Sitting of 10 July 1957

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

    Mr. Bulganin's Letter (Prime Minister's Reply)
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the emphasis in the Prime Minister's reply to the Soviet Prime Minister on restoring a state of affairs in Hungary consistent with the United Nations Charter, he will declare his readiness to negotiate for a European settlement, the unification of Germany and the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Germany and her neighbours, including Hungary and Poland, on the lines recently proposed by Mr. Krushchev.
    The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): No, Sir. I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend to his Question on 27th June.
    Mr. Zilliacus: If the Government reject the basis of settlement involving an all-European treaty, in which Germany would be unified outside the rival alliances, with foreign forces withdrawn not only from Germany but also from her neighbours, what alternative policy have they to secure the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary and to bring about the unification of Germany? What is the Government's policy on these matters? Have they got any?
    Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. Member will refer to the Answer given on 27th June, he will see a statement of our policy.

    Nuclear Weapons (Policy)
    Mr. Greenasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what communication he has recently received from the
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    Russian Government regarding their policy on the use of nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The Soviet proposals put forward on 30th April in the Disarmament Sub-Committee provide for an unconditional ban on the use of nuclear weapons from the beginning of a partial disarmament agreement. That is still, I believe, the position of the Soviet Union.

    Exports (Embargo)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the criteria by which he determines whether circumstances are sufficiently exceptional to justify exempting goods in individual cases from the embargo prohibiting their export to the Soviet bloc.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The details of the Co-ordinating Committee procedures and criteria are confidential. However, broadly speaking, exceptional exports of embargoed goods to the Soviet bloc have been confined to spare parts for equipment already supplied or shipments of trivial value.
    Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that the export of astronomical clocks for use by Russia in connection with the Geophysical Year is embargoed by Britain? Further, is he aware that our manufacturers are prohibited from selling jig borers, gear shapers and thread grinders to the Soviet bloc although several Communist countries manufacture and export these machines?
    Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. Gentleman will give me particulars of any matter of which he has spoken, I will certainly undertake to look into them.

    B.B.C. Broadcasts (Jamming)
    Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what British Broadcasting Corporation foreign language broadcasts are now being jammed, and by which countries; when protests were last made, and with what results; and whether the Soviet Government has now given an explanation of the intensification of jamming after a period of comparatively little interference.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ian Harvey): British Broadcasting Corporation broad-

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    casts in the following languages are jammed by the Soviet Union and by all the satellites except Poland: Russian, German, Finnish, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, all the satellite languages and some in Greek. The latest representations were made by the Prime Minister in his recent letter to Mr. Bulganin, but the Soviet authorities show no signs at present of ending jamming.
    The Soviet Government have stated that British Broadcasting Corporation broadcasts were jammed because they might have created an incorrect impression of the British people and led to the development of anti-British sentiments.
    Major Beamish: Is the Under-Secretary of State aware that one of the main reasons given for the sacking of Messrs. Molotov, Malenkov and several others was that they did not have a genuine belief in friendship and understanding among the nations? Would it not be a most welcome gesture if Mr. Khrushchev now gave orders for the ending of this jamming?
    Mr. Harvey: My hon. and gallant Friend has made a most useful suggestion.
    Mr. Mikardo: Would not our righteous protests against this reprehensible practice be more pungent if we had never done any jamming ourselves?
    Mr. Harvey: No, Sir. A policy of weakness in these matters is altogether to be regretted.

  GERMANY

    Judges and Public Prosecutors
    Mr. S. Silvermanasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that, contrary to the Potsdam Agreements, about 200 persons are now employed either as judges or public prosecutors who were personally concerned as judges in the infliction of death and other heavy sentences for offences against the Nuremberg and other Nazi laws; what consultations he has had about this matter with the other parties to the Potsdam Agreements; and what representations concerning it he has made or will make to the German Federal Government.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am aware that allegations of this nature have been made
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    recently, apparently originating in East Germany. I am informed that the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany have already initiated an investigation into these allegations. In the circumstances I think it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this stage.
    Mr. Silverman: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that Answer, and I do not expect him to comment further while the investigation is proceeding, but will he at any rate assure the House that he will keep the matter in mind and make sure that the investigation is not delayed, and report to the House when he has the result of it?
    Mr. Lloyd: The fact is that since 5th May, 1955, the appointment of judges is a matter falling within the full jurisdiction of the Federal German Government and the Governments of the German Länder. Nevertheless, I can assure the hon. Member that we retain an interest in this matter and that we shall follow it up.
    Mr. Silverman: I fully appreciate that since the date mentioned by the right hon. and learned Gentleman these matters fall to be decided by the sovereign authority which we have accorded to West Germany, but does he nevertheless agree that that does not enable us to abdicate any of our responsibilities under the Agreements we made before that?
    Mr. Lloyd: As I said, this is a matter in which we retain an interest.

    Eastern Frontier
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) how far, in view of the lapse of time since the end of the war, and of events in Poland during and since last October, Her Majesty's Government now accept the existing Polish-German frontier as an accomplished fact; and if they will extend de jure recognition to this frontier;
    (2) whether he will now give an assurance that it is Her Majesty's Government's policy to support the unification of Germany within the existing frontiers of East and West Germany and on the basis of renouncing any territorial claims against any of Germany's neighbours.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government stand by the Potsdam Agreement of 2nd August, 1945, that the final delimitation of the Western frontier of Poland should await the peace settlement. Pending such a settlement the present boundary line between the Soviet Zone of Germany and the territories administered by Poland must remain provisional.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Have not the Potsdam Agreements been almost superseded by the march of events? Would it not contribute to peace and strengthen the international position of Poland to recognise that frontier today? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman really believe that we can still bargain about the Polish territory to the east of that frontier, which was settled by 6 million Poles with our consent?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think it would be unwise to abandon the Potsdam Agreements. I would remind the hon. Member of the position of the Federal German Government in regard to this matter. They have said:
    "only an all-German Government and a Parliament elected by the entire German nation are entitled to make this decision on the future German Eastern frontiers."
    Then the German Foreign Minister added that:
    "the Federal Government also insists that the frontier question can only be solved by way of negotiations without the use, or even the threat of force"
    I think that is the way to leave the matter.
    Mr. Bellenger: Does the Foreign Secretary know that there is no political party in Western Germany that accepts these militarily imposed frontiers, including the party which has very close association with the party to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus) belongs?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think the right hon. Member would agree that the position I have just stated is really the position of all parties in Germany.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that we have the right to recognise this frontier independently of the views of the West German Government? After all, we are not bound to represent their views in
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    this matter. Would not it in fact be impossible to get this frontier changed without another war? Therefore, why not accept it as an accomplished fact?
    Mr. Lloyd: It was because I thought the hon. Member might raise the question of war that I quoted the statement of policy made on behalf of the German Government. I disagree with the hon. Member on the rest of his supplementary question. I think it would be much better if we maintained our position under the Agreements.

  UNITED NATIONS

    Charter (Review)
    Mr. A. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, following the recent meeting of the United Nations Committee to discuss the question of a United Nations Charter Review Conference, he will make a statement on the proposals of Her Majesty's Government to strengthen the authority of the United Nations.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. The Committee decided to defer taking any decision. In the circumstances I have nothing to add to my reply to the right hon. and learned Member on 27th May.
    Mr. Henderson: Is it not the case that a good deal could be done to strengthen the authority of the United Nations without waiting for a review of the Charter itself? If the Government take the view —as expressed by the Foreign Secretary —that the United Nations remains weak and ineffective in many respects, cannot the right hon. and learned Gentleman make proposals which would have as their object the strengthening of the United Nations, without waiting for the Review Conference?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not conceal from the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I am rather disappointed in the way that this matter has gone, but we have to face the fact that the Soviet delegate on the Committee, echoed by all the satellite members, said that any change in the Charter could only be for the worse. That is a very unfortunate attitude of mind, and we have to see whether we cannot get some movement from that position.
    Mr. Pitman: Although we may share the Foreign Secretary's disappointment in

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    this matter, is not there at any rate some hope, in that the matter is still open and it will be open to him, at a later stage, when the matter comes up for review, to review also his view of the matter?
    Mr. Lloyd: I personally took a recent opportunity to indicate some respects in which I thought that matters should be improved. I shall certainly continue to ventilate those views on appropriate occasions. I do not think myself that it is wise for us to put forward positive proposals at a time when we are faced with this completely negative attitude on the part of an important section of the United Nations.
    Mr. Henderson: In view of the importance of this matter, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

    Commission on Status of Women
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has considered the nominations submitted to him by the Standing Conference and the Women's Advisory Council of the United Nations Association in connection with the appointment of the United Kingdom delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women; and whether the appointment has now been made.
    Mr. Ian Harvey: A new appointment is now under consideration. Several suggestions, including those to which the hon. Member refers, are being borne in mind.
    Mrs. Butler: May I remind the Joint Under-Secretary that the women's organisations of this country are very closely watching this appointment and are very much hoping that this country will come into line with other countries by appointing a delegate who has been nominated by representative women's organisations and who is familiar with their views on the many problems of the status of women?
    Mr. Harvey: I note very carefully what the hon. Lady has said.

    Hungary (Report)
    Mr. Peytonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now given further consideration to the
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    question of circulating as widely as possible the contents of the United Nations' Committee report on Hungary.
    Major Beamishasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many copies of the United Nations report on Soviet armed intervention in Hungary have been received in this country; how these can be obtained by the general public and at what price; and whether he will now arrange to summarise this report in a White Paper and consider the possibility of making the salient points available in some popular form as well.
    Mr. Ian Harvey: My right hon. and learned Friend has reconsidered this matter in the light of subsequent information now available to him with regard to the cost of the publication in this country and arrangements made by the United Nations for its distribution.
    So far, about three hundred and twenty copies have been received from the United Nations Secretariat for official use and copies have been distributed to all our posts abroad. It is understood that three hundred and fifty more are arriving shortly for public distribution by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. These cost 14s. and can be ordered through any bookseller.
    It has therefore been decided to reproduce, either through the Central Office of Information or as a White Paper, an abridged edition of the report, which will be available at a much cheaper price.
    Mr. Peyton: Does my hon. Friend realise how very welcome this decision is? In making it the Government are taking the opportunity afforded by this publication to acquaint people with the true nature and purposes of Communism.
    Mr. Harvey: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend for that remark. I should like to make it clear that the publication of this edition by Her Majesty's Government must not be regarded as a propaganda operation. Its object is to make a fuller text of the report available to the general public.
    Dr. King: Will the Joint Under-Secretary of State bear in mind, in spite of his last remark, that we do not make enough propaganda on behalf of the free way of life? Will he give consideration to the

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    publication of a cheap and popular edition of this important document, even subsidising it if necessary?
    Mr. Harvey: We will look at that suggestion and see what can be done.

    Permanent Force
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallettasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has considered the proposals for the establishment of a permanent United Nations force which were forwarded to him on 18th April, and which he discussed with an all-Party delegation on 2nd July, 1957; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Beswickasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what consideration he has given to the proposals for a permanent United Nations police force, submitted to him on 18th April and drawn up by a commission under the chairmanship of Lord Pakenham; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Yes, Sir, I have read with great interest the proposals of the Federal Union Commission for the establishment of a permanent United Nations force, to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers. Copies of these proposals are available in the Library of the House. This report contains some useful ideas and suggestions. I welcome it as a valuable contribution to the solution of a difficult problem.
    So far as the Government's position is concerned, I have stated before that it is my hope that something of a permanent nature may develop from the present United Nations Emergency Force. We have to face the fact, however, that the establishment of a force on the lines proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend would require a wide measure of international agreement. I do not think that that agreement would be forthcoming at the moment. A good deal of further educative and explanatory work is necessary. I hope, therefore, that my hon. and gallant Friend and those associated with him will continue to canvass their ideas.
    Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: While thanking my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that it will greatly encourage those who were concerned in drafting the proposals? Further, is he
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    aware that, when the time is ripe for this proposal or similar proposals to be made before the United Nations, he can count on the support of a large number of people in this country, irrespective of party?
    Mr. Lloyd: I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for that remark.
    Mr. Beswick: While also expressing appreciation of what the Foreign Secretary has just said, may I ask if he agrees that the educative work which is necessary in the United Nations can also be carried on by a representative of Her Majesty's Government? Is not it now necessary to conduct a campaign throughout the world, and to make the Soviet Union, if it is the dissident element in this matter, really face up to the proposal and so make its position known to the rest of the world?
    Mr. Lloyd: I do not disagree generally with what the hon. Member has said, but I still think it is better for the Government not to put forward precise and specific proposals at the moment. There is a great deal of preliminary work to be done in educating many countries about it.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Before the Foreign Office takes steps to encourage the formation of this international force, would it take expeditious steps to secure that the policy of the United Nations conforms more to British interests?
    Mr. Lloyd: It will be our purpose to see that the policy and procedure of the United Nations conform with the purposes of the Charter, which are to preserve peace—which is certainly a British interest—and to see that international contracts and obligations are upheld—which is also a British interest.
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: What are Her Majesty's Government doing to contribute to this work?
    Mr. Lloyd: I have repeatedly said that I favour the principle of an international police force and it is much better, after I have given that general statement, that a kind of exhaustive study should be made by independent bodies. There are matters of wide disagreement among various bodies. A lot of people in this House would not agree with every detail of these proposals. It is

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    much better that they should be studied and thought about by private organisations and individuals.

    Disarmament Sub-Committee (Four-Power Statement)
    Mr. Beswickasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what assurances have been given to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that the present disarmament proposals submitted by the Western Powers to the United Nations Sub-Committee will not deprive the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of nuclear armament.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The recent four-Power statement was made with the full knowledge of the North Atlantic Council. The statement refers to a first-stage disarmament agreement, and there is no intention of depriving anyone of the protection of nuclear weapons at this stage.
    Mr. Beswick: Is it not a fact that, according to the New York Times of 2nd July this year, quoting what it described as "authoritative Allied sources," the North Atlantic Treaty Powers have been assured that
    "Western plans for disarmament will not involve the abandonment of a deterrent to global war through nuclear arms defence."?
    Would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that those words sound ominously like the words used both in Paris and the Pentagon before the Geneva Summit Conference which effectively sabotaged the disarmament conference which was then taking place? Can he assure the House that we are not, on the one hand, in the Sub-Committee, appearing to seek disarmament and, on the other hand, giving to our military advisers assurances that we do not really mean what we say?
    Mr. Lloyd: I cannot accept all the inferences of the hon. Gentleman's question. There is some confusion of thought. In this first-stage agreement there can be no question of our abandoning the deterrent of nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Bevan: I hope we are not saying in the negotiations over the first stage anything which would make it clear that we are not prepared to negotiate over the subsequent stages. Surely that is the important thing to make clear.
    Mr. Lloyd: Certainly. We have consistently made it clear. We have said again and again that when there has been a sufficient degree of conventional disarmament we are also prepared to have, pari passu with that, nuclear disarmament.

  BRITISH SUBJECTS (PASSPORTS)
  Mr. Gowerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will take steps to make it unnecessary for British citizens born in British India prior to 1948 to have to produce evidence of British citizenship when applying for British passports, provided they have previously held British passports.
  Mr. Ian Harvey: The possession of a British passport issued prior to 1948 is evidence of British nationality but not of United Kingdom citizenship. Since the British Nationality Act, 1948, introduced the new concept of British nationality through citizenship of one of the Commonwealth countries, the applicant must produce evidence of United Kingdom citizenship before a United Kingdom passport can be issued.
  If an applicant for a United Kingdom passport has previously held a United Kingdom passport issued after 1st January, 1949, he is not asked to produce any further evidence.
  Mr. Gower: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the speed with which emergency steps were taken to deal with the case of Professor Anthony Steel, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales; but will not he agree that it is really absurd that a person so long distinguished in the life of this country, who is a British magistrate and who holds many distinguished appointments in this country, should be forced to produce evidence of British nationality although he has held British passports for 20 or 30 years? May it not be that persons perhaps less distinguished than he would not have emergency steps taken quite so quickly?
  Mr. Harvey: I appreciate my hon. Friend's point, but I think that we have to make these rules on a general basis and not with any exceptions in view.
  Mr. Beresford Craddock: Is not it a fact that citizens of the United Kingdom

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  resident in India for a temporary period are regarded as foreigners in India?
  Mr. Harvey: That is rather a different point and I will look into it.

  EGYPT

    British Subjects (Imprisonment)
    Major Wallasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action he is taking to secure the release of two British subjects recently condemned to hard labour by the Egyptian Government.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The period during which the defence or the prosecution can lodge an appeal does not expire until tonight. Until we receive confirmation that no appeal has been lodged I cannot add to what my hon. Friend said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) on 3rd July.
    Major Wall: Will my right hon. and learned Friend say whether these two men are subject to the same appalling conditions as Egyptians who are subject to hard labour?
    Mr. Lloyd: There is a later Question on the Order Paper. In answer to it I will deal in some detail with that matter.
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the latest information about the treatment and conditions of two of Her Majesty's subjects sentenced to hard labour by an Egyptian court.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Members of the staff of the Swiss Embassy in Cairo visited Mr. Zarb and Mr. Swinburn on 3rd July at the prison at Tourah. At that time the men were still in quarantine, though their quarantine ended that day. They had been thoroughly examined by the prison medical authorities and were due to begin a category of labour in accordance with their age and medical condition. The ordinary work is in a quarry, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. six days a week.
    The prison diet is reported to contain fresh bread and meat daily, and the men are allowed to spend up to £E3 a month on additional food from the canteen. They may also have tobacco sent in to them, and smoke in their cells.
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    They are allowed to receive a fortnightly visit from a priest. They may receive any number of incoming letters but may send out only two every six weeks.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: May I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that information? As hard labour in Egypt is a very terrible thing, might I ask if from time to time he will report to the House about the conditions of these men so that we may be kept informed?
    Mr. Lloyd: Certainly, Sir. We have asked the Swiss authorities who represent us in Egypt to do everything they can to improve the lot of these men. I should like to add that the Swiss representatives have been untiring in their efforts to find the facts and to help.

    Expelled British Nationals
    Mr. Deedesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his forthcoming statement on payments to British nationals expelled from Egypt will deal with the position of those expelled in 1952 as well as in 1956.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: A statement is to be made very shortly on this matter. I would ask my hon. Friend to await it.
    Mr. Deedes: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the negotiations with Egypt in respect of those who had their employment terminated by the Egyptian Government in 1952 had very nearly reached a conclusive stage before the events of 1956? If that is so, are not those subjects entitled to equal consideration?
    Mr. Lloyd: On the point of fact, I think that it is true to say that a certain offer had been made; but whether that would have been an acceptable offer is another matter. On the general issue, I ask my hon. Friend to await the statement.

  VIETNAM

    Military Exercises, South Vietnam
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under what agreement British planes have taken part in exercises over South Vietnam.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: British aircraft have never taken part in military exercises over South Vietnam.
    Mr. Davies: If can produce an account and some evidence of aircraft having taken part in exercises over South Vietnam, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman investigate to see if it is really true?
    Mr. Lloyd: I will certainly investigate any matter. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is perhaps thinking of an occasion when four Royal Air Force Venom aircraft made a courtesy visit and gave a display of aerobatics over Saigon City.

    Hanoi (Trade Representative)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps Her Majesty's Government have taken to have a permanent trade representative in Hanoi, as a result of relaxations of trade with North Vietnam.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: None, Sir. It is one of the functions of Her Majesty's Consul-General at Hanoi to handle trade inquiries on behalf of British firms.
    Mr. Davies: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for that answer. In view of the fact that the embargo is now being lifted on China and on North Vietnam, does not he think that it would help British businessmen in furthering British trade if we appointed a trade representative? This in no way deprecates the excellent work of Mr. Simpson, as Consul-General there, who is working very hard in a difficult situation. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look into this question rather more closely?
    Mr. Lloyd: Certainly, I have no closed mind in the matter. I went very carefully into Mr. Simpson's qualifications soon after the hon. Gentleman put down his Question. In fact he has almost unique experience of trade matters, but I will consider the matter again.
    Mr. Baird: Will the right hon. Gentleman state simply why we are not officially represented?
    Mr. Lloyd: That is quite a different matter from the Question on the Order Paper.

    Geneva Agreement (Breaches)
    Mrs. L. Jegerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what breaches of the Geneva Agreement of 1955 in North and South Vietnam have been brought to the notice of Her Majesty's Government by the Control Commission; and what action has been taken.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The International Supervisory Commission in Vietnam has reported in its first six Interim Reports certain breaches of the Geneva Agreements coming to its notice up to 31st July, 1956. All these Reports have been published as White Papers. The Interim Report for the period after that date has not yet been received.
    As regards the second part of the Question, Her Majesty's Government and the Soviet Government have not taken any action on specific complaints in the Interim Reports so far received.
    Mrs. Jeger: Does not it undermine the whole status and function of the International Control Commission if no action continues to be taken on the reported breaches of the Geneva Agreement? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look at this matter again and, perhaps when the Seventh Report is available, find time for a debate in the House on this matter which is of such concern to Asia?
    Mr. Lloyd: The question of time for debate in the House is not one for me. Of course, I will study carefully the Report; but I ask the hon. Lady to consider this point. There has been a substantial reduction of tension over the last three years in that part of the world, and I think that we have to be very careful not to create more trouble than that which we seek to alleviate.
    Mr. Bairdasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will consult with his co-chairman of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China with regard to a recall of the Conference to discuss the non-implementation of the cease-fire agreement in Vietnam and declaration of the Conference.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have no reason to believe that the recall of the Geneva Conference at the present time would either be acceptable to all the parties concerned or be likely to achieve useful

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    results. I believe that it would increase rather than diminish tension.
    Mr. Baird: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the demarcation line between North and South Vietnam was supposed, according to the Geneva Agreement, to be a temporary demarcation line which would be removed after the elections of 1956? No elections have been held. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the reason no elections have been held is that President Dien's Government refuse to have these elections and are now sabotaging the unity of the country and encouraging the danger of war in the area? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now consider withdrawing our diplomatic representative there if they do not agree to the terms of the Geneva Agreements?
    Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Member has put forward with crude bluntness the case of the Vietminh in this matter. That is the Vietminh's case. The position of South Vietnam is that it is not possible at present to have free elections in North Vietnam. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because North Vietnam is a Communist State. I would beg hon. Gentlemen to realise that the point in this matter is that tension has steadily diminished over the last two years. It is true that the Geneva Agreements, by which we stand, have not yet been fully carried out, but hon. Gentlemen who seek to raise these matters should think whether they are not creating new tensions where things have been steadily quietening down.
    Mr. Baird: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that there is less Socialism in North Vietnam, unfortunately, than there is in this country, but that there is a Fascist State in South Vietnam?

    Communications
    Mr. Bairdasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what information he has received, as co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference on Indo-China, concerning the state of communications between North and South Vietnam.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have received no information on this point in my capacity as a co-Chairman of the Geneva Confer-
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    ence on Indo-China apart from that contained in the Interim Reports of the International Control Commission in Vietnam, all of which have been published as White Papers.
    Mr. Baird: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that there is no postal communication at all between North and South Vietnam at present, and the reason is that the South Vietnam Government will not allow it? Is that not most inhuman, because people in the North with relatives in the South have no means of postal communication at present? As co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference, will he with his co-Chairmen take steps to see that normal relationships exist between North and South Vietnam?
    Mr. Lloyd: Of course we hope that one day normal relations will exist and that the country will be unified, but the question is how best to create the conditions in which that is likely to happen. I do not think the attitude taken by the hon. Member is likely to produce that situation.
    Mr. Bevan: May I ask what the Foreign Secretary means by that? All my hon. Friend has suggested is that, first of all, the Agreement should be carried out. Of course, it is a matter for discussion when it should be fully implemented. Surely every hon. Member, in all parts of the House, would want to assist the establishment of free postal communication between the two halves of the country if unity is eventually to be realised.
    Mr. Lloyd: What I was referring to particularly was that I do not think it really helps to refer to South Vietnam as a Fascist State.

  COUNCIL OF EUROPE (FRONTIER FORMALITIES)
  Mr. F. M. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why Great Britain was not represented at the Council of Europe meeting of officials at Bonn on 4th and 5th June to discuss mutual reduction of frontier formalities in Western Europe.
  Mr. Ian Harvey: The Council of Europe meeting of officials in question was the Special Committee set up under

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  Council of Europe Resolution (56) 22 to study the simplification of frontier formalities in member States. The reasons why Her Majesty's Government are not participating on this Committee were set out in the reply given on 11th March to the right hon. Member for Brighouse and Spenborough (Mr. J. Edwards).
  Mr. Bennett: Does not the Minister really appreciate that, even though we may not have been able to go all the way with our Continental friends, because of our position over passports, our complete boycott has caused widespread resentment; and would it not be worth while attending such meetings so that we can go some of the way? Is the policy of the late Mr. Ernest Bevin that everyone should be free to buy a ticket at Victoria to go anywhere he likes still the policy of Her Majesty's Government?
  Mr. Harvey: I think that my hon. Friend has rather over-stated the resentment. As was explained in the Answer given before, the reason we are not attending the meeting is that we cannot usefully add anything to the deliberations. With regard to the buying of tickets at Victoria, as we know, other people have slightly interfered with the effective carrying out of that policy.

  CYPRUS (SITUATION)
  Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what approach has lately been made to Her Majesty's Government by the United States of America for a settlement of the Cyprus question.
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: None, Sir.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the American Ambassador in Athens has advocated that N.A.T.O. should take a more active interest in the Cyprus question? May we, therefore, be assured that British responsibilities for the island of Cyprus will not be transferred to N.A.T.O. or handed over, as was Palestine by the party opposite, to bloodshed and conflict?
  Mr. Lloyd: The Question which was put to me was:
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  "what approach has lately been made to Her Majesty's Government by the United States of America for a settlement of the Cyprus question."
  I have answered that Question, "None, Sir."
  Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that many people consider that it is high time the Government took their courage in their hands and made a statement of their future intentions in regard to Cyprus, even if such a statement might not altogether meet with the approval of the Marquess of Salisbury and the hon. Member who asked this Question?
  Mr. Lloyd: I submit that that supplementary question does not arise out of this Question.

  EARTHQUAKES, IRAN (BRITISH ASSISTANCE)
  Mr. Nicholsonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what help has been offered by Her Majesty's Government to the Government of Persia in connection with the recent earthquake.
  Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Her Majesty's Government have learned with great sorrow of the tragic loss of life and the destruction caused by the series of earthquakes which began in Northern Iran on 2nd July. I know the House will wish to join me in expressing our deepest sympathy with our Iranian friends and allies in their misfortune. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sent a message of sympathy to the Iranian Prime Minister on 3rd July, as soon as the first accounts of the extent of the devastation reached this country. I myself sent a message to the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs. An offer of material help has had to await reliable reports of the needs of the stricken areas, which took some time to reach Tehran. These reports indicate that the greatest need is for tents to protect the homeless, and also for doctors to tend the injured. Her Majesty's Government have therefore offered to help the Iranian Government in meeting these two requirements. In particular they have offered to send to Tehran at once the Director of Medical Services from General Headquarters, Middle East Land Forces, to investigate the possibility of an

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  Army surgical team being flown from Cyprus to Iran. The aircraft taking him to Tehran will also contain a full load of tents. The Iranian Government have gratefully accepted both offers, and I hope that the officer concerned and the tents will be reaching Tehran within the next twenty-four hours. If this officer's report shows that an Army surgical team could operate effectively in the earthquake area and the Iranian Government agree, the team will be despatched to Tehran at once by air.
  Mr. Nicholson: May I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for what he has said? I am sure that this sentiment of sympathy will be re-echoed not only in this House but throughout the country. Will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that an emergency of this kind calls for urgent measures? Will he allow no question of protocol or official delays to stand in the way of sending this help, which must be most urgently needed in that outlying part of Persia?
  Mr. Lloyd: We shall certainly do all we can to help in the way that is wanted.

  ROYAL NAVY

    Gibraltar
    Mr. G. Jegerasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty (1) what plans he has for the future development of the dockyards at Gibraltar as a result of his recent visit;
    (2) how many civilians are employed at present in the dockyard and naval installations in Gibraltar; and what proposals are being considered for reducing the numbers employed.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): Three thousand seven hundred and fifty civilians are employed in the dockyard and naval installations. As to their future, I have nothing to add to the reply given by my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Defence, on 29th May.
    Mr. Jeger: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that reply said that the matter is under consideration, and that it has caused a certain amount of speculation in Gibraltar? Will he give an assurance that there will be no far-reaching economics which will affect the labour position
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    in Gibraltar dockyard and that full consultations with the trade unions concerned will follow any proposals that are put forward?
    Mr. Galbraith: I am afraid that I cannot go any further than the reply given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence.
    Major Wall: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the economy of Gibraltar, and, for that matter, of Malta, depends almost entirely on the dockyards, and will he undertake to do his best to get commercial shipping to use these yards for repairs and other purposes?

    Houses, Fife (Rents)
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what rent increases are proposed in the Department's houses in Fife expressed as an average percentage of existing rents; and what are the reasons for such increases.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: I am not at present in a position to make a statement about these rents.
    Mr. Hamilton: Can the hon. Gentleman say when he will be in a position to make a statement, because there is a widespread view among the tenants of these houses that increases of anything from 30–60 per cent. are contemplated, and, if that is so, the workers will be bound to take counter-action which will have cumulative effects throughout the economy?
    Mr. Galbraith: All I can say is that rents of Admiralty properties are always under review, but at the moment no immediate increases are contemplated.

    Engineering College
    Mr. Bottomleyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if he will make a statement about the future of H.M.S. "Thunderer", the Royal Naval Engineering College.
    The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Christopher Soames): On completion of the present building programme at Manadon, the Royal Navy will possess a fully equipped engineering university to accommodate 350 officers. Training will continue as

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    at present in basic engineering subjects, and advanced marine, ordnance and air engineering, while current developments in nuclear engineering are included in the curriculum.
    Mr. Bottomley: While I congratulate those responsible upon meeting the needs of the modern Navy, is it not the case that the site will not permit the expansion of the College which will be necessary? Why was not the long-neglected site of the Royal Marine Barracks, Chatham, considered?
    Mr. Soames: The site was chosen in 1939, and building was held up owing to the war. The Royal Naval Engineering College always has been near Devonport. It was previously at Keyham. We believe that the site selected will fulfil all our requirements.

    Discharges
    Mr. Bottomleyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the number of personnel seeking discharge from the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines for the three-month period ending 31st July; and how this compares with the same period for last year.
    Mr. Soames: The number of applications received in the three months ending 30th June were: 1956, 268; 1957, 622. These two figures are not directly comparable. The 1956 figure, which relates to the period immediately following the pay improvements was lower than normal; the 1957 figure follows six months' suspension of discharges not based on urgent compassionate grounds.
    Mr. Bottomley: On the other hand, a good many are delaying seeking discharge from the Navy because of the promise of compensation. Does not this emphasise the need for this question to be further considered? I imagine that the Parliamentary Secretary must be very troubled about what is going on in the way of losing personnel from the Navy and the Marines.
    Mr. Soames: As the Minister of Defence has frequently told the House, all the details of the compensation will be given as soon as is humanly possible.
    Mr. T. Williams: Why is the Admiralty so hesitant about releasing men, particularly when there are very painful
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    domestic circumstances, and when we could recruit a few such men to the mining industry, which so urgently needs extra labour?
    Mr. Soames: I think that that is another question, but I do not believe the Admiralty applies any more rigid rules in respect of compassionate discharges than the other Services do. The rules are more or less the same throughout the three Services.

    Base, Invergordon
    Mr. John MacLeodasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what is the extent of the redundancy at Invergordon; and what opportunities exist for alternative employment.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: It is estimated that some seventy people will be redundant when the run down of the base is completed. I understand that opportunities for alternative employment will be largely dependent on the introduction of other industry into the area, regarding which I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade on 5th February.
    Mr. MacLeod: Does not my hon. Friend feel that there is a moral obligation upon the Admiralty to do something constructive here, because it has been connected with the base for some fifty years and by closing it will disrupt the whole economy of the area? Will he do all he can to co-operate in ensuring that alternative industry is brought into the area wherever possible, such as boat building, for which a certain amount of equipment is available?
    Mr. Galbraith: The Admiralty has been in constant contact with the Scottish Home Department and the Board of Trade and is doing everything it possibly can to help.
    Mr. Hoy: Is the hon. Gentleman aware the the local people put the number of those who will be declared redundant at a much higher figure than he has given? In view of that, does not he think the Admiralty might take some steps with the Board of Trade to attract industry into the area, as it has already been designated by the Board of Trade as an area requiring special attention?
    Mr. Galbraith: As I have said, the matter is primarily the responsibility of the Board of Trade, but the Admiralty is doing everything it can to co-operate with the Board of Trade.
    Mr. John MacLeodasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what equipment at the Invergordon naval base will become redundant.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: Local naval authorities have already furnished the town clerk with a list of the buildings which will become available when the reduction of the Invergordon base is complete. I am arranging for particulars of the major items of equipment to be sent to him at an early date.
    Mr. MacLeod: Will my hon. Friend ensure that no equipment is removed until we find what alternative employment can be introduced into the area? The equipment is likely to go to Rosyth and rot there, whereas it may be of far more value if it is allowed to remain where it is until we are certain that no alternative use for it can be found.
    Mr. Galbraith: While I am not able to give a categorical assurance, I will certainly give sympathetic consideration to my hon. Friend's suggestion.

    Officers of Flag Rank
    Mr. Bottomleyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty for what reason nine new rear-admirals have been appointed.
    Mr. Soames: The nine promotions to rear-admiral just announced are required to fill vacancies due to retirement. There are four fewer officers of flag rank on the active list today than there were in July last year, and at least ten will be retiring during the rest of the year.
    The rundown of the Navy's total Vote A strength will of course include a considerable further reduction in officers of flag rank.
    Mr. Bottomley: Even this rate of retirement is not good enough. Is it not a fact that in 1939, when we were entering a major world war, we had twenty fewer flag officers than we have today, and that in 1951, when another world war was threatened, we still had eight fewer flag officers than we have today? The Parliamentary Secretary must look at the
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    matter again and ensure that there is not promotion but pruning.
    Mr. Soames: Generally speaking, there are three major factors which have brought about the increase in the number of officers of flag rank in the Royal Navy. One is the posts which we have to fill in N.A.T.O. The second one—this relates to the comparison with the pre-war figur4 —is the transfer to the Navy itself of the responsibility for the Fleet Air Arm. The third is the considerable increase in the technical aspects of the Navy and the considerable increase in the branches concerned.
    Mr. Shinwell: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the reduction in flag officers is in proportion to the reduction in ratings, and if not, why not?
    Mr. Soames: I think I can fairly say that during the course of the run down to the planned Vote A strength the reduction in flag officers will at least be in proportion.
    Mr. Lipton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that we seem to have enough admirals to sink a battleship if they all got on board together? Has not the time come for the Admiralty to set a real example and cut down on Government expenditure with a view to counteracting the galloping inflation with which we are now afflicted.
    Mr. Soames: I know that my noble Friend will pay due attention to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman.

    Admiralty Constabulary (Uniform)
    Miss Vickersasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty when the new uniform to be provided for the Admiralty Constabulary will be issued.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: The new uniforms for sergeants and constables of the Admiralty Constabulary will be issued at H.M. dockyards, Portsmouth, Devonport and Chatham during the next month. It will take a little longer for them to be issued elsewhere.
    Miss Vickers: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask if he will ensure that the new uniforms really do arrive this month, as these people are suffering considerably from the sub-tropical weather, and are not able to take off

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    their jackets in the same way as are our civilian police?
    Mr. Bottomley: But why next month? Why cannot they be issued at once? Like the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport (Miss Vickers), I represent a dockyard town and see these men at their work. The conditions in which they have had to work during the last few weeks have been appalling. Cannot they, at least, take off their coats?
    Mr. Galbraith: I think that the taking off of coats is a different question. The fact is that the uniforms will not be ready to be distributed until next month.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Reservists
    Mr. Kershawasked the Secretary of State for War what arrangements he has made to ensure that the medical categories of reservists are continuously known to him.
    The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Julian Amery): Reservists called out for training are examined at intervals laid down in Regulations. Members of the paid Regular Reserve are required to furnish quarterly a declaration as to their state of health. No arrangements are made for the Army General Reserve.
    Mr. Kershaw: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that these arrangements are, indeed, satisfactory? Is not it a fact that very recent experience has shown that a good many reservists were called up who were by no means fit for service when they arrived at depots?
    Mr. Amery: There might be some advantages in closer examination, but they would hardly justify the very considerable cost of regular medical examination of nearly 2¼ million men.
    Mr. Kershawasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will ensure that reservists recalled to the Colours at any time shall not include any who completed their service more than three years before such recall.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir.
    Mr. Kershaw: But is it not a fact that there are now, or very shortly will be, far more reservists than the Regular Army can possibly need at any one time?
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    If that is so, is it not also the case that the technical developments in the Army today make the man who has been away from it for, say, six years—or sometimes up to twelve years—almost useless in the case of quick mobilisation?
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir. Many of the men called up at the time of the Suez emergency were called up because of their civil techniques—fitters, engineers and so on. They gave splendid service, and I should like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to it.

    Cadet Forces (Future)
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewartasked the Secretary of State for War if he will make a statement on the future of school cadet corps.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Hare): The purpose of the school cadet forces, and the cadet forces of the three Services, will remain unchanged under the new defence policy. Indeed with the abolition of National Service they will become even more important.
    Their task is to give preliminary training to boys interested in the Regular and auxiliary forces and to develop powers of leadership and initiative. The cadet forces can play a vital part in our progress towards the all-volunteer Services which will be the foundation of the new defence structure.
    My right hon. Friend, the Minister of Defence, mentioned last week measures to strengthen the cadet forces. Some of these measures are already before the Inter-Services Cadet Committee. It is our policy by these and other means to encourage and assist the cadet forces.
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but will he indicate when the schools will learn what the new plans are? Meanwhile, they are somewhat in the dark.
    Mr. Hare: I think that my hon. Friend is quite right. There seems to be a general misconception about the future of these forces, and I hope that my Answer will make it quite clear that a newspaper article in an evening paper today, saying that these forces would be curtailed and transformed, is entirely untrue. I certainly realise the urgency of announcing the conditions for improving these cadet forces, and I hope that my right hon.

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    Friend the Minister of Defence will be in a position to take as rapid action as possible.
    Mr. Short: Would the Minister say when the Inter-Services Cadet Committee is likely to report, and whether he has considered my suggestion that the schools themselves should be represented on that Committee?
    Mr. Hare: I certainly well remember the contribution made by the hon. Gentleman in the Service Estimates debate. I know that that matter is under consideration, because we took note of what he said.

    Service in Egypt (Medal)
    Mr. H. Hyndasked the Secretary of State for War whether it will be compulsory under his Regulations for a soldier who served one day ashore in Egypt in November or December last year to wear the medal which is being issued in that connection.
    Mr. John Hare: The wearing of medals may be ordered on occasions which are prescribed in the Queen's Regulations for the Army.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Does the Minister realise that some soldiers who have won decorations for honourable and gallant service will resent having to wear a medal to show that they were in Egypt, or were off-shore, for one day during the discreditable attack on Suez?
    Mr. Hare: I cannot begin to accept what the hon. Member has said, and I do not think that it is at all worthy of him. Irrespective of what he or I may think of the Suez issue, these medals were issued in recognition of the gallantry and devotion of the men taking part in that operation.
    Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend tell hon. Members opposite that their views are not acceptable to the men and women in this country who served, loyally and faithfully, the cause of their country?

    Strategic Reserve (Training)
    Mr. Kershawasked the Secretary of State for War if units on the strategic Reserve in the United Kingdom are given the same training time, facilities and
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    equipment, including exercises in co-operation with other arms, as are units in the British Army of the Rhine.
    Mr. John Hare: Training is on very similar lines, although not identical in all the particulars listed by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Kershaw: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the most important thing about the strategic Reserve is that it should be ready at a moment's notice, and is it not a fact that that has not been the position up to now? Will he say that if we are to have a strategic Reserve stationed at home, the public will, in future, have to accept more, not less, inconvenience from military manœuvres?
    Mr. Hare: I quite agree with my hon. Friend that our strategic Reserve must be available at the quickest possible moment. The Question is to do with training, and I have answered that the training given to reserves in England is very much on the same lines as that given in the British Army of the Rhine. I certainly hope that he realises that all training could not be given in the British Army of the Rhine, because we must keep a balance between home and overseas Army postings.
    Mr. Kershaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in referring to training, I am thinking not of individual but of formation training, which is what we have not had at home up to now?
    Mr. Hare: I can tell my hon. Friend that there is to be training at home, on Salisbury Plain, this summer for this purpose.

    No. 31 Base Workshops, Ashford (Closure)
    Mr. Hunterasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will agree to the request of the Feltham Urban District Council for hint to receive a deputation in order to express their views that he should reconsider his decision to close No. 31 Base Workshops, Ashford, Middlesex.
    Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir. I am arranging a meeting. I am also consulting with my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Beresford Craddock) who has made representations on behalf of other interested local authorities.
    Mr. Beresford Craddock: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With great respect, might I ask for your guidance? As my hon. Friend has mentioned, this R.E.M.E. workshop is in my constituency. The matter came to public light some five weeks ago, and I have had much correspondence and discussion both with my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend. There are on the Order Paper, Questions 53 and 54 in the name of the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart). As far as I am aware he has no connection with this workshop—[Interruption.] Is not it courteous for a hon. Member who wishes to put down a Question to notify the hon. Member whose concern it is? I may add, Sir, that the hon. Members for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) and for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington) have constituents who work in the workshop, and that the hon. Member for Feltham has been courteous enough to keep me in touch with what he is doing, just as I have kept him in touch with what I have been doing. I should like your guidance on the point, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Further to that point of order. I would respectfully submit, Mr. Speaker, that it is well known that I have frequently asked Questions affecting the War Department. In particular, some years ago I initiated an Adjournment debate directly affecting this workshop, which is of great value to the nation, and I should have thought it obvious from the facts that I would have been one of the persons interested. I would further respectfully submit that a point of order cannot be used to restrict the right of any hon. Member to ask Questions about anything he likes.
    Mr. Speaker: What the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) says is quite right. No point of order is involved. It used to be the custom when I was a Member of the House—[Laughter.]—I should say a Member of the House in current circulation—that if one wanted to ask a Question about another Member's constituency, one generally let the other Member know. That was certainly the old custom, and I think that it was a good custom; but there is no bar against a Member asking Questions about another Member's constituency.
    It is true that some hon. Members specialise in certain subjects and their
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    specialisation often leads them to probe into events in geographic parts of the country other than their own constituencies. I looked at this Question this morning and I assumed that many hon. Members would be interested in the redundancy question which arises from the closing of this workshop. They are entitled to ask Questions about it because men living in their constituencies are affected. I have stated the rule, which is not one of order but one of custom, and a very good custom it is, and I hope that hon. Members will pursue it in the future.
    Mr. Stewart: May I point out that this workshop is not merely a constituency matter? The use made of it is a matter of national importance. If, for example, we had to ask Questions affecting, say, the University of Oxford, would it be regarded as necessary to consult the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Turner); and, similarly, with other institutions of national importance, would it be necessary to consult the hon. Members in whose constituences they were situated?
    Mr. Speaker: I accept what the hon. Member for Fulham says. Of course, one has to apply these rules with common sense and with a certain amount of tolerance and understanding of the difficulties and problems of other hon. Members. If that is done in the right spirit, these difficulties should never arise.
    Mr. Beresford Craddock: I want to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your courtesy in dealing with the point I have raised. It would be presumption on my part to object to any hon. Member raising anything. I was merely asking whether it was not a matter of courtesy, as I tried to explain.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Colonial Coach Services
    The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr.
    BESWICK:
    67. To ask the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation why he is proposing to grant licences to private companies to operate scheduled air services to certain countries in Africa in view of the fact that his proposal is contrary to the provisions of the Civil Aviation Acts; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Beswick: On a point of order. A fortnight ago, the Minister of Transport. And Civil Aviation made a statement about an important change in civil aviation policy, a statement which he made in answer to a non-oral Question. As I am sure that he does not wish this statement of policy to go without Parliamentary comment, in the circumstances would he be good enough to answer Question 67 which invites him to make a statement?
    Mr. Speaker: The time for Questions has passed.
    Mr. Mikardo: Further to that point of order.
    Mr. Speaker: It is not a point of order.
    Mr. Mikardo: May I ask for your guidance and assistance, Mr. Speaker, on a general point of which this is one illustration?
    Here was an important change of Government policy. I make no comment on its merits, but it was announced by way of Answer to a Written Question, which came as no great shock and surprise to the Minister. Has an ordinary Member any protection against the violation of the customary procedure whereby Ministers making statements about changes of policy do so orally at the end of Question Time to provide an opportunity for questions of clarification?
    Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order, and I am unable to give guidance to hon. Members on matters other than points of order. If the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Mikardo) has a complaint about the way the Minister made his announcement, he must take a proper Parliamentary opportunity of expressing it.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock —[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [20TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1957–58
  CLASS IX

    VOTE 1. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT AND CIVIL AVIATION
    Motion made, and Question proposed.
    That a sum, not exceeding £5,989,700, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1958, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, including the salaries and expenses of the Coastguard, the Transport Tribunal, and the Air Transport Advisory Council, subscriptions to international organisations and sundry other services. [£3,450,000 has been voted on account.]
    Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Hughes-Young]—put and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (ANNUAL REPORT)
3.36 p.m.
The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Ninth Annual Report, Statement of Accounts and Statistics of the British Transport Commission for 1956.
I am grateful to the Opposition for raising this matter on one of their Supply Days so soon after the publication of the Accounts. It is much more helpful to the House to have a debate on a very wide-ranging matter of this kind when the facts and figures are fresh in everybody's minds. I shall try to be as factual and as objective as I can in covering the immense scope of the Commission's work. Perhaps I should apologise to the House now, and not later, if I am rather long

383
in doing this, but, as the House will recognise, this is the country's largest single employer of labour and an essential requirement to our general industrial efficiency.
The only other general point I want to make is that I think that it will be most helpful to hon. Members if I devote most of my remarks to the railways. They are the crux of the problem and are responsible for the very large sum of money with which the Report deals. I think it will be most helpful if I deal generally with the railways, leaving my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with any matters that are raised in the debate when he winds up the debate.
Hon. Members will recall that in the White Paper setting out the proposals for the railways, which was presented to the House last October, the Government and the Commission reviewed the whole rôle of the railways in a modern society and came to the firm conclusion that railways were vital to the economy and that it was, therefore, in the national interest that they should be modernised and developed. Nowadays, one hears a certain amount of talk about the railways being an outmoded form of transport. The Government, in their policies, have rightly never claimed a privileged position for the railways, but in opening this annual debate it is right that I should say, as we all know, that there are certain traffics which the railways can move more efficiently and more economically than any other form of transport, whether by land, sea or air, if they are given modern equipment and methods.
It is the railways which are the central feature which we ought to examine most carefully and as objectively as we can. I should be the last to lay down, or to try to lay down, any hard and fast rules as to what form of transport was most suited to particular traffics. That is the kind of quicksand into which one falls if one tries to integrate or plan these things too closely. None the less, one must not lose sight of the fact that the railways are ideally suited to the carriage of passengers over long distances, the carriage of commuter traffic round big cities, and as carriers of bulk freight. It
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is from that aspect that I hope to examine them today.
I do not think the House, or the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) and his colleagues, would wish me to traverse again in great detail the financial problems posed by the necessity to underwrite the modernisation plan. We did discuss this very fully in the House last December, and at that time, of course, the House gave an unopposed passage to the Railway Finance Bill. There was general agreement then in the House, I think, and in the country, that we must press on with modernisation, and that the Government were generally right to tide the Commission over these difficult years until modernisation could pay off.
The first thing I want to examine is the progress of that operation. The Commission's Report and Accounts for 1956 are the first check that we can have on the accuracy of the forecast made in the White Paper, "Proposals for the Railways". In paragraph 9, page 13, of the White Paper, as I think hon. Members will remember, the Commission envisaged an overall deficit of about £50 million in 1956. The actual deficit reported in the Accounts is, of course, £54·4 million, which is not far out of line with what was estimated. As paragraph 218 of the Report makes clear, the difference of about £4 million is accounted for by rises in costs and by the fall in certain traffics, partly due to the general recession in industrial production, and to other causes. Thus, the first thing that I want to say is that, so far—I agree that it is only the very beginning of a very complex operation—it appears from the Commission's current Report that its estimates were as accurate as one could reasonably expect them to be.
The amount the Commission is entitled to borrow under the terms of the 1957 Act, £54½ million, is also in line with the £250 million limit of borrowing powers under the Act in the period ending 1962. In fact, as the House knows, the Commission received an advance of £52 million on account of this sum in March.
Perhaps I might point out, in passing, as I think hon. Members will know, that the form of the Commission's accounts has been changed, of course, as provided by the 1957 Act, to show that clearly

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the relief from the obligation under the Transport Act, 1947, to pay its way, taking one year with another, to use some rather famous words, and the amount which it has been thought proper to give relief from is clearly set down for all to see in the Consolidated Revenue Account which appears in the second of the Commission's documents, the Financial and Statistical Accounts in pages 2 and 3.
I thought that I should just make that plain for hon. Members who have not, perhaps, yet examined it. Thus far, then—I say again that it is only the beginning of the operation—I think that it is fair to say that things seem to have gone to plan.
The importance of the debate is that we have an opportunity to try to look forward and to see what the future holds, to consider whether the Commission seems to have charted the right course, and that Government support which has been given to it is support which will bring about, at the earliest possible moment, an efficient, modern, and, I hope, reasonably low-cost railway system.
First, I ought to deal quite briefly with the policies which successive Conservative Ministers of Transport have tried to implement to achieve this end. It is our view that the Commission, in 1951, was too monolithic a structure. At that time, there were six Executives with responsibilities for the railways, London Transport, and so on. Between them, they had no fewer than 36 boards, all of which were appointed by the Minister.
Theoretically, of course, they acted as agents of the Commission, but I think that most people, looking back, would agree that, in fact, they developed a position of considerable strength and highly centralised management. It was the view of my predecessors, as it is certainly my view, that that, probably, was not the best kind of management. It was too remote from the customer, and, I think, also, too inflexible to face a very competitive world.
I just want to note the progress in our main objective, which has been to decentralise and reorganise the railways on a regional basis and to try to devolve management as far down the line as possible. The Commission refers to this matter in paragraph 9 of its Annual Report. Incidentally, it might be of
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interest to the House to know that this Report is, of course, the Commission's Report. The Commission neither needs to consult me, nor does it consult me, about its terms or its wording, and the Report is, therefore, a completely unbiassed and factual statement of how the Commission thinks things are going and should go. It is interesting, therefore, to see the tribute which the Commission pays to the progress made by the area boards, and the way in which they have relieved the Commission of a great deal of work which had been undertaken at the centre, but which the Commission and the Government think is much better undertaken in the regions.
The regional boards have given a great deal of attention to the development of the modernisation plan, and I think that most people who are interested in the railways will agree, also, that they have taken a great interest in staff and welfare matters. Members of area hoards have given the railways very good value and very good service in the way in which they have devoted a very large share of their time to trying to make the railways more efficient, more productive, and, on the whole, I think, a prouder industry to work in. I think that the country should be grateful to these men who give such a lot of their time to this task.
Mr. Ernest Popplewell: The Minister referred to the six Executives and 36 appointments. I cannot quite understand why he should make that point. Will he say, also, how many regional boards have been appointed and how many appointments the Minister now makes to the regional boards? I think that he ought to draw the comparison both ways, because, as we all know, before the Conservative Party came into this there was the idea of decentralisation, and it was only a question of method and timing for putting that sort of thing in motion. Whether the decentralisation would have been the same in other circumstances is a rather debatable matter.
Mr. Watkinson: As I am sure that the hon. Member knows, since he has taken part in many of these debates, I have—I
regret to inform the House—a long speech to make. The comparison I was making was quite a fair one, and I am not arguing as to whether the Opposition would have done the same. I am merely

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saying that I and my predecessors wished to help the Commission in this great task of decentralisation because we thought that was the way to make its work more efficient. I doubt whether the House disagrees.
Mr. Popplewell: Further to the Minister's reference to the 36 appointments, would he now give the number of other appointments which the Minister now makes?
Mr. Watkinson: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would allow my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with that when he winds up the debate. I am not making a point about the number of appointments, but I am making the comparison between centralised and decentralised management.
Perhaps I might just go on to say that the Commission, too, has made a great deal of progress in decentralising management within the regions, which is, of course, its responsibility. I will not go into details, but hon. Members who take an interest in this subject will know that the regions themselves have been reorganised, the Eastern Region, for example, on a line basis, the Western Region working on devolution from regional headquarters to areas, each subdivided into districts, and so on. There is, and it is most important for the success of the modernisation that there should be, a constant attempt to re-organise and get the right kind of management to fit the task which lies ahead.
I would say, as the Government have said in their White Paper, that, on the whole, we think that the right kind of framework has now been set for this great business. After all, that is what it really amounts to—and we think that it is right that the Commission itself should be relieved of some of its day-to-day duties. We think, too, that it is right that it should much more resemble a parent company looking generally after large policy issues and leaving most of the day-to-day management to the regions.
Of course, this is not the end of the process and the Commission will, no doubt, have to continue to re-examine its structure and methods as it develops its modernisation plan and all the changes that that will present. As I have said,
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however, the Government believe that the right broad framework has now been established.
The House is familiar that apart from the area boards, there are separate divisions for British Road Services, the docks and waterways, hotels, and so on, not forgetting London Transport Executive. I have made this point—it is a not unimportant one—because it could be held, and held fairly, both on the other side of the House and on this, that if one took what might be called the full application of both Socialist and Conservative views, it might be said that the present solution requires further treatment. For example, it might be said to require further measures of denationalisation or renationalisation. The view of the Government is that this kind of middle of the road, to some extent compromise, solution that we have obtained is the right one.
I was very interested to read, therefore, in paragraph 6 of the Commission's Report, some words which I commend to the House, bearing in mind, as I have said, that these are the Commission's own views. After detailing some of the steps which the Commission has taken, paragraph 6 states that the Commission hopes that it
"will now be allowed reasonable freedom and a period of stability to press on with reconstruction, and that the whole fabric of public transport will no longer be subjected to periodic and seismic upheaval on political account."
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Watkinson: That is a fair statement and, I think, exactly represents the position to which the Government have now brought the Commission. I will come presently to the question of balance between public and private enterprise, but I think it is right to draw the attention of the House to that statement.
It is equally right to say that that is, in the Government's view, a statement which they hope will be followed. The Government, as I have said, think that the essential task now is to encourage and help the Commission to go forward with its modernisation plan and to see that it can undertake the serious obligations to which it is committed under the underwriting process of the plan. Therefore, this is an appropriate moment to make that position quite plain.
Mr. Popplewell: Do we understand from what the Minister is saying that if at some future date the Commission puts to the Tribunal a case for the adjustment of freight rates or passenger fares, the Tory Government will not prevent the Commission increasing its charges to meet increased costs when it has previously been agreed with the Tribunal? We all remember that the Government did that in the past. They are largely responsible for quite a lot of the £54 million deficit in the Commission's accounts.
Mr. Watkinson: I remember that both Governments have interfered with the Commission in the past. Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to make my own speech, when he will find that I deal with the specific points which he has raised.
I want now to turn to the year's figures. There was, of course, a deficit of no less than £57½ million on British Railways, made up of a deficit in net receipts of £16·5 million and £41 million which is the railways' proportion of the Commission's central charges. In saying that this is in line with the Commission's forecast—which, of course, it is—I by no means
underestimate this formidable total; but so that the House may get as balanced a view as possible it should be seen against the figure of £730 million which is the total of B.T.C. receipts for the year.
There is one other point which may interest the House. The deficit in net receipts conceals a rise in gross receipts of £26·2 million over 1955, but, unfortunately, costs rose to a greater extent, by £44·5 million. On its other activities, the Commission had a surplus of £3·1 million. Its deficit, therefore, as I have said, was £54·4 million.
The Special Account set up by the 1957 Act consists, therefore, of the accumulated deficit at the end of the 1955£69·8 million—and the 1956 deficit, together with interest on borrowing during the year for capital purposes on British Railways, which amounted to £282,637. These figures are clearly set out in the Commission's accounts. That is for the past.
I want now to see what pointers we have to the state of efficiency reached by the Commission, which may give a clue
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as to whether the future will show improvement. One of the most significant of these is the graph, diagram No. 7, in page 66, which shows the trend of passenger traffic. The Commission's use of graphs in setting out these things is extremely helpful and gives an idea of general trends. In 1956, passenger miles on British Railways were higher than in any year since nationalisation. When I come to the modernisation programme, I hope to say something about how the modernisation of many suburban and rural services by diesel train sets has contributed to this improvement.
There is little doubt that fuel rationing helped, too. As I told the Chairman of the Commission at the time—on behalf. I am sure, of the whole House—the railways did amazingly well during that period and the good will that they won during the emergency will, with the promise of increased efficiency, stand them in good stead for the future. Indeed, that is shown by the fact that passenger figures, at least in the current year, continue to be very encouraging.
Those figures are not only due to the fact that during petrol rationing probably many people found that it was surprisingly convenient to travel by train. Although these are not spectacular features, it was also because of things like better cleanliness, better punctuality, more keenness and courtesy in railway staff, and a general toning-up and improvement in the service. To that extent, there is fair reason for saying that there are signs on the passenger side of the improvement which we shall certainly need if we are to bring off this great undertaking.
Turning now to freight traffic, diagrams 10 and 11, in pages 70 and 71, give the trend of freight traffics. These are by no means such a pleasant picture. The trend is a decline. Indeed, the whole weight of what has to be done on the railways, the Commission believes, should be directed against this trend by introducing into operation methods and equipment which will arrest the decline and regain for the railways the traffics for which they are well suited. It is a difficult task, and it is particularly difficult to produce results quickly, but I am sure that if hon. Members study the graphs they will see that the position is

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one that must cause the Commission considerable concern.
While waiting for big improvements from the new marshalling yards and the completion of the continuous brake programme, and so on, the Commission cannot afford to overlook any method which will improve the efficiency of its existing services. If hon. Members would care to turn to the graph in page 74, that is, diagram 12, they will see that at least the Commission achieved much greater efficiency in the loading of wagons. Bearing in mind that many, perhaps the greater proportion, of its wagons are completely out of date and outmoded—one has only to compare the average wooden rail wagon with the average modern road vehicle to see how much out of date they are—it is to the Commission's credit that it has at least improved its efficiency in using its freight equipment.
These graphs, of course, cannot tell the whole story. The railway modernisation programme was launched only at the beginning of 1955, and, therefore, it is only just beginning to bear fruit. I hope that some hon. Members—I know some did—had the time to have a look at these first fruits of the modernisation programme which were to be seen at a small exhibition which the railways recently held at Battersea Wharf. As the Chairman of the Commission rightly said, it certainly showed the first fruits of the modernisation programme, and that it has had some fruits, and it was very pleasing to see the new rolling stock, the new diesel train sets.
It pleased me very much to have a chat with one of the old railwaymen there, who has served the railways all his working life. I asked him what he thought about this new equipment and it pleased me very much to see the pride with which he replied that given this kind of equipment the railways could succeed in their task. If that spirit is general on the railways we can take some comfort for their future. One of the features of the exhibition was the diesel train sets. It is worth telling that by the end of 1956 nearly 400 of these vehicles had been delivered. That was two and a half times more than in the previous year. Remarkable increases in receipts have followed the production of
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this kind of train. It seems that if British Railways can get the new equipment they can not only make good use of it, but attract freight and passenger custom.
The next stage is the diesel locomotive, and the House may like to know that present orders for diesel main line locomotives are for 230 locomotives. Deliveries have begun. Of this total, 43 locomotives are being built in British Railways workshops and 187 by outside contractors. Further orders are about to be placed, and as the whole procurement programme totals only about 2,500 main line diesels it can be seen that the next stage from the multiple unit diesel is now well in hand.
The Commission announced on 22nd November, 1955, its decision to purchase 174 diesel locomotives as pilot models. The Commission has since come to the conclusion that if it is to maintain its planned programmes it has to go ahead more rapidly with diesel locomotives, and, therefore, as I have said, it is proposing to order more locomotives. I think that this proposal may well bring the rate of production of diesel locomotives in the country above the figures quoted in the White Paper.
The next stage is electrification on which the Commission's main hopes are based, because the diesel, on main lines at any rate, is only an interim phase. After 1961 the Commission hopes to step up the pace of electrification. It may be interesting to the House to know that the first main line electric locomotives are expected to be in operation in October, 1958, on the Manchester to Crewe section. So that part of the programme is certainly going according to plan at the moment. There are many works on the track, signalling and structures to be undertaken.
I come back again, because I think that this is the crux of the Commission's future, to the freight traffic position, and to some of the features of the Report which deal with the modernisation of the freight services. I say very sincerely that although we differ on some things I am not sure that we differ on the main objective, and the question which must worry any Minister of Transport, as I know it worries the Commission is, frankly—and I am talking of freights—not whether the railways will achieve too little, but whether they may achieve it too late to

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regain the traffics which they are losing and hate lost to the roads because if they do regain them too late they cannot regain solvency. It is a very worrying problem. That is why I say that it is the crux of the modernisation plan
That is why I will tell the House briefly a little about the work that is going on. I am afraid it is, at the moment, only a sign of progress. As the Economist said recently:
"The promise of what is possible provides the only present foundation for the necessary act of faith in modernisation."
I think that is not unfair at this early stage, so I will say a little about what the promise of what is possible.
The fitting of continuous brakes is obviously the most urgent matter, and the planned programme for that is being exceeded in the current year. That is going well, and I think that traders are getting a hint of things to come in their use of the "Export Express Service" which guarantees next day delivery from certain industrial areas to the docks. This is only a beginning, but I think that it shows that the Commission is at least making progress in this very important sphere.
Whatever is planned for machines will be disappointing in its results unless the men who operate them can work together towards the end of making the railways efficient and prosperous again, and I think it still needs saying again, although I have said it before, that the money spent on modernisation really cannot serve the nation's needs and give a proper return unless it is matched by a new approach by the men—and by the men I mean every man, whatever his station, in the Commission—by a new approach to current problems.
It has always been my fervent hope that the enormous demands of this great task will bring a change in the mental outlook of every man and woman who works for the Commission and so for the nation. I believe that the railways have come a long way in this since I first came into contact with this problem, when I was at the Ministry of Labour, and that there has been a sharp change, and one of which the House should take note, in the attitude of the railwaymen to their task.
I think that the House should take note of these significant words in an article by Mr. James Campbell, the General
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Secretary to the National Union of Railwaymen, in its journal, the Railway Review. Talking about the general position of the railways Mr. Campbell said:
"It should be obvious to us as employees in the industry that our future depends in a large degree on the contribution we make, both individually and collectively, to improving efficiency. What we put in is every bit as important as what we take out."
Those, I think, are important as well as wise words coming from somebody who leads the great majority of railwaymen, and if one can see that kind of approach in action I think that the modernisation programme will succeed and that the British Railways Productivity Council, which plays such an important part, will succeed, too.
In my visits to various parts of the railways—and the Parliamentary Secretary will have something to say about this when he winds up—while I did see various things that one can criticize, things with which one cannot be satisfied, I saw progress in the determination of management and men to make a success of the task of matching the modernisation of methods to the railwayman's approach to his job.
The Commission has a Work Study Training Centre, at Watford, where training schemes are carried out on maintenance, stores organisation, station working and in the drawing office, and they will be of great help in producing work on maintenance at lower cost and, therefore, assist productivity.
Therefore, I think that, on the whole, it is fair to say that the Government took the right decision in March, 1956, when they asked the Commission to undertake a detailed review of its policy and prospects. That, of course, led, in the end, to the underwriting of the modernisation programme. At that time I said that I hoped that I saw in this nationalisation some of the spirit that makes private enterprise profitable, and that all concerned were willing to work together and get on with the job. I think that I can claim, and not in any political sense, that events have proved that I was right in my belief. Some may say that my intervention at that time was interference.
Mr. David Jones: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Commission itself said in its

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Report that he interfered, because he gave the Commission instructions not to increases its charges.
Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member would have done better to let me finish my sentence. With the knowledge of events that have flowed from that decision, I do not regret it, nor does the Commission. I believe that given good will and lack of industrial conflict, the Commission will pull off this great operation, but it does need the good will of all concerned, and of industry as well.
We face a very difficult problem on the freight side and the Commission is very conscious that it will be some time yet before modernisation, however well it goes, can really show the kind of advantage to the transport manager of a large concern that he can get from road services offered to him by either British Road Services or by private enterprise.
To some extent, therefore, there is this difficult interim phase, during which the railways have to try to regain traffics with equipment not yet modernised enough. The Commission is doing a great deal to meet the problem, but it is no use the House deluding itself that we are not in for a difficult phase until, on the freight side in particular, modernisation can pay off. Whilst I have given examples of what the Commission is doing, they are not examples of what will bear fruit at once. The Commission is introducing 400 wagons of a newly developed design to enable cement to be transported in bulk and discharged under pressure. Most hon. Members have seen what the Commission is doing in building railway containers and pallets suitable for the conveyance of bricks, tiles, slates, and so on.
The Commission is also evolving a new standard of container to carry a much greater pay-load, and developing fork-lift trucks and new types of cranes which will handle lorry loads to be landed from a lorry, or perhaps sometimes in the body of the lorry itself. All these works are being pressed forward as far as possible. I hope that traders will take careful note of what these developments portend for the future and that transport managers in large firms will keep a careful eye on the progress of these trends so that they can
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make use of them as soon as they are available to them.
Mr. Hector Hughes: Will the right hon. Gentleman say something about the promise which he made some months ago to modernise the transport of perishable goods from north-east Scotland, particularly fish to Billingsgate?
Mr. Watkinson:That is a very good example. As I think the hon. and learned Member knows, the Commission is building a special stock of fast freight wagons, which will be used as far as possible only between Aberdeen and London and which should give a considerably better service, the Commission hopes, for that most perishable of traffics. Therefore, the Commission is trying to meet that problem. There are other problems, and I wish the Commission well.
Mr. A. E. Cooper: The main delays in handling goods occur at the collection and delivery points and not so much in transit, for example, between London and Birmingham. It is quite common for goods going from Mitcham for delivery in Manchester to take ten to fourteen days and for the whole of that time, with the exception of one day, to be taken up at some depot in London. It does not need a great deal of money to correct that.
Mr. Watkinson: That is a very interesting point. If he takes part in the debate. I hope that my hon. Friend will develop it.
The Commission realises that it is no use having an overnight service by rail if these very long delays are experienced in loading and unloading. That is the principle behind the development of new freight terminals, where the clearance of goods should be much quicker. This is also an example of the fact that a terminal cannot be modernised and re-equipped in a few months. If my hon. Friend does not develop the point in a speech, perhaps he will let me have details of particular problems, which I should be happy to pass on to the Commission.
It is, perhaps, rather odd to have said all that I have said so far against a background of increases in charges by the Commission, and I should say something about that at this stage. I know

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that the Commission does not like increasing charges, because of its inevitable effect on traffic. But to try to get as balanced a picture as we can, I should point out to those interested that if they study diagram 4 in page 62 of the Commission's Report they will see that in terms of money at 1938 purchasing purchasing power, fares in real terms have fallen while real average wage earnings have risen by about half. In other words, taking 1938 as 100, fares stand at 200 and wages stand at 286. Therefore, perhaps passenger rail travel is not so bad a bargain.
The freight position is much more difficult. Here, even if the most favourable comparisons are made, we have to face the fact, as I have tried to tell the House before, that almost any increase in freight charges is enough to drive traffic away from the railways to the road. There is no time, nor do I wish, to traverse matters which have been discussed in the House before, but this was the view that I took in March last year over the question of the Commission's increasing its freight, dock and canal charges. In other words, at that time I did not think that it was wrong to limit the increase to what expert advice thought the traffic might bear, having in mind particularly that at that time the Commission was handicapped by a completely outmoded system of freight charges.
This is an important point. Looking at the trend of freight traffic since then, I consider that that decision was prudent in the railways' interests. The railways have a new railway merchandise charges scheme in operation at last, and they have much more flexibility in charging. The House is familiar with the various obligations from which the railways have been released. Now that the new charging scheme is in force, the railways, for example, do not have to publish the actual charges but only the maximum charges. That puts them on a much fairer basis in relation to competitors who are not under any obligation to publish their charges.
The Commission can vary its charges according to local circumstances and market needs. Where the rates are too low it can raise them, and where more traffic is needed it can lower them.
Mr. Hector Hughes: While the right hon. Gentleman is on this question of freight charges, will he say whether, in the near future, there will be a revision of the tapering system, which at present is unsatisfactory to north-east Scotland?
Mr. Watkinson: I know how strongly the hon. and learned Member and his compatriots feel about this, but I do not think that I ought to enter into it now. I will certainly ask my hon. Friend to reply to him if the hon. and learned Member takes part in the debate. Of course, the hon. and learned Gentleman will not expect a new statement of policy on tapering railway charges on this occasion, though no doubt he would like it.
A policy of relating charges more nearly to the use of resources ought to greatly help the future profitability of the railways. The Commission has a very big job in explaining and selling all this to businessmen, and it is trying to make it plain to traders that it will charge commercial prices in the course of competition with other providers of transport. It is against this completely changed background that we must set the Commission's recent proposals for an increase in freight charges, which have been genuinely misunderstood in many quarters.
I must, first, remind the House of what the Commission said in the memorandum which is appended to the White Paper, "Proposals for the Railways." It said:
"…it is a basic assumption of this paper that …if their costs should rise they must be free to adjust their charges."
Indeed, if that is not so, it cannot keep the very serious undertakings which it has given in connection with the underwriting programme. The Government, at that time, in paragraph 21 of Command Paper 9880, said:
"This does not mean, of course, that the Commission will not impose selective increases in their charges during the next five or six years …if they are to overcome their present financial difficulties."
Therefore, it should not be a great surprise to business circles if the Commission has to increase its headroom for its commercial charges, but it does it in a completely new and more flexible system, and, equally, it is now able to vary its charges according to what it thinks the traffic will bear. It is a new situation, as compared with any which ever obtained before.
Mr. James Harrison: The right hon. Gentleman will realise that it is our custom, particularly in these debates, which tend to become rather technical, to interject in the Minister's speech, and I hope that he will forgive me for doing so now. The point that interests me is the falling off of freight traffic. The right hon. Gentleman has not yet mentioned that the bulk of this freight traffic is minerals, coal and coke. He is now talking about charges, but the greatest inroad into that freight traffic recently has been caused by the conveyance of this mineral traffic within the 40-mile orbit of the pits on the roads.
The Transport Commission has to compete, so it tells us, with the prices charged by road haulage, and, in the Midlands we now have road transport running about, very often with dangerous loads, cluttering up the roads, and all the time the Commission's graphs are indicating that the quantity of freight carried on the railways is coming down at a very alarming rate. Will the Minister say something about that?
Mr. Watkinson: I quite agree that freight traffics have fallen very seriously, but the hon. Member will know that a good deal of coal, though not as much as the Commission would like, has gone back from the roads to the railways. I hope that more will do so, because it is one of the Commission's main objectives to get back in the mineral traffics all the coal that can be carried efficiently by the railways; and that is certainly more than is at present being carried. The Commission is trying in many ways by new methods, but one cannot expect it all to happen at once.
I want to end my remarks on the charges position by saying, because it is fair to the Commission to do so, that since the last increases in freight charges were made, the Commission's working costs have increased by £40 million, and it is very interesting to see that out of that £40 million, £21 million is due to increases in wages, and £19 million is due to increased costs of coal, steel, road fuel, tyres, and so on. Therefore, it is worth noting, to be fair to the Commission, that many of the Commission's suppliers did not try as hard as the Commission itself to hold down their prices.
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It is equally fair to take account of a point made by the Economist on 6th July, when it said that the increases both of the railway authorities and the Coal Board represent only an increase in rail costs of less than one-half per cent. of the national income. So, again, perhaps we should try to keep these things in proper proportion. The fact is, and this House has to face it, that the Commission are now bearing this extra burden of £40 million, £30 million of which applies to the railways alone, and that the only way out of the Commission's difficulties, if it is to keep faith with the White Paper and the promises it made therein, was to try to increase its charges.
I therefore wish to make it plain that, in reviewing these rates, under the new 10 per cent. headroom, actual rates charged—because that is what matters to the individual trader—will be the subject of discussion with them on a commercial basis. I do not think that we should assume that this is a blanket increase of 10 per cent. It is an increase of 10 per cent. in the new circumstances which I have outlined.
Before I leave the subject of charges, I should remind the House that the Commission has said that it will have to make some selective increases in passenger fares as well. It has authority to do this and has already submitted to the Transport Tribunal a new draft passenger charges scheme. The Commission wants to keep its prices and costs down as much as anyone else, but it has to keep faith with the undertakings which it has given in the White Paper. In the completely new charging circumstances which it faces, I think that it will now be able to apply its charges in a much more sensible and I hope more profitable manner.
To sum up, I think that 1956, difficult though it has been for the railways, may well, as the Chairman of the Commission said recently, mark the turning of the tide for the Commission. The Government believe that the Commission has correctly charted its course, and that it should be left alone and encouraged to press on with it and make a success of it. By that, I do not mean for a moment that it should regard itself as being free from the detailed examination and criticism of this House. That is part of its lot.

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Although one of the very difficult tasks which confronts a Minister with responsibility for a nationalised industry is to find the right balance between the need to leave the Commission free to manage its own affairs and the need to ensure that Parliament and the nation have the means of satisfying themselves that it is actually doing it, I would say from my own experience that the only way to maintain that balance is by the very close co-operation and friendly consultation which I have always enjoyed with the Chairman of the Commission, and which the Ministry has enjoyed, at all appropriate levels with the Commission.
If this is "interference," I personally make no apology for it, because I feel that it is the only way in which a Minister can discharge his very great responsibilities to the House and the country. It is quite unthinkable that a large industry, such as the railways, should not be able to feel the pulse of Government policy in this way.
Perhaps I can best sum up what I have tried to say this afternoon in the words of the Financial Times, words which are a fair summary of the present position:
"In general, things appear to be going ahead well. The railway modernisation plan is at least up to schedule. The labour shortage (except for technical staff), has eased a little, productivity has gone up, good progress is being made with decentralization, and the new freight charges scheme should result in a much better utilisation of existing assets. Public transport has a more healthy air about it than for many years."
That may well be held to be a somewhat optimistic view, and I should like to end by saying that that kind of view can only be realised if all goes well. By that I mean if we are reasonably free from industrial disputes, if modernisation goes according to plan, if the Commission and its suppliers work well together, if the Commission is subjected to constructive and not destructive criticism, and if, generally, the House and the country take the view that the Commission should get on with its task of creating the modernised transport system, which is competitive and efficient, which we must have in this highly competitive world.
I wish the Commission well in its task. I hope that I have been able to show the House that it has at least made a start, that it has produced the first fruits, and produced them on schedule, that, as the Chairman of the Commission has said,
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this may be the turn of the tide in its affairs. If I may end on a personal note, whether this House agrees, as obviously it cannot, that everything one has done is right or wrong, nobody can wish more than I do that this is really the turn of the tide in the Commission's affairs.
4.31 p.m.
Mr. Ernest Davies: I am sure that the whole House will echo the last words of the Minister in wishing the British Transport Commission well in the task which confronts it. The House will appreciate the care which the Minister has given in presenting the Report of the Commission today. It was only when the right hon. Gentleman departed from the objective and factual statement into the realm of politics that he was inclined to trip up.
The Minister quoted paragraph 6 of the Report, in which the Commission suggested that public transport should no longer be subjected to periodical upheaval on political account. We all agree with that, but what I can never understand is why the party opposite always thinks that if it intervenes and imposes its policy, that is desirable and acceptable, but when a party which happens to hold a different view implements its own policy, that is undesirable and is considered to be playing party politics.
The Minister suggested that compromise and a "middle of the road policy"—which was the phrase he used about the Government's lack of transport policy—was bringing results. He also implied that it was partly responsible for the position of the Commission today. I was rather surprised that he took this attitude. I half expected the right hon. Gentleman to come here a little repentant over the results of the policy which has been imposed by this Government upon the Transport Commission. I would remind the Minister that he is in no small measure responsible for the very heavy loss which is reported in this Report, and that it was partly due to the Government's policy of attempting to hold prices, and instructing the Commission to do so, which has resulted in the very heavy loss that we are considering now.
Further, I was glad to find that the Minister was quoting those graphs in the Report which show that the charges of the Commission today have not gone up anywhere near as much as have costs—
Mr. Watkinson: In the case of passengers.
Mr. Davies: In the case of passengers.
As far as one can make out, it is claimed that the cost of freight has not gone up as much as the general rise in the cost of materials and the rest. I would remind the Minister that he cannot take any credit for that. The Government's inflationary economic policy was responsible for the difficulties of the Commission but, in spite of that policy, the Commission has succeeded in meeting the gap to some extent by improved efficiency, so the greater efficiency of nationalised industry is responsible for this.
I do not want to be more political than that, and I shall deal, as the Minister did, largely with the future of the Transport Commission. Parliament must concern itself with that, since it is our responsibility, and we cannot but view the results of last year with serious concern. For the first time since the railways were amalgamated, in 1921, into the main line companies, taken as a whole they report a working loss.
In other words, for the first time, taken together, the railways have failed to cover their working expenses by the very large sum of £16½ million. Previously, they had been in difficulties and not able to pay all their debenture interest, and so on, when they were under private enterprise, but there was never a time when the main line railway companies, taken together, were in a similar position.
That is a serious state of affairs. It is true that because the Transport Commission has other undertakings it is able to set off that loss to some extent by its other principal carrying activities, and, taking into account the ancillary undertakings, there is the small surplus of £4½ million to meet the very heavy capital charges which, when they are taken into account, leave a deficit of £54·4 million, as the Minister pointed out. This is carried to the Special Account and that makes this large loss a burden on the future; that is to say, transport users of the future will have to find the money to pay back the deficit which is now being covered by borrowing and also, year by year, will have to meet the interest on this deficit.
When the Transport Railway Finances Bill was before the House we on this
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side suggested that it would be far better if the Government made a direct subsidy to the railways to meet the deficits, or at least part of them, which would be incurred during the transition period. We argued that if they did not do so, and the money was met by borrowing, the future liability on the Commission would be so great that the estimates in the White Paper could not be fulfilled, or would be very difficult to fulfil.
If one takes the current deficit and works out the interest which will have to be paid, the picture is alarming. The Report states that the Commission borrows from the Treasury at present at the rate of 5¼ per cent. on a 25-year loan. The interest on this year's deficit comes to £2·85 million per annum, to be paid back on the deficit, and over the period of twenty-five years this will amount to over £70 million. Thus, by financing the deficits in this way the Commission is being burdened with interest of £70 million over a period of twenty-five years in order to have its present deficit of £54 million lent to it.
In my view, that is crazy financing. It is unfair to the Commission, to the travelling public and to those who send goods by rail to burden them with this heavy interest charge and to postpone the day when it will be met. It would be far better if the Government faced the position as it is, and decided to meet these deficits out of a direct subsidy.
The task of Parliament in this debate is to inquire into the causes of the loss, as the Minister did, to see whether they are likely to continue, what can be done to minimise them, and, ultimately, to eliminate them. The Commission gives three main reasons for the heavy loss last year. First, there is the decline in the freight carryings and in the London Transport traffics. Secondly, there is the freezing of the Commission's fares and charges. Thirdly, there is the continuation of inflation.
The first, the decline in freight, is not, as it were, the cause of the Commission's failure; it is rather a symptom of the disease. That is to say, the traffic is there but the Commission has not obtained it. The position is not quite the same for the London Transport Executive because, owing to the deteriorating position in London's traffic problem, the London Transport Executive has been

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unable to maintain its services and people have been deserting public transport for private transport.
In those circumstances, it is quite understandable that the London Transport Executive has been unable to hold its travelling public. It means that something must be done about London if the London Transport Executive is to be able to provide the public service to Londoners which they need. We do not wish to debate that this afternoon, but I am convinced that this problem is not being tackled with the imagination and energy which it requires.
Much more important elements in last year's results are the freezing of the Commission's fares and charges and the continuation of inflation. I do not wish to recount the history of the Government's policy in this respect. It was decided that the Commission should not be permitted to put up its freight charges by the full 10 per cent. which it had requested. The Minister decided to set aside the recommendation of the Transport Tribunal that the Commission's request should he granted and permitted an increase in charges of only 5 per cent. At the same time, the Commission postponed the increase in its passenger fares which it had the right to impose and withdrew at that time a further application from the Transport Tribunal.
This interference by the Government and the readiness with which the Commission, subject to very persuasive influence by the Minister, responded to his request, cost, as is stated in paragraph 277, £16 million in a year. In other words. £16 million of this loss is directly due to the Government's policy of requiring the Commission to attempt to hold down its charges.
Somewhat to my surprise, as it reflects on private enterprise, the Minister referred to the fact that although the Commission had hoped that the cost of the materials which it used would also be held down, that had not occurred and the Commission had been disappointed. It is stated in paragraph 46,
"The Commission also expressed the hope that their various suppliers would apply similar restraint and that their customers would recognise the substantial effort the Commission were making to keep down their charges. In these respects the Commission were perhaps overoptimistic."
I will say they were!
Mr. Cooper: Is it not a fact that one of the biggest suppliers of the nationalised transport undertaking is the National Coal Board?
Mr. Davies: It is by no means the only supplier. Coal is only one of the commodities which are consumed by the Commission, and in this paragraph it is referring to the whole range of products which it consumes. Evidently private enterprise did not believe in the Prime Minister's plateau, and in the event they were right. This is an unhappy episode in last year's history of the Commission and it is partly responsible for the unfortunate results which we are considering this afternoon.
The Report deploys some other arguments or explanations of the poor results which are presented to us, but however much we juggle with these financial figures it cannot be disguised that the Commission did so badly last year because it was unable to attract sufficient traffic to pay its way. That is the blunt truth and we cannot get away from it. The future success of the Commission, therefore, depends upon whether it can get the traffic in the future. It is not only a question of finance and it is not even a question, as the Minister partly implied, of charging enough to cover costs, because if one attempts to do that one drives some of the traffic away. Putting up charges does not recapture traffic which has been lost.
In respect of the attempt to gain traffic, the Report makes rather sad reading. One is very glad to see that, on the whole, passenger traffic was held and there was a slight tendency for it to increase. As the Minister stated, this is almost certainly due to the modernisation which is progressively taking place in dieselisation and electrification. The story about freight, however, is very different, and except in minerals other than coal there has been a decline. Even for coal the tendency was downwards.
The severe fall, of course, took place in general merchandise. It was a very substantial fall in traffic. We all know the reason for it; the traffic has gone on to the roads. The Commission blames the increased competition of road haulage following the disposal of a part of the fleet of the British Road Services. It says

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that there was consequent increased competition, which resulted in excessive competition from the roads, and a decrease in the efficiency of the road haulage services generally. It blames, equally, the increase in C licences and in private cars, and in respect of public transport it blames road congestion.
All those reasons are true enough, but what one has to ask oneself is: why is there this increase in private transport at the expense of public transport? What steps can be taken to stop this flow of traffic from public to private transport and to get it back to public transport? If an answer could be found to that question, then some of the problems which confront the Commission might well be solved.
Dealing, first, with British Road Services, the competition within the industry is, of course, excessive. Prices have been cut in the road haulage industry and considerable traffic has been creamed off the railways. That cannot be denied. I think that every hon. Member will agree that an increasing amount of traffic is being carried on the roads which could equally well be carried by the railways and that in a well-organised transport system it would be carried by the railways.
I would point out to the House that, in spite of the difficulties encountered by British Road Services last year owing to the continued disposal of its vehicles, up to the point when the Government were forced to stop the sales because industry did not want the trunk service network broken up and disintegrated, B.R.S. succeeded in obtaining a surplus of £1·8 million during 1956. One cannot help but reflect how much better it would be for the Commission and how much better its results would be if there had been no denationalisation of British Road Services and if, instead of only £1·8 million being available to set off against the losses, there had been the same surplus as that of the previous year, £4·3 million, or the year before, £8 million.
I would remind hon. Members opposite who do not wish to face this fact that the Report concludes the sordid story of the disposal of the British Road Services fleet. This is given almost in parenthesis in Notes 22 to 24 to the Accounts in the Second Volume of the Report. This
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story is not a thriller, but it is a shocker, and a bit of a mystery, too. The disposal of three-fifths of the fleet—that is, 20,000 out of 35,000 vehicles—cost almost as much as did the acquisition of the whole fleet. In other words, £1,170,000 was spent in disposing of the vehicles, whereas the expenses involved upon the acquisition of the vehicles was not much more—£1,300,000. The Report states that £2 million may still be required to meet further expenses and any losses not yet accounted for.
The net result appears to be that disposals realised £26 million. These vehicles, were sold at a book value of £13½ million. Therefore, on book values —they being the level to which the vehicles and property had been written down out of the revenue of British Road Services and the Commission—there was a profit of £12½ million. But against that must be set the goodwill of £31½ million, which had been carried in the books of the Commission as a result of the prices which were paid for the businesses acquired when nationalisation took place. Against this, also, there was the levy, the final figure of which came to £12¼ million. so that when all these figures are balanced one against the other the net result is that there is still a debit in the books of the Commission of £10½ million, which is set aside as the remaining goodwill of the existing fleet.
From these figures one could argue the question whether or not there was a profit or loss on the actual assets according to whether one took the book values or the book values plus the goodwill. One could argue either way according to one's political lights, but the fact remains that £10½ million stands in the books of the Commission, in regard to the remaining fleet of about 16,000 vehicles, as an intangible asset called goodwill.
Mr. Norman Cole: Does not the hon. Member think that £10½ million of the total goodwill of £31 million is in fair proportion to the fact that 15,000 vehicles remain with the Commission against the 20,000 sold?
Mr. Davies: No, because I do not consider that the original goodwill figure of £30 million was the real value for the goodwill of the businesses acquired. This is one reason why the values of the vehicles were written down so much by

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the Commission. I do not consider that a successful concern like British Road Services should carry these intangible assets in its balance sheet.
This does not answer the question that I attempted to raise, which is: why should there be this continuing increase in private transport at the expense of public? There are two main answers to this question. One is that there has been a change in transport policy since the present Conservative Government came into power in 1951—this switch-over from an economically planned transport system to one of free competition. We are now reaping the fruits of Government policy, and they are sour fruits, too.
The second and much more important reason, front the point of view of considering the Report, is that within the competitive system which the Government have preferred to the planned transport system that we were endeavouring to create the railways are unable to compete with private transport and other forms of transport because they have an out-of-date system. I fully agree with the Minister that when we talk about an out-of-date system we do not mean that the railways are by any means outmoded; it is simply that before the war private enterprise was not spending sufficient to bring the railways up to date. In many cases, although not all, they were allowed to run down into a very poor condition. Secondly, since the war Governments of both complexions have, until recently, starved the railways of capital investment, and the railways have thus not been permitted to bring themselves up to date. Only now are they being permitted to do so.
This has prevented the provision of the required services at competitive prices. The railways are not giving the services which those who would use the railways desire. The experience of fuel rationing proved that, if proof were necessary. During that period the railways increased their traffics to a maximum of about 20 per cent., at one point, but as soon as restrictions were relaxed and finally ended the railways lost the traffics which had reverted to them, and they have now gone back to their old position. They are now still faced with declining freight traffics, for the most part.
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It is interesting to note that the Commission states that during the height of petrol rationing it was actually reaching the point where it was paying its way. Paragraph 220 of the Report says:
"During the early weeks of 1957…the increased earnings of the Commission's services were large enough to put the Commission within measurable distance of balancing their accounts in total. This fundamental reversal of fortune was occasioned simply by the fact that the public transport facilities were being used more nearly to the capacity for which they were designed."
This shows that the railways are able to carry the traffic, and that if the traffic flowed to the railways they would be able to pay their way. The problem is: how are we to get that traffic on to the railways so that they will be in that position permanently, instead of only during what was for them a fortuitous period?
Any hon. Member may point to the deficiencies in certain of the services. In spite of considerable improvements, there is still great unpunctuality in passenger services. Many hon. Members who travel at weekends to keep political appointments, and often do not travel on the main "crack" expresses because they have to go across country to their destinations, become very annoyed at the long delays and the unpunctuality of the services.
Here I think that some improvement could be made if a new approach were taken. The most infuriating thing of all is to arrive at a station, more or less on time, only to experience a long delay whilst parcels are shovelled out of the guard's van and mails put in. The time has come when British Railways should consider the cessation of this system of carrying parcels by passenger train. I believe it is the intention ultimately, under the modernisation plan, to run express parcels trains to eliminate the delays which are inevitable with this manhandling of small parcels on and off passenger trains.
There are many antiquated systems which still survive. It is ridiculous when, arriving at a station with a package which cannot be taken into the carriage, one has to hand it to a porter, see it being labelled, and then see the porter put it into the guard's van. It is ridiculous that that system should still prevail. In many countries there is straightforward registration of luggage on arrival at the

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station and straightforward collection of it the other end, in the way that it is done when one travels by air. Any hon. Member could draw attention to a number of small details of this nature. It makes me wonder sometimes whether the railway management has ever sat back and looked afresh at the systems employed on the railways today.
What the passenger needs is clean and comfortable compartments to travel in and fast and punctual trains, and that will come ultimately with dieselisation and electrification. Some hon. Members recently visited the French railways. We were all very greatly impressed by the very high overall average speeds which the French railways are able to maintain by using diesel trains and electrified services. The consistent speeds at which the trains travelled and the maintenance of an overall average of 70 miles per hour, including stops, impressed all of us.
I wonder whether British Railways have set themselves this target in their modernisation programme. Are we to have, as we ought to have, so far as is possible in our different circumstances —greater density of traffic, and so on —fast diesels running not only from London to the North, the West and the East, but across country? What I should like to see would be a network of diesel services, combined with electrification.
Another impressive thing in France is the enthusiasm which modernisation gives the staff. The staff is enthusiastic in carrying out its work and determined to maintain the high standard of service which it has set itself, this including consistent punctuality. Modernisation will bring improvements on the passenger side and on the freight side. The Minister referred to the running of fast freight trains.
The expenditure on modernisation will provide the materials and the tools. That is, as it were, merely the hardware. The traffics will not automatically come to the railways simply because there are diesel trains, fast freight trains, and so on. There has to be a combination of the commercial and operational sides in providing the right pattern of services for transport users. I sometimes doubt whether the management is sufficiently aware of this, whether it is always imaginative and
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amenable to new ideas and tackles them with the determination, vigour and enthusiasm necessary if the needs of the public are to be met.
This is no criticism at all of the railway staff, who are coping, as the Minister said, as well as they can with great difficulties and with poor material. The Minister is right in saying that, unless the materials are matched by the men and there is a new approach, the results will not be forthcoming. On the railways we have very responsible staff, and if they are given the opportunity, I am sure that they will go ahead and that modernisation will succeed.
However, I have considerable doubts whether the present regional set-up, with the general managers having more and more power and the area boards acting, as it were, as a cushion between the general managers and the centre, is the right form of organisation. I do not think that it makes for quick decisions and standardised policy. I think that it leads to considerable delay, because each region has to be brought in, there is a discussion on policy, and then the centre may not be able to impose its decision.
The future success of the Commission depends on attracting the traffic, which, in its turn, depends upon its offering good, speedy and reliable services, and the ability to do so depends on the speed with which the modernisation plan is carried out. I was glad to hear the Minister say that so far it has gone according to schedule. I should like to know whether the expenditure on modernisation is what was estimated when the White Paper appeared. It was then estimated that modernisation would cost £1,200 million. That was two years ago. Since then costs have risen all round.
One-third of the orders have now been placed, and it should be possible to assess the accuracy of the estimates and see whether or not they were roughly on the right lines. It would be interesting if the Joint Parliamentary Secretary could tell us whether any new estimates of the likely financial requirements of the Commission have yet been made, and, if they have been made, whether the finance will be forthcoming in spite of the fact that it will presumably be considerably higher than was originally estimated.
This is important not by any means as a theoretical exercise, but because the

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White Paper estimated that equilibrium would be reached by 1961 or 1962 and that by 1970 a surplus of some £50 million would be realised. Those estimates are, of course, based on the expenditure of £1,200 million, and, as interest has to be paid on all the capital expenditure, if the capital expenditure is higher, the interest charges—incidentally, they have already gone up—will be higher, and then the surplus will be less.
In fact, for every £100 million more which has to be spent in capital investment, the interest charge is £5¼ million; thus, there is £5¼ million less available towards the working surplus which it is hoped ultimately to realise. If, as I have heard suggested, the cost is now likely to be nearer £2,000 million than £1,200 million, then the investment surplus will soon reach vanishing point.
I wish to refer to the question of the contracts which are being placed by the Commission at the present time. It is equally important to keep the costs as low as possible, and the basis on which contracts are placed will determine whether or not the costs are as low as they could be. My hon. Friends and I are somewhat concerned about the position, because we understand that the system employed by the Commission is not always that of inviting tenders to contract. When contracts are to be placed, the Commission does not always follow the system of inviting all appropriate firms to tender and then accepting the lowest tender or one of the low tenders according to the requirements in the circumstances.
It appears that on occasions certain experienced firms which have been contracting with the Commission over long periods are employed without alternative tenders being invited. I can understand the reason for that. Engineers and technicians with long experience know what their requirements are, and they may for a long time have been dealing with one firm, and it may be far easier for them to continue dealing with that firm, because they know that if they do they will obtain the quality that they require; but that is not good business.
There is a danger that this system will meet with approval so long as it is the technical staff which is responsible for placing the contracts. I understand that the Commission inherited this system
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from certain of the old railway companies. In the past, certain main line railway companies permitted the technical staff to place contracts and there was no supply or services organisation with the qualifications necessary for buying the goods or placing the contracts. It would be far better were there a fully qualified buying staff responsible for placing contracts. In view of the huge orders now being placed, the Commission's principle should be that in all but exceptional circumstances competitive tenders should be sought from all suppliers with the necessary resources. I do not think that anyone would quarrel with that.
If, for a special reason, this system has to be departed from, there must be adequate safeguards. The system of contracting on a cost-plus basis should be avoided as much as possible. Invariably, such a system results in far higher costs than have been estimated. We heard of some cases where this principle of competitive tendering had been departed from and where there had been cost-plus contracts, or even contracts without a price being finally determined in advance.
I will not go into details at this stage, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) will speak about that at greater length. I refer to it now because I should like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to tell the House later what system is followed at present by the Commission to ensure that the very large orders now being placed for modernisation work are placed at the lowest possible cost.
I should like the hon. Gentleman to tell us whether there is a properly coordinated buying policy within the Commission and to what extent there is centralised placing of contracts and how much is still done by the regions. I understand that recently an internal inquiry into the system took place, because the Commission was not satisfied with the system which it had inherited from the former railway companies. It would be helpful if the House could be informed of the recommendations which followed that inquiry and whether they have been applied.
I wish to impress upon the Minister the importance attached to this matter by hon. Members on this side of the House. We know that the Commission has been concerned about this and it might help

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the Commission were we informed on the subject, as we should be, in view of our responsibilities for the moneys involved in the modernisation plan. My comments are not made in any spirit of adverse criticism of the efforts of the Commission which, as was stated by the Minister—and we agree—have been highly commendable under difficult circumstances. Its Report is a disappointing document, but it refers to the past and reflects a faith and confidence in the future which, in view of what the Minister has said and what we know of the conduct of the Commission, we can expect to be fulfilled.
The Commission has failed to attract and to hold its share of the traffics offered. That is because of the inadequate and out-of-date system it must employ. The situation has been aggravated by higher charges chasing after rising costs together with mounting losses. The extent to which the Commission can help itself is limited, of that there is no question. It can modernise its system and provide the services required, but after it emerges from the period of deficit and achieves financial equilibrium it will have to be relieved of some of its present liabilities. I do not think that it can cope with the past, as it is expected to do by taking on this liability for past losses with the present modernisation plan, and, at the same time, mortgage the future.
The Commission is suffering from the Government's lack of a constructive transport policy. The Government's policy of reverting to the jungle of competition has failed, as is evidenced by this Report and the congestion on the roads —and, incidentally, the high accident rate. There are bound to be chaotic conditions because there will be excessive capacity with its resultant waste and inefficiency. The railways are not being used to capacity, but the roads are congested. Unfortunately, that is not a new situation. Neither the railways nor the roads have a modern, efficient permanent way.
I consider that a fresh assessment of transport needs is called for. Were that made, I am certain that the recommendations of those who have inquired previously would be confirmed; that an
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efficient and economic transport system is dependent upon its co-ordination under common ownership. That is the position to which the country will be forced to return, and within it the Commission can look forward to playing a happier rôle than it is being allowed to play today.
5.16 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Thomas: I wish to confine my remarks to the modernisation of the railway side of the activities of the Transport Commission. But first I should like to take up one or two points made by the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) which are outside the immediate sphere of railways. The hon. Gentleman recalled the view of his party when the Transport (Railway Finances) Act was before this House, He said at that time, and he has emphasised that he retains the same view, that hon. Members opposite would prefer a direct subsidy. In that statement the hon. Gentleman underestimates the ability of the Commission and is now highly critical of the estimates it has made of the future on the basis of plans now laid.
I would remind the hon. Gentleman that in paragraph 103 of the White Paper Cmd. 9880, just above the signature of Sir Brian Robertson, it states:
"In this situation the Commission urgently recommend that some financial plan should be adopted which, while it avoids subsidy, will place their organisation on a firm, sound basis during these critical years of reconstruction. They expressly request that any relief temporarily accorded to them in relation to their immediate obligations should be strictly limited in time and amount."
I feel, particularly in view of the last remarks of the hon. Member about our policy leading us into, I think he said, "the jungle of competition", that his views—and the views which he said were those of his party—are obviously, by his own admission, doctrinaire, in that they are not even acceptable to those who have the responsibility of running this great industry.
Mr. Ernest Davies: I do not think the hon. Member should make that statement categorically regarding the views of the Commission. The White Paper does not make it as clear as all that. I understood from the White Paper, and otherwise, that the Commission does not want a permanent subsidy with all its defects.
Mr. Thomas: That may be, but I am satisfied that the last thing the Commission desired under any circumstances was a subsidy with all that a subsidy means, permanently or temporarily. Having met many of the railway men and having taken the closest interest in railways for many years, I have great confidence in the ability of the railway men of this country to pull this great industry round without permanent assistance, and they would like to do it without the temporary assistance of any Government by way of financial subsidy.
On the question of the disposal of vehicles, what the hon. Member for Enfield, East realy said was, "We are going to re-nationalise." In the unlikely event of their ever getting back to power—
Mr. G. Lindgren: Let the hon. Gentleman try it tomorrow and he will not be here.
Mr. ThomasWe do not propose to try it tomorrow. We give our people a run for their money rather than running away with their money.
Mr. George Darling: Their money has gone down the drain.
Mr. Thomas: On the question of disposal, apart, of course, from the political action of denationalisation, I do not think the hon. Member for Enfield, East, or any other hon. Member, can say that we have, in the various actions taken for disposal, really played party politics. It must be admitted—it is certainly admitted by my hon. Friends, but, of course, hon. Members opposite will disagree—that we have struck now a fairly happy balance as between the two industries of road and rail, having in mind the measure that the Commission has been allowed to retain. After all, if we had been really doctrinaire in the policy of denationalisation, we could have gone on selling those vehicles. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes, in considerable numbers.
Mr. D. Jones: The hon. Member will, no doubt, remember that the present Colonial Secretary, when Minister of Transport, anticipated that in twelve months from the beginning of denationalisation, the whole of these vehicles would be sold. Not more than
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slightly over half of them were sold in four years.
Mr. Thomas: In the process of time, I am quite certain that we could have done it had we wanted to. We did not do so because we wanted to strike a correct balance. I will, however, get away from that controversial point. I feel that this Report has a particular significance, in that it is the first Report to record the the progress that has been made under the scheme of modernisation and re-equipment. It records—and I think that it is important that it should be recorded here—that by the passing of the Transport (Railway Finances) Act last year a realistic financial basis has been provided during the difficult transitional period with which the Commission is faced in order to carry out its modernisation. This Ninth Report will, I think, provide the basis for future comparison and analysis when assessing whether, in agreeing for a limited period to underwrite the industry, the acceptance of the basic assumption that the railways could become self-sufficient was really justified. I am sure that the hon. Member for Enfield, East and other hon. Members will agree with me when I say that I think that assumption will be justified.
There are one or two points in the Report upon which I should like to comment. Concerning charges, it is perhaps unfortunate that the Commission had to announce an increase of 10 per cent. on the very day when the new charges scheme should come into operation. Under this scheme, the Commission enjoy greater freedom of action and has greater flexibility. This is an important element in making the railways more competitive, and I hope that full advantage will be taken of it. I do feel that improvement in the standard and the quality of the service by faster trains and quicker deliveries will bring back the traffic. That is really the point which the hon. Member for Enfield. East dealt with at great length, and I entirely agree with him. Given better tools, the men have the technical ability.
We saw that in France in the high morale of the railway men there who are enthusiastically working this modern equipment. It is those things that will bring back the traffic, or bring to the railways that new traffic which they require to fill the wasted capacity at the

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moment, rather than the competition of charges. This can only come about, as I have said when the equipment is completely modernised.
As the Minister pointed out, where we have modern equipment, in the passenger service particularly, the returns have been really remarkable, as was emphasised in the White Paper last year. As the hon. Member for Enfield, East so rightly said, the railways at the moment are not able to attract the freight traffic which is really their real traffic and which is so profitable to them.
Like him, I had the pleasure of going to France with several other hon. Members and there can be no doubt that we were all impressed by the quality of the service, the speed and comfort of the passenger trains, the modern methods of cleaning the carriages, the fast goods trains and so on. We were all impressed by the high standards of service that can be given when the large amount of equipment which is required by the railway industry—probably the greatest industry in this country—has been modernised.
I hope that, whatever restrictions my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer may put at any time on capital investment, he will leave this great industry out of it. One urgent need at the moment is to push forward with this modernisation plan in order to bring it to fulfilment, not in the fifteen years envisaged, but more quickly, because this is a vital industry to the economy of this country. That, too, will require the co-operation of industry. If it expects to receive from the British Transport Commission orders for large contracts for rolling stock, signal equipment or whatever it may be, it must put its plant in order and expand it, if necessary, to ensure that this great railway industry gets its demands and gets on its feet quickly.
There are one or two other points in the Report with which I should like to deal. I hope the Commission will keep the need in mind for pushing forward continuous automatic braking, the reconstruction of marshalling yards and terminal and trans-shipment facilities as top priority in its reconstruction programme. It is in the field of freight traffic that it must regain its reputation.
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I was a little disturbed to read on page 15 of Vol. 1 of the Annual Report a comment upon another nationalised industry, the coal industry. The Commission complains of
"the inferior quality of coal now being supplied to the railways,"
and, of course, at an ever-increasing price. I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport that he might discuss this matter with the Minister of Power with a view to seeing that our second biggest consumer of coal, which is the main product of that other nationalised industry, gets a better quality. If coal is to go up in price it should also go up in quality.
In regard to safety, I would like to see the Commission take the fullest advantage of the intensive road-safety campaign that is being carried out by all sections of the community in order to reduce road deaths. Against that background, I would point out that not a passenger lost a life on a British railway last year. It is the safest place in the country. I hope that the Commission will take advantage of that fact against the background of tremendous mortality on the roads, and so emphasise the safety of railways. It should be a good commercial point for the Commission.
Finally, I would emphasise the point which has been made today by the Minister and which is referred to in paragraph 6 of the Report. This great industry has been the shuttlecock of party politics for too long. Let us give it a rest and push forward. Let us give the men modern tools. They have the knowledge and with modern tools they will have the morale. In that way we can get the greatest and most efficient railway industry in the world.
5.33 p.m.
Mr. Julian Snow: I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), who spoke from the Front Bench, on his painstaking survey of the railway industry today.
Having said that, I must call attention to the form in which the information is presented to us in these Annual Reports. They are very technical documents and do not provide the ordinary Member of Parliament with the background information he needs when speaking in the

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interests of the ordinary travelling public. I do not know whether the Minister has seen the equivalent report issued by the French State Railways. It omits a great deal of the technical information provided in the Commission's reports, and such information as it gives seems to be better presented and is more informative to the travelling public. I would draw attention to the last page of the French document where reference is made to the quality of service. This matter is certainly missing from the Commission's Ninth Annual Report. There is very little in it which deals with poor service and poor communications.
I would like to deal firstly with one or two constituency matters. I make no apology for this, because today is one of the few occasions we have for asking Ministers in the House about day-to-day matters. What plans are there for the rebuilding of the Lichfield-Trent Valley Station which was burnt down so disastrously a few weeks ago? Main line railways in the Midlands often place a burden upon the travelling public in getting to the stations. At Rugeley and Lichfield, for example, the stations are quite a long distance from the townships concerned. This matter is mentioned in passing in the Report, where reference is made to small bus services. The Commission is wrong in apparently being afraid of the capital investment needed to provide adequate feeder services.
I have had some experience recently relating to the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. There were certain objections to the quality of the service to my constituency and about fares. My impression is that the committee is simply not understood by the ordinary public and is rarely used. In any event it is normally used by commercial interests. Either it is not being properly used or the structure is wrong.
It is a pity that the reports deal in such a cavalier way with reliability and punctuality. No information is given on page 7 about punctuality. The actual remark is:
"In spite of the amount of work being done on the track at this time, the general standard of punctuality improved slightly during the year."
That is all I can find in the reports about punctuality. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East dealt with reliability of service, the difficulties with which the
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provincial passenger has to cope, and the nightmare cross-country journeys which we have all experienced.
On the question of passenger amenities, very few hon. Members have dealt with catering on the railways. I propose to discuss the provision of refreshment rooms. A legend has been built up that railway amenities were good before nationalisation, or before the war, but that is not my recollection. Investment in refreshment rooms nowadays seems better than before the war, but what I find highly objectionable is the way the refreshment rooms are run.
I was at New Street Station, Birmingham, a few months ago on a Saturday evening, so help me. I went into a brand new refreshment room at about 7 o'clock in the evening. It was absolutely disgraceful. It was like a scene from some picture by Hogarth. Tables were swimming in tea or beer, and there was a reek like a disorderly house. Service simply did not exist. When I inquired for the manageress I found she was not there; she was away. There was nobody in charge. Although I get awfully impatient about such questions as, "What would the foreigner say?" I am bound to say that if a foreigner went in there he would get a pretty bad impression.
Mr. C. R. Hobson: It is not as bad as at Leeds.
Mr. Snow: My hon. Friend says that it is not so bad as at Leeds, but I can mention one I know which is worse, and that is Rugby, where a week ago last Friday I went into the refreshment room whilst waiting for a train. That refreshment room must have had hundreds of pounds spent on it recently, but there was the same ghastly reek, the same condition of the tables and the absence of service. I hope the Commission will look into this matter.
I wish to ask the Minister how many refreshment rooms were closed during last year. As one travels about one finds that such and such a refreshment room has been closed yet it is at a junction where people have to wait a long time for trains. That has happened, for instance, at Nuneaton, where the refreshment room closes sharp at six, in spite of the fact that certain feeder services concentrate on Nuneaton to feed the late London trains. I should like to know

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why they have been closed and why something cannot be done to offer the franchise to operate those refreshment rooms to local interests if the Commission feels it cannot do so itself economically.
Mr. Frederick Gough: Obviously the hon. Member has made a very careful research into this subject. I wonder whether he has looked into the question of the method of making tea and coffee, for both those beverages appear to be undrinkable in these establishments.
Mr. Snow: I have tried to avoid that sort of detail, but since the hon. Member has mentioned it, I should say that at Nuneaton I found a vast stock of very up-to-date coffee-making equipment stored away in a cupboard and not used.
I wish to deal with the question of dining cars. I think the standard of equipment and furnishing of dining cars on British Railways is very good indeed. I think the service tends to be very good. All that is wrong is the food. Many hon. Members who have been abroad know that the quality of food and of meals served on the Continent is insuperably better than those served in this country.
Mr. Ernest Davies: And the price is double—
Mr. Snow: An hon. Member says that the price is double—
Mr. Davies: —on the French railways.
Mr. Snow: I know that in France on restaurant cars operated by the Wagons-Lits Company about one-third more is charged than on British Railways, but the food is incomparably better. I am not saying that we should emulate the sort of meals they have over there. Usually they consist of more courses than we in this country would want. Certainly the food is very different and we would not necessarily demand that, but I have discovered a better system in the Wagons-Lits restaurant cars on the Continent which we might have here. I drew this matter to the attention of the Commission some three years ago, but nothing was done about it. I found that the manager
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of the dining car has certain discretionary rights as to the sort of menu he puts on. In fact, he has his own menu and his own duplicating machine to print it and can change his menu. There is no doubt that on the Continent there is provision for the use of a great deal more initiative than there is here. Meals in dining cars here are poor and ought to be improved.
Now I wish to deal with the question of comfort. More than one hon. Member has mentioned the question of cleanliness and in the Report there is a very short comment about dirt and discomfort being attributable to a small minority of the public and caused by steam haulage. I do not quite understand that. There were services before the war and before nationalisation on which one got a high degree of cleanliness of the carriages and the outside of the locomotives. Why cannot that be so now? I do not think it has anything to do with nationalisation, but is a question of bad management. The locomotives, which are fine engineering propositions, half the time have a simply disgraceful appearance. They provide a bad impression, not only to the travelling public but to the workers themselves.
I was at Waterloo Station the other night seeing a boat train off and I saw main line expresses starting off in a thoroughly dirty state. I do not think that should be allowed. As for the internal cleanliness of carriages, we all know that there is an element of the public who do not treat the carriages and public conveyances as they should. That is a matter which I think only public education will improve. Here I want to put in a word for the Commission. Quite recently, I have seen grooming of the carriages carried out very well indeed. For instance, trains which come in from Ipswich and East Anglia to Liverpool Street are met by a small army of cleaners who do a very good job on them before they go out again. That is one of the things which is being done quite well.
Mention has been made of safety on the railways. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) drew attention to the fact that in 1956 there were no fatalities on our railway system, in contra-distinction of course to 1955, when

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the record was poorer. Since hon. Members, including myself, have been eulogising the French, I should note in passing that the French record last year was not so good. What about communications for the travelling public? Why is it that the telephone is supposed to be an instrument which is not usable by the ordinary travelling public? If one goes to an ordinary station in the country one finds there is no telephone on the platform. In contra-distinction to the more modern service in Europe, I do not know any service in this country where one can telephone from the train. There is no real technical difficulty about that. It is a matter which should be looked into.
Mention has been made of loss of freight traffic and those more competent than I am have dealt with that question in great detail. The Report, in paragraph 33, deals with the increased number of C licences which were taken out by commercial firms in order to run their own heavy freight services. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East emphasised the plea we make from this side of the House for reconsideration of the whole question of co-ordinating transport. I do not know what the House feels about it, but quite obviously far too much heavy freight is going by road. Apart from the loss to the railways, there is the terrible destruction of our roads and the fact that our roads simply are not designed to cope with that volume of traffic. There is the wastage of manpower. It could be far more economically dealt with by rail. If it is a question of commercial customers feeling that it is more convenient to go by road from factory to plant, or between whatever the two points of despatch and delivery are than by re-loading by rail, I think that is a problem which in a large proportion of cases of conveyance of heavy freight could be dealt with satisfactorily by a little intelligent application of the mind.
Those who have experience of roads running, say, from Birmingham to Nottingham and Leeds and so on cannot but be amazed at the sort of loads that are permitted on our roads. They are dangerous to the public, they result in substantial loss to the railways and cannot but be uneconomical from the national point of view. I think the Government ought to think in terms of taking positive action about this problem.
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I know that hon. Members opposite will say that if this policy is adopted towards freight it will encourage rates to be levied at the expense of the producer and the manufacturer, but surely we have enough checks and balances in our constitution to avoid that kind of thing. The fact is that we cannot continue like this, certainly not while our road development programme is so restricted.
I want next to refer to the accessibility of the passenger public to these consultative committees. I found in my constituency that the consultative committee was obviously not functioning. Objections were being raised by members of the public and yet, under the existing rule, the Transport Tribunal Rules, 1949, first of all an individual could not approach the transport tribunal and, secondly, local authorities with populations under 50,000 were not entitled to appear before the Tribunal and to cross-examine witnesses.
Purely as an exercise, therefore, I made a submission to the Transport Tribunal objecting to certain aspects of fares and services operating from my constituency to London. I found that I was allowed to make this submission but that I could not cross-examine. What is much worse, however, I found that the smaller local authorities, which together make up a county, themselves have no standing before the tribunal. As far as I can gather, they are subordinated to the county in this matter.
That would be all right if some encouragement were given by these consultative committees to the co-ordination within a county area of the objections and proposals by the public, but that is not done. All that we have before these tribunals are submissions and the right to cross-examine by the major county boroughs and the big local authorities. The smaller authorities who comprise the vast majority of the country, are not co-ordinated and are not encouraged to fulfil their part in making submissions and cross-examining witnesses before the tribunal.
I regard this as a weakness, because it must leave the Commission in very severe ignorance of what the public thinks, and I therefore suggest that this is a matter which should be looked into. During

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May I wrote to the Minister putting before him the fact that these complaints apparently were not being looked into properly and that the whole structure of consultation seemed to me to be far too rigid. He replied in a very full letter in which he said:
"There is, however, a new draft passenger charges scheme now before the Transport Tribunal who have fixed 20th May, 1957, as the date by which any objection or other representations with respect to the draft scheme must be lodged. This would provide an opportunity for anyone who feels that Clause 35 in the existing charges scheme operates to the disadvantage of passengers—"
I went to the tribunal to find that I was completely powerless and that it is a highly unsuitable body for a Member of Parliament to attend. I believe that it is now in its eighteenth sitting day, and no Parliamentarian could spare the time to attend all those meeting. I should therefore like to emphasise that the machinery of consultation with the ordinary public needs to be improved. Certainly the ordinary member of the public cannot use his Member of Parliament in these matters. On how many days during last year were we able to make this sort of plea and to speak on these matters? Very few indeed.
Lastly, I want to deal with the question of local publicity. I had a very helpful meeting with the traffic manager at Euston some weeks ago when I made certain suggestions about improving the passenger services from Lichfield to Birmingham. Here, may I say, I congratulate the Commission on the provision of the new diesel services to Birmingham. As I understand it, during 1956, with the introduction of these new services, more than 400,000 additional passengers, compared with the previous figures, were carried on this line. The only small criticism which I have to make is that the waiting time in the service is far too long and that it could effectively be speeded up.
It seems to me that more power should be given to local station-masters to attract new custom. May I illustrate this by referring to the main line from the Midlands up the Trent Valley, where the townships are frequently remote from the stations. It is extremely difficult to find out what time the London train goes. There is no central point in the town
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where this information can be obtained. It seems to me that local station-masters should be given some authority and some account which they can use to devise their own ways of attracting new customers. For instance, they could run a small bus service. Manufacturers are now making eight, ten and twelve-seater buses which are economical to run, and these could be used to pick up passengers for known London or northward-bound services.
At any rate, it seems to me that the local stationmaster should have more authority and should be allowed to use his initiative in the same way as a shopkeeper selling his goods; he has to find his market. At the moment it is left to the public to take the trouble to find out what time these services run—and, believe me, the services to London from the Midlands or the Trent Valley are pretty poor and infrequent.
Reference was made by the hon. Member for Canterbury to the fine state of morale on the French Railways. I believe that that is perfectly true. I am afraid that it is equally true that the morale of our ordinary railway worker is not very high, but I think that is for very understandable reasons. I do not particularly wish to end on a controversial note, but I must point out that for years the Conservative Press have battened on the railways and the railway workers.
Mr. Hobson: And have campaigned against them.
Mr. Snow: There has been a complete campaign against the morale of the railway workers.
Mr. Hobson: For example, by the British Road Federation.
Mr. Snow: The railway workers are always being criticised and being told that they are responsible for a bad and unpunctual service. The pity of it is that in practically every other country in Europe the fact that the railway services are nationalised is not a political matter at all. The Conservative Party have made it a political matter here. To be in a nationalised industry like the railways in this country apparently sets up the railway worker as a target for irresponsible and very frequently unkind and unfair

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criticism. In my judgment the Conservative Press have played a large part in lowering the morale of railway workers.
I hope that with this new programme and with the record of the past year, which is a record of improvement, their morale will improve and they will be proud to belong to this very great service. I hope, too, that the conditions of work, the retirement age and other matters with which I am quite sure my trade union colleagues will deal will be so improved as to make them comparable with some of the other European railways, which provide a better service and whose workers are proud to be in the service.
5.59 p.m.
Mr. Humphrey AtkinsThe hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) made a number of very interesting points during his speech and referred to a number of matters which he described as local matters. He said that he made no apology for doing so because the number of occasions on which we can raise detailed local matters in the House is very few. I propose to do the same thing and to raise a matter which is not confined my constituency, but is none the less local as opposed to national.
I want to refer to that part of the Transport Commission's activities which is concerned with the carriage of passengers in the London area, particularly southwest London and north-east Surrey. This problem of conveying vast numbers of people between their homes and their work in Central London each day is not new. It is fair to say, however, that in south-west London it is more acute than almost anywhere else. It is very well known to me, because one of the only two Underground lines in south London terminates in my constituency, at Morden Station.
Even if hon. Members have not seen and experienced them as I have done, they will be able to imagine the scenes at that station each day of the week, week after week and year after year. Morning and evening, thousands of people use it. They pour in and out of it. Constant streams of buses arrive to pick up and discharge passengers from the surrounding area, all of which is heavily populated. Cars in great numbers also arrive with passengers.
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As is stated in the Report, steps have been taken to accommodate even more cars at stations. That is very good. The fact that at Morden the Commission has increased the car parking facilities by 43 per cent. is, no doubt, a great help towards solving the traffic problems of central London, but it makes it no easier to get on board the train. What stops people boarding the train is the physical impossibility of squeezing any more human bodies into the carriages.
The London Transport Executive has said that it is not possible to run any more trains on that line; that in peak periods they run as closely together as is possible. Obviously, the Executive is right, but the result is that my constituents, and a great many other people living round about, have to travel each day in these trains in conditions which, if imposed, say, on British prisoners of war in a foreign land, would raise howls of protest all over the country.
This is not a new problem. The Minister will remember that he saw a deputation not very long ago, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples). The matter has been brought to his notice, to the notice of his predecessors, and to the notice of the Transport Commission time and again. Eleven years ago, the London Railway Plan Committee, which was set up by one of his predecessors—then called the Minister of War Transport—reported that acute congestion on the southern section of the Northern Line was apparent before the war—nearly twenty years ago—that even then the line was almost saturated, and that relief was imperative. The Committee proposed that high priority should be given to duplicating at least part of the line.
That was eleven years ago. Conditions have not improved at all since then. I know that the Report indicates a decline in the traffic on the London Transport Executive railways, but it goes on to say that it is a decline in off-peak traffic, and that peak traffic is no better, indeed, is slightly worse, than it was before. My impression is that rush-hour traffic in that part of my constituency is no easier than it was before.
Unfortunately, the solution proposed by the London Railway Plan Committee in 1946, to duplicate the line—which is, I think, the only real solution—seems to

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be as far away as ever. We read in paragraph 167 of the Report that the new Victoria line, which has a higher priority than that which I am now discussing, has not been started. The reason given is lack of finance. Even when it is started, it will take a very long time to complete.
No one expects the Commission, particularly now, when it is suffering from financial strain and difficulties which will take a number of years to overcome, to be able to solve this type of problem at once, but I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary a straight question which, I hope, he will answer at the end of the debate. Can he really see any likelihood of this duplication of part of this line being put in hand in, say, the next ten years? It ought to be done, because I am sure that it is the only real solution, but if it is not to be done we should be told.
Although that is the only satisfactory long-term solution, there are two other ways in which relief could be given. The first is the scheme for staggering hours, which my right hon. Friend has in operation. The responsibility for arranging staggered hours has nothing to do with the Commission, and I mention it only because it is quoted in the Report as a means whereby the Commission can be helped to provide that efficient, speedy and comfortable service which it is its business to supply.
I do not want to dwell upon it, but only to say that I hope that the Minister will give every possible encouragement to the Fitzgerald Committee which is dealing with this matter. This problem exists in the United States of America. I understand that, in Washington, all Government Departments work staggered hours. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what success he is having in persuading his colleagues to get their Departments not only to help by working staggered hours, but to give a lead which everyone else will follow? I hope that he is having some success in this direction and will continue to press for it as hard as he can.
A second way in which relief can be given is this. In the area of which I am speaking there are a number of stations under the control of the Southern Region of British Railways. Unfortunately, not
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much passenger traffic seems to be carried to and from them. I believe that one reason for that is that the cost of travelling to London by Southern Region is, for some reason or other, higher than it is by Underground, and that a second is that the services are not very convenient —passengers have to change, and so on.
I cannot believe that some improvement could not be made here. Obviously, any improvement in those services which attracted some people from the Underground would be of great benefit to all. An approach has been made about this to the Transport Users' Consultative Committee in the London area, and I very much hope that good results will flow from that approach. Of course, neither I nor anybody who is concerned with me in making these approaches can tell the Transport Commission how to run its railways, but I should like the Minister to make it known that he is interested in the result of the discussions now going on with the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, and expects everyone to use his best endeavours to try to improve the services on these stations and lines so as to provide relief for the Underground.
Whether there are any suggestions additional to those that I have made I do not know—I am not an expert—but I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree, and that the House will agree, that every possible effort must be made to try to provide relief. My constituents, and those of many other hon. Members, are travelling daily in the most appalling conditions, and anything that we, or the Ministry, or the Transport Commission can do to improve those conditions really must be done—and must be done as speedily and energetically as possible.
6.10 p.m.
Mr. James Harrison: Most hon. Members will agree with what the hon. Member for Merton and Morden (Mr. Atkins) said about the appalling conditions at London depots during the rush hour but it would be a pity not to take up one of his statements. It would not be proper, or even wise, for us to attempt to tell the British Transport Commission how to run its business in every detail. That comment should be underlined. We must not fall into the danger of telling the Commission how to do its work.

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The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) devoted most of his speech to the Midlands. He did not seem to realise that in the Midlands the difficulty of obtaining staff is tremendous, especially cleaning staff for the locomotive sheds and staff for the refreshments department. The Commission is finding it very difficult to recruit sufficient people for those two departments, and it is a major problem. I do not want to excuse slovenliness, but that fact should be emphasised.
Mr. Snow: I was not referring exclusively to the Midlands. I tried to go round the four points of the compass. If it is a fact that the Commission is having difficulty in getting staff for the Midlands, then it is for the Commission to find a way out of that difficulty.
Mr. Harrison: I want to draw the Minister's attention to the first paragraph of the Report which refers to:
"…several decades of under-investment…"
The railways are suffering from the results of severe under-investment for several decades. I want to stress the effect which that has had on railway employees. Another part of the Report talks about the drudgery of the job. The antiquated equipment of the old days, which is still being used, is of such a character that it has killed any initiative which might have come from the mass of railway employees and has frightened off many possible entrants into the railway service. Nobody who has not worked with such equipment can appreciate the difficulty of working with it.
I am very pleased to note the optimism in the House of Commons and in Transport Commission circles about what will be achieved in the very near future with the new modernisation plan. At the recent Battersea exhibition, which the Minister mentioned, we were shown what the, railways propose to do about modernising their equipment. I shall be satisfied if I can get across this one plea: I want the Minister to use all his powers of persuasion to persuade the Commission to take this wonderful exhibition—and it was wonderful—around the country, so that the 800,000 employees of the railways can see what the Commission wants to do. I am sure that that would do more than anything to improve the
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morale of the staff. The proposed improvements in stations and in some locomotive sheds will do much to improve morale on the railways.
I was very struck to see the plans for new stations, new tracks, new engines and new goods loading machinery shown at the Battersea exhibition. They were magnificent in their conception and design. However, I can remember not many years ago driving an eight wheeled coupled engine which was tremendously powerful, but which needed an Atlas or Hercules to open the regulator. The man in the cab had to use two hands with all his strength to open the regulator, and to keep it open he had to prop it open with a pin or prop or stand there holding it for as long as he could.
This engine was so powerful that it could pull about ninety loaded wagons—if the adhesion to the rails was sufficient. Every time one operated the very weighty lever which worked the regulator, the wheels of the engine began to spin so that the engine slipped on the track and the regulator had to be closed. That is an illustration of how bad the design of recently built locomotives has been from the point of view of the people who have to work them. Because of that lack of concern about the design of machinery in the past, the Battersea Park exhibition should be taken round the country to stimulate the interest of railway employees.
In the Midlands we have recently lost much coal traffic. It is traffic limited to the 40-mile areas around the pits. I am told that it has been lost because the Commission's prices cannot compete with those charged by road hauliers. A common spectacle on Midlands roads today is overloaded coal lorries, the coal being stacked about 2 ft. higher than the sides of the lorry. If such a lorry had to stop suddenly, any vehicle following would probably find about two tons of coal falling around it. Such lorries are not only dangerous, but occupy valuable road space.
Would it not be possible, under the charging scheme to which the Minister referred, for the Commission to do something about tendering for that class of trade? Could not the Commission tender for it at uneconomic prices for the time being? I am sure that the long-distance hauling of coal and minerals—that is

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more than forty miles—would compensate for any losses on the short-distance hauls. The increased amount of traffic would compensate also for the reduced price one charged for the short haul. I am speaking now, of course, of siding capacity, the loading of local engines from the pits to the sidings where the trains are made up. It is possible that things could be arranged so that competitive prices could be published, and this would relieve us in the Midlands of what I regard as a really serious menace.
There are those two points which I wish to bring to the Minister's notice, and I hope that he will take great pains to see what can possibly be done about both. We should make the Battersea exhibition a travelling one, since we cannot bring all railwaymen up to London, and something should be done to end the dangerous nuisance on Midland roads created by the short-hauling of coal from the pits in our district.
6.21 p.m.
Mr. Norman Cole: There is a great wealth of information in the Report and Accounts of the British Transport Commission for 1956, which we are considering today. I should like to take up, in particular, two points made by the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) in opening the debate for the Opposition. The first relates to the matter of subsidy, to which reference has already been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas).
Hon. Members know the past record of subsidies for various industries, and I find it difficult to believe, as will, I think, most hon. Members, that the solution of the problems of the Transport Commission on the railways lies in the granting of a subsidy, either temporary or permanent. I do not believe that it would be good for the Commission, for the railways, or for the railway men, and I do not consider that it would provide any sort of solution for the financial problem on the railways.
What is more, I do not believe that the Transport Commission, from what one can understand, wants it, either. In my view, the general plan we have had for granting financial facilities over the next
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few years, side by side with the modernisation plan, offers the better solution. I hope that we shall not, in this House, at any time seriously proceed with a suggestion for subsidy on the railways. Important as they are, the solution will not lie in that direction.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East also said that if we had a well organised transport system in this country we should not have many of the problems which confront us today. By a "well organised transport system," we understand him to mean a completely nationalised transport system, which was the ambition of the party opposite when in power.
We, on this side, do not believe that. We believe that, above all things, always there should be freedom of choice for the individual consumer and the user of the transport services to choose that service which suits his convenience and pocket best. That is our doctrine and the principle by which we stand, in complete contradistinction to hon. Gentlemen opposite, who believe in a completely nationalised service, which would not, in many ways, provide that desirable choice.
In the Report, modernisation has figured very largely, as, indeed, it will figure during the next eight or ten years until the period of modernisation is complete. References have been made to modernisation which has taken place and which is at present going on on the Continent. I have been fortunate to see some of it myself. I am very happy indeed that there is co-ordination of ideas and that the Transport Commission and British Railways are acquiring new ideas from modernisations which have already taken place in other parts of the world. We can well learn in that way. In fact, we may be in a very happy position as the years go on, because we are, as it were, down the list in our modernisation, and we shall be able to learn from the experiments and experience of others who have already carried out schemes of modernisation on their railways.
I do not know whether it is generally realised in this country how great will be the changes. Judging from my experience abroad, we shall see very great changes in the picture and pattern of our railways; they will be quite different in their general atmosphere and the pattern

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of their running, in the types of locomotives and coaches, in signalling, and all the rest. There will even he changes, in some parts, in the rails on the permanent way.
One or two hon. Members have made what have been constituency points, and perhaps I might make a constituency point, also. I sincerely hope that the towns in and near my constituency, that is. Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Luton, and the developing area of South Bedfordshire, of which hon. Members will know, will have their fair and definite share in this pattern of modernisation over the next few years.
Although we certainly can learn from the experiments and experience of other countries in modernisation, this country has in its rail transport system, as in many other ways, aspects which are very different from what may be found abroad, so that there may be some examples in modernisation abroad which can never be applicable to our system here. We should bear that in mind, so that there is no tendency to adopt slavishly every kind of method put into practice abroad.
As regards modernisation itself, we shall see on the railways a different picture and pattern in this country such as we, and those before us, have never seen before. In passing, one wonders what the small boys of the future will do as part of their daily occupation, without all the fire and smoke which they have learned to associate with railways and their local railway station. But, knowing the ingenuity of small boys, I am quite sure that they will find much on the railways to interest them in their collection of dates and data.
Modernisation of the railways was inevitable. It goes side by side with, and is part of the general pattern of, our prosperity which we hope to see—which, indeed we must see—during the coming years. It is quite inconceivable that this country could have gone on, with any prosperity, in, as my right hon. Friend said, a competitive world, without entirely overhauling and modernising what is almost its main industry, certainly its main transport industry, to carry our products for distribution at home and export abroad. It is, and had to be, part of the general pattern of progress.
I have been glad to hear references today to the part which the railway staffs
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and railway men will play in the modernisation plan. Some hon. Members before me have, quite rightly and properly, remarked that all the tools and apparatus in the world will not give us a new system without the manpower and ingenuity of those who are to work the new system. I believe, from the records of our past, that the necessary ingenuity, application, morale and high spirit will be there. I have no fears on that score whatever. I believe that the apparatus, when it comes over the years, will find the men and the staff ready, happy, and willing to take their part in making our railways the lively and progressive enterprise we all wish them to be.
Comments have been made on the effect there would he on the staff in this respect. This, too, is important. I believe that the staff and the railway men, in their contribution to modernisation, will be grateful for the fact that they have new tools with which to do their job. It has become a motto in this country to say, "Give us the tools and we shall do the job." I believe that these tools, when provided, will enable railway men to do their job, which plays such an important part in the economy of our country as a whole.
To turn to something apart from modernisation itself, the Minister referred to the process of decentralisation. We in our party, in our Election manifesto of 1951, said that it would be part of our policy to decentralise the railways and to a large degree we have succeeded in carrying it out. I regard it as a good thing.
I do not know whether the actual pattern so far carried out is the best—I am not sufficiently expert to know—but I am quite certain that an industry of the size of our railways, which has to be in business competition in so many directions and in so many of its ways, must have a large measure of autonomous power in the local regions which are responsible for their own operation. How best that power is carried out, through one kind of organisation as against another, I know not, but it makes for high morale in those responsible for managing the regions and it makes for the general efficiency of the whole service if there is a large measure of responsibility in the respective areas.

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In paragraph 6 of its Report, the Commission quite properly uses the word "businesslike." That is very appropriate. It is a description to which all of us in this House would heartily subscribe concerning any nationalised industry. I am, however, bound to say that there is something more in the way of responsibility on a nationalised industry than there is on any other kind of industry. The Commission itself refers to this in the same paragraph. I refer to working in the national interest.
The Commission is not an individual corporation whose function is to carry out a financial operation. It seems to me, therefore, that the Commission, like any other kind of nationalised industry, has two main and dual functions. Both of them are equal and interdependent. On the one side, the Commission has to conduct its affairs on a proper businesslike basis, without a subsidy. On the other hand, it has at all times to have regard to the national interest and to the high degree of responsibility which is its lot as a nationalised industry.
Those two functions and duties must run side by side. Neither of them can be forgotten. Both of them are vitally important for the happiness and for the economic prosperity of the country.
Mr. W. R. Williams: Are we to take it from what the hon. Member is saying that private industry should have no concern for the national interest'?
Mr. Cole: No.
Mr. Williams: We cannot possibly impose all the national interests on these industries in particular.
Mr. Cole: The hon. Member, who is wise and experienced, has given me a useful qualification and I am grateful to him. I did not intend to say that any business enterprise, large or small, should not have its degree of responsibility for the national interest. I was trying to underline, although perhaps I did not use the best of words, that Parliament in its wisdom had decided that a number of major industries, vital to our economy, to our happiness and to our future—in short, they are indispensable—should be run under public ownership. That is something which has been decided in the past.
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Therefore, to the degree of their importance to the economy of the nation, they have an equal degree of responsibility in the national interest. They are not only nationalised industries; they are also national. I was seeking to underline that side by side with their very proper necessity to be run on a businesslike basis, they must also, at all times, have regard to the fact that they cannot be run on a businesslike basis without full regard to the national interest.
My last point is to reiterate a remark made by my right hon. Friend. I have already referred to the prosperity of the country being dependent very much upon the modernisation of the railways. What is also true is that the future of the country depends, as my right hon. Friend put it, upon our power to remain competitive in a competitive world. Therefore, it follows that to be successful in that competition in the world, our railways must play a great and lively part.
I welcome, as we all do, this modernisation. I welcome the indication in the Report of the Commission's lively appreciation of its great responsibilities. I believe that if it can go on in that same way, side by side with all the benefits that modernisation can bring, we shall be able to remain competitive in a competitive world.
6.35 p.m.
Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I desire to raise one specific matter, of which I have given notice to the Minister, in relation to the use of station ranks by taxicabs. This may seem a somewhat detailed matter, but I hope to show that an important principle is involved.
In our Metropolitan area of London, we have an open service for taxicab owners and drivers. Any licensed taxicab is allowed to use the station. Except for periods of special pressure, it will be recognised that good service is given to the public and that there is fairness to all in the industry.
That has not always been the case, however, even in London. Prior to 1907, the exclusive right to use stations was limited to certain privileged proprietors. Under, perhaps, the influence of the emergence of the Liberal Party at that time and a greater sense of equality, an Act was passed in 1907, by Section 2

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of which the railways were forbidden to give preferential rights to one cab proprietor over another.
While this anachronism has been ended in the Metropolitan area, it still continues in many parts of the country where the pre-1907 London position persists. In a large number of towns, only a limited and privileged number of taxicabs are permitted to pick up passengers at the station.
As in many other good things, the agitation on this subject began in Slough, but it has now become a nation-wide agitation. It is to be found in Leeds, Coventry, Nottingham, Manchester and Salford, Liverpool, Newcastle, Oxford, Reading, Norwich, Ipswich, Folkestone, Bournemouth, Coulsdon and—I wish the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) were here to support the case—in the constituency of Woodford, at Loughton, Debden and Buckhurst Hill.
Let me describe the situation in Slough. The number of licensed taxicab drivers is between thirty and forty. Only seven of them are permitted to use the station rank. One may be fortunate enough to find a cab available at the rank in the forecourt of the station, but if a cab is not available in the station forecourt, one has to seek the services of a taxicab driver on the public rank 100 yards away. One may be burdened with luggage and it may be raining, but the taxicab driver on the public rank is not allowed to come to the station to pick one up, and one must carry one's luggage that hundred yards.
I do not want to deal with this matter only from a constituency point of view because, as I have remarked, it has now become one of national agitation. In Leeds, for example, the use of the railway station is restricted to the members of the Proprietors' Association, and they number only 50 per cent. of the taxicab drivers in that city. In Manchester there is the absurd situation that at the London Road Station and at the Central Station any taxicab driver may utilise a station rank, but at the Exchange Station only a limited, privileged number of taxicab drivers are permitted to do so.
At Question Time hon. Members for Manchester and Salford have described how passengers, overburdened with luggage, when there are no taxicabs at the
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Exchange Station rank, have to seek a cab some distance from the station. I am very glad that one of the Members for Liverpool, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) is in the House, and I need not describe the situation there. My hon. Friend is a member of the Liverpool Watch Committee.
Mr. W. R. Williams: I would remind my hon. Friend that he need not have dealt with Manchester, because a Manchester Member is here, too.
Mr. Brockway: I am very sorry. My hon. Friend had his back to me and I did not recognise that there was a Member for Manchester here. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I confess that I was thinking of Members from Manchester and Salford who have been associated with me in this matter, but I have no doubt that other hon. Members have been just as active.
Mr. Williams: Including myself.
Mr. Brockway: Yes. I want to refer to two other places, and the first is Bournemouth. At the Central Station at Bournemouth there are fifty-nine privileged taxi cab drivers and proprietors. There are sixty-two taxi cab drivers and proprietors who are not allowed to use the station. At Bournemouth West Station there are thirty privileged persons and ninety-two who are not allowed to use the station.
I have a letter from one of the taxi drivers there, and in it he uses these phrases:
"On fast trains from London the service is totally inadequate. From late trains, midnight and after, passengers often have over half an hour's wait. At peak periods in the season there are queues, often 400 to 500 people. Yet non-privileged drivers are continually going into the stations, to deliver passengers, but are not allowed to pick up, which causes further hardship to the public"
Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: Too much control.
Mr. Brockway: The second place I want to refer to is Woodford. I have a letter from one of the privileged taxi drivers who is allowed to use the rank at Buckhurst Hill, but he says:
"I am as much against the privileged ranks as the cab drivers you are fighting for."
He instances Debden, where the station is often unattended by any taxi cab

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drivers at all. There is within fifty yards an open rank, but cabs using it cannot pull up in the station. He says that at Buckhurst Hill:
"I hold the privileged rank for one cab and here I maintain one cab cannot cope with all the work."
At Woodford itself there is an open rank within thirty yards of the privileged rank, but the drivers on it are not allowed to pick up at the station. I think it is clear from these instances that the limitation of these rights to a few taxicab drivers means that the public has a less adequate service.
We have been working upon this issue for many years now. My distinguished predecessor in the representation of Eton and Slough, Mr. Benn Levy, raised the matter in the House when he was a Member. We have been on deputations to the Chairman of the British Transport Commission as well as to Ministers. We have been at a loss to discover what are the reasons for maintaining this system in the provinces when it has been ended in the London areas.
So far as we can find out, there are two main reasons. The first, which is not emphasised by the Commission, is the cost of the upkeep of the forecourts of the stations. Some rent, therefore, is charged to the limited number of taxicab owners and drivers who use those ranks. I emphasise that all the drivers with whom I have been in touch about the matter are perfectly prepared to share the cost of the rent of the station ranks, so there need not be any loss to the Commission.
The second reason, which is the reason most emphasised by the Commission, is that:
"The present system enables us to exercise supervision in the best interests of our passengers to an extent which would not otherwise be possible."
The Commission says that if it limits the number of taxicab drivers responsible to the regional manager or to the local stationmasters, it can be ensured that the drivers give an adequate service.
I believe that the scheme which has been put forward by the taxicab drivers in Slough would completely meet that requirement. The taxi association there is willing to give an absolute guarantee that eight drivers will be available from
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8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and that there will be eight substitutes at meal times to be certain that the station is always manned. In addition, the taxi association is prepared to see that six men will be on duty to meet all excursion trains irrespective of the time they arrive. The secretary and the treasurer of the association are prepared to be responsible for this, and they are prepared to see that action is taken by the association against any drivers if they fail to fulfil their duties without reasonable excuse. In that sort of way it would be possible for the railway authorities to be sure they would have a continuous service from the taxi drivers.
There is another detail in the Slough scheme which it may be of some value to bear in mind, and that is the suggestion that there should be a telephone at the station rank, to enable taxis to be hired by passengers who wish to be put down at the station, as well as by those wishing to depart from the station. I have no hesitation in saying that that scheme, put forward by the taxi cab drivers and owners in Slough, would give a better service to the public than that given at present.
The House generally takes very great notice of any combined decision by the workers in an industry and by the employers in that industry, particularly when it is supported by representatives of the public. That is the case in this matter. The proposal which I have been putting forward has the support, first of all, of the Transport and General Workers' Union. One of the last letters that Arthur Deakin wrote was a letter to me supporting this case. I have now also a copy of a letter from the Transport and General Workers' Union in which it put its case to Sir Brian Robertson. It says that the view of its members is:
"… that the railway premises should be open to the operator of any taxi cab licensed by the local authority, so as to permit them to give service to the travelling public to a much greater extent than is possible with the limited number of cabs which are now permitted on certain railway premises".
This view has the support also of the National Taxi-Car Association.
In addition, I draw the Minister's attention particularly to the fact that these proposals have the unanimous support of the Working Party on Hackney Carriage

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Law which was appointed by the Home Office. The final Report of that Working Party, on the law relating to hackney carriages in the provinces, makes the same proposal as I am now putting forward. In paragraph 129, headed "Privileged Cab System", it says:
"The Working Party have considered the privileged cab system at railway stations, that is, the system whereby one or more cab owners have the exclusive right to use the station rank, possibly on payment of a rental. It was generally agreed that provision should be made on the lines of the London law, i.e., that station ranks should be open for use by all owners and drivers except at places where the Secretary of State was satisfied that an adequate service would not be provided by this means. It is recognised, however, that the British Transport Commission must have the right to limit the numbers of cabs allowed to rank at any one time, and this means that licensing authorities should be prepared to appoint adequate ranking accommodation outside the station, from which the station rank would be fed. Similar arrangements should be considered for airports, docks, etc."
The Working Party emphasises the need for a nearby public rank. The proposal as it would be applied to Slough is that the station rank, as it became empty, would be fed from a neighbouring public rank. That seems to me such an obviously sensible proposal, supported by the Home Office Working Party, that I will not emphasise it any further.
When we have seen the Chairman of the British Transport Commission on this matter, he has said that no national principle is involved and he is prepared to leave it to the regional management. I urge that there is a principle of great national importance. A public service should not perpetuate a system of privilege for the few. It should not permit a kind of House of Lords at our railway stations for a limited number of taxi drivers and taxi owners.
I hope that I have been able to show that the proposals which I have been urging would provide both a better service to the public and equal opportunities to all taxicab drivers and owners.
6.55 p.m.
Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I was delighted to hear the unsocialistic attack by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) on control and licensing, and his vigorous support of free enterprise and freedom from control. We are looking forward to seeing him on the benches on this side of the House in the near future.
Mr. Brockway: The hon. Member has entirely missed the point I was saying that a public service should not retain any system of privilege. It is the hon. Member's party that stands for privilege in the country.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I will not press the point, but I understood that the British Transport Commission was pursuing a policy of licensing taxi cabs. [An HON. MEMBER: "Limited licensing."] But there must be a certain amount of change of opinion on the benches opposite on the subject of competition. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) is not now in his place. He devoted three-quarters of his speech to attacking competition but finally said that there was not enough competition amongst suppliers to the Transport Commission.
Miss Alice Bacon: The hon. Member has completely misunderstood the case for taxi cab ranks. We are not arguing the point one way or the other, but we are saying that the public should be enabled to have a better taxi cab service than it has at present.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I quite agree. I have a good deal of sympathy with what the hon. Lady says, but I understood that a better service could be provided by a freer enterprise than by a system of licensing.
Mr. D. Jones: Fair shares.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: There is a certain amount in what the hon. Member for Eton and Slough has said, in the sense that I do not think that the Transport Commission is sympathetic to taxi cab drivers as a whole. I have had this difficulty in my constituency. A brand new station was built at Twickenham and there was no room in the forecourt of the station for taxi cabs. It was only after I made representations to the Commission that taxi cabs were allowed there.
Later, it was found that a telephone had not been provided so that taxi cabs could be called. Again, I had to make representations to the Post Office and a telephone was provided. That shows a lack of imagination and enterprise on the part of the Commission. It is not up to Members of Parliament to go out for traffic on behalf of the Commission. It

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is up to officers of the Southern Region to attract the traffic.
We have not had a debate on the Report and Accounts of the British Transport Commission since 1955. We have only debated the fifth and seventh Report, and now we are presented with the ninth. We are shareholders and customers of this organisation and we ought to have our annual general meeting at which these matters can be debated.
Mr. D. Jones: The hon. Member should have a word with his own Front Bench.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: It is a matter for both Front Benches, and I was glad to have the support of the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) for more debates. We ought to have more opportunities of presenting criticisms and suggestions to our board of directors, headed by Sir Brian Robertson. The fact that the Westminster portcullis appears on the armorial bearings of the Commission as set out in the Report typifies the Commission's responsibility to Parliament.
In view of the many criticisms which we have heard today, we ought to give a mead of praise to the Commission for this Report, because on reading it one must be impressed by the large number of new ideas and new schemes, such as new marshalling yards, and improved stations, which have found their way into the pages of the Report. It demonstrates commendable initiative and energy on the Commission's part. So far, so good, but, as has been pointed out, the losses of the railway side of the Commission's activities are now very considerable. The railways deficit is over £50 million in all, so that the regaining of the prosperity of the railway system is really the major problem before the Commission.
It is easy for the Commission to say, as it has said, and as was said by one hon. Member opposite, that the decline in freight carrying by the railways is due to the growth of C licences and private transport. In my view, the trader must be free to run his own transport. If we ever give up that principle, we shall be getting into a quagmire of illogicalities. Where shall we get? Let us suppose that we have the misfortune of a Socialist
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Government, and that London Transport was losing money very heavily. Of course, it would be perfectly logical for the Socialist Government to pass a law that we must not walk to the House of Commons or our offices, because that would be unfair competition.
I can hear them saying, with a good deal of pious sincerity, that "Shanks's pony" must give way to more modern forms of transport—the London bus—to keep the public transport system going. That is the logic behind the attack on the C licensees, but if traders are not allowed to use road transport or their own lorries, or if they are to be restricted to a radius of, say, 25 miles, what would happen to the cost of living?
Let me give the House one or two examples of the additions to the cost of living that would come about. A firm in the West Country, manufacturing butter and cheese, was good enough to let me have its comparative rates only a short time ago. This firm states that while it did its best during petrol rationing to put its goods on the railway, it suffered considerably thereby, and so did the public. This firm has a daily traffic of about 5 tons of butter from its factory to London, and equal loads to the Midlands. It tells me that to send a 5-ton load of butter from the West of England to London every day, the railways charge 65s, 11d. per ton, while the road charge would be 43s. per ton.
Likewise, for equal loads from London to the Midlands, the railways would charge no less than 83s. 11d. per ton, whereas the road charge would be 32s. 3d. per ton. From London to East Anglia, the railway charge is 75s. 6d. per ton and the road charge 33s. 9d. per ton. That is the sort of difference with which traders would have to burden themselves if they were forced to send their traffic by rail rather than by road.
Again, this firm says that it has irregular traffic loads of 5 or 10 tons of milk powder, and it is quite easy to telephone the road hauliers for 1s. 6d. and get a competitive quotation. To get a competitive rate from the railways—a rate which had not been quoted before—the railway authorities would have to telephone head office at a cost of 4s. or 5s., and the reply would take two or three hours to get. These are the sort of difficulties still being faced, and they

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emphasise the need for more decentralisation of management throughout the railway system.
This also illustrates the wisdom of the policy of decentralisation which was encouraged by the Transport Act, 1953, which Act, incidentally, also gave the railways power to fix their charges on commercial principles. In the British Transport Commission (Organisation) Scheme Order, 1954, I noticed that Article 9 states that the Commission was to supply certain statistics of operating costs in respect of each area, but I do not believe that it has yet done so. I ask my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to look into that point to see whether Article 9 of that Order is being complied with or not.
I was sorry to see that in the Report so little is said about the unremunerative services of the Commission. A good deal is said about closing down stations, route-miles, and so on, but this question of unremunerative trains is what has been described by transport officials themselves as the "guilty secret of the railways". Every hon. Member has experience of this. We all know of cases of non-paying trains, particularly in the industrial areas in the North, trains that wander about the countryside at mid-day almost without passengers. The average loading of railway trains is only about 27 per cent., and if it falls to 10 per cent. or even 5 per cent. it is not only very wasteful but very costly indeed.
Cost is the problem that faces the railway system at present. We find two and a half pages of the Report devoted to wages and salaries, and the Report underlines the concession that was given by way of wages and salaries in January, 1956, which amounted for the whole year to no less than £34½ million, of which the railways had to carry £27 million. In 1957, there was a further wage increase which totalled another £15 million. Although the railway workers may have been underpaid in the past, and I am not arguing that, it is a fact that every businessman thinks that the concessions given in the early months of 1956 and 1957 were directly responsible for the round of wage increases that has taken place since.
We all know that these wage increases have added to costs by increasing prices, by depreciating the £ and leading to
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inflation. Because the Commission controls a nationalised industry, the businessman may have thought that the Government were responsible for that round of wage increases, and, therefore, we ought to say to the Commission that it is in a special position vis-à-vis the rest of the country, and that it behoves Sir Brian Robertson and the members of the Commission to remember that they themselves have added to the inflation of which they complain as one of the causes of the Commission's deficit.
To add £50 million to the costs of the Transport Commission in the last two years, as it has done, through increased wages, is to put a burden on the railways and the buses that can only be recovered in due time, in my view, by increased freights and fares. That will lead to increased prices of such things as coal, for instance, which adds to the cost of living, and also adds fuel to further wage claims in every industry.
I was rather alarmed at yesterday's decision of the Transport and General Workers' Union to reject the Government's suggestion to set up an economic advisory body on wages, and its decision to reject the policy of wage restraint. Does the eloquence of Mr. Cousins foreshadow further wage claims in the transport industry, leading to further rises in costs and further increases in fares and freights? The public will want to know the answer, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will admit that there is a connection between wages and prices and will perhaps counsel restraint by the Transport and General Workers' Union.
Mr. G. Lindgren: The hon. Member has some hopes.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: Well, at any rate, we have heard some changes of view on the benches opposite today.
Mr. D. Jones: I do not seem to remember ever seeing the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) going into the Lobby to vote against the Government when they were deliberately forcing up the cost of living.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I am not aware that the Government have deliberately forced up the cost of living at all. These decisions were decisions made by the Transport Commission.

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Turning for a moment to one or two smaller matters, I was particularly glad to see the attention given in paragraph 53, and subsequent paragraphs of the Report, to work study and productivity. We must all agree that there is a great field for minor improvement of the railway system if the frustration of passengers and consignors of freight is to be avoided. I will give a small example of this. A year or two ago if one arrived at Paddington on one of the main trains from the West, and tried to deposit a suitcase at the cloakroom, there would be a queue of 10 or 20 people who would take five or 10 minutes to get through.
The reason was that the unfortunate man at the desk had to perform at least four operations in taking the bag. He had to write out a ticket, turn round and take the bag to the back regions, then come back with the ticket, and then turn round again to put the money into the cash desk behind him. A work study of those operations would have reduced them to one, simply by placing his tickets and cash desk before him. His job would then have been easier and the queue would have been processed through much more quickly.
Mr. G. Darling: Where would he put the bag?
Mr. Gresham Cooke: The bag would be taken away by someone else.
Mr. Darling: That would mean two people.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: The frustration of the passengers would be much less—
Mr. William Ross: Oh dear, oh dear.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: —but that is a minor example. There are others.
Here the hon. Member for Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) will support me, because we had the privilege of visiting the Volkswagon works only a few weeks ago. There we saw no less than 90 per cent. of the daily output of motor cars taken away from the works by railway trains, by double-decker transporters. Each train consisted of about 25 wagons, each wagon carrying 10 cars on two platforms. The cars were driven on to the wagons and there were no less than 12 train loads a day.
Mr. W. R. Williams: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned that, because I am fully in agreement with him that something similar ought to be done here.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his support. It is rather a different state of affairs in this country, where not 90 per cent. of the cars are taken away by rail but 10 per cent.
Before I conclude there are two London points which I ask my right hon. Friend or his hon. Friend to answer, if possible. I see that in paragraph 125 of the Report consideration is being given to a railway line from Victoria to London Airport, via Kew, for carrying passengers from Victoria to London Airport and vice versa. As part of that line touches my constituency, and as many of my constituents could go to work to London Airport on such a line if it were built, I would be extremely obliged to know whether the Minister has further information about that line, if it will be economic, how much it is likely to cost, and whether such an idea is likely to go forward.
The other London point, in which many London Members will be interested, is whether there is a likelihood of a tube being built from Victoria to the North-East of London, as envisaged in paragraph 167 of the Report, passing through Oxford Circus. If such a tube were built it would be of great advantage to those living in the South-West of London who want to work in the North-East and vice versa.
In passing, may I say that although we find it extremely difficult to build tubes and tunnels in this country, at the moment there is a tube no less than 19 miles long being built under London in the shape of an 8 ft. water main from Hampton-on-Thames to Chingford, in Essex, without any difficulty, and without this House being consulted on the financial merits.
Despite the financial difficulties in which the railways find themselves, the Report is encouraging. It seems to me that in the last few years the Conservative Government have put new life into the railway system. The Transport Act of 1953 has given the Transport Commission freedom to fix its own charges, which has not been the case since

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the nineteenth century. The rate of capital investment in the railways is double what it was four years ago. Last year, it was £90 million, and it is now apparently running at the rate of £120 million a year. The policy of decentralisation and management is beginning to show returns in efficiency and in increased public satisfaction.
Lastly, as has been mentioned, passenger journeys and passenger miles increased in 1956 as compared with 1955, and still show an upward trend in 1957. In the debates over the last few years we have settled the fundamental basis on which the B.T.C. works—
Mr. D. Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to interrupt again? While he is calling attention to the improvement, will he also notice that the present Minister of Transport has succeeded in doing something that none of his predecessors succeeded in doing? He has compelled the B.T.C., for the first time, to make a deficit on its operating costs during the past year.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: As I understand, that has nothing to do with the Minister of Transport. If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully to what I was saying, he would know I have explained that the major factor in the loss of £16 million made by the railways was the increase in wages and salaries of nearly £35 million in 1956. As I have said, in the last few years we have settled the basis on which the Commission works, and I hope that this will not be changed. We ought now to leave the Commission to get on with its work, to see whether it can make a profit in the future, and to render a service to the nation in the years to come.
7.17 p.m.
Mr. G. Lindgren: I am pleased but also sorry to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Twickham (Mr. Gresham Cooke). No doubt there is an area of operation in which he is expert but I doubt if railway transport represents one of them. It is nice to start by expressing agreement and, therefore, I join with him in paying a compliment to the British Transport Commission on the form of its statement of accounts. If the hon. Gentleman could persuade private enterprise business, which is very largely a private monopoly affecting the
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public to a considerable extent to present accounts in such detail and in such a form, this country would know about private enterprise industry to an extent which is not possible at the moment. Its accounts are presented to mystify the public. The Commission's accounts are presented in order that the public may know what is going on within the industry it owns.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can be in touch with modern industry. If he looks at the accounts published by the first-class companies, he will get a very full description of their operation.
Mr. Lindgren: I disagree. Now I want to deal with a point which I would not have raised if it had not been for the speech of the hon. Member for Twickenham. As many hon. Members know, I am an official of a trade union associated with the railway industry. The hon. Gentleman rather criticised the B.T.C. for granting increases in wages over a period of time. As one who has had to negotiate with the Commission, I would say that it is difficult to negotiate with it. I have never come away from such negotiations satisfied with the results; they have generally been the best we could get at the time. I still say that throughout all the grades of the railways service men are underpaid in relation to the responsibility they carry, the uncongenial terms and duties they perform, the general nature of their work, and to the pay and salaries available in private industry.
The Government are the direct cause of the increases in wages which the Commission has had to give. It was not the Labour Government which withdrew food subsidies and sent prices rising. As one of those responsible for the salaries and conditions of those in the railway service, I say that we will not stand aside and watch prices rise as a direct result of Government action and allow our members' standard of life to be lowered. An increase in prices while wages remain the same represents a lowering of the standard.
The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends during recent months have laid the basis for a further claim for an increase in wages with the Commission. Notices are going out to millions of

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tenants informing them that their rents are to be increased. I say quite bluntly that my hon. Friends and I will not stand aside and watch the landlords pocket £100 million a year at the expense of the standard of living of our members. If rents are going up by from 10s. to £1 a week, industry must face increased wages, and this applies to the Commission. Let it be remembered when the Commission receives these wage claims that they are the result not of the Commission's actions but of the actions of the Government and hon. Members opposite.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: The hon. Member knows only too well that council house rents are going up as much as any other.
Mr. Lindgren: I nearly became unparliamentary then. The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have increased council house rents. They have put up the rates—
Mr. Speaker: This is rather a sideline in a debate on the British Transport Commission.
Mr. Lindgren: A large proportion of the Commission's costs is wages. The hon. Member for Twickenham said that the Commission was wrong in conceding the wage claims presented by the railway unions. I submit that this was necessary because the Government increased council house rents and private rents, which will make still further wage increases necessary.
I join with the Minister in saying that the Commission has done its best to improve general relations at top level. The hon. Member for Twickenham said that we should allow a complete free-for-all on the roads and that any trader should be permitted to have any form of transport he wished. That is just anarchy. He talks of economy. The C licence is the most uneconomic means of transport in this country. C licence holders carry their own goods, and in nine journeys out of ten the vehicles return empty. An empty wagon is an uneconomic journey which sends up the costs. In any sensible transport system there must be some restriction on the use of vehicles by private persons, unless we are prepared to spend a tremendous amount of public money on the roads.
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The Minister and the hon. Member for Twickenham referred to the Government's efforts at improving the efficiency of the railways by decentralisation. There is no evidence whatever that schemes of decentralisation, which were instigated by the Government and not by the Commission, are increasing efficiency in any shape or form. In fact, part of the lower morale which arose within the railway service was due largely to the upset resulting from this attempt at decentralisation. There is grave doubt among practical railway men, including myself, that this method of decentralisation will add anything to efficiency. In fact, it will impede efficiency.
The hon. Member for Twickenham has spoken of greater freedom for stationmasters and goods agents in quoting rates. He would be the first to complain if the station-master at Twickenham quoted 10s. a ton for a commodity while the station-master at Birmingham quoted 8s. There must be a general relationship in rates charged for the same commodity in one part of the country and another, and equally between one trader and another.
Mr. Arthur Holt: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that, perhaps not in the exaggerated form in which he has just given an example, there is to be some discretion under the new charges scheme.
Mr. Lindgren: Of course, the railways have always had that discretion, particularly when picking up certain bulk loads. For instance, they pick up Players cigarettes at Bristol. It was always open to the railways to make an arrangement with a trader in connection with special bulk traffic. But a person in the West Country should not telephone two or three road hauliers and try to cut down their charges, one against the other, and then say that the local station-master should not be allowed to quote a special rate. Of course, there must be a relationship between rates charged for similar traffic throughout the country.
Because there are others who wish to speak, I shall not pursue these matters much further, except to say that the decentralisation scheme means more jobs for the boys on the boards of the various areas. That is about all it does, except that there are a few more people to muck about the staff and keep changing

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the arrangements. My prediction, with forty years of railway experience, is that we are going back to the days before the 1921 Act and to some of the fallacies which were exploded even during the time of the old London and North Eastern Railway.
There have been complaints about the deficiency of the British Transport Commission. Practically the whole of the present deficiency of the Commission can be laid at the door of the Government. In the first instance, there is the general interference which has been referred to earlier. The deficiency at the moment is £70 million. It is likely to be £100 million. Of that, £50 million is due entirely to the lack of time that has elapsed between the increased costs and their effect on the Commission—wages, the cost of materials and so on—and the ability of the Commission to recoup itself by means of increased charges. No credit is given anywhere.
Most of the businesses with which hon. Gentlemen opposite are associated can take the raw materials and the cost of plant and wages and determine the cost of its product almost from day to day. Because of the general arrangement for the protection of the consumer, the Commission takes much longer. We have seen the Government interfering and preventing the Commission making charges which even a public tribunal has agreed that it should make and after the Commission has had to justify in public the increased charges it was demanding. The inflationary tendency brought about by this Government has increased the cost of materials and the rest, and that accounts for the other £50 million.
The Minister referred rather naively to there being no political interference with transport. This Government have been interfering politically and upsetting the activities of the Commission ever since they came to power. One need only examine the figures. In 1953, the receipts of B.R.S. were £8·9 million. In 1954 the figure was £8·7 million, with the Government getting ahead with their disposal activities. In 1955 the figure was down to £4 million, and in 1956 it went to £1·8 million. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will not realise—I say this as a railwayman—that if the railways remain common carriers, and even without the
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cost of modernisation, it will not be possible for them to pay their way.
We should use the most efficient system of transport, whether by road, rail or air, for a particular commodity. Then we shall have a transport system which provides a service and which is not a "sport" as hon. Gentlemen opposite seem to think. We would not be using one section to make the biggest profit as quickly as possible irrespective of the effect upon the other sections. The passing of the 1953 Act and the disposal of the B.R.S. vehicles was an attack upon the Commission and its opportunities and possibilities of breaking even. It was also uneconomic from the national point of view. The disadvantages previously suffered by B.R.S. have gone to every form of road transport.
In private enterprise road transport the law of this country is being broken every day of the year. Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act is being violated every day in almost every town in this country. There is the case of a firm in my constituency. I am quite prepared to give its name, but it would be unfair, because the same thing is happening in hundreds of firms in all parts of the country. The case I am thinking of is that of a firm which operates its lorries from Wellingborough to Darlington and Stockton in one journey, and to Middlesbrough and Sunderland. The drivers return to Wellingborough the same night. Logsheets are altered en route in case the drivers are stopped by the police. When the men get back after working excessive hours, their logsheets are remade. For some reason which I cannot explain, the extra hours they have worked are put in the column headed "lubricating oil usage". Those extra hours are paid for.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite may smile, but this is being done by practically every road haulier in the country, except, of course, British Road Services. When I say "everyone", I must qualify that, because some the larger road transport companies do play the game. That is because their employees are organised within the trade union movement. But smaller operators in the smaller towns of this country break the law every day of the year. We are playing with death.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: If this terrible situation really exists on the roads, what

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is being done by the Transport and General Workers' Union, whose object it is to watch these matters?
Mr. Lindgren: Unfortunately, it is the smaller companies who do this thing. They have been encouraged by hon. Gentlemen opposite. These firms operate the vehicles which formerly belonged to B.R.S.
I should like to hear what the Minister has to say about this. These things are known by the Traffic Commissioners, but no action is taken, and it leads some of us to believe that there must be connivance, or if there is not connivance, the Traffic Commissioners, when they know the facts, are encouraged not to take action.
Mr. Watkinson: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is making serious allegations. Perhaps he would be kind enough to send me privately the name of the firm he seems to know very well and I will see that the matter is properly investigated.
Mr. Lindgren: I shall gladly accept the Minister's offer, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is by no means the only case. It is happening in practically every small private enterprise firm throughout the country.
Mr. Watkinson Mr. Watkinson indicated dissent.
Mr. Lindgren: The Minister shakes his head, but some of us know these things, because we learn of them in other capacities, especially as magistrates at petty sessions. The only time we hear about unsound vehicles, vehicles which are not roadworthy, and where there are prosecutions for evasion of the Road Traffic Act, is when accidents happen. My point is that the roads of this country are dangerous, and anyone at any time—even if he is driving a sound vehicle and has not worked excessive hours—may be unlucky enough to become involved in an accident.
I do not think anyone will disagree with me when I say that if a man has left Wellingborough at three o'clock in the morning and does not get back until eleven o'clock at night, during the final hours of his trip, say from Sunderland, an accident is more likely to occur than if he had worked only six, seven or eight hours, or had kept within the terms of
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Section 19 of the Act and worked only nine hours in an overall period of eleven hours. It is one of the jobs of the Minister to see that the Traffic Commissioners carry out their duties especially where information of this sort of thing is available to them.
I have spoken for longer than I intended, because I have been interrupted, but finally, I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to remember that we must get back to a fully integrated transport system. I should have thought that the folly of their Suez campaign would have brought home to the Government the realisation that when we were up against it and petrol was in short supply the private hauliers would not accept the Minister's proposals for a temporary reduction in the use of petrol. The only people who co-operated were B.R.S. which transferred traffic from road to rail in order to reduce petrol consumption. Had we an integrated transport system it would have been much easier to conserve petrol than under the haphazard conditions which exist at present.
In spite of all the difficulties, many of which have been created deliberately by the Government, the Commission has been doing the best it can. I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) in hoping that in the not too distant future a Government will be returned to office who will enable the Commission to perform its functions properly in a fully integrated transport system which will provide a real service for this country.
7.40 p.m.
Mr. Grant-Ferris: I am sure that the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) will forgive me if I do not take him up, as I would like to do, on many of the things he has said. I shall not be following him or any other hon. or right hon. Gentleman who has spoken so far this afternoon, because the subject about which I wish to address the House is inland waterways and canals.
It is so difficult to find anything on this subject in the Annual Report that we need a microscope. The references are broken up into different places and it is difficult to find out exactly what is being said. I am not altogether surprised about this. After all, the gentlemen who compiled the Report are not well known for

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their undivided attention to the canal system of this country. They are, of course—and good luck to them—railway men, and I hope they will be successful. I hope wholeheartedly that they will help us to improve our railways, anti that the efforts to this end will come to fruition as the result of the undivided attention of those who are doing it.
One of the things that struck me as out of proportion was the dismissing of about 1,765 miles of canals in about seven lines of the Annual Report.
Mr. Ernest Davies: What about paragraph 86, which is nearly half a page?
Mr. Grant-Ferris: Yes, I know, but I am talking about Class 2 and Class 3 canals. Class 1 receives more detailed attention, but, still, it is only half a page. In fact, all the matter about the canal system in a Report of more than 100 pages does not occupy more than two or two and a half pages.
One of the things which is conspicuously missing is any mention of the amount of money which has been spent upon the encouragement of freight traffic generally on the canals. I have never seen posters calling upon people to send their goods by canal or encouraging them to take their holidays on the canals, although I believe that the latter kind of poster is beginning to appear.
Another important matter which is dismissed in hardly a line is the considerable amount of revenue which can be obtained by the selling of water. I know something about this because, in my constituency of Nantwich, there is a notable example of what can be done. Starting there is a beautiful, and some people say the most beautiful, section of waterway in the country. It goes from Nantwich to Llangollen. Recently a contract was entered into between the British Transport Commission and the Mid-Cheshire Water Board by which about £20,000 a year will be paid for water from that canal. The cost of the maintenance of the canal is about the same figure.
That is what can be done by a little enterprise. To give the Commission its full due, I must say that it has started work on that canal. I understand that a stretch of about two miles is closed at the Llangollen end and is being improved, and that the Commission intends to improve the whole length of the Canal
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down to Nantwich. I congratulate the Commission. It ought to go on with the work and then look at other places such as I shall mention in a few minutes.
The report lauds the fact that tolls have increased during the past year. Far be it from me to say that I hope the Commission will not get any more revenue for canal transport; that is not my purpose at all. I would remind hon. Members, however, that tolls on the Continent are fewer and lower than ours and that in the United States of America they do not exist at all, because use of the canals there is entirely free.
When we were enjoying those long, lazy days of the Whitsun Recess I made it my business to tour some of our canals. I visited the South Yorkshire and Barnsley Canal and the Dearne and Dove Canal. Let me deal first with the Barnsley Canal which is a legally abandoned canal. It was abandoned about four years ago. I would draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the following matters so that he may be able to say something about it when he replies to the debate.
This seems to be a fairly serious matter. I understand that when this canal was abandoned it was in reasonable user and that no less than £200,000 was paid in compensation to waterside firms, although it is generally considered that about £10,000 would have been enough to put the canal into thorough working condition again. I am not laying that down as an absolutely known and gospel fact, but it is an opinion of the facts which is very strongly held, and I should like to know whether what I have said is true. If it is, such a payment is out of proportion and should not be attempted again at any time by the Commission.
When I looked at the canal, which I did carefully, I noticed what was a very beautiful aqueduct of some considerable length carrying the canal at its junction with the Dearne and Dove Canal. I beheld one of the greatest atrocities in connection with canals that I shall ever see. This very beautiful structure—beautifying what is not, I suppose, by all standards, a very beautiful valley—had been partially demolished. The canal tract and the bridges of the aqueduct had been removed, leaving the gaunt pillars which held them standing in their places. Why this act of vandalism? Surely it would

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have been better to leave this disused aqueduct there, a thing of beauty for everybody to see in a district which is not altogether well treated for things of beauty. I find it very difficult to understand.
I visited next the Dearne and Dove Canal, which is a statutory navigation. No attempt has yet been sought to abandon it. It lies between Swinton and Barnsley. I tried to inform the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) that I would say something about this matter this evening. From what I heard earlier this afternoon I thought I had better do so, but unfortunately I could not find the hon. Member. I hope he will get my message, which I passed on through the usual channels.
This canal is about ten miles long between Swinton and Barnsley. At the Swinton end, about a mile and a quarter from where it joins the South Yorkshire system, which is one of the best and most used waterways in the country, is the great Manvers Colliery, or perhaps I should say "coal-producing plant", which is a more favoured term than "colliery" these days. The colliery is one of the biggest there is anywhere. It lies right beside the canal and is only a mile and a half at the most from where it joins a busy waterway. The canal is not used, but could very easily be used without any expense at all and 70-ton barges could come right up to the colliery.
I have taken photographs of the area and will gladly supply some to my right hon. Friend if he cares to see them. It can be seen that from the pithead, quite close to the canal, coal could be dropped into barges which could be sent down the canal to the main South Yorkshire system very easily indeed. For some reason which I cannot understand, the National Coal Board does not want to do that, and would rather send the coal by road or rail. I do not know of any other instance in the world where a great colliery lying beside a usable waterway does not use it to transport coal.
Mr. G. Darling: Surely the point to be taken into consideration is where the coal is to go. If the customer for the coal is not near the canal, there is no point in putting the coal on a barge.
Mr. Grant-Ferris: I agree, but the hon. Member will realise that the canal connects immediately with one of the main systems and coal can go very easily from there to many parts of the country. I should very much like to take the hon. Member there one day and show him how easily that could be done.
All along that stretch of canal are various atrocities, as we call them, illegal acts such as putting a water main or oil pipe across the canal in such a way as to obstruct what now is a statutory navigation. It is a positive, continuing, flagrant breach of the law that Barnsley Brewery, with the connivance of the Commission, is filling in the canal at Barnsley. I have photographs with me —very disgusting photographs they are; I could call them canal pornography—showing the tipping of refuse and men engaged on filling in the canal on behalf of Barnsley Brewery. As this is a statutory navigation, it is an illegal act.
The Bowes Committee is at present considering the whole future of our canals. It might easily recommend that the Dearne and Dove Canal should be reopened. Is it not entirely wrong that at this time someone should be filling in a canal and making it very expensive and difficult to re-open it, especially as it is not an abandoned canal, but a statutory navigation?
I now leave Yorkshire and the industrial use of canals and turn to the question of another canal. I am glad to see one or two Welshmen in the House. I told the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) that I would visit the Brecon and Abergavenny Canal, although I was unable to inform him that I should be referring to it this evening. I have travelled the whole length of that canal, which without doubt is one of the most beautiful waterways in the country. One can travel for about 30 miles from Brecon to Abergavenny and in all that distance there are only seven locks. There are four close together, two in another place and one at the beginning of the canal. It wanders about through the Black Mountains, mainly through what is a great National Park, and hardly ever passes through a flat field. The beauty to be seen there is simply beyond belief.
I am glad to say that there is water in that canal throughout its length and it is possible to canoe from Brecon to

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Abergavenny, and, in fact, to Pontypool. For a relatively small expense, the locks, which do not work, could be repaired. I had an expert with me at the time and I estimate that for something like £20,000 something of amenity value quite beyond belief could be produced for the South Wales area. If I and my right hon. Friend, with whom I get on very well indeed, were to pursue that capacity of getting on well to the extent of setting up a boat business at Brecon or Pontypool, we could put the Commission into very great difficulty.
The Commission would have to say to us, "Please do not do this; you have a perfect legal right to do it, but do not do so. How much will you take not to do it? "We should be in the position of Mr. Gould who, as everyone knows, got £5,000 in settlement out of court for doing that very thing. There is nothing to prevent anyone setting up a boathouse, announcing that he is going to run boats right through, and demanding that the locks be opened and access given. Unfortunately, however, my right hon. Friend and I are not likely to embark on that project.
Mr. S. O. Davies: As a Welshman, I am certainly very interested in what the hon. Member has said about the Brecon and Abergavenny Canal. I know every yard of it. Will it add to his comfort when I tell him that the Commission has resolved to close down the railway which is a kind of artery for the people of North-East Glamorgan and Caernarvonshire by which they can travel to this lovely canal, to which they go in large numbers every summer?
Mr. Grant-Ferris: I am extremely sorry to hear that, but I do not want to be sidetracked into discussing the closing of branch lines, on which there are very heated arguments.
The question of the sale of water again comes into the picture. There are two very large factories on the banks of that canal. One is the British Nylon Spinners. The other is a chemical factory; I am not sure whether it is owned by Imperial Chemical Industries or not. Both factories get their water from the canal. I should like to know if they are paying a proper economic price for it because if
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not, there is a case to show that the payment of an economic price would contribute to the maintenance of a very beautiful waterway. I know this is a point of detail in the whole vast subject we are considering and I do not want to labour it, but it is a typical case and there are others like it. I cite it because I can speak from personal experience, having visited the canal.
A point which I feel sure will interest the House is that a party of New Yorkers decided that they would like to spend a holiday on a British canal. I am glad to say that they have had their holiday. I entertained them here the night before last and heard all about it. I want to be fair to the Commission, which to a large extent organised the holiday and looked after the visitors magnificently; it planned a very fine tour indeed for them, and I heard all about it. They started at Stone in Staffordshire and came down the Mersey Canal into the Oxford Canal. In other words, they started in not quite so salubrious an area, perhaps, and came gradually into better areas. Eventually they debouched into the beautiful Thames and came down it to Westminster. They enjoyed the experience immensely and were looked after perfectly.
Of course, they saw what they thought was the British canal system, and after they have returned to America a book is to be written about it and there is to be an article in Life about what a wonderful canal system we have. I should like to ask Sir Reginald Kerr to take these Americans, next time they come, and show them some of the other canals, for instance the Kennet and Avon Canal, one of the most beautiful waterways we have. He should let them see that not everything is always beautiful and that there is a lot of ruin about, too.
I want to give the B.T.C. another pat on the back, if I may, and to say how much we appreciate the brochures which have been published on the advantages of holidays on canals, telling us how we can obtain all the necessities at different places as we pass by. This is good work, and much more good work is being done, too. I do not want the Commission to think that it is all criticism with no commendation. That would not be true.
I have tried to introduce a little lightness into the debate, but, whatever we

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think about them, the inland waterways will play an ever-increasing part in the life of the country in the future. In America it has been found that after people have radios, television sets and washing machines, the next thing they want is a boat. As our standard of living rises, the demand for boats will become greater and greater and we shall be asked to provide proper facilities for people to enjoy boating.
All of us who have the interest of the canal system at heart hope that the Bowes Committee will offer a final solution to this vexed problem which has been with us for very many years. I am glad to hear that the Committee has taken an enormous amount of evidence. No doubt its conclusions will be far-reaching, and we hope that the Government will take action upon them. Sometimes one gets a little worried about this, however; one hears that Sir Reginald Kerr has been seen disappearing up a creek with Mr. Bowes, or that one of the top people of the Waterways Division has been seen with a member of the Committee.
Of course, that passes along the grapevine, and everybody thinks that this is the only side of the question which the Committee will hear. I do not think that that is so. I am sure that the members of the Committee are good men and true, that they will do their job well and that in the long run we shall get a satisfactory result.
8.5 p.m.
Mr. George Darling: I should like the hon. Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) to take my word for it that I agree with everything he said about the canal system and the need for keeping it going, but, of course, he has skated away from the problem, which is: who is to pay for keeping the canal system in the efficient way in which we should like to see it kept? Obviously, the whole burden of the cost of maintaining waterways which can return no income to the British Transport Commission cannot be borne by the Commission. We must await the publication of the Bowes Committee's Report to discover who is to pay. I hope that we shall be told who is to pay to keep the canal system going.
The hon. Member also said that he had not seen any advertisements by the
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Transport Commission for the use of canals. I hope that the Commission will not advertise the canal system in the way in which the old Manchester Ship Canal Company used to advertise its services in the Manchester and Salford tramcars. Its notice always appeared next to another notice, so that the two ran together and read as follows: "Do not spit in the car. Use the Manchester Ship Canal".
I want to speak about railways. We are all agreed, for many different reasons, that we should like to see more traffic, both freight and passenger, being taken from the roads to the railways. The roads are overburdened, the railways could carry far more traffic, and we are all agreed that we want to see rail traffic better, quicker, cleaner and generally more efficient. We are all agreed that all this requires new equipment.
I must say that I have been very surprised at the optimistic note which has appeared throughout the debate on the modernisation plans and how they are progressing. In only one sentence does the Transport Commission mention that there have been difficulties about steel. This is only the beginning of the programme, it is hardly under way, but already the Commission has met difficulties about steel supplies. Goodness knows what the position will be in about two or three years' time, because I understand that the Iron and Steel Board's programme for greater steel capacity and production in this country will not be on the scale which some of us think is required and certainly will not come into operation very quickly. I am confident that a far more realistic assessment is required of this situation.
The Minister and the Transport Commission mentioned that the electrification of the first main line system has started. After two years of operation it has proceeded, I think,10 miles from Manchester. The Minister told us today that it was hoped to finish the Manchester-Crewe part in October, 1958, which is three years from the start, a rate of progress equal to 10 miles a year. It is about 180 miles from Manchester to London, which means that at this rate of progress the Manchester-London line, which is the first of the series of main lines to be electrified, will be finished in 1976. This is far too slow.

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We are agreed that the railways will remain in the "red" until they are properly equipped with up-to-date locomotives and coaches, with electrification and other modernisation. That has been said time and time again. Nevertheless, at this rate we shall have 180 miles of main line electrified by 1976, eighteen years after the beginning of the operation. This is much too slow.
An hon. Member opposite referred to trucks taking Volkswagen cars from the Volkeswagen works in Germany in two layers. They could not get under a single railway bridge in this country. I cannot understand why we get such optimistic observations. Every bridge from Manchester to Euston will have to be raised to take the overhead wires which are to provide the electric current for that system.
That means steel girders for the bridges, but steel girders are also needed for our atomic power stations, for the tankers and the new oil refineries that are to be built, for the new harbour at Milford Haven, for coal mining re-organisation, for everything—even for the expansion of the steelworks themselves to enable them to produce the extra steel needed for this work. Steel plates and steel girders are already scarce, even before we begin any of these projects. We must be far more realistic in our observations about the railway development plan on which the railways at present, through no fault of their own, are making so little progress.
The Minister mentioned, as if it was a great achievement, that the Commission has 230 main line diesel locomotives on order, 47 of which are being made in railway workshops. I am not very good at mental arithmetic, but hon. Members can work out for themselves how long, at this rate of progress, it will take to replace our 19,000 steam locomotives with diesel, diesel-electric, or electric locomotives. The 15-year programme will be miles behind—
Mr. Watkinson: I was talking about main line diesels. The hon. Gentleman must not confuse the two, because there are many hundreds of diesel-shunting engines both in use and on order, and that paints a different picture.
Mr. Darling: I appreciate that. I, too, was simplifying my observations, but if we put the number of main line locomotives, both freight and passenger, at about 12,000, I do not think that we shall be very far out. I think that the Minister will agree that, at this rate of progress, we shall not finish the modernisation programme in anything like the period of time laid down by the Commission in its own plan, and in the White Paper.
I do not want to strike a completely pessimistic note. One of the great features of modernisation, as has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members, is the improvement in labour relations in this industry. I mention this to bring out something that has not yet been referred to. The Transport Commission and the trade unions together have done something about trade practices—sometimes referred to as restrictive practices—that ought to be copied in other industries.
The change-over from steam to diesel and diesel-electric locomotives will mean a great change in the craft set-up in the railway workshops. Fewer boilermakers but more electricians will be needed. Those who have worked on steam locomotives up to now will have to change over to internal combustion engines and electric motors. This change-over, as far as I can see, will be effected without any trouble about craft differentials. That will be done because the Transport Commission has done something that private employers facing the same kind of problem have not done.
The Commission has asked the trade unions for co-operation and, in return, has given guarantees. It has said that if a job disappears because of the change in technique, men will be trained to do the new job. Boilermakers will be trained to be electricians, for instance, and will be paid their full craftsmen's pay during training, and guaranteed work at the end of it. That can be done only in a big industry. But shipbuilding is a big industry, and there are sections of the engineering industry that are big and where the same kind of thing could be done. The Commission has set an example that other industries and other employers should follow.
A lot has been said today about how far in advance of ours is the French railway system. But I think that every-one will agree that there are parts of the

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French system that are not up to standard. The most important point, however, is that there is no railway system in the world that carries such a pressure of traffic as does ours. When it is borne in mind that on the Crewe to Euston line there is a train every two and a half minutes during the day, it will be seen that our railways have to be organised to a point of perfection.
With all the good will in the world, and all the good technique available, it would be very difficult to run trains at up to 80 miles an hour for long distances on that line when we are also running stopping trains and freight trains every two and a half minutes. We are doing a very good job on our system with the tools we have, but everyone agrees that we must get better ones—
Mr. Ronald Russell: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the line he mentions has four tracks, and that stopping trains do not run on the express tracks?
Mr. Darling: I agree that it has four tracks most of the way—in some parts it has six—but the point is that they have to take fast and slow goods trains, fast and slow passenger trains and the like, and I am not sure that four tracks would be sufficient, in those circumstances, to run a very rapid service. But I mention that only in passing, so that we may get our comparisons with the French system into perspective.
The possibility of getting the modernisation programme through quickly is, to my mind, rather remote. I do not want to be too pessimistic, but there is another factor to be taken into consideration. If we are relying on the modernisation plan to put the railways in the black, we have to reassess not only the progress of the plan but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) has said, reassess the costs. I agree with him that the cost of the plan will be very much higher than we bargained for by the time it is completed, and that that is likely to throw all the calculations of future railway finances out of gear.
There is another point that has a bearing on this. It has been stated today that the railways have recently lost con-
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siderable traffic—particularly freight traffic—to the roads, because the competition between road and rail is not altogether fair. In addition to complaints about law-breaking in regard to excessive hours, and so on, there is the question of safety on the roads, to which I do not think that we pay sufficient attention.
Railway engine drivers, firemen—everyone who is associated with running rail traffic—has to have special training, has to play a part in making sure that the railways are safely operated. On the other hand, we permit lorry drivers to go on to the road after having taken only the ordinary driving test. I am confident that a large number of them—and this is my observation in driving round—are not really trained to be safe lorry drivers. The standard required of those driving lorries ought to be much higher than that required of the driver of a small car.
I do not know how it will be done, but lorry drivers should have a higher standard of driving. It is quite true that British Road Services and the big C licence operators, the oil companies, the big distributors of goods of all kinds who have very big fleets of vehicles, lay down very stringent rules for their drivers and encourage safe driving, work to schedules which permit safe driving, and give awards for safe driving.
It is the small haulage man all the time who is the danger on the roads these days, the man operating a one-ton, two-ton, or three-ton lorry, with a driver whose standard of driving is not as good as it ought to be and who works for a firm where the importance of safe driving is not taken into consideration as it ought to be taken into consideration. The Ministry of Transport must pay strict attention to that and try to do something about it.
Cases of excessive hours of driving and of bad driving come to light, unfortunately, only when there are accidents. Something ought to be done to make sure that accidents are fewer. It would be a good thing and would help to provide fairer competition between road and rail to make sure that every driver of a truck, van or lorry had passed a driving test of a higher standard than is now the case and also to make sure that conditions of driving, and so on, were more scrupulously enforced.
8.22 p.m.
Sir David Robertson: It is always pleasant to hear the voice of Sheffield in the House, but the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling) took a very pessimistic view of steel, quite unworthy of the great steel city of Sheffield. The history of the steel industry since the late 1930s has been a proud one. Every year the industry has produced increasing quantities of steel. I am confident that the industry will be able to produce all the steel that the British Transport Commission requires for its new and essential programme.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) is not in his place. I am sure the House was very interested in his speech. He began by complimenting his hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) on his speech, which was also very interesting. However, the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth said one thing to which a reply should be given as soon as possible, and I intend to give it. He said that a section of the Press was continually running down British Railways. I was not aware of that, and I have not seen those articles, but if that is the case, nothing will be achieved, because the overwhelming majority of the people know what a tremendous debt we owe to the railways. I shall never forget their work during the war, when they kept trains going and tracks open and were working in constant danger to their lives.
I am rising to voice Scotland's problems for the first time in the debate. I greatly regret that the Commission has applied for the 10 per cent. increase, and I still more regret that the Minister has agreed to it. I object, first, because it is inflationary—and anything which is inflationary is very bad at this time—and, secondly, because it adds to the cost of our exports and everything else, which is equally bad, and, finally, because it gets away from a fundamental principle of all industry and commerce, which is that what can come out of an industry must be earned.
This giant monopoly, if it is efficiently and well managed and helped by us—and no one is more anxious than I to do that —ought to pay its way. It has a monopoly of rail transport, and I am certain that if it faces up to its losses—and it has many losses—it will be able to remedy the
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situation without any subsidies or increases in freights. There are many miles of railway in Britain today which are losing money. At the less popular hours of the day, many trains are run which lose money. Lines which can never pay in any circumstances are operated.
I sometimes think the Commission is apprehensive about protests in the House against the closing down of lines which do not pay. I urge the Commission—and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will do more than urge it—to go ahead and to take its courage in its hands and close lines which have no hope of paying. Operating those lines is the cause of the losses and one of the causes of the increases in freight rates.
There is a very long track of railway running from the Highland capital of Inverness to the Pentland Firth, to Wick and Thurso. It loses £1,000 every working day, which is about £300,000 every year. That is not my figure but the estimate of the chairman of the Scottish Board of British Railways. Someone has to pay for those losses. That is part of the 10 per cent. increase.
I know of that case because I have been plaguing the railways and the Government to turn that line into a road. We are terribly in need of another trunk road in that part of Scotland. The cost of converting it would be about £4½ million, and the actuarial value of that loss is about £8 million. The road could be built without taking agricultural land and would relieve the railways of this colossal loss and permit them to compete for passenger transport and road hauliers on equal terms.
Maintenance would be borne by the State. It would be a road without bends and without hills which could take 100-seater buses. It would be a long straight road which would halve the time now taken for the journey and halve the cost. Instead of the railways losing £300,000 a year, they would make money. Such a road will come. It is bound to come, because the losses will compel it, but it should be built now when the railways are raising freight rates by 10 per cent. and threatening to raise passenger rates.
There must be many more such instances. I happen to know of that case because part of the line is in my constituency. Lines like that should be

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closed when they are not paying. Why should the Exchequer or the fare-payer or freight-payer be taxed to pay for lines which have no hope of paying simply because a few selfish people come to the House with howls for attention? What justification is there for that? The sooner the Minister brings that to the Commission's notice the better. I am sure that their splendid Chairman, Sir Brian Robertson, who is doing so much for the Commission, will respond to my proposal.
The same applies to some mid-day trains. Need we run them, if the demand is only from a handful of people? Private industry cannot do it. Private industry could not carry on and live on its losses.
Hon. Members for Aberdeen are, unfortunately, not here. I received a telegram this week from the fishermen of Aberdeen asking me—no doubt, they asked other hon. Members, too—to oppose the 10 per cent. It is too late. It has been agreed. The fishermen cannot recover the 10 per cent. It will not add anything to the selling price. The fishermen, trawler owners and fish merchants cannot deal with it as the Commission is doing, adding 10 per cent. on fares and freights and recover it. They must stand it; it must come out of the cod end. Would anyone want to pay any more for cod or whiting or other fish because the freight charge has gone up? It can only come out of the money the fisherman gets. That is generally the position in the private sector of industry, unlike this monopoly which can apply a savage increase of 10 per cent.
My final reason for objecting to the increase is that it is bad for the Commission and bad for British Railways. By adding this 10 per cent., they are pricing themselves out of business. That is what it amounts to. The railways have been chucking business at the road haulage industry, and here is another 10 per cent. Surely, if there is one industry in the world, apart from the newspaper industry, which depends on its net revenue from turnover it must be British Railways. The lines are there, fully manned for seven days a week, night and day. The profits of the railways can come, and should come, from running on lines where their services are wanted, running at rates which attract traffic. There is no other
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way whereby traffic can be attracted to the railways than by making it profitable to the man or firm or company to send them by rail.
A company with which I am connected operate a coal mine. We mine the coal, we bring it to the surface, and we load it into our road vehicles. At one time, we took it to the station so that it might go to the only market in Aberdeen, but British Railways charged us such a rate that the more coal we mined—a mineral more precious than gold we have heard it said from both Front Benches—the more we lost. We were driven to the roads. So, when we sent it by road we made money where previously we lost. That is my little story from my own limited experience. But, surely, hon. Members must realise the fundamental economic fact that, if it does not pay people to send goods by rail, they never will. Here is another 10 per cent. The danger signals should be flying mast-high. More and more traffic will be driven away, and all the modernisation in the world will not cure the situation.
The rating system on the railways is completely cock-eyed. When I was younger there were 300 railways in Britain, each one demanding its full pound of flesh for traffic over the lines. Naturally so—I do not find fault with that. Today there is common ownership. The railways belong to us. They are there. Another generation built them and paid for them, and we, through the State, acquired them at a price which was a mere bagatelle compared with what it would cost to build them today. Yet we cannot make them pay. We work the same system of freight rates and fares.
It is no longer a penny per passenger mile. Now it is 1´88d., almost 2d. per passenger mile, and the railways have a right to go to 2d. Freight is still charged at so much per ton mile.
Mr. D. Jones: In the heyday of which the hon. Member is speaking, railway men were being paid £1 a week, and working 72 hours a week.
Sir D. Robertson: Yes; the value of money was different then, and the hon. Member and I know what £1 is today. I think it was probably not a good enough wage.
Mr. Jones: It certainly was not.
Sir D. Robertson: Far too many people worked for too little, and too few got far too much. But we Tories speak in that way, too; it is not just the prerogative of hon. Gentlemen opposite.
I was speaking of this hereditary system which came to us from the little railway companies. Now, the great monopoly is charging so much per ton-mile. The further one goes, the more one pays. In Scotland we are worse hit, because we have paid more from the beginning. For example, it costs me £20 to take my wife to my constituency on the railway, with sleepers, which we need, of course, because it takes all day and night to get there. Now it will cost £22. I had to leave her behind when it got to £20, so now, I am afraid, my constituents will not see my very delightful wife. That gives some indication of where we are going, and of course, the railways will lose more and more passengers.
I submit to hon. Members, and I am sure that any cost accountaint worth his salt would agree, that the first thing the Commission must do is to reflect and look at its costs. Its first cost is the interest, the service of capital. Its second cost is manning the line, every signal box and station, from Land's End to John O'Groats, for seven days a week. These are costs which have to be met before a ticket is sold or a train begins to move.
Then there are a variety of other costs. Terminal costs are very high, and the costs of marshalling yards much higher still. There are maintenance costs of tracks, rolling stock and property. All these occur before the Commission begins to move a train. Yet freights and fares are charged on movement, and it is fundamentally wrong. It is another gross injustice to Scotland, because we rely—5 million of us north of the Cheviots —largely on the great markets of the South for so many of our supplies and for the sale of what we produce.
I urge the Minister to consult the Presidents of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London and in Glasgow and to get them fairly to assess the situation and give it to the Commission. The suggestion that a train with an engine driver, a fireman and a guard, and perhaps an assistant guard as well, with coal, on its way from London to the Lowlands of Scotland or even to the
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Highlands, must be taxed on a mileage basis is wrong.
The essential basic costs to which I have referred are, in the main, unrelated to movement. That was a good policy in the days of the private companies, when there were 300 more of them. Must we have the same policy today? The Minister was not correct when he told us that there were no special rates in the past and no means by which the railways could compete. The truth is that the railways have lived on special rates for years. They charged special rates because the traffic could not afford to pay more. All the rates for coal and minerals were low, but it was a constantly flowing traffic. The only difference today is that the Commission has the right to cut the price to Jones and not to Brown. That is a highly dangerous principle.
I can give this parallel concerning the movement cost anomaly. Would our people ever have gone to New Zealand if shipping companies had charged a flat rate of so much per mile? Could we have brought our raw material from all over the world, from Chile and Peru, for example, and food from Australia? Of course not. But that is what British Railways are trying to do in this small Island.
We all wish British Railways well. I was against nationalisation, and so were most of my colleagues, but we now have nationalisation. We cannot have a prosperous Britain without efficient railways. We have got to have them. They can be made efficient, but it can come only from good management and efficiency and good work in return for good wages. I hope that the Commission will address itself to these points.
8.38 p.m.
Mr. William Ross: I was surprised when I listened to the complaints of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson). I thought everything was put right about four years ago. We had forced upon us for Scotland a Scottish Transport Council. The hon. Member said a word or two in those days about what he would and what he would not do if the Council did not do its job, but he never mentioned it tonight. I gather, however, from what he said that he is not entirely pleased with what is happening.
Sir D. Robertson: The hon. Member is drawing on his imagination—
Mr. Ross: No, I am not. I am drawing on the hon. Member's speech. I noticed that he was anxious to speak in this debate, so before I came in I took the trouble to read the speech he made in the 1953 debate.
The hon. Member's solution tonight is a strange one for Scotland. He says, "Close all the lines that do not pay." I wonder how many railway lines would be left in Scotland and how many local services would be run if that were done? If the same principle were applied to the Scottish Omnibus Group, how many of the Highland bus routes would be left in being? The hon. Member should appreciate that one of the things for which we are thankful in Scotland is that transport is nationalised and is a public service. One of the things against which there was most complaint was what the Government did to road services in Scotland by their actions in relation to British Road Services.
The hon. Member is quite right in saying that Britain depends entirely upon its transport services, both the road and rail. One of the main complaints that I have against the Minister is the part that he and his predecessors played in telling us that we should forget all our politics in relation to transport. The Commission's Report is addressed to him, and the Commission remarks that it hopes that it will be left alone to get on with the job. That is addressed not to this side of the House, but to the right hon. Gentleman, as Minister of Transport.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland also had something to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough (Mr. G. Darling) about steel. He described my hon. Friend as pessimistic. Has he read the Commission's Report? If he has, he will have found, in page 5, in relation to development and equipment for this great modernisation scheme just started last year, that because of Government policy in other matters the Commission was told that it would have to cut its capital expenditure by 15 per cent. or about £22 million. Therefore, the Government last year actually retarded the modernisation for which they had called.
The point was made by the Commission that, in any case, the scheme
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might well have been held up because of shortage of steel. If there is a shortage of steel affecting the Commission in its plans at this early stage, my hon. Friend the Member for Hillsborough was quite right in issuing a warning that things might not go too well.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland also spoke about charges and said that it was easy for the Transport Commission to raise its charges, but that it could not be done in the private sector. Did he listen to the Minister speaking today? I recollect that the right hon. Gentleman said that the financial position of the Commission worsened in 1956 to the tune of £19 million because of increased costs charged by its suppliers of coal, steel, and so on. If the private sector can increase prices in that way, where does the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland get the strange idea that prices do not increase except in the nationalised industries and in the undertakings of the Commission?
Actually, it is far more difficult for the Commission to keep up with increasing costs by increasing its freight charges or its other charges in London and elsewhere than it is for anyone else. The hon. Member knows quite well that the private road hauliers have a meeting and decide to increase charges, and up they go. It is as easy as that for them. It has been done and is being done. The hon. Member was very unfair to the Commission on that point.
Does the hon. Member appreciate the Commission's patriotic effort as a result of an appeal by the Minister not to raise its charges? Does he appreciate that when permission was given to raise charges by 10 per cent. the Commission raised them by only 5 per cent. and deliberately worked itself further into the "red" last year in an effort to help national price stability? If we attained a certain degree of price stability, we can see part of the price reflected in the Commission's financial figures today. It was rather poor thanks to the Commission to have the kind of speech we had from the hon. Member on that point.
I hope that the charges freedom now given to the Commission will lead to a greatly improved position in regard to freights. I do not think that there is any doubt that this fall in the traffic is serious for every one of us, and particularly for

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the Minister of Transport. It is double-headache in his case, because of his responsibilities for British Railways, and, also in his capacity as Minister of Transport, his responsibilities for safety on the roads.
Let us look at the figures of what has happened in the past ten years in regard to C licences. In 1948, there were 601,000 C-licence vehicles on the roads. Within ten years—and it is getting worse every year—the figure has now become 1,028,000. Therefore, there is the problem of the congestion, danger and the inadequacy of our roads, with demands for increasing expenditure upon them, and, at the same time, the consequences of the falling-off in the freight traffic handled by British Railways.
I sincerely hope that the new power to make charges which the Commission has been given will help, but I fear that it will take far more than that, and that it will be many years before we get the right types of wagons and railway equipment to enable the Commission to cope with this kind of competition. When we see what is happening in the United States, where far more money has been spent, and is being continuously spent, all through the lifetime of the railway systems there, and we see how the railways there are faced with exactly the same kind of problem and are fighting for their lives at present, we realise how difficult this problem is.
Where, in the United States, the roads used to carry two ton-miles of traffic for every 50-ton-miles carried by the railways, it is now a case of 21 on the roads for every 50 on the railways—and that in a couple of decades. We see that, in regard to the share of the 30,000 million dollars transport market, where the railways used to have three-quarters of that traffic they are now down to less than half. It is very much easier over there to make railway freight pay, because of the greatly increased distances travelled, in this congested island even our longest distances would be regarded in the United States as quite short, and it is, therefore, much more difficult for us.
Let us not be too optimistic about what the railways have to do. It may well be that in his capacity in other directions as Minister of Transport, with the problem of the greatly increased number
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of vehicles carrying goods on the roads, the right hon. Gentleman may be forced sooner or later to take some restrictive action.
I want to deal with some other matters not dealt with before in this debate. In fact, I doubt whether one of these matters has been dealt with at any time in the debates on transport. It is a matter relating to Scotland, concerning one of the principal activities of the Transport Commission which pays a handsome profit. I think that last year it provided over £2½ million profit. I refer to what is called the Scottish Omnibus Group, which seems to be one of those rather mysterious forms of nationalisation.
If one goes to Scotland, and to the Falkirk area, one will see blue buses carrying the name Alexander, while in another part of Scotland, one may see buses carrying the name Dawson. In the centre of Scotland, we find the name Central "S.M.T., Ltd." and in my own area "Western S.M.T., Ltd." Indeed, we find on the sides of the buses the same names of the general managers which have been there for years. These companies seem to carry on in the same old way in relation to their public and employees, yet they are actually part of a nationalised industry.
It is one nationalised concern. It is only right that Scottish Members should be given much more information of the operation of a firm of this character and scope, running transport from the very South of Scotland right up to the Highlands, its activities, its control, and its connection with the Transport Commission. I can assure you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the employees of Scottish Omnibus Group are interested when they read, with reference to the rest of the Commission's employees, what we find in paragraphs 80 and 81:
"In fulfilment of an undertaking given during the wages negotiations earlier in the year, and after consultation with the trade unions concerned, the Commission introduced on 1st December, the first sick pay scheme for wages grade staff employed in British Railways, British Transport Docks and Waterways, British Transport Hotels and Catering Services, British Road Services and in London Transport "—
But not in the provincial and Scottish Omnibus Group.
We cannot but wonder at a certain amount of grievance felt there when this

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part of the activities of the Commission, which makes a considerable profit and works with considerable efficiency, has not the same conditions of service, sick pay and pensions enjoyed by members of the Commission's other activities. Therefore, I would like to know from the Minister how this can be adequately explained to these men. They want to be part of an instrument of nationalisation, but they also want the benefits for their section of the industry which are given to the others, and it is only right that they should get them.
I would also like to know whether or not we are to get a considerable improvement in the bus stations. I am thinking particularly of the central garages and bus stations connected with these services. Anyone who has experience of trying to get a bus in Glasgow to go to the coast or country from that station in the centre of Glasgow would not consider for a minute that it is adequate for the present traffic. Anyone who has gone to Kilmarnock would quickly have sympathy with the chief constable of that town, who is landed with an ancient garage in the busiest part of a main road, with double-deck buses wheeling out and in every minute of the day. The traffic problem there is bad enough without having this continuing difficulty. Is there to be any early development of more adequate bus stations and garages for the Scottish Omnibus Group?
I will conclude my speech, because my right hon. Friend is anxious to speak. In spite of all the difficulties with which it has been faced, I believe that the Transport Commission has done a good job. We should also remember that 800,000 of cur people are employed by the Commission. I deplore, whether in speech or in newspaper articles, a particular incident being used to smear the Commission and its employees.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland said that he had not come across any newspaper doing that kind of thing. Has he read the Scottish Press today? There were evidently some dirty trains at Largs, so they became the subject of the third leader in the Scotsman. Anyone who recalls the exceptional weather that we have had recently, and the rush of crowds to the coast, can understand how a train can become dirty.
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People complain about a dirty engine. It is doubtful whether they knew whether the engine was just out of the locomotive sheds, or whether it had just finished a couple of hundred miles through the dirtiest of weather. There is far too much criticism which is not very soundly based.
If I speak with some heat it is because I come from a railway family and am proud of it. Railwaymen and transport men generally are proud of their service. Like them, I am anxious to see this modernisation programme going ahead so that they can have something worthy of their pride.
8.56 p.m.
Mr. G. R. Strauss: We have had speeches today in the course of our debate on a large variety of subjects. Some of them may have been a little remote from the Report which is before us, but they were none the worse for that. Indeed, it is not surprising that a variety of subjects has been raised as the industry that we are discussing is by far the largest in the country, affecting many localities, and, of course, it is an industry upon which, more than any other, the prosperity of the community depends.
Perhaps the main feature of this debate today is that it is taking place within a week or two of the publication of the Report. I do not know whether the Government or the Opposition ought to be congratulated upon that, as it is we who have given up a Supply day for this occasion. What is quite certain is that a debate which takes place shortly after the publication of the Report is infinitely more valuable. When we are discussing one which has come out six months ago, we all feel that we are dealing with past history and there is little life in the debate as there is when discussing it as we are today.
Mr. W. R. Williams: Would my right hon. Friend try to arrange for a two-day debate next time?
Mr. Strauss: If the responsibility is mine, I will do my best to satisfy my hon. Friend. When we are discussing a Report which has only just been issued, as we are today, we all feel that we are dealing with current affairs and for that reason the debate is all the more vital and worth while.

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The Report which we are debating is unusually interesting because the developments now taking place in the transport industry are more important, more critical and more exciting than anything that has happened since the change of ownership in 1947. For the first time since then, plans are beginning to operate which will change the British railways—the, core of our transport system—from an ill-equipped and consequently an inefficient system into one which will be up to date and maybe the most up-to-date and efficient in the whole world.
Apart from modernisation plans, two other things of importance have happened during the past year. One is that the haulage section of the Commission is no longer in a state of forced contraction and consequent demoralisation as a result of Government policy. Finally, although the financial outlook of the Commission, particularly of the railway section, is, in spite of the optimism expressed by some, including the Minister, still giving rise to anxiety, provision has been made to ensure that sufficient funds will be available to carry out the modernisation scheme during the next few years and to cover such losses as may be incurred meanwhile.
It is, naturally, that modernisation plan which forms the keynote of this annual Report and is the feature which dominates the transport scene today. Now that it is getting into its stride, we can look forward, I think, with confidence to saying goodbye to that period of stagnation which has far too long characterised our railway system, in spite of the remarkable but necessarily limited progress in efficiency which the Commission and its staff have been able to carry out.
The deficiencies from which the railways are suffering can only be effectively cured by large-scale and comprehensive re-equipment. We have already sufficient evidence to lead us to believe, indeed to make us sure, that when that re-equipment takes place, the result will not only be a substantial saving in operating expenses but, on the basis of experience in this and other countries, a gaining of substantial new traffics.
The prospect of modernisation and expansion confronting the railway system today must give special satisfaction to all railwaymen, particularly as this industry.
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perhaps more than any other, inspires such a sense of devotion and participation among all those who work in it. They can look forward to seeing their industry changed in a few years from a state of obsolescence to one of very high efficiency; one that will give a far finer service to the community and which may, if our optimism is justified, even make a profit instead of a loss.
Equally satisfactory to those who work in the road haulage section of this industry is the fact that, due to the events which took place last year and the Act passed by this House, they are no longer to be pushed about by a Government determined to hand hack this most lucrative section of the transport industry to private interests. The effort made to achieve this was an embittering experience indeed and one which did immense damage to the morale of all who work in the Commission.
It was all the more galling because it was felt that this process of disintegration was being insisted on by the Government not for any sound or indeed any technical reason, but on grounds of squalid politics. But, as we know, at a very late stage the spokesmen of British commerce reinforced the view expressed throughout by the Labour Party, and induced the Government—in spite of a rearguard action fought by some of their back benchers—to halt this disruptive progress. Consequently, British Road Services now have an opportunity of carrying on their activities with some sense of security.
I wish to make two short comments about the present financial position of the railways. I do not wish to repeat anything said by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), or by other hon. Members who have made observations on this point. Some of the factors which have put the British Railways "in the red" are, as we all know, the result of the deliberate policy carried out by the Government, for good or for ill—we think for ill. But most of the others are not peculiar to Britain alone. We should bear in mind that, with one exception, every railway system in Europe is "in the red" today, and, one way or another, receives Government support; and that the conditions which brought about this situation here are common to all other countries.

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I should like my second point to be pondered especially by Government supporters. It is that the fact that our railways are publicly owned has made it infinitely easier to deal with their financial crisis. I am sure that every hon. Member will agree that whatever the ownership of our railways may have been during the last few years there was bound to have been a substantial loss. Plainly, no Government could have dealt with the situation, had the railways remained in private ownership, in the same way as the Government have dealt with it. It would have been difficult for any Government to deal with that critical situation in any way while the railways remained in private hands, and to ensure that they received sufficient sums of money, the hundreds of millions of pounds that are needed, to carry out the modernisation programme.
There are two points, one minor and the other of considerable importance, that I want to raise in connection with the modernisation programme. The minor one may be considered petty, but I want to raise it nevertheless. It concerns the layout, by which I mean the appearance as well as the equipment, of the new passenger coaches which are to be built in considerable quantities during the coming years. We recently had an opportunity of viewing some of these coaches at an exhibition at Battersea Wharf.
While I may be, as I think I am, in a minority, I feel it my duty to say that instead of being impressed by those exhibits I thought they were disappointing and that the modern age of travel required something far better. I cannot believe that the designing talent we possess in this country was sufficiently brought to bear in designing the comfort, appearance and general atmosphere of these coaches. I hope that the carriage manufacturers will recruit experts from a wider field before finalising wagons which are to serve the British public for decades to come.
I am aware that these were only prototypes and I am not too cast down. I am also aware that the Transport Commission has set up a high-powered design panel to look after this very problem. I hope that from that design panel we shall get something good. What we were shown the other day might be all right as a first
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shot, as long as nobody has it in mind that it is the last one.
My other point about the modernisation plan is of great importance and raises matters which are grave. It is one that is giving me and some of my colleagues much anxiety. It concerns the large sums of money, millions of pounds of public money, which will be spent on the re-equipment of our railways.
We were told that the total figure was £1,200 million. Since then, no doubt because of increases in cost and, maybe, new designs and specifications, this amount has grown. Several of my hon. Friends have already asked by what extent it is expected by those who draw up the plans that the original figure will be increased. I hope we can get a reply tonight. It may be that we have not got a figure yet, but, obviously, it will be more than the sum I have mentioned.
Out of that £1,200 million a substantial quantity will go in equipment for the railways; probably most of it. Therefore, the Transport Commission will require to buy many hundreds of millions of pounds worth of goods and will need them quickly. It must have them. It will have to place its orders with an industry which is already overloaded. Consequently, there will be a sellers' market. On one side there will be the demand for enormous quantities of goods with early delivery, and on the other side a limited number of suppliers who will be in a position to demand almost any price they like for the goods, knowing well that the Commission will be unwilling, and, indeed, unable, to get the equipment it wants from abroad.
Here, I suggest, is a position of great latent danger, which may add tremendous sums to the cost of the modernisation scheme thereby burdening British Railways for years to come with excessive interest charges, maybe of some millions of pounds a year. This is not a fanciful position. It is a realistic appraisal of the situation as it is today.
I am all the more concerned about this, because I am convinced that a weak point in the whole of the Transport Commission set-up is its purchasing system. This, I am sure, is recognised by the Commission itself, which, two years ago, appointed an internal committee to survey the whole field and took on from the Central Electric Authority a supplies and

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production adviser who served on that committee. Its report, I understand, was broadly accepted, a few months ago, but, at the same time, rather surprisingly, the officer largely responsible for that report was asked to leave the Commission's service. I wonder whether we could be told why, and whether the Minister is satisfied that the present purchasing arrangements of the Commission are satisfactory and capable of dealing with the acute purchasing problems involved in the modernisation plan?
The situation is more difficult in view of the traditional policy of the railways to effect heir purchases of major equipment from a few well-known suppliers who have given good service in the past, rather than to go out for competition. This is a long-established policy which has been inherited by the Commission from the time when the railways were in private ownership, and I doubt whether it has been completely abandoned today. It is understandable that engineers responsible for buying equipment like to deal with old suppliers with well established reputations for the quality of their goods, but the danger in doing that when goods to be ordered are to be in very great quantities—greater than ever before —and when the suppliers are already working to capacity, is obvious.
Moreover, continuation of this practice today is causing considerable resentment among other sections of industry who maintain that they are able to meet either in whole or in part the requirements of the Transport Commission at equally good prices and to give equally good delivery. I do not know whether they can, but they maintain that they can. If I give one or two examples of what I am informed on the most excellent authority, from various sources, has been happening recently, I think that the House will realise the dangers of this situation.
I will not give the names of the companies concerned, but I have them available and will readily give them to the Minister or to any hon. Member. I understand that about a year ago the Commission wanted to make some purchases necessary in connection with the new vacuum braking system and gave an order for an essential part of the necessary equipment to a well-known firm which had supplied the railways with equipment for years with great satisfaction. The
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quotation of £30 13s. 4d. per unit was accepted in the first place by the Commission, but, before it was confirmed at the instigation, perhaps—I do not know —of an outside competitive firm, or it may be the special supplies officer who had been appointed, competitive tenders were sought.
It was then found that other firms of equal standing were prepared to quote between £20 and £24 for that article. Hearing of this, the original firm reduced its price to £23. I understand that the order has been given to one or two firms at about that figure and, as the number of articles involved is likely to amount to about I million, the saving ultimately involved is substantial, amounting to about £7 million.
I am also informed that the original firm has been given the order for making and installing a major part of the signalling system required by the modernisation plan, which will amount, in total and at the end, to about £100 million. The order has been given to this firm without any competitive tenders being sought for either the whole or part of this equipment.
I will give only one more example. I am told that orders have been given to an old and large firm, very well known and for a long time a supplier to the railways, for the manufacture and installation of the overhead catenary, which is the wires, supporting posts, and so on, required for the electrification of the railways. The order is for all that quantity which the B.T.C. will want for the first five years of its programme. The total amount involved for the period is likely to be about £30 million. The contract has been placed on a cost-plus basis.
The important point here is that other firms of high standing in the industry asked to be allowed to make competitive tenders for sections of this work. Finally, they were allowed to do so, but they maintain that the conditions laid down by the Commission made effective competitive tenders impossible. They resented the situation very much and protested strongly to the Commission, but their representations were wholly ineffective.
Although I have given only two or three examples—I could give many more —I will add only one further point, and it is one which naturally increases our

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anxiety in this matter. The new arrangements accepted by the B.T.C., as a result of the report of the internal committee, involved the appointment of a contracts officer in a position of high responsibility. The B.T.C. agreed to this some months ago, but I understand that no such officer has yet been appointed. With all that is going on at this critical stage in the modernisation plan and the purchase of materials for it, one would have thought that such an officer would be appointed immediately.
I am aware that the members of the Commission are themselves concerned about the purchasing arrangements in their organisation and the sellers' market which confronts them. This is shown by the fact that they set up the committee to review the position and accepted its recommendations. Nevertheless, in view of the importance of this matter and its background history, I feel that the Minister should satisfy himself, the House and the public that all is well and, in particular, that the traditional purchasing policy of the railways has been drastically revised not only on paper but in practice. As we all know, it is simple to produce a new plan which looks very nice, but if some who are to operate it are opposed to it the paper plan may be ineffective.
The Treasury is much involved in this matter, because it is underwriting enormous sums of public money, and I therefore suggest to the Minister that he might well seek to help the Transport Commission to overcome the difficulties that confront it. One way which suggests itself to me is that he might use the Government expertise on this matter. I know very well from my own experience in the Ministry of Supply that that Department has a large, exceedingly efficient and very experienced purchasing department which is well used to buying all the goods required for the three Services in times of crisis and emergency, such as the beginning of the Korean War. The Department does this while, at the same time, safeguarding, the public, as far as it is possible to do so and also bearing in mind, as it often has had to do the importance of quick delivery of the goods.
It may be that some of the officers, and some of the experience in that Ministry, might be useful to the railways today. However, I hope that I have said
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enough to impress upon the House and the Minister the importance of this matter, and the deep anxiety which some of us in this House feel about it. I trust that when the Parliamentary Secretary replies—and, I have warned him that I was going to raise this matter—he will be able to relieve our anxieties to some extent, but that, anyhow, he will assure us that he will give this important subject, involving as it does, huge sums of money and the success of the modernisation plan, the closest attention during the next few years—in consultation, of course, with the Transport Commission.
Apart from this, the Report contains a vast amount of matter on which the Commission deserves the wholehearted congratulations of the House and the gratitude of the country. It is, indeed, a pity that the travelling public—and that embraces practically everyone who lives in the British Isles—is unaware of the remarkable achievements that have been effected in many directions by the joint efforts of the managers and employees of the Commission. There are one or two that struck me as being particularly encouraging.
One, which I think may be the most important, is the new spirit of co-operation between management and staff, for which the new Railways Productivity Council is largely, but not wholly responsible. There is today a real effort on both sides to get together, and to work in the interest of the service to a far greater degree than ever before. That is excellent.
This new spirit was sorely needed, and, of course, it takes time to develop its maximum benefit. A good start has been made, and one of its fruits has been a greater willingness for recruits to join the industry, to which trend the better pay which was agreed during the recent negotiations has, of course, been a contributing factor. The recruitment figures quoted in the Report show that compared with a loss of staff of 17,000 in 1954 and of 14,000 in 1955, there was, last year, a gain of 7,000. In this connection, no doubt, the excellent training scheme set up by the Commission has helped. Another important figure is the drop in turnover of London Transport. That has fallen from 18·9 per cent. in 1955 to 14·7 per cent. in 1956.

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Turning to staff matters, I should like to add something which I do not think has been mentioned today—and perhaps the Minister may be loath to do so. I am sure that the increase in the salaries of the members of nationalised boards announced last week by the Prime Minister will have a beneficial effect on the future prospects of this industry. In many cases, the salaries of the people about whom I am most concerned—the small group of top managers and engineers on whom the successful operation of the Commission's work so much depends—were below those paid in private industry.
Before long, this situation was bound to have had a deleterious effect on the fortunes of the Commission. Some men might have been tempted to go over to private enterprise, but even more important is the danger that the most promising new material, the outstanding young men, would, if the prizes elsewhere were more glittering, not have joined the Commission's service, but would have turned for their careers in some other direction.
The rewards of the top men are, of course, largely conditioned by the salaries of the members of the Commission, as it is difficult for many reasons to pay the senior staff more than the members of the Commission. One reason is that if that is done nobody can ever be promoted to the Commission, of which membership should be the ultimate objective of the staff. I am, therefore, sure that the increase in salary of the top people will, in the long run, be of great value to all the nationalised industries, including the one we are discussing tonight.
On the subject of the Commission's membership, I want to express the personal opinion, that experience confirms the view which some of us have always put forward but about which others have had doubts, that part-time membership of first-class people on these public bodies is of very great value. I am certain that that is the case on the Transport Commission. The amount of time and effort and the value of the contribution made by part-time members has been outstanding.
I want to comment about the paragraphs in the Report which deal with the consumers' consultative committees. The central and the 11 area transport consultative committees are doing valuable
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work, but I wonder whether they could not and should not do more to bring the transport user into closer co-operation with the men who run the transport system. Very few people who use the railways know of the existence of the committees. It is most desirable, if anybody using a public service has a grievance, justified or unjustified, that he should be able to feel that he can have it investigated.
The Commission and the regions should do much more to make it known to every user of the railways that if he has a serious complaint which he feels should be looked into, he should go, in the first place, to the stationmaster or to the appropriate official, and, if he does not get satisfaction there, he can go to a consultative committee. He should know how to get in touch with members of that committee.
Mr. Snow: My right hon. Friend is following a point I made earlier, but is not half the trouble the fact that the area committees are far too remote and that people are unable to travel the long distances involved?
Mr. Strauss: My hon. Friend may well be right. I am not aware that that is the difficulty, but if it is, it should be remedied. Everybody should know where the committees are and it should be easy for anyone with a grievance to be able to get in touch with them.
I know that all this is apt to be a nuisance to those who run the transport system, but I am sure that it is well worth while, in that it gives the users of the system a sense of participation and it gains their good will. Some steps in this direction have already been taken in one of the regions, but a great deal remains to be done and I hope that the Commission will consider what further steps it should take.
Further, I hope that the Commission will go out of its way to inform the public of the progress it is making with its modernisation plan, particularly in those localities where its effect will be most felt, so that people can know what is happening to their railways. We and the Commission have to keep in mind the whole time that people feel, or should feel, and if they do not, ought to be made to feel that the railways are theirs; that it is in their interests and their

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responsibility to keep them up to a high standard of cleanliness and efficiency. We should enlist the public's support in all these matters.
Taking all these matters together, with the views expressed by my colleagues today, it would be fair to summarise the situation by saying that we feel a sense of general satisfaction with the progress reported in the Report, with some qualifications, some doubts, some queries on certain points. In other words, in spite of the grave troubles which have confronted the Commission and its staff during the past year, for most of which they were not in any way responsible they have served the nation well during the year.
We can add that we all hope that the Commission's ambitious scheme for modernisation and expansion upon which it is embarked will be wholly successful, will bring to all who work on the railways satisfaction, and will enable them to render even greater service to the nation in future.
9.30 p.m.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): We have had a useful debate today, and I appreciate the felicitous spirit in which the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) wound up for his side. I share his sentiment, that the Commission is engaged on a vast undertaking which not only matters to them but matters to every one of us in the country. It was encouraging to hear the general sense of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say.
I will deal as quickly as I can with the many points which have been raised during the debate. If I cannot deal with them all, I will communicate by letter with any hon. Member whose question I miss.
I should like to deal at once with the important point put by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, which was raised earlier by his hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), which gave me the opportunity to consult the Commission and find out its precise position in the matter, namely the present arrangement for purchasing from and contracting with outside firms. The
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position is that the Commission follows the general view, expressed earlier, that purchasing should be regarded as a special technique, that it should be in the hands of specially experienced men, and that the business of the technical staff is to define or design what is wanted and that they should be relieved of the commercial dealings involved in its procuring. This is the principle which is now actuating the Commission in its present rearrangements following the internal review to which reference was made.
As regards the division of purchase between centre and constituent managements, the area boards, the Commission reserves to itself the purchase of rolling stock, ships and certain other major items of equipment, representing a large proportion of the modernisation programme, and it controls the placing of large contracts for electrification, etc., when the expenditure involved exceeds the amount authorised to area boards. In other words, area boards have a limited authority to spend up to a certain level. But the Commission has instructed area boards to observe the same principle within the regional organisation and to ensure that the placing of contracts is in the hands of separate and expert staff. It has already been indicated that certain changes in organisation, both at headquarters and in the regions, are now taking place.
With regard to the very important matter to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, namely the general practice of the Commission in placing contracts, the Commission's general rule is to purchase by competitive tender. No exceptions are permitted without the express approval of the Commission itself. Every such exception is examined with great care, and particular attention is given to the special safeguards which have become necessary. In other words, the Commission acts as any sensible commercial firm would do: it recognises that there may be special circumstances in which it would be justified in purchasing without tender.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to one particular contract for a very large sum indeed for overhead electrical gear. I am informed that the position there was that the firm the Commission went to was the firm with the experience and know-how for the job, pre-eminent, in the

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Commission's judgment, and alone capable of doing the designing work. A condition of the firm concerned was that if it was to do the designing work it wished to do the supplying as well. That, of course, created just the difficulties to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred in making it virtually impossible for other firms to come in to do parts of the construction work.
Mr. Strauss: It is only fair to say that those firms, which are of equally high standing in industry and have a worldwide reputation, maintain that, with the French experience, they can do the designing work just as well but were not allowed to show and prove their mettle.
Mr. Nugent: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the matter. I am sure he would agree that this is not the place to argue it out in detail. My right hon. Friend and I undertake to look into the whole situation with the Commission and assure ourselves that the matter is being dealt with as well as is possible in the national interest. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman recognises that in the main we should trust the Commission to do these things on its own, to use its own commercial judgment, and that it will in that way get the best result. We will, however, certainly look into the question and put ourselves in a position to give the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends an assurance that this matter has been done in the most practical and effective way and that these contracts have been handled as well as they possibly could be. I shall be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman will send me privately the names of the firms concerned.
Among his other points, the right hon. Gentleman was rather critical of the recent exhibition of the style of coach design. There are two schools of thought. One likes a compartment coach and the other likes a saloon coach. Personally, I am in the second category. I do not doubt that the Commission will take note of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, in the same way as it listened to what was said that day, when there was comment about the lighter, brighter effect of the saloon coach. That may well be the kind of coach in which most people prefer to travel, although there are others who seem to prefer to go in a compartment coach.
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The Commission is still in difficulty concerning colour. Until steam traction has finally disappeared, the problem of dirt will restrict the colours that can be used. For this reason, they cannot be quite as bright as one might wish.
I was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman so roundly commending the value of part-time members on the Commission. Men who have wide experience in other walks of commerce, finance and life can bring something of value to the board, and they are certainly justifying their place. I agree that the effect of raising the salaries of those on this level will greatly help amongst the senior ranks, where there has obviously been a real difficulty in holding the best men when higher rewards were offered elsewhere. That is of great importance.
Before I deal with the other railway questions, I should like to refer briefly to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris), who asked about the special interest of canals. The points he has raised will be carefully looked into and I will take them up with the Commission. I will then get in touch with my hon. Friend to see whether we can meet his points. I know how interested he is in the whole question of canals, and I will do my best to meet him. On the question of bus services in Kilmarnock, raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross)—
Mr. Ross: In Scotland, not in Kilmarnock.
Mr. Nugent: I will put myself in a position to deal with the hon. Member's point. I am not in the position to do so now, unfortunately.
Mr. Ross: Might I save the hon. Gentleman the trouble? I have already written to the Commission and it has promised to deal with it for me.
Mr. Nugent: There could not have been a better solution, because I should have had to consult the Commission too.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East referred to the trend of passenger and freight traffics since the end of petrol rationing. His facts were not correct. Passenger traffics are still higher than this time last year and freights have been held at the same level. Since at this time last year they were in a declining trend, the

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fact that they are today roughly parallel with last year shows an improvement.
The hon. Member also asked about the modernisation programme, as did his right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall. They asked whether £1,200 million would be still enough. The answer is that the Commission believes that it will be sufficient, that is to say its estimates were prepared on a sound basis and, in the White Paper of 1956, "Proposals for the Railways" it made the comment that the figures
"are now likely to be increased, though not greatly."
In other words, the Commission expected when it wrote that White Paper that there might have to be some revision. The Commission is now in process of reviewing its programme, and when this review is completed it will no doubt be letting us know whether any modification is needed.
Mr. S. O. Davies: There is a question on that matter which is not unimportant to us who live off main lines. How much of the Commission's new programme will apply to branch lines? At the moment, the Commission is showing a terrific avidity to close down branch lines and is making no effort to modernise them.
Mr. Nugent: I do not want to spend too long on any one point because I have many to answer. The broad answer here is that the Commission has gone to great lengths to try to find means of keeping these branch lines going, most of which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, are losing large sums of money. The Commission has tried out a light diesel set, the four-wheeled diesel car, as one means of meeting the need, and where it is being tried it is attracting traffic. I saw one on the Banbury—Bletchley line. But even that will not solve all the difficulties of branch lines. After the consultative committees of the regions have considered a particular instance, at the end of the day the Commission often has to decide to close down the lines, but I can give the hon. Member a broad assurance that the Commission is trying hard to keep the lines going, in spite of the expense.
Mr. Davies: So far we have no evidence in the valleys of South Wales that any effort is being made.
Mr. Nugent: I should like to ask the hon. Member for Enfield, East to make plain his meaning in the peroration of his speech. He made a powerful ending to his speech to the effect that only by a system of common ownership of transport, with complete co-ordination, could there be a successful system of transport. As this had followed a very heavy criticism by the hon. Member of the system of C licences and their present rate of increase, I should like him to make plain what his intentions are in regard to C licences. I would gladly give way for him to do so.
Mr. Ernest Davies: Obviously, this is not the occasion on which we on this side of the House will put forward our policy, but I said that we considered the time had come when we had to have a review of transport needs and facilities and that a review was called for in view of the fact that there is a conflict between private and public transport to the detriment of public transport.
Mr. Nugent: I do not think the hon. Member's remarks will give much reassurance to those whose anxieties were aroused by what he said earlier.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East made the point that the present system of finance was a mistake and that it would have been better to finance modernisation by direct subsidy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) has said, the Commission has shown that it prefers to be independent and to finance its plan by means of a loan, and I feel pretty confident that it has the vigour to make this scheme work. If I have the chance, I should like to make some remarks on that matter later, but, certainly, there are no signs that the Commission would welcome the hon. Member's suggestion.
Turning to the many points made by the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tam-worth (Mr. Snow), he told us that the Commission's Report compared unfavourably in form with that of the French railways. No doubt the Commission will take note of that and see if it can make the popular form, which the hon. Member no doubt knows, a little more attractive and readable, instead of being just extracts from the main Report. The main Report itself is, as I am sure

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the House generally will agree, an admirable document for us here and for others who wish to study these matters in detail.
On what plans there are for rebuilding Lichfield station, I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Member much direct information tonight. The immediate intention is to do some temporary repairs, and the bigger project of rebuilding the station is now under review by the Midland Regional Board. With regard to the hon. Member's strictures on catering arrangements, particularly in regard to cleanliness of refreshment rooms, I think he was to a considerable extent answered by his hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. J. Harrison). The fact is that it is extremely difficult to get domestic staff, either for catering or for such things as coach washing and so on. It is the intention of the Commission gradually to replace handwashing by mechanised washing, which will greatly ease this problem, but at the present time they have a very real difficulty.
With regard to the hon. Member's comments about dining cars, my own impression—and I quite often have a meal in a dining car—is that on the whole the meals are good. I agree that they are expensive, but that is inevitable because it is a very expensive business to put on a meal in a railway dining car. I think the meals are good and well served, and, as he rightly said, compare very favourably with what one has to pay anywhere else. I was glad that the hon. Member commended cleanliness in trains, and I will ask the Commission to take note of his suggestion about arrangements for telephoning direct from trains.
Mr. Snow: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not adopt a complacent attitude about cleanliness in refreshment rooms. I am sure he and the Commission are not satisfied. If there is a problem, such as my hon. Friend pointed out, about getting staff, surely the Commission will do something about it? We cannot go, on like this; it is uncivilised.
Mr. Nugent: No doubt the Commission will take note of what the hon. Member says.
Turning to a point made by the hon. Member on consultative committees, I think he was speaking about the Transport Tribunal. The position about them
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is that, under the 1947 Act, those who could appear before the Tribunal were limited to the councils of counties, the Common Council of the City of London and the councils of county boroughs. In the 1953 Act it was widened in the way which the hon. Member acknowledged, but I would think that, as it has been so recently decided by Parliament, after weighing the pros and cons what the representation should be, I cannot do more than take note of his point of view that even more people should be allowed to appear before such a commission.
Turning to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Merton and Morden (Mr. Atkins), I am afraid I have to tell him that, much as he might like his line to have priority, the Victoria line will be the first of this kind to be built. When that will be done, I cannot say, but I am afraid that for the present, at any rate, he and his constituents will have to manage with their existing facilities.
A point was made about the carrying of coal by the B.T.C. and the amount at present going by road. The Commission has been in close consultation with both the National Coal Board and the Central Electricity Board. The result has been quite a significant increase in the amount of coal being carried by rail rather than by road.
In the few minutes remaining to me I should like to say a few words about the impressions I have gathered in the six months since I have been in this Ministry of how this great modernisation project is proceeding.
Mr. Fenner Brockway: Is the Minister not going to make any reply to the criticism regarding the absence of facilities for taxi drivers at the railway stations? I gave the Minister notice of this and he promised earlier that he would answer this question. Is he not going to make any reference to it?
Mr. Nugent: I apologise. I had a note to do so, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that I have many notes to answer a great many points. This important point has been before my right hon. Friend and our Ministry for some little time, and we are in consultation with the British Transport Commission on this point. We are carefully considering the problem, and I hope it will be possible

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before long for my right hon. Friend to say what would be the best solution. I thank the hon. Gentleman for expounding the matter in such detail. I have heard him on many occasions, and, indeed, he is renowned for challenging the ranks of privilege. This is the first time I have heard him in extenso challenging the privileged ranks of those in taxis.
Turning to the prospect of modernisation, like many people outside I confess that my initial impact was, "This task seems so enormous, does the Commission really have a chance of servicing the loan and of turning the present deficit, in the course of the next ten or fifteen years into a profit?" I have taken what opportunities I could in the past six months to visit a number of installations throughout the country, which the Commission has readily arranged for me to do, in order to see how the task was getting on and how those who were doing it were faring. There are three heads on which I will briefly say a few words.
First, on engineering and operating, the Report records excellent progress during the past year, and, if anything, the progress is ahead of schedule. My impression from meeting engineers in different parts of the country is that the Commission is here building on firm foundations. The men doing it really know a tremendous lot about building and operating railways. The fact is that they are building on more than a century of experience, going back to the time when we were the pioneers of railway building, and they know just about all there is to know about operating railways.
Now they have the opportunity to go ahead and put into practice all these methods of modernisation they have known about for some time and much wanted to carry out. Of course, they have kept in touch with what has been going on in other countries. Therefore we are reaping the fruits of their experience and building on the great repository of wisdom which has been amassed here over past generations. My impression is that on this side the progress is confident and enthusiastic throughout. Those whom I have met at all levels welcome the opportunity that they have to go ahead and make a really modern railway system, and they have the confidence of knowing what they are doing,
504
where they are going, and what they are trying to achieve.
I cannot go in any detail into many of the interesting aspects that I would like to speak about, but I would say this. There is no subject more fascinating than a railway system, and a railway system that is in course of modernisation like ours is now is one of the most fascinating subjects that one can study. The response that is coming from those engaged in it will, I am sure, impress us very much as the years go by.
Turning to the personnel and manpower aspect, in Chapter 2, the prospect there is encouraging, too. There is good prospect that both management and men will measure up to the great mechanical developments which are going on.
My right hon. Friend referred with commendation to the new area boards. I have had an opportunity of meeting a good many of the members of these boards, and I think the Commission is to be congratulated on the calibre of man they have appointed. There was a question earlier as to who appoints them. They are appointed by the Commission, which is very successful in getting men of distinction and experience from all walks of life to form these boards. They and the general managers of the areas are undoubtedly doing very valuable work in administration.
In addition, the old loyalties to the old main lines are still there. I have met them as I have gone about the country. The formation of these area boards with a certain amount of separate identity has undoubtedly revived some of the old loyalties which will make a great contribution to the higher standard of service that we are looking for in the future.
Mr. Lindgren: I am sorry to interrupt—
Mr. Nugent: I regret that I cannot give way now. I have only a minute or two left.
With the system of decentralisation to which my right hon. Friend referred, which is going on in the areas, I believe that we shall get increasingly close contact between the officials of the railways and the railways users.
Turning to the staff side, which is equally if not even more important, the

505
progress with work study, which has been referred to by my right hon. Friend, is very encouraging indeed. The unions have given it their wholehearted support. The National Productivity Council, referred to by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall, has successfully got into its stride. The Commission has set up its own training school at Watford, which is already giving courses, where men can learn the process of work study which they can then apply when they go back to their work. The Western Region, indeed, set up its own work study training centre at Paddington some eighteen months ago. It is easy to visit and some very good work has been going on there.
It is evident when one looks into the working of the railway that there is very much scope for the application of this work study system to railway work which will, along with the modernisation of the engineering and mechanical side, yield very big results indeed in greater productivity. I think there are encouraging signs under both those two main heads.
In my concluding minute I cannot refer to the commercial side about which I would have liked to have said a word, where the railways have a formidable task to make an organisation to match up with the rest.
I think I have said enough to ask the House to accept this Report and to give its best wishes to the Commission so that it may get on with the job of modernising our railway system.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Ninth Annual Report, Statement of Accounts and Statistics of the British Transport Commission for 1956.

NATIONAL INSURANCE (MARRIED WOMEN)
National Insurance (Married Women) Amendment Regulations, 1957, [copy laid before the House 26th June], approved.—[Miss Pitt.]

DENTISTS (ANCILLARY WORKERS)
10.0 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. J. K. Vaughan-Morgan): I beg to move,
That the Draft Ancillary Dental Workers Regulations, 1957, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, be approved.
I do not think that I need detain the House for very long in explaining these Regulations. These are the first set of Regulations laid under the powers conferred on the General Dental Council. The nub of the Regulations is the provision for the establishment of a class of ancillary dental workers to be called dental hygienists. The duties as set out in Regulation 24 are the duties they will be permitted to carry out. I feel that we should wish this experiment the greatest success in the future. We all have great hopes about what it may do to help in the shortage in dentistry generally and we should congratulate the General Dental Council on its statesmanlike approach in bringing forward these Regulations along lines which meet the wishes of Parliament.
10.2 p.m.
Dr. Edith Summerskill: We all welcome these Regulations, but I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary why so much time has elapsed between the passing of the Bill and the making of these Regulations. They are quite simple and elementary. No new principle is introduced and most of the matters were raised during the debate on the Bill. In view of the urgency of this matter, I should like an explanation.
I suspect that there has been some obstruction and I speak rather strongly about this, because we all know that there is a shortage of dentists and that those who are particularly suffering are the small children who are in need of conservative dental treatment. Although this was well known when the Bill was being discussed these Regulations have been delayed and I think it deplorable that people have had to suffer in consequence.
It will be recalled that the whole question of dental hygienists was raised many years ago and it was decided by the hon. Gentleman's Department to send a number of officials to New Zealand to examine the clinics there, which, for the most part,

507
were conducted by women dental hygienists. I was in New Zealand in 1944 and I visited the clinics there. I was particularly impressed by the treatment of the children. There were rooms in which perhaps 20 children were all being treated by these well-qualified women and there was not a murmur from the children.
As a consequence the child population of New Zealand was afforded excellent dental service, whereas the child population of this country is denied it. The officials came back and reported to the hon. Gentleman's Department and it was decided that a service such as is embodied in the Regulations before us tonight was desirable in this country. The children in the clinics in New Zealand not only had their teeth cleaned, polished and scaled, but also they had them filled and extracted. I am not pressing that extractions should be included, but I ask the Parliamentary Secretary why filling has not been included.
It is astonishing that a dental hygienist, a qualified woman, has to ask a qualified dentist whether she can clean and polish a child's teeth. It seems such an elementary thing that she should be allowed to do that. I accept that there should be a qualified dentist there, but if a qualified dentist is to be in attendance let her do something which the child needs, and that is filling. Otherwise, these Regulations will not serve the purpose that I am sure all of us wish them to serve. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he would consider whether the Regulations can be amended.
10.6 p.m.
Sir Keith Joseph: I want to add only one word more of welcome for the Regulations, which go some way towards putting into effect one of the recommendations of the McNair Committee. We all recognise that there are not sufficient dentists in this country, even for the public demand that exists, and that the Committee stressed that the demand from the public is not high enough for a high standard of dental service. There is a problem here of public education as well as of providing enough professional men and assistants.
I very much welcome the Regulations. I would point out to the right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) that it is by nature an
508
experiment and was recommended as such in the McNair Committee's Report. It may well be that if the experiment is successful it will be possible to extend it. I would like to correct any impression that the right hon. Lady may have given that the priority free service given to children and to nursing mothers has not been very much extended in the last few years. During the past year, one was able to welcome the fact that conservative treatment for children had very much increased, something which we all welcome.
I do not think that the right hon. Lady's words of gloom were fully justified. I welcome this step, modest though it is, in carrying out this McNair recommendation.
10.9 p.m.
Mr. Somerville Hastings: I would like to add my welcome to the Regulations, but not because the condition of teeth of the younger children is so very much better. The last Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health said that it was considerably worse.
Sir K. Joseph: I was talking about the amount of conservation treatment given, and not about the quality.
Mr. Hastings: I was talking about the results of the treatment.
Mr. George Thomas: Which is even more important.
Mr. Hastings: I welcome the Regulations, which will extend the scope of the rather limited dental manpower by a certain amount of dilution. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill), I would have been far happier if the dilution had been a little greater, and if the dental hygienists, after proper training—I have seen the training going on at the Eastman Dental Clinic—and in the presence of a properly qualified dentist, to whom the hygienist could refer at any time, were allowed to undertake a certain amount of stopping, or, at any rate, preparation of the teeth for stopping.
I cannot help feeling that that would be a very good thing. I would always insist on having a properly qualified dentist to look after my teeth, but some of the preliminary work of stopping could

509
be done by a less skilful or less highly trained individual.
I wish to refer to paragraph 6, "Fees payable for enrolments, etc." On enrolment the dental officer, who is called a dental hygienist, has to pay £ I have no objection to that. Investigation has to take place to make quite sure that there is proper qualification and I do not think that is very much, but what I do object to is that every year that individual has to pay another £1. Half a century ago I paid a fee—I cannot remember what it was—and got on to the medical register and I have never had to pay a bean since.
I do not see why the work of these dental hygienists should be considered so much greater in value than that of a doctor and that they should have to pay £1 every year. All they have to do, as is stated definitely in this Order, is to write to the registrar not later than 14th March each year and send their £1 and they are put on the register again. It seems a lot of money for that. I do not see why their retention on the register should not be continued for, say, 10s. I know it is statutory that they have to pay each year, and that they cannot be in my happy position, hut, although it is statutory that they have to pay each year, the Dentists Act does not say the amount they have to pay.
I should like to deal rather carefully with the question of the third fee which is mentioned in paragraph 6:
"For restoration of a name under regulation 5 of these regulations"
another £1 has to be paid. There are two reasons for a name being temporarily removed from the register of dental hygienists. It may be that the individual, for a good reason, no longer desires to practise her profession for a time. Generally, the person concerned is a woman. She may get married and then her financial circumstances change and she wants to come back on to the register.
Another reason may be that for some misdemeanour her name is taken off the register. In the first case, when she does not wish to practise for a time and then wants to come back on the register, we are told that she has to send to the registrar
"(a) The tee for restoration,"
of £1, and
"(b) The fee for retention in the roll …"
510
and then certain certificates, if they are necessary. A total of £2 has to be paid before that individual, who for very good social reasons has allowed her name to lapse from the register, can have it restored.
In the case of a person who has had her name removed it has had to be a serious misdemeanour. If the individual
"has been convicted of an offence which if committed in England would be a felony or misdemeanour"
or she
"is alleged to have been guilty of any misconduct"
the registrar calls together the Ancillary Dental Workers Committee, which tries the case. The individual can be represented by counsel and can call witnesses.
If the case is proved, the individual is put off the register. The time may come, however—and it must not be until five months later—that he or she desires to be placed on the register again. What is the procedure? Again, the Committee has to be called and again careful inquiries have to be made.
I should like to read paragraph 20:
"20. If, upon consideration of the application and of the evidence furnished in support of it, the Committee are satisfied that the name of the applicant should be restored to the roll, they may direct the Registrar accordingly, and, upon payment, where applicable of the fee prescribed in regulations 6 of these regulations for retention of a name in a roll, his name shall be restored to the roll."
In other words, if a person misbehaves and is guilty of a misdemeanour, under the Regulations he can be placed back on the register for a single fee of £1, whereas if he has gone off the register at his own wish for a year or so for social or other reasons, he must pay £2 in order to get back on the register.
I do not know whether this has occurred to the Minister who framed these regulations, but it seems to me to be very unjust and I hope that he will give very careful consideration to this point, which seems to me important from the individual's point of view, before the Regulations are confirmed.
10.17 p.m.
Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings) for having given so much attention to the Regulations and having done so much homework in reading them. He

511
must be one of comparatively few hon. Members who have done so.
I cannot give the details of the point which he has raised, but the Regulations are, of course, made by the General Dental Council, and I have no doubt that his observations will be noted by them. I do not think he need be very worried. As I understand, there is no breach of tradition, because these Regulations are based on similar regulations which are used in other ancillary professions. I do not doubt, however, that the General Dental Council and the Privy Council will take note of his remarks.
The right hon. Lady the Member for Warrington (Dr. Summerskill) referred, first, to what she called the delay and, secondly, asked why the fuller duties of the ancillary workers have not been included. I agree with her that that was the intention of Parliament, but what Parliament said about the filling of teeth was that there should be an experiment; under the Act there was to be an experiment. I understand that the Privy Council has obtained preliminary information from the General Dental Council on the case for an experiment, based on the New Zealand
512
experience, but has not yet directed that an experiment shall be undertaken. I have no doubt that note will be taken of her feeling, which I think is shared by many hon. Members, that some haste should be displayed in this matter.
I do not think that I want to go into the delay in the laying of the Regulations. The fact is that they are brought before the House with the approval of the General Dental Council. Perhaps we may wish that they had been tabled a little earlier, but they are here now and I think we ought to express our appreciation of the fact that the will of Parliament, as expressed in the Dentists Act, 1956, is being carried out in these Regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Draft Ancillary Dental Workers Regulations, 1957, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, be approved.

ADJOURNMENT
Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wills.]
Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes past Ten o'clock.

  CHINA (BRITISH SHIPPING)
  CHINA (BRITISH SHIPPING)
UNITED NATIONS
  Hungary
  Hungary
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  Permanent Force
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  PALESTINIAN ARAB REFUGEES
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  BELGIUM (WAR DAMAGE CLAIM)
BRITISH ARMY
  Mobilisation
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  No. 31 Base Workshops, Ashford (Closure)
  No. 31 Base Workshops, Ashford (Closure)
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  Trooping the Colour Rehearsal (Charges)
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  Overseas Illness (Visits of Next-of-Kin)
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  Parcel Post (Chinese People's Republic)
  Parcel Post (Chinese People's Republic)
  Postal Service Account
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TELEPHONE SERVICE
  Solihull
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  Kingston Buci Urban District Order
  Kingston Buci Urban District Order

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
The Lord Dunleath—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

CROYDON CORPORATION BILL
2.35 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3a.—(The Earl of Drogheda.)
LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, I would apologise for having to weary your Lordships once again by some further remarks of mine with regard to this Private Bill. As your Lordships have just heard, a Select Committee, in spite of our debate on Second Reading, has passed the Bill, and therefore I do not propose to argue its terms once more But my postbag shows that considerable anxiety, and also, I fear some resentment, has been caused throughout Surrey by this measure; and I hope that in answering some few questions which I wish to put to the Minister he will be able to dissipate some of these anxieties. For if this Bill passes its Third Reading the whole responsibility passes to the Minister, as the object of the Bill is to give to the local council the right of appeal to the Minister over the head of the county council, and it is to him that I now address myself. I therefore ask him three questions of which I have given him notice. I hope that he will be able to give my friends in Surrey and myself satisfactory answers which will allay some of their anxieties.
The first point is a general one. This is, after all, a curious and probably a unique Bill. At any rate, in such research as I have made I can find no precedent for it; for it is a Bill promoted by a borough to curtail the legally enacted powers of its own county council, and
910
done with the express encouragement of the Minister. As your Lordships will have observed, the notice sent out by the promoters of the Bill expressly declares that it has the support of the Minister, that the Bill is right in principle and that the Minister recommends that the Bill should be allowed to proceed. I believe this is unprecedented, and I would ask, on general grounds, whether it is to be the policy of the Minister and his Department in future to encourage boroughs to pursue the course of Private Bill legislation to limit the powers of their own county council when, from time to time, they quarrel with them. I am sure it is the experience of your Lordships, as it is of myself, that from time to time many county boroughs have quarrels with their county council. If they are all to be encouraged to enact Private Bills when these quarrels occur, I believe there will be chaos. It would therefore be advantageous if the Minister were able to say that he does not regard this Bill as a precedent.
My second question is much more important to the people of Surrey and Reigate. It is a health question. I regard this as of paramount importance. There is considerable fear in the minds of the local authorities of Reigate, where this dumping is supposed to be going to take place—and I understand that these fears have been supported by the East Surrey Water Company at some period of these proceedings—that the effluent from the pit where Croydon are hoping to dump their refuse might percolate through the chalk and cause pollution of the local water supplies, with dangerous results to the health of local inhabitants. I am told that chalk is peculiar so far as water is concerned, and that water is apt to percolate long distances on an almost horizontal level in chalk. Croydon Borough themselves had the most disastrous experience of this very thing not so very long ago. Further, I understand that when inquiries were made, the Reigate Borough Council had official intimation that the run-off from this pit would be taken into what are known as the "foul sewers" of the Reigate Corporation and that in cases of torrential rain after a thunderstorm—and there was a heavy thunderstorm last Friday night in this very area—these foul sewers might be incapable of taking the whole quantity

911
of effluent and consequently some portion of the countryside might be polluted by effluent from the pit.
I want to put this point to the Minister most strongly: in the event of this Bill becoming law and an appeal being made to the Minister against the decision of Reigate Corporation not to allow this dumping, I ask that the Minister shall not give his verdict against Reigate if there is any possibility that there would be danger to health in the Reigate area through the use of this pit. I motor to London quite often by the road through Bletchingley and on through Merstham, up to the main Brighton Road. I have no doubt that some of your Lordships also do so. There is in Merstham, very close to where this pit is, a most admirable local development built since the War and laid out very well. Anybody who motors through there of an evening will see, to his joy, nice open spaces, modern houses and plenty of healthy looking children. It would be a disaster of the first magnitude if, the Minister having given permission, against the wishes of Reigate Corporation, for these Merstham people to use this pit, there should be an outbreak of typhoid or some other dangerous disease. It would be intolerable. I should like to get—and I am sure the Minister would be prepared to give—a strong assurance that health will be a paramount consideration with him in reaching his decision. I emphasise this only because I know that it is very much in the minds of those living in this area.
The third point is a more general one for Surrey. If I may put it forward, it is this: That if the Bill becomes law, and other districts of Surrey are available, therefore, on appeal to the Minister, to become dumping grounds for refuse from Croydon, the Minister will endeavour, by the use of his powers, in all normal cases to give grave consideration to the council in whose area, against their will, this refuse is proposed to be tipped. I feel that, of necessity the onus of proof should always be on the Croydon Corporation to show that it is vitally necessary for them to tip their refuse in these places, rather than that the onus of proof should be on the innocent other council who are under the
912
threat of no less than 64,000 tons or 65,000 tons of refuse being dumped in their area.
If your Lordships should not think it is a very serious thing to have 65,000 tons of refuse dumped against your will on your doorstep in the course of a year, I would read to you a few words from the Croydon Corporation Bill. It defines refuse in this way.
" any refuse (including trade refuse house refuse filth rubbish dust and other like matter) "
There are to be nearly 70,000 tons of it. Surely this should not be inflicted upon an unwilling local authority outside the Croydon area without the gravest and most overwhelming reasons being shown. I should like an assurance from the Minister that these considerations will be taken into full account and powers will not be used indiscriminately. Finally, I would say that if he can give the assurances for which I ask—and I confidently hope that he can—it will go a long way, I think, to assuaging the bitterness and the anxieties felt in Surrey.
As one who had the privilege of being the Member for a neighbouring borough to Croydon for some considerable time, may I also humbly address some remarks to Croydon. Most respectfully, I feel that the Croydon authorities who have stirred up this resentment in the rest of Surrey, should, if they receive these powers, proceed to act with the utmost circumspection and not override the wishes of their neighbours. In Surrey, the traditional friendship between boroughs has been of long standing. I am sure everyone connected with the county would wish these friendly relations which have been disturbed by this action to be restored in full as soon as possible. That will largely depend on the action of the Croydon authorities if they get these powers. I would also humbly suggest that Croydon, before they take any irrevocable steps, should once again consider incinerating their own rubbish rather than dumping it elsewhere.
My Lords, with these few remarks, and with confident hope that the Minister will give us satisfactory replies, I have not put down a Motion for the rejection of the Third Reading of this Bill. If I may, I would respectfully leave the matter in this way now to the Minister.
2.47 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, has raised a question relating to transactions between Croydon Corporation and the County of Surrey into which I do not want to pry. But he has also raised a question of general importance which deserves consideration by the Minister who is responsible, and that is the question of whether the present methods of disposing of household refuse are adequate and satisfactory in a country as thickly populated as this one is. I do not agree with the noble Lord who has spoken that incineration is a solution to this problem. It has, in fact, gradually been given up everywhere that it has been tried, for the simple reason that it is terribly expensive and also that it tends to create nuisances of another character.
But the time has surely arrived when the Minister responsible for these matters and the local authorities should consider whether they cannot adopt the practice, which is already beginning to be adopted in countries abroad, and already in two districts in Scotland, of composting household refuse and turning it into a fertiliser which will maintain the fertility of the soil and so serve a really useful purpose, instead of spreading rubbish upon the earth in situations which, it is true, may in some cases lead to the pollution of water supplies—which are already being polluted for a great many reasons and which ought to be protected by every means in our power. I do not think it is proper to ask the Minister to say what attitude he is going to take with regard to this particular case which can only come to him now, as I understand, by way of an appeal, in which he would be acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, but the general principle of this matter, which affects local authorities throughout the country, is one which deserves the most careful consideration.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD MANCROFT): My Lords, as my noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton has told your Lordships, this is a Private Bill. I am afraid that on Third Reading I am not in a position to enter into discussion with the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, on compost and incineration. Furthermore, your Lordships must look elsewhere for final
914
guidance upon your attitude towards this Bill. But my noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton has pointed out that, if the Bill becomes law, my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government will have certain obvious responsibilities, and he has directed towards me three questions, of which he was good enough to give me notice, concerning my right honourable friend's attitude.
My noble friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton said that this Bill, which amends the Surrey County Council Act, 1931, is unique, and suggested that your Lordships should have some assurance from me that it would not be regarded as a precedent. I readily admit that this Bill is unusual. I am not sure that I can agree with him that it is unique for a Bill promoted by one local authority to amend the Act of another local authority. As recently as 1955, it will be within your Lordships' memory, the Kent County Council successfully promoted the Kent Water Act, 1955. That Act amended Local Acts of the Margate, Ramsgate, Hythe, Tunbridge Wells and Rochester Corporations and of the Broadstairs and St. Peter's Urban District Council. Those authorities petitioned against the Bill, which nevertheless was passed, after being before a Committee of your Lordships' House for more than twenty days.
My noble friend then asked me for an assurance that if the Bill becomes law and an appeal is made to my right honourable friend in connection with the proposed dumping of refuse in a chalk pit near Reigate, my right honourable friend will not give his permission if there should be any danger to the health of local inhabitants through pollution of water supplies. I have no hesitation whatever in giving my noble friend that assurance. I can assure him that my right honourable friend would not allow an appeal, either in Reigate or anywhere else in Surrey, if he thought that by so doing he would endanger public health.
My noble friend's next point concerned the preservation of local amenities. He asked that the Minister should not allow indiscriminate tipping of refuse by Croydon. I can certainly give my noble friend that assurance without hesitation. My right honourable friend will certainly bear in mind all the points that my noble

915
friend Lord McCorquodale of Newton has made concerning the preservation of local amenities.
My noble friend also suggested, if I understood him correctly—and the suggestion has been made elsewhere—that the Bill has been promoted by the Croydon Corporation whilst being spurred on by Her Majesty's Government. I understand that that is not so. Except on one minor drafting point, which was put to the promoters after the Bill had been deposited, there have been no discussions of any sort with Croydon Corporation. I hope that the assurances that I have been able to give my noble friend upon the points which fall strictly within my purview will set his mind at rest upon this Bill.
2.56 p.m.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, as I moved the Second Reading of this Bill, and in view of what the noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton has said, perhaps your Lordships will bear with me for a few moments while I make some observations. This Bill is not designed to permit Croydon Corporation to dump refuse in Surrey or anywhere else. The object of the Bill is to give a right of appeal to the Minister of Housing and Local Government with regard to the depositing of refuse in Surrey. That is the point at issue. I venture to suggest that many of the points which the noble Lord has raised would naturally be taken into account by the Minister when arriving at any decision he may make affecting an appeal to him by one of the parties.
Parliament has conferred on three councils in the Home Counties—Essex, Middlesex and Kent—powers similar to those in the Surrey County Council Act, 1931, but in every one of these cases a provision such as is now designed for the Surrey County Council was incorporated. Recently, in the present Session, the Buckinghamshire County Council promoted a Bill, which I understand is now awaiting Royal Assent, and which, as deposited, contained a clause in practically the same form as Section 94 of the Surrey County Council Act, 1931, yet in Committee of this House that Bill was amended by inserting a right of appeal to the Minister of Housing and Local Government in the same sort of form as Croydon now asks. This Bill has
916
been before another place and before a Select Committee of that place; it has had a Second Reading here and been before the Select Committee of your Lordships' House, and in view of those circumstances I would suggest to your Lordships that it is right and proper for your Lordships to pass this Bill to-day.
There is one other point that I should like to make. The noble Lord, Lord McCorquodale of Newton, talked about the relations between Croydon and the Surrey County Council and other councils in Surrey. For some years I was a Member of Parliament for the borough of Croydon and I know very well that there always was then the happiest of relations between Croydon—which, of course, is a county borough and not an administrative unit of Surrey at all—and the county council and other councils, and I feel certain, so far as Croydon is concerned, that the last thing that they would desire is to have any breach of that good relationship. I also feel certain that when the dust and storm which has been created recently in this matter has died down, the good relations that have hitherto always been maintained between the various authorities in Surrey will continue in their old happy form. I have much pleasure in supporting the Third Reading of the Bill.
LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, may I, with leave of the House, make one further comment? I am very grateful, and I am sure that my friends in Surrey will be grateful, for the assurances given by the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, and for the last sentences of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, which I heartily reciprocate. I should like to point out one thing to him. I said that the Bill was unique, in that the county borough, a smaller organisation, is appealing against the powers of a larger organisation, the county council. In the example he gave, it was the larger organisation—the county—which sought to take powers to curtail the power of the smaller organisation. But that is only a minor point. I am certain that the assurances we have had to-day will be of great comfort to my friends in Surrey, and I will not oppose the Third Reading of the Bill.
On Question, Bill read 3a, with the Amendments.

IMMIGRATION AND WATER SUPPLIES
2.57 p.m.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: 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 their view, the water consumption figures disclosed in Professor Balchin's article in The Times of June 24 foreshadow need for an immigration policy plus some land reclamation policy as a beginning to offset the 60,000 acres a year, on average, loss of land to development as well as the run-off from that acreage of rain falling upon impermeable surfaces.]
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, Professor Balchin's recent article in The Times about our water supplies discloses little that is not already known to the water industry and the responsible Government Departments. They have been taking what they believe to be the appropriate measures. Since the war, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government have carried out water surveys covering most of the country, which have been of great value to the water undertakings in making plans to meet their requirements up to 1970. As I reminded my noble friend Lord Albemarle yesterday, a sub-committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee is at present inquiring into the extent to which the demand for water for all purposes is increasing and the difficult problems involved in meeting it. Her Majesty's Government consider that the wise course is to await their report.
The Government's policy on land reclamation is indicated by the Agriculture Bill, the Committee stage of which your Lordships considered yesterday. This makes provision, in Part II, for grants for the reclamation of waste land. This is in addition to the grants already available for the reclamation of hill farming land under the Hill Farming Acts, 1946 to 1956.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his
918
Answer, but I should like to ask two supplementary questions. While regretting that the official brief apparently prefers to belittle (shall I say?) the professor's careful collection of facts and figures, would not imitation be a sincere form of flattery if the Department, after two years of total silence, would take the consumer publicly into its confidence by itself issuing interim figures?
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Earl should have thought that I was belittling Professor Balchin; indeed I did nothing of the sort; I merely informed him that what Professor Balchin had to say was already known. I hope the noble Earl will agree that there, is nothing derogatory in that. I will certainly consider the point he has made about interim figures.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that answer. My second supplementary question is this. In regard to my use of the words "immigration policy", I would ask the noble Lord: does not the position that we may shortly reach boil down to the old story of the inability of the pint pot to hold more than capacity?—which, being interpreted, signifies the weight of population for which a full supply of water can be made available uniformly over the whole country.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, I owe my noble friend an apology. Owing to lack of familiarity with his handwriting, I was under the impression that the word "immigration" was a misprint for "irrigation". I beg the noble Earl's pardon. I now take the new point he makes, but I am certain that this is one of the points that is being inquired into by the Central Advisory Water Committee. I should not have thought, however, that immigration had a great deal of effect on the water consumption in this country as it stands at the moment.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, would the noble Lord inform the House what stage the inquiry into the water supplies in Wales has now reached?
LORD MANCROFT: Not without notice, I am afraid.

CROYDON CORPORATION BILL
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF DROGHEDA): My Lords, I should like to intervene before the next Question is called. I am afraid that after the debate on the Croydon Corporation Bill I forgot to move, "That the Bill do now pass". May I now do that?
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

MONITORING OF TELEX RADIO LINK
3.4 p.m.
LORD WALERAN: 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—

(1) whether the International Telex Radio Link with the U.S.A. is monitored by any Government Department or Departments;

(2) if these calls are monitored, what happens to the transcripts, where are any copies held, for how long are they held and to whom are they available;

(3) whether calls on this Service coming to the United Kingdom from Overseas are monitored, if so by whom, what happens to the transcripts, where are any copies held, for how long are they held and to whom are they available;

(4) whether Her Majesty's Government or any specific Government Department have any agreement with Telex Service agents overseas and if so to whom are any of the transcripts of any messages, into or out of the United Kingdom, on this Service, available outside the United Kingdom;

(5) whether a subscriber transmitting or receiving a message on this Service can be assured categorically that the G.P.O. does not monitor any of these calls, other than for the efficient operating of the Telex Service.]

LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the International Telex Radio Service to and from the United States is monitored by
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the Post Office. The sole purpose is to assist in the efficient operation of the service, and Her Majesty's Government readily give the assurance for which the noble Lord asks in part 5 of his Question. The monitored copy is kept in steel cabinets for six months by the Post Office at the Central Telegraph Office. The copy is available only for reference by Post Office officials in case of disputed accounts (for example, where there has to be an allowance for adverse radio conditions), and none of the monitored copy is made available to anyone else inside or outside this country. It is finally destroyed by the official process applying to confidential waste. This Answer relates to the procedure in the United Kingdom. Her Majesty's Government would assume that the procedure in the United States is similar, but no detailed information is available.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that satisfactory Answer, and I should like to ask him one supplementary question. If a subscriber asks for a "scrambler" when the message goes on the air, can he have it, on payment? At present, when it goes off the land line it goes on a radio link "in clear." Can he ask for a "scrambler" arrangement, like one has on a "scrambler" telephone?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, as such, the answer is: No, he cannot. But I think I must say a word about the techniques which are employed in conveying Telex calls over the radio link. They afford a very high degree of privacy, and the Post Office, in common with other administrations and the telegraph companies, have not found it necessary to provide specially against unauthorised reception. These techniques combine a number of separate Telex circuits into one composite signal. Very intricate equipments are required at both the transmitting and the receiving end, and these must be compatible with each other to combine and separate the circuits. Without this specialised equipment it would be quite impracticable for an amateur to pick out any individual circuit and record a message. The equipment is extremely expensive and requires a great deal of skill to operate.

UNSTARRRED QUESTIONS: PERSONAL STATEMENT
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, may I take a few seconds of your Lordships' time to express regret for a gross error into which I fell on Monday on a point of order? I insisted that one could speak twice on an Unstarred Question. I was absolutely wrong, and I hope your Lordships will overlook it. Particularly would I express regret to the noble Earl, Lord Onslow, and the noble Viscount Lord Mersey, for having challenged their well-established authority in these matters in this House.

PERSIAN EARTHQUAKE AID
3.7 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 they have made any offer of relief to the Persian Government for sufferers in the areas recently devastated by the earthquake in that country.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF GOSFORD): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government have learned with great sorrow of the tragic loss of life and the destruction caused by the series of earthquakes which began in Northern Iran on July 2. I know that the House will wish to join me in expressing our deepest sympathy with our Iranian friends and allies in their misfortune. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister sent a message of sympathy to the Iranian Prime Minister on July 3, as soon as the first accounts of the extent of the devastation reached this country, and the Foreign Secretary sent a message to the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
An offer of material help has had to await reliable reports of the needs of the stricken areas. These reports of necessity, took some time to reach Teheran. They indicate that the greatest need is for tents to protect the homeless, and also for doctors to tend the injured. Her Majesty's Government have therefore offered to help the Iranian Government in
922
meeting these two requirements. In particular, they have offered to send to Teheran at once the Director of Medical Services from G.H.Q., Middle East Land Forces, to investigate the possibility of an Army surgical team being flown from Cyprus to Iran. The aircraft taking him to Teheran will also contain a full load of tents. The Iranian Government have gratefully accepted both offers, and I hope that the officer concerned and the tents will be reaching Teheran within the next 24 hours. If this officer's report shows that an Army surgical team could operate effectively in the earthquake area, and the Iranian Government agree, the team will be despatched to Teheran at once by air.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I beg to thank my noble friend for that very satisfactory Answer to my Question. I should like to bring to his notice something which appeared in the Press to-day. Apparently, other tremors have started within the last twenty-four hours. I hope that that fact has not been overlooked.

ARMY (CONDITIONS OF ENLISTMENT) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
3.10 p.m.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in the name of my noble Leader.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 35 be considered in order to its being dispensed with for the purpose of giving precedence on Tuesday next to the Motion standing in the name of the Lord Killearn over the Orders of the Day relating to Public Bills.—(The Earl of Selkirk.)
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to be quite clear on this Motion. As I understand it, it means that, as promised, Lord Killearn's Motion will come on as first Business of that day, and that Government Business will follow.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I think that that is correct.
On Question, Motion agreed to, and ordered accordingly.

THE AIR ESTIMATES
3.11 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE rose to call attention to the explanatory statement of the Secretary of State for Air relating to the Air Estimates; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this Motion, my first thought is that there can be none of your Lordships who can envy Service Ministers or their advisers, their responsibilities for defence, present and future, because in a world of new nuclear weapons, ideologically divided and politically unstable, old-fashioned orderly planning has been replaced by a form of staff crystal-gazing into an unknown future. The decisions which the Ministers and their advisers have to make, once begun, cannot be retraced without unacceptable loss of time and money. In this state of what I would term strategic conjecture, air power presents acute problems for the Minister and his advisers to answer.
The first and greatest problem is: For what sort of war has the Air Force to prepare? In his White Paper, the Minister of Defence envisages various sorts of war but, quite naturally, as it were, sides with none. It seems to me that there are three sorts of possible war we must contemplate. The first is that in which the Air Force would be called upon to fight in an all-out nuclear war. In such a war the V-bomber is the key to the survival of this country, as our main deterrent, with fighters and guided missiles used to reduce enemy attack. In the event of that sort of war, our tactical weapons and our transportation organisation would not be seriously involved.
There is a second sort of war: an all-out war in the European theatre, but with both sides holding back from the use of the H-bomb, on the basis that mutual annihilation pays no dividend to anyone. In such an event, manned aircraft on raiding and counter-fighters will play their part. Then there is a third sort of war, a localised war, or possibly localised wars, fought in some distant theatre, on a scale rather like Korea. For this sort of war, mobility of rapid movement for Army and air formations and their equipment and supply needs would test our equipment and transport resources to the utmost. To insure fully against all three
924
possibilities that I have deployed briefly to your Lordships, we should need conventional and nuclear weapons on a scale far beyond the economic resources of this country. If we cannot afford to be prepared for all three, the worst possible policy is to try to meet all and to satisfy none.
Therefore, if that brief analysis is accepted by your Lordships, I would submit two conclusions on the consideration of air power in our debate to-day. The first is that we must accept a degree of dependence on the United States for nuclear and guided missiles, with the corollary that Government policies on both sides must be such that we are never divided from our American Ally. At the same time, we ourselves must possess sufficient deterrent power to allow a partnership in policies and not a dictatorship from one side. The second submission I would make to your Lordships is that we must accept that the change from the conventional to what I would call the "push-button" warfare will be gradual, and that manned aircraft will be with us for an indefinite number of years ahead. In support of this view, I would only cite to your Lordships the fact that America is to-day developing three supersonic manned fighters: America, the home of "push-button" warfare, still believes in the manned fighter. Hence my regret that we have halted the supersonic V-bomber development, about which some other noble Lords may speak in greater detail during the debate.
In considering this question of manned aircraft for attack and defence, as against the electronically controlled weapon, let us remember that in the economics of the human organism compared to electronically controlled aircraft or other forms of guided missile, the advantages may well go, on balance, to the human organism. Remember that for attack or defence there is no electronic device that can match the human reasoning, the human questioning, the human manipulative or adaptable power which is contained in the human mind. As regards production, the electronic device is produced in small numbers by highly skilled labour in industrial factories, and needs highly skilled maintenance. I would remind your Lordships that the human is mass-produced by semi-skilled labour, and no

925
industrial factories are needed. He needs little maintenance, beyond food, drink and clothing. So, on balance, economically the advantage rests strongly with the human as against the electronic device.
If this continuance of manned aircraft is admitted, one passes at once to the urgent question of manpower and Service morale. The sooner the Royal Air Force is lifted from its present state of uncertainty, the better for the Royal Air Force and for the defence of this country. In the Service to-day, absurd rumours fly about—rumours of virtual abolition almost at once of air crews; and there is uncertainty and doubt. The run-down of the three Services is an acute issue within all those three Services at the present time. Until it is decided and announced by Her Majesty's Government what the extent of that run-down is to be, I submit that we shall get neither contentment within the Service nor recruits from without.
We have been promised a statement by the Minister of Defence. In your Lordships' House on May 9 of this year, the noble Earl, the First Lord of the Admiralty, said this [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 203, col. 558]:
" A scheme of compensation for redundant officers and men is being worked out at present, and we hope that the details will be announced in a very few weeks."
Several weeks—in fact, I would term it many weeks—have passed since that time, and still neither we, the public, nor those in the Service know any details of the scheme. I would press to-day for the Minister to reply definitely as to when the scheme affecting these three Services can be announced. I suspect that the delay in the announcement of this scheme is attributable to the Treasury love of, and passionate insistence on, standardisation for all three Services and the methods of run-down and compensation scales, when in fact all three Services have quite different problems, different types of personnel, different conditions and different prospects within the Services.
The Army problem is one which is numbered in many thousands for officers. In the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy the numbers of officers affected are small. I would hazard a guess that for the Royal Air Force the total number of officers likely to be affected is somewhere between 180 and 240. I do not know
926
the exact number for the Navy, but that also, I believe, is very small. If it had not been for the Government's desire to find a common solution to a problem which does not lend itself properly to a common solution, I suspect that the Air and the Navy could by now have completed their run-down perfectly satisfactorily.
A method which may lend itself to the Army in this run-down of the Services—for instance, the volunteer system, calling for volunteers who would like to retire—is quite unsuitable for the Air Force. I sincerely hope that the idea that the Air Force should be coerced into accepting the volunteer scheme will be resisted strongly by the Ministers and the Air Council. The Air Ministers task is to shape a highly technical Service into a new defence picture, so that the various technical branches are all filled but none of them overstaffed. Therefore, calling for volunteers to retire cannot possibly meet Air Force needs. Suppose, for instance, that one hundred men in five different technical branches of the Service had to be declared redundant. If the Air Force called for volunteers, they might get 1,000 volunteers, but the numbers would not be balanced according to the requirements for that particular technical branch which had to be reduced by, we will say, twenty, The result would be that we should see 900 discontented people and yet not the run-down in the right technical proportions required. So I would ask the Minister if he will say clearly whether the R.A.F. requirement for the right of selection is accepted by Her Majesty's Government.
In standards of compensation for officers declared redundant, a common system is bound to be full of anomalies. For instance, you may have a major, a squadron-leader and a lieutenant-commander, all of them of comparable rank but all of different ages and different lengths of service. I hope that the financial aspect of the scheme will not be related only to age and length of service in rank but will take account of technical qualifications and, in the case of the Air Force, the risks carried by a man during his many years of active service.
As regards manpower, I believe that re-absorption into civil life is equally as vital as is the question of compensation,

927
and again the problems for each of the three Services differ. Here again, also, I suspect that the Government will want to have a standard scheme and will wish to hand it over to the Ministry of Labour, who will no doubt set up an advisory body. I would certainly pay full tribute to the fine resettlement work which the Ministry of Labour have done in the past, but I do not believe that the procedure of the past is suitable for the present and the future. We have to repair Service morale. It has been seriously damaged by the uncertainties that have existed in the last few months; and if the independent civil department of the Ministry of Labour handle this problem, not nearly so much confidence will be given to the man as if he feels that the organisation of his own Service is handling it. By all means bring in the Ministry of Labour in an advisory capacity.
I would urge the setting up of a powerful Air Ministry committee, on which would be represented the Federation of British Industries, the National Union of Manufacturers, the Trades Union Congress and the Society of British Aircraft Constructors, who have always been good friends to the R.A.F. Such an advisory committee, with so small a number of redundant officers in the Royal Air Force—between 180 and 240—would interview each one of those men individually and would try to help and advise each man individually in a way that the central organisation of the Ministry of Labour, coping with thousands of Army, a few Air Force and a few Navy men, could never do. I would again urge upon the Minister to give us some comfort in the idea that I have put forward, that the Air Force should have its own particular scheme fitted particularly for Air Force requirements.
My final word is on conditions within the Service. I think the last pay rise has been justified by the results. One's only regret is that, as with all Governments from both sides of the House, it was always a sort of rearguard action fought by successive Governments, always opposed by the Treasury, and any rise in pay was always a concession given rather grudgingly, very often on the late side. I would urge an examination by the Service
928
Departments to remove the anomalies and unfairnesses, often of a minor character from a financial angle, but of great importance to the individual, which we all know continue to exist. I will not weary your Lordships by citing them but we all know them. Many could be quoted.
I take one instance, the education of officers' children. There is a grant of £75 a year, a very inadequate sum, for the education of the officer's child; but if the officer is serving at home, the grant is subject to income tax at 8s. 6d. in the £. In any event, it is not given to him until his child is over eleven years of age. The continuance of these anomalies is the sort of thing that officers in the Services simply cannot understand. Another one is the question of rent and lodging allowances. The whole of this question of irritating anomalies should be tackled by Her Majesty's Government, because it is on the ability to attract sufficient long-term career men in the next two or three years that depends the success or the failure of the hazard—because it is a hazard—of the abolition of National Service. As has been said in another connection, as regards the abolition of National Service and the manning of our Forces by Regular long-term engagement men the Government have willed the end, and now the Government must will the means to ensure that end. I beg to move for Papers.
3.28 p.m.
LORD TEDDER: My Lords this Memorandum to accompany the Estimates strikes me as being a very gallant attempt to make the best of a difficult job. It has tried, with some success I think, to keep the balance between the realities of the present and the crystal-gazing visions of the Defence White Paper. In so far as it is a report of the present and the immediate past, I think that it offers ground for congratulation. For example, whatever one may thing of the Suez affair as a whole, there is no doubt whatever that the air operations as such, hedged in though they were by all sorts of political limitations, were carried through with remarkable efficiency. But it is when, this Memorandum comes to deal with some of the implications of the new Defence policy that grounds for criticism, I think, begin to appear.

929
It is true that this Memorandum has tried—and in some respects I think it has succeeded—to rationalise and clarify some of the vague points raised by the Defence White Paper, but the main issues of controversy are still there. That, I imagine, is why so comparatively few of your Lordships have felt it necessary to speak to-day. After all, the defence policy has already been debated at length in your Lordships' House. Yet I should like to return to certain aspects to which I tried to draw attention in the Defence debate—and I have been, encouraged to do so by the speech of my noble friend who has just sat down. I would add that I agree with every word he said. He raised many points which, I think, are of vital importance to the well-being of the Royal Air Force.
It is just over two months since I ventured to express to your Lordships my strong opinion that the deep and manifold uncertainties aroused by the Defence White Paper gravely threatened the morale of all three Services and, if not clarified at an early date, would vitiate the old policy of manning by voluntary enlistment. I recognised then, and I still recognise, that some of the implications of the new policy would take time to work out; but I urged that at least the continuity of the three Services as such should be made easier. That was over two months ago, and there has still been no authoritative statement, even on that issue. In the meantime, one hears specifically more and more individual cases of young men who had intended to come into one or other of the Services, but who are now saying "No, the whole thing is so uncertain; it is not for me."
I know full well that during the past two months Service chiefs have done their utmost to dispel doubts and scotch rumours, both within the Services and among the general public; and in particular I think that the Chief of Air Staff and his colleagues deserve tremendous credit for the magnificent job they have done in that respect, in "holding the fort" for the Service. But surely that is an unfair imposition on Service chiefs Surely that is the responsibility of the Government who adopted a new defence policy. My Lords, is it too much to ask that the Prime Minister himself should clarify the situation, and do so soon? It
930
is, after all, on human relations that the success or failure of the new policy will depend.
As I have said, some delay in working out the details, for instance, of redundancy was inevitable, but I have a feeling that the explanation suggested by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye is probably correct. From my own recollection of Service personnel problems, of all three Services (because, naturally, as a Chief of Staff one has some knowledge of all three), I should imagine that the Royal Air Force could take the necessary outs in its stride without any special list or calling for volunteers, with all the difficulties and objections that the noble Lord has mentioned. I can well understand that the Army has a much more difficult and a different problem—a different problem calling for different treatment and special treatment. I cannot see why the Royal Air Force, and I imagine also equally the Royal Navy, should be penalised in order to create a facade of uniformity. The problems of each Service are fundamentally different and, I urge, should be treated as such.
This practice of trying to make the Royal Air Force conform to Army practice is one with which I am not altogether unfamiliar; and I would say that when it is invoked when the Services' conditions and requirements are very different, as has happened, it serves only to rouse inter-Service antagonism; it certainly does not do anything to unify the Services. I suppose that I was fortunate during the last war in having probably as good opportunities as almost anyone of seeing the three Services working happily and smoothly together. One clear lesson that I learned was that one of the secrets of that operation unity was mutual understanding of, and respect for, the different outlook and customs and characteristics of one's sister Services. May I put it that one ounce of human understanding and individuality is worth pounds of abstract theories of uniformity and unification?
My Lords, times have changed very much since we last were able to rely solely on voluntary enlistment, and I am sure that nowadays voluntary enlistment, if we are to get it, will depend on the extent to which military service can be humanised and individuality encouraged and developed. I think—perhaps I am pre-judiced—that the Royal Air Force, owing

931
largely to the individual duties and responsibilities which are characteristics of the Service, may have been able to go further in this direction than the other Services as a whole, apart, of course, from specialist branches. But there is a point that occurs to me as regards the Women's Royal Air Force. I do not think I am wrong in saying that enlistment in the Women's Corps since the war has been somewhat disappointing. Yet I see that it is hoped in this Memorandum, to increase the strength of the W.R.A.F. I wonder whether the answer to that problem may not be to humanise, or perhaps I should say "feminise", the women's Services a little more—in other words, give up trying to militarise the women so much. In war time it may well be that women like to be and want to look as military as possible, but I very much doubt whether that is true in peace time. I suggest that a process of demilitarising women's uniforms might well pay a useful dividend in increased and better enlistment.
While speaking of human factors, may I say that it is good to see the development that has taken place in the R.A.F. in works study and manpower economy, and to hear some of the results that have been achieved. Not long ago there was a feeling that works study, automation and the other ways of saving manpower were dehumanising processes. In practice, of course, they are the very reverse. In industry, by increasing efficiency, they have definitely improved human relations. There is nothing more demoralising than a feeling of waste of time or effort, and there is no better morale builder than efficiency. I am sure that that is equally true in the Services. A man who is enabled to work efficiently is probably a happy man.
One of the unfortunate things about the Defence White Paper is the way in which it was widely misread as prophesying a complete change-over within some ten years or so to what is popularly known as "push-button" warfare. Even, however, allowing for that to have been a misinterpretation, I still feel that the defence policy as set out is seriously and dangerously optimistic as to the time scale, and also, perhaps, unduly optimistic as to the capabilities of these prospective missiles. It is true that the Air
932
Ministry Memorandum attempts to steady this rush into futurism, but even so, there appears to be every probability of a serious gap owing to a cessation of the development of supersonic aircraft. And I join with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in urging that Her Majesty's Government should have second thoughts upon this point, and not only on grounds of defence. As I reminded your Lordships on a previous occasion, civil aviation throughout the world has depended vitally and utterly on prior basic military research and development. The same is true of almost every major industry in this country. I am convinced that for as far as we can see ahead, and for whichever of the three groups or types of war we might have to face, manned aircraft will be needed, and will continue to be needed, for all functions; and we must have the best that our best scientists can produce.
3.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, I am sure the whole House is grateful to the noble Lord who has set down the Motion before your Lordships to-day for his able and well-informed speech. The House will also be grateful to the noble and gallant Lord who has just sat down. He brings to your Lordships' deliberations not only a very fine career in the Royal Air Force but knowledge of the common room as well as the board room. We ought to be grateful to him for his continued interest and for the informed speeches which he makes in your Lordships' House which are an example to us all. I find myself in general agreement with the opinions and sentiments expressed by both noble Lords who have spoken.
One of the things which most impressed me, coming afresh to the R.A.F., was the adaptability of approach of the higher organisms of that Service, their enthusiasm for innovation and their ability to change their outlook in accordance with the circumstances of the time. It is fortunate that from its beginnings it has had, as it were, a tradition of change. I find it difficult to realise that it is less than six years ago that I had the honour of assuming responsibility for the Air Ministry. At that time the Government of Sir Winston Churchill inherited a great programme of rearmament which had been initiated by the

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Administration of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. It is no criticism of that Government or of its advisers in the circumstances that the programmes for all Services, and particularly for the R.A.F., were in a way a continuation of the 1939–45 conception of war.
That was Stage 1. This was rapidly followed by Stage 2 when it became clear that the Russians had not only the secret of nuclear fission but also the bomb itself, and that they were rapidly improving their means for delivering it. In those days we placed a strong emphasis on the deterrent power of the long-range bombing force, but there was a possibility that if a terrible war did occur there would still be great Powers living and breathing after the first encounter; and out of that came what has now been called the conception of a "broken-backed" war.
We had only just adapted our plans to that conception when we became aware that the United States had expoded a bomb which incorporated the principle of thermo-nuclear fission, and soon after the Russians exploded a weapon designed on parallel lines, so we found ourselves, in the relatively short space of three or four years, changing from the 1939–45 concept, to a completely fresh conception of warfare waged on a world-wide scale. I hold it fortunate that the Administration of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, had decided not only to develop nuclear fission as a weapon but also the means of delivering it by a long-range bomber force. I have paid tribute to them on previous occasions, and I do so now, for that foresight, and I count myself fortunate in being in part the heir of their enterprise.
When the deterrent as a conception for the preservation of peace became supreme in the world, this country which might have found itself powerless as an influence for peace, found itself in a position to make a valuable contribution because of these earlier steps which had been taken; and if I was able to contribute anything towards the development of that force, I am not ashamed. Indeed, I am proud to have done so. I hope I shall not be out of order if I say, in a slight digression, that I know there are sincere pacifists in the world who do not believe in force of any kind. But I cannot find myself in much sympathy with those who are prepared to see ourselves armed with
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all weapons except those of the so-called ultimate in the present world. Having had responsibilities in these matters I sometimes examine myself, as one must, and I ask what would have happened if in 1939—and this is not too fanciful—Hitlerite Germany had possessed the H-bomb and the Western Allies had also possessed it. Would those moralists who condemn us for having it have said then: "No, we should have laid aside that weapon and allowed the Hitler régime to conquer not only Western Europe but ourselves as well, because we would not touch the filthy thing"? The lesson that free people will resist at whatever cost applies to-day as it applied in 1939.
I cannot believe that those who are all too willing to hail fresh manifestations of power in Soviet Russia can really think that this new leader who has appeared as the heir of all the Czars is a man who would behave better internationally than he appears to behave nationally. One cannot have one set of morals for home politics and another set for international affairs. I still think that all trading with the Russians, whether it be in politics or commerce, must be on a cash basis. I have sad these flings because I feel they need saying, and because I had some responsibility in these matters. After all, we are debating the Air Estimates, and that must include the power of delivering the hydrogen bomb as a deterrent factor in world affairs.
As I said, I do not disagree with the general sentiments expressed by the two noble Lords who have just sat down. But I feel, myself, that there is liable to be a long gap between the possibility of a new weapon and its actual introduction into service. Not only are there liable to be scientific, administrative and technological delays, but there is the factor of Her Majesty's Treasury to be reckoned with as well. I feel that those who have had some experience of these things ought, without any hostile criticism of the Government, to express their fears and alarms lest, through over confidence at this stage, there may be a gap between the end of the efficacy of the V-bombers and the introduction of a viable, medium-range ballistic missile. Like Lord Balfour of Inchrye and Lord Tedder, I should feel far happier if I were to know that we were to-day developing at least a

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prototype of the necessary supersonic vehicles, fighters as well as bomber aircraft, to fill in this gap.
We have had in this House, particularly in the debate on the Defence Paper, discussions on the subject of the transport of Her Majesty's Forces across the world in large aircraft. One noble Lord at least pointed out the limitations of what has been called the "fire brigade concept". I do not in the least quarrel with the idea of enlarging Transport Command to enable larger bodies of troops and equipment to be carried across the great spaces of the world if need be. But we should not allow ourselves to be influenced by exaggerated newspaper comment into believing that it is possible, within our resources, to carry very large bodies of troops at very short notice over very long distances. It has been pointed out that even the United States, with their enormous force of long-range transport aircraft, find it difficult to transport a division within less than a week across, let us say, the Pacific. If we were to devote corresponding resources to this branch of the Air arm, we should have practically nothing but air transport—no bombers, fighters, coastal aircraft or anything else. We must recognise the limitations of air transport. Its capabilities can only be to reinforce troops and weapons already strategically situated. If we try to place exaggerated reliance on this concept we shall find that the support has broken in our hands. I say that by way of warning, because one reads so much in the newspapers and elsewhere about this idea that I believe that false hopes have been raised which could not possibly be fulfilled in the event.
The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has spoken about personnel, and he rightly stressed the importance of an early announcement about compensation for officers and other ranks who will be displaced. I spoke in the Defence debate on this subject; to-day I support entirely what he said. I am convinced that any delays—and there have been delays—by reason of interminable arguments between the Service Departments, the Minister of Defence and the Treasury, should be cut short by firm action. When an important matter of this kind is under discussion it is up to the head of the
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Government to give a ruling. I know from my own experience that when matters such as this have been discussed the discussions have been terminated only by a somewhat arbitrary ruling from the top. I hope that the Government and the Prime Minister will not allow this sort of thing to continue but will give a ruling which will stop internal wrangling and niggling about details.
As I have said, I took part in some discussions of this kind, and I am happy to say that in the end the Service Ministries prevailed in the matter of rates of pay. It is a striking fact that we can now contemplate a strong Regular Air Force when not long ago we were hard put to it not merely to get recruits but to get re-engagement from those in the Service already. The usual argument which is put forward in this connection is that it is not pay but other things that count. I say that pay is the foundation; conditions come second. The conditions of service are important. I say, with respect, to Her Majesty's Government that compensation is a matter which affects the morale of the Services and it ought to be settled speedily. The Royal Air Force, which has adapted itself in the most remarkable manner to the changes of the last thirty years or so, will, I know, adapt itself to the changes which may follow even more rapidly in the future. It will show the same inventiveness which it has shown in the past, the same eagerness, the same courage in taking bold decisions. Having been proud to be responsible to Parliament for that Service, I should like to express once again my confidence in the Service.
3.57 p.m.
LORD WALERAN: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for putting this Motion down for debate this afternoon. I also feel very humble at following the three noble Lords who have just spoken, for two of them have held Government posts in connection with this Service, while the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, of course, has been Chief of Air Staff. It was my intention to raise a matter that has already been raised by the three noble Lords who have spoken—that of redundancy of officers in the Service. I too know of the disquiet in all three Services owing to the fact that

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the men do not know what is going to happen.
I feel—in fact I am almost sure—that the Royal Air Force can do this job to-morrow. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, so rightly said, the Royal Air Force does not want men to be called on to volunteer to leave the Service. I am sure that it has a plan which could be put into action to-morrow. I have a disturbing feeling that it is not just the Treasury who are causing delay in this matter. It may be the Army, which has a very different and very large problem to deal with, that is responsible, but I do not see why the Royal Air Force, and possibly also the Navy, should be trammelled in getting their own house in order because another Service has a much larger problem with which to deal. The financial question, no doubt, could be settled very simply. With regard to the question of getting officers and other ranks out on reasonable terms, if the Royal Air Force feels that some officers who have been permanently passed over for promotion should perhaps be retired a little earlier, I think that that should be allowed.
My next point concerns the fear I have about the time when the national Service man is no longer in the Service. I imagine that probably two-thirds of the radar chain to-day is manned by national Service men, with a considerable number of them acting as teleprinter operators or handling codes and cyphers. They are, in fact, doing jobs that were so well done in the last war by the Women's Royal Air Force. I am disturbed when I see that that force has run down to something under 5,000. I should like to see that figure trebled. They have important jobs to do, not only on the signals side but also in photographic interpretation, in which they did so well during the war. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, has made suggestions for bringing recruits into the Royal Air Force, and I entirely agree with what he has said. I would make the suggestion that young girls might be taken on, on a temporary engagement, in the same way as "Wrens" were during the war, to work at units in the neighbourhood of their homes. When they have finished work they can go back and live at home, and the parents will feel more happy about them.
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In the Royal Air Force there are a number of stations near centres of population where such a scheme might be brought back into use. Transportation could be arranged by the Royal Air Force. After all, there are many firms to-day, with smallish units in the country-side, who have to run private bus services to get their operatives to work. It will probably save money if we increase the number of girls working in the Royal Air Force and take them to and from their units by a transport service run by the R.A.F. If, when a little older, they felt that they wished to take on a Regular engagement, so much the better.
I am also worried about whether we are sufficiently fostering the A.T.C. and the Combined Cadet Forces. Surely they must be the biggest sources of recruitment for the Royal Air Force when the National Servicemen depart. I should like to see (and I hope that my noble friend who is answering for the Government will be able to tell us about this) steps being taken to help in providing gliding and flying facilities for the men of the A.T.C. and the air branch of the C.C.F. In regard to the A.T.C., I would suggest that the units be disposed geographically, where such facilities are available.
I do not find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that there are probably three kinds of warfare, and that we shall have to make up our minds to hold off the use of what the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, called "ultimate weapons" if attacked and if the attacker did not use them. It reminds me of a horrible story which I read when I was very young and which still haunts me. It was about a small castle situated on an island on a sluggish river somewhere in South America. The people in it tilled the land outside, going over by the drawbridge of the castle, and it was a happy community. Then, one day, the ants came and attacked. The people tried to beat them off, but had to retreat over the drawbridge into the castle, thinking that the stream would keep them off. But the ants began to cross the water. The people then put oil on the water and set fire to the oil, but there were so many arts that eventually they put the flames out and crossed over into the castle on the backs of the burning bodies in the stream. If we take into account the

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amount of manpower opposed to us in the world to-day, and gave these 800 million or 1,200 million sticks and staves, and armed ourselves with sticks and staves, how should we get on? I think that no Government would refuse, if we were attacked, to use "ultimate weapons". Let nobody think, I pray, that nuclear weapons must be taken away from the Royal Air Force, which is the only force we have to-day which is capable of hitting back.
I do not always believe the newspapers, but I saw the other day a report that a 1,500-mile ballistic missile would be delivered to the Royal Air Force in seven weeks' time. That is not a pretty thought—for two reasons: first, the time is too long; and secondly, why do we always have to go to America for these things? I am disturbed by the run-down in defence contracts. We already have first-class engineers going to America to work, and we are beginning to see small research teams being disintegrated because nobody will tell them that there is something for them to get on with. In this country we have always been in the forefront, in fact, ahead, in our initial thinking and our research in engineering, and if we destroy that, we shall become a secondary Power industrially. We shall also lose any effect we have on world politics if we take away from the Royal Air Force—or, for that matter, any Service—the power to strike, quickly and hard, an aggressor who attacks us. If we do that we shall become another neutral country like Sweden.
4.7 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I should like to speak very briefly on one section only of the White Paper, the section covered by paragraphs 41 to 45 under the general heading of "Air Transport". This section has already been dealt with directly by my noble and gallant friend Lord De L'Isle. But perhaps I should say at the outset that I speak from a soldier's point of view, rather than an airman's. The first factor I should like to mention is that of the development of helicopters—I do not think that any other noble Lord has so far mentioned this point. In the White Paper three types of helicopter are men-tioned—the Sycamore, the Whirlwind and the Bristol—and to-day in the papers
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I saw mention of the Wessex, a new type being used by the Navy. From personal experience I feel very strongly about the development of the helicopter. I served in the Korean campaign, and the difference made to the morale of troops by the presence of helicopters near them was staggering. The difference made to a man in the front line, who knew that if he was wounded he would be picked up by a helicopter and taken back to a field hospital in twenty minutes, instead of being bumped over rough roads for perhaps three hours, during which he might die, and during most of which time he would probably want to die, was indescribable. And since helicopters are mentioned in the White Paper, I should like to put in my word for their development where possible, for the support of the fighting man, in whatever Service he may be.
In the defence debate in your Lordships' House two months ago, I made reference to the titanic problems presented in focusing a Central Reserve in the United Kingdom and in expanding Air Transport Command to carry this reserve, or units from it, to any point of emergency in the world. In itself, it is a concept which is bound to intrigue and to entice the imagination. But we must face the truth, that to lift even one division in one operation is a staggering task. It would require the building and maintenance of a number of transport aircraft which I should have thought was outside the economic possibilities of this country. As my noble and gallant friend has already mentioned, the United States Air Force cannot in one movement lift an entire infantry division with all the transport aircraft resources that she possesses.
Reference was made in the Defence White Paper to
" a substantial fleet of transport aircraft being built up…at present mainly composed of Comet IIs, Beverley Freighters and Hastings aircraft, to which a large number of Britannias will later be added."
I had hoped to find this proposition elaborated in the Memorandum that we are now discussing. I should say that the difficulty I mainly foresee is not in the lifting of men, but in the lifting of the vast and ponderous quantities of stores, which a modern division requires in a modern campaign. With this reference, mention is made in the White

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Paper of thirteen Britannias now on order, two squadrons of Beverley Freighters now in being, and a third to be formed shortly. It is pointed out that
" the Beverley, with its capacity to lift very large loads, has already proved its versatility by the execution of many and varied tasks."
But this versatility is restricted as to distance and it is purely a form of tactical transport, not strategic.
I understand that the process would be to carry a division out to some distant place, and thence transfer it by Beverley aircraft to the theatre of action. This does not take care of the transport of heavy equipment from the United Kingdom bases of the Central Reserve to another base, perhaps in another hemisphere. I think I am right in saying that a Beverley Freighter, fully loaded, is restricted to 300 miles in distance. I am told that it could carry a 15-ton tank over this strictly limited distance, and this world be a valuable asset if we had a 15-ton tank. At the moment, we are making a light armoured vehicle, the Hoffmann, for the German army and none for ourselves. Under present computing, we may find ourselves in the position of having to buy back some of these Hoffman vehicles that we have made for the Germany army, in order to arm our Central Reserve with something light enough to carry when they go into distant action. On a previous occasion I described my fears as to what might happen to a lightly armed force, set down in a distant part of the world and obliged to operate on exterior lines against an armoured enemy operating on interior lines.
I suppose the largest air-lift which the Air Force has ever undertaken was the repatriation of our Forces in Asia at the end of the Far East war. I have vivid memories of my repatriation in the bomb bay of a Halifax bomber. Although every assurance was given that the opening had been firmly rivetted as a part of conversion, the passengers never quite lost the feeling that one of the air crew might inadvertently press the wrong button, and precipitate his living cargo into the Indian Ocean. This whole operation was carried out with the greatest efficiency; but it was a gradual operation, which took several months, and is not a fair model of what would be required in the rapid emergency transfer of troops to a theatre
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of war. There is a great difference in the time element between the operations of withdrawing a force for demobilisation and building up a force in a distant place to meet the enemy. There is an equal difference between building up a force where prepared bases are available and setting it down on the ground as a complete formation to meet the enemy.
I cannot see how this country can afford the vast Transport Command required for such an operation, which in time of peace would be hardly a quarter employed. I believe that the Beverley freighters now operated by the R.A.F. do approximately 300 hours flying a year. I also appreciate that the sum to be spent on aircraft and stores alone under this Estimate is £205¼ million, which is a very large sum of money. In the United States this difficulty has been at least partly overcome. Last year, as part of the general plan for war mobilisation, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet was set up. There now exists a formal arrangement between the Air Force and civil air lines by which the air lines assume responsibility for installing Air Force equipment to render their planes militarily effective in time of war. They also undertake that a certain proportion of their total fleet will be available at short notice for military service. To-day, the number of long-range transports in civil air lines exceeds 700, and by 1961 it will exceed 1,000. This makes available in time of war a large air fleet built up and maintained from non-Service funds. In this country where most of the civil air line industry is nationalised, I hope that it may be possible to reach some arrangement of the kind, and it would be a great comfort to know that some such plan is envisaged. I believe also that the individual air lines are quite ready to assist in such a scheme by becoming what is called "Embryo Contract Carriers" for the Government.
My Lords, I have said that I see problems. But whatever the solution found, it is vitally important that this phrase in the Memorandum "strategic and tactical mobility of the Services" shall be more than a useful and optimistic phrase. Soldiers cannot fight on politicians' phrases. But all the same, some phrases have made their mark in the history of soldiering. I think it was an American General who said that the secret of victory was to "get there fastest with the mostest". This argument was borne out

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in a recent painful experience of our own, when a great part of the forces engaged in the Suez operation proceeded up the Mediterranean as if rehearsing for the Crimean campaign 100 years earlier.
I have said that mine is principally a soldier's point of view, but the great victories of the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, were owed, partly at least, to his strength of character in insisting upon his troops being properly supplied before an attack was launched. He had to be satisfied that a strong attack could be strongly maintained, once the men he commanded had been committed to battle. I am sure that in future we shall not lack commanders with strength of character. But on the showing of the White Paper it seems to me that we might lack the material means, in the transport sense, to back them up and, above all, to back up the men they command, whose stake in the battle is so much higher than that of anyone else. I hope that my noble friend who replies to the debate may think it worth giving some reassurance on this point.
4.19 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF MANCHESTER: My Lords, the intervention of a Bishop in a debate such as this perhaps requires some apology or, at any rate, preface. I can only say that the future of the Royal Air Force, which is one of the matters dealt with in this debate, is something which quite rightly concerns every citizen. For the most part, noble Lords who have taken part in the debate hitherto have concentrated upon problems of personnel and technical problems. It is not possible for me to say anything on either of those subjects, except, of course, that I should entirely agree that the human problem is a vital one, and that everything should be done to see that any loss of morale in the Services due to the policy outlined in the White Paper is dealt with as speedily as possible.
I hope I shall be forgiven if I introduce into the debate two points of a rather wider character than we have dealt with hitherto. Throughout this debate, and still more throughout the debate which took place last week on a similar Motion regarding the Navy, I was made to feel uneasy—I would almost say profoundly
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uneasy, except that that word is perhaps episcopally overworked—by the underlying assumption that Russia is the enemy. I know that not a single person in this House wants war, and yet, of course, we must talk about it, and talk about it in a realistic way. That provides us with a real dilemma, because we have to shape our plans to meet what is the most obvious threat, and yet at the same time we must not shape our plans to make that threat more real. Now how to resolve that dilemma I do not know, but I think we should do well to remember two things. The first is—and it is a very simple psychological point—that the more we concentrate on the possibility that a thing may happen, the more likely that thing is to happen. Long ago, when we were learning to ride a bicycle, we may remember our experience as we wobbled along. If we concentrated on not going over that big stone which lay in front of us, the chances were that we would hit it in the middle. So it is here. The more we concentrate upon the greater danger, the more we shall bring it about.
Secondly, we have to be vividly aware of the misinterpretation which words spoken here will have in other countries, and particularly in Russia. When words spoken here are torn out of the context of a placid and benevolent House, and are used for propaganda purposes and twisted, they can be made into a very awkward instrument. No man will behave reasonably and amicably when he believes that a gun is being pointed at him. I am not pleading for an ostrich policy, but I do believe that we should be vividly aware of those two facts as we consider the great subjects in front of us.
That is my first point. The second point is this. In the Defence White Paper, the first three paragraphs emphasise the fact that we are facing a new situation—indeed, an unparalleled situation. I should like to ask the question: Have we really taken the measure of the word "new"? I remember in my college days a philosophical discussion on the question whether the difference between a difference of quality and a difference of quantity was itself a difference of quality or of quantity. My belief is that the hydrogen bomb, which is the new factor in the situation, is not just a bigger and better bang. It is not a weapon at all;

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it is a plague which can afflict generations of people that are going to come after us. I believe—and here I may meet with great opposition—that in no circumstances whatsoever would it be right to use this weapon, not even in its "clean" form. For this weapon, I am told, devastates, when detonated, fifty square miles of country, and I know of no military target which is fifty square miles in extent. It has been said in this debate that in the last resort surely we should do as we have done in the past, and use this ultimate weapon to save ourselves. But that is just begging the question. Would it save us? That is the contention of those who believe that we should renounce its use.
VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, may I ask the right reverend Prelate this question? Would he address himself to the proposition which I put to the House in my speech? If, before the last war, both Hitler's Germany and the Allies had possessed the hydrogen bomb, would he have advocated our unilaterally disarming ourselves of it?
THE LORD BISHOP OF MANCHESTER: Yes, I would. I do not believe that in a matter like this it would have been right for us to have used it. Humanly speaking, it is difficult to see what the ultimate circumstances and result of that decision might have beer. But there are powers beyond human powers which look after these things if man follows what is right and what he ultimately believes to be just.
It is said in the White Paper that the rôle of individual forces in total war is somewhat uncertain. It has already been said in the debate that those words apply equally to the Army and to the Air Force. May I take one point? There is a deep human instinct which nerves a man to take human life to defend his hearth and home. Suppose he knows in advance that the action which he takes will not defend his hearth and home. Suppose it means, as some would contend, obliteration for both sides. What then? That is a question to which I have not heard an adequate answer given. I have said that I do not think we have yet taken the real measure of the word "new". In the debate last week, one noble Lord concluded that we should plan ten years ahead. I would have thought that that was completely
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impossible. If we can see ten months ahead it is as far as we can go. May I quote Horace, putting him into English? He said:
" Around the future Jove has cast
A veil like night; He gives us power
To see the present and the past
But kindly hides the future hour
And smiles when man with daring eye
Would pierce that dread futurity."
Yet I think we may be able to pierce the futurity, to pierce the mists just a little, on certain conditions. The Defence White Paper says that the overriding consideration in all military planning must be to prevent war rather than to prepare for it. I think we should all agree with that. Nevertheless, there is within those words what seems to me to be a hidden contradiction. To prevent war involves planning and action far outside the military field; it involves imaginative concentration upon social, economic, psychological and political considerations. In other words, defence to-day is far from being purely a military question.
The present dangers, I believe, may possibly best be met not in the realm of defence at all. It will be within the knowledge of noble Lords that Sir Stephen King-Hall has publicly raised the general question of the use and utility of non-violent resistance, whether as a substitute for or as a supplement to armed resistance. This, among others, is the kind of question that, in my view, requires dispassionate consideration. I hope I shall not be misunderstood. I am not a pacificist—I never have been, although I respect pacifists' position. But what I would urge upon Her Majesty's Government is that defence problems should be considered in a much wider sense. I would have them call into confidential parley persons with experience in many other fields, but, above all, persons with the faculty of what one might call informed imagination, people with insight into the way that human beings act, individually and in the mass. After all, was it not these gifts, and of course many more, which enabled Sir Winston Churchill to win the loyalty and confidence of the nation in a very dark day?
I believe that such a reconsideration as I have indicated would bring to light now many factors that are at present being ignored. And, if it were seen, as I believe it might be seen, that to break out of the vicious circle which has characterised

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all our disarmament conferences, and seems like characterising the present, we ought to take the limit of risk by renunciation of nuclear tests, by unilateral renunciation of the use of the hydrogen bomb, I hope we might do so, and willingly risk in the cause of lasting peace as much as, and more than, we have hitherto as a nation been led to risk for success in actual war.
4.34 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate has certainly greatly widened the debate—I do not at all complain of that: he has gone to the whole fundamentals of defence, and not only on the strategic side but also on the moral side. It is fair and right that that issue should be posed in any debate, whether it be a general Defence debate or whether it be a debate on one of the particular Defence Services because, unless the fundamentals of defence policy are right, then all the details must be wrong and we cannot really consider details apart from the whole basis on which the policy and practice of each Service rest.
The right reverend Prelate has indeed not only challenged the whole fundamental position, which not only this Government but every Government which preceded it has taken—and, I may say, which every Commonwealth Government which shares in the defences of the Commonwealth and the free world has also taken—but has asserted that it is wrong. He has really challenged the assumption that Russia is the enemy. At any rate, he said, "Is that a right assumption? Is it not" (I hope I do not do him an injustice) "a rather dangerous assumption to make?" I should have thought that it was the only real assumption that anybody could make. I am not saying that every effort should not be made to arrive at practical agreements which will reduce the risk of war and reduce armaments; but the reduction of all kinds of armaments must certainly go together, or, so far from reducing the chances of war, you are making it certain that the country which has the vast preponderance of what are called conventional weapons and unlimited manpower would be able to overwhelm the world in a matter of days or weeks. That is an unchallengeable fact.
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As I understand it, the right reverend Prelate would not deny that, but he says "It is wrong to use the hydrogen bomb, or indeed to have it, because, if it were used, then the thing would be a plague which would destroy everybody." The fact that it would bring universal destruction has always been common ground between us. He also said," It is a dangerous thing to concentrate on the possibility of disagreeable things happening to you." He took the parallel of a boy who was learning to ride a bicycle saying, "I must avoid that stone." I am not sure that I would quite agree with him that the determination to avoid the stone was almost certain to lead the boy to run into it. But, with great respect, that nice puerile analogy seemed to me to be rather wide of the mark. It does not rest with us to decide whether or not this weapon will be used. It is not possible for us by our own action to avoid this.
I must apologise to the House, and particularly to my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that I could not be here at the beginning of this debate. I very much dislike taking part in a debate of which I have not heard the whole, but I think the House will forgive me if, after this extremely arresting speech from the right reverend Prelate, I intervene. I should like to say this. Those of your Lordships who have been some years in the House will recollect a speech made by the late Archbishop of York, than whom no one was heard with greater respect and affection in this House and than whom there was never a more saintly Christian in the lifetime of any of us.
Many of your Lordships will recall the speech which the late Archbishop, I know after deep prayer, made in our Defence debate after the Commonwealth Conference had come to a close and when the defence policy, based entirely on the new hydrogen bomb and all its potentialities and its perils, had been evolved. I should like to remind the House of that speech, because I think it is the best answer that can be made to the right reverend Prelate. The late Archbishop said this, speaking on March 16, 1955 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 191, col. 1147]:
" I hate and detest as much as any of my correspondents the making of these hateful weapons: I would to God they had never been invented! If the world is destroyed by

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their use it would be the defeat of the purpose for which God made it, as a home in which men of all nations and races might live together in fellowship. But it is very difficult to bring most of those who make these protests to the realisation that the decision as to whether or not the bombs are used does not rest with this nation alone. The decision will rest with those who will be quite uninfluenced by protests and petitions. If sermons were preached from every pulpit during the rest of the year against the manufacture and use of these bombs, and if Members in every constituency were given a mandate to vote for the abolition of the use of nuclear weapons, the Communist States would continue on their chosen path, regardless of remonstrances and reckless of human life."
Those were the words of the Archbishop. He went on to refer specifically to the particular policy which the Defence White Paper enunciated then and which, of course, has been followed out as the basis of policy ever since. I would remind the House again that that was immediately after the Commonwealth Conference, in which all the Commonwealth Ministers who were taking part in the Defence meetings were entirely agreed. Archbishop Garbett then said this (Col. 1148):
" I am greatly influenced by the fact that the Conference of Commonwealth Ministers, practically everybody of responsibility in this country, on both sides of the other House, and practically all the leaders and statesmen of our country, are agreed in saying that at this moment, whatever may be the position in the future, the hydrogen bomb is a deterrent to war, and that our possession of it, hateful as it is, may prevent that bomb from ever being used. Our statesmen, and others who take this position, argue that the mere fact that a peace-loving nation like our own possesses these bombs may prevent the bomb from ever being used for fear of the retaliation which would follow. I am greatly impressed by this argument. The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, referred to it as the one hope of sanity in this troubled world. It is possible that this hope may prove tragically wrong; but certainly at the moment the possession of the bomb seems to be the one possibility of preserving peace in the years immediately ahead. If so, it would be madness to close the door to this possibility."
My Lords, I could not put it better—indeed, I could not put it half as well. Certainly I think that that speech disposes of the charge in regard to the development, the manufacture and the holding in reserve of this bomb. We shall never start the plague—that is quite certain. We cannot be attacked on grounds of being immoral or unchristian. Equally, from the strategic point of view I would only say: Look at the situation of the world to-day. What
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is there to make us abandon the one insurance premium for peace? Surely any Government which had responsibility in this country would be criminal if they did not carry out the policy which this Government are carrying out and are continuing. That is all I have to say on that. I have only two words that I should like to add.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I should like to put a question to the noble Earl at a convenient moment.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: What is it the noble Viscount wishes to ask?
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: I should like to ask the noble Earl this question. This arms race has been in progress since the end of the war. I will not go into the question of whether Russia is determined to make war or whether she is the enemy—that is one question. The question I ask is this: Is this country safer to-day than it was on D-Day? We have had all this competition—it is going on apace; nothing is checking it. Are we safer for this competition? The reason I ask this question is because I well remember the First World War, and I remember Sir Edward Grey making a speech in which he said, "Arms competitions have only one end, and that is war, unless an agreement is arrived at." Yet the noble Earl is protesting, as if more competition is making us safer. I put that specific question. Will he, with his immense experience, say that we are safer vis-à-vis any enemy than we were on D-Day in 1945?
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, the question is not a fair question. I will tell the noble Viscount why. It is always unwise to take a situation which existed ten or twenty years ago and ask whether we were safer at that particular time? The fair question to put to me is surely this: not on D-Day but to-day, on this day, are we safer with the hydrogen bomb or not? To that I should have thought there could be only one answer. The noble Viscount says that Sir Edward Grey said that arms races always lead to war. Generalities are pretty dangerous things. Of course, if we could get real reduction in armaments—by that, I mean concurrent reduction in the conventional and unconventional weapons—so that we got to a stage at

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which no country was in a position to make war, then I should certainly be with the noble Viscount—of course I should. I would be a party to that, as I am sure would everybody on the Government Benches. There is really no Party issue in this. We have all followed this out. When the Party of the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition was in power, the same policy was followed out of trying to get practical results (the noble Viscount Lord Stansgate, may not like the answer, but I am going to give it to him), trying to get practical disarmament. We followed on on the same lines.
I ask the House: who is responsible for an arms race? Look at the situation. There are the Russians, with 200 or 300 divisions, with conventional arms, and 500 or 600 submarines—far more than the Allies or the enemy ever possessed in the last war; and they are pressing on all the time with the atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb. I do not want an arms race; I want disarmament. But who started the arms race? Who is carrying it on absolutely at full pressure to-day? It is the potential aggressor. If I am asked about safety, I say that this country and the whole of Europe and the free world would be in deadly peril if Russia had 300 divisions and we did not possess the deterrent of the hydrogen bomb. That is my answer to the noble Viscount.
LORD MATHERS: May I ask the noble Earl whether or not he is aware that what he has been declaring is that we are all under the compulsion of fear, and that we lack the faith which the right reverend Prelate asked us to have?
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I do not in the least accept that. It is easy to play with words. I am not under the compulsion of fear, but I am under the compulsion of facts to see that my country is safe and is not destroyed; and any Government would be in that position.
There are only two further things I want to say. One is a purely personal reference to a noble Lord of whose death we learned a few ago, Lord Riverdale. I feel it would be fitting that in a debate on the Royal Air Force his name should be mentioned and his work remembered, for as my noble friend on the Liberal
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Benches knows, no one did more than Lord Riverdale, for so many years as chairman of the Appeal Committee, to put the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund on the very sound and solid footing on which it is to-day.
I am not going to elaborate the second point, but I should like to echo the anxieties expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and the noble and gallant Lords, Lord De L'Isle and Lord Tedder about the danger that may exist in the hiatus between the bomber, and indeed the fighter, and the guided missile. We must be able to deliver the atomic weapon, for that is part of the deterrent. I am not in the secrets of the latest development, but I know, as everybody who has been a defence Minister knows, how often it happens that early developments look extraordinarily promising and then troubles occur in practice—and there are goodness knows how many entirely novel features in these guided missiles!I believe that it would be very rash to stop the development of the supersonic bomber and perhaps the supersonic fighter beyond the P.1, unless we were absolutely certain that by a given date effective guided missiles would be available to us. And by that I mean that the missile will be right and that we are certain it will be able to hit the target.
I am reinforced in that thought (and I cannot say how much I agree with him) by what was said by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, about the interdependence of the bomber and civil aviation. I know that from experience, both as Air Minister and as Minister of Civil Aviation. That is profoundly true; and it gets more true all the time. These things are more expensive all the time, and as one of the things on which we are going to depend is a much smaller force—and rightly so—it is no good having a strategic reserve unless it is mobile. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, that there are great limitations to mobility in the air. All that reinforces the need for having not only a good Transport Command but a very good civilian air force which can be brought in to reinforce if need be. For all those reasons, I would ask Her Majesty's Government to have second thoughts about the development of the bomber. I have spoken for longer than I intended, but I felt so moved, remembering what has

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been said on this subject by that great and good man who was such a close friend of us all, that I could not refrain from speaking in the House to-day.
4.56 p.m.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, I rise with considerable trepidation to take part in this debate following the number of good and distinguished speakers who have already made most knowledgeable speeches, while I am speaking merely as one who was a Royal Marines engineer during the war. My excuse for doing so is that I had the great good fortune to be shown around Marham Aerodrome when a committee of European M.P. s—the Western European Defence Committee—were very impressed. The impression was such that I felt that this might be a suitable occasion for me to say so and also to thank those who "laid on" the visit and the really astonishingly good show.
We were shown the latest bombers. Valiants and Vulcans, both on the ground and in a most impressive flying display afterwards, and we also saw the Canberra. The Vulcan appeared to go straight off the ground, the most amazing thing that I have ever seen. Only slightly less impressive was the Canberra, which is now being converted to carry atomic weapons. I thought the most impressive thing was the forward looking and the forward thinking of the officers we met. Probably that has always been so, but I had not realised quite the extent to which they regarded their technical problems on what might be called a civilian basis. Work-study and the keynote of saving manpower and efficiency was very evident, as was the pride with which personnel displayed the various pieces of specialised equipment for servicing these giant aircraft; and their spirit of friendly rivalry shown in such statements as "The Americans have nothing like this" and "The servicing after 200 hours' flying, which use; d to take a fortnight, now takes only a couple of days." That is typical of the outlook of the people looking after these aircraft.
The decision to return an engine to the makers for servicing after a 600-hours period, rather than have the servicing done by the Royal Air Force, seems to be a wise one, on the grounds of both equipment and manpower. I found the whole outlook most refreshing. The
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wireless and radar servicing establishment there was most impressive, and when one considers that in a modern aircraft of the V-bomber type there are about 4,000 valves, one begins to see what a problem this presents. The air conditioning equipment and the factories in which this work is carried out were also most impressive.
In the training field, the electronic flight simulator was a fascinating thing. In an hour's "flying" in this device practically every catastrophe that might occur to a pilot normally can be "laid on" by the instructor by pressing various buttons. The effect is noted on the instruments and on the pilot, even down to the appropriate noises occurring in the aircraft. A point which strikes one here is that a flight simulator costs about £20 a week to run, whereas an aircraft of this type would cost something of the order of £200 an hour, and in considering economy one can see the great effect of this advance.
If one considers the actual Memorandum accompanying the Air Estimates as the report of a company at its annual general meeting, the shareholders would have little to grumble about. There are a few points which pleased me and which I should like briefly to mention. They are first, the attention which is being paid to married quarters. That is very appropriate when we are endeavouring to attract people into the Services, and it is most necessary. Another matter which pleased me very much was the extreme accuracy of the bombing on the Maralinga range. We are told that an atomic bomb was dropped within 110 vards of the aiming point. One cannot help recalling the dropping of the American bomb at Bikini. That bomb missed the target by five miles. So a certain advance has undoubtedly been made in that direction. Further there have been encouraging results with regard to the "Fireflash", and the close follow up by the "Firestreak" which we are promised is very gratifying. The electronic flight simulator I have already referred to. It will clearly be of great value in developing operational techniques, and we understand that in connection with it there is a considerable potential saving in time and cost.

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It is also comforting to see that the Second Tactical Air Force is being re-equipped with Hunter 6's. There has been a certain amount of misgiving on the Continent, which I think this visit did a great deal to dispel. These people all went away very much impressed; so much so, in fact, that some of them were saying, "Why do we want the Americans?" That idea, of course, is something which will have to be discouraged. Nevertheless, on the whole it was a very good show. Another point that particularly pleased me was to note that the Scottish Twin Pioneer aircraft is still finding great use. It is refreshing to find that that is mentioned—and mentioned among all these wonderful supersonic and electronic matters. It is good to know that here is a really good aircraft which will remain necessary for years to come. We shall require that kind of aircraft for a substantial time, and it gave me great pleasure to read of the production orders. Finally, the thing which gave most satisfaction to me, as a farmer, and I am sure to all who are farmers, was the news of the relinquishment by the Royal Air Force of 1,000 acres a month of requisitioned agricultural land. This is land which they no longer require. I am sure this news will give great pleasure to all who are concerned with agriculture.
There is one point about which I am not so happy, and I confess that I do not understand it—I refer to the large sums of money which we are spending on antisubmarine warfare measures. If it is assumed, as I gather from various noble Lords that it is assumed, that all future wars will be short and sharp, then where is the great necessity for anti-submarine measures? Who is going to be starved out in a fortnight? It may be, of course, that submarines are being regarded as launching platforms for guided missiles. I think that the amount of money which apparently is being devoted to this measure requires a little explanation. I, at least, cannot understand it. If the noble Lord who is going to reply could throw any light on that matter I should be most grateful.
5.4 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like first of all to associate myself with what
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the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, said with regard to our mutual friend, Lord Riverdale. I feel a special need to do so, because I represented Sheffield for a great number of years, and from the days when he was Arthur Balfour, and then Sir Arthur Balfour, I had the opportunity of recognising his great services to the State. His views were very different from mine, but the immense value of those services cannot be denied. In his particular service, in the help he gave to the Royal Air Force, his influence and leadership were quite outstanding; and they achieved great results. I have a great friendship for his son who was a serving officer in the Royal Navy and later served in connection with the Naval Air Wing on the "Ark Royal." With other noble Lords, I should like to express my sincere sympathy with members of the family in the great loss which they have sustained.
My Lords, the House must indeed be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for introducing in the manner he did the Motion which we are now debating. Although I wish to say something later about the speeches of the right reverend Prelate and the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, I think it would be a pity if we were to lose sight, by reason of these later speeches, of the objectives that were before the House at the opening of the debate. I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, in introducing the debate, gave quite a proper summary of the position. In my view, the question with which he dealt—whether we are to envisage in the future a nuclear war in which the R.A.F. will be engaged, or an all-out European theatre war, or any wars of a more local character such as he described—must have a great deal to do with influencing the policy to be adopted for the Royal Air Force. I think that that was a very fair presentation of the case. I am bound to say that it seems to me that, though the noble Lord was very mild in his approach to this matter—and I do not want to be violent—there is ground for regret that the Government have not apparently made up their minds as to which of these three possibilities is felt to be the one for which it is most imperative to prepare, and, therefore, are not in a position to give at once the lead that is required.

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I felt that the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, a very old friend of mine and a very great war leader and post-war leader in these matters, was justified in what he said about what occurred almost immediately the Defence White Paper was debated and thereafter. He spoke of the lack of confidence on the part of officers and other ranks as the result of the decisions revealed by the Defence White Paper, and he said that this was leading to alarm and despondency. That is now some months ago, and it seems a pity that we have reached July 10 and still have not had a firm statement by the Government of what is intended in these matters. I am sure that both Houses of Parliament would be entirely sympathetic to any particular points which the Government would wish to include in a public statement, provided they were satisfied that the Government were going to do their best to restore confidence—and, indeed, as one noble Lord has put it, to build up the morale which has been injured by the uncertainty which has been created.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, who is to reply on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, will not attack the Leader of the Opposition for putting this point of view. Neither the Leader of the Opposition here nor the Leader of the Opposition in another place, nor indeed any Party, is being unreasonable about this question. The cause of this alarm which has arisen in the Royal Air Force about the future is largely to be found in the interpretation of the Defence Paper by the Press, some sections of which, apparently, have already abolished Fighter Command and have thus aroused feelings of perturbation among officers and other ranks in the Force. I hope that the Government will be able to make up their minds as to exactly what is to be done and that they will make an announcement upon it. I am willing to support the view put forward by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, that in this connection we do not want to try to reduce to a complete common level whatever provision is to be made for each of the three Services. There must be differences, but I should say that it would be reasonable to produce a solution to meet them.
I come back to the situation which worries me a great deal—that is, what is the solution for meeting our immediate
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problems on the basis taken in the Defence White Paper and of having completely voluntary service in the three arms of our defence? I can see that the First Lord of the Admiralty will have less difficulty than the other Services Ministers. There will be a large proportion of volunteers for the Royal Navy. I can see that for the Royal Air Force there will always be a section of eager volunteers for the officer ranks and for the more notable and dangerous work to be done in the Royal Air Force. But, judging by my own experience—though I agree that I have been nearly seven years away from office, which does make a difference, because of what has happened in the meantime—I feel we are taking a big chance with the Army and Air Force, in the present general level of employment in industry, in relying on getting all the personnel we need, including proper manning of the technical sections of the Forces.
I do not believe that we shall get the number of volunteers required merely by improving conditions, or even by raising the spiral of remuneration nearer to the present spiral in industry. I should like very much to see the Services maintained on a voluntary basis, especially in peace time. I hope that I may be wrong in my prognostication, but from the actual experience of the three or four ventures we have already made—the improvements in conditions, such as the provision of more married quarters, in which there has been a very considerable improvement in the last ten years; the provision of brighter barracks, and increases in emoluments, which have not brought a permanent and steady increase of enlistment into the Regular Forces—I have no strong conviction that all the needs of our Defence Services can be met at the present time by voluntary enlistment. I should be untrue to my inner self if I did not state that feeling in your Lordships' House, although it may not be my Party's view, or the view held by every section of your Lordships' House.
The other aspect raised by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, is the recognition by the Government that the possession of hydrogen and atomic weapons is the ultimate deterrent. They base their policy more and more upon that belief. They say that they cannot hope to be able economically to provide

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for everything necessary to meet a situation which would involve the use of both conventional and anti-nuclear defence forces, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, approved of that this afternoon. If that is the line we are taking, I repeat what I said weeks ago: that we have entered so far into a new era; that we have reached the point of no return. We are building now upon the nuclear weapon not merely as the ultimate but almost as the only deterrent to war; we are relying on that entirely. That seems to me to be a very dangerous situation indeed.
It is dangerous for those who have loved the Services in their original rôles, and who are confident that every Defence Minister must have as his first task the security of the home base and the home people. That seems to me to be our first task now. We possess nuclear weapons and I am not sorry that we have them, in view of the progress in the arming of Russia and, maybe, other nations. I am not against our being in possession of a deterrent equal to that possessed by somebody else, but I am bound to say that I do not believe that we can properly meet all the circumstances and, for years to come, all our wide commitments in regard to our overseas possessions, our trade and our standing in the world, simply by cutting down our forces and relying upon an ultimate deterrent in a future war. Nor can I believe that it is right and proper to support that policy by resting upon the statement of the Minister of Defence in another place, that we have reached such a situation in technical development that any atomic weapon not above the weight of the Hiroshima bomb must be regarded as a tactical weapon. I cannot have reliance on that or on the more limited kind of war which the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, included in the three propositions he made this afternoon. I think that that is an exceedingly dangerous situation for us to get into.
I think that the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Manchester was right to voice the view of certain sections of the community in a speech which I thought was one of great courage. I am sorry that I cannot go the whole way with him. From the point of view of human desire, I wish that I could. But when we come to the question of responsibility for the
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defence of our country, we have to remember that, whatever we should like to see, that is not sufficient unless we can put to the country a policy which would be reasonably satisfactory for the defence of all our fellow-citizens. Nobody who has had any responsibility for any part of our defence has been able to escape from the dilemma that, however much he may desire to abolish X, Y or Z, or the more horrific types of warfare, he cannot be sure that these things will not still be in the possession of others far more likely to make war than his own people. That is the problem simply stated.
I had a great deal of sympathy with the right reverend Prelate when he focused part of his speech on the fact that everybody seems to take one section of the world as the enemy that we have to fear and prepare to defeat. I think there was a good deal in his argument this afternoon which showed that even that kind of psychology, operating in a nation or the world, often leads to the kind of conflict we are all so anxious to avoid. For a leader of the Church to come to this House—which is the only House of Parliament in which he can speak at the present time, in any case—and to give his views, and therefore for them to be debated, is a good thing.
While I could not go all the way with him in his answer to the interjection made by the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, I am bound to say that I think that those countries like the United States, ourselves and others who are interested in disarmament could go a little further in our attempts at negotiation and at getting results, without saying some of the rather hard things which are said from time to time—I have said them myself from time to time—about the Communist menace in the world. When we are faced with the use of devilish weapons, which we all know will destroy anything within not merely miles, but in the future, hundreds of miles of their delivery, and the shocking risk that every single statesman who has to handle the matter takes for his own countrymen, as well as for others, then it seems to me that we ought to be even more insistent upon our attempt to get negotiations to bring it to an end.
There have been occasions in the past few months when we have debated different phases of this subject. Shall we suspend the tests?—we have dealt with that

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question from time to time, but not very satisfactorily. These powerful arguments were put in this House: how could we suspend the tests if other people were going on with them; and, until we had completed our tests, would it be reasonable to place our people in a position of disadvantage compared with those nations which have carried out the tests? But we are not in that position now, because we have carried out a most important test. I speak subject to correction by the noble Lords who answer for the Government in the Service Departments, but I should say that probably this country is the only country, so far, which has carried out a satisfactory test by a bomber delivering this new and shocking weapon to its target. A great many bombs of the character of the latest hydrogen bomb have been tested by the United States, but, so far as I know, they have always been from a fixed point, and not actually tested from an aviation machine. However, on that I stand to be corrected if I am wrong.
But certainly we have made such progress with the manufacture and the testing of the bomb that there is no real reason, in that direction, why we should not join in any general move to get a suspension of future tests. I think we have arrived at the position when we can show better our hopes and fears and our real faith in the future of humanity by supporting the efforts which are being made to get the tests suspended. Then I hope that we shall be able to go on and move for a convention for the non-use or the banning of the bomb, which must, in my judgment, carry two things with it: it must allow for countries to be compelled to lose that portion of their sovereignty which at present refuses common inspection—there must be inspection; and in regard to all that we have to face in the future, I think it must be specially related, step by step, to a proper agreement on the reduction of conventional arms. Because if we are going to face the future in the world to-day with such a division of the conventional forces as at present exists, then it seems to me that we should be in an exceedingly dangerous and vulnerable position—I do not put it any higher or any lower than that. Therefore, I hope very much that thought will go on in that direction.
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I am, of course, speaking in reply to the debate, so far as my Party is concerned, "off the cuff", but I want to say this. The international conference held the other day of Labour associations from the different countries who are members of the International Socialist Association, was thinking more and more along the lines I have just indicated, as is shown by the resolution which has been published from that conference. While I cannot go all the way with the statement of the right reverend Prelate to-day, I hope that we shall most earnestly pray that the road will be opened up for an agreement of the kind that I want—first of all, a suspension of future tests of the bomb, for the time being, at any rate; and then a move towards an agreement for the banning of the weapon, subject to these two factors: inspection and a proper disarmament agreement in regard to conventional weapons.
I value most highly the great services of the Royal Air Force. I had the advantage of serving my longest period in political office with the Royal Navy, but as Minister of Defence I saw what remarkable progress had been made by the Royal Air Force I hope that we shall not be left in quite the position that we are in to-day. I agree entirely that, with the mixed outlook that we have at the present time about preparing a proper defence, we should not agree to such a dropping of scientific inquiry and development as would put us out of court in regard to the supersonic aeroplane. I think that we should have a bomber of the highest speed and weight capacity for that purpose, and I hope that that end will be pursued. But I beg of all who are now connected with it that they will never let these matters establish that principle that I have often heard the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, argue against: to conduct armament developments in such a way that you sacrifice over and over again the better, whilst waiting interminably and without real achievement for the best. That is a fundamental point.
I was most interested in Lord Tedder's reference to the Women's Royal Air Force. Girls and young ladies, when they want to join a Service, are interested in appearance. In my particular Department in 1940 we had a great argument as to whether there should be anything approaching a military headgear for the

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W.R.N.S. Eventually we evolved something which was a little softer than the military, and yet not altogether unallied with the nautical, and I think it was a great success. The W.R.N.S. were governed also by another piece of policy—they were not included in the provisions of the Army and Royal Air Force Discipline Act. I am not at all sure whether the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, would agree with me, or whether he heard what the noble Lord, Lord Tedder, had to say earlier in the debate, but probably if the ladies who now want to join the Women's Royal Air Force wish to see it more feminine in its general outlook and control, then one possible avenue by which to meet their wishes would be not to make them conform to the rigid discipline that is exercised under the Army and Royal Air Force Discipline Act. However, that is probably a debatable subject.
May I say one other thing? I think it would be wrong for us to leave a debate on the Royal Air Force Estimates at the present time—I say this without making any comment at all about the rights or wrongs of the reasons for the campaign in Suez—without both sides of the House recognising the efficiency and gallantry with which the officers and men of the Royal Air Force played their part. They were not responsible for the orders given. They were not responsible for what many of us think was a regrettable blunder in the policy they were carrying out. I should not like this debate to close without our paying a tribute to the officers and men of the Service.
5.31 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, at the outset of his interesting speech, said that he did not envy the lot of any Minister of the Defence Departments at this particular time. I cordially agree with him. There is an uncertainty, an understandable uncertainty but an uncertainty, nevertheless, and too many imponderables for our comfort. We have, for instance, on the one hand, the paradox of redundancy, and the necessary "axeing", and, on the other, the need for a recruiting drive.
I do not blame the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, in any way for raising that point. I certainly
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do not criticise him for raising, as did many other noble Lords, the whole question of the uncertainty which must inevitably stem from the changes of policy set out in my right honourable friend's White Paper. That is understandable. There have been throughout this debate frequent references—in fact I think almost every speaker has referred to it—to the future of those officers and men whose careers may possibly be terminated. Let me begin, therefore, by reminding your Lordships of what was actually said about this matter in my right honourable friend's White Paper. In paragraph 68 he says:
" Those whose careers have to be prematurely terminated will be given fair compensation and will be helped in every way possible to find suitable employment in civilian life."
I repeat that Her Majesty's Government will honour this double pledge in every sense. To carry out that pledge, however, requires intensive work on some very detailed plans.
Those of your Lordships who, like the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, my noble friend Lord De L'Isle and my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, have been Ministers in Service Departments will appreciate how complicated those plans must be. This delay which your Lordships have regretted is not due to inter-departmental squabbles—I can promise my noble friend Lord De L'Isle that: it is due to the complications inherent in such things as the loss of service, the loss of pension, the loss of promotion prospects and a thousand and one other things, all of which have to be taken into consideration. We hope that we shall be able to bring this period of delay and doubt, which is causing so much uneasiness, to an end as soon as we possibly can.
The problem varies with each Service and within each Service. It is not as difficult in some respects for the Royal Air Force and for the Navy as it is for the Army. That I readily admit. Those differences, I think your Lordships will see in due course, will be quite marked. There is a temptation, of course, to bring out, bit by bit, a piecemeal scheme. I think that would be wrong. I think that the scheme should come out as a coherent scheme for the three Services. It must be precise, it must be fair and it must be intelligible. I hope that

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is the scheme which we shall, as soon as possible, lay before the country.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I interrupt the Minister for one moment? He has given a very solemn pledge that everything will be done as soon as possible. That is a pledge which we have heard before. Could we have something a little more precise? Could the noble Lord say whether before Parliament adjourns for the Summer Recess Her Majesty's Government will have made public the scheme, so that Parliamentary political reactions can be judged before there is a long interlude? I do not think that is an unfair question.
LORD MANCROFT: Of course it is not, but unfortunately I am not in a position to pledge any specific date. I fully understand the noble Lord's anxiety, and I should hope that we might have the scheme available before the summer holiday. So long as he regards it as no more than a pious hope, expressed on my own behalf and nobody else's, I, like your Lordships, desire to have this matter settled as soon as possible.
Financial compensation is, of course, only half the story. There is the question of resettlement, to which many of your Lordships have referred—particularly of officers. I do not think there will be much trouble in resettling the N.C.Os. and other ranks. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I think, pooh-poohed a little the rôle of the Ministry of Labour in this respect. They are not the only agent, of course, but they will play a prominent part in the problem of finding suitable work for officers whose careers have been terminated. But they will rely on the good will and co-operation of all others who can possibly help—of the public, of commerce, of the various bodies to which the noble Lord referred, the F.B.I, and others. I hope this problem will not present quite the difficulties which at first seemed apparent. It is essential that it should be solved, and solved to the satisfaction of the men concerned, because it is undoubtedly casting some cloud over the future of the Royal Air Force as a whole.
The other questions which your Lordships have asked this afternoon and
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which I think are being asked in the country at large are these. Are we to have a Royal Air Force or a Royal Push-Button Force? Are we placing too much reliance on ballistic missiles? Are we, as the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle asked, gambling over the gap in the transition from aircraft to guided missiles? And what in future is to be the rôle of manned aircraft and their pilots? Let me reassure the House at once that in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government there is and will for some considerable time be a continuing rôle for manned aircraft. There will be a considerable period when for defence and for strategic attack both aircraft and guided weapons will be needed. The biggest risk, I think, comes from the sort of timidity which wants to keep all the alternatives going and have a 200 per cent. insurance. That would bring us to the situation to which the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, rightly drew attention—the worst possible course of trying to attempt everything and achieving nothing in good time.
The right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Manchester—he is no longer in his place—made an interesting speech with some of which I find myself able to agree. I do not propose, if he will forgive me, to follow him in his arguments about the deterrent. I presented mine to the House, at some considerable length, when I opened the debate on the Defence White Paper. I have nothing to add, save to say that the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, put my own views this afternoon with a great deal more power and authority than I could. Our aim is to possess a significant element of the deterrent power of our own. This is the power we are now seeking to create.
The Valiant bomber force is now at full strength—that was the aeroplane which dropped an atomic bomb at Maralinga last October. The megaton weapons have been tested in the Pacific, and the Royal Air Force has a stock of both atomic weapons; and a stock of megaton weapons is now being manufactured. The Vulcan is now in service with the R.A.F., and the Victor comes into service later this year. Both types are being developed and improved. The guided bomb—that is, the stand-off bomb—will further increase the effectiveness of these bombers and will bring to

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them a new lease of life. Ballistic missiles will supplement this force. As your Lordships know, the part of these missiles is of gradually increasing importance, but they cannot replace the bomber for many years ahead at home, and for many more years ahead in stations abroad.
A similar situation faces Fighter Command, whose principal rôle, now and in the future, is the defence of the deterrent. Our immediate concern is the re-equipment of the day-fighter force with F.6 Hunters and the build-up of the Javelin all-weather force. Those of your Lordships who went to the Le Bourget air show a few weeks ago must have been immensely impressed, as I was, by the performance which the R.A.F., in their Hunters, put up at that show, and at the universal acclaim with which it was greeted. We hope to have the re-equipment of the day-fighter squadrons largely completed by the end of the year. We look ahead to the supersonic fighter P.1. A production order has been placed, and we also look ahead to the air-to-air missiles. Service trials with the first of these missiles, the "Fireflash", have been carried out, and tactical doctrines are now being worked out. The more advanced "Firestreak" has been tested in research and development trials in Australia, and we hope shortly to begin its acceptance trials. That weapon will eventually be fitted to the Javelin and the P.1.
As with ballistic missiles and the bomber, surface-to-air guided missiles will at first be supplementary to the manned fighter. A production order for the first of these surface-to-air guided missiles (" Bloodhound," by name) has been placed, and I myself saw that weapon at Bristol a few weeks ago. Preparations for its introduction are going ahead parallel with the re-equipment of the manned squadrons. I dwell on this matter in some detail in order to reinforce the point which I think is so important: that there is and will be for many years to come, a rôle, and a vital rôle, for manned aircraft in the R.A.F.
I have made no mention in my remarks of the other important rôles for manned aircraft—reconnaissance, transport, police work, helicopters, coastal work, and so on, matters with which your Lordships are familiar. Both in the case of the deterrent and the vitally important
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defence of the deterrent, the position, therefore, is this. Our immediate preoccupation is the re-equipment of manned squadrons. They still have an important development potential in which missiles in the shape of the guided bomb and the air-to-air missile will play a major part. Ground-launched missiles will play an increasingly important rôle, but supplementary rather than independent. I hope, therefore, that your Lordships are now convinced that it is not a Royal Push-button Force but the Royal Air Force relying, as ever it did, on the best possible type of man.
That brings us straight to the urgent problem of recruiting. This is a problem to which many of your Lordships have drawn attention: the high quality of the potential officer material still needed in all branches, particularly the pilot branch, navigators and air electronic officers. And it so happens that to-day the first course of electronic officers is holding its passing out parade at Swanton Morley. To deal with the officers first, the Cranwell entry has steadily increased in quantity since 1956. The quality is improving, too. This improvement has shown itself both in the candidates coming forward from the entrance examination held by the Civil Service Commission and in those whose educational qualifications allow them to side-step that examination. In the main, however, it is due to the flow of R.A.F. scholars which is beginning to reach us under the scheme introduced in 1953 and extended last August.
Under this scheme, boys from just over fifteen and a half years of age who are selected as potentially suitable for cadetships may obtain financial assistance towards their schooling for up to two years to enable them to qualify educationally for entry. School fees can be refunded up to a maximum of £100 a year, whatever the parents' income may be; and the maintenance grant, again up to an annual maximum of £100, is payable on a sliding scale, according to the parents' income. Cranwell apart, we hope that the Direct Commission scheme, under which officers serve for at least eight years, will attract sufficient recruits to meet the aircrew needs of the Service. To the extent that we may fall short of recruiting to our full target on direct commissions, we intend to make up the

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shortfall by offering short-service commissions. These will normally be for a five-year period, although in the case of university graduates, whom we are particularly anxious to recruit, we propose to offer a reduced period of four years. Our hope, in the case of all entrants on the short-service commissions, is that experience of life in the Service will lead the officers to stay on in the Service and make their career in the Royal Air Force.
Now may I turn to the recruiting of airmen? I must confess that the figures for the June quarter are disappointing. I think that is understandable. It is not a good recruiting season anyhow, and the uncertainties and the reasons which we have been discussing are obviously reflected in the recruiting figures. I do not suggest for one moment that recruiting for the Regular Royal Air Force is going to be an easy task, but I hope it will become easier as the uncertainties are dispelled. Certainly in the last fifteen months the trend has been encouraging. There has been a definite improvement in the recruitment of new entrants and in the signing on for longer periods.
On April 1 last year the nine-year engagements of ground crew equalled about 25 per cent. of the total strength of the R.A.F. The proportion is now 30 per cent. In the first six months of 1957, the recruitment of apprentices was up by nearly 30 per cent. The boy entries have doubled compared with last year's figures. Those are not gloomy figures, and we hope that, when we have settled down and got over the uncertainties, the R.A.F. will get into its stride again. At the moment, it is certainly as well manned as it has ever been, but there are certain doubts. The position in the advanced trades gives us cause for cautious satisfaction, but there is difficulty in the supporting trades. We badly need radar operators, and there are shortages in the clerical and domestic trades.
Several of your Lordships have referred to the Women's Royal Air Force. A few weeks ago there was a rumour that the Women's Royal Air Force was to be abolished. I may say that that is exactly contrary to the truth. With the abolition of National Service, greater reliance than ever will be placed on the work of the Women's Royal Air Force. We need
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every single recruit, not only for replacements for marriage and other casualties—though I can never understand why marriage is regarded in the Services as a casualty; there are still some of us, I am glad to say, who are old fashioned enough to regard it as a blessing—but because we want to expand the Women's Royal Air Force from its present strength of 5,000. We want, indeed, to double the strength of the Women's Royal Air Force. We will certainly examine the question of glamorising the Women's Royal Air Force, a point which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, has in mind. Perhaps the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, will allow himself to be recruited as Adviser on Hats. That question, and others raised by several noble Lords concerning the Women's Royal Air Force, we are examining, and will continue to examine, carefully.
We are seeking all means of encouraging recruits of both sexes, not only in the Royal Air Force but in all three branches of the Services. There has been set up a small Ministerial Committee consisting of the three Parliamentary Secretaries to the three Service Departments, under my own chairmanship, to go into the question of recruiting and to examine it in all its aspects. The first thing that has impressed me is that, if we are to get the recruits, one thing above all is needed; that is, a change of attitude of some people towards the armed Services generally. We have talked about improvements of conditions this afternoon. The recruiting problem is serious and we realise that. The improvements must be not only in the terms of service and pay. Pay does not loom as large as some people think: other things, especially living conditions, are all-important.
The noble Viscount, Lord Stonehaven, referred to married quarters. Since the war the R.A.F. have built 16,000 married quarters. A further 3,000 are now going up. When this building programme is complete we shall have nearly four times the amount of pre-war married quarters; then the requirements will have been roughly met. There will be much more barrack accommodation, and in this respect the Royal Air Force is much luckier than the Army. Having started later, their barrack accommodation, except for a few war-time Nissen huts, and such like, is much more up to date

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than that of the Army. I dare not think what the average airman would say if he were put into some of the barracks in Tidworth which the Army have had to go into in their time. There is one barracks there which is alleged to have been designed by an architect who was an unsuccessful runner up in the prize competition for the design of St. Pancras Station. Those of us who have occupied that barracks were always under the impression that the same plans had been used with no alteration whatsoever. My Lords, as far as the R.A.F. is concerned we shall press on with these matters within our resources. This year we are spending over £6½ million on domestic accommodation other than married quarters.
There is one other thing that we are doing which we hope will have a great influence on recruiting. Putting it politely, it is to avoid unnecessary pushing around. Of course mobility is essential, but over-frequent posting is, I am sure, a deterrent. It may be necessary during the change-over to a Regular force to have a little more posting than usual, but I think that too much posting is most certainly detrimental to recruiting. The average tour of duty of officers on any one station was thirteen months in December, 1953; it is now twenty-seven months. The tour of duty of airmen in home units was formerly 2½ years on the average but that is now the normal minimum. As to overseas posting, men now have within reason a choice of command.
There is something else which those who have put their views to us have brought out every strongly. If I call it whitewashing of coal, I do not actually mean whitewashing of coal, I mean doing unnecessary chores which men regard as a silly waste of time—irksome duties. I am certain that the fullest and most economic use of manpower is one of the greatest attractions. If men think they are going to be uselessly and uneconomicallly employed they will regard it as one of the greatest deterrents. We are therefore doing everything we can to economise in manpower and to stream-line the organisation. Your Lordships will have seen in the papers two or three days ago a description of the new Directorate of Work Study which has been set up on the most modern lines by the Royal Air Force. I believe that that
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was initiated by my noble friend Lord De L'Isle when Secretary of State for Air. I am glad to say that the Directorate is now producing results.
I will not weary your Lordships with other economies, save to draw attention to two of them. There are economies in Maintenance Command, where closures have already resulted in the saving of nearly 10,000 Service posts and over 3,500 civilian posts. There are also savings of money in maintenance, compensation, vehicles and many other things. The proportion of Servicemen employed in Maintenance Command was reduced to 44 per cent. of the total strength by 1956, and we hope that it will be reduced to 35 per cent. by the end of this year.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves this portion of his remarks about conditions of service, I wonder whether he would be good enough to say a word or two on the subject of education of children—a matter to which the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, has more than once called attention in this House. I refer to the education of the children of Servicemen.
LORD MANCROFT: Yes. This is a burning question not only in the Royal Air Force but in all three Services. We are going into that subject most carefully and I hope that we may have some proposals to make about it. We regard it as of the utmost importance.
What I was saying on the subject of economy—I shall not weary your Lord-ships any longer with it—is that throughout the Royal Air Force every effort will be made to streamline and modernise the organisation. A great deal has already been done and we are pressing on with this work. There is the introduction of electronic calculators and modern ideas such as the American Air Force are using. Then we are putting out to industry work which might be considered as fourth-line work. In general, the Royal Air Force are seeking to get the best possible value out of the skilled manpower that they possess and out of the taxpayers' money.
My Lords, I come back to my starting point. This is a particularly difficult time for the Royal Air Force. There is much uncertainty which we hope to resolve as soon as we possibly can—uncertainty not only about the men's career

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but about the men's future; uncertainty as to the type of equipment and uncertainty as to the type of war in which the Royal Air Force may be called upon to participate. I do not suppose that any armed force has ever had a completely certain programme laid before it. It is part of the function of the Government to try to meet these troubles as best they can. I hope that at least I have said enough to dispel the legend of the "Royal Push-Button Force". So far from the days of the Royal Air Force being numbered, the Royal Air Force can look forward to playing a more vital part than ever in this country's fortunes and in its defences. The Royal Air Force is still going to call for the best machines, the best men to fly them in the air and the best men to service them and their successors on the ground. It is going to want them for many, many years to come. I hope that your Lordships will agree with me that Her Majesty's Government are doing everything possible to provide them.
5.57 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I should like to thank noble Lords on all side of the House who have taken part in this debate, which I trust has been of interest to your Lordships. I should also like to thank the Minister for his reply, which was full of information and interest. I did ask some specific questions about when we could expect the scheme, about the possible removal of anomalies, about the question of education of children, and whether the principle of volunteers or nominations would hold sway in the Royal Air Force with regard to redundancy. All these questions have been answered delightfully in the indefinite, in the best ministerial style. Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord for having fulfilled the task in the able way he has. I liked the assurance, in the best ministerial and traditional manner, on supply: how orders have been placed; that preparations are going ahead; that re-equipment is in progress. The only thing missed out—something which I have observed in Supply debates ever since 1939—was that deliveries have commenced.
My Lords, we do not expect definite replies to questions put in debate, but I hope that the Minister will convey to his colleagues the general desire in the House that these questions which I have put on
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welfare and personnel should have the attention of Ministers in Her Majesty's Government, and I hope that they may be satisfactorily answered at an early date. With this last word of thanks to all noble Lords in the House and to the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
READING CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
DONCASTER CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL
MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (COUNTY OF BERKS (CONSENT TO LETTING)) BILL
Reported, without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL
Reported, without amendment.
GOVERNORS' PENSIONS BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, with an Amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
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  SEA CONTAMINATION BY RADIOACTIVE WASTES