I am investigating the economy and durability, as well as the non-skid qualities, of some 1,500 different compositions of road surfacing. In addition, periodic skidding tests are carried out on existing roads. The results of these investigations are published from time to time by the Road Research Laboratory.
    Captain Pilkington: Can my right hon. Friend say whether it is obligatory at the present time, whenever repairs to roads are carried out, for the best non-skid surface available to be used?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Without notice, I should be disinclined to say that there was any statutory provision, but, obviously, where questions of grant arise it is my Department's duty to see that the most suitable surfaces are used.
    Mr. P. Williams: Is the Minister aware of the danger of riding on zebras in wet weather?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Yes, Sir.

    Motorway, London—Yorkshire
    Sir L. Ropnerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will make a statement with regard to the progress which has been made in connection with the construction of the London-to-Yorkshire trunk road.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The draft scheme required by the Special Roads Act was published in the week beginning 19th September in respect of that part of the motorway which will run from the St. Albans by-pass to near Ashby

    1843
    St. Ledgers. The scheme in respect of the St. Albans by-pass will be published on the 21st of this month. I have appointed Sir Owen Williams and Sons as consulting engineers to prepare the engineering details of the road and to supervise the carrying out of the work which will be done by contract.
    Sir L. Ropner: Can my right hon. Friend say whether any progress, and, if so, how much, has been made with the Doncaster by-pass.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have nothing to add at present, but, as my hon. and gallant Friend knows, it is at the Doncaster by-pass that this Yorkshire motor road will end, and it is, in a sense, part of the scheme.
    Mr. Wade: Can the Minister give any indication when this London to Yorkshire road will be completed?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I have published the scheme, and the statutory period for objections is now running. Clearly, until I know what the objections are—if any—to the proposed road. I should be very unwise to give a forecast.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he expects that there will be any substantial number of objections to the compulsory acquisition of land for this roadway, due to the very inadequate schemes of compensation which now prevail?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Matters of the level of compensation are not, I think, for me to answer. So far as the question of objections is concerned, I must really wait until the statutory period is over before I can answer that.

    Toll Bridges
    Sir L. Ropnerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many highway toll bridges have been freed from toll payment since July, 1954.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: None, Sir.

  TRANSPORT

    Greyhound-carrying Vehicles (Speed Limit)
    Wing Commander Bullusasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will vary the Regulation which permits vehicles carrying greyhounds to
    1844
    travel at no more than 20 miles per hour to bring it in line with the 30 miles per hour permitted for heavy vehicles carrying horses.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The speed limit for a vehicle carrying greyhounds is 30 miles per hour if the vehicle does not exceed 3 tons in unladen weight. If my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to vehicles of a greater unladen weight, the answer is "No, Sir."
    Wing Commander Bullus: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there is a difference between the speed limits allowed for the transportation of greyhounds and horses, and would not he correct this obvious anomaly?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am inclined to agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that there is an anomaly between the conveying of the two types of animals, but I think this is one of a considerable number of anomalies on this subject which perhaps we should be unwise to try to correct piecemeal.

    Railway Electrification, Liverpool Street—Enfield
    Mr. Ernest Daviesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what progress has been made with the planning of the electrification of the Liverpool Street to Enfield Town line; and when it is anticipated work will begin.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am informed by the British Transport Commission that a scheme for this work has now been approved in principle and that detailed planning is well advanced. It is, however, still too early to state when work is likely to begin.
    Mr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that a statement was made to the local council at Enfield that the work would begin next year? Can he confirm that there is a likelihood that the work will begin next year?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I should prefer not to anticipate the Commission's two-yearly forecast of work to be done, the next edition of which will be issued early next year.
    Mr. Davies: Can the Minister give an assurance that the work will not be held up by the present Government's restriction on national expenditure?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I would rather ask the hon. Gentleman to await the forecast which the Commission will issue.

    Motor Cars (Amber Headlamps)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what experiments he has made in the use of amber-coloured headlights for motor cars, such as are required in France; and his conclusions.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Tests carried out by the Road Research Laboratory showed that there is little difference between white and yellow headlamps of the same intensity in seeing distance or degree of dazzle.
    Captain Pilkington: Has my right hon. Friend been in touch with the authorities in France on this matter, and can he say whether they consider the use of amber lights satisfactory?
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: We have investigated French experience, and I think that the impression which my hon. and gallant Friend has that French headlights dazzle less is due to the fact that, on the whole, they are of a lower power rather than of a different colour.

    Motor Cars (C.D. Plates)
    Captain Duncanasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will now initiate legislation to make it illegal for persons other than the Diplomatic Corps to use C.D. plates on their motor cars.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: No, Sir. As these plates are neither officially recognised nor confer any special privileges, I do not think they do any harm when adorning non-diplomatic cars.
    Captain Duncan: Will my right hon. Friend consult the Home Office and the Foreign Office to see whether these plates should not be given sonic legal status so that their misuse can be made an offence? This would help the police in their work.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I am always ready to consult my right hon. Friends, but, from my point of view, there is no particular reason to give any privilege or priority in respect of this designation, and, while the plates have no privilege
    1846
    or priority, I think that the House would agree that there is no point in prohibiting them.
    Mr. H. Morrison: It is surely well known—I am subject to correction—that members of the Diplomatic Corps, in respect of motor cars and in other respects, have certain privileges. Therefore, it is some convenience to the police and other parties to know that a car belongs to the Corps Diplomatique. Surely it is quite wrong, is it not, that other people should put these C.D. plates on their cars? I would urge upon the Minister the fact that it is an abuse for other people to do so—they are taking a liberty—and I urge the right hon. Gentleman to get the practice stopped.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is clearly an error of taste to sport one of these plates if one is not entitled to do so. But so long as—and this is not a matter for me —no particular privilege is conferred by them, I really do not think that it would be right to prohibit one further thing which does, in fact, no harm. It is necessary, for traffic purposes, to prohibit quite enough, and I do not want to add a burden to the police and others in enforcing prohibitions which have no real significance.
    Mr. Morrison: Surely the letters "C.D." do confer a privilege. The police assume at once that there is a privilege conferred on members of the Diplomatic Corps, and, surely, that liberty ought not to be taken by people not entitled to do so? It is bad enough in respect of the Diplomatic Corps, but for the practice to extend to other people is still worse.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: My information is that such privileges are not conferred. If the right hon. Gentleman takes a different view, I really think, with respect, that that is a matter which he ought to pursue with the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary. My information is that the police do not, in fact, grant any immunity if one sports a plate of this kind.

    Motor Vehicles (Winking Traffic Indicators)
    Sir F. Medlicottasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is now able to make a statement resulting

    1847
    from the inquiries into the use of winking traffic indicators on motor vehicles.
    Mr. G. R. Straussasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will publish the Report of the Road Research Laboratory on vehicular flashing lights; and whether he can now say what action he proposes to take on the Report's conclusions.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The interim Report which I have received from the Road Research Laboratory indicates that further investigation is required into some aspects of the Question. The Laboratory expects to complete this investigation shortly and it will then submit a final Report. Meanwhile, as I indicated in my reply on 26th October to my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Arbuthnot), I am considering the Report I have already received.
    Sir F. Medlicott: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these indicators are irritating, confusing, distracting and dangerous both to pedestrians and motorists, and will become progressively more so as they increase in number? Is he further aware that many motorists are already of the opinion—if I may be forgiven the phrase—that these indicators are in every sense a "blinking" nuisance.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I think that, as always, there is a great deal in what my hon. Friend says, but this is not a simple matter, for the considerations which apply to one sort of indicator do not necessarily apply to all of them. I would far rather await the report of the experts before committing myself.

    CIVIL DEFENCE (REGIONAL DIRECTORS)
    Mr. Lewisasked the Prime Minister if he is aware that, out of the 11 persons appointed recently to the new posts of Regional Directors of Civil Defence in England and Wales, 10 are high-ranking military officers, and that only three of the 11 have had previous close connection with Civil Defence; and whether he will issue an instruction that when making appointments of a similar nature in the future, consideration should be given to the work, knowledge, and experience of
    1848
    those actually performing the duties required for the new appointments before appointing military personnel.
    The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): I have been asked to reply.
    These appointments were made on the recommendation of an impartial board presided over, at the request of my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary, by the First Civil Service Commissioner. In making the appointments, my right hon. and gallant Friend was satisfied that full weight had been given to the past experience of all the candidates who had been interviewed, but in these particular posts personal qualities are as necessary as past experience, whether that experience has been in the field of Civil Defence or otherwise. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister does not think any general instruction is necessary. The public interest requires that the best candidates should be appointed and it is already the normal practice to consider the qualifications of all candidates who are interviewed.
    Mr. Lewis: Are we to take it that because these gentlemen happen to be high-ranking military personnel they must, of necessity, be better for this type of appointment than people who have given long years of service in the job? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that during the last war many people carried out similar jobs without having any high-ranking military titles? Is it not at least fair to give an opportunity to those who have been doing the job, because we are finding too many of these high-ranking military personnel taking positions in Civil Defence?
    Mr. Crookshank: I do not think that it is a question of high-ranking military personnel, one way or another. It was a question of an impartial board making recommendations as to who were the most suitable persons.
    Mr. Morrison: May I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend is on a fair point, that this is an unduly high proportion of gentlemen with military qualifications? That was not so among the appointments made before the Second World War. There are people experienced in Civil Defence, but, moreover, there are people experienced in local government, apart from Civil Defence,

    1849
    and people experienced in public administration, and there are people of good character, and so on. I really cannot understand why there should be such a high proportion of military people, although I would not exclude them altogether. Might not the matter be reconsidered?
    Mr. Crookshank: Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman says, it is quite true that there are a great number of people who have all sorts of experience, but in this case there was a board which interviewed a number of persons concerned and made its recommendations that these people were the best of those who had come forward on that occasion. It may be that a great number of other people did not come forward—I do not know—but, of those interviewed, the board had no doubt about these people being the most suitable for the appointment.
    Mr. Morrison: Speaking from memory —I was not concerned in the original appointments just before the Second World War—is it a question of people coming forward? I thought that it was a question of finding the right kind of people. I am not sure that this is a job for a board. I am inclined to think that it is a job for the Secretary of State himself. Ought not there to be a greater degree of selectivity instead of this overwhelming bias in favour of gentlemen of military experience?

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Overseas Forces (Christmas Parcels)
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
    77. Mr. JOHN HALL to ask the Minister of Defence what facilities will be granted to allow Christmas parcels to be sent by air mail free of charge to United Kingdom troops stationed overseas.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I will, Mr. Speaker, with your permission, and that of the House, reply to Question No. 77.
    I am glad to be able to inform the House that it has been decided to repeat this year, under similar conditions to those which applied in 1954, the Christmas air parcel postage concessions for
    1850
    our forces in Korea and Japan and for entitled personnel in Malaya. In addition, the concession will be extended to certain personnel in Kenya on the same lines as it now applies in Malaya.
    I will circulate full particulars of the scheme in the OFFICIAL REPORT. A Press and broadcast notice to the same effect is being issued by the Postmaster-General tomorrow.
    Mr. Hall: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for his very satisfactory reply, may I ask him whether the Postmaster-General will see that notices are placed in the post offices as well as notified to the public through the broadcast announcements?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think my right hon. Friend intends to take every step to see that this is known. It is proposed to communicate with the next-of-kin of those concerned to make certain that they are aware of this facility.
    Mr. Mellish: Can we be told why the troops in Cyprus are not to be allowed this concession?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think the reasons are distance and the time it takes to get parcels to them.
    Mr. K. Thompson: Not having seen the White Paper, may I ask my right hon. Friend what he means by "certain personnel in Kenya"? Does that mean that certain personnel in Kenya will not be entitled to this concession, because if that were so it would cause great disquiet.
    Mr. Lloyd: The people who will receive this concession are those who have left for that station after the final date for surface post.
    Mr. Shinwell: Surely it should be possible to make arrangements now in the case of Cyprus. Surely there is sufficient time to enable the Minister to enter into consultation with the Postmaster-General. Cannot air services be used for this purpose? Will it not be regarded as unfair and unjust to the men in Cyprus if they are excluded from this arrangement?
    Mr. Lloyd: The concession is being extended this year to those in Kenya, which has not happened before.
    Mr. Paget: Will not the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the case of people in Cyprus, who are having a very

    1851
    difficult time? If they feel that they are left out when all other active theatres are included, it will cause very bad feeling.
    Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly look into the matter.
    Following are the particulars of the Scheme:

    1. One parcel up to 3 1b. in weight may be sent by airmail free of postage to each member of Her Majesty's Forces in Korea and Japan. The parcels will be accepted at any post office in the United Kingdom between Monday, 21st November, and Thursday, 8th December, inclusive.

    2. A similar concession is also available for certain personnel serving in Malaya and Kenya, but only for those members of Her Majesty's Forces who left the United Kingdom or Japan for Malaya, or the United Kingdom for Kenya after the last dates for posting surface mail parcels to those countries (4th and 7th November respectively). Parcels for dispatch by these arrangements to Malaya and Kenya should be posted between Monday, 21st November, and Wednesday, 14th December, inclusive.

    3. Full details of the arrangements, together with a special label for addressing the parcel, will be sent shortly to the next-of-kin of the men concerned. Post offices will accept parcels for dispatch by these arrangements only if they bear the special labels which are being issued for the purpose.

    4. The parcels cannot be accepted before Monday. 21st November, or after 8th December (for Korea and Japan) and 14th December (for Malaya and Kenya).

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BILLS
  SMALL LOTTERIES AND GAMING
  Bill to authorise the conduct of small lotteries for other than private gain by societies for raising money for charitable, sporting and other purposes and to amend the law with respect to gaming; and for other purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented by Mr. Ernest Davies; supported by Mr. Ede, Mr. H. Wilson, Mr. Leather, Sir E. Errington, Mr. Mulley, Mr. Philip Bell, Mr. Mitchison, Mr. G. Longden, Mr. de Freitas, Mr. Nield, and Mr. Mellish; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday. 25th November, and to be printed. [Bill 481

  RURAL TRANSPORT IMPROVEMENT
  Bill to make provision for the improvement of transport in rural areas by rail, road, and water; and for other purposes, presented by Mr. Baldwin; supported by
  1852
  Mr. Renton, Mr. G. Wilson, Mr. Speir, Mrs. Emmet, Mr. Gooch, Mr. Hurd, Sir R. Boothby, Mr. G. Williams, Mr. W. Yates, Mr. Watkins, and Mr. Pott; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 9th December, and to be printed. [Bill 49.]

  INDUSTRIAL RATING
  Bill to repeal Section sixty-eight of the Local Government Act, 1929, and Section forty-five of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, presented by Mr. Sparks; supported by Mr. F. Harris, Mr. T. Fraser, Mrs. Butler, Mr. Blackburn, Mr. MacColl, Mr. Gibson, Mr. C. Pannell, Mr. Mitchison, Mr. Lindgren, Mr. Pargiter and Miss Burton; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 16th March, and to be printed. [Bill 51.]
  NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Bill to provide for altering the extent to which deductions from widows' benefits and retirement pensions under the National Insurance Act, 1946, are to be made in respect of earnings, presented by Mr. Leather; supported by Mr. Vaughan-Morgan, Mr. Fort, Mrs. Hill, Mr. Alport, Mr. G. Longden, Sir H. Linstead, Dame Irene Ward, Mr. Powell, Mr. Maude. Mr. Summers, and Captain Duncan; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 3rd February, and to be printed. [Bill 52.]
  NATIONAL INSURANCE (INDUSTRIAL INJURIES)
  Bill to amend the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Acts, 1946 to 1954, in relation to increases of disablement pension in respect of special hardship allowance and unemployability supplement; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Mason; supported by Mr. J. Griffiths, Mr. Holmes, Mr. R. Williams, Mr. Neal, Mr. B. Taylor, Mr. Timmons, Mr. Finch, Mr. Blyton, and Mr. Short; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 17th February, and to be printed. [Bill 53.]

  JUSTICES OF THE PEACE ACT, 1361 (AMENDMENT)
  Bill to amend the Justices of the Peace Act, 1361, presented by Mr. Vaughan-Morgan; supported by Mr. Leather, Mr. Janner, Mr. Simon, Mr. W. T. Williams,

  1853
  Mr. Royle, and Mr. G. Longden; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 54.]

  LEGITIMATION (RE-REGISTRATION OF BIRTH)
  Bill to amend section fourteen of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1953, and certain provisions of the Legitimacy Act, 1926; and for connected purposes, presented by Mr. J. Howard; supported by Mr. Bryan, Mr. Cronin, Mr. Freeth, Mr. Gower, Mr. Grimond, Mr. C. Pannell, Mrs. McLaughlin, Mr. Renton, Mr. Tiley, Mr. Tomney, and Mr. Fienburgh; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 9th December, and to be printed. [Bill 55.]
  WILLS, &C. (PUBLICATION)
  Bill to restrict the publication of particulars as to the estates of deceased persons and the contents of wills, codicils, and other testamentary documents; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented by Mr. Fisher; supported by Mr. Gough, Viscount Hinchingbrooke, Mr. Holland-Martin, Mr. Kerr, Sir G. Lloyd, Mr. Nabarro, Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing, Mr. Russell, Sir C. Taylor, and Mr. Wood; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 56.]
  WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION (SUPPLEMENTATION)
  Bill to provide for the payment of allowances out of the Industrial Injuries Fund to workmen to whom the Workmen's Compensation Acts apply; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. Deer; supported by Miss Herbison, Mr. R. Williams, Mr. B. Taylor, Mr. H. White, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Mitchison, Mr. D. Griffiths, Mr. Blyton, Mr. Finch, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Tomney; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 17th February, and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

  LOCAL AUTHORITIES (EXPENSES)
  Bill to enable local authorities to defray certain expenses in connection with official and courtesy visits; and for purposes connected with the matter aforesaid, presented by Mr. Hay; supported by Mr. Mitchison, Sir R. Grimston, Mr. Younger,
  1854
  Mr. Rippon, Mr. Wade, Mr. Lindgren, Mr. Ramsden, Mr. Champion, Mr. Russell, and Mr. Robert Jenkins; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 3rd February, and to be printed. [Bill 58.]

  TRUSTEE INVESTMENT
  Bill to amend the Trustee Act, 1925, and the law relating to the range of trustee investments for charitable and non-charitable trusts; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Sir E. Errington; supported by Sir L. Heald, Mr. Mulley, Mr. Mitchison, Mr. Summers, Major Hicks Beach, Mr. Fletcher-Cooke, and Sir I. Horobin; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 9th December, and to be printed. [Bill 59.]
  AUTOMATION AND ELECTRONICS
  Bill to provide for the establishment of a permanent committee to inquire into, review and report on the social, educational, cultural, and economic needs and consequences of the application of automation and electronic devices to British industry and agriculture; and for purposes connected therewith, presented by Mr. R. Edwards; supported by Mr. Robens, Mr. Callaghan, Mr. Warbey, Mr. D. Jones, Mr. Lee, Mr. S. Silverman, Mr. Ellis Smith, Mr. Baird, and Mr. Hunter; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 9th December, and to be printed. [Bill 60.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (STREET WORKS) (SCOTLAND)
  Bill to authorise local authorities in Scotland to contribute to the expenses incurred by frontagers and others in connection with the construction, maintenance or making up of private streets, new streets and footways, presented by Mr. Thornton-Kemsley; supported by Major Anstruther-Gray, Captain Duncan, Colonel Gomme-Duncan, Mr. Grimond, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hoy, Mr. Lawson, Sir G. Lloyd, Mr. Patrick Maitland, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson, and Mr. J. Taylor; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 25th November, and to be printed. [Bill 61.]
  HOTEL PROPRIETORS (LIABILITIES AND RIGHTS)
  Bill to amend the law relating to inns and innkeepers, presented by Mr. P. O'Neill; supported by Sir C. Taylor, Mr. J. Eden, Mr. Renton and Sir P. Macdonald; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 62.]
  LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT
  Bill to make provision for the enfranchisement of residential property held under long leases; and for purposes connected with the matter aforesaid, presented by Mr. Janner; supported by Mr. Skeffington, Mr. Awbery, Mr. Deer, Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Grenfell, Mr. C. Hughes, Lieut.-Colonel Lipton, Mr. Pad-ley, Sir L. Plummer, Mr. G. Thomas, and Mr. West; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 17th February, and to be printed. [Bill 63.]
  SANITARY INSPECTORS (CHANGE OF DESIGNATION)
  Bill to change to public health inspectors the designation of sanitary inspectors appointed under the Local Government Act, 1933, or the London Government Act, 1939, presented by Sir W. Wakefield; supported by Mr. Albu, Dr. Bennett, Mr. Beswick, Wing Commander Grant-Ferris, Mr. Ian Harvey, Mr. Philips Price, Dame Irene Ward, and Mr. W. Wells; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March, and to be printed. [Bill 64.]
  ACQUISITION OF LAND (ASSESSMENT OF COMPENSATION)
  Bill to amend the basis of compensation for land acquired compulsorily under Act of Parliament, presented by Captain Corfield; supported by Mr. Mathew, Mr. Pott, Mr. Keegan, and Mr. Hughes-Young; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 3rd February, and to be printed. [Bill 65.]
  LITTER
  Bill to make provision for the abatement of litter; to prescribe penalties for the deposit of litter; and for matters connected with the purposes aforesaid, presented by Mr. J. E. B. Hill; supported by Mr. Ashton. Mr. Blenkinsop, Mr. de Freitas, Mrs. Emmet, Mr. Hoy, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Rippon, Mr. J. Rodgers, Mr. Speir, Mr. M. Stewart, and Mr. Vaughan-Morgan; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 16th March, and to be printed. [Bill 66.]
  OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS
  Bill to amend and consolidate the law relating to obscene publications, presented by Mr. H. Fraser; supported by Mr. Roy Jenkins, Mr. J. Foster, Mr. K. Robinson, Mr. Maude, Mr. Donnelly, Mr. Simon, Mrs. White, Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Mr. Albu, Mr. N. Nicolson, and Mr. Houghton; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 25th November, and to be printed. [Bill 67.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS DISQUALIFICATION BILL
Order for Second Reading read.
3.39 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Major Gwilym Lloyd-George): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Already in this Session the House has had four cases which indicate how essential it is that we should clarify and modernise the body of law relating to disqualification for membership. Many hon. Members will recall that indemnity Bills have become necessary, with almost monotonous regularity, because, as my right lion. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) put it, on 27th February, 1941,
"the whole of this question of offices and places of profit is in a state of great legal complexity and obscurity…the law may strike here or there by accident or caprice without any reference to any principle of logic, or reason or constitutional doctrine."— [OFFICIAL REPORT. 27th February, 1941; Vol. 369, c. 724.]
Later that same year a Select Committee was appointed:
"To inquire into the law and practice governing the disqualifications for membership of the House of Commons by reason of the holding, or the acceptance of, Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown, and to make recommendations."
It is upon the recommendations in Part I of the Report of this Committee, over which the then Deputy-Speaker, Sir Dennis Herbert, presided, that the present Bill is based. I am sure that the House will wish me to take this opportunity of paying a warm tribute to the devotion, care and diligence with which the members of the Committee tackled their job. Two of them are still Members of the House—the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Pickthorn). I know that we shall be very glad to have their expert assistance on the Bill.
In 1949, Her Majesty's present Opposition found that three of their number had become disqualified and the right hon. and learned Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross), who was then Attorney-
1858
General, undertook to give serious consideration to the general question of the whole of this branch of the law. He did so to such effect that by October, 1951, a draft Bill had been prepared. In 1952, the Opposition agreed to make available to us the fruits of their labours and I want to express my gratitude to them for this courtesy. It also want to pay a particular tribute to Sir Frank Soskice, who sat for Neepsend in the last Parliament, and upon whose shoulders, first as Solicitor-General and then as Attorney-General, fell the main burden of the work.
The Bill closely follows the recommendations of the Herbert Committee. It recognises the three main principles outlined in paragraph 19 of the Committee's Report which have governed this branch of the law since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Those are: first, the duties of some officers are incompatible with membership of the House; secondly, the control by the executive Government of members of the House—by means of financial influence arising from the gift of offices—must be limited; and thirdly, the control of the Executive by Parliament calls for the presence in this House, as Members, of a certain number of Ministers.
As regards the first principle, we are reminded in paragraphs 11 and 13 of ale Herbert Report that the original ground for disqualification of holders of particular offices—for example, the judges—was that their duties entailed continuous and prolonged absence from the House. This ground, no doubt, is still valid today, but if it stood alone it would be hardly worth while legislating to ensure that a person who cannot effectively act as a Member of the House may not be elected. The original ground was, however, rapidly superseded by another, namely, that the duties of the office in question make It undesirable that it should be held by persons who are subject, as are Members of the House, to the ties of party politics.
Clause 1 carries this principle into effect by imposing a specific disqualification on judges and other judicial officers specified in the First Schedule, on members of the Civil Service, Armed Forces and police and on a group of miscellaneous officers set out in the Second Schedule to the Bill, which, incidentally, includes ambassadors and high commissioners, particularly singled out by the Herbert Committee as incompatible officers.

1859
The second principle to which the Committee referred—that is, the need to limit control of Members of the House by the executive Government—is dealt with by Clause 1 (1) (g), which disqualifies the holders of all paid offices under the Crown not previously mentioned in the Clause. The House will, I am sure, appreciate that the first two principles recognised by the Herbert Committee are not mutually exclusive. A great many offices which are incompatible with membership of the House are, in effect, paid offices under the Crown.
Accordingly, we had the option, in preparing the Bill, either of listing such offices separately in a Schedule, or of leaving them to be covered by the general provisions which I have just described. For reasons of simplicity, the second alternative has been adopted, and the list contained in the Second Schedule, to which I have already referred, is generally confined to offices which would not disqualify as paid offices under the Crown.
The Third Schedule contains rules for defining in much greater detail what offices are to be treated as held "under the Crown" and what offices are to be treated as "paid." The House will see that the Schedule confines the disqualification relating to offices held "under the Crown" to offices the holders of which are appointed by the Sovereign, or by United Kingdom Ministers or Departmental officials. Accordingly, two Members, in respect of whom legislation had to be enacted not so long ago, would not have been disqualified by virtue of the offices which they accepted had the Bill then been in force. So much for the first two principles of the Herbert Committee.
The third, concerning the necessary presence in this House of Ministers, is the subject of Clause 2 and the Fourth Schedule. Under the existing law, some Ministers are entitled to sit and vote in this House because their offices are "old" offices within the meaning of the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707. By virtue of the Re-election of Ministers Acts, 1919 and 1926, they may accept office without thereafter seeking reelection. The right of a number of other Ministers to sit and vote in the House of Commons derives from Section 9 of
1860
the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937. The remaining Ministers are covered by specific provisions in the various enactments which created their offices.
What we have done is to make a clean sweep of all the existing provisions and to start afresh with a comprehensive list of all the offices now in existence, leaving it to future Parliaments to amend the Fourth Schedule as and when, in the course of time, changes become necessary.
I turn to the other main provisions of the Bill. Clause 4, in association with the Fifth Schedule, provides for the various partial disqualifications and general extensions which were proposed by the Herbert Committee. Clause 5 implements their recommendations that acceptance of the Stewardships of the Chiltern Hundreds and of certain other Crown manors should remain the means by which right hon. and hon. Members may resign their seats.
Under the existing law, the persons disqualified as contractors are those who contract with a Government agency to provide or furnish either money to be remitted abroad, or wares and merchandise to be used or employed in the service of the public. There seems little logic about these provisions. They originated from a grave scandal in the eighteenth century concerning the supply of money and war materials for the purposes of the American War of Independence. If the loan of money to the Government is to be the real reason for disqualifying the lender, I should have thought it immaterial whether the money is to be remitted abroad or not. In the same way, it seems odd that an hon. Member should be able to put up buildings for the Government, but should be disqualified if he contracts to supply them with merchandise.
This particular subject was outside the scope of the terms of reference of the Herbert Committee's inquiry. On that ground alone, there was something to be said for leaving it outside the Bill also, but that could only be done at the cost of leaving outstanding an important field in which the common informer could continue to reap his penalties. The remaining alternatives were either to reenact the law on the subject substantially as it stands, with only minor amendments and, of course, without the existing provisions for penalties; or to re-examine

1861
the whole subject, and to put forward a Clause dealing with Government contractors in perhaps a more logical and consistent manner than does the present law.
On balance, we considered that the former alternative was preferable. So far as I am aware, there has been no general demand for extension of the scope of the existing disqualification, which was last considered by Parliament as recently, I think, as 1931. Any drastic extension of the scope of the existing disqualification might have widespread repercussions, and could hardly be undertaken, I suggest, without a previous investigation on the lines of the Herbert Committee's inquiry. Clause 6, accordingly, reproduces the substance of the present law, subject only to detailed amendments to clear up present obscurities.
The purpose of Clause 7 is to implement the Herbert Committee's proposal that superannuation benefits should not disqualify, and that a pensioner should only be disqualified if the continuation of his pension depended on
"…the unfettered discretion or will of the Crown or the executive Government."
Subsection (1) of Clause 8 is a declaratory provision, the purpose of which is to codify the accepted interpretation of the existing law concerning the effects of disqualification. The remainder of Clause 8 is designed to give effect to the recommendation at the end of paragraph 58 of the Herbert Committee's Report. Subsection (2) accordingly gives the House power to make an excusal order in any case of inadvertent disqualification, subject to its being satisfied that the grounds of disqualification have been removed. These provisions of Clause 8 should obviate the necessity of indemnifying legislation after this Bill has become law.
In spite of its undesirable features, there was one thing to be said for the common informer procedure in this context, namely, that it enabled any member of the public to challenge the title of a person claiming to be a Member of this House, and to do so by public proceedings in the courts. If the jurisdiction to decide whether a sitting Member was disqualified had been left exclusively to the House of Commons itself, it would have been possible for a Member, who was known to be disqualified, to continue to sit as a
1862
result of a conspiracy of silence on the part of his fellow Members. I do not think that that is likely to happen today, but that is hardly a sufficient reason for making it possible.
Accordingly, Clause 9 gives to any member of the public the right to apply to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for a declaration that the Member is disqualified. As the Bill now stands, this procedure could operate notwithstanding that the House of Commons had already considered the facts of the case and had made an order under Clause 8 (2). The consequence, therefore, might well be a conflict between this House and the Judicial Committee. I therefore propose to put down an Amendment designed to exclude jurisdiction under Clause 9 in any case where an excusal order has already been made by the House. It will, of course, remain open to the House itself to resolve—as it has done in the past—that any case of doubt should be referred to the Judicial Committee, under Section 4 of the Judicial Committee Act, 1833.
Clause 10 gives effect to the Herbert Committee's recommendation that no hon. Member should be appointed to a disqualifying office without his consent.
Mr. Ede: Is there any possibility?
Major Lloyd-George: There might be, for example, in the case of a sheriff—though I doubt it. It is just an additional safeguard.
Clause 11 deals with compensation for loss of earnings or remunerative time, by withdrawing from all Members of the House who hold statutory offices which carry allowances but no right to remuneration, the right to receive any such compensation. They will not receive more than the Treasury scale of subsistence allowances. Parliament has already adopted this principle in individual cases as, for example, in the Medical Act, 1950.
The purpose of Clause 12 and of the Sixth Schedule is to make provision for the two Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. At present, the law for the time being in force applies also, by virtue of Section 18 (2) of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, to the two Houses at Stormont. This results, in practice, in the disqualification of a wider range of persons than seems strictly necessary. For

1863
example, a person appointed to a paid office by a United Kingdom Minister or Department must be excluded from this House, but might quite well sit in the Northern Ireland Parliament. Likewise, not all offices which are incompatible with sitting and voting at Westminster are similarly incompatible at Stormont.
The Bill accordingly seeks to amend the existing law relating to the Northern Ireland Parliament so as to limit the scope of disqualification to those cases in which incompatibility or undue financial influence could arise at Stormont. Subsection (2) of Clause 12 gives the Northern Ireland Parliament a new legislative power enabling it to disqualify at Stormont the holders of any new offices created by the Northern Ireland legislation. Subsection (3) is designed to remove any existing doubt, and to make it clear that both Houses of the Northern Ireland Parliament have the power to declare seats vacant.
Clauses 13 and 14 are of a technical character. Clause 15 and the Seventh Schedule, which I commend to the attention of hon. Members, give effect to the Herbert Committee's recommendation about the repeal of all enactments, the effect of which is re-enacted by the present Bill. I am sure that the House will acknowledge that the Seventh Schedule list of more than 100 repeals is a most impressive one and that its size is some measure of the extent to which this Bill succeeds in clearing up and consolidating the existing law.
Clause 16, while bringing into immediate operation the repeals of the various common informer penalty provisions of the existing law, provides that, in general, the Bill shall not come into force at Westminster until the next dissolution of the United Kingdom Parliament. The same principle governs the application of the Bill to the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
These provisions accord with precedent, because it is customary for changes in the law which affect the composition of the House to come into operation at a General Election. But in view of the introduction of this Bill at such an early stage in the present Parliament, and the obvious shortcomings of the existing law, I propose to move an Amendment in Committee designed to bring the whole
1864
Bill into operation on the date of the Royal Assent. Care will, however, be taken to ensure that until the end of the current Parliament, no Member who is properly sitting on that date will become disqualified by reason of circumstances which do not disqualify him under the existing law.
Finally, may I remind the House that the scope of the Bill is limited to disqualifications arising from the holding of Government appointments, contracts or pensions, and does not extend to other disqualifications such as those of the clergy, aliens, minors and so forth. We have, in fact, concentrated on those sources of disqualification which, in practice, have consistently caused the most trouble.
I think hon. Members will appreciate that this Bill is the fruit of much labour. To the making of the Bill both sides have contributed, and in commending this Bill to the House I hope very much that it will have an unopposed Second Reading.
4.3 p.m.
Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I feel sure that the whole House is grateful to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Home Secretary not only for his very clear exposition of what is necessarily a rather tangled Bill, but also for the tribute he so properly paid to the work that had been done in this matter by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross) and by my right hon. and learned Friend Sir Frank Soskice, who formerly held the offices of Solicitor-General, and, subsequently, of Attorney-General, in a Labour Government. I can assure the Home Secretary at once that we appreciate that this Bill represents common work for a common purpose, and that in broad principle we find no matter to object to in it which will cause us to oppose its Second Reading.
I feel sure, however, that the Home Secretary would agree that this Bill necessarily raises a large number of questions, some of them detailed, and, therefore, more appropriate for Committee proceedings, and others perhaps, though capable of being dealt with in Committee, of rather more general interest. I hope that a Bill of this character and importance will be taken in Committee on the Floor of the House, for it concerns the House as a House.

1865
I am not going into the details of the Bill today. I propose to take simply two or three points which occur to me as of general importance. The first relates to the strict subject matter of the Dennis Herbert Committee, if I may so describe it. That Committee reported in 1941, and after the war legislation was passed which created a good deal of new Government machinery connected with such matters as National Insurance, the control of rents, and a host of others, that will, I am sure, occur to any of us who were in the House at the time or who studied the matter. It was coming, as it were, at the time of the Herbert Committee's Report. The Committee did, indeed, touch on the sort of question that arises, but it did not deal with it.
The result of the existing legislation is, as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman indicated—and one can easily supplement it—that indemnity Bills have had to be passed for hon. Members of the House who were fulfilling a quite minor public duty, very often of a local character. He gave one instance. I am not going to duplicate it too much, but rent tribunals happen to be one case, a pensions appeal tribunal another, assessors under the National Service Acts another, and so on, and quite recently we have had the case of an hon. Member opposite who, out of charity and public feeling, performed good service to the local village institute and British Legion and had for that purpose to become a paid servant of the Crown at the not excessive remuneration of one guinea a year.
Surely nobody can take any view of the mischief aimed at by all this legislation which would preclude people taking that kind of office; indeed, that has been recognised in the exempting Clause to which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman referred, the Clause providing for indemnification or exemption by this House. There are, however, I think, some objections to that, and I should like to see something in this Bill which provided perhaps particularly or perhaps in more general terms for all these cases.
I take a parallel. I mentioned that some of them were tribunals. One of the cases that the Herbert Committee considered was that of justices of the peace holding, of course, an unpaid office but still sitting as judges or justices. In my opinion, the Herbert Committee quite
1866
rightly decided that there was no real incompatibility and that the only question in that sort of case was one for the individual Member's conscience as to whether his performance of his duties in that judicial capacity interfered with his obligations and his duties in this House. There can be no doubt of the answer as far as it concerns justices of the peace, and some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have given most valuable advice and assistance to this House by virtue of their experience in that office.
Just the same thing applies to these other fruits of modern legislation where people are really performing an important but, still, a comparatively minor public duty where, if there is any conflict between their duty to the House and their duty in that respect, it is surely one which can safely and properly be left to their own consciences. It may be said that the provisions of Clause 8 of the Bill, which provides for an order of this House directing disqualifications to be disregarded in certain circumstances, fully meets that kind of case.
There are, I think, objections to that. I was glad to hear that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman proposes to move an Amendment to prevent a conflict between the Judiciary and Parliament in the case of proceedings before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; but, of course, the Clause still leaves open the possibility of an Election petition, which is expressly excluded from it. What ought to be dealt with, and could properly be dealt with, by that Clause—and I have no objection to it—is not the kind of matter to which I am referring.
I do not apologise for taking up the time of the House with these very small offices, if I may so describe them, because, after all, they have been responsible for the majority of recent cases and also because they raise the general question of not unduly keeping out of a form of public service Members of this House. That is the first general point I wanted to make.
I shall not now go into detailed questions about other offices of profit under the Crown. I merely mention two things. The Bill provides for rules for saying what an office of profit under the Crown is, but I am not satisfied with one aspect of them. It has actually arisen in connection with these small cases to which I

1867
have been referring and, for obvious reasons, which will occur to anyone who has followed recent references to the Select Committee, I do not take any specific instance.
The kind of thing I have in mind is this. An hon. Member receives an invitation to take up a small post of the character I have been describing. He may be told, on the invitation itself, that he, will not get any fees out of doing so. Under the existing law, he is obliged to look up the legislation and see whether any Minister has power to make a payment to him in certain circumstances. I say "in certain circumstances" because it would be sufficient to disqualify him, I understand, if the Minister has power either simply to make the payment or to make it with the consent of the Treasury, or even to make it in certain contingencies which may arise. That remarkable state of affairs is still preserved by the rules in the Third Schedule.
I was glad to see recently that the Attorney-General, whom I see sitting opposite, and who, I dare say, will reply at the end of the debate, took steps to circularise Government Departments and to put it more or less on them to keep their eyes open and not let hon. Members or candidates for Parliament into this sort of position. But the variety of these things is so large, the ultimate responsibility is so much on hon. Members themselves and on this House, that I do not regard it as satisfactory to leave it there. Therefore, I should like to consider at a later stage the question whether people ought to be disqualified in cases where no payment is, in fact, made; and even if there is a possibility of a payment, it is at any rate a remote one. That, however, is a Committee point.
I cannot pass from that without one further comment. I am very glad to see that a number of local government servants who used to be disqualified are no longer to be disqualified. There is one particular case that was so ridiculous that I welcome its disappearance with particular pleasure. The old law used to be that a full-time teacher appointed by a county council could not be a candidate—certainly not a Member—for Parliament, but if he was appointed by a county borough council he could be. In plain English, that is nonsense and I am glad
1868
that it has gone. It worried a good many people concerned with the teaching profession.
I turn now to contracts. The common informer was mentioned as a reason for dealing with contracts at all. The common informer could be dealt with separately and whatever teeth the Solicitor-General had left in the common informer's head could be removed from him, because the hon. and learned Gentleman brought in a Bill about this matter and it became law.
Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: It was the former Attorney-General.
Mr. Mitchison: I beg pardon.
It can be done that way. But, in fact, what has been done has simply been to re-enact the present legislation. What I think has happened is that the Government and, no doubt, others concerned in preparing this Bill have looked at the existing legislation and have said, "Well it at least serves one purpose and we cannot really face up to any broader examination of the question of contracts." As the right hon. and gallant Gentleman put it just now, it would require another committee like the Herbert Committee.
It is very ancient stuff. "The sale of wares and merchandise" is an oldfashioned phrase, but it conveys something. "Money to be remitted abroad" goes back to the eighteenth century scandals about remitting money for the Army; that is what it was for. I trust that the House will bear with me if I recall hon. Members' attention to what happened in 1782.
There was a debate about remitting money abroad and a Member of this House at that time—Mr. Alderman Harley—felt himself in a very awkward situation indeed. According to the records, he did not have that option which the Home Secretary has mentioned. His contract was not to be vacated at leisure. He was to supply the Army in Canada, Nova Scotia, Carolina, New York, and the West Indies with money. He had agents in all those places who were constantly drawing bills upon him and who would continue to do so until he should give them directions to the contrary.
He then mentioned notice again and he trusted that no one would suppose

1869
that his conduct since he got the contract had been influenced by it. He never asked for it; he was not in the habit of asking favours of Ministers. He got his contract in consequence of an address which the late Lord Suffolk intended to have moved to the King, that His Majesty would be pleased to confer upon him some mark of his favour. At the request of the Duke of Grafton—we are moving in the best circles—who promised to fulfil the object of the address, Lord Suffolk did not move it. He was afterwards offered a pension, which he would not accept, saying, at the same time, that he would rather have something in the way of his profession. On this, he got the gold contract, which he fulfilled for twelve years with the fairest character; and the unfortunate Mr. Alderman Harley felt himself hurt indeed that he should be treated as if he were a criminal, in being forced to give up either a valuable branch of his business, or renounce the honour, which he held so high, of sitting in Parliament. Mr. Fox answered Mr. Harley. What Mr. Fox said is not related, but we can make our own guesses upon that.
That was the kind of thing with which the Act of 1782 was introduced to deal, and in the earlier legislation there were some ambiguities and some references to contracts as a whole which led the Government of the day to introduce, in 1931, a declaratory Act confining it to these particular words.
The occasion of that was the assignment of the contract, or rather the interest, of the lessor in the Hatfield Post Office. A Member of this House, now a highly distinguished Member of another place, had, by assignment, become the lessor of this Post Office to the Postmaster-General, and there was real doubt whether he might possibly be disqualified by virtue of that. I take the illustration because it shows the extreme difficulty of being too sweeping over contracts. As the Herbert Committee pointed out, because at one point they got very near to this matter, people do, in fact, make all kinds of contracts with the Government without realising that they are contracts with the Crown.
I appreciate the difficulty of that, but there is one aspect of the contract question which has much troubled some of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I think I ought to take the bull by the horns, or,
1870
perhaps, the brief by its white tape, because what I am referring to are Crown briefs. These are not, of course, matters which constitute offices. They are, I suppose, contracts of a peculiar nature in some ways, but still contracts, or at any rate of that character, and it seems to me that they raise some questions of principle which we ought not to shirk. If contracts had been left out entirely, that might have been a different matter.
I turn, first of all, to the Herbert Committee. I said just now that they had approached this matter. So indeed, they did, and in paragraph 20 of its Report the Committee recognised
"that persons in certain contractual relations (like those of standing counsel to Government Departments, barristers employed on Government briefs, technical and scientific advisers and regular speakers for the British Broadcasting Corporation) may be in a position somewhat analogous to that of office holders."
I am not going to burke the following sentence; I am coming back to it in due course. I want to speak upon this matter with a full sense not only of the responsibility of each of us, but of the very great importance of these relations between the making of laws and the administration of them, which are really fundamental to our constitution and to our way of life.
Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends seem allergic to lawyers. It is an old prejudice, and there are some unfortunate passages in Plato which are directed, I always think, more to that uncertain support of the legal profession, the habitual litigant, than to the lawyer himself; but there it is. I recognise that some of the reasons for it may be a certain lack of appreciation of the necessary position of any advocate. Some, on the other hand, derive from a real feeling that in places, and in this place in particular, the law and lawyers have perhaps had too easy a deal in the past. There it is, and I say no more about it, except that I hope that we shall not approach this question too much from that point of view.
The far more serious objection to Crown briefs, it seems to me, is that they constitute a form of secret or semi-secret patronage. It is perfectly true that one could possibly obtain a published list of them, and I am quite certain that the Attorney-General of the day would not be slow to give reasonable information to hon. Members about them.
Mr. George Wigg: I am sure that, in making that statement, my hon. and learned Friend has not overlooked the numerous Questions which I put to the Attorney-General, all of which revealed nothing.
Mr. Ede: My hon. Friend means that the Answers revealed nothing.
Mr. Wigg: Or the Answers, either.
The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): I entirely agree; the Questions did not reveal anything.
Mr. Mitchison: I hope we may leave these procedural questions, upon which, perhaps, I ought not to have embarked, until a later discussion. It only shows that this question arouses strong feelings whenever it turns up. The appropriate metaphor would seem to be, "Wigs on the green at once." There we are; it is another case.
I have referred to secret or semi-secret patronage. These are hard words, and I only use them because I can think of no succinct phrase that puts the real point more clearly. The question is: are we justified in allowing the control of the Executive over hon. Members of this House to be applied in this way? Let us get the position clear, to begin with. There are, of course, Crown briefs of considerable and weighty importance, some of them for cases in London and some for cases in the provinces. There are, too, a host of other cases of minor importance, and all these briefs are delivered to counsel by the Director of Public Prosecutions in some cases, the Treasury Solicitor or other appropriate civil servant, and the Attorney-General is only responsible, as I understand, in an informal way.
There is not the slightest doubt that the Attorney-General of the day regards it as his duty to see that proper people are appointed to hold these briefs, and, further, that that duty is an exceedingly important one. I am sure we should all recognise that. Therefore, there is no legislation about it at all. It depends on convention and practice, and, if we take the case first mentioned in the Herbert Report—that of standing counsel to Government Departments—the fact that the position of such a standing counsel is incompatible with membership of this House does not depend upon any statute.
1872
There is no statutory prohibition that I know of. It depends on a convention which has generally been followed.
The Attorney-General: It may assist the hon. and learned Gentleman and the House if we clear that matter out of the way now. When standing counsel are appointed nowadays, and it has been the case for several years past, it is a term of their appointment that they should resign should they stand for Parliament.
Mr. Mitchison: I am much obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. That carries out the practice, which is, I feel certain, a long-established convention.
The Attorney-General: I should have said, if they become a Member of Parliament.
Mr. Mitchison: No one would disagree with the present practice in that matter.
Mr. Ronald Bell: The hon. and learned Member will appreciate that
"Standing Counsel to any Department of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom"
are disqualified under the Second Schedule to the Bill.
Mr. Mitchison: For the first time. My reference to statutory prohibitions is perfectly correct, but may not be when this Bill becomes law.
Now I turn to Crown briefs, and I do so because there is real and responsible feeling about this and because it raises the question I have just outlined. I want to put now the case for maintaining the present practice. The case against it really is secret or semi-secret patronage. I do assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman—if he needs my assurance—that there is absolutely nothing personal in this in the least. I am sure he knows that. I have no idea whether the practice has varied, to what extent it has varied—indeed, I do not know what it is at present, and that, of course, is the secret or semi-secret side of the matter.
I may add that I have no personal interest in this whatever. For some time I tried to ride two horses, as many other people have done, and the problem has been solved by one of the horses dying. It is hard to ride two at any time and when one is dead it is impossible. So I have no personal interest in this whatever. If the right hon. and learned

1873
Gentleman offered me a Crown brief tomorrow I should be compelled to refuse it, so that is that.
I turn to the other side of the matter—
Mr. Eric Fletcher: May I interrupt my hon. and learned Friend? This is a matter of great importance on a question of fact. Could my hon. and learned Friend say whether the practice is for the selection of Crown briefs to be in the hands of the Attorney-General, or in the independent hands of the Treasury Solicitor?
Mr. Mitchison: I just disclaimed any particular knowledge of these matters and I think that that question would be better answered by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I hope that he will answer it. I believe that the substance of the matter, at any rate, is that he, or the Law Officers of the day, do exercise an actual and personal choice in important cases, but that they are not actively concerned in, although, of course, they are politically responsible for, minor Crown prosecutions, and so on.
The Attorney-General The Attorney-General indicated assent.
Mr. Hector Hughes: As the Attorney-General was good enough to intervene with regard to standing counsel, I submit to him that it would assist the course of the debate very much if he would make a similar intervention now on the question of Crown briefs so that we may know what his view is and what course the debate will take.
The Attorney-General: I do not think that it really would be for the convenience of the debate if I did so now. I would much rather hear what is said on this subject and then deal with it, as I think I can, fully and, I hope, to the satisfaction of the House.
Mr. Hughes: In particular, will the Attorney-General affirm or deny that he has a right of patronage in regard to Crown briefs? Will the Attorney-General answer that question to assist the debate?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): Order. This is a Second Reading debate. The Committee stage is coming later.
Mr. Mitchison: This is really a general question and I think that a nodded assent
1874
from the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicated that I had not got the practice too far wrong. We will put it that way.
I now turn to the other side of the matter. Under the law about contracts as it stands at present, as the Home Secretary has pointed out, it is open for the Crown to have a contract with—let us say—an architect, a consultant engineer, or someone in any such professional capacity and there is no question of his being disqualified. I have heard no suggestion that he should be disqualified from membership of this House. Therefore, what, in fact, we would do if we started to interfere with the matter of Crown briefs would be to introduce a rule which would apply to one profession, and to a profession which is, I believe, of peculiar importance in and to this House. I respect, and always have respected, the profession to which I belong, and those who serve in it. I think that in relations between the making and the administration of laws we depend quite particularly on a code of conduct and professional integrity which has always been, and always will be, the pride of the Bar of this country.
If we are not to have lawyers in the House, or if we are unduly to restrict the number of lawyers here, then, from the point of view of this House, we shall be limited and cramped in the choice of Law Officers from time to time; for we ask of them that they should have experience both of this House and of the law in practice. Also, if, in fact, we are to make Crown briefs any form of disqualification, let there be no doubt about it: in the case of most lawyers we are going to interfere seriously with their profession and the way in which they carry it out.
It is not a small matter—it may be in some individual cases, but, in general, it is a large matter. From the point of view of the law itself, although it is not for me to lecture any Law Officer of the Crown, it seems to me—and I believe that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree—that it is his responsibility, apart from party considerations, to find the best advocate for the Crown in any given case, or kind of case. Let there be no mistake about it, we expect him to discharge that duty with the complete impartiality which he has to show in other respects in the high and rather peculiar office that he

1875
holds. I feel certain that if hon. Members had reason to think that he was not doing so, the point which I am making today as a question of importance would become one of urgency and there would be loud and violent complaints, which I should feel, were fully justified.
That does not quite answer the point. The point is not that there is, in fact, wrongful patronage, but that there is the possibility of wrongful patronage. That, I think, is the real difficulty. I come to this conclusion in the matter. We have to weigh up something which is rather illogical and which is capable of mischief on the one hand—by that I refer to the present practice—against the disclocation we would cause both in this House and, to some extent at least, in the administration of the law, if we made any change.
I feel doubtful whether we ought to embark on a change of that magnitude without a great deal of further inquiry. I am not prepared to say, however, that my right hon. and hon. Friends, who feel strongly on this matter, are wrong in principle or may not indeed be altogether right. I should want to know more. I can only say this in all frankness to the House, that personally I do not believe, and have no reason to believe, that this secret or semi-secret patronage—and the Attorney-General must excuse the words—has ever been wrongfully exercised either by him or by his predecessors. I am sure he will accept it from me that if I thought so I should say it now without fear or favour.
That is as far as I can go, but it seems to me to raise a question of very great importance, coupled as it is with the slightly unsatisfactory state of affairs about Crown contracts. I recognise the arguments against dealing with it now, but I hope that when he winds up the debate today we shall have from the Attorney-General a fuller statment than he appears to have been able to make so far to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) about what is the practice of his office in the matter and, generally, what he has to say to the suggestion, not that there has been any wrongful use of patronage but that the possibility of such a wrongful use is, in principle, somewhat objectionable.
4.42 p.m.
Major W. J. Anstruther-Gray: I find myself agreeing very much with what the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) said at the beginning of his speech—that this is a matter for the House as a whole and is important to us all. Having served as a member of the Select Committee which examined the last four cases of disqualification of a Member, I have had brought home to me very closely how absurd is the present stuation.
In opening the debate, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary quoted my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), and I should like further to quote the words which he used and which are to be found in the Herbert Report:
"the confusion of accident and anomaly of legal fiction and Parliamentary circumnavigation.…"
Those were his words and what they produce, in my humble opinon, is nonsense, or something very near it, for the ordinary man.
If we look at the cases in the last ten years it appears to have been established, first, that an office of profit remains an office of profit notwithstanding that, in fact, it is, and always has been, an office of loss. Secondly, it has been established that an office may be an office under the Crown although, in fact, the Crown never engage or remunerate the holder thereof. Thirdly—and this seems to me the most incomprehensible—it has been established that the fact that an invitation to serve in an office states in black and white that no fee is payable does not prevent the acceptance of that office from being construed as accepting a fee.
These things are very difficult for a layman to understand and, to make confusion worse confounded, we now find that our infallible Erskine May is regarded by the Attorney-General as being incorrect, if hon. Members care to refer to page 2 of the Report from the Select Committee on Elections of 12th July of this year. I am not a lawyer, but I have been known from time to time to creep out of the House to the Library and to fish out a volume of Erskine May. I thought that there at least I should find words of wisdom. Now our faith even in Erskine May is shaken.
I want to ask my right hon. and gallant Friend how things stand under the

1877
Bill. I listened to his speech with interest, but I am not quite clear about the situation of an hon. Member who is invited to accept an office and who wants to be certain that he will not find himself on the wrong side of the law. It is suggested, in page 33 of the Herbert Report, that in such a case it should be possible for an hon. Member to consult Mr. Speaker on the subject and that Mr. Speaker should then be able to refer the matter to a Select Committee. As I understand, Clause 8 goes some way towards providing for this but it does not make it clear to me whether an hon. Member is entitled to consult Mr. Speaker now and whether Mr. Speaker, having been consulted and having appointed a Select Committee, can, after that, give a Ruling which is conclusive.
Even if that be so for an hon. Member, what is the position of a candidate or a prospective candidate who may already hold an office and who wants to know whether he is eligible for Membership. It seems to me that Mr. Speaker might find himself in some difficulty in dealing with the case of a man who is not yet a Member but only a hypothetical Member and, being a prospective candidate, is, in fact, only a hypothetical candidate, but who wishes to stand for election to the House. These cases are not unimportant and they can crop up any day. It is very inconvenient for everybody to have what we have been having in the past—three or four cases of Members finding themselves disqualified.
Perhaps I may turn from those small but quite important, detailed points to the general principle of the Bill. What are we trying to achieve by the Bill? The Herbert Report makes out the position very clearly—and the Home Secretary referred to it. The Report lays down three principles: first, the incompatibility of certain offices with Membership of the House; secondly, the need to limit the control or influence of the Government over the House by appointing to some office an undue proportion of the Members; and thirdly, the essential condition that a certain number of Ministers should be Members of the House of Commons.
May I take those points one by one? I do not think the last need delay us for very long. There may have been
1878
occasions in the war when too many Ministers might have been appointed while sitting in another place, but I do not think there is very much risk of that happening now. The second point, of limiting the control of the Government over the House by making appointments, seems to me much more interesting. Of course, the original seventeenth century purpose, as the House is well aware, was to secure that the House of Commons should be independent of the King. The great fear was that the Crown would pack the House with place-men who would have sold their independence for preferment.
Later, that fear became not that the Crown would do any such thing but that the Government of the day would do it. I wonder how much there is in that danger now. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering, in his interesting remarks about Crown briefs, directed himself at this point. I wonder whether I may go a little further, although from a rather different point of view. I should say that the power of any Government today to attract a Member from one party to another is very small indeed in the two main parties. We all have in mind, however, cases where Liberals—and I see that they are not represented now—have been brought to one side or other of the House by offers of office.
The power of silencing criticism or undermining independence within a party by the Government remains very strong. The Government have tremendous power of patronage, besides the matter of office or expectation of office. There are titles. It may be that these are not so attractive today as they were, because by no means does everybody on either side of the House want to find himself "upstairs." Maybe, again, there are not so many governorships as there used to be and there are not so very many hon. Members of this House who find themselves appointed to governorships. But there are still what will be colloquially called "Jobs for the boys."
Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is making the grossest attack upon the Home Secretary. He is talking about Liberals who have been attracted by office and now he is talking about "jobs for the boys." Surely that is not in order.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I think that the hon. and gallant Gentleman is quite in order. He was not talking about a particular Home Secretary.
Major Anstruther-Gray: I was talking about the question of the "jobs for the boys," on resignation in various offices. I do not know why the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) takes exception to "Jobs for the boys." I read in my newspaper a day or two ago that a "boy" who sat on the opposite benches, Mr. Leonard, who was Labour Member for St. Rollox for many years, had been very properly appointed by the present Government as a member of the National Assistance Board. That is a very interesting job for one of the boys and very suitable for ex-Members, and so long as these appointments are not made purely on party lines I see no reason why the hon. Gentleman should take exception to them.
To come back to the question of patronage, there is the attraction, again affecting both sides of the House, of appointment to interesting work. I would give as an instance the appointment to the Malta Round Table Conference. That is extremely interesting. I would give as another instance the appointment given to either party to go to Strasbourg. That is very interesting. It is quite possible to argue that the wish to receive some such preferment may prevent an hon. Member on either side from being, at any rate, particularly offensive to the Government in power. I do not think that one can go very much further than that.
I think that the real sanctions which control the votes of hon. Members here are based on something much deeper. What I think controls the way in which we vote is party loyalty, and that is emphasised when the balance of parties is particularly close. The thought that if one voted against one's own party the result would be to let hon. and right hon. Members opposite into power is an awful thought and enough to deter any normal Member from considering such a course. I think it has been the experience in this House that hon. members have very seldom voted against their own party when there was any danger of that vote being decisive.
We can all recall recent cases of a single hon. Member or two voting against their party, but they knew that their vote
1880
would not affect the result and bring down the Government. Equally, one can recall that not long ago on the question of Suez some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, rightly or wrongly, voted against the Government, but in that case, although there were a number of them, they were aware that the Government were having the support of the Opposition and that their votes, although it was a token and a gesture, would not have the effect of bringing down the Government.
It is true that two of my hon. Friends who voted against the Budget were well aware that they were just two Members and would not beat the Government. Perhaps I should qualify that. Of course, there have been cases when that has not been so. I myself, about fifteen years ago, had to vote against the Government on a three-line Whip, and the effect of that vote was, in fact, to change the Prime Minister and to change the Government. It was in the Norway debate, as hon. Members will remember, of 1940, but, of course, that did not entail a General Election, so it was really no more significant than a vote against the Government in France where they can change Government day after day and never have to face a General Election afterwards.
The point I am making is that the real sanction which stops hon. Members on either side is already acknowledged, although our supporters in the constituencies may forgive and often applaud an occasional gesture of independence.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Before the hon. and gallant Gentleman leaves that most interesting point, would he care to tell the House how he knew, on the famous occasion in 1940, that the vote passed would not result in a General Election, and whether he would have voted as he did if he had thought that it would?
Major Anstruther-Gray: I was voting according to my conscience. It would have taken a great deal to stop me voting in the way I did on that occasion.
To come back to sanctions in our own constituencies, I would point out that if we voted too blatantly against the party which we were sent to represent, we should find ourselves without seats. The experience of hon. Members on either side of the House who have become independent and have gone back to their constituencies is by no means encouraging.

1881
I think that the last hon. Member on the opposite side—the hon. Member for Gravesend, Sir Richard Acland—who did that, did not collect many votes when it came to the Election. I have said enough to make the point that, in my opinion, the old theory that an office of privilege was a great danger to a Member's independence is now out-dated, and is now rather nonsense.
This brings me to my third point, and that is the incompatibility of certain offices with membership of this House. Already, the position of a judge has been mentioned. To me it seems that the correct reason for that is that justice must not only be done but must appear to be done. If a judge were sitting in this House, useful as he would be here, when he got to the courts, after taking a very prominent part in Parliamentary affairs, and sentenced anybody of the other party, there might be a feeling of injustice, however wrong that might be.
Then there is the question of ambassadors. They are not suitable for the reason that they are absentees and cannot attend to their work here. Then there are the officers in the Armed Forces. Today, I think that it goes without saying that it is a good thing that officers in the Armed Forces may not be seconded as Members of this House. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I can recall that in 1927 there were seconded officers in this House. That was at a time when I was beginning as a soldier, and I thought that I would like to have a shot at coming here, but it did occur to me that I would be given an opportunity only in a rather difficult constituency, and that I should be likely to be defeated at my first attempt. In 1927, it would have been quite possible to be seconded before election and, having lost the Election, to go back to one's regiment.
Mr. Wigg: Is that quite correct? Surely, throughout the whole of this century Service regulations have prevented not only an officer but any soldier from standing for Parliament while serving as a Regular soldier.
Major Anstruther-Gray: I do not think I am incorrect. I think that up to 1927 or 1928 it was possible for an officer to be seconded from his regiment and to sit in this House. I have in mind one officer in my own regiment who did so. He was Arthur Hope, who was a Government
1882
Whip. He was seconded from the Coldstream Guards when he was a candidate.
The next person who is mentioned as not being eligible is a lord lieutenant. That is an innovation. He now may not be a Member for his county. This makes one call to mind people like Lord Thurso, who sat for many years as a Liberal Member of the House and who was Secretary of State for Scotland in 1931. As far as his duties in the House were concerned, the fact that Sir Archibald Sinclair, as he then was, was Lord Lieutenant for Caithness made no difference at all but I appreciate that it is undesirable to have a representative of the Sovereign playing too prominent and controversial a part in a county. We must not over-play that note, because quite a number of lords lieutenants are among some of the best public servants and take a leading part in local government, but it may be felt, perhaps with justification, that it would give a man an unfair advantage as a candidate in an Election if he were, at the same time, lord lieutenant for the county.
Mr. Grant-Ferris: What about the deputy-lieutenant?
Major Anstruther-Gray: My hon. Friend will notice that deputy-lieutenants are excluded and may become Members of Parliament for the county of which they are deputy-lieutenants. This follows upon the recommendation of the Herbert Committee and has rightly been incorporated in the Bill.
It is stated in pages 19 and 20 of the Bill that among Government appointments that are considered incompatible with Membership of the House are those of director of the Bank of England, governor of the B.B.C., member of the British European Airways Corporation, member of the British Transport Commission, member of the National Coal Board and many other important posts.
Mr. Montgomery Hyde: My hon. and gallant Friend refers to pages 19 and 20 of the Bill, but those refer to Northern Ireland.
Major Anstruther-Gray: Most of these appointments are listed in page 20. I am sorry if I referred to the wrong page but the principal offices appear in page 20. Some appointments are also listed in page 19. For example, the governor,

1883
deputy-governor or director of the Bank of England are mentioned on page 19, and so also is the governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Mr. Hyde: Those listed in these pages refer exclusively to the Senate and House of Commons of Northern Ireland.
Major Anstruther-Gray: Then does one assume that a man can be a governor of the B.B.C. while a Member of the House of Commons? Perhaps the Minister will put me straight so that I do not waste the time of the House. My impression was that a Member of Parliament was precluded from being director of the Bank of England or a governor of the B.B.C.
Mr. J. H. Hoy: The hon. and gallant Member will see that according to the Second Schedule, a governor of the B.B.C. is excluded from Membership of the House.
Major Anstruther-Gray: What about the director of the Bank of England and the others that I have mentioned? It seems to me strange, if Members of Parliament are eligible to take those jobs, that no Government has seen fit to appoint any of us to them. I have a high regard for the other 600 hon. Members and I should have thought that one or other of us would have caught somebody's eye. I hope that the Government spokesman will make this point clear when he winds up the debate.
Seriously, is it really a good plan specifically to exclude hon. Members from being considered for all these jobs? "Jobs for the boys" sounds a very disagreeable phrase, but if it would serve the public interest to have Members of Parliament serving in these capacities are we right to assent so readily to a Bill making it illegal for them to do so?
The biggest criticism that I have against public boards is that they are far too remote from public opinion. They are absolutely secure and nobody can bring a criticism home to them. If two hon. Members were appointed on a part-time basis, without payment, to such a board as the National Coal Board and such a Government body as the British Transport Commission, it might be very much in the public interest. I do not think that anything but good would come of having on these boards somebody who
1884
would be responsible to 50,000 constituents and who could receive a great many complaints at first hand and bring them home to his fellow members on the board. Such part-time, unpaid members would learn from the House of Commons. They could take part in debate, hear what we thought of them and pass that on to their fellow members. I believe that that would be a great deal more persuasive than anything that members of these boards hear from public relations officers.
Mr. Ede: They can always come to the Public Gallery.
Major Anstruther-Gray: It is very tempting to think of hon. Members who could be appointed to these boards. I wonder where my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has gone. He would make a good member of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.
How would the appointment of hon. Members as part-time members of these boards affect their position with the Government? The fact that members of these boards receive perhaps £5,000 a year whilst an Under-Secretary receives only £2,000 would make for no financial difficulty, because a part-time member of a board who was a Member of the House could serve on the board without pay, under the same arrangement as is made in the case of the General Medical Council. That is the practice of two hon. Members who are members of the General Medical Council. If matters of expenses only have to be considered, they are covered under the Bill.
The more important question is that of relations with Ministers in the House. How embarrassing would it be for the Minister of Transport to find himself contradicted in the House by a member of the British Transport Commission, or for the Minister of Fuel and Power to be contradicted by an hon. Member who was a member of the National Coal Board?
Mr. S. Silverman: Which of the two would the House believe?
Major Anstruther-Gray: My answer is—
Mr. Silverman: Neither.
Major Anstruther-Gray: My answer is that "dog don't eat dog."

1885
In the same way, when Ministers and hon. Members come in contact on Select Committees, the Public Accounts Committee, arid so on, it is the experience of the House that confidences are not betrayed and that, although in the course of debate each hon. Member puts his case, embarrassments of a personal nature very seldom occur. It would not be an impossible position for a Minister to have sitting behind him in the House, were he the Minister of Transport, somebody who knew all about the British Transport Commission. Before the days of nationalisation the Minister of Transport always had sitting behind him or opposite him in this House directors of the railways who knew a great deal about the subject, in addition to persons who had worked on the railways. Equally, the Secretary for Mines of those days, as well as having many experts on the underground working of coal on the opposite side of the House, also had behind him people who knew all about the management of the coal mines from the point of view of directors.
I do not know whether the House appreciates how much we have lost in the present state of affairs by not having anybody who can talk for a wide section of our economy from the point of view of the managerial director. In the case of coal, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for South Fylde (Colonel Lancaster) can still make a knowledgeable speech though, I suppose, tending to become a little out of date. When it comes to railways, up to a short time ago Sir Ralph Glyn was sitting in this House, and at present there is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who was a railway director. So we still have fairly first-hand information. But these people will die out, they will be replaced, and then this House will face all the problems of an ever-widening field of national economy control without having the most important point of view of the management side of that control voiced in the Chamber.
It may be more than we can contemplate now to accept my suggestion. This was, not to have paid "jobs for the boys" but to follow the practice of the General Medical Council where one hon. Member from each side of the House is an unpaid member of that council. I
1886
have also suggested that one hon. Member from each side of the House should be sent to at least some of these national boards, only for a period of perhaps five or three years, unpaid certainly, part-time certainly, in order to give those national boards an idea of what the public in general, and of what we in the House of Commons in particular, are thinking about their performance; and, furthermore, to give us in this House the opportunity of retaining our reputation for being able to produce a speaker with first-class, first-hand information on any subject. For lack of that information, the quality of our debates will fall, and if the quality of our debates falls, the status of this House falls with it, and that is a thing which none of us wants to see.
5.14 p.m.
Mr. Hector Hughes: The speech to which we have just listened was a sustained argument for part-time Members of Parliament with divided attention and divided loyalties, who would not be able to give their entire attention to the needs of their constituents. I disagree with the general trend of that argument, and I disagree with the minor arguments on which it was based.
Major Anstruther-Gray: May I interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman? Has he no legal practice himself?
Mr. Hughes: That intervention has nothing to do with either the speech or with my criticism of it. I disagree with the argument of the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray). However, before I say more on that point, I should like to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on the careful, diligent and exhaustive examination to which he submitted this Bill. I tried to draw the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General into indicating in advance what line he intended to take. I do not agree entirely with everything said by my hon. and learned Friend, and I have high hopes that when I hear the speech of the Attorney-General it will be one that will make a clean sweep of this old problem in a way which will elicit support not only from myself but from others on this side of the House.

1887
This Bill is an attempt to solve longstanding problems, to resolve various legal difficulties and to abolish historic anomalies. Unfortunately, the Bill differs in some respects from the Report upon which it is based. It only tackles its task partially. I hope that it will be improved in Committee and that its present defects will be removed in order to make it a perfect Bill which will sweep away these long-standing anomalies.
The Bill seeks to do its task by looking at these old problems, by explaining legal difficulties and by defining some centuries old perplexities. In doing this, it is fortified by and founded on the valuable and learned Report, which traces these problems, difficulties and anomalies throughout history. It expresses them in modern terms; it shows that some of them originated in utility but are unsuited for the needs of today. The thanks of Parliament and the nation are due to the learned members of the Select Committee of Parliament who delved into these anomalies, into this old history and law, and who laboured assiduously to produce this careful and instructive Report.
As I have said, there are differences between the Report and the Bill. The Report is a model of its kind. It traces the history of the doctrines relating to offices of profit under the Crown almost pari passu with the development of modern Parliamentary law and usage. I regard it, however, as a little inconsistent in some ways. There are defects in it. It limits itself unduly. The Report says on page 14 that the Select Committee excluded from its consideration certain contractual relations with the Crown. As an illustration of the contradiction and inconsistency to which I have referred, I quote what the Report states on page 13, namely, that the Committee—
"have thought it convenient and right and in accordance with the wishes of the House, judging from the debates on the subject, that they should put a fairly wide interpretation on their terms of reference. This enables them to include in their considerations all such offices and places as appear to have been included in past legislation on the subject, even though the element of 'profit' is negligible or practically non-existent; and also to include certain cases of persons holding positions which, while possibly not strictly speaking offices or places of profit from or under the Crown, are so analogous to some of such offices that it would
1888
be illogical as well as inconvenient to exclude them from the consideration of Your Committee."
Then later the Report seems to make certain exclusions which, in my submission, are inconsistent with what I have just read. At page 14, the Report says:
"On the other hand Your Committee have not thought it right or convenient to include in their consideration the position of persons from time to time in contractual relations with the Crown, where such contractual relations do not result from a definite appointment directly or indirectly by the Crown to what is generally regarded as an 'office'."
Then the Report continues to deal with questions arising about Crown counsel, and it says this:
"Your Committee recognise that persons in certain contractual relations (like those of standing counsel to government departments, barristers employed on government briefs, technical and scientific advisers, and regular speakers for the British Broadcasting Corporation) may be in a position somewhat analogous to that of office holders. The position of such persons, however, appears to Your Committee to be a distinct and separate problem affecting questions of conflict between an individual Member's personal interests and his duty as a Member, rather than affecting the relations between the Crown, or executive government, and the House of Commons, and calculated to lead to considerations other than those which are properly within the purview of Your Committee."
Certain questions obviously arise upon those two passages. One, who are these excluded persons? Two, why should they be excluded? Three, what kind of evidence was given about them? Four, by whom was that evidence given? Five, how does their exclusion affect the public administration, affect the purity of Parliament, affect the patronage of the Crown, affect favouritism by Ministers, and affect their colleagues and back benchers on both sides of the House?
Where does the interest of the House and of the nation stand in all this? These are grave and far-reaching questions which, in my submission, the Select Committee might fairly have considered and reported upon, and whose answers might have been embodied in the Bill, so that Parliament could have considered them in all their bearings on the public interest. I think that Parliament is entitled to have before it the evidence upon which this Report was based—
Mr. Kenneth Pickthorn: It has.
Mr. Hughes: —so that we can consider it in all its bearings.
That is my criticism of the Bill at this stage. I hope the criticism which I have levelled at it will be dealt with in Committee, so that the Bill, when it becomes an Act of Parliament, will make a clean sweep of these ambiguities, anomalies and perplexities, which arose from utility in history but which have lost their utility, which today are out of date, and which should be dealt with in a comprehensive way by a comprehensive Measure.
5.23 p.m.
Mr. Montgomery Hyde: I must confess at the outset that I cannot find myself in agreement with much of what the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) has just said, much as I admire the erudition he has shown in his speech. Surely, the question he has just posed about such categories of those who are in contractural relations with the Crown, as standing counsel, those who have Government briefs and so on, is answered in the very last sentence of paragraph 20 of the Report of the Select Commitee, in these words:
"The position of such persons, however, appears to Your Committee to be a distinct and separate problem affecting questions of conflict between an individual Member's personal interests and his duty as a Member, rather than affecting the relations between the Crown, or executive government, and the House of Commons, and calculated to lead to consideration, other than those which are properly within the purview of Your Committee."
Surely, that is the answer to his question, and I hope that it is resolved in his mind.
There is, I think, one feature of the Bill on which everyone is agreed. It is a very necessary piece of draft legislation, because the law affecting this matter is archaic, and we have had evidence that it is confused and unsatisfactory. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), who spoke first for the Opposition, gave one example of this, arising from the very sweeping terms in which Government contractors were dealt with by the old Act of 1782, so that in 1931 the lessor of Hatfield Post Office, now a noble Lord in another place, was considered as likely to be disqualified because of the fact that he had suddenly acquired the lease of that Post Office. I think that the anomaly went
1890
further than that, because it appeared at that time that everyone who had entered into a contract with the Government to make use of the telephone service had rendered himself liable to disqualification if he was a Member of this House. So in 1931 a declaratory Act had to be very hurriedly rushed through the House through all its stages in a single afternoon.
I consider that the Bill is a necessary piece of tidying up of the statute law. I think, too, that it reflects great credit on those who have been responsible for its drafting. It seems to me, as, I think, to anyone who reads the Bill, particularly the Seventh Schedule, that a tremendous amount of research has gone into the Bill. One has only to look at that Schedule to see the number of enactments, some of them dating back to the seventeenth century, which will be repealed wholly or in part. The result overall seems to be good, although, no doubt, the Measure is capable of amendment and improvements, and will be improved in Committee.
The question of offices of profit under the Crown is worthy, I think, of a moment's consideration from the historical point of view. In the earlier period, that is, from the early times of Parliament up to the Restoration in the middle of the seventeenth century, I think it is quite clear that the governing principle was that of the Privilege of this House; that this House felt a natural jealousy of its Members accepting offices which resulted in their necessary absence from their duties at and in this House.
A number of very interesting cases were referred to Select Committees as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, and in one of those—I think the Herbert Report refers to it—offices in Ireland were held as disqualifying, whereas the office of ambassador was not. There were many offices in Ireland which fell under this disqualifying ban. Two in particular come to mind. One was described as that of "Ratcatcher to the Lord Lieutenant," and the other that of the "Necessary woman to the Privy Council," though, no doubt, she was disqualified as well by reason of her sex. The exception of ambassadors from the disqualification seems rather a curious one. I suppose that it was because embassies in those days were regarded as

1891
being only of a temporary nature. I suppose, too, that if ambassadors were excluded from membership of the House, it might be argued that it would provide a convenient way for the Sovereign to get rid of awkward Members by appointing them to embassies abroad.
The second historical period of offices of profit might be described as the corruption period—from the Restoration, in about 1660, to the middle of the following century—when the tendency of the Government of the day was to appoint to places of profit Members whose support they wished to obtain. The phrase which has been attributed to Sir Robert Walpole, who is generally regarded as the first titular Prime Minister of this country,
"All men have their price,"
is really a misquotation. What he is understood to have said was,
"Those men have their price,"
pointing to a collection of placemen who were standing at the Bar of the House. Fortunately, times have changed, and we have also changed in our attitude to placement of that description.
The last period, from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present time, has seen the development of the principle of Ministerial responsibility, following the Act of 1707, which laid down what is really the cardinal principle that those appointed to new offices should be excluded but those who hold existing offices should be allowed to continue to occupy them, provided that they submit themselves for re-election.
I consider it quite right that the various categories of disqualified persons should be clearly set out in the Bill. Reference has been made to a number of such categories, and I wish to refer to one or two myself. Clause 1 (1, e) says that:
"a member of the legislature of any country or territory outside the Commonwealth"
is held to be disqualified and incapable of membership of this House. This raises quite an interesting point, especially with relation to citizens of the Irish Republic. The Ireland Act of 1949 declared that:
"…notwithstanding that the Republic of Ireland is not part of Her Majesty's dominions, the Republic of Ireland is not a foreign country for the purposes of any law in force in any part of the United Kingdom.…"
1892
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General can clear up a point which has been troubling me, namely, whether a citizen either of Eire or of Northern Ireland who is a member of the legislature of Southern Ireland can validly be a Member of this House. I have known citizens of Northern Ireland who have been members of the Senate of Southern Ireland, and I should like to know whether, if such persons present themselves for election and are returned, they will be allowed to take their seats here.
Another category of person worth mentioning is the one referred to in paragraph (f), namely, a person who
"holds any office or place specified in the Second Schedule to this Act."
The Second Schedule consists of a rather long list of miscellaneous offices disqualifying for membership, at the end of which there appears the following:
"Speaker of the Senate or House of Commons of Northern Ireland."
No doubt that is a desirable office to include, notwithstanding the fact that the first Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland who many hon. and right hon. Members will remember, was a very respected Member of this House, namely, the late Member for Antrim, North and the father of my hon. Friend the present Member for Antrim, North (Mr. P. O'Neill). No objection was raised to his combining the office of Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland with that of membership of this House. On the other hand, the office of Speaker is a non-party one and, on the face of it, it appears a little invidious that, whilst he would be nonparty in his office in Northern Ireland, such a person would necessarily be drawn into party matters in respect of his membership of this House. Notwithstanding the precedent of the first Speaker of the House of Commons in Northern Ireland, therefore, I think it is right that that office should be specifically included amongst those disqualifying for membership.
Clause 5 deals with the Chiltern Hundreds. It would be helpful to the House—it would certainly be helpful to me—if we could be told where these Hundreds are. I know where Desborough, Burnham and Stoke are, but I should

1893
like to know where East Hendred, North-stead and Hempholme are. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General could help by telling us where the seats of these offices are located.
I understand that Clause 12, applying the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland, is entirely satisfactory to the Government of Northern Ireland. It has been carefully considered by that Government, and I think I can safely say that hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies on this side of the House make no objection or criticism to any part of that Clause and the accompanying Sixth Schedule.
Paragraph 27 of the Herbert Report contains an interesting reference to the form of procedure by which Ministers, upon accepting office, had to submit themselves for re-election. That procedure was laid down in Section 25 of the Act of 1707. It was modified by the Re-election of Ministers Act, 1919, which made the re-election of a Minister unnecessary if he was appointed to office within nine months after a General Election. Some years later, in 1926, the necessity for reelection was finally abolished by the Reelection of Ministers Act, 1926.
I confess that I am very attracted by the argument which is summarised in the latter part of paragraph 27 of the Report of the Herbert Committee. It is expressed in such very forcible language that I cannot do better than read it to the House:
"It has been suggested that a Prime Minister, expecting or hoping that a pending General Election would result in a majority for his party, would, under the old system, appoint most if not all of his principal Ministers before the Election, in order to avoid the necessity for those Ministers to vacate their seats and offer themselves for re-election after the General Election was over. Now that this necessity for re-election has been done away with, there is no such reason for his appointing members of his intended Government until after the General Election is over; thus the electorate may have to cast its votes in ignorance of what will be the composition of the Government if the Prime Minister obtains a majority. It is said that it is thus possible that the majority of electors, being in favour of (let it be said for example) a peaceful policy, may after the Election find a Government appointed which is in favour of a warlike policy or vice versa."
These are the important words:
"It is contended that there are considerable advantages in a Prime Minister having to make known before the General Election the approximate composition of his intended Government.
1894
It has been suggested, therefore, that some provision might be made in one way or another, under which there should be at least an inducement if not a necessity for a Prime Minister, at the time of a General Election, to announce the names of those whom he proposes to appoint to the principal offices in his Government if he obtains a majority, and that this might he effected by a provision that a certain number of Ministers appointed directly after a General Election should have to vacate their seats and offer themselves for re-election."
I do not suggest at this stage that I would put down an Amendment to implement the suggestions made in that paragraph, but I admit that I am attracted by them. Such an arrangement could have certain advantages.
Mr. E. Fletcher: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that if the rule with which he has expressed sympathy were in force and most of the present Ministers had to stand by that rule, they would lose their seats?
Mr. Hyde: I cannot agree with what the hon. Gentleman has just said concerning the present Government. In any event, these suggestions were made by witnesses before the Herbert Committee, and it was not suggested that they should apply to all Ministers but only to a selected number.
I have only one other matter to touch on briefly. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary made it clear in his opening speech that the Bill was not designed to cover or to affect other categories of disqualification, such as aliens, lunatics and infants, besides officeholders under the Crown. He specifically mentioned clergy. It will, of course, be open to me or to any other hon. Member to put down an Amendment in the Committee to exempt from the terms of disqualification clergy of the Church of Ireland. Many hon. Members will recall that the late Rev. J. G. MacManaway was disqualified on this ground. Some of his supporters at that time in the constituency of Belfast, West, which returned him at the head of the poll in 1950, felt somewhat aggrieved.
Although Mr. MacManaway was a personal friend of mine and I greatly regretted on personal ground his disqualification and subsequent death, I am quite satisfied that it is a mistake for a clergyman of the Church of Ireland to present himself to the electors for election. Certainly the bishops, the leaders and the

1895
principal representatives of the laity of the Church of Ireland are united in their opinion that it is not desirable that any of their clergy should be candidates for election to this House or should be Members of it.
I can only say that I consider this an important piece of legislative consolidation. In a sense it must be regarded, and will be regarded, as a milestone in our constitutional history. As consolidating legislation it is long overdue. It will clarify many points which have hitherto been obscure, and it should make quite clear for many years to come who may and who may not sit in this House as an office-holder under the Crown.
5.47 p.m.
Mr. George Wigg: It is remarkable that the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) should think the Bill an important milestone. I do not seem to remember hearing his voice in protest when, on 22nd July, the Government tried to slip the Bill through on the nod. I am also somewhat surprised that we did not hear a word or two on that subject from the Home Secretary. But, for the edification of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, I must risk boring the House by telling him the history of this Bill.
Mr. Hyde Mr. Hyde rose—
Mr. Wigg: In a moment.
Major Lloyd-George: I understood the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) to say that the Government tried to push the Bill through on the nod. That is not really what happened. If the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends had not talked for so long we should have got it through in the ordinary way.
Mr. Wigg: Certainly. I am glad the right hon. and gallant Gentleman admits the truth. The fact is that the Government put down the Validation of Elections Bill for its Second Reading for 22nd July. The Bill was not available in the Vote Office until 36 hours before the matter was due for a Second Reading, so the Government had to put this Bill down as a sop to keep the critics quiet. I made representations to the Leader of the House that the Second Reading should be postponed but, as usual, got very little
1896
change except, of course, his usual courtesy.
Having served an apprenticeship for ten years in this House, I know that if one cannot get a thing by direct action there are ways to achieve the desired end. I plead guilty that I made a somewhat more lengthy intervention on the first Bill than I originally intended and, with the assistance of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I secured for the House the opportunity it now has of considering this Bill at leisure. The hon. Gentleman had his peroration carefully worked out to say that he regarded this as an important Bill. Of course, that is nonsense—he was not even present in the House on 22nd July.
Mr. Hyde: I was present, and I listened to the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg). I cannot agree with him that this is not an important constitutional Measure. I think it is. I entirely agree with my right hon. and gallant Friend the Home Secretary that it was not intended to put the Bill through on the nod.
Mr. Wigg: Of course, I regard this as a most important Bill, and that is why I charged the Leader of the House with a constitutional outrage in trying to slip it through without anyone having the chance to master its contents or our having an opportunity for proper debate.
This is not the only matter on which the hon. Member for Belfast, North has shown most profound ignorance. I am astonished, because he has a reputation as a professional historian. He said that the difficulties which we are seeking to tackle in this Bill had come about because the House of Commons had been always jealous of its privileges, and that in bygone days it did not like the idea of people holding a couple of jobs: being deprived of their services, the House declared, "You must give up one job or the other." I have never heard greater nonsense than that. The difficulty in which the House now finds itself arises because the approach to this question has not been based upon principle at all but upon political expediency. There is no more glaring example than the point touched upon by the hon. Member for Belfast, North at the end of his speech, with an ignorance which I thought was really profound even for a Member of a Northern Ireland constituency. He

1897
talked about the rights of members of the Church of Ireland to sit in this House and thought, on balance, that, although he knew the late Mr. MacManaway, it was right that he should be excluded.
What is the history of this problem? I am not a lawyer and certainly not a professional historian. I am just a passionate searcher after truth; I very rarely find it, but I search for it. In 1801, the Government of the day under Prime Minister Addington was most anxious, in his own words, not to
"diminish the purity and impair the independence of the House of Commons."
That is what the Prime Minister said, but what he wanted to do was to upset the election of the well-known Radical, the Rev. Horne Tooke, who had been elected for Old Sarum. Thus the Rev. Horne Tooke was unseated and it was declared improper for a member of the Church of England to be elected to the House of Commons.
At that time the Church of Ireland and the Church of England were united, so the disqualification which applied to the Rev. Horne Tooke also applied to the Church of Ireland, and the doubts which arose about Mr. MacManaway arose because in 1870 the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland put into doubt the position of people like the Irish clergy.
Having dissented from the historical knowledge of the hon. Member for Belfast, North, I now dissent from his logic. I cannot understand why he considers it proper for a bishop to sit in another place and not proper for a clergyman of the same Church to sit here. We heard this afternoon a very proper and wise speech, on which I congratulate him, by the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray). He wants, and so do I, the widest possible experience to be available in this House. He wants people in contact with the man-in-the-street, who know where the shoe rubs, people who can keep us in contact with reality, from whatever class or circumstance they come.
Therefore, I give notice that I have every intention in the Committee stage of moving an Amendment to make it possible for clergymen of the Church of England to sit here, on the ground that
1898
if it is proper for the Archbishop of Canterbury to sit in the House of Lords, humble members of the clergy of the Church of England should be able to sit in this House.
Mr. Ede: Suppose the argument is the other way—that it is wrong for the bishops to sit in the House of Lords—would my hon. Friend still want clergymen to sit here?
Mr. Wigg: My right hon. Friend has become infected with the faulty logic of hon. Members opposite. That does not in any way follow. I am prepared to believe that it is quite wrong for the bishops to sit in the House of Lords; but if non-conformist ministers can add to our debates, then we should see that clergy of the Church of England should be able to come here.
Mr. Hyde: I wonder if the hon. Member would agree with this: Surely he would respect the wishes of the majority of the clergy and the laity of the Church of Ireland if they expressed an opinion?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: We have not yet reached the Committee stage of the Bill.
Mr. Wigg: I am sorry, but we must argue that in Committee. Perhaps at this stage I might add my voice in support of the plea made by my hon. Friends who urge that the Committee stage should be in Committee of the whole House. This is a most important constitutional Measure which should be taken on the Floor of the House.
I have already referred in a complimentary way to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian. I never suspected him of the delicate sense of humour which he expressed when he told us that the Attorney-General would make plain before the debate ended what this Bill sets out to do. That was a piece of delicate irony which I envy him. I have to rely upon more direct methods.
Now I turn to the Attorney-General because, when the Bill was first before the House, I wanted information. I used the Order Paper in what I think is the proper way. I put down Questions in order to get Answers. Of course, this afternoon, by a slip of the tongue, I said that I did not get anything out of my Question, but I should have thought that

1899
even the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General would have understood what I was getting at. It is true, of course, if I may make the quip, that the late Lord Fisher once said that the epitaph of the British Empire when it came to be written would be "Buggin's turn next," and listening to the Attorney-General makes me think that the price tag on Lord Fisher's gibe was 6s. 8d.
I put down Questions to the right hon. and learned Gentleman with the honest intention of getting the facts. I propose to weary the House with the details. If the hon. Member for Belfast, North can read long extracts from the Report, then at least I might go over my Questions. The first Question I put was to ask:
"…the Attorney-General the number of hon. Members who have received legal fees in respect of briefs allocated by him or his predecessor since 1945;"
I was most anxious to avoid any party approach. I did not ask him the Question in relation only to a Conservative Administration—so I put the Question to cover five years of a Labour Administration. I was most careful not to put any hon. Member in any difficulty. I asked for numbers and for amounts. The second part of my Question was to ask for:
"the total amount paid to hon. Members since 1945, to date, in respect of legal fees paid in respect of briefs allocated by him and his predecessors."
The Attorney-General replied—and of course I understand; I have been here for ten years now and I must never say that an hon. Member lies or that he is a liar. I never quite know how near I can get to it, but I intend to keep well in order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for I intend to leave the House to judge the extent to which the Attorney-General was being disingenuous—not, of course, to deceive me, but to deceive public opinion. He said:
"This information is not readily available, and I do not think the work involved in obtaining it would be justified."
That is a fair answer, if it was the truth. I also asked him, in a further Question:
"…to state the Members who at present have judicial offices for which they receive payment; the annual amount of such payment; the dates on which the Members concerned were appointed; and the total sums they have received up to date."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1955: Vol. 544, c. 56–7.]
1900
The Attorney-General was kind enough to give information covering my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen), the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones), the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Gerald Howard), the hon. and learned Member for City of Chester (Mr. Nield) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels). Having got the reply that the information was not readily available, and the Second Reading not taking place on 22nd July, I put down a further Question. I asked the Attorney-General:
"…if he will state the number of briefs allocated to him by his predecessors from 1945 up to the date of his taking office and the amount of fees received by him in respect of such briefs;"
because at least he knew that, and that information must be readily available because he would have had it for Income Tax purposes, I presume. I also asked:
"…if he will give the same information in respect of hon. and right hon. Members who at present hold Ministerial appointments;"
In other words, if the information was not readily available over the whole range of Members for the past 10 years, at least I thought—if that was the real reason—that he would know it for himself and for those of his colleagues who are Members of the Government. I also asked:
"…if he will state the names of hon. Members who have received legal fees in respect of briefs allocated by him and his predecessors during such periods as the information is readily available; and if he will state the fees paid in respect of such briefs."
The answer I got was this:
"No. My predecessors and I have nominated Members of Parliament to conduct cases on behalf of the Crown and fees have been paid to those Members by the Government Departments instructing them. I do not think it desirable to publish the names of those nominated…"
Now the first answer I got was that the information was not readily available. Then I "smoked the rat out"—I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am merely using a figure of speech. What I then got from the right hon. and learned Gentleman was that the information was available but that it was not desirable to publish it.
Then the right hon. Gentleman becomes even more humorous—he is almost an

1901
unconscious professional humorist. His answer continues:
"I may say that in deciding whom to nominate I have regard only to the nature of the case and the skill and experience of counsel. Fees are neither fixed nor paid by me and no record of them is kept by my Department."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th July, 1955; Vol. 544, c. 84.]
There are hon. Gentlemen who have been longer in this House than I have, and many who have been here as long as I have. This is not a party question, so I want them to have a look at the names of those gentlemen who hold appointments as recorders, and I want them to apply their ordinary acumen and commonsense to the matter and ask themselves whether they could apply to all those gentlemen who have been appointed as recorders, or to those hon. Gentlemen whom they may know have received Government briefs, the test that the Attorney-General says that he applies—that he makes the appointments only on the test of competence. Let me tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman frankly that I can only apply my own test. When I do, I say quite frankly that I would not have as unpaid lance-corporals some of those who I know have received legal patronage—and I am not sure whether an unpaid lance-corporal holds an office of profit or not. When the Attorney-General tells me that competence is the only test in deciding who is to get a brief, then all I can do is laugh.
The truth is that for the last two or three hundred years the right hon. and learned Gentleman's profession has been doing very well indeed, and I am not challenging that. Like the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian, I do not want to stop them. So far as I am concerned they can all be recorders, and they can all have ten briefs a day. The point I wish to make is that the names and the amounts should be known. Let us be able to judge. Let the public judge. After all, what are we really seeking? It does not matter very much if one of my hon. Friends owns a stationer's shop in the Pentonville Road and a warder walks in and buys half-a-dozen pencils. Is anyone seriously upset about that?
We wish that democracy shall survive in this country, and perhaps we should remember that democracy is now under a challenge. What happens here is an
1902
example to the rest of the world. We need to be sure that Members of Parliament express their sincere and earnest views without looking behind to see whether someone is going to tap them on the shoulder and say, "Go and prosecute Bill Snooks." The worry about the present position is that we do not know the truth. And we should. That should be the test. We do not know what is going on. Of course I accept the fact that the Attorney-General is continuing the policy of his Department. He is carrying on what has been done in the past.
Nevertheless it is the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was evasive, for he deliberately evaded the questions put to him which, I submit, were proper questions. I certainly think that we should have answers to those questions before the House passes from this matter.
The proposition being advanced by the Attorney-General—whether he is aware of it or not, I do not know—is this: he is claiming for himself and for his profession, a right which is denied to other Ministers, because every other Minister—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Rhys Hopkin Morris): I do not think that the claims of the learned Attorney-General come within the scope of this Bill.
Mr. Wigg: With respect. Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the Attorney-General has refused to answer questions which, in my submission, it is important to the House should be answered before hon. Members make up their minds whether to give this Bill a Second Reading. It is part of my case, and I intend during the Committee stage to try to amend the Bill to challenge the Attorney-General's proposition, that members of the legal profession are exempted from the standard of judgment which applies to every other profession and Department of State.
In the last few months, every other Minister has gone through his Department with a small toothcomb to try to find out whether, inadvertently or not, any hon. Gentleman was irregularly elected at the last Election. But not the Attorney-General. At first he said that the information was not readily available. Then he said, in effect, "Mind your own business; you must trust me." But why? What special qualifications has the right hon.

1903
and learned Gentleman, or any holder of his Office, which requires that we should trust him, when we do not trust any of his right hon. or hon. Friends? Merely to voice the Attorney-General's proposition is to reveal its absurdity.
Of course, it is quite clear that this Bill springs from difficulties similar to those which led to the setting up of the Herbert Report. It is born of expediency. One has only to examine the Preamble, where, in paragraph 2, there is contained a quotation from the Herbert Report
"'steps should be taken to draft and introduce in the House of Commons as soon as possible…'"
That was in 1941. It has taken fourteen years to get this anywhere near the Statute Book. That is "as soon as possible."
The facts are that, following the last Election, there was the usual crop of doubts on this matter—there have been over 150 Acts in the last 200 years. Because several came together this time, the only way in which the Government could handle the problem was to bring forward this Bill. But circumstances have changed since the Herbert Committee sat and reported. If we look at paragraph 20 of the Report—it has been quoted before today—we find a reference to the position of regular speakers for the British Broadcasting Corporation.
When the Commercial Television Bill was before the House, I tried to put down an Amendment during the Committee stage to make it a corrupt practice, not for people to talk on the B.B.C.—let them talk as much as they like—but to make it a corrupt practice for them to receive money. It seemed to me that in this respect America provides a useful example. In America people talk about public affairs and, by so doing, they obtain considerable advantage. But, instead of being paid for it, as happens in this country, they have to pay for the privilege. It would be too revolutionary to suggest that those who appear in the "Any Questions" programmes or in television discussions should pay for the privilege; although on the occasions when I have listened or watched I have thought that I would gladly support such a condition. But that, perhaps, is too much to ask. However, I see no reason why hon. Gentlemen who are Members of this
1904
House should receive money, because everybody knows that so far as the B.B.C. is concerned, kissing goes by favour. Anyone—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I find it very difficult to connect the remarks of the hon. Gentleman with offices of profit under the Crown.
Mr. Wigg: I am very sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I, with respect, urge you to read from the Report of the Select Committee on Offices or Places of Profit under the Crown, upon which this Bill is based? In paragraph 20 of that Report—and for your easy reference, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is at page 14—you will find that the Committee considered the question of speakers employed by the British Broadcasting Corporation. And again may I submit to you, with great respect, that I am within the bounds of order, because it is my intention during the Committee stage to try to amend this Bill in such a way as to remove what is a blot on the workings of our democratic institutions.
Again, let me explain my purpose. It is in the interest of free speech, and I really mean free speech, because I am quite sure that there have been cases when in making speeches, and even, perhaps, in not making speeches, hon. Gentlemen have been guided by the question whether or not they will be employed by the B.B.C. We have to recognise that here is a tremendous source of patronage, and that it is placing a tremendous strain upon individuals.
We must remember that we are not always legislating for the strong. Sometimes we have to make provision for those who may be timid and who are weak, and not, of course, always for our generation, but for generations to come. This process has certainly grown since 1940, and the British Broadcasting Corporation, as also its commercial rival, is in a position to make a very real difference to an hon. Member's standard of life.
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That may very well be true, but if the hon. Member looks at the paragraph to which he has referred me, he will see that it says:
"The position of such persons…appears…to be a distinct and separate problem,"
and, therefore, what the hon. Member is saying does not appear to me to come under the terms of the Bill.
Mr. Wigg: With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I have broadly said what I wanted to say in connection with this matter, but, of course, if you are ruling in advance that any Amendment which I may seek to put down will be out of order on the Committee stage—
Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am not making any Ruling at all about the Committee Stage.
Mr. Wigg: As an independent person, I here make up my mind whether to vote for the Second Reading or not. At the moment, I have persuaded myself that, despite its shortcomings, the Bill is a step in the right direction, and, subject to getting a full explanation from the Attorney-General on the points which I have raised, it is my intention not to oppose its Second Reading. Of course, in saying that, I am assuming that this not very good Bill can be amended. If you rule, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that I cannot even discuss it, then, of course, with respect, I must accept your Ruling, but I shall have to consider my position with some care.
As I have said, this Bill is a step in the right direction. I very much hope that the Government are going to accept the plea made by my hon. Friend to take the Committee stage on the Floor of the House. If that be so, and subject to the reservations which arise out of your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I shall not vote against the Bill, but shall seek to amend it on the Committee stage.
6.14 p.m.
Mr. Ronald Bell: The speech of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has, I think, given a slightly undue importance to the question of legal fees in relation to this whole field of disqualification for being a Member of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman showed a great preoccupation with it and a very laudable desire that democracy should survive in this country. He appeared to link that up with the question whether hon. Members who are lawyers should or should not receive briefs from the Crown. I would remind him that democracy has survived and thriven very well for hundreds of years in this country, during which time a considerable part of the membership of this House has come from the legal profession; and that those hon. Members
1906
have from time to time received instructions on behalf of the Crown.
The fact is that the Crown is one of those habitual litigants upon whom, in ever-growing measure, the legal profession is bound to depend. I speak without any particular interest to declare in the matter because my own practice does not extend very much to that branch of the law. If there is any suspicion of patronage, I do not mind telling the hon. Member for Dudley that I received Attorney-General's nominations before I came to this House, and while his party was in office, but have never received one since my own party has been in office. I anticipate that the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) is going to say, "They know you too well," and I feel that I ought to say it for him. That might also be due, might it not, to the extreme impartiality shown and the desire that justice should not only be done but should manifestly be seen to be done?
The answer to the hon. Member for Dudley is surely this. In this Bill, reenacting as it does to some extent the practice of past centuries, disqualification attaches to offices or places of profit and to contracts. And in relation to contracts, as has been pointed out, the Bill really re-enacts an old definition. The contract concerned is the sale of goods, and something which I find quite impossible to understand, the export of money overseas. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) explained that two hundred years ago that meant something. I venture to think that it does not mean anything very much now.
Apart from that, however, the contracts concerned are for the sale of goods. There is no question whatever of the sale of services being struck at in any stage of our history as a disqualification for membership of the House. Disqualification has been attached either to an office or place or a contract for the supply of goods. I think that is a logical definition, because when we come to the sale of personal services we ought to pick out particular offices and functions and schedule them, as has been done in this Bill, or give a general definition which makes it clear that what we are striking at is the loss of independence by the individual Member of the House.

1907
I venture to say, as one who has practised at the Bar for a good many years, that I do not think that there is any suspicion at all among my professional colleagues that there is an element of patronage in the distribution of the Attorney-General's briefs. I can honestly say that that is so. There is no sense of grievance or of injustice among those who are not Members of this House nor any feeling that any hon. Member is influenced in any way in his political conduct by this consideration. I believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite who practise in the legal profession would bear witness to that as clearly as I wish to do myself.
Mr. Wigg: I am afraid that there is a volume of opinion in the hon. Gentleman's profession which does not wholly agree with him. After 22nd July, I received a letter from a prominent member of the Bar who wished more power to my elbow, and said that if I succeeded in cleaning up the patronage side of the Attorney-General's briefs, he would do his best to get a monument erected to me in the Temple.
Mr. Bell: The hon. Member for Dudley had just adduced a very powerful reason why his proposal should not be accepted. Although we have spent a lot of time on it, perhaps not unprofitably, I think that this is really a very small part of the field covered by the Bill.
I suppose I ought really to declare a slight constituency interest in the Bill, because I am a Member for the Chiltern Hundreds. The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) asked where some of those Hundreds were. I think that the boundaries of the Hundreds of Stoke and Burnham are almost coterminous with those of the South Buckinghamshire constituency. The Hundred of Desborough corresponds roughly with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall). I am afraid I cannot help the hon. Gentleman about the others.
I regard this Bill as long overdue. It will be a great convenience to the Members of this House, but I think that my right hon. and gallant Friend was a little optimistic when he said that we shall not in the future be faced with the necessity for special legislation. It seems to me
1908
that when the Bill becomes law, it will still only affect those cases which occur after it has come into force.
I am glad to hear that, by an Amendment to be introduced later, the Bill will come into force when it receives the Royal Assent. Even so, the case of any hon. Member who at any time in the past has inadvertently accepted any office of profit under the Crown or any contract which can be so defined will have to be dealt with by a special Act. That is a great pity. The transitional stage is not a matter of months or a year; it may be one of ten or fifteen years. One can imagine a case occurring in ten years' time relating to a disqualification which occurred before the Bill received the Royal Assent, and it would still have to be dealt with by a special Act. I hope that that point can be cleared up in Committee, because it is a substantial defect in the Bill.
In Clause 8 (2) we expressly retain Section 124 of the Representation of the People Act, 1949. I hope it will be in order in Committee to amend that provision, because it puts the House in a very invidious and unfortunate position. We were concerned with that Act the other day in relation to the Irish elections, and Mr. Speaker ruled that under that Section the House had put itself under a legal duty to pass a certain Resolution. I could not help feeling at the time—this seems an appropriate moment to say so —that it is deplorable that the House should be under a legal duty of that kind in relation to its own procedure. We might even find ourselves the object of a mandatory order from the Chancery Division to do something which by statute law we are under a legal duty to do. It would be wrong and entirely contrary to the dignity of the House that we should have put ourselves in a position where we might receive an injunction from the High Court ordering us to do something in pursuance of an Act of Parliament.
I hope that, although we may expressly retain the operation of the Section, we shall nevertheless amend it so that the duty is cast not upon the House but directly upon the Clerk of the Crown, in order to obviate any such absurdity as our voting for or against something which apparently we are under a legal duty to do. That is a small point, but I think it is in order, and I take this opportunity of mentioning it.

1909
I am rather concerned about the position of the Reserve Forces under Clause 3. They are exempted in a general way from disqualification. We all desire that. We want officers and men of the R.N.V.R., the Territorials and the Royal Air Force Reserves to be able to sit in the House. However, as I understand it, as soon as they are called up they instantly cease to be Members. That is the effect of Clause 3 as it stands. It would be very unfortunate indeed if, as soon as any part of the reserves was called up for actual service, any member of the reserves who was a Member of this House should instantly cease to be a Member.
Generally speaking, a Member of Parliament cannot be forced to accept any disqualifying office, but Clause 10 (2) makes it clear that the rule does not affect any obligation to serve in the Armed Forces of the Crown. Therefore, this would be the one exception to the rule that a Member of Parliament cannot against his will be forced to be in an office which disqualifies him from membership of the House. Yet any hon. Member who is in any of the reserves automatically ceases to be a Member if one of the reserves is embodied for actual service. I cannot believe that the House wants that to be the position.
I agree in general terms with the views about contracts which have been expressed by other hon. Members. The Herbert Committee did not consider contracts; it dealt with offices and places of profit. As a result, the law about contracts has just been more or less reenacted. However, it is out-of-date and not very satisfactory. After all, the development of joint stock companies has driven a coach and horses through that part of the law.
What we are striking at now is really only the man who happens to operate as an individual or perhaps in a family company where he may be described as governing director. But he could exercise all kinds of influence short of that which might be described as controlling. We all know what ingenuity can be exercised in these matters. We ought to try to enact something a little more modern and realistic. That is very important, because the trading scope of Government Departments has been immensely expanded, and there is here a vast field for inadvertent
1910
disqualification and consequent trouble for the House.
I am glad to see that, if I correctly understand the rules laid down for the definition of "office of profit," we have abandoned the principle with which we had to contend in the Niall Macpherson Indemnity Act, 1954, that the Crown is one and indivisible.
The Attorney-General: Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend. If that case had arisen when this Measure had become law, we should not have required an indemnity Act or anything of that sort.
Mr. Bell: I think that my right hon. and learned Friend and I are disagreeing rather more about the form in which I expressed myself than the substance of the matter. Politically, we attach great importance to the fact that the Crown is one and indivisible throughout the Commonwealth, but, for the legal purposes of disqualification in respect of the House, I understand that that will no longer be true and that it will be possible for a person to accept an office of some kind from the Crown in a British Dominion and still be a Member of the House.
I have wondered, as some hon. Members opposite have wondered, whether we could not go a little further in defining "office of profit," perhaps saying that any profit of less than £25 in a year should not be so regarded. That would be an advantage in one way. We do not want to be bothered with passing Resolutions concerning trivial matters which ought never to have come before us. However, the considerations are rather evenly balanced, and because of one consideration I am inclined to support what is in the Bill.
The procedure by Resolution provides flexibility. If we put a money limit in the Bill, there might be a feeling as the years went by that if somebody inadvertently accepted an office of profit above the small money limit, the House ought not to pass a Resolution to indemnify him. I think we should be wise to keep the Bill as it is in that respect.
I congratulate my right hon. and gallant Friend upon bringing the Bill forward. I am glad that this long overdue reform of the law is now to be effected.
6.29 p.m.
Mr. John Parker: I congratulate the Government upon this limited contribution towards solving a very difficult constitutional problem. When the Representation of the People Bill was before the House in 1948, a number of us tabled Amendments trying to do some of the things which the Bill is trying to do. We felt that when we were "democratising the electorate," so that for the first time there would be the principle of one man—one vote, we should go into the question of how far it was possible for that electorate to sit in this House. My view, which is shared by many hon. Members on this side of the House, is that, so far as possible, any member of the electorate, man or woman, should be able to stand for Parliament and be a Member of Parliament. It should be accepted that there should be a very good reason why such a person should not be able to stand for Parliament or to sit in the House if he is elected.
There are obviously certain offices like those of judges and senior civil servants in respect of which a man cannot combine the holding of such office with being a Member of this House, but at the same time most of us feel that the fewer the rules prohibiting a man from standing or from being a Member the better, and that as much opportunity as possible should be given to every section of the population and to any member of the electorate to stand for election and for the people in the country to be able to nominate him if they so wish.
I wish, therefore, to consider the Bill from that viewpoint. The Bill makes a contribution towards removing a number of anomalies and makes it easier for a certain number of people to stand who were not before able to stand. One needs to go a great deal further. In the debate much exception has been taken to the number of lawyers who sit in the House. As a non-lawyer I share that objection. There are far too many lawyers and far too many journalists sitting in the House of Commons. I do not want to stop them coming here by having them banned, as some have suggested, but if it were easier for other people to come here, there would be fewer lawyers and possibly fewer journalists in the House.
There are things to be tackled in addition to what is being attempted in the
1912
Bill. Quite obviously, Members of Parliament need to be paid a great deal more if more people from all sections of the population are to come to the House. It is not realised that the British House of Commons is the most underpaid legislative assembly in the English-speaking world and the lowest paid in Western Europe. I do not suggest that we should have the privileges and salaries given to Members of Congress at Washington, but it is striking that every other part of the Commonwealth, Canada, New Zealand and Australia, gives far more facilities and bigger salaries to Members, and that enables a far greater variety of people to sit in those assemblies.
In addition, we need to consider the restrictions, apart from those which are to be removed by the Bill, preventing people standing for Parliament. The Civil Service position has been tidied as a result of the Masterman Report, and I do not feel that any substantial section of the Civil Service wishes to alter the existing practice which has developed after discussions with the present Government and the last Government. A fairly satisfactory solution to that problem seems to have been reached. But there are other fields in which the position needs to be clarified.
The nationalised industries are an example. There is a fairly wide freedom for employees to stand for Parliament. The most freedom is given by the Transport Commission, but that is because when the railways were privately owned the railway trade unions agreed with the companies that very wide freedom should be given to employees and that tendency has been followed widely in the nationalised industry. Some local authorities are fairly wise in the matter. For example, if one is a school teacher employed by the London County Council and is elected to the House of Commons one is allowed to resign one's job for the time being. Should one lose one's seat, the London County Council will find one a job again. If one had been a headmaster, one could not expect to go back to being a headmaster, but at least the London County Council will find one employment if one loses one's seat. That kind of principle ought to be adopted generally, not only in the public services and by local authorities, but also in private industry. If we

1913
are to have people in this House coming from all sections of the population, it is desirable that a code should be drawn up covering private industry.
I suggest that any firm employing more than 500 people should have certain obligations to allow employees to stand for Parliament, if they wish so to do, and to take them back into employment if they lose their seats. It could not be expected that a man should go back to the responsibility he had before, but with a firm of the size—and turnover of staff—that I have mentioned, it should be possible to take the person back again.
We have such a code for National Service. Coming to the House of Commons is a form of national service, and some such code should be drawn up. I agree that that would not meet all the difficulties. I know of an example of an M.P. for a constituency near my own who for over 12 years was the secretary of a small company. He came to the House and had to give up his post. When he lost his seat, the company did not take him back because another person had the job, and he was therefore left completely out on a limb. The only work he could do was clerical, because his specialised knowledge arose from his experience of that company and from running it for so many years.
All such difficulties could not be met, but some such code covering private firms employing more than 500 employees and all public industry should be drawn up as one of the ways of seeing that we do widen the field from which we draw the Members of the House. I am quite certain that by so doing we should improve the standard of Members and benefit the country by having M.P.s with wider experience.
Mr. A. J. Irvine: Is my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham recommending that this code should have statutory sanction and that there should be legislative powers compelling companies to give people leave to stand for Parliament?
Mr. Parker: Yes, on the same lines as we have already provided for National Service. There might have to be some modifications, but some such legislation is desirable if we are to do the job properly.
I should like now to deal with some of the points in the Bill. Most of the pro-
1914
posals about the kind of job which it is suggested should not be held by Members of Parliament, such as judges and so on, are reasonable. I want to ask a question about Clause 7 which is concerned with Crown pensions. When the Bill was published I put down a Question to the Home Secretary and I got a fuller answer than my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) got to the Questions which he put down.
On 21st July I asked the Home Secretary to
"…give an estimate of the number of persons receiving pensions from the Crown who are thereby disqualified under the present law for membership of the House of Commons; and of the approximate number under the House of Commons Disqualification Bill."
The answer was:
"Owing to the obscurity of the existing law I cannot estimate the number of Crown pensioners at present disqualified if the House of Commons Disqualification Bill were in force the number of persons who would be disqualified through receipt of pensions from the Crown would he about one hundred and sixty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT 21st July 1955; Vol. 544, c. 59.]
Exactly how did these Crown pensioners get their pensions, and is there any special reason why they should be disqualified? Unless there is a very good reason to the contrary, they should be allowed to stand. I should like to know the precise reason for the insertion of that Clause.
I hope that during the Committee stage we shall very carefully study the Schedules dealing with the list of jobs which would disqualify a Member, and that if necessary we shall be told the reason for including a particular job. I should like to ask about one job included in the Second Schedule. It concerns a
"Member of a County Agricultural Executive Committee, Sub-Committee, or District Committee constituted under the Agriculture Act, 1947, or of an Agricultural Executive Committee or Sub-Committee constituted under the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948."
I can see why a member of an agricultural executive committee of a particular county should not be a Member for a constituency in that county, but I do not see why he should be debarred in another county. His job is rather analogous to that of a lord lieutenant or a recorder. I think that such an appointment might be transferred into the category of limited disqualifications. That is the sort of point we should look at during

1915
the Committee stage when considering the Schedules.
The subject of the clergy has been raised by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) and by the hon. Member for Dudley. I do not know why the Government have not tackled that problem in this present Bill. The only reason seems to be that the MacManaway case which brought this matter to our attention cropped up very recently, while the Herbert Committee had sat in 1941, when no one thought that such a matter might become a live issue. Had the Committee been sitting subsequently to the MacManaway case it would no doubt have made a recommendation. Nevertheless, I do not see why, when tackling other anomalies, we should not tidy up the position in respect of the clergy.
It really is absurd. The clergy of the Church of England or of the Established Church of Scotland are disqualified because those are Established churches, but nonconformists—except Roman Catholics—are allowed to stand. Furthermore, owing to an oversight by Gladstone, the removal of the disqualification of the clergy of the Church of Ireland was forgotten when it was disestablished.
Mr. Pickthorn: I do not like to interrupt the hon. Member, but he gave the impression that the Herbert Committee had not considered this matter. As, I think, the only surviving member—except for one whose illness we all regret—I think it right to tell the House that this matter was considered at some length, and a page is devoted to it in the Report.
Mr. Parker: I am sorry. I should have said that had there recently been a "live" case the Committee might have come to rather different conclusions.
Mr. E. Fletcher: Might I remind the hon. Member for Dagenham that, subsequent to the MacManaway case, a Select Committee of the House was set up to consider whether there should be a change in the law as a result of that case. That Select Committee, of which I was a Member, reported that in its opinion no change should be made in the existing law.
Mr. Parker: That does not alter the fact that the present position is anomalous. There are a large number of clergymen who are allowed to stand as
1916
candidates and to sit here if elected, while the mass of clergymen of the Established Churches are not so allowed. The nonconformist clergy, except for the Roman Catholic clergy—and in the latter case it is a relic of the days when we had laws against the Roman Catholic religion—are also allowed to stand. At present an Anglican clergyman with a benefice in Scotland is a nonconformist and, therefore, can stand for Parliament and, since the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, so can the clergymen of that Church.
There are a number of anomalies with which I should like the Attorney-General to deal. What is the position of an Anglican clergyman, living in Southern Ireland and holding a benefice in Southern Ireland, if he is selected as a candidate in the North? What is the position of an Anglican clergyman who holds a benefice in Wales and is selected as a candidate for an English constituency?
We should remove all these restrictions. I do not accept the view that, just because the Archbishop of Canterbury and other prominent clergymen told the Herbert Committee that they did not wish the clergy to stand for election to Parliament, we should allow that to prevent us legislating on that subject. I should have thought that the right thing to do was to remove all disqualifications against clergy and then, if a particular Church likes to make its own rules about Parliamentary candidature in relation to its members, it would be its own affair. The same applies to many jobs and professions. The House of Commons should not put obstacles in the way of people standing; let such organisations make rules for their members if they so wish.
In the Bill we give the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, the Principal of King's College, London, and the heads of a number of other colleges the right to stand for Parliament. One obviously cannot be Master of Trinity College and a Member of Parliament and do both jobs properly at the same time. If the Master of Trinity were elected to this House, he would soon have the other dons wanting to know how he could combine the two jobs and asking him to give up one or the other.
Mr. Pickthorn: How does the hon. Member know all about it—or what they would do?
Mr. Parker: I think that is quite reasonable.
Mr. Pickthorn: Fiddlededee.
Mr. Parker: It is for the House of Commons to make the position as free as possible for people to stand for election, but for such organisations, if they so wish, to make their own rules as to whether or not their members seek election. That is their affair—not ours.
It is suggested that Malta may come into the United Kingdom on the same terms as Northern Ireland. What will be the position of the clergy of Malta? In that island, the Roman Catholic Church is the Established church. Will that community want to change the rule? Will they regard it as an unfair discrimination if we keep the restriction on clergy of the Church of Rome? The best way is to make a clean sweep of all the old rules and anomalies, and to allow the clergy the right to stand if they wish.
Those are some of the points which, I hope, will be gone into during the Committee stage. I hope that the point with regard to clergymen will not be overlooked because, when we are tidying up the law, it would be a great pity to tidy up some matters and leave untouched others which should be settled now.
6.47 p.m.
Mr. James H. Hoy: Like the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray), I served on the Select Committee which dealt with the cases of the four hon. Members who had held offices of profit under the Crown. I am certain that as long as I have been a Member it has been the wish of this House that it should be clearly laid down just what offices disqualify a person from membership of the House. It is very misleading in some cases. For instance, some offices cost certain hon. Members considerable sums of money out of their own pocket, yet they were found guilty of holding offices of profit under the Crown. It made it nearly impossible to understand just who had offices of profit and who had not.
I remember my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) appointing an hon. Member opposite and myself to serve on a committee. We thought it a great honour.
1918
We got a letter of welcome from the organisation itself—and with it a request for a membership fee of 2 guineas a year. We felt that to be a somewhat backhanded compliment, but at least it was not an office of profit. But even that was not a guide. An hon. Gentleman opposite certainly proved to the Committee that it had cost him £200 or £300 out of his own pocket to undertake a job on behalf of the Crown. Nevertheless, it was held to be an office of profit.
Mention has been made by an hon. Member opposite of the case of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) who had held an office of profit because of a particular appointment. I do not know whether the view taken was quite accurate, because later we had the case of another hon. Member who was deemed to have held an office of profit because he had been appointed by the Government of New Zealand to represent the Bank of New Zealand in London. As far as I can understand it, I do not think that that particular anomaly is abolished by this Bill, and I hope that the Attorney-General will later make a statement to clarify the issue. There are certainly two other cases, one of a Member who serves on a tribunal under the National Health Service Act. He is still held to have an office of profit, even though the appointment makes it clear that he shall receive no payment at all.
Mr. R. Bell: The hon. Gentleman will find that to hold an office of profit under the Crown one must be appointed to it by one of the Ministers mentioned in the Fourth Schedule. At least, that is how I understand it.
Mr. Hoy: I think it is still a little obscure, and the Attorney-General ought to make perfectly clear whether these two cases which are very recent are cleared by this Bill. So far as I can see in the other case concerning a Member of Parliament who serves on one of these tribunals, he is disqualified even though no payment is made. In fact, he finds himself out of pocket for doing this job.
I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian that it is not right to disqualify Members of Parliament from certain jobs because of this old law. By the Second Schedule certain people who give their services to

1919
trading estates under the Distribution of Industry Act are disqualified. One of my hon. Friends is a director of one of these trading estates, but according to this Bill this is an office of profit, although he loses money by doing this job.
It is difficult for people to understand these matters, while at the same time certain legal appointments are made in Scotland which the people of Scotland regard as offices of greater profit than other appointments which are filled purely in order to render service. The Lord Advocate has a certain patronage. He appoints the Advocates Depute in Scotland. They are appointed because of their political persuasion, and, in saying that, I am not talking only of this Government. At present we have the previous Solicitor-General for Scotland as an Advocate Depute, and he was a prospective Conservative candidate. That type of person is appointed an Advocate Depute and receives his favour from the Crown.
Therefore, it is difficult for the outsider to understand why these legal appointments, which certainly prove to be very remunerative, are not offices of profit, when other people who give their services free and, indeed, at cost to themselves, are regarded as holding offices of profit. It is true that when these people get appointments they undertake certain work. Nevertheless, there was considerable weight in what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), and when this Bill is in Committee we should give considerable thought to these appointments which have existed for a number of years.
I wish to raise one or two other small points. I see that membership of the National Broadcasting Council will now be a disqualification from membership of this House because it is an office of profit. I do not know whether that applies at present, but I believe there are one or two hon. Members who have served on that Council in an advisory capacity. I do not know whether the Bill extends to them it does not seem very clear.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) is a Public Works Loan Commissioner. He has just resigned, but under this Bill he would be disqualified. These extensions of the law constitute an encroachment on the liberty of Members of Parliament, and when this
1920
Bill is in Committee we shall have to go through it very carefully to ensure that we do not debar from public service people who are competent to undertake tasks for the Government without remuneration.
6.55 p.m.
Mr. Eric Fletcher: In view of what my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) said just now about clergy disqualifications, when I intervened to remind him that there had been a report of this House on the subject following the MacManaway decision, I should like, if only for the record, to recall to the House that the subject of the disability of ministers of religion to sit and vote in the House was considered by a Select Committee of which I had the honour to be a member. The Committee reported to this House in 1952, and the Report is printed in the House of Commons Reports for the Session 1952–53.
I think the matter is germane to this discussion, and it is perhaps desirable that I should mention it because, as far as I can recollect, the Report of that Select Committee has never before been considered in this House. In view of what my hon. Friend said, I will refer to two or three sentences in the Report of that Committee. The Committee received a great deal of evidence, including evidence, as I recall, from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Westminster, and leaders of most of the other religious bodies in this country. We considered the very anomalous cases under which ministers of some denominations are, and others are not, at present disqualified.
The Committee came to the conclusion that, on the basis of the evidence which they had heard, they should recommend that no change in the law should at present be made. They recognised that there were certain anomalies, and they said that in their opinion the question of clerical disability should not be considered or decided in isolation but only as part of the general question of what disability should or should not be imposed upon those wishing to stand for Parliament.
They drew attention to the fact that witnesses from the Church of England, the Church of Ireland and the Church in

1921
Wales did not desire the removal of clerical disability. They said that to deal with the question of clerical disability separately might arouse undesirable religious controversy, that the problem did not appear to be either pressing or urgent, and that there was no public demand for a change. I mention those sections in the Report in order that hon. Members may have them in mind, as I gather certain hon. Members may contemplate putting down Amendments in Committee to deal with the subject.
I have the same general approach to this Bill as other hon. Members. I feel that it is highly desirable that when the Bill has had a Second Reading, which I have no doubt will be unopposed, the Bill should be committed to a Committee of the whole House, because there are many points of detail that are purely Committee points which are of great interest to many Members and which it would not be right to deal with in Standing Committee, nor indeed would it be right for me to do more than mention them in passing.
I must, however, mention two or three such details before making one or two observations on the general principles of the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) has pointed out, in the Second Schedule there appear to be insufficient reasons for introducing certain disqualifications of membership which do not at present exist. As my hon. Friend pointed out, members of the Public Works Loan Board, for example, will in future be disqualified. There may or may not be good reasons for that, but it is a startling change in the law.
The Attorney-General: The hon. Member was not the first to resign.
Mr. Fletcher: As the Attorney-General knows, the reasons for my resignation have no connection whatever with the provisions of the Bill. In any event, its provisions would not operate during the course of this Parliament.
The Attorney-General: I was not suggesting that there was any close connection. I was merely pointing out that other Members had resigned beforehand.
Mr. Fletcher: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is, perhaps by implication, confirming what I have
1922
hitherto assumed, that membership of the Board has not previously been a disqualification. I was a member of that Board for the past nine years, and it never occurred to me, nor has it been suggested either by the right hon. and learned Gentleman or by any of his predecessors, that my membership of the Board was a disqualification. If I have been right in that assumption, it seems to me to follow that what the right how and learned Gentleman is now proposing is a change in the law. All I am pointing out is that this is one of many changes in the law, which happens to come within my special knowledge, and these are changes which do not flow from the recommendations of the Herbert Committee, and therefore call for special justification, which we have not yet had, from the Government.
There are other Committee points on which I do not want to waste the time of the House, but it strikes me as anomalous, for example, that one of the offices involving no disqualification is that of the Astronomer Royal for Scotland. What about the Astronomer Royal for England? Is he disqualified? Why is there this distinction between the Astronomer Royal for Scotland and the Astronomer Royal for England?
Mr. Hector Hughes: One is up in the clouds and the other up in the stars.
Mr. Fletcher: Another detail is that in the Fourth Schedule practically every Ministerial office that one can think of is mentioned, with one significant exception—that of the Lord Chancellor. Is the Lord Chancellor qualified or disqualified? Surely, he ought to be disqualified. The Attorney-General must know perfectly well that although it has happened for a long time that the Lord Chancellor has been a peer, there is no necessity for him to be a peer. As those who are authorities on legal history will know, within our own lifetime a person who was appointed Lord Chancellor sat in and presided over the House of Lords without having been a peer. Therefore, as a matter of constitutional completeness, I hope that when the Bill is considered in Committee the Lord Chancellor will also be expressly disqualified from sitting in this House.
Another point which troubles me a little concerns the Queen's Printer. I am not sure whether the Queen's Printer is

1923
a Member of this House, but there is one hon. Member who, with great credit to him, has, or used to have, a close connection with the company of the Queen's Printer. The Queen's Printer is expressly exempted from disqualification. There may be good reason for that, but it is not in consonance with what the Herbert Committee recommended.
The Attorney-General The Attorney-General indicated dissent.
Mr. Fletcher: The Attorney-General shakes his head, but the Herbert Committee had a good deal to say about the, in those days, King's Printer. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman looks at paragraph 41 of the Report, he will read in the last sentence:
"It will be observed that this exemption will not extend to any person who may at some future time be appointed to such an office."
The Attorney-General: Will the hon. Member read the preceding sentence?
Mr. Fletcher: This is the preceding sentence:
"Your Committee therefore recommend that the King's Printer holding office under the letters patent of Edward VII should be exempted from disqualification."
Then follows the sentence which I have already quoted.
I want to pass from those Committee points, because they can be dealt with later. Certain matters of principle are involved in the Bill. We all welcome the opportunity that is being taken to tidy up the really grotesque anomalies that have crept into the two conflicting aspects of the law and which have led to so many indemnity Acts having been passed. There is, however, another and more substantial matter of principle about which I must say a word.
As the Herbert Committee recognised —it is dealt with on page 13 of their Report—there are today, as there have been during the last two or three centuries of our Parliamentary history, two conflicting principles in this matter which we have to reconcile. In the first place, the House of Commons is concerned to see that, if not all, a majority of Her Majesty's senior Ministers and others sit in this House and are Members of this House, so that this House can control them. This is in order that we, the elected representatives of the people, can
1924
have the Ministers of the Crown sitting on that bench opposite, subject to interrogation day after day, subject to being questioned about Ministerial statements, about the administration of the Realm and about their policy.
As I understand it, one of the cornerstones of Parliamentary Government is that all Ministers of the Crown, apart from those who sit in another place, sit in this House. As a result of their being Members of this place, unlike the system which exists in the United States, where there is divorce between the Legislature and the Executive, here we have the benefit of the elected representatives of the people being able to criticise from day to day the actions of Her Majesty's Ministers.
Mr. Ellis Smith: More or less.
Mr. Fletcher: With that principle we have to reconcile a conflicting principle. That is to say, be must ensure that there are not so many Ministers of the Crown or other office holders that there is an undue influence by the Executive over Parliament. That is something which requires increasing vigilance, because most hon. Members would, I think, agree that during the last generation or two there has been an increasing tendency for the Executive to exert more control over Parliament than it used to have, or is justified by the constitutional principles that have grown up in our history.
It was for that reason that the Herbert Committee was very concerned to ensure that the number of Ministers sitting in this House should be limited. They propose that the number should be strictly limited to 60. Whatever the right number is, I notice that this Bill proposes that it should be 70. The number is gradually growing all the time, and I noticed that the Home Secretary, in introducing the Bill, did not venture a word of explanation why he has departed from the specific guarded recommendations of the Herbert Committee, but has introduced in Clause 2 of the Bill permission for the number of holders of Ministerial office to rise to 70, as compared with the figure of 60 recommended by the Herbert Committee. This seems to me to be an appropriate matter to discuss on Second Reading, and I should have thought that the

1925
Government would have wished to have justified that figure.
I appreciate that, at the time the Herbert Committee reported, which was relatively shortly after the war, there was a tendency for the number of Ministerial offices to increase, but that tendency has subsequently been corrected. One must also recognise a further dilemma. We appreciate that there must be a certain number of Ministers in another place in order to carry out the functions of another place, but, while we recognise that, this House is nowadays increasingly jealous of making sure that most of the senior Ministers are in this House. Obviously, under our present system, they cannot be in two places at once.
Mr. Cyril Osborne: Or under any system.
Mr. Fletcher: No, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me. There could well be a change in our arrangements whereby Ministers in another place have the right of audience in this place. I am not recommending it, but it is not nearly so far-fetched as the hon. Member may think. It is a quite conceivable hypothesis that Ministers of the Crown should have the right of audience in both Houses. I do not recommend it, but it is possible.
Mr. Hyde: Surely, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, Ministers have the right of audience in the Upper Chamber—the Senate?
Mr. Fletcher: As a matter of fact, I did not realise that, and I am ashamed to confess my ignorance of what goes on in the constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland. Even though it may work successfully there, I would not recommend the introduction of a change of that kind into our constitutional arrangements here.
This attempt to limit the influence of the Executive over Members of Parliament, which I think is fundamental, is one of the three cardinal principles laid down by the Herbert Committee. It is because of that, and because this tendency of the Executive to have more power, vis-à-vis the House of Commons, is an increasing tendency, that I hope we shall hear from the learned Attorney-General some observations with regard to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley and others.
1926
May I try to explain the danger as I see it? I would not wish myself—and I am not speaking for all my hon. Friends —to suggest that members of the Bar who are also Members of this House and who receive Crown briefs should thereby be disqualified from membership. That is a question which has been raised, however, and, therefore, it is one which must be faced and dealt with. I want to explain how I visualise this question.
This danger of increasing influence by the Executive over Members of the House of Commons arises in this way. In a sense, every hon. Member on the Govern-side side of the House is eligible for promotion to some Ministerial office, and, in that sense, is presumably liable to influence by the Executive, which may or may not affect his independence. Fortunately, hon. Members on this side of the House are not under any risk, at the moment, of being offered Ministerial office, and, therefore, we can claim to view the question with an objectivity which obviously is denied the Government supporters.
Mr. Osborne: Not all of them.
Mr. Fletcher: Before coming to the lawyers, which I shall do in a moment, in connection with Ministerial offices I would point out that the Herbert Committee had a good deal to say about the position of Parliamentary Private Secretaries. In a sense, Parliamentary Private Secretaries are particularly susceptible, much more than ordinary Government supporters, to Executive influence, and, therefore, when we add to 70 officeholders an unlimited number of possible Parliamentary Private Secretaries—and, quite properly, they are not mentioned in the Bill—we get quite a caucus of people whose independence from the Executive is Inevitably—
Mr. Hector Hughes: Undermined.
Mr. Fletcher: Either undermined or affected.
I would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman why nothing has been said about this, because the Herbert Committee considered this point. I imagine that they considered at one time whether the position of Parliamentary Private Secretaries was an appropriate subject to be dealt with by legislation and by inclusion in one of the Clauses of this Bill, because

1927
they decided against it. What they said was this:
"Your Committee are therefore of opinion that some steps should be taken, otherwise than by legislation, to reduce or at least limit the number of parliamentary private secretaries."
This Report was issued 14 years ago—in 1941. Are the Government doing anything about that, because the Second Reading of this Bill is an appropriate time for a Government spokesman to make a statement? Could we please be told how many Parliamentary Private Secretaries have been appointed at the present moment, and what, if any, steps are being taken by the Government to reduce or at least to limit the number of such Parliamentary Private Secretaries?
In that context, I pass to the somewhat related question of Members of this House who, by reason of their being members of the Bar, are eligible for Crown briefs. The suggestion has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley and, I think, by others that the mere possibility of Members being offered or accepting Crown briefs may affect their independence, and is therefore incompatible with their membership of this House. I do not take that view, but I do share the view that, the question having been raised, it is essential in the public interest that it should be probed.
I do not want it to be thought that the mere prospect of hon. Members of both sides of this House being offered Crown briefs should affect their independence. After all, it might be said that, whereas ordinary Government supporters are eligible for Ministerial office, it is also true that those Government supporters who are members of the Bar are eligible for judicial office of one kind or another. It may be said that members of the Bar, on both sides of the House, are eligible for appointment as recorders. I do not think anybody has ever suggested that that possibility or that prospect has affected their independence as Members of this House. The question having been raised, I do hope that the Attorney-General will not any longer attempt to evade his responsibility for disclosing the full facts of the matter.
I was a little surprised—here again I must confess my ignorance—to learn that the distribution of Crown briefs was
1928
regarded as being under the patronage of the Attorney-General or the Law Officers of the Crown. After all, the traditional rule of etiquette in the legal profession within my knowledge has always been that the solicitor conducting the case does not consult any member of the Bar in regard to his choice of counsel. It is contrary to etiquette to do so. I have yet to learn that the Treasury Solicitor, the Procurator-General, or the Director of Public Prosecutions is any exception to that rule. I should have thought on the analogy of the conduct of any other litigation there may be a lot to be said for allowing the solicitors and chief legal advisers of Government Departments to exercise discretion about the choice of counsel to conduct the work.
If, contrary to what I think is the right principle, the nomination of counsel to conduct Crown briefs resides in the Attorney-General or the Law Officers of the Crown, then it seems to me, because of the Attorney-General's responsibility in the matter and his responsibility to this House, he has a duty to make the same sort of disclosure as the head of any other Government Department has to. I should have thought that the Attorney-General should give the fullest information on this subject today. That would go a good way to allay some of the misgivings felt by my hon. Friends.
There is a good precedent for it. I recollect quite distinctly in the days of the Labour Government, somewhere about 1946, when my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross) was Attorney-General, he was questioned—I forget from which side of the House—as to what amounts had been paid in fees to Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, as he then was, and various other members of the Bar for attending the Nuremberg trials. The amounts were published in HANsARD—there was no secrecy about it, and there should not be any secrecy about this matter. I repeat my view that, although in Committee we shall want to inquire into it, it does not seem to me necessary to depart from the rule which has existed on this subject for a great many years in this House.
With these observations, I conclude by saying that, in company with all my hon. Friends, I welcome this Bill and support its Second Reading.
7.24 p.m.
Mr. Ede: I do not intend to detain the House for very long, but I feel a great sense of disappointment with regard to this Bill. I felt a sense of disappointment when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) announced so early in the debate that he did not intend to divide the House against it. I was still further disappointed when my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), after making a very good start to his speech, indicated that he had come to the conclusion that he could not vote against it either.
It seems to me that this Bill completely fails to do the thing which most of us expected it to do; that is, to make it quite clear which of these little offices in respect of which hon. Members on both sides of the House have been caught out in recent years carry a disqualification. In the Third Schedule we are left with the words which are not dissimilar to those which have led to the confusion. Paragraph 1 of the Third Schedule says:
"A person holding an office or place (not being an office to which the next following paragraph applies) holds it under the Crown if and only if he is appointed thereto by Her Majesty, by any Minister of the Crown, or by any officer or servant of Her Majesty employed for the purposes of a government department."
Simple as those words sound, we all know that the modern system of Government is so complicated that who is
"any officer or servant of Her Majesty"
in the connection mentioned is still a matter of some doubt. I cannot help thinking that it ought to be possible for the various Government Departments, like the Ministry of National Insurance and the Ministry of Labour, which have various tribunals all over the country, to have a list approved by the Law Officers of the Crown and submitted to the House as a Schedule to the Bill, saying quite definitely that the persons on those tribunals are holding offices which disqualify them.
As has been pointed out several times in the course of the debate, none of these offices is really an office of "profit" as that word is generally understood. They involve nearly everybody who accepts them in giving up a considerable amount of time, frequently in incurring considerable expense—which cannot be avoided—
1930
and quite frequently making far more enemies than friends, if they carry out their duties in a thoroughly judicial spirit. There is always the feeling, "If old So-and-so had not turned up, the tribunal would not have found against me."
I cannot help thinking that it should be possible to have a list drawn up of these offices. If fresh legislation setting up fresh tribunals of that kind is passed, a statement could be made in the Measure adding them to the list, and if new Government Departments are formed, or the titles of Ministers are altered, an appropriate amendment should be made to the list of offices given in the Fourth Schedule.
When the Education Act, 1944, altered the title of the Minister from that of "President of the Board of Education" to "Minister of Education" the appropriate Amendment of the 1937 Act was made. I had hoped that this Bill would be one which would prevent innocent people from falling into the booby traps that have presented such perils to hon. Members on both sides of the House, whom we all know had no desire to break the law.
Mr. Ellis Smith: It could be done in Committee.
Mr. Ede: The Government can do a great many things in Committee, and the Committee of the whole House, I should have thought, could deal with this point. We had the example of the hon. Member for the Hallam Division of Sheffield (Sir R. Jennings) who, out of a good heart, had given of his highly valuable professional services to a village branch of the British Legion and gone gaily on-1 think he fought five Elections successfully —in breach of the law all the time. Then he suddenly discovered the position because another accountant, who happens to hold the same office of profit, made inquiry, just before the last General Election, as to whether he was disqualified from sitting. I really think that we ought to be able to protect worthy citizens from incurring the difficulties and disabilities which so many hon. Members on both sides of the House have had to encounter.
I am not quite sure whether some small constitutional change is not made by the first part of the Fourth Schedule. The

1931
Schedule hangs upon Clause 2 (2, b), which says that there shall be not more than
"…twenty-seven persons being the holders of offices specified in Part I of the said Schedule."
If we count up the names in the Part I of the Fourth Schedule—I know part of the reason for it—there are only 23 names. Therefore, not more than 27 of the 23 are, it would appear, to sit in the House.
This arises partly from the fact that "Secretary of State" is one office although it is held simultaneously by several people, each of them being capable, under the law, of acting for any other Secretary of State should the occasion arise.
Mr. E. Fletcher: What about "Minister of State"?
Mr. Ede: My hon. Friend has anticipated me; I was just coming to "Minister of State." I know of no such doctrine applying to the office of Minister of State. Ministers of State are from time to time appointed for various Departments, but I would not imagine that, say, a Minister of State for Colonial Affairs would be eligible to act, without some special appointment, as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs or for any other Government Department. The doctrine of "Secretary of State" is a very old-established one, and I should like to know from the Attorney-General whether any such doctrine is now being applied to the title "Minister of State," because, generally speaking, Ministers of State are specifically assigned to various Government Departments. We ought to know whether what we have in the Bill is some indication that Ministers of State have a wider range than is at the moment generally considered to apply to their activities.
I am also rather dissatisfied with the provision about contracts. I am not now dealing with the question of lawyers. I compare Clause 6 and the practice at the moment with the very severe statutory obligations placed on members of local authorities with regard to contracts, as defined by Section 76 of the Local Government Act, 1933:
"If a member of a local authority has any pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in any contract or proposed contract or other matter,
1932
and is present at a meeting of the local authority at which the contract or other matter is the subject of consideration, he shall at the meeting, as soon as practicable after the commencement thereof, disclose the fact, and shall not take part in the consideration or discussion of, or vote on any question with respect to, the contract or other matter."
I recollect that in my constituency before the Second World War there was a long-standing arrangement—it went back to a time long before I had any connection with the place—by which members of the local authority, which had a system of tramways, were granted passes on the tramways. This issue was raised at a meeting of the town council, and a number of members voted for its continuance. That was reported to the Law Officers of the Crown before the Second World War. They looked at the division list and chose two members to prosecute. They did it in a way which did not seem to me to be very judicial. They chose the first name alphabetically among the aldermen and among the councillors. One can understand that, but it might have been very difficult for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition if he had been a member of the town council voting in that division. There was no question of merit. The two men were prosecuted, and convicted, and a small penalty was imposed by the local magistrates.
I cannot think that the arrangement proposed in the Bill, although it may reenact the existing law, is in conformity with modern feeling on the subject. I support the line which was adopted by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell), who drew attention to the position in relation to joint stock companies and family businesses. I sincerely hope that the Government will have another look at Clause 6 to ascertain whether we can bring the law relating to Members of Parliament more into conformity with what is, I think, the feeling in the country and certainly the practice in local government.
I turn at last to the question of legal Members of Parliament. If my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering will allow me to say so, I did not quite follow the argument that, if we do not give these lawyers briefs, we shall not get good Law Officers of the Crown. In many parts of the British Dominions the Attorney-General, although he attends meetings of the Legislature, is not a

1933
member of the Legislature. He gives his legal advice to the legislative assembly. Frankly, I should not like that to apply here. I believe that the strength of this House as a legislative, deliberative and administrative assembly very largely derives from the fact that Ministers of the Crown come here on an equality with the rest of us and are liable to questioning and to having their conduct criticised —and applauded on occasion—in debate, which ensures that we are more easily able to control Governments than are assemblies from which Ministers of the Crown are excluded.
Once again I think that we require to have regard to modern public opinion. People in public life have to forgo many things lest their actions should be misunderstood, although they are capable of explanation. I should have thought that the acceptance of Crown briefs by Members of this House, no matter on which side they sit, was one of those things which, in modern circumstances, required reconsideration. I share the view of those of my hon. Friends who have thought that that practice should be brought to an end.
This Bill is an effort to deal comprehensively with a problem which has confronted us for a considerable time. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) mentioned the question of Parliamentary Private Secretaries. I understood that except in one or two Departments where the work is exceptionally heavy the practice that had arisen, as a result of recommendations of Sir Dennis Herbert's Committee, was that only one Parliamentary Private Secretary per Department was now allowed. It was thought that the old practice, which certainly occurred to a very large extent in 1941, of both the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary each having a Parliamentary Private Secretary should not apply, and that except for one or two Departments where the work was particularly heavy, like the Treasury and the Board of Trade, not more than one Parliamentary Private Secretary should be now appointed.
I do not see how one can deal with that matter in the Bill, because, so far as I know, a Parliamentary Private Secretary, while he is of great convenience to the Minister and is of great convenience to
1934
hon. Members who are not Ministers should they wish to get in touch with his Minister, is a creature not known to the Constitution, and I think that it would be a very bad day if he were ever given a statutory position. Therefore, I think that a statement as to what is the existing practice would be reassuring to the House, although I hope that the matter will not be brought into this Measure at any stage.
For the reasons which I have given, I think that the Bill needs some enlargement and some clarification, and that it lags behind public opinion generally in this country. There have been two or three Committee suggestions which I should find it very difficult to support. I agree with my hon. Friend that the recommendation of the Committee which looked into the MacManaway case is a sound one with regard to the clergy.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) referred to the Master of Trinity College. I had the honour of sitting in the House with the Master of Clare College, and I should have thought that it would have been more difficult to spare the Master of Clare College than the Master of Trinity College. I had better not say anything about Trinity College. I will leave that matter alone. Quite clearly, however, there may be a man who is Master of Trinity College whom it would be desirable to have in the House. After all, he would not come now as the representative of the University. He would have to get an ordinary constituency to return him. If a constituency desired to do so, I cannot see why, merely because he was Master of Trinity College, he should be debarred. It may even be a pleasure for him to participate in the proceedings of this House, after having taken part in the proceedings of the administrative body of Trinity College.
I regret that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering so early decided that this was a Bill to which we on this side of the House should give our support. I trust that during the Committee stage he will see that the various matters which we have discussed today are adequately discussed then, and I trust that the Committee stage will be on the Floor of the House.
7.45 p.m.
Mr. F. H. Hayman: I should like to support what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). They felt that there should be more information disclosed about members of the Bar in this House who get briefs from the Government. At the same time, I should like as a layman to pay my tribute to the legal Members of the House for the great services they render to us, particularly when we are considering Bills in Standing Committee. A layman would be hopelessly lost without our legal friends, and I am sure that they keep very careful watch on the Executive. That has been my experience for nearly six years, and I am glad to have this opportunity of saying so.
I first spoke in the House on this question of the disqualification of Members when the MacManaway case was before us in 1950. I drew attention then to the fact that a county council officer was debarred from being a Member of the House. I am glad now to find that in the Seventh Schedule Section 83 (13) of the Local Government (England and Wales) Act, 1888, is to be repealed.
Subsection (13) reads:
"Provided always, that no paid clerk or other paid official in the permanent employment of a county council who is required to devote his, whole time to such employment shall be eligible to serve in Parliament."
I happened when I was elected to be a paid officer of a county council, but I was innocent enough to think that as I would not be drawing a salary from the county council I was no longer a paid officer. Some doubt was expressed as to whether it would be possible for me to continue as a Member of Parliament if I remained on the roll of the staff of the county council, without drawing any pay, merely to keep my superannuation benefit alive. I thought that that would be all right. The county council was prepared to accept it as all right, but I felt that, as there was some doubt, it would be better that I should resign. Therefore, when I came here I did not have to ask the House for a Bill to exempt me from some terrible penalty.
I am glad that now it will be possible for officers of county councils to stand for Parliament, because I feel that they
1936
have a contribution to make to the House, just as have many other right hon. and hon. Members who have served on county councils and who, out of their experience, can help us very much. But there is still one further anomaly which ought to be tackled. It is that after a local government officer has been in the House for twelve months he forfeits all his superannuation rights. That does not apply to a teacher or a civil servant. I hope that the time will come when it will not apply to local government officers.
7.50 p.m.
Commander C. E. M. Donaldson: After having listened with interest, as always, to the speech of the right hon. Member for South Leeds—
Mr. Ede: South Shields.
Commander Donaldson: I beg the pardon of both right hon. Gentlemen.
After listening to the right hon. Gentleman's speech and to the speech of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher), I should like to comment on two points in their references to Parliamentary Private Secretaries. It has been said that in the Navy a midshipman is the lowest form of animal life. I am not going to say that all my fellow Members who may be Parliamentary Private Secretaries accept that description as applying to their work in the House. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will give some indication of the position of Parliamentary Private Secretaries at the conclusion of the debate.
The Attorney-General The Attorney-General indicated dissent.
Commander Donaldson: My right hon. and learned Friend shakes his head, but I hope that he will somehow convey to Parliamentary Private Secretaries exactly what their present position is, and what it may be in the future.
It is my belief that those of us who are asked—and it is a personal honour—to serve Ministers, do so more from a sense of personal regard for the Minister than from any thought of reward or expectation of being called to another office. We serve the Minister because we are interested in the man and in the Department with which he deals. I hope that most of us do our job with honesty, sincerity and acceptance to our respective

1937
Ministers, but the Minister or the Parliamentary Private Secretary can terminate the happy arrangement by letter from the Minister, or at the request of the hon. Member. It would be to the interest of the public at large to be enabled to understand the functions of a Parliamentary Private Secretary, because some of us are embarrassed by the powers which the public think are vested in us but which we do not possess.
I should like to stress some of the remarks which the right hon. Member for South Shields made on the general aspects of the Bill. There has been not only confusion among hon. Members on both sides of the House who are not trained and learned in the law about disqualification and the Acts that have been passed to make indemnity sure for those who fall into difficulty by misadventure, but there is confusion among the public outside. Many of us have been asked questions about the position. I do not think that the last four or five occasions on which we have discussed these matters have conduced to the well-being and good name of Parliament as a whole. It is time that a clear explanation was given in understandable terms, particularly to the layman in the House, so that he can explain to laymen outside what has been going on and what will be the position when the Bill becomes law.
7.54 p.m.
Mr. John Taylor: I feel inclined to try to persuade the hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) not to press that there should be some public definition of the duties, responsibilities and horrors of the office of Parliamentary Private Secretary. It would be much against the interests of Parliamentary Private Secretaries to have disclosed publicly how extensive are their responsibilities and how little they are regarded. It would be just as wise to have a definition of the office of Whips, and heaven forbid that that definition should be made public.
It has been interesting in this debate, on a rather introspective and domestic Bill, to notice the timidity, almost, with which members of the legal profession have expressed perhaps some guilt of conscience about what goes on in the awarding of briefs. I think that they are alarming themselves unnecessarily, though
1938
it is very good that they are conscious that there may be something a little questionable about the practice. Personally, I do not think that there is. It works all right. There is no evidence that there has been any misuse either of patronage or of gains obtained in that way. So long as the practice patently works all right, why not leave well alone? The Bill makes no mention of it.
The Bill is based on the Report of the Herbert Committee. We are concerned with the qualifications and disqualifications of Members of the House. The Herbert Report makes a very clear distinction, as the Bill by inference does also, between an office of profit under the Crown and a position of profit under the Crown. The Report holds that it is permissible for a holder of a position of profit or of possible profit to become and remain a Member but that it is not permissible for a holder of an office of profit or even of possible profit to become a Member.
This is a very fortunate distinction for us all, because, with the payment of Members since 1911, we are all holders of positions of profit under the Crown although, of course, at the present-day rates they are positions of penury for hon. Members who feel it their duty to devote most of their time to their Parliamentary work. In principle, membership of the House could be held to be much more of a position of profit than many of the cases that have been mentioned in the debate. The same distinction applies and clears those hon. Members on both sides of the House who frequently carry out broadcasting or television engagements for the B.B.C. By the same token, it clears those hon. Members of the legal profession who accept Government briefs.
I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) pay his tribute to members of the legal profession who assist us so well as colleagues and fellow Members of the House. After all, there is a considerable hurdle for those members of the profession to overcome before they succeed in being elected to the House. Most political party committees in the constituencies have an inherent, almost congenital, suspicion of members of the legal profession. Therefore, those hon. Members who have overcome that serious hurdle must be good.

1939
We know also that the business of awarding Government briefs to barristers who are Members of Parliament has an opposite side. It operates in reverse. I have known hon. Members who are members of the legal profession to whom membership of the House has been a very costly business. They have lost briefs by their attendance at the House and their attention and devotion to Parliamentary duty, by their feeling that they want to be here, helping their colleagues in Committee and in the work of drafting Amendments when they could very well have been employed at considerable personal reward if they had devoted more of their time to their profession.
That ought to be said because we often make jokes about lawyers who are Members of this House. It is true that sometimes they become a little tedious in debate, arguing for long hours on what seem to lay Members outside the law to be trivialities consideration of which is dragged out beyond all reason. On the whole, however, let us not be too critical of our colleagues in that profession, and let them not be too touchy and have too hair-trigger a reaction against others. Also, I would advise them not to probe too deeply into possible changes in a Bill which no one except my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has suggested should be made.
If we take further the question of who holds positions of profit under the Crown, we find that every citizen in this country becomes ineligible for membership, because in a Welfare State we are all holders of positions of profit under the Crown. We all enjoy food subsidies which are paid for by the State in general taxation. Every time we seek medical advice and treatment, every time we have to draw sickness benefit, every farmer, every doctor, all employees of the British Railways, B.E.A.C., B.O.A.C., the Central Electricity Authority, the Gas Boards—all are included. Indeed, the disqualification would extend even to the pre-natal stage, because the human embryo of the British citizen is strengthened by State-provided cod liver oil and orange juice. So the Bill is not concerned, and should not be concerned, with positions of profit. It deals purely with offices of profit, and it sets itself the formidable task of defining and listing such offices.
1940
Those of us who have served recently on Select Committees dealing with cases which have had to be examined had hoped that the Bill would free us from the recurring necessity to examine borderline cases based on trivialities of the kind we have experienced lately, in which hon. Members suddenly discover to their horror that they are not eligible to be Members in law and in fact and so have to be declared to be ineligible. After that we have to go through the clumsy, and not very logical, process of passing special legislation which says that the Member in question is not a Member, has no right to be a Member, but we declare that he is a Member and we indemnify him from the penalties laid down by the law.
We had hoped that the Bill would succeed in freeing us from that, as I have no doubt did the Attorney-General and the Lord Advocate. Well, it does not, and I join with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and other hon. Members in expressing the hope that it may be possible to go further in removing the necessity for these recurring examinations. I appreciate, however, that it is difficult to lay down legally and in black and white a list of appointments of this borderline character.
Let us, as a House, make it clear that the Bill does not remove from Parliamentary candidates their own responsibility to examine their appointments and to discover their eligibility or otherwise for membership. Let us make it clear that responsibility lies with no one but the candidate. It does not lie with the returning officer. If the individual candidate is in any doubt about any appointment he holds, he would be well advised to resign the appointment about which he is in doubt before taking the Oath. Let us make it clear that the position is that any resident British citizen can stand for Parliament, except the following categories—a convicted felon, an undischarged bankrupt, a certified lunatic or a Member of another place. Anyone outside those categories can stand for Parliament, but not all of them can sit in Parliament. The need for making that clear is obvious, and this Bill goes some way towards it.
The small number of similar Acts in the last 200 years proves either our reluctance to deal with this kind of legislation or that the previous Acts have

1941
worked reasonably well. In spite of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields, this Bill represents a serious attempt, after long examination by a Committee set up by the Labour Government, and after careful consideration by the present Administration, not only to define what is an office of profit so far as that can humanly be done, but also to ensure that there is clarity about what extra qualifications it is now logical to put into a legal enactment; and also to modernise and consolidate most sensibly and suitably the practices and rules governing those who should be and who should not be hon. Members of this House.
The Bill does that as well as we could expect it to do, but there should be some improvement in that one part which defines borderline cases of the kind which cause us the most trouble. Only on rare occasions have we been concerned with any kind of case other than those stupid and illogical borderline cases. The Bill does not quite succeed in that attempt, but it goes a long way towards it, and because it does so and is a valiant and an all-party attempt, I agree that we should give it a Second Reading and be careful of our examination of it in Committee.
8.8 p.m.
Mr. E. G. Willis: Like most hon. Members who have spoken today, I welcome the Bill as far as it goes. As several of my hon. Friends have pointed out, however, there are serious omissions which can be discussed during the Committee stage.
I was interested in the remarks passed by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor) about the disabilities under which lawyers sometimes suffer. It is precisely because of those difficulties that on the Scottish side of the House we have few lawyers here. It does not pay them to come down to London because they have virtually to give up their practices in Edinburgh. So the situation from the Scottish point of view is that we usually have two Law Officers and maybe one other lawyer. It is also interesting that the two Law Officers of the Crown who represent Scotland usually come here as a result of by-elections because they have to be put into the House of Commons. This means that we frequently have Government officers with little experience of the procedure and
1942
working of Parliament. I hope that the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General will appreciate that I am not making this point in any party way, because it applies to both parties.
What concerns me, arising out of what my hon. Friend the Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) said, is the position of legal officers in Scotland. He mentioned the Crown Office and the fact that it is one of the few offices where there is an almost complete change with every change of Government and where there is a complete political change with the change of political power in the House of Commons.
It must give one serious cause to ask whether this is really in the best interests of Scotland, but what is worthy of rather more consideration is the fact that the political and the judicial elements have become very closely inter-twined in Scotland. We have the position where the posts of Solicitor-General and Lord Advocate appear to be automatic steps to promotion to the Bench.
I say this without any personal feeling, because I have known several who have travelled this road and have a great respect for their judicial and political qualities. Nevertheless, I am compelled to say it because it gives rise to serious concern in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) has tried to raise this matter at Question Time with a view to seeing what can be done about it. I know that certain hon. Members question the advisability of the Solicitor-General and the Lord Advocate being in the House because of this close association of politics with the judiciary.
The first Schedule lists the judicial offices which are to be disqualified, and we all understand why that is so. The situation which we have in Scotland, where very often the act of going to the Bench is preceded by a period of very intense political activity, is most disquieting. I should hardly have thought that was a good introduction to the Bench. This situation arises in Scotland because of the smallness in number of the Bar and the circumstances in Scotland as a whole. That I should not have thought was a good thing. It creates a bad impression in the minds of a great many people who look upon these Parliamentary legal offices as a short and sure cut to the Bench.

1943
That seems to me to be a bad thing from the point of view of Parliament, because it means that Parliament is merely a stepping stone to advancement at the Bar. I am sure that, once again, the Lord Advocate will appreciate that this feeling exists to a great extent in Edinburgh. It cannot be good for Parliament that thousands should look upon these positions as a stepping stone to somewhere else. It is bad from the point of view of Parliament, and also, I should have thought, from the judicial point of view. For the first few years after a Lord Advocate or a Solicitor-General is appointed to the Bench he is remembered, not because of his judicial qualities, but for his political associations. It is not good for a judge to be thought of in political terms.
If the Lord Advocate were to talk to people in Edinburgh and elsewhere on the point, he would find that a great many discuss judges on the bench in terms of their political affiliation. It all arises out of the situation which I have tried to put to the House and which everyone in the House knows exists.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Would it not solve the problem if the Scottish legal advisers to the Crown in Parliament were made, as they are in county councils, permanent officials and if they did not sit as Members of this House at all?
Mr. Willis: I was coming to that point. The difficulty which we in Scotland are up against is that at times we have to have legal advice, but I think that it ought to be seriously considered in the peculiar circumstances of Scotland whether or not that advice should not be available from the Box instead of from the Front Bench. I am raising this matter because it is dealt with in paragraph 2 of the Fourth Schedule. I believe that would be a good thing, both from a political and from a Parliamentary point of view, and also from a judicial point of view.
I have a very great admiration for the judicial system in Scotland. In many ways, I think that it is far in advance of the English system, at least in quite a large number of matters. A great many of my friends are in the legal profession,
1944
and many of them are seriously concerned about this matter.
I ask the Government seriously to consider the position of the legal officers in Scotland. Quite a number of them do not want to come here. I have known Lord Advocates on both sides of the House who have not had the slightest desire to come to this House. I should have thought that, from their own personal point of view, it would be much more satisfactory if they could be divorced from the hurly-burly of political life, because, at times, it can be pretty bitter in Scotland.
Mr. Hoy: What does my hon. Friend mean by saying that is not a good thing? Does he mean not good from the point of view of lawyers to be in Parliament?
Mr. Willis: I mean that it is not good from the point of view of our judiciary and from the point of view of those appearing in our courts. If a person goes before a certain judge and has in mind the political affiliations of that judge, no matter what they are, he is pretty certain to come out of court feeling that he has not been dealt with in accordance with justice, but in accordance with the political prejudices of the judge. I am not saying that that happens; it probably does not, but it is an impression that is created in the mind of the person appearing before the judge.
That is a bad thing, and, therefore, in all sincerity, I ask the Government seriously to consider the position of the legal officers in Scotland. It would be a good thing if something could be done about the matter. I have never been a member of a Government, and I do not know what goes on behind the scenes, but I have a pretty shrewd idea all the same of the work that the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor-General have to do. I think it is worth considering whether that work could not be taken out of the political field. If that could be done, it would be to the benefit of Scottish lawyers and to the benefit of Scottish political and judicial life.
8.19 p.m.
Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: Lawyers have been discussed at great length in this debate, and at one stage there was no one in the House who had a good word to say for them. Then we had the interventions of my hon. Friend

1945
the Member for Falmouth and Cam-borne (Mr. Hayman) and of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor), in which they were kind enough to say that ordinary back bench lawyers, not Ministers, performed a useful function, especially in Standing Committees.
I think it is correct to say that lawyers are seldom popular in this House, but those who have gone far in pointing out the defects of lawyers in the House should bear in mind that there are probably fewer of them in this Parliament than in any other Parliament in Western Europe.
Mr. Ede: That is why we are so much better.
Mr. de Freitas: What I want to see in the House is not more lawyers but that we should so conduct our business as to have better lawyers—in fact, the best lawyers, the best barristers—coming here while still exercising their profession and as Members of Parliament. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) were particularly severe in establishing a prima facie case against Members of Parliament receiving Crown briefs. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) said that the giving of Crown briefs to Members of the House was a form of secret patronage, and he wanted that to be recognised in order that we might discuss the point.
So far in the debate, no one has put it as strongly as Mr. Maxton put it when he was asking a question during evidence before the Herbert Committee of 1941. I quote this, because it seems the most extreme point of view from which we should start discussing the matter. It is Question 389, and Mr. Maxton said:
"If a Member of a Government in a ticklish Parliamentary situation can go to a barrister and say: 'What are you thinking about this matter that we are voting on tomorrow night?' 'I am rather against the Government view.' 'Oh, well, I think, old chap, you should not be too strong about that. By the way, there is a brief going for £500'."
Mr. Maxton added:
"That, I would say, was very, very vicious."
The Chairman agreed with him, but said it was entirely outside the terms of reference. It may well have been so.
1946
We are not asked to take any decision tonight or to make up our minds on the point. I ask my hon. Friends and others to reflect on the pros and cons of that question. This puts the extreme case. Lawyers are often picked upon and hard words said about them, but it should be remembered that "if there were no bad people there would be no good lawyers" —and that can be read in any way hon. Members like. What we want is better lawyers not more lawyers, in spite of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis). There may be some difficulties about Scotland; I do not know enough about them to comment.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields emphasised the desirability of having the Law Officers in the House. In that event, we must attract to the House the leading barristers of the day, or gradually the standard of our Law Officers will fall, which would be had for the House and for the country. I therefore say, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering said, that in giving serious consideration to the matter we must weigh that fact against the measure of public harm which is possible in the acceptance of Crown briefs. We have to weigh those two things one against the other.
May I say, in passing, that I have never heard any criticism of the present Law Officers in respect of any political discrimination in the patronage which is exercised in giving briefs?
My hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian referred to the fact that as a House we have seldom considered the problem of the disqualification of Members and have had very few Bills about it. The strange fact is that although we have often changed the law of qualifications for voters, we have very seldom changed the law of qualifications for Members of the House, which are, in fact, much as they were before the Reform Bill.
I do not think I can deal with a subject like this without mentioning a former hon. and learned Member who is no longer with us, Mr. Bing, who would certainly have intervened in the debate had he been here. He pointed out, the last time I heard him speak on this subject, that what was curious was our attitude towards this problem and our reluctance

1947
to deal with the disqualification of Members. He said that in 1746 Parliament disqualified both as electors and as candidates anyone in Scotland who twice in the same year had been present at Divine Service in an Episcopal church
"whereof the pastor shall not pray in express words for His Majesty by name."
This disqualified a person both as a voter and as a candidate. He said that although in 1948, 200 years later, we abolished this disqualification for the voter as far as he knew—and certainly as far as I know—it was still the law for the candidate. Therefore it behoves all Scottish Members to be extremely careful in their choice of Church.
We can make certain comments on the Clauses tonight, although many of them are bound to arise again and to be amplified in Committee. The first point which strikes me about Clause 1 is the use of the phrase "a part-time civil servant." We shall have to find out more about that. What is a part-time civil servant?
In fact, three points arise on this Clause and the second is this: was consideration given to the question of a man who is a member of a legislature from any country or territory inside the Commonwealth? The Home Secretary referred to the fact that originally the judges were disqualified, not on the ground on which we should disqualify them today, but because, being judges, they would be involved in continuous and prolonged absence from the House. Surely it is for consideration, if anyone is disqualified because he is in a Parliament outside the Commonwealth, whether we ought not to disqualify a man who is a member of a legislature inside the Commonwealth. Can he do the two jobs?
The most important point in Clause 1 deals with the borderline cases and the fact that there is not a definition of "office or place." We have been unable to improve upon those very difficult words from the Act of Anne. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields expressed disappointment that we had not been able to do better and that we had to rely on the Third Schedule, although of course that helps to some extent. I will go further and ask for consideration of my right hon. Friend's suggestion that definite lists should be issued by Departments referring to particular offices.
1948
Two hon. Members referred to Clause 3, which deals with the Reserve and Auxiliary Forces and disqualification of members of those forces. I do not understand the limitation to "three months or less." What is the significance of that period? A reservist can be called up for a year or more. Is he to be disqualified? Is there some particular significance in the period of three months?
When considering Clause 5, two hon. Members asked about the Manor of Northstead and wanted to know where it was. The Manor of Northstead is in Scarborough, I have always thought that if I were spared electorally to reach a ripe old age, I would retire there from this House, because it includes part of the public gardens of Scarborough and I have always wanted to have some connection with that as the Steward of Northstead.
Clause 6 is important, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering dealt with it at some length. It deals with contracts and, as the Bill is drafted, is probably right to limit it to certain historical types of contracts. We must, however, discuss other types of contracts —contracts for services such as are given by civil engineers and others. We know that it is not a question of logic, because in this matter our law is completely illogical. The Bill does not pretend to do more than, with modifications, set out the present law. However, the conditions of contracts should be discussed. There is no attempt to remove the obscurities and anomalies and, for that reason, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) and the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) will all seek to make amendments dealing with the disqualification of clergy. The Bill does not attempt to dispose of those anomalies.
We have the well-known difficulty which caused so much trouble two Parliaments ago in respect of a clergyman of the Church of Ireland. The history of this Clause, which merely re-enacts parts of the House of Commons (Disqualification) Acts, 1782, is that at that time an attempt was made to prevent Members of Parliament setting up as contractors and making money out of the American revolutionary war. Clause 6 (4) refers to the amount of £100, but we should have some

1949
limit of the period—say a year—over which that money could be received, or small amounts may aggregate over three or four years to just over £100 and we shall suddenly have a Member disqualified. We shall have to deal with that further on the Committee stage.
Clause 8 is a new idea, that of an excusal procedure. It is very good on balance, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley reminded us, it should be borne in mind that many people believe that the House of Commons (Disqualifications) Act, 1801—to disqualify clergy—was brought in by the Prime Minister, Addington, for the particular purpose of getting rid of Horne Tooke. Although there is precedent for Committees of Privilege not taking non-party lines, we must not forget the enormous power given in this Clause to a majority of the House of Commons, either if an Opposition Member or a majority Member should be involved.
Section 2 refers to:
"…alleged"
disqualification under this Act. Am I right in thinking that that allows the House to excuse a Member, pending a definite decision by the Judicial Committee where there is considerable doubt? In introducing the Bill this afternoon, the Home Secretary referred to "inadvertent disqualification" and I am sure that what is intended is that the excusal procedure should operate when there is an inadvertent disqualification. But that should be made clear.
Clause 12 refers to Northern Ireland—and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Belfast, North has gone. Is the position there that if the paid office is one to which the Northern Ireland Government appoint, then although the holder is disqualified from sitting at Stormont, he can sit here? is the same true of contractors referred to in Clause 6? We have enough to do in this House and although I do not complain now, is it really necessary, if the Northern Ireland Parliament has the powers, that we should be concerned with points like Clause 12 (3)?
The Home Secretary told us that the Government would introduce Amendments to the effect that the Bill should become law at the time of the Royal Assent. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering meant to make the
1950
point, which I now make, that we accept that and entirely agree with the reasons which the Home Secretary gave, it being understood that the Act will not disqualify existing Members.
The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy)—and this is mentioned in the Second Schedule—asked why the directors of trading estates and so on appointed by the Board of Trade should be disqualified from membership. We have to consider that, and also such facts as the disqualification of a member of a county agricultural executive committee. We must consider the general principle that we should not make it too difficult for people to come to this House—we should not make public service of that kind too unattractive. If it is thought undesirable that any Member of Parliament should have these jobs which might come into conflict with his duties to his constituency, there could be some territorial disqualification, as in Part I of the Fifth Schedule, where we find high sheriffs, recorders, chairmen and deputy-chairmen of quarter sessions courts disqualified for particular constituencies. I note, also, that to be Commissioner of the Public Works Loan Board—a job recently held by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East —has been declared a disqualification.
The hon. and gallant Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray) agreed it was undesirable for lords-lieutenant to be Members for a constituency within the county of which they were lords-lieutenant. I agree with that, and in the Fifth Schedule it is dealt with, but why are the lords-lieutenant in Northern Ireland not in the same position? If, as the hon. and gallant Member thought, it is undesirable in Great Britain, why is it not equally undesirable in Northern Ireland?
I cannot help but notice the list of offices which involve no qualification. The Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, has been mentioned—and I welcome the fact that the Historiographer Royal for Scotland can join us at any time. I am only sorry that the Hydrographer, whom I once have had the pleasure of meeting, is barred by Clause 1 because he is a serving naval officer. [An HON. MEMBER: "And the Astronomer Royal for Scotland."] The case of the Astronomer Royal is easy to understand. I know the

1951
answer to that, but it is not for me to meet points raised by hon. Members. However, I am a little worried about the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) is not at present disqualified because it is an "old" office. What worries me is that he is entitled to flotsam and jetsam, and because of that we have to declare in the Bill that the office is not subject to disqualification, although some of the flotsam and jetsam may be capable of having a money value as defined in the Third Schedule.
There are many absurdities in our law today. This Bill does a great deal to make it better—especially the Seventh Schedule, which I welcome because it repeals so many of the common informer procedure in former Acts. I had something to do with the Common Informers Act of 1951, and this Schedule nearly completes the good work by abolishing common informers in relation to people sitting in this House while disqualified. I say that the Schedule nearly completes the good work. For I greatly regret that the Act of 1801 still leaves something of the common informer procedure.
In opening the debate, the Home Secretary said that as far as he knew there was no general demand for extension of disqualification. That point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and others. That is an important point for us to remember. In a way, it is unfortunate that this Measure is entitled House of Commons Disqualification Bill. We are not trying so much to disqualify people from becoming Members of Parliament as trying to extend the qualification. There are enough economic and other disadvantages at the moment, and we do not want to reduce the House to a place to which only the rich or the retired can come.
All this discussion in the last 10 years, certainly since I have been here, has arisen because some of our colleagues have been disqualified on technical grounds. I accept this Bill and its general purpose, first to clarify the present law and secondly to remove the small technical difficulties and disqualifications. I think the spirit in which we should end this debate and in which we should go forward to the Committee
1952
stage, which clearly must be in the House itself, is that we aim to make this House an even better and truly representative House than it is. That is our aim. This is really a House of Commons Qualification Bill.
8.41 p.m.
The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): Apart from the contribution made by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg), to which I will refer later, this has been a very good humoured, interesting and serious debate. Many points have been raised in relation to this Measure. Some of them, as I think all hon. Members will agree, are really Committee points. We are grateful to hon. Members for making them, and I can assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that these Committee points will be most carefully considered between now and the Committee stage.
This is not a party Measure in any sense at all. It is a Measure to which my predecessors devoted a great deal of labour, and I know how much hard work they must have put into it because it is not by any means easy to draft and prepare a Bill of this character. It is much more easy to criticise it when it is seen on paper. I do not think there is any limit to the number of possible suggestions that could be put forward, and there are a good many arguments against most of them.
I hope that this Bill will reach the Statute Book without undue delay because it is my firm belief that even if it does not remove all the anomalies it will at least remove a great many, and it will render the position of Members of this House much clearer and much more easily discernible in relation to any offices or contracts that they may hold.
I think it is true to say that this Bill has been generally welcomed on both sides of the House. I was rather astonished by the two main critics. One does not usually find them working in such close collaboration. I refer to the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) and the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I think that I can allay one of the fears of the right hon. Gentleman. If I heard him correctly, he made an impassioned appeal that the Master of Trinity should not be disqualified but should be allowed to be a candidate for election to this

1953
House. If only he will look at the Bill once again he will find that the Master of Trinity comes in the Schedule which is headed "Offices involving no disqualification."
Mr. Ede: I knew that. I was merely replying to the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) that the Master of Trinity should be disqualified. I think that anybody who will take on the job of being Master of Trinity deserves anything else he can get.
Mr. de Freitas: The Master of Trinity is a Peer anyway, so the question will not arise for a few years.
The Attorney-General: The hon. Member for Dagenham may have had some particular reason for expressing that hope, but I do not think we need pursue that.
Mr. Parker: I did not say that the law should be altered. I said that it was unlikely that the college would let that gentleman hold the job of Master if he were also a Member of this House.
The Attorney-General: There is no reason for us to reinforce the wishes of the college by statutory action.
There have been some comments on the delay that has taken place in introducing the Bill. I should like to remind the House that the Herbert Committee reported in 1941. It was not until 1949 that, after a number of cases of disqualification had arisen, the right hon. and learned Member for St. Helens (Sir H. Shawcross) said that he would give serious consideration to the preparation of a Bill, and it has been a long process trying to cover all the various features of this complicated subject. I do not believe that anyone studying this Measure can come to any conclusion other than that it clarifies the position a great deal. I would not assert for one moment that it completely solves the problem. I do not think it is possible to secure a completely clear-cut solution.
May I just give one instance, which concerns the control of companies? Not much has been said about that in the course of the debate today. Under the existing law, the Member who has a contract with the Crown to send money abroad or to provide wares or merchan-
1954
dise is disqualified. The Bill extends that provision to cover the one-man company so that where a Member really has control of a private company which enters into contracts of that sort, that Member will be disqualified. Difficult questions may arise for determination as to whether a particular Member has control of a particular company. I give that only as an illustration.
The right hon. Member for South Shields suggested—the suggestion was endorsed by the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas)—that Departments should prepare a list of offices which involved disqualification. I do not think one can make a complete list of what would constitute offices or places of profit. After all, there must be a statutory basis in the background. We cannot have Departments simply saying that they think the holding of a certain office is incompatible with Membership of the House.
What we have tried to do in the Bill is to clarify the position as much as possible. Clause 1 sets out the various kinds of offices which are clearly incompatible with membership. The First Schedule gives the list of judicial offices disqualifying for membership. The Second Schedule deals with miscellaneous offices disqualifying for membership—and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Major Anstruther-Gray) had some difficulty in finding it. He got tangled up with Northern Ireland.
Major Anstruther-Gray: I reached the correct conclusion in the end.
The Attorney-General: I was not asserting that my hon. and gallant Friend did not ultimately achieve the correct conclusion, although he followed a rather devious route via the Isle of Man to get to it.
Over and above any list that one makes, there will be other offices or places of profit. What we have sought to do is to determine more clearly in the Third Schedule what renders an office an office of profit. That is an important Schedule, and on page 14 of the Bill it deals with "Paid offices or places." It is certainly a Schedule which will deserve, and ought to receive, close examination in Committee. I believe that if we get that part of the Bill right, it will do a great deal to remove the uncertainty that has hitherto

1955
existed as to whether an office is one of profit.
I do not agree with the hon. Member for Lincoln that the main difficulty is to determine whether a particular post is an office or not. Judging by the past cases, the real difficulty arises because people who have drawn no money think that an office cannot be an office of profit although, in fact, it can be an office of profit if it is capable of being remunerated. It is not a question of whether it is an office, but whether it is an office of profit.
Mr. de Freitas: That is what I said.
The Attorney-General: It is that part of the Third Schedule which is so vital in that respect. It represents a great improvement on the present position but I do not for one moment say that it is not capable of further improvement. I hope that when we reach the Committee stage, we shall all do our best to try to make it as clear and as precise as possible.
The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) quite correctly pointed out at the beginning of his speech that the difficulty here arose, not in relation to obvious cases of offices of profit, but in relation to those minor offices, very often local in character, which Members of this House undertook, not out of a desire to gain any reward or income for themselves, but out of a sense of public service. I entirely agree.
Work for rent tribunals, for panels of assessors, for the local British Legion, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Hallam (Sir R. Jennings) engaged in for a fee of one guinea—these are the difficult cases. They are offices of profit under the existing law, and I think we are in no doubt about that, but, with this list in the Bill and with the improvement made by the Third Schedule, I think we shall do a great deal to avoid that kind of situation arising again.
I now turn to the next part of the Bill, because it can be broadly divided into two parts, one dealing with offices of profit and the other with contracts. The part dealing with contracts raises a very big question. It seems to me that the decision which we have to make is whether or not to re-enact the present law with the extension to the one-man company in relation to contracts, or whether we should embark on new fields and
1956
declare that there are new grounds for regarding persons as disqualified for election to this House. That is the big issue and the big decision which we have to make.
As my right hon. and gallant Friend, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, quite rightly said, before we make any extension of the existing grounds for disqualification in relation to contracts, we really ought to have a further investigation by another Committee. That would be bound to mean considerable delay. The Herbert Committee reported in 1941, and it is now 1955. A Committee would take a considerable time to go into that question, and how long it would take to legislate I do not know, but surely there is also this governing consideration.
We ought not—should we?—to increase the grounds for disqualification for election to membership of this House unless we have real grounds for believing that freedom to enter into that sort of arrangement has led to abuse. I do not believe that anyone has suggested in the course of this debate that, for instance, the freedom of a Member of Parliament to enter into a contract to put up a building for a Government Department and matters of that sort, which are not caught by the existing law, has led to any abuse or to anything which this House thinks ought to be stopped.
When we reach the Committee stage, I suggest that, while we may perhaps ventilate all kinds of other extensions that might be made to the contractual side of this Bill, we should not let that stop us from realising the importance of dealing with the subject which is the principal content of this Bill and getting it on to the Statute Book, even if later we decide to go further.
Mr. Mitchison: May I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to consider one matter? There has been inserted in the contract Clause of this Bill a provision to except small sales. Is no similar provision possible in the case of small offices? I put the question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman now, but do not ask for an immediate answer.
The Attorney-General: I knew that the hon. and learned Member had raised that question in the course of his speech arid I had meant to deal with it. I am grateful to him for raising it now. We certainly

1957
considered it, but my first reaction, frankly, is that it would be very difficult to define the line between offices of profit which were permissible and offices which were not. I think we might get into great difficulty in determining on which side of the line cases fell. That is part of the difficulty now. We have to link that with our proposals for excusal. I am expressing my immediate reaction. I am not at all sure that we should deal with the matter by a line dividing offices of profit into two different categories, major and minor. With this excusal procedure probably less difficulty would be created than by making a new borderline area.
I now come to the question, which has been ventilated at some length—I make no complaint at all about that—with regard to Crown briefs. I say, first, that of course we all know lawyers are fair game for criticism. We do not object to that, but I was surprised by the personal attack which the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) thought fit to make upon me. I must say that I would much rather he attacked than complimented me, but he accused me of giving Answers which were not honest to the Questions which he put to me, and I hope that the House will permit me to make a reply to that.
The hon. Member asked me three Questions on the same day. One related to:
"the number of hon. Members who … have judicial offices for which they receive payment; the annual amount of such payment; the dates on which the Members concerned were appointed; and the total sums they have received up-to-date."
I gave the hon. Member all that information, although of course it is all published in the Law List, except the answer to the last query—the total sums they had received. I have no responsibility for the appointment of recorders. As the Answer which the hon. Member received shows, they have been appointed over the years by both Governments, and I am absolutely certain that no political considerations are taken into account in making those appointments. It is purely a question of fitness for the job.
The hon. Member seemed to think that recorderships had some curious connection with Crown briefs; of course they have not. He asked two Questions about briefs. He asked if I would state
1958
"the number of hon. Members who have received legal fees in respect of briefs allocated …"
by me or my predecessor since 1945 and if I would state
"the total amount paid to hon. Members since 1945, to date, in respect of legal fees…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1955; Vol. 543, c. 56–58.]
and so on.
I do not pay any fees. I do not even know what fees counsel get in cases in which I nominate them. Fees are paid by the Departments. I quite agree that if anything happened such as Mr. Maxton suggested it would be grossly improper, but I do not believe it ever could happen or would happen. When I told the hon. Member for Dudley that information as to the fees paid to these counsel was not readily available, that of course was the truth, because it would have meant inquiries from all Government Departments going back to 1945. Nor were the names of those nominated by my predecessors readily available.
Then the hon. Member thought fit to ask me if I would state the number of briefs allocated to me by my predecessors since 1945 and the amount of the fees I had received in respect of those briefs. The hon. Member is not yet an Inspector of Taxes. I do not think he has any right whatsoever to demand information from me by a Question in that form as to my personal income, nor to accuse me of deliberately evading when I say I will not answer questions of that sort. I do not think it really is desirable—I say this quite frankly—for any Attorney-General to publish a list of Members of Parliament who receive nominations. That might lead to most invidious comparisons.
I should like to say a little generally about the question of nominations, because so much has been said about it today. It is an onerous task for any Attorney-General. The principle, and the only principle, which can be applied is to select the right person for the right case. One wants to make the fairest possible distribution of the work. I am speaking now not just of briefs going to Members of Parliament; I am speaking of briefs going to barristers generally. One tries to secure that some go to the young men to give them a chance, and

1959
that there is a fair distribution all over the circuits.
I do not believe that there has been any serious criticism, no matter who the Attorney-General might have been, of the way in which the system has worked at the Bar, and it has been in existence for a great many years. I am quite firm about this. My governing consideration —and it always will be as long as I am Attorney-General—is to try to make the fairest distribution to the practising members of the Bar, having regard to my assessment—the best assessment that I can make—of their capacities and the nature of the case.
The question, therefore, resolves itself into this, so far as the Bill is concerned: ought Members of Parliament to be excluded from that distribution? I do not think that they should. Really, to suggest that a barrister Member of Parliament would be influenced in his conduct in the House by the receipt of a Treasury nomination is nonsensical. People seem to have astonishing ideas about the number of such briefs which are available. They are far fewer than people think. I have not the total number in mind at the moment, but I can say that the total number of briefs for which I make nominations to the Bar as a whole is much smaller than people think. Members of Parliament get their share, and their fair share. I do not think that any Attorney-General, in nominating barristers, whether Members of Parliament or not, has ever had any regard to the political views of the member of the Bar being nominated.
I myself would think that, for many reasons, it would be unfortunate if a new rule were introduced as to the disqualification of Members of Parliament from the receipt of such briefs. It certainly might handicap the public service if one were not allowed to nominate in suitable cases ex-Law Officers who were still Members of the House. That certainly would handicap the conduct of the public service and the proper conduct of some very important cases.
I am glad to have an opportunity of dealing with that point. I should like to assure the House that I certainly do not intend to be evasive. I do not think I have been. I think I gave the hon. Member for Dudley all the information to which he was properly entitled.
Mr. Wigg: Might I put this question to the right hon. and learned Gentleman? As he does not carry the number in his head, if I put down a Question asking him the number of briefs allocated in any year for which the figures are available, will he answer that Question? Might I put a second point to him? Would he be kind enough to address his mind to this proposition, that he is claiming for himself and his profession privileges which are denied other Ministers of the Crown? What is it that enables him to do that?
The Attorney-General: In reply to the first question, I will certainly consider any Question which the hon. Gentleman puts down. Asking for the total number of nominations made in a particular year is a very different thing from asking for the numbers made to Members of Parliament since 1945.
As to his second question, I doubt whether I can clear the hon. Gentleman's mind about it. The position with regard to nominations by the Attorney-General is quite different from the position in relation to appointments made by a Minister. It really is an astonishing proposition to me that one should stop the nomination of a few Members of Parliament for cases, which may be of great importance or may be of very little importance, while at the same time permitting the allocation of a substantial building contract without for one moment regarding it as a proper matter for disqualification.
I should like now to pick up some of the points—I do not think that I can deal with them all because there were so many—which have been raised by speakers in the course of the debate. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian asked whether there would be or could be a Ruling by the Speaker on the question of whether or not an office was one of profit. The Bill does not provide for that, and I think that it would be an unfortunate and difficult task to put upon Mr. Speaker. It is not his function at the present moment, and it is much better, if we can, to try to keep the Bill clear, so that those who read it may have as much doubt as possible removed.
Major Anstruther-Gray: Surely the Herbert Committee recommended that Mr. Speaker should be in a position to

1961
cause a Select Committee to examine any case brought to him, and then give a Ruling.
The Attorney-General: What happens now, as my hon. and gallant Friend knows, is that a Select Committee does consider any case which is brought to its attention.
Major Anstruther-Gray: Only after the event.
The Attorney-General: It is true, only after the event. I hope that the Bill will reduce the number of occasions on which it is after the event, but it is certainly a matter for inquiry and consideration as to whether we can have some machinery for coming to a conclusion before the event. I am not quite sure how it would work or whether it would work very well.
The hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) asked me whether a member of the Eire Legislature could be a Member of this House, and the answer is, "No". If he will look at Clause 1 (1, e) he will see that such a person is debarred from being a Member.
My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. R. Bell) raised a number of points. One, which I did not quite follow, was in relation to disqualification now, which, he said, would have to be cleared up in ten years' time. I do not see how that could occur, but perhaps we shall have a further opportunity of discussing that matter. He also raised the question of Reserve Forces. There is a serious question there which will have to be given further consideration.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dagenham raised a number of questions. I think that most of them—I hope that he will not mind my saying so—were questions of a Committee nature, and, of course, we will give consideration to them. The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Hoy) asked us to lay down clearly what offices were disqualified. We certainly want to do that so far as we can, and we shall be grateful for any assistance that can be given in that direction.
The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher) raised the question of the Queen's Printer. I think that he assumed, in the course of his speech, that
1962
there had been new Letters Patent. If there are no new Letters Patent, the course taken in the Bill does not depart in any sense from the recommendations of the Herbert Committee. He also asked why there were 70 Ministers named in the Fourth Schedule.
Mr. Mitchison: Before the Attorney-General leaves the question of the King's or Queen's Printer, I wonder if he would look again at the Report of the Herbert Committee, because I believe that he will find that the Committee recommended freedom in one particular case, and not subsequently. This makes a general provision applicable to the present and future King's or Queen's Printer.
The Attorney-General: That, of course, is a matter which certainly will have to be looked into.
I was saying that the hon. Member for Islington, East asked why provision is now made for 70 Ministers to sit in the House of Commons when the figure recommended by the Herbert Committee was 60. The hon. Gentleman spent some time in animadverting on that. There is no single figure to which the total number of Ministers is restricted by our law but if one looks up the various pieces of legislation one can obtain a total figure. If one looks, for instance, at the maximum number of Ministers who can be Ministers under the Ministers of the Crown Act, 1937, and if one adds to that the maximum number of Ministers of State or Ministers without Portfolio who may sit at the same time by virtue of the Re-election of Ministers Act, 1919, and if one adds the Ministers authorised to sit in the House of Commons by virtue of other enactments, and one then makes the further addition of those who are entitled to sit by virtue of what are called old offices, one reaches a total of 72. We have taken for the purpose of the Bill a round figure of 70.
I was grateful to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor) for what he said in defence of lawyers. As lawyers, we are glad to find any laymen who will defend us when we are attacked.
We have had a very interesting and useful debate. I hope that the House will now give the Bill an unopposed Second Reading, and that hon. and right

1963
hon. Members will then join, in Committee, in trying to make it the most effective Measure of its kind.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]
Committee upon Monday next.

HOSPITAL, WELLINGTON (DISMISSAL)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Colonel J. H. Harrison.]
9.13 p.m.
Mr. William Yates: I wish to bring to the attention of the House the case of Mrs. Herta Alvine Howells, wife of Frederick Howells, a civil servant, of 11, James's Way, New Donnington, Shropshire. Investigations into this case were begun by my predecessor, and I have followed them up as the present Member for the constituency.
Mrs. Howells was a part-time nurse at the Wellington Cottage Hospital until 27th October, 1954. Before proceeding further with the case of Mrs. Howells, I should like to make one point clear concerning Miss George, the matron of the hospital, to whom I referred in a supplementary Question last week. People in the area of The Wrekin thought that the matron was in some way implicated in this case. I should like to say that Matron George, is extremely well-thought of as matron. She is extremely competent and is held in the highest respect by everybody in the area. In all this matter concerning Mrs. Howells, Miss George did everything in her power to remedy the situation and acted from the highest motives possible in the nursing profession. She was interested in the care of the patients, and that, after all, is the first call upon her.
I must now, therefore, give a resumé of Mrs. Howell's career, but it is only fair to the House to state what documents I am bringing forward as evidence in this case, which I hope will be accepted by the House. I have here a solemn declaration in accordance with the Declarations Act, 1835, signed on 4th November in Wellington by Mrs. Howells. Therefore, as the Member, I am obliged to base my case on
1964
this document and on inquiries which I have made from local people.
Mrs. Howells is Austrian by birth. She trained as a nurse in Austria, in Gräz, between 1925 and 1927. In 1935, or thereabouts, she went into private nursing in Cairo and was employed by the Royal Family in Egypt. In 1938, she married a staff sergeant in the Royal Air Force, and is therefore a British subject. She held an appointment at a hospital in Shifnal early in 1947 and had some difference of opinion with the authority there, left, and was taken on the staff of the Wellington Cottage Hospital on 11th September, 1947. She was wise in that, when she was taken on, she explained to the matron exactly why she had left her previous post.
The next points are ones of character more than anything else. Mrs. Howells is a sensitive person and is, like many Continental people, more sensitive than those of these islands. There is one undisputed fact, and that is that nobody to whom I have spoken has questioned her nursing ability. I would like to quote a statement written by Mrs. Joan Bertha Lucas of Wellington, who was Nurse Bootle when Mrs. Howells was at that hospital. She says in this signed document:
"As to character, I think she is a person with decided opinions, who speaks her own mind. She is not by nature aggressive but would certainly stand up for herself if occasion arose. Personally, I found her a pleasant and helpful colleague."
Therefore, from 1947 until 1949 to 1950, I am unable to find any criticisms of Mrs. Howells' nursing; on the contrary, I have presented to you, Mr. Speaker, not only a petition testifying to her nursing, but a great number of letters also applauded her nursing ability. Unfortunately, this state of affairs did not last, because there arrived at the hospital another sister, Sister Beech, and from then on it was obvious that the situation as regards the staff in that hospital began to deteriorate rapidly.
This sworn document reads as follows:
"After the arrival of Sister Beech, who soon adopted a hostile attitude towards me and made constant adverse remarks to patients and staff about me. She took great pains to bring to the notice of the staff that actually foreigners were only allowed to take domestic form jobs. Junior staff were told not to take orders from or assist me in any way,"

1965
and that actually Mrs. Howells was to be known in the hospital as a nobody.
That situation could not have been very pleasant, but I gather that the real trouble occurred during the time when Matron George was not on duty, which was on each Wednesday. Mrs. Howells states:
"On Matron's day off, at lunch-time, as Sister Beech dished out the food, she would make remarks about Belsen and the damn Germans"—
I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker—
"who never gave the people sufficient meat,"
and then, having selected the worse possible portion, she would literally throw the plate across the table to Mrs. Howells. I was very disturbed about this situation in the hospital, and I therefore thought it my duty to go and see the matron on Sunday evening last. I put to her certain questions. The matron said that it was very difficult for her, in these circumstances, to give the answers which I really wanted. I am convinced that during the time that the matron was on duty she managed to make the staff carry out their various tasks.
The real problem in the hospital—and this is rather an extraordinary thing to have to say—concerned the sewing machine. A sewing machine in a hospital is a very valuable instrument, and if inexperienced nurses use it, they are apt to damage it, which of course causes delay in the various hospital repair work which has to be done. Therefore, as Mrs. Howells was extremely useful in this work, the matron gave her authority to remove the foot of the sewing machine. That is the part under which one runs the cloth, the metal part through which the needle works, and by removing the foot one is able to put the machine out of action.
Round about July, 1954, both Matron George and Mrs. Howells were on holiday, and the hospital secretary wrote to Mrs. Howells in the following terms:
"I understand the foot of the sewing machine cannot be found, and if you have removed this from the Hospital, I shall be glad if you will return it forthwith, or, in case you have put it in a place of safety within the Hospital, ring up Sister Smith and tell her where it is. You have been previously warned by Matron not to remove the foot, and I hereby notify you that should it reoccur, I shall take immediate disciplinary action."
That was completely wrong because matron had already authorised Mrs. Howells to remove the foot. Thereafter,
1966
the situation began to deteriorate even more. Mrs. Howells replied to that letter and was eventually called before the secretary, Mr. Palser, and without any real warning Mrs. Howells was summarily dismissed with seven days' notice. I think this was probably due to the fact that she took advice from Dr. Pooler, who advised her to make an official complaint concerning her treatment in the hospital and all she had been through. When asked about this the matron said, "You were dismissed because you went for advice to Dr. Pooler and, as Mr. Palser is secretary of the hospital, you have been summarily dismissed." This is a pretty sad state of affairs in one of our most respected hospitals in The Wrekin division.
Hon. Members should also know that from time to time Mrs. Howells did her best to make proper complaints to the matron about the treatment which she was receiving. I asked the matron this question: "Matron, was it possible for people to gang up against Mrs. Howells?" She replied that she did not think it was possible. I put another question to Matron George: "If Sister Beech were not in that hospital, would you and Mrs. Howells still be there?" She replied, "Mr. Yates, you know that I cannot answer that question." I could answer it very easily, for I believe that Mrs. Howells has been dismissed wrongly.
Like the previous Member for the constituency, I have done my best with the authorities to try to settle the matter in the interests of the hospital, the staff and Mrs. Howells, but at every turn we have received no co-operation at all; that is why I have raised the matter on the Adjournment.
It would not have been quite so serious had the following situation not occurred on 13th January, 1955, when Mrs. Howells went to make an appeal to the Shropshire Management Committee. This is a quasi-judicial committee set up to hear appeals when someone has been dismissed. She attended this committee at 11.30 a.m. on 13th January. She was received by the chairman and she noticed that in the room were also Matron George and Mr. Palser, the hospital secretary from Wellington, as well as the committee to whom she was making her appeal against wrongful dismissal.

1967
The chairman of the committee, as far as I can make out, first delivered a short harangue on Mrs. Howells' past, going back about 15 years, and then asked whether she would like to state her case, asking her to be brief. I discover that she was allowed about five minutes in which to explain to the committee the circumstances of those tragic events. She said, "Mr. Chairman, I cannot state my case in five minutes, and if you cannot hear me now or on another appointed day, I will not waste your time but will take my case elsewhere." The chairman replied, "This is all we can do for you; take your case elsewhere." She said, "Good morning."
I do not know much about these quasi-judicial committees. In fact, I have experience of only one, in the Canal Zone, when the general said to the staff captain, concerning myself, "Why do I ask him whether he is guilty or not guilty, because he is guilty?" This quasi-judicial committee which was invited to investigate Mrs. Howell's complaint did not do the job properly. For the chairman of a committee first to deliver a harangue and then not to allow a person properly to state her case is a grave injustice, and as it is a grave injustice I have brought the matter to the attention of the House.
The position is that Mrs. Howells is now unemployed and, obviously, cannot get references. The question is what can I or the Ministry do to alleviate the present situation. There are three alternatives. I think that Mrs. Howells should be entitled to an apology and reinstatement. If that cannot be done, she should be allowed another chance and be transferred to another hospital within the area. If that cannot be done, she should at least be provided with a reasonable form of reference from the Minister concerned.
I will not detain the House longer. The case is tragic and it is the more tragic because of the question which I put to the matron concerning whether she and Mrs. Howell would still be there if Sister Beech were not there. That is the most important question in the whole matter, and I can only beg the Parliamentary Secretary in the same terms as the people who have petitioned to deal with this matter equitably in order to expunge a terrible situation which arose at that com-
1968
mittee when Mrs. Howells was not given a fair hearing. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to set up a committee of inquiry for which we have petitioned.
9.32 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): As the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) has said, his predecessor, Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas, raised this case with my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend is continuing the inquiries. It is a sad and unhappy case, but I certainly cannot accept a very large proportion of some of the very ill-founded allegations which my hon. Friend has made this evening. I very much regret that he should have expressed some of those opinions, because, quite frankly, it is no wish of mine or of my right hon. Friend to say anything that would prejudice the chance of Mrs. Howells obtaining future employment.
The fact remains, however, that very grave allegations have been made in the House tonight against the hospital management committee of one of our hospitals, against the responsible members who certainly carried out an inquiry —with which I shall later deal—in a manner far different from that which the hon. Member expressed this evening. Further, there have been allegations against a sister of the hospital whose name has never been previously mentioned in correspondence with the hon. Member for The Wrekin and with his predecessor. The allegations previously have always been against the matron and it is significant how a switch has been made this evening.
The hon. Member began his speech with great commendation—
Mr. W. Yates: I never made allegations against the matron in any of my correspondence, and I hope that my predecessor did not.
Miss Hornsby-Smith: I do say there have been allegations in that case, and that includes various documents which we have received regarding Mrs. Howells's complaint from the hon. Member and from his predecessor. We now have allegations against a sister of the hospital whose name has been mentioned for the first time in representations to us. If, therefore, in reply to these very grave

1969
allegations inevitably I must mention matters in Mrs. Howells's career which do not wholly reflect credit on her, it is the hon. Member's responsibility because of the manner in which the case has been raised.
First, there is no complaint, nor has there ever been—and in this I agree with the hon. Member—about Mrs. Howells's technical efficiency or her technical qualifications as a nurse, but nursing entails something more than medical knowledge and skill. It is essentially a job in which one works as a member of a team, and in which co-operation amongst all members of the staff is absolutely essential. The tradition of our nursing profession is one not only of skill but of tolerance, kindliness and consideration.
I may further point out that we, at the Ministry, are as anxious as any one to retain in the nursing service every pair of skilled hands that we can. So, too, are our hospital management committees; and, above all, the matrons of the hospitals who, in many cases short of staff, are tremendously anxious to retain every qualified person they can. I would go so far as to say that they have to be provoked pretty far before they will lose, by dismissal, a skilled pair of hands from their staff.
Generally, the matron of a hospital is responsible for her nursing staff, and has the power to dismiss certain grades. The normal practice is that she reports her action to the appropriate committee of the hospital management committee. That committee, having confidence in its matron, normally accepts her action, knowing—and this is the important point —that if the member of the staff so dismissed is aggrieved she has a right of appeal to the hospital management committee itself.
Prior to her dismissal, Mrs. Howells received several warnings from the matron. She was dismissed on 19th October, 1954, for disobedience, for lack of co-operation, and for creating an unpleasant atmosphere amongst the staff. She exercised her right of appeal, and was given a hearing by the staffing committee of the hospital management committee. That appeal was originally to have been heard on 11th November, but, due to the fact that Mrs. Howells was ill, it was postponed and her appeal was heard on 13th January, 1955. The delay,
1970
therefore, was not the fault of the hospital management committee—unavoidable though it was.
At the hearing she was given the opportunity of submitting evidence, and she did, in fact, submit a written statement to the hospital management committee regarding the complaint about her dismissal. She appeared personally before the committee. Here I must tell the hon. Member that the minutes of evidence of responsible members of his constituency on that hospital committee are entirely and absolutely at variance with the statement which he has made in regard to the conduct of that inquiry. All members of the committee had had a written statement from Mrs. Howells. The chairman is recorded as having asked Mrs. Howells if she had any further comments which she wished to add to that statement.
The report is that the lady immediately plunged into a tirade of abuse against the matron and the staff. It was in the course of that tirade of abuse—
Mr. Yates: I saw the matron of the hospital on Sunday evening. I laid out the terms, and described this judicial committee to her at the time and she did not disagree with me.
Miss Hornsby-Smith: If I may say so, I think that it was extremely unfair of the hon. Member, at a time when he knew that he had put down this subject for debate on the Adjournment, at a time when he knew that my right hon. Friend was having the matter investigated, to go privately and to cross-examine the matron, who, at the time, knew that it was before the Ministry and was to come before the House, and would, therefore, have to be extremely careful not to, shall I say, make any statement while the case was under further inquiry. Quite obviously, the matron could say very little, and I do not think that the hon. Member is justified in drawing conclusions from matron's reticence at that stage. I think that he placed matron in an extremely invidious position.
The fact remains that the members of that committee are responsible members of the area. I cannot for one moment believe that a responsible committee of that nature, anxious, as all our hospital management committees are, to retain skilled staff, could or would have behaved

1971
in either their individual or their corporate capacity in the manner set out by the hon. Gentleman. Certainly the time given is at variance with the estimate given by the hon. Member.
I will go this far, however. We have been told that because the additional comments from Mrs. Howells were a long tirade of abuse against matron and other members of the staff, the chairman cut that tirade short after she had been going for several minutes, and in fact the very attitude of the lady and the very extremity of her abuse convinced the committee more than anything else possibly could that the complaints made about her had not been unfounded.
I regret having to add further to this, but the hon. Member has taken this case a good way. A petition was presented to the House yesterday. We are desperately anxious to increase our nursing staff but, in justice, we must uphold the standard of discipline which the matron has responsibility for enforcing, and I am desirous that there should be no question of doubt in hon. Members' minds that this decision was in fact fair. In view of the very serious charges that the hon. Member has made about the conduct of this case, I feel that I must point out with regret that this is by no means the first occasion —he mentioned one—upon which Mrs. Howells has been dismissed or has been asked to resign her post.
Prior to the appointed day she was employed at the Royal Salop Infirmary for eight months, from 11th September, 1939, to 6th May, 1940. She was asked to resign on the grounds of causing unrest among the staff and patients. For six months, from 27th November, 1943, to 11th May, 1944, she was employed at Cronkruagh Sanatorium, Ramsay, Isle of of Man, where, the report states, she caused a great deal of friction with the patients and staff and was dismissed by the medical superintendent for a breach of discipline. Her record from St. Anne's Hospital, Redhill, reports her as aggressive with the other staff.
Later she was employed at Wrekin Lodge Hospital, and the matron states that she was extremely difficult, that she was unpopular with the staff, and that on 3rd September, 1947, an incident occured which culminated in her being suspended and ultimately dismissed. She
1972
was extremely insolent to the matron about the admission of an old lady who had been admitted at the request of the medical officer for observation during the afternoon and night, as the doctor was reluctant to certify an old lady in the last days of her life, a policy and a principle which have often been put forward by hon. Members.
Nurse Howells objected to nursing the old lady and informed matron that she did not come to the hospital for mental nursing. Matron quite rightly said that if she refused to nurse the patient she must leave, and suspended her, but informed her that she had the right of appeal to the committee and informed her also of the date and time of the next meeting. She did not appear before the committee, and it was decided to dismiss her.
In relation to her more recent dismissal from the Wellington Cottage Hospital, may I outline a few of the instances of Mrs. Howells' difficult behaviour prior to her dismissal? She refused to dine with any of the other staff in the staff dining room and took her meals alone. She was domineering in so far as she carried out certain duties such as dressings in defiance of the matron, who had deputed these duties to the sister in charge. In the out-patients' department it was the duty of Sister Smith, the senior sister, under the matron's guidance and at the written request of general practitioners, to administer physiotherapy to patients referred by general practitioners. In spite of this instruction—a very important and proper one from the point of view of the patient—Nurse Howells would interfere and carry out the treatment herself, despite the fact that she had no knowledge as to what the general practitioner required to be carried out in such cases.
I was very reluctant to recount this unhappy record of a qualified nurse, whose skill is not denied, but who has allowed her temperament to offset the skill she undoubtedly possesses, but I am most anxious that it should be established beyond doubt that there is no basis whatever for the claim of racial discrimination, that there has been a proper inquiry and that it has been after several warnings that matron finally had to come to the conclusion that she had to resort to dismissal.

1973
It is, as I said, a very sad case. Here we have a nurse of acknowledged qualifications and skill who, time and again, has had to relinquish her employment through her resentment of authority and her persistent action, which, I think, is at the root of all this trouble, in interpreting every rebuke or criticism as a question of racial prejudice. On that issue—and I feel very strongly indeed about any suggestion of racial prejudice in our hospitals—I repudiate absolutely and entirely that there has been any racial prejudice in this matter at all.
It is nonsense to suggest that foreign staff are employed only in domestic service, for there is probably no profession or trade in this country which so completely lacks racial discrimination as does our nursing service. There is hardly a country in the world which does not have its nationals in our hospitals. In a London hospital which I recently visited,
1974
there were 32 different nationalities. Hundreds and hundreds of foreign nurses are doing splendid work in our hospitals, and it is completely unfounded to suggest that there was racial prejudice in this matter.
I have taken some time on this case because, not unnaturally, the reactions in any case affecting a nurse attract wide publicity, but grave allegations have been made against the staff of the hospital, and these I repudiate. I regret more than I can say that I have had to disclose as much of Nurse Howells' record as I have done, but I felt it important that the three items—a nurse not getting a fair hearing, unfair dismissal, and racial discrimination—should be repudiated in this House.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Ten o'clock.

ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Cosmic Rays
  Cosmic Rays
  Personal Case
  Personal Case
POST OFFICE
  Public Services (Finance)
  Public Services (Finance)
  Telephone Service (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
  Telephone Service (Newcastle-under-Lyme)
  B.B.C. and I.T.A. (Directives)
  B.B.C. and I.T.A. (Directives)
ROADS
  Traffic Signals, Wembley
  Traffic Signals, Wembley
  Durham
  Durham
  Darlington—Durham (Traffic)
  Darlington—Durham (Traffic)
  Cromwell Road Extension
  Cromwell Road Extension
  Cardiff
  Cardiff
  Inner Relief Road, Stamford
  Inner Relief Road, Stamford
  Knightsbridge Site (Use)
  Knightsbridge Site (Use)
  Rochester By-pass
  Rochester By-pass
  Stainforth—Hatfield Bridge (Footpath)
  Stainforth—Hatfield Bridge (Footpath)
  Laceby
  Laceby
  Safety
  Safety
  Ruckholt Bridge, Leyton
  Ruckholt Bridge, Leyton
  Medway By-pass
  Medway By-pass
  Signposts
  Signposts
TRANSPORT
  Road Accidents (Alcoholic Drinks)
  Road Accidents (Alcoholic Drinks)
  Members' Letters
  Members' Letters
  Carriers' Licences (Revocations)
  Carriers' Licences (Revocations)
CIVIL AVIATION
  Airways Corporations (Pensions)
  Airways Corporations (Pensions)
  London Airport (Housing)
  London Airport (Housing)
SHIPPING
  Motor Cars (Shipment Facilities)
  Motor Cars (Shipment Facilities)
  Merchant Navy Examinations
  Merchant Navy Examinations
  Sub-standard Ships (Sale)
  Sub-standard Ships (Sale)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
  Service Emoluments
  Service Emoluments
  EGYPTIAN QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL (UNITED KINGDOM VISITS)
  EGYPTIAN QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL (UNITED KINGDOM VISITS)
  SUEZ CANAL ZONE (BRITISH CASUALTIES)
  SUEZ CANAL ZONE (BRITISH CASUALTIES)
  ETHIOPIA (BRITISH SOMALIS' PETITION)
  ETHIOPIA (BRITISH SOMALIS' PETITION)
  VIETNAM (VIETMINH CONSULTATIONS)
  VIETNAM (VIETMINH CONSULTATIONS)
GOLD COAST
  Cocoa Purchasing Company
  Cocoa Purchasing Company
  FIJI (MAGISTRATES)
  FIJI (MAGISTRATES)
  UGANDA (FACTORY CONDITIONS)
  UGANDA (FACTORY CONDITIONS)
  SIERRA LEONE (COLLEGE PRINCIPAL)
  SIERRA LEONE (COLLEGE PRINCIPAL)
  GIBRALTAR (LODGING RENTS)
  GIBRALTAR (LODGING RENTS)
KENYA
  White Highlands
  White Highlands
  Mau Mau Suspects (Treatment)
  Mau Mau Suspects (Treatment)
  African Farmers (Cash Crops)
  African Farmers (Cash Crops)
  COLONIAL TERRITORIES (UNITED KINGDOM PRISONERS)
  COLONIAL TERRITORIES (UNITED KINGDOM PRISONERS)
ROYAL NAVY
  Ratings (Service)
  Ratings (Service)
  Abbotsinch Air Station (Bar)
  Abbotsinch Air Station (Bar)
NATIONAL SERVICE
  Deferments (Export Industries)
  Deferments (Export Industries)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  National Library and Museum of Wales (Status)
  National Library and Museum of Wales (Status)
  Estate Duty Office
  Estate Duty Office
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Metropolitan Police Notices (Motor Vehicles)
  Metropolitan Police Notices (Motor Vehicles)
SCOTLAND
  Hospital Facilities, Dalkeith
  Hospital Facilities, Dalkeith
  Technical Colleges (Courses)
  Technical Colleges (Courses)
  Fishing Industry (Dispute)
  Fishing Industry (Dispute)
MINISTRY OF SUPPLY
  Aircraft Contracts (Advertising Costs)
  Aircraft Contracts (Advertising Costs)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Wealdstone Brook, Wembley (Flooding)
  Wealdstone Brook, Wembley (Flooding)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Industrial Building
  Industrial Building
MINISTRY OF, WORKS
  Atomic Energy Establishments (Radiation)
  Atomic Energy Establishments (Radiation)
Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers

  LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON
  The Right Honourable Malcolm Stewart McCorquodale, having been created Baron McCorquodale of Newton, of Newton-le-Willows in the County Palatine of Lancaster—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
  The Earl of Airlie—Took the Oath.
  The Lord Bagot—Took the Oath.

GATWICK AIRPORT EXTENSION
2.47 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the declared intention of B.O.A.C. to retain Hurn as their alternative airport and of the grave doubts expressed by many experts as to the advisability of extending Gatwick Aerodrome, they will seriously consider abandoning the whole Gatwick scheme thereby helping our present economic situation by the saving of millions of pounds.]
THE PAYMASTER GENERAL (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that it is rather over twelve months since the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation announced the decision to proceed with the development of Gatwick Airport. That decision was reached only after the matter had been examined very fully. An exhaustive and searching inquiry was held in public, and all interested parties who wished were represented and made their objections. The report of the inquiry was made by an independent chairman, Sir Colin Campbell, after hearing all these objections. A White Paper was published
394
dealing with the points raised by Sir Colin's report.
No event has occurred since then which would justify a re-examination of the project. On the contrary, the experience of this summer's air traffic, which was even heavier than had been expected, more than reinforces the Government's view that it is essential to extend the Airport at Gatwick. It has never been envisaged that Gatwick would take the place of Hurn as a remote alternate to London Airport for B.O.A.C. and other long-haul operators on long-distance flights. Nor was Hurn considered as one of the possible alternative sites for London's second airport, because of its distance from the metropolis. The nature of long-haul operations is such that a more distant alternative is necessary for safety.
It was explained at the public inquiry that the main value of Gatwick in its rôle as a diversionary airport will he for the far more numerous short-haul European flights, but it will in practice also be used by long-haul operators. The development of this necessary airport is now proceeding according to plan. Most of the land has already been acquired; negotiations for the rest are far advanced, and the first contracts for work on the site will soon be let.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his comprehensive reply. I should like to ask him whether, in view of the great development in the use of the helicopter for short-distance flights which has taken place in the last year, and the fact, which he has already admitted, that this aerodrome is unfit for the operation of large planes, the enormous expenditure required to make this airport into a full-dress long-distance aerodrome can be justified, or whether, in view of the development about which he has just spoken, we should wait a little before this great expense is incurred.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that Her Majesty's Government did not undertake the extra expense involved here without careful examination, and they are satisfied that it is absolutely essential for the development of air traffic services in and about London. I do not think the noble Lord is quite correct in saying that this aerodrome is unfit for use by long-range

395
planes. It will be used by them from time to time, though normally they will not use it as an alternative airport. So far as helicopters are concerned, I think it is still too early to say that the major part of the European services could be carried out by helicopters. It is, I think, safe to say that quite a number of years are bound to elapse before that position becomes possible.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that this airport which is to be so greatly extended is right adjacent to Crawley New Town, and will take up a lot of land and give rise to a number of new buildings there? Can the noble Earl give us an assurance that the character of the new town will be preserved, and that the suburban sprawl which may result from an extension of this airport will not be allowed to go into the green belt and thus lead to the joining up of Crawley New Town either with London, on the one side, or with Brighton, on the other?
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, when answering that question, perhaps the noble Earl could say something about the effect of noise at Gatwick Airport, which is likely to be detrimental to the new town at Crawley.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wilmot of Selmeston, has raised a number of questions that are a little outside that on the Order Paper. It is fair to say that the whole circumstances of Gatwick have been thoroughly examined. The matter has been discussed in this House, and it has been most exhaustively examined outside—in fact, I hardly think there can be anything about it to which attention has not been drawn, one way or the other. The noble Lord asked me for an assurance with regard to the green belt. Frankly, I have not gone into this question, but I think he may take it that this matter has been most carefully examined to see that the development of the new town of Crawley is not prejudiced thereby. I do not think the new town raised objections at the inquiry which was held, but accepted the project as being necessary. I understand they are satisfied that the general character of the town of which the noble Lord speaks will, in fact, be maintained. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, asked about the detrimental
396
effect of noise. The question of noise naturally arises in any airport, but the new steps which my noble friend Lord Carrington described as being taken will be fully employed to see that noise does not injure the new town any more than can be helped.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, I am most indebted to the noble Earl. Is he not aware that the whole character of a new town depends on its being divided from adjacent urban development by a green belt, and that the new town will disappear if it becomes involved in a mass of buildings? If I put down a Question on the Order Paper, could he arrange for some further assurances to be given on this important point? Crawley is the nearest new town to London; it is growing rapidly, and it will lose its character unless great care is taken.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I fully appreciate the point raised by the noble Lord. However, I would rather he put down a Question so that I could speak more fully on it, because at the moment I have not the information.

THE FIGHTING SERVICES
2.55 p.m.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by the Earl of Swinton: That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the Organisation of the Service Departments and the Fighting Services.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I should like to echo the thanks which several speakers in yesterday's debate expressed to my noble friend Lord Swinton for initiating this debate. Particularly would I like to add my word of support to what was said by my noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha as regards the work which Lord Swinton did for the Royal Air Force in the years before the war. My noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha was in the Cabinet; I was junior Minister at the Air Ministry in 1938 and 1939, and I can say with certain knowledge that no political Minister is owed more by the nation for getting going the preparations for war of the Royal Air Force than is my noble friend Lord Swinton.

397
It seems to me that the debate yesterday gave us general agreement on three propositions. The first is that the new situation caused by the impact of the development of nuclear weapons means a measure of central control of the three Services to a greater degree than hitherto. These ranged in yesterday's debate from an advocacy of a single Service down to the more limited expression of my noble friend Lord Chatfield, who said [col. 367]:
"I prefer to integrate the spirit of the Services and not their bodies …"
The second proposition on which there was general agreement is that integration is required not only in the higher direction of our defence organisation but at all levels right down through the Services.
The third general proposition is that old Service jealousies, prejudices and rivalries should go. Let us face it: those in your Lordships' House who have been concerned in the past with the Services could not put their hands on their heart and say that during the last fifteen years they have not, on occasions, been guilty perhaps of prejudice, and sometimes, maybe, of overstatement. But these rivalries and prejudices are consumed in the heat of urgency for this country, in this atomic war age, to be able to play her part as a unit in the Commonwealth and in N.A.T.O. As my noble friend Lord Jeffreys said so eloquently, the three Services are not three separate organisations, but comrades in arms. It is true that the past traditions, history and Service loyalties cannot be left out of account; nor should they be. As it seems to me, they form the fount of pride and morale of our fighting men. But these loyalties must help and not hinder the evolution about which the noble Marquess the Leader of the House spoke yesterday.
If one travels along that road of evolution and of ever-closer integration, it would seem to me that inevitably, eventually, one is led to the conclusion of one single Service: indeed, the Government themselves in their White Paper (Cmd. 6923) do not dispute that possible eventual outcome, for they say:
"One method would be to amalgamate the three Services completely, and to place them under a single Minister of the Crown … His Majesty's Government do not wholly reject this conception: it may be that at some stage in the future amalgamation might be found desirable."
398
Whether that final result is accepted or not, the new conception in operation, in supply and in manning of the guided missile and atomic warfare, forces all of us to work in every direction towards closer integration. Words of intention, I submit, are not enough. All up and down the chain of responsibility, both staff and executive, we must try to put integration into practical form. I would submit to your Lordships for a few moments some reflections on how we might put this integration into practical form.
First, the new position of the Minister of Defence would seem inevitably to lead to one Defence Budget. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, spoke upon that matter yesterday, If the Minister of Defence is responsible for the allocation of resources, surely so far as weapons, supply and manpower needs are concerned, these should be prepared and presented to Parliament as a whole. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Swinton said, that he did not want to clutter up the Minister of Defence with a great many administrative responsibilities. Rather, he wanted to give the Minister full power over a few important items. The administrative task of feeding, housing and clothing would remain with the individual Service Departments, but the division of resources for research, weapons and fighting men, if it is a ministerial responsibility resting with the Minister of Defence—as I gather that it is to be in the future under these new arrangements—should be by his authority, presented and justified by hint to Parliament.
I am aware that the changed status of the Service Ministers would have an immediate effect upon their position, but I wonder whether it is such a big stumbling block as some Members of your Lordships' House may think. In fact, to-day the Air Council, the Army Council and the Board of Admiralty do not discuss operations at all. They do not discuss the development of strategic planning; nor do they discuss day-to-day operations. Those are divorced from the Board of Admiralty, from the Air Council and from the Army Council and are reserved for the Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Minister of Defence. It may mean some alteration in the titles of these Ministers—that I do not know—but it seems to me to be a comparatively small point if we concede the much more important point that the Minister of Defence should present to Parliament that for which he

399
is directly responsible. We should not let administrative difficulties and obstacles, or questions of status and position, in any way prevent an improved set-up in defence. Let the improved set-up be put forward, including the single Defence Budget, and then the rest may fit into it.
Coming down this line of responsibility, and looking still at the possibilities of integration, we find the training for Joint Staff planning, first of all, in the Imperial Defence College. Below that we have the Joint Staff College. We have the interchange of officers at the individual Service Staff Colleges. But I would ask your Lordships whether that is really enough. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House said yesterday, when speaking of the Joint Staff College, that these are picked men. In staff work, the new integration must not be limited to "picked men." It is for consideration whether it is wise to perpetuate the individual Service Staff Colleges, whether, indeed, the individual Service Staff Colleges do not teach a limited staff outlook which it may not be wise for individual Service officers to absorb so early in their staff training. There is the question whether the new warfare does not call for a graded formation of war colleges, right from the time when an officer first learns staff work up to the time when he qualifies for the Imperial Defence College. There might well be a series of graded war colleges common to the three Services, in the same way as my noble friend who moved this Motion envisaged a common Cadet College.
Again, integration must be in the executive as well as in the stair field. Knowledge of men, as well as of methods and an understanding of one's fellow-men is essential if inter-Service comradeship is to exist to the greatest possible degree. I should like to see every officer of twenty years' service—which means. approximately, a man of forty years of age— have at least six years of his twenty years' service on two attachments to the sister Services. I believe that, by sonic means such as that, we should get a better understanding by the ordinary executive officer, and not only the staff officer, of what the other two Services are doing, as well as a comradeship and friendship which would exist within the life of those officers. I must say that I reject the
400
conception of my noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha, that integration is an ideal and that a chosen few can graduate into this integration class. I think the spirit of integration is something which must he possessed by all officers.
Surely, in the field of guided atomic weapons we could take a big step forward towards the eventual single Service. Scientifically trained and qualified personnel for this new "push-button" warfare will be required by the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. There is going to be a shortage of these men, and competition for them. But the basic principle of nuclear weapons is the same, whether they be used for the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. The application is different, but the basic principle is the same. I believe that in order to stop this potential competition for the limited and inadequate number of scientists, we might well consider forming now a corps of scientific experts common to the three Services, and thus start in a small way towards the eventual aim of a single Service.
On the question of general personnel, National Service will be got rid of only when we have enough Regular enlistment—that is axiomatic. But there will never be sufficient Regular enlistment until Service life is made comparable in pay and conditions with civil life. The history of Service pay and conditions since the war is a sorry one. There are many I can see on your Lordships' Benches who have joined in debates urging for higher pay for the Services since 1946–47. Higher pay has been conceded, but it is a classic case of "too little and too late." We are all glad to know that proposals have been brought forward for assisting the education of the children of officers and other ranks, for in the past they have been at a great disadvantage compared with the rest of the civilian population.
If your Lordships look at Hansard you will see that many years ago many of your Lordships, on both sides of the House, urged the provision of assistance of that kind, and one cannot but regret that it is only in the autumn of 1955 that this scheme, which was urged upon successive Governments, has been introduced. Let us rejoice that it has been introduced, but our rejoicing must be tinged with regret that it has been delayed

401
so long, when it need not have been. It would be interesting to be told the cost to-day, compared with what it would have cost the nation six or seven years ago, to raise the rates of pay so that civilian industry was chasing the Services for men instead of the Services always having to chase civil industry. It would be interesting to see how the cost of doing this six years ago compares with what we have spent on National Service men through the past six years. I can only trust that the new conditions of pay and allowances which are envisaged will, in the future, make Service life really and truly a rival in attraction to civil life, which it has never been since the war.
I should like now to say one word on an old controversy which must be met and faced along the road of integration, and that is the old controversy of a Coastal Command. We do not wish to resuscitate the controversy in its old form but I believe that at some time or other we should abolish the Fleet Air Arm, as such, with its wasteful duplication of training aerodromes, of supply and organisation. I should like to see a Sea-Air Command formed to take over the tasks which are performed by carrier-borne aircraft and by Coastal Command. As the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said yesterday, I should be delighted to see an Admiral put in command of that particular formation.
Finally, on the question of supply, I am not at all clear from the statement made in another place by the Prime Minister on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, where the Minister of Defence stands in relation to the Minister of Supply in connection with the Minister of Defence's new authority. What I fear is that the present costly and inefficient system of separation between the customer and the maker will be perpetuated in respect of aircraft. The Ministry of Supply are interposed between the aircraft manufacturer and the Royal Air Force, which knows its own operational requirements; and as a result of this needless step there are delays and errors. The technicians of the Ministry of Supply, through whom all requirements of the Air Ministry have to pass, are splendid men but they are not technicians equal to those in industry. They are not paid as those in industry are.
If your Lordships will look at recent transfers from Government service to
402
industry, you will see that the best men in Government service are being lured into industry by the far greater rewards in industry. What happens is that the customer, the Air Ministry, is forced to work through the Ministry of Supply. Indeed, officers of the Air Ministry are only allowed, I believe, on sufferance and with the permission of the Ministry of Supply, to visit aircraft manufacturing firms. The requirements of the Air Ministry have to filter through this Ministry of Supply. In the case of one swept-back wing bomber, one of the directors of an aircraft manufacturing firm told me that no fewer than 700 modifications had poured out of the Ministry of Supply to his firm and were definitely holding up production. Many of the modifications were needless and appeared to the maker completely purposeless.
I believe that we should hand back the question of aircraft supply to the Air Ministry, and that the Ministry of Supply should continue to co-ordinate research and supply common needs. By all means let them supply the bedsteads and blankets to all three Services, but do not let their technicians hold up the vital production of our combat aircraft, as happens at the present time. It is on that particular point that I hope the Minister who replies will be able to tell me, without arguing the merits or demerits of the Ministry of Supply, whether in fact the present position, which I submit to your Lordships is most unsatisfactory. is to continue as at present or not. I conclude with this comment. I have tried to put before your Lordships in, I hope, not too long a form, some practical thoughts as to how we can travel along this road of integration, because along that road we shall travel till we reach the end. What that end may be is a matter of individual opinion; but marching we are. If this debate helps forward, along that road of integration, closer understanding, whatever the final end of that road may be, I submit to your Lordships that it can have done nothing but good.
3.16 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I find myself in almost complete agreement with my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye who has just sat down. That will lead me not to try to cover again the points which he has made so well,

403
but to see whether I can lend some further arguments—and I believe there are some—to reinforce what was said by him and also by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, when he opened this valuable debate yesterday. I shall not follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in what he said about the need for proper emoluments and pay for the Regular serviceman. I agree with him entirely, but I think we shall have to watch that matter so closely that we may well have to come back to it at a later stage in this House. I would say only one thing before seeing the exact details of the proposal, and that is that I hope we can be assured in due course that the educational allowances which are now being proposed for Service officers bear a proper comparison with the educational allowances already in force for members of the Foreign Service, because the two things are comparable.
Yesterday, my noble Leader, Lord Salisbury, gave us some reasons, and indeed very good reasons, why everything could not be done at once. None the less, I hope that at the conclusion of this debate the message will go out that this House, in all quarters (as I believe), would like to see these steps towards the building up of a strong and central organisation for defence taken at the earliest possible moment, and not at the last possible moment, when they must take place in order to avoid disaster.
It is perfectly true, as we all know, that this defence organisation is a matter of evolution, and that that evolution has been going on for most of our lifetimes. But it is also true that there are certain major turning points in the gradual process of evolution. Many of us can recognise where those turning points have been. It is true to say, I think, that for the Army the Cardwell reforms, the Esher reforms and the Haldane reforms were major turning points, and at that moment, fortunately for this country, there were Ministers in office who were strong enough to take a line of their own and did not hesitate to use the surgeon's knife where is was necessary for the health of the patient, as indeed it was for the Victorian Army. Now, we have other forces at work, bringing us sharply up to the turning point on this road—things like the invention of air-
404
craft, which we have almost forgotten and take for granted; the invention of the different types of bombs, and now the thermo-nuclear bomb, all of which have altered the nature of war and made it, as I ventured to say the other day, impossible to divide war into different compartments to suit the convenience of the three Services.
We come to the point of research—our scientific effort, which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, mentioned. That cannot, by any bound of possibility, be fitted into the existing framework of the three Services. It is, and always has been, an inter-Service matter and as such it must be treated. Perhaps not all noble Lords will agree that the time is rapidly coming when, just as every member of each Service is entitled to drive a motor car, if that is the right thing for him to do, so we shall get to a stage where it will not be thought wrong by the Royal Air Force if other people pilot aircraft. We must think of the function of the aircraft and not think of it the other way, asking what right anybody has to go into an aircraft. I put that out with some boldness, but, none the less, I so think.
In the last two wars we had pressure to reach a solution. It is a pressure, because during war solutions have to be reached to a timetable, and no time can be taken up with discussions; so decisions for better or worse have to be reached. It is clear to me that we are at one of those major turning points, and it will do the country and our defence no good if we fail to recognise this turning point as such. It is equally true to say that in 1946, when the White Paper called Central Organisation for Defence was produced (it is what most of us have had in our hands when speaking in the debate), we were not facing a major turning point. So far as I can recollect, we were still at a stage when we were toying with the idea of going back to 1939 or to some other time—in other words, thinking of going back to a conventional type of peace, where a peace-time Administration could do all that was necessary. Your Lordships will remember that it was not until 1947, when Mr. Molotov announced that nobody behind the Iron Curtain was going to benefit from Marshall Aid, that we realised that we were not going back to a conventional type of peace, and that in fact we were

405
going to have something which turned out to be the cold war.
If your Lordships will read this 1946 White Paper carefully you will find that it discusses not only the immediate task of the Minister of Defence, but, also in paragraph 29, what. is called "Administrative Questions of Common Interest to the Three Services." It was perhaps a pity the word "administrative" was used and that it was limited to centralisation of supply and medical services, education and matters like that. All the same, the germ was there. What is surprising, to my mind, is that we have gone on so long with that White Paper; that it has more or less stood up to events, and that we have not required a major change before now. I think my noble friend Lord Hore-Belisha talked about a sudden change—or what he thought was a sudden change—in ministerial views. But is it so very sudden, after nine years' experience of the White Paper? I wonder. At any rate, the fact remains that the pressure of events has not been strong enough to force this issue and this debate at an earlier stage. I think it would be true to say that during those nine years the Ministry of Defence has been a continuing influence for the increase of inter-Service co-operation, even though at moments the existence of the Ministry has forced each Service, on some particular issue, to fight its corner rather harder than it might have done if it had had only the Treasury to contend with.
But I think there are one or two other reasons why this problem has not arisen a little earlier, and it is perhaps worth while to look at them for a moment. Possibly when some people were talking or this trouble they were thinking of the war years, when Sir Winston Churchill combined the two offices of Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, and were a little frightened by the grip that the holder of one of those offices, leave alone two, might have on the Government set-up in peace time. I do not know. I think people wondered whether, if we had a Minister of Defence, he could effectively be anybody other than the Prime Minister himself. But I wonder whether that is a real obstacle to any of the proposals which my noble friend Lord Swinton has put forward. Because when a crisis comes and defence is the paramount matter to be considered in our national affairs, surely the Prime Minister
406
would have to take a hold, as he would have to take a hold in regard to unemployment, or the flight from the pound, or anything else which at that moment was the paramount matter for settlement. Equally the converse is true—namely, that when defence is not a matter which should occupy the major thought of the Prime Minister, then it can safely be left to a senior Minister—not to a combination of three Service chiefs or a Minister of Defence without powers, but to someone who has, to use language familiar in this House, not only the constitution but also the powers to deal will the situation.
There are one or two other reasons which I do not think quite so important. The various operations which have had to be undertaken during the cold war, even the Korean War, have not provided any test for our defence organisation in this country. It has been possible to take it in our stride or, alternatively, in the N.A.T.O. stride. When one is talking of N.A.T.O., another matter which I think has obscured the difficulties inherent in the present set-up is the personal contribution which my noble fiend Lord Ismay has made from many directions to oil the wheels, not only during the time when he occupied much the sane position, though not in name, as Sir William Dickson is going to occupy, but ever since he has given his time and care to making various machines, including our own, work. It is quite true that the more we expand the duties and the powers of a Minister of Defence, the more important will be the personality of that Minister. There is no doubt that it is a job for the best person this country can provide. But equally it is true, I am sure, that however much of a superman we may find to put into this job, he will lot be able to do any good unless he the powers—powers of quite a different type from those a Minister of Defence has ever had, except during the period when Sir Winston Churchill held that post.
I am sure that all these are arguments in reinforcement of what has been said for a great expansion of the powers of the Minister of Defence and an expansion to the functions which are laid down in the 1946 White Paper. The expansions will have to be in three directions: they will have to be in the direction of operational control, of supply and of finance, because I am sure that a great deal of the power of the Minister of Defence is

407
stultified by the present arrangement whereby, for a greater part of the year, inter-Service argument goes on between the Services and the Treasury over matters which, in the last resort, are bound to need settlement by the Minister of Defence and his organisation before those matters go to the Cabinet, where no doubt they can be finally settled, as those who have been in the Cabinet will know.
Those responsible will know the need for a proper staff to help the Minister exercise those powers. That is why I would join in the welcome given to Sir William Dickson and would wish him all success in his new appointment. At the same time I do not forget the work that General Brownjohn has done, bearing in mind that the job he now holds, and has held with such distinction, is not at all the same job as that which Sir William Dickson is being called to do. If it is thought to be the same job, a great deal of disaster and waste of time will occur. I go even further. As I said on Lord Nathan's Motion the other day, unless the Minister of Defence is granted extended powers, I do not think any effective solution will ever be obtained to the problems of Home Defence which we ventilated here the other day. I just cannot see it happening. Nor do I think we shall have anything but difficulties in trying to produce staff and thought and representation of the right calibre to deal with N.A.T.O. and Western Union problems, which every day are making more and more of a demand on our highly placed staff officers and Ministers. It is just not going to work.
All of us are inclined to think that we can draw a line between peace and war, and that when what we think of as war comes, we can go through the old-fashioned process of mobilisation. That is gone for ever; there will be no time to mobilise. Nothing could be more fatal than to have, in peace time, a set-up for the Ministry of Defence which will need immediate and fundamental, alteration the moment what we think of as war starts. I am going to deal only shortly with the difficulties, for they have already been dealt with in this debate and will again be dealt with presently. It would be a very major step seriously to alter the powers of the present Service Ministers, let alone to call them by any differ-
408
ent names, if that turns out to be necessary. The more I think of the problem, the more I feel that the functions of the Service Ministers and of the Minister of Defence are two things which are very largely separate. Once each Service has been given its task, whatever that may be, given its money, its equipment and its manpower, it will still be a full-time job for any Service Minister who is any good to see that his Service is in good heart, that the men are there and are properly paid, that the equipment works, and that the Service will make the contribution to defence which is asked of it. How can it be thought that that is not a worth while job for any Minister? I am quite sure that it is.
My last words will be on this question of tradition and also on the misuse of it. Tradition is a matter which, as so many of us know, will bear a great deal of thinking about. It has been grossly misused, particularly between the wars, to justify inertia of various kinds; and I have noticed from time to time that the Treasury and people of that kind who control money invariably come in as the strongest traditionalists when adherence to tradition will mean not spending any money. But tradition is not the same thing as remaining where you were; it is a continuing thing, and I believe that when people of our age talk of tradition we often have subconsciously in our mind the picture of what was right in our time and what we should think if we were still in the Services. In these days, when conditions have changed so much since we were in the Services, that is a very misleading practice. One has to remember that the younger officers and other ranks have been brought up over the last ten years in a totally different atmosphere from that which most of us knew. Their views of the other Services and their knowledge of the people in them are quite different from ours, and I should be very surprised if they looked with horror upon these gradual changes, once it could be made plain to them that those changes were going to improve the efficiency of their Services and their power to do their job. I feel very strongly upon that matter, and I hope that, when we are praying in aid tradition, we shall think at least twice before we argue that that is a reason for not doing certain things

409
which have been advocated in this House this afternoon.
My final point relates to combined education. Whether or not the time is ripe to go for a single cadet college (and I suspect that is much more a question of building than anything else), there seems no such argument against having a higher common factor of education among the three Services. Yet it may not be known to many of your Lordships that there is a certain higher common factor already in the Certificate A for cadets in the schools, which has long been accepted by the three Services as a suitable higher common factor. Whether or not we seek at the moment to cram Dartmouth into Sandhurst, or Cranwell into Dartmouth, seems to be only a minor consideration and not one which should stop those concerned from seeing whether we could not immediately get a higher common factor into the training of the young officers in each of the three Services. I do not believe that would be at all difficult. One could, of course, quickly get down to details on such a subject; but details will be solved all the more quickly if those concerned can feel that public opinion, and no doubt the opinion of this House, is behind those efforts, and that if those efforts are conscientiously made they will be supported from the right quarters.
3.35 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I am in much agreement with the general trend of this debate, but I cannot agree with some of the suggestions which have been put forward. The main theme has been closer co-operation between the three Services. I rather think that the noble Earl who moved this Motion would like to go further and seek to complete their integration. I cannot help feeling, however, that many of your Lordships would not like to go quite so far as that, certainly at the present time or even, perhaps, in future. On the other hand, I am all in favour of doing anything we can to improve on co-operation. It is true that something on the lines of the suggested Combined Services College for young officers at the start of their career is now in being in Canada and, I believe, is operating with a certain degree of success; but we must remember that the numbers involved there are far less than would be involved in this country, and I cannot help feeling that a Combined Services College here would be a very unwieldy affair.
410
Again, in these days a young officer has to learn a mass of scientific matter in order to be a success in his own Service, and is hard put to absorb all that is necessary to make him a good officer. Surely for a young officer to have to be proficient in the techniques of all three Services would be asking too much of him and placing too great a. strain on the young mind. Not so very many years ago the late Lord Selborne, when First Lord of the Admiralty, introduced a combined training scheme for upper deck and engineering officers of the Royal Navy, and I myself was trained under that scheme. The scheme really "fell down" because it was found that only a small percentage of young officers were able to absorb all that was required of them in the rapidly advancing engineering technique, combined with upper deck duties in the Royal Navy.
The noble Marquess the Leader of the House yesterday polluted out that a Joint Services Staff College already existed for the combined training of young officers of all three Services with an average age, at present, as low as thirty-two. I suggest that it is far better to keep to this system of a combined training of a limited number of picked young officers in the middle stage of their career rather than at the commencement of their training. A great variety of opinion is expressed in various quarters as to the perfect Defence Organisation, and no doubt great improvements can be made; but I entirely support the views of the Leader of the House that tradition should not be under-estimated in fashioning our new Defence Organisation. As the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, suggested, tradition may have been misused in the past in certain directions, but it is still a vital factor and we must take very careful thought upon it.
In the long run, in the new warfare unfolding before us, our defence depends not only on the man behind the gun but on the man behind the press-button, and I feel that the evolution of the Services should riot be pressed on too quickly; otherwise we may destroy tradition which, once lost, may never return. It has been said that an Admiral might one day command Coastal Command. I do not see any great difficulty in that direction, but if it is suggested that a General might command a squadron of Her Majesty's ships at sea, mal de mer might well intervene at a critical moment—with disastrous

411
consequences. Again, an Admiral commanding an army in the field would, I feel sure, have his difficult moments, but I have little doubt that a Marine would rise to the occasion and carry the day with flying colours. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has called for the abolition of the Fleet Air Arm. I think the answer to that is that the Air Force itself may one day become integrated with the Royal Navy, when guided missiles take the place of bombers. I do not want to go into that perennial argument now, but I think that may well happen.
It may be a good thing that we are moving towards a stronger central control of the three Services, but the vital question is: How strong should this control be? I believe that we must be careful not to give too much power and responsibility to the Minister of Defence, because he may well be unable to bear the great burden of responsibility that will be thrust upon him—a point which was brought out clearly by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, in his speech yesterday. It is true, of course, that in the last war such power worked admirably. But not all Ministers of Defence are supermen.
I too, cannot see the reason for the appointment of a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. If it is intended that this officer should attend the large number of international deliberations and functions that take place, surely he will be out of touch with the day-to-day work and views of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. It was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, that the Minister of Defence, already has a Chief of Staff. Are we not duplicating this post by appointing yet another representative of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, although in fact he will be designated Chairman? I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government will be able to clarify this matter. I realise that it would be wrong to judge defence problems with preconceived ideas, but, of course, it is necessary to look at this matter from a practical point of view: so often a nice tidy set-up which looks so well on paper does not work in practice. The "new look" in the Chiefs of Staff Committee may be a good one, but I cannot help feeling
412
that success will depend entirely on the man in that particular post. To-day we may have the right man, but it may not always be so. I hope that we may receive from the Minister who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government full answers to the many queries that have been raised in this debate, and I should especially welcome clarification of the appointment of a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
3.44 p.m.
LORD TEDDER: My Lords, I feel just a little bit like a beagle in the middle of a Lincolnshire aerodrome, with most attractive hares going off in all directions. I shall do my best to discipline myself. I am also faced with another temptation; that is that as we are discussing the organisation in which I was a cog for some considerable time I am afraid that there will be a tendency for me to be reminiscent. I will try to curb myself, but I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I am a little reminiscent. I should like to start with a reminiscence. In late 1942, when I went to North Africa, I met for the first time a great American Commander in the field, General Eisenhower. I was urged to stay there, for a limited time anyway, to advise on the employment of air forces and on co-operation between the three forces, land, sea and air. I agreed that the newly-arrived forces in North Africa could well learn much from the lessons we had been taught with very great force in the Western Desert. That, in fact, was why I went to Algiers in November, 1942. When I was urged to stay behind to do that job I firmly refused—and I still think that I was right—on the basis that I felt that it was wrong to give advice without responsibility. Therefore, the noble Lord who spoke yesterday about power without responsibility will know that I am in entire agreement with him on that point.
In setting up any organisation the requirement which should, I think, always be considered first—though too often it is considered last—is to put the right men in the right places. It is probably true to say that almost any organisation can be made to work if the right men are put in it. But I think there is another requirement which is almost as important—that is, that the lines of responsibility should be as clear as possible, in practice if not in theory. I think it is generally agreed

413
that our defence organisation in the last war worked amazingly well. Of course, we had the right men in the right place at that time. In theory the Secretaries of State and the First Lord were responsible for advising the Minister of Defence on all military matters, and through him the Cabinet; but, as has been pointed out here, in practice it was the three Chiefs of Staff in Committee who advised the Minister and the Cabinet on all matters of strategy and tactics. Of course it was fortunate that the Minister happened to be the Prime Minister as well. It was a simple chain of responsibility which worked, and worked well. Reference has been made to Lord Ismay, and it is not minimising the wonderful work which he did to emphasise that he was Staff Officer to the Minister; he was not in any way responsible for the advice given or the decisions taken. He served as a link, as an interpreter, or, if one may put it that way with all respect, as a buffer between the Chiefs of Staff and the Minister of Defence. And in that capacity he was, I think, one of the most outstanding examples of what the noble Marquess, the Leader of the House referred to yesterday—the importance of personality. There was a case in which personality just made things work.
After the end of the war, a period of which I have personal inside information, the fact that the Minister of Defence and the Prime Minister were no longer one and the same made, quite frankly, very little difference, since the then Prime Minister took a very close personal interest in all the work of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. I am a little puzzled—as I am about a great many of the proposals now made—over the argument about the powers of the Minister of Defence. As I see it, the Minister of Defence at present has just as much power as he likes to take and the Prime Minister likes to allow him. I am certain that during the period when I was with the Chiefs of Staff the then Minister of Defence (unfortunately he is not here now) had far more power in his hands than he actually used. That may have been right I am not criticising it; but he certainly had the power. As I see it, he still has, and I am not sure why we have to organise fresh arrangements to give him power.
414
There are some people who deride the practice of working by committees. They say that it is a British weakness, and leads only to compromises. Well, what is wrong with compromises? My own feeling is that the sound answer to almost every problem, except the most simple, is a compromise—and it is a compromise whether it is made, by a committee or by a single superman. A compromise may be illogical, but it is human, and I have the gravest suspicion of pure logic used as a means of controlling and directing human affairs. Karl Marx produced it as a theory, and Adolf Hitler tried it as practice; and it was an unhealthy one. In my view, we British owe many of our successes to our ability to compromise, and I would add that I think that we as a nation have a unique genius for—I will not say committee work, but for teamwork, which in fact is the same thing, After all, it is on that that our whole system is based: the Cabinet itself, the Chiefs of Staff Committee, all the Joint Services Committees—and there are nearly a dozen of them: planning, intelligence, administration, signals, and so on—all of which prepare material for the Chiefs of Staff. There is all the gamut of committees which run our Governmental and, incidentally, our industrial organisations. What are they but devices for getting the enormous value one gets out of teamwork? I do not suggest that all committees work well, but if they do not, if the teamwork is bad, it is the individuals who are at fault, nine times out of ten. I Look first to the individuals and not to the organisation. That is why I am rather puzzled at these changes in the defence set-up.
The noble Marquess referred to the proposals as evolutionary and I would strongly support evolution, in preference to revolution; but may I ask: evolution towards what? I can clearly understand the terrific and justifiable urge to make doubly sure that there is no overlapping between the Services, no duplication; and above all, to make sure that the Armed Forces we maintain are fitted for the present and the future, and not for the past. I welcome any move which will bring the Ministry of Supply into closer touch with its customers. Apart from that, I find it difficult to see in these proposals anything calculated to improve the organisation that we have at present. Frankly, I am glad that. I was never called

415
upon to be Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, new style. For nearly three years I was Chairman, old style, and as such I acted as spokesman for the three Services. Each of us had his own individual responsibility towards his Service and towards his colleagues, and the responsibility for seeing that the powers and limitations of his own Service were properly allowed for in the collective advice and plan. I think that was straightforward. I do not say that it was always easy for me as Chairman. As the Minister of that date will know, there were difficulties, and of course we had to make compromises. But once we had agreed our conclusions my role was simple, and I accepted my share of our collective responsibility.
But what will the position be in this new style Committee? Is the new Chairman to be a representative, or is he to be a superman? Is he to be just a spokesman of the three Chiefs of Staff, as I was, or will he be empowered to override one, or all three? I had always thought that the overriding of the Chiefs of Staff should be, properly, the function of the Minister of Defence. I do not believe that it has ever been done, even during the war. I do not think the Minister of Defence during the war ever overruled the advice of the Chiefs of Staff. I find it difficult to see this new Chairman doing that. Are the three Chiefs of Staff responsible to the new Chairman and no longer directly responsible to the Minister and the Defence Committee? And, if so, will the three Chiefs of Staff no longer attend Defence Committees? On the other hand, if all three Chiefs of Staff are to attend Defence Committees, what have we gained?
LORD HORE-BELISHA: Plus the Chairman.
LORD TEDDER: We have gained a fourth leg. Instead of having a tripod, which is the normal seat for the lady who produces wisdom, we are going to have a fourth leg, which will make it a bit lopsided.
I can see one way in which this new appointment can be of value—in providing a welcome relief to the Chiefs of Staff from the wearisome travelling about the world on journeys to N.A.T.O. conferences, exercises and so on. Again I would ask a question. In those conferences will
416
the Chairman speak, as I did on the Standing Group in Washington, as a representative of the British Chiefs of Staff, or will he speak on his own independent authority? Where does the responsibility fie? If this new post had to be created, in my opinion there is no doubt that the right man has been chosen to fill it. If it can be made to work he will certainly do so; but I do not envy him his position.
There is only one other point, among the many intensely interesting points raised during this debate, on which I should like to touch; that is the question of integration. I feel that I ought to start with a definition of integration, but there are so many definitions that I will waive that point. I feel that much of the demand for closer integration between the Services is due to the fact that few people outside the Services (of course I am not including Members of your Lordships' House) realise how close and frequent the teamwork between the Services is nowadays. It is true—I know it personally—that at the beginning of the last war there was little mutual knowledge or understanding, though I might mention that my integration began rather more than thirty years ago at the Naval Staff College at Greenwich. But the hard facts of the war soon changed that. In the Mediterranean all three Services learned the hard way that, though in one sense there was a land war, a sea war and an air war, each with its own problems, yet each of the Services in its own way was deeply involved in all three wars, and from that aspect it was one war.
Much has happened since then: joint schools, joint colleges, joint exercises, joint conferences, exchange postings and so on—in fact, I know that one of the problems nowadays is to ensure that an officer can get enough time at his own particular profession from the various courses, co-operation and things he has to do. There must be a balance. From what I know I can assure your Lordships that we have nearly reached the limit of the time during which one can take an officer away from doing what is primarily his own job. I am entirely in agreement with the spirit of everything that has been said about close co-operation and integration between the Services in that sense; but as I said before, there is a compromise, and there must be a compromise, on this matter. I was struck with what was said yesterday about spirit

417
by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield. It is only this joint work—this is where I agree with the integrationists—which leads to mutual understanding, knowledge and confidence; and it is that alone which can give that integration of spirit to which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, so rightly referred. As he said, if I remember rightly, "You cannot impose integration."
Some of the proposals for the single Service—for what I call extreme integration—rather shocked me. I should have thought that we have had enough experience in the last ten or twenty years of what happens when you amalgamate two, three or four things into one, and the great difficulty of keeping alive esprit de corps and. morale. I am not being political; I have no Party ties; but who would not be glad to see some of that esprit de corps which one used to see on the Great Western Railway? That is the price you have to pay if you try to carry through this integration. Can one think of anybody less likely to have esprit de corps than a conglomeration (or perhaps I should say an integration) of soldiers, sailors and airmen, integrated into an armed Service, which I suppose we should call British Armed Service (B.A.S.) dressed up—or should I say dressed down?—in an integrated green uniform. Really, my Lords, with all respect, I think this is logic carried to dangerous absurdity.
Then there is the rag-tag-and-bobtail who, I think, are rather lightly dismissed as the "ancillary" Services. I believe I am right in saying that the economics of integrating those has been examined three or four times already, and the answer each time has been: "I am sorry, but there is no money to be saved in this"—but that can be checked. I have been lucky during my Service career to see quite a good deal at close quarters of sailors, soldiers and airmen, in the mass and individually, and my judgment would he that they are very distinct from each other. Each Service naturally attracts a different type of man, and despite the effect of National Service my own impression is that that distinction is still very much there. That being so, I suggest it is right and best to have the specialist—the doctor, the educationist, the chaplain and so on—who will get to know the particular brand of man of his own
418
Service, because in each of their lives that sort of knowledge, the psychological knowledge, is vital.
I fear that there is too much logic and not enough humanity in some of the proposals that have been made for what we call integration. Let us have evolution, by all means, but not integration, revolution and disintegration. You have a Defence organisation which has proved itself again and again to be extremely flexible; it can adapt itself, and it has done, to utterly different conditions and different personalities. I suggest that that flexibility is vital if it is going to be able to adjust itself to the terrific changes which nuclear war may bring. But let us be flexible and do not try to tidy it up.
I myself have had experience of trying to tidy up organisations, and I should like to end with a reminiscence. In 1943, when we joined up with the Americans, it was arranged that I was to command the combined American and British Air Forces, and General Spaatz was to be my deputy. We had a two days' meeting about it, but we gave up trying to draw up any organisation; we just decided to get on with it; that vie would do certain things and they would do others. And it worked perfectly.
After it had been going about six months and the Normandy business was beginning to boil up, having seen the tragedy of people carving into a new theatre in North Africa, without the experience of other people, we wanted to avoid the same thing happening in Normandy and we said: "We will draw up this organization—it wants tidying up in one or two places—and we will put it down for record so that it can be used for Normandy." For three weeks we let the "back-room boys" work on it, but then I began to realise that something was going wrong. Some of my officers became anxious and wanted to do something about it, and then one of the Americans, whom I happened to know well, came to me and said: "Look here, what are you 'Limeys' up to?" I let that go for about four days, and then I had a talk with General Spaatz. He was getting "hot under the collar," too, and we had rather a warm discussion. I ended up by saying, "All right, you can have a divorce to-day if you want it. We

419
will go separately." He said, "Oh hell! we won't do that." I said, "There is only one thing to be done: call the boys off, tear up the paper, and we will go on working." Let the Defence Organisation work, and do not try and tidy it up too much, or you will tidy it in the wrong way for the next war.
4.11 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF NORTH CAPE: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, has said that I may say a word before he makes his speech. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, was my distinguished chairman for two years, I wish to say that I heartily agree with every word he has said. This talk of integration is so easy, because all doctors give you medicine, all caterers give you food, and you can amalgamate and integrate. But you could say the same thing of the House of Commons and your Lordships' House. We both talk and we both make laws. Integrate them, and you would then say, "Mr. Speaker and Lord Chancellor." It is the same sort of argument which is put forward about Services which have entirely different jobs.
4.12 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I feel sure that my noble friend Lord Swinton, who opened this debate yesterday, will welcome as much as I do the two speeches to which we have just listened. I came into this business in 1901, and I was in it until 1938. It is a great pleasure to me to hear the tribute paid to the present system by these distinguished officers with such unique experience. That system hails back a long way. I want to deal with it under four heads: the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence, the Departmental Ministers and the Chiefs of Staff. What has been said this afternoon, especially by the last two speakers, will enable me to shorten my speech.
The Prime Minister is the key-pin in our system of defence. That dates from 1904, when Mr. Arthur Balfour, as he then was, formed the Committee of Imperial Defence, consisting of the Prime Minister and whomever he chose to summon to his discussions. From that starts the flexibility to which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, has just paid tribute. It is really inescapable that the Prime Minister should be the key-pin.
420
If war should come, the Prime Minister of the day must run the war. No one else carries the guns. The running of the war becomes the principal policy of the Government, and the Prime Minister has to defend it to Parliament and to the people. It is an inescapable function. He also has the main responsibility for the great decisions. Now all modern developments throw those decisions into higher and higher relief.
Take the frightful decision to launch a hydrogen bomb war, inescapable perhaps, otherwise the enemy will launch it first and you will not be able to launch it at all. But that is the kind of terrible decision with which Governments will be faced, and in which the Prime Minister must necessarily take the lead. It always has been the case since, perhaps, the time when Newcastle gave way to Pitt. It always has been the rule that the Prime Minister had to run the war. To fit himself for that he must prepare himself in time of peace. He ought to be in charge of the policy, the plans and the preparations, in general, at any rate—not all the details—and also the personalities, especially in the Services, on whom the Government will have to depend for running the war. The best way in which that knowledge can come to the Prime Minister is by his presiding over the body that is at the head of the Defence Organisation, which used to be called the Committee of Imperial Defence in my time, and I think ought to be to-day, but it is now called the Defence Committee.
Let us take the precedents. Every Prime Minister since 1904 has run the Committee in both war and peace. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was in office for only a short time, and then Mr. Asquith took tremendous interest in the Committee and worked very hard on it. He not only attended every meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence, but he took the chair at the most important sub-committees that were appointed on the great problems of that day. Then Mr. Lloyd George, of course, developed the Committee further in time of war. Mr. Asquith carried the Committee of Imperial Defence system in to the war, first with a War Council and afterwards a War Committee. Mr. Lloyd George carried it further, to the War Cabinet and the Imperial War Cabinet. The Imperial War Cabinet brought the Dominions and the Dominions Prime Ministers right into

421
the picture. It was a great extension of the Committee of Imperial Defence of peace time, carrying into the war the principle of the fatuous meeting that Mr. Asquith held with the Dominions in 1911, when they were told the exact situation that was developing in Europe.
I am not going right through the list of Prime Ministers. There are five others, each of whom always took charge of the Committee of Imperial Defence, though it is true that sometimes they were so overwhelmed with other business that they had to appoint deputies to act for them. For instance, Mr. Balfour acted for Mr. Lloyd George during the Paris Peace Conference, when we were getting the Committee of Imperial Defence going again, and for a year or two after that when the Prime Minister was constantly away. Then there were a number of distinguished people who, for a relatively short time, acted as deputies. The Marquess of Salisbury, the father of the present Leader of the House, a most distinguished man who had just completed the famous Salisbury Report of 1923, in which he had pulled into shape the Chiefs of Staff Committee that had started during the Chanak incident. Then there were, at different times, Lord Haldane, Lord Curzon and Lord Caldecote.
I cannot honestly say that the system of deputies worked quite as well as the Committee when it was run by the Prime Ministers. As a matter of fact, every Prime Minister at that time used to come to the Committee on all the more important occasions. I could give the reasons why it did not work so very well but I should be wasting your Lordships' time; I have probably done it before. But it is admitted that there must be deputies at times, and I think it is generally agreed that this is such a time. All I should like to suggest on that matter is that the Prime Minister, for reasons I have given, should, when he can spare the time, take the chair at the Defence Committee, and that he should keep in as close touch with defence as he always does with foreign affairs. Also, I should like to suggest that he should be accessible to the Chiefs of Staff, in the last resort, if they are in difficulties. It was a regular part of the old system that, if they could not agree, they went to the Prime Minister and very often he, with his great prestige, could pull them together.
422
That brings me to the Minister of Defence. I take that to be an example of the flexibility that has been mentioned, because, as has been said, the Prime Minister could always take over the post of Minister of Defence in case of war, and certainly would take it over, just as Sir Winston Churchill did in 1940. Somebody raised a question of whether he would have the initiative. As a matter of fact, under the Salisbury Report of 1923, the Minister of Defence inherited from the people who acted as Vice-Chairmen of the Committee of Imperial Defence the right and the duty of keeping the whole situation under review and of exercising an initiative in conjunction with the Chiefs of Staff. If the Minister of Defence would learn from his predecessors—I am sure that they would agree to this, especially Lord Caldecote—he should avoid being cluttered up with the settlement of intricate departmental disputes involving a great deal of detail such as that which greatly hampered Lord Caldecote in dealing with the larger questions.
The trouble is that many of these disputes between the Services arise because it is impossible really to foresee how a decision will operate in war. We are not dealing with things that are going to happen immediately, as in a civilian Department; we are dealing with things that are going to happen in some future emergency which cannot be accurately foreseen. Consequently, I agree very much with what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, said, that you cannot avoid compromise. I am not so sure that already a had mistake has not been made in abolishing the anti-aircraft defences, if they are abolished. I am afraid I have not been in very close touch lately.
I come now to the Departmental Ministers. I urge strongly that the Departmental Ministers should be main-tamed and that their position should not in any way be lowered. It is offensive to a great Service if the status of the head of it is lowered. Occasions arise when those Ministers perform the most indispensable services. May I remind my noble friend Lord Swinton of his own services to radar—we called it something else then—but it is called radar now. Nothing could have exceeded the energy and the foresight which he displayed in that matter. He was then the Departmental Minister. No Minister of Defence

423
could put into that particular job the driving force that the head of the Department did. I give that merely as an example. I could give examples from the other Departments, too, in former days. Then, again, with Departmental Ministers, whether or not they are in the Cabinet, they will build up a pool of experience in Service questions. If there are to be only the Prime Minister and a Minister of Defence "right up to the neck," so to speak, in Service questions, I do not think there will be in the Parties that form Governments in succession from time to time enough people who know the war problems. I believe that to be an important point. I agree, however, with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, whose speech I read this morning—I had to be away yesterday—that it would be advisable that they should, if possible, serve for a considerable period in their offices so as to get to know them properly.
That brings me to the last of the four matters with which I said I would deal—that is, the Chiefs of Staff Committee. On this new proposal for a Chiefs of Staff Committee, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, has expressed my views clearly, but I would say first that, if you are going to have a fourth Service chairman, Sir William Dickson is, to my personal knowledge, an ideal man. If anyone can make a success of it, he will. But I am afraid the principle is all wrong. It must weaken the most important feature in the Salisbury Report—at least, I always thought it the most important feature—namely:
"the individual and collective responsibility for advising on defence policy as a whole, the three constituting, as it were, a super Chief-of-Staff in commission."
I am sorry that my noble and gallant friend, Lord Trenchard, will not be speaking to-day, because he had an early association with that matter. The actual phrase was, I think, suggested by him to me at Adastral House a year or two before it came into the Salisbury Report. But it is the essence of the Chiefs of Staff in bringing the Services together, that they should be able to pool their wisdom and their experience, and hammer the matter out. At first they comprised some rather tempestuous people—I hope my noble and gallant friend will not mind if
424
I say that he was one; another was Lord Beatty. There were some battles royal, the feathers used to fly; nevertheless, they built up in the Services, especially with the aid of the Imperial Defence College, a feeling of team work which, it is perfectly clear from what the last two speakers have said, exists to this day in the Chiefs of Staff. I should be sorry to lose that.
In the days when we had a Deputy Prime Minister, at first he generally wanted to sit with the Chiefs of Staff. But he was the fourth man, and they would each fight his corner. They did not work with the same team spirit as when they met alone. Each would fight his corner, each trying to induce the neutral chairman that he was right. I am afraid that that might repeat itself now. It is always easier to get three people to agree than it is to get four people to agree. Therefore, from that point of view, I think that the fourth man is a mistake. I have yet another reason. My own information is—and I get rather more than your Lordships might expect that it has not worked well where it has been tried in foreign countries. I think we have the best system of co-ordination in the world. We have been imitated in a good many countries, but certain countries, which I will not mention, but with whom, in the past, I have sometimes been in touch on this very question, have nearly always insisted on having a fourth Service chairman: and, to my knowledge, that has not always worked.
There is one other question upon which I should like just to touch; it is a question of mere detail. There used to be something called the Ten Year Rule. I am not going into that matter. I have dealt with it often before, and if your Lordships want to know how much damage was done, you should read either Lord Chatfield's Memoirs or those of Lord Templewood. A story has been put about in one of the newspapers that we are going to have, or that there is, a Seven Year Rule. It was put out on rather high authority, in a way, though not officially, and I think the House would be most interested to hear whether that is one of the dangers that we are going to run into in the future.
4.35 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord who will be winding up for the Opposition has kindly signified his assent that I should address the House for a few moments before he does so. But since I hold no notes in my hands, your Lordships will easily guess that my contribution will be short. It will be confined to one question and one plea, which I have made before in your Lordships' House. The question was touched upon by the noble Lord. Lord Hore-Belisha; and, I believe, by the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman. It concerns the future dudes and standing of Sir Neville Brownjohn, which duties, as I understand them at the moment, are to co-ordinate the work of the present Chiefs of Staff. He took over his appointment from Lord Ismay on the noble Lord's departure to N.A.T.O. Is he to be a deputy to Sir William Dickson, or an assistant? Or is his appointment to be abolished? I am sure that this is a matter about which the noble Lord who is to answer for the Ministry of Defence has an answer all ready. It is in no way a criticism; it is a question with a view to gaining information on that point. If General Brownjohn is to be retained there will be another senior appointment super. imposed on the present appointment, bringing with it an increase in staff—and by "staff" I do not mean just one man; an officer of that rank brings with him assistants, personal staff, motor cars, drivers, clerks; and offices have to be provided and all the rest of it. It is not by any manner of means just one man. I should therefore like a little information on that matter, and I have no doubt that I shall get it.
I was a little sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, when he mentioned the great reformers of the Army—Cardwell, Esher and Haldane—did not add the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, for there is no doubt whatever that in 1938 the Hore-Belisha new terms of service proved a turning point in the British Army. From then onwards the Army became a career in which an officer could tell what rank he would Teach, and at what age, provided that he was suitable to hold that rank. Before that time, he never knew. Even without the impact of the war, from that time onwards the whole approach of people joining the Army would have been better.
426
Therefore, where the Army is concerned (I know that this debate has covered all three Services in the broadest sense) credit must go to the noble Lord who sits in your Lordships' House.
The plea that I have to make is one which I have made before: I hope that it is relevant to this debate; it hinges largely on the co-ordination of the Services. It is a plea for reductions in staff at all levels, and in all three Services. When anybody mentions reductions in staff, it is thought by nearly everybody that a measure of economy is being advocated. In the all-important matter of defence, economy is a comparative term—what you are losing on the swings you may make up on the roundabouts; the short-term view may well be the wrong one. I do not advocate a reduction in staffs for motives of economy. I advocate a reduction in staffs for motives of efficiency. By and large, the bigger the staff the more inefficient it is. The noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, is a most senior officer of long experience in the Army. I am quite certain that when he commanded small formations, such as brigades and divisions, he had a staff one-quarter of the size that exists now; and it is my guess that it worked infinitely better. I think he would have been the first to remove a staff officer who would not "stand over" his signature.
Nowadays, an amorphous mass of officers are to be found in an office, passing files to each other and telephoning, all of them extremely busy. I do not for a moment suggest that they are not working, because, the more of them there are, the more work they have to do, and not the reverse. That is bad enough, but what is fifty times worse is that it produces a very bad frame of mind; it produces a type of officer who will not make up his mind or stand on it, will not take the credit when he is right or suffer the results when he is wrong, so that when he returns to his duties or to other employment he has a one-track mind. He is not liked by the others. He is marked as a "Staff wallah"—he is unpopular; and rightly so. I remember that I was on Brigade Headquarters at Aldershot twenty-five years ago and there were three officers—four in the manœuvres period. Now, I am told, there are eight, with an average attachment of four or five more. I cannot believe that warfare has become

427
so complicated as to need that—and I believe the results are no better than they were before. However, I will not take up your Lordships' time with detail when such very broad issues have been raised in this debate. I mention that merely to show the type of thing which goes on.
Perhaps I may recount to your Lordships a little anecdote. Before the war there was a certain Brigadier in an Administrative Branch on the General Staff at the War Office. He was amiable and reasonably efficient, and was in this position for many years. He sat there and did his work. Eventually he left the Army, and, as he had been in this office for a long time, it was decided to spring-clean it and, what was more (a thing which probably never happened in the War Office before), the carpet was taken up. Under the carpet were found dozens of files that had been there for years. This Brigadier had been in the habit of putting them there whenever an issue came before him which he could not or did not wish to answer, or when he could not find anybody to pass it to. He put the file under the carpet and nailed it down again. He went through his career full of years and honour. That is the type of staff officer which is quite catastrophic and on which, I hope, the Minister of Defence will keep an eye in the future.
4.43 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I know that none of your Lordships will feel that the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, need apologise for his most engaging intervention which has brought before our minds a new type of officer and has given us a good deal to think about. I feel honoured at being allowed to speak as the last spokesman on this side of the House in a debate as distinguished as the present one. I know that since the war we have had many important debates on defence, but I question whether, when the history of all this time comes to be written, we shall be found to have participated in. or attended, a more influential debate than that which has been initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. I have at times found myself engaged in Parliamentary controversy with the noble Earl, and at times he has found it necessary to administer a friendly ministerial rebuke, which I have always accepted in a spirit
428
of meekness and mildness—or at least I hope so. But never have I—or, I believe, any noble Lords on this side of the House—questioned his great services to the country. Above all, I believe that the whole House invariably benefits from his unique talent for distilling his administrative experience in a Parliamentary form for our edification and instruction. I feel that his speech yesterday was one of the finest he has ever made to us. Many of the things he said will carry the assent of all, though after some speeches to-day the approval is, perhaps, not quite so overwhelming as I had expected and, to some extent, hoped.
Without going into the question of integration at low levels—because I have been dealing with the highest administrative questions—I should like to express my personal sympathy, and there will be a great deal of sympathy from other noble Lords in this House, with what Lord Swinton said about closer co-operation on what I believe he called the "lower levels." I am bound to say that I cannot understand what the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, had in mind. Though I did not take down his exact words, he seemed to imply that different kinds of person went into the various Services. I may have got his words wrong, but I think he said something to that effect; he seemed to suggest that a different kind of doctor is needed to administer different pills to the noble Lords, Lord Fraser of North Cape and Lord Tedder. That I find difficult to believe. Still less do I find it easy to believe that a different kind of cleric is necessary to administer the last rites to officers of the various Services. My sympathy lies with the thesis advanced by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton.
I feel that among so many notable speeches only one really dangerous thought was offered to your Lordships; and that by the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha. Before commenting—not very seriously—on the dangerous thought that he offered, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in paying tribute to Lord Hore-Belisha's work at the War Office. I feel that this country has never shown the gratitude that might have been shown to the noble Lord for what he accomplished before the war and in particular for the way in which he carried through conscription during a period

429
when public opinion was far from well disposed. I remember that when, during the war, Lord Hore-Belisha was criticised for what he had done, his reply was, "I do not want to be judged for what I have done, but for what I tried to do." But for the actuality of his performance lie deserves the gratitude of the country.
He offered one dangerous thought, however, when he suggested that some significance should be attached to the fact that the Minister of Supply was giving evidence of an increasing likeness to the Duke of Wellington. That would be a very dangerous criterion by which to select or upgrade a Minister. It might put all kinds of thoughts into all kinds of minds. I might look like his wife, who was a grand-aunt of mine; but I do not suggest that that should qualify me for promotion. Again, I am told that someone, noticing Sir Winston Churchill's grandson as a baby, said to him, "How very like you your grandson is," to which Sir Winston replied, "All babies are like me." That might put all sorts of extravagant hopes into the minds of all kinds of grandparents and parents, and might, in consequence, breed a whole world of disappointment. I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me for those flippant observations. This is a very serious issue, and I hope that I shall be forgiven for not trying to comment too freely on speeches which have gone before. That apology is directed particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who is such an acceptable spokesman and who will shortly reply.
I will deal with one issue which runs through the debate, the position of an individual Service Minister as opposed to the Minister of Defence. I have never got as far as the Ministry of Defence and never expect to do so; but I was, for a short time, a Service Minister under the existing arrangement, and can speak from the point of view of someone who has studied and talked on the working of our Constitution in past years. The constitutional position of a Minister of Defence is a more important issue than some speakers have recognised. It has been dismissed as a detail, the kind of thing which would settle itself when the time came; and generally there has been a tendency to dispose of it a little lightly. It was thought that the Service Minister might turn into a Minister of State, or an
430
Under-Secretary, which would not matter all that much. I want to deal briefly with this problem, which is rather near to the heart of the issue we are discussing.
While I have much sympathy for the argument on integration advanced by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, I feel that we must know what kind of solution we intend to provide to this problem before launching into uncharted seas. We have seen three stages in what might be called the decline and fall of the Service Ministers. Leaving out the Minister of Defence, and speaking only of the Ministers responsible for the three Services, we knew the Service Minister in his great days. His position was one of the highest in the Government. Before 1914 we had men like Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Haldane, and just before the last war we had those such as the noble Lords present, Lord Swinton and Lord Hore-Belisha. The Minister was a full Member of the Cabinet. He was not, until just before the war, co-ordinated by anybody. It was obvious that he was of the greatest influence and distinction. Then, just before the war, a co-ordinating Minister was brought in. It was generally thought that that was not a very successful arrangement, but that was the innovation made. The Service Ministers were then still members of the Cabinet.
Passing over the war years, we reach the third stage, when the dust has settled, and we now find the Service Ministers outside the Cabinet, with a Minister of Defence inside, The whole position, from the Service Minister's point of view, has considerably worsened. That is the situation which has prevailed. It has worked fairly well. I am not saying that a better system should have been introduced at the time. It was introduced, by our Government, and no doubt they took very wise steps. But I think we have to ask ourselves now whether that situation is to be perpetuated or whether we want to move forward to something different.
I suggest that there are grave constitutional anomalies in the present system. Incidentally, I agree with the powerful point which was made by the noble Marquess the Leader of the House in his speech yesterday, when he said that, whatever system we arrive at, it will not be perfect; there will always be arguments which can be deployed on the other side. I think it is interesting to ask ourselves why that should be so, why we

431
cannot arrive at a tidy answer in the field of defence, as in other departments. In passing, I submit this thought. In defence it is not only a question of co-ordinating sideways, so to speak, as happened when it was decided to co-ordinate, for example, civil aviation and transport. It is also a problem of co-ordinating upwards and downwards. We saw introduced a Minister for a certain function which was, so to speak, superior to the function called administration. That, I think, provides the answer as to why the problem is so difficult in the defence field.
Be that as it may, I submit that our existing system conflicts with at least one, and perhaps two, of the fundamental principles which have always worked well in other spheres in relation to departmental matters. It does not conflict with the principle of collective responsibility of Ministers, but I think it conflicts to some extent with the idea—which is also basic in our general system—that a Minister has special responsibility for the work of his Department. On paper, responsibilities are allocated but I think that in practice it is hard to separate them, and any separation is bound to be artificial. I believe that the second principle is not very effectively carried out. But, above all, the present defence set-up conflicts with what I might call the third principle of responsibility—the principle that a Minister must be master in his own house, the principle of undivided authority; and, conversely, the principle that every Government servant, whether civilian or Service officer, pays direct allegiance to one political chief only. That principle is basic throughout the Constitution; it is implied in our existing defence arrangements. And I feel that, in consequence of the departure from it, many difficulties arise.
We were told yesterday that the present Service Minister possesses responsibility without power. I think there is considerable truth in that statement. If a rising young politician becomes a Minister responsible in the eyes of a great Service, and throws himself heart and soul into his job, I think that when he finds that, in the last resort, he will not be able to take crucial decisions in the way they were taken before the war, by such Ministers as the noble Earl, Lord Swinton,
432
and the noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, he is bound to feel considerably frustrated. Here I should say is a position rather stronger than that relating to general powers. When all is said and done, the feeling of loyalty to the head of a Service is very strong. Service chiefs are working in the same building as the Minister. They are all members of the same Council or the Board of Admiralty. Speaking as an outsider, who has in the past had a little experience of these matters, I would say that loyalty towards the Service Ministers is so strong that the Minister of Defence is not able at the present time to perform his full constitutional functions in the way intended. So the present position is somewhat anomalous and somewhat confused and if we can think of a better one we should not be slow in introducing it.
What are the possible alternatives? I mention one method, but only to reject it—the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, touched on it yesterday. In practice it would mean separating Service Ministers and their Chiefs of Staff more completely from the Minister of Defence and giving the Minister a strong staff of his own, and it would lead to these people confronting one another rather like separate departments. I think we are all opposed to that. So we come to look at the details of the alternative which has been suggested by the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, in a notable lecture which has been alluded to by more than one speaker in this debate. Under his proposals Service Ministers and their Ministries would disappear as independent entities: the Service Ministers would turn into Under-Secretaries. I think that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, was right in saying that if the Service Ministers were to disappear as independent entities they should be Ministers of State. I think that the doctrine advanced by Lord Montgomery of Alamein goes further than is necessary for the logic of the argument.
Let us consider the possibility of separate Ministers becoming Ministers of State. We know what Ministers of State are like. We respect them highly. We have, for example, the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, performing very responsible functions in this House and elsewhere. I think that if the Service Ministers were turned into Ministers of State it would be pointless to keep the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council and the Air Council going in any form

433
in which we have known them. There might be more committees operating inside Ministries, but any attempt to pretend that they were the old Board or the old Council would, I believe, be somewhat fictitious, and I doubt whether any plan of that kind would last long.
I recognise that all the arguments of logic and paper planning are in favour of some scheme of this kind. I am sorry that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, is not here, for I should like to assure him that I do not use the word "logic" as a term of contempt—I use it as a term of praise. I feel that a man who is being illogical has the onus upon him to show why he should prevail against the man who is being logical. But that does not mean that logic should always prevail. I feel that great attention has to be paid to the views of people like Lord Tedder, Lord Fraser of North Cape, Lord Hankey and Lord Chatfield, with their wealth of practical experience. One cannot sweep aside experience of that kind by reference to paper logic, though it is fair to point out that some noble Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, have had comparable experience in fields of equal responsibility intimately related to defence.
I would say that the disadvantage of full integration would not be merely a traditional disadvantage. If that were so I should be happy to adopt what I think is the full plan in the minds of the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and, I presume, of the Government. The noble Marquess argued that we must proceed in an evolutionary kind of way and wait until, gradually, new loyalties take the place of old. I agree that that is the right kind of evolutionary tempo. I also agree with Lord Tedder when he asked: Evolution to what? I think that is a very pertinent question. We must know where we are going before we try to go very far along that path. I feel that we must ask whether the disadvantages of abolishing Service Ministries as independent entities are anything like as great as the advantages, which are fairly obvious. One disadvantage is the disadvantage of bigness. I think that that is not an inconsiderable disadvantage. Take it in ministerial terms—and I think this point has not been made yet in this debate, although the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, came near to it. At present there are nine Service Ministers, apart
434
from the Ministry of Supply, where there are another two. If the Minister of Defence is to be the sole Minister with the ultimate responsibility, apparently he will preside over eight acolytes. That would he a very strange set-up, the strangest yet in the field of defence; and that is saying a great deal.
It might be said: Cut down the number of Ministers; the Minister cannot want all these Under-Secretaries. It seems to me that that would be a superficial approach. We have every reason to suppose, and no reason to suppose the opposite, that the Under-Secretaries all work very hard. They did so in our time and I do not believe that, like the Brigadiers mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, they circulate papers to one another to keep themselves employed. Among the functions they perform is the indispensable function of keeping the public in touch with the Fighting Services. So long as we have conscription, which I suppose we shall have for a little while yet, that function seems to me to be quite indispensable. I doubt whether we can reduce the number of Under-Secretaries or subordinate Ministers without doing serious damage to the relations between the public and the Services. I feel, also, that they are important because, in the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, in particular, we need the Service Ministers to give the kind of leadership to the Services which a supreme Minister alone certainly could not supply.
It may be that all these difficulties can be overcome. If they are fairly and squarely faced, they will seem smaller than the great advantages which the noble Earl has unfolded. Therefore, I do not say that difficulties of this kind should set a veto on progress. I say only that all of us, particularly, perhaps, the Government, should clear our minds about how we mean to deal with these problems. I hope that nobody who reads this debate will consider it academic thinking because we are concerned with the arrangements for office planning so far removed from the battle front and from the blood and sweat of the struggle. Those noble Lords who have had experience both in the front line and in the higher council chambers (and I have not far to look to see them) will be the first to agree that the one way of inflicting a terrible penalty

435
on the young men who will bear the supreme brunt is that the older men at the centre of things should be careless or prejudiced, or should rely too much on thoughts at second hand. Therefore, I feel that what we think and what we say here is of tremendous importance. We ought to be grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. The kind of thoughts we are working out together, whatever the precise solution reached, are bound to be fruitful and to increase that strength, both apparent and real, on which depends so much of the intensive influence for preserving a just and lasting peace which falls on this ancient country of ours.
5.4 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, we are almost at the end of a long and most interesting debate, and all your Lordships will agree with me that those who have taken part in it have given us all a great deal to think about. We have had speeches from some Members of the House, such as the noble and gallant Lords, Lord Chatfield and Lord Tedder, who have spent a lifetime in defence matters; from others, such as the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, who have been concerned in the organisational and constitutional problems for very many years, as well as from a number of noble Lords who have been Service Ministers and Ministers of Defence. I shall not try to answer in detail all the varied points and points of view which have been put forward, but I can assure the House that these will be most carefully examined by my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence and by the Government. The noble Marquess the Leader of the House made a most important statement of policy yesterday at the beginning of the debate, and it seems to me therefore that my task is briefly to summarise the Government's position and to try to answer some of the points which have been raised in speeches during the debate.
It is almost exactly nine years since we had a debate of this kind in the House. The occasion was a Motion introduced by the noble Lord. Lord Chatfield, who took the opportunity of discussing the White Paper, Central Organisation for Defence, which was published in October, 1946. I have spent some time this week re-reading that debate with great interest.
436
Your Lordships will remember that it was that White Paper which set up the Defence organisation under which we are working at the present time. The Minister of Defence was appointed and his responsibilities were laid down. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, made a speech in that debate, not one word of which I think he would alter to-day, and if I may with respect pay him a tribute, it is that he has been so consistently right on this subject over the last thirty years that the very greatest weight must be attached to the views he gave us yesterday.
The proposals of 1946 evolved from the experiences of the war and of prewar days, and it was acknowledged by noble Lords on all sides of the House that they were an advance in the right direction. Now, with the experience of nine years of working the system, we have taken another step forward, not perhaps as big a step as some would like, but nevertheless one which in our opinion makes big improvements in the organisation of our defence.
In this debate there have been, I think. three main issues which have been discussed by almost every speaker: first, the integration of the Forces; secondly, the Chiefs of Staff organisation and the appointment of a chairman; and thirdly, Ministerial responsibility, which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, discussed so interestingly just now. I should like to say a word about each one of these problems. I have always had great difficulty with the word "integration." I am not at all sure that I know what it means. Everybody uses it. It seems to mean entirely different things when used by different noble Lords. In some cases it seems to mean fusion or amalgamation; in other cases not much more than close co-operation. My definition of integration in this context would be a common effort with maximum efficiency and economy and the minimum of over-lapping; and if this is what is meant by your Lordships then most certainly the Government are in full agreement. No one, for instance, has seriously suggested that any particular benefit would result from putting the members of all three Services into some common neutral-coloured uniform. The real practical issue is whether we should be wise to extend the amalgamation of certain common services—medical service, chaplains, and so on.

437
Before dealing with this topic in some detail, there is one general dilemma to which I feel I should draw your Lordships' attention. Various speakers have said how important it is—and I agree with them—that the Minister of Defence should confine his activities to broad issues of policy, strategy, and the like. He must not get buried in detailed administration. But if we amalgamate any of the common services, is it not likely that their resting place would become the Ministry of Defence? The moment this happened the Minister of Defence could not escape responsibility for detailed administration, and detailed administration in what at times may be a troublesome field. Those who advocate amalgamation see the possibility of major economies. I wonder whether those possibilities are not exaggerated and whether insufficient regard is not had to the problem of control and responsibility.
The various services—medical, ordnance, and the like—are an essential component of any operational command. My noble friend Lord Jeffreys suggested that the possibility of amalgamation might be considered by a committee of senior officers. I can tell the noble Lord that in the last twenty or thirty years this particular problem has been considered on many occasions and the conclusion has invariably been reached that amalgamation would have more disadvantages than advantages. If those who favour integration arc thinking of it primarily in terms of base or static organisations, then I agree that in organisations of this character there are many opportunities for one Service to act or to help another.
Some of the speeches I listened to yesterday gave the impression that little co-operation existed at the present time between the three Services. Of course there is room for further improvement, but there is to-day more co-operation than there has ever been before. For instance, the medical services in Ceylon, at Trincomalee, and in Malta at the Royal Naval hospitals, are responsible for treating the sick of all three Services and their families. In Singapore the British Military Hospital caters for the Navy as well as the Army, and helps out the Royal Air Force with the overflow of cases which cannot be handled at their own hospital. Again, there is very great co-operation and
438
co-ordination between the chaplaincy services at home and abroad. A Ministry of Defence Committee which included the heads of the chaplaincy departments was set up early in 1948, and as a result of the work of that Committee in many places chaplains of one Service are responsible for the men of all three.
This is even more true in the education field, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Birdwood, yesterday. In Germany, the Army Higher Education Centre caters in addition for the Royal Air Force, and in the twelve months ended March, 1954, 162 R.A.F. students attended the Army centre at Hamburg. Similarly, 71 Army students went to the R.A.F. Higher Education Centre. The British Families Education Service in Germany caters for all Services and certain other British children as well. The school population in Germany in March, 1954, consisted of 7,050 Army children, 2,350 R.A.F. children, 40 Naval children, 250 Foreign Office children and 400 others. That seems to me to be a. good example of inter-Service co-operation. Similar co-operation exists in the Far and Middle East. I will not weary your Lordships with other examples of this sort of co-operation and co-ordination, of which there are many, but I can assure the House that it is very widespread and is working very well.
We shall give careful thought to the views which have been expressed on this subject of integration, but I would suggest that more immediate and more practical benefits are likely to result from pressing on with inter-Service arrangements of the kind which I have mentioned rather than by undertaking a root and branch reorganisation, the effect of which it seems to me would almost certainly be to place a heavy administrative burden on the Ministry of Defence.
I should now like to deal with the question of the Chiefs of Staff organisation. The noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, was, I think, somewhat critical of the changes we are making, as was the noble Lord, Lord Tedder. The noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, quoted extensively from the 1946 White Paper, although he did. I think, suggest to us that during the last ten years the whole complexion of war had changed. In this connection it is interesting to bear in mind

439
the last sentence of the 1946 White Paper. It said:
"The Government are satisfied that the functions of the various parts have been defined with sufficient precision to enable the duties to be carried out effectively, while at the same time the organisation as a whole remains sufficiently flexible to allow the process of evolution to continue, as it has throughout this century, so that the central machinery for defence may be progressively adapted to changing needs."
My Lords, this is exactly what Her Majesty's Government have done. We have taken advantage of the experiences of the last few years, we have realised that we live in changing times, and we have made these changes with the object of meeting these new circumstances. This was, I think, the view of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, to whose experience we listened with much interest.
It may be said that whilst the 1946 White Paper envisaged change and development, why has this particular change of the appointment of a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff machine been made? The noble Lord, Lord Hore-Belisha, referred to paragraph 17 of the 1946 White Paper where it was said that the methods adopted in the British organisation were adopted without alteration in the machinery of the Combined Chiefs of Staff. But it is interesting to note that since 1946 American practice has changed: they now have a chairman of their Joint Chiefs of Staff. In Canada there is now a chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. And a similar form of organisation also exists in France. It is, I think, significant that, quite independently, so many countries have moved throughout the last decade in the direction of the form of organisation which we are now adopting.
The appointment of a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee will in no way diminish from the position of the Minister of Defence, as my noble friend feared. The Minister will in future be in as close contact with the Chiefs of Staff Committee as he has been in the past. He will, however, be helped in the heavy task which falls upon him by having a chairman closely associated with him. I think we were all much impressed by what the noble Lords, Lord Chatfield and Lord Tedder, said about the working of the Chiefs of Staff machine. I ought, I think,
440
to make it clear that although this chairman will be the United Kingdom representative to N.A.T.O. and to the international military bodies, it would be wrong to picture him as someone constantly flitting from one part of the world to another, for by far the greater part of his time he will be in the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord, Lord Tedder, asked me some questions about the new Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff. As the Prime Minister said in another place, this new appointment will in no way alter the rights of an individual Chief of Staff to tender his personal advice should he differ from his colleagues. The noble Lord asked, also, whether all the Chiefs of Staff would attend the Defence Committee. All four will attend, but, normally speaking, the chairman will be the spokesman. But the main question that the noble Lord asked (I know he cannot be here; he apologised because he had another engagement) was why the chairman was appointed at all. He talked about tripods and tridents. I would rather talk about coaches. A fourth wheel is a very convenient thing for a coach, and I should have thought that the answer to the appointment of a Chairman of Chiefs of Staff was quite simple. It has been generally admitted on all sides of the House that any future war will be a three-Service war. Therefore, it is desirable, without going into the question of integration, that the Chiefs of Staff Committee should give three-Service advice, and there seem to be two ways of doing it. The first way is by a committee of three Chiefs of Staff, one of whom acts quite fortuitously as the chairman. The second way is by a committee composed of three Chiefs of Staff, with a chairman specially selected for that purpose to synthesise those views on a three-Service basis. If any Chief of Staff disagrees he has the right to express his view to the Defence Committee. I should have thought, without doubt, that by far the better plan was the one with a chairman of the Committee, and that a much more balanced view would more likely be obtained that way.
The noble Lord, Lord Jeffreys, referred to the need of a combined staff working in close association with the Chiefs of

441
Staff. Such an arrangement is an essential part of the present machinery. Immediately under the Chiefs of Staff Committee is the Joint Planning Committee. This consists of the three Directors of Plans. They meet in the Ministry of Defence and they have a secretariat provided by the Ministry of Defence. In addition, they are served by a number of inter-Service planning teams. The Directors and the officers in these teams are members of their respective Service Departments but they work as a joint planning staff directly responsible to the Chiefs of Staff. Similar arrangements also exist in other parts of the Chiefs of Staff machine. My noble friend also referred to the need for some administrative staff to assist the Minister of Defence. I do not know whether he used the term "administrative" in the Army way, thinking of "A" and "Q," or whether he had in mind primarily civilian staff. It has been the policy of successive Ministers of Defence to keep the staff of the Department as small as possible, and machinery under both these heads does exist.
LORD JEFFREYS: May I interrupt my noble friend? I would say that I particularly referred to a very small staff to keep him in touch.
LORD CARRINGTON: I am glad that my noble friend and I are in complete agreement.
LORD HORE-BELISHA: May I interrupt the noble Lord? I do not know whether he has finished with the Chiefs of Staff Committee. He has given a courteous answer to part of the questions put to him and, of course, there is no question but that our organisation should he flexible. But paragraphs 17 and 18 of the White Paper say that it is a cardinal principle of our defence organisation that the Service members of the Chiefs of Staff Committee should be persons representing their own fighting Services, and that it would be wrong to have an independent chairman, because that would remove them one step from the political control. It is laid down that the Minister of Defence, who used to be the Prime Minister, should take the chair whenever he is asked to do so or whenever he wishes to do so and that he should always be in touch with them so that the political and Service elements may know one another's minds and the
442
policy may thus be moulded. The White Paper therefore rejects an independent chairman on those grounds. Is the Minister of Defence in future to take the chair or have meetings, either formal or informal, with the Chiefs of Staff, or has that system been modified? Secondly, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, asked, are we now to have present at the Defence Committee not only the three Chiefs of Staff, but also this chairman? If my noble friend is not ready to reply to that I do not mind, but I think those were really the points.
LORD CARRINGTON: Not only am I ready to reply to it, but I have already done so. I did say that the four would be present at the Defence Committee, but that normally the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff would be the spokesman.
LORD HORE-BELISHA: But will the Minister take the chair, as is laid down in the White Paper?
LORD CARRINGTON: I was just coming to that. With regard to my noble friend's first question, all this was carefully taken into account. We do not think that the results which the noble Lord seems to suggest will in point of fact happen. My right honourable friend the Minister of Defence will keep in the closest touch with the Chiefs of Staff. He meets them frequently, and there is no suggestion that because there is a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, the Minister will meet the four any less frequently than at the moment he meets the three.
My noble friend, Lord Hore-Belisha, who made a most interesting speech yesterday, also rather suggested that scientists do not play a sufficient part in the central organisation for defence. I can assure your Lordships that the Government attach the greatest importance to this matter. For instance, the chairman of the Defence Research Policy Committee attends meetings of the Chiefs of Staff Committee whenever he wishes. I doubt whether a week passes in which there are not some matters which he discusses personally with the Chiefs of Staff. Although he is not a member of the Defence Committee, his views are invariably known to, and expressed by, the Minister of Defence. The Defence Committee can and does on occasion invite him to attend, and there have been many

443
occasions in recent years when the Chiefs of Staff have asked the Scientific Adviser to the Minister of Defence to be the chairman of sub-committees to consider long-term problems. At the major exercises which the Service Departments and N.A.T.O. hold, there is always a strong representation of scientists. I can tell your Lordships that scientists are encouraged to put forward their ideas, and they are warmly welcomed by members of all three Services. I entirely agree with what my noble friend said about scientists, and the Government have this very much in mind.
The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has repeated his suggestion that there is a need for an inquiry to ensure that we are getting the best value for money and manpower. As he will know, a great deal of detailed information about both these subjects is made available in the Annual Statement on Defence, and in the Service Estimates and their accompanying memoranda. It is possible to see from all these documents, just to take an example, that the estimated expenditure on defence research and development—which the noble Viscount said he could not find yesterday—has risen from about £100 million in 1953–54 to about £160 million in 1954–55. Another example is that the Air Ministry will spend this year £186 million on buying aircraft and spares. This sort of information is subject to the scrutiny and the examination of the Select Committee on Estimates and the Public Accounts Committee.
I am sure that the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, was not suggesting that we should reveal details, for instance, of the amount of money which we spend on stockpiling atomic bombs or on the research and development of surface-to-air guided missiles, because obviously here there is a security problem. We go as far as it is prudent in making public information on defence expenditure and defence activities, and it is the Government's view that it would profit nobody to superimpose another inquiry upon the existing machinery for scrutiny and control available to Parliament in this field. My noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye suggested that the Minister of Defence should present to Parliament the Estimates for men, material and research. If he does that, he
444
must be prepared to defend the details in the Estimates. This means either that he must get involved in the whole complex problem of administration, which my noble friend, in common with almost everybody in the House, said he did not want to happen, or else, failing that, he must try to explain and defend something about which he knows very little.
The other point put to me by my noble friend was the question of the Ministry of Supply. I do not intend this afternoon to go into the whole vexed question of whether or not there should be a Ministry of Supply. All I will say is that I am not at all sure that my noble friend's suggestions are an improvement on the present system. He asked me whether the existing set-up will continue. It will, but subject, of course, to the change that the Ministry of Supply will come under the general co-ordinating powers of the Minister of Defence. I am afraid I cannot answer the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, about a Seven-Years and Ten-Years Rule, because I do not know what he means. I have never heard of a Seven-Year Rule. Perhaps that will give him encouragement, because I understood he feared it.
LORD HANKEY: Perhaps I could send them to the noble Lord. I happen to have them here.
LORD CARRINGTON: I will gladly look into them and write to my noble friend. My noble friend Lord Windlesham asked about the appointment of the Personal Staff Officer to the Minister of Defence. That appointment will now lapse, as in the future my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence will be in the closest touch with the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee.
Finally, I come to the third main issue which has been discussed in the debate, the question of ministerial responsibility and the position of the Minister of Defence. I think all your Lordships will have been most impressed by the speech we heard from the noble Lord opposite. Several noble Lords during the debate have said that they thought the right course was to give the Minister of Defence ministerial responsibility in every respect for the three Services, and to replace the Service Ministers by Ministers of State. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, asked me what is the ultimate intention of the Government, and whether or not we are

445
in broad agreement with this aim—"What we are evolving to," as he put it. The steps announced by the Prime Minister in another place a fortnight ago are a considerable strengthening of the powers of the Minister of Defence, and they certainly entail a stronger central control of policy. In future, the Minister the Defence will be responsible not only for the apportionment of resources between the three Services but also for seeing that the composition and balance of forces within the individual Services meets the country's strategic policy.
Further, as I have just mentioned to my noble friend, as a result of the transfer from the Ministry of Supply of the iron, steel, and engineering industries, that Department now comes in the main within the co-ordinating powers of the Minister of Defence. This is a considerable step forward and I tell the noble Lord frankly that it has not yet been decided what the next step should be or, indeed, if there should be a step at all. There must be a period during which we can test out the effectiveness of the new organisation.
As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we have listened to some most thoughtful and constructive speeches, and even if I had the knowledge I would hesitate without much care and thought to pass judgment on some of the proposals which have been made, but I will undertake that the speeches made yesterday and this afternoon will be most carefully studied. Some Members of the House may think we are going too slowly and that decisions on these great matters should be taken at once. They will probably agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, who in the debate in 1946 in this House said, when referring to the appointment of a Minister of Defence:
"…it was only adopting the plan set out in the Haldane Report as long ago as 1918. It is to be expected from our experience that a period of between 20 and 30 years is the time which usually elapses before something that is obviously right is put into practical effect in this country."
Well, my Lords, it is only nine years since the system which we have now altered and I think improved was first operated. That system has had a good trial and has worked well. Before making the changes which have been announced the Government have studied the matter most carefully and have come to the conclusion that the proposals are on the right
446
lines, and they are confirmed in this by the generally favourable reaction of your Lordships during this debate.
5.33 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, if I make a few concluding observations from this position, I hope it will not be assumed that I am in process of crossing the Floor of the House. I should be less than human if I did not express a most sincere appreciation of the way in which this Motion and the suggestions I was bold enough to put before the House have been received, both by the Government and by, I think, nearly all the speakers in this interesting debate. I should like to deal briefly, first of all, with two or three points made by non-Governmental speakers and then say a word about the Government policy.
The first point I should like to deal with is that it was said—I think I said it myself—that a criticism of the proposals was: "You must not overload the Minister of Defence." I could not agree more. My suggestion was not to add to his duties. Indeed, I said that he must be kept clear of practically all administrative duties. All I wart is that he should be given the power and authority to do what he is supposed to do to-day. It is quite possible to retain in the existing Service Ministries all those vast questions of administration, discipline and so on which, after all, each individual Service Minister dealt with during the war. I suggested rather quickly that they should be Ministers of State, but I intended only to indicate the position. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, that there is a good deal to be said for their retaining not only a great many of the powers which they have to-day but also their ancient titles. I think the three councils, the Army Council, the Air Council and the Board of Admiralty, would certainly find quite enough to do, just as they did in the last war.
The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield, said that all decisions must be compromise. Of course we English have a genius for compromise, and in politics, which is the art of what is possible and not an exact science like the law, compromise is a most desirable thing; but I am not sure that it is so desirable in defence. If by "compromise" is meant that every decision has to be what either the Minister of Defence or the Chairman

447
of the Chiefs of Staff Committee can get all the three Chiefs of Staff or the three Service Departments to agree to, then there is a risk, as I said yesterday, of having a lowest common denominator of compromise and not a highest common factor of efficiency. Therefore, I would reject compromise in that sense. But I do not mean that the decision or the argument of any one Department is to be taken—not at all. In fact, in very few matters in practical life does right or wrong lie wholly and exactly on one side. Often a compromise is called for, in the sense that from the hammering out of clashing intellects, minds and views, there emerges the best solution, though not necessarily one with which everybody agrees.
The only other point I would take is a comment of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, who told me that he could not be here to-day. He said: "Well, we do not want the Minister of Defence to be made into a dictator." God forbid! None of us wants dictators. But we should not be making him into a dictator. Of course, we should be giving him power and authority, really the power and authority which the Government want him to have. The power and authority over the Service Ministers is subject, of course, to agreement with his colleagues in the Cabinet. That does not make the Minister of Defence a dictator. In respect of his duties, powers and functions, he would be responsible to Parliament, exactly as, in so far as he is responsible at all, he is to-day, and as the Service Ministers are responsible. There really is no question of taking away any Parliamentary responsibility.
For the Government, the noble Marquess the Leader of the House has explained to me that he cannot be here this evening. I am grateful to him for his speech, and I should like to say at once (I have looked again at what I said) that I think the criticism he made of me was entirely deserved: that it would appear that I tended to underrate the great advance there has been in combined training and staff work. I have had some part in that work and fully appreciate it. There are still some hard-shelled separatists preaching autarchy instead of co-operation. We find them in all three Services, but today they are, or are
448
becoming, the "Blimps." I would agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Chatfield: I do not think that inter-Service relationship, which I have known for thirty-five years, has ever been better than it is to-day.
I am sure that the noble Marquess would agree with me in one matter: I want more opportunity for the officers of all three Services to carry out and practise what they learn in their combined training in any of the three Services—what I ventured to call the avenue open to talent in all the Services, to whichever Service the man himself belongs. I do not think there is anything between the Government and myself on that; nor, indeed, as I followed the speech of the noble Marquess yesterday, and of my noble friend this afternoon, is there really any difference between us in the objectives that we seek to obtain; we all want to get to the same place. I must say that yesterday I felt a little like the Presbyterian who, having had a long theological argument with a Roman Catholic priest, was told by the priest at the end of the argument: "Well, we each serve the same Master—you in your way, I in His." I think that was rather the attitude. It may of course be right. As somebody said, the more one goes on the more one is struck by the many-sidedness of truth.
My noble friend the Leader of the House, like Mr. Sidney Webb, Lord Pass-field, is a great believer in "the inevitability of gradualness." I hope that, to get us where we should hope to be, he will not think me impertinent if I say that as he developed that argument, there crept into my mind some words of Robert Louis Stevenson, that
"To travel hopefully is better than to arrive."
That might be a consoling text for the Minister of Transport to put up on some of our roads. But I sincerely hope that my noble friend the Leader of the House is right and that I am wrong, and that what the Government have done will give, without undue delay, and without waste of time, money and resources, those results in co-operation, combined action and decisive decision that we all want to see. Nobody will be more pleased than I if that is so. I most sincerely hope that, if we do not get where we all want to get to as quickly as he hopes we shall, the Government will not hesitate to have

449
second thoughts—indeed, they quite rightly say that they are thinking all the time—and will make proposals for a further and faster programme. If they saw fit to do that, then I am sure that Parliament and the country would support them. My Lords, I thank the House for their courtesy in this debate and for the kind things that have been said, and I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

POST OFFICE DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCE
5.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL THE EARL OF LISTOWEL rose to call attention to the Report on Post Office Development and Finance (Cmd. 9576); and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, a discussion on the affairs of the Post Office is bound to be something of an anti-climax after a debate on Defence, but I am sure we all look forward to hearing from the Front Bench the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. I wish him good fortune when his turn comes. I think a newcomer is particularly welcome when he is obviously in a position to repair the ravages which age makes on every Front Bench. At the same time, I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate what I say, and indeed understand my point of view, if I say that we are sorry that the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, is no longer in charge of the Post Office. I say that both because it is always an advantage for a Minister to be in a Department, as he is bound to be better informed than any Minister outside the Department, however competent that Minister may be, and because we on this side of the House have learned to appreciate keenly the noble Earl's thoroughness, fairness and courtesy in debate. I hope that, like so many ex-Ministers, he will in due course reappear with an even more distinguished ministerial title.
The White Paper to which I am directing attention was published a fortnight ago, and I think enough time has passed for those of your Lordships who are interested in the Post Office to form an opinion about the important changes it sets out in Post Office policy. First of all, I must frankly express some regret about the timing of these changes and the way they were announced in Parliament,
450
If they had been published before or after the Budget the public would have had a far better chance of realising their great importance. I personally should much have preferred a full and detailed statement by the Postmaster General, the responsible Minister, to the passing reference of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of his Budget Speech. I think that would have been a far more satisfactory Parliamentary procedure. It is true, of course—this no doubt was the Chancellor's argument—that these changes will affect the economy of the country as well as of the Post Office and the millions who use its services. On the other hand, their effect on the Post Office and the general public will be much greater than their effect on the balance of payments.
Referring directly to the White Paper, I should like to start by saying something about the new charges. If we accept the principle, as I think everyone now does, that the Post Office must pay its own way like any other commercial undertaking, its charges are bound to keep pace with the rising cost of its services. The cost of labour and materials has been rising steadily since the war. Your Lordships will remember the increase in postage fees and, more recently, in the rates for inland telegrams. But these increases have not been sufficient to meet a mounting bill. The Post Office is now faced with the prospect of a deficit of £3 million next year unless its charges go up again. With this prospect in front of it, I do not think anyone would blame the Post Office for increasing its charges again before it gets into the red, or for budgeting for a modest surplus of £5 million, which I think is quite small on an annual turnover of about £300 million. What I think the public is entitled to expect in return is that the Post Office will do its utmost to make its services cheaper and more efficient. The White Paper shows quite clearly that this is intended. The references to the introduction of trunk dialling and further postal mechanisation indicate that the need for economy and efficiency is fully realised. It is encouraging to know that these and other improvements are well under way. I hope that this aspect of the White Paper will not be overshadowed, as there is a risk that it may be, by the new charges and the new financial arrangements.
I think I ought to say one word of caution. It is easy for an economy campaign to go too far. Fresh technical developments, such as those mentioned in the White Paper, will be checked—it is these technical developments which will make a good contribution to greater efficiency—if less money is spent on scientific research. Those of your Lordships who have visited the Post Office research station at Dollis Hill are familiar with the admirable work it has done and is still doing. This work ought to go on. It is always a false economy, in the long run, to cut expenditure on research. I hope that the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, can tell me that this will not happen.
I should like to make one brief comment on the effect of the proposed charges and capital savings on our national economy. I do so mainly because I take a different view from, and I am not nearly so sanguine as, Mr. Butler. It may turn out, as Mr. Butler expects, that the reduction in the programme of capital expenditure on the telephone service will release labour and materials for the production of exports. I certainly hope it will. But as we have not been told the amount of the reduction, or the industries that will be affected, it is really impossible for us to form any opinion. For example, the electronics industry provides equipment for the Armed Services, the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. There is no guarantee that if labour and materials are released by smaller Post Office demands, more of its products will go to export.
Dealing with other aspects of these changes and their impact on the national economy, I am fairly certain that the higher telephone rentals and increased charges for local calls will not mean that people will spend much less money on telephones. The average person with a telephone is not going to make fewer calls or have his line disconnected and removed just because he has to pay more for his telephone. I think noble Lords will agree that that is not his likely reaction. He is far more likely to draw on his savings or to ask for a better wage or a higher salary to cover the extra cost of the telephone. The higher cost of the telephone in the homes of thousands of skilled workers (for it should not be forgotten that the telephone is far from a
452
middle-class luxury) will, I fear, add to the temptation to make further wage claims. I agree with what was said by my noble friend Lord Pethick-Lawrence in our debate last week on economic affairs, that high prices for what people regard as necessities are not likely to mop up purchasing power; they are far more likely to increase inflationary pressure on wage and price levels, and that is exactly what we all, on both sides of the House, most want to avoid.
I am more worried about the effect of curtailed capital development on the telephone waiting-list, and should like to try to analyse what the effect is likely to be. We are told in the White Paper that the number of new applicants is now running at about half a million persons a year. Under the revised capital development programme the Post Office expects to install about 1½ million new telephones in the next three years. If my mathematics are right (this is a fairly easy sum, though I often go wrong on simple calculations), it follows that, unless the new charges put off a very large number of new applicants, there will be no appreciable further reduction in the waiting-list during that period of three years. This means that the waiting-list, after having fallen steadily from the peak figure of 500,000 to 600,000 applicants a few years after the war, will be frozen at or near the current figure of 380,000 applicants. When one remembers that 40,000 of the current applicants have already been waiting for three years or longer and that 70,000 of them run small businesses in towns or in the country—shopkeepers, small farmers and so on—it is obvious that the delay is already causing very serious and considerable hardship. In many households and small businesses a telephone is an acute need and I am surprised that, in view of this situation, Mr. Butler gave the Post Office telephone service such low priority. I dare say that public reaction since his announcement will make him think again about this before the Spring Budget.
While personally I regard the total amount required to be raised by the new charges as probably inevitable in view of rising costs, I think that more than one opinion could be held about the way in which the new charges are divided between the postal and telephone services and also about their incidence upon the user. Let me give your Lordships one

453
example. The small shopkeeper and other business users will be particularly hard hit. They will pay the higher charge for local calls and the all-round increase of £1 in rentals on top of the new differential between business and residential subscribers. It seems particularly unfair to make the businessman in London and other big cities pay more now, as the Post Office is already taking a profit on his telephone. There is a much stronger case in regard to residential subscribers on whose telephones the Post Office have been making a loss.
I should like to make one suggestion which perhaps the noble Lord opposite will be good enough to consider and pass on to the Minister. Why not scrap altogether the differential between business and residential subscribers, instead of just reducing it by £1 as was done in the White Paper? Do not let us forget that this differential was introduced to stimulate the demand for telephones. That was its purpose. Obviously now it is ridiculous that a difference should continue to be made when the demand considerably outstrips the possibility of supply. It is complete madness that this differential should he retained. I should have thought that this would have appealed to Her Majesty's Government as a matter of principle for another reason, for the Government believes in helping private enterprise. Here, surely, is an opportunity to give real help to the small man and to stimulate healthy competition which all of us, on both sides of the House, regard as a good thing in the right place.
The most welcome change in the White Paper is the restoration to the Post Office of its pre-war financial relationship with the Treasury. Your Lordships will remember that the Bridgeman Committee regarded the principle of "self-contained finance," which has been suspended ever since the war (it was thrown over at the beginning of the war) as the most important of the reforms it recommended, and I am glad that Her Majesty's Government have decided to go back to this principle and to limit the amount that the Treasury can take in any one year from the revenue of the Post Office. The new arrangement will enable the Post Office, after it has paid a fixed sum to the Treasury, to keep the surplus, as I understand the White Paper, in a credit account. In return for an annual
454
payment of £5 million for the next five years it will be allowed to keep whatever net profit is left after this charge has been paid.
I should like a little explanation from the noble Lord opposite as to whether the Post Office will be free, as it was before the war, to use this or any surplus it may get from its revenue from year to year, in any manner it likes, including the improvement of its services; or whether this surplus will now be treated as a reserve fund which can be used only to meet a deficit. If it is no more than a "nest egg" against a rainy day, the new arrangement will give the Post Office much less financial freedom than it had before the war and much less freedom than the B.B.C., which also makes a fixed annual payment to the Treasury. In one respect these new arrangements with the Treasury are a real improvement on the pre-war scheme. The Bridgeman Committee failed to find any, yardstick to measure the amount of the annual payment to the Treasury. The White Paper relates the payment to tax liability. It is not unreasonable that the Post Office should pay a lump sum in lieu of tax and this will certainly be a useful yardstick for the measurements of future payments, although a fixed amount cannot be a precise equivalent of tax.
Reading between the lines of the White Paper, I find it easy to see the Treasury side of this bargain. Here I come to my most serious criticism. This is a really extraordinary provision. The first section of Appendix 2, which sets out the new arrangement with the Treasury, suggests a trial period of five years. I quote the words of the White Paper:
"These arrangements will have effect for a trial period of five years commencing 1956–57."
From these words it would appear that the new relationship between the Post Office and the Treasury is no more than an experiment, and that if the experiment is unsuccessful it will, presumably, be dropped. Nothing of this kind is mentioned in the Bridgeman Committee Report. It recommended a review of the amount of the Post Office payment to the Treasury after three years, but there is absolutely no. suggestion, in that Report, of a trial period for the principle of "self-contained finance." I very much hope that the noble Lord will tell me that the "trial period" does not refer to the new

455
relationship with the Treasury and that he will be able to explain exactly what is on trial. The words are there and they must be explained, otherwise they will, I think, lead to all sorts of misunderstanding.
May I conclude by referring briefly to one very broad and important issue of policy. I cannot help feeling that an opportunity has been missed in the making of these new arrangements with the Treasury to review the whole background of Post Office finance. A lot of fresh thinking is needed on both sides of the House, and especially on the part of Ministers who have the inestimable advantage, which we lack, of the best expert advice. No one would wish to jump to conclusions before such a review has been undertaken. After all, the fact is that, whether under the new financial arrangements or the old, the Treasury will still in practice have the last word about the financial policy of the Post Office. But the Treasury, with its natural and proper bias in favour of economy in public expenditure and raising more revenue, is not the right authority to be charged with responsibility for any large and expanding commercial undertaking like the Post Office. Surely the time has come to consider whether we cannot give to the Post Office at least as much freedom to decide its own policy as any great industry or public utility in public ownership at the present time.
It may be the case that this degree of autonomy is impracticable while the Post Office remains a Government Department. If that is so, we should again examine the possibility of making the Post Office an independent public authority working under a statutory board. Your Lordships will remember that this method of running the Post Office was considered by the Bridgeman Committee, and that the Committee decided against making it a public utility company or statutory corporation. But, of course, the evidence received by the Bridgeman Committee as long ago as 1932 was very different from what it would have been if the Committee had been sitting to-day or last year. In the 'thirties, there were no public undertakings at all comparable in size or extent of operation with the Post Office. Now we have the coalmining industry, the railways and the electricity industry, all run
456
as public undertakings on a national scale. Their experience might well throw new light on the management of the Post Office.
I hope your Lordships will forgive me for thinking aloud in this way. I am only trying to contribute to the general pool of critical and constructive inquiry, and I am doing it in the hope that I may encourage others with much better advice and information than I have to do likewise. Above all, I hope I shall not be misunderstood because I have said it would be a good thing if the Post Office were less dependent on the Treasury. This is no reflection on the Post Office or on the senior officials of the Post Office. On the contrary, it is because of the proved ability of the senior officials and the spirit of public service that runs right through the Post Office organisation that many people would like it to have more freedom than it has in the management of its affairs. I beg to move for Papers.
6.3 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I feel that I must apologise to the House for asking your Lordships to listen to me twice in one afternoon, but as a member of the Post Office Advisory Board I thought I might say a few words on this matter. There is no doubt that the finances of the Post Office must be put on a sounder basis as soon as possible if any proper capital development is to take place. Nearly 380,000 people are waiting for telephones, as the noble Earl said, and 40,000 have been waiting for more than three years, which of course is a very long period. I am delighted to note that a limit is now to be placed on the use of the Post Office as a revenue-producing instrument for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With this limit reimposed since the war, I think it may now be possible for the Post Office to put its house in order, to get on with its capital commitments and give the people telephones. I think the limit before the war was £10,750,000—I believe the figure now is to be £5 million.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, suggested that people would not spend less on their telephones in the future, with the higher rentals and call charges. I hope that that will be so, because it is what the Post Office wants: it wants a little more money. I fully support the proposed increase in telephone tariffs. I need hardly say that the main reason for

457
it is the increase in wages. The Post Office will have to find something like another £3 million for wage increases in the telephone service by 1956–57. It is the same story, even with minor stores, the cost of which adds to running expenses and which will have increased by £1 million in the same period.
There is also, of course, the old bugbear of depreciation. As the noble Earl knows, in the Post Office this is linked to historic replacement, which is quite insufficient to replace machines and telephone exchanges and so on at the present time. I believe that the life of the average telephone plant is only somewhere about twenty-five years, and in fact it has become necessary to raise £12,500,000 more for depreciation. The consequence of all this is that the telephone service must increase its revenue by £19 million, and I can assure the noble Earl that great care has been taken as to how this sum should be apportioned with regard to rentals, local calls, trunk calls and so on, as between London and the provinces. I understand that the biggest shortfall is in rentals, which fail to cover the costs of installation. I believe that in London the average cost of telephone installation is £9 10s. a year, and in the provinces about £12 12s., whereas the subscriber pays only £6 4s. in the provinces. That is a very large difference. I am afraid the fact is that the Post Office is being driven to increase its charges by rising costs, but from what I know of the Post Office organisation, I am,sure that its work is conducted with every consideration for economy and that there will now be a chance for the Post Office to get on a sound financial basis.
6.8 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMER: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the Government on the publication of this Report. Like the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, I naturally welcome this as a step towards giving the Post Office financial autonomy. Like him, also, I should like to see this carried further. I do not altogether share his concern that it may be on an experimental basis, because even if it were not it is not difficult for Parliament to change the system hack again at any time it wishes. The Report gives heartening evidence of the tremendous work done by the Post Office in the years since the war, and I think the staff of the Post
458
Office, at all levels, and particularly on the telephone side, deserve the congratulations of the pubic for their really remarkable achievements under conditions of shortage of equipment and stringent capital economy. In fact, the continuous developments which are taking place in the telephone service are steadily improving that service, and the part that the Post Office is playing in the development of the new transatlantic telephone cable, amongst many other developments, is a matter of considerable satisfaction to us.
We cannot, however, afford to be complacent, as in 1954 we had only 12·15 telephones per 100 of the population, and our rate of increase is practically the lowest of all heavily industrialised countries with the exception of the United States, where they are far ahead of us in their telephone service. If we were to have a telephone service in this country comparable to that of the United States—and in that country they realise to a much greater degree than we do the value of the telephone as a time-saver and as a means of increasing business—we should to-day have some 16,600,000 telephones rather than the 6,500,000 that we now have. But comparisons of that sort are of relatively little value. What really matters is that at no time should trade and industry he held up by inadequate communications, which must be kept in step with the expansion of industrial activity. For that reason I view with some disquiet the statement in the Report that, in view of the economic situation, the Post Office must accept some slowing down in the immediate future. I think it is disastrous to cut down any form of activity which might increase our production. After all, there are many non-productive activities of the Government which can well afford reduction.
The decision to increase telephone rentals is inevitable, I think, and I agree with the remarks which have been made about differentials. There is one point which has not been mentioned and which I believe is relevant to the increased rentals—that is, that the Post Office should revert to quarterly statements to its subscribers. The sums involved will be more. Every other public utility renders quarterly statements to its customers, and I see no reason why the Post

459
Office should not do likewise, as indeed they used to do.
I have two specific suggestions to put forward, and though I do not expect the noble Lord to reply to them to-day, he may care to pass then on to the Postmaster General for consideration. They are both matters of principle. In some countries there is no charge made for local telephone calls, the rental taking into account an average number of such calls. It seems to me that there may be two advantages in such a system. One is that it would obviate a considerable amount of accounting and book-keeping, Secondly, as the rentals would have to be somewhat increased to take into account these local calls, it might reduce the demand for telephones, because, when all is said and done, presumably it costs the Post Office the same to install and maintain a telephone that is little used as to install and maintain a telephone that is used a great deal.
There is another problem which arises not infrequently in the commercial and industrial world—that is, when special installations or special equipment are required. The delay in the provision of this equipment is deplorable. It seems to me that the Post Office finds itself in somewhat of a quandary when it is asked to install these special services. The reason for this is that these jobs are often expensive and time-taking, and necessarily eat into capital allocation which could otherwise be employed in reducing the waiting list or in improving the general service one way or another. I suggest that those who want these special services—and they are quite numerous—should be allowed to employ approved private contractors to install and maintain such equipment, subject, naturally, to approval and inspection by the Post Office to make sure that it is up to the required standard. This system is in use to a certain degree in some applications to-day, but I think there is room for it to be widened. If that were done, the Post Office, the public and the specialist user would all benefit. One other reason sometimes put forward for the delay in these special installations is that the Post Office is unable to obtain deliveries from the manufacturers. One extraordinary fact comes out, however—the private purchaser does not seem to suffer the same delay in delivery of equipment as the Post Office does.
460
A short time ago, some alteration to the telephone at my home necessitated a visit from a Post Office telephone sales representative. I happen to live about a mile and a half from the village, which resulted in the sales representative having to travel about fifteen miles by bus from the town where his office is situated and then having to walk to my house. He did not complain, but it struck me as wasteful. It is clearly a question of cost, but it seemed to me that the time of a qualified telephone sales representative—and they are of no use unless they are qualified—would justify the provision of cars in rural areas for this purpose. There is one point on the general services of the Post Office which I find disturbing, and that is the amount of work the Post Office does free of charge for other Government Departments. According to the Commercial Report of the Post Office for 1953–54, the Post Office carried out services amounting to £17½ million without payment from the other Departments. The Report indicates that these other Departments are to make an added contribution of £2 million this year, but it seems to me that the situation next year will be that if the other Government Departments continue to use the Post Office services at the same rate—and there is no reason to suppose that they will use them less—the Post Office will be making a contribution of £5 million directly to the Treasury, under this White Paper, and will also be carrying out work for other Government Departments amounting to £15½ million. That seems to be an unnecessary burden on the Post Office. There is a slender hope that if the other Government Departments had to pay for these services out of their normal Treasury grants, they might be encouraged to economise.
Apart from the question of costs the sheer volume of work carried out by the Post Office for other Departments has increased enormously. In these same commercial accounts there is a heading "Counter Services," under which the business carried out amounts to £1,241 million. Out of this vast sum, apparently only £85 million represented the sale of postal stamps, the rest being the sale of national insurance stamps, payment of family allowances, Service allowances and the like. This seems to me to put a considerable strain on the counter clerks in the Post Office, who are expected to be mines of information on an extraordinary

461
miscellany of subjects. It also means that if one finds a queue in the local Post Office it is likely that the people in front are carrying out any sort of business, buying a dog licence or drawing their family allowance, rather than carrying out postal business. As we have, on the whole, pretty efficient Post Office services, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, I think there is a danger of overloading them beyond their capacity, to the detriment of their primary purpose, which is to provide an efficient postal service. I welcome this Report as an objective, clear and useful disclosure of what is going on in one of our most important national businesses.
6.18 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I should like to extend a warm word of thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for the kind words he has offered to me to-day and for the welcome he has given me as a participant in what I may be justified in describing as a sort of pas de quatre. If the music can be played for a few minutes longer. I think that when it ends we shall be more or less in step. I am glad that the noble Earl has called attention to this Report I hope he will not think I am simply being conventional in saying so I really am grateful, because it gives me a chance, in my turn, of calling attention to some aspects of the Report. In so doing, perhaps I can clarify and resolve certain misunderstandings which I believe exist in some quarters.
I should like to assure the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, that I do not for a moment intend to imply that he is guilty of any such misunderstandings—I think his capabilities are rather too well known for that—and possibly I should have said that they exist in other quarters. They exist, I think, because the public service provided by the Post Office is so much and in so many ways a part of everyday life that it tends to be taken for granted, and there is not always the due appreciation of the problems of such an immense and vigorously growing institution. The White Paper (and, if I may say so, I think it is a very good White Paper) sets out a full and thorough analysis of the plans and needs of this large organisation as they are at present formulated, and I do not think it is necessary for me to go through its contents. However, I do want to take up a few
462
minutes of your Lordships' time to discuss three main features—namely, the revival of self-contained finance, the investment programme and the development of the telephone system, and, thirdly, the pursuit of sound financial and price policies.
May we go back to 1932? The work of the Bridgeman Committee resulted in reforms which were very beneficial to the operations of the Post Office. They limited the annual contribution to the Exchequer to a fixed sum, beyond which the surplus could be used for purposes of Post Office advancement. This meant that the Post Office could run its own affairs with initiative, enterprise and economy. Consequently it had improved relations with the public, who could better understand the commercial basis of its activities. Also there was no longer need for such meticulous Treasury control, and provisions for this were set down as well. Unhappily, this state of affairs had to be suspended during the war. It is now the intention to introduce a system having precisely similar effects and advantages, although we think we have made some even more desirable improvements, and I am genuinely glad to know that riot only the noble Earl but the other two noble Lords who have spoken are generally in agreement.
The first thing I want to mention is the question of the annual contribution that the Post Office makes to the Exchequer. I do not think I need apologise for repeating what the noble Earl has said, because this is a subject on which there has been some misunderstanding and I should like to get it completely clear, and because it is one of the major factors affecting the plan to put the Post Office on the new self-sufficient basis. It is not in any way a new burden; the Post Office has always made such a contribution, and it has in fact been regarded by some opinions as a kind of affable milch-cow in this respect. In the past the contribution has amounted to the full extent of the actual surplus or, under the pre-war Bridgeman system, to the amount of some £10¾ million; and even this was arrived at by reference to the actual surplus of the three previous years, so that it may be regarded as a somewhat arbitrary way of assessing the contribution. But, what is more, the figure of £10¾ million was applying on a turnover much smaller than is the case to-day.

463
This, in turn, is due to a combination of the rising costs of the past and the greatly increased volume of business. Your Lordships will have seen from the White Paper that the proposed annual contribution is to be £5 million, and I hope to show that this assessment is not only reasonable but properly justifiable.
For long the Post Office has been virtually free from taxation, and in this connection I would mention as examples income tax, purchase tax, profits tax and motor vehicle duties. Quite simply, then, the amount has been arrived at, even if in rather round figures, by having regard to the amount of these and other taxes which a business the size of the Post Office would normally pay. In addition, this contribution is to be treated as an expense in the Post Office commercial accounts before the balance is struck to ascertain any surplus, and the whole proposal for the contribution and its handling is therefore a sound and valuable move in the plan to allow the Post Office to stand on its own feet.
On the subject of the surplus itself, the White Paper says that it may be carried forward in the balance sheet as a revenue reserve and used, if necessary, to offset any deficits subsequently occurring, which is the point the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was worried about. One would hope that if the Post Office is to be run on more commercial lines there will not often be any deficit, at least other than a planned one; and if this hope is well founded, I do want to guard against any impression of surpluses simply piling up in reserve. In fact, I want to make it clear that such surplus money would be at the disposal of the Post Office for its own progressive purposes and could be taken into consideration in the balancing of its budget, for which primary responsibility now rests squarely on the Post Office. With this increased responsibility for its financial affairs, and bearing in mind that its tariffs are no longer to be put to fiscal use, I could, I think, almost describe the effect, at any rate in principle, as putting the Post Office in a rather similar position to a nationalised industry. It could not be so completely and remain consistent with being a Government Department, as the noble Earl suggested.
I hope that what I have said so far does not imply that there would not be a
464
proper measure of Treasury control, or that it might not be necessary. The noble Earl does not think it is. But I think the idea he has is perhaps a little premature. I do not want to say more than that, but naturally I shall see to it that his ideas are conveyed to the proper quarter. In the circumstances, I think that such control is obviously necessary. There must be, for instance, consultation with the Treasury on those matters of policy which, being of the kind dealt with fairly fully in the White Paper, I do not think I need go into. There would have to be a proper degree of control as well in those matters such as staff pay and establishment questions, where it is obviously essential that there should be uniform standards of Government practice. What is also important, the rate of development undertaken by the Post Office would have to be regulated by the capital investment control that might at any given time be made necessary by the nation's economic situation, in the same way as would apply to any other public authority.
The problem has really been to tie up the seemingly opposed considerations of. on the one hand, relative freedom of action, and, on the other, the required measure of control, and we think that a good answer has been found for the present situation. I would say, so far as Treasury relations are concerned, that we believe the old Bridgeman formula does embody the right spirit in well-considered terms, and will provide a good foundation on which to build a sound structure of good practices, in which I do not think I need have any hesitation in saying that we feel perfectly confident both sides will co-operate successfully. I should rather like to emphasise this aspect of building on a foundation, because we do see it as such, and not as a rigid system that could act as a brake on the progress we are trying to achieve. I think paragraph 7 of Appendix II of the White Paper provides sufficient scope for building such a workable structure, if I may so call it, and it is in rather the same spirit that a five-year trial period is proposed. We think it desirable that there should be time for the system to be carefully constructed before it is more closely defined. I can assure the noble Earl that this is the underlying intention of the trial period, and that there

465
is no reason to fear that, because it is subject to review, it is precarious, but that the latitude which is left in this matter is a deliberate one to allow for whatever improvement may be found desirable in the light of later experience.
I should like to leave the more general question of the principles affecting Post Office finance and turn to the present programme of investment. The problem which is causing a big headache is, of course, the demand for telephones. I have deliberately said "demand," and not the supply of telephones, because on the supply side there has been notable progress, and that has involved an ever-increasing rate of installation. It has not, unfortunately, achieved a comparable decrease in the waiting list, and while I do not want to put a further mass of figures before your Lordships, I have picked out one example which I think is illuminating. On September 30, 1953, there were 384,000 applicants on the waiting list. Between that date and September 30 of this year, the Post Office connected 815,000 new telephones, and we find that on September 30 of this year the number of applicants on the waiting list remains at 384,000.
These are telling figures in indicating the size and scope of the problem. Perhaps I had better add that the 384,000 people now waiting are not the same 384,000 that were waiting in 1953, although the noble Earl has pointed out that 40,000 of them are. I am glad to be able to say to the. noble Earl that this number is already falling and, I think, compares quite well with the number of 125,000 who, at the equivalent date four years ago, had been waiting for over three years. Not only do these figures stress the size of the demand, but the fact that so many people want a telephone reflects a measure of the present national prosperity, and also points to the fact that the present charges for service are relatively moderate. I should like to come back to that point in a moment.
Before I do, I should like first to give a little consideration to the programme which is now laid out for capital development in the field of telephones, because it m 1st clearly be borne in mind when discussing the question of charges, as well as being a good indication of the energetic steps the Post Office are taking to cope with the problem. It is important
466
that it be understood that the capital sums which are budgeted for the next three years, and which will result in the installation of 1½ million new telephones, not only represent money well and progressively spent on the new services, but also are of considerable benefit to the efficiency of the existing one. In other words, it is properly applied capital that will give a return to those whom the Post Office is seeking to serve—that is, the users of the services. I might add that there is considerable benefit as well to the Post Office organisation, in that it is now possible to make a firm plan for three-years ahead, and is much better than the present rather hand-to-mouth existence. It is the fact that this plan has been made that enables me to anticipate with some confidence the considerable progress I have just mentioned. In common with the noble Earl, we might well have liked an even greater investment programme, were it not for the fact that there is a physical limit to the expansion which can take place, apart from the other factors which have been mentioned that influence the rate of capital development at the present time.
Since I have mentioned the necessity for limitation, perhaps your Lordships would like me to say here and now that the Post Office programme is one of continuing expansion. The point I am trying to make is only that the rate of expenditure cannot be permitted to rise faster than has been already planned. You might also think me not quite honest if I did not say that, despite this continuing expansion, there may still be a waiting list of some sort at the end of the next three years. There is the question of the buildings and the elaborate equipment required, and it is not exactly easy to predict future demand. On the other hand, that demand may be affected by economic conditions, or even, perhaps, by the proposed tariff changes. It is also rather difficult to forecast what may be the effects of the new methods and processes which are now in the research stage. I know that that is a point which also worries the noble Earl, and I am glad to be able to say, that we completely agree with him that cutting down on research is the falsest of economies. I should like to state quite definitely that the amount to be spent on research has not been, and will not be, curtailed. Indeed, I think if that were done it would

467
undermine the next three years' programme quite seriously, the programme which will represent, I think, a positive achievement in terms of efficiency and the number of subscribers connected, and in fact promises to be bigger than anything we have done before.
I have now dealt with something of the financial status of the Post Office, and of the capital investment programme. I must come on to the question of how tariffs and charges can best be brought into line with the overall conception. If the self-contained and more commercial status is to be maintained, there are two obvious primary financial tasks to be undertaken. The first is the balancing of the budget, and the second is the charging of economic prices. As I should like to discuss the budget first, I think it might be a convenient point to have a word or two—as they would be involved in budgeting—on the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Cromer. He wants his bill a little more frequently. I can quite understand that it would be a convenience, but I do not think it would be justified at present if that practice were to be resumed, for the simple reason that it would cost something like an extra £1 million a year and would require probably some 1.300 more staff, with the necessary building for them to work in. Consequently, it is not very practicable. I would also remind the noble Earl, with reference to his suggestion that a certain number of calls should be included in the rent, that that is already the position. Residential rentals now include 100 free calls.
THE EARL OF CROMER: The point of my observation was that if you could get away from charging at all for these calls it would presumably save a lot of book-keeping. I am well aware that residential subscribers get 100 free calls, but if all local calls could be included in the rental it would save a lot of accounting.
LORD CHESHAM: It would, indeed; but I think it would lead to a great deal of trouble with accountants, because I do not think it would be practicable to include all free calls. That would be a most unfair method of subsidisation of one subscriber by another. I do not hold out much hope that we could make any substantial difference in the question of
468
free calls other than what is already proposed. As regards the other points, I think it would be best if I simply said that I will see that they are passed on.
May I now return to the budget. The biggest problem is that of rising costs, by which I mean the rise in the actual costs, such as increases in transport charges and wage rates, and not merely the higher expenditure due to expanded business. The main item is, of course, wage increases. Largely, these are, as the noble Earl knows, rather beyond the Post Office control, as most of them stern from awards made by the Civil Service Arbitration Tribunal which we are bound to accept. Such increases will, for instance, add £17 million to the bill to be footed in the corning year, which, for a sum that does not necessarily add anything at all to the efficiency of the Post Office, at first sight probably seems rather formidable. At any rate, it would do if it was the Post Office policy just to pass on such charges as they arise; but fortunately it is not.
If your Lordships recall paragraph 32 on page 9 of the White Paper, you will remember that there is there set out, much more clearly than I could put it, the proposed method of handling this increase. It will be seen that less than half this sum yet remains to be found. Attention at this point must be turned towards the tariffs. In order once more to underline the principle which we feel must govern tariffs, I do not think I can do better than quote the words of the White Paper at paragraph 26:
"Prices charged should be economic and related to cost, for only on such a realistic basis can the fresh expenditure of capital be justified. Many of the present Post Office tariffs do not cover costs."
I feel that the explanations that then follow are full and clear, so I want to touch on only two points that affect the telephone services. The charges that are at present made are uneconomic because they do not reflect the current value of the plant involved and the costs of maintaining and extending it at current price levels. In other words, subscribers do not pay the value of the plant they are wearing out, and our real assets are being run down in a way that can only lead to the risk of a dangerously heavy load to be borne in the future. In addition, the demand for a service that represents such

469
relatively good value for money is stimulating the requirement to expand to a degree that is hardly justifiable if the principle we have been discussing is to be accepted. To put matters right, it will be necessary to raise another £12½ million and put it to depreciation account. Apart from the fact that this action will be helpful towards the financing of the investment programme, it carries to a logical conclusion the policy of making supplementary financial provisions which began when the noble Earl himself was Postmaster General.
My other point is concerned with the differential that has always existed between different classes of telephone subscriber in the matter of their respective rentals. The fact that the residential user enjoys the benefit of a rent differential £3 lower than his business colleague seems not very equitable in view of the fact that there appears to be no reason now other than tradition why he should do so. Moreover, there is no ascertainable difference of cost between their two services. Table VIII at page 11 of the White Paper shows quite graphically that the residential user is enjoying what amounts to a degree of subsidy on his service, and I think it is quite plainly right that it should be corrected in some measure.
LORD MATHERS: May I ask if that includes the party line? Is that taken into account? What progress is being made in providing individual lines instead of the party line which is sometimes most inconvenient?
LORD CHESHAM: I quite see the noble Lord's point on party lines. As I think is fairly clear, the policy of the Post Office is not to have party lines, or shared lines, permanently. It is hoped that they are a makeshift only. They will be kept in being no longer than is necessary to solve the telephone problem. Incidentally, I should like to draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that the number of party lines in use in the United States, with their wonderful telephone system, is much greater than is the case even now in emergency in this country. Apparently they use it as a permanent system. In fact, something like two-thirds of their subscribers are on party lines, whereas only about one-third in this country are. It is purely a measure which will be wiped out when
470
the demand for telephones can he satisfied.
Exactly what should be the extent of this measure by which the differential should be corrected is, I admit, a matter of judgment. We in this case think that the right adjustment has been made. I can quite well understand, though, that there may be other opinions that we have gone either too far or not far enough. To those who think we have gone too far, I would say that if they will refer to Table IX on page, 12 they will find that not only have the charges become more realistic, as has been intended, but that there also remains a degree of subsidisation which surely could not exist if we had gone too far. To those, on the other hand, who think we have not gone far enough—and the noble Earl expressed his views on this matter in quite logical terms, although I think he must mean that, if business users should pay less, residents should pay more—
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: Yes.
LORD CHESHAM: I quite see his reasoning there—I would say that there are practical limits is which one can go in any one operation. This is one of the instances which I think may have to be looked at later in the light of experience, and perhaps some further adjustment would be made if it appeared to be the right course.
I do not think it is necessary for me to go into any further detail about the remainder of the proposed tariff increases, except that I must give a word or two of explanation about one exception where we have departed somewhat from the principle that charges should be realistic and services should pay their way, or at least not be unduly subsidised. There is not, frankly, much justification, on the basis of realistic costs, of raising the tariff on inland letters over two ounces. However, we feel it right to do so at present because the services that really should stand an increase—that is, the fees for registered letters and the money order poundage—would create some hardship to those members of the community to whom these services are of real value and who are not always able to carry an extra burden of charge. We want to postpone for as long as possible any increase in those services. Similarly, the foreign printed paper rate should, logically, be increased, but this is open to objection as

471
being perhaps an avoidable obstacle in our essential need to export at the present time.
My Lords, I have spoken at some length. Even so, I have covered quite a wide field at fairly considerable speed. If I have achieved my object of justifying the new arrangement for the Post Office finances, your Lordships will realise that our tariffs will still be quite reasonable. To give one last figure, the proposals will bring the average of telephone charges to 80 per cent. above pre-war, and the average for inland mails to 98 per cent. above pre-war, both of which I think may be held to compare favourably with the 175 per cent. increase that has taken place since pre-war years in wages, and the 150 per cent. rise which has taken place in the case of plant costs. As I say, if I have achieved my object, I shall have done something to allay the fears of the noble Earl for the future development of the Post Office. I trust that my remarks, together with the constructive technical forecasts outlined in the White Paper, to some of which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has already
472
referred, will have given your Lordships, and particularly the noble Earl, some evidence of the lively and progressive attitude which prevails, and which will result in the provision of the efficient services that every user has a right to expect, and it is not only the duty but the pride of the Post Office to give.
6.51 p.m.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord opposite for a clear speech and a simple explanation of an exceedingly complicated White Paper: I am sure that it will have been of use to the Post Office, as well as to the House. I can assure the noble Lord that if his ability is not in time appreciated on that side of the House, we shall find a great deal of work for him to do on this side. I am also grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Cromer, and to the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, for their well-informed and constructive contributions. I beg leave of the House to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at eight minutes before seven o'clock.