Sitting of 7 May 1958

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  BRAZILIAN TRACTION SUBSIDIARIES BILL [Lords]
  Read the Third time and passed, with Amendments.
  CAMMELL LAIRD AND COMPANY BILL [Lords]
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ROYAL NAVY

    Aircraft and Support Carriers
    Mr. Wallasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the number of aircraft carriers or support carriers that have been built or are being built in 1958, and the amount to be spent on these vessels during this year.
    The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Robert Allan): As indicated in my noble Friend's Explanatory Statement on the Navy Estimates, 1958–59, "Hermes" is the only aircraft carrier under construction. The amount to be spent on her construction during the current financial year will be £2½ million.
    Mr. Wall: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is anxiety that the rate of disposal of Her Majesty's vessels is far greater than the rate of replacement? Is he satisfied that the rate of replacement indicated in his Answer is sufficient?
    Mr. Allan: Yes, Sir. We prefer to modernise existing carriers. This is cheaper, and also quicker, and speed is important in view of the developments being made in aircraft and guided weapons.
    Mr. Wallasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty how many aircraft carriers or support carriers it is proposed to dispose of in 1958; and what is the annual cost of maintaining these ships in care and maintenance.
    Mr. R. Allan: Five, Sir. They are not in care and maintenance. At the moment, each ship requires an annual expenditure of less than £1,000.
    Mr. Wall: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the rate of disposal of these ships is really giving us an economy? We all want to observe economy in defence, but may not it turn out to be false economy when these vessels could still be used as anti-submarine carriers in time of war?
    Mr. Allan: I do not think that there is need, or that there is likely to be need, for any additional carriers. At the moment, we have six other carriers, either with the fleet or being made ready for it, and, further, we have another two carriers which are not in the category mentioned by my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Wigg: Would not it be right to say that if we had more carriers we would have no more aircraft to put in them?

    Dockyard Extension Area, Devonport
    Miss Vickersasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what compensation will be paid to the property owners and occupiers in the area north of Albert Road, Devonport, in respect of the hardship and loss of trade they have suffered by the fact that his Department has changed its plan for the development of this area.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): We have been forced to reduce the dockyard extension area, and regret any hardship to individuals which this may have caused. Compensation in planning matters is fixed by reference to Statute, and there is no such authority to cover cases of this sort.
    Miss Vickers: In view of the fact that the hon. Gentleman has agreed to pay compensation amounting to over £12,000 to the city council, how is it that he cannot pay compensation to the individual owners of properties who have been expecting the Admiralty to take over their properties since 1945?
    Mr. Galbraith: The cases are really quite different. The council bought a site for a new shopping centre as part of the phased programme to help the dockyard extension plan to go forward. Having incurred this expenditure to help the Admiralty, its claim to compensation was perfectly valid.
    Miss Vickersasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty why he has not included in his proposed new development area between Charlotte Street and Garden Street, Devonport, the row of small dwellings facing Charlotte Street.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: To include this row of houses, we should have to buy 11 of them, all occupied, and then knock them down. This would be extremely expensive, and I do not consider the circumstances would justify it.
    Miss Vickers: In view of the fact that the hon. Gentleman's Department already owns 22 cottages, and that he will be forced to sell a great many of them, at a loss to the Admiralty, would not it be a better idea to buy the remaining 11 and develop the site according to good town planning instead of leaving a row of old cottages in this area?
    Mr. Galbraith: I can well understand that the hon. Lady may feel a little disappointed at my reply, but she must not under-estimate how much she has achieved. As a result of her suggestions backing up the city council, the Admiralty has modified its intention to hand back the whole of this area. We are using some of it to build as many naval married quarters as is financially reasonable, and we are paying compensation where we can. If we have not met the wishes of the hon. Lady and of her constituents in every particular, it is only because that is beyond our power.

    Fishery Protection Squadron, Icelandic Waters
    Mr. Wallasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the number of vessels of the Fishery Protection Squadron now in Icelandic waters.
    Mr. R. Allan: One, Sir, Her Majesty's Ship "Hound".
    Mr. Wall: Can my hon. Friend assure the House that the British trawlers will
    1194
    receive adequate protection, particularly in view of possible unilateral action by foreign Governments, and can he also say whether the captains have received up-to-date orders to enable them to compete in any possible situation which may arise?
    Mr. Allan: In reply to the first part of the supplementary question, there are other ships in the Fishery Protection Squadron. Two of these are now carrying out normal programmes and could. if necessary, be moved to Iceland.
    In reply to the second part of the supplementary question, the captains of these vessels have the normal instructions to assist British trawlers and indeed, as they so often do, to assist trawlers of any nationality.

    Riviera (H.M. Ships' Visits)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what naval vessels will visit the Riviera in the next few months.
    Mr. R. Allan: Subject to the agreement of the French authorities, present plans are that the submarine depot ship "Forth" accompanied by a torpedo recovery vessel will visit Villefranche from 25th to 30th June, and at the same time two of Her Majesty's submarines will visit Nice. The cruiser "Cumberland" will visit Genoa from 14th to 19th July.
    Mr. Lipton: Am I correct in assuming from that reply that the Government have at last abandoned the costly and unnecessary practice of sending battleships to the Riviera to film festivals, with their dubious retinue of hangers-on and would-be starlets, as has been the case in previous years?
    Mr. Allan: I think last year the then Parliamentary Secretary explained that it was a coincidence. In fact, I think the film festival this year is being held now, and certainly it will be over before any of these ships get there.

  SHIPBUILDING

    Foreign Orders
    Mr. Willeyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the tonnage at present being built in United Kingdom shipyards for registration abroad.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: There are 336,990 gross registered tons of shipping at present under construction in United Kingdom shipyards for foreign ownership, and a further 936,677 gross registered tons are on order.
    Mr. Willeyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the tonnage of foreign orders in United Kingdom shipyards which have been cancelled this year.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: A total of 58,860 tons of foreign orders in the United Kingdom shipyards have been cancelled during 1958.
    Mr. Willey: While appreciating that cancellations would affect foreign orders more than home orders, may I ask the Civil Lord if he would, nevertheless, pay attention to the fact that we are somewhat disturbed by the run-down in the proportion of foreign orders? Would he do his best to try to reverse this tendency because, after all, shipbuilding is a very important exchange earner?
    Mr. Galbraith: Naturally, we want to reverse this tendency, but this figure does not represent a very large proportion of the total order book of approximately 6 million tons, or even a large proportion of the total foreign order book of 1·2 million tons.
    Mr. Rankin: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many of these cancellations apply to Clydeside?
    Mr. Galbraith: Not without notice.

    Completed Tonnage
    Mr. Willeyasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty how the tonnage of shipping completed in United Kingdom shipyards this year compares with the tonnage completed in the corresponding period last year.
    Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: Approximately 455,000 tons of shipping were completed up to the end of April, 1958, compared with 417,877 tons in the corresponding period last year.
    Mr. Willey: While appreciating the difficulty of making any comparison, a ship being a very large item itself, nevertheless would the hon. Gentleman do his best to see that everything possible is done to obtain the utmost completion in present
    1196
    circumstances? Is he aware that it is essential that in the present state of world competition we should get the highest completion rate possible?
    Mr. Galbraith: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think that, in the difficult times that lie ahead, unless we can reduce our order books we will not be able to get the orders when they come along.

  BRITISH ARMY

    Trooping the Colour
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Secretary of State for War how many seats will be provided for this year's ceremony of Trooping the Colour; and how they will be allotted.
    The Under-Secretary of State for War (Mr. Julian Amery): There will be 5,839 seats. The majority are distributed among the regiments taking part and elsewhere in the Regular and Territorial Armies.
    A number of tickets are made available to High Commissioners, ambassadors and other visitors, especially from the Commonwealth. There are 1,150 reserved for direct sale to members of the public.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Will these figures that my hon. Friend has given mean an increase in the total number of seats provided?
    Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir. We have this year enlarged some stands to provide for an extra 700 seats.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Is my hon. Friend aware that that is very welcome news?

    Recruits
    Colonel Beamishasked the Secretary of State for War how many recruits have joined the Army in the first three months of this year; how these figures compare with the same period last year; and if he will also give these figures in terms of man-years.
    Mr. Amery: In the first three months of this year 6,217 men joined the Regular Army as against 8,997 in the same period last year. But 4,647 of this year's recruits engaged for six years or more, compared with only 780 last year. As a result, there has been an increase in recruiting in terms of man-years from about 30,500 to about 35,000, a rise of some 15 per cent.
    Colonel Beamish: Does my hon. Friend feel that all the constructive work in the last three years to try to make an Army career more attractive is at last beginning to pay worth-while dividends, and is he hopeful that the rate will be maintained?
    Mr. Amery: These figures are certainly very encouraging, but I would not wish, on the basis of only three months' experience, to give any definite forecast.
    Mr. Wigg: Is not the improvement in man-years due solely to the fact that the Government last October took the advice which had been offered to them for many years and got rid of the three-year engagement?
    Mr. Amery: I think the fact remains that the three-year engagement was very valuable so long as we had National Service.
    Mr. Mellish: Do these figures, if maintained, mean that the target which the Government set for themselves of 165,000 is, in fact, likely to be achieved, or is there to be a great improvement on these figures? Could we have some indication from the long-term point of view?
    Mr. Amery: Our view is that three months is much too short a period in which to form a statistical opinion. Therefore, I would not like to give a forecast on that basis alone.

    F.N. Rifle (Issue)
    Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for War how many F.N. rifles have been issued to units engaged in troop trials in their use; how many of the 36,000 for which estimates have been presented will be manufactured and how many will be issued in the present financial year; and whether he will state the date by which the equipment of the Army with F.N. rifles will be completed.
    Mr. Mellishasked the Secretary of State for War to what extent the Number 4, Mark 1, Rifle has been replaced by the F.N. automatic as the standard infantry weapon of the British Army.
    Mr. Amery: About 14,000 F.N. rifles were issued for troop trials. These trials have been completed satisfactorily and normal issues of the rifle have begun. All of the 36,000 for which estimates have been presented will be manufactured in
    1198
    the present financial year; and all will be issued. We expect to complete the equipment of the Army with the F.N. rifle by 1961.
    Mr. Wigg: While congratulating the Government on making such rapid progress, which will leave the Army with a period of over four years to continue using the same personal weapons as it has had in two world wars, may I ask whether it is a fact that the equipment programme has been slowed down because the Government have found it necessary to save on weapons in order to bolster up the bankrupt and expensive manpower policy of the Minister of Defence?
    Mr. Amery: I am glad to say that production has exceeded the figure on which we based the estimate, and we shall be able to take up any extra production there may be.
    Mr. Mellish: But surely it is a fact that a very serious state of affairs is disclosed with regard to the adequate arming of our Forces when we consider the vast amount of money which the House has approved over the last few years? Is not it deplorable to learn that up to 1961 our men will be armed with the sort of rifles which were issued in the 1914–18 war?
    Mr. Amery: It is wrong to say that the Army will be equipped with only these rifles up to 1961. This is a progressive introduction of new weapons; 36,000 or more will be in production in the course of this year.
    Mr. Wigg: Is it a fact that there is no country behind the Iron Curtain whose infantry have not got the automatic rifle?
    Mr. Amery: We have been equipping the Army with a whole new family of weapons of which this is one element.

    Operations, Aden Protectorate
    Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a statement on the operations at present being undertaken in the Aden Protectorate.
    Mr. Amery: As my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary explained on 1st May, some 500 dissidents instigated, bribed and armed by the Yemeni authorities, recently attacked a Government fort

    1199
    at Assarir in the Dhala area of the West Aden Province. It has been reported that some regular Yemeni troops and Yemeni tribesmen also took part in the attack but the numbers are uncertain.
    A force consisting of three companies drawn from the Buffs, the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and the Aden Protectorate Levies, supported by aircraft of the Royal Air Force, was sent to relieve the fort. Its attack was launched on the 30th of April and, despite strong resistance, the fort was relieved. By the next day we had regained control of the area and a large convoy passed into it without incident.
    The casualty figures are not complete, but we have been notified of 23 wounded among our own forces. Enemy casualties are estimated to be between 50 and 75. Since then our troops have been engaged in mopping up dissidents in the Jebel Jihaf, and in patrolling the frontier. One of these patrols came under fire yesterday by heavy machine guns from posts which had been established illegally on the Protectorate side of the frontier. This led to the counter action which was reported in the Press today.
    Mr. Wigg: Speaking for myself and, I am sure, for everyone in the House, may I express sympathy with those men who have become casualties and their relatives? Also I should like to compliment those responsible upon the efficiency with which this operation has been carried out. Having said that, may I ask the hon. Gentleman how it is that, when it was necessary to reinforce this area, the K.S.L.I., which should have been back in this country in Colchester by April, I think, has been separated from its heavy baggage and moved to Aden, while, at the same time, the Government were forced to move the York and Lanes from Britain, and is not it a fact that they now have three battalions in the Aden area one only of which has its heavy baggage? How long is this situation to continue? Is it Government policy to reinforce the area and, if so, will it be done with units posted to the area in reasonable and normal conditions, because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not a pleasant climate in Aden? Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that reasonable amenities are being provided for these men? Is their post arriving, for example?—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—Have they reasonable accommodation?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's question is a little too long for a supplementary question.
    Mr. Wigg: I admit that it is long, Mr. Speaker, but it happens also to be a very important subject—the welfare of British troops recently engaged in action. I should have thought that it was quite in order to question the hon. Gentleman to find out what the situation is.
    Mr. Amery: The hon. Gentleman asked me for a statement on the operations recently finished, and I gave him such information as I had available. I should want notice of the other questions before I could reply.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Will my hon. friend take into consideration the possibility of making known more widely than is the case at the moment the details of the air trooping operations to the Middle East so that the world may be suitably impressed with what this country is capable of doing if pushed to it?
    Mr. Amery: There is another Question on the subject on the Order Paper today. I hope to make a fuller statement in a moment or two.
    Mr. G. Brown: Did I correctly hear the Under-Secretary of State? Does he really know no details about whether the troops have their heavy equipment with them or not?
    Mr. Amery: Of course I am informed on all those matters, but there is no Question on the Order Paper about it.

    Wilton Park, Beaconsfield
    Mr. Ronald Bellasked the Secretary of State for War when a notice to treat in respect of Wilton Park, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, was served upon the owners by his Department; and why the matter has not been completed.
    Mr. Amery: A notice to treat was served on 7th September, 1955. Since then, negotiations, which have been complicated and difficult, have been going on about the terms of purchase. The price for the land has been settled but certain differences on other matters still remain.
    Mr. Bell: Has not the acquisition of this land been hanging fire for a very long time, even before the notice to treat

    1201
    was issued, and does not my hon. Friend think it unfortunate that delays of this order should be taken for granted in compulsory purchase and even considered relatively moderate? Is not it really a very long time?
    Mr. Amery: It takes two to make a bargain, and the delays have not been of our making.
    Mr. Bell: May I ask my hon. Friend whether it is right to say that it takes two to make a bargain under a compulsory purchase order? I thought that it took only one.
    Mr. Amery: We could, no doubt, have proceeded much faster. We have not wished to push our powers too far.

    Widows' Pensions
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether the pensions of Service widows, qualifying for pensions under a recently rectified anomaly, will be back-dated to come into line with the other Services.
    Mr. Amery: The amended rule about the rate of pension following voluntary retirement, which was announced by my right hon. Friend on 26th February, will be effective from 1st January this year.
    We cannot backdate it beyond that.
    Dame Irene Ward: Can my hon. Friend explain to me why widows should have to pay for gross maladministration in the War Office? Further, in view of the fact that I got an answer within two days, satisfactory up to a point, can he explain why, when the Officers' Pension Society raised this matter nearly two years ago—after all, the Admiralty and the Air Ministry are in the clear on this—the War Office administration was so slack that it did not even bother to deal with the case? May I have an assurance from my hon. Friend that he will convey these observations to his right hon. Friend and ask him to go to the Chancellor himself and argue in favour of widows and not allowing them to have to bear the burden of maladministration by the War Office?
    Mr. Amery: I am sorry if there was any delay, but, as can be seen, we did take up the matter, and we were able to make the concession asked for. I am glad that we were able to do so, but the old rule was a recognised condition of
    1202
    service of the officers concerned, and there is, therefore, no queston of unfair treatment.
    Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the grossly unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a further statement on pensions for widows of officers and other ranks who by virtue of age have been unable to qualify for National Insurance pensions.
    Mr. Amery: I am afraid that I have nothing to add to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend on 12th March.
    Dame Irene Ward: In view of the fact that the Secretary of State and I have been in correspondence for quite a long time, and in view of the undertaking which the hon. Gentleman himself gave me in the debate on the Army Estimates, am I right in assuming that my right hon. Friend is negotiating with the Treasury? If so, will he be very firm with the Treasury? Further, can he say when he will receive a satisfactory reply to remedy the grievances of these really wretched widows for whom we have a responsibility?
    Mr. Amery: I am sure Friend will appreciate widows' pensions are an matter.
    Dame Irene Ward: Could I have an answer to my question? On a point
    of order, Mr. Speaker. Should I be in order in raising the two matters on the same Adjournment?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady can try, and, if she is in order, she may do so.

    Strategic Reserve (Mobility)
    Mr. Leaveyasked the Secretary of State for War if he is satisfied that the recent move of the 1st Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment to Aden adequately demonstrated the mobility of the Central Reserve; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amery: The battalion concerned is one of the units of the Strategic Reserve earmarked for internal security duties.

    1203
    Orders to move were issued on the evening of 11th April. On the 14th, the battalion was moved south from Yorkshire and the first troops left by air on the morning of the 15th.
    The move to Kenya was complete by 19th April, eight days after the original order was issued. By then, advanced elements had already been sent ahead to Aden.
    This move gives encouraging evidence of the readiness and mobility of the Strategic Reserve, and the flexibility of Transport Command.
    Mr. Leavey: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that encouraging Answer, but could he tell us why it is that this particular force was not delivered to its ultimate objective which was, presumably, Aden, and was staged, as I understand it, through Kenya?
    Mr. Amery: As I said in my Answer, the advance elements were already in Aden before the last elements of the battalion had reached Kenya; they were phased through as quickly as possible.
    Mr. Strachey: Will the Under-Secretary of State tell us what equipment was moved for this battalion, because it is not really so impressive unless most of its equipment was moved with it? Also, will he hesitate in claiming too much for the mobility of our Strategic Reserve out of the movement of a single battalion?
    Mr. Amery: I do not think that I am claiming too much. I am only saying that it is encouraging evidence in so far as it goes. Where the equipment is concerned, the troops involved took their own personal and light equipment but we had, of course, taken precautions to stockpile equipment in Aden.

    New Anti-Tank Weapon
    Mr. Wiggasked the Secretary of State for War when the heavy anti-tank recoilless weapon for infantry units, the Mobat, will be issued; how many pieces will be issued in the present financial year; and by what date all infantry units will be re-equipped with this weapon.
    Mr. Amery: Issues of this weapon have already begun and a substantial number will be supplied to the Army this year. It would not be in the public interest to give further details.
    Mr. Wigg: The hon. Gentleman will recollect that at the time of Suez it was found that the ammunition of the Mobat was deficient and, therefore, the Government had to steal American equipment to supply the Suez operation. Is he quite sure that this will not happen again?
    Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir. As my right hon. Friend said in his Estimates speech, the initial teething troubles of the Mobat have been overcome.
    Mr. Wigg: I take it that the teething troubles were ineffective ammunition. Is the Minister now satisfied that the ammunition is satisfactory?
    Mr. Amery: I repeat what I have said: the teething troubles have been overcome.

  POST OFFICE

    Wireless and Television Licences
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Postmaster-General if he will amend the regulations governing wireless licences so as to allow the holder of a television licence to surrender it, or to revert to a licence for sound radio only, and to obtain a rebate for the unexpired part of the period for which the television licence was issued.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): No, Sir.
    Mr. Johnson: May I ask my hon. Friend if it would be possible to allow rebates on these licences in the same way as they are allowed on motor-car licences? What is the particular difficulty?
    Mr. Thompson: There are two difficulties. The Wireless Telegraphy Act, under which the licences are issued, does not permit us to make rebates. Secondly, my right hon. Friend has to take into account the fact that there are about 15 million wireless licences in existence, and we have to keep the system for handling them as simple as possible.

    Letter Deliveries
    Mr. G. M. Thomsonasked the Postmaster-General at what time and on what day his Department posts letters at the General Post Office in London in order to be certain of delivery in Dundee on a Saturday morning.
    Mr. K. Thompson: The scheduled latest time of posting from the London Chief Office of the G.P.O. for Saturday delivery in Dundee is at present 3.30 p.m. on Friday. I am arranging to change this time to 5.0 p.m. in the near future; but the train carrying these mails is liable to run late, and those who wish to be certain that their correspondence will be delivered on Saturday morning should post by 1.15 p.m. With the British Transport Commission, we are doing all we can to get the running of the train improved and we are taking steps to minimise the effects of the late running on the delivery in Dundee.
    Mr. Thomson: Is the Minister aware that the only way I can be absolutely certain of getting a letter delivered in my constituency before the weekend is to post it on a Thursday afternoon? Is he further aware that the delay is due to the changing of the timetable of this train, apart from its late running, and that he will have the support of a very large number of people in Dundee if he will make really strong representations to go back to the original time of this train?
    Mr. Thompson: We are conducting negotiations with the British Transport Commission to try to find the best way of getting these mails through regularly.
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Postmaster-General at what time it is necessary to post letters in Westminster and central London for them to be delivered by the first post in Chigwell, Loughton, Buckhurst Hill and Chipping Ongar, respectively.
    Mr. K. Thompson: In street boxes generally by 7.30 p.m.; but there is a collection from selected street boxes at 9.0 p.m. connecting with the delivery, and also one at 9.30 p.m. from the main post offices. As my hon. Friend will know, mail has been delayed in London recently, but I am glad to say that there have been definite improvements in the last few days.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the Palace of Westminster one day last week before 5.0 p.m. I posted an urgent and important letter to a constituent in Chigwell and it was not delivered to my constituent before the afternoon of the following day? This sort of delay could be very serious. What
    1206
    is happening in the Post Office, because there are very disquieting reports, both at home and abroad, about these delays? May we be assured that full efficiency will be restored before very long?
    Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir. We are doing all we can to make sure that the high standard of the Post Office is restored as quickly as possible.
    Mr. C. R. Hobson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the concern about the delay in the delivery of mail in the London area? Will he personally, along with his right hon. Friend, go to the West Central Post Office to see if something can be done in that office?
    Mr. Thompson: We have been concerned for some days about the delays in deliveries in the London area. We are taking steps in consultation with the union, which has been very helpful, to try to get some misunderstandings that exist ironed out.

    Stamps
    Sir H. Lucas-Toothasked the Postmaster-General if he will now state what new denominations of stamps he proposes to issue and what existing denominations he proposes to discontinue, and when.
    Mr. K. Thompson: The only new denomination I have at present in mind to issue is the 4½d. stamp, which I mentioned in reply to my hon. Friend's Question on 4th December. I expect this stamp to be available in the autumn. I am considering whether any more new denominations are needed, and which of the existing denominations might be discontinued, but my inquiries are not yet complete. I will make an announcement about this as soon as I can.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: In considering the revision of denominations and new denominations, will the hon. Gentleman also consider the issue of a Burns stamp?
    Mr. Thompson: That matter is constantly before us.

    Collection of Letters (Search Fee)
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Postmaster-General whether he will reconsider his decision to charge a 6d. search fee when the public collect their letters on Saturday afternoons.
    Mr. K. Thompson: No, Sir.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this follows the taking away of the second delivery on Saturdays, which already must have meant a substantial economy? How much longer have the public to put up with increased charges and less efficient service?
    Mr. Thompson: These charges were announced by my right hon. Friend in the House last year, and so far as we can judge they seem to be working with reasonable smoothness and satisfaction.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Venom Aircraft
    Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for Air what aircraft will replace the Venom which acquitted itself so well in the recent action in the Aden Protectorate.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Charles Ian Orr-Ewing): I would endorse the tribute paid by the hon. Member to No. 8 Squadron, which has been carrying out its ground attack rôle in the Protectorate with considerable skill and accuracy. We are at present considering which aircraft will be the most suitable replacement for the Venom when the time comes. We plan during the summer to give operational trials in Aden to certain possible successors.
    Mr. Mason: I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for that reply. Can he say to what extent the Gnat fighter has been considered as a possible successor to the Venom?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: We are certainly giving serious consideration to that aircraft as one of several.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: May I ask my hon. Friend if what came out of yesterday's Air Ministry conference has any bearing on this Question? Is he aware that what a member of the Air Staff said yesterday was quite contrary to what was said by the Minister of Defence in all his White Papers? May we have some information on this matter?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: A number of matters were discussed in the course of the conference, but they were all within the framework of agreed Government policy. Some of the requirements discussed were for future weapons which were unlikely
    1208
    to be needed until the 1970s. In this context, some matters naturally arose which went rather beyond the time scale of existing Government decisions.

    Women's Royal Air Force
    Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for Air to what extent he is successfully pursuing his policy of accelerating the build-up of the Women's Royal Air Force, and increasing their contribution to the Royal Air Force; and what plans he has in mind to attract more women into the force.
    Mr. C. I. Orr-Ewing: In the first four months of this year the number of recruits was about the same as in the first four months of 1957. In the second part of this period there was an encouraging upward trend, which no doubt reflects the early results of the recent pay increases. The figures for April were 50 per cent. up on last year's. Resignations have been marginally down.
    The review of conditions of service which is being undertaken by the Grigg Committee, of course, extends to women as well as men. Meanwhile, we are stepping up publicity for the career which we are already able to offer. I am grateful to the hon. Member for the chance to emphasise once again the opportunities that are open to young women in the Service.
    Mr. Mason: Is that sufficient? What plans, or should I say, what sketches, has the hon. Gentleman in mind for glamourising the W.R.A.F. uniform? Has not he noticed the recent fashion trend towards shorter skirts? Would not the introduction of shorter skirts not only prove attractive to the W.R.A.F., but also provide a stimulus to R.A.F. recruiting as well?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's remark that perhaps a little more femininity in the uniform would prove an attraction, and we are, in fact, examining some concrete proposals, if I may use that term. I hope that that will effect the right result.
    Mr. de Freitas: Whatever figures the Under-Secretary looks at and studies in this connection, will he look at the recruiting figures of the R.A.F. as a whole for the last quarter, which reveal that the

    1209
    figures which showed the greatest shortage are not in skirts, but in the trades which women could carry out very well indeed—the administrative trades? This is a highly important point. Should not the hon. Gentleman emphasise W.R.A.F. recruiting for those trades?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: If I may make a serious reply, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are particularly anxious to attract new recruits for the Women's Royal Air Force in these trades, such as the radar operating and administrative trades.

  TRANSPORT

    Canals and Inland Waterways (Committee's Report)
    Mr. Grant-Ferrisasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the date on which he hopes to publish the Bowes Committee's Report on the Canals and Inland Waterways.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): We hope to receive the Report within the next few weeks. We will then arrange to have it printed and it should be available before the end of July.
    Mr. Grant-Ferris: Will my hon. Friend arrange to have the evidence printed separately? It would be rather too voluminous to have with the Report, but I certainly hope that it can be printed.
    Mr. Nugent: I will look into the question, but, as my hon. Friend apprehends, it would be very voluminous indeed.
    Mr. Strauss: As the Report has, no doubt, been in the hands of the Minister for some little time, will it be possible at the same time as the Report comes before us to publish any idea of the action that the Government propose to take in this matter?
    Mr. Nugent: We have not yet received the Report. In the interval before publication, we shall be considering what action should be taken and my right hon. Friend will, of course, make a statement at that time.

    Driving Tests (Booklet)
    Mrs. Mannasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that one examiner for driving tests in Lanarkshire carries addressed postcards to the publishers, Iliffe of London, which he gives to those who fail the test, and assures the L-drivers that, if they send this postcard for a book entitled "Methods of the Experts", they will then be able to pass their driving test; and if this is done with his authority.
    Mr. Nugent: All waiting rooms at driving test centres hold stocks of postcards which applicants can post to get a free copy of this booklet. It gives sound advice on riding a motor cycle, and the whole cost of this contribution to road safety is borne by Messrs. Iliffe & Sons Ltd., whose help I gratefully acknowledge.
    Mrs. Mann: Would I be wrong in suggesting, from the information supplied to me, that my constituent was asked 10s. 6d. for this book? Would that be correct?
    Mr. Nugent: It would not be normal practice, not south of the Border, anyhow. I shall be glad to see that he has a free copy if he wants one.

    Vehicle-Towing Ambulances (Court Judgment)
    Colonel Glynasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he has yet considered the implications of the remarks of the Lord Chief Justice of England in the Divisional Count in refusing the appeal of Harry George Shaw Wilkinson against a decision of the Appeal Committee of Dorset Quarter Sessions, which refused his appeal against a conviction for using a heavy-duty ambulance for cars, which did not comply with the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulation, 1955, made under the Road Traffic Act, 1930; and what steps he proposes to take to regularise the position.
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if his attention has been drawn to the confusion which has arisen by the decision of the court on the use of ambulances for towing vehicles away; and, as there are 10,000 of these vehicles performing useful public service, if he will introduce new regulations to make their use on the road legal.
    Mr. Nugent: We are studying the implications of this judgment, but we are not yet in a position to make any statement.
    Colonel Glyn: Is my hon. Friend aware that a great number of the civilian vehicles are recovered or rescued every month by means of these convenient appliances and that while there is doubt as to whether they can legally be used, the public will be put to considerable inconvenience? Will my hon. Friend speed up his consideration of the matter?
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir, I am very well aware that there are large numbers of these ambulances in use. I would, however, point out that the offence in this case was where the trailer was by itself being drawn behind the lorry from the garage. That is illegal in any event.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are now 10,000 vehicles out of commission by the decision of the court? As there is a gap in the Act of Parliament, will the Minister put it right as quickly as possible so that these vehicles can be put back on the road again?
    Mr. Nugent: We will certainly clarify the position as soon as we can. I should, however, like to make it plain to the House that the offence was due to the garage lorry pulling the ambulance trailer behind the lorry without another car on it. That is an offence. The normal practice is to carry the ambulance trailer on the lorry until the broken-down vehicle has been collected and put on top of it. It is, therefore, by no means certain that the normal use is illegal.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: Is not it a fact that the gap is not in the Act of Parliament, but in the Regulations made by the Minister under the Act, and that it can, therefore, be rectified as soon as the Minister makes up his mind what to do? Is not it also the case that, although the facts in the judgment were as my hon. Friend has stated, nevertheless until the matter is cleared up nobody knows whether it is legal or illegal to use these towing apparatuses with a car on them and that the whole use of these devices is in obeyance until my right hon. Friend's Department decides what to do?
    Mr. Nugent: I quite accept that it is an urgent matter. We will be as quick as we can in getting out a decision on it.

    Vehicles (Towing)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the regulations limiting the number of vehicles that can be drawn by one motor vehicle.
    Mr. Nugent: Subject to certain exceptions and exemptions a locomotive can draw three trailers, a motor tractor one laden trailer or two unladen, and a motor car or heavy motor car, one.
    Captain Pilkington: Is my hon. Friend aware that there seems to be an increasing number of these vehicles drawing sometimes even up to four vehicles behind them and that these road trains create complete chaos behind them for many miles? Will my hon. Friend reconsider the present position?
    Mr. Nugent: Those that my hon. and gallant Friend describes would, of course, be illegal.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: Is not that an indication that there are not enough enforcement officers?
    Mr. Nugent: I do not think so.

  ROADS

    Road Junction, Wembley
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware of the danger of accidents at the junction of Carlton Avenue West and The Fairway, Wembley; and if he will have one of these roads designated as a major road.
    Mr. Nugent: The signs at this junction are a matter for the local highway authority, which, I understand, is about to consider the matter.

    Repairs, Staines
    Mr. Headasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether, in view of the considerable delays and consequent loss of time to industry caused by three simultaneous areas of road repair in the bottleneck of Slough, he is satisfied that these repairs should proceed at normal hours of work and should not be treated as emergency repairs.
    Mr. Head: On a point of order. I wish to point out, Mr. Speaker, that the

    1213
    name "Slough" should have been "Staines". Perhaps the error was due to my own bad handwriting.
    Mr. Nugent: I am afraid I am not able to answer the Question to suit.
    No road repairs are at present in progress on the trunk or Class I roads in Slough.
    Mr. Head: About a fortnight ago, I had a written reply saying that the road repairs at Staines were being done at normal repair rates. Is not the loss of time that this bottleneck causes to industry such that it would immensely pay the economy to have the work done at urgent rates instead of normal rates?
    Mr. Nugent: My right hon. Friend will, I think, find that the arrangements we have made there will adequately meet the traffic needs.
    Mr. Head: No, they will not; that is the whole point. The arrangement at Staines is for normal rates. I felt that it should be at emergency rates.

    Hyde Park Gates (Traffic Congestion)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what arrangements he is making to decrease the traffic congestion outside the north-west and south-west gates of Hyde Park.
    Mr. Nugent: Permanent alterations at these gates must wait until the effect of the Park Lane Improvement Scheme has been observed, but we are discussing with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Works the possibility of making some minor easements that would help better traffic flow.
    Captain Pilkington: In view of the fact that the present small temporary roundabout at the north-west entrance to the Park has eased the traffic, is there any reason why there should be any further delay before something similar is done at the south-west entrance?
    Mr. Nugent: These alterations need very careful consideration to ensure that they cause benefit and not more congestion. I assure my hon. and gallant Friend that we are considering the matter urgently.

    Land (Acquisition)
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he is taking to shorten the present period usually required for designating and acquiring land needed to widen existing roads or build new ones.
    Mr. Nugent: The necessary procedure has already been speeded up as far as is practicable and to go further could only be at the expense of reducing the rights of those who may be affected. I do not think that would be justified, particularly when it is borne in mind that the time taken to acquire land is not a vital factor provided it is possible to plan sufficiently far ahead, which we are doing.
    Captain Pilkington: Has my hon. Friend studied the recommendations of the British Road Federation published recently, and does he consider that these are helpful?
    Mr. Nugent: Sometimes.
    Sir P. Agnew: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that, whilst the arrangements for acquiring land may have been speeded up, the arrangements for the terms on which it is acquired are not altogether satisfactory, and that in particular his right hon. Friend does not pay promptly for the land that he does so compulsorily acquire?
    Mr. Nugent: That is a matter which is under consideration by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government.

    Berkeley Avenue—Bath Road, Cranford
    Mr. Hunterasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (1) how many road accidents have occurred at the junction of Berkeley Avenue with Bath Road, Cranford, since the application of the 40 miles-per-hour speed limit; and what is the number of deaths involved;
    (2) in view of the recent fatal accidents at the Berkeley Avenue pedestrian crossing, Bath Road, Cranford, if he will take steps to install traffic signals, or take other measures for the safety of local residents.
    Mr. Nugent: Three accidents, in which two persons were killed, have occurred at this junction since a 40 m.p.h. speed

    1215
    limit was imposed. A pedestrian subway is the right answer at this junction and we intend to build one when dual carriageways are constructed on this part of the Bath road. Work should start before the end of this year.
    Mr. Hunter: While thanking the Minister for the long-term policy, may ask him to endeavour to help the local residents now, by giving full consideration to their proposals for traffic signals at the junction of Berkeley Avenue with the Bath Road, Cranford?
    Mr. Nugent: We have considered carefully the possibility of putting traffic signals there. I am satisfied that they would not, on balance, help road safety there. The information I have given to the House this afternoon is not a long-term proposal. This work will be started before the end of the year; and that really is the answer to safe crossing.
    Mr. Hunter: While agreeing that the subway is the long-term policy, I would point out that these two deaths have caused great alarm and concern at Cranford. Is the Minister aware that there is a big agitation for the provision of traffic lights? If the Minister would consider the proposal, I should be grateful.
    Mr. Nugent: I will certainly look at the proposal again, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that we have already considered it very carefully.

    Repairs, Central London
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what action he is taking to minimise traffic congestion in central London while road repairs are being completed.
    Mr. Nugent: In accordance with the London Traffic Act, 1924, after the advice of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee has been obtained, the starting dates of the major road resurfacing and repair works of local authoties in the London Traffic Area are coordinated at intervals of six months. Statutory undertakers must comply with the provisions of the Public Utilities Street Works Act, 1950, which permits the highway authority to control the starting date, and requires advance notice to be given to the police.
    1216
    All possible action is taken by the local authorities and the police to minimise the delay and congestion which such works inevitably cause.
    Mr. Lipton: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary say which expert in the art of disruption decided that Holborn and the Strand should be dug up at the same time? Was not it quite crazy to add this almost insuperable handicap to the already difficult traffic congestion
    which prevails in central London? Is there any real co-ordination despite all the Statutes and authorities to which the hon. Gentleman referred in his reply?
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir; as far as possible these activities are co-ordinated. The Strand work has had the additional complication of Metropolitan Water Board work which had not been entirely phased in with the other work.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    Ministry Staff (Air Transport Operators)
    Mr. Mikardoasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many members of his staff also fly, or carry out other work, for air transport operators for hire or reward.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Airey Neave): Eight members of my right hon. Friend's staff have flown as pilots in their own time during the past year for air transport operators.
    Mr. Mikardo: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that it is a little doubtful whether officers of his Department, who sometimes have to make decisions favouring one operator against another, should be employed, even in their own time, by some of these operators? Will he consider whether, in the public interest, this practice ought to be stopped?
    Mr. Neave: We are having a full review made of the operations which these employees are carrying out and we will certainly bear in mind whether they conflict with the duties of these people in the way that the hon. Member suggests. In principle, I should not have thought it objectionable that they should get a certain amount of flying practice which would bring them up to date in operational matters.

    Prestwick Airport (Reconstruction)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that the local authorities concerned in the reconstruction at Prestwick Airport are strongly in favour of a tunnel under the main runway; and if he will take note of their views on this and other aspects of the proposed alterations.
    Mr. Neave: Yes, Sir. Our Controller of Ground Services met representatives of the local authorities last week to hear their views on these matters.
    Mr. Rankin: Then is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that at that conference the local authorities were unanimous in their view that the road should be tunnelled under the western end of the main runway, and that there should also be a rail link? In view of the great interest in this redevelopment which is shown in Scotland, will the hon. Gentleman pay every attention to the views of the local authorities?
    Mr. Neave: Yes, Sir, I certainly will. I am aware that there are strong feelings in favour of a tunnel.

  SHIPPING

    British Ships (Registration)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will make a statement on the principle and organisation which govern the registration of British ships, and also on the number and kind of ships which have hitherto applied, and which are now applying, for registration by the British Ship Classification Society, Lloyd's Register of Shipping.
    Mr. Neave: The qualifications for ownership of British ships, the obligation to register them, and the procedure involved, are set out in Part I of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1894. Registration under the Act is a function of Government. Lloyd's Register of Shipping is not concerned.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that a certain foreign country which has never hitherto applied for such registration has so applied? Can he explain what advantage such a country can expect from the registration applied for?
    Mr. Neave: The hon. and learned Member must distinguish between registration under the Merchant Shipping Acts and classification under Lloyd's Register, which caters for ships of all flags in this respect. As far as the advantage is concerned, I must make it quite clear that ships classified by Lloyd's Register, including those sailing under flags of convenience, are required to conform to safety standards in exactly the same way as ships registered elsewhere.

    World Tonnage (Commonwealth Proportion)
    Mr. Peytonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what percentage of the total gross registered tonnage in the world now flies the Red Ensign; and what was the comparable figure in the years 1908, 1938, and 1948.
    Mr. Neave: The Commonwealth proportion of total gross tonnage in the world was 22 per cent. in 1957. The corresponding percentages for 1908, 1938 and 1948 were 49 per cent., 31 per cent., and 27 per cent., respectively.
    Mr. Peyton: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the figures which he has just given to the House reveal an alarming and dangerous tendency; that it would be intolerable if the Government, and indeed this House, should not determine now to take action to check and reverse that tendency? May I ask him particularly if he would agree that the time has come when a committee should be set up, representing all interested Government Departments, to give this matter the urgent attention it deserves?
    Mr. Neave: As my hon. Friend knows, the Prime Minister answered him on this matter on 1st May, and what was said then is under very serious consideration. I would point out that the Commonwealth merchant fleet has, of course, increased in size during the period in question and that the decline is a relative one. However, the Government naturally desire to see this trend reversed and wish the British merchant fleet to prosper and expand, and these matters have our very careful attention.

    Oil Pollution
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the latest position with regard to the ratification by

    1219
    other countries of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil.
    Mr. Neave: The Convention has been ratified by ten countries and comes into force on 26th July next.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Are there any maritime Powers that use our ports which have not yet signed the Convention?
    Mr. Neave: Yes, indeed, there are. I have not any information about their ratification, but soon after the Convention comes into force it is proposed to approach them to see what can be done towards getting them also to ratify.
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is satisfied that the recent Regulations he has made under the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1955, are adequate to prevent the discharge of oil in the sea near the coasts and the consequent fouling of beaches, and danger to sea birds and shell fish; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Neave: The Act and the Regulations my right hon. Friend has made under it have had good results and oil pollution of our coasts is much less than it was. Outside territorial waters, however, my right hon. Friend can only regulate ships registered in the United Kingdom, and there should be a further improvement when the 1954 Convention is in force. We shall continue to watch progress closely.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Are foreign oil-burning and carrying vessels which use our ports equipped with oil separators?
    Mr. Neave: I should like notice of that question. We in this country are, of course, doing a great deal in that respect.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Strategic Reserve (Mobility)
    Sir J. Hutchisonasked the Minister of Defence what plans he has evolved for providing for the mobility of a strategic reserve; and to what extent this includes provision for the movement of equipment and supporting weapons as well as men.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Duncan Sandys): These plans were described in paragraphs 40 and 41 of this year's
    1220
    Defence White Paper. They provide for the movement of both troops and equipment.
    Sir J. Hutchison: Is my right hon. Friend confident that the stockpiles of heavy equipment are likely to be near enough to the scene of operations to be able to be moved by existing short-range heavy freighters? Further, is he confident that, in such war areas as Korea, we will be able to have long, permanent runways of the kind required by the Britannia?
    Mr. Sandys: I hope we shall not have any more operations in Korea for the time being. As regards the storage of equipment, I have already explained to the House that in addition to providing for the transportation of a certain amount of equipment, either by air or in the case of very heavy equipment by sea, we are planning to keep supplies of heavy equipment at certain focal points, and from there to transport them, where necessary, by Beverley aircraft, which I am glad to say are giving very great satisfaction.
    Mr. G. Brown: But in view of the short range and limited lift capacity of the existing Beverley, can the right hon. Gentleman explain the curious reluctance to come to an agreement about, and to order a successor to, the Beverley aircraft?
    Mr. Sandys: That is a wider issue. One is always considering further equipment problems for the future, but I must say I am pleased with the performance of the Beverley. Provided that equipment can be stored at these various focal points, the distances involved are not so great, as the right hon. Gentleman will see if he will study them.

    Missiles (Design and Manufacture)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister Defence to what extent the missiles to be operated by the Royal Air Force and the other Services will be of British design or manufacture; and what principles he applies in deciding whether British design or manufacture is preferable to allied design or manufacture.
    Mr. Sandys: With the exception of Thor and Corporal, the two American missiles, the missiles now planned for Her Majesty's Forces are of British manufacture and predominantly of British design. As regards the future, account

    1221
    will be taken of technical advances and of the desirability of extending co-operation with our Allies.
    Mr. de FreitasIs not it highly desirable that the chief consideration in N.A.T.O. should be that countries should use the best equipment for the job which is produced in the area, having regard, of course, to costs and delivery dates? If that is so, why should we accept the missiles which the right hon. Gentleman has just mentioned, which are widely regarded as obsolete and involve us in heavy expenditure?
    Mr. Sandys: I agree broadly with the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, that what we want is the best that is available, taking into account costs and other military factors. I do not understand what better missile is available in the area. I do not know of any better one. It is the first generation of this type of meidum-range missile, and I believe it will be an effective one. We should certainly not have made this arrangement with the United States unless our experts and their experts had come to the conclusion that the missile would be a valuable addition to the Western deterrent.

PARLIAMENTARY PRIVILEGE ACT, 1770 (JUDICIAL COMMITTEE'S REPORT)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council this morning read in open court the Report on the question of law concerning the Parliamentary Privilege Act, 1770, which the House asked Her Majesty to refer to the Committee last December. The Queen in Council has considered the Report and has commanded me to communicate it to the House.
The Report, which is already available in the Vote Office, expresses the opinion that the House would not be acting contrary to the Parliamentary Privilege Act, 1770, if it treated the issue of a writ against a Member of Parliament in respect of a speech or proceeding by him in Parliament as a breach of its privileges.
Mr. Gaitskell: While expressing satisfaction at this opinion because it will
1222
facilitate the further work of the Committee of Privileges on this difficult subject, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is his intention that the Committee should meet again in the near future, or that there should first be a debate in the House on the Report which has already been published?
Mr. Butler: I refreshed my memory as to what I had said in moving that the question that was referred should be referred to the Judicial Committee. I said at that time that the House would be free to decide what it wished to do. The Government are, of course, free to table a Motion that this matter be referred back to the Committee of Privileges, but it occurred to me that it would be better to allow a little time for hon. Members to read this Report and for the Government and myself, as the Leader of the House, to consider it before we decided on any specific action. In so far as it goes, I think that we are glad to welcome the Report of the Judicial Committee, but I think we should all be very glad to have time to consider it before any of us decide to table a Motion or take any other particular action.
Mr. H. Morrison: Presumably this will not prejudice the right of the House further to consider the Report of the Committee of Privileges or the right of the Committee of Privileges further to consider its own Report in the light of the Report from the Judicial Committee. I hope that the statement by the Leader of the House does not in any way prejudice our rights on what is an important matter which concerns not only the House, but the rights of private individuals outside.
Mr. Butler: I can give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that this is entirely without prejudice to the questions that he has raised and the liberties that he has espoused. I considered whether I should be right today to add at the end of my statement that the matter would be referred back to the Committee of Privileges, but I thought that that would be premature, because right hon. and hon. Members would wish to consider the matter before any action whatever was taken. This leaves the House the utmost opportunity. If the House desires the question to be resumed by the Committee of Privileges, it can always take the opportunity of making its voice felt.
Mr. Ede: When will the right hon. Gentleman be able to tell us how much it has cost to prove that the advice tendered to the Committee of Privileges by the Attorney-General was wrong?
Mr. Butler: I should prefer to have a little time before I gave the exact expenses. The Report is now in the Vote Office for hon. Members to read. If the right hon. Gentleman wishes, I will do my best to find out.
In relation to the right hon. Gentleman's other observation. I should merely like to hold the ring by saying that, having read all these papers—in passing, I might say that the pleadings will be found in the Library—I think there is a legitimate opportunity for difference of opinion, and that while the right hon. Gentleman has very strong, dignified and traditional feelings, other people are entitled to their opinions as well.
Sir G. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the decision of the Judicial Committee will be greeted with some consternation by the general public as being a dangerous extension of the privileges of this House? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Will my right hon. Friend not be precipitate in taking definite steps formally to enshrine that extension of Privilege in the rules and accepted procedures of the House without sounding opinion more generally?
Mr. Butler: I am indebted to my hon. Friend for putting that point, because it enables me to say that the Report from the Judicial Committee relates only to a comparatively small, though important, point, namely, the interpretation of the 1770 Act, and that it does not raise, as their Lordships are careful to point out in the latter part of their Report, many of
1224
the more controversial points upon which the Committee of Privileges itself animadverted. The Report relates only to a comparatively small point.
Mr. E. Fletcher: I welcome the Report of the Judicial Committee in view of the great importance of this matter, but may we have an assurance from the Leader of the House that, whether or not he thinks it necessary that the Committee of Privileges should be reconvened, there will be no undue delay in giving the House an opportunity of considering the matter?
Mr. Butler: I do not think that there will be an opportunity before Whitsun, nor should there be an opportunity, I think, before we have considered the Report. Let us agree to discuss the matter through the usual channels. As it is a matter involving all hon. Members, perhaps any Member who feels interested would take the opportunity to inform me of his views.
Mr. Gaitskell: Without expressing an opinion on whether there should be a debate first, was not the Report of the Committee of Privileges an interim one and will it not be essential for the Committee to meet again to clear all points still outstanding?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. The Committee kept itself free to meet again if it were so desired.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Proceedings on the Local Government Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (RE-COMMITTED) BILL
  Considered in Committee. [Progress, 6th May.]

  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

  First Schedule.—(GENERAL GRANTS.)

  Amendment proposed: In page 46, line 34, leave out "12. The foregoing paragraphs do", and insert:

  PART II

  EXCLUSIONS FROM RELEVANT EXPENDITURE

  1. Paragraph 1 of Part I of this Schedule does not include expenditure incurred—

  5

  (a) in connection with the provision of milk for pupils in attendance at schools maintained by local education authorities or for full-time students under eighteen years in attendance at establishments for further education maintained or assisted by such authorities or in receipt of grant from the Minister of Education, or the provision of milk in pursuance of arrangements made under section seventy-eight of the Education Act, 1944;

  10

  (b) in connection with the provision of main mid-day meals for day pupils in attendance at schools maintained by such authorities or the provision of such meals in pursuance of arrangements made under the said section seventy-eight or in pursuance of section eighty-one of that Act;

  15

  (c) in the removal of works constructed for the purposes of air-raid precautions or of temporary works constructed for defence purposes by or on behalf of the Secretary of State, the Admiralty or the Minister of Home Security in pursuance of Regulation fifty or fifty-one of the Defence (General) Regulations, 1939, or by agreement, or in the reinstatement of premises so far as it is rendered necessary by any such removal; or

  20

  (d) in pursuance of a scheme under section ten of the Employment and Training Act, 1948.

  2. Paragraph 3 of Part I of this Schedule does not include expenditure incurred in the performance of functions imposed under section two of the Civil Defence Act, 1948.

  25

  3. Paragraph 4 of Part I of this Schedule does not include expenses incurred in the management of approved schools or in respect of children sent to approved schools or in respect of remand homes.

  30

  4.—(1) Sub-paragraph (1) (a) of paragraph 5 of Part I of this Schedule does not include expenditure incurred in connection with the acquisition of land for the redevelopment as a whole of areas of extensive war damage, or for the relocation of population or industry, or
  the replacement of open space, in the course of such redevelopment.

  (2) Sub-paragraph (1) (d) of the said paragraph 5 does not include expenditure incurred in connection with the payment of compensation in respect of land acquired by virtue of section nineteen of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1947.

  35

  (3) Sub-paragraphs (1) (d) and (e) of the said paragraph 5 do not include the payment of compensation in respect of land of the National Coal Board to which the Fifth Schedule to the said Act of 1947 applies by virtue of regulations under section ninety of that Act, or in connection with the taking of any action under sections twenty-four to twenty-six of that Act in respect of such land of the National Coal Board.

  40

  (4) The said sub-paragraphs (1) (d) and (e) do not include expenditure incurred in connection with the payment of compensation under section twenty-six of the said Act of 1947, or the taking of action under that section, in respect of land in a National Park or area of outstanding natural beauty (within the meaning of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949) or any such expenditure as, under subsection (7) of section ninety-seven of the said Act of 1949, is to be treated for the purposes of that section as expenditure under the said section twenty-six and do not include expenditure in connection with the payment of compensation under tree-preservation orders under section twenty-eight of the said Act of 1947 in respect of such land as aforesaid.

  45

  50

  (5) The said paragraph 5 does not include expenditure incurred in connection with the acquisition of any building excepted by direction of the Minister as being a building of outstanding historical or architectural interest, or the carrying out of any work of restoration, repair, maintenance or adaptation on or in the case of such a building.

  (6) Sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) of the said paragraph 5 shall apply in relation to this paragraph as they apply in relation to that paragraph.

  5. Part I of this Schedule does.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Question, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule, put and negatived.
  Question again proposed, That the proposed words be there inserted.
  3.38 p.m.
  Mr. W. E. Wheeldon: I beg to move as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 29, after "damage", to insert:
  "or comprehensive re-development in accordance with a development plan".
  The Amendment moved by the Minister last night has, generally, the effect of stating what items of local government expenditure are to be regarded as excluded from the operation of the general grant. There is a reference in paragraph (4) to areas of extensive war damage. Our Amendment seeks to continue a specific grant on a rather wider basis. We want to include not merely areas of extensive war damage, but the areas described in the Town and Country Planning Act as areas of bad lay-out and obsolete development.
  This matter was argued in the Standing Committee, when the Minister stated his opinion. However, we regard it as of such importance that we want to bring to the Minister's attention not only those arguments which we deployed in Standing Committee, but additional arguments in the hope that he will reconsider the matter and change his opinion.
  Areas of bad lay-out and obsolete development are comparatively few. There are not many local authorities which have substantial areas with which they have already dealt, or which they are in the process of redeveloping under the Town and Country Planning Acts. However, for those few areas, the matter is very serious, because of the financial liabilities which those authorities have already undertaken.
  In Standing Committee, the right hon. Gentleman sought to dismiss that argument by quoting some figures. He said that the amount of grant for the current financial year for this kind of development amounted to £40,000. I have no reason to doubt the Minister's figures, but even if they are correct they show that not many local authorities are concerned with extensive redevelopment of this kind. That in itself is an argument for excluding this work from the provisions of the general grant.
  1228
  The figures also show that not many local authorities need large-scale redevelopment of this kind. It should also be borne in mind that the figure of £40,000 is not a criterion of what may ultimately be involved in these schemes. Although only a few, these schemes are fairly large and take a fairly long time to mature.
  This expenditure is not of a kind generally applicable to local authorities and there is no uniformity among local authorities. I emphasise that only a few local authorities are involved by pointing out that in the current financial year the City of Birmingham alone had a grant of £28,000 under this head. That shows that the remaining authorities were very few and that their schemes were comparatively small.
  The Minister also said that this type of expenditure was likely in future to be greatly extended and to become widespread. That may or may not be correct, but if it is, that is no consolation to those local authorities who have already committed themselves to heavy capital expenditure. They committed themselves expecting to get grants of approximately 50 per cent. of the net annual loss of their schemes, as provided in the Town and Country Planning Acts.
  The right hon. Gentleman also said that expenditure on redevelopment would be taken into account in the general grant. However, the amount to be received by, say, Birmingham, would be only a small fraction of its total annual liability. The right hon. Gentleman claimed that the rate deficiency grant, a new feature under the Bill and replacing the old equalisation grant, would be tailored, to use his expression, to meet relative needs.
  As the Minister has so often reminded us, the figures in the White Paper are completely hypothetical and there is no guarantee that an individual local authority will receive a rate deficiency grant. On the basis of these proposals, many large local authorities will not receive such a grant—Bristol, Coventry, Leicester and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for example.
  3.45 p.m.
  I emphasise that there is no element in the general grant to reflect the different financial liabilities of individual local

  1229
  authorities in respect of redevelopment. The Minister's argument on that issue cannot be sustained. For example, let us take two local authorities with the same basic statistics, that is to say, the same population, the same number of children, and the same expenditure. That is not likely to happen in practice, but I use that as an illustration.
  Let us assume that one of those authorities has a very heavy financial commitment in respect of redevelopment, while the other has no financial commitment of that kind. Each authority will receive precisely the same grant. How can the Minister possibly regard that as being fair to those local authorities already heavily committed to redevelopment schemes because of the initiative which they have taken under planning legislation?
  I can illustrate that still further by giving an example with which I am well acquainted, that of Birmingham. In the city, we have a redevelopment scheme on which we have spent £7 million up to 31st January this year. The right hon. Gentleman said that Birmingham had acquired only a very small proportion of land which it wished to redevelop. I am not sure from where he got that information, but it is incorrect. Birmingham has already acquired 981 acres, a substantial area, for its redevelopment scheme. The area includes 28,000 houses and 5,500 other properties of various kinds. The money has been spent and was spent because we thought that we would get a 50 per cent. grant.
  The present annual loss falling on the rate fund because of that scheme is comparatively small. That is because, as with other schemes of this kind, costs accumulate very gradually. Nevertheless, within a few years the net annual loss falling on the Birmingham rate fund will be approximately £500,000. I emphasise that Birmingham cannot go back on that commitment. The money has been spent and was spent in the belief that there would be a grant of 50 per cent.
  The Minister said, in reply, that this was a matter entirely for the discretion of local authorities, but how can there be discretion on matters on which the local authority is already committed? That piece of advice from the right hon. Gentleman has been received very badly
  1230
  in Birmingham. Moreover, the policy
  which would have to be carried out if the Bill goes through in its present form is entirely contrary to that in the Town and Country Planning Act. The basis of that Act was that it should be possible to develop land in central urban areas in the public interest without over-regard to financial considerations. The Act recognises that there must be substantial losses in redevelopment of this kind and therefore provision was made for substantial grants.
  These grants are to be withheld under the Bill, but that course of action is completely unjustified and is putting a burden on Birmingham that it ought not to have to bear. It is part and parcel of the policy advocated by the Government. I believe that there is an outstanding case for taking special expenditure of this kind outside the general grant. I hope that the Minister, even at this late stage, will agree to reconsider the matter and do justice to Birmingham and other local authorities which have development schemes of this kind.
  Mrs. Joyce Butler: I support the Amendment from a slightly different viewpoint from that of my hon. Friend, that is from the point of view of local authorities who have made plans for the redevelopment of comprehensive areas but who have not yet been committed to undertake that work.
  I would remind the Minister that it is now twenty years since the outbreak of the last war and during that time it has hardly been possible for any local authority to do very much about obsolete lay-out within its boundaries. The war years were a period of complete inactivity, while the postwar period has been busy with reconstruction, urgent housing, and matters of that kind. Several local authorities within my own knowledge have, in the last few years, been surveying areas, drawing up plans for redevelopment and going through all the stages necessary for the scheduling of an area of comprehensive development. This takes a considerable time, especially when the authority is not a large county borough.
  Reading the Report of the Standing Committee which examined the Bill, I thought that the Minister seemed to be under the impression that most of the authorities undertaking development of

  1231
  this kind were the large county boroughs, but I think he will find, if he looks more closely at the matter, that in the large conurbations there are non-county boroughs and other smaller authorities who are initiating these development schemes. These authorities have, first, to decide on the appropriate areas and to make all the preliminary plans, then they have to gain the approval of the county council before having the proposals included in the county development plan. Then there is usually a local inquiry, and, finally, the Minister's approval has to be obtained.
  Some authorities are now at the point where they have their plans complete and are only waiting for the Minister's approval to begin the redevelopment of such areas. Unless the Minister is prepared to look at our suggestion, and to make a special grant, some of those authorities may feel that they cannot go on with their redevelopment. The Minister must decide whether he wants such redevelopment to be undertaken. If he does, he must do something about it financially.
  We are very proud of the landscape of this country and we are, therefore, anxious to remove some of the blots that still disfigure our large industrial and urban areas. Local authorities are carrying out plans which are in the national as well as the local interest. It was very truly said, when the word "blighted" was coined for such areas, that they were a blight on the landscape. There is thus more than a mere local responsibility. Local authorities have undertaken a national responsibility.
  The Minister must realise that there is always pressure upon local authorities not to spend money on this kind of thing. The result of such work undertaken by local authorities may not be immediately apparent. It may be years before the full benefit is received, either locally or by the public as a whole. This is long-term planning, while there is constant pressure upon local authorities that they should not do anything which does not produce results immediately.
  I come back to the point I made earlier, about the twenty years in which very little of this work was done. When an area is ripe for redevelopment it will deteriorate rapidly unless redevelopment
  1232
  is undertaken. When the general grant comes into operation there appears to be no method by which the county council receiving it can allocate it to particular authorities in the older parts of the county which need redevelopment and not in the newer parts, which do not.
  Unless the Minister accepts the Amendment or proposes something very similar, local authorities will be exposed to all kinds of local pressures not to do the kind of work I have been describing, and will get cold feet. They will say, "We cannot go on with this work. We shall have to give up the idea altogether."
  The right hon. Gentleman knows the importance of the human problem. I would remind him that where plans have been made to carry out development and an inquiry has been held, the factory owners, small shopkeepers and house dwellers have become accustomed to the idea of redevelopment and have adapted their lives accordingly. If a scheme is suddenly withdrawn, many of them will be put in considerable difficulty.
  4.0 p.m.
  Having adjusted their lives to the idea of something completely new, they will now find that no development is to take place after all. The plans they have made to adjust themselves to a new situation have to be remade and they have to replan their lives. That leads to a great deal of upset for people. It also leads to local authorities being accused of shilly-shallying. People ask why the local authority cannot make up its mind on a project. In my own area, there is a considerable development plan in Wood Green and big development plans in the adjoining Borough of Tottenham.
  Other adjoining authorities have plans for redevelopment to put into operation as soon as they get approval from the Minister. They are looking to him for an indication that if they go ahead and have to face considerable losses, he will give them some financial assistance. Whether that is to be done through the form of this Amendment or not remains for the right hon. Gentleman to say. I hope that he will realise that this is not a minor problem, but a major one and that it is his responsibility, as Minister, to assist authorities which are trying to do their job in town planning.
  Mr. David Jones: I want to raise a special matter relating to

  1233
  West Hartlepool and the development
  of its town centre. A plan was submitted to the Ministry early in 1951. It is an extensive plan, so extensive that the then Minister wrote, on 9th November, 1951, a letter to the town council in which he said:
  "… it is clear that for a town of the size of West Hartlepool a movement of the shopping area will be a very large undertaking and that the cost might prove very heavy. This will largely depend on the care with which the financial and estate management aspects of the project are taken into account by the council."
  The council considered that and, also, the offer of the Minister to provide technical assistance from the officers of his Department. The plan was considered and substantially altered. An amendment to the original plan was submitted to the Minister on 18th March, 1957. It comes within the direct ambit of the present occupant of that office. As his predecessor, now the Prime Minister, rightly recognised in 1951, this is a substantial project. The fact that he adopted it at all, with this proviso, showed that he regarded it as an improvement which was desirable and necessary for the lay-out of the centre of the town.
  The right hon. Gentleman also recognised that it would be a fairly substantial undertaking for an authority of that size. It is obvious that, unless the authority can get some special assistance towards this project, the fact that the Minister now proposes that there shall be a block grant will probably deter the authority from proceeding with the scheme. It will alter the whole attitude of the authority towards this project. If he remembers the case at all, the Minister will probably recall that the scheme is estimated to cost the authority £1½ million. For an authority with a population of 70,000, if nothing is done to help with this type of scheme there will be a temptation to abandon it altogether. There is a case for a special examination of these problems of local authorities.
  If West Hartlepool had not been persuaded
  by the Minister's predecessor, now the Prime Minister, to review this matter, the probability is that the scheme would have been embarked on much earlier. It would have been well under way now and the Government would have been committed to meeting their share of the cost on the basis of the regulations made in 1950. There seems
  1234
  to be a special responsibility on the Minister in this case. I plead with him to look at the matter again. If he cannot make a general alteration, I ask him to consider particular cases where, as a result of advice tendered by himself or his predecessors, delay has occurred and where, if nothing is done, such authorities will be penalised as a result of taking ministerial advice.
  Mrs. Harriet Slater: I add my plea that the Minister should reconsider his present proposals and accept this Amendment to his Amendment. North Staffordshire—in particular, Stoke-on-Trent—comprises an area which has grown up, not as Arnold Bennett said, into five towns, but into six towns. The area has no centre such as those of Birmingham, Sheffield and similar cities. Stoke-on-Trent is a long, narrow area and there is a shopping centre in Hanley and in other towns.
  Stoke-on-Trent has been considering its redevelopment plan over a number of years. We have had advice from eminent people and the local authority's committees have gone to great trouble to discuss redevelopment with a view to making it much more convenient for those who live in the area, more convenient for shopping interests, for overcoming transport difficulties and for developing industry. Our industry has grown quite differently from that of Lancashire or the engineering industry. In days gone by our industry was developed round a family and, consequently, we have an almost haphazard development.
  Only last month the local authority called together the pottery industry. The Federation of Master Potters met the Stoke-on-Trent General Purposes and the Planning Committees to discuss how best they could co-operate over the re-development plan. We are at the stage at which the local authority has persuaded the industry in the interests of another matter in which the right hon. Gentleman is concerned—that of clean air—to go ahead with development for modernising factories so that they may comply with clean air regulations.
  We have met together to consider how frontages to the main roads to the city may be made to fit in with a general plan and have some semblance of beauty even though they are concerned with industry. Having reached this stage, and

  1235
  got the Minister to agree to our redevelopment scheme, having got industry almost married to the idea of giving co-operation, mainly through the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross), we hope we can encourage shopkeepers to do something about replanning and beautifying their shops.
  It would be a great pity if, because of the recommendations of the Minister and in the interests of matters such as education, care of the old and of children which the local authority has to consider, we had to abandon this work on which we have been engaged for most of the time since the war. We would then have to carry on in a haphazard manner and, perhaps in five or ten years, the local authority then dealing with the problem would be blamed for not developing the area in a planned and orderly way.
  I ask the Minister to look at this matter in the interests not merely of economy, but of good planning for the country as a whole. Then people will be able to live in a planned area and housing, shopping, transport and industry may have a plan which will benefit those living there now and who will do so in the future.
  Mr. J. A. Sparks: The decision of the Minister to withdraw, apparently permanently, grants under the Town and Country Planning Acts for the comprehensive redevelopment of badly laid out and obsolescent areas is one of the most reactionary features of the Bill. It will make complete and absolute nonsense of the major part of development plans which local planning authorities are under an obligation to prepare and submit to the Minister for approval. Many local planning authorities have already submitted plan's and the Minister has approved of quite a number of them.
  It was found necessary to request the planning authorities to prepare development plans, not because those authorities had nothing to do and were looking for work, but because it was considered by the State and this House that something should be done to repair errors of development which had accrued in our towns and cities over long periods—in some cases hundreds of years—and to improve the condition, siting, lay-out and amenities of great towns and cities. Development plans have a special importance
  1236
  for old towns and cities, although they are not of so much importance in rural areas. Precisely in those areas development plans were intended to be realistic and to be carried out in due course by local authorities.
  4.15 p.m.
  From the local authority point of view, this comprehensive redevelopment is a costly business, because land values are usually fairly high. Where there is the greatest need for redevelopment under the planning Acts we find that land values are comparatively higher than elsewhere. When local authorities have to acquire these sites and demolish the structures upon them, the land has to be acquired at a fairly high valuation.
  There is also the cost of demolishing the structures to make way for redevelopment of the area. The Government have contributed by way of grant 50 per cent. of the net loss on the acquisition of the land and the cost of demolition. Without that grant, I am quite sure that most local authorities which have already made a start on this kind of redevelopment would not have been able to do so, because the financial burden would have been far too great for them. They now find themselves cut off in the middle of this process of comprehensive redevelopment.
  I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes the view that it is not necessary to redevelop these areas now. He will advance all sorts of reasons—the poverty and difficulty of the times, and so on—and he will give the impression that it is not immediately necessary to do this work, but that it could be done in ten, fifteen, or twenty years' time. That is a very reactionary way of looking at the problem, because many of these obsolescent and badly laid out areas are as near slums as we will find anywhere, without being technically designated slums. Indeed, within ten, fifteen or twenty years they will be slums of that time.
  Mr. Philip Bell: If most of the houses are slums, surely the authority would not pay much money for them, and would pay only for the site value. I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman assumes that if the grants are removed no work would be done, because I thought—perhaps I am wrong—that

  1237
  when the general grant is settled the possibility of future planning under the planning Acts will be taken into account. Am I wrong?
  Mr. Sparks: I think that the hon. and learned Member is wrong. We are not talking about slum clearance. This is quite another matter—that of comprehensive redevelopment under the Town and Country Planning Acts, slum clearance schemes are initiated under the housing Acts.
  In these obsolescent and badly laid out areas we have the potential slums—the dwellings that will be slums in five, ten, fifteen or twenty years. Let us create, for instance, a picture of the kind of area that we are now talking about. In the main, these areas contain houses, in some cases—I was going to say—hundreds of years old, and I dare say that is true of a good many of them. In the course of time, in many of these areas, dwellings have been bought by industrialists and other persons interested in industrial and commercial development, and these houses have been converted to industrial or commercial use.
  In my own area, we are now cleaning up such an area with the assistance of a grant which we are receiving from the Ministry under the Town and Country Planning Acts. Quite a fair proportion of my constituency is the most horrible mixture of small dwellings, small factories and workshops and garages, all mixed up together, with people living next door to factories, where the hum of machinery is going on, in some cases, for 24 hours a day every day, and driving people mad. In the course of generations, the areas which were originally purely residential have become the worst parts of the district in which to live, because of the intrusion of industrial and commercial enterprises using private houses for purposes for which they were never erected; in other words, turning a residential area into an industrial and commercial area.
  The problem in cases of this kind is to redevelop the area and rebuild upon the site so that industry is located in the proper place and not in the centre of the district where people are living, and, in another part of the area, provide the residential portion in which people can live and sleep and suffer no nuisances from
  1238
  the industrial operations that may go on in another part of the site.
  What the Minister is doing by the Bill is putting a complete end to this form of redevelopment. I know that, theoretically, he will say that he is not, but financially he is doing just that. We think that it is most unfair to succeeding generations for the right hon. Gentleman to take up that attitude, because it will be the generations yet to come who will not only have to tolerate these bad conditions in our towns and cities, but will have the added problem of putting them right at a later period of time, and, most probably, when the cost of doing so will be very much higher than it is now.
  The point that I want to put to the right hon. Gentleman is concerned not so much with the effect of this proposal on the county boroughs and the county councils, but with its effect on the county district councils. These town and country planning grants for comprehensive redevelopment were paid direct to the country district councils, but under the Bill these authorities are cut out and they are not to receive them any more. The Minister is to provide a general grant, not to the county district, but to a county council or a county borough.
  The Minister has been at pains to tell us that this general grant will be given to the county council or the county borough without any strings attached. It is not to be tied to any form of expenditure, and the authorities can do what they jolly well like with it—subsidise the rates with it, if they like, rather than expenditure. Therefore, if that is correct, the general grant which will now go to the county councils and county boroughs will carry no obligation on the part of the county council to pass on to the district council the equivalent of what the latter would have received under the Town and Country Planning Acts for this form of comprehensive redevelopment. Indeed, as far as I can see, a county council can refuse to pass on one penny of that grant to the county district.
  If the Minister can tell us today that that is not his view, if he now goes back on what he has already said about the general grant, if he can give an assurance that he will see that the county councils pass on to the district councils the equivalent of what they would have received if the grant under the Town and Country

  1239
  Planning Acts had remained, it would be a very wise step forward; but I do not think he will do that at all. I have an idea that he is intent on bringing this redevelopment completely and absolutely to an end, because, unless he does make a condition of that kind, it will mean an end to this form of redevelopment, and we shall hear no more of it for a very long time.
  It would be quite fallacious for the right hon. Gentleman to believe that the county districts are in a position to be able to finance the whole of this cost themselves. They are not. They do not possess the financial resources of the county councils or the county boroughs, and the county boroughs will have their own problems in connection with this part of the Bill. The problems of the county districts are, however, far more serious, because the county boroughs will receive a general grant, and, as the Minister has said, they can please themselves what they do with it. The county district council will not receive a grant, and there is no indication that they will receive from the county the equivalent of what they are losing.
  Therefore, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look at this matter once again. I am sure that he will realise himself, although he may not tell us so, that recent planning legislation constitutes one of the finest pieces of work done by this House in recent years. It is something that our towns and cities have been wanting for generations, to help them to prevent ugliness in our towns and cities, to give them power to remove ugly buildings and create beautiful, well laid out areas in which their citizens can have a much better life than before. I am sure that the Minister will realise that to bring this good work to an end when so much still remains to be done is not, to say the least, an act of progress. It is the reverse of progress. The Minister will be putting back the clock if he does it.
  I therefore hope that if the Minister cannot find another way, other than withdrawing the grants under the Town and Country Planning Acts from the county district, he will be prepared to approve the Amendment, which will ensure that the county districts will receive—through, in this case, the county
  1240
  councils, by means of the general grants which those authorities will receive—the equivalent of what they otherwise will lose by bringing to an end the grants under the Town and Country Planning Acts. If he will do that, he will go a very long way towards meeting the problem I have outlined, and he will enable authorities to continue the good work of getting rid of some of the bad areas in our towns and cities and create, instead, much better places in which to live.
  Mr. Arthur Probed: I do not wish to disturb the atmosphere of this debate, but there are some points I should like to put to the Minister.
  We are seeking to amend the Minister's Amendment, and I wish to make use of this opportunity, at the risk of being out of order, to inquire whether the Minister, in his reply, would deal with a point which I want to put to him on paragraph 1 (d) of his proposed Amendment:
  "in pursuance of a scheme under section ten of the employment and Training Act, 1948."
  I know of no other occasion on which I could raise this point, except the present one.
  The Chairman: Order. Perhaps the best time for the hon. Member to raise that point will be when we come to the Question, "That those words be there inserted."
  4.30 p.m.
  The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): I have listened with great interest to the debate, which covers the same ground as that in the 29th of the 31 sittings of the Standing Committee, when I had to advise the Committee to resist an Amendment of this kind. I realise to the full the sincerity with which hon. Members have spoken.
  Mr. D. Jones: I was not a member of the Standing Committee, so the point I have made is obviously a new point.
  Mr. Brooke: I appreciate that. I had in mind the words of the Amendment, but I agree at once that this debate has ranged rather wider.
  Despite what has been said, I look upon this as likely to be an increasing activity of local authorities. It is true, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Wheeldon) said, that

  1241
  the amount in the Estimates for this year is not more than £40,000, and, considering that this is a 50 per cent. grant, that clearly shows that local authorities who are proceeding with such development have not as yet gone very far with it. It is a small amount compared with the very much larger sum of £750,000 which is provided for the redevelopment of war-damaged areas.
  The sum is so small at present that if we thought that it would remain as small as that it might be reasonable for the Government to suggest the abolition of this type of grant altogether because in the Bill a number of grants far larger than this are being abolished. We did not take that view, however, because we felt certain that the amount would rise. I want to tell the Committee that as this becomes a more important feature of local authority work, as, in homely language, they get round to doing it, more money will have to be provided in the general grant for this purpose.
  The matter which we are discussing, therefore, is not whether the money will be available but the distribution of the money—whether it should be distributed, as hitherto, on a 50 per cent. basis towards expenditure which has been undertaken and which has been extremely closely vetted by the central Government; or whether it should be put into the general grant and allocated according to the formula between the various authorities so that they can spend money on the redevelopment of their blighted areas or not as they think fit.
  In the first place, I want to re-emphasise what I said in Committee, that we have drawn a distinction between the redevelopment of blitzed areas and the future redevelopment of blighted areas, because the bombs fell arbitrarily and the war damage which had to be made good by redevelopment is spread unevenly about the country. One of the fundamental principles of the general grant idea is that one should take into the general grant services where the expenditure is likely to be spread reasonably evenly over the country.
  I must say, with the knowledge at my disposal, that as the years go by—and we must remember that we are legislating for the long term and not just for tomorrow—it will undoubtedly be found that local authorities all over the country have
  1242
  these areas of bad lay-out and obsolete development which will require redevelopment and that this work will therefore spread over the country. In principle, therefore, it is not unsuitable for assistance by way of the general grant.
  The main point which has been put to the Government this afternoon is that unless there is a specific grant the work will not be done. That has never been found to be the truth in respect of many other services. If hon. Members opposite press this argument on me, I am bound to ask them how it comes about that we have any libraries, that we have any sewerage works, that we have any provision for refuse disposal, that we have any street lighting, because none of those is aided by specific grants.
  If it is maintained that a local authority cannot afford to do a job unless it can gain a contribution from the central Government—that is, from the taxpayers generally—for doing it, then I cannot understand, on that argument, how local authorities have thought fit and been able to afford to do all the things which they have done, in many cases very efficiently, without specific grant. The answer, of course, is that they have done them in response to public opinion, and that is exactly what will happen in these cases, too.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) said that it was not only in the local but also in the national interest that this work should go forward. It is important not only to the local but also to the national interest that street lighting should be efficiently done, but fundamentally this sort of redevelopment is work where the general public opinion of the neighbourhood should have the deciding say.
  It is the local public who will benefit most or lose most if areas are left to run down into slums, and it seems to me not unreasonable that, through their elected representatives, they should decide whether they sufficiently want the improvement to be willing to pay for it. I have sufficient faith in local authorities to know that if there is an enlightened public opinion the work will be put in hand.
  Mr. Sparks: Does the Minister realise that he is making an excellent case for paying no grant at all to any authorities, because on his argument they will do it without a grant?
  Mr. Brooke: The hon. Member now sees how generous are the Government's proposals.
  We have had a reference to slum clearance. It is by no means the case that all the areas which will be redeveloped will be slum areas redeveloped for housing purposes. A part will be, and, as has rightly been said, the purchase will be at site value and, as I would add, the slum clearance subsidy will be available. That is a partial contribution, but it by no means covers the whole of the land in question.
  I fully realise that there may be places, whether Birmingham or West Hartlepool, where there is a sense of disappointment that a prospective 50 per cent. grant may not be available in future. But I do not think the point made by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) will hold water, because he will find that on different occasions local authorities both gain and lose by delay. I have often had a case put to me that there should be additional Exchequer assistance because a local authority has had to do something at a more expensive time. I have never had a case put to me that a local authority could do without some additional assistance promised because meanwhile the rates of interest have fallen and the authority is now able to carry out the work more cheaply than it could otherwise have done.
  I apologise to the hon. Member for Small Heath for anything I said in Committee
  which was mistaken. I realise that a very large amount of the thousand acres of land in Birmingham have been acquired, and I think I should have been more correct had I said that a comparatively small amount had already been redeveloped or was in course of redevelopment.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Did I hear the Minister say that the rates of interest payable by local authorities have fallen? If so, is he referring to their descent from the sky-high level which they reached under the Tory Government or to the reasonable level at which they kept under the Labour Government?
  Mr. Brooke: I realise that they were kept artificially low under the Labour Government, which was a primary cause of the inflation which cursed the country at that time. The point which I put to
  1244
  the Committee is that this seems to the Government, and I believe to all reasonable people, essentially the kind of expenditure which should be judged on its own merits by the elected representatives of the people.
  The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) raised the question of county districts. County districts will be more fairly treated than hitherto under the new system of deficiency grants, but I agree that the general grant will be paid to the county council. The assistance thereby given to the county council helps the whole of the county by reducing the amount of the county precept below what it would otherwise be, and certainly the county council will have power to make an ad hoc contribution to any county district which is embarking on redevelopment of a blighted area, if it can convince the county council that it is justifiable in the general interest of the county that such a contribution should be made.
  Mr. Sparks: There are 27 county districts in the Middlesex County Council, and the great majority of them are not affected by the necessity for redevelopment. If the county receives the general grant it may well be that no portion of that will be appropriated for the specific benefit of one, two or three out of the 27 county district councils. That is a problem which the county council will have to face. Unless the right hon. Gentleman can provide means whereby county councils will give a certain proportion of that general grant to an older part of the county where this work is necessary, I think he will find that in practice they will give no specific grant for this purpose to a county district and that whatever they receive will be accepted and used generally for the benefit of the whole county rather than of one or two districts.
  Mr. Brooke: It will depend on the wisdom of the county council. I realise that Middlesex County Council is under a temporary cloud, but that will be lifted in three years time and a more enlightened policy will be pursued. I think that across the Floor of the Committee we must proceed on the assumption that county councils, however much we criticise them from time to time, are generally reasonable bodies and are anxious by and large to try to assist the county districts

  1245
  throughout the county to solve their own problems. They recognise that some county districts can more easily be self-supporting and finance out of their own resources all that needs to be done than can others which are inherently poorer.
  I have discussed this very matter with the local authority associations. I have discussed it with them personally since the Bill was introduced. I do not say that I have their support in resisting this Amendment, but I think that I am entitled to say that it is recognised in the local authority world that this kind of redevelopment is a very difficult type to assist by way of percentage grant without a most vexatious intervention in the affairs of the authority. It is not just a matter of paying for a new building or meeting the cost of a new road or anything like that. Clearly, if the central Government are paying a percentage grant towards the redevelopment of a blighted area, the paying Department will wish to satisfy itself that the work is called for, that the general conception is not extravagant, that there is no waste of money and also that the urgency is such that the work ought to be undertaken.
  4.45 p.m.
  That is exactly the kind of meddling inquisitiveness into the affairs of local government that we on this side want if we can to eliminate, and it certainly strikes us that this is just the type of expenditure where a specific grant is almost impossible to administer without very close and annoying questioning of what a local authority is seeking to do——
  Mr. D. Jones: Surely, this meddling of which the right hon. Gentleman talks takes place in the initial stages. I have already given one instance of one plan that was delayed for seven years as a result of what he has described as fiddling and meddling. I pointed out that because of a request by a predecessor of his to the local authority to revise its financial arrangements the plan was delayed for about seven years. The Minister now describes that as fiddling and meddling, but even if his views prevail he will still want plans and will be able to fiddle and meddle as he likes without paying for it.
  Mr. Brooke: I have not been able to refresh my memory on the details of
  1246
  the West Hartlepool matter, but my recollection is that the question at issue there was a general one on the broad type of lay-out which was desirable, but when it comes to paying percentage grant, the paying department would want to know much more than that. It would want to see the proposals and it would want to check the accounts in detail and satisfy itself that each item on which it was asked to pay 50 per cent. was in no way extravagant and was also urgent. It is at that stage rather than in the initial planning that I think the inquiries become vexatious and troublesome.
  It is on grounds like these that I want to put to the Committee that it really would be contrary to the general run of the Bill if we were to exclude the cost of redevelopment of blighted areas from the working of the general grant. The Government's approach here is different from that of the Opposition's. We think that we should put in the general grant an amount, which I have no doubt will, for a considerable period be an increasing amount, to provide for the redevelopment work which will have to be put in hand by one local authority after another. We think, however, that this is exactly the sort of work where a local authority should decide its own timing in relation to local need and local public opinion, and that it should have the benefit of the increased sums in the general grant with which it can finance this work if need be.
  Birmingham is probably the outstanding case at present where it might be felt that unfairness was done, but I have, at any rate, the defence of being able to say that Birmingham looks like being a gaining rather than a losing authority from the scheme as a whole. It is on these grounds that I must advise the Committee to resist the Amendment. I beg those hon. Members who still feel that they have a strong case to ask themselves how it comes about, in practice, that local authorities show themselves able and willing to carry out work that is of value to the community, without any question of there being any specific percentage grant for that purpose at all.
  Mr. Mitchison: What we are considering at the moment is comprehensive development, and that, under Section 5 of the 1947 Act, is of two kinds: one is blitz

  1247
  development, and the other is what the right hon. Gentleman called blight development. Blitz development accounts for about six-sevenths of the present expenditure, and what the Minister is trying to do is to continue a special grant for that purpose, but to refuse to continue a special grant for the blight development. I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman that this is the case which the Urban District Councils' Association, at any rate, selected as the grant that it would particularly like to continue, and I cannot accept his statement as to the views of the local authority associations on the matter——
  Mr. H. Brooke: I was very careful not to claim that the Government had the support of the local authority associations in this matter. All I said was that I had discussed it with them, and that I thought there was a wide understanding in the local authority world that this was a difficult grant to administer if it were on a percentage basis.
  Mr. Mitchison: I am not contradicting the right hon. Gentleman, but supplementing him by telling him that this was the grant that the Association picked out for continuance.
  What is this comprehensive development? It is for the purpose of dealing satisfactorily with conditions of bad layout or obsolete development. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) has pointed out to me, if one wants to know what that means one need only look at the Front Bench opposite. They are an excellent example of bad lay-out and obsolete development. However, what we are considering here is the particular problem of bad lay-out and obsolete development in our towns and countryside.
  This is not, of course, slum clearance but, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, it is very close to it, and in a great many cases it will include slum clearance. On the right hon. Gentleman's argument, he should never have continued the slum clearance subsidy, but should have removed it with the other housing subsidies. He continued the slum clearance subsidy because he recognised, and quite rightly, that the slums ought to be cleared, and ought to be cleared either by clearing them house by house or in clearance
  1248
  areas—and those are the two forms of slum clearance.
  The difficulty is not quite that, but what is called, and rightly, bad lay-out and obsolete development. The one can be just as bad as the other. They are extremely similar, and it is wholly illogical to deal specially with slum clearance and to refuse to deal especially with bad lay-out and obsolete development. I shall not push the metaphor any further: but whether, as it were, the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen in the Government are unfit to govern, or can be made fit to govern at a reasonable cost, is a question which would arise in slum clearance rather than in comprehensive development. The Minister will see how close the conditions in the two cases are. It is absolutely illogical to say that this is a matter than can be dealt with as part of the general grant and, at the same time, to deal specially with slum clearance. That is a very narrow point of view.
  Let us go one stage further. At present, of course, this is quite a small sum, and it is generally recognised, not only by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends but by all of us, I hope, in the Committee, that it ought to extend, and will extend, and that, just as we get the creation of new town centres, new layouts and so forth, in the blitzed towns, so, in the blighted towns that have been blitzed by the industrial revolution, in due course we will get the same thing.
  There is no real difference. The only difference is that the incidence of war damage has been something so sudden, so obvious and so striking, that there has been done there, and done, in this case, with the help of a special grant, something which equally needs to be done in most of the large industrial towns. But it is said by the right hon. Gentleman, "Oh, no, this is not a special problem but a general one. It will affect everyone."
  Let me remind him that this block grant of his is going to rural districts and to urban districts that are not of the character that requires such a grant as this, and that it is wholly untrue to say that the incidence of this particular trouble is general all over the country. It is the old industrial towns that we are considering. Yesterday, we were considering the 13 merry mutineers from the

  1249
  seaside resorts—when, incidentally, there was a larger attendance than there has been on this matter until the last few minutes, but this is a far more important business for the future of the country than the question of whether other towns should or should not make some contribution towards the rates of the seaside towns.
  This is a question that has a national character. As a community, we are responsible for getting rid of these conditions in the cities that have been blighted by the growth of the industrial revolution and the inadequacies of the capitalist structure of the country, just as much as we are responsible for making good the damage which has been done by the war. That is what obsolete development and all the rest of it means.
  Hitherto, it has been carried on by a special grant Now, it is said that that is a tiresome, pernickety interference—I forget the right hon. Gentleman's exact words. We have heard the same sort of stuff so often that one does not remember the exact language. We heard it on Second Reading, when it was pointed out—and I will say no more than that it was pointed out—that those who ought to know, the treasurers of local authorities, have, in fact, investigated this question and have come to exactly the opposite conclusion; that there is no appreciable amount of troublesome interference involved in the financial control of these general grants.
  As my hon. Friends rightly said just now, this is a matter that necessarily falls under the close scrutiny of the right hon. Gentleman himself, because it is a national responsibility. Local authorities can have these grants only for work in connection with a development plan. That development plan has to be approved by the Minister and is subject to whatever modifications he cares to make. Five years afterwards there is to be another development plan and that, again, has to be approved by him. He knows perfectly well that this is not a general or a formal approval, but an approval that involves going into a very great deal of detail, indeed. Many of the modifications proposed by the Minister are no doubt quite minor ones—no doubt for good purposes, but by no means sweeping matters. There is detailed control then.
  1250
  As to financial control, what does the Minister think district auditors are for? Of course this expenditure will be controlled, anyhow, and controlled closely, and to suggest that a good reason for aggregating is that his responsibility in these matters will continue, as will his responsibility for slum clearance, but that there is a substantial difference in the amount of control between the old method and the new, seems to me to be one of those arguments by the book which attracts little support in this Committee. And if he cannot think of anything better, what is the object of all this?
  I come back to this. I have never seen obstinate idolatry carried so far as the right hon. Gentlemen's subservience to the idea of the block grant. I have been looking through the proceedings on the Bill, and, so far as I can make out, the right hon. Gentleman has conceded two points, and only two, to the Opposition. He has allowed us to substitute the word "increase" for the word "change," on the understanding that that is what "change" meant, anyhow; and he has allowed us to put into the Bill, or is to put it in at our request, a stipulation that one member of the Welsh Local Government Commission shall be Welsh-speaking, on the understanding that he would have done that in any case.
  That is the sum of the right hon. Gentleman's concessions to the Opposition. I have never known anyone so sublimely confident not only that he was right in principle, not only that he could never be wrong in principle, but that any suggestion of any kind whatever that was made to him must necessarily be misconceived and erroneous.
  5.0 p.m.
  Mr. Probert: I am sure that my hon. and learned Friend will wish to be magnanimous to the right hon. Gentleman. He did agree to exclude the special review areas from Wales.
  Mr. Mitchison: I forgot that, but then, of course, it was on the assumption that there could not possibly be one. I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I would indeed wish to be generous to him. But I do not withdraw one word of the general criticisms which I have been

  1251
  making of his attitude towards our Amendment, nor do we withdraw from our determination to press it to a Division as soon as possible.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted in the proposed Amendment:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 209. Noes 249.

  Division No. 115.]

  AYES

  [5.1 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Hannan, W.

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Albu, A. H.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Panned, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Hastings, S.

  Parker, J.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Parkin, B. T.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Healey, Denis

  Pearson, A.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Peart, T. F.

  Balfour, A.

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Pentland, N.

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Popplewell, E.

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Hobson, C. R. (Keighley)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Benson, Sir George

  Holman, P.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

  Holt, A. F.

  Probert, A. R.

  Boardman, H.

  Houghton, Douglas

  Proctor, W. T.

  Bonham Carter, Mark

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Pryde, D. J.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Randall, H. E.

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

  Hoy, J. H.

  Rankin, John

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Bowles, F. G.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Reeves, J.

  Boyd, T. C.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Reid, William

  Brockway, A. F.

  Hunter, A. E.

  Rhodes, H.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Burke, W. A.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Ross, William

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Jeger,Mrs.Lena(Holbn&St.Pancs,S.)

  Short, E. W.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Johnson James (Rugby)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Jones,Rt.Hon.A.Creech(Wakefield)

  Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)

  Champion, A. J.

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Snow, J. W.

  Clunie, J.

  Jones, T. W, (Merioneth)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Coldrick, W.

  Kenyon, C.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Collins, V.J.(Shoreditch & Finsbury)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Steele, T.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Lawson, G. M.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Cove, W. G.

  Ledger, R. J.

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.

  Crossman, R. H. S.

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Logan, D. G.

  Swingler, S. T.

  Davies,Rt.Hon.Clement(Montgomery)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  McAlister, Mrs. Mary

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

  McCann, J.

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Deer, G,

  MacColl, J. E.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  McGhee, H. G.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Diamond, John

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  McLeavy, Frank

  Thornton, E.

  Edelman, M.

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Timmons, J.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Mahon, Simon

  Tomney, F.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Usborne, H. C.

  Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Viant, S. P.

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Mason, Roy

  Wade, D. W.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  Messer, Sir F.

  Weitzman, D.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Finch, H. J.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  West, D. G.

  Foot, D. M.

  Monslow, W.

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Forman, J. C.

  Moody, A. S.

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

  Wigg, George

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Willey, Frederick

  Gibson, C. W.

  Mort, D. L.

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Moyle, A.

  Williams, Rev. Liywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Mulley, F. W.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)

  Grey, C. F.

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Oram, A. E.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Oswald, T.

  Woof, R. E.

  Grimond, J.

  Owen, W. J.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Paget, R. T.

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Rogers and Mr. Simmons.

  NOES

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Gower, H. R.

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Marshall, Douglas

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Mathew, R.

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Green, A.

  Mawby, R. L.

  Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Moore, Sir Thomas

  Atkins, H. E.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Balniel, Lord

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Neave, Airey

  Barter, John

  Hay, John

  Nicholson, sir Godfrey (Farnham)

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Beamish, Col. Tufton

  Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.

  Noble, Come Rt. Hon. Allan

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  Hesketh, R. F.

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Osborne, C.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Hope, Lord John

  Page, R. G.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Hornby, R. P.

  Partridge, E.

  Black, C. W.

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Peel, W. J.

  Body, R. F.

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Peyton, J. W. W.

  Bossom, Sir Alfred

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Pilkington, Capt. R. A.

  Braine, B. R.

  Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)

  Pitman, I. J.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Pitt, Miss E. M.

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Hurd, A. R.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Brooman-White, R. c.

  Hutchison,MichaelClark(E'b'gh, S.)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)

  Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark(E'b'gh,W.)

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Hyde, Montgomery

  Redmayne, M.

  Butler, Rt. Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)

  Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry

  Remnant, Hon. P.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Carr, Robert

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Cooke, Robert

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Cooper, A. E.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot

  Sharples, R. C.

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Shepherd, William

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Kerr, sir Hamilton

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Smyth, Brig, sir John (Norwood)

  Cunningham, Knox

  Kimball, M.

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Speir, R. M.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Lagden, G. W.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Deedes, W. F.

  Lambton, Viscount

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Storey, S.

  Dray son, G. B.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)

  du Cann, E. D. L.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Duncan, Sir James

  Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.

  Summer, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Duthie, W. S.

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Elliott,R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne,N.)

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Teeling, W.

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Temple, John M.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Longden, Gilbert

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Fell, A.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)

  Finlay, Graeme

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

  Fisher, Nigel

  McAdden, S. J.

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Fort, R.

  Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Foster, John

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Freeth, Denzil

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Gammans, Lady

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek

  George, J. C. (Pollok)

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Wall, Patrick

  Gibson-Watt, D.

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

  Glyn, Col. Richard H.

  Maddan, Martin

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Godber, J. B.

  Maitland,Cdr.J.F.W.(Horncastle)

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

  Whitelaw, W. S. I.

  Williams, paul (sunderland, S.)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Mr. Bryan and Mr. Hughes-Young.

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Question again proposed, That the proposed words be there inserted.
  Mr. Probert: I am much obliged to you, Sir Charles, for your guidance earlier in our proceedings.
  The question that I have to put refers to paragraph 1 (d) of the Minister's proposed Amendment, which states:
  "in pursuance of a scheme under section ten of the Employment and Training Act, 1948."
  Some people are in doubt about the application of this provision, in view of Part II of the Bill which proposes that the reorganisation of local government services shall take place, and within that reorganisation it is possible for new county boroughs to be constituted.
  Section 10 (5) of the Employment and Training Act, 1948, states that
  "No scheme shall be approved … under this section unless it is submitted to him"—
  that is, to the Minister of Labour—
  "within six months after the commencement of this Act."
  What is the position of the new county boroughs which, presumably, will take over the educational functions which were carried on beforehand by a county? Will they enjoy the same privileges of being able to submit schemes for youth employment services?
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): This provision covers a very narrow point. Under Section 10 of the 1948 Act local education authorities can incur expenditure on administering youth employment services under schemes approved by the Minister of Labour. This expenditure attracts a separate grant and it is proposed to continue this grant as at present. I will take note of the point which the hon. Member has raised, and if I think there is anything further that I ought to explain I will write to him on the point.
  Mr. Probert: I want to stress the fact that the authorities would have to submit a scheme within six months of the passing of the 1948 Act. As things stand now it is not possible to do so. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind.
  Sir E. Boyle: I think it is all right, but I will look at it and write to the hon. Member.
  Mr. Mitchison: But I wonder whether it can be all right. A scheme has to be submitted, under Section 10 (5) of the 1948 Act,
  "within six months after the commencement of this Act."
  Of course, that may have been amended, and the Amendment may have escaped my notice, but what about a new authority that arises under this Measure? I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to assure us that in the case of a new authority he will provide an opportunity similar to that which would have existed if the authority had been in existence before 1948.
  Sir E. Boyle: I think I understand the point, and to the best of my belief I think that I can give the assurance for which I am asked.
  Proposed words there inserted.
  Sir E. Boyle: I beg to move, in page 48, line 48, to leave out from "taking" to the end of line 49 and to insert:
  "teachers' training or further training courses".
  This is practically a drafting Amendment. Paragraph 1 (4, b) as it stands covers initial courses for students training to be teachers and courses of further training for teachers who are already trained. It is doubtful whether it would permit local education authorities to pool salaries and grants paid to teachers serving in technical colleges who had not previously undergone courses in technical training and who were seconded to technical courses. I am thinking of teachers who may be seconded for a year to a special kind of course. It is in order to close this gap that these words are being inserted. There is no intention whatever of any change of policy.
  5.15 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Stewart: I should like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one question. Will this mean, for example, that if a local authority permits or encourages a teacher in its employment to go on a course of further training, to acquire, perhaps, a fresh qualification, and either makes him a grant or pays him his salary during that period, and at the end of the course he returns to its service, the local authority will be able to pool the resultant expenditure, although

  1257
  the teacher is, as it were, the authority's teacher, both at the beginning and at the end of the process?
  Sir E. Boyle: As I understand the position, that is exactly the point of the Amendment.
  Amendment agreed to
  Mr. M. Stewart: I beg to move, in page 49, line 6, at the end to insert:
  (e) in granting scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries and other allowances to students (not being persons taking courses of training to become teachers or courses of further training) pursuing further education of an advanced character.
  We come now to an Amendment the principle of which was discussed in Committee and the importance of which was not disputed then and will not be disputed now. It concerns the awards made by local authorities to those of our young people who are to pursue courses of further education at universities or like institutions. That topic has attracted widespread interest in recent years with the growing number of young people going to universities.
  Some years ago, there was considerable and justified criticism of the fact that the arrangements made by local authorities varied considerably from one authority to another. Quite apart from any opinion one might have held as to whether any authority made an adequate scale of allowance or whether its arrangements for taking into account any contribution that the parents might make were desirable, it was a point of criticism that the arrangements varied considerably from one local authority to another.
  More recently, there has been a tendency for those variations between one authority and another to decline. More authorities have been adopting scales which are, at least, less unsatisfactory than what they had before. There is less variation than there was; but variation certainly has not entirely disappeared. Even if it is maintained that we would not necessarily want complete uniformity on this matter, we still do not have even that degree of resemblance between the practice of one authority and the practice of another that is in the national interest.
  Where variations occur, they are likely to create a great deal of vexation and a considerable sense of injustice. The young
  1258
  people who come together at the university, college, or whatever it may be, naturally compare notes about how their various authorities have treated them. Parents also compare notes and, where these divergencies occur, they are a subject of
  considerable vexation. Beyond that, it is by no means in the national interest.
  University places are still not as numerous as the national interest requires them to be. As long as that is so, it is desirable that they are used by young people who will use them to full advantage. There is less likelihood of getting that result if one's chance of being able to take up a university place varies not merely with one's fitness to be at a university, but with the degree of public spirit of one's local authority. That is the matter with which we are dealing.
  We on this side would much prefer not to see the money that is spent in this way subject to block grant provision. We know, however, that the Government are immovable on that point. We therefore suggest that they should apply to expenditure on awards to students a device which mitigates the effect of the block grant and a device which, as the Schedule shows, the Government themselves have been prepared to adopt for several other matters.
  When we discussed the matter in Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education sought to argue that the topic of awards by local authorities to university students was not suited for pooling. Paraphrasing the hon. Gentleman's remarks as reported in column 1470 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, he laid down two conditions which a service should fulfil if pooling were appropriate. He said that it should be of a national rather than a local character. I am bound to say that this particular service passes that test.
  A university is certainly not regarded as a local institution. The question of the proper use of university places is not merely a matter of local importance. A local authority that does not deal with this matter satisfactorily does not injure only itself. In another connection, the Minister recently quoted such matters as street lighting. It is true that a local authority which neglected its street lighting would not only inconvenience itself, but the inconvenience that it would suffer

  1259
  would immediately be obvious and plain. That analogy does not apply equally in this case. It would be possible for a local authority to be unpublic-spirited with regard to this service and the only result that its citizens would see was that it was not spending quite so much of its rates. The injury would be longer-term, more diffuse and national in character. We must regard this as a service possessing not only a local and regional aspect, but an important national aspect as well.
  The second condition that the Parliamentary Secretary laid down was that the service should be one in which one local authority was helping to pay for a service partly rendered by another. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider the answer he gave concerning his own drafting Amendment, to which the Committee has just agreed. It was clear from his Amendment, and the Committee has accepted, that a local authority which has a teacher in its own employment and which wishes to enable that teacher to take a further qualification, after which he will return to that authority's employment, can pool the expenditure to which it is put for that purpose.
  It may be true that the training college to which the teacher goes is in the area of another local authority—incidentally, it might not necessarily be a local authority institution at all—but in a case like that, the local authority is not making any payment or rendering any service to another local authority which would justify pooling; it is dealing with its own part of the education service. Yet the Government apparently regard that as a suitable subject for pooling. This second condition, therefore, that the Parliamentary Secretary gave in Committee is not universally applied and I do not, therefore, see why it should be produced as an argument against the pooling of awards to university students.
  There is much more that one could rehearse in argument on this matter. I do not propose to do that. Those of us who were on the Standing Committee discussed the matter fairly fully there. Although, no doubt, hon. Members who did not serve on the Committee will want to express views on the main question, I do not think it desirable for those who argued there to argue it again here in
  1260
  exactly the same terms. In the main, therefore, I have confined myself to answering the argument put up by the Parliamentary Secretary in Committee.
  The hon. Gentleman said that two conditions were required before expenditure was pooled. The first was that the matter should be of a national rather than of a local or regional character. The matter that we are now discussing passes that test. Secondly, he said that it should be a matter in which one local authority was rendering some kind of service to another. As I have shown, however, the hon. Gentleman does not universally apply that condition. It does not apply to the part of the Schedule immediately preceding the part we are now discussing. The hon. Gentleman should not, therefore, press that, because it was a tenuous reason anyway, against the pooling of expenditure of this kind.
  Moreover, this matter should not be dismissed by a mere recitation of certain principles that the Government have formed in their own mind about how this whole block grant principle should work. It surely is not absolutely necessary for the Government to say, "We have framed certain principles about local government finance. We deduce from that certain corollaries, and if anything cannot be made to fit into that theoretical framework of ours we have no sympathy with it."
  I ask the Government to realise what they are doing. They are introducing a new system of local government finance, particularly new for education. It has been subject to the severest criticism by almost everybody who is concerned for the education service, and the point to which I am now directing myself has had probably more criticism than almost any other point. In view of that, can the Government be so dead certain that they are right? Can the Parliamentary Secretary or anybody point out any real injury that would be done to good administration or sound finance by pooling the expenditure of this kind? If he cannot, as I do not think he can, is it prudent to do something which is opposed by practically the whole of educational opinion, when all he need do is to say, "We have got our way over the main principle, we have got our way over the whole education service, but we do not wish to be obstinate. In view of the

  1261
  strong feeling, from all sorts of political quarters, on this matter, we would be willing to proceed experimentally and at least let this be a pooled service, as are some services already in the Bill."
  From the point of view of legislation and principle, it is a very modest concession that we are asking from the Government, something that only obstinacy can refuse. From the point of view of the nation and the people concerned with the best use of its university facilities, it may be a very important point indeed. I ask the Government to bear that in mind before they repeat the refusal that they gave us on this point in Standing Committee.
  Dr. Horace King: The Amendment deals with just one aspect of a tremendously important problem—the selection and maintenance of students at the university and the number of places at the university—but even if it is only one aspect, it is a quite important one. The Amendment would lift the remaining four-fifths of university places out of the control of the block grant. It would pool them and it would share the cost in an equitable way among the local authorities.
  I believe that a local university is a contradiction in terms. By all means let a university have links with the locality. By all means let it continue to develop and expand, as local universities have expanded, by the generosity of local benefactors. Let a local university take on certain tinges from the locality in which it exists, but any university is in its very name and nature universal and, as with John Wesley, the world is its parish. We recognise that as far as university finance is concerned. We accept that as a simple truth. The nation is financing the universities, not the local education authorities. But we do not recognise it in the way in which we finance university students. Local authorities still decide to a considerable extent—probably a greater extent than hon. Members realise—who shall go to university and how a student shall be financed during the years he is at university.
  5.30 p.m.
  A number of undergraduates find their way into university through State scholarships and open and closed scholarships.
  1262
  If they can pay fees, university acceptance is enough, but that accounts for about one-fifth of the students at any time in the university. They are decided purely by academic university tests. No one factor comes into it at all. The factors are national and universal. But of the number of places in 1953 that the previous Parliamentary Secretary gave in a debate in 1954, 80 per cent. of the students were at university on local education authority awards. In the Ministry of Education's Report last year, the number of new students at university for 1955 are as follows: by State scholarships 935; by supplementary State aid—which means a university award which the State is supplementing—1,181, making a total of 2,116 nationally awarded places. The local education authorities were financially responsible in the same year for 13,430.
  On the national side, the one-fifth, there is something like uniformity. On the local authority side, the four-fifths, the disparities are still alarming. In a debate on 17th November, 1954, I called the attention of the House to some of those disparities. For the year 1953, the national average of university places per 10,000 of population was 16·5. However, in that year the figures for a number of local authorities were as follows: Dorset, 6·7; Hampshire, 12·9; Durham, 20; London, 10·1; Middlesex, 19·6; Surrey, 26; Southampton, 17·7; and the Isle of Wight, 7·7. If we take the largest figure and compare it with the smallest, children under one authority had a quarter the chance of securing a local education authority place at the university than the children being educated in another local education authority. If we take another test, the amount spent per head by a local authority on university awards to its children, we find that in 1952–53 Dorset spent 3s. 2d. per head, Hampshire 2s. 6d. per head, Durham 5s. 0½d. per head, London 1s. 11d. per head, Middlesex 4s. 11½d. per head, and Southampton 5s. 6½d. per head.
  I am willing to admit that those figures taken by themselves would be misleading. I spend some time each year reviewing the variations that exist. An authority which is low one year may be high the next. Some local education authorities are consistently good and generous in their university awards, and some are

  1263
  consistently ungenerous. Moreover, even these figures show that the rich authority, the mighty authority, the large authority, like London, can do almost twice as much for its children at half the cost as a smaller and poorer authority.
  There is variety as between authority and authority in the amount spent on university awards and in the number of university awards made. I refuse to believe that that is because the children of Dorset, for instance, are less intelligent than the children of London. There is variety too in the criteria that local authorities use to select children for university awards. All candidates take their school certificate at advanced level. One authority will accept two passes at advanced level, another will insist on two good passes at advanced level, and one will insist on three passes, another on three good passes at advanced level. Several authorities have taken as a simple criterion the fact that if a candidate is accepted by a university that in itself is sufficient, whatever he has done at advanced level. This method has its dangers. Some authorities subject potential university students to a personal interview. I have often expressed in this House my uneasiness about the factors that go into assessing by personal interview a candidate's qualities for a university place.
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Why?
  Dr. King: May I give the classic example of a Berkshire boy who was turned down for an award by his local authority four or five years ago and then proceeded to win a State scholarship and went to university. He was regarded by the local authority as not fit for the lesser and humbler way of entering university, but proved that he was able to win a place by the most aristocratic method of entry, namely, by winning a State scholarship. So there is variety in the number and variety in the criteria and then, which is very serious indeed for the young university student, variety in the amount of money which a local authority will give to the young undergraduate.
  We have moved tremendously in these past years. The Minister himself and his predecessors have instituted a national model scale for the financial aid that a
  1264
  local authority is expected to provide to a university student, but not every local authority has yet accepted the scale. There is always a time lag between the Minister changing the university model scale and the acceptance of it by local authorities. I speak from acute personal experience in this matter. Quite a time ago I went to university on a county major award by the local authority of Durham. If I had been born in Hampshire I should not have had a university education. I owe my university education to the fact that the Durham County Council 30 or 40 years ago led the country in its progressive attitude in the sending of young boys to university. I have never forgotten what I owe to the Labour-Liberal majority on the Durham County Council 30 or 40 years ago. But some authorities until quite recently were not only providing niggardly university awards; they were even lending the money to students. Last year I spoke at a meeting of teachers. I was talking about the progress we have made in university awards, and I was told that a member of the teaching profession was still paying back the loan that the local authority had insisted on making a condition of getting to university.
  As has been pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart), when students go up to university they compare notes. I know from considerable experience of contact with university students how humiliated and how deeply wronged they feel when they find that somebody else with exactly the same claim for a university education has a much more generous award and finds his university career a little less irksome from the economic point of view because he was sent there by one authority whereas they, unfortunately, were sent by an ungenerous authority.
  We are moving towards parity on all these grounds. The discrepancies between the worst and the best authorities are less at this moment of history than ever before. The block grant obviously contains a potential threat to students from local education authorities which have a bad record. If the ungenerous local authority is not prepared to accept the Ministerial scale and is not prepared to accept an enlightened policy in the number of awards that it makes when the Government give a percentage grant towards

  1265
  financing what it spends on those university students, then obviously the ungenerous authority will be less inclined to be generous when it has to find the whole of the money outside its block grant.
  The Amendment is merely another example of our general argument that the amount of the general grant for university awards should be based on the national average. Any local authority which spends more than the national average on university awards will have to do so out of its own money. Any authority which spends less than the national average will make a profit out of the grant at the expense of the average authority and at the expense of the generous authority.
  University students at present are enduring great hardship. I congratulate the Minister of Education on the interest that he is showing in the claim that the National Union of Students is putting to him on behalf of all students for increased financial aid during their university years. The Minister has a committee considering this matter, and I hope that it will in time report generously. But if it makes a national and general recommendation for increased awards and retains the university award inside the block grant system, then, while the best authorities will wholeheartedly accept whatever comes from the Minister of Education, the mean authority will be financially encouraged by the block grant to disregard the proposal of the Minister.
  There should be one set of criteria for deciding whether a young man or young woman should go to university. Certainly geography should have nothing to do with it, nor should the local authority. First, we want to know whether the student is fit for a university place. Sooner or later we will have to tackle that question on a more scientific basis than we are at the moment. The universities will have to show much more responsibility in this connection than they have been willing to show up to now.
  The second matter on which there ought to be a national uniform standard is what it costs a young university student to live. Having worked out that figure, every local authority should be encouraged to follow it. The best way of encouraging a local authority to follow it is the way that we propose in the Amendment, namely, to take the amount of finance needed to maintain a poor
  1266
  student at university, make it a national figure and then pool it among the local education authorities.
  I sincerely hope that the Minister will accept the Amendment.
  5.45 p.m.
  Sir E. Boyle: We have had a thoughtful speech, as always, from the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). The only possible criticism one could make of it is that it was, perhaps, in some respects a little bit out of date. There has been a far greater speed in the movement towards securing uniformity of awards since, for instance, 1952–53 than many people realise. I am assured that today disparities are almost confined to minor features of university awards. I particularly welcome the degree of uniformity which we have obtained among authorities in regard to the criteria upon which the making of awards is based. I am also told that local education authorities all over the country do now accept certain recommended figures for different universities. That, in itself, is a very big step forward.
  Just to what extent this growth in uniformity in both awards and the amount of grants has been due to a percentage grant system is, obviously, a very difficult thing to estimate. Quite frankly, I shall not engage in controversy about that this afternoon. All I will say is that I do not believe that there is any reason at all to take it for granted that under the new grant system authorities will go back on the advances towards uniformity which have been achieved in recent years. I fully understand the very great concern there is about these matters, not only among hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, but also among many people outside. I will just add that, of course, the Minister's powers under Section 81 of the 1944 Act will still remain under the new Bill, and, in particular, what I would call the Minister's powers of persuasion and encourage-men will remain. It is my belief that in recent years these powers of constant persuasion and encouragement towards greater uniformity of standards, together with the pressure of public opinion, have played at least as great a part in securing a greater uniformity of practice as any grant system which could be in force.
  The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) who, if I may say so, like

  1267
  myself enjoys debating in this House and who does it with very great ability and agility, referred to the criteria for pooling which I stated in Committee upstairs. He said, quite correctly, that the two criteria on which I relied were, first, that local authorities should be providing what was, in effect, a national service, and secondly, that a certain number of authorities should be providing facilities for the use of others. I am not sure, however, that he absolutely took the point I was trying to make. It was not so much that the service was one of national importance, for I should certainly take the view that the whole of our education system right from primary school stage upwards is of equal national importance. For the assistance of the hon. Gentleman, he will find the passage in column 1475 of the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  When I said that in order to qualify for pooling it should be a case where local authorities are providing what was, in effect, a national service, I was thinking primarily not just of the importance but of the cost, the fact that certain local authorities would be put to quite disproportionate cost in providing facilities from which the whole nation or, at any rate, certain other local authorities would benefit. That is why I do not think that there is any real inconsistency in providing, as the Government are providing, that there should be pooling in the case of facilities for advanced further education but not pooling in awards for advanced further education.
  I rather thought that the hon. Member for Fulham might raise a point on the previous Amendment, and I think that it was perfectly fair that he should. He picked on an example of pooling which, obviously, is very near the borderline indeed, and I would not seek to deny that at all. On the other hand, I think that he will agree that it would obviously be extremely difficult administratively—it would really be impossible—and rather pointless to exclude ad hoc training courses from the whole bulk of teacher training courses. In my view, if we had adopted that procedure, we should have laid ourselves open to exactly the charge that he has frequently made against us, of deciding issues in accordance with dogma instead of in accordance with what is right and the best thing to do.
  1268
  I do not think that the case for pooling awards has been sufficiently made out, and I must ask the Committee to reject the Amendment. At the same time, I should like to make it quite clear that we very warmly welcome the greater uniformity which has been achieved in recent years. We fully recognise the great importance of this far greater degree of uniformity, and we see no reason at all to suppose that there need be any falling off from it under the new grant system. My right hon. Friend's powers of persuasion and encouragement to this end will remain quite unaffected by the Bill.
  Mr. M. Stewart: If we on this side do not press the matter further, it must not be taken as evidence that we do not regard it as important or that we are not very much disappointed with the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. Experience has shown that there comes a time when it is apparent that the Government are quite immovable, that it does not matter what argument one produces the answer will be exactly the same, even if they have to think of a new reason for it after one has done one's best to demolish the old one. The Parliamentary Secretary argued that by a national service he meant one which had to be provided in the national interest and in which a local authority might be put to an entirely disproportionate cost if it had to meet it on its own, and that that was the kind of service which he considered suitable for pooling.
  There has been some improvement, as the Parliamentary Secretary himself pointed out, during a time when there has been a percentage grant. He is now embarking upon the totally new experiment of trying to finance these things on the block grant. Some local authorities would argue that there is a greater proportion of the population in their area likely to go to universities than the average of the country as a whole. Of course, any local authority which advances that argument will probably be subjected to a number of unkind comments from its neighbours, but it is conceivable that in certain instances it may be true.
  It is often pointed out that there are great variations between counties in the number of children who go to grammar school, grammar school at present being the road to university, and an attempt is sometimes made to palliate or avoid the criticism by saying that one should not

  1269
  expect complete equality, that there will, perhaps, be more children suitable for it in some parts of the country than in others. That argument may, in future, be advanced with regard to the number of students sent to universities if the finance is to be found from an unpooled block grant.
  All we were asking the Government was that they should not throw this particular thing in jeopardy just when it is showing improvement. It is a borderline case, like the one we have just discussed. All we ask the Government to do is to push the border out a little, and, as they have taken in the matter dealt with by the Parliamentary Secretary's previous Amendment, to take in this matter as well. Apparently, the Government are never prepared, on this Bill, to take a generous attitude towards any of the
  criticisms which are made. It has not been possible to show that accepting the Amendment could conceivably do anybody any harm. It has not been possible to deny that refusing to accept the Amendment might do harm. In the circumstances, there is plainly a case for accepting it.
  In view of the fact that we cannot move the Government by our arguments and they are, apparently, not moved by arguments advanced outside the House by people of all political opinions, we feel obliged to express our judgment of their attitude by asking the Committee to divide upon the Amendment.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 210, Noes 244.

  Division No. 116.]

  AYES

  [5.54 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Albu, A. H.

  Fernyhough, E.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Finch, H. J.

  Ledger, R. J.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Forman, J. C.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Awbery, S. S.

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.

  Lipton, Marcus

  Balfour, A.

  Gibson, C. W.

  Logan, D. G.

  Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Benson, Sir George

  Greenwood, Anthony

  McAlister, Mrs. Mary

  Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  MacColl, J. E.

  Boardman, H.

  Grey, C. F.

  McGhee, H. G.

  Bonham Carter, Mark

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llane ily)

  McLeavy, Frank

  Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Grimond, J.

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Bowles, F. G.

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Mahon, Simon

  Boyd, T. C.

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Brockway, A. F.

  Hannan, W.

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Mason, Roy

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hastings, S.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Messer, Sir F.

  Burke, W. A.

  Healey, Denis

  Mikardo, Ian

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, c.)

  Herblson, Miss M.

  Moody, A. S.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hewitson, Cap M.

  Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

  Castle, Mrs. B. A.

  Hobson, C. R. (Keighley)

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Champion, A. J.

  Holman, P.

  Mort, D. L.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Holt, A. F.

  Moyle, A.

  Clunie, J.

  Hough ton, Douglas

  Mulley, F. W.

  Coldrick, W.

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Collins, V.J. (Shoreditch & Finsbury)

  Hoy, J. H.

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

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Cove, W. G.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Oram, A. E.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Owen, W. J.

  Crossman, R. H. S,

  Hunter, A. E.

  Padley, W. E.

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Paget, R. T.

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Darling, George (Hillsborough)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Davies,Rt.Hon.Clement(Montgomery)

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, w.)

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Parker, J.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Jeger,Mrs.Lena(Holbn&St.Pancs,S.)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Diamond, John

  Johnson James (Rugby)

  Paton, John

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Jones,Rt.Hon.A.Creech(Wakefield)

  Pearson, A.

  Edelman, M.

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Peart, T. F.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)

  Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Pentland, N.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Popplewell, E.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)

  Kenyon, C.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Probert, A. R.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Watkins, T. E.

  Pryde, D. J.

  Sparks, J. A.

  Weitzman, D.

  Randall, H. E.

  Steele, T.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Rankin, John

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  West, D. G.

  Redhead, E. C.

  Stones, w. (Consett)

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Reeves, J.

  Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Reid, William

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Willey, Frederick

  Rhodes, H.

  Swingler, S. T.

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Taylor, John (West Lothian)

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Ross, William

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Thornton, E.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Timmons, J.

  Woof, R. E.

  Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)

  Tomney, F.

  Younger, Rt. Hon. K.

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Usborne, H. C.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Snow, J. W.

  Viant, S. P.

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Wade, D. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. Short and Mr. Deer.

  NOES

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Duncan, Sir James

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Aitken, W. T.

  Duthie, W. S.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Elliott,R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne,N.)

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)

  Emmett, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Amory, Bt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot

  Arbuthnot, John

  Fell, A.

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Finlay, Graeme

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Atkins, H. E.

  Fisher, Nigel

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Kimball, M.

  Balniel, Lord

  Fort, R.

  Kirk, P. M.

  Barlow, Sir John

  Foster, John

  Lagden, G. W.

  Barter, John

  Freeth, Denzil

  Lambton, Viscount

  Baxter, Sir Beverley

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Beamish, Col. Tufton

  Gammans, Lady

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Leavey, J. A.

  Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)

  George, J. C. (Pollok)

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Glyn, col. Richard H.

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald

  Godber, J. B.

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Gower, H. R.

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Bingham, R. M.

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Bishop, F. P.

  Green, A.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Black, C. W.

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Body, R. F.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  McAdden, S. J.

  Bossom, Sir Alfred

  Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Braine, B. R.

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Burden, F. F. A.

  Hay, John

  Maddan, Martin

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Maitland,Cdr.J.F.W.(Horncastle)

  Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)

  Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hon. Sir R.

  Campbell, Sir David

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Marlowe, A. A. H.

  Carr, Robert

  Hesketh, R. F.

  Marshall, Douglas

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Mathew, R.

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W),

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Hirst, Godfrey

  Mawby, R. L.

  Cooke, Robert

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Cooper, A. E.

  Hope, Lord John

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Hornby, R. P.

  Moore, Sir Thomas

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)

  Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)

  Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Cunningham, Knox

  Hudson, W. R. A. (Hull, N.)

  Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Deedes, W. F.

  Hurd, A. R.

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Hutchison,MichaelClark(E'b'gh, S.)

  Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.

  Doughty, C. J. A.

  Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark(E'b'gh,W.)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)

  Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)

  du Cann, E. D. L.

  Hyde, Montgomery

  Osborne, C.

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry

  Page, R. G.

  1272

  1273

  Partridge, E.

  Shepherd, William

  Tiley, A (Bradford, W.)

  Peel, W. J.

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Turton, Rt. Hon, R. H.

  Peyton, J. W. W.

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Speir, R. M.

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Pilkington, Capt. R. A.

  Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Pitman, I. J.

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Storey, S.

  Wall, Patrick

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.

  Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)

  Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Watklison, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Redmayne, M.

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Webbe, Sir H.

  Remnant, Hon. P.

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Whitelaw, W. S. I.

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Rippon, A. G. F.

  Teeling, W.

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Temple, John M.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.

  Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

  Mr. Bryan and Mr. Gibson-Watt.

  Sharples, R. C.

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Schedule, as amended agreed to.

  Second Schedule.—(NEW PROVISIONS FOR RATING ELECTRICITY BOARDS.)
  Amendments made: In page 52, line 6, after second "be", insert:
  "the installed capacity or aggregate installed capacity, that is to say".
  In line 7, leave out "sent out from" and insert "generated in".
  In line 8, leave out "on" and insert "at".
  In line 10, leave out from "that" to end of line 12 and insert:
  "all generators which were installed at any thirty-first day of March were capable of being fully used at that time".—[Mr. Bevins.]
  Schedule, as amended, agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments: as amended (in the Standing Committee and on recommittal), considered.

  New Clause.—(APPLICATION OF SS. 28 AND 31 TO SPECIAL CASES.)
  (1) Sections twenty-eight and thirty-one of this Act shall have effect subject to the following subsections in the cases to which those subsections respectively apply.
  (2) The council of a county constituted by order under Part II of this Act shall proceed to carry out the duty imposed by subsection (1) of the said section twenty-eight as soon as may be after the coming into operation of the order, and nothing in subsection (2) of that section shall be taken to apply to such a council.
  (3) Where subsection (1) of the said section twenty-eight becomes applicable to any area by virtue of an Order in Council under subsection (7) of that section, the council of the county in which the area or any part thereof is comprised shall, subject to the following subsection, proceed to carry out the said duty as soon as may be after the coming into operation of the Order, and—
  (a) the review may include any other part of the county notwithstanding that the council have already reviewed it under the said section twenty-eight;
  (b) nothing in subsection (2) of that section shall be taken to apply to the council.
  (4) In the case of a county—

  (a) which is constituted by order under Pant II of this Act, or of which the area is altered by such an order, so that (in either case) the county lies wholly within a special review area and comprises no rural districts, or

  (b) which is constituted by order under section one hundred and forty of the Act of 1933 made after the commencement of this Act,

  subsection (1) of section twenty-eight of this Act shall not apply except by virtue of a direction under section thirty-one thereof, and the said section thirty-one shall apply as if a review of the county had already been held and the report and proposals thereon had been submitted to the Minister on the date of the coming into operation of the order mentioned in paragraph (a) or (b) of this subsection, as the case may be.
  (5) If effect is given to a proposal under Part II of this Act to include the Isles of Scilly in an administrative county, subsection (1) of section twenty-eight of this Act shall not apply to that part of the county except by virtue of a direction under section thirty-one thereof.—[Mr. Bevins.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  6.0 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. J. R. Bevins): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  Perhaps I should explain briefly that the effect of this proposed Clause is simply to set out more clearly the various provisions affecting county reviews in special cases. It adds nothing to the Bill as it was before Standing Committee and merely clarifies a certain number of provisions.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

  New Clause.—(TEACHERS, &C., NOT TO BE DISQUALIFIED FOR MEMBERSHIP OF CERTAIN LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)
  Paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of section fifty-nine of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall not operate so as to disqualify any person for being elected or being a member of the council of any county district which is an excepted district (whether it becomes an excepted district as a result of a scheme made under Part III of the First Schedule to the Education Act, 1944, or as a result of a direction of the Minister under section fifty of this Act) by reason of his being a teacher in or being otherwise employed in any school, college or other educational institution maintained or assisted by a local education authority for the said district.—[Mr. Ede.]
  Brought up, and read the First tune.
  Mr. Ede: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
  I do this partly as an act of contrition for having, on the advice tendered to me, misled the House when it was considering on the Report stage the Education Act, 1944. It will be necessary for me to recount the various ways in which teachers have been associated with the local administration of education in recent years, but I will do it as briefly as I can.
  We start with the Education Act, 1902, when an innovation was made in administration. It was laid down in that Act that a teacher employed by a local education authority could be a co-opted member of the education committee. The education authority I served, the Surrey County Council, decided that this ought not to be done and refused to appoint any teacher to be a member of the education committee. I would not be in this House today but for that Act, because my colleagues in the teaching profession, desiring to be represented on the administrative body, ran me as a candidate at a county council election and I got on to the education committee not as a co-opted member but as a member of the county council, appointed by the council.
  The Act of 1944 made a considerable difference in the constitution of the educational administrative service. Prior to that there were 317 local education authorities. Every county council and every county borough council were authorities for education, but there were added, as authorities for elementary education only, every non-county borough which had a population of over
  1276
  10,000 and every urban district which had a population of over 20,000 at the census of 1901.
  One of the great reforms that was carried out in the Education Act of 1944 was that the local education authority should be the authority for all stages of education, and the non-county boroughs and the urban district councils, which had been elementary education authorities prior to 1944, were deprived of those powers, the authority being handed over to the county council. The antagonism to the new proposals of those authorities which were to be deprived was so great that the Minister of Education of the day, the present Home Secretary, felt that something ought to be done to meet the situation, and the First Schedule to the Act was drafted and came before the House for discussion. The present Home Secretary was generous enough to say:
  "The one man in England who understands thoroughly the First Schedule is my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I sometimes understand it—and then a cloud passes over my understanding. I understand it now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th May, 1944; Vol. 339, c. 2261.]
  The right hon. Gentleman had just had a conversation with me.
  In the First Schedule an arrangement was made for the creation of two new forms of education administration. The first was the divisional executive. Divisional executives are committees which are set up within a county on which various district councils—noncounty borough councils as well as the county council—are represented, on which teachers serve, and which carry through the divisional administration. For county districts which had a population of 60,000, or had 7,000 children on the elementary school roll, a special arrangement was made and they became excepted districts.
  An excepted district is not a local education authority, it was not intended to be, it never has been, and I do not think has ever made a claim that it should be. The position of teachers in excepted districts gave rise to considerable concern. As during the greater part of the Education Bill discussions I was engaged in controversies with theologians, I found it necessary to keep a daily diary of what was said. I also became involved in this difficulty about the position of teachers. I hope the House will allow me to read

  1277
  some extracts which will show the course those discussions took.
  On Tuesday, 14th March, 1944, I record a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) who then, as now, took a considerable interest in this matter.
  6.15 p.m.
  This is what I put:
  "Cove beckoned me out. He told me that Floyd …"
  That was the solicitor to the National Union of Teachers—
  "… and Henshall …"
  That was the education secretary to the National Union of Teachers…
  "… were very nervous over the teachers' tenure especially in view of the President's speeches on Friday."
  On 21st April I entered this note about a discussion that we had with the deputy clerk of the Surrey County Council, a representative of N.A.L.G.O., and Mr. Floyd:
  "Floyd was very sticky about our failure to define more closely the future bearing of Sections 59 and 94 of the Local Government Act, 1933, on the municipal activities of teachers. I held out no hopes to Simonds that I could deal with his point but I am more impressd with Floyd's than I allowed myself to show."
  On Monday, 24th April, I submitted a memorandum on Section 59 to the President of the Board, and he gave instructions a few days later that this should be sent to the draftsman who was drafting the Bill.
  We then come to 11th May, when the matter was again raised in the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. By this time we had taken counsel's opinion. I know that sometimes the lawyers in this House are very annoyed with me because I express grave doubts as to the validity and strength of the advice that they tender to us. However, we took counsel's opinion on the words that we put into the Bill as a result of the negotiations that I have described.
  It all arises over the question of the "excepted district". An excepted district makes its own scheme for administration. It cannot raise a penny for education. The only authorities in England and Wales which can raise money out of the rates for education are county councils and county borough councils. An excepted district gets its money from the
  1278
  county council and has to account to the county council for it. If it overspends, the theory of the law is that the members of the excepted district council should find the deficit out of their own pockets. What actually happens is that the county council, being a forgiving body, generally raises the money in the next year's rate and hands it over to the excepted district council.
  I hope the House will allow me just to read what I said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon when he and the late Mr. Moelwyn Hughes raised the matter on the final day of the Report stage, which was, in fact, the day on which we commenced the Third Reading stage—11th May, 1944. I said:
  "Now that the county district council, as an excepted district is not an education authority—let us be quite clear on that point, because after all that was the main bone of contention when we were discussing the First Schedule and Clause 6 of the Bill in the Committee stage—we are advised in that case he is not a servant of the county district council concerned. He is the servant of the county council. We are also advised that a teacher is not eligible for election to the county council if the power of appointment and possible dismissal has been delegated to the divisional executive. In that case we still apply the same rule. The county council are the employer, and the mere fact that they have delegated some of their functions does not render a man eligible for election to the body which employs him."
  We contended that we had left the teachers who were serving on the council which became an excepted district council free for election to that body.
  I said in continuation of the argument which I have just read to the House:
  "We do not want legalistically-minded clerks of councils discovering reasons why doubts should be imported into the Measure. I am quite sure that the sense of the House is that teachers should be reasonably free to serve on any authority, except the authority that actually employs them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th May, 1944; Vol. 399, c. 2131–3.]
  From that there was no dissent in the House. It was generally accepted that that was the wish that the House had in the matter.
  Unfortunately, since then there has been a case in Lowestoft where an assistant master in a school was elected to the town council and was then prosecuted in the courts for sitting on the council. His name was Mr. Lamb. I appear to have been the person who led him to the slaughter, for he was fined £5 for acting as a town councillor when he was disqualified. The astounding thing is—it

  1279
  just shows what peculiar hierarchies there are in this matter—that a headmaster in the same borough, serving in a school in exactly the same relationship to the Lowestoft Town Council as the one in which Mr. Lamb served, was elected and no action was taken in his case.
  I hope I have established that there is no doubt what the House meant to do in 1944. The negotiations were prolonged, they were conducted responsibly on both sides, and we have had the advantage of being legally advised that we had succeeded in establishing the position that a teacher in an excepted district would be eligible to serve on the non-county borough or urban district council which was given excepted district powers.
  I am told that there is some feeling that it might be better to make him eligible for the county council. I do not see that at all, because the county council settles the rates of pay and is the supreme authority over the whole area. In addition, most county councils meet in the day-time and, therefore, a serving teacher could hardly find the time to attend the county council's meetings and carry out his professional duties, whereas the majority of the excepted district councils meet in the evenings and the teacher is perfectly able, from the point of view of time, to serve on such a body.
  The McNair Report, which was quoted in the discussion on 11th May, laid it down that it was desirable that teachers should be able to fill public positions outside their schools. I would add that I thoroughly agree with that proposition, for it is desirable that teachers, having to spend most of their time with persons junior to them in age, should have the opportunity of engaging in public affairs where they have to meet people who are contemporary with them and sometimes senior in age to themselves.
  I have tried to be as frank as I can with the House about the way in which the position arose, which I believe surprised everyone who had been associated with the negotiations. I hope the House will feel that it would be wise now to make the law what the House meant it to be when it passed the 1944 Act.
  Mr. Charles Pannell: Will my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) make it clear
  1280
  that the same position prevails with regard to a teacher in a divisional executive serving on a borough council within the divisional executive? The same incongruity exists there.
  Mr. Ede: There has never been any doubt about that.
  Mr. Edward Short: I am very pleased to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) on this subject, as I did in the Standing Committee. This is a matter of very great importance to a great many teachers. I believe that in every democratic community all the citizens should have the right to offer themselves as candidates and to serve on the councils of the areas in which they live.
  Teachers, in common with most other public servants, accept a limitation on that general right. The limitation is in respect of the employing authority. The limitation in the case of teachers and other local authority employees is laid down in Section 59 (1, a) of the Local Government Act, 1933, which says that a person shall be disqualified from being elected or being a member of a local authority if he holds any paid office or other place of profit in the gift or disposal of the local authority or of any committee thereof.
  Thus, the question of which is the employing authority is the question of the authority in the hands of which the teacher's appointment lies, which body has the gift or disposal of his appointment. The question is not which authority pays him, but which authority has the gift or disposal of his appointment. Therefore, in the case of teachers, the employing authority is defined not as the local education authority but as the authority which possesses the gift or disposal of the teacher's appointment.
  As my right hon. Friend has said—he was very much concerned with the matter—it is obvious that the intention of Parliament was to exclude teachers and others from serving on the employing authority only. The 1944 Act has unwittingly created a complication in this rather simple principle of excluding employees from their employing authority.
  The Act set up excepted districts under Part III of the First Schedule. Every

  1281
  excepted district has delegated to it certain powers of the county local education authority of which it is part. The delegated powers usually include a share in the appointment of teachers. I have already pointed out that the difficulty hinges on the question of appointment and not which authority pays the teacher. The powers delegated to the excepted district usually include a share in the appointment, that is, the gift or disposal of the teacher's employment.
  6.30 p.m.
  This delegation of power—and this is where the difficulty arises—is to the council of the excepted district, that is, the council of the non-county borough. Therefore, it follows that in some cases both the county council and the non-county borough, which is a constituent in the county, have a share in the appointment of the teacher, both the employing county council and the non-county borough council under its delegated power. A combination of the Local Government Act, 1933, and the Education Act, 1944, therefore probably disqualifies a teacher from serving on either the county council or the non-county borough council.
  This is a quite ridiculous situation and, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, it was never intended by Parliament that this should be so. All that Parliament intended was that the teacher should be excluded from the county council, the employing authority. It was never intended that the teacher should be excluded from both bodies.
  The doubt has arisen in the case of Lamb v. Jeffries, in which the Lowestoft Town Council had certain powers delegated to it, and where a scheme for divisional administration and articles for government for a secondary school within the borough were drawn up. Both the scheme for administration and the articles of government for the secondary school laid down that appointments of assistant teachers—not head teachers—were to be made by the governors of the secondary school in consultation with the headmaster; but were then to be confirmed by the council as the excepted district.
  The case was tried and Mr. Lamb was fined £5, and ordered to pay 10 guineas cost. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal. The Lord Chief Justice, however, pointed out that the case could be
  1282
  tried again in a different action, but until that is done the decision is binding on any judge of the first instance. That is where the difficulty arises.
  That is the first problem, the case of teachers who were serving and who were affected by the decision in the case of Lamb v. Jeffries, but there is another problem which may arise. Many teachers are employed by county councils and are quite legally serving on the councils of non-county boroughs within the counties and those non-county boroughs which are
  not excepted districts. The Bill will enable a good many of those non-county boroughs to become excepted districts and when that happens the position of teachers who are serving on those councils will be in doubt.
  The new Clause would satisfy both categories, the category of teachers whose position is in doubt at the moment, and teachers whose position would be put in doubt if their non-county borough councils became excepted districts. The effect of the new Clause would be to treat the county council alone as the employing authority and the teacher would be excluded from membership only of the county council.
  I have very carefully read the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, dealing with a similar matter in Standing Committee. He did not give any reason at all for turning down the Amendment which was then moved. He said:
  "As to what ought to be done about this, I think the principle is well established that an employee of a local authority should not become a member of that authority."
  The teachers agree with that wholeheartedly; it is not in dispute. He went on:
  "It is certainly relaxed in particular cases to enable teachers with specialised knowledge to be co-opted on committees, and that is obviously absolutely right and is a thing with which no one wants to interfere."
  We agree with that whole-heartedly, but, again, that is not the point. The hon. Gentleman continued:
  "I think there are dangers about relaxation to allow membership of the council itself, however—the county council or the council of a county borough or the council of an excepted district. For those reasons"—
  he gave no reasons; all he said was that there were doubts—
  "I ask the Committee to reject this AmendIllent."—[OFFICAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 25th March, 1958; c. 1079.]

  1283
  I hope that we shall have a more reasoned speech from the Parliamentary Secretary tonight.
  As I have said, teachers willingly accept this limitation on their democratic rights in the case of an employing authority, but it was never intended by Parliament or by anybody else that they should also be excluded from serving on those other authorities. The new Clause would satisfy teachers and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to hold out some hope.
  Mr. J. C. Jennings: It is a good thing that this matter should he debated, if only to get clarification on the future of the civic rights of teachers. Much of what I want to say has already been said by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short). It is evident that there is universal acceptance of the general principle that a teacher should not be a member of a council which is his employer, and the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central defined that position as where the authority has the gift or disposal of the teacher's employment.
  A dangerous situation seems likely to arise in the next few years because of the wider implications of the Bill. One of the main purposes of the Bill is to increase devolution and/or delegation. Here we come up against the pith of the problem. Stripped of all its legal and technical jargon, this revolves around the simple question of who is the ultimate employer. A teacher is eligible to sit on a council which has within its area a divisional executive, because a divisional executive is not a local education authority. It is merely an ad hoc body and there is, therefore, no legal bar to a teacher becoming a member of the council in that area
  In the excepted districts, there is another point of view. An excepted district is only a divisional executive writ large and I can find no difference in principle. When one asks the legal experts who the ultimate employer is, there is a woeful shaking of heads. In my simple lay mind, I define the ultimate employer as, in the one case, the county council, and, in the other, the county borough, and I say that the teacher in the employ of either is not eligible to sit on the council.
  1284
  The tendency will now be for excepted districts, with delegated powers to appoint or dismiss teachers within the excepted district, to be regarded as the employing authorities. The tendency will, therefore, be for teachers to be barred from serving on a council of an excepted district. That is a danger.
  Another danger can arise in a county area in which there are two or three rural district councils which amalgamate and become a district of, say, 60,000 people, a district large enough to be given delegated powers and thus to become an excepted district. Teachers serving on that authority will then tend to become ineligible to serve. Their position has to be safeguarded. I understand that we will have at least seven new districts of that type.
  No mention has yet been made of the wider implications of the new Clause. I recognise the difficulties which can result from public servants from other Ministries possibly becoming involved. While there is a very strong case for the safeguarding of the civic rights of teachers, one must consider the wider implications. I should be satisfied if I could be given an assurance that the Government will study this matter carefully with a view to safeguarding the rights of public servants.
  Dr. King: I assure the Minister that on this side of the House we seek something more than the mere clarification for which his hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) asked. In Committee, the Parliamentary Secretary was very sympathetic to points put by the Opposition and he undertook to look into the matter. I hope that not only will he give us clarification of the position, since the position in law seems clear enough, but that he will accept the new Clause, or draft another form of it giving us what we are seeking.
  I may be alone in this, but have always been opposed to the severity of the restrictions which the Local Government Act, 1933, placed on teachers and all local government employees. I admit at once that it would be a bad thing for a local government employee to be given the opportunity of being elected to a body and then be able to vote his own salary or conditions of work, or to vote himself promotion. However, we can easily debar him, as we do other councillors, from doing that kind of thing. I have never

  1285
  understood why a municipal busman should be ineligible to sit on the education committee, if the electors think that he is fit to be there.
  Mr. C. Pannell: Does my hon. Friend agree that he should serve on the transport committee? That is the important point.
  Dr. King: I am coming to that. I cannot see why a municipal busman should not be eligible, having won an election, to serve on the education committee, nor, conversely, why a schoolmaster should not be eligible to sit on a transport committee, or roads committee.
  I agree that it might seem wrong for a municipal busman to be on the transport committee where he would have an opportunity to advocate conditions which might be favourable to himself. However, we have by law created that very position for the teaching profession. By law, a teacher is eligible to be co-opted on to the very committee from which one might think there was some reason for excluding him, the education committee. In my own county, teachers serve with distinction on the Hampshire County Council Education Committee, but they are debarred by law from serving on the Roads and Bridges Committee, the Fire Service Committee, or the Planning Committee, for they are ineligible to stand for election to the county council. That is quite crazy. In the whole of my professional life I have always pressed for mitigation of the severity of the restrictions which the 1933 Local Government Act places upon local government workers.
  6.45 p.m.
  The proposed new Clause, however, does not seek to make a great change. It merely seeks to preserve certain rights which some teachers have, and which are in jeopardy once the Bill is passed; and to remove a slight anomaly which crept into the 1944 Act almost by accident but by which some teachers lost the civic rights they possessed up to 1944. County education committees devolve certain duties upon divisional executives, in a limited number of cases. The executives are usually made up not from a single local authority but from a group of local authorities. They are exceedingly limited in their powers. They cannot levy a single penny rate.
  1286
  In such areas, the law allows teachers to be like any other citizens, eligible to stand for election for minor local authorities and to become district or borough councillors. Many teachers do serve, I believe with benefit to the community, in that capacity. I think at once of a former mayor of Andover, a schoolmaster, and the present chairman of the New Forest Rural District Council, also a schoolmaster. The argument which justifies their holding full civic rights for minor authorities is that their appointment and salary are within the gift of the county council and not of the minor local authority. They cannot become county councillors but they can become town or district councillors, even if the minor authority supplies some of the personnel of the local divisional executives.
  The 1944 Act also created, or rather preserved, another minor local education authority, the so-called "excepted district". In this case, because of its size—because the borough had 60,000 population or more, or had 7,000 elementary school children or more—this minor authority was allowed to go on looking after part of the education service. This excepted district, like the divisional executive, has no financial powers. It cannot levy a single penny of public money. The major difference between the divisional executive and the excepted district lies in the fact that several minor local authorities contribute to the constitution of the divisional executive while the excepted district is a single council functioning as a minor education authority.
  As the law stands, the excepted district is regarded as a local authority under the Local Government Act, 1933, provided that the scheme under which it is working empowers the excepted district, either separately or in co-operation with the county council, to take part in the appointment of teachers. Therefore, a teacher in an excepted district not only cannot stand for the county council but he cannot stand for his own minor authority unless—this is extremely unlikely—it can be shown without doubt that the excepted district takes no part whatever in the appointment of teachers.
  This anomaly reached classic proportions when the Lowestoft case established that, as the headmaster of a

  1287
  Lowestoft school was presumably appointed directly by the county council, he was eligible to stand as a town councillor for Lowestoft. On the other hand, an assistant master, presumably although appointed by a governing body on which were members of the Lowestoft Council and the county council, was ineligible because the minute making his appointment had to be ratified by the Lowestoft Council. Certain teachers in Lowestoft can stand as fully fledged citizens for the Lowestoft Council and certain others cannot. Yet the ratification by the Lowestoft Council of appointments made by the Education Committee must be a mere formality.
  I do not intend to go into the history of this matter, but anybody who has studied the statement made in Committee by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will know that the anomaly that has been created was never intended. In 1944, the Government clearly wished to preserve whatever civic rights teachers had and they did preserve them, and indeed in some cases they established them, for teachers serving under divisional executives, but they failed to safeguard them for the excepted districts and even for any divisional executive consisting of a single local authority.
  Not only did the Government wish to safeguard these civic rights; they thought they had done so. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) who, in his long Parliamentary history, has moved more good educational resolutions than anybody, was assured in 1944 that what the Government were seeking to preserve was preserved.
  The proposed new Clause seeks to give back to a small group of teachers a privilege which they once had and have lost and which many of their colleagues still possess. It would put back the right of teachers to stand for election and to be councillors in excepted districts, but it does much more than that. Under Clause 48 there are to be some new excepted districts. The Bill gives local authorities who have now moved up to 60,000 population something like the privileges which the 1944 Act gave to minor local authorities which then had 60,000 population. I understand that the number of such authorities will be quite small. Without the proposed new Clause
  1288
  it certainly will mean that teachers now constitutionally and legally exercising the full rights of citizenship on certain minor authorities, will lose them. In my own county——
  Mr. Short: To keep the record accurate, may I suggest that my hon. Friend means Clause 50 and not Clause 48?
  Dr. King: I am sorry. I was wrong. Let me illustrate my point from my own county. We have a divisional executive for Gosport and Fareham made out of two minor authorities. Under the Bill, one of two things will happen. Either Gosport will use this Clause and make itself a new excepted authority, in which case certain teachers living in Gosport will lose certain civic rights which they now possess of sitting on Gosport Town Council, or Gosport and Fareham will combine and become a new authority of sufficient size to warrant creating again for themselves excepted district functions. Teachers of both Fareham and Gosport will in that case lose the civic rights which they now have and which they should not lose.
  Successive Ministers of Education have always been sympathetic to the claims of teachers for civic rights. The 1933 Local Government Act excludes local government employees not only from standing for election but even from being co-opted to a committee. Ministers and Governments have exempted teachers from that provision under the 1933 Act. The 1946 Act lays down that a teacher employed by a local education authority shall not be barred from being co-opted on to an education committee, a library committee, or a committee dealing with mental defectives. Teachers can serve on those committees, even though they are committees belonging to their employers. More than that, Section 2 of the 1946 Act says:
  "Subsection (2) of section fifty-nine of the Local Government Act, 1933, shall not operate so as to disqualify any person for being elected or being a member of the council of a county district toy reason of his being a teacher in, or being otherwise employed in, any school, college or other educational institution maintained or assisted by a local education authority."
  This declares quite clearly what has been established in practice, the minimum civic rights of a teacher, with the qualifications that the law lays down. The late Ellen Wilkinson, when she was introducing this

  1289
  Measure, said he had those right only if the council for which the teacher stood was not the one that employed him. Hence the Section which I have just quoted about district councils. He could stand for a district or town council if it was not a county borough, or a borough which is an excepted district.
  The teaching profession accepts the view that a teacher should not be a member of a body which employed him, but it argues that the teacher cannot have two employers. He is employed either by a county or by an excepted district and he should not be debarred from civic rights twice for the same offence. The logical thing is to deprive him of his civic rights in respect of the county council, which employs him, and leave him a free citizen to serve on the minor authority. Let him remain ineligible in the county, which has full educational powers. Let him have, on the other hand, complete freedom in regard to the minor authority, even if the minor authority happens to be one of the handful of survivors from the old pre-1944 educational set-up or one of the new excepted districts which the Bill will create.
  Let us be clear what we are pleading for. Nobody wishes to make the teacher a councillor. Most teachers would not be interested. We seek to give some teachers the civic rights possessed by 44 million other citizens. In the teaching profession, as in other professions, there are men and women who wish to give voluntary service to this great political democracy to which we belong. They manage to do it in a variety of ways, some by living under one authority and being employed by another, and some by working for a major authority and giving civic service to a minor authority.
  In an age when democracy needs every bit of voluntary help that citizens are prepared to give we should not leave an anomaly still in existence which deprives a local authority of valuable and voluntary public-spirited service.
  7.0 p.m.
  Mr. I. J. Pitman: We have it on very wise authority, Biblical authority, that
  "No man can serve two masters."
  In the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, recently, an earlier example
  1290
  of the Minister of Education has been followed in forming an organisation and methods branch. There, too, will be found acceptance of the principle that power resides only in one place. In the Civil Service every civil servant is a servant of the Crown. It is always the highest authority that has the power and is, therefore, the employer. It does not matter whether the Civil Service Commissioners appointed him originally, or one Department or another. The important thing is that he is employed where the power to employ or dismiss resides.
  In the same way, in I.C.I. it does not matter if a man is employed in the paints division, the acids division or the soaps division, the board of directors can say to the paints division, "You have got to employ this man; we have appointed him." They can say, "We are going to sack this man. It does not matter what you say. "Where the power resides, there the employment resides. I am not a lawyer and I do not know how the law has got into a situation in which it says that a man can have two employers: and that it is the lower and not the higher one which is the main employer. It seems to me that it is for the Minister and this House to put right the law where it goes so palpably wrong in relation to the true facts of life.
  The second point I wish to emphasise is that this is a disfranchisement of good citizens. No one likes to disfranchise people. This procedure disfranchises not only the committee wishing to co-opt, by forcing upon it a disability in its co-options, but forces a disability on the person who would be co-opted. I should like the change to go beyond teachers. I cannot see, for instance, why gardeners should not be allowed to take part. In Bath, among the parks attendants and gardeners, we have some real philosophers. Someone was saying to me the other day that a man there was a real philosopher, with an experience of and an attitude to life which clearly fits him for public and voluntary service of the type we are talking about.
  Why limit it to men? What about women? There may be parks attendants taking care of children's playgrounds. If the local education committee wishes to co-opt to such a committee such a person, because of her experience of children

  1291
  and her merits, why should it be denied and so debar her because she is employed by a council? For all these reasons, I join most heartily in urging the Minister to take the opportunity of the Bill—by agreeing to this new Clause or, in another place, bringing in a suitable Amendment—to put right something which is so palpably and obviously wrong.
  Mr. C. Pannell: I find myself in some difficulty on this new Clause. I could follow the arguments of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), but I think there was some special pleading by my hon. Friend the Member for Itchen (Dr. King) which went beyond the general facts of the case. I can understand the position over the election of a teacher to a non-county borough council which is an excepted district and that teacher serving on a non-county borough council, but I cannot understand the suggestion that he should take part in that part of the council work which deals with education.
  In just the same way as it would be incongruous for a local transport driver to be a member of a transport committee of a county borough council, I think it would be incongruous for a teacher to be a member of an education committee within an excepted district. I use that argument on the general basis of equity. I am not using it on the basis of special pleading or for the special place which teachers have won for themselves.
  Mr. Jennings: Will the hon. Member——
  Mr. Pannell: No, I have listened to the hon. Member's case and I must be allowed to develop an argument before I have another one shoved down my throat.
  Everyone who has spoken in this debate so far has been a teacher, or associated with education. Before I came to this House I was for eleven years chairman of a divisional executive for education. I looked upon myself as a trustee for the children rather than for those with a vested interest in education. I want to look at these things from the point of view of equity, the point of view of parents, taxpayers and ratepayers. I want to say something for all municipal employees in local government service.
  1292
  It seems to me that we have got into this position by the creation of excepted districts and the powers of excepted districts. In many excepted districts there is generous delegation. For instance, in Kent excepted districts have the right of nomination for posts of special responsibility. I should have thought that was a very valuable gift——
  Mr. Pitman Mr. Pitman rose——
  Mr. Pannell: I do not want to hear another teacher. I want to develop an argument of my own. The trouble with teachers is that they want to talk to the class and never to listen. If the argument is that the teacher has always been the man among the boys, it is better for him occasionally to listen to men. [Interruption.] I am not objecting to my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee, who listen to me with interest, if not sympathy. I am merely referring to hon. Members opposite.
  We cannot simplify the issue by saying that there is only one employing authority. There are two employing authorities and I believe that that can be duplicated up and down the country where a great variety of people work for agencies of parent firms. Perhaps that is beyond the comprehension of teachers, but it should be easy to understand. If a case could be made by which a new Clause provided that a teacher had a right to be a member of a council which is in an excepted district, but was debarred from being a member of an education committee in that excepted district, I should feel very much happier about it, in the same way as my hon. Friend who wants so much for teachers agrees that it would be right to keep the bus driver off the transport committee.
  We are discussing the general question of civil rights of all municipal employees. I do not think that the question of firemen has been decided in the courts. Often a county council has a scheme by which, on rotation, it allows county district councils to send members on to the county fire brigade committee. I have seen a legal opinion which says that because a member can be sent from an urban district council to the county fire brigade committee, a fireman is ineligible to become a member of that urban district council. I am pointing out the difficulties of the situation. We ought to consider all municipal employees in

  1293
  aggregate. I do not think the new Clause faces that problem.
  Teachers enjoy a rather favoured position in certain counties. In the County of Kent, which I know best in this regard, there are three teachers on the county education committee. It has created places for three teachers in every divisional executive in the county. So they cannot say that they are underrepresented in that way. I do not know that these facilities or privileges have been given to any other body of municipal employees. No members of the teaching profession would suggest that there is any special consideration which gives it this privileged position, but yet it has it. The Lowestoft decision, I have always considered, illustrated the sort of absurd position into which we get simply because of the way in which different individual schemes of education and the excepted district schemes are drawn.
  We have taken civil rights entirely from the police, and, after all, all their services are covered by grant, one way or another, but now, even a policeman cannot go into public life, even in an authority outside the district in which he lives. There is the other point that, under the Local Government Act, we do not allow municipal tenants to vote on a question affecting their rents, unless the Minister gives a dispensation. There would be so many tenants in the case of some local authorities that no one would vote at all. The Minister gives his dispensation, for instance, where discrimination against municipal tenants would upset the political balance of that council; and Ministers of all political persuasions have seen that the will of the electors prevails.
  These are the difficulties of trying to reconcile our interest as consumers with the interests of producers. In another vocation, I was an engineer. I was then a producer. There are certain people who are teachers who want to be local government representatives. The largest common denominator of all is the consumer. All of us here are representing the consumer in a way. We have to reconcile these difficulties which my hon. Friend has put by this special pleading on behalf of only some people who are employed in local government service, but my hon. Friends always burke the final question. If we are to say that
  1294
  municipal employees have no right to serve on their county council, on their local council and on their parish council —[Interruption]. It was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Itchen that he would broaden the basis, by which he would not make it a bar because they were employed by a local authority.
  The difficulty as I see it is that if we say that the dustman, the teacher and the bus driver have that right. we eventually get to the stage in which the town clerk has a right, and the borough treasurer, and the borough surveyor also have a right—and there is nothing to stop them—not only to run the council, but to have votes on it as well. That is where we get into difficulty. As one who has served on four local authorities, I would say that the greatest difficulty of any new member of a local authority is the terrific inferiority complex which he feels when he meets the permanent officials. If, in the first three years of office, he has lived that down and can talk on terms with them and keep them in their places, he will have proved himself a good public representative, whatever his politics. If we add to that situation and provide that the man whom he is trying to keep in his place also has a vote, which is the logical consequence of what my hon. Friends have been saying, we shall then have local authorities run by functionaries for functionaries.
  I believe that all sorts of top people in local government, particularly with regard to the joint negotiating machinery, have too much power already, and I always think that these things are better damped down at the beginning. If the Parliamentary Secretary can protect the traditional rights of the teachers, I shall be glad, and that is why I have explained the position of trying to reconcile these difficulties. It seems to me that we have got to face this in regard to the powers of excepted districts and to the division and revision of the functions of these districts as between the council of a borough or non-county borough and the education committee of that district.
  7.15 p.m.
  Sir E. Boyle: We have had a most interesting debate on the new Clause, and I particularly enjoyed the robust, entertaining and very wise speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell). I am sure that when he was at school he

  1295
  never took it lying down, and certainly we have all enjoyed hearing what he had to say today.
  I am well aware indeed that this is a subject on which the teaching profession feels strongly. This point was raised by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) upstairs in Committee when we were discussing Clause 48, and I then undertook to look at the matter again before Report stage. In the intervening time, I have received a small deputation from the National Union of Teachers, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings), and I have had a frank discussion with them, which I found very valuable.
  I do not think there is very much doubt as to the facts of the law as it stands at present. The council of an excepted district, acting as a divisional executive, normally has some concern with appointments, and that was the basis of the Lowestoft judgment in 1955. It was held in the case of Lamb v. Jeffries that the mere fact that the council of an excepted district had to confirm the appointment of an assistant master at a county secondary school in itself made the post one which was in the gift or disposal of the borough council.
  I was interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) had to say. Despite the high authority he quoted, I am not quite sure that I follow his point that no man can serve two masters. It seems to me that there are occasions on which he obviously can. Anyone sitting on this Front Bench obviously serves two masters, because in sitting here he is a Member for a constituency and is serving the electorate in that way. I think that the hon. Member for Leeds, West, spoke perfectly fairly, and I cannot see anything strange or wrong about the legal judgment in the case of Lamb v. Jeffries in 1955.
  Secondly, I go on to the effect of this Bill on the subject we are now discussing. At the present time, it is quite true that teachers and other employees in the education service appear to be the only people who suffer the dual disqualification under Section 59 (1, a) of the 1933 Act. I do not think that teachers will be affected very greatly by this Bill in this respect, for the reason that it is not very likely
  1296
  that many more excepted districts will be formed during the years ahead. I think that one of my hon. Friends mentioned that it is likely that no more than about seven will be created.
  Mr. Short: Will the Parliamentary Secretary confirm that any teachers who are serving on the council of their district when it becomes an excepted district will be disqualified?
  Sir E. Boyle: I agree, but the point I am making is that I do not think the position will be widely different as a result of the Measure we are now discussing. On the other hand, a similar disqualification will presumably apply to a wide range of employees in the health and welfare services where these are delegated to a district council under this Bill. This leads me to the point which the hon. Member for Leeds, West rightly italicised, which is that we cannot consider the position of teachers in isolation from the position of other local government employees.
  I fully recognise that teachers are considerably the largest group of local government employees, and it is natural enough that they should feel specially concerned about this matter. On the other hand, if they were freed from disqualification for membership of a district council under Section 59 (1, a) of the 1933 Act, I think it would be extremely difficult to confine the relaxation to teachers.
  That is one of the difficulties about the new Clause. It deals with the special relation of teachers, whereas the matter concerns local government employees as a whole. Teachers are not unique in suffering a dual disqualification, and in a sense they come off a little better than other people today in that they can be co-opted to local education committees under special circumstances. Indeed, I think that point has been recognised in our discussions, because the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who made on this, as on many occasions, a most useful contribution to our proceedings upstairs, used these words:
  "I have never been able to see why if a teacher is able to sit on the education committee a bus conductor is not able to sit on the transport committee"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 25th March, 1958: c 1084.]

  1297
  I think that it was recognised in those words that this is a matter which concerns other employees besides teachers. We must think hard before departing from the principle, which has always been accepted up to now, that the employee of a local authority should not become a member of the authority. As I have tried to explain to the House, I do not think that the definition of an employee of a local authority has been unduly strained in the definition of the law as it stands today.
  I entirely understand the feelings of hon. Members opposite, which I think were fairly represented by the right hon. Member for South Shields, the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short) and the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). I know that this is a matter on which there are strong feelings in the teaching profession, and I think that it is one which the Government might very well like to consider further and at more leisure. I have consulted my right hon. Friend about this matter and he has asked me to tell the House that that is what he would like to do.
  This is a complicated question, and we should have to consider the position of other local government employees as well as that of teachers. I can give the House an undertaking that the Government will consider the position of all local government employees and if, as a result of further review, it seems that a change in the law ought to be made, no doubt a suitable occasion could he found when further miscellaneous local government provisions are being brought before Parliament.
  We are now passing an extremely long and complex local government Measure. It seems to me in the highest degree unlikely that following from this Measure a new Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will not have to be passed within the course of the next few years. I do not say that in any way as reflecting discredit upon the Measure or the Government, but simply because when we are making a big change in the law it is nearly always necessary within a few years to tidy up certain miscellaneous matters which have not been altogether foreseen and catered for. If it seems that the law could be changed in a way which was reasonable for all other
  1298
  local government employees, no doubt such a Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill would be a suitable occasion to make the change.
  Having said that, I am afraid that must ask the House to reject the new Clause for the reasons which I have stated, while at the same time recognising that this is a matter which merits further study and on which I fully realise that hon. Members on both sides of the House feel strongly.
  Mr. Mitchison: May I ask the hon. Member two questions? I do not want to make a speech. In this case the Lowestoft Council had a right of veto on the appointment and no more. Are there any cases in the Health Service where that position is likely to exist? Secondly, looking at the report of the case, it seems that from the point of view of the ordinary use of the word "employment", Mr. Lamb was paid and could have been dismissed or transferred by the county council and that the Lowestoft Council had no power to do anything about him, would not have signed his cheque or whatever form of payment was paid to him, and would not have paid him out of the borough council funds.
  Sir E. Boyle: On the second point, the hon. and learned Member is asking me to comment on the Lord Chief Justice's judgment, and I feel diffident about doing that. I will give the fairest answer that I can. The point on which the Lord Chief Justice seized was that because the appointment of the assistant master had to be confirmed, therefore the post was in the gift or disposal of the borough council.
  Mr. Mitchison: That is not the point which I am making.
  Sir E. Boyle: The hon. and learned Gentleman asked who was responsible for dismissal.
  Mr. Mitchison: And payment.
  Sir E. Boyle: And payment. I think there is no doubt that it was the county council which was responsible for dismissal and payment, but the mere fact that the district council had to confirm the appointment was thought of itself to justify the judgment which was given.

  1299
  The hon. and learned Gentleman also asked me about the position of Health Service employees. It appears that teachers and employees in the education services are the only people who suffer this dual disqualification under Section 59 (1, a), but presumably a similar disqualification could well apply in the future to a wide range of employees in the health and welfare services when these are delegated to district councils under provisions which may be made as a result of the Bill.
  Mr. Pitman: Is it at all possible for county councils to re-phrase their appointments and the powers given to excepted districts in order that these will not come within the mischief of the 1933 Act?
  Mr. C. Pannell: Before the hon. Member answers that question, will he also consider this point: we are faced here, on the one hand, with the claim of the teachers, and on the other hand with the claim of the county districts for increased powers under the Education Act. That is where a conflict arises.
  Sir E. Boyle: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leeds, West. As a result of this Measure we must surely expect a wider degree of delegation than has taken place up to now, and I think it would be very unwise of me to give an affirmative answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bath.
  Mr. M. Stewart: The Parliamentary Secretary has evidently fulfilled the undertaking which he gave in Committee to give further consideration to this matter. What some of my hon. Friends will now be trying to weigh up is whether he has carried that consideration far enough.
  If we look at the position merely from a layman's commonsense point of view, think what most people would say is that the general proposition—that a man ought not to be elected a member of the body which employs him—ought not to work out so that a man is debarred from two councils. That is the point we are discussing. The reason we have been talking about it in the context of teachers is that it is teachers in excepted districts who have particularly found themselves in this position. We raised the matter
  1300
  as a new Clause to this Bill partly because the number of excepted districts is being increased. To that the Parliamentary Secretary has added another reason—that this problem may now extend from people in the education service to people in the health and welfare services, too.
  7.30 p.m.
  I think we should bear in mind that when this case was before the courts it was quite plain from the Lord Chief Justice's comments that he was not at all pleased at having to give the judgment he gave. Indeed, he said so. He said:
  "I have come to this conclusion after considerable hesitation and with some regret…"
  He described the relevant provision of the Local Government Act, and then went on to say:
  "Whether it was considered that this section"—
  of the Local Government Act—
  "should reach out so far as to affect the schoolmaster who is appointed in consequence of these various and very elaborate provisions which depend upon an education Act passed 11 years after the Local Government Act, may at least, be open to question."
  He went on further to comment adversely on the action of the magistrates in imposing a fine on Mr. Lamb.
  I mention those facts because, although, of course, it is the business of the judicature to declare the law rather than to say whether they think the Acts they are applying are good Acts or not, it is impossible to read that judgment of the Lord Chief Justice without realising that he felt that this was not at all a happy position. We should notice, too, that of the three learned judges who heard the case, Mr. Justice Stable dissented from the Lord Chief Justice's judgment, while the third agreed fully with it; that is to say, agreed not only with the judgment on the point of law, but with the surprise and regret that the Lord Chief Justice had expressed that the law should be what, in fact, it is.
  We also learn from the Lord Chief Justice's judgment that it is not, of course, a final one. If another similar case should arise, the matter could go to the Court of Appeal and, possibly, be decided in a contrary sense. About that, none of us can pronounce at the moment, and in view of something that we were told earlier one would hesitate to suggest that

  1301
  the Government might get the opinion of the Attorney-General as to the law on the matter.
  What we have here is a position generally considered to be unsatisfactory, and on which even the law is not certain at present; a remedy proposed that it should be made clear that a teacher cannot be debarred from membership of the excepted district; that is to say, the undesirable provision whereby he is prevented from being a member of two councils is brought to an end.
  It is pointed out, and I think that this is really the only valid criticism made of the new Clause by the Parliamentary Secretary, that, in view of the other parts of the Bill, one would have to consider the position of workers in the health and welfare services. That really would not be impossible. I cannot help feeling some regret that the Parliamentary Secretary did not pursue that train of thought a little earlier and that the Government did not simply ask themselves, "Could we not take this new Clause and extend its provisions to include other workers to whom this problem of excepted districts applies?" They could have looked at that. They could have considered whether there was anything unworkable in it. I find it difficult to believe that there is.
  We are left with the undertaking that as soon as it becomes necessary to tidy up some of the confusion that may be created by this piece of legislation the Government will take the opportunity to put the matter right——
  Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman must not take my undertaking quite as far as that. I said that when such a Bill was brought forward, the Government would certainly consider whether such a new Clause to cover all local government employees could, in fact, be satisfactorily drafted and brought in.
  Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman gets more periphrastic on each occasion.
  We are now being left to pass a large local government Bill. We are assured, and we do not dispute it for a moment, that it will be necessary in a few years' time to bring in a quite considerable Measure to tidy up a number of problems that this Bill will create. We are assured that when that necessity arises the Government will at least consider whether
  1302
  to take an opportunity to put this matter right——
  Mr. Mitchison: If the Government are still there.
  Mr. Stewart: Yes, assuming that this Government are still there.
  All this is a bit disappointing, and it is a matter which, no doubt, my right hon.
  Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) will wish to consider. He may feel that, disappointing as it is, perhaps it will be in the best interests of everyone concerned—and we do not want merely to score points against the Government but to get a just and workable solution of what is admittedly a difficult problem—to accept the assurance.
  I must, however, record my own regret that the Government could not have carried their thought on this a little further and, possibly, proposed such alterations in the wording of the Clause as their reflection had shown to be necessary, and so have enabled us to handle the matter now. Since the Parliamentary Secretary does not offer us that but only offers us this future and rather conditional suggestion that it may be possible to put it right at some time, perhaps that is as far as we shall be able to get on this issue with the present Government.
  Mr. Ede: I listened with close attention to what the Parliamentary Secretary said. I welcome the proposal that this matter should be considered on the broadest possible basis in relation to the local government service. While thanking the House for the patience with which it has listened to the arguments on this subject—and the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell)—in view of what the hon. Gentleman said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion and the Clause.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

  Clause 1.—(GENERAL GRANTS.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 2, line 32, after "shall", to insert:
  "be laid before the Commons House of Parliament together with a report by the Minister explaining the considerations leading to the provisions of the order and shall".
  Perhaps it might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if we also discussed the Amendment in line 33.

  1303
  It seems to the Government that it would be appropriate that the general grant order, being essentially a financial instrument, should require the specific approval of this House alone, and the second of these Amendments secures that.
  The first Amendment fulfils an undertaking I gave in Committee, when it was generally agreed that the general grant order would need an accompanying White Paper to explain the considerations which led up to it. I never had any doubt that a White Paper of that kind would be required, and at that stage I undertook to insert in the Bill the statutory requirement that such a report should be laid. Of course, it would be a matter of wide interest beyond the confines of this House, and it may be that in another place it would be desired to debate the White Paper, but that is another matter. Meanwhile, I hope that the House will consider that I have fulfilled my duty here.
  Mr. Mitchison: I think that the right hon. Gentleman has kindly fulfilled his obligation in the matter, and we agree with what he proposes to do.
  Mr. Ede: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for putting down this Amendment. I can only hope that he will shortly be made a life Peer so that his influence over the matter will, by this Amendment, be entirely removed.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 2, leave out line 33 and insert "that House".—[Mr. H. Brooke.]
  Mr. Mitchison: I beg to move, in page 2, line 35, at the end to insert:
  "one year for the year 1959–60 and the next two succeeding years and thereafter of".
  The effect of the Amendment, if accepted, would be to limit the general grant orders, during the first three years, to one year at a time, and, after that, to accept the provision of the Bill that they should be for periods of not less than two years.
  The Bill at present provides that they shall always be for not less than two years, and all we know about that is the statement of the right hon. Gentleman in the White Paper, and again, I think, verbally in Committee, that the first of the periods would be two years only. That is all we
  1304
  know at present. So far as the language of the Bill goes, there is nothing whatever to prevent the right hon. Gentleman, even if he carries out that undertaking for the first two years, from prescribing a period very much longer later on. That is as may be, and we endeavoured in Committee to limit the periods indefinitely for one year. We did not succeed in persuading the Government of the wisdom of that, and so this very modest Amendment provides only for what is really a trial period of three years.
  I have never been able to understand the Government's objection to a provision of this sort, at any rate for the immediately following period. It is perfectly clear that this Bill involves numbers of estimates each of which must contain large elements of uncertainty, and I do not know that the case is made very much stronger by taking instance after instance it really is so very obvious. There will be changes in the requirements of each of these services, and those changes will have to be forecast at the time that the general grant order is made. Further, there will be all the other matters mentioned in Clause 2 of the Bill—the general economic conditions with regard to which the need for developing the services has to be weighed in relation to the amount of the general grants.
  There will be minor matters. I could take the sort of instance that I have in mind—matters relating to, say, the sparsity factor and the operation of that very complicated provision; matters relating to the cost of things which are being begun, relating to questions of policy, how far it may be right in the fairly immediate future to develop one particular aspect of this, that or the other service.
  It must be obvious to every hon. Member who has read the Bill or followed the discussions that we have had on it that it contains innumerable elements where forecasting ought to be limited to the minimum that is necessary. After all, we forecast our own national financial requirements year by year, and every year we introduce a Budget and a Finance Bill—indeed, we shall be doing so very shortly—which provides for the amount of services at a distance ahead. It is true that we have methods of adding to it, but then so has this Bill, for in the same Clause there are arrangements to deal with enforcing increases in certain

  1305
  fields, the level of prices, cost or remuneration. We endeavoured to enlarge that provision in Committee and were told that it was not necessary.
  So we take the Bill as it is, and if the requirements of the national service can be forecast to the extent necessary to produce reliable estimates and to come to general conclusions of financial policy, I completely fail to see why something of the same sort is not possible within the much more limited field of local authority expenditure.
  When we are coming to this general question we have to remember that one of the main reasons given for the general grant in this sort of connection was that the Treasury would know in advance what its arrangements were going to be. The objection taken by the Treasury or the Government, however one likes to put it, to the percentage grant was that too much depended on the initiative or the lack of initiative of local authorities. From that point of view, I very much doubt if the Treasury needs to know its commitments for local authority expenditure further ahead than it knows its commitments for national expenditure. I cannot follow the special case for enforcing a longer period of this particular type of service and type of expenditure.
  7.45 p.m.
  Now I come to the other side of the medal. The Bill recognises that that is not quite enough, and it recognises it in two ways—not only by the provision to meet enforcing circumstances to which I have referred, but by the very curious bit of machinery under which one may forecast for two years ahead and one will produce different totals for each year. I think these essays in a combination of higher mathematics and prophecy are very unfair on local authorities. I am no expert on prophecy. If I were, I should wonder how necessary it really was to interfere with these provisions, and whether other circumstances connected with the electorate may not make this type of Amendment not so important as at first sight it appears to be.
  As I say, I am no expert on prophecy. All I know about it is this. It is, generally speaking, other things being equal, with all caution and all reservations, a bit easier to prophesy what will happen one year ahead than it is to prophesy what will happen two years ahead. The only
  1306
  thing which really bothers me about this type of Amendment is the attitude that the Government have consistently taken to every suggestion that has been made to them from any quarter of the Committee. They are so convinced of their complete and perfect infallibility that I feel sure that that conviction extends not merely to the present but to the future. They know not only everything that there is to be known now but everything that there is to be known about the future.
  Those of us who are not equipped with the second sight that is apparently con-conferred on the appropriate Minister concerned with this Bill have merely to pause and wonder. Do they really wish to deny themselves the opportunity of making a second estimate at the end of one year? Why are they so certain that any estimate of that sort is unnecessary? If, in fact, the position is that somewhere in the collective bosom of the Government there lingers a little uncertainty about their insight into the future—none, of course, about their knowledge of the present—would they not hesitate, to be wise and prudent, just to allow for the possibility that, if not in the present, at least in the future they may be wrong, and therefore have their estimates for one year only?
  I have put the general case and I want to take one or two particular instances. I am tempted by the presence of the Parliamentary Secretary, who has a singularly sound understanding of the philosophy of these matters, I feel sure, to venture into the sphere of education. I should have thought that in that field, as with public health, changes are happening at present rather too rapidly to make a two-year forecast at all advisable—except, of course, for those who are infallible.
  For them I can say nothing. For mere ordinary mortals, I should have thought that there were possibilities in the development of technical education, in the development of further education, and even, turning from the sublime to the really difficult, in the size of classes, which might take place quite rapidly. There are tempting possibilities that education in these various respects might get better, more varied, more suitable for the needs of the population and even, perhaps, some of the classes might get

  1307
  much smaller and there might be rather more teachers. I do not know about that; the Government, through their insight into the future, do; they see it all in advance.
  What of public health? We were talking about mental health only the other day. There are the very serious recommendations of the Committee on this matter which suggested some comprehensive changes. There are also the services for the handicapped, which we were discussing very recently. Some day or other, perhaps, the Government may do something about the recommendations concerning the handicapped. If that day comes, if they are not too absorbed in contemplating their own infallibility, then the case for a shorter period of estimate becomes overwhelming.
  It may be that the Government want a very long time because they are convinced that, when they say they will do something, they are quite certain that they will not do it within the next two years or more. However, short of some ridiculous reason of that kind—one would not wish one's criticism even of this Government to go to that length—I can see no ground whatever for refusing to shorten the period until they and the local authorities know where they are under this grant. After all, on any showing, it is an exceedingly sweeping change. It is a change very much for the worse, and of that we shall have more to say on the Bill as a whole. At any rate, no one will deny that it is very sweeping. Perhaps the most obvious point in respect of which it is very sweeping is that, for the first time in the history of this country, so far as I know, at any rate the first time in recent history, it is proposed to provide for educational needs by a block grant. That was not done on the last block grant arrangements, and they were thirty years ago.
  If there is uncertainty about providing for these things, if one is trying out a new and sweeping formula like this, trying it in regard to something where, after all, one has no experience, then, unless one is quite infallible both as to present and as to future, it is right to give oneself a rather short trial period to begin with. Suppose the Government make mistakes about the amounts. Suppose they get the sums wrong. Will they use
  1308
  the rather limited powers in the Bill sufficiently to correct themselves?
  Sometimes, of course, a really great Minister can get up and say, "I have been wrong", or a really great Minister, without saying it, can eat his words as we saw the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Housing and Local Government do the other day in connection with the Rent Act. But every one of these things is likely to involve admission of error. Only the really great can make these admissions of error; a man has to be very great indeed not to be rather reluctant to make them. Contemplating the infallible hon. Gentlemen whom I see sitting opposite me, I hesitate for a moment in saying whether they have quite sufficient greatness or whether even their right hon. Friends have quite sufficient greatness to admit error as often as it may be necessary. I do not want to be rude to them in any way. It is quite obvious that we are dealing with great men; otherwise they could not be infallible. But will that greatness extend to admitting that they have been wrong? Governments hate doing that.
  What will be the result if the Govenment make mistakes in these forecasts, if their insight into the future is not quite accurate? Let us have no bones about what the results will be. They will take it out of the "kids". They will take it out of the pupils in the education service. They will take it out of the old folk, for whom Part III assistance ought not to be provided and is not. They will take it out of the sick, for whom adequate health facilities ought to be provided by local authorities and are not in the case I am considering. They will take it ow of all the people in the country whom it is our duty in this House to look after. It is with the young, the very old, the feeble, the sick, those who suffer in the world, that this relevant expenditure and these services are principally concerned. Proud though we may be—I refer to right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite—of our own infallibility, need we be quite so certain of it as to put it at stake against the happiness and welfare of that type of person?
  I urge the Government to be sensible in a matter like this, to drop for a moment some of their illusions about infallibility, some of their incredible obstinacy in refusing to accept any suggestion not their own, some of their certainty that not only

  1309
  their policy but the execution of it is always right. They should accept an Amendment which allows them shorter trial periods for the first three years. We will look after it after that, not before.
  Mr. George Thomas: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I should like to explain, first, that the reason I was late coming into the Chamber is that I am serving on a Committee upstairs which, unfortunately, is sitting at
  the same time as the debate is in progress here. It is not lack of courtesy on my part which makes me come in late and then take part in the debate.
  I believe that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has given to the Government a chance to protect themselves from the worst effects we fear from this Measure. One of the weaknesses of the Bill, in our judgment, is that it is so rigid, and that, even if the Minister himself has second thoughts, he will not be able to undo the damage that it is likely to inflict. When we think of the wide range of local government services which will be affected by this Measure, we realise at once how impossible it is for the wisest local administrators to forecast their expenditure two or, perhaps, even more years ahead, as time goes on.
  At least during the early years, it would be wise to allow administrators who will be unused to this operation to forecast a year at a time. Every hon. Member will know how difficult it is for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to forecast more than a year ahead. Indeed, he is unable to forecast their estimates a year ahead. It is common for a Chancellor to find that he has £400 million more than he budgeted for, or £200 million less than he budgeted for, or, indeed, to have two Budgets in one year.
  8.0 p.m.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering played with the word "fallibility". I have been in the House long enough to know that the Estimates of Departments are only worth having for the week in which they are made. After that they take their place as a peg on which we hang discussion, and that is about all. The Minister and the Parliamentary Secretaries to the Ministries of Housing and Local Government and Education know well enough that there
  1310
  is nothing constant in the expenditure of local education authorities. Crises arise from time to time and it is wise that local authorities shall not feel "cabined, cribbed, confined" and cannot experiment in, say, a second year, because the forecast of their expenditure, which has been made far ahead, prevents change even in the set-up of the education service within the confines of their authority. Cardiff is about to embark on experiments with comprehensive schools. It proposes to keep secondary grammar schools, but to reach out to the outer parts of the city, we hope—if the elections go right tomorrow—to have comprehensive schools as well.
  Sir E. Boyle: For goodness' sake, let us get Newport settled, which may have to be done before long, before we get on to Cardiff.
  Mr. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman has his own troubles, but I am concerned only with Cardiff.
  If a local authority like Cardiff suddenly wanted to be progressive in educational matters, it would find it exceedingly difficult if the following year's Estimates had been decided two years before. Clearly, power is being taken away from the local authorities in whom the Government pretend to have such great confidence. To tie the hands of local administrators too far ahead is to rob them of the initiative to which they are entitled.
  The same may well be said of the other services which will be affected by this grant, such as the children's services. Anyone who has served on a local authority will know that constant developments are taking place in children's services. The Minister is merely putting the brake on these authorities if he will not say that for each year of the first three years he will reconsider the estimate of grant that they require.
  This is a reasonable and modest Amendment. It does not ask that the grant should be yearly for good. When the Parliamentary Secretary replies, I hope that he will be in the same accommodating mood as he appeared to be on the last Amendment, in which he wanted to give us what we thought was good for us, but, unfortunately, had to make us wait until tomorrow to receive it. I hope

  1311
  that he will realise that local authorities in general are as much perturbed about the block grant proposal as anything, because it will not be possible to revise it annually. It is difficult enough for them to administer now that they have to make their estimates a year ahead. They are often a long way out in their calculations and the rates have to fluctuate greatly.
  The Minister is bound to be aware of this. The fluctuations in rates will be more severe and the burden of authorities will be magnified if the Minister sticks obstinately to a two-year period. I earnestly hope that we shall find him more reasonable on this modest, but none the less important, proposal.
  Sir E. Boyle: The debate on this Amendment has been very entertaining. I do not think I have ever claimed infallability for myself, but I am surprised to find the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas), arguing in unison and in succession that medium term economic planning is bunk. That is not the view I entirely hold myself.
  Mr. Mitchison: Neither do I, and nor did I say so.
  Sir E. Boyle: The hon. and learned Gentleman came very near to saying so. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that since we have annual Finance Bills and the hon. Member for Cardiff, West said that since the estimates of expenditure and revenue by the Government can be very seriously out, we should have annual general grants. But granted that we have annual Finance Bills and that we sometimes have them more often, it should still be noticed that only as recently as last September my right hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer quite deliberately told public bodies exactly what funds they would have for investment purposes for two years ahead. As a matter of fact, as I think the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, now that we have a public sector of about £1,500 million worth of investment a year, frequently one finds departments in which projects and plans go as far forward as four or five years.
  1312
  On that basis, I do not think there is anything unnatural in the argument that it is cardinal to a general grant principle that there should be certainty for a period of two years. Indeed, I should have thought that it would have been much more difficult for local authorities to plan the orderly development of their services if they know for only a year at a time precisely what grant they are to get. I should be very surprised, whatever view local education authorities hold of the general grant proposals—and I will not go into that controversial matter—if there would be a majority of local education authorities in favour of the Amendment.
  The White Paper on Local Government finance made plain that the first grant period would be two years. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman knows quite well that the reason for choosing two years in the first instance was a very simple one, namely, that there would have to be a stock-taking when the effects of the 1961 revaluation could be assessed. We must leave what happens after 1961 to be judged when the circumstances are known. But I have no doubt that it certainly will be possible to provide on a sound basis for at least two years in the period following that.
  The hon. and learned Gentleman put forward one other argument on which I should like to comment. He said that so much can happen in two years. He said that it is possible to have very rapid developments in further education, in technical colleges and in the sizes of classes. But is that really a realistic outlook? I should have thought that unforeseen need for costly development of education services could not possibly arise overnight.
  So far as further education and technical coleges are concerned, surely it is clear that the rate of expansion depends largely on the rate of new building. We have been able substantially to step up the rate of new building for technical colleges, but obviously it would not be realistic to suppose that there would be rapid expansion of services inside the technical colleges at a faster rate than the provision of new buildings and new equipment.
  Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Has the Parliamentary Secretary considered the possible effect of the new Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Bill, which the Government have presented

  1313
  and which, according to the Government, will bring substantial new industries into certain areas?
  Sir E. Boyle: I entirely agree that there can be rapid industrial developments in any area; that is true. I am merely saying that I do not see how the work done in colleges of further education can expand much faster than the provision of new buildings themselves.
  As for the schools, surely the broad pattern of demand and the factors affecting that pattern are fairly readily predictable. We know what the population will be in two or three years' time. We know approximately what the age distribution of the school population will be. We know, also, what the supply of teachers will be. I see that the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) has returned to his place. It would not be appropriate now to get back to a subect that we have often debated, but as far as all those factors are concerned there cannot be any rapid and unforeseen developments over two years.
  As I see it, there is only one single factor which could completely throw out all the calculations of general grant, and that is a new major Burnham award affecting the great mass of the teaching profession. Both my right hon. Friend and I have said on more than one occasion that we fully recognise that that would justify a renegotiation of the general grant. I am extremely sorry that a misprint in the very first HANSARD of the Standing Committee should have caused a little confusion on that matter.
  I do not think that a sufficient case has been made for the Amendment. The arguments which I have put forward show quite clearly that it is reasonable that the first period of the general grant should take us down to 1961, the year of the next revaluation, and I must ask the House to reject the Amendment.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. Ede: There was one curious phrase that the Parliamentary Secretary used that I was hoping he would elaborate. He said that he did not think that the local authorities themselves would welcome the passing of the Amendment. I am still associated with a large number of representatives of local authorities who have considered this matter. Anxious as they were not to do anything to embarrass the Government, the one thing on which they
  1314
  were determined was that this was so novel a proposal for them to have to administer that for the first two years at least it ought to be an annual calculation.
  If the hon. Gentleman could have claimed that those people supported him, he would have said so. I assure him that if there is one thing of which they are certain, it is that for the first two years to be put into one block is a mistake and that the first two years certainly ought to be calculated separately.
  After all, they do not know—I doubt whether even the Parliamentary Secretary knows yet—what all these things to be prescribed are to be. All we know is that we have had some hypothetical figures which produced such a state of alarm and despondency on the benches behind the hon. Gentleman that 13—a significant number—of his own supporters went into the Lobby last night against the Government.
  Sir E. Boyle: That is not quite accurate. Twelve of them were hon. Friends of mine, but the thirteenth was a member of the party opposite.
  Mr. Ede: Obviously, he realised the importance of having an appropriate number. That does not affect the validity of my argument.
  I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to believe that this matter is regarded with the gravest anxiety by the local authorities, not merely local education authoritties, but local authorities generally, including those who, in addition to being local education authorities, have a great many other duties to discharge. I hope that at some time the Government will say something to enable them to be reassured about the possible effect of too great a rigidity during the first two years of the operation of the Bill.
  Mr. Tudor Watkins: I wish to reinforce what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has said about having annual calculations, particularly in the immediate future. We in mid-Wales have not been as fortunate as some education authorities concerning capital expenditure for school building. If the Ministry calculates on a two-year basis, and includes nothing for school building for the first year, there will be no hope of getting anything for the second year.

  1315
  Therefore, it is essential for us to have the Minister on our side if we are to have any school building to complete the programme of rural reorganisation which has been temporarily stopped.
  For that reason, it is important to examine the calculations year by year in case the Minister has a good turn of mind, so that he may allow greater expenditure for the school building which is required in some of the places in which his circular has brought about a temporary stoppage.
  I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reconsider the position, particularly as it affects some of the places which I represent, where the education rate is enormous. The grant should be on an annual basis. No matter how good our local education committees may be at planning, they would like to be able to view the position from a yearly standpoint.
  Mr. Mitchison: May I have the leave of the House to reply, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if I do not take too long in doing so? I find myself very impatient with the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. I tried to pay him as many compliments as I could about his infallibility, his insight into the present, his sure knowledge of the future and all the rest. I did not really expect it to work, but what I did hope was that we should have a reasonable argument in reply. All we had was this: "We plan ahead. We are such a wise Government that we sometimes look beyond the present year, and for that reason we must have a two-year period over which to estimate the general grant." Surely, the two things are entirely different.
  When the Government come to their economic considerations at the season of the Budget, or at any other time, of course they are bound to look ahead for more than one year. In the educational programme and the working of all the services with which they are concerned, certainly they are bound to look ahead. That does not, however, prevent them nationally making their Budget provision
  for one year ahead. Why should it prevent them making a similar provision in the case of the services of local authorities for one year and one year only?
  The case for doing it in this instance is far stronger, because what the Government are doing is an experiment. It involves countless, obvious uncertainties, things that no one can foretell with any surety. All that the Government are leaving themselves in the Bill by way of loophole if they make a mistake is simply that they can look at the general level of prices, costs and salaries, and that is all.
  Surely, there are other things. Apart from whether the Minister will be prepared to say that he made a mistake and whether he will be prepared to stand up and say, "As a result of the policy of this Government, we have had serious industrial trouble, a sterling crisis and a sharp rise in prices and, therefore, we have to recast our Estimate", there will be countless instances where the Government ought to vary their expenditure from year to year and not commit themselves to an expenditure of at least two years ahead.
  It is unreasonable and obviously wrong, and I can only ascribe the refusal to listen to this kind of argument in any form whatever—the refusal to meet it, not even to the whole extent of the Amendment but at all, the adherence to what is in the Bill and to nothing but what is in the Bill—to the incredible obstinacy that seems to afflict decaying Governments and their members. They just will not listen to reason, and in this instance they are refusing to listen to reason at the expense of the local authorities, and, above all, at the expense of those people to whom these services are directed—the old, the sick, the young—all those whom we ought to help. I regard this as a most mischievous refusal to see sense or to admit that on this small point they have gone too far.
  Question put, That those words be there inserted in the Bill:—
  The House divided: Ayes 177, Noes 208.

  Division No. 117.]

  AYES

  [8.20 p.m.

  Ainsley, J. W.

  Awbery, S. S.

  Benson, Sir George

  Albu, A. H.

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Boardman, H.

  Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)

  Balfour, A.

  Bonham Carter, Mark

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Bence. C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Bowen, E. R. (Cardigan)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Pentland, N.

  Bowles, F. G.

  Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)

  Popplewell, E.

  Boyd, T. C.

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.

  Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)

  Burton, Miss F. E.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena(Holbn&St.Pncs,S.)

  Probert, A. R.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Proctor, W. T.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Johnson, James (Rugby)

  Pryde, D. J.

  Champion, A. J.

  Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Greech(Wakefield)

  Randall, H. E.

  Chetwynd, G. R.

  Jones, David (The Hartlepools)

  Rankin, John

  Clunie, J.

  Jones, Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Coldrick, W.

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Reeves, J.

  Collick, P. H. (Birkenhead)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Rhodes, H.

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Robens, Rt. Hon. A.

  Cove, W. G.

  Kenyon, C.

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Craddock, George (Bradford. S.)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Cullen, Mrs. A.

  King, Dr. H. M.

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.

  Lawson, G. M.

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)

  Ledger, R. J.

  Ross, William

  Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Short, E. W.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Diamond, John

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Slater, J. (Sedgefield)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.

  Logan, D. G.

  Snow, J. W.

  Edelman, M.

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Sparks, J. A.

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  McAlister, Mrs. Mary

  Steele, T.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  MacColl, J. E.

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  McGhee, H. G.

  Stones, W. (Consett)

  Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.

  Fernyhough, E.

  McLeavy, Frank

  Swingler, S. T.

  Finch, H. J.

  Mahon, Simon

  Sylvester, G. O.

  Fletcher, Eric

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Forman, J. C.

  Mann, Mrs. Jean

  Thomas, George (Cardiff)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Mason, Roy

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Gibson, C. W.

  Mikardo, Ian

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Timmons, J.

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Moody, A. S.

  Tomney, F.

  Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.

  Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Grey, C. F.

  Morrison,Rt.Hn.Herbert(Lewis'm,S.)

  Viant, S. P.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Mort, D. L.

  Wade, D. W.

  Griffiths, William (Exchange)

  Moyle, A.

  Watkins, T. E.

  Grimond, J.

  Mulley, F. W.

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Hamilton, W. W.

  Neal, Harold (Bolsover)

  West, D. G.

  Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Wheeldon, W. E.

  Hastings, S.

  Oliver, G. H.

  White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)

  Hayman, F. H.

  Oram, A. E.

  Willey, Frederick

  Herbison, Miss M.

  Orbach, M.

  Williams, David (Neath)

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Owen, W. J.

  Williams, Rev. Llywclyn (Ab'tillery)

  Holman, P.

  Padley, W. E.

  Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)

  Holt, A. F.

  Paget, R. T.

  Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)

  Winterbottom, Richard

  Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)

  Palmer, A. M. F.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Howell, Denis (All Saints)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Woof, R. E.

  Hoy, J. H.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Pearson, A.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Hunter, A. E.

  Peart, T. F.

  Mr. Deer and Mr. Simmons.

  NOES

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)

  Aitken, W. T.

  Bralne, B. R.

  Duncan, Sir James

  Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)

  Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

  Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)

  Alport, C. J. M.

  Brooman-White, R. C.

  Elliott,R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne,N.)

  Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William

  Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Arbuthnot, John

  Bryan, P.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Armstrong, C. W.

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Atkins, H. E.

  Butler, Rt. Hn.R.A.(Saffron Walden)

  Fisher, Nigel

  Baldwin, A. E.

  Carr, Robert

  Fletcher-Cooke, C.

  Balniel, Lord

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Freeth, Denzil

  Barter, John

  Conant, Maj. Sir Roger

  Gammans, Lady

  Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)

  Cooke, Robert

  Garner-Evans, E. H.

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  George, J. C. (Pollok)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald

  Corfield, Capt. F. V.

  Gibson-Watt, D.

  Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)

  Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Glyn, Col. Richard H.

  Bidgood, J. C.

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Godber, J. B.

  Biggs-Davison, J. A.

  Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)

  Gough, C. F. H.

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cunningham, Knox

  Gower, H. R.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Dance, J. C. G.

  Graham, Sir Fergus

  Bishop, F. P.

  Davidson, Viscountess

  Grant, W. (Woodside)

  Black, C. W.

  Deedes, W. F.

  Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)

  Body, R. F.

  Dodds-Parker, A. D.

  Green, A.

  Bossom, Sir Alfred

  Drayson, G. B.

  Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.

  du Cann, E. D. L.

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  1318

  1319

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Linstead, Sir H. N.

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Llewellyn, D. T.

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

  Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vare (Macclesf'd)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby

  Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Sharples, R. C.

  Heath, Rt. Hon. E. R. G.

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Shepherd, William

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  McAdden, S. J.

  Smithers, Peter (Winchester)

  Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.

  Macdonald, Sir Peter

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry

  Speir, R. M.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Mackie, J. H. (Galloway)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Holland-Martin, C. J.

  McLaughlin, Mrs. P.

  Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)

  Hope, Lord John

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Hornby, R. P.

  Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)

  Storey, S.

  Horobin, Sir Ian

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)

  Maddan, Martin

  Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)

  Howard, Hon. Graville (St. Ives)

  Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)

  Taylor, Sir Charies (Eastbourne)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.

  Marshall, Douglas

  Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)

  Hughes-Young, M. H. C.

  Mathew, R.

  Teeling, W.

  Hurd, A. R.

  Mawby, R. L.

  Temple, John M.

  Hutchison, Michael Clark(E'b'gh, S.)

  Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh,W.)

  Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)

  Hyde, Montgomery

  Nabarro, G. D. N.

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Nairn, D. L. S.

  Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)

  Nugent, G. R. H.

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Oakshott, H. D.

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot

  Osborne, C.

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek

  Keegan, D.

  Page, R. G.

  Wall, Patrick

  Kerby, Capt. H. B.

  Partridge, E.

  Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Peel, W. J.

  Whitelaw, W. S. I.

  Kershaw, J. A.

  Peyton, J. W. W.

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Kimball, M.

  Pickthorn, K. W. M.

  Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)

  Kirk, P. M.

  Pilkington, Capt. R. A.

  Wills, G. (Bridgwater)

  Lagden, G. W.

  Pitman, I. J.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Powell, J. Enoch

  Wood, Hon. R.

  Langford-Holt, J. A.

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Leavey, J. A.

  Ramsden, J. E.

  Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.

  Rawlinson, Peter

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

  Redmayne, M.

  Mr. Finlay and

  Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)

  Renton, D. L. M.

  Mr. Chichester-Clark.

  Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)

  Ridsdale, J. E.

  Clause 3.—(POWER TO REDUCE GENERAL GRANT IN CASE OF DEFAULT.)
  Amendment made: In page 4, line 18, leave out "county" and insert "council".—[Mr. Bevins.]
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 4, line 28, at the end to insert:
  (3) Where the provision of any service giving rise to relevant expenditure is a function of a joint board of which the district is wholly or partly comprised in a county borough, subsection (1) of this section shall in relation to the county borough apply to a failure on the part of the joint board to achieve or maintain reasonable standards as it would apply if the failure were that of the county borough council.
  This Amendment merely remedies an omission. We have made no provision in the Bill as it stands to provide a penalty for a county borough council for the default of a joint board in its area.
  8.30 p.m.
  Mr. Sparks: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how he proposes to operate this provision, which refers to a failure on the
  1320
  part of the joint board to achieve or maintain reasonable standards? The operative part of the Clause reads:
  "Subject to the provisions of this section, if the appropriate Minister is satisfied that a recipient authority has failed to achieve or maintain reasonable standards in the provision of any of the services giving rise to relevant expenditure. …"
  and this is the important part—
  "…regard being had to the standards maintained in other areas."
  What does the hon. Gentleman mean by
  "… having regard to the standards maintained in other areas.…"?
  There may well be an area in which the standards are very low. How will he judge whether the service of an authority is adequate if it is in an area where the standards are low throughout? The wording means absolutely nothing. The phrase I have quoted can have reasonable effect only in an area which has high enough standards to enable one to judge whether an individual authority is or is

  1321
  not maintaining a reasonable standard. If the standards of all the authorities in the area are low, there is no measurement that the Minister can apply in deciding whether or not a joint board is maintaining reasonable standards. This point wants clearing up. As the wording stands, it means absolutely nothing in an area where the standards are below par.
  I agree that in another area where the standards are reasonably high the Minister has power to bring a defaulting authority up to the general standard. However, I am sure he will agree that there are areas where the standards are by no means reasonable and are, in some cases, on the low side and there he will have no yardstick to measure the standard of service unless he has some other criterion upon which to make that judgment.
  What is the Minister's definition of an area? What geographical conception does he have in mind, especially where joint boards are concerned? Joint boards are not as numerous as, for instance, county district councils. It may be difficult to compare one joint board with another authority of a similar character, because there may not be another joint board of the same type within a considerable radius. How does the Minister propose to assess what is a reasonable standard to be achieved, in view of the variety of the standards of efficiency in the country?
  Mr. Bevins: What the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) said was not strictly relevant to the Amendment, which covers a very narrow point, but I will help the hon. Member if I can. Clause 3 (1) is set down as a guide to the appropriate Minister in determining whether a certain local authority has failed to maintain reasonable standards. In deciding whether there had been a failure, the Minister would have regard to the standards maintained in other areas and to any regulations made under that subsection prescribing standards.
  I agree that the Clause itself does not lay down any hard and fast criteria. It is difficult to see how it could do so in the circumstances of the case. It is simply a guide. We are here concerned with the relatively narrow point of applying certain penalties to county borough councils which fall within the areas of
  1322
  joint boards. I hope that that will help the hon. Gentleman a little.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 9.—(RATING OF INDUSTRIAL AND FREIGHT-TRANSPORT HEREDITAMENTS.)
  Amendment proposed: In page 10, line 12, leave out "that Act" and insert:
  "the Local Government Act, 1929".—[Mr. Bevins.]
  Mr. Mitchison: Does this Amendment mean that we have all been looking at Clause 9 and omitting to notice that the Act of 1929 was not mentioned? I hope that it does not have that meaning. We are all so well acquainted with Section 68 of that Act, that we may have missed a lot.
  Mr. Bevins: I can acquit the hon. and learned Gentleman and his hon. Friends of any such lack of concentration in our proceedings. This Amendment is consequential on an Amendment, made in Committee, removing from subsection (1) an earlier reference to the Local Government Act, 1929, a reference which, without the Amendment, would not be in the Clause.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move, in page 10, line 14, at the end to insert:
  (2) Where before the nineteenth day of November, nineteen hundred and fifty-seven. such an industrial hereditament was demised or let on terms which provided for the payment of the rate (within the meaning of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925) on that hereditament or on part thereof by the owner and there is no provision in the lease or contract in respect of such demise or letting or otherwise for the owner to demand an increase of rent in respect of such rate, the owner shall be entitled to receive from and shall be paid by the person liable to him for the payment of such rent an increased rent equal to the additional rate from time to time payable in respect of such hereditament or such part thereof by virtue of this section, and such increase shall for all purposes in connection with the recovery of rent be deemed to be part of the rent originally reserved or made payable on such demise or letting.
  (3) For the purpose of this section "owner" shall mean any person for the time being entitled to receive the rack rent of the industrial hereditament whether on his own account or as agent or trustee for any other person.
  Clause 9 relates to the partial rerating of industrial premises and freight transport hereditaments. In all the arguments

  1323
  supporting this partial rerating, it has been assumed that industry can afford to pay. It has been assumed simply that industry will pay, but a particular industrial concern may be a tenant and may not be the owner of the property which it is occupying. If it is a tenant, it may hold at an exclusive or inclusive rent. If it holds on an inclusive rent, the landlord pays the rates. The result of re-rating would be that the landlord would be paying the increased rates under Clause 9, the 25 per cent., and not the industry concerned.
  That cannot be the intention of the Clause. My Amendment is intended to put that right, so that the landlord is allowed to be repaid by the tenant in the form of increased rent. The landlord might be called upon to pay something even in excess of the rent, if the property was let at an inclusive rent some time ago. The landlord should be entitled to recover that increased rate from the tenant.
  This is not a new principle. In the 1929 Act, when industrial premises were derated, the exact opposite was applied; that is, when industrial premises were let at an inclusive rent the owner had to allow the tenant that amount of de-rating. I am now suggesting that, in all fairness, the landlord should be entitled to recover that amount from the tenant. It may be said that there cannot be many of these cases and that normally industrial premises are let at an exclusive rent, the tenant paying the rates. It was necessary to deal in 1929 with cases of inclusive rents, and I am sure there must be some inclusive rents paid by industrial tenants at the present time.
  The hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. P. Morris) raised this question in Committee and drew our attention to the Treforest Trading Estate. I see the hon. Member in his place, and I hope that he will join me in my plea to the Minister to put this matter right.
  I should like my right hon. Friend to say whether he accepts the principle and whether it would be fair, as it was thought fair to do it the other way round in 1929. If so, ought the Amendment to be rejected because one cannot put one's finger on any particular case other than that which the hon. Member for Swansea, West raised in Committee?
  1324
  There is no reason why the Ministry should have knowledge of all these cases. If my right hon. Friend says that the Ministry knows of no case to which this would apply, that does not mean that there are no cases.
  It must be common knowledge that many industrial premises are let at an inclusive rent. Now that there is rerating, although we would be interfering in a way with a contractual relationship, it is justifiable to interfere with it to bring fairness, reasonableness and justice to the relationship between landlord and tenant as affected by this Clause.
  Mr. John M. Temple: I beg to second the Amendment.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Percy Morris: It is still true that adversity finds strange bedfellows. When this matter arose in Committee I was endeavouring to help people who really are ambassadors of the Government of the day in endeavouring to make a great success of trading estates. We referred to the difficulties which arose as a result of war when we encouraged people—who, in effect, were refugees—to set up new businesses, particularly in South Wales, and, to expedite matters, certain agreements were reached which were quite unusual insofar as they provided for a rent and rates inclusive arrangement.
  As a result of recent developments in connection with rerating, it is possible that some tenants will be paying less in rent than their landlord has to pay in rates. If we are to keep these trading estates functioning and providing employment for people where it is needed most, I think it worth while for the right hon. Gentleman to make some arrangement. My difficulty is that I am unable to measure the problem throughout the country. The Minister may have far more information than is at our disposal. I hope I was not wrong in Committee and that the Minister would like to help if that is at all possible. A great deal of correspondence has passed between his Department and those immediately concerned. He undertook to talk to us about it on Report.
  Now that the matter has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), the terms of the Amendment are so explicit and the hon. Member has clarified it in every possible way, I need

  1325
  not detain the House, but I should like to learn from the Minister whether he has found ways and means of helping those who are helping him to maintain employment in South Wales.
  Mr. Sparks: There is one side of this problem which seems most remarkable. Over a period of time there is usually some fluctuation in the incidence of the rate. If there is in existence such a lease as I presume my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. P. Morris) knows of, it would seem that, unless the rate incidence has remained absolutely stable from the date of contract, any variation in the rate since that time must have been borne by the owner and not passed on to the tenant.
  I do not deny for a moment that there is something of a hardship on the owner if he has to pay 50 per cent. of the net annual value as against 25 per cent., but is this a real remedy to the situation? With the quinquennial valuation lists coming—we have had one already and there is to be another in 1961, and we have been told that at the next quinquennial valuation rateable values will rise again—if this Amendment is accepted I do not think we shall have a complete solution to the problem.
  Mr. Page: The hon. Member will distinguish between what he calls fluctuation in rate increase, in rate poundage and in new rate assessments, and a substantial increase such as one gets under rerating, which is doubling the existing rate.
  Mr. Sparks: I quite agree. The amount involved may be greater in proportion, but who knows, the Government may step it up in two or three years' time to 75 per cent., or even 100 per cent. Then we shall have a repetition of the problem. Even so, when the quinquennial valuation comes in 1961, if we are to accept what hon. Gentlemen opposite say, the assessments will rise again, which will, in effect, mean that the rate burden on people will be further increased.
  I should have thought that the best solution to this problem would have been to have had a fresh lease, in which the incidence of the rates on the property is carried by the tenant. I presume that that is what the hon. Gentleman wants. If a new lease is provided, one is covered
  1326
  for all time and we need not then have to come to the House again when the Minister has increased the contributions of industry to 75 per cent. and say, "Please do for us what you did on the previous Bill."
  Mr. Morris: If my hon. Friend can persuade the Minister to accept this suggestion, we would be very happy indeed. It is an expedient we are looking for.
  Mr. Bevins: We had quite a lengthy debate on this problem, which is not a big problem, during the Committee proceedings, and both my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) and the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. P. Morris) gave their views at some length. Since the Committee proceedings, my right hon. Friend has had an opportunity of looking very carefully again into this matter, and I am bound to say that, for reasons which I shall give and which, I hope, will prove convincing to both my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman opposite, he does not feel able to accept the Amendment, or, indeed, the principle of the Amendment.
  The hon. Member for Swansea, West told the Committee that this case refers to the Treforest Trading Estate, which is under the control of the Wales and Monmouthshire Industrial Estates Company. The problem is largely a pre-war and war-time one in its origin. The tenants were refugees from Europe, and at the time they settled in South Wales they were apprehensive about taking leases at inclusive rentals in case they were overwhelmed by very large rate increases. I think that the hon. Member for Swansea, West recognises that the estate company accepted the risk of increased rates, but said that it could not have foreseen the possibility of industrial rerating, either in part or in whole, at any future time.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby said today, as, indeed, he said in the Standing Committee, that lettings at inclusive rentals were not unusual, and it would be unfair not to provide for the converse of the provision in the Local Government Act which required a landlord of property let at an inclusive rental to remit to his tenants the benefits of derating. Notwithstanding what my hon. Friend said, these cases of inclusive rentals for industrial premises are, to the best of my knowledge, very few and far between. I believe they are very isolated.

  1327
  Since we had our debate in Standing Committee, which, as the House knows, was fairly well publicised, not a single additional case of this kind has been brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend. We have looked at the problem again and, although we conferred with my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, we have not been able to find another case of this description. We do not feel that it would be right to alter the law solely to meet one case, even if the merits of that case were beyond dispute, and I want to tell the House that the merits of this case are not beyond dispute. The fact is that the board of management of this estate company, when it first entered into these contracts, did not foresee that industrial derating might be changed, and now that the unforeseen has happened the proposal is that because the Board did not envisage this possibility——
  Mr. P. Morris: A different board of management now.
  Mr. Bevins: It is almost the same, I think. It is suggested that because the board did not envisage the possibility of this measure of derating, it should be indemnified against it at the expense of the tenants. I think that the House will see that in accepting the leases the tenants equally thought that they would be safeguarded against any increases in rates, from whatever cause. We are, therefore, being asked tonight to assist an undertaking, whose predecessors were prepared to accept a risk of rate increases, at the expense of tenants, whose concern was to safeguard themselves against increases from any quarter.
  It is difficult in this one known case to make any substantial plea of hardship on behalf of the landlords. If there were a distinct element of hardship the proposition would perhaps be different. This company, for whom we have a great admiration for its work in South Wales, is not constituted for profit and the worst that is likely to happen if the company makes a loss is that it would partially default on its interest payments to the Exchequer. There will not be any hardship. In those circumstances, as this appears to be an isolated case, my right hon. Friend does not feel able to advise the House to accept the Amendment. I think this is essentially a case, as the
  1328
  hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) said, in which it might be appropriate for some renegotiation of terms to take place between the company and the tenants.
  Mr. Ede: Does this mean that, in future, if people default on payments to the Exchequer, they can say, "It is a case of hard luck; just let me off"?
  Amendment negatived.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 10, line 29, at the end to insert:
  (3) Where, on or after the first day of April, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, an alteration having effect for a period preceding that date falls to be made in a valuation list with respect to an industrial hereditament or freight-transport hereditament, the alteration, so far as concerns rateable value, shall be made so as to indicate the value ascertained in accordance with subsection (1) of this section; but as respects any such period for which the alteration has effect the valuation list shall be deemed to indicate a rateable value ascertained by reference to net annual value in like manner as if subsection (1) of this section had not passed.
  I trust that this Amendment will commend itself to the House, because it is intended solely to clear up what otherwise may be a small difficulty. It deals with the case where an alteration has to be made in a valuation list on or after 1st April, 1959, with respect to an industrial or freight-transport hereditament and yet the alteration has effect for a period prior to that date.
  The House will appreciate the kind of case in which that might occur if the proposal were served before 1st April, 1959, but came to be settled on or after that date. In cases of that kind two different rateable values will be required, one ascertained with rating at 25 per cent. of the full value up to 1st April, 1959, and the second ascertained with rating at 50 per cent., from that date onwards. All that the Amendment does is to secure that those two different values can be used.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 15.—(ADJUSTMENTS TRANSITIONAL ON COMING INTO EFFECT OF PART I.)
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 15, line 3, at the end to insert:
  (11) Regulations under this section shall not have effect until approved by a resolution of the Commons House of Parliament.

  1329
  This Amendment is linked with the Amendment to Clause 16, page 15, line 6, and also with the Amendment to the First Schedule, page 46, line 4.
  I apologise for bringing before the House starred Amendments, but I think that the House will forgive me, because these three Amendments fulfil a pledge that I gave to the Committee yesterday. Their combined effect will be to make regulations made under Clause 15—that is, the regulations which relate to transitional provisions from 1961 onwards—subject to affirmative Resolution. When I suggested in our discussions in Committee yesterday that we should make this change it seemed to be generally welcomed, and I have been able to put down the Amendments overnight.
  Mr. Page: I rise only to thank my right hon. Friend on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends who yesterday took part in what I have heard described as the seaside frolic. We are indeed grateful to him for meeting us to this extent.
  Mr. Sparks: May I ask the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) why his hon. Friends are not here to speak for themselves?
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 16.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO PART I.)
  Amendment made: In page 15, line 6, at end insert:
  Provided that section one hundred and forty-two of that Act shall not apply to regulations and orders under this Part of this Act.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Clause 17.—(THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSIONS.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 15, line 27, at the beginning to insert:
  "If the Commission make a representation in that behalf".
  This Amendment is linked with the one that follows it in page 15, line 30. They both relate to Clause 17 (2); that is to say, to the Clause which enables the Minister to define new special review areas, in England only, by Order. This power is required in case the Commission comes to the conclusion, after looking at an area, that that area cannot be made the subject of satisfactory proposals unless the district pattern and functions as well as the county and county borough pattern can be looked at and dealt with as a
  1330
  whole, and is able to satisfy the Minister that this is so. Hon. Members may remember that in Standing Committee some anxieties were expressed—in the first place, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Bottomley)—that the Minister should have these powers at all, and I hope that the present Amendments will allay those anxieties.
  Perhaps I might be allowed to say that by virtue of these provisions, the Minister will be able to define a new special review area by Order only where the Commission has recommended that this should be done—only on the recommendation of the Local Government Commission, and not on the initiative of the Minister. The Minister, however, will be free to take different boundaries from those recommended by the Commission, so as to exclude, for example, a district which, in his view, seems better suited to ordinary review treatment. That is not a substantial departure from the principle that I have just mentioned. The Amendment also provides that the Minister will be able to define only one new area in one Order. That, I think, will meet the sense of the feeling expressed in Standing Committee.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 15, line 30, at end insert:
  "being the area specified in the representation or that area with such additions thereto or deletions therefrom as the Minister may determine to be expedient; but no one order under this subsection shall provide for more than one additional special review area ".—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 18.—(GENERAL SCOPE OF COMMISSION'S PROPOSALS.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 16, line 16, to leave out "county boroughs" and to insert:
  "boroughs (whether county or non-county)".
  This Amendment is linked with those in page 19, lines 2 and 3. All three together are purely of a clarifying character. There has been some doubt about the meaning of some of the words in Clause 18. I am advised that there was no doubt what the words meant, but I think that if these Amendments are made the meaning will be plainer.
  Mr. James MacColl: It would be a pity to let this occasion pass without expressing some appreciation to the right

  1331
  hon. Gentleman for having at any rate stood on the path of greatness. I do not go so far as to say that he has travelled very far along that path, but he has at any rate gone so far as to admit that it is possible that somebody might misunderstand something which he has put in the Bill and which he defended with such vigour in Standing Committee. I welcome the Amendment because it effects an improvement in the drafting of the Bill and makes it easier for people to understand the process whereby two non-county boroughs can reach the status of a county borough.
  I would mention just one other point. As the right hon. Gentleman has gone so far, I am not quite clear why he has stopped where he has. What is the position of a non-county borough and some other type of district council which wish to achieve county borough status, when a non-county borough and an urban district council—it might be a rural district council—are prepared to perform the same happy operation as two non-county boroughs which wish to fructify into a county borough? How would they do it?
  Mr. H. BrookeI assure the hon. Gentleman that that is covered by Clause 18. I do not think he would wish me to go into all the details, but, as he will remember, Clause 18 empowers the Commission to propose any changes which can be produced by means set out in paragraphs (a) to (e) or by any combination of the means. If the hon. Gentleman examines the provision carefully I think he will find that there will be no obstacle to what he desires being achieved.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 16, line 25, at the end to insert:
  (f) the inclusion of the Isles of Scilly. as one or more county districts, in an administrative county.
  This Amendment is linked with the next Amendment, in Clause 23, page 19, line 2, to leave out "(e)" and insert "(f),
  These two Amendments deal exclusively with the Isles of Scilly, a very important place, but one with a unique form of local government structure, which, as the Bill is at present drafted, would be outside the purview of the Commission. The
  1332
  Council of the Isles of Scilly made representations some months ago that they would like to be within the purview so that the Commission could consider some of their local government problems. It seemed right that that request should be granted, and the sole purpose of these Amendments is to make sure that it is granted.
  These Amendments are not to be taken as in any way pre-judging the question whether there should be any change in the status of the Isles of Scilly, and the Government are not proposing this Amendment because they wish to bias the Commission in any way regarding the Isles of Scilly. We simply want to make sure that if it seems appropriate that the problem of the Isles of Scilly should be looked at by the Commission, the Commission will not find itself acting ultra vires if it so proceeds.
  Mr. Sparks: Are any other isles left out from the Bill, apart from the Isles of Scilly?
  Mr. Brooke: I think not.
  Mr. G. R. Howard: I am glad that my right hon. Friend said what he did about not prejudging the question, and I am glad to know that this Amendment does not mean, as the words on the Paper rather incline one to think, that there is any threat of a merger of the Council of the Isles of Scilly in the County Council of Cornwall. For reasons which I will enumerate as quickly as possible, that would be a fatal mistake.
  My right hon. Friend has said that this is a unique case, as indeed it is, but, unfortunately, the attitude of all Governments has been that one cannot make exceptions. On one occasion, we were compared with the Isle of Wight, and what I said on that occasion need not detain the House on this. We are always told that exceptions cannot be made until we find that an exception is made to our disadvantage, such as the exception made by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General.
  My right hon. Friend has made excellent innovations in the telephone services, and over large areas of the United Kingdom there have been very considerable reductions in the telephone charges. Anyone who looks at the map of West Cornwall will see that the line is carefully drawn round Land's End and that the

  1333
  Isles of Scilly are excluded. In other words, it is "Heads you win, tails I lose" every time. Although my right hon. Friend did give us a small concession of about 3d. on calls, this cannot in any way be compared with the service on the mainland and the reductions there.
  The fact that the islands are unique in the local government system was recognised by the passing of an Act of Parliament at the end of the last century making them into a form of county council area. If they were merged into the county of Cornwall, their representation would, as anyone having experience of local government will realise, be a minority one. People would listen to what our representatives had to say, but they would not get very far with much hope of success in that county council. There are other difficulties. How would they get to meetings? There are extra health costs which fall upon unfortunate people in the islands if they have to go to the mainland for special treatment; if they are stretcher cases they are taken care of, but if not, they have to pay for themselves. Would that fall upon the County of Cornwall? I can assure my right hon. Friend that the County of Cornwall does not want it and views with a great deal of fear the possibility of it ever happening.
  In education, there are all kinds of special aspects which I will not go into now. It is regrettable that no one from Her Majesty's Government has ever been to visit us, with the exception of one hon. Gentleman who came, who was, unfortunately, so incapacitated by sea-sickness that his visit was cut and he was not able to visit all the islands, through no fault of his own. Apart from him, no one has come. Over and over again, we have asked for someone to come; we have invited the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary, but without success.
  Mr. G. Thomas: George Tomlinson went.
  Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the late and very respected Member of the House, the right hon. George Tomlinson. I was just going to mention him. He came down to the islands when he was dying of an incurable disease. He went round every single one, and I went with him. Under the 1944 Act, it was laid down that, in the Isles of Scilly, we had to build asphalt
  1334
  playgrounds. This was a perfectly absurd thing to do, as I told the right hon. Gentleman at the time. As we stood on one of the islands together, I said to him, "Looking round these islands, seeing the beauties of them and the perfection of the playing places for our schoolchildren, what would you have given to be here as a child? He said, "Of course, you are right. I will scrap it at once." One could only wish that somebody from the Ministry of Education could have come down and taken the same personal interest.
  9.15 p.m.
  Having said that, I should like to pay my tribute to the Minister, because he was instrumental in setting up the mechanics for a special report which I have on the economic conditions in the Isles of Scilly, namely, the Larrard Report. There are various things in it which the Minister knows, and those who have studied it will agree, show the special characteristics of the islands. Indeed, only recently the Minister wrote a letter to the Council in which he said:
  "The issue is complex and involves several Departments of Government. It is much affected by the amount of general grant and of rate deficiency… It seems desirable that one Department should maintain a general oversight; and it has been decided that this Department should do so."
  That is the result of our trying for a long time to get acceptance by the Government of the idea that one Department should take a general oversight of the problems in the islands.
  These things should be acknowledged, and the Government should realise at last the special importance of these islands. As the Minister has rightly said, we cannot at this stage prejudge the issue, but I wish to make known the views of the people of these islands, which they express in this House through me, because I am the only person who can do it. The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) asked if other English islands were concerned, but there are none comparable to the Isles of Scilly. The Scottish islands are fortunate enough to have representation in the Cabinet through the Secretary of State for Scotland. Unfortunately for the Isles of Scilly, they only have the hon. Member for St. Ives, who is not quite the same status.
  Mr. G. Thomas: The hon. Gentleman is too modest.
  Mr. Howard: However, he does his best every year to try to keep this matter before the House. But I will not go into all the other aspects of the matter at this stage, especially in view of what the Minister has said. I only wish to have on record once again the very special characteristics of these islands, and I hope that my few remarks have proved that it would be quite hopeless to merge them with the County of Cornwall. It would be so unfair to saddle Cornwall with the inevitable extra expenditure in respect of schools and so on.
  At the moment, as I see it from reading this hypothetical illustration, the situation remains that if they do not do much about it they will be better off, but if they wish to progress with their enormous housing programme—of which I have the details here, but with which I do not wish to weary the House—then it will cost them more. After all, so little money is involved in this problem, but it is of importance in the lives of the people who live there. I am sure that we wish to maintain round our coasts men of this sort of independent character. However, I warn my right hon. Friend that I have been trying to keep them patient for a long time, but, in the famous expression of somebody rather less worthy before the war, their patience is very nearly exhausted.
  I conclude by saying once again that I hope my right hon. Friend, if possible, will impress upon the Commission that, whatever happens to these islands, they must be treated as a special case and not linked to the County of Cornwall.
  Mr. Ede: I am quite sure that my hon. Friends on this side will be grateful to the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) for the tribute he paid to our late colleague the right hon. George Tomlinson. He was not the only Member of that Government who visited the Scilly Isles. I went, but I did not go by sea, because I am probably the worst sailor in the House. I went by air.
  I carried through an amalgamation scheme dealing with the Scilly Isles which had a remarkable effect. I lowered the police rate in the Scilly Isles but doubled the size of the police force, because by constituting a joint police authority for Cornwall and the Scilly Isles that remarkable result was achieved.
  1336
  As I understand it, the Minister's Amendment is merely an enabling Amendment which is being inserted, according to the Minister, at the request of the Council of the Isles of Scilly. Before anything can happen with regard to it, we shall have to go through the whole proceedings that are laid down in this part of the Bill.
  I hope that some of the disadvantages from which the islanders at present suffer may possibly be removed as the result of some joint understanding between them and such county as may be willing to co-operate with them. They are limited only to one county, but I do not think that that county is inclined to be unco-operative. I hope also that it will mean that something can be done to improve the highways of the island.
  Let me remind the hon. Member for St. Ives what happens. As no grants are made to the Scilly Isles for highways, no taxes are levied on their motor vehicles. The Council of the Isles of Scilly said that it would like to improve the roads, on St. Mary's at least, and therefore suggested that a voluntary contribution of 5s. a wheel should be made by the owners of cars on the island.
  Mr. Page: Only one.
  Mr. Ede: Six owners each contributed £1. When the others were asked what they would do, they said, "We will see what you do with the £6 first."
  I suggest that idyllic as these islands are in many respects, if they wish to retain their young people they must realise that they are living in the twentieth century and that some of these things may be capable of being adjusted if this enabling Clause can be used to the mutual satisfaction of the islanders and the residents on the mainland.
  Mr. Page: I rise only to support my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) in saying how unique a position the Scilly Isles hold. Since the House is in reminiscent mood, I can speak from knowledge of the Scilly Isles because I spent my honeymoon there. On that occasion, I found that the whole of the islands were governed by one police constable, whom the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) later doubled. I do not know why. It was

  1337
  a great disappointment, for the one police constable had complete and utter control of the island.
  Mr. Ede: Until the hon. Member went there.
  Mr. Page: Oh, no; while I was there. Not only have I knowledge of the islands twenty-four years ago. The next time I went was last year. The honeymoon on that occasion was with the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). We were sharing the islands together. It was not such a pleasant honeymoon as the first one.
  Nevertheless, one sees the development of the islands, a development entirely along their own lines, strong independent lines. I see no weakness whatever in the administration there, and when one visits as a Member of Parliament one takes an interest in the local authority, in local social functions, and so on. There is great strength and great loyalty within the community of the islands, and I hope no commission will mess about with this but will leave them strong and independent.
  Mr. M. Stewart: I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman could clear up one point about this Amendment which is puzzling me? I understood him to say that it was put in at the request of the council of the Isles of Scilly, because otherwise they would be outside the purview of the Commission and they thought that the Commission might be able to help them solve some of their local government problems.
  What puzzles me is whether this Amendment enables the Commission to do anything for the Isles of Scilly except to recommend their inclusion in an administrative council. If I followed the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) correctly, that is the one thing he thinks they do not want done. So what is puzzling me is that the Amendment does not seem to enable the Commission to do as much as the Isles of Scilly would like in one direction and perhaps enables it to do more in another.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I will endeavour to clarify this point. The Council of the Isles of Scilly asked that at an early date the Commission should examine their
  1338
  problems. On examining the Bill, it was found that it would be ultra vires for the Commission to do so. Therefore, some amendment of the Bill was needed which would enable the Commission to look at the problems of the isles. Indeed, quite apart from the request of the Council of the Isles of Scilly, it would not be unreasonable for this to happen because, by common consent, the isles have certain local government problems. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) stressed that point.
  If one is appointing a Local Government Commission it would seem anomalous not to give that Commission the chance of seeing whether it could make any contribution towards the solution of the problem. I am not saying in advance whether it could or not. It is difficult to see what other power the Commission could be given except the power that is set out here. One could hardly give authority to the Commission to constitute the Isles of Scilly a county borough or something of that kind.
  If the House will accept this Amendment, then it will put It within the powers of the Commission to look at the problems of the Isles of Scilly and, if the Commission thinks fit, to make a report on the matter. My hon. Friend has made it clear that his hope is that the Commission will recommend against doing any such thing as is here set out, but I think on all counts it would be unreasonable if the Commission was debarred from going anywhere near the isles, considering that the isles have avowed local government problems.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 23.—(POWER OF MINISTER TO GIVE EFFECT TO PROPOSALS.)
  Amendments made: In page 19, line 2, leave out "(e)" and insert "(f)".
  In line 3, at end insert:
  "or the constitution of a new county borough by the amalgamation of two or more noucounty boroughs".
  In line 12, leave out "(with or without" and insert:
  "or the constitution of a new county borough by the amalgamation of two or more non-county boroughs (with or without, in either case, the inclusion in the new county borough of".—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Clause 25.—(VARIATION OF SPECIAL REVIEW AREAS.)
  9.30 p.m.
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 20, line 9, after "order", to insert:
  "made on the representations of. or after consultation with, the Commission".
  Clause 25 (1) gives the Minister power to vary a special review area one way or the other, either by adding to it or by taking from it. In Committee it was agreed that an Amendment should be accepted which required the Minister to consult the local authorities directly affected before making any such Order. There was, however, a little suspicion in the minds of some hon. Members about the object of this whole provision.
  Our primary object is simply to make sure that if the Commission, after starting its work, decides to ask the Minister either to extend or to reduce a special review area, the Minister will be able to do so subject to his consulting the local authorities. There is nothing sacrosanct about the special review areas as they are defined in the Third Schedule. My right hon. Friend has made it abundantly clear over and over again that they are simply a basis from which we start.
  Naturally, we have made as careful an assessment as we could in defining them, but it is unreasonable to expect us to do this except as an approximation. Only a detailed review of the circumstances in the various localities can produce a precise pattern, and that, of course, is the job of the Local Government Commission.
  This Amendment and the next Amendment are designed to give emphasis to this point. They stipulate that an Order under Clause 25 (1)—that is, the changing of a special review area—can be made only where the Commission has so recommended or has at least been consulted. In the ordinary way the Minister will leave the initiative to the Commission but we feel that he should have power to act on his own responsibility in, for example, a case where, in spite of the advice of the Commission, he is overwhelmingly convinced that a local authority's request, either to be put in or to be left out, is a good one, and even in this exceptional case the Minister would still require to consult the Commission before taking action.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 20, line 18, at end insert:
  "or of the remainder of a county district part of which is in that area".—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 28.—(HOLDING OF REVIEWS BY COUNTY COUNCILS.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 22, line 15, to leave out subsection (3).
  This is a consequential Amendment.
  Mr. MacColl: I believe this matter was discussed in the Standing Committee. I am not clear in what respect the Amendment is consequential upon what has happened previously. I do not wish to make any remarks about it if I have misunderstood the implication, but my impression was that this was a matter which would be looked at.
  Mr. Bevins: The Amendment is consequential upon the first of the new Clauses which were before the House earlier today.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 22, line 41, leave out from "subsection" to end of line 46.—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 29.—(PROCEDURE ON COUNTY REVIEWS.)
  Amendments made: In page 23 line 19, leave out "a copy thereof is' and insert:
  "copies of the report and proposals are".
  In line 21 leave out "thereto" and insert "to the proposals".—[Mr. H Brooke.]

  Clause 31.—(SUBSEQUENT COUNTY REVIEWS.)
  Amendments made: In page 25, line 21, leave out from "as" to "period" in line 23 and insert "a reference to a".
  In line 27, leave out from beginning to end of line 45.—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 33.—(CONSTITUTION OF COUNTY BOROUGHS: PRESUMPTION AS TO SIZE.)
  Mr. George Chetwynd: I beg to move, in page 26, line 17, to leave out "one hundred" and to insert "seventy-five".
  It may be convenient to discuss at the same time the two Amendments to Clause 34, in page 26, line 22, leave out "fifteen" and insert "ten". And in

  1341
  line 27 leave out "one hundred" and insert "seventy-five".
  The principle is the same, although the application is slightly different in each case.
  Clause 33 lays down some guiding principles to the Boundary Commission for carrying out its work and for when the Commission and the Minister are considering the creation of new county boroughs. The Clause gives guidance on the population to be taken into account in making that decision, and it is presumed that a population of 100,000 is sufficient for the carrying out of the functions of a county borough council. The object of my Amendments is to return to the present position in that respect, substituting 75,000 for 100,000 population. The main purpose of the Boundary Commission, as laid down in Clause 17, is to bring about units of effective and convenient local government. The main purpose of my argument is to try to persuade the House that a county borough can undertake effective and convenient local government services with a population of 75,000.
  There was no Amendment on these lines in the Standing Committee and there was very little discussion about the matter. I can only assume that that was because there was no representative of a non-county borough in the Standing Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "There was."] In that case, there could not have been a representative of a non-county borough with a population of less than 75,000, or this matter would certainly have been raised.
  The Minister's reference to this matter in Standing Committee did not make it clear whether before a non-county borough could be upgraded it was essential that the population should be 100,000. He said:
  "The population of 100,000 referred to is not an indispensable minimum for the creation of a new county borough; nor is it an automatic qualification such as would ensure that any area with a population of over 100,000 could unquestionably become a new county borough."
  There is some doubt about what he meant by that statement. He went on:
  "What is needed is some sort of presumption whereby one can limit the scope for argument as to whether a local authority of a certain size is or is not strong enough and large enough to fulfil county borough responsibilities.… 100,000 should be taken as
  1342
  being broadly the figure."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 18th March, 1958; c. 949.]
  That seems to indicate that although the Minister does not preclude consideration being given to an area with a population of less than 100,000, that is nevertheless a fairly strong indication that 100,000 is the figure and that any non-county borough with a population less than that will not receive consideration. It obviously prejudices the view of certain non-county boroughs which are covered by the existing legislation provided in the Local Government Boundary Commission (Dissolution) Act, 1949. I come to that point as my strongest support in moving the Amendment.
  On the Committee stage of that Measure in 1949, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) accepted an Amendment to restore 75,000 as the right figure for a non-county borough to seek to get county-borough status. In the original Bill, 100,000 had been put in, but it met with opposition on Second Reading. A delegation went to see my right hon. Friend, and as a result he introduced the Amendment which had the effect of putting back the figure 75,000. My right hon. Friend made it clear on that occasion that that was done to remove any misapprehension by non-county boroughs. Speaking for the Conservative Opposition, the late Mr. Walter Elliot accepted that Amendment for his party and also said that it was an improvement upon the previous figure of 100,000. The Committee accepted the Amendment without any Division, and with very little debate. As a result, the figure 75,000 was embodied in the legislation as being the figure at which a non-county borough could promote a Bill seeking county-borough status. I hope that what happened on that occasion will be looked upon as a favourable precedent for what I am trying to do tonight.
  Nothing has happened since 1949 to make non-county boroughs with a population of 75,000 less capable of carrying out the functions of a county borough than they were at that time. Over the past ten years, a number of non-county boroughs, including the one which I have the honour to represent, have presented Bills for county-borough status. Each one has been defeated in this House, but not on grounds of size or of capacity to carry out effectively

  1343
  local government functions. They were defeated mainly because of the impact they would have had on the surrounding county. In the case of Luton and of Stockton-on-Tees, the Bills were defeated because the Government opposed piecemeal legislation in advance of a general reorganisation of local government. In not one of these cases was the Bill rejected because it was considered that the population was too small.
  With the coming of this comprehensive Bill for local government reform, the non-county boroughs thought that their period of waiting would soon be at an end, that their patience would be rewarded and that the Local Government Boundary Commission would be able to consider their cases. By the alteration of the figure from 75,000 to 100,000 their hopes have been very rudely dashed. It now looks as though many of them will have to go on waiting for a number of years for their populations to reach 100,000, or for some amalgamation to take place with neighbouring districts. By the alteration of this presumptive figure, the Minister has struck a heavy blow at a number of non-county boroughs.
  At this stage I do not wish to argue the case for any particular county borough, because that would not be proper, but I would quote again in my support the Report of the 1947 Boundary Commission which made it quite clear that in the view of the Commission—a most authoritative body of local government experts, etc.—there were ten non-county boroughs worthy of attaining county borough status and that they were, in capacity to carry out the duty, indistinguishable from the other county boroughs who already had these powers. The Report said that they were just as capable of carrying out these local government services as were most of the fifty-two county boroughs, which it named.
  There are twenty county boroughs in existence with a population of 75,000 or below, and nine county councils with a population of 75,000 or below. My contention is that if it is right for them to carry on the functions of county boroughs and counties, in equity it is right that the existing non-county boroughs of 75,000 population should be considered.
  1344
  I can see no valid reason why the Minister should seek to alter the number to 100,000 and thereby prejudice from the beginning the case of the non-county boroughs. By agreeing to accept the Amendment he would not automatically guarantee that these boroughs would become county boroughs, but at least he would give them the chance of having their case heard by the Local Government Boundary Commission. He would enable all the processes under this Bill to be gone through.
  9.45 p.m.
  My view, which is backed forcibly by my local authority, is that it is wrong for the Government to rule out of court the aspirations of these vigorous, independent local government units. We have waited a long time for this opportunity. We thought we would get it under this Bill, but we find that it is put off again to the future. I hope that on this major Amendment the right hon. Gentleman will see fit to act as his predecessor in the Labour Government acted and reverse his policy and accept the number of 75,000.
  I admit that I do not attach so much importance to the next Amendment in my name. It would reduce the 15-year standstill to 10 years. The object is to reduce by five years the period during which no further approach can be made by an affected borough. In rapidly developing areas where the population is coming in because of industrial usage and so on, it is quite wrong to expect the borough to wait 15 years from the passing of this Measure before it can introduce a Bill to alter its status. The area I represent is a rapidly developing one. It has had to allow its local government to wait on this Bill for so long that we are in some danger of stagnating in our approach to local government.
  What provision is there to meet exceptional circumstances brought about by movements of population, development of industries and perhaps voluntary amalgamations? I believe that 10 years is long enough for any general standstill. I hope that the Minister will also accept that Amendment. Non-county boroughs have had sufficient disappointment without having to wait another 15 years to bring forward a local government Bill.
  The third Amendment seeks to substitute 75,000 for 100,000 in Clause 34.

  1345
  This is a final attempt to get some measure of justice and improvement in the position of non-county boroughs. As it stands, the Clause places a further obstacle in the way of non-county boroughs. If they have to wait for 15 years, they have still to reach a population of 100,000 before they can promote a Bill to obtain county borough status. That would rule out a number of non-county boroughs from making application for a long time ahead. It will frustrate the chances of these local authorities and lead to further friction between non-county boroughs and county boroughs. The longer that goes on the more difficult the situation will be.
  I do not want to repeat arguments in favour of non-county boroughs of certain size becoming county boroughs. I submit that they fulfil the test laid down in Cmd. 9831:
  "The test of any system of local government in this country should be whether it provides a stable structure, capable of discharging efficiently the functions entrusted to it. while at the same time maintaining its local democratic character."
  I ask the House to accept that these non-county boroughs, thriving, vigorous towns, are quite capable of carrying out all the functions which in many cases are carried out by neighbouring county councils of a similar size. There has been too much delay already in coming to a decision about their future. It is unreasonable, in my view, to expect them to go on waiting year after year. Indeed, after 15 years, or the time which it takes them to develop a population of 100,000, they would all be weary of waiting and would give up all hope of ever becoming independent local government units. Therefore, I ask the Minister, in the interests of good local government in these areas, to accept the Amendment.
  Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: I beg to second the Amendment.
  I wish to speak briefly in support of the case which has been so ably and lucidly put by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd). He has put all the arguments, which apply to my own constituency and to the other towns in this situation just as much as they do to his own borough of Stockton-on-Tees. I would beg the Minister to remember that, if he decides to resist the Amendment, he will plunge the local authorities which have been
  1346
  in this position for many years now into a mood of utter despair. We have been hoping, and our hopes have been deferred over and over again, that when this Bill was introduced our difficulties would be met, and now we see that the position is made worse than it was before, and we are in very considerable difficulty.
  I cannot understand what justification there can possibly be for increasing this arbitrary upper limit if the figure of 75,000 was adequate thirteen years ago, and we would be much obliged if the Minister would tell us what was in the mind of the Government when the decision was taken. Many local authorities in the position of towns like Swindon, Stockton-on-Tees, The Hartlepools and the rest, had come to assume that it was to be a matter of only very few years before they attained county borough status. The authorities responsible for the neighbouring areas, which were carrying out some of the functions which would be taken over if the wishes of the non-county boroughs had been met and they had been given county borough status, had come to accept the inevitability of the change and had prepared themselves for handing over. Now their calculations, as well as the calculations of the non-county boroughs concerned, will have been very gravely upset.
  The Minister has said that this new upper limit does not necessarily preclude proper consideration being given to the problem of these non-county boroughs with populations below 100,000. We would be very grateful if, when replying, he would tell us what he had in mind when he gave that assurance. We had a series of assurances, both public and private, to the local authorities concerned and the people connected with them, that something was to be done for them. All we see is our hopes receding as the Government change their mind and delay over and over again. I would therefore beg the Minister to give the most sympathetic consideration he can to this Amendment, and to go into some detail in explaining to us what he has in mind about the future of these places.
  There is one further point touched on by my hon. Friend which I should like to emphasise, and it is the point covered by the second Amendment on the question of reducing the waiting period from fifteen years to ten. No doubt the right

  1347
  hon. Gentleman, and his Parliamentary Secretary as well, like his officials, have considerable familiarity with the progress which the constituency that I have the honour to represent has been making in recent years, and will know that the whole aspect of the town, and perhaps its character, has been transformed since large numbers of new citizens have settled down there.
  These changes have taken place at a rate which has surprised many people who have been thinking about these developments and studying them carefully for a long time. They have taken place rapidly in spite of the difficulties which we have encountered lately as a result of Government economic policies. It therefore seems unrealistic to raise the waiting period, which will create a serious difficulty for towns such as those which we are discussing.
  I do not want to add to the opening speech on the subject, because I believe that a number of my hon. Friends who are similarly affected may wish to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.
  Captain Richard Pilkington: I have considerable sympathy with the two speeches which we have heard, but, having said that, I must add that it seems to me that the Amendment is unnecessary in view of what the Minister has already said. Hon. Members have referred to his words, and I should like to quote them to the House. In Standing Committee on 18th March he said:
  "… the population of 100,000 … is not an indispensable minimum for the creation of a new county borough;".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 18th March, 1958; c. 949.]
  There were various other statements to the same effect, but that was the most succinct of them and I hope that in his reply tonight the Minister will give this reassurance once again in words as plain as possible. This, it seems to me, ought to satisfy those boroughs who believe that they should aspire to the status of county boroughs.
  I have in mind my own constituency of Poole, which has a population of over 86,000, and which is rapidly growing. But it is not only a question of population on which the Town and County of the Borough of Poole, to give it its full title, relies for its hopes of getting a speedy
  1348
  implementation of its ambition to become a county borough. There are other important factors which presumably the Commission will take into account, such as its situation vis-à-vis the rest of the county—Poole is in one corner of the county; its history, which is long and distinguished; its efficiency, which is outstanding; its reputation, which is excellent; its individuality, which is pronounced and finally its patience, which it shares with other similar boroughs, which have also waited a very long time. I know that the Minister is aware of all these facts and of the very strong arguments which could be deployed in support of them, and I hope that he will once again give a decided and decisive reassurance on this matter.
  I ask for two further assurances, which I think the Minister could give in his answer. The first is that the Commission should get to work as quickly as possible once it is set up. I am sure that I shall have the support of both sides of the House in seeking that assurance. The second assurance for which I ask—and I see no reason why he should not accede to it and why it should not also have support from both sides of the House—is that he will suggest to the Commission that the Town and County of the Borough of Poole should come at the very top of the list to be considered by the Commission.
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. H. Brooke: Even though I cannot advise the House to accept any of the Amendments, I hope that my explanation and assurance will go some way to allay the fears which have been expressed by hon. Members so conscientious in representing the causes and the aspirations of non-county boroughs and urban districts with populations between 75,000 and 100,000. Althogether there are fifteen of these; ten are within the Greater London area or within one of the conurbations specified in the Bill, and only five are outside them.
  The only point to which I must demur is the suggestion of the hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees (Mr. Chetwynd) that the Government have been vacillating over this. The figure of 100,000 in Clause 33—a Clause which is, of course, entirely distinct from Clause 34—was arrived at originally in the course of discussions which took place two or three

  1349
  years ago between the local authority associations. The associations then agreed to recommend that 100,000 should be the figure beyond which a local authority should not have to give special proof to any reviewing commission that it was capable of discharging the functions of a county borough. The Government, having been notified of that agreement between local authority associations, considered it and endorsed it.
  That is the origin of this figure of 100,000, but I want again to repeat and, if necessary explain further, what I said in Committee. The figure of 100,000 in Clause 33 in no way prejudges the case that may be put up by some local authorities with a population below that figure for attaining county borough status. It simply means, and I think that hon. Members on both sides will recognise this as reasonable, that we should draw some line beyond which it is not necessary to put the onus on the claiming authority of convincing a Commission that the authority's population is large enough for county borough functions to be discharged. Because of that agreement, and because it seemed right to the Government, we have drawn the line at 100,000.
  The last thing that I would wish is that, because 100,000 appears in the Clause, existing county boroughs—and there are many of them—which have populations below 100,000 should imagine that Clause 33 in some way threatens them. Not at all—it does not prejudge the matter in any way. All it says is that if a borough or urban district with a population of below 100,000 seeks to claim from the Commission a recommendation that it should become a county borough, the onus would be on the claimant to prove that its population is sufficient. That is all.
  I want to emphasise as powerfully as I can that that figure of 100,000 is not intended in any way to prejudice the consideration of the claim on its merits. The hon. Member for Stockton-on-Tees expressed some fear lest such authorities as his might be debarred from the chance of being heard before the Commission. I can give him an absolute assurance on that point.
  When we come to Clause 34, the figure of 100,000 fulfils a somewhat different purpose. In that Clause we are looking beyond the period when the Commission
  1350
  is doing its work—beyond, indeed, the standstill of 15 years to which I shall revert in a moment—and casting our minds to the time when it will be possible for authorities that wish to claim county borough status to promote a Private Bill for that purpose.
  After very careful consideration, the Government have come to the conclusion that the right figure to insert is that which was accepted in the 1945 Act, an Act promoted by the Coalition Government of that time; that is to say, the figure of 100,000. It is perfectly true that when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) abolished the Boundary Commission, and when legislation to that effect was before the House in 1949, the figure was allowed to revert from 100,000 to 75,000. I have, however, been studying precisely what happened on that occasion, and I can assure the House that that change was made to avoid any implication that towns of between 75,000 and 100,000 population—towns like Stockton-on-Tees—should be denied the chance of seeking promotion to county borough status during the course of the general review that was then promised. Indeed, I think the hon. Member will confirm that when that deputation came to see the Minister of the day the deputation gave an assurance that towns with populations between 75.000 and 100,000 would not seek to promote Bills for county borough status provided that they could be assured of the chance of seeking that status through the general review.
  That is the history of the matter, and the Government suggest that when the general review by this Local Government Commission has taken place and when the standstill period is over—bearing in mind all the responsibilities which local government has to carry now and which are likely to increase rather than decrease in the future—it would be right that an authority should not approach Parliament with a Private Bill seeking county borough status unless it has a population of 100,000.
  I now want to come to the interim period, and I want to explain why the Government think it would be a mistake to cut down the period from fifteen to ten years. The period runs from the passing of the Act. I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for

  1351
  Poole (Captain Pilkington) that I am extremely anxious that both the Commissions—the one for England and the one for Wales—shall get to work as quickly as possible, and when the Bill reaches the Statute Book I shall regard it as my business to try to secure suitable members for the Commission so that they can start on their arduous and responsible job without delay.
  But I must say frankly that considering the duties that we are putting on the Local Government Commission for England, it is unlikely that the whole of its work throughout the length and breadth of the land will be finished in less than four or five years. It has five conurbations to examine. It has got all the county boroughs, all the counties and all the claimants for county borough status, and if it is to do its work conscientiously and carefully it certainly strikes me that a period of that order will be required.
  That would mean that if we were to accept the Amendment, the gap before new Private Bills could be promoted would in effect be only five years or so, because, of the period of ten years which the Amendment seeks to insert, the first five years or so would be occupied with the work of the Commission, and then there would be a five-year standstill and then private Bills might come along.
  As far as I am aware, it is widely accepted in local government circles that after this general review by the Commission, it is desirable that things should be regarded as stable for a substantial period. The work of the Commission might throw up far-reaching changes—nobody can forecast just what changes—but it really makes it extremely difficult either for elected councils or for their officers to settle down to their important administrative duties if we had as short a period as five years. There may possibly be another equally great upheaval within the county area.
  The reason why the Government have specified this period of fifteen years before private Bills may be promoted was simply that it seemed fit to us that there should be a period of stability of something like ten years between the time when the Commission had finished its work and the time when new private Bills should be promoted.
  1352
  But, here again, I want to remind the House that that will be a standstill only on promotions to county borough status. If there is a growing area and it seems that there is a strong case for the extension of a county borough, the standstill will not apply to that. It will be quite possible for an order to be made under the provisions of the 1933 Act that would provide for the extension of a county borough.
  Mr. Chetwynd: Will the Minister -deal with the voluntary amalgamation of two, shall we say, non-county boroughs or a non-county borough and an urban district in the standstill period?
  Mr. Brooke: There, the initiative must come from the Government to lay an order. The Government are certainly not going to forget the powers which exist under the 1933 Act. But I do not want to raise the hon. Gentleman's hopes and suggest that we would here, there, and everywhere upset the period of stability we are seeking, though we should not interpret the standstill in such a way as to debar the presentation and laying of orders under the 1933 Act.
  I am not sure whether I have dealt with each of the points which hon. Members have raised. I am extremely anxious that there should be no misunderstanding about these matters at all. I hope that, so far as possible, we can go forward in common accord in this respect. We certainly want the Local Government Commissions to do a thorough job and to do it with no prejudice put into their minds by anything any of us may have said beforehand in Parliament. I know that, if the Bill reaches the Statute Book, the House would wish that the strongest possible Commissions should be set up, ones which will hold the balance absolutely fairly between boroughs great and small, between the county on the one hand and the smallest district or parish on the other That is definitely the desire of the Government, and I trust that we may go forward in that spirit.
  Mr. David Jones: The right hon. Gentleman's speech will go a little distance towards allaying the fears which many people entertain, but I do not think that it will remove them altogether—at any rate, not those of that group of boroughs which have a population of about 75,000. Nor do I think that it will

  1353
  allay the suspicion in the minds of those existing county boroughs with populations of about 75,000 that they are not to be debarred.
  While I do not wish to question what the Minister says, I cannot read into Clause 33 exactly what he is saying. Clause 33 provides:
  "In so far as the question of the constitution of a new county borough is affected by considerations of population, the Commission and the Minister shall presume that a population of one hundred thousand is sufficient to support the discharge of the functions of a county borough council."
  The Minister tells us tonight that, if the population is not 100,000, that does not debar them. I should have thought, with those words before the Commission, that it is not very probable that many authorities with populations of 100,000 will be accorded county borough status.
  There is the other point which has been made from time to time by responsible Ministers of both parties from the Dispatch Box, that, when Private Bills are brought forward to confer county borough status on authorities, the question of their effect upon the surrounding areas has to be taken into account. Is it to be presumed that, after a lapse of 15 years, if a borough with a population of about 75,000 promotes a Parliamentary Bill, any kind of undertaking can be given that, if it is given county borough status, the county in which it finds itself and the consequences of its being given county borough status are to be disregarded altogether? If this is the moment when the Commission is entitled and enabled to redraw the boundaries of existing counties, now is the time when boroughs with a population of about 75,000 ought to be given their chance to have county borough status. An opportunity of this kind will not present itself again.
  10.15 p.m.
  It is also true that the figure of 75,000 has been regarded as reasonable ever since 1926 with the exception of a short period of four years, when the Local Government Boundary Commission was previously established, when a figure of 100,000 was inserted. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, that figure of 100,000 was reinserted in the Bill which sought to abolish the previous Local Government Boundary Commission, but as a result of pressure from both sides of the House on that occasion—and the sides were then
  1354
  reversed—the then Minister of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), agreed to delete the figure of 100,000 and insert 75,000.
  The right hon. Gentleman has attached considerable importance to the fact that he achieved a measure of agreement between the local authority associations. It is a great pity that he has not inserted more of the agreements arrived at with the local authority associations. It is no good merely to argue that, because a compromise was arrived at on the figure of 100,000, he should now fasten on to that and suggest that because a compromise was reached it should be retained. If an authority with a population of 75,000 can adequately manage the powers conferred on a county borough, it seems to me that the figure of 75,000 ought to be inserted in the Bill.
  The existing authorities—and I understand that there are more than fifty with a population of less than 100,000—by and large do the job reasonably satisfactorily. For example, if we take Tees-side, what reason is there to assume that Stockton-on-Tees, which has a population of roughly 75,000, will be any less efficient than the County Borough of West Hartlepool, which has approximately the same population? Does the Minister believe that it will lead to satisfaction on the part of either authority that one should have county borough status and the other should not? If it is his intention that authorities with a population of between 75,000 and 100,000 should have county borough status conferred upon them, he ought to take 100,000 out of the Bill and insert the figure of 75,000.
  Mr. G. A. Pargiter: It has been said that the figure of 100,000 was a compromise figure, but 125,000 was also a compromise figure for county borough status. If we are to argue about what was a compromise figure and what was not and that the figure ought to be 75,000, we might equally argue that the figure ought not to be 125,000, although it was generally agreed to take the 125,000 out in order that there could be uniformity. I thought that the Minister might have used this argument, because a good deal has been said about the figure of 75,000, but a number of arguments have been adduced, of which the Minister is well aware, that the figure

  1355
  could be considerably higher than 100,000.
  It is also to be borne in mind that the question of the figure is in relation to population only. It is important that hon. Members should be under no misapprehension about this. Any borough seeking county borough powers must establish on other grounds, quite apart from population, that it should be given county borough status. That is acceptable and sensible. It is equally important to establish that in the granting of county borough powers from the viewpoint of producing the greater good for the greater number, evil will not be done to a greater number in so far as their powers are affected also. There are, therefore, many other factors than population.
  If we consider all the other factors plus population, and if we consider the distribution of population throughout England, the 100,000 figure appears to be a reasonable one for the House to adopt. It is a sizeable figure. When one considers that we are aiming at greater functions for local government and when we consider the need for greater resources to be available for local authorities in connection with the functions they are exercising, a figure of 100,000 is a reasonable presumption and one which should be supported.
  I shall not argue the case for 125,000, which was included for conurbations, but there were good reasons why the figure of 125,000 was used in the first place. The Minister was to some extent committed to it. It was only after consideration, to arrive at some degree of uniformity, that 100,000 was inserted and generally accepted by the associations instead of 125,000. If figures are coming into the melting pot again, something will have to be heard about the figure being increased rather than reduced.
  Sir George Benson: I am not sure whether the word "disingenuous" is a Parliamentary expression. If it is, I must say that I have never heard a more disingenuous speech from the Dispatch Box than the speech we have just heard from the Minister. He tried to make the point that there was nothing in the Bill to prevent the Commission from granting county borough status where there was a population of 75,000.
  1356
  Does he really expect the House to believe that, in view of Clauses 33 and 34, the Commission will grant county borough status to any borough with 75,000 population?
  Let the Minister consider his own phraseology. It practically precludes any such action, whether it be strictly legal or not. In view of the wording of the Bill, to pretend as the Minister did that it is possible to obtain county borough status for a population of 75,000 is quite ridiculous. Why does the Minister try to bind the future for fifteen years? That is thoroughly bad legislative policy. There is no reason why he should try to bind the future. I hope that the House will divide against his proposal.
  Mr. H. Brooke: The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson) is under a misapprehension. He was speaking about the Commission giving claimants county borough status. All that the Commission can do is to produce a report and recommendations. It is the Minister who then has to act and decide whether to lay an Order before the House. The Commission is a purely advisory body. I repeat, with all the emphasis I can command, that there is nothing in the Bill which prejudices the Commission against recommending an authority with less than 100,000 population for county borough status if, having heard all the pros and cons, it so decides to make a recommendation.
  There is one point which perhaps the hon. Member for the Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) did not appreciate. It may be my fault for not having made it clear. The Commission will certainly be expected to look ahead. We do not want a Commission just to take the position precisely as it is, to take what is the present population as the stable population. The Commission must take into account Clause 34 of the Bill and bear in mind that there will be a 15-year standstill after 1958. It therefore has to cast its own mind 10 or 15 years ahead and reach its own decisions as to whether the probable expansion or development of a certain locality is likely to be such as to justify it in recommending that council for county borough status.
  I have tried to make this as clear as I can. I resent the word "disingenuous." Until now no one has made any suggestion from any quarter that there is

  1357
  anything sinister or doubtful or ambiguous here, and certainly neither the hon. Member for Chesterfield nor anybody else would wish charges of that kind to be thrown about the House to prejudice what is an extremely important and semi-judicial function which we now want the Commission to perform.
  Sir G. Benson: May I ask the Minister if he is really suggesting to the House that the Commission would, in view of this phraseology, be prepared to recommend 75,000? He is playing with words.
  Mr. Ede: As I understand Clause 33, it says that if a non-county borough has a population of over 100,000 the Commission would then recommend against its being given county borough status on grounds of population. If they do, the Minister would ignore it because he would say, "This is beyond its powers." The Commission is perfectly entitled to consider any non-county borough that applies for county borough status, and if it comes to the conclusion that all the factors which have to be taken into consideration warrant it being given that status, then although it has a population of less than 100,000, it can so recommend, and if the Minister agrees with its recommendation, he will then put it into an Order and lay it before the House.
  I regret to have to say anything that appears to support the Minister on this Bill. This is the only Clause in it that I really understand, and I am glad to know that the right hon. Gentleman's understanding of the meaning agrees with my own. But when we come to the question of the 15 years, I think his argument is quite uncontrovertible——
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Incontrovertible.
  Mr. Ede: If the hon. Gentleman prefers it that way——
  Mr. Nabarro: I am sorry, it was meant to be sotto voce.
  Mr. Ede: We have now reached a statement of impossibility, namely, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) making a sotto voce remark.
  I think we may safely assume that it will be at least five years from now before
  1358
  the reports are made. In fact, I think the Commissions set up under this Bill will work much faster than most of us expect, having regard to the immensity of the task committed to them, if they get the reports in that time. The recommendations then have to be embodied in Orders and placed before the House. This will mean that five years will certainly elapse before we see anything very practical. Surely, the new authorities then established should be given at least until 1963 before the whole of this is again thrown into the melting pot. Short of that, I do not see how the new counties, which will have been deprived of the areas of any new county boroughs that are formed, can get the administrative machine working. If my hon. Friends decide to divide on this, I regret to say that, much against my wishes, I shall have to go into the same Lobby with the Minister.
  Mr. Chetwynd: I rise simply to remove the fear of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) that he may have to cohabit with the Government over this Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for the careful way in which he has replied. I am extremely disappointed, as are my hon. Friends, that he has not accepted the Amendment. I should have regarded it as more in keeping with his intention had he accepted the figure of 75,000 instead of 100,000. As the right hon. Gentleman says, this is not a preclusion. We must accept what he says, that no county borough with a 75,000 population will be excluded from the consideration of the Commissions.
  I hope the Minister will acquit my hon. Friends of seeking to make personal capital out of this matter. We try to do our best by our constituents who have had to wait a long time to get what we think are their deserts. My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. F. Noel-Baker) and myself will feel less disappointed if a Commission starts work at Stockton-on-Tees and then proceeds to Swindon and recommends that both those excellent boroughs should receive county status.
  I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  Clause 35.—(REGULATIONS AS TO COMMISSION.)
  10.32 p.m.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 26, line 36, to leave out from regulations "to" any" in line 37 and to insert:
  "for the guidance of the Commission in the exercise of".
  Some doubt was expressed during the Committee stage discussions about whether the first few words of Clause 35 would enable the Minister to do what he might well need to do in the making of regulations. It is important that the Minister should be able to prescribe in regulations the considerations to which the Local Government Commissions must have regard when conducting their reviews and formulating their proposals. The Government have re-examined these words in the light of the Committee stage discussions and I am moving this Amendment for the improvement of them and to put beyond doubt that it will be possible in the regulations to prescribe considerations.
  We have also given thought to the Committee stage discussion about whether regulations will be needed. There was some difference of opinion about whether it would suffice for the Minister to issue in the memorandum of guidance for the Commissions the considerations which they should bear in mind. If this Amendment is accepted, as I feel sure it will be, it is my intention, when the Commissions are set up, to lay regulations, which will be subject to consideration by Parliament, prescribing theses considerations. I trust that will meet the anxieties expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House about whether the memorandum of guidance would be sufficient. It was felt that, such a memorandum not being subject to Parliamentary control, and these Commissions having such important work to do, it might be better to proceed by way of regulations. I assure the House that that will be my intention.
  Mr. Mitchison: I have been looking again at the discussion on these matters in Committee. It was at times a little confused. But there emerged from it two things, that the Minister proposed to issue the document to be called a
  1360
  memorandum of guidance, which I told him sounded to me rather like the sort of thing that the Army might have issued when deliberating at Putney during the Civil War, and that he was also going to issue some regulations. I think the original language was wide enough, but I certainly have no objection to its being made even wider and clearer in this respect.
  I am not, however, clear about the relation between these two documents, and it is an important matter. I am glad to hear from the Minister that the regulations are to contain something in the nature of the regulations which were issued to guide the Boundary Commission that was set up in 1945. He will remember that there were factors in that governing its consideration of these matters to which the local authorities attached some imimportance, and I gather that, while those factors may not necessarily be repeated verbatim, something of the sort will appear in the regulations.
  If I am right in my understanding of what the Minister has said, the memorandum of guidance will be a minor document, and, while every local authority will not necessarily follow the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and put the memorandum of guidance in the waste paper basket, they will not incur any very grievous penalties or suffer very greatly if they concentrate their attention on the regulations. Am I right?
  Mr. H. Brooke: I can assure the hon. and learned Member that the regulations will cover broadly the principal points which were dealt with in the Appendix to the White Paper on Local Government Areas and Status, and they will be very much in the spirit of the Schedule which he and his hon. Friends brought before the Committee. While it may, of course. be desirable to assist the Commission by explanations at greater length, as we so often do, the memorandum of guidance will, I am sure, be observed by the Commission, because, as I have said, it is an advisory body, and if it disregards what the Minister says, it cannot expect its advice to be taken. The main point that I want to make is that the regulations will be in the spirit of the nine factors. They may go beyond that, and they will

  1361
  certainly be subject—we shall be dealing with this in a subsequent Amendment—to full parliamentary control.
  Mr. Mitchison: I am very glad to hear that the memorandum of guidance will contain the most substantial part of the guidance to be issued to the Commission, because that will be subject to Parliamentary control.
  Mr. Temple: I thank my right hon. Friend for meeting the points which were so largely made from both sides of the Committee on the question of the instructions to the Commission. He has suggested a compromise in his Amendment between putting the guiding principles in the Bill and laying them before the House in the form of a memorandum of guidance. I believe that the Amendment. which is in terms very similar to the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) and myself, which will not be called, very largely meets the points which we had in view, and I therefore wholeheartedly welcome it.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 37.—CONSEQUENTIAL AND TRANSTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS RELATING TO PART II.
  Amendment made: In page 27, line 29, leave out from "provision" to end of line 33 and insert:
  "for the charter of the new borough, by applying thereto, with any necessary exceptions or modifications, the charter of any amalgamated borough, or of the divided borough, as the case may be, or, in the case of an amalgamation including two or more boroughs, by applying as aforesaid to the new borough provisions of charters of two or more amalgamated boroughs or the charter of one and provisions of the charter of one or more of the others ".—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 38.—(FINANCIAL PROVISIONS.)
  Amendment made: In page 28, line 18, after "councils", insert:
  "or, as the case may be, of the councils of county districts in the county which are wholly or partly comprised within the district of the joint board ".—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 39.—(ORDERS ETC. UNDER PART II SUBJECT TO AFFIRMATIVE OR NEGATIVE RESOLUTION.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 28, line 36 to leave out "and".
  1362
  This and the next three Amendments fulfil an undertaking I gave in Committee. Their effect is to substitute procedure by way of affirmative Resolution for the procedure by way of annulment in the case of those regulations which, as I said a few minutes ago, will definitely be laid before Parliament.
  Mr. Mitchison: While thanking the Minister for acceding to what was put forward in Committee, even at this late hour of the night I cannot refrain from reading a very brief passage from the OFFICIAL REPORT of the proceedings of the Committee. I moved to insert at the same place in the Bill the same words which now appear in the Minister's Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman indicated the Government's desire to accept the Amendment in principle. The next paragraph of the OFFICIAL REPORT begins with a compliment to me, which I value, but the rest of it is a little amusing. The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "I have a high admiration for the hon. and learned Gentleman's drafting powers"—
  that is nice—
  "but I am advised that the wording here is not quite perfect. If therefore he would be good enough to withdraw the Amendment I will undertake that an Amendment will be moved on Report which will fulfil his purpose."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D, 20th March, 1958; c. 981.]
  I will say only that at times the right hon. Gentleman is an obstinate person; but I thank him for the Amendment all the same.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 28, line 38, at end insert:
  "and (d) no regulations under section thirty-five of this Act".
  In page 29, line 11, at end insert "and".
  In line 14, leave out from "Act" to end of line 15.—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Clause 45.—(PROCEDURE FOR BRINGING DELEGATION SCHEME INTO OPERATION.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 33, line 5, after "amalgamation", to insert:
  "by the conversion of a county borough into a non-county borough".

  1363
  This is a drafting Amendment to meet a small point to which the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert) referred.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Clause 52.—(EXTENSION OF POWER OF TRUSTEE TO LEND TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 37, line 15, after "Council", to insert:
  "the Metropolitan Water Board or the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners".
  The Clause deals with the extension of the power of trustees to lend to local authorities, and it is a provision which has been generally welcomed. We now wish to widen the range of public authorities in whose securities public trustees may invest to include the Metropolitan Water Board and the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners. The Amendments are quite uncontroversial.
  Mr. Mitchison: Can the hon. Gentleman assure me that the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners are quite sound?
  Mr. Bevins: Oh. certainly.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 37. line 18, after "authority", insert:
  "the council of any borough included in a rural district, any parish council".
  In line 20, after second "board", insert:
  "the Metropolitan Water Board, the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners".—[Mr. Bevins.]
  10.45 p.m.

  Clause 56.—(AMENDMENTS AS TO FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 39, line 27, to leave out from "that" to "(that" in line 28 and to insert:
  "in the case of a local authority of which the treasurer at the passing of this Act is not a whole-time officer".
  Perhaps we could consider at the same time the next Amendment, in line 30, which is linked with this. There was some discussion in Committee about the case where the treasurer of a local authority is not a whole-time officer. We found means of dealing with that, but
  1364
  subsequent to the Committee proceedings the point was put to the Government that the Amendment made in Committee might induce certain authorities to slip away from the practice of having whole-time treasurers and perhaps encourage a less satisfactory arrangement.
  The sole purpose of these two Amendments is to deal with that by providing that the arrangements for giving these duties to the chief financial officer instead of the treasurer should operate only in the case of an authority which does not have a whole-time treasurer at the time when the Bill becomes law. That is a desirable safeguard and will remove any temptation or inducement such as has been apprehended.
  Mr. Mitchison: This sounds perfectly reasonable to me, but could the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether the local authorities have been consulted on this matter and, if they have, whether they take the same view as he takes?
  Mr. Brooke: Representations were made by one of the local authority associations and the Amendments will meet those representations. I could not say that all the associations were wholly in support of the Amendments, but I think it is broadly agreed that this will be an acceptable way of arranging matters.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 39, line 30, after "shall", insert:
  "at any time when the treasurer is not a whole-time officer".—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Clause 65.—(REPEALS.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 43, line 31, at the end to insert:
  (e) the repeal of subsection (1) of section sixty-two of the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925 shall not affect the operation of the Overseers Order, 1927, and the repeal of section sixty-seven of the said Act of 1925 shall not affect the operation of any order made under the said section sixty-seven.
  This Amendment saves certain orders which were made under provisions which are repealed by the Ninth Schedule.
  Amendment agreed to.

  First Schedule.—(GENERAL GRANTS.)
  Amendment made: In page 46, line 4, at end insert:
  Any regulations under this sub-paragraph shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.—[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Second Schedule.—(NEW PROVISIONS FOR RATING ELECTRICITY BOARDS.)
  Mr. Bevins: I beg to move, in page 52, line 32, to leave out "valuation officer" and to insert:
  "Commissioners of Inland Revenue (hereinafter referred to as 'the Commissioners')".
  The following nine Amendments are consequential on this Amendment. They simplify the administrative processes leading up to the entry each year in the valuation lists of electricity rateable values. I am prepared to give the House a detailed explanation, but I think it would be an act of kindness if I refrained from doing so.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In line 38 leave out "valuation officer" and insert "Commissioners".
  In line 47 leave out "valuation officer" and insert "Commissioners".
  In page 53, line 3, leave out "end of the month" and insert sixteenth day".
  In line 7 leave out from "the" to "a" in line 8 and insert Commissioners".
  In line 10 after "certified", insert
  "(otherwise than by the Minister or the Commissioners)".
  In line 11 at the end insert:
  8. Before the fifteenth day of November preceding the beginning of the rate period the Commissioners shall transmit particulars to each Electricity Board of the aggregate net annual value of the area of the Board and of each rating area or part of a rating area within the area of the Board.
  9. Before the said fifteenth day of November the Commissioners shall notify to each rating authority the particulars necessary to enable the authority to calculate the rateable value of the hereditament which any Electricity Board is to be treated as occupying in the area of the authority.
  In line 12 leave out from beginning to "shall" in line 13 and insert "The Commissioners".
  In line 14 leave out "the" and insert "any".
  In line 18 leave out "valuation officer notifies" and insert "Commissioners notify".—[Mr. Bevins.]

  Fourth Schedule.—(CONSTITUTION AND PROCEEDINGS OF LOCAL GOVERN- MENT COMMISSIONS.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move in page 55, line 9, at the end to insert:
  (3) At least one of the members of the Local Government Commission for Wales shall be a person able to speak the Welsh language.
  1366
  It has always been the intention of the Government that at least one member of the Local Government Commission for Wales should be Welsh-speaking. In Committee, I was asked to write this provision into the Bill and this Amendment fulfils that pledge. My only regret, Mr. Speaker is that under a recent Ruling of yours, no hon. Member will be able here and now to prove his prima facie qualification.
  Mr. Tudor Watkins: It would be ungenerous of the Welsh Members if they did not accept with great willingness the Amendment that-the right hon. Gentleman has moved, but I would remind him that this is the last part of an Amendment I moved in Committee. However, as far as my researches go, this is the first time that it has been laid down that one member of a Welsh body must be Welsh-speaking, so I think it is a great victory, and I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman.
  Without wishing to be ungenerous, I have one or two points to put to the Minister. For instance, if the maximum number of members on the Commission is to be seven, I think that the right hon. Gentleman should do his best to get more than one Welsh-speaking member on it. Any difficulty about a quorum could be got over, perhaps, if either the chairman or the deputy-chairman were Welsh-speaking. In no circumstances should the Commission hold its proceedings in a Welsh-speaking area without a Welsh-speaking member being present. I know that the Minister cannot give a categorical assurance, but if a memorandum of guidance is to be sent out that point could be included.
  The same point arises in relation to delegated powers. It would be wise for the Minister to give an assurance that among those to whom those vital powers are delegated at least one should be Welsh-speaking.
  My last point is this. The Minister was good enough to mention a period of five years in the case of the English Commission. Can he say whether he has any idea how long the Welsh Commission will take in its proceedings? I should think it will take a much shorter time than the English Commission.
  On behalf of the strong contingent of Welsh Members who are present at this hour of the night, I should like to say

  1367
  that we are the only section of the Committee who obtained concessions from the Minister throughout its 31 sittings, and we are very proud of that fact. For the first time it has been declared that Monmouthshire is part of Wales, without any qualifications at all, and Wales is to be excluded from conurbations. We are grateful to the Minister for that.
  In addition, we have been told—indeed, it is provided in Clause 42—that there is to be no alteration to the boundaries of England and Wales, and no Commission dare do anything about it. Therefore, we have won a great victory.
  Sir Charles Taylor: I should like to ask my right hon. Friend one question. Will it not be very difficult for the one member of the Commission who speaks Welsh to carry on a conversation in Welsh with the other members of the Commission?
  Mr. G. Thomas: He speaks English as well.
  Mr. H. Brooke: First of all, I am very sorry that I was not able to accept in Committee the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins). As I explained to him, it was not quite right, just as the other Amendment to which the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) referred was not quite right. It was not quite right because he got the "ands" in the wrong place.
  I want to assure all hon. Members for Wales and Monmouthshire that it is, in the Government's view, most important that this Commission, when it is operating either as a whole or by the system of delegation in a Welsh-speaking area, shall have present somebody who is familiar with the Welsh language, because I attach great importance to those local authorities which normally conduct their business in Welsh being able to put their case to the Commission in their own language. I will certainly do all that I can to secure that that happens and give the Commission guidance in that respect.
  For my part, I shall be very happy indeed if we can appoint more than one Welsh-speaking member. I want this to be a Commission of a genuinely Welsh character, well qualified to give advice on Welsh matters. Above all, it is the
  1368
  quality of the membership which is going to produce the best results, and if we did not have at least one Welsh-speaking member, clearly we should be seriously at fault.
  I hope the hon. Member will not tempt me into questions of the status of Monmouthshire, because there we really should have to go back to Clause 17, which would be a mistake at this time of night.
  Amendment agreed to.

  Eighth Schedule.—(MINOR AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS.)
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): I beg to move, in page 68, line 44, at the end to insert:
  19. The approval of the Minister of Health shall not be required for the making by a local authority of contributions under subsection (5) of section twenty-two, subsection (3) of section twenty-eight, or subsection (2) of section fifty-one of the National Health Service Act, 1946 (which empower local authorities to contribute to voluntary organisations concerned with the care of mothers and young children, the prevention of illness, the care or aftercare of the sick and matters arising under the Lunacy and Mental Treatment Acts and the Mental Deficiency Acts).
  The effect of this Amendment and of the two subsequent consequential ones is to remove the need for local health authorities to obtain the approval of the Minister of Health to make any contributions which they wish to make to voluntary organisations under Sections 22, 28 and 51 of the National Health Service Act, 1946. In the past, the Minister's approval has been generally very freely given, and I think the Committee will find this Amendment non-contentious.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendment made: In page 69, line 11, after "from", insert "the first". —[Mr. Bevins.]
  Sir E. Boyle: I beg to move, in page 70, line 34, at the end to insert:
  26. In section one hundred and fourteen of the Act of 1948 the proviso to subsection (2) shall cease to have effect, and in subsection (4) the words from the beginning to the first "any" shall cease to have effect and after the word "Parliament" there shall be inserted the words "under any enactment, whether passed before or after the passing of this Act".

  1369
  11.0 p.m.
  Section 114 (4) of the 1948 Act lays down the principle that expenditure on allowances to members of local authorities shall not rank for Exchequer grants. There is an exception in the proviso to Subsection (2) in respect of members' travelling expenses in respect of certain educational conferences. This Amendment, and consequential Amendments, is designed to preserve this principle in the context of the general grant.
  There is only one change of substance involved, namely, the repeal of the proviso to Subsection (2), and this will have the effect that, whereas travelling expenses paid to members of local authorities attending educational conferences have been eligible for education main grant, they will not be again as relevant expenditure for general grant purposes. This is a corollary of the decision that my right hon. Friend has reached, in consultation with local authority associations, to discontinue under the general grant the control at present exercised through regulations. But I can assure hon. Members that the amount of money involved really cannot be large enough to affect the calculation of the general grant to any substantial degree.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 70, line 44, at end insert:
  28. In section eight of the Nurseries and Child Minders Regulation Act, 1948, in subsection (3), after the words "nursery school" there shall be inserted the words "maintained or assisted by a local education authority or".—[Mr. H. Brooke.]
  In page 71, line 34, after "17", insert "19".—[Mr. R. Thompson.]
  In line 34, leave out "27" and insert "26".—[Sir E. Boyle.]

  Ninth Schedule.—(ENACTMENTS REPEALED.)
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move in page 72, to leave out lines 6 to 8.
  This Amendment corrects an error which I must frankly admit. Clause 65 provides only for repeals as respects

  1 Edw. 8 & 1 Geo. 6. c. 46.

  The Physical Training and Recreation Act, 1937.

  In section five, subsection (2).

  —[Mr. H. Brooke.]

  Bill to be read the Third time To morrow and to be printed. [Bill 114.]

  England and Wales, and it has been found that these offending lines 6 to 8 relate to certain provisions which are only in force in Northern Ireland. It would therefore be better to omit them.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 72, line 11, column 3, at end insert:
  "and 'or in metropolitan water stock'".—[Mr. H. Brooke.]
  In page 73, line 48, column 3, leave out "Section" and insert:
  "In section twenty-two, in subsection (5), the words 'with the approval of the Minister'; in section twenty-eight, in subsection (3), the words 'with the approval of the Minister'; in section fifty-one, in subsection (2), the words 'with the approval of the Minister'; section ".—[Mr. R. Thompson.]
  In page 74, line 36, column 3, at end insert:
  "in section one hundred and fourteen, in subsection (2), the proviso, and in subsection (4) the words from the beginning to the first "any".—[Sir E. Boyle.]
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 76, line 39, column 3, after "(d);", to insert "section thirty-three".
  This Amendment is Statute law revision, repealing a provision which no longer has any value.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. H. Brooke: I beg to move, in page 80, line 19, column 3, to leave out "and".
  This is a drafting Amendment.
  Mr. Mitchison: I have checked this Amendment, and this time the right hon. Gentleman got the word "and" wrong: and the other Amendment was exactly the same as the one I introduced in Committee.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Further Amendments made: In page 80, line 25, column 3, leave out "section one hundred and twenty-three".
  In line 29, column 3, leave out "section one hundred and twenty-six".
  In page 82, line 45, at end insert:

  AGRICULTURE (TUBERCULOSIS ORDERS)
  11.7 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): I beg to move,
  That the Draft Tuberculosis (Extension of Payments Period) Order, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th March, be approved.
  May I suggest that it might be convenient for the House if the Order relating to Scotland were taken with this one?
  Mr. Speaker: Yes; they seem identical.
  Mr. Godber: I am very grateful, Sir.
  Section 3 of the Diseases of Animals Act, 1950, enables the Minister of Agriculture, in acordance with a scheme made by him and approved by the Treasury, to make payments to cattle owners for eradicating tuberculosis from their herds. The current scheme made under that provision is the Tuberculosis (Attested Herds) Scheme, 1950. This provides for the payment of bonuses to owners of attested herds either on the basis of milk sales or on a capitation basis. The power to make these payments ends on 30th September of this year, but the Act provides that it may be extended for any one of three five-year periods. The power to extend the period is now being sought for the first time in the present draft Order, which provides that the period shall be extended for five years, until 30th September, 1963.
  Since 1950, approximately £70 million has been paid to farmers under the bonus provisions of the scheme. These payments will continue to be made for the authorised period of six years to farmers whose herds qualify voluntarily for attestation by March, 1960, when the free tuberculin testing programme recently announced for the last areas of England ceases. Bonus payments under the scheme will accordingly continue for a few years after the disease has been completely eradicated, and the last bonus payments will fall to be made in the year 1965–66. The Order which I ask the House to approve will expire in 1963, and it will, therefore, be necessary to have a further Order merely to complete the matter.
  1372
  This scheme marks the final stage of what I think one can say has been an unremitting struggle over the past 23 years to free the herds of this country from bovine tuberculosis. At the same time as this scheme started, a plan was introduced for the eradication of the disease by areas until the whole country was cleared. We have made great progress under these arrangements. In 1950, about one-fifth of the cattle in England and Wales were attested, but by the end of last year about three-quarters were. The end of the campaign is now in sight. On 1st March this year, the last areas of the country were brought in under the area plan. Farmers in these areas whose herds are not attested will be given two years in which to qualify voluntarily under the attested herds scheme and to earn the bonus provided for. If all goes well, there is every reason to hope that by 1960, or 1961 at the latest, the whole of Great Britain will be an attested area, and bovine tuberculosis will then for practical purposes be a thing of the past.
  This is a really splendid achievement of which we can all be proud. I am sure that hon. Members on all sides of the House will wish to join me in paying tribute to the farming community, to the veterinary profession, and to the staff concerned in my Department. Without the willing co-operation of all these partners, this magnificent result could not have been achieved. This is something of which we can all be extremely proud; a most noticeable improvement in the position of our cattle herds, reacting on the health of the whole nation. I am very glad to be able to move the adoption of this Order tonight.
  11.11 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Champion: I, like the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, believe that this money will be well spent. I am sure that the £70 million which has been paid since 1950 will be returned many-fold in the health of the herds of our country and I certainly welcome the introduction of these extension Orders as they apply to England and Wales and to Scotland.
  I am certain that the most enthusiastic hon. Member of this House, when the financial incentives under the Diseases of Animals Act, 1950, were introduced never expected so great an advance in so short

  1373
  a time. This country had a not altogether attractive record so far as bovine tuberculosis was concerned, but now we are on the way to seeing a complete eradication of it by 1961. It is a matter for congratulation to everyone concerned; the farmers themselves, who have seized on the assistance given to them under the Act; the Ministry which has so wisely used the powers granted to it, and the Ministry's officers because they have done a first-class job of work. We certainly must not leave out the veterinary profession, because without its aid and assistance we should never have achieved such a lasting and satisfactory result.
  Finally, I should like to record some credit to my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) who introduced the legislation in this House. I think that the battle cry for the industry now must be, "Forward to 1961 and to the complete eradication of bovine tuberculosis".
  11.13 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Hurd: I should like to add a few words from the Government back benches. I think that both sides of this House can congratulate themselves, and the veterinary profession, on clearing this country of bovine tuberculosis. Speaking for myself, not only as a farmer, but also as a parent, I say that this is a remarkable achievement. It is not so many years ago that my three boys suffered from tuberculosis caused by foul and infected milk—not milk which I had produced, but milk which they had had when they went away on a holiday and from which they picked it up. That scourge—because tuberculosis brought by milk to children is a scourge—is being banished; and our cattle herds will live longer and healthier lives.
  We can all feel well satisfied with the progress which is being made. I look forward to 1961 when we shall be able to say that we have no more bovine tuberculosis in this country.
  11.14 p.m.
  Sir James Duncan: I shall not make a speech at this late hour, but I should like simply to ask what is the present position in Scotland. I think that the progress there has been very remarkable. The health of the people has been enormously changed. I was at one time the candidate for Caithness
  1374
  and Sutherland, and in Sutherland, in particular, the tuberculosis rate was enormously high. I succeeded you, Mr. Speaker, and you will remember the very high rate in those days; but, when I go back there now, I find that not one single child has died of tuberculosis in the last few years. That is a remarkable tribute to what has been done among those isolated crofting communities.
  Like other hon. Members, I want to pay a tribute to all concerned who have made the scheme such a speedy and successful affair, and I should like my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary to pay a tribute to what has been done in Scotland.
  11.15 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord John Hope): I am very glad to do so. I pay that tribute to our own people in Scotland with the same sincerity as my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) has done. I can answer quite shortly concerning the situation in Scotland. We shall be completely attested by October, 1959.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Draft Tuberculosis (Extension of Payments Period) Order, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 12th March, be approved.
  Draft Tuberculosis (Extension of Payments Period) (Scotland) Order, 1958 [copy laid before the House 12th March], approved.—[Lord John Hope.]

  AGRICULTURE (IMPORTED LIVESTOCK ORDER)
  11.16 p.m.
  Mr. Godber: I beg to move,
  That the Imported Livestock Order, 1958 (S.I., 1958, No. 558), dated 31st March, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd April, be approved.
  The main purpose of the Order is to consolidate the previous provisions relating to the imports of livestock into the United Kingdom. It is made under Sections 5 and 6 of the Agriculture Act, 1957 and it brings together into one Order the provisions of the Livestock (Import from Eire and the Isle of Man) Regulations, 1945, and also those of the Imported Livestock (Marking) Order 1954.

  1375
  Since the 1954 Order was made under Defence Regulations the making of this new Order ends our reliance on emergency legislation for this purpose.
  The present fatstock guarantee arrangements make specific provision for guarantees to be paid on cattle and sheep bred outside but fattened, or which finish fattening within the United Kingdom, provided that they are of the right kind and have been in the United Kingdom for at least three months. Such imports receive somewhat lower rates of guarantee than those paid on cattle and sheep born and bred in this country.
  The new Order differs from its predecessor in one or two particulars. First, provision has been included for imports from the Channel Islands, which, the House may recall, had only just been liberated when the 1945 Regulations were made. Since decontrol in 1954, the small trade in livestock from these Islands has been covered by the provisions of the Defence Regulations Marking Order. It has been a very small number indeed.
  Secondly, there has been a change in the definition of livestock This has now been defined to include the carcases of pigs in Northern Ireland, because there is a risk that such carcases may be imported and entered for certification and payment of guarantee to which they are not entitled.
  Then, there are the seizure and forfeiture arrangements. These have existed under the previous arrangements but have applied only to the animals themselves. The present Order introduces, in addition, seizure and provisions in respect of the vehicles and containers used to convey or conceal illegally-imported livestock. The enabling Section in the 1957 Act was specific in providing for this new and, perhaps, rather unusual feature. The present high rate of subsidy represents an increased incentive to illegal importation and more stringent measures, therefore, are needed to combat this situation. In general, the field of operation for these preventive provisions will, as in the past, be Northern Ireland, where the land border with the Irish Republic presents certain special problems.
  There are one or two minor changes of a purely procedural nature which, in the main, are designed to bring these procedures, as far as possible, into line with those employed by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise in similar cases. I
  1376
  commend this Measure to the House as being necessary for the continued wellbeing of what is a very important livestock industry and, what, I am sure, will commend it to the House, for the proper safeguarding of public money.
  11.20 p.m.
  Mr. A. J. Champion: I am grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for explaining that not only does this Order consolidate, but it also introduces some new points and advances. So long as we have this form of guarantee we must have this form of safeguard. As certain alterations have been made in Article 6, I cannot understand why the Minister did not make clear the purpose of the tattoo mark on the left ear. Is it that that is a date mark, because the date is extremely important in connection with these guarantees? I should have thought that somewhere in the Order would have appeared the date. There are nine or ten pages, but I cannot find any reference to the fact that somewhere and somehow the cattle must be dated. Perhaps I have missed the reference, although I have been through the Order very carefully. I think the date might have been included in Article 6 where we deal with marking, punching and so on. I should be grateful if the Parliamentary Secretary would give me an explanation.
  Mr. Godber: I am not sure whether we can provide exactly what the hon. Member is asking for. He is right in saying that the date does not appear in Article 6. There we have more clearly defined the size of the hole, which we have made more specific. Of course we keep records of these punch marks, but I do not know whether we can incorporate what the hon. Gentleman asks.
  Mr. Champion: I gather that some information is being obtained for the Parliamentary Secretary through the usual "pigeon post". I feel that something should be done about this. If it is possible to have a tattoo mark which is visible and can be read, it should contain the date or some other device. There might be substitution of beasts. If possible, we should safeguard against that.
  Mr. Godber: The tattoo mark is a date mark in code. There is no actual date. The matter is dealt with in code. It would not be easy to provide the actual date.
  11.23 p.m.
  Mr. Phelim O'Neill: As this Order applies mainly to Northern Ireland, I wish to say how much we welcome it. From practical experience I can say that the date is very much recorded in code, and carefully scrutinised whenever cattle are presented for certification. We welcome anything which will prevent the illegal importation of cattle into Northern Ireland.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Imported Livestock Order, 1958 (S.I. 1958, No. 558), dated 31st March, 1958, a copy of which was laid before this House on 2nd April, be approved.

  INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]
  11.24 p.m.
  Mr. Montgomery Hyde: I wish to draw attention to the need for an institute of criminology. We have nothing of the kind in this country today, although it is generally agreed that crime and its methods of prevention and treatment deserve the most careful and detailed study.
  On the other hand, there are a number of well-known institutes of criminology on the European continent, in Paris, Rome, Vienna and elsewhere. The subject is also taught at professorial level at various continental universities, including quite small ones. In the United States it is taught in 25 of the leading universities, of which the University of California, with its autonomous Department of Criminology under the direction of Professor Austin MacCormick, at Berkeley, near San Francisco, is outstanding. Yet there is not a single chair of criminology in any university or university college in the United Kingdom. Such teaching and research in the subject as are carried on here at present, on a very limited scale, lack the proper co-ordination which an institute of criminology might be expected to provide.
  The only criminological foundation in this country with the title of institute is the Institute for the Study of the Treatment
  1378
  of Delinquency, a private establishment which was founded in 1931 as a clinic for the examination of offenders, later becoming a centre for evening courses devoted to social studies. It cannot be compared, as regards either organisation or teaching aims, with the continental institutes or with the sociology departments in those universities in Britain which teach this subject.
  In raising this subject, I should like to pay a tribute to a brilliant and energetic worker in the field of penal reform who has died during past weeks—Miss Margery Fry. The project of an institute of criminology was very near and dear to her heart, and she strove tirelessly and selflessly towards its realisation down to the time of her final illness a few months ago.
  It was as the result of her urging that the Howard League, whose secretary she had been for some years and on whose executive committee she served until the end, put forward the idea in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary last June. Incidentally, I am glad to see the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson) in his place, as I know that he has valiantly discharged the duties of chairman of the Howard League for 25 years.
  Miss Fry followed up the League's letter by going to see my right hon. Friend, and, with her characteristic charm and persuasiveness, although she was already in failing health at the time, she pressed the advantages of the scheme on him. The response of my right hon. Friend was favourable, and he translated it into a public expression of his views when he came to address the Howard League shortly afterwards.
  Speaking at the League's annual general meeting in London on 5th November last year, the Home Secretary said:
  "You have taken the initiative, an initiative which I welcome, in suggesting the creation of an institute of criminology in this country. I intend through various contacts to see that this proposal will be seriously considered, not just by the Government, because it is not primarily our business, but by the universities. Crime and its treatment seem to me to be no less suitable as a subject for study and teaching by the universities than a number of other social phenomena; and this is a field in which we particularly need the help and urge of the informed but detached public opinion which the universities are so well able to produce."

  1379
  That was six months ago. I am not complaining, as I know that these negotiations take time, but I think we are entitled to ask what has happened since then. The only official information has come from the Minister without Portfolio, Lord Mancroft, when he answered Lord Pakenham, who raised the matter in another place a fortnight ago.
  Lord Mancroft said on that occasion:
  "This proposal is one in which the Home Secretary is much interested. It would, however, be generally agreed that it would not be appropriate for such an institute to be created and run by the Government. My right hon. Friend is accordingly engaged in certain informal consultations with universities at which criminological work, both in teaching and in research, is carried on. He hopes that these consultations will produce useful results, but I am afraid that there is little more which I can say on the subject at the moment".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 23rd April, 1958; Vol. 208, c. 934.]
  I do not wish to say anything which might jeopardise these consultations in any way, but I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State will at least be able to point to some progress having been made.
  As I have said, no university in the United Kingdom has yet established a chair of criminology. Cambridge has a Department of Criminal Science with a director at its head. Otherwise the university teaching of criminology in this country usually forms part of the syllabus for the study of sociology, psychology or other social sciences. At present, readerships in criminology exist only in Oxford and London, the latter tenable at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
  Some of the provincial universities provide courses in the subject or some branch of it, but teaching is mostly confined to a few odd lectures. I am, however, happy to think that it is not completely overlooked in one university with which I have a particular connection, the Queen's University, Belfast, where special attention is paid in the Department of Psychology to the subject of juvenile delinquency.
  I should also emphasise that nowhere in the United Kingdom can the student of criminology obtain any separate academic qualifications for proficiency in the subject, since no degrees or diplomas in criminology are available here. I
  1380
  sometimes think that it would not be a bad idea if our judicial authorities—High Court judges, recorders, chairmen of quarter sessions, stipendiary magistrates and the like—whose powers of sentencing are considerable—could undergo a course in criminology, or, perhaps, even obtain a diploma in it as a condition of their appointments, as well as taking periodic refresher courses in the subject. A British institute of criminology would suit this purpose admirably.
  Of course, in this context I use the term "criminology" in its generic sense to include not only the science of delinquent behaviour—that is, criminology proper—but also various forms of treatment, what is often called penology, and such ancillary disciplines as criminal biology, psychology, forensic psychiatry and scientific police methods of crime investigation. I hope that the proposed institute would embrace all those aspects of the subject.
  Finally, it may be asked what could an institute of criminology hope to achieve. In the first place, as the Howard League has already pointed out, it could do much valuable research in co-ordinating the teaching of and re- search in a subject which, sparsely taught as it is in this country today, is in some danger of disappearing altogether with the actual or eventual retirement of a few well-known criminologists, such as, for example, Professor Mannheim and Dr. Radzinowicz.
  Moreover, if such an institute were to concentrate, in the initial stage of its existtence, on post-graduate work, its activities might stimulate the teaching of criminology up to graduate level in the universities. Then, if it set the high standard which is to be expected, the possession of a qualification in criminology might well become desirable or even obligatory in some of those concerned with the administration of justice, as I have already indicated.
  At the other end of the scale, even non-diploma courses conducted by the institute for justices, police, probation and prison officers could prove of value, not least as a common meeting ground for the discussion of problems to which there may be a variety of approaches.
  A broadly based and suitably located institute of this kind with a representative

  1381
  staff and board of management would, no doubt, also co-operate closely with the Home Office Research Unit with advice and assistance in all aspects of research, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will recognise. One fruitful subject for research which immediately conies to mind is the recent increase in various forms of juvenile delinquency, as reflected in the crowded state of our Borstal Institutions and approved schools.
  I hope that I have said enough to demonstrate the need for an institute of criminology. What has to be done now is to get the scheme launched in a practical form, and I hope that the Government will be able to provide the necessary initial impetus for this fairly soon. Whatever form the project eventually takes in practice, I am sure that it will always be associated in our minds with the name of Margery Fry.
  11.33 p.m.
  Sir George Benson: I am extremely glad that the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) has raised this matter. The present position is that practically the whole of our penal methods and our treatment of delinquency are based on either tradition or guesswork. There is scarcely any precise knowledge. Our penal system, the courts, and the depredations of criminals must cost the country a considerable sum each year, but it is only in the last five years that the Home Office has considered it necessary to spend any money on serious research into the problems raised by the existence of crime. This very large problem requires an all-out attack.
  I want to pay tribute to the work which has been done by the Home Office research section. It is very new but it is extremely active. Its research is of an intensive and practical kind, and it does not bear on the problems which the hon. Member raised—the need for teaching of an academic kind where this matter can be studied and where our lawyers and the general public can gain knowledge of this almost invincible problem. Home Office research, vitally important though it is, is no substitute for an institute of this kind, which will be a general educational force in the community.
  1382
  I do not want to say more, except to urge upon the Home Office the great importance of bringing this country into line with practically every other country of the world. We allow our courts, our magistrates and the whole administration of the penal system of the country to rest upon pure guesswork and tradition. Nowhere at present can the court and the whole penal machine look for guidance and information. An institute of criminology is a vital need, and I hope that the Home Office will take early steps to cooperate in the foundation of such an institution.
  11.37 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Hyde) has raised a matter of great interest and importance this evening, and he has not only put his own case most effectively but has also told the House a great deal of what I intended to say in reply to him. I do not complain of that.
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been giving much attention to the suggestion which was made to him by the Howard League that the time has come to encourage the establishment of an institute of criminology in this country for the first time. He had the advantage of discussing the matter some months ago not only with the late Miss Margery Fry, to whom my hon. Friend referred, but also with the late Lord Drogheda. Those who are interested in the subject of penal reform have suffered greatly by the deaths of those two faithful workers. Lord Drogheda performed most valuable service as Chairman of the Home Secretary's Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders. Many tributes have been paid to Miss Margery Fry, and I should like to add my own. It is sometimes said that penal reformers show more sympathy for the criminal than for his victim, but it was typical of Miss Margery Fry's broad and generous humanity—and of the spirit that should animate all concerned with penal reform—that in the closing months of her life she gave much time to elaborating proposals for the payment of compensation to the victims of crimes of violence.
  My right hon. Friend is deeply convinced that the vigorous pursuit of research into the causes of crime and the

  1383
  treatment of offenders is an urgent matter, especially at a time when crime is increasing and none of us can say what are the fundamental causes of that increase. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson) has pointed out—and he speaks with great experience in these matters—the teaching of criminology is no less important than research.
  The precise functions and terms of reference which an institute of criminology might have would, of course, have to be settled by those eventually concerned. It might cover a very wide field indeed, and I certainly think that two ends need to be served. The first is to train, preferably at post-graduate level, those who will carry out research and teach others in future; and the other, as suggested by both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Chesterfield, is to provide teaching facilities for those people who, outside the universities, are concerned in their daily work or in voluntary service with the prevention of crime, the administration of justice, or the treatment of offenders—for example, magistrates, probation officers, members of the police force and of the prison service. In addition, such teaching and opportunities of instruction might help to form a better-instructed public opinion on this important matter.
  In spite of what my hon. Friend has said, much has been done in recent years to increase research and develop teaching in this field, and the Home Office has done its best to give such help and encouragement as its resources will allow. The House might be interested to hear just something of the many examples of research that are going on. There are various projects in hand, some of them in the universities, some under the auspices of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency—which, as my hon. Friend said, is a private venture—and some by the Research Unit set up by the Home Office. Research is being planned or is being carried out on the nature of group relations in
  1384
  prisons; the changes brought about as a result of the "Norwich" experiment; the sentencing practice of the courts; the social consequences to offenders of being convicted and sentenced; crimes of violence in the Metropolis—that is being done in the Department of Criminal Science at Cambridge; and the development of prediction studies. Those are just some examples. Of course, much remains to be done, and many fields for research are suggested from time to time.
  It is a fact, as has been suggested tonight, that Great Britain is today almost alone in having no institute for the study and teaching of criminology, no chair in criminology at any university, and, indeed, no separate university qualification specifically in this subject. It may well be that a stage has been reached where the establishment of such an institute within one of our universities would be of great value, in order to give a new impulse to studies in this field, to set high standards in a subject whose academic status has not yet been fully recognised, and also to meet a growing demand for teaching in this subject.
  My right hon. Friend accepts that view. As I say, he has paid great attention to it, and he has undertaken certain informal consultations with university authorities. Those consultations are still in progress, and are necessarily, and I think rightly, confidential at this stage. I do not think that the House will ask me to say anything more about them, because it would be premature to do so. I am sorry that I cannot say anything more definite about that at this moment, but we do hope that these consultations will lead to useful results. Meanwhile, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for having raised this subject, for my right hon. Friend certainly welcomes the opportunity for discussion that has been given this evening.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Twelve o'clock.

BRITISH ARMY
  Troops, Kenya (Reinforcement)
  Troops, Kenya (Reinforcement)
  Trooping the Colour (Horse Guards Parade)
  Trooping the Colour (Horse Guards Parade)
POST OFFICE
  Postal Orders
  Postal Orders
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Messrs. Harwood, Willie and Crerar (Wages)
  Messrs. Harwood, Willie and Crerar (Wages)
ROADS
  Road Safety (Street Lighting and Roundabouts)
  Road Safety (Street Lighting and Roundabouts)
  Tottenham Court Road— Oxford Street Junction
  Tottenham Court Road— Oxford Street Junction
RAILWAYS
  Branch Lines
  Branch Lines
TRANSPORT
  Canals and Inland Waterways (Committee's Report)
  Canals and Inland Waterways (Committee's Report)
  Traffic Advisory Committee (Report)
  Traffic Advisory Committee (Report)
  GERMANY (HEAVY INDUSTRY)
  GERMANY (HEAVY INDUSTRY)
EMPLOYMENT
  Motherwell and Wishaw
  Motherwell and Wishaw
  Reading and Newbury
  Reading and Newbury
  West Ham
  West Ham
  Borough Employment Exchange
  Borough Employment Exchange
  Cleveland
  Cleveland
SHIPBUILDING
  Launchings
  Launchings
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Agricultural Machinery (Operational Instruction)
  Agricultural Machinery (Operational Instruction)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Investment Trusts
  Investment Trusts
HOUSING
  Tenants (Sale of Leases)
  Tenants (Sale of Leases)
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Harris Tweed
  Harris Tweed
Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers
  PORT OF LONDON (SUPERANNUATION) BILL
  Read 3a, and passed.
  HOLY TRINITY HOUNSLOW BILL
  Read 2a, and referred to the Committee on Unopposed Bills.

  WORK OF RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES COURT
  2.37 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I beg to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they can make a statement upon progress in referring restrictive trading agreements to the Restrictive Practices Court under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956.]
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, as your Lordships may be aware, the Restrictive Practices Court sat in open court for the first time on April 22. The Judges of the Court had for some months sat periodically in Chambers for the determination of procedural questions. The Court fixed dates for the hearing of three cases during the Michaelmas Term—namely, cases concerning the agreements of the Chemists' Federation, the Cotton Yarn Spinners' Association and the Cotton Yarn Doublers' Association.
  It will be realised that these are the first cases to be brought before the Court and that they are heavy and important cases. It has therefore been necessary to examine a very large number of documents, and the accounts and costings of dozens of firms, and to have them available for the Court. These first cases will
  24
  probably take as much as three weeks each. It is therefore not surprising that they have taken nearly eighteen months to get ready for hearing, when one compares that with the time needed for preparing a normally heavy commercial case.
  I understand that, in pursuance of directions given by the Board of Trade during the last thirteen months to the Registrar of Restrictive Trading Agreements about the order in which agreements are to be referred to the Court, the Registrar has notified the parties to over 70 agreements that he proposes to refer them to the Court. Notices of reference have been issued in 46 cases. Of the 70 agreements I have mentioned, 23—that is, 33 per cent.—have been abandoned, either by determination or by removal of all the restrictive provisions and, the Registrar has been informed that the parties to certain other agreements are taking steps to abandon them.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I thank the noble and learned Viscount for his full, if somewhat doleful, reply? May I ask him three further questions? Should I be right in assuming, in the light of what he has said, that it may be well towards the end of 1960 before the cases on the third list, which has just been published by the Board of Trade, appear before the Court? The second question I should like to ask is this: is the noble and learned Viscount aware that the Registrar's request to the Court, that in order to expedite the hearing of these cases it should resolve itself into two divisions, was refused? Could he acquaint the House whether something could be done in that direction? Thirdly, would the noble and learned Viscount be kind enough to amplify what he said about the position of those agreements which he has just said have been abandoned? Would he agree with me that the interpretation of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act is that a registered agreement brought by the Registrar before the Court is ipso facto against the public interest? These agreements which the noble and learned Viscount mentioned—
  SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I beg your Lordships' pardon?
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, "Order" was said.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I am asking the noble and learned Viscount a series of questions, as I think I am entitled to do. Would the noble and learned Viscount agree with me that the Court have taken a different view from that of Parliament and that, while the present interpretation still stands, all these cases can come before the Court again and be reacted, making confusion worse confounded?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, before I try to answer that most capable piece of cross-examination, I should like to say that the "dole" referred to by the noble Lord at the outset of his questions is inherent in my own personality and is not related to the subject matter of my Answer. With regard to the noble Lord's first question, his conclusion is certainly not accepted by Her Majesty's Government either on logical or on arithmetical grounds. May I deal first with the logical approach? The noble Lord seems to assume that there will always be an interval of eighteen months between the giving of a direction by the Board of Trade and the hearing by the Court. This will certainly not be the case. Some cases will be heavier and longer than others, and some may be quite short. Moreover, as my original Answer emphasises, the current cases are the first to be subjected to this novel procedure. Inevitably their preparation and their handling in the initial stages by the Court raised a number of teething troubles, which have contributed in some degree to the delay, apart from the intrinsic weight of the cases themselves. It is likely that by the time the Court has heard a number of cases, certain principles of law and practice will have been formulated, which will mean greater expedition in the later cases.
  Now I come to the arithmetical approach. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, is a year out in his arithmetic. On the basis—which I do not accept—that the interval between direction and hearing is bound to be about eighteen months, the period would expire at the end of 1959, not 1960.
  May I now deal with the second point, about the Court's sitting in one division in the first cases. I am aware that the Court has intimated that it did not wish,
  26
  at any rate to begin with to sit in two divisions. The President stated that they felt that it would be better for them to sit together for the first few cases in order to get a common approach to the new procedure. That decision, of course, is one for the Court, but in the circumstances, it seems to me an entirely sensible one, bearing in mind the novelty of the constitution of the Court, its jurisdiction and its procedure. The noble Lord will have noted that the President stated that it was in accordance with precedent on the first sitting of new courts. It is understood that the Court will split up into two, or even three, divisions fairly soon. I hope that that answer will reassure the noble Lord to some extent.
  With regard to his third question, again this is a matter for the Court, but I think it would be useful if I put the position on record, so that the noble Lord can study it and then ask me further questions, if he should so desire. Section 20 (5) of the Act of 1956 provides that the powers of the Court, to declare restrictions contrary to the public interest, and to restrain the enforcement of an agreement or the making of any other agreement to the like effect, are not to be affected by the determination of the agreement after the commencement of the proceedings. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, referred to the Order made by the Court in the matter of the Corrugated Paper Makers Agreement, where the Registrar applied for an injunction to restrain the respondents from entering into any similar restrictions to those contained in the agreement which had been withdrawn.
  I would ask the noble Lord to note these two points. Counsel for the respondents said that he would give an undertaking not to give effect to, or to purport to enforce, the agreement, and not to make any other agreement (whether with the same parties or with other parties) to the like effect. The President of the Court, Mr. Justice Devlin, said this:
  " … upon that undertaking the Court would in this case"
  and I stress those words—
  "make no order."
  Apart from the fact that this decision may be regarded as special in the circumstances of the case, it is, I think, too soon in the life of the Court to assume that it is adopting one course of practice

  27
  rather than another. It is quite fair to argue, as the noble Lord did—I do not complain at all—that unless the Court does declare the restrictions contrary to the public interest, and does grant the type of injunction envisaged, there may be a danger that the trader may decide later on to operate his agreement once again, and that might involve its being brought before the Court a second time. But, my Lords, I should say, in view of the guarded terms of the learned Judge's pronouncement, that it is too soon to conclude that this result will inevitably follow the decision of the Court in the Corrugated Paper case.
  Returning to the noble Lord's allegation of "dole" on my part, I would say this. Your Lordships will remember that in our protracted debates, in which the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, took such a distinguished part, I expressed the hope that before the matter got to Court a number of agreements would fall by the way. If we can keep up the percentage of one-third of these restrictive agreements falling by the way before they come to Court at all, I think we may say that the Act is doing fairly well.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether I should be in order in moving that this debate be adjourned?
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Viscount for his reply, which will give a great deal of satisfaction in various quarters. I will take advantage of his offer and perhaps return to this matter at a later date, when more experience has been gained.

  THE VEHICLE TESTING SCHEME
  2.48 p.m.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I beg to ask the next Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
  [The Question was as follows:
  To ask Her Majesty's Government when it is proposed to publish the White Paper setting out the operational details of the vehicle testing scheme, when it is proposed to lay the regulations before Parliament, and how long it is proposed to allow Parliament and
  28
  the public to become acquainted with the details of the scheme before the regulations come into force.]
  EARL BATHURST: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend, who is abroad, may I say that I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for asking this Question? The reply is somewhat like a cinema trailer announcing forthcoming entertainments for the following week. I am glad to be able to tell the noble Lord that my right honourable friend will lay a White Paper describing Her Majesty's Government's vehicle testing scheme before both Houses of Parliament on Monday next, May 12.
  There will be three main sections of regulations. The first, containing regulations made under Section 1 of the Act. as the White Paper will bring out, will deal with the conditions of appointment of garages and authorised examiners, and will contain provisions for the designation of local authorities who will be involved with the scheme. This first section will enable progress to be made with the appointments and designations, and it is expected that there will be some 15,000 to 20,000 applications to be received. That, in itself, will take a considerable time and will require safeguards which I believe the noble Lord opposite would like to see under the scheme.
  Before there is any question of commencing compulsory testing, all the applicant garages will have been inspected by the Minister's technical staff, first of all to make sure that their standard of equipment, layout, efficiency and supply of technical staff and mechanics is satisfactory to my right honourable friend, and, secondly, to satisfy my right honourable friend that all areas of the country will be adequately provided with potential testing stations. When he is so satisfied, regulations under Section 2 of the Act, specifying the classes of vehicles which will be subject to the test and the relevant ages, will be made. The final provisions of Section 2, which make the production of a test certificate a condition of obtaining a licence for a vehicle in the specified category, in the same manner as it is necessary to produce a certificate of insurance at present, will not be brought into force until my right honourable friend is satisfied that owners of vehicles have had a reasonable opportunity to

  29
  have their vehicles tested at the appointed stations.
  My right honourable friend is fully aware that he is, by this Act, restricting the liberty of many individuals. For that reason, he will be as reasonable as he possibly can. Nevertheless, he firmly believes—and I am certain your Lordships will agree—that the driver of an unsafe vehicle is as much a public menace as a criminal at large with a loaded lethal weapon.
  LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I first of all thank the noble Earl, and express my gratitude that at least the Government seem to appreciate Questions put on the Order Paper. Secondly, may I say that I am grateful for the delays, and I wish he would take note that when the regulations are laid they will be objected to, and the programme he has just outlined to the House will give everybody a chance to study them before they are put into force.
  EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that most of the vehicles affected under this scheme—or, at any rate, a great many—will be the property of wage-earners who have bought them second and third hand, and who have not great resources behind them? May I also ask him whether there will be arrangements for appeal, and whether those arrangements will be as easy and as cheap as possible from the point of view of the people affected?
  EARL BATHURST: My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that that point is fully appreciated, but I would emphasise the last statement in my reply: that an unsafe motor car, no matter in whose hands it may be, is a lethal weapon.
  EARL HOWE: That was not my question.

  DISPOSAL OF HERR KRUPP'S ASSETS
  2.53 p.m.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I bag 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 their attention has been drawn to a paragraph in The Times
  30
  of April 29, 1958, which states that Herr Alfred Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach has come out openly against the Allied order to deconcentrate his concern and has said that the Federal Republic is a Sovereign State and should not carry out measures contrary to the basic rights of the Republic; (2) whether in May, 1957, full information was requested by Her Majesty's Government from the Federal Government of the extent to which it had fulfilled its obligations under the March, 1953, deconcentration agreement; (3) whether a reply was received to the foregoing request and, if so, on what date and what was its nature; and (4) whether the policy of Her Majesty's Government is directed to ensuring that Herr Krupp shall not be released from any of his undertakings under the agreement.]
  THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF GOSFORD): My Lords, I have seen the Press report referred to by the noble Viscount, Lord Elibank. Full information on the deconcentration programme was requested from the Federal German Government. A reply was received in London on April 29 last. This reply is now being studied. Your Lordships will understand that the reply must now be discussed with the French and United States Governments, who are jointly responsible with Her Majesty's Government for these problems and to which the reply was also given. As I told the noble Viscount on December 11, and as my noble friend Lord Lansdowne repeated on April 16, policy in these matters concerns the three Governments. It would be better not to prejudice discussions with them by expressing unilateral views at this stage.
  VISCOUNT ELIBANK: My Lords, I beg to thank the noble Earl for his reply. Will the noble Earl and the Government take note of the fact that Herr Krupp, the infamous employer of slave labour, both male and female, who was prematurely released from jail by the American High Commissioner, Mr. McCloy in 1951, would never have made these impudent remarks referred to in my Question unless he had been assured of support from important personages in West Germany? Will the noble Earl bear in mind, further,

  31
  that part of the Krupp assets which are subject to deconcentration under the agreement of 1951 are now being employed in competition with British traders in markets in most parts of the world?
  LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, the noble Earl said that this is a matter for consultation with the American and French Governments. We understand that, but the fourth part of the noble Viscount's Question asks whether Her Majesty's Government will see that the deconcentration agreement is not made a dead letter. Can we be assured that, in the negotiations or discussions with the American and French Governments, Her Majesty's Government will stand by the deconcentration agreement?
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I think I can assure the noble Lord on that point.
  VISCOUNT STANSGATE: My Lords, without consulting the French, or anybody else, is it possible for the noble Earl to tell us whether he agrees with Herr Krupp's statement that the Federal Republic is a Sovereign State and should not carry out measures contrary to the basic rights of the Republic?
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, certainly the Federal Government is a Sovereign State; but she also has treaty obligations to other countries.

  INSURANCE COMPANIES BILL [H.L.]
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to consolidate the Assurance Companies Acts, 1909 to 1946, and the enactments amending those Acts, with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act. 1949. I beg to move that this Consolidation Bill be now read a first time.
  Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

  THE AIR ESTIMATES
  2.57 p.m.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE rose to call attention to the Memorandum of the Secretary of State for Air Accompanying the Air Estimates for 1958–59 (Cmnd. 373); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I would submit that there is general agreement that the Royal Air Force is a well-administered Service, and that it is resilient to modern needs and methods. The Estimates this year show welcome reductions in headquarters formations, welcome reductions in the size of the Air Ministry itself, and a welcome reduction of an overall 10,000 in the number of civilian staffs, in spite of a substitution of 3,000 civilian posts for Service personnel. The Royal Air Force is searching constantly for organisational economies. I think it leads in accepting what one may term the "New Deal" for Servicemen—and certainly that has paid, as recruiting figures show—and, furthermore, the Air Ministry is not afraid to go outside the Service for consultation and advice from the world of commerce.
  But far beyond administration, the big question, I submit, in relation to these Air Estimates is on the issue of the possession of the deterrent V-bomber force. There is a charge made that we are spending too great a proportion of defence expenditure upon the V-bomber force and its protection. That charge has come from two different flanks. The charge is made by those who say that this deterrent is maintained at an unwise cost to the build-up of conventional weapons, and there are those who say that this deterrent is out of date—what I would term the "advancement of the pushbutton warfare" school.
  In examining the charge that we are spending too great a proportion of our defence expenditure, it is worth while to look for a moment at the figures. Out of some £1,500 million defence expenditure we are spending about 7½ per cent. on the deterrent and another 7½ per cent. on the protection of the deterrent. That is to say, out of a total of some £1,500 million about £250 million is spent on the deterrent and its protection in the form of Fighter Command, radar chains and other protective measures For that investment we have a force of V-bombers—Vulcans, Victors and still the Valiants

  33
  —the equal in performance and armament of any air fleet of comparable purpose owned by any nation in the world, not excluding those concerning which we have the gravest suspicions.
  Some critics argue that while admitting the need for this deterrent by the Western Powers we cannot afford it and at the same time provide adequate conventional forces. My Lords, I would submit that we should support the concept that we retain the independent deterrent in this country, and that we should reject absolutely the school that says, "Leave it to the United States". There is always the possibility that the United States and ourselves will not see eye to eye on dangers which confront us in Western Europe, and we all know that once in every four years in the United States they have a vacuum in policy decisions. It is a well-known fact that for some months before a Presidential election it is virtually impossible to get any positive decision of importance out of the American Administration. That, indeed, would be a time of danger for the democracies if we were not self-sufficient as regards deterrent force. Therefore, I would submit this conclusion to your Lordships in considering these Air Estimates: that it is worth while to have the deterrent which, by careful planning, can be obtained without crippling our defence effort.
  I believe it cannot be too widely known, both inside and outside the Royal Air Force, that for an indefinite number of years stretching ahead the large requirement for manned aircraft, both bombers and fighters, will continue. Indeed, I see in the Press to-day that the Chief of Air Staff was only yesterday reporting to that effect. If we consider for a moment we must admit that the manned fighter is going to have an important rôle for many years ahead. Imagine the approach to these shores of an unidentified aircraft. You cannot send a guided missile after that; you send up a fighter to investigate—a manned fighter because it may be one of our own aircraft. And if it is an enemy reconnaissance aircraft, you still cannot send a guided missile up against it; you send a manned fighter.
  If the arguments are there for the manned fighter, they are there even stronger for the manned bomber against the inter-continental ballistic missile. Any examination of the problem must lead to
  34
  the conclusion that, at any rate for the next ten years, probably longer, the manned bomber is going to play a vital rôle in the defence of this country. I would submit four reasons in support of that argument. The first is that the V-bomber force has a degree of flexibility which allows its use in conventional war, carrying what I would term "U" rather than "Non-U" weapons—the ordinary weapons which are considered quite nice weapons, quite acceptable in modern war, as against those which are considered not quite nice. Secondly, the V-bomber force allows time for consideration of the political position in the hour of crisis, which the inter-continental ballistic missile does not allow. With the missile the Government has the terrible decision of saying "Fire it" or "Do not fire it." The V-bomber force can be sent up and can patrol up and down what is termed the "loiter line" while the high-powered statesmen of the world communicate with each other and endeavour at the last moment to avert some disaster.
  Thirdly, until mid-1960, when the Thor missile is likely to become independent of the United States, we shall be virtually in the hands of the United States as regards control of the warhead. Fourthly, and I think one of the most powerful reasons (I hope the Minister who replies may be able to confirm this fact), while Russia may talk of the inter-continental missile, and may publish propaganda photographs of sites and these missiles with their heads peering up into the heavens, is it not a fact that all reports show that at the present time production of manned bombers by Russia is being stepped up, as also is production of manned fighters? So my conclusion is that the manned bomber will remain the main threat to these shores for many years ahead.
  My Lords, if we are to afford the independent deterrent without crippling our defence effort in our cold war outbreaks, such as we see around Aden at the present time, we must be efficient and effective in the use of both air and land power. The concept is that we should have military "fire brigades" capable of being flown to any part of the world to put out a local conflagration. For these forces to be available and effective anywhere, and at any time, depends not only on the size of our air lift but also on

  35
  the selective use of such available lift as Transport Command can give. With these modern aircraft, Britannias costing £1 million each, we cannot afford to have them lying about half used; it is too expensive altogether. Your Lordships have often debated in past years the question of the inadequacy of Transport Command, but it is of interest to note that the ton-mile lift of Transport Command has been doubled in five years. I like to think that that is partly due to your Lordships' pressure; but certainly it is a remarkable achievement. It is a remarkable achievement that the fleet of independent aircraft has grown to 55 fourengined aircraft, and that Transport Command are to have in the first line some 30 Beverleys, 20 Britannias and, I think, 11 Comets. For the first time for many years, however, I personally see a halt in the growth of Transport Command, because I do not believe that much more can be done than is being done without the loss of something more important.
  If we say that the growth of Transport Command can, for the first time, be slowed, down, we should turn for a moment to the utilisation of Transport Command, in order to see that its resources are not wasted and that things which are better dealt with otherwise are not carried by air. Here, I think, in debating the Air Force Estimates we can ask for the Army to look to its own self. It is the Army's duty to stockpile heavy weapons and equipment at strategic points in the world, ready for airborne personnel to pick them up. It is no good thinking the air lift can carry heavy equipment. Even the American Transport Command, which is bigger than the rest of the world's air transport fleets combined, cannot carry equipment for an army. There is an example of an Army request, which I understand was made in the last few weeks, to fly out jeeps to Aden. If the cost of flying out jeeps to Aden was gone into, if the operation was costed out, I submit that it would be found to be cheaper to have had a gold-plated jeep sitting in Aden doing nothing for many years past than to fly out the jeep as we have been doing. It would be much cheaper to leave a jeep in Aden doing nothing, rusting, falling to bits, and to have it replaced
  36
  by another one, than flying out at the last moment equipment which should already have been there, or near there.
  So, my Lords, I would summarise my Motion drawing attention to the Air Estimates by saying that we have a fine Force, manned by the best, able to be an insurance of safety against aggression, making it clear to any aggressors that their efforts would be checked, in part, by defence and met in full by massive retaliation with our Allies, or even, if necessary, without our Allies. May I continue this summary with a warning. Let us be careful that wishful thinking for welcome economies in expenditure does not allow us to take risks with what we know is actual in air fleets and their power, simply in the hope that future and as yet largely unproven weapons may lighten this burden. Surely such would be a false economy and a quite unacceptable risk for any British Government to take. Our Government have not taken it so far. I hope that they never will, and that no succeeding Government will ever take such risks with our defences. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
  3.12 p.m.
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I think that this debate on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, comes at a most opportune moment, because, quite frankly, to most of us the picture of our defences as envisaged by the Government is confused and incomplete. We see it through a haze, and we do not much like what we see—in fact, it seems to us that the Government are gambling on the hydrogen bomb and that without it we should be naked and defenceless. That is a most dangerous position for the country to be in. It may be that the circumstances will not call for the use of such a weapon—and we sincerely hope that it will never be used; but in that case, we shall have no other weapons with which to meet a possible contingency. Therefore I agree largely with what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, said on that point. I would say, however, that the picture he has given to the House differs completely from the Government's picture, and is more like the picture painted yesterday by the Chiefs of Air Staff. This is an example of the sort of confusion in the defence picture at the moment.

  37
  What are the constituents of the Government's declared air policy—because, after all, we must take the declared policy of the Government as published by them in the White Paper, and not as given to us by Generals in after-dinner speeches or by Air Marshals or Marshals of the Royal Air Force in Press conferences, and in other places where people are gathered and sojourn. One must take the White Paper as setting out the Government's policy and intention. It is the intention of the Government, as I have been able to ascertain it from the White Paper and from the statements of Ministers—not, I add once more, from statements of Generals or Air Marshals—first of all to have a strategic bomber force carrying megaton bombs, this force to disappear as guided missiles become more plentiful and accurate. Secondly, the intention is to have a fighter force to protect the bomber bases—these will be chiefly of the English Electric P1B. How long this fighter force will be available, and how many English Electric P1B fighters are being ordered, we do not know, because there was a curious silence by the Minister of Supply in another place last week when he was asked this question.
  Do the Air Council agree with the Government, with the Minister of Supply and with the Minister of Defence that manned bombers and fighters are within sight of the end of their usefulness. If they do—and up to now they have maintained that proposition—no one else agrees with them. The Russians do not: the Americans do not; obviously the Germans do not. And the British Air Marshals do not, because yesterday, according to a report in The Times, and the Daily Telegraph this morning, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Dermot Boyle, Chief of the Air Staff, said at a meeting that the Air Council were convinced that, as far as they could see, manned bombers and fighters would be needed to supplement guided missiles. He then went on to explain in detail the necessity for manned bombers and fighters.
  Obviously, the Germans, who have a good deal of experience in this field, do not feel that the day of the manned bomber and fighter has gone, because they are getting the loan of 100 pilots from the Royal Air Force in order to train the Luftwaffe. Presumably, these pilots
  38
  are to sign on with the Luftwaffe. It seems a most extraordinary situation, only ten years after the end of the last war, that British Royal Air Force pilots are signing on for three to five years, presumably as members of the Luftwaffe. I think the House and the country will want to know a little more about the signing on in this way by British Royal Air Force pilots. What are the conditions under which this is being done? Will they remain officers of the Royal Air Force? If so, on what Reserve will they appear? What happens if we disagree with West Germany? We have already heard to-day from the noble Viscount on the Liberal Benches, who, having fired his gun, has now disappeared, a Question in regard to Herr Krupp, and what Herr Krupp said. That is the sort of thing that might develop into a disagreement. What happens then? Can we withdraw these officers at any moment? I think that is the sort of question that Parliament should ask and on which a full explanation should be given. Can we recall them at any time?
  The third weapon, so to speak, or arrow, in the quiver of the Government, is Transport Command. Here, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has said, for long-distance lifts they are de- pending upon Hastings, Comets and Britannias; and for lifts within the theatre of operations, on Beverleys. Twenty Britannias and 46 Beverleys—rather more than the noble Lord mentioned—are on order, according to the Ministry of Supply. This statement that Transport Command have now reached their peak, as Lord Balfour of Inchrye indicated, does not take into account the fact that these aircraft are only on order: that they have not yet arrived at Transport Command and will not arrive for some considerable time. Therefore, I would say that we need a good deal more aircraft, not only "in the pipeline", so to speak, but also in the more distant future. I will say a little more about air transport in a moment.
  The declared policy of the Government, in my view, omits sufficient mention of three other parts of the Air Force which are needed. First of all, there is the tactical support of ground forces. In my reading, such as it is, of history I have always found that throughout the ages in military matters, wherever there is a failure to prepare for war, wherever

  39
  there is parsimony on the part of those who are responsible for paying for the preparation, in the end one person suffers. That person is not the one who has been parsimonious or lacking in preparation; it is the soldier who has to carry out the wars.
  Let us take the Peninsula War. The lack of equipment for reducing fortresses, and the lack of engineering services meant that our men had to take heavily defended towns, great fortresses like Badajoz, with their bare hands. Before the First World War the lack of appreciation of the effect of modern weapons such as the machine gun and the effect of barbed wire, also meant that men had to pay with their lives. In the last war, the lack of appreciation of air power, the failure to realise that troops without air cover were helpless in face of strong and constant enemy air attack, meant that we lost very many valuable lives. Even after the start of the war, that was not clearly recognised. At sea the authorities failed to appreciate the same lesson and failed to provide both adequate fighter cover for naval operations and sufficient anti-aircraft armament for warships—all this in spite of constant and frequent warnings on the subject to those responsible for naval preparation before the last war. What I want to know is: have all these grim lessons been learnt yet, even on the one issue of air cover, quite apart from the other lessons which ought to be learnt in preparation for any future war that there may be? Obviously the Russians are aware of them. In the Defence and Army debates I gave your Lordships the views of the Russians in this connection.
  N.A.T.O. also is aware of this need for air support of ground troops, and last Autumn they conducted technical trials of five aircraft at Brétigny, near Paris. The object was to test the aircraft so as to standardise a design for production in large numbers, for tactical support of N.A.T.O. armies in Europe; and it is odd and very interesting to know that of the five aircraft tested for this close support purpose three were powered by Bristol Orpheus engines and the other two have since been offered with those engines. So here we have an international body testing aircraft, all of which are, or can be, engined with British engines; and yet, so far as I am aware,
  40
  there are no aircraft being tested now for a similar purpose—to protect British forces.
  I am glad that, if the Ministry of Defence are not aware of this, the Air Staff are. I was invited to a conference which was held yesterday, but unfortunately I had duties in your Lordships' House and elsewhere and could not go. According to the Daily Telegraph, Air Vice-Marshal Kyle, who is a member of the Air Staff:
  "revealed that trials concerning the possible provision of a new ground attack, defence and tactical reconnaissance aircraft for overseas theatres are to be made in Aden. Modern high-performance fighters are becoming less suitable for this general purpose rôle."
  That is a very heartening statement because it means, I think, that they have at last realised that the Army must have co-operation from aircraft and that we must have aircraft which can operate with the Army in a tactical rôle and give close support. The Army, I suppose tired of the fact that it has not had much co-operation in this field, or perhaps being frightened by the policy of the Ministry of Defence, has started its own air force—the Army Air Corps—which provides for both reconnaissance and liaison. I believe that that was started in 1957.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (THE EARL OF SELKIRK): My Lords, I believe it was in April of this year.
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, the organisation came into being on September 1, 1957. Perhaps the Admiralty had not heard of it before this year, but in fact it started then. I feel that it is a very heartening sign and shows initiative on the part of the Army that they are prepared themselves to take the necessary steps to provide the kind of cooperation and liaison which has not been provided for them by another Service and by Her Majesty's Government as a whole. In addition to the need for more transport aircraft there is the need for close support aircraft for use with civil defence—the need for the Air Force to take more seriously their duties of civil defence; because in war, in these days, especially with atomic weapons, one cannot envisage road and rail communication being long available in a country with a dense population such as

  41
  this, and it may well be that in war the only link for civil defence will be by air. One would have thought, therefore, that this function, the necessity to act in the civil defence field, would have been mentioned by the Royal Air Force and by Her Majesty's Government in its memorandum. But there has been no mention of it whatsoever.
  The third and last failure to deal in the memorandum with the picture as a whole is in relation to helicopters and their successors, vertical take-off aircraft. With the Forces and in civil defence the helicopter is an absolutely essential machine in these days; yet there is no doubt that it has not received from Her Majesty's Government the support that it should. Little interest has been taken in its development. The Bristol 192 is a large Forces helicopter which is having some encouragement, but the Army Air Corps which I have mentioned is having to go to France for a suitable helicopter. For liaison purposes, for which a larger helicopter is used, and as a spotter aircraft helicopter, they are trying out the French Alouette, a gas-turbine propelled helicopter. One would have thought that, with British aircraft manufacturers in the serious position in which they now are, we might have been able to get something from British manufacturers, rather than have to go to France for this purpose. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that we have reached the limit of our demands on the aircraft industry for supply aircraft. I myself believe that it is dangerous to rely on charter firms for aircraft for lifting either troops or materiel, and I would ask Her Majesty's Government to develop our Transport Command to a much greater extent than they have done so far.
  I would ask them also to look at a new aircraft which is now just coming into production, the Fairey Rotodyne, which is the first vertical take-off liner, which will carry forty-eight passengers or 4½ tons of freight, and which will land almost anywhere—certainly in places where no aircraft not having the helicopter principle could possibly land. We are still deficient in this field and I believe that that is a very disheartening feature of our preparations. In column 5330 of General Keightley's dispatch on Suez, he pointed out, in his account of that unfortunate transaction, that:
  42
  " We had a limited airborne effort, but in particular our air supply lift and air supply resources were very restricted."
  I would suggest that in this modern age, to go into a military campaign, such as Suez was, with an aircraft situation of that kind was a very dangerous proceeding.
  There is one other point I should like to make in this field: the question of corrosion in the Comets. As your Lordships probably know, several Comets have been grounded owing to the fact that there was corrosion in the fabric of which they were made, and this caused considerable concern because these Comets were a large part of the lift which we have available in case of urgent need. The allegation made by the Daily Telegraph—rightly or wrongly; I do not know—is that this was due not to any inherent defect in the metal, but to an inherent disability on the part of the Treasury to pay the necessary money to have them properly treated. If that is so, I think it is a matter which is cause for great concern, not only because the cost is very much greater now in treating these various machines than it would have been originally if they had been protected in the way the Air Ministry wanted them to be protected, but also because they were and have been out of commission. That is a very serious matter for the country as a whole. I think that that allegation, made in the Daily Telegraph, about the responsibility of the Treasury, should either be denied by the Minister who is going to reply (and I have given him a note of this point), or else he should explain what happened and give us an indication and a promise that it will never happen again.
  As to the effect of the Government's indecision, and this confusion through various voices speaking on behalf of the Government and aircraft manufacturers on production of British aircraft, I am not going to speak, because that subject is going to be dealt with by Lord Shepherd. It is a serious point and he will deal with it, I am sure, very fully. There are one or two further points which I should like to make, quite briefly. The first is about the blunder, as I think it to be, of disbanding the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. I think it was a blunder for four reasons: first, because in war we should need a large number of pilots for purely transport

  43
  purposes—they would not have to fly P.IBs. or anything of that kind, but there would have to be a large number to fly ordinary transport aircraft; secondly, because if we know anything of the anti-submarine warfare that is likely to take place we know that a large number of aircraft will be needed in that field; thirdly, because of the civil defence need, of which I have already spoken, and the call upon the Royal Air Force for that purpose; and fourthly—and in some ways this is equally important although it may not seem to be so at first sight—because the Royal Auxiliary Air Force afforded a considerable link with the public.
  I think it is a psychological blunder to have disbanded the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. I can speak as one who was for many years in the Territorial Army—in fact, I came out of it a year or two ago only because of the age limit—and I know that in my own part of the country it is thought by those well qualified to judge that this was a great blunder which the Air Force will rue. It is said, perhaps wrongly, that many of the Generals understood the Territorial Army much better than the Air Marshals understood the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, and that it is because they did not fully appreciate the worth of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and the strength of its tie between the various parts of the United Kingdom and the Royal Air Force that they allowed it to be disbanded, at the behest of the Minister of Defence. That may, or may not, be true, but that is what is felt in informed quarters in parts of the United Kingdom.
  I should like to say just a word on the question of guided missiles so far as the two Services and the employment of them is concerned. There are at present two Services dealing with guided missiles: the Royal Artillery and the Royal Air Force. The Royal Artillery deal with ground-to-ground missiles, and the Royal Air Force with all other missiles. Is this a good practice? Will it not lead to unnecessary expense, to confusion and, possibly, to failure to develop these weapons to the best possible advantage? How does it fit in with the Minister of Defence's declared policy that, where possible, we should integrate services and co-ordinate commands? How can there be integration of services when
  44
  you are giving this one weapon to two different Services? I should have thought that either you regard the missile as a non-piloted aircraft and give it to the Royal Air Force, or you regard it as a shell from a gun and you give it to the Royal Artillery. But it cannot be both, and I think the idea that two Services are handling it may lead to confusion. I should like to have the Minister's view on that point.
  Finally, there is the question of recruiting. The future of the Royal Air Force depends not only on guided missiles and machines but also on men. In the Defence debate, I think it was, I called to your Lordships' attention a very interesting declaration on this point by the Russians, who said that in the era of the push-button war the man was more important than ever; and where are men coming from and in what numbers so far as the Royal Air Force is concerned? The latest figures which I have, and so far as I know the latest figures in the Printed Paper Office, are for January and February. The recruitment of the Regular Royal Air Force in January, 1957, was 2,688, and in January of this year 1,823. There is a very considerable drop there. In February, 1957, the figure was 2,338, and in February, 1958, it was 1,777—a very considerable drop in January and February. It is only fair to say, and I am certain that the Minister will say, that there has been a slight increase in the long-term entries, for nine years' service and over. The figures went up from 215 in February, 1957, to 298 in February, 1958, so there is a slight and welcome increase there; but on the whole there is a considerable decrease in recruiting this year as against last year. That, I feel, is a serious feature, and it is no good blinking these things.
  The Government have attacked us on several occasions on recruiting, because they say, "You raise these points; and if you raise the point that there are not many recruits you will prevent people from coming into the Forces." We do not do it for that reason, nor do I believe that that is the effect, but we are concerned with the picture when National Service ends that the Forces may be too reduced to carry out their duties. We want to make the Government realise the seriousness of the situation as it has been unfolding over the last year or so.

  45
  That is all I want to say. I welcome Lord Balfour of Inchrye's Motion, and, of course, we on this side shall listen with much interest to the many experienced, powerful speakers who are to follow.
  3.38 p.m.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: My Lords, in an Air debate I think it suitable that our sorties should be fairly short, and the two earlier speakers have stuck to that principle. May I begin by saying that I cannot find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, on one point raised by him. From my own experience I can say definitely and categorically that the Air Marshals did not neglect the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. They did not regard it as unwanted, and the whole Air Council and all others responsible were for some time in agonies of indecision, because they saw in one direction where their duty lay and in the other where their sentiments led them. The fact is that the part-time pilot in the present organisation of the Air Force cannot fulfil the function which he fulfilled before the war. He cannot, for various administrative reasons with which I need not detain the House, form part of aircrew. The fighter rôle is the one in which he excelled and when it became apparent that that rôle could not be fulfilled in the modern context, the Air Council, I think quite rightly, decided—with infinite regret and agony of soul, I know, although I was not responsible at the time—that the end of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force must come.
  I should like to begin by saying what I find most agreeable to me in the Memorandum attached to the Air Estimates. First of all, I am delighted that at last the Government have decided to place the Arabian Peninsula with the Persian Gulf and British Somaliland under one headquarters and under one Air Commander. I think it ought to have been done before, but it is a very wise and prudent step. I hope that there will not he any compartmentalisation—I hope I may be forgiven for using this awful word—between the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office, one Department being responsible for the Persian Gulf and the other for the Aden Protectorate and the Aden Colony. I hope that the Ministers will see that there is no division of policy there.
  46
  Turning to paragraph 47, I hope that I shall not be thought guilty of excessive self-congratulation when I say that I am glad to see that plans for a staging post in the Indian Ocean are now coming to fruition, because it was when I was at the Air Ministry that the R.A.F. first reconnoitred this area, before the difficulty actually arose, as it did later, in transport facilities in India and Ceylon. I am glad to see that an airfield is now under construction.
  The third point which I was glad to note was the intensive pursuit of work study, another subject which I have close to my heart. I have never seen why any Armed Service of the Crown, or any other public department, for that matter, should not be as careful with the nation's precious stock of skilled man-hours as is private industry. I have never believed since I first had experience of this, that a crude cut in manpower was the answer to the need for manpower economy. Of course, the answer is to see that there is a properly balanced arrangement by which manpower is used in the most economic way under proper supervision. It is right that the most modern and, I hope and believe, the most progressive of our Services should lead the field in this way.
  Finally, I am glad to see that requisitioned land has now been reduced to 7,000 acres and that 9,000 acres of Air Ministry-held land were sold during the last financial year. I confess that I am particularly sensitive to any extravagant and wasteful use of the land of these islands. I found it agonizing when, at the Air Ministry, I had to requisition or buy large acreages of good agricultural land though it was necessary to do so at that time because the front line was expanding rapidly. There is no reason why any public department should hold on to land whether held under requisition—which, after all, is odious to our tradition—or even in its own ownership, any longer than is necessary for its immediate purposes. There should be no hoarding of land and Ministers should continue to bring the fullest pressure on their Departments to disgorge all land which is not in actual use.
  It seems to me much more than six years since I first had experience of this and kindred matters. It was six years ago when I first answered a debate for the Air Ministry in your Lordships'

  47
  House. At that time there were still some Spitfires in squadron service; it was still permissible to doubt whether the Russians had even the secret of the atom bomb with which we were arming, if the truth be told, for warfare of the type which we experienced at the end of the 1939–45 war. Yet at that time, as we now know, the Russians had made considerable progress in their nuclear experiments. In February, 1952, the United States took that fateful decision to construct the hydrogen bomb; and we now can speak without any reserve on speeds of up to 3,000 and 4,000 miles an hour. We can talk of "the control of outer space" and of flying to the moon. The expression, "The sky's the limit" is becoming as dated as "post-haste."
  In these circumstances, it is extremely difficult for any Administration in these islands to reach a properly balanced view of the present and future. We ought never to underestimate the difficulties or fail to commend the courage of some of the decisions that have recently been taken. But I find that Parliament perhaps, the newspapers certainly, seem mesmerised by words. One particular expression which seems to be mesmeric is "conventional weapons". The "conventional weapons" of the day, whether we like it or not, are the long-range rocket and hydrogen bomb and the long-range bomber, and the weapons which are called conventional, whether they are artillery or tanks or even possibly—though I say this with great respect in the presence of the First Lord—aircaft carriers, are on the way out. Your Lordships will remember that the aspidistra descended from Park Lane through the suburbs until it has found a home in the folk museum. The aspidistra used to be a very strong convention.
  Now we cannot avoid the fact that we are in the nuclear age. If the noble Earl Lord Attlee had not taken what I believe to be the courageous and seminal decision to set about making the atom bomb, and if, in his turn, Sir Winston Churchill had not decided to initiate the manufacture of the nuclear fusion weapon, we should have been miles behind, both industrially and militarily. I know that it can be said by economists and others who have the advantage of hindsight that if we had not spent the money which we have spent on
  48
  bombers and weapons, we could have led the field perhaps in civil aviation or in the development of atomic power, but that is quite an unrealistic point of view. We were led on by the military pressure of defence. No Chancellor of the Exchequer and no Minister of Defence could have squeezed a tithe of the funds out of the Treasury that were squeezed out. Any funds going on capital development would have been poured down obsolete coalmines and obsolete railways. The fact is that military necessity forced us into the nuclear age and to the construction of long-range aircraft. Without such military pressures we should not have had them at all. We owe our whole position in the world to-day, which is very fine, in these fields of power and air transport to the compulsions of defence.
  I cannot think that the critics can be so pessimistic as to believe that scientists of the calibre of Sir William Penney, Sir John Cockcroft, and their colleagues and successors, are now so deficient of ideas that their magnificent, almost miraculous achievements will not again be repeated in another context if we give them the chance. If we look at it dispassionately, not only in nucleonics, in electronics and metallurgy, but in all the most advanced fields and in discoveries such as of jet propellants, military requirements have led the field. If the age had been happier and less turbulent, we might have reached our present position in a longer time; but since our competitors are going ahead with military experimentation, if we do not want to lose our place as the leading industrial and scientific nation we must not lag behind.
  Although grave doubts have been cast by many critics on the so-called prestige value of the hydrogen bomb, it really is not sensible to suppose that scientists can work in a vacuum, that they can make these immense discoveries in laboratories and not see them translated into hard ware. When they are translated, they earn the respect and interest of their fellow scientists in the United States. That is the difference between inter-dependence and dependence. I have seen it work. I know, for instance, how much the American military scientists respect our knowledge of radar and how much information and how much hope we have given that country in the Far Northern Chain. This is one example of

  49
  co-operation. Though I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that we have a powerful nuclear deterrent force, it is not only its own power but the fact that it is part of a much larger force closely associated with us that is so important, politically and militarily. I hope that we shall hear much less in the future about "keeping up with the Joneses". After all, we must "keep up with the Joneses" if we are to survive. I hope that we shall hear less about the term "conventional weapons". I remember what the railway interests used to say about road transport twenty or thirty years ago. They had a simple recipe for dealing with road competition which was to strangle it. But to-day we live in the nuclear age, and we must lead in that field of nuclear development.
  I hope I am not detaining your Lordships for too long, but there is one other matter to which I should like to refer. I do not believe that the Air Force will continue to retain its enthusiasm and to flourish if all initiatives and all policy decisions are to be taken in the Ministry of Defence. I have only read the newspapers and know nothing about what is going on behind the walls of Storey's Gate. But it is an odd illusion of our age that power is much better when it is concentrated. I am convinced, looking at the history of the last ten years, that if decisions to govern all the details of the Services were taken from Storey's Gate, the effective power in the whole defence Services would rest with the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Defence. It would not be his wish that he should have it, but it would inevitably be thrust upon him, because Ministers come and Ministers go in all Administrations, and he is the only one who would be the permanent figure, the overlord over the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council and the Air Council. I can imagine nothing more frustrating to Service enthusiasm and initiative, particularly in the Air Force, where it matters so much, than the knowledge that every decision was ad referendum to the Ministry of Defence and every administrative change had to be referred.
  I hope that the Minister of Defence, whose powers of administration I greatly admire, will not believe that because he himself is a great worker and concen-
  50
  trates on his job, he and his successors in title will improve the administration of the Service by assuming too much power over those Services. I ask the Government speakers who are to address us to-day, although they may not be able to tell us much about it, to make some reference to this point and to see that what I have said, if it finds favour in this House, is reported to the Ministers responsible.
  3.54 p.m.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, and the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, consider that the proportions as between the conventional and deterrent forces—"U" and "non-U", as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, has it—are wrong. Here I must say that I have some sympathy with what the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, has just said about the comparison between these two and their relation to the nuclear age. My right honourable friend the Minister of Defence, in his White Paper, deals with the argument that we are spending too much on the nuclear deterrent. On this aspect I should like to make two points. The first is that, even allowing for research and development on aircraft, bombs and ballistic missiles, less than one-tenth of the Defence Estimates this year is being devoted to the strategic nuclear deterrent—that is, the V-bomber force and the ballistic missiles with which it will be supplemented. The second point is that much of this expenditure fulfils a double purpose. The V-bomber force is fully capable of being used in the conventional rôle with high-explosive bombs. The same is true of the reconnaissance squadrons of the V-bomber force. Therefore, to say that this force is entirely for deterrent purposes only is not strictly accurate.
  LORD OGMORE: Surely that is not the argument. The argument that I was trying to put forward was that, as things are going to-day, in a few years time there will not be any more of these manned bombers and so on—in fact, the Minister has said so. For instance, all research on the supersonic bomber has ended. Yet the supersonic bomber and fighter are the aeroplanes of the future. That is the point. It is not a question of whether they are deterrent, or anything else, but

  51
  that, on present plans, they will not exist at all.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I am coming to that point later. I was dealing with the financial side, rather than with policy.
  As to the argument that an insufficient proportion of the Air Force is suited for conventional warfare, it seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, is making the mistake of fighting the next war with last-war methods. As we see it, war in the future will either be—the unlikely event—nuclear war, in which case conventional forces will not have much chance to compete, or it will be a limited or local war, in which the massive air cover in Europe in the last war will not be needed. The Tactical Air Force in Germany is properly equipped and trained to carry out conventional warfare, and the other sections of the Air Force in various overseas theatres are designed for the waging of local wars.
  As I have already said, our deterrent force is ready to supplement these forces throughout the world in either the conventional or the nuclear rôle. The last few years have, however, provided many examples of developing the techniques and tactics of air support for our ground forces. I have only to quote Kenya and Malaya, and most recently Aden, which has, I think, provided a striking example of small scale tactical co-operation. Then, too, there is the need to practise and develop the technique of the mobility of our forces in the United Kingdom, which has been exemplified by the rapid movement of the strategic reserve. There are innumerable examples which I could quote, but the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, can rest assured that a great deal is going on in this field. This activity applies not only in practice, but also in theory where the School of Land/Air Warfare is still very much alive.
  While on the subject of air support, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has asked me about the Army Air Corps; and in so far as the dates are concerned, I am afraid that both he and the noble Earl. Lord Selkirk, are right: the Air Corps was, in fact, inaugurated in September last year, and the Corps itself took over full operational responsibility on April 1 of this year. Their responsibility is for light aircraft, up to a maximum all-up weight
  52
  of 4,000 lb., used exclusively by the Army on reconnaissance, aerial observation and liaison work. The Army will purchase, man, maintain and operate these aircraft, but the Air Ministry will continue to give assistance from the resources provided by the Royal Air Force.
  Now a word about manned aircraft. I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that there will be a necessity for many years to come for the manned aircraft. In his Memorandum my right honourable friend the Secretary of State says:
  " The future threat to the United Kingdom will be from manned aircraft and ballistic missiles. Plans are being framed accordingly."
  The fundamental fact is that the development of our defence system must be related to this dual threat. Aircraft, so long as they are up against aircraft, will obviously be needed. In fact, in many roles aircraft will always be needed, since their flexibility and capability are things which unmanned missiles cannot provide. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the announcement a few days ago that additional orders for P1 fighters and the P1 trainer have been authorised.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, before the noble Earl leaves the specific question of the manned aircraft, may I say this? He has said, as we know, that orders have been placed for more P1's and a P1 trainer, but what is the position with regard to research and development in fighters and bombers? It is one thing to place an order for a few more of an existing type of fighter, but (I do not want to anticipate my speech) I think it is important for the rest of the debate that he should let us know this. Have research and development on new types of fighter and bomber stopped, or, since it is common ground that both fighter and bomber will be needed for much longer than was expected in the Defence White Paper of last year, is that research and development going to be resumed?
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: If the noble Earl will allow me, I will refer to that point a little later in my speech.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I beg the noble Earl's pardon; I thought he was leaving it.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, asked about the division of responsibility between the

  53
  Royal Air Force and the Army with guided weapons. The position is not quite as he put it. I think it is simple enough. The Royal Air Force is responsible for surface-to-air guided weapons as part of established air defences at home and overseas. The Army is responsible for weapons maintained on a mobile basis—that is, in forward areas. In this way the Royal Air Force controls the whole pattern of air defence. But when it comes to defending armies in the field, the Army, through the Royal Artillery, has its own weapons.
  LORD OGMORE: I think that is exactly what I said. I hope the noble Earl is not going to ride off on that. He has not answered any of the important questions I ask him as to whether, in fact, this division in the responsibility of these weapons is going to lead to added expense, confusion, inefficiency and so on. That is the point.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I cannot see that there is any confusion or inefficiency. There are two completely different sets of circumstances.
  LORD OGMORE: It is the same weapon.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: The same weapon, may be. After all, the Army, the Air Force and the Navy have rifles. All Services, to a certain extent, have the same weapons, but that does not mean that one Service is responsible for one weapon only, and that all the other Services have to depend on that Service for it. I think the division here could not be more clear-cut. Air defence at home is on what I call a static basis, and is an Air Force responsibility; and air defence of armies in the field, as it always has been in the past, is the Army's responsibility, so far as Anti-Aircraft is concerned.
  LORD OGMORE: Why not allow them to be organised and equipped by the Royal Artillery? They were always responsible for air defence in the war, so what is the difference now? Why cannot the Royal Artillery do the whole lot?
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: We are going over past history. The decision was made many years ago that the Air Force was responsible for the static air defence of the country, and that the Army was responsible for the defence of its
  54
  own air space, so far as Anti-Aircraft is concerned. The noble Lord has said that the Royal Artillery should be responsible overall, but that would mean two Services in this country responsible for air defence. Surely, that would mean even more duplication.
  While on the subject of missiles, I think the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, mentioned that they would be entirely under American control. That is not true. The decision to launch the missiles is a matter for joint decision.
  LORD BALFOUR of INCHRYE: I do not want to interrupt the noble Earl, but he is developing an argument on a false basis. I did not say that it depended entirely on America. What I said was that it would not be entirely free for us. There is a difference.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I apologise. I was not in the Chamber when the noble Lord made his speech, and that is what I understood he had said. However (if I may finish the point, as I have now started) it is a joint decision, as we all know, by Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government.
  Before saying a few words about the Home Commands, I should like to answer one more question which the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, posed to me, and it concerned the disbandment of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. The noble Lord suggested, I think, that the reason why the Auxiliary Air Force squadrons had been disbanded was that the Air Marshals were against them and do not understand Territorial Auxiliary units. I am grateful for the support from the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, on this subject.
  LORD OGMORE: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl again. He must get his quotations right. He is constantly putting into our mouths—as in the case of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye—things we did not say. I said that it was a psychological failure on the part of the Government, and that it was said in my part of the country—I have no knowledge whether it is right or not—that one of the contributory factors was the failure of the Air Marshals to understand the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. To clear that up, I asked whether that was so or not. It was a question, not a statement.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I do not see that that is any different from what I said. I understood the noble Lord to say that the Air Marshals did not understand the Territorial Auxiliary units. I think that is the same thing. I feel that I should supplement the answer which the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, has already given to the noble Lord. Whatever our views may be on the issues which faced us on this question, I do not think it should go out from your Lordships' House that the decision was taken because the Government underestimated the part that the auxiliaries should play. Certainly no officer who served throughout the war could be other than very deeply conscious of all that the auxiliary flying squadrons contributed. I had the honour to command one myself for a period of eighteen months, and I can say that no finer and nobler body of men should I ever be likely to come across again.
  The noble Lord should perhaps know that three of the Service members of the Air Council, at the time the decision was taken, had served with auxiliary squadrons as adjutants or assistant adjutants or flying instructors. They had trained these men and worked with them, and therefore were not likely to underestimate their enthusiasm and skill. In point of fact, every possible alternative was considered before the decision to disband the units was taken. It was forced on the Government only by the inescapable logic of events. I do not propose to go into any detail other than this, since your Lordships have already discussed this subject many times in the past; but I should like to add that no decision has ever been taken more reluctantly than the decision to disband the flying squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, and if their conversion to alternative roles had offered a way out we should have been only too glad to take it.
  My Lords, there are other questions which noble Lords have asked, but it is not for me to answer all of them, as my noble friend Lord Selkirk will be taking up many of the points. Perhaps I may now turn to the operational Commands themselves. First of all, I will take Transport Command. Ideally, of course, one can never have enough air transport; and in this sense I agree with the noble Lords who have gone before. We must, however, consider this problem in relation
  56
  to the many other demands on the money and manpower available for defence purposes. Even so, I think that the picture is an encouraging one, particularly when we remember that the aircraft now available, and those which will enter service shortly, will permit the movement of men and material in numbers and at speeds far greater than was possible even two or three years ago. The facts are that the air lift potential of Transport Command has increased very substantially over the past three years and is now nearly double what it was in 1955. The introduction of the Britannia into squadron service will mean a further substantial improvement in Transport Command's capability. Similar increases have taken place in the air lift potential of the air transport forces in the Middle East and Far East. For an emergency the intensity of operations can be stepped up to an extent nearly twice that which would be regarded as reasonable for routine purposes. In addition we can, of course, call, if necessary, on the very substantial capacity available from civil aircraft on charter. I do not propose to go into more detail now, as my noble friend Lord Selkirk will be dealing with this aspect when he winds up the debate. But I think it may be fairly claimed that the size of Transport Command, as it is today, and as it will be when the present expansion programme is complete, is reasonable and adequate, even if it is necessarily smaller than the ideal; and I am indeed glad to have the support of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, on this matter.
  If I may say a word or two about Bomber Command, the past year has seen a further increase in the hitting power of the V-bomber force, making the deterrent effort, I hope, even more effective as a deterrent. The proportion of Vulcans has steadily increased. Deliveries of the Victor have begun, and the build-up of the bomber force itself has been accompanied by the build-up of its stockpile of weapons. The growing stock of kiloton weapons is now beginning to be supplemented by megaton bombs. The range of the Valiant, which continues to provide a very powerful element in our V-Bomber force, will be increased by refuelling in flight. This is important, not only 'because it will expose new targets but also because it will allow the aircraft a wider choice of routes and

  57
  so increase the task of the enemy defences. We are now planning refuelling trials with the Vulcan and the Victor in the receiver rôle.
  Later Marks of the Vulcan and Victor now on order will have still greater range and will carry the stand-off bomb. They will also fly higher than the existing marks. All three factors will tend to lessen their vulnerability to enemy defences. Canberras continue to provide valuable support in the tactical rôle. Various Marks in service, both in Bomber Command and in the Second Tactical Air Force now have a nuclear capability. Whatever the progress on guided missiles, we shall continue to need a strike and reconnaissance aircraft in overseas theatres, and we have already invited the industry to submit proposals for a successor to the Canberra for this purpose. The V-Bomber force will now be supplemented by American intermediate range ballistic missiles, of which I have already spoken. This not only allows us to make a further powerful addition to the deterrent before our own missiles are ready, but will also give us useful experience in deploying and maintaining these missiles. The two weapons systems together, manned bomber and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, will present a much more solid deterrent than would either in isolation.
  I have already mentioned the cost of the deterrent. It remains, I think, to emphasise that we are getting remarkable value for money. It is no straightforward addition to the conventional arms bill. The V-bomber is available to carry high explosive just as it is to carry nuclear bombs. It is a powerful instrument for limited war as well as a contribution to the deterrent. Moreover, were we to have no nuclear weapons, the V-bombers would still be required, but they would have to be numbered in thousands and not, as they are now, in hundreds.
  I will now turn to Fighter Command. As I have already said, for some years to come the main threat to this country will be from the manned bomber. Although our fighter strength is being reduced, the standard of equipment will continue to be raised. Almost all the day fighter squadrons are now equipped with the latest Mark of Hunter with an improved performance. Later Marks of the Javelin are now being introduced into the all-weather force. These later Marks
  58
  will have reheat to give a further increase in performance and will carry the. Fire-streak air-to-air guided missile with infrared homing. The P1, which I have already mentioned, will eventually follow, and these will also be equipped with the Firestreak.
  Meanwhile, the fighter aircraft will be supplemented by surface-to-air guided weapons. Firing trials of the first such weapon—Bloodhound—have been going ahead well, and service trials to establish the handling and maintenance procedures, as well as to test the operational system, will begin shortly at the first Royal Air Force guided-weapon station at North Coates. Thereafter guided weapons will be progressively deployed. Trials of Thunderbird will follow during the year. The reorganisation of the control and reporting system has almost been completed. The use of new equipments and techniques has made possible not only improved radar cover but also quicker transmission of the information obtained from the radar screen. It has also been possible to reduce the number of radar stations and intermediate reporting centres. Thus the system is not only quicker and more efficient in operation but has produced substantial savings in manpower and running costs. Further improvements will be introduced to provide an effective system to co-ordinate control of supersonic aircraft and surface-to-air guided missiles. This will involve the development of electronic computation equipment, both on the ground and in the air. The future problems of air defence are complex and formidable. They are being closely studied and will no doubt be finally mastered, as all such problems have been in the past. I must emphasise again that the manned fighter must form part of the selection for many years to come. I will not myself deal with Coastal Command, as my noble friend will do so far more appropriately than I.
  My Lords, until comprehensive disarmament is a fact the Royal Air Force must continue to be properly equipped to carry out its various tasks.
  LORD OGMORE: Is the noble Earl coming to the end of his peroration, because, if he is, I think he ought to answer the very important question put to him by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton

  59
  —he has not answered it so far, though he promised to do so. It is most important for this debate that we should know the answer.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I was going to leave it to the end, but I will certainly answer it now.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I am quite happy that the noble Earl should answer it at any convenient point in his speech, so long as he does answer it.
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I regret that I cannot add anything further to what the Minister of Defence said in another place. I have already said that design studies have been called for for a Canberra replacement, and that is now going ahead.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: I am sorry, but this matter is tremendously important. What the Minister of Defence said in another place was based on the assumption that the guided missiles would be available both to supplant the P1 as a manned fighter and also, as I understood it, to supersede the bombers as a means of carrying the deterrent into the enemy's country; that because of that situation he had decided to suspend all further research into, and development of, either a new type of fighter to succeed the P1 or a new type of bomber, supersonic or otherwise, to follow the Vulcan. What has been said since he made that statement is that the guided missile is going to be a great deal later, if it comes at all, than had been supposed, and that, as a result, more P1's are being ordered. The Canberra has nothing whatever to do with it, of course. The Canberra is a most admirable, old-fashioned weapon which is used in places like Aden and so on. What we really want to know is, does the statement of the Minister of Defence stand, that there is not going to be any research into and development of fighters and bombers, or has that been changed?
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I think it might be wiser, as I am not in a position to say any more, if the noble Earl, who I understand is to speak later in the debate, would wait for an answer from my noble friend later on in the debate.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: Certainly:
  THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I cannot guarantee that he will get one.
  60
  My Lords, I am now coming to the end. I was saying that until comprehensive disarmament is a fact, the Royal Air Force must continue to be properly equipped to carry out its various tasks. As Sir Winston Churchill said at Boston in 1949:
  " Air mastery is to-day the supreme expression of military power; and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank."
  I think that the House, and the nation, can feel confident that the Royal An Force will continue to give first-rate value for money; and, in furtherance of the great traditions it has built up during its forty years of life, will make a contribution unsurpassed in spirit and in quality to the protection of British and Commonwealth interests and to the maintenance of world peace.
  4.27 p.m.
  LORD TEDDER: My Lords, a few moments ago I was almost hoping that the noble Earl. Lord Swinton, in his question was going to save me from having to say anything. However, I should like just to follow up one aspect of the point which he and the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle raised, because I feel that it is of immense importance at times of disarmament or lowering of defence quotas. I think we are apt to take for granted the fantastic development in science and technology over the past thirty years. Yet when one goes into these things—I have been into them a good deal recently—one finds that there is scarcely a single aspect of science or technology where there has been a big advance and where one cannot say that it was directly due to some defence contract or another. It goes right through. Now, when we are cutting down, I do not say wrongly, that is a factor to watch, because otherwise our civil development is going to suffer terribly. Take two particular cases—obvious ones. It is the search for bigger and better bombs that has put us aheard in the civil development of atomic power. It was the demand for better and faster fighters which brought the jet, with all the metallurgical problems that that involved. If it had not been for that, we should not now have jet airliners on the air routes of the world.
  I do not want to get involved with the Minister of Defence and the White

  61
  Paper, because that subject is most complicated; but there is talk about a Victor and Vulcan force. I see it is described as the:
  " build up of the Victor and Vulcan force".
  In other words, these aircraft are in service now, and their continued effect will be assured by Mark II Victors and Vulcans. Unless things have changed greatly since I was connected with the business, the Mark II means getting a little more horse-power out of the engine people, so that the aircraft will last a few months longer. That is all that meant. There was, I believe, talk in another place about supersonic bombers. From what I know of performance, I should have thought that if there were to be a follow-up of the present Victors and Vulcans it could be nothing else but a supersonic bomber.
  Now if there is to be no supersonic bomber, it is clear to my mind that within quite a short period there is going to be no future bomber. Within quite a short time we shall have no bomber except an obsolescent one; and obsolescence cannot pay in these days; it never has. So we shall have no bomber; and, what is more, and the point I really want to make, there will be an immediate effect on civil development. The reason why the Americans have been able to get away so well with civil aviation is because all their civil transport aircraft (I believe I am right in saying without exception) were originally designed for use by the military and have been "flogged" by the military for months and years before being adapted for civil purposes. Whether that is because the military and civil people have got together when the military have been preparing their requirements I do not know, but I should think that probably that is the case. It would seem the sensible thing to do, as making the changeover from military to civil transport easy.
  The new American jet transport aircraft—I believe it is No. 702—has been in service as a tanker in the United States Air Force for years, so they have not to face the teething troubles which the Britannia and the Comet had to face. It is a basic design which has been thoroughly tested, because the civil and military are working together. If we have not done that before—and I do not think we have—I would suggest that
  62
  now is the time to make sure that our military requirements are fitted as closely as possible to civil requirements or that the civilian authorities adapt their requirements to the military, so that there can be a changeover. That is all I have to say, although I could follow that up.
  There has been a lot of talk about conventional and non-conventional weapons. I suggest that it is the non-conventional weapon of which we should be afraid, especially when it is defined as I heard it very simply defined yesterday: "The non-conventional weapon is the one you have not got".
  4.32 p.m.
  LORD WINSTER: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Ogmore raised some points which are well deserving of an answer as regards the British pilots who are engaged in training Luftwaffe pilots. I hope we may have a few words on that matter from the Minister. I am in hearty agreement with what my noble friend said about helicopters. When I had something to do with these matters a long time ago I endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to push forward with the helicopter, but I am afraid not with any success; and I believe we have lagged in that direction since. I hope we may hear something about that subject and I feel we ought also to hear something about corrosion in an aircraft being due to Treasury parsimony, for I believe that that point certainly merits a reply.
  I am not entirely in agreement with what my noble friend said about Transport Command, but I shall be coming to that later when he will have the opportunity of correcting me if he feels I am wrong. I noted what was said by the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle, about conventional weapons. The unconventional weapon of to-day is, of course, the conventional weapon of to-morrow, and I believe I am right in saying that the bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima is now regarded as a tactical, conventional weapon. I would not quite agree with the noble Viscount in what he said about the Ministry of Defence and that, as Ministers come and go, too much—I will not say power, but too much responsibility, might become vested in the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Defence. I believe that that overlooks the fact that there is a Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee who, I

  63
  understand, also acts as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence; and I should have thought that continuity at the Ministry, especially in the realm of responsibility, would fall more upon his shoulders than upon the shoulders of the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry. But the Minister who is to reply will know more about that than I do.
  I had the privilege of being invited to the Air Ministry Conference, held yesterday, to which one or two previous speakers have referred, and I should like to convey through the Minister my thanks to the Secretary of State for his great kindness in inviting me. I must say at once that I was immensely impressed. All that we heard there bore witness to the great intelligence, the deep thought and hard work which is being given to the extremely difficult and tremendously complicated problems which confront all Service Ministers to-day. I think we had yesterday the evidence that, even if there have been mistakes or omissions in what is being done, at any rate that is not due to any lack of hard thought and great intelligence on the part of those who are dealing with them.
  The last thing I wish in any way to do is to divert this debate from its main concern with military aviation, but there is, of course, a point at which military and civil aviation impinge upon and vitally concern each other. Both military and civil aviation alike depend upon the aircraft industry and upon research upon aeronautical and scientific engineering; and I am not sure that the joint needs of civil and military aviation in these respects are always as fully co-ordinated as they should be. The new defence policy which was announced last year is likely to bring about a reduction, large or small, in orders for military aircraft—as announced last year it looked like being large, though it may not be immediately as big as was thought when the White Paper appeared. But the reduction, when it comes, is likely to be permanent and not temporary. I believe that in the long run the demand for manned aircraft is bound to diminish. This is all the more serious because a reduction in orders for manned aircraft will affect the engineering industry generally.
  Perhaps it is not always realised that all developments in engineering generally
  64
  to-day spring from aeronautical engineering. That is generally the basis of the advances which are made in engineering. To-day a country's position in the world depends upon the prestige enjoyed by its engineering industry. If our aircraft industry suffers a setback due to diminution of military orders, our national engineering industry will also be set back in progress, in development and in new techniques; and in that event our world status will be increasingly diminished. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, has already most forcibly called attention to the matter in his intervention.
  But what is to happen about research and development when military orders diminish? I feel sure that the noble Earl will deal with that point, because it has been stressed by other speakers to-day. I have always felt it reasonable that research and development, as in the United States, should be largely financed from military funds, from Government funds; although, of course, the aircraft industry should shoulder its fair share of the burden. One justification for subsidy is that the Minister of Defence wants his soldiers and equipment flown about the world as swiftly, as safely and as cheaply as possible, and on that account he should certainly press the causes of research and development and see that they are adequately financed. I understand that there is an inter-departmental committee at present investigating these problems. I hope, and I feel sure, that it is manned by men able and willing to give the Government independent, well-balanced advice. But it is essential to progress that the Government should, as soon as possible, give an estimate of future military aircraft requirements and also of future missile requirements, and state what they are prepared to do about research and development in order that those requirements may be fulfilled.
  It is over a year now since the Minister of Defence presented his very striking White Paper, with so many novel proposals. That White Paper promised that the Ministry of Supply would issue a statement on the effect of the new policy on the aircraft industry. Aircraft contracts have been heavily cut already, but no statement, so far as I know, has yet been forthcoming. I do not want to say that I think it is unfair to the aircraft industry, but that it is, shall I say, rather hard on the aircraft industry, when

  65
  they have to face the reality of the cuts without getting fulfilled the promise which was made to them concerning what is to be done in the future. There are no signs yet of those specifications of military aircraft which were to replace some of the cuts, no estimates of future missile and manned-aircraft requirements, and nothing about Government co-operation in research. And meanwhile, so far as I can gather from a layman's study of these things, the technicians seem to be not quite as optimistic as the Minister about the existing state of perfection of guided missiles; nor are they quite so pessimistic as he is about the impossibility of defence against nuclear attack.
  It is very easy to over-rate the possibilities of electronics and of electronic computers. Man is still the most adaptable computer that there is. He has the advantage of being the only computer that can think; and he has other advantages. He is relatively easy to produce. He may be a little slow in coming off the production line—nine months—but he is not so slow as an aircraft, which requires about eight to ten years. The difference, of course, which I admit at once, is that when the aircraft does, at the end of eieht or ten years, come off the production line it can become operational practically at once, whereas a man when he comes off the production line still requires about eighteen years of training before he can play any very useful part in our affairs. Nevertheless, he is cheap and adaptable, and no elaborate equipment and no elaborate training are required for his production; so he has some advantages.
  But many experts here, and in the United States especially, think that the manned fighter will be required for many years yet to bring missiles into contact with the enemy. The essential point is that the implications of the policy of the Minister of Defence on the aircraft industry require, to my mind, much more thought than they appear to have been given. I am told that Dr. Cockburn, who is reputed to have been one of the Minister's advisers in preparing the last White Paper, recently read a paper before the Royal Aeronautical Society, in which he stated that he did not believe it correct to say that military-manned aircraft had no longer a vital contribution to make to air power; they were, in his opinion, still needed for transport, for surveyance
  66
  and for tactical support. Those statements of Dr. Cockburn did not appear to be in line with the White Paper, in the preparation of which he is reputed to have assisted. His statements imply that the Services will require manned aircraft for a decade or more, so that research on a large scale will continue to be essential; and we must also provide for the qualified engineers required in the aeronautical field over that decade for which, as I have said, we may have to contemplate that manned aircraft will still be a primary necessity.
  Then in addition to Dr. Cockburn's evidence, for what it is worth, I gather that the Air Council on this point are not entirely in agreement—I do not want to put it higher than that—with the Minister of Defence, but also believe that manned bombers and fighters, as well as guided missiles, will be necessary for some time to come. I do not wish to give rise to any rumour or supposition that is not well founded, but if indeed it is the case that the Air Council are not entirely in sympathy with the Minister of Defence on this White Paper, it is really a very serious matter. Such a serious matter on such an important question really cannot be laughed off or disregarded in high places; it is a matter of the first importance. If the country has to decide whether it is to support the Minister of Defence or the Air Council on an issue of that sort, of course the civil authority must be supreme; but it would give rise to considerable uneasiness on the part of the public if indeed there were such a difference of opinion and the Air Council were overruled.
  I feel myself, as a layman—it is an opinion perhaps worth little—that the Air Council have at any rate a great deal on their side in such an argument. The human brain, as I have already said, is still wanted; it cannot be entirely replaced; and I feel sure that the task of the enemy will be facilitated if he has not the human brain to contend against. And, as has been said already, it seems clear that the P1 fighter and the V-bomber will not be the last of their race the Russians are not discarding such aircraft— and successors will be required, as also will be successors to the current range of missiles. All three—bombers, fighters and missiles—are likely to he required, working in harness. The

  67
  bomber has the advantage of flexibility and mobility and the long-range fighter might well be found necessary to operate beyond the range of surface and air missiles. These problems and unresolved questions should receive great attention, and I am sure that they are receiving it. They should be probed and definite policies should be laid down so that everyone concerned, especially those in the aircraft industry, should know what they have to do in the future. At present they do not know what their future tasks are likely to be. They are in the dark and, in consequence, there is often waste and inefficiency in their work. There is bound to be waste and inefficiency when there is uncertainty about the nature of future tasks and requirements. That the aircraft industry becomes a balanced whole is essential for military requirements, and the information I have mentioned is essential to that end. At the moment it seems to me that a thorough survey of fundamental requirements is required.
  I would now turn for two or three minutes to the question of Transport Command, to which I told my noble friend I was going to refer. Air Transport Command have done their jobs in the past and I think that, considering the instruments at their disposal, it is highly creditable that they have done so well; but I do not think that they have always done their jobs as effectively as they would have liked to do them. Suez certainly showed up some weaknesses and deficiencies, and it must have been very mortifying to Transport Command to feel that what was amiss was a result of policy and not of maladministration on the part of the officers concerned. In any case, we know that it is admitted that as things are today Transport Command cannot do their job on their own. They have to rely on charter companies and possibly also on Coastal Command to carry out all the jobs which are allocated to them. It is admitted that they have to rely on charter companies; but what sort of aircraft have the charter companies to enable them to carry out the responsibilities which Transport Command are under the necessity of putting upon them? I understand that the fleets of many of these companies are ageing and that they are not in a position to replace their
  68
  obsolete and obsolescent aircraft. As things are, they have not the funds to enable them to do that. If that is so, is it not the case that Transport Command are relying upon assistance which will diminish in value as the years go on, if the aircraft of the charter companies become less and less efficient for their work? It seems to me that the Air Ministry are relying upon a wasting factor. If we are to rely on charter aircraft for this all-important work, the charter companies should be enabled to keep their fleets up to date.
  I think it would be too much a counsel of perfection to say that the Air Council should maintain a Transport Command able to meet all requirements without calling in any outside assistance. That would cost far too much money. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, correctly and pertinently said that we cannot afford to keep Britannias, costing a million apiece, kicking about unemployed for half the year. The Government do not provide the Merchant Navy with their ships. But I feel that if there is to be this reliance on the charter companies, they should be enabled at least to keep their fleets up to date. In that connection, I should hope that the Air Council would press the Government to give the charter companies longer contracts than they get at the present moment. That seems to me to be a fair thing for the Air Ministry to say to the Government: if we have to rely on these charter companies, it is only fair to give them contracts of such a length as would enable them to keep their fleets up to date. I think that this is a thoroughly practical and fair way of assisting the charter companies so that they may be able to meet the requirements of the Air Ministry when they are called upon to do so.
  In closing, I have only one further short remark to make about Transport Command and that is as regards what has been said about flying out equipment needed all over the world. I think that that is a fallacious idea. It may be theoretically ideal, but economically it would represent a huge waste. I think that the proper answer is stockpiling. I have ventured to bring these points to the attention of the noble Earl and I hope that he may feel that one or two of them deserve a word in reply.
  4.58 p.m.
  LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, in the autumn of last year I was fortunate to be one of those who were guests of the Royal Air Force on an interesting visit to Gibraltar and Malta, and one of my main reasons for intervening in this debate is to express my thanks and appreciation to the R.A.F. for showing us so much in a short time and making our visit such an impressive one. One regrets that Malta, the island that we saw in peaceful guise only a few months ago, should now be in the throes of political struggle. I am sure that the R.A.F. personnel whom we met there will behave with tact and dignity in any situation that they may have to face.
  I think that we were all impressed by the general keenness and enthusiasm of all ranks, in spite of the fact that certain squadrons and units had to put up with obsolescent equipment. I was particularly impressed by the great attention given to welfare. It seemed to me that the R.A.F. was way ahead in the thought that had been given to the furnishing of messes, the preparation of food and the provision of barrack blocks—although I think that that is a term we ought to do away with: we should speak of airmen's hostels or flats, because to-day their accommodation is much more akin to these than to the old barrack blocks. The new married quarters are excellent. The wives of the various N.C.O.s and airmen who showed us round did so with obvious pride. I came away with the impression that nearly everyone I met was of the opinion that life in the Royal Air Force was a good one and a happy one, and that it was a Service in which these officers and airmen were proud to be serving.
  I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we can see from the White Paper the satisfactory state of long-term recruiting. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, has left his place but I think he painted much too gloomy a picture. We can say arithmetically that a man who signs on for twelve years is worth four three-year men; but in fact I would say that the value to the Royal Air Force of such a man is more in the region of six or seven to one. It is in the numbers of men who sign on for over nine years, the apprentices and boy entrants, that the figures are so encouraging. It seems that young men are at last beginning to appre-
  70
  ciate the Royal Air Force as providing an interesting, lucrative and attractive career, and one in which they will get first-class technical training in many trades which they can follow later in civil life.
  One paragraph in the White Paper that I was particularly pleased to read was the statement that the major accident rate is the lowest on record. This is something which, to my mind, cannot be too widely publicised. There is still, I think, a feeling among parents of young men that flying a fast modern aircraft is a terribly dangerous thing; and perhaps this impression is enhanced by the photographs of flying personnel in clothing which, to the popular mind, conveys a spaceman's suit. These modern aircraft are highly complicated, but the accident figures show that when properly used they are not more, and possibly even less, dangerous than the older and slower aircraft. I had the opportunity of flying in a Comet II of Transport Command from Gibraltar to Malta in the amazing time of two hours flat. I spoke to the squadron commander, and he believes—I think rightly—that the Comet is one of the finest transport or civil aircraft in the world.
  That leads me to say a little (it will be quite brief, because my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye has covered most of what I wanted to say) about Transport Command. One problem which is not perhaps generally appreciated is the conflicting one of maximum utilisation and concentration. When running an airline, obviously one's aim is to keep the aircraft in the air for as many hours as possible; otherwise the airline would face serious losses. This is not possible with Transport Command, because transport aircraft have to be concentrated from time to time in certain places for exercises, and they have to be ready to move large numbers of personnel from one place to another at short notice. Sometimes, as a result, the unthinking may get the impression that there is a waste of aircraft in Transport Command, which of course is not the case.
  I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Winster, was a little too critical of charter companies, which are such a valuable adjunct and reserve to Transport Command. He rather gave the impression that they were nearly all using obsolete aircraft. This is not the case. I think

  71
  there are no fewer than 55 four-engined aircraft in transport companies to-day. I myself flew in a Viscount of Transair with a full load of officers and airmen from London to Gibraltar, and I could not help comparing the lot of the young airmen on board, who a few years ago would have been waiting for their meals in a long queue on a smelly troop-deck. One could see them nudging each other with pleasure when the beautiful blonde air hostess handed them their lunches on a tray. The standard of service, with all due respect to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, was as good as that of B.E.A.
  A number of speakers have commented on the fact that the day of the manned aircraft will not be over in the foreseeable future. I am sure this is the right view. Many more knowledgeable people than myself have given various reasons for this, but one point has not been made. If we to-day abandoned all manned aircraft, it would greatly simplify the problems of the enemy, in that he would be able to concentrate all his resources on missiles; and this is a field in which, as we know, the U.S.S.R. has made tremendous progress.
  The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, and the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, mentioned these 100 R.A.F. officers who are being seconded to the Luftwaffe. I thought they rather gave the impression that there was something sinister about this. I believe it was something of which we should be proud: that these young officers should have been selected from our nation to train this new Air Force. Surely, it is all in the best traditions of N.A.T.O., and I should have thought that nothing but good could come of it.
  The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, mentioned the enormous amount which the Americans spend on research and the many hours that civil aircraft are able to do in Transport Command before they go on to the airlines. That, of course, is perfectly true. The noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, mentioned a figure which astounded me when he said that the number of aircraft in N.A.T.S.—that is the American air transport organisation—was greater than all the airlines in the world. That is a staggering figure, and obviously we cannot compete with it. It is unfortunate that teething troubles in our own British aircraft seem to receive
  72
  an inordinate amount of publicity, whereas we who book with all these airlines know that these things happen also to American aircraft. There was the trouble with the Qantas aircraft recently, on a Royal flight, which showed that it was not only the Britannia which gets delayed from time to time. This can also happen to a Super-Constellation.
  There is one field in which I feel the Government ought to do rather more in helping research, and that is with the helicopter. There are signs that great progress is just round the corner with this useful aircraft, and the chairman of B.E.A. made a statement only the other day that he felt that very soon, if research could be carried out, it would be possible to produce a really economical helicopter for the shorter flights in Europe, and possibly also for internal services.
  I think all of us who have served at any time in the Royal Air Force will sympathise with, and feel the greatest admiration for, those senior officers who occupy high positions in the Service to-day They have a tremendously difficult problem—ten times more difficult than any of us had to face in the old days. It is not a question now of a slightly faster, longer-range aircraft replacing another: we are in the stage of going over to something entirely different. Obviously, the personnel who control and look after guided missiles are quite different from the air crew. I wonder whether, in the cadet colleges and the training establishments, we are not keeping the two groups of people, the air personnel and technical people, too far apart. I know that finance is difficult, but at some time in the future I should like to see the Henlow Technical College and the cadet college alongside each other, operating as one great Royal Air Force College at Cranwell. That is all I have to say, except to repeat that, from what I have seen of the Royal Air Force of to-day, there is very little wrong with it.
  5.13 p.m.
  LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for initiating this debate this afternoon, for we look to the Royal Air Force for the transport of our troops and their equipment, the close support of the Army, the operation of our deterrent force, whether it be V-bombers or ballistic missiles, and the

  73
  manning of our air defence by fighters and surface-to-air guided weapons No doubt in due course a further rôle in area defence will have to be assigned to the Royal Air Force by the deployment of an anti-missile weapons system That would seem to be a logical development. I feel, however, that the tendency to believe that any future war in the air would be a "press-button" missile war is waning—that, indeed, has been echoed by many noble Lords this afternoon.
  A few years ago in the United States the emphasis was mainly on missile development. Even last year in this country the end of the manned aircraft seemed very near. To-day, the advent of the stand-off bomb, higher energy fuels, greater heat resistant steels, and possibly mainly the realisation that the human brain is not subject to decoys or jamming, as well as the recent additional order for the English Electric P1B supersonic fighter, herald, I hope, the introduction of a new approach to the question of our defence in the air. What do we see in the United States with regard to bombers? We see that they are pressing on with their plans to provide the Strategic Air Command with the Mach 2 B.58 Hustler bomber and developing the Mach 3 110A weapons system.
  Your Lordships are well aware of the vast numbers of aircraft which the Russians possess. The noble Lord, Lord Maneroft, during a recent defence debate in this House, quoted a figure of 20,000 military aircraft. I would also remind your Lordships of the words of the Under-Secretary of State for air in another place, that
  "even if the Russians assigned to Britain only a part of their bomber force they could easily send against us more bombers than the Luftwaffe did on any single night during the last war "—
  and the capacity of these bombers would to-day, of course, be much greater. We must realise, therefore, that considerable damage could be inflicted on this country by bombers which could remain out of range of our Bloodhound missiles, for there is no reason to doubt that the Russians already have, or are developing, long-range stand-off bombs. It is therefore indispensable, in my opinion, that our fighters should be available in sufficient quantity and able to intercept the enemy at maximum range in keeping
  74
  with the extended radar detection capacity we now possess. This should also be in agreement with the statement in Article 34 of the Memorandum—namely:
  " Electronic computing equipment is being developed to enable further improvements to he made in the ground equipment needed for an effective system of co-ordinated control for the supersonic P.1 and surface-to-air guided weapons."
  The important words, I think, are:
  "… co-ordinated control for the supersonic P.1 and surface-to-air guided weapons "—
  that is, the missiles with their medium range, and the fighters with their long range. We should not forget that any missile system that has to rely on the missile receiving external guidance to steer it to the target is liable to interference from enemy sources.
  I should also like to say that I welcome the recent directive of the United States Defence Department assigning to the United States Air Force once more the responsibility for the development of the Wizard anti-missile weapons system, and I hope that full information on this counter-measure weapon is being readily made available to Her Majesty's Government. In other words, as I see it there is a need for maintaining research and development in supersonic high altitude aircraft (and I am extremely gratified that noble Lords of the calibre of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Tedder, should have voiced that opinion) and for full co-
  operation with the United States on anti-missiles weapons system developments.
  Having referred briefly to the question of our deterrent and its defence, I should now like to say a few words on two matters concerning air support and high energy fuels. With regard to the former I was pleased to learn of the satisfactory work done by the Pioneer aircraft in Malaya in conjunction with operations against the terrorists. Such an aircraft, with its ability to take off and land on a restricted air strip, should, together with the helicopter, prove very useful for the purposes of tactical mobility. I agree with what noble Lords have said on the question of helicopters. I think they have an increasingly important part to play as "cold-war aircraft", to quote three words of the Under-Secretary of State for Air in another place. Bristol Sycamores and Westland Whirlwinds are in service, and, as mentioned in the Memorandum, have

  75
  during the past year done excellent work in Cyprus and Malaya. The latter, the Whirlwinds, would no doubt prove equally satisfactory in local wars for troop and equipment ferrying and weapon hauling, as well as casualty clearance. The latest type, I am told, is now standard equipment in the Royal Navy for antisubmarine duties. It can also be fitted, I understand, with a homing torpedo.
  In view of the versatility of the helicopter, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether trials could be undertaken, for instance, by the Army/R.A.F. joint experimental helicopter units with such a guided weapon as the Vickers type 891 missile, assuming its performance to be comparable to that of the French Nord S.S.10 surface-to-surface or air-to-surface guided weapon system. The helicopter has the advantage of not being as vulnerable or such a "sitting duck" as is generally considered, for its unique flying characteristics enable it to take confusing evasive action, to fly below enemy radar coverage and to take advantage of such cover as provided by trees or hills. Lastly on this question of helicopters, I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether any consideration is being given for military purposes to a helicopter which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, the Fairey Rotodyne, with a view to parallel production, as I believe it could be used by B.E.A., for instance, and possibly by the Services.
  With your Lordships' permission, I should like to say a few words on the question of high energy or boron fuels. Two concepts would appear to exist on the question of greater speed and higher altitude: one based on the mixed-unit propulsion—that is, turbo-jet and rocket—and the other on the principle of higher heat values producing higher thrust. I believe I am right in saying that in 1947 a survey was made in this country, including a study of boron materials for use as ram-jet fuels. This fact I particularly mention as the R.A.F. Bloodhound is propelled by two ram-jet units. In certain quarters, using kerosene fuel, its speed has been given as Mach. 2.5, its range as 200 miles and its operational ceiling as between 60,000 and 80,000 feet. Since this survey was made eleven years have elapsed. There have been few, if
  76
  any, statements by Her Majesty's Government on what they intend on this question of high energy fuels, either in the form of a slurry—that is, as an additive to normal aviation fuel—or as a chemical fuel for use in the afterburners of aircraft or rockets or ram-jets. I believe that the noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle mentioned the question of new propellants; I do not know whether he had this in mind when he did so.
  It is interesting to note that two American groups, the Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation and the Callery Chemical Company, are planning to be in full production of these boron fuels next year, in their 36 million dollar and 38 million dollar plants. In fact, there is a 5½ million dollar plant already in production. These plants will be supplying these high energy fuels to the United States Air Force and the United States Navy. I believe, five factories are planned. To mention to your Lordships the advantages of higher speeds or increased range would be superfluous, but I should like to stress the advantages of having at one's fingertips a control which would enable one to reach a greatly increased speed for a reasonably prolonged duration.
  In the early stages of my speech I referred to the American B.58 Hustler bomber and the 110A weapons system, and according to the New York Herald Tribune of July 28, 1957,
  "For military purposes boron fuel is on a high priority list."
  One can assume, therefore, that the B.58 Hustler is to use these chemical fuels, and with regard to the W.S.110A project we are told that it is planned to use an "advanced" fuel. In this country the engines of the Vulcan and Victor (the Olympus, Sapphire and Conway engines) can be fitted with afterburners which would take these high energy fuels, and the Javelin, Marks VII and VIII are to be fitted with afterburners. In view of what I have just said on this question of high energy fuels, I do hope that the noble Earl who will be replying for the Government—and I am particularly glad that he should be replying for the Government because I believe that he was in East Africa at the time when I was R.A.F. liaison officer attached to 20 Military Mission—will be

  77
  able to tell us something as to what the views and intentions of the Government are on this question of high energy fuels.
  5.30 p.m.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, I think it is very useful that we should have these debates, following the Defence debate, in which we consider the Services separately; but, as has been evident from the discussion, it is getting increasingly impracticable to consider any one single Service except in the general context and picture of the international situation, of defence policy as a whole and of inter-Service relations. For a very few moments I should like to try to relate some of these considerations to the problems of the Royal Air Force. Happily, it seems that total war today is less probable bat as the total war recedes, the cold war or (that really is becoming a misnomer) the partial war and the local attacks are being intensified. When those attacks occur they must be promptly and effectively countered, otherwise the local fighting spreads and attempts elsewhere are encouraged. Of course, there are always a lot of doubtful people standing on the sidelines whose only object is to get on to the right bandwagon and join the winning side. Therefore, the quicker we can prove that we are the winning side and that it pays to be on our bandwagon, the shorter will be these contests and the less risk there is of their being repeated.
  Aden is certainly a typical example. I think the House would wish to express appreciation of the Royal Air Force, the Army, the local levies and the Colonial administration for the admirable teamwork which has been done in the operations in Aden, and to send them a message of encouragement, gratitude and firm support. That is one of the reasons why I am glad that in his opening speech—an admirable speech in content, if I may say so—my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye stressed the importance of our having supplies on the spot. That, of course, is much easier when you are dealing with—I hesitate to use the words—older conventional weapons, such as tanks, armoured cars, lorries, mortars and so on. With those things it is perfectly simple. We have a number of dumps all over the country and it would be desirable that these weapons should be dumped in any quarter where we have a responsibility and where trouble may
  78
  occur. I am sure that pre-vision and provision of that kind are vital in the time factor to which I have referred, of getting rapidly on top of an insurrection or a disorder, and also would be a great economy in itself.
  There is one other question I should like particularly to ask my noble friend the First Lord who is going to reply—namely, whether, in view of developments and troubles of this kind, the Government have considered an increase in their plans for the airborne commando forces. I know that one is to be stationed in Singapore. It seemed to me to be one of the best things in the Defence White Paper. It is a force which can be made rapidly available anywhere; it carries its supplies with it, and that may be not only a most efficient but an economic manner to deal with these attacks.
  That leads me to ask this further question—namely, what are the Government's plans for overall commands in the Services at home and overseas? In future, every operation, whether it is large or small, will be a combined operation, and co-operation, integration of the Services, in training, in planning and in action, will develop increasingly. Therefore, should not the practice be applied of having an overall commander in every theatre and area? This is working well in Aden. Here we see a typical example in action. They have an admirable commander, in this case an airman, and all the Services and indeed the civilian Administration seem to be working in excellent co-operation.
  Apart from being strategically and tactically sound, would not this system encourage the spirit and the practice of co-operation and integration in the Services? I have never believed in, and I do not see in the foreseeable future the chance of, amalgamating all the Services into one—putting them all, as my old friend Lord Cork and Orrery said, into the same overalls. If you do that you lose a lot. There is a family tradition which has led men to go into the Army or the Navy and now, I am glad to say, into the Air Force. The battle of co-operation against self-sufficiency has been won over and over again and it does not really exist to-day. What we now want, however, is the most complete co-operation, and if you had that system of overall command in which

  79
  perhaps a sailor or a soldier or an airman commanded, the officers of each Service would, I believe, feel that they had an increased opportunity in the combined team.
  LORD WINSTER: My Lords, might I interrupt the noble Earl to say that America has in the past played with the idea of the one Service and has finally discarded it?
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: Yes; I am sure that that is quite wrong. As the noble Lord knows, nobody has fought harder for this co-operation. Five-and twenty years ago I started the battle for co-operation against self-sufficiency. But that battle was practically won before the war started, and certainly it was most completely won in the war. We do not want the one Service. A blessed Trinity can be a perfect Unity and, I would humbly say, a good precedent to follow.
  Finally, I want to come back to this question which my noble friend the First Lord is so kindly going to answer and which has turned out to be almost the staple of this debate. I am not surprised that it has, because it is a vital matter. The delay in the development of guided missiles has led to the placing of increased orders for P.1 fighters and, of course, for an equivalent number of trainers. I am not in the least surprised at that, nor, provided the right steps are taken, am I unduly alarmed. I do not want always to be saying "I told you so", but the House will remember that in the Defence debate, and I think in an Air Force debate last year, both Lord Tedder and I prophesied that the development of guided missiles would be a good deal slower than was anticipated or hoped for in that rather optimistic White Paper on Defence in 1957, and that it was most likely that both the bomber and the fighter would have a considerably longer life than was to be gathered from that publication. I am glad that we have the P.1 fighter to fill the gap for the moment. But is this enough? Shall we not want another prototype, both of the bomber and of the fighter? As my noble and gallant friend Lord Tedder said, it is no good saying "We shall get another Mark", as if that were an entirely new type of animal; for of course it is not. It is a very useful development and an improvement, but it is not a "new suit".
  80
  I would venture to recall to your Lordships the words of the White Paper, Defence Outline of Future Policy, Command (124), paragraph 61 of which says this:
  "Having regard to the high performance and potentialities of the Vulcan and Victor medium bombers and the likely progress of ballistic rockets and missile defence, the Government have decided not to go on with the development of a supersonic manned bomber, which could not be brought into service in much under ten years."
  I do not know, but it may be wanted within ten years. Then, paragraph 62 says:
  "Work will proceed on the development of a ground-to-air missile defence system, which will in due course replace the manned aircraft of Fighter Command. In view of the good progress already made, the Government have come to the conclusion that the R.A.F. are unlikely to have a requirement for fighter aircraft of types more advanced than the supersonic P.1, and work on such projects will stop."
  I do not want to ask Her Majesty's Government to disclose any secret information, but we ought to be told as much as is possible. We were told of the decisions to have no new research in either bombers or fighters, and we were told that the reason was that we should be depending upon missiles for carrying the attack into the enemy's country, and upon guided missiles for the defence which otherwise would be provided by the fighter.
  We now know that, in the case of the defensive missile (that is, the weapon which is to take the place of the fighter) progress has not been what it was hoped it would be. What I should also like to know is whether it is true that progress with what I might call the "aggressive missile", the counter, has not been what was hoped in the 1957 White Paper. If that is so, then surely a wholly new situation has arisen in which new thought should be given and new decisions taken; and I hope Her Majesty's Government will not hesitate to engage in this kind of research.
  I know that we cannot do everything. The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, on the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, suggested that he would fight the next war with the weapons of the last; but what I am a little anxious about is that we may be going to fight the next war without any weapons at all. I hope that we shall not have to fight, but the more ready we

  81
  are to do so the less likely we are to have to fight. But if we find that at a critical moment we have nearly obsolescent weapons, and that we have fallen between two stools, we shall be in a dangerous position. I know, as I have said, that we cannot afford everything, but that is a situation which, in our own interests and in the interests of the Grand Alliance, we cannot afford to permit; and therefore I would ask the Minister to tell us the position in regard to these missiles, and to say whether it is not now time to decide that there should be research into a further fighter and into a supersonic bomber.
  Not for the first time, and as in the days when we were together in the Air Minstry, I find that the mind of my noble and gallant friend Lord Tedder and my own mind move very much alike. We both said last year that one could not separate the military and the civilian; that the supersonic airliner and the supersonic bomber would all stem from the same research and that one would fortify the other. In very interesting and graphic language to-day my noble and gallant friend Lord De L'Isle has described to us how, of the great developments which are making our fame and our export trade, so many of them in the fields of power and engineering have stemmed from these experiments in defence; and it might be very good business to put in hand research on a supersonic bomber.
  There are many other reasons why that should be done, apart from this new one which has cropped up. I do not at all underrate the value of the ballistic missile, provided, of course, that we can control it, in every sense; but it has a vulnerable base and it may be (as certainly both the Russians and the Americans would seem to think) that given a great many missiles, there may be a valuable case to be made for aircraft to go on. An aircraft can take off from the ground and land anywhere. All the arguments that were used in the old days as between the aircraft and the aircraft carrier come to mind—for example that the aircraft carrier was extremely vulnerable, because if it was found then the aircraft had nothing to which to return, whereas an aircraft could land on any improvised airfield on any shore. There was a great deal of truth in that argument but just the same argument applies in favour of having a few
  82
  aircraft which can deliver, or be in a position to deliver, the necessary deterrent without being static and in the same place. I hope that these decisions will be taken. I believe that they must be taken by the Minister of Defence, the Air Ministry and the Combined Chiefs of Staff. Perhaps that is the only thing on which my noble friend Lord De L'Isle and I are not in agreement, but that is how I believe these decisions should be taken; and when they are taken it is important that they issue rapidly in action.
  Although I do not suppose I shall get an answer to it, I come back again to a question I have asked more than once. We used to be asked "Is your journey really necessary?" I ask, is the Ministry of Supply really necessary? I have only one other question, and Her Majesty's Government will like this, because it is a much smaller one, a matter of detail. We were told in the White Paper dealing with the Royal Air Force of the numbers of personnel that would be required. The total is down considerably. Some remarkable economies have been made. We now know that we must have an increased number of fighters and trainers, and I would ask: Does that affect the manpower estimates which were given?
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: May I ask the noble Earl to repeat his question?
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My question was whether the increased number of machines will affect the manpower required. Paragraphs 10 to 21 of the White Paper on the Air Estimates (Command 373) deal with this matter, and in paragraph 12 the run-down is shown as 193,000 at April, 1958, compared with 228,000 in April, 1957; and it is said that by April, 1959, the figure ought to be down to 174,000; and the figure is projected on a diminishing scale through the future years. I appreciate that it is impossible to say to a man, but if we are to have an increased number of fighters and trainers, will not that have some effect on the numbers, and will it not be necessary to increase them? I hope that the noble Earl. Lord Selkirk, will be able to say something about the unity of command in the different theatres—at any rate, it is as well to have raised that point. I think the general feeling in the House was that it was a sound

  83
  idea and not a bad thing, even if you cannot get an answer on the spot, that the responsible Minister should be considering it. After all, there is a great deal of experienced opinion in this House. The question of research on and development of the fighter and bomber is, I feel, a really vital question. I hope that the First Lord will be able to answer it now; but if he cannot do that, then I think it is a matter on which the Government should make a statement at the earliest possible moment.
  5.52 p.m.
  LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, of all the debates we have had recently on defence matters, possibly this is the most important; for air power, whether it is military or civil, is now what sea power meant to this country for many centuries. We are, therefore, grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, for initiating this debate this afternoon. If I may say so, with respect, I thought he set us all a very great example in the shortness and conciseness of his speech, yet it contained a tremendous amount of matter for all of us to think about. I must say, however, that I felt there was a hint of criticism of Her Majesty's Government's policy going through his speech, although he perhaps felt that by sitting so close to the Government Front Bench he had better hold his criticism in hand. I think the other part of the debate which was notable was the last speech, that of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. I thought he made a very powerful point on the question of research. I think that this is one of the few opportunities on which noble Lords on this side of the House can feel that they agree with him; and I thought that it was a very important point.
  I do not believe that I shall exaggerate the position if I say that there is serious concern in your Lordships' House and throughout the country at the defence position of this country. But what causes us greater anxiety is what is going to be the position in ten or fifteen years' time. If Her Majesty's Government's policy continues, whether it be good or bad, it is not likely to make a great deal of difference on the defence position to-day, but it will have a very great effect on the defence position of this country in ten or fifteen years' time. Without doubt
  84
  the economic difficulties that have be-devilled this country since 1951 have some effect upon the defence programme. It is understandable that Her Majesty's Government, who have to face a General Election within the next eighteen months, wish to present to the electorate an economic picture a good deal better than it is to-day. But I do not believe that the Government will be rendering real service to this country if financial and economic measures which may be expedient to-day are made at the expense of long-term defence.
  The Estimates for 1956–57 called for a sum of £524,950,010, and for the current year for a sum of £474,550,000. These are formidable reductions to a Service which is the cornerstone of all our defence. The Government, I believe, could be entitled to congratulations if we felt that these reductions had been brought about by true economies and without any loss of efficiency or striking power, and that our existing air power was capable of meeting our obligations both in Europe and throughout the world; and further, and most important, if we felt that these economies had not been made at the expense of research and development of aircraft and equipment which may be urgently required in ten or fifteen years' time.
  My Lords, I called these "formidable reductions". The reduction in the last three years is approximately 10 per cent. But during those years we have had rampant inflation; services cost more; wages are higher; and therefore, in real terms, the country is receiving less for its money than it did in 1956–57. Only the Government and senior officers are aware of the true position of our air power to-day, and I must say that when one reads reports in the Press one wonders whether it is not the senior officers who know more about our air power than do Her Majesty's Government. It is very difficult for members of the Opposition fully to appreciate the effectiveness of ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads, the V-bomber and supersonic fighters in providing the defence of this country, in that much of the information is highly secret. It is for this reason that I do not propose to say anything on this subject, except a few words later on as to how Government policy affects the aircraft industry.

  85
  Before proceeding on the question of the Royal Air Force, I should like, on behalf of my noble friends on this side of the House, to offer our sincere congratulations to the Royal Air Force on its fortieth anniversary. I think we shall always remember with great pride names of fighter and bomber pilots, names and numbers of squadrons, and the aircraft they flew. This young Service has provided officers of character and ability, many of whom achieved high rank in the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Forces in the last war. It is obvious that equipment and operations will change in the years to come, but I believe there is one thing that is certain: that the spirit of the Royal Air Force will not change, and that it will always set a great example to the rest of us in the country.
  A major part of the White Paper is devoted to the subject of manpower and recruiting. It would appear that recruiting is more satisfactory than it was in the Army, which we debated recently. In spite of that, however, I would ask the Government not to be complacent in this matter, and I hope that later on this evening the Minister can give us the latest details of recruiting. I think it is particularly pleasing to see the increase in recruitment of apprentices and boy entrants, and our sincere congratulations should go to the Air Training Corps, who have provided so many recruits.
  There is one paragraph of the Memorandum, however, that gives us concern, and that is paragraph 35, in regard to the Royal Observer Corps. The Royal Observer Corps, you will note from the White Paper, performs a vital service to this country in time of war, but it is in urgent need of recruits. I have not seen a great deal of publicity, either in the Press or on the radio or television, for recruits for the Royal Observer Corps. I should have thought that if there were publicity, many ex-members of the R.A.F. would be only too pleased to volunteer. I do not believe that we shall get recruits for the Air Force or the Army unless there is an air of greater urgency in the recruiting campaign. On the Army Estimates the other day I mentioned the drabness of recruiting offices. I would recommend to the Government that they combine the recruiting offices and bring them up to 20th century efficiency.
  86
  Before leaving the subject of recruiting, may I make a personal statement in correction of a statement I made on the Army Estimates the other day? Noble Lords who attended that debate may recall that I described a poster I had seen in Bradford: "Conscription—Labour started it; Conservatives will end it." Two days after making that statement, I received an indignant letter from the City of Bradford Conservative and National Liberal Association, stating that my information was incorrect and would I withdraw it. I am very pleased to withdraw it. But to make certain that my eyes and memory had not played me false, I made inquiries and found out that this poster had been displayed in Shipley, which noble Lords will be aware is only three and a half miles from the centre of Bradford. Therefore, I was not too far wrong. I should like to leave Bradford, hoping that I have left those concerned satisfied, and devote the rest of my remarks to the Royal Air Force and the aircraft industry.
  I must state frankly that I am not certain what the Government's policy is, and after listening to the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, this afternoon, I am not a great deal clearer. I hope that the winding-up speech of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, will give us a clearer impression. The impression created by the White Paper on Defence and by the Army and Air Force Estimates is that the Government's view is that the greatest danger to this country is from attack by Russia across Europe. If this is the Government's view, I think they are fundamentally wrong. I would not belittle the danger of attack by Russia, but I believe that by far the greater danger is limited wars in the Middle East and Far East. We are bound to be involved in these limited wars in view of our commitments and our lines of communication. We have the case of Aden, described by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton. It is small to-day, but it has potentials of great danger to our lines of communication.
  It is because, I hold this view that frankly I am unhappy about the Government's defence policy. I believe that these dangers will grow in the years to come. It is true that the aircraft we possess to-day, if they were in sufficient number, would be capable of giving support to our land forces, but the decisions which are now being made appear to be

  87
  on our present needs and not on our possible requirements. The Government have stated that they do not propose to order aircraft further in advance than the present V-bombers and P1 fighters. They have made serious cuts in research and development. This has had grave effects on the aircraft industry and it is possible that unless matters are not quickly rectified, in ten or fifteen years' time we may have to go overseas for our aircraft.
  The aircraft industry operates on a commercial basis and cannot be expected to spend vast sums of money on design and research in aircraft which they understand the Government will not purchase. In December last the Government set up an inter-departmental committee to consider the whole question of military and civil requirements and the aircraft industry itself. In replying to the debate on civil aviation, the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, stated that we should have this report in the Spring. I should like to know from the noble Earl whether we can expect that report shortly. Possibly we shall also want to know what financial assistance the Government propose to give to the aircraft industry. Your Lordships may have seen an article by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Douglas of Kirtleside, in which he described what he had seen at the Bristol works and stated that he was not happy about the financial position, and that the Government would have to come in and provide money for development.
  In closing, I should like to raise a point regarding the Maldive Islands. Your Lordships will be aware that the R.A.F. are building a staging post on those islands. There has been difficulty with the local Government and work on the airfield has stopped. Could we have some information from the noble Earl as to the position in the islands?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, perhaps my noble friend is not in a position to answer that, and I can give the noble Lord the information at once, because I have been partly responsible. Negotiations are going on in the normal way.
  LORD SHEPHERD: Has work recommenced?
  THE EARL OF HOME: Work is going on at the airfield.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Swinton says, your Lordships' House is well supplied with informed opinion on the Air Estimates; and with a number of former Secretaries of State and Ministers of Civil Aviation present, I enter the final stages of the debate with some anxiety. I think that to some extent your Lordships have underestimated the Government's present position in regard to defence. We are endeavouring, I think with the approval of Parliament, to reduce our expenditure on defence because we are carrying a heavier burden than we are able to do, in circumstances which my noble friend Lord De L'Isle has so well outlined, circumstances of very real difficulty.
  First of all, the cost of individual items has gone up considerably. I am informed that items of equipment today cost something like ten times what they cost ten years ago, in 1948. That is due not to the fall in the value of money but rather to increased complexity. I would give your Lordships one example of that. To-clay there are 400 trades and sub-trades in the R.A.F. where there were some 40 before the war. In the second place, the element of time comes in. By and large, no weapon of consequence, whether it be a torpedo, aircraft or missile is likely to be developed in under ten years. Therefore, every step in research and development has to be taken with the utmost care, to be sure that mistakes are not made.
  The third point I should like to make is this. We are facing a time when the variety of weapons required has never been wider. To take an extreme example—it may seem absurd, but it is true—in Cyprus some of our troops are carrying shields. Yet we are in a world which extends right across to thermonuclear weapons. The answer is that there is in between a wide flexible field which must be filled. We can be quite certain that we shall never have an ideal weapon for every feasible contingency. It is in those circumstances, I think, that there is great difficulty in making decisions of the type we have been discussing to-day. One thing I would emphasise is that these aircraft of the Royal Air Force, particularly bombers, are not exclusively concerned with a thermonuclear rôle. They are quite competent

  89
  to operate in the conventional rôle. I do not like the word "conventional", but what else can one say? For the noble Lord, Lord Tedder, to say the "non-conventional rôle" merely confuses the issue.
  The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, raised a question in regard to the Comets. Of the ten Comet aircraft in the service of the Royal Air Force Command, seven have shown signs of blistering in the paint on the pressurised portion of the under-fuselage. A modification to put this right is in hand, and the aircraft will be attended to when they can be spared. In the meantime, they will operate normally. The cause of the blistering is being investigated by the Ministry of Transport, in conjunction with the manufacturers of the paint used; but until the cause has been established it is impossible to say how it might have been prevented or at what cost. I think that is a slightly different story from the one the noble Lord got hold of, and for that reason I have made a somewhat fuller statement than I should otherwise have done. I mention it because the Comets form part of Transport Command, and this is an example of the variety of tasks the Air Force is undertaking.
  Then, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, mentioned helicopters. I would remind him of what my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Air said on this matter [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 584, col. 189]:
  "For example, the fact that in a typical case we have found that helicopters are roughly 20 per cent. more expensive, both in capital and running costs must be borne in mind. We prefer to use helicopters only when it is absolutely essential to have vertical lift …"
  It is for that reason that other aircraft, like the Pembrokes and Pioneers, are being fairly extensively used at the present time. May I give an example of the troop movement which your Lordships may remember was carried out to Aden in the middle of last month? On that occasion instructions were issued on April 11—that was a Friday evening—to move a battalion from this country to Kenya. The move was started, as planned, four days later, and was completed within four days. Full use was made of Comet aircraft to set up temporary staging posts, with a mobile operations centre in Kenya. The move itself was carried through with Hastings and
  90
  Beverleys. The first troops actually arrived fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, and the whole movement was completed within the planned time. I think that reflects great credit on Transport Command, and it shows how closely the R.A.F. and the Army can work together at short notice.
  Dealing with another side of the versatility of the Air Force, I feel that I should mention Coastal Command. In some ways, of course, the title is an anachronism, because these aircraft fly a long way from the coasts of this country and, indeed, of other countries. The name Maritime Air Force is coming into more general use. The Shackleton Mark III, with which it is equipped, is used primarily as an antisubmarine aircraft, but it is capable of a wider rôle. Not only can it carry a considerable passenger load and freight over long distances, but it can also be used for various other purposes, and it is equipped for reconnaissance. I think it has done valuable work in this last rôle in the Aden area.
  The noble Lord, Lord Winster, asked that further assistance should be given to the companies operating with Transport Command because they were not replacing their aircraft as well as might be the case. I think the noble Lord is aware that the matter is fully before the Government and that steps are being taken to see whether some assistance can be given in that direction. I recognize that it is of great importance that the aircraft should be up to date. On the other hand, taken by and large, these companies have provided a fine service in trooping for the Services as a whole. The noble Earl, Lord Swinton, spoke in some praise of the new Aden Command, and I entirely agree with what he said. It is quite new—it started only on the 1st of last month—but we have every reason to believe that it is working well up to the present time. I am bound to say that it is not always easy to maintain a single command. I once went to a unified command and found not one staff, but four; that is, one for each Service and one over the whole lot. All I say is that one must be careful to see that that kind of thing does not arise.
  I should now like to say a word or two on the question of personnel, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore. On the whole, I think it is

  91
  fair to say that the Air Force position is sound, subject to certain points of difficulty. Cranwell is attracting nearly all the recruits, both in number and quality, that are required. The Technical College at Henlow is attracting more recruits than it has done in recent years; and nearly one half of these go on to university and take an honours degree. The scholarship scheme is popular and is working well. There is, how-ever, a shortage of navigators. This is an important task in a modern aircraft which demands high qualities of alertness and intelligence. The R.A.F. would welcome more recruits to this fascinating branch. So far as other ranks are concerned, what is required is about 11,000 recruits a year, mainly on the longer engagements. We did in fact take into the Royal Air Force last year about 17,000 recruits. That is good enough for the short-term engagement but not enough for the long-term engagement, because there is a substantial proportion of R.A.F. personnel in the three and four year categories, and these must be replaced in the immediate future. Strictly speaking, to meet the requirements of the next four or five years, an additional 50 per cent. of recruits is required. But looking at it from the long term, the number of recruits seems about adequate to meet the target at the present time. I should mention also that the R.A.F. would welcome additional recruits for the Women's Royal Air Force.
  The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, talked about the German mission, and my noble friend Lord Gifford, I think rightly said that it was a proper step to take. As we see it, the R.A.F. personnel are going out there in the form of a mission. The exact terms and conditions are now under discussion, but I do not think the noble Lord need worry that these men will lose their identity or at any time become non-available to this country.
  LORD OGMORE: Is the noble Earl now giving an assurance that they will retain their R.A.F. commissions; that they will not have Luftwaffe commissions and will be available for recall whenever required?
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I said that the exact terms and conditions are now under discussion. I do not want to make
  92
  a dogmatic statement which might marginally vary in the event. However, there is no question of these men holding a German Air Force commission; I have no doubt that in some form they will remain Royal Air Force officers.
  LORD WINSTER: My Lords, the noble Earl will recollect that for many years we had a naval training mission in Greece, and the officers who composed that mission retained all their rights and positions in the Royal Navy. The scheme worked perfectly smoothly and happily. You have a good precedent there.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I did not want to be too dogmatic, because I did not know.
  LORD OGMORE: My Lords, I think the position of Greece and our late enemy Germany is rather different.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: We certainly bear in mind the need for tactical support for ground forces, and I think the noble Lord can rest assured that with the development of improved mobile wireless sets that is going fairly well, certainly in the Aden area. The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, asked also about Transport Command and civil defence. Most of the transport aircraft are much too big for civil defence, and the small ones like the Pioneer and the helicopter are mostly abroad. In any circumstances that should arise, I have no doubt that Transport Command could supply the sort of assistance which the noble Lord has in mind.
  The noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, raised an interesting point with regard to fuel boron. This is perhaps not the best forum in which to discuss that matter. We have looked at that point, but I am afraid we cannot hold out any hope that it would be advantageous to produce it here on a very large scale. There has been a good deal of discussion on the major issue of the future of manned aircraft. The noble Lord, Lord Winster, endeavoured to make out that there was a sharp difference of view between the Air Council and the Minister of Defence. But if he will recall yesterday's demonstration I think he will remember that it included reliance on missiles besides the manned bomber. If I may take a lesson from that, it is that the importance of the manned bomber was emphasised, but the importance of missiles was not played

  93
  down. So I think it would be quite wrong to say that there is any friction at all on those lines. If questions of finance arise there may be a difficult choice to be made.
  In regard to the P.1, to which the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, referred, there is nothing new about this position. This is really the logical point when the order was necessary. It was not a new policy, and therefore it does not involve any change at all in matters of personnel. It does not in any way depend on the supply of surface-to-air guided missiles. The position was that the P.1 had been developed to the point when an order could and should be placed.
  THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, this is most interesting, and it is a great pity that it could not have been said earlier in the debate. The debate has hitherto proceeded on the unchallenged assumption—certainly the statement which we all read in the Press—that because the development of the guided missile had fallen short of expectations as set out in the Defence White Paper of 1957, it had been necessary to order more P1s. Now, if I understand the First Lord aright, he says that the development of the guided missile has gone according to expectation, and that we always wanted to order these P.1s. Is that really the position?
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I think that that is correct. When I say "always intended", I mean provided that they faced up to the acceptance tests, and that kind of thing. It has always been the intention to do so. I cannot say that the Government will deny all statements in the Press which are not necessarily accurate, because there have been wild speculations day after day. As the noble Earl knows, a denial itself is informative. Many of these statements are made for the purpose of eliciting denials. The position is this. I do not think there is any question that another fighter was required. The only question was whether the P.1 was the fighter, and when it reached the stage when it could be ordered, it was ordered. That is my understanding of the situation.
  LORD OGMORE: The situation, quite clearly, was that it was the last fighter which was going to be ordered. That came out time after time—there was not going to be another fighter.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am coming to this point. The noble Lord is going a long way ahead. Let us be quite frank. We have not got the P.1 yet, and it is obviously an aircraft in which there is a great deal of development for the future. One must face this position.
  LORD OGMORE: It is a position which the Government have taken up; it is not a position we have taken up. The Government have said that this is the last supersonic fighter; that there are to be no more supersonic fighters. It is not we who are taking up the position; it is the Government.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I am not casting my mind as far ahead as that, and I will not attempt to do so. All I am saying is that there are new aircraft coming into the Royal Air Force now. The Vulcan has hardly come in; and, with great respect to Lord Tedder, I am given to believe that the Vulcan II is a considerable development on the Vulcan I.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: Will it be supersonic?
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: No, it will not. But it will be a considerable development on the Vulcan I. I see no reason to believe that the P.1, of which we are expecting there w ill be a considerable development in due course, will not last us a long time; and the same applies to the successor to the Canberra. I do not think we can wipe off the successor to the Canberra as simply as has been suggested.
  What I should like to say on the research and development side is that there has been no change in Government policy. The Minister of Supply will be making a statement shortly in another place on the aircraft industry generally. There is no specific development project designed to succeed either the P.1 or the V-bombers. As I have said, both these aircraft have a great deal of development in them at the present time. Because guided missiles are coining, there are at present no successors in prospect; but I am riot going to say that there will never be. That is the position to-day. Those who attended the Royal Air Force Conference yesterday were, of course, looking at possibilities about a dozen years ahead in defence policy. The successor to the Canberra might well be a

  95
  supersonic aircraft: I am not saying that it is or is not.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: I am sorry to join in pressing the noble Earl, but I get more and more puzzled as the debate goes on. He opened his remarks by saying that new weapons took ten years to develop. We know that the Americans already have a supersonic fighter—not a prototype, but at least a development aircraft—which will be supersonic. So we are not looking ten years ahead, and probably no more than five or six. What disturbs noble Lords on both sides of the House is the statement in last year's Defence White Paper that there would be no successors, and the knowledge that other countries in the world, whether Russia or America, are developing supersonic aircraft, both in the fighter and bomber field, while the noble Earl is unable to tell us that there is anything planned on the drawing board or any contract for them so far.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: I can tell the noble Viscount that there is no contract at all. I will give the noble Viscount the answer in a very simple figure. The United States Air Force bill for one year is 13 billion dollars—that is to say, roughly three times our total defence estimates. That is the simple answer to that.
  VISCOUNT DE L'ISLE: It is not.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: But it is. At the present time we are spending on research and development about £190 million a year—that is the Ministry of Supply's total expenditure—of which the greater part is, of course, on the Air Force, or at least research and development in which the Air Ministry is interested.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I am very confused, because the White Paper last year, as we all agree, said that there was to be no supersonic bomber. I will not read the relevant paragraphs. The noble Earl now says, in general terms, that we are spending a great deal, £190 million, on research and development, mainly on aircraft. He gave some figures of which I could not quite grasp the relevance, of the American comparison. We know that their effort is much greater in money terms. I think that that was rather dragging a red herring across
  96
  the argument. What I want to know is this: if we are spending £190 million on aircraft research and development, why is not some of that £190 million spent in research and development on a supersonic bomber, which it now seems to be admitted will be necessary owing to the lag in development of missiles, particularly when both America and Russia have grasped that position and are themselves doing the thing we are asking the Government to do?
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I do not think that what I said was a red herring. The figure I gave was 13 billion dollars, indicating the immense amount of resources required. I can only express this view: that within the Ministry of Supply's £190 million there would not be sufficient funds to pay for the development costs of a supersonic bomber. What I am trying to emphasise is simply this: I agree that we have to look well ahead, but it would be wrong to suppose that the aircraft we now know are coming along will not continue for a very long time.
  The noble Viscount, Lord De L'Isle asked about Service organisation—his words will, I am sure, be noted, because he speaks with experience. I will only say this to him. I have certainly been struck with the easy and close co-operation which exists between the Services at the present time. I am sure that it would be an act of supererogation to tell the noble Viscount that he need not believe every word he reads in the daily Press from time to time.
  My Lords, I have tried to answer most of the questions—although I do not say that I have done so entirely to the House's satisfaction. May I just, in my own words, add this? In this fortieth anniversary year of the Royal Air Force I think it right that we, as a House, should express our appreciation of a really great Service. Those who remember 1918, when it came to birth, saw it supreme on the Western Front. After a varied experience between the wars, it was again there to hold back Hitler—for the first time he was checked. Subsequently, at the end of the war, it was pretty well supreme from Singapore to the Rhine. It is a Service we honour. I regret that the noble and gallant Viscount. Lord Trenchard, is not here to speak to us to-day, as he has done, to our great enjoyment, on so many occasions. This Service is now part and

  97
  parcel of the very texture of this country; it is one of the pillars of society as it stands. People no longer stumble over Air Force ranks as they did at one time. I am sure that we are right to express our appreciation of, and gratitude to, a Service which has been built up in a very hard way and which has produced so many men of such high calibre, men who have rendered great service to this country.
  6.35 p.m.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, in asking your Lordships' permission to withdraw my Motion, I should like to thank those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate on both sides of the House. I should like to thank the Ministers for their replies, which were perhaps not as full in some directions as we had hoped they might be; nevertheless we are grateful to them for those replies. I would apologise to the House for one omission in my speech, which was to be allowed to associate myself, in all humility, with the congratulations which have been expressed from all quarters of the House on the Royal Air Force's fortieth anniversary. It is a splendid Force of splendid men. Parliament, it is true, is supreme, but I feel that we are their servants in the way of trying to do anything we can to strengthen them in their efforts.
  There is one point to which I must return. The noble Earl, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was not able to tell us whether the guided missile programme is going according to the expectations which were in the Government's mind when the White Paper of 1957 was published. We have reasons to think that such is not the case, and that therefore the emphasis is more and more upon the retention of manned aircraft for a longer period than was expected then. I must confess that he has left me disturbed about the vital necessity for this
  98
  country not, as it were, to miss the bus in regard to the supersonic bomber, when the guided missile programme is such that we cannot rely upon that for all our defence and offence requirements. He has told us, in general terms, of this £190 million, which he says would not cover the cost of supersonic research. What one would like to know is whether that £190 million is not covering the cost of research upon aims and objects which really are secondary now, and whether we should not interpose the supersonic bomber in the programme for the next ten or fifteen years. We will come back to that matter later, but I think it is only right, in asking leave to withdraw the Motion, that I should express what I think is felt by noble Lords on all sides of the House. There is a feeling of misgiving at the generalities which have been expressed, instead of there being precision on something on which our very livelihood and the lives of our citizens may depend in the future.
  THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, I have no reason to suppose that the missile programme has been going worse than was expected last year. I say that with this qualification only: I do not know that the expectation last year was very precise in how it would develop. I do not see any reason to suppose, in this sense, that it has been put back during that period.
  LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, it is this lack of precision which has worried us—"So and so is in general terms; this is not precise, that is not precise". But the need and danger are precise. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
  Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
  House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before seven o'clock.