Sitting of 3 June 1959

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL [Lords]
  As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Swinderby (Catering Arrangements)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Secretary of State for Air what changes are contemplated in the catering arrangements at Royal Air Force stations such as Swinderby.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): Experiments with different forms of civilian catering are continuing at Swinderby and two other stations, but more evidence is needed before we can decide whether the widespread introduction of any of the different systems would be worth while. We are therefore extending the present arrangements at each of these stations for a further year, and shall as soon as possible be introducing them also at three additional stations.
    Mr. de Freitas: Since the Secretary of State told us at least a year ago that he was discussing these experiments of NA.A.F.I. catering, Service catering, contractor catering and mixed catering, is it not surely time that the Air Council was able to give some general idea of which is the most efficient?
    Mr. Ward: Although I did announce our proposals about a year ago, they did not really get going until about August last year. One of the things about which we want to make sure is that they can keep their employees against the competition off the summer season.

    Aden (Ration Money)
    Mrs. Castleasked the Secretary of State for Air why the ration money for the Royal Air Force in Aden has been reduced from 11s. 10d. per day to 10s. 8d.
    Mr. Ward: The reduction has now been cancelled. The rates are normally reviewed at intervals of six months and we are at present considering with the other Departments concerned what rates should apply from 1st July onwards.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I received a letter from a constituent in Aden saying that this decrease came in on 1st April? Can the right hon. Gentleman say, therefore, whether if this ration allowance was wrongfully reduced, thus placing a financial burden on families living out, some adjustment will now be made for that period?
    Mr. Ward: Yes, certainly. The cut will be restored from the day on which it was imposed.

    Atomic Bombs (Safety Measures)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Secretary of State for Air whether the safety devices incorporated in the atomic bombs supplied to the Royal Air Force by the United States of America now satisfy all Royal Air Force safety requirements.
    Mr. Ward: No American atomic bombs have been supplied, but arrangements and procedures agreed with the United States for the United States Air Force to hold American atomic bombs available for the R.A.F. provide for proper safety measures at all times.
    Mr. de Freitas: Does this take account of the accident in the United States last year when considerable damage was done as a result of the falling of one of these bombs? If similar bombs are supplied to the Royal Air Force, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there are safety devices which meet the Royal Air Force standards?
    Mr. Ward: Certainly, Sir. Exactly the same safety procedures apply in this case. But I think I ought to make it clear that these bombs have not been supplied to the Royal Air Force in the strict sense and will not be carried by the Royal Air Force in peace time.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that considerable alarm has been expressed in Stornoway and in the Western Isles about the storage of hydrogen or atomic bombs there? Could the Prime Minister—[Laughter.] That was a Freudian slip—could the Secretary of State tell us if proper safeguards will be made to ensure that the local alarm will be dispelled?
    Mr. Ward: Full safety precautions are taken wherever these bombs are stored, even in Stornoway, if necessary.

  TRANSPORT

    Motor Vehicles (Statistics)
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many private motor cars were licensed in the United Kingdom at the latest convenient date; the total numbers in 1949 and in 1939, respectively; and his estimate of the number of private cars which will be licensed in the United Kingdom in 1969.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent): The number of motor cars licensed in Great Britain in the September quarter of 1958 was 4,548,530. The corresponding figures for 1938—figures for 1939 are not available—and for 1949 were 1,944,394 and 2,130,793 respectively. On the assumption that this rate of increase continues there will be nearly 7½ million by 1969.
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many mechanically propelled vehicles of all kinds and of all descriptions were licensed in the United Kingdom at the latest convenient date; the total numbers in 1949 and in 1939, respectively; and his estimate of the number of vehicles which British roads will have to accommodate in 1969.
    Mr. Nugent: The number licensed in Great Britain in the September quarter of 1958 was 7,903,638. The corresponding figures for 1938—figures for 1939 are not available—and for 1949 were 3,093,884 and 4,112,903 respectively. On the assumption that this rate of increase continues there will be about 12½ million by 1969.
    Mr. Lipton: Does not the Minister think that saturation point has already
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    been reached, especially in the large cities and towns of this country?
    Mr. Nugent: I think that provided we have the right kind of regulations for the use of the roads and a Tory Government to build them, we shall be able to cope.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: Are the Joint Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister really satisfied that the present road programme is adequate to cope with this considerable increase? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on current values the amount spent on the roads today is no more than was spent in the 1930s and, as the net increase is far greater in volume and the number coming on to the roads is something frightening, could not the Minister get a greater move on in this respect?
    Mr. Nugent: I think we have had a very satisfactory rate of expansion. A rate of expansion of the road programme of fifteen times in the last five years is about as fast as any Government could possibly manage to go. The hon. Member must remember the very low level of building there was under his Administration. I do not say that we do not need more for the future, but we are doing well.
    Mr. Gower: Although these figures indicate a wonderful increase in the standard of living under this Government and while it is true that my right hon. Friend has given a figure which is better than ever before, is it not a fact that these figures suggest that plans should now be prepared and steps immediately taken for a much bigger road programme than the present one?
    Mr. Nugent: Our planning for the future road programme will, I think, prove to be adequate.
    Mr. Gowerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many lorries, trucks, vans and commercial vehicles were licensed in the United Kingdom at the latest convenient date; the total numbers in 1949 and in 1939, respectively; and his estimate of the total number which will be licensed in 1969.
    Mr. Nugent: The number of goods vehicles licensed in Great Britain in the September quarter of 1958 was 1,268,498. The corresponding figures for 1938—figures for 1939 are not available

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    —and for 1949 were 494,866 and 843,723 respectively. On the assumption that this rate of increase continues there will be about 1·8 million by 1969.
    Mr. Gower: Is not a satisfactory feature of these figures that all these vehicles are not concentrated in one vast State monopoly?
    Mr. Ernest Davies: Does the Joint Parliamentary Secretary believe that there is a need for this increase in goods vehicles today? Does he not realise that railway capacity is unused to a very large extent and that a very large number of vehicles on the roads are running empty part of the time, or only partially loaded? Would not a little planned transport be the best way of relieving congestion on the roads and making for road safety?
    Mr. Nugent: It depends what the hon. Member means by planned transport. Broadly, the answer to his supplementary question is that this arithmetical exercise I have done in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) is not necessarily what will happen in practice. The railways are modernising their services and offering better services. It would be extremely difficult to say where the balance will settle down in twelve years' time.
    Mr. Burden: Would not my hon. Friend agree that, in considering all these matters, due regard must be taken of the cost that is loaded on to merchandise by transport and that canalising it to a more costly mode of transport than is at present used might increase the cost of our goods overseas?
    Mr. Nugent: Certainly I agree with my hon. Friend. I am quite certain that the best method by which to serve industry is to leave it free to choose which form of transport it should use, road transport or rail transport. It can then choose for itself the cheapest and most efficient service to suit itself.
    Mr. Grimond: The hon. Gentleman spoke of an arithmetical exercise. Can he tell us that his Department is planning on the assumption that an increase is going to take place or on some other assumption? If it is the latter, will he tell us what that assumption is?
    Mr. Nugent: We are planning on certain assumptions. [HON. MEMBERS: "What assumptions?"] In fact, recently
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    we have been in process of revising the basis of future road capacities because, in the light of the ever-increasing number of vehicles, it is obviously necessary to do so. I am not able to give the hon. Member a precise answer except to tell him that the previous basis, which was a capacity of 75 per cent. over the 1954 traffic figures, is obviously no longer the appropriate basis. We are now in process of revising that to something which I suspect will be a great deal higher, but I am not able to give precise details today.

    Commercial Vehicles (Kerbside Parking)
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether his attention has been drawn to a campaign launched by the Traders' Road Transport Association aimed at cutting down the waiting time at the kerbside of commercial vehicles in busy shopping centres; and to what extent this campaign has his support.
    The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): Yes, Sir. I am delighted at the initiative taken in this matter by the Traders' Road Transport Association, and the code of behaviour issued by the Association as part of its campaign is prefaced by a message of support from me. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is giving his full support to the campaign in Scotland.
    Mr. Robinson: In this connection, will the Minister look at the situation in Great Portland Street, which was turned into a one-way street after pressure from the House? Is he aware that this morning there was a continuous line of vehicles parked on both sides of the street and frequently a third line of commercial vehicles, making it once again almost impossible for buses to go down this street?
    Mr. Watkinson: That hardly arises from the Question, but I will certainly ask the London Travel Committee to look at the point.

    Rural Transport Committee (Terms of Reference)
    Mr. Peytonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is now able to make a statement on the terms of reference and membership of the Committee which is to consider rural transport.
    Sir A. Hurdasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will announce the names of the Committee to inquire into the problem of rural bus services and the Committee's terms of reference; and if he will arrange for the Committee to visit several parts of the country to take evidence on the spot where the greatest difficulties are experienced in maintaining adequate transport services.
    Mr. Watkinson: The terms of reference of the Committee will be:
    "To review present trends in rural bus services and in particular to inquire into the adequacy of those services; to consider possible methods of ensuring adequate services in future; and to make recommendations."
    I hope to announce the membership of the Committee in the next few weeks.
    The Committee will be free to make whatever arrangements it thinks best to receive evidence.
    Mr. Peyton: Does my right hon. Friend realise that this announcement will give a great deal of satisfaction to many people who are concerned with this problem, which in the countryside is becoming one of increasing gravity? I am most grateful to him.
    Mr. Watkinson: I was made very clearly aware by my hon. Friends that this is a very serious problem in the country districts. I accepted their view, and, as a result, this Committee has been set up.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: While welcoming the Government's recognition of the existence of this problem and the appointment of the Committee with these terms of reference, may I ask the Minister whether we may have an assurance that the Committee will proceed with its inquiries with the utmost urgency? Will he encourage it to issue interim reports so that recommendations may be made and action taken in the interim if that is found desirable? In the terms of reference there is no reference to the licensing system. Does that mean that this is excluded from the Committee's consideration or will the Committee take it into account? The basis of the licensing system is to give protection to these companies so that remunerative services can pay for their unremunerative services. Will the Committee therefore take this fully into account and see that the unremunerative services are not abolished
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    while the remunerative services are continued?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think that the Committee is debarred by its terms of reference from examining the whole position concerning rural bus services, including alternative services and everything else. I hope that it will carry out its task expeditiously.

    Driving Tests, Shetland
    Mr. Grimondasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that no driving tests have been held in Shetland since last October; and if he will ensure that these tests are arranged with at least sufficient frequency to save learners the cost of renewing provisional licences.
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. A programme of tests arranged for February was cancelled because of bad weather. Examiners will be visiting Shetland on 8th June next week to dispose of all test applications at present outstanding. We are arranging for examiners to make at least four visits each year providing the number of applications warrants it.
    Mr. GrimondWill the Minister bear in mind that this is a recurrent trouble and that his Ministry showed a certain reluctance to send examiners to the island of Foula? Will he ensure that these long delays do not occur, because they are most inconvenient in places where a great many people must depend on cars?
    Mr. Nugent: I am sorry that the inhabitants of Shetland have had to wait in this way, and we hope to overcome their troubles as soon as possible

    Vehicle Tests
    Mr. Straussasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will now state when the scheme for the testing of road vehicles will come into operation.
    Mr. Watkinson: I shall be circulating draft Regulations within the next week or two. When I have considered any comments which may be received, I shall be in a position to announce the date on which the scheme will come into operation.
    Mr. Strauss: Is there any reason to believe that there will be any further delay in respect of the last date on which the right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped to start this scheme—that was in the summer—in view of the many delays there have been in the past?
    Mr. Watkinson: The scheme is still on the: schedule which I mentioned to the right hon. Gentleman last time he asked the Question.

    Victoria Line Tube
    Mr. E. Fletcherasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what advice he has now received from the London Travel Committee with regard to the construction of the proposed new Victoria-Walthamstow underground railway; and whether he will announce a date for the commencement of this project.
    Mr. Nugent: The London Travel Committee has not yet completed its examination of the proposed Victoria Line and of the benefits of comparable expenditure on alternative works which would help travel in London. We do not expect to receive the Committee's report for some weeks yet. My right hon. Friend will take a decision as soon as possible after that.
    Mr. Fletcher: Will the Minister try to expedite the report of this Committee? Does he realise that the public transport situation in North-East London is very acute? It will not improve by delay, nor will the cost get less. Is it not very desirable that this new tube, which has been approved in principle, should be started as soon as possible?
    Mr. Nugent: The tube has not been approved in principle yet. As soon as the Committee has made its report, my right hon. Friend will deal with it. At present, the Committee is receiving evidence and opinions from the various local authorities concerned. Inevitably, that takes rather a long time. Equally, I am sure that they should all be given a chance to express their opinions to the Committee before a decision is reached.
    Mr. Ernest Davies: Does not the Joint Parliamentary Secretary recall that the building of this tube was approved in principle by the House in that a private Bill of the British Transport Commission
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    passed through the House which gave it powers to construct the tube? Further, is it not a fact that the manpower, the materials, the contractors and the technique are available. Does the hon. Gentleman want this to be a further period of wasted years?
    Mr. Nugent: What we have not approved in principle is the spending of the £50 or £60 million necessary for building the tube. We are not yet sure whether that money could be spent better in other ways to improve travel in London. As soon as we have the report, my right hon. Friend will make his decision.

  CIVIL AVIATION

    college of Air Training, Hamble
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, in deciding to set up a college of Air Training at Hamble, what consideration he is giving to making use of the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, for this purpose.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Hay): After consultation with my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Education, it was decided that ab initio flying training would not harmonise with the post-graduate aeronautical work which is carried on at Cranfield and considerable expense would have been necessary to provide the additional accommodation. Also Cranfield is unsuitable as a base for this sort of flying for Air Traffic Control reasons.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my hon. Friend aware that at present the Ministry of Education is contributing more than £600,000 a year towards the cost of the College of Aeronautics where runways exist and are hardly ever used, while at Hamble there are no runways and the aerodrome has very definite limitations? Why could there not be a really worthwhile centre to cover all these matters?
    Mr. Hay: We examined this matter very carefully and came to the conclusion that the types of training which are carried on at Cranfield and Hamble are so far divergent from each other that it would not have been a practical proposition to do what my hon. Friend suggests. It is important to note that Cranfield carries out scientific and technological

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    and research training, whereas what we intend for the College of Air Training at Hamble is something far more commercial in its purpose.

    Airports (Inquiry Desks)
    Mr. Patrick Maitlandasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation to what extent his Department provides tourist or other information at inquiry desks at United Kingdom airports; and how far this includes publicity for promising factory locations that might interest visiting industrialists, etc.
    Mr. Hay: London Airport is the only airport where my Department provides its own inquiry desk, and this is intended primarily to answer inquiries about aircraft movements. Information and publicity about factory locations is not available at this desk, but inquiries on these points are referred to the Board of Trade or the Federation of British Industries, as appropriate.
    Mr. Maitland: Would my hon. Friend consider establishing similar inquiry desks at airports in Scotland to which visiting industrialists and tourists might be directed—for example, tourists who might be interested in the history of the village of Douglas where the Scots won many battles against the English and which is now open to industry—and will he publicise this fact?
    Mr. Hay: I think it important to bear in mind what has already been done in this way. In Scotland the Scottish Tourist Board issues pamphlets once or twice a year drawing attention to industries in Scottish counties. It gives supplies of those pamphlets direct to our airports in Scotland and, where possible, they are displayed in passenger lounges. If it were apparent that there was a substantial demand for more facilities of that kind, I certainly should be willing to look into the matter.

    Jet Aircraft (Noise)
    Mr. Burdenasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what studies are now being made of the noise problem at airports in relation to the operation of future passenger jet aircraft.
    Mr. Watkinson: Aircraft noise problems are under continual research by the Government and by aircraft and engine
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    manufacturers. But it is well to repeat that we are today near the upper limits of noise levels. Manufacturers and operators must continue efforts to quieten the new jets. I would also draw attention to the very serious noise problems that might arise from the concept of supersonic passenger aircraft.
    Mr. Burden: Are any aircraft of foreign countries likely in the near future to be debarred because they exceed the noise limit?
    Mr. Watkinson: We have imposed a quite severe restriction on both American and Russian aircraft on noise grounds. Fortunately, up to the moment it has not been necessary to impose such severe restrictions on the Comet IV aircraft because of its very steep rate of climb, but we must maintain a tolerable rate of noise for those people who live around airports, and I regard that just as much as one of my duties as that of facilitating the entrance of aircraft to airports and their departure from airports.

    F.I.D.O., London Airport
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what recent consultations he has had with the airline operators about the use of F.I.D.O. at London airport; and how far their views have been sought about the economic advantage of using this landing aid at the present estimated costs.
    Mr. Hay: I have recently received a fresh statement on the need for F.I.D.O. at London Airport from the Airlines' Chairmen's Committee and I hope to have discussions with the airlines shortly. These will, of course, include the possible economic advantages and also the heavy costs of installing and operating a modern system.
    Mr. Beswick: Does not the Joint Parliamentary Secretary agree that we are progressing very slowly? I remind him that in 1950 his colleagues were demanding that we should have F.I.D.O. at London Airport in the winter of that year. After having had time to reflect on the supplementary question I put to him two months ago, does not the hon. Gentleman think it worth while considering the figure of £150 a landing which it is now calculated it would cost to land with F.I.D.O.?
    Mr. Hay: We are certainly well aware of the importance of getting on with this if we can, but we are up against the problem that the trials of the new F.I.D.O. installation have not been progressing as successfully as we had hoped. Until we have a successful result from those trials we cannot work out any figures. As soon as we can work out figures and discuss them sensibly with airline operators, we will do so.

    European Airlines (Merger)
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what he estimates will be the impact on British airline operators of the proposed European consortium of companies; what is his policy with regard to this development; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: From the information available it is difficult to assess the probable impact of this proposal on British airlines, or how it may develop. For the time being I think it is right to keep an open mind about our attitude.
    Mr. Beswick: Does not the Minister think that he has a lesson to learn from what is happening in Europe at present? They are co-operating, eliminating overlapping schedules and getting together as airlines, whereas in this country the Minister is doing precisely the opposite. He is splitting up our traffics between competing British firms and hiving off interests from the Corporations to private competitive airlines. Does he not think that he will leave British aviation in a very poor position vis-à-vis European air transport operators?
    Mr. Watkinson: That is not so at all. To begin with, B.E.A., for example, is in very close pooling arrangements with mast of the European airlines, which are now adopting what may well be considered a rather sensible method of rationalisation of spares, maintenance and so on—so our links with this arrangement are already very close. This is not at all the moment to say that our policies in this country are necessarily wrong in regard to what is happening in Europe.
    Mr. M. Lindsayasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what general directions he gave the chairman of British European Airways about joining the European airlines merger; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: None, Sir. B.E.A.'s relations with other airlines or groups of airlines are a commercial matter, and I expect them to consider the question of their relationship with this new organisation on this basis.

    Accident Investigation Procedure (Committee)
    Sir L. Healdasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is now in a position to announce the measures he intends to take for safeguarding the rights of pilots in connection with the investigation of air accidents.
    Mr. Watkinson: I propose to set up an independent Committee to examine this and various other problems of air safety.
    It is now some ten years since the Newton Committee made a most valuable Report of this kind, and I think that it is time that its investigation should be repeated.
    I hope to announce the composition and terms of reference of this Committee before the Summer Recess.

    Eagle Airways (Colonial Services)
    Mr. Beswickasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what decision he has taken upon the recent application of Eagle Airways to operate selected low-fare scheduled services to certain Colonial Territories; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: I received the Report and recommendations of the Air Transport Advisory Council on these applications on 1st June. I am now considering its recommendations, but it may be some little time before I can make my decision known.
    Mr. Beswick: Does the Minister intend to make a statement to the House before he comes to a final conclusion, and will he make it quite clear that his decision on this matter is, of course, his own, and not that of the Air Transport Advisory Council?
    Mr. Watkinson: Yes. The constitutional position is that the Council gives advice, but the responsibility is mine and I accept it. I shall, of course, inform the House of what I decide in due course, but I must warn the House that this is a very

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    complicated matter, in which other Governments are involved, and it may well be some considerable time before I feel that I can take an appropriate decision.

    Scottish Internal Air Routes (Viscounts)
    Lady Tweedsmuirasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what general direction he has given to British European Airways concerning the purchase and use of Viscounts on Scottish internal routes north of Edinburgh and Glasgow, in view of the restricted size of certain of his airports in the North of Scotland.
    Mr. Hay: None, Sir. British European Airways is considering a plan to use Viscounts on certain Scottish routes. These will not be new purchases but drawn from aircraft at present employed on international routes. In view of the airport problems involved, the matter is now being discussed between British European Airways and my Department.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: Could any indication be given as to when the Scottish internal routes will have a Viscount service? The test flights of the Viscount at all the main airports north of the Scottish industrial belt were successfully concluded two or three years ago, and we have now reached a stage where passenger traffic will not increase while passengers have to use Dakotas and wait long intervals to get connections both at Edinburgh and Glasgow?
    Mr. Hay: As I said, we have a problem of accommodating the larger aircraft at some existing airports, and that is what we are discussing with B.E.A. I think that it would be rather premature of me to try to give a date when the Viscount will come into service on the Scottish routes, but we will certainly press on with the matter as quickly as we can.

  SHIPPING

    Oil Pollution (Newbiggin-by-the-Sea)
    Mr. Owenasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he has yet received correspondence from the Urban District Council of Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, concerning oil pollution of the beach and promenade, arising from a
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    wrecked ship lying off Blyth; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Hay: Yes, Sir; I am advised that when the vessel was wrecked on 11th March a great deal of oil escaped into the sea, mainly because of the fracture of the port fuel tank. Because of the weather and a coating of oil on the wreck it was not possible to enter the engine room until 22nd April. Some oil was then removed from the starboard tank, but heavy seas prevented further work and fractured that tank, allowing the remaining oil to escape.
    It is most regrettable that the beach and promenade at Newbiggin-by-the-Sea should have been polluted in this way, but I am sure that the Blyth Harbour Commission, which is responsible for moving the wreck and which itself has suffered much inconvenience from this oil, did all it reasonably could to contain the nuisance.

    Shipping Conference, Washington
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation, in view of the decision to raise the Shipping Conference, to be held in Washington, D.C., on 8th June, to Ministerial level, who will represent the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Watkinson: I intend to lead the United Kingdom delegation myself.
    Dame Irene Ward: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that he will have the support of the Whole House when he argues, as I am sure that he will, that this country will no longer tolerate anything in the shape of discrimination against British shipping? Will my right hon. Friend argue for fair treatment, which we have not had for very many decades, so that we shall know where we are and get on with promoting our shipping interests?
    Mr. Watkinson: I read a great deal in the American Press that my European colleagues and I—because many other European nations are in this representation with me—were going to America to try to tell the Americans and Congress how to run their own affairs. We are not trying to do that at all. What we intend to say is that we do not think that the declared joint policy of inter-dependence is working at all well on the sea as far as our shipping policy is concerned. I

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    hope to say that very frankly, and I believe that I shall receive a sympathetic hearing from the American Administration.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is the right hon. Gentleman seized of the importance of this Conference and its effect on the future of British shipping? Will he make it clear to the representatives of American maritime interests that their failure to conduct their affairs as British shipping conducts its affairs is no reason why they should seek to take action which is detrimental to the interests of British shipping?
    Mr. Wathinson: The right hon. Gentleman and I do not disagree in the slightest degree. I would not go at this time of year when I have many other problems to deal with if I did not attach the highest importance to my task.

    New Cunard Liners
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what recent communication he has received from the Cunard Company about the construction of a new passenger liner; and if he will now make a further statement.
    Mr. Watkinson: I have within the last few days received a communication from the Cunard Company, which I am now studying. I am not in a position to make a further statement until this study is completed.
    Mr. Lipton: Before considering the Cunard Company's request for financial aid, will the Minister give an assurance that the possibility of the Government taking up equity shares in the company is not entirely excluded?
    Mr. Watkinson: I think that the hon. Gentleman knows the position. It is, as the chairman of the Cunard Company himself stated last week, that there is no commitment on either side at the moment. Therefore, what I have said is correct—the Government are considering the proposition put forward by the Company.
    Mr. McMaster: As public money is involved, and in view of the fact that there has been unemployment in the shipbuilding industry and that the yards are of economic importance to the country, will my right hon. Friend undertake that both these vessels will not be built in the same yard?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not want to disagree with my hon. Friend, but I must make it quite plain that there is no commitment at all to put any Government money into building these liners until we have had a good deal more time to see what the proposition really means in terms of the North Atlantic, and in terms of shipbuilding finance.
    Mr. Shinwell: Before the right hon. Gentleman agrees to provide finance for the construction of another Cunarder, will he operate on the principle that nothing should be provided for the Cunard Company that is denied to other shipping firms that are important to the maritime interests of the country? Furthermore, before agreeing to any financial arrangements, would the Minister make some inquiry as to why the company was unable itself to replace the old Cunarders? For example, will he inquire into its operations in real estate, and its actual financial position in that regard?
    Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman will remember that the building of the "Queen Mary" and "Queen Elizabeth" was financed to some extent by Government loan, which was fully serviced and fully repaid. It may be that some similar arrangement can be made for these ships. As to why the Cunard Company cannot manage this building with its own money, it is, of course, facing the very heavily subsidised competition of the American, the French and the Italian merchant marine, and that is a very difficult proposition.

  ROADS

    Fly-over, Gunnersbury
    Mr. Grimondasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what use is to be made of the ground cleared below the new fly-over at Gunnersbury.
    Mr. Watkinson: An enlarged roundabout is necessary at this point. The layout and planting of the whole site are being considered by the Advisory Committee on the Landscape Treatment of Trunk Roads, which was consulted at an early stage.
    Mr. Grimond: While a garden may be very nice indeed, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, bearing in mind

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    earlier Questions about the increase in traffic, he would consider whether this space should be used either for parking or garaging?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not think the hon. Member has studied the traffic problem at this point. There is no intention of making a garden, but for strict technical reasons the site will be laid out as a green open space and not as a parking place.

    London-Brighton Trunk Road (Dual Carriageway)
    Mr. Straussasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when the work of converting into a dual carriageway the three miles of the London to Brighton trunk road between the Crawley by-pass and Handcross was commenced; and when it is expected to be completed.
    Mr. Watkinson: This scheme has been divided into three parts, of which the first from Handcross to Woodhurst was started in June, 1957, and is now open to traffic; the second from Woodhurst to the north end of the Pease Pottage diversion was started in January, 1959, and will be completed in March, 1960; and the third extending up to the Crawley by-pass was started in January, 1958, and will be open to traffic in September this year.
    Mr. Strauss: When the Minister says that these were started on certain dates, does he mean that work on laying the new roads was started? Is he aware that work in cutting down the trees and preparing these new roads was started about five years ago and that it is ridiculous that a small extension, laying down dual carriageways over three miles, should take five years between the time the men get on to the job and the time it is completed? Cannot he do something about it, although some responsibility rests with the county council?
    Mr. Watkinson: That shows how difficult it is to go into these questions of road schemes unless we know the whole problem. I am only too glad to tell the House what the problem was here. It arose on the middle section from Woodhurst to the north end of the Pease Pottage diversion and it was because we could not buy a certain piece of land at the time we needed it, due to difficulties
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    with the owner of the land, who refused to sell. That, unfortunately, put the whole scheme out of phase, and, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, made it take a great deal longer than it should. The fault was certainly not that of the road builders and arose from the difficulty of acquiring one essential piece of land.

    Motorways (Pedestrians)
    Mr. Holtasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is satisfied that, in the plans for the building of motorways, adequate provision at sufficiently frequent intervals is being made for the safe passage of pedestrians across the motorway; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. On the London—Birmingham motorway and the Preston and Lancaster by-passes, for example, the crossings above or below the motorway suitable for pedestrians will average rather more than one every half-mile.
    Mr. Holt: I appreciate that, but the kind of motorway of which I was thinking, where the problem might arise, is the intended motorway continuation up through the Lune Valley. Where motorways go through sparsely populated country they may split small communities. Will the members of those communities have adequate facilities for crossing the motorways without going miles round?
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. The examples which I have given cover such neighbourhoods, particularly on the London—Birmingham motorway. The hon. Member can be assured that wherever the motorway crosses an existing public footpath or public road a provision of some kind is made in the area consisting of an access either over or under the new motorway.

    Whitsuntide Holiday Traffic
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many people were killed and injured in road accidents during the Whitsun holiday weekend; and what was the corresponding figure for 1958.
    Captain Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will make a statement on the traffic congestion on the roads during the Whitsun holiday.
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what conclusions he has drawn from the extent of traffic congestion on the roads during the Whitsun holiday; what action is contemplated to improve the situation for forthcoming holiday periods; and what advice he will give to those of the motoring public who wish to co-operate in dealing with an unsatisfactory situation.
    Mr. Watkinson: During the four days of the Whitsun holiday weekend 73 persons were killed and 4,147 injured in road accidents in England and Wales. The corresponding figures for 1958 were 68 and 3,767. The number of vehicles licensed was about half a million more than last year.
    There was generally a heavier volume of holiday traffic. Alternative routes were used extensively and serious delays were confined to a comparatively few troublesome bottlenecks. To help to speed traffic, I intend soon to experiment with the banning of parking on stretches of a number of through routes.
    Mr. Lipton: Do not these appalling figures indicate that, notwithstanding all our road safety propaganda, the more vehicles that are brought on to the roads the more people are being killed and injured? When will the Government take positive action to reduce this steadily increasing slaughter on the roads?
    Mr. Watkinson: On the contrary, these figures indicate a great measure of success for those dedicated people who up and down the country work in the cause of road safety. I should have thought that the hon. Member would have preferred to congratulate them on a very good job.
    Captain Pilkington: In view of the congestion and of the facts brought forward in answer to Questions this afternoon, does my right hon. Friend realise that there would be general support and indeed a general demand for a yet more ambitious programme of road improvements, even on top of what the Government have already done, which is a great devil?
    Mr. Watkinson: No Minister of Transport would ever be satisfied with the size of the road programme, but I think the House recognises that we have
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    made a very good start after losing many wasted years after the war, which we have to make up. I hope that we shall soon be in a position at least to have the facilities, machinery and plant ready for a still further expansion.
    Mr. Strauss: In view of the frequent references by the Minister and his Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the wasted years after the war, may I ask the Minister whether he is aware that during those years after the war no European country was able to start a road programme and that the criticism by his hon. Friends of the Labour Government at the time was that in capital expenditure we were doing too much too quickly?
    Mr. Watkinson: The criticisms are not mine. They are taken from a very able booklet produced by the Fabian Society which regrets the way in which the Barnes plan disappeared and congratulates the present Government on getting on with the job.
    Mr. Dodds: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, despite the road proposals he has in mind, the lessons of the weekend show that Britain, and particularly the south of England, is rapidly choking itself to death with cars? In view of the minor massacre of the weekend, has not the right hon. Gentleman something more to suggest to motorists? What has he to say about the last part of my Question:
    "what advice will he give to those members of the motoring public who wish to co-operate in dealing with an unsatisfactory situation."
    Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that they stay at home? Many of them could not get to the coast during the weekend?
    Mr. Watkinson: I should like to give them one piece of advice right away. I hope that every motorist who is interested in becoming a better driver will take the advanced driving test and see if he can pass it. In the process of trying to pass it he will greatly increase his standard of driving. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has passed the advanced driving test.
    Mr. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman entirely dissociate himself and his party from the record before the war? What about the wasted years then when there were 2 million unemployed in

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    Great Britain all the time and when he and his party could have solved the road problem?
    Mr. Watkinson: If the right hon. Gentleman wants to carry out the general practice of his party of always looking backwards, I cannot help it.
    Mr. Bevan: That is the silliest answer we have had for years.

    Motorways (Licensed Premises)
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he has considered the resolution, a copy of which has been submitted to him, of the Synod of the Methodist Church District which includes North Staffordshire concerning the sale of intoxicants on the new motorways; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. I have written to the hon. Member. As my right hon. Friend stated in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) on 15th April, licensed premises will not be allowed on the new motorway, but the lessees of service areas may apply, if they wish, to the licensing justices for a table licence.

    London-Colchester Road
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the reason for the large traffic block in the Marks Tey area on the London to Colchester Road during Whitsun weekend.
    Mr. Nugent: Congestion between Marks Tey and the start of the Colchester by-pass is caused at holiday time by the heavy volume of traffic from London on the A.12 joining coast-bound traffic from the West on A.120.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is my hon. Friend aware of the urgent need to extend the dual carriageway from Marks Tey to the Colchester by-pass? Can he say when the work is contemplated, and whether it is included in the £3 million scheme prepared by the Ministry, to be undertaken in the next two years?
    Mr. Nugent: The solution of this problem is, I think, the building of the Stanway by-pass. That is in our programme, but we have not yet given it a date.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    German Minister of Defence (Talks)
    Mr. Healeyasked the Minister of Defence to what extent he has discussed with the German Minister of Defence the military feasibility of a zone of limited armament in Europe.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I will, with permission, circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT the text of the joint communiqué issued at the conclusion of my talks with the German Minister of Defence.
    Mr. Healey: Can the Minister tell us now whether he agrees with the view expressed by the German Minister of Defence on 8th May, and confirmed by the Commander of the American Forces in Europe, that there was no purely military argument against disengagement in Central Europe?
    Mr. Sandys: That is a very much wider issue.
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Following is the communiqué:
    Herr Franz Josef Strauss, the Minister of Defence of the Federal German Republic, has just concluded a four-day visit to this country during which he had several discussions with Mr. Duncan Sandys. He saw something of British military installations and equipment both on the ground and in the air, at the Fighting Vehicles Research and Development Establishment at Chobham and the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. He also visited the R.A.F. Fighter Station at Wattisham where he saw a display of Hunters and Javelins and the R.A.F. Station at North Coates, Lincolnshire, where the surface-to-air guided weapon Bloodhound is deployed. Herr Strauss also visited an artillery demonstration at Larkhill Ranges on Salisbury Plain.
    During their discussions the two Ministers reviewed the progress of co-operation in the supply of armaments, both through N.A.T.O. and bilateral channels.
    Both Ministers reaffirmed their support for the N.A.T.O. policy of inter-dependence in this field and their determination to give effect to it as extensively and speedily as possible.
    In particular Herr Strauss and Mr. Sandys agreed:

    (1) that there should be a full exchange of technical information on the tanks at present under development in the two countries and that each should make prototypes available to the other for test and study, with the aim of evolving common solutions to the tactical and technical problems of development and production;

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    (2) that, subject to further study the two countries would endeavour to agree on the adoption of a standardised family of light tracked military vehicles;

    (3) that, subject to further discussion of the technical issues involved, the two countries should co-operate in the development of advanced anti-tank guided weapons and that other countries already engaged in this type of work should be invited to associate themselves with this effort.

    The review also extended to other subjects under examination in the expert committees, including the problems of defence against low-flying aircraft, submarine construction, naval gas turbines and propulsion methods, hydrofoil boats, torpedoes, motor boats, rocket mortars, amphibious vehicles, engineer equipment, parachute dropping equipment and ground surveillance radar.
    The two Ministers agreed that the Anglo-German Steering Committee on Armament Co-operation should report to them, at regular intervals, and should be given further directions in the light of these reports.
    The Ministers also discussed the problems of disarmament and European security against the background of the Foreign Ministers' meeting in Geneva.
    During the course of the visit Herr Strauss called on the Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street.

    Armed Forces (Numbers)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence the total number and the estimated total numbers, respectively, in the Armed Forces, distinguishing between National Service men and Regulars, today, and at 31st December, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, and 1963, assuming that the present rate of voluntary recruitment is maintained and that the remaining call-up notices are issued.
    Mr. Sandys: The strength of the forces at 1st April, 1959, was 411,000 Regulars, 153,300 National Service men, and 14,500 women. Of the Regulars, 64,000 are other ranks serving on engagements of less than five years.
    As from the beginning of 1963, our Armed Forces will be composed entirely of Regulars. Provided present recruiting trends are maintained, the target figures for all three Services should be substantially achieved. In the interval, the total strengths will be gradually reduced to the ceilings fixed for the all-Regular forces, and the proportion of Regulars to National Service men will progressively increase.
    Mr. Allaun: Has there not been a big increase in voluntary recruiting which,
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    if maintained along with National Service men, will provide in the next three years more men than were planned for, or are needed; and will the Minister consider relieving these last National Service groups to be caught in the net, either by lessening their two-year period of service or by exempting them altogether?
    Mr. Sandys: The number of people who are called up will, of course, be adjusted to take account of the number of Regulars who are coming in. I would not be prepared to consider any reduction in the two-year period, as that would be uneconomic and militarily inefficient.

    Aircraft (Allocation)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of Defence what are the factors which determine whether an aircraft is to be operated by the Royal Air Force or the Army.
    Mr. Sandys: The main factors are the rôle of the aircraft and the avoidance of duplication.
    Mr. de Freitas: We welcome the Minister's reference to the avoidance of duplication, but is he aware that many of us who supported him in the handing over of maintenance and operation from the Royal Air Force to the Army of very light aircraft such as the Auster are very worried by the Army's empire-building policy, which the right hon. Gentleman appears to encourage, of getting bigger aircraft, which policy may result in a third military air force being created, with considerable waste?
    Mr. Sandys: I am glad that we are agreed that we should try to avoid duplication. Certain compromises always have to be made in these matters. Nothing is quite clear. One cannot lay down a precise rule of thumb. At present, the limit is an overall weight of 4,000 lb., and it may be necessary to revise that if aircraft particularly suitable for the Army, but of heavier weight, come into production. But at the moment that is, broadly, the limitation that we have placed.
    Mr. de Freitas: But does not the Minister realise that if he goes above such a limit he is leading directly into this wasteful duplication which, in the

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    earlier part of his reply, he said that he was trying to avoid?
    Mr. Sandys: I am not saying that we shall do that. I am saying that there is a tendency all the time for aircraft to get heavier and, therefore, the same type of aircraft for the same rôle is liable to be heavier as time goes on, and that that is a matter that will have to be taken into account.

    Rotodyne Helicopters
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Defence what consideration has now been given, and decisions reached, in respect of ordering Fairey Rotodyne helicopter aeroplanes for use by the Army or any other Service Department.
    Mr. Sandys: There is no doubt that the Rotodyne design incorporates important new features, which are of interest for civil and military use. I am at present considering whether, and if so, how, it would fit into our pattern of defence requirements. This study raises a number of quite complex issues, but there will be no avoidable delay in reaching a decision.
    Mr. Dodds: In view of the fact that experts believe that this type of aircraft could be a great success, provided the Army were prepared to place an order for it, as is done in America when aircraft go on the civil list afterwards, will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that although the Army is limited to aircraft up to 2 tons in weight, the Ministry will not be responsible for prohibiting the supply of this aircraft to the Army because it weighs over 2 tons? Further, can the right hon. Gentleman say when he expects a decision to be made in the matter, as such a decision is long overdue now?
    Mr. Sandys: The question which Service is to operate an aircraft if it were required for military use will not affect the decision whether or not we do adopt this type.
    Mr. de Freitas: If it is decided to adopt it, is it not most important that the most efficient user principle should be adopted? We cannot afford what the United States is able to afford in having three separate Services operating military aircraft.
    Mr. Sandys: I thought I made it clear that that would not be one of the issues which would decide whether or not we should adopt this type of aircraft.

  IRAQ (BRITISH EMBASSY, BAGDAD)
  Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress has been made in settling with the Iraqi Government the damages to be paid for the burning of the British Embassy in Bagdad.
  The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. D. Ormsby-Gore): The Iraqi Government orally accepted responsibility in principle to pay compensation on 20th August, 1958. They have been examining our claim carefully and we hope they will shortly make a settlement.
  In this connection, a representative of the Ministry of Works had technical discussions with representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Communications and Works in the first week of May, concerning aspects of the claim relating to the Embassy Residence and its contents.
  Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a settlement of this matter is long overdue? Why should Britain be treated like this by the Iraqi Government? Will my right hon. Friend insist that before any armaments are supplied to Iraq they should pay this bill which is now due?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: We have made it clear to the Iraqi authorities repeatedly that we think they should settle this claim without any further delay, and we shall continue to make those representations.
  Mr. Bevan: Are we to have a contra-account?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: No, Sir.
  Mr. Bevan: Is there no co-ordination between the various Government Departments? If the Iraqi Government are purchasing aeroplanes from this country, can we not set off this claim relating to the burning down of the Embassy?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I thought the right hon. Gentleman was suggesting that the Iraqi Government had certain claims against us and I replied that there are none.
  Mr. Bevan: What is meant by a contra-account is this. If one person owes money to another person, and vice versa, one can be set off against the other.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I certainly hope that this matter will be settled long before that.

  ARAB REFUGEES
  Mr. Shortasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if Her Majesty's Government will now take the initiative through the United Nations Organisation, or otherwise, to find a solution to the Arab refugee problem.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: As the hon. Member knows, this is a problem principally for the United Nations. Her Majesty's Government will, of course, continue to press and work for any solution which offers hope of general acceptance within the United Nations. In this context we are awaiting proposals by the Secretary-General of the United Nations which he has been asked to put forward following the adoption of an Assembly resolution of 10th December last.
  Mr. Short: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that as this is International Refugee Year, and as there has recently been a slight relaxation in the Israeli attitude to the refugee problem, it may well be the moment to take the initiative in this matter? Does he not think it would be far more useful and a more moral thing to do to regain our loss of prestige in the Middle East than to send arms to Iraq?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I think the last part of the supplementary question is totally irrelevant in this context. Of course, we are all anxious to settle this very tragic problem of the Arab refugees. I have told the hon. Member that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has been studying the problem of what can be done about the Arab refugees; he is about to issue a report. I think we had better await that report.

  ISRAEL (MRS. DORAN)
  Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what reports he has received from Her Majesty's Embassy in Tel Aviv, or elsewhere, about the investigation of the
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  murder of Mrs. Doran; to what extent the Syrian authorities have been co-operating in the investigation; whether they have yet made any arrests in connection with the murder; what redress has been offered and demanded; and what further action is intended.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend on 8th December last year. Inquiries made of the Israel authorities bore out the evidence of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation. No investigations or arrests have, to the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government, been made by the Syrian authorities. Nor has any satisfactory reply been received to the Note referred to in my hon. Friend's reply of 21st January. A suitable opportunity will be sought to raise the matter again with the United Arab Republic Government.

  MUSCAT AND OMAN
  Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will publish the text of the agreement made in 1920 between the Sultan of Muscat and Oman and the Imam of Oman, of which the representative of His Majesty's Government was a witness, and to which the representative appended his initials.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: The Agreement of Sib, between the Government of the Sultan and the Shaikhs of the various tribes of the interior of Oman, concerned the purely internal affairs of the Sultanate, a sovereign State, and it is not for Her Majesty's Government to publish the text.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Since we have constantly used British troops in recent years to support the alleged rights of the Sultan, ought not the House to have the text of the treaty which is the legal basis of those rights and which we helped to negotiate?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I do not think that the Agreement of 1920 is the legal basis for our rights in sending troops to help the Sultan of Muscat and Oman.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Was the Sunday Times wrong in reporting that the treaty laid down that the Government of the Sultan shall not interfere in the internal affairs of the people of Oman, and is the receipt of revenues from oil not a matter of internal affairs of the people of Oman?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I am not responsible for reports in any newspaper in this country. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is nothing in that agreement which derogated from the sovereignty of the Sultan over the interior of Oman.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: May I press the Minister? Is not revenue from oil a matter of internal affairs? Have we not sent British troops there to defend the Sultan's right to get those oil revenues? If so, ought we not to have the details of this treaty on which it is based?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I do not think that is at all a clear indication of the policy of the British Government in supporting the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. In fact, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, no oil has been found there.

  NUCLEAR TEST (GENEVA CONFERENCE)
  Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has given further consideration to the possibility of reaching agreement with the other parties concerned with a view to laying a Command Paper before the House containing the texts of the proposals made by the participating Governments to the Conference in Geneva on nuclear tests; and whether he will make a statement.
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I have nothing to add to answers I gave to Questions on this subject on 11th May.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: Has the Minister of State further considered what was done in 1957 when the proposal which I have made was carried out in respect of the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee? Is it not equally important now that the House should have the documents of which the Government have given us their own interpretation?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: I think the situation is considerably different. At that time there were discussions in the Disarmament Sub-Committee and various proposals were submitted in the form of papers. What we are doing on this occasion is to negotiate an actual treaty and we are discussing the detailed articles
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  of the treaty. It is difficult half way through that particular negotiation to start publishing certain documents with respect to that treaty.
  Mr. Bevan: In view of the fact that from time to time the Government do issue statements to the House about what they have said and what proposals they have made at the conference, and the same thing is done by other Governments at Press conferences, is it not rather absurd that we should continue this kind of twilight situation in which everybody is furtively trying to find out what everybody else is trying to conceal?
  Mr. Ormsby-Gore: We are not trying to conceal anything. We have stated our policy in the negotiations and I would have thought that the whole House would be pleased that we were making such good progress. We have now agreed on 17 articles and a preamble and we shall be very ready to publish a post mortem of the successful negotiations.
  Mr. Bevan: Is the Minister so pessimistic that he is really thinking about a cadaver rather than a statement about a living thing?

DIVISION NO. 115 (CORRECTION)
Mr. Holt: Mr. Speaker, may I draw your attention to an error which appears in HANSARD of 14th May, where my name appears as one of those voting with the Ayes in the Division at the end of the debate? I was at that time well on my way to my constituency and I did not vote in that Division at all. I should be very much obliged if you would have this corrected. The appearance of my name in that Division list has led to some erroneous conclusions outside the House.*
[* This correction was made in Division No. 115.]

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

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [15TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTI MATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1959–60.
    CLASS VI

      VOTE 5. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE IN DEVELOPMENT AND OTHER AREAS
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a sum, not exceeding £2,807,500, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for financial assistance to undertakings in development and other approved areas.[£800,000 has been voted on account.]
      Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.—[Mr. Legh]—put and agreed to.
      Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  SCOTLAND

    Industry, Employment and Roads
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That this House takes note of the Report on Industry and Employment in Scotland and Scottish Roads, 1958 (Command Paper No. 706).—[Mr. Maclay.]
    3.33 p.m.
    Mr. Thomas Fraser: This is the occasion on which the House debates the success or failure of the Government's efforts to promote the economic well-being of Scotland. It is a continuing debate, it goes on year after year; and, indeed, it goes on almost from month to month. On 10th July, about a year ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Hoy) called attention to the figures of unemployment in Scotland for 1958 as compared with 1957, and he put on record that, in May, 1957, there were 55,000 persons unemployed, and in May, 1958, the number had risen to 77,500. That was an increase of 22,500 in twelve months.
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    The President of the Board of Trade, who replied immediately to my hon. Friend, said:
    "We have had to pay for the steadying of prices and for the strengthening of the £ by a reduction in the number of unfilled vacancies and by a small increase in the registered unemployed. But the result of the improving financial position we now have is that we can cautiously and safely begin to expand, and that result will benefit every industry and every area in the United Kingdom."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th July, 1958; Vol. 691, c. 605.]
    We waited for this great improvement. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will know that, six months after he had made that speech, there were 116,000 unemployed in Scotland, and in May, 1959, the number of unemployed, according to figures given by the Ministry of Labour, was 94,628, an increase of 17,000 over May of last year, for which figure the President of the Board of Trade apologised, saying that we were now on the mend, we could safely expand, and this expansion would show results in every industry and every area in the United Kingdom.
    These figures are an answer to the President of the Board of Trade and they show that he was misleading in what he then said. Of course, one has ample evidence of this in the White Paper, Industry and Employment in Scotland. In Chapter 1, on what is virtually the first page of the document, there is a general summary showing that whereas industrial production in the United Kingdom as a whole remained fairly level in 1958 as compared with 1957, production in Scotland fell by 3 per cent. But, said the President of the Board of Trade, we were to benefit as a result of the measures taken by the Government. Every area and every industry would benefit. In fact, we have in Scotland suffered a reduction of 3 per cent., according to the Government's own White Paper.
    The unemployment figures do not tell the whole story. The numbers in employment are just as important, perhaps even more important. If the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who is, I understand, to speak immediately after me, will look at the Digest of Scottish Statistics, he will find there information given by the Government showing that, whereas in 1958, taking the average figures of unemployed for 1958 and 1957, there was an average increase

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    in unemployment of 24,800, the number of those in civil employment has declined in the same period by no less than 48,000.
    This is a serious matter. I should have thought that Ministers and right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House would appreciate how serious it is for Scotland. Year after year we have been considering the need for more jobs in Scotland. Last year, when things had become rather bad, we were assured by Ministers that we were calling "Woe, woe" far too soon and that things were already on the mend. In fact, things were so much on the mend that, when we received this Digest of Statistics in April this year, only a little more than a month ago, we found that the number of people in civil employment had declined, not increased, by no less than 48,000. The fact that we can have this decline of 48,000 shows that an increase of 24,800 in the number of registered unemployed is not itself a true indication of the seriousness of the employment situation in Scotland.
    Usually, we turn to the statistics about factory building to see what attempts are really being made to provide additional employment opportunities. In paragraph 25 of the White Paper there is an account of the new factories and extensions for which industrial development certificates were issued during the year. We find that it amounted in 1958 to just under 4 million sq. ft.—3,968,000 sq. ft. The estimate for the labour force in those factories is 4,700.
    When we come to paragraph 26 we find that one-third of the total of the new factory building approved in Scotland is devoted to whisky stores. There is nothing wrong with whisky stores. I am not complaining about them, but the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour should bear in mind that we in Scotland are very worried—and the Secretary of State must be aware of this—because those whisky stores provide very little employment. When one looks at the figure of square feet of factory space for factory building and gets the impression that this will provide employment for one worker to every 200 sq. ft., it shows how misleading can be the total of factory space provided in Scotland last year.
    One-third of the total, 1,311,000 sq. ft., is for the whisky industry and the esti-
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    mated total labour force to be employed is given as 420 people. I would have thought that we could easily have taken this amount of so-called factory building out of the total figures, because it is not factory building; it is stores. The whisky industry is prospering and growing. Exports are going up. More whisky is being produced. It has to be put in store and kept for five years before it is exported. No doubt a man equipped with three keys for each lock in order to get into the store will have to go round to ensure that the whisky is still intact.
    Paragraph 27 of the White Paper reads:
    "Final figures for the year are expected to show that the amount of factory building on which work was started in 1958 (estimated at 3·8 million sq. ft.) was about the same as in 1957; about 4,000 additional jobs are expected to result".
    The Prime Minister went to Scotland a little while ago. I do not want to refer to the occasion of his visit to Scotland during the Recess, but he made a May Day speech to the Scottish Tories on Friday, 1st May. I took the trouble to check a reliable newspaper from the Government's point of view, the Glasgow Herald, to find out what he said:
    "A lot of new industry has come to Scotland lately. Under the Unionists factory building has increased by over one-third. Last year alone it provided nearly 9,000 more jobs".
    Where did the right hon. Gentleman get that from? I have already quoted paragraph 27 of the White Paper which says that about 4,000 additional jobs are expected to result, but the Prime Minister said that "it provided nearly 9,000 more jobs". I have already shown from the Government's own publication that the number of jobs in Scotland declined by 48,000 last year. I know where the Prime Minister obtained the figure of nearly 9,000 from. He obtained it, or whoever prepared his brief for him obtained it, from paragraph 30 of the White Paper. This part of the White Paper deals only with the areas of high unemployment in Scotland and not the whole of Scotland.
    The last sentence of paragraph 30 reads:
    "A total of 8,813 jobs is therefore expected to result from all projects approved, started and completed in areas of high unemployment during the year."
    Who put that sentence in the White Paper? Do hon. Members know what

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    it means? It means that the factories approved in 1956, started in 1957 and completed in 1958 must be considered. The factories approved in 1957, started in 1958 and completed in 1959 are added. Then must be added the factories approved in 1959 which will not be started until 1960 and perhaps not completed until 1961. When they are all added together one gets a figure for this period of 8,813, and the Prime Minister gets a brief to go to Scotland to say, "The factories which were built last year provided almost 9,000 jobs". There is a quotation about figures not being able to lie, but the restrictions on what we say in the House prevent me from completing the quotation on this occasion.
    Mr. William Ross: It does not apply to public figures.
    Mr. Fraser: In talking about new factories and extensions, the Prime Minister went on to say:
    "When you add the whole together I would say that never has so effective an effort been made by any Government to help the development of the economic and industrial life of Scotland."
    I have already mentioned the decline in the figure of civilian employment in the year, but what utter nonsense this is.
    The White Paper says that in North Lanarkshire nine new factories or extensions to employ 600 people were approved. Does the House realise that there are 14,000 unemployed in North Lanarkshire? However, the Government boast in the White Paper that they gave approval to new factories or extensions to provide employment for 600 people. In the Buckie-Peterhead area, about which we have heard a lot in the House during debates such as this, five projects were approved to employ 410 people.
    My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) will he comforted to know that in Aberdeen three projects were approved to employ over 50 people. The 4,000 people unemployed in Aberdeen will be comforted to know that during the year the sum total of the Government's efforts to deal with this problem was to give approval to three new factories and extensions—they could not be very big factories or extensions either—which will provide jobs for over 50 people—presumably 51.
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    The Government have a sorry record in this matter and it is written into their own White Paper. Yet we find the Prime Minister coming along to a Tory rally in Scotland and saying, "Never has any Government made so effective an effort to help the development of the economic and industrial life of Scotland".
    I am glad that the Prime Minister found time during that visit to meet some members of the General Council of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. They put to him a well-reasoned case. Some of us have had the opportunity of seeing a synopsis of the case put to the Prime Minister. It seemed to be well documented and I gather from the notes which have come to me that the Prime Minister expressed himself as being most appreciative of the way in which the case was presented to him. He was accompanied on that occasion by the Secretary of State, who knows full well what happened at the meeting.
    The Prime Minister made it clear that he could not be expected to reply off the cuff to the many points put to him by the Scottish T.U.C. That was perfectly understandable, but I want to tell the Secretary of State that we in Scotland, and Scottish trade unionists, who look to the Scottish T.U.C. in these matters, are still awaiting with interest the considered reply of the Prime Minister.
    One of the bright spots in our economy, in this otherwise doleful document which reports on industrial affairs in 1958, was a 10 per cent. increase in machine tools. It appears to be a bright spot until one reads the relevant paragraph. The first two sentences of paragraph 83 read:
    "Deliveries of machine tools were approximately 10 per cent. higher than in 1957. The rise was caused by a sharp increase in export deliveries as deliveries to the home market decreased by 5 per cent."
    I thought that the President of the Board of Trade had made clear to us that our economic malaise was part of a world malaise. He had said, I thought, that we were suffering in like manner with other industrial countries in an economic recession. This does not look like it.
    I have seen figures of production and unemployment for other countries which have been winning in the competition against us for trade in the export market, but here is evidence in the White Paper of other countries being able to increase

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    their purchases of machine tools made in the United Kingdom and to increase their production. They have done it at the same time as our industry was being so run down that it totalled 5 per cent. less production of machine tools than in the year before.
    Another industry of considerable importance to us in Scotland, as to the whole of Britain, is the building industry, in which there has been a dreadful and sorry decline. There is plenty of evidence of that in the White Paper and the other documents published by the Government. Let me quote paragraph 106. I do so because in debate after debate on this subject we have called attention not only to the unemployment in the building and civil engineering industries, but unemployment among the skilled workers in those industries. This has constantly been refuted.
    I quote part of paragraph 106 of the White Paper:
    "The average number of people (including office staffs) employed on building and civil engineering work at mid-1958 is estimated at 154,650 compared with 162,500 at mid-1957. Unemployment, which ranged from 11,336 in January to 8,596 in June and to 12,780 in December, was consistently higher than in 1957, particularly among craftsmen such as joiners and bricklayers."
    It is the Government who have reported this to us at this time. This is not an irresponsible member of the Opposition calling attention to the position in Scotland and getting things out of focus. This is the Government, in their own publication, telling us about the rundown in the building labour force.
    Last year, the White Paper tells us, we had 2,000 more school leavers than in the year before. I come, therefore, to paragraph 107 on recruitment and training, which states:
    "The numbers registered in the Building Apprenticeship Scheme decreased from 1,124 in 1957 to 885 in 1958, the reduction in joiners, bricklayers and painters being particularly noticeable, although all trades were affected. The drop was very marked in Glasgow and Fife, where the figures fell from 358 and 98 to 229 and 47."
    This comes at a time when I thought that an increasing number of people had become aware of the preponderance of nineteenth century slums used as houses in our cities and of the existence of those nineteenth century hospitals of which the Secretary of State spoke the other day
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    when he told us about our old hospitals that were built mostly last century. Notwithstanding that, however, when our people have to live in the nineteenth century houses and have their hospitalisation in the nineteenth century slums and factories are not being built for our workers, we find the sorry state of affairs that our building and civil engineering labour force is constantly being run down and an increasing number of tradesmen find themselves on the dole and a diminishing number of young people are being trained in this industry.
    The Minister of Labour told me in answer to a Question on 25th March that between 1951 and 1957—that is, when our economy was expanding—Scotland got 4 per cent. of the new jobs provided in Britain. I had previously known this fact and had used this figure. The Minister said that of every 25 jobs provided in Britain, one came to Scotland, although Scotland had 10 per cent. of the population. When I have used this figure in that form it has been denied. I was told that it was not true and that I was twisting the facts. So I put the question to the Minister of Labour and he gave me the answer on 25th March that Scotland got 4 per cent., or one in 25, of the new jobs provided between 1951 and 1957.
    Then came unemployment following the crisis of September, 1957. From then until the spring this year, we in Scotland got 20 per cent. of the unemployment. This information was all given in the same Parliamentary Answer. We had one in 25 of the jobs when they were going. Then, when the time came for the people to go on the dole, we found that one in five of them was a Scot living in Scotland. This does not suggest to me that the Government have been tackling seriously—certainly, not successfully—the economic problems of Scotland.
    Once again, I have checked the industrial building. I could go back only to 1953 in the Scottish Digest of Statistics, but could have gone further back in the Board of Trade Digest of Statistics. I find that in the six years from 1953 to the end of 1958, inclusive, the total industrial building in Britain was 260,633,000 sq. ft. Scotland's share of that was 15,600,000 sq. ft. Despite what Ministers have said about 7, 8 and 9 per cent., that figure represents fractionally less than

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    6 per cent. of the industrial building between 1953 and 1958. When one bears in mind our dependence upon heavy industry, in which there are not so many workers per 1,000 square feet, and the inclusion of the whisky stores in the figures, it is not surprising that 6 per cent. of the industrial building gives us 4 per cent. of the new jobs. That is not good enough.
    Under Labour, from 1945 to 1951, Scotland got an average of 12·2 per cent. of the industrial building for the whole of the period that it went up in Britain as a whole. One has only to state those figures, if they are true—and they are; they are taken from the Digest—to show that the Prime Minister was talking absolute nonsense when he went to Glasgow a few weeks ago. It is nonsense for the Government to say that they have tackled the problem for Scotland with anything like the vigour with which it was tackled when a Labour Government were in power.
    How long can we in Scotland afford to slip behind the rest of the country? The Scottish Council, in an excellent Report on Employment in Scotland, sent to us all the other day, says that we cannot afford to slip behind any longer. Obviously, I cannot quote much of this document, but there would be no harm in reading quickly through the recommendations. Here they are:
    "It is the Council's belief that there is a pressing necessity for, and resources sufficient to meet, the following measures in the areas of Scotland which have already been specified:"—
    they are not in the Development Areas, although most of them are—

    "(1) The building of 2 million sq. ft. of factory space over and above the present rate of Government factory provision.

    (2) The leasing of these factories for the first ten years at half the economic rental.

    (3) The maintenance of a float of factory space built in advance totalling 500,000 sq. ft.

    (4) The postponement of rent increases on existing Government factories where this is shown to be an appreciable consideration to the companies affected.

    (5) The institution of an investment allowance of substantial size at a rate not less than 25 per cent.

    (6) An acceleration and expansion of Scottish road programmes.

    (7) Government assistance in the provision of a graving dock at Greenock.

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    It is the Council's considered opinion that such measures are essential if Scotland is to survive as a thriving industrial country."
    Five of those recommendations are exactly similar to five recommendations made by hon. Members on this side of the House to Ministers during the months just passed.
    Mr. Thomas Steele: In the year past.
    Mr. Fraser: Five of them were specifically mentioned in the submissions we have made in recent months, and many of the suggestions have been made repeatedly in the debates we have had here over the years. We have always been constructive, and we have always put forward positive proposals.
    I make the point because it is clear from what I have just read that the policy which we on this side have advocated over the years, the proposals we have put forward, are now finding support among the leading businessmen in Scotland. The leading businessmen in Scotland are members of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry), and they do not accept the laissez-faire approach of the Secretary of State and the President of the Board of Trade. They say that this amount of Government support, this positive provision, is
    "essential if Scotland is to survive as a thriving industrial country."
    There has been a suggestion from time to time that it is wasteful to spend taxpayers' money on such provision. I remember the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. J. Stuart), saying, in a debate in 1954, that we must no longer go ahead with advance factory building because the economy could not stand it. Scottish Industrial Estates have built approximately 18 million sq. ft. of factories in Scotland. This has represented a total investment of £25 million. It is an investment of £25 million dating back to 1937, spread over twenty-two years. And it is an investment. It is not at all comparable to subsidies given by the Government. I am not criticising the farm subsidy, but we cannot compare the £250 million of farm subsidy with this £25 million, for this £25 million is not a subsidy but investment.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: National Assistance.
    Mr. Fraser: When one considers the way in which some parts of Scotland were transformed between 1945 and 1951 by the building of factories by Scottish Industrial Estates, and the refusal of industrial development certificates to industrialists who wanted to build in the South, one gets the impression that no Government ever invested money more wisely than both Governments have invested this money in the building of factories by Scottish Industrial Estates.
    We cannot contemplate anything less than what we have had recommended to us by the Scottish Council. Indeed, I believe that the Council has not covered the whole ground, in spite of the excellence of the document we have before us. I believe that it has failed to take into account the increase in the number of persons coming on to the labour market as a result of the ending of National Service and the post-war birth-rate bulge. It has not mentioned those two factors. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour said in a debate in the House on 30th April that these two factors alone would make available an additional 1 million male workers in ten years' time.
    Clearly, since we in Scotland have 10 per cent. of the population, one-tenth of that number, or 100,000, will be in Scotland. I suggest that the most marked increase will be in the next three years because it will be then that the bulge in the birth rate immediately after the war will take effect: it is in the next three years we shall have a great increase in the number of school-leavers. It is in the next three years we shall get the additional number on the labour market by the ending of National Service. So, in the next three years, we shall have a considerable addition to the available labour in Scotland. I would think, therefore, that the Scottish Council, because it has not taken this into account, has under-estimated. There is no reason to believe that it has taken this into account in its analysis in thinking that we should provide 12,000 jobs a year in Scotland.
    Bearing in mind our existing unemployed and our disproportionate share in Scotland of obsolescent industry, I believe that the Government should set as a target not fewer than an additional 20,000 jobs each year. I do not think that anyone looking at this matter objectively would arrive at a lower figure than
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    the figure of 20,000 additional jobs each year. If we achieve that, we may retain in Scotland some of the many graduates in science and engineering who leave Scotland every year immediately on emerging from our universities.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. George), in a recent debate, called attention to the fact that in the last four years 58 per cent. of all science and engineering graduates had to leave Scotland to find work. The position in Edinburgh was even worse, the figure being 66 per cent. In the most recent reports we find that in 1958 59 per cent. of the science and engineering graduates from the Scottish universities could not find employment in Scotland.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): May I correct that figure, because I am sure that there is a slight error? I am advised that the latest figure, for last year, was that only 38 per cent. of scientists and 59 per cent. of the engineers left Scotland. The hon. Gentleman has lumped them together. It is a bad figure, but it is an improvement on the previous one, and I should not like the wrong one to go out from the debate.
    Mr. Fraser: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I had the figure, and I accept the correction that the 59 per cent. applies only to engineers.
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Only!
    Mr. Fraser: If we could set about providing an additional 20,000 jobs a year in Scotland we could provide opportunities for the employment of this high degree of skilled labour in Scotland. I say that we ought to do that.
    The White Paper calls attention to the fact that although, in Scotland, we have 10 per cent. of the population we have only 2·7 per cent. of the research and development workers of Great Britain as a whole. That is stated in paragraph 175. It might be that if the Government would take steps to secure for us a little more of Government research in Scotland than we have at the present some of those people would be attracted to research in Scotland and that might result in making it easier to get more industry in Scotland. The President of the Board of Trade knows full well that a great many of the people

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    who might undertake research in Scotland or in Wales do not do so now because they cannot go far from the research establishments where they acquire the latest scientific and technical knowledge.
    Let the Government take steps, as the Labour Government took steps, to get additional research done in Scotland Well-known research is done in Scotland at the National Engineering Research Laboratory, at East Kilbride, which was put up by the Labour Government. Then there is the Ferranti research establishment, in Edinburgh, which was set up on the initiative and with the support of the Labour Government. If we can get more provision of that sort we shall provide more opportunities in Scotland for our highly trained young people who are coming from our universities.
    Scotland can no longer survive on the basis of unaided, unsupported private enterprise; and anyone who thinks that it can is misleading himself. That much has been recognised in Scotland for at least twenty years. It has been recognised by all the businessmen in Scotland who are members of the Executive Council of the Scottish Council (Development and Industry).
    But can our basic industries anywhere in Britain survive unaided and unsupported? The only basic industries which are not subsidised nowadays are the nationalised industries. Would agriculture survive unaided and unsupported? Would the forestry industry or fishing? What about the cotton industry? Does not the President of the Board of Trade intend to move the Second Reading of a Bill to provide £30 million of taxpayers' money to help the cotton industry?
    What about the steel industry? Could it carry on if it did not have generous support from public funds? Would we have had a strip mill in Scotland if the Government had not found £50 million? What about shipbuilding? Would we have the Cunarders replaced if the Government were not willing to put money behind the company building or ordering them?
    Sir James Hutchison: This is quite inaccurate. It is often said that shipbuilding is subsidised, but if help was given to the ship-owning company to allow it to build, there was no subsidy to the shipbuilding yards.
    Mr. Fraser: I said that our basic industries could not survive unaided and unsupported by the State.
    Sir J. Hutchison: Quite untrue.
    Mr. Fraser: It is not untrue. Could agriculture survive?
    Sir J. Hutchison: The hon. Member was talking about shipbuilding.
    Mr. Fraser: I was talking about agriculture, forestry, fishing, cotton and steel. Is the hon. Member telling us that Cunard and John Brown can manage very nicely, thank you, to replace the "Queens" without assistance from the Government?
    Sir J. Hutchison: I am saying that John Brown gets nothing.
    Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member corrects me and says that John Brown gets nothing, but I did not say otherwise. I said that, judging by Ministerial statements, we could not have a replacement of the "Queens" by private enterprise unless private enterprise was supported by the State.
    It is for that reason that I wanted to make clear that not only can Scotland not survive on the basis of private enterprise, unsupported and unaided by the State, but the basic industries of the country nowadays cannot survive under private enterprise unsupported and unaided by the State. The State is bound to play an increasing part in guiding the nation's economic life.
    Mr. George Lawson: May I point out that in yesterday's HANSARD it was stated that since 1951 about £1,300 million have been paid out in agricultural subsidies?
    Mr. Fraser: I can well believe it. I am not against agricultural subsidies. I think that I am as deeply committed to them and have done as much—
    Mr. William Hannan: Too much.
    Mr. Fraser: I have done as much in debate in support of them as anyone. I do not think that anyone who is interested in agriculture would deny that agriculture would be in the doldrums, and farmers bankrupt and suffering a dreadful standard of living, if agriculture had not the support of the State.
    Mr. Bence: National Assistance.
    Mr. Fraser: The only success stories in the White Paper on Industry and Employment in Scotland are the stories of nationalised industries. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power seems to be having a great laugh to himself. He is having a wonderful time. Has he joined his colleagues in going into the rural areas to talk about the number of farms which are being connected to the electricity supply under Tory rule as compared with the number when the Labour Party were in power? Has he been talking about how much better the Tories have done in rural electrification than the Socialists did?
    I have heard the hon. Gentleman speaking at the Dispatch Box about what the Tories have done in the matter of rural electrification. He does not realise, poor man, that he has been boasting about the success of Socialism and nationalisation. It took some years after the war to nationalise the industry and get things going. It is public enterprise and nationalised electricity that is being taken into the rural areas, which would never have known the benefits of electrification if it had been left to private enterprise.
    We should attempt a vigorous implementation of the Distribution of Industry Acts to give particular help to particular areas. The development certificate procedure should be used vigorously to prevent undue and socially harmful concentration in certain areas. I am sorry to say that on 10th July last year the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister who is primarily responsible, did not know what he was talking about when he spoke about factory extensions.
    Mr. Ross: The right hon. Gentleman was studying genealogy.
    Mr. Fraser: Yes, the right hon. Gentleman went to British Columbia where he could find only the Rosses, the Frasers and the Macmillans. The right hon. Gentleman, at that time, clearly did not know what he was talking about when he said that I.D.C.s were given only for extensions in London and the Midlands. I pressed him on the matter in the course of my speech and I was attacked by the Secretary of State for Scotland for having disbelieved the right hon. Gentleman.
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    Three weeks later, the President of the Board of Trade had to say at the Dispatch Box that he was going to have a closer look at the so-called factory extensions. There is not very much evidence of his having looked very successfully, but, in any case, he had to admit in what he then said, three weeks later, that he did not know what he was talking about on 10th July last year in the Scottish debate.
    I believe that what I have proposed would suffice meantime to give Scotland a new deal, but I must make it abundantly clear that if these measures fail, and they do not put our economy on a sound footing and Government intervention is also needed in the promotion of public enterprise in the manufacturing industries, we must not shirk our responsibilities. I do not see why we should not make a start in some of the redundant Royal Ordnance factories. Just as the Government should provide many inducements to new industries to come to Scotland, so they should take steps to see that those we have are not stolen from us. We have had firms with headquarters in England and branches in Scotland closing their Scottish factories when recession comes. That is understandable, but we have had in recent years many cases of English firms buying up Scottish industries simply to close them down.
    We have had Hurst Nelson, in Motherwell, bought for the purpose of closing down; Firth Brown, of Sheffield, bought Beardmore's, of Parkhead, Glasgow. Recently goods have been sent out of Parkhead marked "Made by Firth Brown, Ltd., Sheffield" and only last week we had intimation of a considerable pay-off of workers and of no fewer than 1,000 going on short time. This does not look very much like what the President of the Board of Trade promised would be a conscious and safe expansion which would benefit every industry in the United Kingdom.
    This is what has happened in Scotland. The Government have the responsibility to secure that we not only have new industries going into Scotland, but that industries are not wantonly taken out of Scotland and that the nationalised industries do not always close their Scottish workshops when they feel the need to concentrate.
    There has been a great deal of criticism of the British Transport Commission. I do not know to what extent

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    that criticism is justified, but much concern has been expressed by the workers in Glasgow about the workshops. It was expressed to me personally by those employed in Kipps Works, at Coatbridge, where 10 per cent. of the workers are to be made redundant. We have also seen the closing of Inverness workshops. I have no doubt that the Commission has more efficient and more modem workshops in the South. Why not modernise those in the areas Which most need employment?
    What I say about the Transport Commission goes for the boards of other nationalised industries, for the Ministry of Supply and for Government Departments generally. Inasmuch as the Government and Government agencies can promote employment, they should not leave it to the technicians and managers who would like to be near the West End of London, or near their friends in the Midlands of England. We should not leave it to them to decide where the workshops of the nationalised boards or of the Government Departments should be. Let the Government take a positive decision that they should, as far as is reasonable, concentrate their employment in the areas which most need it.
    Of course, changes in production techniques and, in the case of the railways, changes in the type of rolling stock, including locomotives, may make redundancy inescapable. We accept that, and the unions accept it, but the Government should try to help areas with a high level of unemployment. Much the same can be said about pit closures in Scotland in recent months. It is true that we cannot produce coal in the same places for ever, but when it is necessary to bring a colliery to an end there ought to be some recognition of the social tragedy that will befall certain communities if no alternative employment can be found. So the Government should take steps in advance to ensure that employment is provided.
    Until I heard some answers at Question Time today, I thought that the decision about the replacement of the "Queens" was firm, but I gathered then that there has been no commitment. I was going to welcome this decision on the part of the Government. Last Christmas a group of Scottish Opposition Members of Parliament met nearly all the agencies in Scotland concerned with
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    the economic well-being of our country. Among other things, we called attention to the difficulties now being experienced in the shipyards, and we suggested that the Government should find money to finance shipbuilding, particularly in the smaller and middle-sized yards.
    There is no evidence that there is any intention of doing that. I would have thought that there is everything to be said for the Government considering not only whether the "Queens" should be replaced, but also our freight-carrying or cargo vessels. I am thinking of vessels built in the smaller and medium-sized yards. Could there not be some inducement to the owners to replace those vessels, by way of loan or grant? That is what we proposed last Christmas and we also propose it to Ministers today.
    It was interesting to note that most leader writers in our Scottish newspapers thought that Labour Members of Parliament were talking absolute nonsense when we first made the proposal, and that the same people now think that it is a wonderful idea to replace the "Queens". It would be just as wonderful to do something to help the smaller and medium-sized yards as to take this step to help the bigger yards.
    We were all delighted, last year, when it was decided to erect a strip mill, but we should start now to build factories to attract consumer industries which will use the strip produced. There is no use in waiting until the strip mill is completed and then seeing whether we can get some industry to take the strip which will be produced at Ravenscraig and Gartcosh. Let us get ahead now with the building of factories to attract the consumer industries which will use the raw materials. This is particularly desirable in North Lanarkshire. I do not want to be too parochial—my constituency is in North Lanarkshire—because there are many other parts of Scotland that will need new factory building and which might have attracted to them the sheet steel consuming industries if they could get a little encouragement from the Government to go there.
    I hope that we can get an early and favourable decision about the graving dock at Greenock. I have thought from time to time that there are many other industries which are slipping behind in Scotland. We are not doing as well as

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    we should be in the plastic industry, for instance. Bearing in mind that we get so many of the raw materials from Grangemouth and from coal, I think we should do better in the plastics industry than we have done hitherto.
    I have spoken too long and I must bring my remarks to an end with the question of Glasgow overspill. This is a tremendous social problem which we are tackling in Scotland. There is not the slightest doubt that the only way to tackle it with success is for the Government to authorise Scottish Industrial Estates to build advance factories in the receiving areas. We cannot wait until there is a high and persistent level of unemployment in the receiving areas for Glasgow's overspill. The factories must be built in advance. If we do this, we can deal successfully with Glasgow's overspill, but if that is not done the plans will be frustrated and indescribable chaos will result in Glasgow.
    In addition to the matters referred to in the recommendations of the Scottish Council, the Government should implement vigorously Sections 3 and 5 of the Distribution of Industry Act. Section 3 deals with basic services and Section 5 with the clearing of derelict sites by local authorities. Local authorities are complaining that they put in their submissions when the Government announcement was made and that the matter is still under consideration. If we fail to mobilise the labour resources of Scotland, we shall assuredly fall behind as an industrial nation. The ball is clearly in the Government's court.
    4.28 p.m.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service (Mr. Richard Wood): We have listened to a wide-ranging and, at times, a most entertaining speech from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser). In fact, there were one or two moments in it when I wondered whether the spirit of Derby Day was not getting the better of him.
    Mr. James McInnes: He was on the winner.
    Mr. Wood: He probably was. There were one or two points in his speech when I wondered whether the hon. Gentleman was commending or attacking
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    the Government's policy. I was left in some doubt, but perhaps his hon. Friends will clear it up as the debate proceeds. I feel the natural diffidence that any Englishman must feel when taking part in a Scottish debate. In many respects it would have been much better if my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour was taking part, though even with his illustrious name he had the wisdom to be born in Yorkshire.
    Mr. Bence: Whose wisdom?
    Mr. Wood: I wondered whether the question might occur to any hon. Gentleman, but the decision was taken that my right hon. Friend should be born in Yorkshire and I think that he has always been extremely grateful for that. But perhaps I ought not to waste too much time on these important details, because I want to get on to even more important matters.
    I am conscious that speaking in the debate places a considerable responsibility on me and on any other Government speaker because the matters which we are discussing this afternoon have caused a great deal of concern to my right hon. Friends and myself. I have been fortunate in being able to spend a long time in Scotland, trying to inform myself of some of the problems at first hand, and I was particularly glad, during the Recess, to be able to visit two parts of Scotland which I had not visited before to study problems there.
    There are many things, I believe, on which all hon. Members are agreed, and perhaps it would be wise to emphasise those matters on which we are agreed before we consider the points on which we probably disagree. The first matter on which I am certain that every hon. Member is agreed is in sharing the concern which the hon. Member for Hamilton expressed over the employment and unemployment position north of the Border. Secondly, we shall all agree that this problem of the better distribution of industry, which is engaging the hon. Member's attention, is not new but has been with us for a long time and will probably be with us for some time to come.
    Thirdly, we probably agree on a number of the reasons which have led to the increase in unemployment from which Scotland is suffering at present. Scotland, as I shall try to show later, is influenced as much as the rest of Britain

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    by a reduction of orders from abroad. It is as profoundly affected as other parts of the island, if not more affected, by the gradual change of demand at home for the products of Scotland. It is affected, as I have seen on many occasions in Scotland, by the decline, for various reasons, of certain local industries.
    I will do my best to state the problem as I see it. I was sorry to notice a certain selectivity in the figures given by the hon. Member for Hamilton. I shall try to give the figures without any varnish. They do not present a happy picture, but I want to present to the House the problem exactly as I see it. The percentage of unemployment in May, 1958—that is, one year ago—was 2·1 per cent. in Great Britain as a whole. In Scotland, it was 3·6 per cent. Today, the percentage figure for Great Britain is just higher than it was last May at 2·2 per cent., but in Scotland it is considerably higher at 4·4 per cent.
    Although I entirely agree with the hon. Member that the number of men and women at work in Scotland is also profoundly significant, in this part of my speech I want to deal with unemployment and the relatively worse position in Scotland compared with the rest of Great Britain. I am glad to say that unemployment in Scotland has fallen considerably—in fact, by 22,000—since its peak in January, but this fall of 22,000 compares with a fall in Great Britain since last January of 140,000.
    The comparison is that the fall in Scotland is just under one-fifth whereas the fall in Great Britain as a whole is just over one-fifth. Moreover, it would be right for me to add that the main reason for the fall in Scotland is a return to work of the numbers unemployed out of doors, which was one of the main causes of the high peak of unemployment in January. As far as I can tell, there has been little improvement since January in manufacturing industries.
    During the period from the time the Report begins, in January, 1958, to a little after the time the Report ends, in February, 1959, which contains the most reliable facts I can produce, employment opportunities were contracting in the whole of Great Britain and the numbers employed were falling a good deal quicker in Scotland than in other parts of Great Britain. The main decreases
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    were in textiles, iron and steel, engineering, shipbuilding, building and distribution. I will describe the picture over these twelve to fifteen months. In the first nine months of last year unemployment in Scotland remained fairly constant at 3·7 per cent. and about 80,000. In the last three months of last year there was a steady rise. Between December last year and January this year there was a very sharp rise to the peak figure of this winter.
    Since February this year there has been quite a substantial improvement in the building and civil engineering industries and a reasonably substantial improvement in other non-manufacturing industries. There has also been some, but rather less, improvement in a number of consumer goods manufacturing industries, especially textiles, motor vehicles and some engineering. The May figures, which are the most recent figures, suggest that the tide is turning, but it is turning a good deal more slowly than in Great Britain as a whole.
    Scotland's heavy industry is inevitably slower to recover than industry in Great Britain as a whole because of the great dependence in Scotland on iron and steel, engineering and shipbuilding, which are all subject to fluctuations in world trade and which, as we know, are notoriously harder to stimulate than other industries by direct consumer demand.
    Miss Margaret Herbison: The Minister has been itemising those industries in which there has been improvement over the last few weeks. I should like to be certain that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and the President of the Board of Trade are examining very carefully an industry in which the figures have been worsening, particularly in Lanarkshire, where in the last week, in spite of all the forecasts, the National Coal Board has been unable to find alternative work for almost 100 men.
    Mr. Wood: I will certainly examine the figures very carefully. I was trying to explain that there had been a substantial improvement in certain industries and some improvement in others, and I am afraid that the industry which the hon. Lady mentioned is not included in those two categories. I will undertake to examine what she said very closely.

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    We are left with an overall percentage of unemployment in Scotland of 4·4 per cent.
    Mr. T. Fraser: It is 4·5 per cent.
    Mr. Wood: That figure has been corrected slightly. I do not want to make a point of it, but it is now slightly below 4·5 per cent.
    Mr. Fraser: I have taken the figure from the Minister's own Report.
    Mr. Wood: The latest adjusted figure is slightly lower than that which appears in the paper and is just 4·4 per cent., but whatever the figure is it is almost exactly double the figure for Great Britain as a whole.
    In one respect things are a good deal worse, because this average figure of unemployment in Scotland conceals, as does the figure in Great Britain, a number of areas with a much higher percentage than 4·4 per cent. These areas are well known to the House, and no doubt the debate will rightly concentrate on them, because they are the areas on which we want to focus most of our attention.
    If we focus most of our attention on those areas with a percentage figure higher than the average for Scotland, however, we should remember the brighter side, because there must be some places above the average in employment and below the average in unemployment to balance the worse areas and to make the average 4·4 per cent. The comfort that I take from the areas of lower unemployment is that if some parts of Scotland have been able to overcome certain geographical disadvantages I cannot see why, at any rate to some extent, they should not be overcome in other parts of Scotland in future.
    When I sit down, which I hope will not be too long ahead, hon. Members will have a chance to speak about their own constituency problems, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be answering points raised during the debate at the end of the evening. I do not intend to make a mental tour of Scotland, because the difficulties in certain parts are not only well known but hon. Members will describe them with much more intimate and first-hand knowledge than I am able to do. I should
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    like to move to a subject mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hamilton which has been one of my very close interests—the subject of the boys and girls leaving school.
    The hon. Gentleman suggested that about one-tenth of the one million extra young people entering industry over the next ten years would probably be entering into the labour field in Scotland. I Should not like to quarrel with him, because I do not know the exact figure, but I guess that the share of Scotland is a little below one-tenth, because wherever I have been addressing meetings on this problem I have found that the bulge in Scotland is a little lower than it is in the rest of Great Britain but I do not make any point on that. There is no doubt that the addition to the Scottish labour force, just as the addition to the British labour force, over the next ten years will certainly be substantial.
    Mr. Lawson: Has the Parliamentary Secretary considered why the bulge is smaller in Scotland? If he asks his right hon. Friend, he will be told that it is because the birth rate in Scotland has been substantially 'higher over the whole period than in England and Wales. The fact that the population of Scotland has scarcely increased at all over the years is indicative of the huge drain on the Scottish people.
    Mr. Wood: I think that the hon. Gentleman had better not provoke me into a discussion about the reasons for the birth rate of Scotland—it is one of the subjects in which I am particularly interested. I do not think that I can go into detail except to say that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that the share of the increased numbers of young boys and girls that will want employment in the next ten years is likely to be proportionately lower in Scotland compared with the rest of Great Britain.
    Concern has been frequently expressed about the difficulty of school-leavers getting jobs, both at the present time and in the near future. In the debate on the 30th April last to which the hon. Gentleman has already referred, I gave figures of those who left school at Easter and who were still without jobs. I am glad to say that both in England and Wales and Scotland there has been a considerable improvement since then. From the

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    latest figures available, those for the 11th May, the number of boys and girls unemployed in Scotland had decreased from 6,894—this is a figure of all the boys and girls and not merely the Easter school-leavers—to 5,355.
    Although that is an improvement, I would be the first to say that it was not nearly enough and I want it to decrease a good deal quicker. By 11th May, which was about three weeks ago, about 95 per cent. of those who left school in Scotland at Easter had been placed in employment. That compares with a figure in Great Britain as a whole of 97 per cent. Thus the figure for Scotland is not much below the British figure of Easter school-leavers placed in employment.
    As I pointed out on 30th April, there is a matter which gives me even greater cause for concern. It is the question of the number of apprenticeships and other openings for skilled employment which are offered not only in Scotland, but in Great Britain itself. This morning—and I do not know whether other hon. Members have been to see it—I went to the National Education and Careers Exhibition organised by the National Union of Teachers at Olympia. I was particularly interested in the careers section. There I was moved to see the immense number of boys and girls obviously taking the most serious and keen interest in the possibility of careers that were offered. All over the country there is an immense growth in the desire for opportunities leading to skilled employment and it is immensely important that we should do all we can to make available adequate opportunities for these boys and girls.
    As the hon. Gentleman said, in 1958 there were 2,000 more boys and girls leaving school than the year before. Between 1957 and 1958, in Scotland the number of boys and girls entering employment which would lead to skilled trades remained about constant. It was 10,560 for boys and 1,500 for girls. If the supply of boys and girls is greater, and the demand for apprentices is greater, the apprenticeships available ought to be increased but they are not expanding as I should like to see them doing so. Even so, the position of Scotland in the provision of apprenticeships, remaining constant as it did between 1957 and 1958, is a considerable improvement over the posi-
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    tion in Great Britain where, as I announced a month ago, the figure actually declined.
    Since the war we have had a great many debates about the efforts of both Governments to improve the employment position in Scotland. What appears clear to me is that both the Labour Government and this Government have taken energetic steps to stimulate industrial building in Scotland and I do not see how argument as to which Government has done best is likely to lead to fruitful results. I am convinced that we shall make more progress both now and in the months and years ahead if we try to consider constructively, as the hon. Gentleman did for some parts of his speech, what can be done steadily to increase the diversity of Scottish industry.
    We have, and use, our power to build factories in areas where unemployment is most serious. Three of these, which all figured in the hon. Gentleman's speech, are the areas of Dundee, Greenock and North Lanarkshire. There are, at the same time, a number of Government factories standing empty in Scottish Development Areas, but the Government, as the House knows, have taken the decision to build an advance factory at Coatbridge. It has also taken the decision, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, to site the new strip mill at Ravenscraig.
    There are many areas of high unemployment in Scotland which are eligible for assistance under the Distribution of Industries Act, 1958. I am told that up to last week there had been 88 firm and eligible applications for D.A.T.A.C. assistance. Twenty of these have been approved, and are likely to provide between 800 and 900 new jobs. For the rest, eight applications have been rejected and 60 are still being considered. I am certain my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade is only too conscious of the need for speed in deciding these 60 undecided applications.
    The hon. Gentleman had something to say about the industrial development certificate policy of the Government. Last July, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade announced that he intended to examine all applications both for new buildings and for extensions in the more congested parts of the country even more critically than he had done in the past. Since then,

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    industrial development certificates have been granted in the London area only for expansions that cannot be placed elsewhere—and I do not think that any of us would quarrel with that; for new premises for firms that are forced to leave their old premises—generally because they are planned out of their old premises, and for service industries and warehouses.
    Whatever we may feel about the needs of Scotland—and I think that there is very little between us on that score—it is quite clear that these industries in London and the South-East themselves require a considerable number of industrial development certificates, as one-quarter of the whole insured population of the British Isles lives down here.
    From July, 1958, when my right hon. Friend made that statement, to the beginning of last month, 56 development certificates, referring to about 2 million sq. ft. of factory space, were refused in London and the South-East. At the same time, 31 certificates referring to about 1 million sq. ft. of space were refused in other parts of the country. I need hardly add that in that period no industrial development certificates were refused in Scotland.
    But I do not think that even those figures give a complete impression of the effect of that part of the restrictive policy that is being applied under the industrial development certificate procedure. Firms are well aware of the restriction on new development, and many that would otherwise like to build in London and the South-East know that it would be very little good making application. They therefore do not apply.
    Many people would like to see this policy of redistributing industry more widely and more wisely around Great Britain make quicker progress. It may be argued that it is economically correct to concentrate industry where the natural advantages are greatest, but I shall carry the whole House with me when I say that it is clearly economically wasteful to refuse the contribution that thousands of men and women are anxious to make in the more remote parts of Great Britain. Again, I would have general agreement were I to suggest that economic wastefulness is not the worst result of a policy of maldistributed industry. Therefore, I
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    think that we are all agreed about the need for industrial redistribution.
    Nevertheless, we eventually come to the difficulty that the practical policy for any Government seems to lie somewhere between two extremes. At one extreme is the policy of direction of industry to certain places—a policy which, frankly, I cannot believe enjoys any significant support either in this House or outside, because it is wishful thinking to believe that industry that is directed to go somewhere against its will can possibly be successful when it gets there—
    Mr. A. Woodburn: Surely the hon. Gentleman would make an exception of Government research establishments. They might not be industrial, but surely they could be directed.
    Mr. Wood: I have had it suggested to me on some occasions—but it seems to win little support—that the Government should take powers to direct private industry to places to which it does not want to go. I am suggesting that such a policy is doomed to failure.
    At the other extreme is what I might call complete locational freedom. Again, I do not think that that policy would have much support either within or without the House. I therefore suggest that, although there are certain differences between us, which the hon. Gentleman has described to the House this afternoon, they are differences of degree rather than of kind.
    What we should all no doubt agree is that the policy of redistribution of industry should be pursued in times when industry is expanding just as vigorously as, if not more vigorously than, in times of economic slackness. If, therefore, in the months to come, the heavy industries in Scotland follow the present quickening of activity in the consumer goods industries, and if the unemployment figures there fall considerably, as I hope they will, it is then, when industry is expanding and more ready than at present to move into new areas, that we must actively and energetically take the opportunity to secure a greater density and diversity in industry in the remote areas of Great Britain that either have little or no industry at present or depend too much on one or two industrial concentrations.

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    During the past year, I have seen a good deal both of the kind of difficulties that Scotland and other areas of Great Britain suffer, and also of the benefits which diversification of industry can bring to an area. However, in this Scottish debate it is necessary—and perhaps it would not be out of place for me, as an Englishman, to do it—to utter the warning that, as the House knows, it is not only Scotland that suffers from these concentration difficulties. Therefore, this redistribution policy must be pursued in every area that badly needs development.
    I believe that in the immediate future we shall have a great opportunity. It is essential that we do not lose it, but it is also essential to remember that whatever the Government do, however warmly the Opposition support them in their efforts, and whatever industry does, the responsibility of Scotland and of those living there is also great. Therefore, in the months ahead, as the economic expansion for which we look takes place, I hope that the Government, the Opposition, industry and the people of Scotland will all seize the most advantage from it.
    4.58 p.m.
    Mr. John Strachey: My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service have sketched the general picture of industry in Scotland, and it was right that they should do so. In particular, my hon. Friend has given us a very vivid account of the difficulties that Scotland faces and the courses that we urge on the Government. It is the part of the remaining speakers to particularise that general picture and to speak about the areas of Scotland that they know. That, very largely, means their own constituencies. Therefore, I want to make a few remarks about the town and city of Dundee, which, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, is notoriously one of the most difficult areas, though perhaps not the most difficult.
    Dundee has had a misfortune in that it has been given very large and sweeping assurances by the present Government. If the people of Dundee could find employment in assurances, their position would be very fortunate today. The unfortunate aspect is that the impression has been given that, although some areas
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    of Scotland may face a bad prospect, the prospect for Dundee is considerably better. Some of us may have gained that idea ourselves, but we have been considerably embittered and disillusioned in the months that have gone by, because the fact is that unemployment in Dundee remains obstinately above the 5 per cent. level. Worst of all, in this month it is actually rising. Any city faces a very serious situation if its unemployment figures are rising against the seasonal and against the national trends.
    I do not want to survey the whole industrial position in Dundee. I do not want to say anything much today about the main industry in Dundee, that of jute. On the whole, jute had a goodish winter, but there are some signs now of a slackening in that industry. Far more serious than that from the point of view of Dundee is the relatively new and acute menace to the shipbuilding industry there. The Caledon Yard in Dundee, which is a very famous and effective shipbuilding yard, has just laid down the last keel for which it has an order. Today there is no prospect of any replacement to that keel.
    I am informed that the prospect of large-scale redundancy—those were the words used—in shipbuilding is immediate. Unless further orders are forthcoming, it obviously must be so, because as that last keel is now being laid, as the particular processes are completed, the men who have been engaged and skilled in those processes fall out of work and there is no new job to which they can be transferred. I am told that this not only affects manual workers but also craftsmen, whom we would imagine would be the very first to be affected. That is bound to spread throughout the yard as the work on this last keel goes forward.
    It was disappointing to me that the Parliamentary Secretary had nothing to say about the Dundee situation and the shipbuilding situation in general, because this seems the most acute menace, not only to Dundee but, goodness knows, to the rest of Scotland at the moment. I hope the Secretary of State will tell us something about that and about what projects and prospects there are for the shipbuilding industry, not only in Dundee but throughout Scotland.
    The next thing I want to ask is—
    Sir James Duncan: Before the right hon. Member leaves the question of shipbuilding, has he any suggestions to make?
    Mr. Strachey: It is not for me to make proposals on behalf of the Government, but there seem to be two things which can be done. There may be direct assistance of one kind or another to the shipbuilding industry, stimulation by payment. That is one thing which can be done. The other, which is directly related to it, is the subject to which I was passing, the provision of alternative employment. If it is inevitable that there should be a lower rate of output in the shipbuilding industry, it becomes doubly important that other and diversified industries should be brought to Dundee and other shipbuilding centres.
    It is on such schemes that I want to say a word or two. We were given very considerable assurances in Dundee, but we were given those assurances up to something like two years ago, and the progress which has actually been made with them has been desperately slow. One of the major schemes, the Adastral plan, has just been begun. It was begun only at the end of April last. The first sod was turned in April last. Therefore, the prospect of actual industrial employment is still distant.
    The other major project, the extension of the National Cash Register factory, is still in the planning stage. It has not progressed beyond that: These two projects, I venture to say, were the backbone of what the Government meant when they said they had in prospect 2,000 new jobs in Dundee. It is now perfectly apparent that those 2,000 new jobs will have very little reference to the employment situation this year, or even next year. They are decidedly long-term prospects, and the delay in those projects and in subsidiary ones is extremely alarming, let me assure the Government, to the people of Dundee.
    Why have those projects taken so very long? The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Government had come round to the principle of building advance factories. He quoted one today, the building of an advance factory at Coatbridge. It does remain the only advance factory which has yet been authorised in the whole of
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    Scotland. In Dundee we have been pressing for years for the provision of advance factories on the industrial estate, but nothing has been done and the Government have steadily refused to do anything.
    It is the detailed application of the distribution of industry policy, which the Parliamentary Secretary eloquently praised this afternoon, which in our experience in Dundee is having a most laggard application when it comes to the actual provision of new industries there, and it is not only in the building of new factories. I want to give an instance of where it seems to me the general policy of the Government is holding up very seriously developments which could be of great value to a city such as Dundee. I give this only as an example, although it is important itself. It is the example of the Timex works in Dundee, a large American corporation, or perhaps one might call it an international corporation, which manufactures watches. It has proposals for very considerably increased production and for the employment it can give in Dundee, but it maintains that the whole development is largely dependent on it being able on one occasion to import a considerable quantity of foreign watch movements.
    I shall not go into the details; in fact, I am not qualified to do so as they are highly technical, but essentially that is the problem. This runs right up against the Board of Trade policy in which the import of watches is not only subject to tariff but subject to a quantitative restriction on a quota basis. I and my colleague the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) have been repeatedly in touch with the Board of Trade on this matter, and of course we appreciate the difficulties of the position. It is true that if what Timex wanted to do in order to get going on this considerable planned extension of its activities were allowed it would make a further major extension in the quota policy and might be thought unfair to other importers who would get no corresponding concession.
    What I want to put to the Government is this. Do they not think that in industries subject to these arrangements, of which the watch industry is an important example in Dundee, this whole quota policy is becoming more and more unworkable? When one goes into it

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    one finds that these quotas are on a 1939 base. I used to have some experience at the Ministry of Food in trying to work quota policies for imports of foodstuffs on a 1939 base, but that was ten years ago. What it must be like now, twenty years after the base year, working on a complicated restriction policy, I can hardly imagine, but it produces these tremendous anomalies. A potentially most valuable development like that of Timex is endangered by the inability of the Government so long as they are working this quota policy—I can see the genuine inability to do very much, but I trust we shall persuade them to do something—to help the town.
    I should say—perhaps it may be an unexpected conclusion—that if in the case of the watch industry they wish for security or defence reasons to give a special degree of protection, they ought seriously at this time to consider doing it by the ordinary, straightforward tariff method. There is a 30 per cent. duty on watches already, I should have thought that they ought seriously to consider—and this applies not only to Dundee and to Scotland but to the whole country—whether this industry would not be far better protected by the appropriate level of tariff, whatever they might consider that to be, rather than by attempting to carry on this more and more hopelessly out-of-date, quantitative import restriction on quotas.
    When I say that, let me add that if they were going to do anything of that sort the Board of Trade would no doubt wish to have reciprocal arrangements from foreign countries, from the Swiss. If a valuable concession were made on our part, if liberalisation were to be given, no doubt they would wish for reciprocal arrangements from the countries that would benefit, in this case mainly Switzerland. It may be that some of those engaged in the watch industry in this country may not like what I am suggesting, although I think many of them would agree that sooner or later the quota system must come to an end and that the industry would run much more healthily under the more limited form of tariff protection. I am deeply impressed by the complete inability of the Government, so long as they carry on a quota system in this industry, to do what I am quite sure the Government wish to do as much as we
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    do—to free the development of this potentially very valuable enterprise in a place like Dundee.
    I quote the Timex example because I think it is of intrinsic importance to Dundee and because it seems to me to suggest a policy which, properly and suitably applied, may help development in all the difficult areas of Scotland and, for that matter, the United Kingdom also.
    That is an essential in Dundee, and it seems to me that there should be the reapplication of development, with all the urgency and haste with which it was done in the earlier years under the previous Government at the end of the war. No one can complain of what the Parliamentary Secretary said about his fidelity and his enthusiasm for a distribution of industry policy, but that is not at all the attitude which the Government and Government Departments have displayed in practice in the case of the allocation of industry in areas like Dundee, and I am sure that most of my hon. Friends will give similar instances from Scotland when they speak.
    How did we begin this period of renewed difficulty in Dundee? It began when the Board of Trade closed down its local office in Dundee because it considered that the allocation of industry policy had run its course and could now be progressively liquidated. The whole reimposition or reapplication of the distribution of industry has been done most unwillingly and in a most laggard frame of mind because it has run counter to the laissez-faire philosophy, not, evidently, of the Parliamentary Secretary, but of the President of the Board of Trade in particular. It is that whole philosophy and approach which has had so deadly an effect on areas like Dundee.
    We do not believe—and I must, in conclusion, repeat what my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton said—that under a policy of industrial laissez faire areas like the west of Scotland and Dundee stand any chance whatever. It can only be done by a conscious and purposeful application of the distribution of industry policy and by the provision of sufficient inducements, whatever they turn out to be, by way of reduction of industrial rents and the like, by the refusing of building licences and development licences in other areas, by the carrot and the stick. No one has suggested

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    actual industrial direction. If he will forgive my saying so, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary raised that as a bogey. No one has dreamt of suggesting that, but we are suggesting that the thing should be done by inducements on a sufficient scale and by the refusal of licences to industrialists to go where industry is not wanted or, at any rate, not wanted with nearly the same urgency as it is in these areas.
    The thing can be done, but we have not experienced in practice the will to do it in these areas of Scotland which we represent, and until this is expressed in practice by a real drive on the part of the Government we must regard the honeyed words of the Parliamentary Secretary as of very little value, because it is actually what is done that matters. Until the officials of the Board of Trade, the Ministry of Labour and National Service the Scottish Office and other Departments concerned are all imbued with an urgent desire to push this thing through and to overcome the necessarily very complex questions and difficulties, we shall go on pressing the Government with the utmost of our powers.
    5.18 p.m.
    Mr. John Brewis: I have met with so much kindness from both sides of the House since I came here that I am encouraged to claim the indulgence of the House in making my maiden speech.
    I am the Member for Galloway, and I think that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have recently had the opportunity of visiting my constituency. I am sure that all those who did not know it before came away impressed by the beauty of its scenery, its efficient and well-kept farms and the friendliness of the people of Galloway.
    At the same time, we have in Galloway unemployment problems, too, mainly caused by the closing down of defence establishments. For example, our unemployment rate is now twice what it was four years ago. In my own town of Stranraer, unemployment now is 6·4 per cent. compared with 2·5 per cent. a year ago. This is caused partly by the closing down of the flying boat base at Wig Bay. I think that flying boats are now becoming a redundant industry, but there are, at Wig Bay large hangars and a
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    slipway and other very valuable facilities. Any firm wanting to build boats or anything of that kind would find in Stranraer many well-trained joiners and other tradesmen to carry on such an industry.
    The real problem at Stranraer is that of the great military port of Cairnryan. For many years Cairnryan has been used for dumping unserviceable Army ammunition, but I am afraid that this also is becoming a redundant industry. The War Office has advertised Cairnryan for sale and appointed a well-qualified firm of London agents to dispose of it. I am glad to say that there are several firms interested in the port and at least one of them would be able to give employment to no less than 200 men.
    Stranraer is a D.A.T.A.C. area. One knows that an industry coming to such an area is eligible for grants and loans and rent rebates if it is intended to start a factory. But it seems that rather different considerations apply when it is a port which is available and not a factory. In this case, we are to witness skilled negotiations by a London firm of estate agents to dispose of this port at the highest possible price. What is more, we are about to witness one of those fashionable package deals by which an industrialist coming to the port will be urged to take over a great deal of surplus W.D. equipment, much of which could not possibly be required, such as Army huts, engine sheds and things of that kind. When a firm of estate agents is instructed to act in such circumstances, it should also take into account the value of finding employment for 200 men, which might well amount to as much as £500,000.
    In such a deal as this, any firm wishing to start a bona fide factory would have only a certain amount of capital available, and, therefore, in such an auction it is bound to be the firm wishing to dismantle the whole place which would be able to make the highest bid. I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to take up this matter at the highest level possible and to see that Cairnryan and Stranraer are treated like any other D.A.T.A.C. area. If an English firm of industrialists proposed to come to Stranraer to start a factory, a red carpet would be laid down by the Board of Trade and the firm would be asked what it wanted. It would be offered

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    loans and possibly grants, and it would be sold only what it actually required. The rest of the equipment would be sold separately for scrap.
    There is also the question of the Glasgow overspill. Stranraer has entered into an agreement with Glasgow regarding overspill, and we are wondering what sort of industry we shall get to keep the people employed. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is very interested in shipping, and I suggest that he should overspill some shipping to Stranraer. After all, we have there a port big enough to take a battleship at low tide. We have very good railway communications with London and Glasgow, and there is an excellent labour force available. What is more, Cairnryan is the only big port between the Mersey and the Clyde and, therefore, is of considerable strategic importance to the nation. It would be a pity if this great port were abandoned and allowed to rust away.
    I wish also to refer to a town at the other end of my constituency, that is, Dalbeattie, near Dumfries. Dalbeattie is a small town in most beautiful surroundings. Hon. Members who have seen pictures in the Scotsman today of Kippford will agree about what a beautiful area it is. Dalbeattie has an industrial background. It has a textile works and its people are experienced in papermaking, woodworking and granite quarrying. Owing to the closing down of the nearby Admiralty depot, there is unemployment in the town. A rather strange thing in Galloway is that it is the Army which runs the port, the Royal Air Force which runs the seaside bases and the Admiralty which runs the inland ammunition dump. The Admiralty depot would make an excellent site for a new industry.
    Unfortunately, Dalbeattie cannot be scheduled as a D.A.T.A.C. area because figures of the unemployment population are not available. The local Ministry of Labour and National Service office covers half the Stewarty of Kirkcudbright. It is clear that unemployment in the burgh is fully as high as at Sanquhar, which has the good fortune to have a local Ministry office and there are figures available. The town of Douglas, Lanark is in the same boat. I think the Government should do something about these small places and not rely entirely on figures of unemployment which may or may not be available.
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    In such a debate as this we are concerned more with the towns and cities, and particularly the industrial belt between Glasgow and Dundee in Central Scotland. But I feel that we should also have some regard to unemployment in the country. A hundred years ago, in every village and small town it would be possible to find a cobbler, a wheelwright, a blacksmith and a millwright, and probably also a tailor and a tweed mill. Now we buy our shoes mass-produced at Northampton. The wheelwright, millwright and blacksmith have been replaced by the agricultural engineer who comes out in his little van from the neighbouring town. The tailor and the tweed mill have gone and we buy our clothes from the multiple store in the nearest town.
    In effect, this means that the only employment in the country areas is in the agricultural industry. That is a satisfying employment and the industry is becoming ever more technical. But there is not much opportunity for female labour, nor is there much opportunity for better educated boys to get on and to improve themselves. We must try to get more industry into the country, and, if possible, within a half-hour bus ride from most of the villages. Even in Glasgow one is lucky to be able to get to work in less than half an hour. I am thinking in particular of small industries like Cree Mills, in Newton Stewart, and Solway Pre-cast Products in Creetown, which draw their labour from neighbouring villages.
    To see what can be done one has only to look across the Irish Straits from Stranraer and contemplate the huge B.T.H. factory at Larne in Northern Ireland, the sister port to Stranraer, the huge chemical works at Coleraine and the tobacco factory at Ballymena. I feel that we should pay more attention to this side of the problem, unless we want to see more rural depopulation.
    I was particularly sorry to read in the White Paper, Industry and Employment in Scotland and Scottish Roads Report, 1958, that there was no reference at all to Galloway until paragraph 237, where it is catalogued that another enterprise, the Silver City Airways ferry to the Isle of Man and Ireland, has closed down. When a ferry boat in the Highlands has seats which are not comfortable enough, the protests of Dame Flora McLeod are

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    heard right round the United Kingdom. Dame Flora McLeod is a very distinguished Scots woman and deserves to be listened to. But I am very sorry to see that this ferry service has been withdrawn with no protest at all. I hope that next year we shall see more attention being paid to Galloway in the White Paper.
    Before I sit down, I should like to say something about what I consider should be done about Scotland. First, the problem in England and Scotland is rather different. In England it is a question of distributing industries from areas where there is too much industry, such as the Midlands and London, to areas where there is not enough industry, such as Lancashire. In Scotland, there is not one area of over-full employment. For example, the Glasgow overspill is a problem of population and not of redistributing industry.
    The first thing I should like to see is the whole of Scotland scheduled as a development area. After all, unemployment in Scotland as a whole is over 4 per cent. I do not think that my suggestion would attract a single new industry to Scotland, but it would enable special Scottish subsidies to be given separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. For example, I should like to see factory rents reduced. In Northern Ireland, factory rents are about 9d. per sq. ft. In Scotland, they average between 2s. 3d. and 3s. 9d. per sq. ft. Taking into account the disadvantage of distance, factory rents in Scotland should be reduced to about 1s. 3d. per sq. ft.
    I should also like to see an increased investment allowance for industries in Scotland, in addition to the existing capital investment allowances. This is quite feasible, because, after all, we had such an allowance in 1955. Both these would be administratively feasible, but they are subsidies of a capital nature. The manufacturer coming to Scotland looks, first, at his cost accounting. If he is provided with a factory rent and rate free in a remote area, he still cannot make it pay unless his costs are right. For that reason, I should like to see further subsidies of an income nature.
    I should like to see a subsidy on transport. I know that a flat rate for transport or "an accentuated taper", as
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    I think it is called in technical language, is not very easy to administer, but manufacturers could be given a subsidy of about 25 per cent. of their transport bills. That again is feasible, and it was done at the time of the big wind blow in the Highlands in 1953 in order to get the timber away. It could be done again.
    Another subsidy, or an alternative subsidy, which I should like to see is a subsidy on fuel—electric power, oil and coal. This is feasible, because it is being administered now in Northern Ireland. One of the advantages is that, by having a subsidy on coal, but not having the same subsidy on oil, the coal industry could be encouraged in Scotland. An industrialist is just the same as any other member of the public. If he is offered something for nothing, it is very difficult for him not to accept it. Such a subsidy would increase the amount of traffic going on the railways. It would also increase the amount of coal used.
    I must thank hon. Members for their indulgence in listening to me putting things right in Scotland in ten minutes, but before I sit down I should like to pay a tribute to the late Member for Galloway, Mr. Jackie Mackie. He represented Galloway for an unbroken spell of twenty-seven years. This was really his life. He loved Galloway and he knew thousands of his constituents by name. He also loved the House and was greatly loved here. Above all, he was a good House of Commons man. I hope that I also may in due course learn to carry on the great tradition of Mr. Mackie.
    5.35 p.m.
    Mr. J. Grimond: It is my very pleasant duty to express on behalf of the whole House our admiration of the way in which the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) has made his maiden speech. I am sure that all hon. Members found it a most attractive speech and full of very wise suggestions, which I hope the Government have noted with care.
    Before I come to the details of the hon. Member's speech, I should like to pause for a moment to respond to the remarks he made about his predecessor. I am sure that Mr. Mackie is looking down on us this afternoon and has noted with pleasure that once again the English have been good enough to fix the Derby

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    on the day of the annual Scottish debate, thereby allowing us to have the Chamber to ourselves and, as the hon. Member for Galloway said, to put things right in our own country.
    The hon. Gentleman made a most excellent speech, and it succeeded in not being controversial, not even about the Government. I thought that the hon. Gentleman's attitude to the Secretary of State was perfect—firm, without being brutal. I look forward to the time when the hon. Gentleman feels a little less inhibited, when we may see his real fire directed at some faults which he feels could be put right. I think I am right in saying that the hon. Gentleman already has considerable experience in local government in that part of the world which he represents. He obviously speaks with deep knowledge of these problems. Many things which he said, especially his plea for a mixing of agriculture and industry in the countryside, must wring chords on the harps of hon. Members who represent other rural areas.
    It is necessary in this annual Scottish debate that we should speak for our own constituents, but our constituencies, whether they are in the deep south of Scotland, like Galloway, or at the other end of the country, as mine is, illustrate many of the same difficulties. Galloway has its Cairnryan and its Wig Bay. In Orkney we have Lyness. Incidentally, if the hon. Member for Galloway has any flying boats to spare I could use a few of them in the far North.
    The sad thing about Scotland is that, wherever one looks, unemployment is higher than in England and, in some eases, as has been said today, it is alarmingly high in absolute figures. The percentages are important, but what everyone agrees is so serious about unemployment is that, however few people are unemployed, it is immensely destructive to their self-respect and also to the life of the communities in which they live. In Shetland, about 700 men and 27 women were on the unemployment rolls three weeks ago. In Orkney, about 100 men and 21 women were unemployed. These are not enormous figures compared with other parts of Scotland. In some parts of the Highlands unemployment has been as high as 40 per cent. However, these figures are high enough. It must be remembered that
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    all over Scotland the figures of emigration should be added to the unemployment figures. I think that the hon. Member for Galloway is an immigrant, and that is a very heartening sign, but the sad thing about Scotland as a whole is that not only are people unemployed, but they are leaving because they do not see any hope of full employment in the future.
    I sympathise with any Government in the difficulty which we must face, that in a free society labour and industry cannot be directed. Certain inducements may be offered, but ultimately it is for people to decide whether they want to put a factory in a certain place. Even though they may be forbidden to build it in one area, they cannot be forced to build it somewhere else.
    However, the atmosphere and the legislation of a country are never neutral. It is not unfair to say that of late years the whole atmosphere of the country and the tempo of much of the legislation has not been an encouragement to rural areas in the north of Scotland. There are a great many illustrations of Acts which may work well enough in the South but do not work well in the North. Furthermore, the effort to bring new industries to the North of Scotland has not been the success which we hoped it might be. Freights are still a great obstacle. I do not want to seem to criticise D.A.T.A.C. My own experience is that D.A.T.A.C. is most courteous and conscientious, and such applications as have come from my constituency have been excellently dealt with. Indeed, I should like to thank and compliment the members of the Committee for their work. But one small point is that speed is important. I am not complaining that they are slow, but very often we get a businessman who feels that he can expand. I know such a man who wants a warehouse. If he is to get going, he wants an answer quickly. He has to fix up with his bank and with his customers, and the quicker such applications can go through the better.
    I will speak briefly and make a few suggestions as to what can be done within the present framework and in the reasonably near future. I think that the Highlands need a development board. The Secretary of State should look at the number of bodies which at present deal with Highland affairs and see whether

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    more emphasis can be put on development rather than on administration.
    I certainly think that the time has come—as soon as the Fleck Committee reports—to combine the White Fish Authority and the Herring Industry Board and to give encouragement to new lines of fishing and the processing of fish and to new light industries. The fishing industry is a very promising industry. It is one of the industries which keeps people in Shetland. There must be great opportunities for expanding the industry by the introduction of new methods in the seas around Scotland.
    I hope, too, that the Government might try a fresh approach to private industry. I know that we have the Scottish Council, but the hon. Member for Galloway pointed out what has happened in Northern Ireland by getting hold of people like Lord Chandos and others and launching a joint effort between the Government and private industrialists.
    A great industry in the Highlands is the distilling industry. It does a very good job although it does not, in fact, employ large numbers of men. It makes big profits, most of which are taken by the Government. What I say about the industry is not in criticism of it. It pays an enormous amount of taxation. It helps agriculture, but, of course, it is not a charitable organisation. The fact remains, however, that the distillers draw immense wealth out of the Highlands, most of which, as I say, is taken by the State.
    It is now the custom for big companies to contribute to what they consider are worthy purposes. When subscription lists are opened, whether they be for the Refugee Year or anything else, they subscribe. I am not saying whether it is right or wrong or whether they should first consult their shareholders. But it is the custom and one of which many people approve. I am not asking that these companies should set up charitable businesses in the Highlands, but I believe that we have there a lot of people who have intimate contact with the Highlands and who might be brought in with the Government in an effort to find new outlets for industry and employment in the area. Again, I think that they might be asked to contribute to a revolving fund, to assist by way of loans and grants small indus-
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    tries to start up or to take part in experiments in further education and training.
    I think that most people who have tried to get industry to the Highlands will agree with me when I say that one difficulty is the question of the present form of education and the lack, perhaps, of further education facilities in large parts of the area. Then there is the difficulty of getting managers. Managers today can get such excellent jobs in the South that to persuade a man of real calibre to settle down and find a house and education for his children in the North is often difficult. A lot of local people do not want to take jobs of a managerial sort in their own area. Others find that they cannot get the necessary training or experience unless they go away to get it. This is a real problem in which private industry might be of some help in co-operation with the Government.
    I am perfectly certain that something more radical must be done about crofting. Everyone is agreed that the small croft will never yield a living from agriculture alone. It has to be combined with industry. It is a mistaken policy to give very high grants for agriculture to crofters and yet to refuse them assistance when it comes to light industry. If we could build up light industries, especially those which would use the local products like fishing, weaving or knitting, then we might be able to bring new life into the crofting areas. In a great many of these areas agriculture alone will not do it. There are some in which agriculture could be expanded, but there are others where agriculture must be combined with industry.
    One last word about the situation in Scotland in general. If we look at the areas of high unemployment, apart from special areas where, perhaps, some industry is going through a difficult period, we see that they tend to be worse the farther one gets away from London. London is a tremendous magnet. I do not want to go over the argument about industrial certificates. It is not only a question of people being given permission or not to set up factories near London. There is a great social attraction to London. Wives want to get down to the South. Banking and accountancy and the law tend to drift south. I ask the Government to do all they can to see that people are not drawn away from

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    Scotland to the South—they can help a great deal to build up Edinburgh and Scotland generally.
    I do not know whether hon. Members have seen the tape this afternoon, but it is reported that Scottish Cables are going to be taken over by British Insulated Callender Cables. This is something which has been going on all my life. Only occasionally does one find a person such as the hon. Member for Galloway who goes the other way.
    The real thing is that the Government are the fountainhead of this and the more they can do to devolve decisions, to encourage people to go to Edinburgh and to make special exceptions wherever they can to meet Scottish needs the better.
    I want to make two points. The first is the sort of exception about which the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) spoke. There are special needs in Scotland, and it would help if the Government could be more flexible in their implementation of policy. The other point is the seasonal workers' regulations. As I say, it is not only unemployment which concerns Scotland but the drift away from Scotland. In my constituency at the moment there are people who cannot get work all the winter owing to the climate. Among those who are laid off in the winter are the men who work on the roads and other jobs for the county councils. It is essential in the crofting districts to have part-time employment. At the moment they are denied benefit and they are encouraged to go South.
    The dockers in Lerwick have no port scheme. They, apparently, have been told that they cannot establish a pattern of employment which entitles them to benefit. It is a very serious thing if we are going to tell people in the far North that they must go away and take jobs elsewhere. It will have the effect of depopulating the area still further. If the Government want to help these people they must be prepared to make reasonable exceptions in regulations designed for the whole country.
    I have been rather telegraphic in regard to this question, but I ask the Government to look again at their failure to reverse the trend by which Scotland is always behind England in new industry and a bit ahead in unemployment.
    5.50 p.m.
    Sir James Henderson-Stewart: I think we are all agreed that this annual debate on employment in Scotland is for us a very important occasion. The fact that it is Derby Day just adds to its significance. If we back the right course this afternoon, there is no saying what might result.
    Throughout this Session, as in past Sessions, opportunities have been offered and accepted to discuss a wide variety of topics affecting our national life. The past year has been outstanding in that way. There have been very few major problems that we have not looked at in one way or another in that time. But they have all been individual issues. This evening we have the chance and the duty to survey the economy of our country as a whole. This is a very important moment. It is an occasion of first-class concern to Scotland, and we probably all want to take the best possible advantage of it. Now, as always, there is a temptation to rake up the past and criticise each other for shortcomings or mistakes. I do not rule out that possibility; that is the way Parliament works, and I have done my share in that kind of exchange of views. But I think that I reflect current Scottish opinion—and, perhaps, the opinion of hon. Members opposite—when I say that today it is right to concentrate on the present and future rather than upon the past.
    The first fact to be noted about the present is that a great many activities are on foot in Scotland. There is a conscious national demand for improved conditions. There has probably never been a time of more anxious, if co-ordinated, thought about our national welfare. The evidence of this is widespread. Local authorities throughout the country, in increasing numbers and with a growing zeal, are applying themselves to the task of improving their surroundings and increasing the social and economic prospects of their areas. The Scottish Council maintains its enthusiasm, and is spreading its wings not only at home but in the outside world. I was very pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) refer to the fact that individual farmers as well as industrialists are constantly introducing new methods, some of which are giving a lead to the whole world.

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    Despite what some hon. Members opposite would say, the Government have not failed to respond to the national urge. They may not be doing enough. About that I shall have some things to say, because that is my view, but no unbiased observer can deny that during the past few years very substantial efforts have been made and projects advanced for the improvement of the state of our country. I am not sure that Scotland realises even now the potential magnitude of the strip mill, the extent of the support given to agriculture, or the size of the Forth Road Bridge undertaking, to mention only one or two projects. Nor does our country realise the remarkable recovery in our financial and economic standing at home and abroad, which underlies all our prosperity. We should not belittle our own achievements. Other countries do not; in fact they envy the progress made in our land.
    I am in agreement with much that has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House, however, to the effect that, despite all our efforts in the past, by different Governments and agencies, the Scottish economy is still built upon somewhat unsure foundations. We are still much too dependent upon the traditional heavy industries and too short of light industries, with the result that it needs only a breath of depression in steel, coal or shipbuilding—from whatever source it may come—to inflict sudden and perhaps heavy unemployment upon the more sensitive areas of the country.
    We all know that very well, and, generally speaking, we all talk the same language about it. There is general agreement about what is wrong and, in a vague kind of way, about what should be done to put it right. But a great deal of that talk is in shibboleths. As Scotsmen we are very good at propounding principles, especially when they are a little out of date—
    Mr. John Rankin: That is not true.
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I am expressing a view—but we are not nearly so good at discarding out-of-date ideas and grasping new ones. Yet to grasp these new conceptions should be the very breath of life to our country.
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    The dominating influence of our time is probably the relationship between men and machines. Scotland is confronted with the emergency of a rising, better educated and more ambitious industrial population, seeking employment in an age of increasing competition from machinery in every part of the world. To maintain the present numbers in work in such conditions is a very difficult task, and to employ all the labour resources which will become available—I am told that the figure is estimated at about 10,000 or 15,000 people a year, for the next ten years—is a very big proposition. It is a formidable prospect.
    We should not shrink from that prospect, but if the target is to be reached we shall have to do some radical rethinking about the future. How is this expansion to be brought about? As was said by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), the Scottish Council has recently put in our hands a series of recommendations. I would not criticise any one of them, but they appear to fall far short of Scotland's needs at this time. Nor do I see much hope of the emergence of new, bright ideas from any other quarter. I have thought deeply about this matter for a long time and have come to the conclusion that we shall not solve the Scottish problem by anything short of a full-scale investigation of our present needs and a carefully prepared five-or ten-year plan covering the whole country for the years ahead.
    Such a plan would have to take account of the possible changes in the supply of fuel and power, and transport. It would have to take note of the developments likely to occur in shipbuilding and steel—and more particularly in the Ravenscraig project, which may be the brightest star on the industrial horizon. It would have to take note of the spread of industry throughout the country, the Tay and Forth Valleys and further north and south. It would have to note the contribution made by agriculture and fishing, and it would have to provide for the inevitable expansion of our roads. Underlying all that and basic to the whole conception of the future if it is to be prosperous will be the part to be played by the banks and the National Exchequer.
    The Scottish Council appears to be satisfied, so I understand, that adequate

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    capital is available in Scotland for all worthwhile industrial projects. I cannot share that view.
    Mr. McInnes: I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's contribution, because his desire to have an inquiry which may result in a ten-year plan is a most interesting theme. He mentioned the nationalised industries. Do I understand him to imply that the inquiry would cover the failure and the functions of private enterprise industry?
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: Yes, Sir. I am trying to be concise, but I will cover that point.
    I was saying that I do not share the view that there is adequate capital available now.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Where in this document is that view expressed?
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I do not think it is in the document, but I understand that it was the view of some of the leading members of the Scottish Council. I hope I am right. If I am wrong I shall, of course, withdraw. I merely say that I do not take the view that there is adequate capital available for every good new project. My view is that if the five-year or ten-year plan which I have in mind is to have any validity capital will have to be pumped into Scotland to a degree far beyond any figures which have so far been suggested to us.
    We shall not be looking merely for a few isolated companies occupying a few small new factories. The plan which we must envisage must cover the introduction of very large co-ordinated enterprises—small ones as well, of course—private enterprise as well as State enterprise. One would hope that some of them would be new, but many would arise out of the integration and development of industries at present located in Scotland, such as the electrical engineering and electronics industries, which have made a limited but notable impact on our national life. But in all this there can be no advance and no prospect of real development in our country unless the development is given strong and continued support by the money market and the National Exchequer.
    Who is to draw up this vital blueprint for the future? I feel that there can be only one answer. It has to be the respon-
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    sibility of the Government. I do not mean Government Departments, because they have their hands full enough already. Nor ought it to be done by any of the unofficial bodies now operating in Scotland, worthy as they are. If we are to make a job of this, we must bring fresh minds to the drafting of this great plan and invest the people concerned with the full authority of the State to get on with the business swiftly and efficiently.
    With all respect to the Government, I therefore propose the appointment of a Scottish Industrial Commission composed of twelve, fifteen or eighteen of the very ablest men on whom we can lay our hands, men drawn from industry, commerce, transport, the banks and agriculture, not in any representative capacity but for their own qualities as leaders of thought in their own spheres. Such men of experience and high ability are, I suggest, available to us in Scotland today. They await only the call and the opportunity to pool their brains and point the way to a viable future.
    Given such a Commission with the necessary facilities and skilled advice, we might hope to see within a reasonable period a well-considered, imaginative, far-reaching plan stretching well into the 'sixties in which all agencies in Scotland—public, private and local authority—might co-operate in a concerted effort to serve their day and generation.
    When it emerges, the plan might very well be the subject of controversy; but what of that? Thoughts would have been stimulated, hopes would have been raised, and action would perhaps be taken, and that, after all, is what we are trying to get. I know that this proposal will raise voices of criticism. It will no doubt be condemned as unnecessary, unprecedented and impracticable. There will even be those who will say that it is impossible. I should not wilt under any criticism of that kind.
    I ask myself, and I ask the House to consider, what the alternative is to some searching inquiry such as I have suggested. The question that we have to answer is: Are we to go on indefinitely running under capacity in Scotland and risking the livelihoods year by year of great numbers of our fellow countrymen, skilled and unskilled? Have we not had enough experience of this kind of thing to realise that a searching reassessment

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    of our national position is inevitable? If this be so, how can it be done except by the creation of a body with the powers which I have suggested?
    I would regard such a Commission as I have outlined as perhaps the most important body of its kind that has ever been appointed in Scotland and having the greatest possible opportunities for good. I commend the idea to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State with all the earnestness that I can command because I believe that by this means alone are we likely to get an advance in our time.
    6.9 p.m.
    Mr. J. C. Forman: I should like to deal in the first instance with the question of assistance to the shipbuilding industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) dealt with the subject, and I believe that my own Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison), took certain exception to it. It seems to me that the House has to decide whether it is necessary for Government assistance to be given to the shipbuilding industry, and if it arrives at the conclusion that it is, the important question is not where the assistance should be given but when it should be given.
    Last November, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) raised this question and went a little further than the Government proposed to do, in connection with the Cunard Company. He suggested that Government financial assistance should be given to that shipbuilding firm so that it might build ships, on the understanding that those ships were placed at the disposal of shipping companies. It may well be that the Government would be taking a risk in that way but I believe there are ships that could very reasonably be replaced now. My hon. Friend is to be commended, in that the Government have accepted the suggestion that he made, although at the time he did not get very much support from the Government side. The Government have now decided to give to the Cunard Company financial assistance which will enable it to place an order, I hope at the Clydebank shipyards.
    Unemployment in Scotland has been engaging the attention of one of the most
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    important industrial organisations in Britain which takes second place only to the British Trades Union Congress. I refer to the Scottish Trades Union Congress which has within its ranks all the organised workers in Scotland. It held a conference at Dunoon in April when practically the whole of the time of the conference was taken up with delegates discussing the very serious position experienced in their own unions.
    At the finish of the conference it was intimated that the Prime Minister would meet a delegation from the Scottish Trades Union Congress and he did meet it. I should like information on this particular point. It would be as well for me to refer to the particular paragraph that the conference had in mind, and it is important to have information on this paragraph in view of the fact that the President of the Board of Trade yesterday stated that a trade agreement had been completed with Russia.
    The statement that was made in the official organ of the Scottish Trades Union Congress reads as follows:
    "There was constant criticism by industrial interests that the Export Credits Guarantee Department was unable to provide for long-term credits. This was a great handicap to exporters. In seeking orders in Russia, for instance, some exporters had found it impossible to meet the conditions of the Soviet Central Buying Agency when it sought to provide for exchange of goods for goods or a form of barter. This would be much easier if the Government in this country were able to set up a centralised market agency; and it would be a very helpful gesture."
    The Co-operative movement in Scotland has a fair amount of experience of trade with Russia. The S.C.W.S. was probably the first organisation to trade with Russia and we have had three trading agreements since then. We know how difficult it is to fix up these trade agreements, but once the trade agreements are fixed up the Russians honour them in their entirety. We are not unmindful of the difficulties that the Government may run into in fixing up a trade agreement. The point that the Scottish Trades Union Congress made to the Prime Minister might be examined. I understand that the Secretary of State for Scotland was present at the meeting. If this point has been examined could we have information about the conclusions reached upon it?
    I turn to constituency matters. We are quite well pleased with the strip

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    mill being allocated in Scotland but against the employment than that may create we must place the works that will be required to close down. In my constituency is a firm which has traded all over the world, Messrs. Frederick Braby & Co., Ltd. That firm is having to shut down and 600 men are now unemployed as a consequence of the shutting down of that steel mill. We have Dixons Iron Works which was shut down, while at Beardmore's at Parkhead about 100 men are being paid off and nearly 1,000 men are being put on short time, that is, four days per week. The work that the strip mill may bring to Scotland must therefore be weighed against the amount of unemployment that is being caused by older steel works being closed.
    I would ask the Secretary of State for Scotland about the nationalised workshops run by the British Transport Commission and the Gas Council. In the Provan area we have the Provan Chemical Works employing 204 men. By September of this year it may have to pay off 150 of those men, leaving only a skeleton staff in the establishment.
    When they were run by the Glasgow Corporation, those works made a profit of about £110,000 a year. I cannot say what the profits are now, but it seems to me that this is a nationalised workshop which is being run down. Twenty-four members of my union, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, are employed in the works. Seven of them are to be retained and seventeen are to be paid off. One hundred and fifty of the semi-skilled men are to be paid off. That is the position in the Provan Chemical Works and I ask the Secretary of State to say whether the work which is now done by that works under the Gas Board is to be handed over to a private firm.
    I want now to refer to railway workshops. With some colleagues, I recently met representatives from various railway workshops. Delegate after delegate told us that there was redundancy in those workshops and that the policy of the British Transport Commission seemed to be to denationalise the shops and to allow them to run out of work so that the work could be placed with private firms.
    Nationalised workshops should serve the purpose of keeping railway rolling stock modernised, but they should also have a
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    social purpose. It is not the intention of the executives of the unions concerned that the men should be kept on without adequate work for them, but they take the view that under nationalisation the workshops should have sufficient work to give the men reasonable security and to permit long-term planning instead of their present hand-to-mouth existence.
    The Minister of Transport was good enough to invite me to go to Swindon. At the railway workshops there, I found that skill and modern methods permitted the production of the diesel trains now running between Queen Street and Waverley Station. The introduction of those trains has resulted in a phenomenal increase in passenger traffic. The craftsmen of those workshops are capable of undertaking the work necessary to modernise the country's transport system.
    The hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) suggested that capital available for developing our industries might be limited, but it seems to me that if the Government would stop crying for the moon and would use some of the money spent in that connection for developing our industries, they would do so to the great advantage of the country.
    We do not ask that the workshops in my constituency should be modernised to the extent that they all turn out new work, but we are entitled to ask that in the Springburn area at least one workshop should be modernised so that it is capable of turning out the work necessary for the efficient running of British Railways.
    It is said that our workshops are not tooled up or modernised to carry through that work, but increasing numbers of orders are handed to private enterprise. It may well be that for the welfare of the industry certain orders should be placed with private enterprise, but I take the view that if the railways were modernised and if the output of diesel locomotives and rolling stock were speeded up, there would be sufficient work for national workshops and to assist private enterprise, if assistance is necessary.
    In the Cowlairs Works at Springburn, a complete close down by 1961 is suggested. Nearly 3,000 men, with many years of skill behind them, are to be thrown on the scrap heap. At St. Rollox, about half a mile from Cowlairs Works,

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    a considerable pay-off, if not a close down, is suggested. The unions concerned believe that if the Transport Commission had sufficient funds available, the workshops could be modernised and there would be more work available so that the men could be kept employed.
    There is considerable development of electrification in the Glasgow area and the first try-out of electric trains from Glasgow will probably take place at the end of this month. Men in the workshops in my area are confident that they are capable of undertaking the maintenance work required for rolling stock on the routes to be electrified.
    I hope that the Secretary of State will look into this question seriously and will try to relieve men's minds of the fear that there is a deliberate policy to denationalise national workshops. I hope that attention will be paid to the matters I have raised and that information on the questions I have put will be forthcoming.
    6.30 p.m.
    Sir James Hutchison: The majority of the speeches which have been made this afternoon have had a strong constituency flavour, and I am neither competent, nor would I care to try, to criticise those things which have been said in that respect. But there were one or two rather more general subjects to which I should like to make reference.
    The question of subsidies for shipbuilding has been touched on by a variety of speakers, starting with the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser). I want to make it clear that there has never been a subsidy given to the shipbuilding industry, and, so far as I am aware—and I am a shipbuilder—no member of the shipbuilding industry is asking for a subsidy now. It is true that a certain amount of limited assistance, which was repaid, was given to some shipowners to enable them to modernise their fleets, but that is not a subsidy to the shipbuilding industry. One might as well say that because a free dental service is available to people in this country, the manufacturers of sweets are being subsidised. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh.] I agree that I have extended the simile a little far, but it is still not accurate to say that the shipbuilding industry has had or is anxious to have a
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    subsidy paid to it at the present time. Of course, circumstances may change; the industry may change its mind, but that is the position as it is at the moment.
    Mr. Rankin: The hon. Gentleman is employing the word "subsidy" and disputing the sense in which it was used on this side of the Committee and is used generally. Would he give us his definition of "subsidy"?
    Sir J. Hutchison: I do not wish to give a definition of what I mean by a subsidy to the shipbuilding industry because we are not asking for one. It could take a dozen forms, but we do not want one.
    The other point on which I want to touch is the question of the position of advance factories, the distribution of industry and the attraction of industries to my country. I am as anxious as anybody else that this should take place. The diversification of industry is extremely important, but hon. Members must really judge this matter in balance and in perspective, because if it is made so attractive for industries to come to Scotland there is a risk—I do not put it any higher—that it may destroy or prejudice the industries which are already there. That does not affect the argument in favour of it, but I would plead with my right hon. Friend to bear in mind that when attracting new industries to Scotland it is necessary to take care that at the same time we do not kill an industry which is already there.
    I should like, in following this aspect of the story, to congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the successful battle which he put up for the steel strip mill, and I think that in this general policy—
    Mr. Bence: I may be wrong, but I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman congratulate his right hon. Friend on the great battle which he had put up for the strip mill. If my memory serves me right, a great battle was put up for the strip mill by this side of the Committee and by the Scottish T.U.C.
    Sir J. Hutchison: I do not think I need comment on that remark. Of course, I should like to be fair; hon. Members opposite did muscle in—
    Mr. Ross Mr. Ross rose—
    Sir J. Hutchison: They came in with us and we both went together, but the ultimate credit must be given to those who had to contend with the Government and fight the battle in the Cabinet.
    Mr. Douglas Johnston: The hon. Gentleman's ground for congratulating the Secretary of State is, I understand, that he fought a battle in the Cabinet for a strip mill in Scotland. How does the hon. Member know that? I always understood that what happened in the Cabinet was secret.
    Sir J. Hutchison: We would not have got the strip mill unless a battle had been fought, and anybody who had his eyes open must know that the battle was going on. Indeed, hon. Members on the benches opposite claim that they took part in it.
    Perhaps I may go on. The D.A.T.A.C. system has, in fact, done better for Scotland than. I gather from their speeches, hon. Members opposite are prepared to give credit for. In 1958, for example—and paragraph 25 of the White Paper shows this—certificates were issued under the D.A.T.A.C. system in Scotland for almost the same number of enterprises as in 1957, whereas in the rest of the United Kingdom the issue of certificates fell grievously. That is not to say that it is a supreme success, but it does show that Scotland got a higher proportion in 1958 than did the rest of the country, comparing the result with 1957.
    I want to turn to a completely different theme, and that is the danger to Scotland which may arise from the failure of the Free Trade Area and the setting up of the Common Market. Until recently those enterprises of the kind that we have been trying to attract to Scotland, and have in large measure succeeded in attracting, if they were to establish themselves abroad, could establish themselves in Britain and have the advantage of our Imperial Preference system and be at no special disadvantage in exporting to Europe. But with the setting up of the Common Market they have to look at the situation afresh, because if they set up in Europe they have the advantage of a consuming population in the six countries, which form the Common Market, of about 150 million people. They now have, they fore, to choose between setting up here or in the Common Market countries, and the Common
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    Market countries are making it extremely attractive for them to go there and are offering them all sorts of inducements which, I suggest, we may have to follow. They can set up there and endeavour to sell their goods to this consuming population of 150 million, or ignore it, and come here and suffer the disadvantages of tariffs and have the dwindling preferences which we have with our Commonwealth.
    That is having a big effect. It is having this effect, that certain American concerns which looked likely to allow the manufacture in this country and in Scotland of certain of their patents and processes under royalties, are starting to refuse that facility. Until recently there were something like twenty projects being examined in the North American continent for enterprises to come to Scotland, and out of those twenty only one has materialised. I do not go so far as to say that the other nineteen have been lost, but they seem much more attracted to countries like Holland and other Common Market countries than they were before and probably than they will be to Scotland.
    Therefore, I think that two things have got to be done. The Government have got to examine what inducements are being given by the Dutch and other Governments to attract these industries into the Common Market countries; we must weigh carefully whether we have not got to go just as far, and perhaps further, in trying to attract those industries to Scotland. Also, it shows the importance of a theme I have urged on other occasions. There should be a Commonwealth Conference held to find out just where we stand with our Commonwealth in the situation which is now developing. It may be that we shall have to revise the whole of our Imperial Preference system. It may be that we shall have to criticise the quota system which Commonwealth countries are imposing on us with such strictness today.
    I come now to another general theme which concerns a problem which may well arise and which, as I shall try to show, may well hurt Scotland. The House will remember that, when we discussed the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, we decided that it would be wise and good to provide for legislation to prevent harmful restrictions damaging to

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    the public interest. A court was set up, which has been functioning for some time, before which restrictive practices or agreements between concerns would have to be defended. This process has been going on.
    Some of the recent judgments of the court have been very remarkable, and they may have a profound effect on industry in general. The court has decided that not only must the defenders of agreements show that they were doing no harm to the public—which it is possible sometimes to do—but they must go further and show that they were doing positive good and that the agreements should be allowed to continue. This is virtually an impossibility.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: Hear, hear.
    Sir J. Hutchison: It is virtually impossible in those circumstances to prove that one is bringing a definite benefit to the public by some agreement which has been made. I do not think that, when the legislation went through the House, either side thought that it was wise or desirable to introduce legislation which would go further than the prevention of harm. If this legislation is not looked at again, a certain consequence, it seems to me, will inevitably flow from the judgments of the court. That difficulty can be overcome by no longer having an agreement. Six companies, let us say, which previously had such an agreement need only amalgamate into one concern, or the biggest of them can buy over the others, and the difficulty is avoided. The Restrictive Trade Practices Act will no longer apply, but the companies will be able to achieve the same result if they so wish. There is thus an inducement towards the building up of large combines, which I myself regard as undesirable, and which will have a most unfortunate effect upon Scotland, as I shall try to demonstrate.
    If the House has followed me in the argument so far, it will realise that the tendency will be towards amalgamations. I contend that Scotland will come badly out of such amalgamations. The size of the population and the power of the wealth centred in the South means that, in any amalgamation, the smallest and least influential part of any combine will probably be in Scotland. If there is a period of recession, a thing which we
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    have already seen, though perhaps not in acute form, there will be a great temptation in a combine of this kind to cut off the smallest part of its organisation. In the same way a large concern in England which has set up branches in Scotland may well decide to close the branch in Scotland, if there is a recession, and carry on in England. I believe that this tendency towards the building up of large combines may well follow from the curious judgments of the court, and it is something which Scotland ought very closely to watch. It can do Scotland great harm.
    I want to say a word now about shipbuilding and what has been done in shipbuilding. The subject was introduced rather unsuitably, and certainly inaccurately, by the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) when we were discussing tourism. I do not know where he got his information from when he said that the yards in Scotland have not been kept up to date. I do not know from what jaundiced source that idea came.
    Mr. Woodburn: I will tell the hon. Gentleman. If he reads the book which Mr. Andrew Shonfield, the economic adviser to the Observer, wrote on Britain's shipping since the war, he will see there a very detailed account of how the Japanese and even the German shipyards have modernised themselves—they had the opportunity, since they were in ruins—and how they are much ahead of British shipyards. He shows that many parts of the British shipyards have not been modernised and old methods are still used.
    Sir J. Hutchison: I know Mr. Shonfield and I think that he knows quite a lot about industry, but I do not accept him as a final arbiter in a matter of this kind. When a country has been knocked about as Germany and Japan were, and as Rotterdam was, they have, so to speak, a flying start which enables them to introduce the most modern layout and machinery. It is not open to others to emulate them unless they put their own yards into almost the same destroyed condition. If one is prepared to start ab initio, then one can do a great deal in modernisation which it is sometimes very difficult to do without starting ab initio.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the hon. Gentleman now prepared to withdraw the adjective "jaundiced" in his description of what was obviously a genuine opinion on the part of Mr. Shonfield, and probably a very well informed one?
    Sir J. Hutchison: I do not know whether Mr. Shonfield has had jaundice or not, but I am not prepared to withdraw it. I think that it is merited in view of what I propose now to read to the right hon. Gentleman from other sources. I will tell him of some of the things which have taken place in modernisation. There has been tremendous development in the system of welding and in building welded ships. Large sections of a ship are now prefabricated and pieced together in building a ship in a way which was never known before the war. New machines for cold frame and plate bending have been invented and installed. The new free piston type of engine has been invented and used, and engines are being supercharged. We are well on the way, I think, to finding an engine powered by nuclear propulsion. The list could go on a long way. Almost every yard on the Clyde has a modernisation plan at the present time.
    Because I am a shipbuilder and there are four shipbuilding yards in my constituency, I may be thought biased. I will quote from other authorities. In the White Paper, for example in paragraph 80 it is said:
    "Considerable progress was made with modernisation and reconstruction schemes at various yards."
    In the survey by the Clydesdale and North of Scotland Bank, Ltd., on page 20, it is said:
    "British shipbuilders have spent substantial sums in post-war years in modernising their yards to enable them to adopt the most up-to-date techniques and build the largest ships which are likely to be ordered, and further development schemes are in hand or projected, in Scotland as in other parts of the country."
    I am prepared to set those two authorities against Mr. Shonfield, although I do respect his opinions from time to time.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: Since the hon. Gentleman is being objective in this matter, will he admit that many of the modernisations have come rather late in the day? They would have been very welcome at least five years ago, anyway. We are very happy about developments
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    in nuclear propulsion, although we have not yet placed our orders for what is to be done in Britain, but surely this development is entirely due to the Admiralty Committee and Government finance?
    Sir J. Hutchison: Not at all. The development of the nuclear propulsion engine has been a co-operative endeavour, with sums of money and individuals being devoted by the shipbuilding industry in Scotland to research into how it can be done. My own company was invited to send someone.
    Mr. Rankin: Will the hon. Gentleman agree that the one nuclear propulsion unit which is now in existence and able to go into a steamship and drive it is the product of research work at Fairfield Shipbuilding Yard in my division in association with Mitchell of Yorkshire?
    Mr. Bence Mr. Bence rose—
    Sir J. Hutchison: I will leave it to the two hon. Gentlemen to argue it. I really cannot give way any more. I have already done so a great deal, with the result that I have taken longer than I wished.
    I want to end by asking my right hon. Friend a few questions about atomic energy. I think that we have made a good start, and that my right hon. Friend and his predecessor deserve our congratulations. Scotland was left behind in the aircraft and motor industries and we have never caught up, but here I think that we are in the van. I hope that the progress that we have made in connection with Chapelcross, Hunterston and Dounreay will be kept up. I should like my right hon. Friend to tell us a bit more about Dounreay. Has Dounreay been a success? Paragraph 168 of the White Paper tells us a little about this matter. It says that the materials testing reactor has become operative, that the fast reactor has gone into commission and that the plant for manufacturing fuel elements is in operation. Is this up to programme? Are we obtaining the results which were honed for and what effect will this have in general on British nuclear production? I believe that not only Britain's prosperity but Scotland's prosperity depends on our keeping in the van in this important matter.
    6.51 p.m.
    Mr. William Hamilton: I am glad to be able to follow the hon Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison) because he made one or two

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    points which I should like to challenge. I hope that I will not be interrupted as much as he was.
    The hon. Member began by congratulating his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland on fighting in the Cabinet for the steel strip mill. I wonder who the right hon. Gentleman fought in the Cabinet? I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman also had to fight some of his own back bench Members from Scotland. There is one hon. Member sitting on the opposite side of the Chamber now who made a vehement attack on the idea of a steel strip mill in Scotland. I do not think that I shall give any secrets away by saying that I remember a meeting of the Scottish Labour Group upstairs when we discussed the question of a deputation to the Prime Minister and wondered whether we could drag in hon. Members opposite, led by the late Walter Elliot.
    Mr. Ross: Walter Elliot came.
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes. We discussed whether we could persuade hon. Members opposite to go along with us. It is well known that the Scottish T.U.C. was the motivating force behind this venture. I ask the hon. Gentleman, "Who is providing the money for this steel strip mill? Is it a subsidy, a grant, a loan or what?" I will tell the hon. Gentleman: it is Government finance.
    This is the theme which my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) quite rightly adopted. The issue between the two sides of the House is how we are to get the Scottish economy on a reasonably sound basis. Whatever else may come out of this debate, it is clear that it is of paramount importance that unless there is increased public investment and assistance in private enterprise the Scottish economy will collapse.
    I recommend hon. Members to read an article in yesterday's Glasgow Evening Times which is headed:
    "Loans to help these Scots industries can go too far."
    The article reads:
    "In recent months there has been a growing tendency for the State to advance money to private industry. Four examples may be quoted. There is the subsidy of about £30 million which is to be given to the cotton
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    industry to enable it to scrap obsolete machinery and modernise itself"—
    funeral expenses; that is what it amounts to.
    "There is the talk of a Government loan or grant to Cunard to enable it to replace the two Queens on the Atlantic run. There was the £50 million long-term loan to Colvilles to finance the building of a steel strip mill in Scotland. And finally there was the loan to the North British Locomotive works in Glasgow to enable it to complete the switch-over from making steam locos for the British Transport Commission to making diesels. Cunard can claim that the tax system prevents it from accumulating the vast sums needed to replace transatlantic liners like the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and that these liners contribute to Britain's international prestige as well as to Cunard's own profits. On the other hand, Cunard could presumably try to raise the money on the Stock Exchange or from private sources."
    But no—it must be done by State finance.
    This point is underlined, not by a Transport House publication, but by the Annual Report of the Clydesdale and North of Scotland Bank Limited. Page 7 of the Report reads:
    "1958 has been a disappointing year; the experience of Scotland has been that a combination of world recession and disinflationary policies has impinged on the economy with comparatively greater severity than on that of Great Britain as a whole."
    Later, the Report states:
    "Any improvement in employment prospects in the immediate future is likely to depend largely on an increase in investment expenditure by the customers of heavy industry located in Scotland …"
    I want to emphasise the following words—
    '… on Government-sponsored investment in factories and houses, and on the provision of other services and amenities. It is not easy to feel confident that industry will even sustain its present rate of investment in the coming months, and since capital equipment is at present generally under-employed it cannot be assumed that an increase in demand for consumption goods will soon give rise to greater investment. It is thus difficult to see any alternative in present circumstances to Government finance and promotion of investment"
    Unless and until there is an increase in public investment and public finance—call it subsidy, bribery, seduction, or what we will, it is Government help to private industry—industry will not come to Scotland. So long as only the profit motive operates industry will not come to Scotland of its own volition. Industry is labouring under so many natural disadvantages that the State must cajole, encourage, persuade and bribe it to come to Scotland.

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    It follows that if the State provides money it must have some control over it. This is the basic philosophical and ideological difference between the two sides of the House. The Government are prepared to advance State money but are not prepared to impose the control which should go with it. They are prepared to give the money without any questions being asked. If a local authority wants money to build houses—social investment—it cannot go to the Public Works Loan Board unless and until it has tried the market. But this does not apply to Cunard, as the article in the Glasgow Evening Times points out. Cunard does not have to try the money market before it gets the necessary finance; it goes to the Government.
    Why is there this difference between the two sides? I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton pinpointed the issue. We all know the basic problems in Scotland, and we need not waste time in repeating them ad nauseam. The basic point that I wish to make is the one which was made by my hon. Friend in much more eloquent terms than I could make it.
    I want to mention a constituency point. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is an Admiralty establishment—another nationalised concern—in my division, namely, the Royal Naval Aircraft Repair Yard in Donibristle, which is scheduled for closure in a few months. No application has been made for using it to date. I received a letter this morning—I will send it to the right hon. Gentleman, but I want to get it on record—which indicates the kind of difficulty that there is in this matter and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give it the treatment which I think it deserves. The letter is from a firm of solicitors whose client has been to them about the possible use of the aircraft yard. This is what they say:
    "We have a client who has business interests within your constituency and who has been pursuing an interest in the Aircraft Yard, etc., at Donibristle, which, as you know, is scheduled to be closed down in August.
    The venture which he has in mind would be a development along lines something new to Scotland although apparently now firmly established on the other side of the Atlantic.
    There are certain difficulties particularly in relation to (a) the fact that even with the yard, etc., considerable capital expenditure would be involved before any results could be shown.
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    (b) The Admiralty are apparently disinclined to lease and more in favour of a sale: the capital expenditure on purchase would be really heavy and would complicate the availability of capital for the subsequent adaptation. One query that arises in this respect is whether in the event of the Admiralty absolutely declining to lease, the price could be spread over a period of years.
    (c) One of the primary concerns appears to be the extent of the labour force which will he required by anyone taking over the yard. The project which our client has in mind would probably not require more than around 200 people by the end of the first year of production but it could reasonably be said that the potential demand thereafter could be quite substantial, but, of course, while our client so naturally very confident, there can be no real guarantee of unqualified success with a new venture."
    I will send on this letter to the Secretary of State. I hope that he will take it up with the Admiralty and that we can get a tenant for the yard. I can tell the Secretary of State that in recent weeks, the announcement that the closure is to be speeded up somewhat has caused a good deal of anxiety locally; and whilst there has been no redundancy so far, it may well arise as a result of the decision to speed up the closure.
    That is all I have to say. The debate has been extremely worth while if it has pinpointed and emphasised the basic difference between the two sides. If we fight the General Election on that, we will sweep the board in Scotland.
    7.3 p.m.
    Sir David Robertson: I have always regarded this annual debate as one of greater concern to the big cities, where there are large numbers of people and where, when unemployment comes, as it has done in the last year or so, there is a severe problem indeed. On this occasion, however, since the eastern half of my constituency had a rate of unemployment of over 20 per cent. in January and, although there has been an improvement, it is still running at a high rate, I feel obliged to raise the matter again now.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison), in his interesting speech, spoke of the difficulties of killing existing industry by subsidising or assisting new industry to come. We are running no risks of that kind in Caithness and Sutherland. We have no light industry. We have one tremendous boon and that is Dounreay, which came to

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    us mainly through the efforts of the Government and for which I shall be eternally grateful.
    One of the most interesting features of that is to see how the children of the farmer, the crofter and the fishermen are adapting themselves and taking to industry like ducks to water. There are about a thousand of them there already, working on full-time life engagements so long as they behave themselves, with superannuation, good holidays and conditions such as we have never had before in Caithness.
    My wife and I had the honour of attending a demonstration of apprentices at Dounreay on Thursday of last week, when about 25 or 30 of these fellows were about half way through their course. They put up a wonderful display in productions which they had made and for which prizes were awarded and in their skill in physical training. That has not been neglected while they have been training. It was a source of tremendous satisfaction to me to see these young men, all of whom, with I think one exception, came from the northern counties, being trained in the highest arts and skills of engineering. I was assured that when they pass out, there will be no apprentices trained anywhere in Scotland to a more advanced state. That is remarkable and welcome in an area from which we have had to send our children to Glasgow and the ends of the earth to get training in anything other than farming and fishing.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Scotstoun called upon the Secretary of State to give a brief report of how Dounreay was progressing. That is not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but he will, I know, be pleased to do what he can. As for the benefits to the North of Scotland, let there be no doubt in anyone's mind that Dounreay is a great success. One of the reasons why the plant was located there was to provide industry in an area where depopulation and unemployment had been our lot for over a century. It certainly has made a tremendous contribution to the economic well-being. I am told that the Admiralty reactor which was to be built with the idea of providing the first propulsion unit for a submarine—Vickers are doing the work in conjunction with the Government—has to some extent been retarded
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    because of the progress that has been made in the United States with atomic-propelled submarines.
    I said that depopulation had been our lot. Sunderland is the most depopulated county on the mainland of Britain. It has gone down by 50 per cent. in the last century, while the population of Scotland has almost doubled and the population of Great Britain has doubled. Caithness is the second most depopulated county. One last word about Dounreay is that Thurso has been transformed. From a decaying, dying town with a population of less than 2,500, it now has a population of about 6,000 and one sees masses of babies and new perambulators in the streets, which is something one did not see a few years ago.
    I have been living with these problems of getting a share of light industry into the old Higland towns, particularly in my own area, but anywhere in the Highlands. I have not been parochial in that regard. I felt that anything which could be done for Inverness would be of great benefit to the North and I have tried to encourage the Board of Trade, which is responsible for industry throughout Great Britain, to do something to attract industry. I tried very hard in the days when there was little or no unemployment in Scotland, from 1948 until two years ago, when there were much greater opportunities for development if there had been the will to develop. I tried by my own efforts to stimulate enterprise, but no help came from the Government apart from Dounreay.
    In March a little over two years ago, I had the good fortune in the Ballot to bring in a Private Member's Bill and I brought in a small Bill entitled the North of Scotland Development Corporation Bill. I modelled it on the great success achieved in Northern Ireland. I asked the President of the Board of Trade to select between four and ten highly-skilled industrialists to direct an executive of two men, a manager and an assistant manager, with a couple of girl secretaries, in two rooms in Bothwell Street or some other place in Glasgow. The Bill was supported by all Highland Members and by the late Walter Elliot. We had a good, short debate. I think that had a vote been taken that day, the Bill would have succeeded in getting through, but, unfortunately, it was talked out.

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    In that Bill, I praised the Government for all that they and their predecessors, right back to the Coalition Government, had done to improve the conditions of the Highlands from what they were in 1939. Nobody can challenge that. Great progress has been made in agriculture. We cannot, however, continue to hold our people unless we have some alternative industry to agriculture, fishing and forestry. Forestry, incidentally, has been one of our failures. It is lamentable, but I am afraid we have made very little progress at all.
    However, the matter I want chiefly to talk about tonight is the attraction of industry. A few days before the debate on my Bill took place I asked the President of the Board of Trade a Question. I asked how many factories had been created since the Distribution of Industry Act had been applied to the Highlands by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) in 1949? I was speaking in 1957. The Answer was that eight factories had been opened in the Highland area, most, if not all, of them by private enterprise, and they were employing 770 people.
    It did not seem to me to be much of a contribution to solving the problems of depopulation and unemployment in an area over one-third, and just under one-half, of Scotland. To employ another 770 people did not seem to me much of a contribution.
    In January this year, only two years after my Bill was rejected, I put down another Question to the President of the Board of Trade. He had said that my Bill was not necessary, that there was no need for it, that there were plenty of organisations doing the job which I wanted the development board I proposed to do. Of course, they were not doing the job. They were only talking about doing the job. The Answer I got in January was that since March, 1957, up to the present six new factories had been started, and two extensions, employing a total of 121 people.
    That would not have much effect on depopulation or unemployment, and at that date we were running at 20 per cent. unemployment in the whole of the eastern half of my constituency. There were 20 men and 20 women out of every 100 out of work. Add to them the children dependent upon them and that
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    is a very large number of people. One Member said that, in numbers, they did not amount to much. I tell him that they amount to 2,000 people, and that is a lot of people in the depopulated North.
    I said a little earlier that for the development corporation I proposed I took as a model the Northern Ireland Development Corporation. That has been the most astounding success of any similar undertaking I know of, and the Government deserve the greatest possible credit for the efforts they have made in conjunction with the Government of Northern Ireland in introducing 130 great factories there. Maybe the previous Government had something to do with this. I imagine they must have had. If so, they are entitled to credit, too.
    I have been reading Sir Francis Evans's interesting contribution to the Spectator recently, wherein he tells the story of how 37,000 new jobs have been found; not 121 plus 770; 37,000 new jobs, and there is a potential, almost in a year or so, of 14,000 more. That would be 51,000 new jobs. There is still an unemployment rate of 8 per cent. in Northern Ireland, but the Government have something to be proud of in what they have done there and, maybe, the previous Government, too, in bringing these arrangements together. The article I referred to reveals that the whole community backed the efforts of the Northern Ireland Government and backed the efforts of the British Government.
    I would not grudge anything going to the North of Ireland, nor would any Member, I think. They are a fine people, and they are very closely related by descent to us in Scotland, but I wonder why it is that the same Government have done so little in the Highland counties of Scotland.
    Take a town like Wick. It has every conceivable public service, and good labour; gas, electricity, housing, roads, an aerodrome, a harbour. It presents a much easier problem than many places in Northern Ireland. There is no sea barrier. Like Invergordon, Dingwall, Inverness, Fort William it has no sea barrier, but is on the mainland, with a main line railway and road transport.
    Yet we in Scotland are being played down. Is that denied? How can our position be as it is in contrast with

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    Northern Ireland? I am reluctant to suggest this, but what other explanation can there be? Is it to prevent competition with Northern Ireland? Was it to prevent competition? It looks very much like it to me, because of the abject failure in the Highland counties compared with the magical success in Northern Ireland. It calls for an explanation. I think the people of Scotland will want it. I certainly want it as the Member responsible for the two most depopulated counties.
    The situation in Scotland is agonising to me. I took two meetings on unemployment in October when things were at their worst, or almost so. They were fine fellows, all anxious to get work, but there was no work for them. I saw the authorities at Dounreay. They have done very well indeed in trying to take everyone they possible can, including the deaf and dumb, which is a tremendous thing, and it is of great credit to them. They are doing what they can. Others have been absorbed by contractors in the normal way in these transitional contracting jobs as they come along on hydro schemes and so on, but they are not lasting. We are able to take some of the light industrial jobs which the people in Kilmarnock do. Why should we not be given a share? Six of them would transform Wick, transform a place almost of despair to one of great happiness, surging forward and playing its part.
    We have made an awful mess of Scotland, with 70 per cent. of our people crowded into the industrial belt of Glasgow and the Lanarkshire towns and Edinburgh. Is it not about time we set about putting our own house in order?
    That is why I became an Independent. I could not stand it any longer. I even took over a mine which the Government of the day or the National Coal Board had scheduled for closure. It made a profit last year. It made a small profit in the one before, not one to boast about, because it has low-grade coal. Nevertheless, we pay the full wages which the National Coal Board would do. I do not expect other people to go into heavy industry like the one with which I am connected, where we mine deep-mine coal and make brickettes and ovoids. We make bricks which are heavy to cart around. There is an average of fifty
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    miles before the product gets to its destination.
    When the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson) wound up the debate two years ago, I had been asking for action, and he said he was going to see I got it. I wonder what he feels like tonight. Does he think my Bill was cowardly talked out in view of what has happened since? There has been action—the only factory in Wick, among the first eight, has been closed down, the herring oil plant.
    There has been no action. There has been only the suggestion that there would be action. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to come back into the fold of the party with which I have been connected since I was a schoolboy, but I would be a traitor to the people who elected me if I stood for any more of this.
    I have never asked for industry in the glen. I do not believe in it. I believe in industry where public services are available. Why should we not get it? I would come back gladly into the fold. No one likes being an Independent. It is not a very happy situation in which to be. I see an hon. Member opposite smiling. Believe me, I could keep on being an Independent for twenty years if I had to. There would be no difficulty for me in doing that. I should still remain a Conservative but I should be sorry because of the kind of administration we had got in Scotland.
    I support the Government in foreign affairs and in domestic matters generally. It is in Scotland where I find them at fault. The Board of Trade is the principal offender. It is the Board of Trade which has responsibility for industrial matters. There is no drive, no interest. There is only a playing down.
    I heard my hon. friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) talking today about getting another committee together to talk with local councils and county councils. Where would that get us? The answer to that is just another talking machine with a lot of lesser talking machines. The Board of Trade must know the problem. The President's writ runs throughout the country. The Secretary of State for Scotland, of course, has no responsibility for this and I am certain that he would support my

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    views, but it would be more effective if he supported them in the Cabinet or wherever these views ought to be expressed.
    The situation is not good enough, and it can be put right. There is no question of killing industries. They simply do not exist. It would be manna from heaven if they were to come to these areas. If it is the Northern Ireland type of machinery that will get them there, then let us have that machinery. If not, let my suggestion be adopted and a few people employed to woo industry to the North. I know the six counties of Northern Ireland as well as I know the seven crafting counties of Scotland. If it can be done in Northern Ireland, it can be done in Scotland. I hope that the House will help me to bring that about.
    7.22 p.m.
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: There was only one mistake in the speech of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson), and that was when he spoke about his own period of independence. I should like to pay the tribute to him that he was independent a long time before he became officially so. We are only sorry on this side of the House that once again he may renew his plight and troth to the Tory Party. We have welcomed the qualities of independence which he has displayed in the House on previous occasions before his official declaration of independence, and we would have welcomed him personally, too, on this side of the House.
    The hon. Gentleman certainly spoke for the Highlands, in particular, and for Scotland more broadly than did the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison), who spent the first part of his speech denying that private enterprise today in Scotland is living on public assistance, which, of course, it is. I do not see why a member of the Tory Party should be particularly ashamed of that. The Tories have never been committed, as were the Liberals once upon a time, to laissez faire. They did not hesitate, in theory at least, to call in the State when necessary to support and give subventions to an industry in difficulties. I am not so sure that there is anything particularly wrong with a private enterprise, if it thinks it can continue to function and function more efficiently, doing so with assistance from the State. Let the Tories
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    be quite honest about it. They have never been theoretically against it at any time, and I do not see why they should dissociate themselves from some of the things which have been said from this side today.
    Mr. Lawson: They have fought the last two General Elections on the issue of setting the people free, and presumably it was on private enterprise that they based their hopes for that.
    Mr. MacMillan: That may be, but they were certainly not fighting an election on the basis of making themselves completely free of public assistance; and that assistance goes on. Particularly in the Highlands and Islands, we have had examples over the years of the almost universal failure of private enterprise and private industry. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland, by his own practical, shining example of enterprise, by investing in the Highlands, employing people and risking his own capital there, has condemned the rest of the capitalists, because hardly any private enterprise showed its nose in the Highlands even when we had the area declared a Development Area. Development Area facilities were made available for several years, but hardly anybody showed up and finally it was decided to de-schedule the area. There was no live spark of private enterprise in the area itself. No Scottish capital came from Glasgow or any of the other sources of investment; and what capital there was in the Highland towns themselves was not anxious to take a risk and invest in its own area.
    The hon. Member for Scotstoun praised the results of Government policy under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958. He patted the Government on the back for having created jobs and for having shown generosity in assisting industry in all of Scotland. But, when I obtained figures on 7th May from the Board of Trade, I was told that
    "Seventy-four … applications for assistance under this Act have been received from Scotland. Of these, eighteen have so far been approved and six rejected. The total amount of loans approved is £683,270 and of annual grants £7,750."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1959; Vol. 605, c. 61.]
    As for annual grants, there was the same answer in respect of a Question about the amount of grants which had gone into the Highlands; so that the total of £7,750 in grants approved by D.A.T.A.C. under

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    the Distribution of Industry Act went entirely to the Highland areas. This means that no grant at all, by 14th May, had come to any other part of Scotland.
    It is not a particularly generous record of assistance in or outside the Highland counties. The total of £683,270 in loans was not at all a generous figure. Moreover, the total sum for the seven Highland counties, including Caithness and Sutherland, was only roughly £89,000. We shall not get very far with figures of that kind. I shall come back later to a specific example of what a fraudulent piece of propaganda were the speeches which commended that Act to the House, and to the effect of the Act in the Islands since that date.
    When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour opened the debate today, he was very modest about recent improvements in employment in Scotland. He accepted that seasonal factors had helped and that the good weather had provided most of the jobs. His honesty and modesty were merely realistic; because there are still pockets of unemployment in Scotland which are a disgrace to any Government fourteen years after the end of the war. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland mentioned an unemployment figure of 20 per cent in certain areas of Sutherland. I am glad to inform the hon. Member that in my constituency unemployment has gone down in recent months by 10 per cent. But, it is now 28 per cent., a figure below which it has hardly fallen during the past year, despite the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958, under the policies of the present Government.
    We cannot now, fourteen years afterwards, blame the war or anything the Labour Government did. We have had years of "busting prosperity", so we are told. We have had any amount of evidence of it in certain areas, but certainly not in the Highlands and Islands where, if it were not for Government aid over the past decades, we should have been in a much worse condition today. Unfortunately, that action has not been taken on a sufficient scale, with the result that we still have pockets of unemployment of this kind, and particularly urban pockets; though there is much concealed unemployment in the rural areas. It is there in every village, in
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    dozens and scores, and it adds up to the miseries of thousands of human beings in the rural parts just as it does in the cities and in the mining areas.
    In the present high season of employment in the Western Isles, we still have 28 per cent. unemployment. I fail to see where the Scottish Office can possibly find a source of self-congratulation in that. Therefore, I commend to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland the same modesty as was displayed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. It was very much in order and justified by the state of the Government's record. As other hon. Members who represent Highland areas know, we do not include in the unemployment figure the unemployment and underemployment of classes of the so-called self-employed. In Lewis alone, there are between 1,000 and 1,200 weavers, not one of whom is registered for Unemployment Benefit. They are like any other employed, working men; but they are classified in the statistics as self-employed.
    The same applies to crofters. Everybody knows that no crofter makes his livelihood from his croft alone. The Crofters Commission, a specialist body, was set up to deal with this problem. If so far, it has had only limited success, we must recall that it has hardly as yet had the opportunity of justifying its existence. The Crofters Commission has stated repeatedly that the crofters must largely depend upon ancillary employment and upon income other than that which they get from the croft if they are to continue to live in the Highland Crofting areas. That in itself shows that there is a considerable amount of underemployment in the purely crofting areas, where other work is lacking. It also shows that the crofter should not be classified as self-employed merely because he is attached to a croft from which he cannot make a living. He has to depend on other jobs, and he is not getting them. Yet he is not classed as unemployed and does not receive unemployment insurance benefit any more than does the weaver in the same area when de facto unemployed.
    If all these figures were added together, if the real unemployment figures were seen, it would appal this House. Yet figures of 20 per cent. and 28 per cent. unemployment must surely in themselves have some impact upon the Government

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    and upon the consciences of hon. Members representing other areas as well as upon those of us most directly concerned with the Highland communities.
    The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland referred to the drift of population which is going on all the time from the small Highlands and Islands villages. The people go hopefully into the towns where they think they will get jobs, and so more and more of the small places are reaching the point of no return and are dying. Finally, these people becoming disillusioned in the towns are drifting south again. I will say this for the days of the Labour Government, that by 1950 we saw for the first time in generations a halting of the drift of population from the Highlands. Population was at least static for a while and there was new hope. Since then the curve has gone down again and unemployment, the lack of prospects and general disenchantment with the situation has started the drift of population from the Highlands again. Today I believe it is only increasing longevity, partly as a result of the social security improvements made from 1945 onwards, which has stabilised and is sustaining the population figures of the Highlands at all. In other words, if it were not for the old people living longer we should see far more dramatically the fall in younger population in that area.
    As far as I can see, there is no prospect of improvement without Government aid, and vigorous direct Government aid, to new industries. There is little or no sign that private industry wants to go into areas where it has to meet the problem of long-haul costly transport and lack of adequate communication and basic services. Who can blame private industrialists for not wanting to go to these areas when they can get unemployed skilled labour laid on in the traditional industrial areas where there are good communications and where the sources of raw materials are near, as well as their markets? How can we expect private industry to go to the Highlands? They tell us that, as a matter of sheer business commonsense, they will not do so.
    What, then, are we to do? Are we to abandon these areas, or are the Government prepared to take action? Are they prepared to give compensation to those firms who are willing to go or might be
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    directed to go to those areas? There surely remains some responsibility upon the Government and the community to ensure that industry is taken to those places, and the population retained. I know it is the official policy of the Government to retain the population in the Highlands; but there is no sign that it is being carried out. Along with the lack of prospect of new industry, there seems to be no prospect of the revival of old industries like the herring fishing of Barra, or of the expansion of existing ones. I have already explained how much—or how little—is being done under the Distribution of Industry Act, and I am afraid that so far it is a derisory contribution. It is true that D.A.T.A.C. has only been running for a year; but the result has been very small so far in terms of employment or of new industry.
    The Government have now turned desperately to tourism. Almost every speech we hear from Scottish Ministers these days tells the crofters to take in tourists. How can we have a tourist drive without proper roads over which the tourists can drive their cars or be transported? How can we provide tourist chalets, about which we have been hearing, without water supplies, electricity, sewerage schemes and modern sanitation? Again there is a direct responsibility upon the Government, and I call upon them to do something urgently to make possible and effective the development of the one industry which they themselves have been concentrating upon for several months past.
    One thing the Government refused to do only two weeks ago when I asked a Question in this House was to have a full inquiry into the system of sea transport between the Western Isles and the mainland and the Port of Glasgow. It is genuinely felt in the Highlands that the MacBrayne monopoly along the West Highland coast, as at present operated, is strangling the general economic life, and particularly that of many small communities. While we must remember that the smaller the island is, the farther away it is, the more uneconomic it is to run goods and passengers there; nevertheless, the higher also is the cost of living for the people who are working in those places. They must have consideration. They are our fellow citizens in peace as well as in war.

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    I wish we could remember our obligation to them in peace time as well as they remember theirs to us as a nation in war. The nation never forgets to send out the little official envelopes when war is declared, and the Islesmen have always been the first out with the R.N.R., even before war is declared. Yet, as soon as the war is over and they go back to the islands, they are again forgotten. They are left to the tender monopoly mercies of MacBrayne's; forced to pay a higher cost of transport than any other citizens, and carry the burden of a higher cost of living.
    I promised to give an example of the recent working of D.A.T.A.C. A constituent of mine, a very enterprising and reliable young man, wanted to expand his business of contracting and sub-contracting work by acquiring machinery for road work and for various jobs in civil engineering. The county council would be more than willing, I know, to support him all the way; and he gave its name as one referee. His second referee was the Crofters Commission, whose name he also gave. The Committee at the Treasury which is ostensibly advising on these matters and is in fact operating the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958, was also referred by him to his banker. This was to show that he had attempted to get the capital by the ordinary means through the bank.
    I know for a fact that one of those referees was referred to by D.A.T.A.C. and supported his application; but the bank was never approached. The other referee was never approached. He then received a letter from D.A.T.A.C. telling him that he did not satisfy the requirements of the Act. What this meant, by implication, was that he had not satisfied the condition of having gone through the ordinary channels to raise the money that he could not show that his business would benefit the area, which was one of high, persistent unemployment, and show promise of succeeding and giving employment. Yet his business has every one of those required characteristics. It is in an area of high, persistent unemployment—none higher. He had been to the ordinary channels for his finance and could not get it. He had given two excellent referees who would themselves have been his employers part
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    of the time and have given him work for his employees. He satisfied every condition in fact and every condition of common sense, yet he was turned down flat by D.A.T.A.C.
    I say "turned down flat" because I want to emphasise to the Minister that this is an advisory committee. When did an advisory committee become the boss of the Government? The Government can turn down the advice of a committee when it suits them. In a case such as this, why accept the tyranny of an advisory sub-committee of the Treasury? I know the Government accept the tyranny of the Treasury itself many a time; but why accept as the last word the rejection of a scheme of this kind by D.A.T.A.C., which is merely advisory?
    I wanted to show that in this area we are qualified possibly more than any other area in Britain for any assistance that can be justified under development area conditions, under D.A.T.A.C. terms of reference and the Distribution of Industry Act. Yet nothing has happened, except that there has been a burst of lovely spring and early summer weather which automatically created some seasonal jobs. But these can at best be only a seasonal solution for a small number of the people in the area.
    The Government should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are all Scotsmen by birth even if not by education, except perhaps for one. I should have thought that it would have weighed heavily on their conscience that there were parts of Scotland with the unemployment figures which have been quoted, such as 20 per cent. in Caithness and 28 per cent. in the Western Isles. Yet this goes on month after month fourteen years after the end of the war.
    What are the Government offering us in the Western Isles, instead of an employment policy and instead of assistance under the Distribution of Industry Act? They are offering us, in the event of war coming along again, not only the traditional right to have the R.N.R. called out or the right to have the boys marching off again as they did in previous wars, but, in addition now, a N.A.T.O. base, to be manned partly by Americans, Frenchmen, and goodness knows whom. That will not give jobs to our people. It will disturb the whole way of life of the community. On top of that, it may

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    literally be a Tory Government bombshell one of these days. We have had a refusal on the part of the Minister of Defence to give any assurance but that the place will be used as a storage and landing dump for nuclear bombs. Our enemies could not do worse than that except detonate the bombs themselves. Since nothing in reason seems to move them, I wish somebody would detonate at least a small bomb under the seats of the Government.
    7.42 p.m.
    Mr. H. R. Spence: I very much appreciated the speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary. I particularly welcomed the part where he emphasised the need for greater diversity in the industries which we try to encourage to provide employment in Scotland.
    I want to outline to the Minister an idea which I think could be used in Scotland to provide a modest but welcome form of employment all the year round for a number of people. The Minister will no doubt have an idea of the topic to which shall refer, because yesterday I had a Question on the Order Paper asking whether the Minister would set up an inquiry into the economics of developing our mountain districts by means of appropriate roads, cable railways, restaurants, and so on, to put them on a par with what one finds in every other country in Europe.
    In the last forty years the habit of the travelling public has completely altered, and it has altered because of modern means of transportation. In France, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Germany one finds that the mountains are made accessible by road or rail so that one can get to the base of the mountains, and there one finds cable railways to take people up the mountains so that they can enjoy the lovely air and the view. Forty years ago the only people who got to the top of mountains were a few enthusiastic mountaineers.
    On going superficially into the figures of many of these installations abroad, I find that the summer revenue developed from these mountain restaurants and railways is greater than the winter one for which they were originally conceived. I hope that the Minister will not just take up this matter with the Tourist Board as he promised, or that, if he does so, he
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    will add the condition that some action must be taken to find out what it would cost, what the revenue is likely to be and how many people could be provided with employment. I have made my own estimate and because of that I am pressing the Minister to have an official investigation made into the possibilities of providing full-time employment—that is what it would be—at no cost at all to the Government.
    I believe that we should experiment with at any rate one scheme of this kind, and it should be done by a company owned partly by the Government and partly by private enterprise, rather like the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, with a 51 per cent. Government holding. My reason for suggesting that is that we have to deal with the Forestry Commission, and we also hope that the locomotive works in Perth and Inverness could service the mountain railways. There are a number of public interests involved. Therefore, this is not just a private enterprise job, but private enterprise can play its part because the directorship of the shareholding can represent landowners, hoteliers and all those who have an interest in the catering and tourist trades. I also believe that the funds will be forthcoming because I understand that already an offer has been made by one anonymous enthusiast to put up £25,000 if other people will do the same.
    I believe that here is the perfect opportunity for trying out a scheme where the Government and private enterprise work together. I believe that on investigation it will be found that the scheme can work. I should like to itemise what I consider to be the basic minimum requirements.
    We must first have a road to the base of the mountain and a car park and a restaurant there. We must have a cable conveyance to take people up the mountain, and it must be an all-weather one, not just a winter one. It should be either a gondola railway with small closed cars seating two or four persons or preferably, I believe, a higher speed type of cable car railway, such as the one connecting St. Christopher with Galzig at St. Anton, where twelve people go up at a time, completely enclosed in the winter and with the windows open in the summer.
    I believe that the cost of these cable car railways is low because the span between the pylons can be as much as 1,000 feet, and, therefore, all one has to do is

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    to have a few pylons with the cables tensioned by massive stations at the top and bottom. These cable railways have been springing up in European countries especially since the war—these are not pre-war installations; many of them are very recent, and more are planned—and I feel that they would not be coming into being if it were not a paying proposition.
    We must move with the times and not be influenced by the fact that at present our main roads are remote from the base of our big mountains. We must build the necessary spur roads or through roads, and we must pioneer at any rate one railway up to 3,500 feet or 4,000 feet and get an idea of the revenue which it will produce. I visualise a pioneer installation like this employing 100 people one way and another.
    I believe that there will be a good winter trade from skiers, and that will run from December until April. The tourist trade starts in May, and that will run on until October. November and December is the time for overhaul and servicing. I believe, therefore, that there is a real possibility of developing our mountains, which have been neglected in the past. I believe that this will not only be profitable but will provide employment for people in the remote areas to whom it is difficult to take any other form of industry.
    Connected with the Question that I had on the Order Paper yesterday was a request to the Secretary of State to review the line of road joining the Dee and Spey. He gave me what I call rather a "Civil Service" Answer, that it was the responsibility of the county authorities concerned. This is something wider than the authority of a county council. This is a road that can lead to something on a national basis, and I hope that the Secretary of State will look at this matter again.
    With modern motor cars and new ideas of siting roads and keeping them clear of drifting snow, a road could be built right through the heart of the mountains from the Dee to the Spey. It would have the effect of putting this mountain area to which I have been referring within reach of Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness. It would double the possible number of tourists who would come to the area because at the moment they
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    tend to divide between East and West. It would be well worth considering the finances of building this road and the work which it would provide at the same time as we consider the evolution of a new policy for using the natural features of our mountainous countryside.
    I hope that the Minister will look at this carefully. I hope that he will have an inquiry made, at any rate in broad outline, literally within weeks and, if the prospect is good, that he will perhaps, go further and allow me to put down a Question on which he can make a statement.
    7.52 p.m.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Sir J. Hutchison) said that there had been great variety in this debate. I agree, but that is about the only thing said by the hon. Member with which I agree. There has been great variety. On the one hand, we have the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) and the hon. Member for Scotstoun, both ex-Ministers of the Conservative Government, differing. The hon. Member for Fife, East, with all his experience as a Minister, does not know what the needs of Scotland are and recommends that the Government should set up an inquiry to find out. It may take years. It may take three years or ten years. In the meantime, let Scotland languish.
    The hon. Member for Scotstoun says, "No, we want no inquiry because I know very well what the needs of Scotland are." The fact is that if the Government know what the needs of Scotland are they have kept them a pretty good secret. Although they have been in office all these years they have not adequately implemented all the statutory powers which it is within their power to do.
    The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) differs from everybody. He is an independent Member on his own. He says that he, as an independent party of which he is both leader and follower, knows what the needs of Scotland are, and that he will implement them. He will implement them with the solidarity of the party he leads with such distinction and such success.
    Next we have the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour who opened the debate for the Government,

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    and finally there is the Report itself. The Parliamentary Secretary and the Report seem to agree. The hon. Gentleman seems to agree that the Report is a poor, sad, melancholy document.
    I shall prove the arguments I wish to present to the House by reference to the Report and by reference to some specific cases from my own constituency. Before doing that, I must draw attention to the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser), who opened the debate for the Opposition, put certain concrete problems to the Government. The Parliamentary Secretary affected to reply sincerely, because he is a very sincere and conscientious man, but he failed to reply to all the points made. He talked of the distribution of industry; he talked of various other problems, but he found no solution for them. Nor did he address himself to the specific problems which were put clearly in the distinguished speech by my hon. Friend.
    This Report is a poor, melancholy document. As nobody else has said it, I should like to say that it is prepared by the Civil Service with skill, accuracy and loyalty. It has been prepared with that skill, accuracy and loyalty which faithfully serve every British Government, however bad they may be, and this is a Report of a bad year by a bad Government.
    The Report confesses to a decline in industrial activity which the Government failed to arrest. It confesses to injury to Scotland's economy which the Government failed to maintain. It confesses to alternations in employment and unemployment which the Government failed to prevent. It confesses to irregularities in productivity and export which the Government failed to rectify.
    I said that I would prove what I am saying by reference to the Report. Paragraph 1 says:
    "During the year 1958, Scotland's economy was affected by the decline in industrial activity which occurred throughout the country as a whole."
    The country as a whole is under this Government, and it is the duty of a Government, as I shall prove by a quotation from an undoubted authority who is not a Socialist, to rectify that. Paragraph 2 says:
    "In the United Kingdom as a whole, the volume of industrial output … was slightly less than in 1957 but equalled the level of 1956."
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    What does that mean? It means that we have retrogressed and we continue to walk backwards like a crab when we should continue to walk forwards, as a proper Government should. Paragraph 3 says:
    "In Scotland, the reduction in output … began earlier and has been more pronounced."
    That means it began earlier in Scotland than in England, and has been more pronounced in Scotland than in England. It shows Government neglect by the Scottish Ministers. Paragraph 4 says:
    "The output of the manufacturing industries … was about 3 per cent. less in 1958 than in 1957."
    Again we are walking backwards, and if a crab does not walk backwards I do not know what kind of an animal does.
    Mr. Lawson: A lobster—it jumps backwards.
    Mr. Hughes: Paragraph 6 says:
    "The number of employed persons … was 2 per cent. fewer than in 1957."
    That is more retrogression, and more walking backwards. Paragraph 8 says:
    "The upward trend in unemployment … continued."
    The upward trend, not of employment, but of unemployment, continued. In my submission these words of the Report are a confession by the Ministers of their own failure.
    These failures should not occur, because industry and employment in Scotland are rich in potentialities, scientific skill, vast factory space, plenty of water, electricity and clear air, strong, healthy and energetic workers. The fact is that Scotland lacks Ministers who can link these potentialities and who can fully exercise the statutory powers which they already have and who can use them with energy, vision and skill and secure a fair spread of productivity in North and South Scotland and who can co-ordinate production, distribution, exports and imports so as to make Scotland a prosperous country.
    It is striking and noteworthy that we find the opposite features in other countries not very far away. We find that "down in England", as they say in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, in West Germany and in America there are not these damaging and catastrophic features. Why? It is because the Ministers there use statutory powers and apply themselves

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    to the needs of the territories which they have to govern. I ask why existing statutory powers are not fully used in Scotland? Why are the vast open spaces of the North of Scotland left idle and undeveloped? Why are there not more and better roads in the North of Scotland? Why are the railways not electrified—as the Minister should be electrified—more quickly?
    Let us look at the disparities between the North and South of Scotland. In the South of Scotland, there are massed industries and population, but sad unemployment which could be cured by a skilled Government replacing Ministers whose hearts, interests and minds seem mare concerned with what is happening in England than with developing Scotland. So much for the South of Scotland.
    The North of Scotland, with its great open spaces and cheap rents, could easily be profitably exploited by modern science which annihilates distance—and distance is put forward by many as an objection—just as successfully as Northern Ireland is profiting by the patriotic skill of its enterprising Government.
    Northern Ireland's Government and people, with great unemployment recently, are increasing their trade, industry and employment, and foreign capital is coming in, cheap rents are being made available, grants are being made to build, buy and extend factories, machinery and skill and to assist in the scientific research which is necessary to that country.
    I submit that that is an inspiring example which the Government should follow, but the Government are so pessimistic that they gauge the nation's economic position by comparison with the lowest and not the highest, by comparison with slumps, not booms. In their practice, statesmanship is degraded by their taking as their criterion low rather than high standards. Under the present Government, Scotland's national fortunes are wilting while development areas feel it most.
    A standing example and the strongest support I can find for that flows from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, who was recently in Scotland. He is one of the more conscientious Ministers of the present
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    Government. He visited Aberdeen recently and frankly and truly said:
    "Everyone living in the more difficult employment areas was anxious that the Government should help by getting new industries to come in. But while there were many places wanting new industries the fact is that there is no new industry to meet the demand."
    English Ministers have said the same thing of England. Industry is languishing all over this island, not only in Scotland. Is that not a criticism of the Government and an indication of the Government's failure to look after the country's prosperity?
    When in Aberdeen, the hon. Gentleman was told that Aberdeen was too far north—too far north in these days of nuclear travel when distances are annihilated! The Minister gave the proper reply when he said:
    "I am not impressed with the geographical argument. I am convinced that the advantages you have in this area—very good labour and adequate supply—by far off-set any disadvantages."
    With that dictum of the Minister I cordially and respectfully agree. Obviously, he went to Aberdeen with an open mind, gathered the facts and articulated them as a Minister should.
    I shall now turn from the general consideration of the Report to four glaring instances of Government ineptitude in my own constituency—which is Aberdeen, North in case anyone does not know—
    Mr. Patrick Maitland: Where is it?
    Mr. Hector Hughes: —by wasting well-equipped factories, expensive precision tools and highly qualified skill.
    The Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Co. Limited has had to reduce staff at Tullos Tool Factory, Aberdeen, because, as the firm said to me in a letter dated 10th April, 1959:
    "For several months past, we have been carrying a labour force in excess of our requirements. We have not had enough work to keep all the force economically and profitably employed, but we continued to absorb the excess costs in the hope the position would improve."
    The writer went on to say:
    "I must be realistic and tell you that an increase in demand in our own field of production or the placing of new types of work—any kind which we would immediately examine for its suitability—is the only help which would enable us to re-employ labour in

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    Aberdeen. If you can assist in either of these directions, please do not hesitate to communicate with me at any time of day or night."
    Is this not a cry from the heart from that distinguished company?
    The second instance is that of Messrs. C. F. Wilson & Co. (1932), Limited, of Aberdeen, oil engine manufacturers, who sent me a copy of a long, three-page letter dated 11th May, 1959, which the firm had written to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. N. Macpherson), who is to reply for the Government tonight. The letter says:
    "We are one of the Aberdeen engineering firms who have probably suffered more than most from the recent trade recession."
    I will not quote the whole letter, which goes on to say:
    "Our problem is to obtain sufficient work to keep our existing workers employed. Lack of funds does not arise; the fact that we are working very much under capacity means that our available capital is not fully employed.
    For over 50 years we have been makers of horizontal Diesel Engines and since the war and until 1954 we exported close on a quarter of a million pounds of these engines annually to the Middle and Far Eastern countries and South America. Since then, through balance of payments difficulties, tariff barriers, such as erected in India and Pakistan, political upheavals in Abadan, Suez, Syria and Iraq, we have been faced with a continual shrinking market, until today it is reduced to an uneconomical level."
    The letter goes on to say:
    "Although we have been forced to declare a considerable number of our men redundant, we have retained all our key men and as many other hands as possible."
    Obviously, in this firm's breast hope springs eternal that work will come.
    The third firm which wrote to me is Messrs. A. E. Stewart (Engineering) Ltd. It is a firm of structural and mechanical engineers and specialists in public works, building and quarry plant and it also does blacksmith work and electric welding. By letter, as recently as 27th May, this firm says:
    "Due to trade recession in mines and quarries our orders have sunk considerably and we are now employing only half the number we were last year. This is very unfortunate both for employees and directors, especially as within the last two years we expanded our premises and plant."
    The fourth of the four firms is Messrs. R. G. Garvie and Sons of Aberdeen. It is also a casualty of the Suez adventure. It is a firm of engineers and millwrights,
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    operating in a big way, which makes and sells agricultural machines for sale at home and abroad. Its machines had a good reputation all over the Middle East. In its letter, after Suez, it said:
    "This has brought us into very great difficulty with our customers and due to the late delivery, as these machines are for the Land Reclamation and Ministry of Agriculture, the Administrations reserve the right to either impose a penalty of 4 per cent. of the total value of the contract as fine for the delay in the delivery, or otherwise cancel the contract and confiscate the 10 per cent. guarantee deposit lodged by our customers, and purchase the goods at any price available from the open market. They will also delete our name from the list of approved suppliers of threshers. Our machines have a good reputation in the Egyptian market and it is unthinkable that this should occur, especially at this moment when the unemployment position in Aberdeen is so acute."
    These are only four examples of the damage that is being inflicted upon the trade, industry and employment of Aberdeen by the present policy of the Government. In the City of Aberdeen, in May, 1951, there were 1,665 unemployed people. In May, 1959, after eight years of Tory Government, that number had grown to 3,681. That is more than double the 1951 figure. In the County of Aberdeen, in May, 1951, there were 2,714 unemployed people, and in May, 1959—again after eight years of Tory Government—there were 5,583 which is again more than double the 1951 figure. Children leaving school are unable to find work. It is a terrible and demoralising thing for these young citizens to find themselves unwanted in the community for which they were educated and which they want to serve. Between 1954 and 1958 the number of unemployed young people increased by about 20 per cent.
    This is a situation for which the Government must take responsibility. I said that I would quote a non-Socialist authority for that proposition, because it may fall upon the ears of members of the Government more graciously than would a quotation from a Socialist. Sir Roy Harrod, the distinguished economist, recently wrote:
    "Until 1939 no Government would have been prepared to accept full responsibility for the condition of the national economy. It was an obligation thrust upon the State by the war and by the wartime need to control entirely the means to achieve victory. No Government since, irrespective of party, has thought it reasonable even to question its ability to determine the course of economic affairs, much less attempted to shed any of the responsibilities."

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    By neglecting and flouting these responsibilities I submit that the present Government have shown that they are outmoded and unethical. They should take their example from Northern Ireland, Western Germany or even Japan or America, whose Governments attend to the needs of the people If they will not do that, I say in all sincerity that they should get out and make way for a Government which will attend to those needs.
    8.15 p.m.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: I hope that I speak for all the House when I say that we have all immensely enjoyed the manner of delivery of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes). On the other hand, I regret that he is not thoroughly conversant with all the matters within his own constituency. He constantly used the simile of the Government and a crab, saying that the Government walked backwards like a crab, but I challenge him, on his next visit, to examine the crabs in and around his constituency. When he finds one that walks backwards I hope that he will send it to me.
    Mr. Lawson: Did not my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) point out that it was the lobster that he had in mind? The lobster does jump backwards, just as the Government have been doing.
    Lady Tweedsmuir: No. I listened to every word uttered by the hon. and learned Gentleman, and he specifically mentioned the crab.
    Part of the burden of his argument was that the economy had gradually run down. I will not go again into the economic arguments which have often been debated in the House, except to say that the financial restrictions put upon the economy by the Government were imposed because they believed that at the time that was the best way to tackle our chief problem, which was then, without doubt, inflation. All the statistics, which are well known to hon. Members, prove that this country weathered the worldwide recession better than any countries in North America or in Western Europe.
    The other point made by the hon. and learned Member was that if the Government had given Scottish industry the
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    financial aid which he suggested was required—and this was the burden of many speeches made by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite—we would automatically have improved the industrial situation.
    It is on this aspect of the matter that I want to say a word. We are getting into a very grave situation if we think that by giving financial aid to our industries we can compel customers to buy from us. I hope that hon. Members will not mind my quoting facts concerning my own constituency. Many of the difficulties confronting firms in my constituency at the moment arise not so much from the fact that they need the capital at this time as from the fact that it is difficult to find markets at this increasingly competitive period.
    I am happy to say that the employment figures for the City of Aberdeen have improved to a certain extent. At any rate they are below the Scottish average. There is a great deal of danger in quoting statistics, but the fact remains that the figure of unemployment in the City of Aberdeen has been reduced to 3·9 per cent., whereas, as everybody knows, the latest figure for the whole of Scotland, quoted from the Government Front Bench, is 4·4 per cent. Of the 2,662 men out of work, 549 are disabled and 60 are temporarily suspended. We have very little short-time working. Of the women unemployed, who total 954, no less than 70 per cent. are married. We must face the fact that many married women today do not want full-time employment.
    Most of the difficulty in placing people arises in the case of those who are unskilled. The level of employment is very uneven. The building trade, as one would expect at this time of the year, is doing very well. Indeed, it cannot get enough joiners at the moment. In addition, the paper and granite industries are in an excellent condition. If hon. Members know of any public or factory buildings which are to be erected I recommend them to consider facing those buildings with Aberdeen granite. I also recommend hon. Members to look at Bowaters' building in Knightsbridge. This has been faced with granite from Aberdeen and the firm concerned has just won a contract worth £250,000 to do the same thing in connection with a building in Oxford Street.

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    This is an example of an industry which can adapt itself to modern techniques and modern methods. Whereas in the old days houses were built of big, solid granite blocks, now that has become in many cases too costly and the new method is to pin to the base a facing of polished granite of an inch or an inch and a half in thickness, which produces a very fine finish. It is an example of a very old-established industry which has managed to readjust itself to meet the competitive market demands of the modern age.
    While it is a fact that we have only about 100 people unemployed in the engineering industry, nevertheless it is one which, I think, gives perhaps the greatest concern at the moment. It is a basic industry, and it is one in which there are greatest difficulties in finding markets at this time. That is where I come to a difference in outlook, which has been very evident in this debate, with those members on the benches opposite who seem to put forward the argument that were we to give enough financial aid that would largely overcome many of our problems. I have found that firms say that it is not the financial inducements of D.A.T.A.C. that are, for example, going to be of help to them. They are not short of capital. They do not really want a subsidy. What they want today is to have the facilities of the Government to try to help them find new contracts, either sub-contracts or contracts for manufacturing under licence.
    One firm in particular has been both to the Scottish Council and the Board of Trade for a considerable period. The Scottish Council wrote to me about this firm and said that it had given a good many opportunities for industry to this firm to consider and that there was
    "No lack of enterprise on behalf of this firm. They have followed up with the greatest vigour all the suggestions put to them, but there is a general contraction in heavy and medium engineering."
    The Board of Trade, on the same subject about this firm, said that it had also done a good deal to put the firm in the way of markets overseas or at home and:
    "The Government's part is to create the condition in which industry has the chance to expand and it is then up to the industrialists to take the chance."
    I believe that is so, because we cannot compel a customer to buy our products.
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    Therefore, I should like to ask what consideration is being given in the negotiations that are about to take place in connection with the Russian Trade Agreement to Scotland's getting a chance to tender for the products needed in exports to Russia. If we take, for example, consumer goods, there is a quota overall of nearly £2 million and I can see an absolute scramble from every sort of industry in this country to get into the Soviet market. I should like to ask whether the Government would consider the Board of Trade offering the first opportunity to those areas which are suffering the heaviest unemployment and the greatest difficulty.
    I should also like to ask whether any active help is being given to Scottish industrialists to follow up the very considerable work which has been done after the last Canadian Trade Mission. I think that we have a very great opportunity to replace a considerable part of the United States' share of the Canadian market provided that we really understand what are the difficulties and what is needed in the Canadian market. We can do it without any detriment to the Canadian home producer. There is such a huge domestic market in the United States that it can, of course, send the overspill from that market over the border to Canada at prices which we would call uneconomic. We must recognise the fact that the Canadians are very accustomed to United States specifications, United States machinery and United States methods of wrapping and advertising.
    Indeed, the flood of advertising material over the border into Canada is something with which I do not think the Scottish industrialist yet understands how to compete. Our method of sending off catalogues and quiet polite understatements of our achievements simply will not match with the public relations campaign of the United States in the Canadian market. I think that many people have been misled by the fact that there is a great identity of outlook in many matters between Canada and Scotland, more so than south of the Border in England and Wales. I was rather encouraged the other day to see something in a journal that came to me—the British Columbia News Letter—in which was reported a speech by the

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    British Columbian Minister of Highways about the attitude of British manufacturers at this time. He said:
    "… ten years ago it seemed to him that British business men expected customers to come to their doors as though it was a favour to sell them something. That has gone. British business men are showing a much more determined spirit—they were knocking at British Columbian doors, and their whole attitude was much more aggressive."
    I think a good deal could be done, perhaps through the Board of Trade, and I hope also through the Scottish Council, to try to suggest to our own manufacturers that they should try to get into this market now, because now is the opportunity. If they do so they must send people overseas who are top executives and who have the power to take decisions on the spot and who will themselves understand what is needed in that particular market. I should also like to know that their encouragement or advice is being given about the export possibilities to Latin America.
    In January I had the first chance of my life to visit parts of Latin America, Venezuela, Brazil and the Argentine. I was immensely impressed by the great possibilities which undoubtedly exist there for all kinds of business, both for heavy engineering and lighter consumer goods. The market is ready for us to enter. We had the visit by the President of the Board of Trade to Venezuela. Regarding Brazil, it is always said, "What about the credit position?" But America is giving enormous sums of money to support Brazil and she is not doing that for nothing. Nor would the Germans enter that market in great numbers if they did not think that there was a future for them there. I believe that if the Board of Trade could suggest these possibilities to our Scottish industrialists in a more aggressive and positive way a good many would be prepared to take advantage of the opportunities which exist.
    It is, of course, true that in some places, such as Aberdeen for example, a great variety of small firms might not be in the position to take advantage of the opportunities offered in these export markets. I ask, therefore, whether the Board of Trade will seriously consider exerting its influence, and suggesting that some of these smaller firms should join together in the kind of consortium which is now common in relation to capital investment
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    in countries overseas. While still retaining their own independence and character, many such small firms could combine in that way in order to enter what are without doubt very difficult markets to penetrate.
    I wish briefly to refer again to the subject of attracting new industries which I had an opportunity to discuss not long ago. Previously I have had considerable sympathy with the Government argument that when there are advance factories standing empty it is unwise to spend public money on building fresh factories all over the country on what is undoubtedly an experimental basis. But now I have changed my view to some extent. One of the difficulties of being a Member of the House of Commons is that one is sometimes inclined to change one's views. I have always taken a great interest in the possibility of a European Free Trade Area. As one knows from personal experience, there are American firms which, when deciding whether they should come to this country or go to the Continent, prefer to go to the Continent because there is at any rate a European Common Market established, and there are still doubts about the arrangements for a European Free Trade Area. That being so, I Chink we must give an added incentive to overseas businesses to come to this country.
    I do not feel competent to judge the form in which the building of advance factories should be undertaken, or to what extent we should subsidise rentals, but I think that instead of building one experimental factory at Coatbridge, it would not be unwise to build, say, a dozen such factories all over the country, and I hope that one would be built in Aberdeen. I have discovered that there are now less than a dozen empty Government factories in Scotland and there are inquiries about the occupation of those factories. So I am driven to the conclusion that, were such factories erected in certain areas, even though they might not be tailor-made to meet the requirements of prospective occupants, they might attract industries from overseas.
    I have taken a great interest in all kinds of fabrics for the development of housing and I think that this country is lagging behind in that respect. The methods used in North America in the building of prefabricated factories and houses provide a good example. A start is made

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    with a small factory or a house, and when more accommodation is required, it can be ordered by post. It is as simple as that, an extra room for a house, or an extension to a factory, may be ordered by post. There is a great deal more that we could learn from a study of methods of prefabricated building.
    I do not think we can have an absolute plan for industry in Scotland, or in the United Kingdom as a whole, because our tradition is based on variety and variety means change. Those responsible for management, those who work in industry without the responsibility of management, those who put up the capital and those responsible for Government policy, must all be ready to take advantage of changing circumstances. That means that, inevitably, there will be ragged edges to the pattern of industry and to the employment position in this country; but if we follow the lead of energetic and public-spirited industrialists, and back what they are trying to do, I think that there will be a great industrial future for Scotland.
    8.35 p.m.
    Mr. William Ross: I was almost waiting for that confession of the noble Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir). I knew it was bound to come and that she would tell us she had changed her mind in reference to financial inducements to industry. We have heard all this before. Always, in the end, the noble Lady's speeches lead up to the fishing industry. We had the same thing from her today. She built her whole speech around the idea that it would be bad for Scottish industry to get financial inducements, and then she finished by changing her mind and by being very generous with money from the Exchequer as an inducement to industry to come to Scotland. She did not show a lot of sense about that either. She is very late with her change-over of mind, because the reason for the reluctance of industry to come to Scotland is the very existence of the Common Market and the failure of Britain so far to make the necessary arrangements.
    In the month of June, 1959, there were 94,000 registered unemployed in Scotland. We have already had figures given to us, and I got them from the Minister of Labour the other day, showing that from May, 1957, to May, 1958, although the unemployment figure had risen only by about 24,000, there was also a drop in
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    civil employment in Scotland of nearly 50 per cent. So the 94,000 is not a figure which tells the whole story.
    Besides that, there are people who have gone out of industry, like married women with husbands who are working. They get absolutely nothing from the employment exchanges, so they do not register their unemployment. There are also the older people, who were being told a few years ago, "Stay at work, because the country needs you", and are now being paid off. The drop in the earning capacity in Scotland and the facts of under-employment of people are not fully represented by that 94,000 of unemployed. These are double the number, relatively, of unemployed in England, and a great many more than the year before.
    This is the time of year when we expect a dramatic fall in the number of unemployed. The real test will come not in the next two or three months but after the General Election, in November, December and January. Shall we go back to the 116,000 unemployed that we had last January? I see that the wisdom of the Minister of Labour in being born in Yorkshire is being applauded. He is back with us. This rather reminds me of the Scotsman who asked a person where he came from and when the person replied, "I was born an Englishman and I will die an Englishman", he, as a good Scotsman, answered, "Och, man, have ye no ambition at all?"
    I wish the Minister of Labour could give us his calculation now of what he thinks the unemployment figure will be in Scotland next January. From the way things are going at present, and from the fact that there is no improvement in the building industry and other industries on which the real wealth and development of Scotland ultimately depend, the outlook is serious and bleak indeed. Short-time working has increased just when we expected it to fall. What is the explanation? When we take into account the fact that half the 94,000 have been unemployed for more than two months, the position is serious, and we shall have to look a little more closely at it.
    We have had plenty of speeches about it. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade have been up in Scotland. The Minister has even

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    managed to drag out of his seclusion this publicity-shunning Prime Minister and to get him to go up to the very place which is dedicated to the glamourised conventions of Hollywood. We had the Prime Minister giving his opinion there on how Scotland was going under the rule of the Unionists. Once the right hon. Gentleman crosses the Border, he changes his coat. He stops being a Conservative and he starts being a Unionist.
    In Glasgow on a Saturday afternoon, having opened a shopping centre in a new town, he said:
    "There is no room here for the nationalisers and the State planners."
    He went on to tell us about the great development in linking up the farms with electricity, and all the rest of it. Today we have had from the benches opposite recognition that if anything is going to be done for Scotland it should be done by the Government. Hon. Members opposite have lost faith in private enterprise. There was the modest suggestion by the hon. Member who made one of the finest maiden speeches that I have heard. Whether it was non-controversial, I would not like to say; I suppose it is now non-controversial when a Tory makes a demand for three separate subsidies in his maiden speech.
    Then, making our way through the lot of them, all adding their demands for Government aid for private enterprise, we come to a man who is a veteran of the National Liberal Party, the henchman of the Secretary of State himself, and who only a short time ago was one of the most successful Scottish Ministers, the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart). He goes further. It is not just aid for private industry that he wants. He wants a commission of inquiry. I wonder what he was doing all those years when he was responsible for these matters in the Scottish Office.
    The hon. Gentleman wants even more than that, for that is just a means to an end. He wants a five-year plan. [HON. MEMBERS: "A ten-year plan."] He wants either a five- or a ten-year plan. I wonder whether he was in the Playhouse in Glasgow cheering with the rest when the Prime Minister, that man with unsuspected gifts of statesmanship, was saying that there was no room for the State planners. Here is a man who
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    was selected by the Prime Minister to shoulder the responsibilities of government in the Scottish Office and who has come to the considered conclusion that we require a five- or ten-year plan. I think we do, too, but I do not think we require a five-year investigation.
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: No, I did not mean that.
    Mr. Ross: I know the hon. Gentleman did not mean that. I would remind him of another Prime Minister who, speaking in Dundee in 1918, suggested that what we ought to do was to nationalise the railways, and someone said "Let us have a Royal Commission" to which the Prime Minister said, "No, we have not time." It took us another thirty years before we got the railways nationalised. I hope the same thing will not happen in respect of the five-year plan for Scotland.
    We should consider what was referred to by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour as the causes of the present position. I think they are interesting. There is the trade recession. The Prime Minister, in his letter to the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) at the by-election, referred to this as a mild trade recession. So it was. But it is no good saying that we weathered it far better than anybody else, for when unemployment was rising here it was falling in other places. Let us not forget that unemployment can be registered in different ways, and these figures are not always relevant.
    The trade recession was aggravated by policy decisions taken by this Government. Indeed, the actions which were taken to correct the inflationary situation were taken over a year late. They took decisions on credit policy affecting private individuals and private enterprise, and they took direct action in relation to the nationalised industries which has caused very considerable hardship to the nationalised industries. Let us consider the position of two basic industries, coal and transport. They are trying to do in a decade work of reorganisation and revolutionary change which should have been spread over four decades. Into the middle of it comes decisions of the Government affecting their modernisation programmes and, not for the first time, throwing everything out of gear and creating unemploy-

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    ment. Moreover, as a result of the recession—the induced and exaggerated recession—there has been a slowing down in trade throughout the country, and this hits the basic industries hardest and hits them all the time. They must cope with that as well as their reorganisation programme.
    I should have thought that the Secretary of State for Scotland would know something about this. There was a time when he was Minister of Transport. He should appreciate the difficulties which the nationalised industries have been put to. Indeed, I would go further and say that if the two industries to which I have referred had not been nationalised, they would have been in a state of chaotic bankruptcy today. The Government, in my view, have gone out of their way to hinder these industries. They should leave them alone and let them get on with their real job.
    "No room for the planner"?—Britain would be in a bad way today if it had not been for the planner, and Scotland will be in a bad way in ten years if we do not have the five-year or ten-year plan to which the hon. Member for Fife, East referred.
    Sir J. Henderson-Stewart: I did not mean that the commission would sit all that time. I meant only that it would sit to do its job for, perhaps, eighteen months.
    Mr. Ross: The important thing about the hon. Gentleman's speech, I think, was that he failed to elaborate on the actual five-year plan and who would carry out the financing and so forth. That is something which we can take up later on.
    There are other matters for which the Government must carry responsibility. We had some very "phoney" figures from the Prime Minister about the number of people provided with additional jobs last year. What he forgot to say was that the Government were responsible for the loss of 4,000 of the hitherto most stable jobs in Scotland in the Royal Ordnance factories and Admiralty establishments. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) can tell us something about these. That happened last year, and the process has not been completed yet. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Nairn) knows that there are still about 300 more people to lose their jobs at
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    the Royal Ordnance factory at Irvine before the summer is out. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) has told us about more redundancies at Donibristle. Elsewhere, there are to be seen in redundancies the results of decisions taken by the Government.
    Recognising, as they ought to do, the special vulnerability of Scotland and the Development Areas, they ought to have related their policies in relation to redundancy and the closing of Government establishments and Government controlled establishments to these conditions. Scotland was far harder hit than it should have been, from Invergordon right through the whole of the country. Four thousand jobs were lost, and the number of new jobs provided barely covered them.
    There is another thing for which the Government try to evade responsibility, and I am very glad that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) mentioned this. There is the effect of the Government's foreign policy. Trade with Egypt and trade with Iraq was of considerable value to us. It is no coincidence that we now witness frantic and strange efforts in relation to past policies of the Government and an effort to patch up financial agreements and trade agreements with Egypt, to sell arms to Iraq and to make a trade pact with Russia. I do not think that any of us quarrels with these things. We are delighted about the trade agreement with Russia. We can already see certain benefits which will accrue to Scotland in relation to the provision of capital equipment for the sugar beet manufacturing industry. This will effect a Glasgow firm considerably. However, we must blame the Government for upsetting engineering and capital goods industries throughout the country which thought that they had settled markets in Egypt and in the Middle East. The Government must bear the responsibility for the great measure of unemployment in Scotland due to that.
    I now come to the technological developments. A revolution is going on in industry at present and people have been sacked during this era of depression who will not be taken on again. However, it does not only affect them. Work which was formerly done by one

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    hundred men will now be done by twenty-five. Let us consider what is happening in relation to apprentices. There is no longer scope in industry for apprentices, even in the building industry. An apprentice has no guarantee that he will be employed for five years. Firms will not employ apprentices knowing that they have to employ them for five years. Therefore, the technological changes which are taking place affect the employment of young people as much as anyone else. The work will be done with fewer people. We have been caught up in the net of capitalism.
    How can we handle this problem? I know that thinking men in the party opposite are very worried about this matter. Is it not strange and paradoxical that we should be worried that we can do without men going down the mines for coal and that we can produce more wealth with fewer men? However, I hope that we shall carry on thinking in this way. Hon. Members opposite are gradually coming round to our way of thinking.
    We need more than a five-year plan; we need a socialised plan. It is now generally recognised by hon. Members opposite that Government activity, Government finance and Government intervention are absolutely essential. How can that be achieved without Government control and without the Government being provided with the knowledge about what is happening? The finest things which are happening in Scotland today are due to the planners and nationalisers who are sneered at by the Prime Minister. At long last we have the electrification of the railway from Helensburgh to Glasgow and from Glasgow to Ayr. There are the atomic energy establishments at Dounreay, Chapelcross and Hunterston, the strip steel mill and the Forth Road Bridge. What is private enterprise doing in Scotland which should make hon. Members opposite proclaim its glories and benefits to the people of Scotland?
    Where have the Government failed? Obviously they have failed if industry must be supplied with inducements without which it will not work. I hope that we have learned that the problems of Scotland will not be dealt with by distribution of industry legislation. Something more positive than that will have to
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    be done. I hope that the Government will recognise that.
    I want to express my deep disappointment about what the Government have done in Ayrshire, where over 5,000 people are unemployed. In one part of Ayrshire during last winter the percentage of unemployment rose to as high as 16 per cent. When we asked the Board of Trade to put up an advance factory, we were told that only one would be put up, and as an experiment, at Coat-bridge. Let the Board of Trade consider what happened in Scotland—certainly in Ayrshire—from 1945 to 1950, when the experiment of advance factories was tried out and proved. It is no wonder that the noble Lady the Member for Aberdeenshire, South has come round to the idea that we should build advance factories. It is interesting to note that the Scottish Council has come round to that idea, and so have many hon. Members. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. George) was the first to break the chains to get away from the slogans of the Tory Party, to get down to realities and face the reality of what makes private enterprise move, work and settle in a place: that is, that the Government are needed to provide considerably more finance to deal with this problem.
    There should be a reality about the planning. I had a battle with the Secretary of State when he was Minister of Transport. He shrugged it off and said that it was not his job and was a matter for the Railway Executive, which was then closing the locomotive workshop at Kilmarnock. That was seven years ago. The workshop was closed. We were told, however, "Do not worry about that. We are bringing in a new industry to the area. We are giving you the repairs and maintenance of all the crane work."
    That was seven years ago. The right hon. Gentleman is now Secretary of State for Scotland. He has responsibilities for the distribution of industry in Scotland and the responsibility of overspill relating to Glasgow. He asked Kilmarnock to help him with overspill and said that the Government would see to what was necessary in relation to industry. Now, however, he sits in the Scottish Office doing nothing while industry is being shifted from Kilmarnock to Glasgow.
    Mr. E. G. Willis: He is still shrugging his shoulders.
    Mr. Ross: That job, which was given in replacement for the change-over of the Kilmarnock workshops in 1952, is now being taken away from Kilmarnock by a policy decision and is being put into Glasgow. The men at Cowlairs do not want it. They would rather have their share, to which they are entitled, of the repair of locomotives.
    When will we get some sort of co-ordination of what little scraps of policy there are? When will the Secretary of State wake up to his real responsibilities? One hon. Member has spoken tonight about credit for the steel strip mill. Nobody, on either side, wants the credit for it. We all did it. We backed the Secretary of State because we felt that he wanted it too. If he stands up for Scotland and demands what is essential for Scotland, we will all be with him. It is because we can have no great confidence in him and we have the most wishy-washy set of Ministers at the Scottish Office that the position is as bad as it is today.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Mr. Malcolm MacPherson.
    Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, to the fact that we have managed to conduct a debate on employment and industry in Scotland but that during the course of that debate no Opposition Member representing a shipbuilding division has been called to deal with the shipbuilding industry, which is vital to Scotland's economy?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is not a point of order.
    8.59 p.m.
    Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: I should like to say a word of congratulation to the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) who made an extremely attractive maiden speech, both in form and substance. We all welcome him to our debates. He has joined us, at least in the sense of speaking, in a debate in which there was at the beginning a considerable appearance of desire by Government supporters to take part. One has seldom seen such a large phalanx of Government Members as stood up at the beginning of the afternoon. I think that that is a measure of the worry which hon. Members on the Government side as well as on this side feel
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    about the economic situation in Scotland. Whether we have a constituency which is one of those with a very high rate of unemployment or whether we have a constituency where things are better, we are all of us concerned about the future of the Scottish economy, and more particularly about its immediate future.
    The factors on which its development depends, if one may judge by the range of the topics touched on in this debate, are very wide indeed. We have had speeches touching on the Highlands, the Islands, the European Common Market, the Restrictive Practices Court and an extraordinary range of matters of economic interest. If the range was wide the depth was occasionally also somewhat considerable, as in the case of the speech of the hon. Member for Fife. East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart). I shall not attempt to say what I had intended to say about his speech because my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) has, I think, given a fairly effective and complete critique of that speech.
    However, I must repeat one point which my hon. Friend made about the speeches in general from the other side of the House. It was very impressive, as one listened to speech after speech, to realise how much basic agreement there is about the necessity for Government action in matters of the sort we have been discussing. The noble Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir) began by saying that she did not like the idea, but before she had got half way through her speech she was advocating it in particular cases.
    I think there is no doubt that the attitude which characterised business people and other people interested in the economy of Scotland in the 'thirties characterises those people still. We all agree, whatever we may say and however we may put it, that Government action is essential if Scotland's economy is to be healthy. Even the Leader of the Liberal Party, from whom one might expect a fairly considerable degree of adherence to laissez faire, did not by any means stress the laissez-faire point of view.
    One of the further references which one may make to the extremely useful paper sent us by the Scottish Council is to say that that paper also stresses the value of Government action along with

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    voluntary action. That is now a pretty well established attitude towards economic questions. It is established almost as a traditional point of view in Scotland now. I think, therefore, whatever phrases one may use about it, one has got to accept in general that Scotland does require positive action by the Government.
    It requires, perhaps, a good deal more than that. It is easier to be specific about what the Government may do, should do or must do than it is to be specific about what the private enterprisers, the individual people engaged in industry on a voluntary basis for profit or for a career, should do. But I think that a number of hon. Members opposite may have noticed one or two comments on this matter, so far as it affects Scotland, which were published the other day. I have in front of me the Spectator of 29th May open at an article by Mr. Roy Thomson which has one or two very interesting things to say and from which I propose to quote. When he came to Scotland from Canada he found that
    "Many of the Scottish ways of life and the methods of doing business differed greatly from those with which I had become familiar over my lifetime. The most obvious fact to me was the very considerable reluctance to change. …"
    This theme he repeats more than once in the course of a short article. He puts it very nicely, but I can think of Canadian businessmen who would have said the same thing in somewhat more forceful language. The whole article is polite as befits a visitor to Scotland, a guest, in a sense, of Scotland, writing in a polite journal like the Spectator, except perhaps for its occasional deviations that interest most of us.
    Mr. Thomson continues:
    "I am frequently asked, 'Are Scottish businessmen more conservative than Canadians, less willing to throw over old techniques and methods, less flexible in their approach to problems?' I think I would have to say 'Yes' to all these questions."
    Again, one may think of someone putting that point rather less politely.
    He goes on to say by way of a further step in the argument:
    "I think it is most necessary that Scottish businessmen must realise the fact that the world is changing very rapidly and where they have not already done so they must adapt themselves to modern methods and techniques."
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    I need not read any more. Here is a man who came from Canada into a country and an economy which were quite unfamiliar to him, who bought up the national newspaper, who has made himself the television chief of Scotland, and who comments on the other people whom he found in the Scottish industrial scene.
    We can talk about Government concern in industry, Government financing, Government co-operation and initiative. We can run them down or praise them. We can be for them or against them, but we have to remember that the other side, the private enterprise side, the individuals in business, are not a sort of constant factor which can be thought of just as "the efficient businessman." There is no doubt at all that the leaders, the owners and managers of business in Scotland are in many respects, and in many cases, open to very severe criticism.
    I put that side by side with something else. What has been found by trans-Atlantic visitors, enterprisers and businessmen about the working people in Scotland is exactly and completely the reverse of what Mr. Thomson found about the businessmen. That has certainly been found in Grangemouth, and if I mention Grangemouth it is only because I happen to know a little more at first hand about my own constituency than about anywhere else. But it is true anywhere in Scotland that where a Canadian or American firm is established it has been found that the workers were not reluctant to change and to learn to move into a new kind of thing to do. Canadian and American businessmen found the very opposite—that the workers were extremely adaptable and thoroughly industrious. In one case, of which I know, output has surprised by the way it has exceeded estimates and calculations. That is an important contrast for us to keep in mind.
    When we talk about the Scottish economic scene we are not talking simply of something that exists as an idea in our minds or on paper. It is made up of people. I do not say that what Mr. Thomson says in his article necessarily represents 100 per cent. of the truth. I do not say either that the general findings of incoming firms about Scottish workers will yet yield 100 per cent. of the truth. There may well be variations on both sides, but it is true that there are plenty

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    of shortcomings at the top in Scottish industry, and that, by and large, the body of workers is not merely good but is first rate.
    It is for this reason that it seems to me particularly unfortunate that we have not managed to do anything like what we should be doing about the training of our workers. The Parliamentary Secretary had something to say about that and I appreciated the tone of his speech. I thought the hon. Gentleman was talking to us in a very friendly way, but I would be less than honest if I did not say that I found a certain lack of policy substance in his speech. It did not seem to me that it added a great deal to the guidance we have so far had from Ministers about the Scottish economy. However, the hon. Gentleman stressed the question of school leavers and of apprentices.
    If I may touch on the question of school leavers first, I think the Minister was unduly optimistic about the Scottish side. There has been an improvement since Easter, he says. No doubt, but I have here a notice from his own Ministry showing the number of men, boys, women and girls unemployed at 11th May this year according to regions. It shows that there were 15,000 boys under 18 unemployed in all regions and that the total in Scotland was 3,800. That works out at slightly more than one-quarter in Scotland of the total number, so that when the hon. Gentleman tells us that there has been an improvement since Easter, it does not mean a great deal. The situation about the employment of school leavers in Scotland is still not only bad but, as usual, by comparison with the United Kingdom it is a great deal worse.
    On the question of apprenticeship, again I thought the hon. Gentleman might, had he been dealing more fully with the matter, have come down to more hard facts and hard statements of the problems because there is a tremendous amount in the apprenticeship situation which is by no means happy. No doubt he had not sufficient time. The hon. Gentleman simply said that apprenticeship opportunities were not expanding as he would like. That is certainly true in Scotland. They are not expanding as any of us would like, and this is serious, partly because of the difficulty of starting a youngster on a career and partly because of what I have been saying about
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    Mr. Thomson's opinions about managers and, incidentally, because of the opinion of the Leader of the Liberal Party, who found a difficulty in finding managers. We do not train them. We do not bother about them. Our record of day release is very bad. Our apprenticeships do not offer nearly enough opportunities, and we want all the youngsters who leave school and go to work to have a career.
    As regards the Government, I think it would be generally true, and certainly in Scotland, that they ought to be tackling this question a great deal harder. The Carr Report is not enough. It is a useful statement of a few general truths, but we need, as one writer in a technical journal put it the other week, to train boys and we need to train them better. I would add that we need to train far more of them, and not only boys but girls also.
    With regard to the more general picture, we have in Scotland, according to present figures, a situation to which we are now becoming accustomed. We have high unemployment and lower production compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. When our unemployment figures went up to their peak a few weeks ago, they were the highest that we have had in Scotland since before the war. That was not only in the difficult industrial parts. They were the highest that Falkirk has experienced since before the war.
    That is not something to be lightly laughed off, especially when one remembers, as we always do in debates like this, that the people without jobs do not represent everyone who has failed to obtain employment. There are people who have gone away, and there are others who are not on the register and are, therefore, not officially unemployed.
    Side by side with that, production is not reaching the level in Scotland that it reaches in the rest of the United Kingdom. Over the last ten years the average increase in industrial production in the United Kingdom has been 38 points compared with 28 points in Scotland.
    The problem that we face is not simply that of finding jobs for 95,000 unemployed men, women, boys and girls. The problem is that of trying to build an economy which will increase its industrial production fast enough to

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    absorb in useful productive careers the boys and girls and men and women who are looking for work. The problem can best be solved by looking at the industrial side rather than at the unemployment side.
    When one considers unemployment and production from the Scottish point of view and compares them, as one inevitably does, with the United Kingdom, on finding that both unemployment and the rate of growth of production are bad compared with the United Kingdom one is inclined to ask whether it is not necessary to try to follow different policies in the two pants of the economy. That phrase is rather too emphatic. I will not suggest anything like that, but we are all accustomed to modifications and divergencies from the main line of policy for particular Scottish problems. There is no doubt that that is necessary.
    A number of hon. Members may have noticed a very useful article in the Scotsman recently by a member of the political economy department of the University of Edinburgh, a man called Veverka—I have not come across his name before, but it does not suggest that he belongs to my clan—who writes a very useful article the general point of which is that the ordinary policies followed with regard to the building up of industry after a recession and the ordinary policies followed in the Budget will bring Scotland back up the steps of employment again simply to the position it held before the movement downwards. Neither the Budget nor the President of the Board of Trade's policies will correct the difference between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. What they will do is to bring the United Kingdom and Scotland, if they are successful, over the recession and back to more normal figures of unemployment and employment.
    That is a considerable assumption and I will not try to go into the correctness of it now. One of my hon. Friends has done that. I do not accept the assumption, but if one considers it, it will still leave Scotland with the same lag that it had, say, two years ago, and has had for many years. If one is going to develop Scotland's resources and economy in the same way and to the same degree that one develops the economy of the rest of the United Kingdom, one needs something additional by way of policy for Scotland.
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    There are many additional things that could be suggested. Many hon. Members, including many hon. Members opposite, have suggested such differentials tonight. I will not try to go into all of them, but the essential thing on which effort should be centred is the potentiality for growth and development and for increasing industrial production in the Scottish economy. The main point on which increased industrial production must rest is the manufacturing industry, and one noted rather gloomily that the Parliamentary Secretary told us that although outdoor employment had improved since the worst of the winter was over there was no sign of improvement in the manufacturing industries.
    It is not merely an improvement on the present figures that we require. It is something that will encourage our manufacturing industry to go ahead and expand itself. We must make sure that more investment takes place in Scottish industry—either public or private industry. I leave the public sector aside and concern myself for the moment with private industry. In this respect there is one point that is usually regarded as a sort of side issue when dealing with the Scottish economic picture, but which is of much greater importance than any side issue. Certainly a number of my hon. Friends have been stressing it more and more in recent years. It is the question of research and development, and the connected question of science.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred to this. One finds in the White Paper that although Scotland has about 9 per cent. of the workers employed in the United Kingdom, it has only 2·7 per cent. of the workers engaged on research and development. The importance of research and development is not simply that it employs our scientific graduates. In the growth of industry it produces new ideas for projects in which it is possible to invest fresh capital, and on the basis of which it is possible for industry to advance. It is not simply a matter of saying we do not do very well in the matter of research. What we should be saying is that we do not do very well in the matter of research in Scotland, and, in consequence, we do not do very well in the growth of our industries.
    This is very important and if the Government rest content with the kind of

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    policies or trends, to use a neutral word—probably I should not use the word "policies" when I am talking about the private sector as well as the public sector—which give us only 2·7 per cent. of the workers engaged in research and development, they will rest content with an economy which is not likely to grow at anything like the same rate as the economy of the United Kingdom as a whole.
    The distribution of industry policy, which works itself out rather slowly and which is a policy sometimes difficult to get into effect, as has been said, has to be complemented by a policy of the distribution of research. For the health of Scotland's economy, it will not do to allow the proportion of the national research taking place in the South to continue there. A tremendous amount of research is done with Government funds and under Government enterprise, even that done by private firms.
    I will not go into that now, because there is not time, but the reference in the Report to the studentships awarded by the D.S.I.R. shows a quite unsatisfactory proportion for Scotland—as we pointed out in another debate a year ago. It is not just a matter of study. It is not a matter of post-graduate interest and the using of brains, and so on. It is one of the key factors in the development of Scottish industry.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) has received a letter from the Secretary of State which he has passed to me and from which I want to quote some figures to illustrate what is happening about the employment in Scotland of science graduates. I must preface these figures by saying that they are not exact. The Secretary of State explained that in his letter, and one can appreciate the reasons. It is almost impossible to be exact about these things in a short statement. There are many things which one would have to clear out of the way before one could do that.
    The first figures I want to give show the percentage of science students from Glasgow University who remained in Scotland after graduating. In pure science the figures were 55 per cent. in 1955; 61 per cent. in 1956; 39 per cent. in 1957; 63 per cent. in 1958. The corresponding figures for engineering were 30 per cent., 36 per cent., 35 per cent.,
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    42 per cent.; for other technologies, 69 per cent., 43 per cent., 39 per cent., 42 per cent.
    The figures for the University of Edinburgh are for 1951–56 inclusive. For physics and mathematics they are 35 per cent., for chemistry 33 per cent., for other science courses 41 per cent., and for engineering graduates 32 per cent., so that the figures for Edinburgh University are even worse than those of Glasgow. That suggests that we are not offering employment to our science graduates, our graduates in pure science, engineering and other technological subjects, in any-think like the proportion which we ought to be offering.
    I should like to have made one or two comments about the situation in my own constituency, but I have not time to do so. What I would have said about Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth would have been almost a reflection of what one would say about Scotland generally. We have our good points and fresh industries and fresh activity in Grange-mouth and we have our difficulties in Falkirk, about which the Government have been far too casual over the years.
    However, we hope that with an expanding economy Falkirk and Grange-mouth "will pick up. I hope that in an expanding economy the Government will be a good deal less casual in their attitude towards Scotland than they have been during the periods of difficulty. If, as one assumes from Government policy, expansion is the theme, I hope that Scotland will begin to pick up its proper share of the fruits of expansion in the United Kingdom.
    9.30 p.m.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): I will start what I have to say by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) upon his admirable maiden speech. All hon. Members who were in the House with his predecessor know that on his death we lost a very good friend—I had the privilege of knowing him for all the years that I have been in the House—but all those who heard the hon. Member's maiden speech will feel that he is a worthy successor. As hon. Members opposite have commented, if his speech was non-controversial he produced some interesting ideas. They were not controversial but were constructive suggestions, and he will have some fun in

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    pursuing them in the years ahead. I hope that he will not become too discouraged if I tell him that something which I demanded in my maiden speech took thirteen years to achieve, but it was achieved in the end. It was something which relates to matters with which we are dealing this evening, and I shall refer to it later.
    The hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) made a thoughtful and constructive speech, and I thank him for the care with which he approached some of our difficult problems, realising that they are not simple of solution. Just before he sat down he used a moderate word when he talked about the casual way in which the Government had approached some of these problems. For the word "casual", read much stronger and ruder remarks made by earlier speakers. I propose first to deal with the controversial side of the debate and later to try to answer as many as possible of the points raised by individual Members.
    I do not think that any Member—certainly none of my colleagues in the Government or myself—believes that the restoration of the status quo is what we should aim for in employment matters in Scotland. We can never rest content when Scottish unemployment figures run consistently at double the Great Britain rate. I say that categorically. I am sure that we are all in agreement upon that. In the period of ten years since the war ended, with times of absolutely full employment—with almost industrial boom conditions at one stage—and then a certain amount of recession, it is disturbing to see the same pattern repeating itself the whole way through, with Scotland's unemployment figure running at double that of Great Britain. That is a matter which no Secretary of State for Scotland and no Government could accept.
    There is room for a great deal of argument and dispute whether we are tackling this problem the right way, and whether hon. Members opposite when in power tackled it better than we are doing. There will also be room for dispute in the future as to the best means of dealing with this disparity, but there is agreement on the fact that this disparity exists and must be dealt with.
    I want to deal with what the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser)
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    said about the relevant figues. He said that this debate was a running event, which happened every year and every month. As far as I am concerned, it happens almost every day with someone or other. Inevitably there must be a good deal of the selective use of figures when the argument becomes highly political, as it is quite properly bound to do. I will try to give some figures which put the matter in its proper perspective—and those figures do not bear out what the hon. Member said when he tried to make out that the Labour Party's implementation of the Distribution of Industry Act was more effective than that of the Conservative Party.
    My figures are drawn from Board of Trade statistics, upon which everything that goes into the White Paper is based. In Scotland, between 1945 and 1951, the total amount of factory building approved was about 26·3 million sq. ft. Between 1952 and 1958 the figure was 27·9 million sq. ft., which is not very different.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: That is not the point.
    Mr. Maclay: I have not reached the point. I am trying to put the matter into perspective. From 1945 to 1948—mark the years because they are very important—Scotland's share of Great Britain's total was 13·8 per cent. I give that to hon. Members opposite. From 1949 to 1951—a very important two years—the figure was 6·6 per cent., and from 1952 to 1958 it was 6·8 per cent. My charge against hon. Members opposite is that they did not take anything like enough advantage of those years immediately after the war, when any industry which could possibly get a roof over its head would go to where it could get that roof.
    That was the subject of my maiden speech and I thought then and for many years afterwards that the Distribution of Industry Act itself was drawn too narrowly. We concentrated excessively on the old distressed areas, as they were then known, and did not give enough consideration at that time to areas outside the Development Areas. It is only in the last year or so that we have really got down to that through D.A.T.A.C. In the three years after the war, hon. Members opposite undoubtedly achieved a bigger proportion, but in the years when

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    things began to return to anything like normal the figures were down to 6·6 per cent., as the Scottish proportion.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Is not the right hon. Gentleman guilty of the worst kind of selectivity? Is he not dealing with the factories approved when we had so many factories under construction that there was no point in adding to the approvals? Will he not agree that I am right in saying that when we take the factories completed every year from 1945 to 1951 we had 12·2 per cent. of all the factories completed in Britain?
    Mr. Maclay: I have given the basis of my figures, and I said that there was bound to be selection; one cannot help it. There are all sorts of different bases on which we can take this thing. If we are to have this argument of who has done best, I would say that neither side has done as well as it should have. I should like to see more done.
    Miss Herbison: We have done much better.
    Mr. Maclay: I do not accept for a minute that the Labour Party's record was any better than ours. [Interruption.] I am going to keep on this. The hon. Lady keeps on saying, "much better". She must realise that in the years immediately after the war it was extremely easy to persuade industry to go almost anywhere in the country. I know that to be so because I was working on this problem at the time.
    Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: Where?
    Mr. Maclay: As a local Member, and I worked very hard indeed. I had a lot of help from the Board of Trade in those days in my area in Scotland, and I know what happened. One found when one wrote to an industry that the first thing it asked was not about the problems and difficulties of going anywhere. It asked, "Is there a roof available and how quickly can we have it?" It was willing to go anywhere where there was a roof available. The position got progressively more difficult, and that is reflected in the approval figures which I have given, which show the number of people coming forward. [Interruption.] Hon. Members must rake this. We had a political start to this debate and I am going on with it for a bit.
    Dr. Dickson Mabon: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a comparison on a cash basis. He may recollect a speech made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade not long ago, which I quoted in our last debate on Development Areas. Is the right hon. Gentleman taking that comparison, where we had an average of £7 million spent each year compared with the average of the present Government of £4·6 million?
    Mr. Maclay: I have some figures here regarding the cash basis, but I have not got them ready and I will not go further into the figures now. I will examine them and, if necessary, I will write to the hon. Member about them.
    I wish to refer now to what has happened more recently. What has happened in 1958?
    Mr. Lawson: Nothing.
    Mr. Maclay: Yes, quite a lot has happened. In 1958, when things were beginning to get difficult—
    Mr. T. Fraser: They were beginning to get better, according to the President of the Board of Trade.
    Mr. Maclay: During the first part of the year the position did deteriorate. In that year the level of industrial expansion showed that approvals for industrial building declined by approximately 25 per cent. in Great Britain as a whole compared with 1957, but Scotland maintained the level of 1957 with a figure of 3·9 million sq. ft. compared with 4 million sq. ft. in the previous year.
    There is another point which needs clarifying. Compared with Great Britain as a whole, Scotland's share in 1957 was 6·1 per cent., rising to 8·7 per cent. in 1958, and the first quarter of 1959 shows a further increase to 10·9 per cent. But that is only one quarter, and I do not attach too much importance to that figure because these things even themselves out.
    Another point I should like to clarify is that from the beginning of the year up to mid-May of this year a further 2¼ million sq. ft. of factory space, with an estimated employment potential of nearly 3,400, has been approved. I agree that we can do almost anything with figures—
    Mr. T. Fraser: The right hon. Gentleman has proved that.
    Mr. Maclay:—and so can the hon. Member. I have met him on his own ground.
    Things are happening, and it is wrong to pretend that they are not. What have we been doing on the legislative side? I am now going back over old ground and referring to things which are already known but which I think should be realised more clearly. Regarding Scotland before 1958, because of the financial position of the country, the balance of payments problem and everything else, there was a substantial clamping down—there had to be—on Government financing of factories. In that time there were conversions and approvals for factories to be built in Scotland when there were no factories built anywhere else. Then there came the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act. It has become fashionable to laugh at that Measure, but I think it is far too soon to laugh about it. I have been rather disappointed by some of the early results, but from what I am about to say it will be appreciated that it may be too soon to laugh at that Act. Things are beginning to happen, as more people appreciate the provisions of the Act and how to use them.
    It may be that hon. Members opposite do not remember what may be done under the Act. It is designed not only to widen the kind of assistance which can be given inside Development Areas but outside as well. There are facilities for loans for the purchase of premises and plant and for working capital, and grants towards initial expenses, work on the clearing of factory sites and the building of approach roads or the training of workers. In Scotland the areas which have benefited from the facilities include Dundee, Lanarkshire and Greenock, the Highlands, north-west Ayrshire, Arbroath and Stranraer. Equivalent areas in England are Merseyside, North-East Lancashire and South-West Wales.
    Sections 3 and 5 of the 1945 Act have been revised to make grants or loans to improve water and sewerage services in Development Areas and to assist with the rehabilitation of derelict sites. I am repeating things which should be known by everyone. What has been happening?
    Mr. Hannan: Nothing.
    Mr. Maclay: Up to 1st June—these are the latest figures available—there have been 92 firm and eligible applica-
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    tions from Scotland; 52 from the Highlands and Islands; 21 from the North-East area; and 19 from the West and South-West. Twenty applications have been recommended at a total value of £743,520, 64 are still under consideration and eight have been rejected. That is a substantial improvement.
    Mr. Hannan: How many jobs?
    Mr. Maclay: One cannot give that figure for these D.A.T.A.C. applications because at this stage it is impossible to know.
    Mr. Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us the location of the twenty recommended applications to which he referred?
    Mr. Maclay: That would take too long. I can do so later.
    In addition, since the revival of the 1945 Act D.A.T.A.C. powers in 1958, three Scottish applications in the Development Areas, totalling £1,829,000, have been recommended; I admit that one is a very big one. It is nonsense to talk as if we have been doing nothing in the last eighteen months. A great deal has been done and is being done. As the possibilities are more widely realised a great deal more will be done, particularly under the provisions of Sections 3 and 5 of the 1945 Act. Proposals under Section 3 for water and sewerage schemes have been received mainly from the Lanarkshire and Clydeside areas ranging from a few thousand pounds to £3 million.
    These proposals are at present under consideration. None of them has gone through yet. There is bound to be delay, because it is not easy to get the figures out—[Interruption.]—I am pointing out the action that we have taken and which is beginning to show results. There have been approvals in some cases and not in others. One derelict factory scheme has been approved. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where?"] It is on the site of the Summerlee Iron Works in Coatbridge. That has been approved.
    On factory development I can say one word more. It is worth getting these facts clear. In the period beginning January, 1958, to the end of May, 1959, industrial development certificates have been issued for 191 projects in Scotland for a total area of 6,651,000 square feet. According to the employers' estimates

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    these new factory extensions should provide jobs for 8,320 workers.—[Interruption.]—These words are carefully chosen and if any hon. Member wants to challenge them he should read them in HANSARD tomorrow and then ask me questions about them. Eighteen of the 191 factory extensions, with an employment potential of 2,636, are being built by the Government.
    Mr. Lawson: Is it not a fact that employers in matters of this kind usually think of a number and double it?
    Mr. Maclay: Not in my experience. One has to give these figures with reserve. Until a factory develops no one can be quite certain what the employment factor will be. I make no apology for giving all these figures because it is important to realise that things are being done. From speeches made by the Opposition, although most of them were in very moderate terms, one would get the impression that nothing whatsoever was happening. That is far from true. We have to go on trying to find the best means of getting more and more light consumer industries into Scotland. We shall certainly go on doing everything in our power. I hope that we shall have the help of all hon. Members because they can help enormously through their work with local authorities and with industrialists in their constituencies. This is a job that we have all to be working on, and not simply the Government, or individuals.
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Is the Secretary of State aware that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, replying to a Question of mine on 14th May, said that the total amount of annual grant aid under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958, for the Highlands and Islands had been £7,750? What has the grant aid been for new industries in other parts of Scotland?
    Mr. Maclay: I should not like to hazard a guess on that but I will find out and will let the hon. Member know.
    The right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr Strachey) was very ungracious in his references to what has happened in that town. It was preposterous to imply, as he did in his speech, that nothing was: happening and that everybody was sitting back watching a desperate situation develop.
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    Here are the facts about Dundee. In regard to Government factories, since January, 1957, 82,000 square feet of factory space has been completed. I admit that that only produced 180 jobs, but at present under construction are 443,000 square feet, with an estimated 1,805 jobs. In addition, 200,000 square feet have been approved but not yet started. The total number of jobs out of these three categories amounts to between 2,600 and 2,700. That is not a case of nothing happening. As the right hon. Gentleman himself must know, the most sustained efforts are being made by everybody concerned, including the local authority of Dundee, to encourage industry to go to that town. Of course, these figures could be better but they show very real progress and it is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman left the impression that nothing at all was being done.
    Mr. Strachey: The impression which I endeavoured to give, and which I now repeat, is that whatever is being done is quite inadequate to prevent a steady and cumulative increase of unemployment in Dundee. That is what matters. As long as that is the case, I Shall endeavour very strongly to give that impression to the utmost of my powers, because it is vital to do so.
    Mr. Maclay: It may be vital to do what any hon. Member has a duty to do, namely to keep on pointing out the needs of his constituency, but it is not right to say that nothing has been done when, in fact, something has been done. Of course, we should like to see more, and everybody is trying to get something done.
    Mr. Strachey: But the position is worse.
    Mr. Maclay: In Dundee, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the figures fluctuate. Indeed, at one time they moved against the trend.
    Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Maclay: I shall have to keep moving quickly if I am to deal with all the points that have been made. A number of hon. Members touched on the question of advance factories. We are building this famous factory in Scotland—[HON. MEMBERS: "One factory."] Let me remind hon. Members of something they should know. There are six factories at Hillington, one at Chapelhall,

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    one at Carfin, one at Dundee and one at Craigton—all factories belonging to Scottish Industrial Estates—lying empty.
    Mr. Hamilton: Tory freedom.
    Mr. Maclay: There are ten factories which are empty at the moment, and in addition there are eleven Government buildings. I would not say that all of them are ideal factories by any means, but there are 11 empty, and 40 privately-owned factories in different parts of Scotland on the books of the Board of Trade. There is no party point in this question. There are possibilities in advance factories, but it is hard to argue that they are the answer to everything when we have available in industrial estates ten suitable factories of the type which would be built if there were advance factories.
    Time is running out a bit too quickly. There is an important point about the rents of factories, but I shall have to leave that for the moment because I wish to say something about the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) and his suggestion that something more is needed than the Scottish Council is able to do. That point was dealt with also by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson). I am sorry that I missed half of my hon. Friend's speech, but I have been told what he said.
    What my hon. Friend suggested seemed to me to be a duplication of what we have now got in the Scottish Council (Development and Industry). I may have misunderstood him, and I should be glad to discuss this proposal with my hon. Friend later. There is a grave danger of our getting the feeling that duplication of bodies can help. That is what I would say about the proposal for a Highland development board which was touched on by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland. We already have a large number of bodies dealing with various aspects of Highland life. Some people would argue that there are too many, that they overlap and that they ought to be put under one hat. I think that is precisely what is being argued by some people.
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    The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland made a positive proposal about the two fish boards. The Fleck Committee is sitting, and we must await the result of its deliberations before we come to conclusions. If all these bodies were to be pulled under one hat, or whatever simile one may like to suggest, they would very quickly have to be subdivided again because each part has clear and specific functions of its own.
    My mind is never closed to any possibility which might help, but I am not convinced that some kind of Highland development board—whatever it might be called—would have any more effect than the really effective existing bodies. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland that no one has been successful in encouraging a proper movement of industry into the Highlands, but I think that he will agree that it is a problem with very great difficulties. I myself have studied all the proposals with the greatest sympathy and care, but I cannot see how another body can be an answer to the problem. The real need is to make certain that the facilities which are available to get industry going in the Highlands are fully understood, and to find more effective means for encouraging people to take advantage of these facilities. This is a matter I am studying very closely at the moment, and I hope to have something to say to the House and to Scottish Members about it before very long.
    Miss Herbison Miss Herbison rose—
    Mr. Maclay: There is really very little time.
    Miss Herbison: I know there is, and that is why I am very worried. Is not the Secretary of State aware that one of the very greatest problems in Scotland now is the crisis in the coal industry and what is happening in Lanarkshire? Will he not say a word on such grave matters?
    Mr. Maclay: There is a vast number of subjects to cover—
    Miss Herbison: This is a very important one.
    Mr. Maclay: I know it is, and I am trying to cover as many as I can. The coal industry has been discussed fairly

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    fully, and undoubtedly it will be discussed again. I gather that it is the wish of hon. Members opposite that this should not necessarily be the last day of debate devoted to industry in Scotland.
    Miss Herbison: Pits are closing now.
    Mr. Maclay: If hon. Members want to divert me from something they do not like, I will be diverted. As the hon. Lady appreciates, these pits are being worked to a programme. Discussions go on between the Coal Board and the unions—
    Miss Herbison: No; discussions do not go on. That is one of the difficulties.
    Mr. Maclay: —as to what is to happen to the men involved and everybody is conscious of the grave problems. I have many figures with me showing the detail of what has happened to men who are out of work because of the closure of pits. I will certainly send the information to the hon. Lady or it can be discussed on a later occasion. I am not ignoring the importance of the problem, but it is really outside the range of what I am trying to cover in the last few minutes.
    As regards rents for factories on the Northern Ireland model, it is said that we ought to have a policy of very much lower rents for factories built in Scotland. The economic rent of the type of factory in Scotland which we are discussing is probably about 4s. 9d. or 5s. per sq. ft. At present, the level of rents for new standard factories in the various Development Areas ranges from about 2s. 3d. to 3s. 3d. a sq. ft., a long way below the economic rent. Is that a sufficient inducement, an inducement of any value at all? All I can say is that the rents at which factories can be taken privately in the South are about 8s. 6d. or 9s. per sq. ft. in London and about 5s. in the Home Counties. We are not, I think, subsidising rents as heavily as in Northern Ireland, but we are producing a figure which gives a very competitive rent compared with factories in the South. I say that only to put the matter into perspective. There is room for argument as to what is the right level of rents for these factories, but that is the perspective in which the matter should be viewed.
    There are many more things I should like to discuss. I have material here for about two hours, but it seemed right that
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    the maximum number of back benchers who wished to speak should be able to say what they had in mind.
    Before I ask leave to withdraw the Motion, I should like to repeat what I said earlier. We are all after the same objective. We are bound to argue about whose methods are best and what are the right methods. If we have confidence in the future of Scotland, we must not get into the habit, either in the Opposition or Government—if some of us ever will be in opposition—of decrying Scotland and decrying what is being done.
    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  OPENCAST MINING
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]
  10.0 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Mason: I want to deal with a subject about which I feel very strongly, namely, the future of opencast mining. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power is, no doubt, fully conversant with my point of view. He knows that many times I have opposed this type of mining. I opposed the Second Reading of the Opencast Coal Bill. I spoke during the Committee stage and, finally, on Third Reading I made an all-out burst of opposition. As we were not all of the same opinion, we could not manage to stop the Bill going through.
  I am pleased to have the Adjournment debate, because I want to table a reasoned argument for the cessation of all opencast mining. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary wants to have ample time to give a reasoned reply. Therefore I will not take very long so that the hon. Gentleman can answer all the points that I raise.
  I am pleased to see that some of my friends from mining constituencies are present. Opencast mining is causing us some concern. As we travel home to our constituencies every weekend—as most Members who represent mining constituencies do, because we live in or near our constituencies—during the first part of our journey we travel through very beautiful and colourful country. The shades of

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  green at this time of the year are a delight to the eye. There are smatterings of yellow from the fields of mustard and many small and unspoiled villages, some woods and attractive copses, and we do not want to hurry through it. Our urge is to stay and linger awhile.
  However, that is not true of many mining districts, one of the reasons being opencast mining, which is despoiling our countryside. Then we strike the industrial North—or more likely it strikes us. Massive mountains of muck from the bowels of the earth have been produced by deep coal mining, and the dirt from the operations has spilled over the countryside. As a consequence of this unplanned extraction of dirt, mining subsidence is rife in the same areas. Many roads are signposted as dangerous because of the subsidence. Many sewers have been damaged, buildings are falling apart and havoc is being created.
  On top of all these—muck stacks plus the mining subsidence—we see the guts of the remaining countryside torn out by this new and mongrelised form of opencast mining, which rips up 200 ft. of dirt in an operation in order to extract a seam of 9 ft. of coal. I am pleased to say that all new coal spoil heaps are subject to planning and control, but the extensions to spoil heaps—and there are hundreds of them—are not yet subject to control. However, due, I am pleased to say, to the efforts of the Parliamentary Secretary and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and recently the National Coal Board, there is now a more co-operative effort to try to camouflage these mountains of dirt.
  There has also been introduced into coal mines more mechanical stowing machines so that there is a possibility that in due course subsidence will lessen also. We can now say that spoil heaps and subsidence will gradually end. We do not, however, yet see the end of opencast mining operations. They are still continuing. I hope that we shall receive an assurance from the Minister tonight that opencast mining operations will also soon be at an end. Already 112,000 acres of agricultural land have been ripped up, and we hope that in the drive for the beautification of mining areas this will also quickly cease.
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  There has been a lot of talk about the restoration of opencast sites. It is not true that restoration is fully complete and good. At the recent National Farmers' Union Conference, a resolution was passed unanimously instructing the National Council
  "to continue unremittingly and in every possible way its representations to secure the ending of opencast mining operations and in particular to call for an immediate halt to the taking of further land of which the top soil has not yet been removed."
  That resolution was passed unanimously. This did not give any indication that the farmers have faith in restoration.
  Following the replacement of the overburden, the opencast operators move out and representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food move in. For five years they are responsible for controlling the gradual restoration of the site, deciding the type of crop that should be grown and advising the farmers what should be done with the land. I am advised by the farmers, however, that after the five-year period they gradually see their soil sinking and the stones rising and the land value deteriorating. It was because of witnessing that over these years of opencast mining that the resolution was passed.
  We cannot replace all the woods and the beautiful woodland walks that we have enjoyed once the opencast operation has taken place, because they are all wiped out and all the little beauty spots in many of the mining districts vanish with it. These opencast operations remind me of an octopus with its tentacles stretching out to all our beautiful little glades and spoiling them in the process.
  A lot of rot is talked about opencast operations being profitable. This simply is not true. It is registered in the books that a profit of up to 13s. or 14s. a ton is made, but when the Ministry of Agriculture moves on to restore a site its representatives are there for five years. There are 130 sites in operation. We are gradually reducing the number because of the cutback of 3 million tons of opencast-mined coal. Hon. Members can imagine the number of inspectors and advisers swarming over these 130 sites throughout the mining districts. They are paid, not from the Opencast Executive, but from public rates. All this money comes from public funds, off the Ministry of Agriculture Vote, and the

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  Opencast Executive gets away with it. When we consider also how many people are employed in the regional offices, apart from the advisers and inspectors, it all adds up to a very high figure. There may be also many National Coal Board personnel who indirectly help the Opencast Executive, with their wages merged into the production costs and not being paid by the Opencast Executive.
  Then, there are the costs of the local authorities, who month after month make appeals against authorisations, including the payment of the town clerk, the surveyors, engineers and clerks who have to formulate all the material for an appeal against an authorisation. There is all the dirt in the mining district and the miners have to pay through the nose in the rates for their local authorities to fight the authorisations. If all this was taken into consideration, opencast mining would be shown not to be a profitable venture and would quickly cease.
  It is alarming to note that at the moment, 6,102,000 tons of opencast coal, or nearly half of last year's output, is stocked at opencast sites. Last year's corresponding figure was 3,785,000 tons, which shows that stockpiling of opencast coal has nearly doubled. Even though some people may argue that these operations are profitable, the coal is not being sold. We cannot sell it. The stockpile has doubled in the past twelve months.
  Recently, 130 sites were in existence. Because it has been decided to cut back by 3 million tons, it is the Board's intention to whittle down this number to 80. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will indicate how long the authorisations for these eighty sites are to last, when they were first granted and how long the sites are to continue. There seems to be a lot of secrecy attached to these authorisations. The Coal Board's Annual Reports never state how many there are, how long they will work, and what total tonnage is expected from them. One ought to have some information on that point, too.
  Then there is another very serious matter. There has been a long-standing pledge, a gentleman's agreement I always thought it was, on this question of the cutting back of opencast. In 1950 there was an international miners' conference, and at that conference all the national unions of every nation represented were
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  advised to go back to their respective countries and approach their Governments to seek some assurance about the future of the coal mining industry. True enough, in 1950 the National Union of Mineworkers and the National Coal Board and the Government of the day met and talked about the future of coal, and there was an agreed Press statement issued at the end of the meeting. I have not the exact words of the statement, but the essence of the statement was that there was no cause for worry about the coal mining industry of this country and that it had two cushions to fall back upon, one being the extended hours, the Saturday working agreement, and the other the opencast mining.
  As soon as the National Coal Board was embarrassed by the fall in demand for coal the N.U.M. fulfilled its pledge and stopped Saturday working. Now we expect that the Government and the Board will honour their pledge and will rapidly contract opencast mining operations.
  What are the psychological effects on the coal miners themselves and on their mining communities? Deep mines are closing. Opencast still continues, and it is causing a lot of bitterness in the coal fields because this year 36 pits have closed. We must remember this, too, when a deep mine is to be closed. I know that the miners are not unique in this respect but it is worthy of consideration. A man who has been underground from 15 years of age and graduated from haulage up to the coalface and become a highly skilled, productive man at his job, whether a coal hewer, machine man or ripper of stone, once that deep mine is closed, cannot be transferred to another, and he is relegated to the status of a labourer. All the productive skill which has been built up in that group of men is lost to the nation.
  So they are dependent upon other mines, and yet once the absorption of those men from those 36 pits has taken place, then if there are any more closures it will be very hard indeed for any of those productive men from the coalface to find future jobs where they can use their skill and receive a similar rate of pay.
  Moreover, in every deep mine pit there are a number of men on what we term

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  light work. These are the men who, because of the hazards of the industry, have been industrially injured and are suffering industrial diseases such as pneumoconiosis and silicosis. By agreement, every pit absorbs a certain number of these men on light jobs. When a deep mine closes and there is no alternative deep mine work these chaps are virtually unemployable, because no other industry will take them in, and it is only because of the agreement which we have with the Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers that these chaps have jobs. Therefore, there is something else which should be taken note of when these deep mines are closing.
  Then there is also the question of those chaps in their late fifties. Having worked underground all their working life what chance have they of alternative employment? What chance have they? These chaps are then compulsorily retired.
  These are the three issues, which are social problems, which are growing from the closing of deep-mine pits. As I said at the outset, these chaps are going to suffer even more in the event of more closures, because the pits with the vacancies will already have absorbed all the men they possibly can. Therefore, these three categories are bound to suffer in that respect.
  I shall not take any more time because I promised the hon. Gentleman that he should have the opportunity to make a full and comprehensive reply to my comments, in view of these points, which I sum up. First of all, there is the urgent need of beautification in the mining districts. Secondly, the need to halt the loss of agricultural land, because 100,000 acres of valuable agricultural land are lost to the nation while the operations are in progress. It seems so absurd that the Government's policy is to recognise agriculture and subsidise it, because we are badly in need of homegrown foodstuffs, whilst at the same time they are depriving the nation of 100,000 acres of agricultural land all the time that these opencast operations are taking place.
  Thirdly, opencast mining is more costly than we are led to believe and, in any case, we cannot sell the coal produced. Finally, there is the effect which it has on our own basic coal industry, which is the core of our fuel and power require-
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  ments. We expect the pledge to be honoured when it was agreed in 1950 that rather than that we should see the core of our basic fuel industry being whittled down and jeopardised in this manner, opencast mining and Saturday operations would cease. I hope that the Minister will give news tonight that phase contraction is planned and that two or three years from now opencast mining, as we understand it will cease to exist.
  10.16 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Neal: From this unaccustomed vantage point on the back benches, I should like to support the excellent case presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) urging the termination of opencast coal mining. A debate of this kind is altogether inadequate to deal with this very important subject, but it is essential that the views of those on this side of the House should be expressed at this time.
  The gravity of the situation in the coal industry cannot be overstated. Not within living memory has the industry been in such a helpless and hopeless situation as it is in at present. Some of us on this side of the House believe that one of the things that would relieve the anxieties now present in the coalfields would be to terminate opencast mining. Stocks of coal in the country have reached unprecedented levels. Distributed and undistributed stocks at present total over 38 million tons, and there appears to be no prospect of reducing the stocks, either by selling our surplus overseas or by an increase of industrial productivity in this country. Wherever one looks one finds the industry assailed by competition from oil, methane and tail gas, and one cannot see a good prospect for the mining industry for years to come. In this situation in which pits are being closed and men rendered redundant, the first step that should be taken surely is to stop opencast mining in order to keep the deep mines working.
  My hon. Friend has referred to the undertakings given to the miners. I was privy to those undertakings, and I regret that they are not being fulfilled. At a time when in 1951 the agreement on extended working hours was being renewed for another year, the miners' feelings were assuaged by a promise that there would be the question of closing down opencast mining when a problem

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  of over-production presented itself. I wish that promise were now fulfilled. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary will say that that would be an enormous expense, but I am very sceptical about the profit which it is said is being made from this coal of something like 13s. a ton. I would believe that story if a market could be provided for the 6,120,000 tons now lying on the ground. Compensation has been paid for the termination of oil contracts, and I see no difference between that and compensation being paid for terminating opencast contracts.
  Derbyshire has borne a disproportionate burden of this unpopular form of mining. Up to the end of 1956 no less than 29·6 million tons of opencast coal had been got in Derbyshire, which represented about one-fifth of the total output. Local authorities and farmers are wondering why this form of mining is still continuing at a time when stocks are so high. I hope the Minister will have something helpful to tell us about the prospect of terminating opencast mining and helping the National Coal Board to save some of its own pits from closing.
  10.20 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Sir Ian Horobin): As has been said, the time available is insufficient to deal properly even with the special points which have been raised, let alone with the whole subject. I hope, therefore, that the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken will not think I am discourteously dogmatic if I put a few points briefly and then give them one or two facts which are not sufficiently known.
  First, on restoration, it is not disputed that in the early days restoration was in many cases bad, but all the information that the National Coal Board and the Ministry have at the moment is that under modern conditions restoration leaves very little to be desired. We must remember that when these contracts were entered into, and opencast as a method of getting coal, which was well tried on the other side of the Atlantic, was first introduced here, the coal was badly needed—and maybe it will be needed again.
  I would have to take a great deal of time to deal with the point of profitability in detail, but I can assure the hon. Member far Barnsley (Mr. Mason) that he has fallen into some very pardonable
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  mistakes. For instance, the costs of the Ministry of Agriculture are taken into account before the figure of profitability of opencast is struck, and they are recovered from the National Coal Board. Indeed, his argument can be turned against himself. The hon. Gentleman talked about town clerks and so on. He might just as well say, for instance, that the cost of the Mines Inspectorate, which is paid by my Ministry, ought to be recovered from the National Coal Board before we strike the figure of profitability of deep mined coal; but it is not.
  So I think the hon. Gentleman can take it from me that, as far as is humanly possible, the figures given are correct. They are that last year, before charging interest, there was a profit of only a shilling or so in deep mined coal, but well over 10s. in opencast coal. In fact, opencast coal was substantially more profitable and was subsidising deep-mined coal.
  We must bear in mind that under the Statute which he and his right hon. Friends passed there is a statutory duty on the National Coal Board, taking one year with another, to make ends meet. Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot go into now, the Board has piled up a considerable deficit, added to it last year, and, I am afraid, unless something changes radically in the next six months, will add to it this year. Therefore, we cannot go on piling obligations on the National Coal Board by insisting that it should give up what is one of its most profitable activities.
  Mr. Harold Finch Mr. Harold Finch (Bedwellty) rose—
  Sir I. Horobin: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have only a few minutes left. There is one further point before I come to what will be the more interesting and novel points. I must repeat, as has been said over and over again on behalf of the National Coal Board—for whom in this matter it is naturally my duty to speak—that there was no pledge. We are continually being told that there was a pledge to stop opencast mining. I have looked this up myself, and the National Coal Board has looked it up, but there is no record of any pledge that, in case of a surplus, opencast would be cut. In fact, however, opencast has been cut quite substantially.

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  I think I can use the few minutes available to me more profitably than in going through, at any greater length than I have done up to now, the points which have been discussed over and over again in the course of coal debates. Whatever the views as to the profitability or desirability of opencast coal from the point of view of the National Coal Board, it is generally agreed now on both sides of the House that probably on balance, in the difficult situation in which the coal industry finds itself, some substantial cuts in opencast coal mining should take place. Therefore, we are really discussing not a matter of policy but a question of degree. Speaking in round figures, it has already been reduced from 14 million tons last year to 11 million tons this year, and it is intended to cut it down to 7 million tons next year.
  If—I emphasise "if"; I am not saying that this will be the case—no further authorisations were given, opencast would, by 1965, come practically to an end with the exception of certain special, large cases, such as the Westfield site associated with the Lurgi gasification plant in Scotland, which presents special problems and which nobody would suggest should be discontinued anyway. That is broadly the situation now. If we go on as we are going now, production will fall to about 7 million tons next year and progressively after that.
  What further can be done? I am not now laying special emphasis on compensation, though that must not be taken as nominal. The companies have in good faith expended large sums of money on the strength of the word of the Board which entered into a contract, and, therefore, substantial compensation in the event of the altering any contract would no doubt have to be paid. The Board has no reserves for that purpose, and, therefore, it would be adding to its deficit.
  But that is not the real point. The real point is this. The hon. Member for Barnsley was on the Standing Committee when we went through our complicated new legislation dealing with opencast coal, and he will recall that only up to the end of the year was it possible for the Board to take advantage of the old requisitioning procedure. What happened at the end of the year was, broadly speaking, that any sites where substantial
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  work was not already done were handed back to the owners.
  The situation is, therefore, that there are very few sites, only half a dozen in the whole country—I have a list of them here—where very substantial work has not already been entered into. No sane person could suggest that, having dug an enormous hole in the ground at great expense, one should leave it there, perhaps for a number of years, perhaps almost indefinitely, just not taking the coal out in order not to produce a coal surplus. No one could suggest that, compensation apart. No one could suggest either that if one dug a great hole in the ground at enormous expense, one should put all the earth back again without taking the coal out. Therefore, we are merely talking about six sites where, although work has been started, very little has been done.
  None of these sites is planned to produce any coal at all this year. Between them they will produce about 1 million tons next year, and after about a couple of years at that level their production will fall rapidly. Consequently, all we are discussing is whether or not it would be possible or desirable, if terms could be arranged and so on, to accelerate the reduction which will take place anyway by about 1 million tons next year and the year after. I am not saying that a 1 million ton reduction would not be worth while if other things made it desirable and if it were possible on reasonable terms, but I think that what I have said will persuade hon. Members opposite, and perhaps assist in the viewing of the situation in the country, which is even more important. It is very important that we should realise once and for all that there is no major contribution to be made to the problems of the coal industry, by substantial further reductions in opencast production above those reductions which are taking place under present policy.
  All we are discussing really is, very roughly, whether next year production should be 7 million tons or 6 million tons. The idea that there are 4 million, 5 million or 6 million tons of coal which we could stop producing on any rational policy, is a misconception owing to the fact that, for very good reasons, as soon as the Board got possession by requisition, it started work. Far too much work

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  has now been done on all the sites, except the half dozen to which I referred, to make it possible or reasonable to do other than go on getting the coal.
  Having had that explanation, hon. Members opposite will, I think, perhaps be a little more able to form a considered judgment as to the limits of action now open to the Board and the Government. It may well be that we can make some further reduction—I do not know: it is up to the Board and the contractors to
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  ascertain whether it is possible. But any further major contribution to the Board's stocking or production problems by the cutting of opencast production is no longer a possibility.
  The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.

SHIPPING
  Life-rafts
  Life-rafts
  Discrimination
  Discrimination
  Transfer Restrictions
  Transfer Restrictions
TRANSPORT
  Control of Dogs Order, Leeds
  Control of Dogs Order, Leeds
ROADS
  Accidents, Scotland
  Accidents, Scotland
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Turkey and Greece (Minister's Visit)
  Turkey and Greece (Minister's Visit)
  BRITISH EMBASSY, PEKING (PRIVATE PROPERTY STORAGE)
  BRITISH EMBASSY, PEKING (PRIVATE PROPERTY STORAGE)
  EAST GERMANY (TRAVEL DOCUMENTS)
  EAST GERMANY (TRAVEL DOCUMENTS)
  ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE
  ICELANDIC FISHERIES DISPUTE
EMPLOYMENT
  Disabled Persons, Cardiff
  Disabled Persons, Cardiff
  Sunderland
  Sunderland
  Cammell Laird's Shipyard, Birkenhead (Dispute)
  Cammell Laird's Shipyard, Birkenhead (Dispute)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Barbican Plan (Model)
  Barbican Plan (Model)
ROYAL NAVY
  H.M.S. "Ariel"
  H.M.S. "Ariel"
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Research (Expenditure)
  Research (Expenditure)
  Charollais Cattle (Committee)
  Charollais Cattle (Committee)
  Welsh Land Settlement Society (Advance)
  Welsh Land Settlement Society (Advance)
EDUCATION
  School Leavers
  School Leavers
HOSPITALS
  Ex-Nurses
  Ex-Nurses
SCOTLAND
  Senior Secondary School Curriculum (Report)
  Senior Secondary School Curriculum (Report)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL
Read 3a, and passed.
PORT OF LONDON BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.

PASSPORT EXAMINATION AT LONDON AIRPORT
2.36 p.m.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will change the practice at London Airport and other ports of entry into this country where British passengers are separated from foreign visitors for passport examination.]
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the answer is No. It has been found in practice that any attempt to deal with a large number of British and foreign passengers in only one channel slows up their clearance and leads to more complaints than if they are dealt with in separate channels.
LORD GRANCHESTER: I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. Is he aware that this practice gives offence to visitors, who mistake the purpose of the arrangement and regard it as treating them as inferior to British subjects? Moreover, I understand that the practice is not followed anywhere else in the world.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord should understand that this is entirely an arrangement of convenience and about which there is no magic whatsoever. The Home Office holds no particular brief either way: it is merely a
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question of doing the thing in the most efficient way possible. The point raised by the noble Lord has been thought of, and there are polite notices—which, if the noble Lord wishes, I will read out to him—prominently displayed on that very subject.
EARL HOWE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether this is not exactly the same arrangement as is made in every single port in the country, whether airport or seaport?
LORD CHESHAM: So far as I know, it is. I should perhaps add that at moments when traffic is particularly light, or in certain emergencies, it is not a practice which is invariably followed.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: The noble Lord gives as the reason for the continuance of this, as I think, stupid practice the fact that there will be congestion if all the passengers go through one channel. Why not have two channels, or three channels, in order to treat our visitors politely?
LORD CHESHAM: I think that is a reasonable point; but, however many channels we have, it must inevitably take longer to pass through a foreign entrant to this country than a British one, and there will inevitably be complaints of delays due to that cause.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, is the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, right in his suggestion that we are the only country which follows that practice? I have a memory of something very similar being done to me when I went to America.

BRITISH RAILWAYS' TOLL BRIDGES
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I beg to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many bridges where road tolls are collected are owned by British Railways; and whether there are any plans for removing such tolls.]
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, British Railways own three bridges at which they collect road tolls—namely, Shoreham, in Sussex; Lymington, in

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Hampshire; and the Connel Ferry Bridge, in Argyll. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation proposes in due course to construct a new river bridge and approach roads at Shoreham to replace the toll bridge there, which at present carries the trunk road A.27, but it is proving very difficult to find a line which is both satisfactory from the engineering point of view and acceptable to local opinion.
The toll bridge and toll rights at Lyming ton, which are on a Class II road, are at present the subject of negotiations between the British Transport Commission and the highway authority, the Hampshire County Council. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has at present no plans which would involve a free crossing at Connel Ferry, where the bridge carries a railway line, with a single-lane carriageway alongside.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware of the great delays that are caused in the summer months by the collecting of the tolls at the Connel Ferry bridge? If it is impossible to abolish these tolls, could not more than one person be put on to collecting them?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: I will gladly bring the noble Duke's observations to the notice of the British Transport Commission.

THE TELEVISION SERVICES
2.40 p.m.
LORD MACDONALD OF GWAENYSGOR: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, opens the important debate on his Motion, may I briefly intervene to ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House a question which we consider of great importance to those of us who are members of the Board of Governors of the B.B.C.? We are aware that, under the ruling which was laid down as long ago as March 21, 1951, we are advised not to take part in debates on B.B.C. matters. What I want to ask the noble Earl is this: What is the position of those of us who are on the Board of I.T.A., and also of those of us who are directors of a programme company in con-
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tract with I.T.A. to supply material for its programmes? I would add one word: that my sole purpose in raising this matter is for clarification and future guidance.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, and I think the House is. I have taken some advice, and the best answer I can give is as follows. The Addison Rule, so called, covers those of your Lordships who are on the Board of I.T.A. equally with those who are B.B.C. Governors. According to the Addison Rule, they should not speak. The programme companies are simply private commercial undertakings, and, provided that there is a suitable disclosure of interest, there is no more reason for Peers who are on these boards to refrain from participation in the debate than there is for the directors of any other private concern whose affairs are under discussion. In their case, the Addison Rule is irrelevant, and there is no analogy either with the B.B.C. or I.T.A. The distinction, I think, therefore, as the noble Lord will see, is between a public authority and a company which is on a par with any other private concern.
2.43 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBYrose to call attention to the present television service of this country; and to move for Papers. The noble Lords said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I have, alas, no direct financial interest in television. At the same time, I have an interest which I think I ought to disclose to your Lordships, although it is difficult to define with any precision. Perhaps I might describe myself as a taxi with my flag up for both sides. At least this enables me to make an objective and impartial approach to the problem, perhaps as against my friend Mr. Christopher Mayhew, whose flag is now permanently down for one side only and who, in any case, does not approve of commercial television, or, I suspect, of competition at all.
My purpose this afternoon is simply to have a discussion, which I hope will be non-controversial, about the future of British television, and to stimulate, if I can, some thought about it, for I think that we ought to be thinking about it very seriously indeed. I am not asking

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for declarations of policy either from the Government or from the Opposition, because I know I shall not get them. Neither of the great political Parties of the State wants to touch this political "hot potato" at the moment before a General Election, and I can understand and sympathise with that point of view. But within a year decisions of great importance will have to be taken, and I do not want them to be ill-considered.
In order to keep this debate well out of the range of controversy, let me start. as I so often do, by attacking both sides—first, the B.B.C.; then, I.T.V. It will probably reduce my chances of getting many more fares in future, but I cannot help that. With regard to the B.B.C.. I am not often shocked in life—I thought was almost unshockable—but I read an article in a magazine called E.P.U., a technical magazine of the European Picture Union, or something of that sort, by the Director-General of the B.B.C., Sir Ian Jacob, in which I came across the following paragraph:
"Competition in broadcasting inevitably produces the result that the public is denied true alternatives. If the public is to get the best out of two channels, then those channels should be planned in relation to one another. This is impossible when their control lies in different hands. … Competition, when it is carried to extremes, is a continuing threat to freedom of expression."
If I may pause for a moment to gather my breath, I will go on by saying that the Director-General continued to refer to the strength which comes from a unified broadcasting system as opposed to
"the dangers of the nation appearing to speak with two or three different voices".
There must, he says, be one voice, recognisable and authoritative. Now this is really an approach to totalitarianism. I am not accusing the Director-General of the B.B.C. of being a totalitarian. The method, as he points out himself in this article, was of great value during the war. But for a democracy in time of peace to be required to speak with a single and authoritative voice simply will not do. We have to speak with many voices—very interesting voices, I hope, but diverse ones.
I suggest to your Lordships that this is an indication of the sort of danger into which we can be led by the bureaucratic mind when it reaches the point of no return. And it is a possible explanation
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of the fact that the bureaucracy of the B.B.C. has now become a parody of Whitehall. Only this morning there was put into my hands a copy of a speech made last April in Germany by the Director of News and Current Affairs of the B.B.C., in which he said that Churchill's speeches in 1940 would have lost little of their effectiveness if they had only been read and not been heard; that the B.B.C. broadcasts had little or no effect upon the course of the war and, finally, that businessmen, as well as politicians, should be excluded from any say, direct or indirect, in the control of broadcasting—which shows just how far you can get.
Let me return for a moment to the Director-General, with one other quotation from his important and revealing article:
"Independence for broadcasting means freedom from two kinds of pressure, the political and the economic … Where competition for the largest audience is supreme, the tendency is to avoid anything which is not generally acceptable or which might be found disquieting or uncomfortable. Where the eye has constantly to be kept on the large audience, conformism is at a premium."
This drives me to mention a question which I had not otherwise intended to raise this afternoon. There was a programme called "In the News" started on the B.B.C. It was a success. The noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council, I think, may have some happy, even glorious, memories of it, because he helped to make it a success. He participated in it. I am sure of one thing: that whatever other views he may take of that programme, he can never say, out of his experience, that it was either quiet, or comfortable, or conformist. It may have had many faults; but those faults it did not have. After a certain time—and may I say instantly, long before the noble Viscount took hold of one of them?—the Party machines moved in upon this programme with the object of breaking it up. They said it was unorthodox and unconformist. They said that a proper representation of the official view of the official Parties was not being achieved and that it must come to an end.
The B.B.C. put up a mild resistance. They suggested that Mr. Michael Foot and myself, who were both Members of Parliament at that time and were personally involved, might come to the final meeting, when the "hatchet men" from

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Abbey House and Transport House were to come down for the last time to present the ultimatum to the B.B.C., because we might have something to say, as we certainly should have had. But the "hatchet men" would have nothing of that kind and the B.B.C. were told to "Shut up". They did "shut up". The capitulation was total.
If your Lordships think that I am exaggerating, I would refer your Lordships to the most interesting book of my noble friend Lord Simon of Wythenshawe, in which, in perhaps slightly less trenchant but still completely accurate phrases, he describes this particular form of yielding to political pressure which the Director-General so deprecates. If that was not yielding to political pressure, I do not know whatever can be—it was the classic example. But it is not quite the end of the story. What then happened? When the I.T.V. were started, they picked us up again; they pushed us out again in a new form called "Free Speech", and they had no more trouble from Abbey House or Transport House. Why was that? They knew it was no good; they knew that the I.T.V. would not listen; they knew that the I.T.V. would not capitulate. I say this only to point out that it is no good the B.B.C. being unctuous about standing up to political pressure and all that, when they themselves capitulated to political pressure far more than the I.T.V. have ever done.
Now I should like to say a word or two on the credit side. Under the stimulus of competition the B.B.C. are producing a series of programmes which compare favourably with any others in the word world to-day. I instance "Panorama", "To-night", and I think I must now add, "Face to Face". The classical novels have been frequently brought to a wide public, and there are, in addition, the regular visits to museums and galleries, which have undoubtedly stimulated public interest in this country in the arts. Where the B.B.C. fall down, and when they fall down, is when they do the very thing that Sir Ian Jacob deplores; that is to say, attempt to apply commercial standards of success to broad-casting. All this shooting in the Wild West is bad enough, but when they start to import American "pop" programmes to use at peak viewing hours, really that is "the end!" The other night I turned
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on the B.B.C. and there was a young man wiggling about behind a microphone singing a song called "I love you". I stood this for a little time and finally decided to switch over to the I.T.V., and I then found that there was a blonde wiggling about behind a microphone singing precisely the same song. I did not want to be loved by either of them, so I had no option but to switch off altogether. This is the kind of thing that I deplore; it is the kind of competition that I do not like, and it should not exist. We are getting too much of it at peak hours to-day.
I think it would be disastrous for the B.B.C. to lower their standards or their sights, and, therefore, to touch commercial television. They should never touch commercial television. They have achieved a national coverage; let them stick to it and make the best of it, and stick to programmes of the highest quality. That is their true function. I believe that they can discharge it, and that they do not require a second channel to do so: indeed, they have practically said that it would be too much for them and would involve vast additional expenditure. Let them concentrate on the channel they have and make it the best of its kind in the world; and if they want more cash, which I imagine they will, let them get it from the licences, which are expanding all the time. As a matter of fact, I think they should be given at the moment the whole of the licence fees, instead of a computation devised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the number of licences gradually increases, it may be possible to reduce the licence fees; but in the meantime I think the B.B.C. should get the whole of the fees and not this computation, which really means that the Treasury are "pinching" some of it.
It may be argued that by so doing we should be subsidising culture. But what is wrong with that? It is done in every civilised country in the world, and to a less extent in this country than I personally would wish. Every country subsidises opera, classical theatre, museums and art galleries. And so they should. So should we. And if, through this medium, we can bring these things within the range of ever-widening sections of the population, so much the better. I

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have never heard it suggested in any country that variety theatres should be subsidised; and I am not going to recommend this afternoon that that should be done.
My Lords, I turn now for a moment to Independent Television. I think we have to recognise the fact that, whatever views we may have held about this in the past, Independent Television has come to stay in this country. The politicians dare not stop it now, although they can change it, if necessary. The second thing that has to be said is that it is at the moment a monopoly. Four companies in one of the tightest rings ever devised run the show from the contracting and programme point of view. London is carved up between Associated Rediffusion and A.T.V.; the Midlands between A.T.V. and A.B.C.; and the North between Granada and A.B.C. The hold of the "Big Four," if I may so call them, over all the so-called independent pro-vincial stations is complete, in the sense that the latter are dependent upon them for at least 80 per cent. of their programmes. I am not blaming anyone for this situation, but it is a risk. I think it is probably because the Act may not have been very well drafted. But there is a snag in it, and it is this. It was certainly never the intention of Parliament to create by legislation a commercial, television monopoly. I do not think that was the intention of any of the supporters of commercial television, in either House.
Let me turn now to the critics of Independent Television. The first criticism arises from the profits that have been made. I do not think there is much in this. The people who have reaped profits from Independent Television took tremendous risks. There was a moment when the whole thing looked as if it was in danger of collapse. They had courage and faith, and worked hard; and when a lot of other people withdrew, or would not come in, they stuck it out, at the risk of losing everything they had, and a bit more as well; and they came through. If you back a horse at 40 to 1 and it wins, you get more than you do if you back the favourite; and so you should—and it may be happening at this very moment, for all I know. I personally do not resent these profits. They pay large taxes upon them; they will want to plough back a great deal for new
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equipment. In any case, they have created—let us acknowledge this—a great industry in this country, and that industry is going on.
I come now to the question of advertisements, about which the correspondence recently in some of the national newspapers has been interminable. I believe that we are making a little too much of this. There is an automatic limiting factor here, and it is: how much will the public take? You always have to keep your eye on the public if you are in commercial television. One of the executives of I.T.V., whose name I will not give, remarked to me the other day, rather naïvely, that the public like the advertisements because they are so much better than the programmes. And he added, warming to the theme: "And much more money is spent on them." There is an element of truth in that. I like the advertisements. Very often it is a great relief to turn away from the programme going on to get the advertisement that comes along.
I think the television companies, and the critics, too, would do better to worry less about the number of minutes per hour than the sort of breaks that are made. What I think irritates people is a break in a discussion programme or a dramatic play at precisely the wrong moment, just because those responsible think they have the peak audience. If you are watching a boxing match, what is there to prevent a flash advertisement between every round? Nothing. But when you are watching a tense drama, or a Wild Western, or a political discussion or something of that sort, suddenly to be cut off in the middle of it is very irritating. I would say that the advertisements should be considered much more in relation to the type of programme that is being shown than in relation to the number of minutes per hour, and that they should vary on different programmes. That having been said, I should like to add that in my view our system of advertisements is infinitely better than the sponsored system in the United States of America. Many of my American friends have told me that they wish they could adopt our system now, but they are afraid that it is too late.
The third criticism is that there is too little British content in the programmes; and that, of course, is to some extent a valid criticism. There is far too much

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canned American stuff bought on the cheap, and I am sorry to see the B.B.C. following that example. Finally, I think the only really valid criticism is that the I.T.A. is accused of permitting monopoly practices contrary to Section 5 (2) of the Act—and that charge was levied this morning in The Times by Mr. Christopher Mayhew. To some extent it is undeniable. I think the remedy lies in the hands of the Government, of the I.T.A. and of the contracting companies themselves. The Government, who I think inadvertently created the monopoly, can end it by establishing as soon as possible a new channel, either under the present Independent Television Authority or another one—I do not think it much matters, but I see no great necessity for creating a new one—and therefore at no cost to the public at all. The companies must seek to improve their programmes and rationalise their advertisements in the way I have attempted to describe, and they must not seek to perpetuate, or to extend, the monopoly.
This question of monopoly—I have nearly done now, but the subject is very important—is really vital. I have a great admiration for the drive, capacity and, above all, the courage of Mr. Littler, Mr. Parnell. Mr. Grade and Mr. Bernstein, but if they think they can convert their present television empire into a closed shop, embracing the whole of independent television in this country, to be run by themselves exclusively for ever and ever, Amen! then I say they are living in a fool's paradise. Parliament would never tolerate such a set-up indefinitely, and there are many ways in which it could be brought to a conclusion.
The future of the existing companies—the "Big Four" as I called them—lies to a large extent in their own hands. Without going into technicalities, it looks as if we shall have to go over to 625 lines in this country. This is a race, the television race, which we cannot afford to lose, either from the point of view of technical development or of the export of television equipment, and on a 405-line system we are bound to lose it. Therefore I think the transition must take place, and as soon as possible. According to the Postmaster-General, a new definition system must delay the introduction of a third programme. In my submission, this would greatly increase the responsibility
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of the existing companies, because, so far as I can see, whatever happens, they have a clear run for at least three or four years before they can be touched—before we can get an effective third network into operation. In consequence, they have ample time to justify themselves and their medium in the eyes of their critics. In the circumstances, I think they would be well advised to give up of their own accord the options they now possess for the third network, which were given under different conditions, while reserving to themselves the right to apply, in competition with others, for that network when the time comes.
I would remind your Lordships they were given those options when it was being found difficult to get anybody at all to go into this desperately dangerous and intricate business. The risk has "come off". There is a new situation, and I believe they would put themselves right with the public if they themselves said, "We will give up these options now, and we will show you we can do it; we will come in on equal terms with the other competitors."If they do that, I think they put themselves right with the public.
We are dealing here with a new medium of immense and still quite unknown potential power. We cannot calculate it. In a recent address to the students of St. Andrews University, I ventured to say that the manipulative control over the minds of millions, by methods far more subtle than those employed by the Communists, was a great danger, and I reminded the students that Field-Marshal Smuts had said in his Rectorial Address that the disappearance of the sturdy, independent-minded, freedom-loving individual, and his replacement by a servile, standardised, mass-mentality was the greatest human menace of our time.
The decisions which must soon be made about television could affect, for good or ill, the whole future of our democracy. My purpose this afternoon, as I have already said, has been simply to stimulate thought about it. I have indicated what I think is a hopeful line of advance, but I am convinced that the replacement of one monopoly by two, with different functions and purposes, cannot be the final answer. I am fortified in this conviction by the man who has perhaps a greater experience of this medium than anyone else in the world

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today, Mr. Edward R. Murrow. He said the other day:
"Let us have a little competition, not only in selling soap, cigarettes, and automobiles, but in informing a troubled, apprehensive but receptive public. For the premise upon which our pluralistic democratic society rests is that if the people are given sufficient undiluted information, they will somehow reach the right decisions in the affairs of the nation, I believe that, potentially, we have in this country a free-enterprise system of television which is superior to any other. But to achieve its promise it must be both free and enterprising."
That, I think, goes for independent television in this country just as much as it does for television in the United States of America. I beg to move for Papers.
3.7 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who has sat for so long spiritually on the Cross Benches in so many matters, has demonstrated by his speech that he brings a great deal of impartiality of a kind that I hope will be evident in this debate, which is upon a subject on which there are strong feelings. But I am afraid I shall be unable to remain impartial any more than the noble Lord was impartial in some of his remarks. This is a subject which was discussed very fully when the present Television Act, setting up an independent television service, was before this House. I heard many of the speeches that were delivered on that occasion. The most notable aspect of that debate was the opposition on the side of the Government to a Bill which was being introduced against the advice of many of their best advisers. I do not need to mention all of the opponents. There were the noble Earl, Lord Halifax, the late Lord Waverley, the noble Lord, Lord Brand, the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, the noble Earl, Lord Jowitt, and, of course, the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council. I do not propose to embarrass the noble Viscount by quoting his remarks on that occasion. I should like to congratulate him on the fact that his strong opposition—and, indeed, it called forth strong words at the time—has not stood in the way of a successful political career. I believe that many of the words he spoke on that occasion are still as true to-day, and I should be surprised, knowing him, if he were to back down on what he thought.
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We are confronted with a situation in which we have now in this country two broadcasting services, the B.B.C. and the commercial service. If my remarks are mainly devoted to commercial television, it is not to suggest that the B.B.C. is perfect. Indeed, I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, in many of the criticisms that he made. But we are facing quite an exceptional situation to-day in regard to the Independent Television Authority and the contract companies. Those of us who were opposed to commercial television always admitted that once it came into existence it was likely to be popular, indeed successful. in a commercial sense, and impossible to abolish. Much as I personally (and this is a personal view) should like to see the disappearance of commercial television—and I will give some of my reasons for it later—I realise that it is not possible now to turn back the clock.
Those of us who thought that commercial television was doomed to financial failure have, of course, been shown to be hopelessly and desperately wrong, because it is a roaring financial success; and the rewards for those who fought for its introduction are certainly a tribute to their business acumen. Some of these have not been taxed, of course, and it is said that one of the promoters has turned a £2,000 investment into half a million pounds in the course of four years. I cannot vouch for that figure, but it has often been quoted. And this has been done as a result of an Act of Parliament which was designed to create competition! I well remember the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, who was Postmaster General at the time, saying in this House [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 188, col. 195]:
"What is laid down, and if this Bill is passed will become the law, is that adequate competition shall be ensured. I can give the noble and learned Earl the definite answer that the Government intend to ensure that that is done."
And then later he said [col. 221]:
"I said quite clearly that the words in the Bill showed that there shall be no new monopoly, and that there shall be adequate competition."
He went on, prophetically, to say:
"I did not inform noble Lords what steps would be taken to enforce that."
My Lords, we now have a situation in which the Independent Television Authority are asking for another channel

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in order to break their monopoly. The Chairman of the I.T.A. recently said:
"If you create a monopoly you must take the consequences, and one of those consequences for the people who get the monopoly is that they make a certain amount of money.
"If there was a third channel you would not have a monopoly. You would have two competing companies in each area of the country."
I shall be interested to hear from the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, who I am glad to see is to speak a little later, what steps he would now propose to break the monopoly which was set up by the Television Act of 1954.
This position of monopoly is now quite firmly accepted by the Government. Quite recently in another place the Assistant Postmaster General said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 602 (No. 80), Col. 378]:
"I can understand the dismay of the hon. Gentlemen at coming across a monopoly set up by Statute that makes a profit."
I hope that that dismay is shared by all noble Lords in this House. It has been, I believe, a tradition of legislation for a long time in this country that where the State creates privileged positions of monopoly, as is sometimes unavoidable, it will take steps to regulate that monopoly and to ensure that undue profits are not made at the expense of the community. Here a monopoly has been set up under State aegis and the profits go to private individuals and not to the further development of a good broadcasting service.
My Lords, at the time when we were debating this matter in another place, and also in this House. I remember having a conversation with the late Lord Waverley, and I recall that he said to me that never in his recollection of public service had he known such strong and active lobbying in a private interest; nor had he ever seen an occasion on which it was so effective with the Government of the day. We are faced today, as we were then, with the fact that free competition in the television services is not likely to be possible for a good number of years. The basic difficulty that we have always been in is that there is a shortage of wavelengths, a difficulty which cannot be overcome until very much greater technical development has taken place.
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Those of us who opposed commercial television did so on the ground that the theory that it was possible to get free competition was not tenable in the case of television; that in fact there would always be monopoly, and that while there was that monopoly it should be so subject to the control of the public interest that the type of exploitation which has, in fact, taken place should be impossible. We took the view that what was really required—and this was a matter that was put forward time and again—was not to pursue some abstract concept of competition in a field where it was impossible but to seek to provide the maximum of choice to the listener and to the viewer.
The example which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, gave is one that those of your Lordships who look at T.V. will be able to repeat on many occasions. I have myself switched off a programme, one called "6.5 Special," on the B.B.C.; I turned to commercial television and found that the theme song of "6.5 Special" was being played at that particular moment. If any of you were to examine the T.V. Times and the Radio Times you would frequently see the same sort of programme repeated at the same sort of time. This is inevitable in a situation in which two separate bodies are operating according to their particular lights, and one of them primarily concerned with getting the maximum audience in order to sell the goods of those who advertise on it.
I should not for one moment suggest that all that comes out of commercial television is bad. Indeed, it is quite clear that those of us who were so critical gravely underrated the capacity, and indeed I would say the public spirit, of many of those who went into the business. A number of them have been bold and experimental, and on occasions have shown a freedom in their approach which one would, on occasion, have liked to see more firmly shown by the B.B.C. But the fact remains that we are dominated inevitably by this obligation to reach the maximum audience and to produce standardised programmes of a kind that will command a great listenership at any one time.
There have been many questions in another place on advertisements. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, I find the

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advertisements extremely tedious. At first I thought they were greatly preferable to the programmes, but as one begins to see the same sort of repetition and hear the same tune it rings terribly in one's head. I can hardly mention the words T.V. Times without the little jingle that goes with them coming into my head. The trouble about these advertisements is that the Independent Television Authority, obsessed with the need to make a financial success of the service for which they were responsible, have had far too much regard for the financial profitability of the activities of the programme contractors and not enough regard for the convenience of the public.
When we debated this question of television advertising we received a number of assurances, particularly in another place, and more especially from the noble Viscount who now occupies the Woolsack. He gave us his view as to what a "natural break" was. He said:
"I would say it varies enormously. Suppose there is a two-act play and there is a really natural break between the acts; I cannot myself see any harm in an advertisement coming in there, especially if the first act has lasted for an hour and ten minutes."
My Lords, it is not every hour, but every ten minutes that the break comes on so many occasions. And whether the interval is ten minutes or fifteen minutes, those breaks come more frequently at peak periods, which, in my view, and in the view, I am sure, of the great majority of people who watch television services, is a breach of the spirit of the original Act of Parliament and of the undertakings which the Government then gave. We were, in fact, advised that five or six minutes in the hour was likely to be the proper amount. But what we were not told was that this was a five or six minutes average throughout the day, and that it would be perfectly proper, in the view of the I.T.A., to have no breaks at all for advertising, or virtually none, at a time when there was no significant audience which could be cajoled to buy particular goods and up to nine minutes advertising in the hour at peak periods.
I believe that the time has come now for the Government to give some sort of a lead in this matter to the I.T.A. It is not a matter which ought any more to be
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laughed off. As we know, there is no need to worry about the financial solvency of the companies. That is one thing in this situation which is not in question at all. We should hope, therefore, that the Government will take the initiative in this matter.
One of the criticisms that we had in those days—again, I am not digging this out of the past to fight over old battles, but just to see how valid those criticisms are proving to-day—was that some of these advertisements would be generally of a kind which could not be in the least elevating or encouraging. Again I make no apology for quoting an example of which I myself know, and which was mentioned in another place—namely, the advertisement for the News of the World: that viewers should buy it so that they might read the following day about the Messina case. It is this type of rather demoralised and demoralising approach; the idea that it is possible to get sensation easy; the idea that it is possible to become beautiful without trouble merely by buying somebody else's particular beauty lotion; the idea that one can even cure one's ailments (aided, I may say, by Mr. Wilfred Pickles) that we feared; and it is this type of thing that has come to pass.
I hope that this whole matter will be considered in due course by a Royal Commission, and I strongly support the views of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that the matter should not be judged one way or the other; that we should not take a decision, here and now, on whether the B.B.C. should have a second programme or how it should be done. I personally should like the B.B.C. to have a second programme. I will repeat an old argument—it is an argument that is still valid—that if we want freedom of choice there must be some planning of programmes; and, whether it is the B.B.C. or some other Commission which can ensure that there is some alternate choice, I hope that, whatever is done, the opportunity will be taken to provide for the interests, whether they be regional or specialised, that are inevitably lacking in the situation to-day.
There is one other suggestion only that I should like to make, and that is that we ought not to consider the provision of further television as necessarily a good thing. I believe that if it comes naturally,

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if the wavelengths are available and if the finance is there, then undoubtedly it would be very pleasant to have a wide choice of programmes. But there are other things that we want. We want playing fields; we want more schools. If ever there was an act of irresponsibility at a time when we were heading into a period of inflation, it was the introduction of a commercial television service, using up some of our resources and encouraging people to go out and spend more.
I recently had the unique experience—it may come to some of your Lordships, but it does not come to many people who are engaged in the political field—of taking the chair at a meeting to debate education. All the people present had paid 5s. to come in, and the hall was packed. The meeting went on until 11 o'clock at night. This meeting took place in Ireland, where there is no commercial or State television service. There is little doubt that as television has developed something has gone out of the life of the community. I do not think we can stop that; as I said, I do not believe we can turn back the clock. But I hope that the provision of a further television programme will not necessarily be considered as a matter to which we should give the highest priority.
I support very strongly the views of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that here is a great and powerful medium. I support the views of those noble Lords, including the Lord President of the Council, who urged that it ought to be made entirely responsive to the public interest, because its power was of such tremendous significance; that it should not he distorted for the wrong ends; that broadcasting should be for its own sake, to give entertainment and enlightenment, not to sell goods. We hope that the Government, having made their original mistake—and we all know that in fact they introduced the Television Bill largely by accident—will take care to do what they can to limit the harm that is being done at the moment, and will ensure that our broadcasting services, whether they be in the public sector or in the private sector, will be subject to impartial review. I only hope that the Government of the day take the advice which was given upon a previous occasion in the Beveridge Report but which was so signally ignored by the Government of the time.
3.27 p.m.
LORD JAMES OF RUSHOLME: My Lords, I had hoped to spend a good deal more time listening and learning before I ventured to address your Lordships' House, but the subject that we are discussing this afternoon is one about which I feel so strongly that it would have been wrong of me not to say anything at all. Therefore I will say something about it, being as brief as I can and speaking with great diffidence. I suppose it is inevitable that someone like myself, whose job is in education, should think of the immense educational impact of television. By that, of course, I do not mean the direct inculcation of opinions or factual information: I am not thinking of educational broadcasts or religious broadcasts or anything like that; I am thinking of the influence that it wields in much more subtle ways in creating standards of value and general attitudes of mind.
I believe that it is particularly necessary that those of us who are not, shall I say, devoted viewers (perhaps that includes many noble Lords) should constantly remind ourselves how great this influence is. After all, there are nearly 30 million adults in this country who are watching television, and it is no exaggeration to say that in millions of homes "the telly" is now the greatest single cultural influence that there is. The world, our society, has changed as much as that in ten years. In discussing it, we are not therefore simply discussing a branch of the entertainment industry; we are discussing something that is fundamental to our national life. It is in the light of the potentiality of this influence that these difficult questions of direction and control have to Abe considered. Here I am in a great difficulty, because I know that it is the custom that anything that I say should not cause controversy; yet I know that anything I say, on this subject at any rate, must be controversial. In what I am about to say I take comfort from Lord Boothby's definition of the word "non-controversial".
It was on the action of this great influence that many of those who opposed altogether the introduction of commercial television rested their case. I still believe that they were right, and I think that the experience we have acquired over the last few years is already sufficient to show how right they were. When I say that, I am not thinking primarily of what

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might be called the normal lines of attack on I.T.V. I am sure that Mr. Mayhew and others are right when they point out that the law is being strained, shall we say, by a somewhat curious interpretation of the length and timing of natural breaks; but, frankly, I regard all those things as a minor battle. Indeed, it is significant that my only humorous remark has been taken by both the previous noble Lords who have spoken, when they have said that, on the whole, they preferred the advertisements on I.T.V. to the programmes. Nor am I concerned with the more important question of the violence which at times has disfigured the programmes and which is said to be particularly harmful to children. We delude ourselves if we think that all will be well if we disinfect the programmes between 5 and 7 p.m., because it is the total effect of the programme that constitutes the real problem. One cannot but be alarmed as one contemplates the cumulative effects on a growing generation of the trivial, the meretricious and the plain silly; of the presentation of a world in which glittering prizes are to be won every night for negligible knowledge and less effort.
If one likes, one can get a statistical picture of what is happening by remembering that at peak hours, from 7 to 10.30 p.m.—and it is the peak hours which count—commercial television last year devoted 10 per cent. of its programmes to subjects that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered serious. The B.B.C. in the same period gave rather more than three times as much coverage. But much more eloquent than statistics—and I wish we could all have this gruelling experience—would be a course of really intensive viewing; not a casual glimpse of one of those prestige programmes that are put out by all companies and principally, of course, by Granada, but a really hard period of solid study of the run-of-the-mill programmes. That they should be as bad as that is comprehensible enough. The aim of the companies is to make money by selling time to the advertisers; and, given their premises, that is a perfectly proper thing to do. No one can say, either, that they have not been very successful in doing it. We should better understand the results of it, I believe. if we called it frankly "Commercial
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Television", which it is, rather than "Independent Television", which it is not.
The question we have to ask ourselves is whether that is, in fact, a proper aim for this immensely powerful new medium. For if, after all, we aim to sell soap flakes or cereals as efficiently as possible, we shall, in honesty, inevitably do two things. We shall avoid anything that can lead to a genuinely independent and critical attitude on the part of the viewer. That is the first thing; and one cannot but be impressed by the honesty of the programme companies when they tout for advertisements and refer to the receptive condition of their all but captive audiences.
Secondly, if one is to be successful one will present programmes which attract a mass audience; and, by and large, this is most readily done by pandering to the intellectual idleness, the cupidity and the love of escape that exists in all people. The process is given a spurious democratic quality by saying, "This is giving the public what it wants," and "Why should not people have entertainment?" The truth is that what is happening is that tastes are being created and satisfied and their satisfaction is being hailed as a victory for freedom of choice. One cannot on the one hand use all the techniques of mass persuasion, one cannot appeal consistently to the facile, the uncritical and the escapist, and still talk of freedom.
Your Lordships may well feel that those of us who are opposed to the whole idea of commercial television are fighting a battle that is already lost; and indeed to hope that we could ever go back now would demand an optimism greater than I have. But what we can do and what we must do is to resist its growth. Faced as we are with the prospect of extending television to new bands and a new channel, I believe it is vital that these developments should be put in the hands of the B.B.C., and I must say that in uncompromising terms. Your Lordships may well ask, as did the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton—and it is a question which it seems to me is not asked often enough—"Why should we devote great resources of money and, still more, of very highly trained and scarce manpower to extending television services?" Particularly when the dearth of good

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material, even on two programmes, is considered, one may, with justice, question why one should want a third. But extended those programmes certainly will be. I am sure that pressure of public opinion will force that upon us. The vital question, therefore, seems to me to be: under whose control?
I have said that the term "Independent Television" is a misnomer. The same point has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton. Independent from what? Not a small group of interests already exercising immense power over other mass media and the world of entertainment. Independent, rather, I believe, from any kind of real control and, I must add, from any sense of real public responsibility; because it is the sense of obligation, of being a public service, that the B.B.C., with all its faults, still possesses. It is often timid and sometimes smug, but it does, at any rate, seek quite consciously to raise rather than to lower standards. If the third channel is handed over to commercial television we know perfectly well what we shall get: we shall get "the mixture as before", because it will be the duty of the people who run that channel to give us the mixture as before, to tempt more people Ito watch more uncritically more of the time.
It is—and I know it will seem a paradox to many noble Lords—the B.B.C. that is more genuinely free and more genuinely independent to use new facilities in new ways, whether by really alternative programmes, whether by technical changes which must come in the number of lines, or otherwise. But behind all these details there lies a basic choice of masters. Because I, as a teacher, am professionally involved in any battle for higher standards, this is a question that obviously concerns me deeply; but it is not only educators who are involved. So far as we care for this very difficult idea of an educated democracy, as critical, as knowledgeable and as free as we can make it, then 'the future of this medium concerns us all.
3.40 p.m.
EARL DE LA WARR: My Lords, I believe none of us has yet thanked the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for introducing this Motion and for the speech that he made. He spoke with clarity and courage—though in view of his reputa-
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tion, perhaps with a disappointing lack of controversy—and I think we owe him our warm thanks. Among other things, it has given us the opportunity of hearing the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, make his maiden speech. He comes to us with a great reputation and a great record of service to education. He may have said a number of things with which all of us do not quite agree, but he spoke with a courage, an eloquence and a sincerity on a matter about which we know he feels extremely strongly; therefore we could not have asked him to make an entirely non-controversial speech. It was a speech we all welcome. We expected a great deal from the noble Lord, and we hope to have a great deal more from him in the future.
This is obviously a very useful debate, a very important debate. We are discussing a subject that may well, as a force, have almost equal importance to the future of mankind as the discovery in another sphere of nuclear power. I speak from a point of view of one who is pretty satisfied with the system that we have. I believe that most people, most men in the street, are in fact satisfied, and I think there is probably more interest in Parliamentary circles, including your Lordships' House, than you would find if you addressed anybody outside casually.
To begin with, we have an extraordinarily full coverage of the country. It is now 98 per cent. and approaching 99 per cent. for one programme and 87 per cent. for two programmes, and I am told it will soon, at the end of this year, he 93 per cent. for the second programme. I have travelled a certain amount in Canada and America particularly, and I am sure that we have better reception in this country and better programmes than I have seen elsewhere. It is easy to criticise programmes. If one liked to adopt the form of criticism adopted by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rushohne, one could say that most of the cinemas of London should be brought under State control because they are too light, and most of the theatres and a great deal of the Press—including some that in the past we have taken seriously. We do not want to return to the controversies of the past. Speaking for myself, I find it very hard to feel that popularity of a programme is a great crime. What does popularity mean? It

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means what the people in fact want. Not all of us in our spare time are so desperately serious or desperately wanting to improve ourselves. I myself have often looked at the "Wild West" programmes of which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, spoke with such disapproval.
A NOBLE LORD: Not disapproval: boredom.
EARL DE LA WARR: We have in our system choice of programme. We have the non-commercial B.B.C. and the private enterprise, commercial Independent Television. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that in some sense that choice of programme is not enough, because, with him, I sometimes rather wish the B.B.C. would have greater courage of their convictions. After all, I had some responsibility for initiating commercial television; and what the Government always stood for from the beginning was the maintenance of one set of programmes which was entirely uncommercial, with a guaranteed revenue. Why the B.B.C. should feel that they have to degrade their programmes in order to compete with another system, I just cannot see. It seems to me a great pity. I also agree with another point which was brought forward by the noble Lord. I cannot see why there cannot be some discussion and some overall planning with regard to programmes, so that a real choice can be given to the public.
Then we come to the independent companies supported by advertisements. I think that one thing one can say is that the views so strongly expressed lately by Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr. Mayhew and others, of objections to these advertisements, are certainly not shared by the majority of viewers. It is interesting, incidentally, that since the passing of the 1954 Act television sets have increased in number from 3½million to just under 9½million, so it certainly looks as if we have not a very unpopular system. It is nice to think that most of those who prophesied such disaster to our standards when we previously debated this subject (and we do not ask what my noble friend Lord Hailsham thinks; he will no doubt shortly tell us) realise—I am afraid I have in my notes "the rubbish they talked", but I will say the mistaken
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views they adopted. They have certainly been disproved by experience.
I believe it is partly due to the system of a controlling corporation, with ownership of the stations and the fact that everyone knows that the system can be reviewed in 1964. These are in themselves very potent factors. But I believe that the greatest benefit of all and the greatest protection of all is the character of English people, and the character of the companies themselves. I believe that I.T.A. will be the first to say how little interference or control from them has been necessary in ensuring the maintenance of good standards; and when any control has been considered necessary it has been able to be conducted on the most informal basis. The entertainment programme of the private companies is equal to that of the B.B.C. They give a great deal of time (I believe it is five hours a week) to their educational programmes and to their religious programmes, and, I believe, something like fifteen hours a week to their information programmes.
Just as the I.T.A. would say that the maintenance of standards by the companies is due to the fact that the companies themselves have proper standards, I believe that the companies would be the first to wish that someone in your Lordships' House—and perhaps as I asked him to take on this responsibility it would come rightly from me—would pay a very warm tribute to the first Chairman of the I.T.A., Sir Kenneth Clark. I believe he did a magnificent job in setting a standard and a tradition for that body which I am sure is going to leave a permanent impression upon it.
If I might turn for a moment to another question raised by the noble Lord, I would refer to the question—a difficult one—of the third programme. I am afraid, on a technical point, that I am a little doubtful of what the noble Lord says about the desirability of adopting 625 lines. I am informed that the capital in sets and other equipment which would have to be scrapped if that were done is something in the neighbourhood of £500 million—and that for what would admittedly be only a slightly improved picture. I think the important point he made was about the possible loss of the export trade. My information is that, if we have not already got a converter that

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is satisfactory, enabling us to convert our pictures for export, we are in fact on the brink of getting one; and, therefore, we could maintain our export trade.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl one question? It does, of course, rule out colour for ever, because you would never do colour on 405. I think that that may become a hopeless handicap in the long run.
EARL DE LA WARR: On that matter I prefer not to attempt to answer the noble Lord; but if that is his information, of course I accept it. There is the major question: do we really need another programme at the present moment? To return to the man in the street whom I mentioned a moment ago, if we stopped the man in the street and said, "Would you like a third programme?", it would be just like asking him whether he wanted a motor car. The answer would be, "Yes, I should like it if I could get it for nothing". It is obvious that somebody has to pay a great deal more for a third programme, and I should think that for the moment we probably have enough. It would, of course, help to deal to some extent with the problem which is obviously concerning the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, in this respect, and the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, in that it would increase the competitive nature of the system. At the moment we have true competition between rival television producers, and we have four major commercial companies providing some competition against one another. However, obviously, if the nation could afford a third programme, or if it is considered desirable, that would increase competition. If we did have a third programme, I should say that there is something to be said for having it as a minority programme, as a programme mainly for education and cultural purposes—unless the B.B.C. can be persuaded to become less competitive with I.T.A. and itself fulfil that function.
My Lords, to sum up, it seems to me that we have a good system, working well. It is subject to review, I suppose, when the B.B.C. has its new charter, in 1962, and when the I.T.A. lease is reviewed in 1964. Her Majesty's Government may or may not feel that they would like to have the whole system examined by some Committee or Commission, especially before making up their minds on such a
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new development as a third programme; but, there again, I would say that if they did I should be sorry to see any very fundamental change in principle coming out of that review.
3.54 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, some wise man—presumably Sir Winston Churchill—has said that what matters most about a speech is who you are; then how you say it; and, finally, what you say. On all those tests Lord Boothby, of course, emerges with flying colours. He is what I believe is called, in the world of television, a "star". I use that expression not sarcastically, but enviously. He has shone very brightly on us this afternoon, and I hope that we shall hear him often—and I see no temperamental reason in his case which would make that impossible in time to come. We are all very grateful to him for opening this debate so delectably.
Then I take special pride in the thought that I was one of those who sponsored my noble friend Lord Shackleton when he entered this House. He has set out the main points in the argument from the point of view of those on these Benches. Further, I am certainly pleased to he the first from this side of the House to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme—one of the outstanding headmasters of our time—who has made a speech which I think we shall all want to read and ponder on. Finally, I know that the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, needs no bouquets of mine, as he is such a well-established and popular figure in this House.
There is often argument—I think a lot of very good and serious argument—about the effect of television on the moral life of the country, and, above all, on its religious life. I think we should do well to assume that that influence is considerable: it may be profound. If that is so, it seems reasonable, before deciding on the effect, to ask a prior question: What are the objectives in these respects of those who are running our television services? What results are they trying to achieve? To put one overwhelmingly important aspect, where do the B.B.C., the I.T.A., and the independent companies stand in regard to Christian belief and Christian morals? I do not approach this matter in any narrow or sectarian spirit: rather, perhaps, in the manner of

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Mr. Gary Cooper, who I read in the paper to-day has just been received into my Communion. Mr. Gary Cooper said this when asked why he had become so religious:
"I got round to thinking that I've got a lot to be thankful for. There's my career—heck, I never dreamed I'd be a star with a face like mine. I reckoned that I owed sumpin to someone."
I know that that was not the case with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. His face was his fortune; but even in his case he might feel that he owes something to someone—and which of us is devoid of that feeling in our better moments? The paper goes on to say:
"Gary said"—
adopting a tone of familiarity which does not come easy to me—
"Brother, it ain't easy to he a nice person.'"
That, of course, is profoundly true.
"But if a fella goes to church, any ole church, and tries to straighten out his mind, it sure helps."
If I may say so, in these few remarks that is rather my text: "If a fellow goes to church, any old church, and tries to straighten out his mind, it sure helps." I approach this subject in that thoroughly broad-minded spirit.
When I began to prepare these remarks for your Lordships I expected to find answers readily available to these questions about the attitude of the B.B.C. and the independent people in regard to religion and morals. I confess that, after researches during the last week or two, I am surprised and disappointed. In my search for a policy I found myself increasingly enveloped in a thick fog. In what follows I shall be mainly, but not entirely, concerned with the B.B.C., but I am not trying in my observations to distinguish between rival merits. If I talk of being enveloped in a fog, that does not apply to the B.B.C. religious programmes, the programmes sent out by the Religious Broadcasting Department of the B.B.C. Their objectives have often been explained very clearly; for example, on pages 81 to 83 of the B.B.C. Handbook: so there is no complaint of ambiguity there. In the B.B.C. Handbook we are told that the first object of religious broadcasting is that it should reflect the
"worship. thought and action of those Churches which represent the main stream of the Christian tradition in the country."
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In the second place, that
"religious broadcasting should bring before listeners and viewers what is most significant in the relationship between the Christian faith and the modern world … The third aim is that religious broadcasting should seek to reach those on the fringe of the organised Churches or quite outside it".
Ceasing to quote, but describing what I think is the result of that last objective, the religious broadcasting aims to reach—and does, I think, to a great extent reach—the aged, the sick, and the infirm, to whom this is an immense consolation. It reaches people of very special interests, and it reaches that large body of the population—perhaps a majority—who are not hostile to religion but who do not go to church very often. There is evidence that millions of these people welcome the opportunity presented by religious television, and I think we can say that in this respect the Churches are beginning to recognise and take full advantage of the great challenge open to them. We are all aware that religious television is not intended to take the place of church worship, but rather to supplement it and widen its range. I believe that when television first came in there was some anxiety among church bodies that it would compete with church services, to the detriment of the latter; but by and large it now seems to be generally conceded that television has been a real advantage to the Churches and to the cause they represent.
I should like to speak my own conviction very plainly. I believe that we owe an immense debt to the Religious Department of the B.B.C. for its splendid work over many years. I say that all the more dispassionately because in the last fifteen years I do not think that I have consumed more than two minutes of their time; but I am proud to think that it was spent on my share of a general tribute to that great Christian Member of your Lordships' House, the late Bishop of Chichester. The Religious Broadcasting Department of the B.B.C. have rendered a noble service to the cause of Christianity and, if it is not blasphemy, I would say that their work had been pleasing to God. The independent television companies are relative newcomers in this field, but in the period over which they have been operating I would join them in the same tribute.
Those of my own communion, the Roman Catholics, are inclined to think

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that they get relatively more scope on I.T.V. than on B.B.C. It may be that that is so. It may be that that is true of minorities in general. Certainly a very ardent and sincere critic of Christianity, whom your Lordships may know by name, Mrs. Margaret Knight, with whom I have had the pleasure of debating (and I am glad to think I was not on the losing side) appears to have had the same experience. But, as I say, I am not speaking from any sectarian point of view. I am inclined to think that the present kind of competition between the
B.B.C. and I.T.V. makes it impossible, or very difficult, for either network to place any religious programmes at times of mass viewing. Religion is placed at the beginning of programmes or at the end. Often, religious programmes are being shown by the B.B.C. and I.T.V. at the same time, and then follow long periods of sectarian programmes.
I do not want to pursue these rather detailed and arguable questions this afternoon, except to say that they seem to me to deserve very serious consideration when any future adjustment of programmes is embarked upon, if it is ever embarked upon, between the B.B.C. and the commercial companies. Only a small proportion of the total programmes are religious programmes. The figures, which may be of interest to your Lordships (I have not come across them before) are as follows. The B.B.C. sound religious programmes take up 3 per cent. of the total programmes, and the B.B.C. television programmes 2·2 per cent.
The crucial question is, of course: where do the B.B.C. stand in regard to religion and Christian morals in the other 97 or 98 per cent. of their programmes? I break off to say that religious programmes on Independent Television are 4…6 per cent. of the total. There have been two fine statements recently about religious broadcasting by Sir Robert Fraser, Director-General of I.T.A., and by Dr. Eric Fletcher, M.P., the latter given at the inaugural ceremony of A.B.C.'s religious training scheme for clergy on April 18 of this year. I am advised that the I.T.A., while they would consider it their duty to stop anything that was palpably offensive to Christian sentiment, do not take it on themselves to guide the companies in their general
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approach to religion or morals, and I am not aware of any clear statement from the companies up to the present describing their attitude in those respects. I understand that whenever any of the companies presents a programme in which Christian principles are thought to be directly involved, a Christian spokesman is invited to present the Christian view. In that and in other ways I must not seem to give them some kind of preference over the B.B.C. (I speak briefly due to shortage of time) or to distinguish between the relative merits of the two systems. May I return, therefore, to the B.B.C.?
The B.B.C. were kind enough to indicate to me, as no doubt to other noble Lords, that they would be pleased to supply me with any information required for this debate. I think that that was perfectly proper, and no doubt other noble Lords have benefited from such help from the B.B.C. and the companies. I raised certain points on the topic I am now discussing, and was told this in the course of a reply from the B.B.C.:
"You ask if there is any official statement of the B.B.C.'s attitude to religion and morality outside the field of religious broadcasting. Sir William Haley, in his address to the British Council of Churches"—
delivered in 1948—
"did seek to convey the B.B.C.'s attitude in these matters. His statement, though a personal one, represented the B.B.C. policy at that time and it has not since been set aside or superseded."
Sir William Haley's lecture, as one would expect, was arresting and stimulating. He happens to be under heavy fire at this moment on another matter, and I am anxious to make it plain that nothing I say should obscure my deep regard for his immense abilities and public service. I have read and re-read his address, as I was advised to do, and I still think that it is fair to quote the following key passage on its own, which apparently is still the official doctrine of the B.B.C.:
"Some people may ask whether this means that British Broadcasting is neutral where Christian values are concerned. Of course it is not … We are citizens of a Christian country, and the B.B.C.—an institution set up by the State—bases its policy upon a positive attitude toward Christian values. It seeks to safeguard those values and to foster acceptance of them. The preponderant weight of its programmes is directed to this end."

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I venture to underline that last statement, though it was not in italics in my copy of his address.
One would think that that was a pronouncement of the first importance. It is clearly not intended to refer only to the 2 or 3 per cent. of religious programmes. It is also made clear by Sir William, in another passage of his speech, that it does not mean—and one would not wish it to mean—that every single programme must be judged by a religious standard. But it would appear—and your Lordships are as good judges of this as I am—to accept a religious standard for the programmes taken as a whole. But, of course, everything turns on the question of what is meant by Christian values. Are these Christian values to be associated with some kind of minimum Christian theology—a belief in God, for example? Or are they to be associated, at the very least, with a preaching and strict observance of the Christian moral code, to take only one (example, in sexual ethics? Can so-called humanist values be included in and preached under the general heading of Christian values? Can so-called humanist values be propounded by well-known atheists, or agnostics, who may be thought to have benefited from the Christian tradition and to represent certain important schools of contemporary thought, but who not only dislike Christianity, but also publicly deride it and constitute themselves its dedicated antagonists?
Questions of this type were among those that I submitted to the B.B.C. in preparation for my discussions with your Lordships. The B.B.C., I am sorry to say—though it would not be a surprise to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, who knows them far better than I do—were far too "cagey" to answer these questions, advising me to read Sir William Haley's lecture again, which I did, but which I found in a way a little tiresome and a gratuitous piece of exhortation. But one extract from the letter I received throws a painful light on the inability of the B.B.C. to know what they think, or, if they do know, to tell the public who after all, in the last resort are their masters. They were good enough, in the first place, to suggest giving me any in
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formation I required. This is the quotation:
"As to what Christian values amount to and whether they can be propounded by those who are not Christians"—
I, in fact, asked whether they could be propounded by well-known atheists or agnostics who style themselves humanists—
"these questions must, of course, to some extent be a matter of personal opinion."
In other words, it is an open question whether brilliant and sincere opponents of Christianity like Professor Julian Huxley and Professor Ayer—
LORD AMWELL: And Bertrand Russell.
LORD PAKENHAM: I was not going to mention any Members of this House, but I would not dissent from a great figure like Bertrand Russell—can themselves be regarded as exponents of Christian values. This is an open question up to the present, though I hope that it will be closed in a right sense before we finish this debate. I am afraid that if everything has been said that can be said to interpret Sir William Haley's statement, it would have to be regarded as a masterpiece of ambiguity, capable of meaning anything or nothing and devoid of practical effect.
But we cannot as citizens leave it there. We are not entitled to leave it there, whatever our religious or irreligious opinions, if we demand clarity rather than confusion in public policy. This country is still in certain vital ways a religious country—more religious, perhaps, than when many of us were growing up, and certainly more so than when I was an undergraduate. It was, after all, only in 1944 that an act of religious worship was made compulsory in all our schools, and in all the recent discussions about denominational education there has been no serious disposition to question the wisdom of that provision as a necessity of our national health. I have paid tribute before and I pay it again to the Jewish community for their many services to our country and, in particular, for the example they set us in their relative immunity from crime. I feel also a respectful, poignant sympathy for all who yearn for belief but cannot reconcile it as yet with their search for truth and integrity. I hope that all such—many of them my friends—will

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forgive me if I say that the British people today have a right to insist and a duty to insist that the Christian moral code and the basic religious beliefs of Christianity should be supported unequivocally and fostered by public services such as the B.B.C. and publicly-supervised services such as those of Independent Television.
I said earlier that of course I am not suggesting that no single programme of a secular tendency should be broadcast or televised.
LORD AMWELL: My Lords, does the noble Lord mean that everything that is at all critical of Christian theology must for ever be banned from this medium?
LORD PAKENHAM: I know that my articulation is bad, but I said exactly the opposite in my previous sentence. However, I will say again that I am not suggesting that no single programme of a secular tendency should be broadcast or televised. I cannot say it more plainly.
LORD AMWELL: It is rather ambiguous to use the word "secular". I am talking about the highly critical and quite honest criticism that there may be of Christian analogy. Is that to be banned?
LORD PAKENHAM: The answer is that in its own sphere it should not be banned. For instance, I should not prevent Mrs. Margaret Knight from having her say.
LORD AMWELL: On the B.B.C.?
LORD PAKENHAM: That is my answer. When in fact these militant opponents of Christianity, Bertrand Russell, Professor Julian Huxley and Professor Ayer, have been indoctrinating the public for years, it is fantastic to suggest that what I say is a novelty. I simply say that the critics of Christianity should be in their proper place; I do not say that all opponents of Christianity should be eliminated from the air and the screen. I usually find myself in a minority, and, for that and better reasons, would certainly not wish to blot out all eccentrics or anti-establishment groupings. But what is at stake is the overall objective and criterion.
Again, I am not going to be dogmatic on the question of how far at all a Christian code should be explicitly preached outside the religious programmes. For one thing, it can be argued
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that preaching defeats its own purpose. But anyone who is adult—and, after all, we here are all adult—knows that the organisation of programmes and the selection of speakers cannot fail to be a means of promoting one code or another. The question is: what is to be the test of the code to be promoted if it is not to be one of pure entertainment?—which I understand the B.B.C. would be the last to accept as the sole criterion.
We hear a good deal at times of the necessity of reflecting current values, and, even by that test, as I said earlier, the Christian argument to-day need not be afraid of scrutiny. A public body has admittedly the duty of satisfying the standards of the moment. But, as Sir William Haley has himself pointed out in a different context in his distinguished lecture, a public corporation has at the same time the duty of elevating standards and providing leadership. The truth is that, whether it likes it or not, the B.B.C., of which we are so justly proud. cannot avoid giving leadership in one direction or another. I hope and pray that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham—and there is no more sincere man in our public life to-day—when he replies will tell us and convince us that I have done less than justice to the purposes of the B.B.C.; that the possibility for giving Christian leadership is accepted, and that Christian religious and moral values are to be in the future, even more than in the past, their clearly acknowledged inspiration.
4.28 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, in accordance with the practice of your Lordships' House I must, at the beginning of my remarks, declare my interest, in that I am a director of Scottish Television. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, asked this question: Where does Independent Television stand on moral issues, and what are we trying to do with broadcasting? I cannot speak for anyone concerned in Independent Television other than myself, but the noble Lord has put out that challenge, and I think he is entitled to a reply from at any rate one Member of your Lordships' House who is concerned with Independent Television.
It is not always easy to write on a piece of paper a definition of one's views during the speech of another Member of the

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House just preceding one's own, but I would say that I feel that our duty is to provide entertainment, decent and gay, balanced by thought-provoking programmes, including religion. And I can, I believe, support my statement by reminding your Lordships that, of 60 hours broadcasting on the main Independent Television network, some quarter is at present devoted to what I term thought-provoking programmes, which are to-day three times more numerous than they were four years ago. As regards religion, I would not enter into any controversy on B.B.C. or Independent Television, except to remind the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, that in fact the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. both enjoy the benefit of the same Advisory Council on Religious Broadcasting.
I feel that we owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Boothby to-day, first for his speech and, secondly, for initiating the debate which has been graced by the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. If one does not agree with all the noble Lord said, one admires the way it was said and the inspiration which was behind his words.
I submit that one or two things are clear to your Lordships since 1953-54. The first is that it is admitted, even by those like the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, who opposed the introduction of Independent Television, that it is here to stay. In areas where there is coverage by both Independent Television and the B.B.C., approximately 75 per cent. of the people are taking Independent Television, which I think proves the point that it is popular. The second point which I think is now clear is that Independent Television has supplied competition to the B.B.C. and stimulated the B.B.C. over the whole range of its activities, which is all to the good. Thirdly, the Independent Television Authority has not fulfilled the gloomy prophecies which were made concerning that body.
I would not remind your Lordships of what the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, said in the past, except that I thought the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was a little unfair to the noble Viscount when he implied that the noble Viscount no doubt still felt as he did when he made his
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speeches in 1953. I am sure the Lord President could not come and speak on behalf of the Government if he still felt that the White Paper upon which the Act was founded was not, as he said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 184, col. 518]:
"a pure bred animal at all; it is a mule with which we had been presented—a dangerous and unworkable animal, a ludicrous and inglorious hybrid, a creature proverbially without pride of ancestry, and devoid of any hope of legitimate posterity."
The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, could not be as unfair as that to the Lord President. I think the next point to be admitted is that Independent Television is a commercial success. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was very frank and said he had made a mistake. I have no doubt that when the Lord President comes to reply he will say that he was mistaken when he said (col. 522):
"I concede that sponsored television might pay. I have some reason for believing that it would not, but I concede that it might, or at any rate that it might for a short time—What guarantee have we that this scheme will be commercially successful?"
One of the problems to-day is that it is too successful; and that is one of the reasons why we are having this debate.
I submit that we should approach the future of television in what I would term an expansionist and not a restrictive frame of mind. Speaking individually, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said that he would like to see Independent Television abolished. The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, said that he would resist its expansion. I think we have to look at this problem in a wide way. I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, did justice to the substance of his own arguments when he dwelt for rather a long time on whether there should be six minutes in one hour or advertising time spread over many hours. Those are comparatively trivial things compared with the big issue of what we are going to do as regards the future of commercial television.
LORD SHACKLETON: The purpose of my remarks was to indicate the extent to which Parliament was misled at the time we were debating this Act.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: I do not think we gain anything by arguing whether Parliament was misled. Personally, I do not think it was. Broadly speaking, I think that the Television Act

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has worked well. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, referred to the obligation on the Authority in Section 5 (2) of the Act, which I will read to your Lordships:
"It shall be the duty of the Authority to do all that they can to secure that there is adequate competition to supply programmes between a number of programme contractors independent of each other both as to finance and as to control."
In fact, when they came into existence, the Independent Television Authority were faced with a difficult choice. The choice was forced upon them by the action of Her Majesty's Government. They were given four bands out of eight, only on Channel 3. Therefore, they had this choice in front of them. They could either have competition in a limited, heavily populated area with competing programmes, or they could go for maximum coverage in the country and introduce very ineffective competition by having one programme contractor midweek arid another at week-ends. Those two companies would, of course, compete for such of the advertising revenue allocations as industrial firms were willing to lay out. That is not very good competition, I admit, but that was the choice the Independent Television Authority had. They went for coverage; and I think they were quite right to do so. because they now cover something like 95 per cent. of the population of the country.
Soon, we shall come to the new position when the choice which was forced upon them lapses, and when we are able to have a new wavelength. But, of course, the choice made by the Independent Television Authority has resulted in the present big profits. But as my noble friend Lord Boothby said, those who took the original risk risked great sums of money. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships that, before the corner was turned, an accumulated loss of something like £10 million was incurred by those who had hazarded their capital in Independent Television. I would say that were we to-day debating the demise of television companies, and the problem caused by such demise, there would be no word of sympathy from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, or other critics of Independent Television, for those who had risked and lost all. They would probably be told that they deserved what they got; and I cannot but think at the
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moment that they are deserving what they are getting.
Let us also remember that of the profit which is supposed to be so great, half goes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I believe that, generally speaking, profit, which is reward for service properly rendered, is beneficial in a community working under free enterprise. It has given new opportunities for artistes and new opportunities for performers of variety. It has introduced new technical developments, created new technical industries; has earned something like 10 million dollars for this country (which the B.B.C. has not done) in producing films and selling them to America; and it is giving employment to thousands of people.
Having said that, may I add that I do not think profits are at all certain in the future. I do not think monopoly money is healthy money at all. I agree with that—fundamentally, it is not healthy. If competition comes, as it will, broadly speaking advertising revenue will be halved at once, and I think that the problem we may have to face will not be a question of profits for the fringe companies, although the big companies are secure. I am glad to say that Scottish Television is all right, although we are not one of the big four. Some of these small companies which may start in the future will never be able to face competition in their area without facing bankruptcy. As costs rise—and they are constantly rising—it may well be that in a year or two the problem for the minor companies will not be profits, but bow to sustain their existence. Therefore, I submit to your Lordships that an expansionist policy will automatically put the profit position right. What we have to decide is what is the right expansionist policy.
There are several alternatives, which I will not develop. There is one of the B.B.C. having a new programme without any recourse to advertisements but supplied out of public funds. That would at once mean an increase in the licence fee, which I do not think would be very popular with the viewing public. Then there is the possibility of the B.B.C. running a commercial service backed by advertisements. I think that that is a very bad suggestion. It is foreign to the B.B.C.'s status; it is foreign to the B.B.C.'s tradition, and it is foreign to the

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B.B.C.'s purpose. Then there is the possibility of a third corporation being formed with the purpose of handing over any profit to Her Majesty's Government. With competition for profits in the future divided between the various television companies, and with some experience of how nationalised industries are run, I think that very soon there would be a burden on the taxpayer from such a corporation, and not a dividend to the Exchequer.
Lastly, there is the possibility of the Independent Television Authority allocating new bands for direct competition in existing areas which can carry competition; that is, the big areas. I would say that, on balance, that is probably the best solution. There is the criticism at once that this would mean a debasement of programmes; that competitors would at once try to capture the mass audiences, so that standards would get lower and lower. I would remind your Lordships, however, that in the Television Act there is provision which gives the Independent Television Authority power to ensure that there are balanced programmes; that is to say the Authority could step in and say, "No, we will not allow this generally low level of programmes but you must introduce so much of better-class programmes in order to make a balance." That seems to me to dispose of the argument that direct competition must necessarily debase the standard of programmes.
Before I conclude I would suggest to your Lordships two new big developments that we have to consider. One has been touched on by one noble Lord—that is, colour. I will not go into that topic, but it is a matter which must be considered technically when the future of television is under debate. The other, which I believe may have a vast effect upon the viewing habits of this country, will be the introduction at some time in the future—when I do not know—of the pay-as-you-listen system. Under this system. you will be able to listen to your ordinary programmes, but you will have to put something like 1s. in the slot, or 2s. or 4s.; and only when you have inserted your money will you be able to listen to a special event. Whether it will be by land-line, whether coming across the air with "scramblers", I do not know; that is all in the future.
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I believe that pay-as-you-listen may be the salvation possibly of the live theatre, certainly of many orchestras and of many cultural activities; because if you get out of, let us say, 30 million people one million people willing to pay once a week for one good event—say a concert for which they are willing to pay 4s.—that would be £200,000. Supposing a third of that went to what I call the givers of the programme, your Lordships can see what a vista of new revenue may open up for the cinema, which is dying; possibly for the legitimate theatre, and possibly for concerts. I paint that picture very broadly to your Lordships merely as something which has got to be reckoned with by the Government when they come to consider the future.
So my conclusion is that so big and vast is this view of future development that it deserves most careful examination from every aspect, and I suggest that the examination should include sound radio as well as television. I personally should like to see the Government extend the charter of the B.B.C., which lapses in 1962, for another two years, to 1964, so that the present Television Act and the present B.B.C. Charter would both expire together. Meanwhile, and well before then, I should like them to appoint an authoritative, sensible (and I repeat the word "sensible") body, representative of all sections of the community, and also with a technical limb belonging to that body, to examine and report to Her Majesty's Government, whatever the Government of the day may be, how best in the national interest this vast new development. to which there must be no limit in the future, provided that expansion is correct and wise, can be dealt with by whoever is in authority at that time.
4.35 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, may I offer my humble praise to my noble friend Lord Boothby for his initiative and for his speech? It was a pleasure to me, as I am sure it was to others among your Lordships, to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. For my part, I hope I shall have the good fortune of hearing him again.
I ask forgiveness for calling to mind that long ago I sat on a Government Committee called the Crawford Committee, which was set the task of advising

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the Government of the day what form the B.B.C. should take, whether it should be a public monopoly or a continuation of the old group of companies. I also, many years after that, sat for the best part of ten years on the B.B.C. itself as a Governor. I mention that because it leads me on to my next observation. It will be thought that having thus had something to do with the early initiation and the early direction of the B.B.C. itself, I should be a wholly orthodox spokesman for their point of view. I was in my younger days, and for a considerable time; but, as in the case of the noble Viscount, the Lord President, and no doubt with the members of the Labour Party, we all change our views as we grow older and as we grow wiser. I have begun in recent years to change my view about broadcasting, and I hope that what I say will illustrate why and for what reasons.
The first thought I want to present to your Lordships is that we, and all who think about this subject among the people at large, or at any rate the thoughtful, educated, governing classes among the people at large on all sides, are too much governed by fear in this matter, as in so many others. One interest was afraid that the introduction of radio would lead to a diminution in the use of the printed word, and a diminution in the advertisements available to sustain the printed word. I can remember the time when the shares of a very well known firm called George Newnes were at a low price for various reasons, one of which was the fear that weekly and monthly magazines would disappear when sound broadcasting took up the practice of magazine programmes. It will be within your Lordships' notice that Newnes' shares were the subject of a notable take-over bid from Odham's within the last few weeks, at a very high price; so this fear was unjustified.
When I first had to do with broadcasting there was fear among my then constituents in London, who made the parts of pianos in little factories all over St. Pancras, that there would not be any more pianos when so much canned music was available. But they were wrong. The fact that more millions could listen to pianos meant that a small fraction of them came to wonder what a piano was, and then to find out, and then to buy
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one; and it required a very small percentage of millions to double the customers of the piano factories. Those who printed sheet music feared that their trade would disappear; those who made gramophone records had the same fear. Always they were wrong. What happened was precisely the opposite: that the general advertising given to the subject of music, thought and argument led to greater sales of these vehicles—the older-fashioned types of vehicles in the promulgation of the material—and not to less. I believe it would be shown that the advertisements drawn by the newspaper Press are not fewer than they were before television but are more. Why?—because even advertising itself is becoming more popular.
One or two of my noble friends here have observed that the public like advertisements. I am sure that that is true. I will not distinguish between the degrees to which they like programmes or advertisements; I would only say that as well as the liking for drama and competitions; and music, which is, after all, extrinsic, outside yourself, there is a great love among many people for themselves—they love to be told how they can get rid of their headaches, how they can enjoy their drink better, or how they can make themselves more attractive to the young men. They love that. It is not true to say that these advertisements are offensive to the masses. In my opinion, they are enjoyed by the masses, and that is why the circulation of these programmes is so much greater than that of the B.B.C. The thing takes care of itself, and it seems to me it answers itself.
What has always struck me as strange is that we politicians should fear bringing information to the masses; yet we do all that we possibly can to bring our information to them at the appropriate time. It is true that we do fear it, and I think that you will find that the Central Office on the one side and Transport House on the other are waiting with the greatest interest to see what effect this machine and mechanism is going to have upon their fortunes. You will find that many a Minister, many an ex-Minister, and many a Member of Parliament will he wondering what effect it will have at the next Election. We are guided too much by fear of the things that this new medium will do to us. Therefore I would

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suggest that we try to seek for some principles which can guide us in our approach to this matter.
First, I would say that it is a good thing to place attractive material before the masses. I do not want to be controversial in relation to an excellent maiden speech, but if Lord James of Rusholme, who is an educationist, says that the level of this programme is low, he means that it is lower than that in his famous grammar school. That may be so; but not all persons can go to grammar schools. Like Lord Pakenham, who spoke of the religious field, I like to think that broadcasting and television in every field can attract all of us. There are those who are not attracted by other media. I am certain that there are many who do not from the printed page absorb much information or gain much stimulus or much material that will provoke them to thought. If, then, they come to listen and to look, and if, as a result, they are stimulated to go a little further—and all the circulations of the newspapers and the magazines suggest that this is true—then it has been a good thing to educate the masses. If you have to start educating them on a lower level, it is far better than not getting them to look and listen at all.
If we go hack fifty or seventy years to the time when the Daily Mail and the Daily Express started, we find that educated persons of those days spoke of them as being newspapers for the masses, on a very low level. But it was only a very low level by comparison with the high level which, in their vanity, they had given to themselves. What has happened as the result of millions reading these papers? People have come to understand what reading means and to profit by it, and thereafter to go on reading better things. I venture to suggest that we should not be such humbugs as to say that we do not want the masses to see what they like. The best way of getting the masses to appreciate things is to give them what they like, and we shall soon find that they will he choosing what they like better.
Another principle which might be permitted to guide us is the one I have come to acknowledge more since I left the B.B.C. It is a good thing to have the power in these Islands, and I believe in all communities, divided rather than con
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centrated. I do not believe that it is a good thing, whether in the economic field, or in the field of government, or in the field of thought, that too much power should be concentrated in one hand. That, I think, is the main reason why I am not a Socialist. If it were not for that, I rather fancy I should be. In the realm of thought and ideas this same theme convinces me that it is not wise to put too much power in one hand.
I was party to the suggestion of the control and management of the B.B.C., and all the power, being in one hand. I do not think it was abused. I used to be very proud of it—indeed, I still am. But I came to change my mind, and when I saw the effect of the competition, even the threat of competition, from the I.T.A., I was confirmed in my change of mind. There can be no shadow of doubt that the B.B.C. is the brighter and the better for having to fight for its life instead of sitting on its backside. There can be no doubt that because of this competition, artists and entertainers, and all the profession of music and drama and literature, are better off, are getting more money and have had their talents drawn out of them, with new persons being brought into this field. I am impressed with that. I do not think it is a bad thing to change one's mind. I listened with pleasure to the candid way in which Lord Shackleton told us how he changed his mind. Of course, the facts have made him do so. It is a good thing to have an open mind. I congratulate him upon that.
Another principle to which I think we should give some weight is that which touches upon the question of advertising. Is advertising a good thing or a bad thing? We politicians advertise our wares. We want the merits of them, from the Left or Right, to reach as many ears as possible. So we stamp the country and we use every modern device in order to make our ideas known, because we think they are good ideas and we want the people to choose which they think are the best. Every Member of the House of Commons will agree with me, I am sure, that it is a good thing that, when an Election comes, we should have enough money and enough time to spend to make our wares known—to make it known what we are offering, so that the people can choose. Why, then, should we say that advertising is a bad thing when it is applied to goods and commodities?

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I submit, with confidence, that it is an extremely good thing. It promotes the sale of the best to the exclusion of the less good, and it promotes the mass production of the best so that it may be the better for more people to buy. I therefore say that any expansion of the machinery for advertising is a good thing, and accordingly we should make every reasonable use of every new method of advertising—and one of them is television.
There are two or three principles which might guide us in coming to the question of what we are to do with this new channel. In my opinion we should use it. Not to use it is to deny ourselves a new source of pleasure and entertainment and education and a higher standard of living. If my premise that advertising makes more wealth be true—and I think it is—then the more advertising, within reason, of course, the better; and if we feel that we shall get too much, let us be certain that the lookers-in and the listeners will take care of that themselves. They will stop looking and listening if they get sick of it. Do not let us always be worrying about what others do. Competition will control itself if we let it have a reasonably free hand. So what shall we do with the new channel? The first thing is, let us use it.
The next question is, who should control it? Seeing that there is this widespread competition with the B.B.C. I should not mind if the B.B.C. controlled the new channel, but if they do they must swallow their pride and take advertisements on it.
A NOBLE LORD: Oh, no!
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: If they do not take advertisements they will have to pay for it out of their existing licence fees, which means they will have to rob the sound service more than they have already robbed it; and I do not think that is fair on the blind or the old people or many others who cannot, or do not want to, look at television. If the B.B.C. are going to finance the new channel out of the licence fees, they have either to rob the sound service or to charge more for the licence. I do not think that that is sensible or wise, and I am quite sure that it is not politically expedient this year.
For all those reasons, I do not believe that the B.B.C. will be offered the new
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channel. I am only guessing, for I do not know what is in the minds of Her Majesty's Government. If the B.B.C. are offered it, I do not think they will take it if they are told that they have to pay for it out of an increase in the licence fee. We are left with two alternatives. One is that it should go to the existing entrepreneurs, or others, to be used as a new channel, but subject to conditions very similar to those of the Television Act. I should not mind that, for I believe the present Act has worked well.
I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, when he says that the House of Commons was misled. Many of the Labour Party were and have now changed their minds. A few Tories were disappointed at what was done by the Government at that time, but surely they are not now. I am sure that the great majority of us, including people inside and outside Parliament, are pleased with what has happened and feel that a good and sensible thing was done in starting this new machine. The alternatives left to us are that the new channel should be added to one of the existing channels under the same or similar management to those who operate them at present. I should not mind that at all, for I believe it has been well done.
A debate like this may be minatory and have the effect of keeping the managers of the I.T.A. a little more in touch with the more rigid elements in public opinion; and if so, that is a good thing. But something like a debate of this kind every now and then and the ten-year inquiry seems to me all the public control that is required. I do not believe that we want a new Bill or a new Committee other than that which is due. There is something in my noble friend's suggestion, that instead of having two separate Committees—one next year and one in two or three years' time—the two should be brought together. I had not thought of that before but I believe there is something in it.
There is the third proposal upon which my noble friend here touched—"Pay-as-you-look," or, as it is called in America, "P.T.V." That has developed even further than my noble friend told your Lordships. It is a commercial proposition or at least a practical proposition although it has not yet made its way commercially in the United States, which is hardly a

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good environment for it with so much free advertising television going on. If we chose we could say to a new Authority or one of the older ones—the B.B.C. or the I.T.A.—"Look thoroughly into this. We are willing to give you a licence to do it by P.T.V." We should then have a third kind of service through which anybody could put a shilling in a slot and get the programme he wanted. The viewer would be paying for the programme without advertising and without putting an additional licence fee on the public. I do not prefer that method. I prefer that there should be a third programme paid for by advertisement; but I have mentioned that as a possibility.
I have only one last point to make before reaching my last sentence, and that is to say, that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that we ought to go over as quickly as possible to 625 lines. No printer is content with the picture print that was available twenty or thirty years ago. No cinematographic enterprise is content with the standards of twenty years ago. Why should television be? I am on record as having said this ten years ago, in the Beveridge Committee—that they should have gone over then. How much cheaper that would have been than it will be to do so now! But it is not too late and they should go over, otherwise they will always be behindhand in their standard here as well as in their competition overseas.
My conclusion can be put very briefly. We should take advantage of this new medium which can enable us to have more fun, more stimulus, and more advertisements leading to more production. We should take advantage of it quickly, and we should not fear to do it by paying for it with advertising. As to who should control it, I do not fear some body of persons other than the B.B.C. controlling it. I believe that possibly if a third group were to control the new channel so that we have the B.B.C., the I.T.A. and the other, the three might produce better programmes than we have at present. I believe in freedom and competition here.
4.47 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I should first apologise to the House for the unfortunate occurrence on the evening of March 24 last. I was to move a Motion on this subject on the 25th, but in the
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train on the way home I was stricken with a very serious and painful illness, from which I have yet to recover. I apologise to the House for having had, at the last moment, to give up my Motion. I was very glad to hear my noble friend, Lard Boothby say that there was no financial advantage to him in his connection with the B.B.C. and I.T.V., and I want to assure the House that I have no connection in that sort of way.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I must interrupt my noble friend for a moment to say that I pointed out that I was like a taxi with my flag up. That is my own interest. I have no direct financial interest. but I pointed out that I could be compared to a taxi with its flag up for both sides in the hope of getting some fares, and that I do get them from time to time.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for what he Chas said. Some time ago I told a friend of mine, a distinguished man whom your Lordships all know, that I had noticed him on the television. I said that I had been very interested to see him on the television and asked him to tell me what happened. He said, "First of all, I was given an excellent luncheon, and then I appeared and did my stuff and I got £25."
LORD BOOTHBY: Not a lot!
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, it was a surprise to me that he got that. That was what he told me. In view of that, I think one needs to be careful in studying the whole of this question, because there are so many people who are employed or who are paid, by the B.B.C., principally, for things they do. I am talking about the B.B.C. more forcibly this afternoon. I feel that that is something one has to consider very carefully.
There is one thing that I object to very much indeed. Suppose I produce a microphone, and give it to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby; and suppose I say, "We are having a most important debate on a very important international subject in both Houses"—which we do have—"Will you go out into the street and go up to anybody you see and push this microphone under his nose and say, 'What do you think about this? What do you think about that'?" I think that is highly improper, and not what the B.B.C. was meant for; and I hope that

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a very strong effort will be made to stop that sort of thing. It does not happen only here; it happens abroad. Only the other day we were told by the B.B.C. of certain—I forget what they call themselves—television personalities. Well, who are they? We have one. Are there any more here? Things of this sort I consider thoroughly detrimental. Television personalities appear on "Panorama." I am dead against the things "Panorama" does and has done, the sort of things that come on that programme. Certain people come over to this country to discuss very important matters with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and we see them all discussed in "Panorama." What on earth do they know about it?
LORD BOOTHBY: A lot.
LORD TEVIOT: They get a television personality cross-questioning such a person, who always has his back to the camera, so that one does not know who he is or what he is like. Your Lordships are laughing, but that is all wrong. That ought not to be allowed. There was a certain case when a very important and unpleasant question, the question of Nyasaland, was being considered. I heard (and no doubt any of your Lordships who listened in heard the same) that a certain man called the Colonial Secretary and Sir Roy Welensky "liars". Are we going to have the B.B.C. broadcasting that sort of stuff? I say that we ought to stop it; and the sooner we stop it the better.
I should like to see three completely independent but strong-minded men appointed as censors on all international and national affairs, which are essentially a matter for the Government and Parliament. I think that that ought to be done. After all, publicity and propaganda are most valuable things. We get perhaps the Prime Minister to-night making a brilliant speech somewhere in the country, and it is reported in the Press tomorrow, How many people read it? How many people buy the papers and read that sort of speech? Yet we get some "tinpot" person—with a great exception—who is called a television personality broadcasting on the subject and getting the publicity of millions. My Lords, I am against that.
LORD BOOTHBY: I am for it.
LORD TEVIOT: I want to see it stopped as soon as possible. We have those very important international and national affairs which are essentially the work of the Government and Parliament to deal with, and I want to see that broadcasting on them is censored by some responsible persons. I am sorry if I became a little worked up over that point, but I have felt it very strongly for some time.
LORD BOOTHBY: So do I.
LORD TEVIOT: I do not want to see another organisation, but I do want to see a great many things being done in the present organisation, and I mentioned just now some of the improvements that might be made.
There is no doubt about it, I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Fraser of Lonsdale very much. He talked about the music and the arts side of broadcasting. I am afraid that very often when that comes on, I switch it off straight away; and I believe that a great many other people do as well. But let us try to improve what we have without starting or organising anything further. For goodness' sake! with great respect to the noble Lord, do not let us have these people who are television personalities getting up and laying down the law. They have done nothing in their lives. We do not know who they are. Why should the people of the country have to listen to these people when they do not know who they are and do not know where they get their information from, any more than I do when I listen to them, which I now do not do any more. Let us, for goodness' sake! deal with these matters and improve the general "pushing over" of information which is of vital importance to the country. Let us see to it that the Government have control of this sort of thing.
LORD BOOTHBY: And the noble Lord is a Liberal!
5.7 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, may I say first how greatly all of us, I know, sympathise with the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, in his illness, and how glad we are to see and hear him once again amongst us. What he has to say is always stimulating and entertaining, and we are delighted to have heard him this

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afternoon. Of course, if he had ever seen the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, on television he would know that my noble friend never turns his back to the audience if he can possibly avoid it—for the pleasure and satisfaction, I would add, of the audience.
Seriously, I intend to address myself for only a few minutes to one point, and that is the point of the proposed third network, because I hold very strongly the view that that network, if and when it is set up, should not be attached to either of the existing networks. I believe that it should be, as it were, a third network. I thought that perhaps my noble friend Lord Boothby was a little unfair to the Director-General of the B.B.C. Later in his own speech he seemed to me to prove the point that the Director-General was making—I think the reproach can be levelled at the B.B.C.; that is to say, that where you have two networks, both of them competing, inevitably, in the end, you really have only one.
This is, I think, a really fundamental point, because what has been happening is that the B.B.C. have been trying to copy the vastly successful I.T.A.—perfectly naturally, if you like, but entirely contrary to what I am quite certain all your Lordships, whichever way you happened to vote on the set-up of commercial television in this country, would have wished the B.B.C.'s functions in television to be. I am quite sure that none of us, when we set up the Independent Television Authority, desired that both bodies should do the same thing; and each trying to do it better than the other. We felt that the B.B.C. had a particular national duty to perform—a function, an educative function, if you like—which unfortunately has not proved to be the case. As one now sees it, I think the inevitable result of setting up I.T.A., and its success, has been that the B.B.C., with its lesser resources, has tried to imitate that success, and has turned out what?—a pale shadow.
LORD BOOTHBY: That will do.
LORD FARINGDON: Thank you. My Lords, that is the principal reason why I do not think that the B.B.C. should be entrusted with the third network if and when this comes to be set up.
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In addition, I would point out that, if the third network is in fact to be given to the B.B.C., very substantial additional funds will have to be made available to the Corporation. Here I agree again with my noble friend Lord Boothby. I think he is perfectly right when he says that insufficient funds are made available, and that the whole of what is collected from licences might well be paid to the B.B.C. for the improvement of their programmes—and also, incidentally, for technical research. However, the B.B.C.'s present income is insufficient. I understand that it has spent in the last year something like £12 million on its T.V. programmes; whereas the I.T.A., I am informed, has spent something like £20 million. Clearly, therefore, considerable additional funds would be required if the third network were to be handed over to the B.B.C.
The B.B.C., as your Lordships are aware, has resisted strongly any extension of broadcasting time; and has also, it is said, been responsible for a great deal of resistance to the change in the "higher line standard", which my noble friend Lord Boothby again impressed upon your Lordships. In passing (though this is a point on which I had not intended to touch) I am myself in some little doubt whether there is anything sacrosanct about the 625 lines. It seems to me that that is an immediate compromise at the present time. It will take a certain time to change over from the present position to the 625. Would it not perhaps be wiser to think in terms of a few years ahead, and perhaps, like the French, of 819, or even more, lines? I realise that there are technical difficulties, but if we are to change—and it is a substantial change—I should have thought that it might be better to make a change with an eye to the future rather than to accept a compromise for the present.
LORD BOOTHBY: Perhaps I might interrupt the noble Lord for one moment to say that there is, of course, a technical committee which is just about to advise the Postmaster General on the matter. But I am told by technical experts in the industry that the prevailing view is that the 625 lines is, on the whole, the best of the lot, either higher or lower, and the best we are able to foresee. I think that is true.
LORD FARINGDON: I am interested, but I have different information, which is that 625 is a compromise, and is about the best we can get in the present circumstances.
The I.T.A. has also made a claim for the third network. My Lords, here again, I am dubious whether there is sufficient finance. I am doubtful whether in fact the resources from which the I.T.A. gets its financial support would be doubled—that is to say, equally available—for another network. And that is not the only objection. Your Lordships were told earlier on about what I think is called the optional agreement. That was mentioned by one of the noble Lords who spoke in the debate. Was it my noble friend Lord Shackleton?—I gather that it was again my noble friend Lord Boothby.
LORD BOOTHBY: I am afraid so.
LORD FARINGDON: On the contrary, we enjoyed it greatly. However, he pointed out that it was a very undesirable agreement, and that he thought that the companies should renounce it. But, as things stand at the present, the I.T.A. (I hope I am correct) has agreed that the "cream" of any other network which comes under its control will be distributed to the four big companies. Already we have had a number of speakers who have pointed out that Parliament—quite contrary to its intention, as I am satisfied from my own recollection of the debates that took place at the time—has set up a new monopoly. Indeed, at the time this matter was discussed one of the things which was said on every side in support of commercial television was that it would break a monopoly and produce variety and competition. That has not occurred, as some people warned your Lordships' House would be the case. As a result, we are now faced with two monopolies which, as I have said, are unfortunately busy copying each other, and therefore not producing the variety that they should produce.
In those circumstances, it is clear that if the third network were handed over to the I.T.A. we should have identical programming on both services. This, of course, is a phenomenon which is well known in the United States of America, and of which we have had a certain
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sample already from the B.B.C. As I have said earlier, the B.B.C. is tending to model itself upon the I.T.A. programmes, and a number of speakers have related the unhappy experience of switching from one programme to another only to find exactly the same thing going on there.
I have what I hope may be a constructive suggestion to make. I believe that the third network Should be independent, and I believe that it should be independently financed. I would suggest (and I think the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, said something to this effect) that the third programme should be financed by P.A.Y.V.—Pay-as-you-view. I am reliably informed that research has been made into this question and that it is perfectly practicable. If that were done, I suggest that there would be two advantages. To start with, it would not draw off any of the funds available for I.T.A., and it would not involve an), demand on public funds. It would be tapping a new source.
In addition, it would, as it seems to me, inevitably mean the production of what I will call a popular programme—that is to say, what people want, because it is what they will directly and immediately pay for. You may, therefore, hope that you will get a more intelligent programme than is given on the other network. I say that for this reason: that if I want to tune into a variety programme I no doubt can do so, certainly on the I.T.A., and generally also on the B.B.C., probably at the same time; but I am certainly not going to put my pennies in the slot in order to have an inferior variety programme served up by another network. Therefore, one may resonably hope, I think, that a network financed in this way would be considerably more independent and considerably more responsive to public needs—and, I think, also, to minority tastes.
There is, if I may suggest it, another advantage about this particular system. I think it would give back to the performers on T.V. contact with their audiences. It would obviously not be a very complete or a direct contact, but their popularity with their audiences would immediately be reflected in what those audiences would pay; and they themselves would establish their personalities and their qualities, thanks to that

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reaction, with the broadcasting network. It is not a very direct way, but I know that it is a deprivation to actors and actresses to be separated from their audiences, and I believe that to some extent this would bring them back into touch directly with the people who view them. If I may sum up in a few words, I believe that the third network should be independent and based on something different from the other two, and I suggest to your Lordships and to Her Majesty's Government that that different basis might well be through its financing through a system of "P.A.Y.V."
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, like Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I have to declare an interest at the outset, inasmuch as I am the director of one of the ten television companies to be licensed by the I.T.A. I should like to deal first of all with two points which have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon. The first is the question of standards. I must endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has said. that 625 lines is now the best accepted standard. It is the European and the Australian standard and that of nearly all the countries which have adopted television; therefore it seems appropriate that the United Kingdom should also go on to that standard. On the question of "P.A.Y.V.", I cannot say that I am wholly convinced by the noble Lord's arguments. While there is the possibility of a free service—that is to say, where viewers do not have to put something in the slot—the public will always choose it. Frankly, I should say that it was not immediately practicable, although perhaps when we go into ultrahigh frequencies and have further channels available, one "P.A.Y.V." channel would be desirable.
On the general line on which the debate has been running so far, I would say that I fully endorse what my noble friends Lord Boothby and Lord Balfour of Inchrye have said, and also the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, in so much as they have all tended to suggest that the third television channel should be run on lines somewhat similar to the present one under I.T.A. Your Lordships might consider it surprising that as the director of one of the present companies I should
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say this, for if there were a second commercial channel, the existing companies inevitably would suffer a reduction in their revenue, but I think it is very important that some such solution should be adopted, for it is clear at the moment that the existing companies are only competing programme-wise with the B.B.C. and not to any substantial extent for advertising revenue between themselves. Therefore, true competition between them has not yet been achieved. The point I wish to make is that even if, under Lord Boothby's proposal, the advertising revenue of the present companies falls, as I think it inevitably must, we must surely put the interests of the country first and support what seems best for it, rather than what may seem best for the existing companies. Naturally, some of them may not wish to end this very happy days-of-the-week monopoly, but, at any rate I hope that your Lordships will realise from what I have said that I am not in any way grinding an axe by getting up to speak this afternoon. On the contrary, financially speaking, I may be blunting it. Incidentally, I read carefully the Addison statement in 1951 and the remarks of the noble Viscount.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, before the noble Earl leaves the point he is making, would he give your Lordships the benefit of his experience as a director? If we increase the present programme time by 50 per cent., as we shall do if we have another channel, where is the talent coming from to provide the programmes? Or shall we have to put up, as we do to-day, with American tinned trash?
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, the terms of the noble Lord's question are not quite acceptable to me, but I will try to answer it. I was going to deal later on with the availability of artistes, but I will say now, instead of at the end, that there are a sufficient number of artistes to fill a second commercial programme. Indeed, I regret to say that there is a great deal of temporary unemployment among the best performers in the entertainment industry. As the noble Lord has taken me off my point about the Addison Rule, I think that perhaps I need not pursue it, as I have made the point and I hope your Lordships will not think it impertinent of me to speak today. That there should be any question

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of whether directors of these new companies should or should not speak no doubt would not have arisen if the implications of the Television Act in regard to true competition had been fully implemented. It is in order that that Act should be so implemented that I should like to see at least two commercial companies in direct competition, seven days a week, in the main areas.
This is not the time and place to suggest which those two companies should be, but I believe that true competition will not be achieved unless, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, suggested, one company is vying with another for the attention of the same viewer in the same place and at the same time. Such competition would also allow the expansion of an industry which, by all estimates, is well capable of expanding. On the advertisers' side there is need for a second channel. I am told that if such a channel were authorised in the three main areas it would give regular employment to 4,000 to 5.000 people and provide some 100,000 additional engagements to artistes, designers and others, not only directly but also indirectly in a multiplicity of ancillary industries. Is it right that we should hold a thriving industry down in this way and deprive so many of employment? Should this not be really a question of giving more employment as soon as we can? I will not pursue this line to-day. Personally, I think that if it is going to employ more people, we should have it soon.
Is it right, also, that we should deprive the viewer of his right of selection?—for I do not consider that a mere choice of two programmes can be regarded as a right of selection. Nor can I subscribe to the argument, as I have already told the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that there is not enough talent already available. As for the B.B.C.'s claim to a second channel, I do not think that that is acceptable. The B.B.C. is doing a very good job, it is true, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has said, it already has complete national coverage and is available to virtually every home in the country, while at present the independent commercial companies have only so many days a week in each place. With all respect to them, are the B.B.C. so hungry that, despite their total national coverage. they would wish to deprive the indepen-
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dent television companies of even one whole week in one place? The B.B.C. have consistently objected to the extension of the scheduled hours for their own existing service. Moreover, they have consistently pleaded the need for larger revenue. If the B.B.C. do not feel that they can afford the extra cost inherent in extending their present scheduled hours, how can they possibly contemplate the operation of an independent second service, no matter what its hours may be? What are we to contemplate in the B.B.C.'s proposals—a television licence of £5 or £10? I do not know which it may be, but I am afraid that neither would be very acceptable.
I repeat that I believe in healthy competition in an expanding industry, and believe that the implementation of the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and of the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of lnchrye, would be the best way of letting it grow. I do not know whether ultimately the limit of three programmes is the right one—in sound radio, if you have a reasonable receiver you can receive hundreds—or how long it would last. Economic circumstances will have to be taken into account, and subsequent allocations of channels to the United Kingdom will, I suppose, in the end decide. But all we are asking for at the moment is that overt competition should be permitted in each of the main areas. Never in the framework of creation has a Thursday been in competition with a Sunday.
With regard to advertising time, I thy not think there is anything that can be usefully added to Sir Robert Fraser's letter in The Times on Monday. That seems to me to answer most effectively the criticisms voiced and re-voiced by a distinguished member of the Labour Party who at the time of the debate on the Television Bill was, or appeared to be, the chief spokesman of that Party. Nor will I comment on the fact that, thanks to the new upsurge in advertising of all kinds, which derives largely from commercial television, one Sunday paper, at least, in this country appears to carry not 10 per cent. but some 40 per cent. of advertising matter in relation to editorial content, or what I might call their programmes. I hope your Lordships will permit me to say that I see no reason why this happy state of affairs should not be

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so. The Press of this country is not governed in its own domestic, commercial matters by an Independent Press Authority; indeed, I think it is fortunate for the country as a whole that when the Press was established the idea of individual liberty was more acceptable than at the period when commercial television made its appearance. If a certain Labour Member of Parliament in another place goes on trying to hamstring this popular form of entertainment, as he appears to do from his letter to The Times today, it seems probable that the Labour Party may lose more votes in the next General Election than some of us might even hope. In any case, it is interesting to see that the Member concerned seems to be at variance in this matter with his Leader, who has said that Independent Television would not be abolished if the Labour Party came into power.
Finally, as I see the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, in his place, and having listened to his speech today, I should like to say that I consider that the Act drawn up under his guidance has not proved to be such a bad Act; and in view of the criticism he suffered at the time, I think the noble Earl deserves some praise for having created in this country a new and thriving industry and, if I may put it like this, a stepping stone across nationalisation towards the shore of freedom. I hope, therefore, that the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and those who have supported him to-day will commend themselves to your Lordships. I think I know on which side the people of this country would vote if there was any intention to nationalise Robin Hood. I do not think that in this country there should be any stigma attached to people who, on this day of all days, happen to have backed a dark horse which was a winner.
5.35 p.m.
LORD SWAYTHLING: My Lords, one of the main reasons for the establishment of Independent Television was the provision of an alternative programme. Several noble Lords who have already spoken in this debate have mentioned how the present régime fails in achieving that desirable objective, and I rise only to stress that matter a little further. For instance, if a viewer turns on his television set at 10 p.m. he will find most
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evenings that on both channels there is news; and if he does not want the news, he just has to put up with it. On the other hand, if a viewer wants the news and he cannot view at 10 p.m. he will get only a short resumé later in the evening. Why could it not be arranged for those two news bulletins to be shown at different times? Similarly, as has been said, variety programmes are often at the peak viewing hour on both programmes at the same time, so that anybody who does not like, or is bored with, variety finds that he has no alternative programme. I should also like to mention plays. There are a number of viewers who chiefly switch on for television plays. How often do they find that they have to miss the last quarter of an hour of the play on one channel, or the first quarter of an hour or half an hour of the play on the other, because the two overlap? It seems to me that this is something which could easily be avoided.
The only other instance I will mention is Wimbledon. Many people like to see the tennis at Wimbledon. There is not room enough for everybody to go there, and people like to see it on television. It has been arranged up to now that both channels should be able to provide viewers with the play at Wimbledon. But why should they both do it at the same time?—that is, for most of the afternoon. It would be perfectly fair to say that one should do it on one day from, say, two till four, and the other from four till six. At the present moment we even have the ludicrous position at Wimbledon of the provision of cameras on the centre court and No. 1 court, and with interesting matches going on on both courts the keen tennis enthusiast who switches on to view the play he wants to see finds that both channels are covering the same court. I was speaking about this matter to a leader of one of the independent companies the other day and he said that he entirely agreed with what I had to say. He then said that they had often approached the B.B.C. and asked them if they could not co-ordinate in some way, but could not get them to agree to any form of co-ordination; in fact, he said that if they altered their programmes they often found that the B.B.C., following suit, altered theirs. I believe that if I had asked the same question of the B.B.C. I might have got a similar answer.

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It would appear to me, however, that, although it is a difficult matter to coordinate two independent bodies like the B.B.C. and I.T.A., the problem is not insuperable. It should be possible to arrange for co-ordination on these possibly minor matters, but matters which affect the pleasure and entertainment of a large number of people.
5.40 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we spend a great deal of time in this House, often on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, debating great social questions such as (to give only a few examples) crime, juvenile delinquency, the Youth Service and racial discrimination. We usually come to the conclusion that there are few practical steps in the way of legislation, building or anything practical that can be done to solve these problems, but that it is largely a matter of a change of heart in human beings themselves. We come to the conclusion that parents should realise more deeply their responsibility in the upbringing of their children. We realise that young people themselves should be more aware of the type of adventure and the satisfaction of creative work which is open to them. We realise that we have a duty to impart to our fellow human beings a wider understanding of each other, whatever our creed or colour.
In general, we come to the conclusion also that there are certain pioneering societies in these fields which are doing wonderful work but which need extension and further encouragement. And yet the most powerful medium ever invented for influencing individual people in their own homes, by sight and sound, is overwhelmingly at the present moment devoted to entertainment, and, unfortunately, in many cases, entertainment at the lowest common denominator. If I may say so without impertinence, I find myself in agreement with what was said previously, in the speech by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. My figures show that only 10 per cent. of the programmes of companies in the I.T.A. can be classed as serious, in the sense that they appeal to or make some demand on the viewers' intelligence or are of positive cultural value and that few of this 10 per cent. are broadcast at peak periods. The corresponding figure for the B.B.C. is 34 per cent., although I
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would suggest that this figure might be higher had the B.B.C. not to compete for audiences with commercial television.
It is my personal opinion that it was a mistake to introduce commercialism into television in, this country, especially as we had a unique instrument in the B.B.C. which had shown what could be done in sound broadcasting. I am not suggesting that the B.B.C. has no faults: I agree that there are obvious criticisms which can be made of it. But in general I think that it has shown in sound broadcasting, and still shows, that it is capable of producing a wide range of balanced programmes, from light entertainment to the more serious programmes, and has shown, further, that it is capable of catering for minority tastes. If the B.B.C. is to be criticised I personally would criticise it mostly on the grounds of its public relations, because I do not think a great many people realise the degree to which the staff of the B.B.C. are high principled in what they are doing, and the pride that is taken in the Corporation in its complete independence and its improvement in the standards of programmes.
It has been suggested, I think by the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, that television broadcasting is on a par with the Press, the theatre and the cinema, and that if they were free so should television be free. But the fact is, unfortunately, that at the present moment there are only a limited number of channels, and that, as has already been explained by other noble Lords, television is devoted to two monopoly institutions. In these circumstances, I feel, like the noble Lard, Lord Shackleton, and other noble Lords, that public control should be maintained until the situation alters. It has also been said that it is a mistake for the B.B.C. compete with Independent Television in light entertainment programmes. But the Corporation is in a very difficult position on this matter, because unless it intends to retain some considerably sized audience with light entertainment programmes, it is in danger of reducing its audience to a size where it would be criticised as not being worth the licence fee. I believe that that is a real danger, and I think the fact of competition has forced the B.B.C. into competition in the field of light entertainment.
I do not wish to express any criticism of the programmes or the advertising

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material of commercial television—far from it. In fact, I believe that within the terms of the Television Act, 1954, the various programme companies have done an excellent job. I wish merely to express my view that fundamentally television is a mass medium which can exert so powerful an influence that it is better directed by an independent authority whose criterion is public service. I believe that it is the experience of many who are working in the social field, or in the field of education or further education, that they receive the greatest of co-operation, and continued co-operation, from the B.B.C., a co-operation which, in the very nature of things, they do not receive from commercial companies.
Take a concrete example which came to my notice the other day—that of N.A.T.O. Nothing could be more vital to the very existence of this country than the N.A.T.O. Alliance; and if that Alliance is to flourish it must be fully supported by public opinion. N.A.T.O. receives the greatest of support, and continuing support, from the B.B.C., whereas, again in the very nature of things, it does not from the commercial companies, who tend to look at it, naturally, from their point of view, as a somewhat dull subject unlikely to provide entertainment. No doubt N.A.T.O., like Omo, could be bought space on commercial television. After all, in one way there is little difference between a deterrent and a detergent, but unlike Omo, N.A.T.O., fortunately, is not to be bought or sold for money.
I am not merely crying over spilt milk. I believe that there is still some milk left in the broken bottle, and there are two proposals that I would make—one which has already been made, and the opposing proposition, which has also been made, that the additional channels in Band 3 should be made available to the B.B.C. This would enable the Corporation to plan genuinely alternative programmes, to extend the scope of its serious programmes, and (though I know that there are technical difficulties) to cater more adequately for minority interests. In this Band I should particularly like to mention the provision of a television service for Wales, which at present has to share its television with the West of England. I do not want to get involved in controversial questions of Welsh language broadcasting, but I think it reasonable
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that Wales, with her national characteristics, her national pride, her own native language, should, in keeping with the whole process of devolution that is going on between England and Wales, have a television programme of her own at least on the same scale as is provided in sound broadcasting by the B.B.C.
So far as the financing of a second channel by the B.B.C. is concerned, I must say that I fully agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, that it would be well worth while spending the money if it had to be found. But I would also point out that of the present licence fee of £4 the B.B.C. itself, in the last financial year, received an equivalent of only £2 9s. 3d. There is a considerable amount that could be made up to it were it now to be allotted the whole of the licence fees.
The second suggestion that I should like to make I make with some diffidence. Under the Television Act the Independent Television Authority is itself able to produce its own programmes, and I should have thought it possible that the I.T.A., a public service authority like the B.B.C., rather than trying to prod its various companies into raising their standards, might have taken a certain amount of time on its own network to produce its own programmes on a public service basis. I can only throw out that suggestion and hope that there may be something in it. Finally, I would express the hope that the principle of public service broadcasting will not be neglected by Her Majesty's Government when they are considering the extension of television, especially since, in my opinion, it is in a position to make such an influential contribution towards solving our present-day problems.
5.53 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, the terms of the Motion of this debate concern the television services, and I think the maxim upon which we must work is, do the television programmes on both B.B.C. and I.T.A. give the service for which they are intended? It is my contention that when regarded overall they most emphatically do. It is important to remember that television is an innovation; in fact, independent television has been running only since 1955. When the motor car was invented and when the steam engine was invented there were

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mechanical faults, and indeed there are still to-day. When a great invention like television manifests itself, there are bound to be faults for quite a considerable time. I approach this debate with no financial or business interest in the subject, but as a reasonably regular television viewer of both channels, judged entirely on their merits, when time will allow. I was particularly impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, because in television language I happen to be a very ardent fan of his—
LORD BOOTHBY: Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Teviot.
LORD AUCKLAND: —not because I always agree with the noble Lord but because the presentation of his views is always entertaining and always sincere. Indeed, if I may be permitted to say so, one of the best programmes which I have watched for many years was his contribution in the series, I believe it was, "Look at Life".
LORD BOOTHBY: "Face to Face."
LORD AUCKLAND: It was last week. We have two noble Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord President of the Council, who are both outstanding television personalities.
What has television to offer? It offers music—serious music, dance music, the extraordinary type of music, so-called, the extraordinarily animal-like noises, that one hears coming from the tortured faces in "6.5 Special," which, let us be fair, has a very large audience and which has, in its own grotesque way, quite a polished mode of presentation. The only rider I would add is that a barber would serve some useful purpose during the course of that programme; but that is another matter.
The standard of drama on both channels is extraordinarily high. We have bad, in World Theatre, a particularly fine production of Julius Csœar. There are the Feature programmes, such as "Panorama", "This Week" and "Free Speech", which the medium of television presents in a most convincing manner. I am not going to split hairs as to which channel presents the programmes the better. If I were asked to give an opinion, I think I would say that the B.B.C. presentation is more reasoned
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and restrained, but that the Independent Television Authority put mote spark and more life into the programmes; but that is purely a matter of taste. The old saying, "One man's meat is another man's poison", applies emphatically to television, as it does to any form of entertainment.
It is not necessarily correct to say that television should always be regarded as a medium for education. Personally, I prefer the more serious programmes; but the television services are catering for some 20 million viewers in this country, and those viewers increase year by year, and it is fair to say, as I believe, the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr pointed out, that if television were so bad, if the quality were so bad, there simply would not be 20 million viewers. It is true also to say that there are a certain number of people who are what they call "television addicts". I think it was last year in the Sunday Times that Mr. Geoffrey Gorer produced a series of articles on the general aspects of television, and he revealed some interesting points particularly regarding children watching television. Perhaps I may quote to your Lordships two extracts of statements that were made by children. The first is:
"If I am doing my homework with the television on I get my sums wrong. I try to get in the other room. It is on often."
That is a quotation from an eleven-year-old boy at a secondary modern school. Then there is another:
"It is often on. If I am working I have got to keep looking up to see what is on. It makes me tired because it is on your eyes."
That was said by a twelve-year-old boy who is planning to be an engineer.
Who is to blame for this situation? Many people blame the Government. Somebody said to me the other day, "Cannot you get the Government to do something about this?" My answer was —and I think any reasonable person's answer would be—that it is the parents' responsibility. My own daughter is not yet of an age to respect the true values or otherwise of television, but when the time comes I sincerely hope that I shall he strong-willed enough to keep a reasonable balance in the matter, so that neither eyesight nor homework is impaired. It is unreasonable to blame the Government in this regard.

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Much has been said regarding the clash of programmes. It is true, for example, that on Saturday nights two films are shown, the one tending to clash with the other. Plays tend to clash. Reverting to the "6.5 Special", I would remark that following that programme on Channel 1 is an even worse cacophony of sound which I believe is called "Drumbeat". It has been suggested that nothing can be done to prevent these clashes. I contend that something can be done. There must be a number of outside broadcasts which could be looked into. I think that outside broadcasts—sport, and visits to Lake Windermere, among others—have provided some of the finest television, and all concerned in programmes of that kind deserve the utmost praise.
Now a word on advertising. Advertising such as one sees on Channel 9 is rather like the old classic rhyme:
"When she was good she was very very good,
But when she was bad she was horrid."
Frankly some of the advertising is horrid, particularly that concerned with detergents; but there is a certain kind of advertising—if I may quote one example, the advertising of Mackeson's Stout—which presents a lot of imagination. The point I would stress is that the products which are advertised in these programmes do not seem to be coming down in price at the shops. One would have thought that the point of advertising these wares was to reduce the price and so get the consumer to buy more. Whether they do or not, I do not know. Certainly the prices do not show much sign of coming down.
What of the future? I think that television has a great future, I do not believe that the time is yet right for a third channel. At present we have the two channels with a great deal of tidying-up to do on both. One hopes that one day we shall see colour television. I am not a technical expert, so I am certainly not going to try to foresee how and when that will come about. Possibly the noble Viscount who is winding up the debate may have something to say on this matter. It is something which the public at large have been discussing a good deal. The technical problems must be enormous. Then there is the influence of television on politics and politicians. I do not think that that matter has been
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mentioned in this debate. I consider that as a political medium television can be rather dangerous. With respect to the noble Lord who initiated this debate, I would say that there are many politicians who are not photogenic or, if I may use the word, telegenic. I can foresee that if the policy of televising politics is carried too far there will be a lot of jealousy between those who have the "gimmick" of putting it over, whose features are attractive to the opposite sex, whichever way it may be, and those whose features are not quite so attractive. The latter may not be good speakers but are very good behind the scenes as administrators. I conclude by saying that this is the first time in either your Lordships' House or in another place that television has been debated for, I think, some six years. We can, and should, give the television authorities our earnest congratulations upon a job which has not been faultless but has been a veryfine effort.
6.8 p.m.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, at this stage I will try not to detain your Lordships for long. I have extremely little experience of television, either at the receiving end or at the camera end. That is through no lofty attitude to television whatsoever but merely a matter, as it must be with many of your Lordships, of the time available. I shall confine myself to two aspects. First of all, I want to cast some doubt upon the whole set-up of advertising, and possibly to suggest a different kind of development for it in the future; and secondly (I say this with great respect to my noble friend Lord Boothby, who has forgotten more about television than I shall ever learn)I want to put into words the attitude of the Director-General of the B.B.C. in regard to the particular point which Lord Boothby mentioned about the logic of this country speaking with one voice. I shall welcome, if he cares to do so, his criticism of what I have to say when he exercises his right to close the debate.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who said that at this stage it is too late to go back on accepted principles. The argument as I remember it in this House in 1954 was that it was quite logical to extend to television the normal democratic processes of advertising which were recognised in newspapers,

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theatre programmes, on public hoardings or any other aspect of normal public advertising. It was not so much that we saw any flaw in the principle, as that some of us felt at that time that a great and imaginative opportunity to mould the mind and the thought of this nation into channels of discrimination and enlightenment had passed by. It is not the alleged evils of the introduction of a new system so much as the fact that the potential virtue, the potential power for good, seemed at that time to pass. I would ask that, in consideration of any third network, perhaps that opportunity might be grasped once again.
I have said that there was no flaw in the logic of commercially supported television, yet I feel that certain very disquieting features have crept into what was to have been a foolproof system under the Act. In spite of certain ridicule which my noble friend Lord Bessborough has attached to Mr. Mayhew's doubts about advertising, I was personally impressed by his relevation of the abuse of what, it seems to me, was regarded as a "six minutes an hour" rule. I read Sir Robert Fraser's lengthy reply, and I have read Mr. Mayhew's further reply this morning; and I am still extremely puzzled as to the truth of that particular matter. But it seems to me that out of this controversy one could find a way to meet the criticism levelled at Independent Television: that advertisements too often creep into drama, news and other normal presentations and represent a really aggressive intrusion. Curiously, although I am in sympathy with Mr. Mayhew's general view, I am not in agreement with his remedy, which appears to be to alter the rule of an average of six minutes' advertising an hour into a firm ceiling of six minutes an hour.
May I, for a moment, develop in my own way my argument for an alternative? Let us admit that newspapers may live on the income derived from advertisements; that a charity might well thrive on the sale of programmes at some function, those programmes, in turn, deriving a profit from the advertisements in them. But when we come to apply that analogy to television it seems to me that it does not ring quite true. In a newspaper the advertisements are placed separately and concentrated on certain pages in the paper. The citizen who wishes to read his news knows exactly where to look for it and need not bother
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about the advertisements; and the reverse is also true. If one wants to buy a house one knows exactly where to look in the newspaper for the appropriate advertisements. In other words, there is always the choice before the reader. He can look at the advertisements or read the news.
When we come to television, however, it seems to me that the whole trend is towards an insistence that we must look at the advertisements—whether it is a matter of a shared-out average of time over the day or a fixed ceiling per hour. With a system of constant interruption of programmes for advertisement purposes it seems to me that it becomes only a matter of time before the interruption becomes related to the programme itself. In other words, we are moving, in some way, towards sponsored television which, of course, it was the purpose of the Television Act to defeat. That Act, as interpreted by the Independent Television Authority, may be foolproof, but there appear to be too many loopholes for its abuse.
In this normal advertising process of which I have said a word there are certain things that we do not expect. We do not expect the Flower Maidens, when making their advances towards that rather unimaginative young man, Parsifal, to pause in those advances and remind us that their lovely dresses were made by Dior or Hartnell. We do not expect Brünnhilde, when bidden by Woltan to saddle her horse and ride into the fray, to say that she can do so only if the saddle is made by Salters. We do not expect the poet to halt his Ode to the Nightingale to tell us of the birdseed. The symphony is not halted to remind us that the violins came from Hill's, in Bond Street. Yet that is the kind of way into which freak interruptions of programmes can lead us.
I can see only one way to attach reality to the claim that commercial television is really interpreting the normal democratic principle of normal advertisements. That is to concentrate all the advertisements during the day, whether of the spot variety or of the advertising magazine type, into one known period. The viewer then is given his choice. He can either watch for the advertisements or he can watch for the news, or whatever his programme choice may be. The timings of advertising magazines are, of

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course, published in the T.V. Times, and therefore it seems to me just a matter of attaching the spot advertisement to the timing of the advertisement magazine. The whole advertising programme is then recognised as such and the viewer may take his choice.
The question would immediately arise of which period would be allotted time for concentrated advertisements and how to avoid the charge that the system enables advertisers to crowd into the peak hour. I would suggest that, so long as the public know when to expect the advertisements, that would not matter very much. A perfectly rational basis would be to give advertisements a period of average popularity. There may be technical or perhaps economic objections to this course. Would advertisers come forward in such conditions? I do not know, but I would say that, rather than tolerate a system under which the advertiser, as time goes on, becomes more and more the master of the system, it would be better to take another look at the system itself. And it seems to me that so long as competitive conditions were applied equally to all advertisers, they would continue to seek their opportunity, for as the noble Lord. Lord Boothby, has told us, there is apparently a public which will always watch advertising for its own sake.
I believe it is recognised that although advertisers have taken risks they have done pretty well from the risks, and I suggest that nothing would more quickly win the goodwill of everybody, whether the highbrow minority or the majority that likes the most frivolous programmes, than for it to be learned that some of these advertisers had turned some of those immense profits to purposes such as subsidising opera, helping the Arts Council and even, perhaps, paying a little money to the World Refugee Year.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: Some of the companies have, in fact, made such a contribution.
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, I am very glad to hear it. May they long continue to do so!
LORD AMMON: My Lords, did the noble Lord read recently the statement by the president of an advertising association (I forgethis name for the moment) in which he said that the purpose of
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advertising—and he was backing up advertising on television—was to get people, by a process of conditioning, to buy what they otherwise would not want; that the consumer, in fact, was to be regarded as Pavlov regarded his dog?
LORD BIRDWOOD: My Lords, quite obviously, when people advertise the purpose is to sell the goods. I think that that is reflected in the immense increase in purchases and the success of advertisers in selling their goods. I am suggesting that, having made their profits, the advertisers would create a lot of goodwill if they would pass their surplus profits over to charitable purposes; and my noble friend Lord Bessborough has assured us that that in fact happens.
My Lords, I have only one further word to say, and it concerns this aspect of the nation speaking with one voice. It seems to me that, as time goes on, more and more television is going to be projected outwards from this country. Five years ago I doubt whether we appreciated the effect, the increasing impact, that television might make in interpreting this country in the sphere of Commonwealth affairs and international affairs. My noble friend Lord Aberdare has reminded us of the immense part television played in projecting the substance of the North Atlantic Treaty and what it stands for. Whatever criticism may have been levelled against the B.B.C. in relation to its Overseas Services, the sound Overseas Services, I think we shall all accept that the accumulated impact, year after year, of that clear, objective message, either in peace or in war, to the world has won the Corporation a reputation for truth that has paid this nation a very rich dividend. That, I think, is what was in the mind of Sir Ian Jacob, when he spoke of one message given with one voice. That will apply to television in the future just as it has applied to sound in the past.
For purposes of sport, and the great occasion of the Coronation, for instance, the B.B.C. and the Independent Television Authority already consult; and there is a Joint Committee for such purposes as child education, and so on. All I should like to suggest is that as the power of I.T.V. for projecting the actual programme abroad increases, so perhaps we may find a way to prevent two voices rather than one voice speaking. I am

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not referring to the operation of individual companies in the normal commercial process of assisting a television station to set up overseas. I am not referring to the sale of equipment or anything of that nature. That is a perfectly normal commercial process which no one questions. I am referring to the matter of projecting one voice when it comes to the vital occasion. There is no reason why the life of this country should not be projected in the sphere of entertainment or the arts by anyone prepared to do it; but when it comes to a matter of international affairs I feel that we should not lose the benefit of what the B.B.C. has built up for us in the matter of representation of truth.
6.23 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, in his delightful old-world contribution to the debate to-day the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, expressed amazement that those who perform on either B.B.C. or I.T.V. should be paid for their services. He also said that those of us who get so paid should declare an interest. May I say at once that I have received very modest payments from both these organisations and that I wish they had been substantially less modest.
It has been a debate of very great interest and, I hope, of very great importance. We are all in the debt of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for the delightful way in which he handled his political "hot potato". Those of us who have T.V. sets are already in his debt continuously, and I must say that thoroughly enjoyed, and so did my whole family, his face-to-face interview with Mr. John Freeman, who did keep his back continuously to us. It was a joy to have him talking so intimately at our own fireside. Like the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, I thought out the adjective "telegenic" to describe his face, and it is a very good description. He has the most telegenic face it has been our privilege to see, and it set my family arguing for a good half hour after he finished. We had the same experience when we recently saw the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, performing on television; and it is the same when my noble friend Lord Shackleton performs. In fact, there seems to be a pincer movement from above and below the Bar which is
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resulting in your Lordships' capturing the star positions on the little screen.
We have had, too, a splendid maiden speech this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme—another T.V. star, if I may say so. Perhaps he was a little pessimistic in thinking that we cannot make good the mistakes of the past. I hope that by the time I have finished I shall persuade him that there is another and a better pattern which we might have for our television services in the future.
I am sure we are all very pleased that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is to wind up for the Government. I confess that I have very warm feelings for the noble Viscount. Whether in defence or in attack, he is a master of surprise tactics, and we never know whether he is going to wield a bludgeon or rapier or, which we really like best, the still small voice of reason; and I hope it will be that one to-night. I used to work for another Lord President in another place, and part of my job was to go and hunt up what he called "good quotes"—good quotes being bits of Opposition speakers' speeches which could be quoted to show how mistaken they were in the previous views they held. I might have done that to-day. I could have tried it at any rate; but I might have come to grief had I done so; and I do not want to, because the capacity to change one's mind and to learn from experience is one of the greatest attributes of the human mind.
The noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, is now our Minister for science, and I want to appeal to him as a scientist. The Government are, in fact, conducting an experiment, a social experiment, in T.V. organisation. One must approach the results of any experiment with an open mind. The purpose of an experiment is to discover truth, and this may also mean admitting error. All we ask is that the Government should keep an open mind in examining the effects of their experiment and be ready to try another one if necessary.
I served on the Broadcasting Committee of 1949 under the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge. The noble Lord is a very remarkable person to serve under, and, if I may say so, it was a very remarkable Committee he made of us. That Committee conducted the most complete study

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of broadcasting that has ever been undertaken. The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, is no lover of monopoly, whether it is commercial monopoly or State monopoly, and he made us on that Committee approach the B.B.C. in a highly critical way. He made us examine every possible alternative to the B.B.C. monopoly. But at the end of the day we—or, rather, ten out of eleven; there was one dissentient voice—were forced by the known facts, having regard to what was in the best interests of the people of the nation, to come out against commercial television. The solitary voice was, of course, that of the present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.
We were driven to our conclusion by one simple consideration which is very much in line with the thinking of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme: that if there were any kind of broadcasting run for profit, and financed primarily by advertising, the first purpose of those who ran it would be, quite rightly, as I think the noble Lord said, the collection of a maximum audience for the advertisements. Programme planning would be dictated by the need to gather the maximum audience so as to get the maximum revenue. Put in newspaper terms, we should be bound to have circulation-hunting purveyors of human stories and snappy news, rather than serious, steady and accurate—or one hopes accurate—evaluations of all situations. If the B.B.C., or any public service system dependent on licence fees, continued running alongside a profit-making advertising system, it would be forced to compete for audiences, in order, as has already been said, to justify its licence fees. So, instead of offering three levels of taste, as the B.B.C. sound broadcasting does so successfully, we should inevitably get two or more light programmes competing at a lower level for the cheaper kind of popularity. That was what the Beveridge Committee said, and that is precisely how it has turned out.
The condemnation of our present system of television is its triviality. It is not wicked, save that it is a wicked waste of one of the greatest opportunities that science has ever offered to humanity. By and large, my Lords, I really think the I.T.V. programmes are pretty poor stuff. Recently they asked me to advise on the script of a documentary on mental illness.
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It was, frankly, superficial. That did not matter very much; but what did matter was that it was very inaccurate. In particular, the people producing this programme were convinced that general practitioners knew nothing about psychiatry, which happens, in fact, to be quite untrue. I told them this was untrue. However, they did manage to dig out an old-fashioned G.P. who was prepared to go on the screen and say that psychiatry was bunkum. Then a little miracle took place. During the course of the programme, this old-fashioned G.P. was converted; and, instead of saying his piece as rehearsed, he came out with a reasoned plea for more and better psychiatry. So on that occasion, at any rate, the result was better than the I.T.V. deserved.
Occasionally, I.T.V. gives us something good, but for the most part it is pathetic and puerile. Its "give-away" quiz programmes are, I think, as the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, thinks, socially unhealthy. Its variety is unvarying in its tediousness. Its general level is calculated to stultify and wither the potentialities of what is really the most superlative organ in the human body—the human brain and mind. But, above all, unfortunately, it forces the B.B.C. to angle all its programmes to audience attraction. I think that in the circumstances the B.B.C. does wonderfully well. Its newsmagazines, "Tonight" and "Panorama", have virtually killed popular weekly pictorial journalism. I do not say whether this is good or bad, but I think it is a fact. Its light entertainment programmes are really "not half bad". It has given us, in "Hancock's Half Hour", a tragi-comedy of the small man "up against it" as good as George Grossmith's Mr. Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody—and if any of your Lordships has not seen it. I can strongly recommend it as a first-class half hour's entertainment. In sport and in spectacle, on the farm and in the garden. it makes the I.T.V. producers look like amateurs.
Nevertheless, what the B.B.C. can do on a single mass-appeal channel is strictly limited. I like to watch my noble friend Baroness Wootton of Abinger in the "Brains Trust", but I always feel that she is being asked to waste her great talents in giving snap answers to queer questions rather than her wise and considered views on the great issues on which

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she is our leading expert. But, given the circumstances, the B.B.C. is right to do this. It must attract and hold an audience by entertaining. It must play most things to the gallery; so there is not a great deal for the dress circle or the stalls, and little for the hard benches of the lecture theatre. We on the Beveridge Committee said that this would happen, and it has happened; and the responsibility is squarely on the Government. Against, one suspects, their own better judgment, they gave way to Back-Bench pressure with results precisely as predicted.
Now, my Lords, there is nothing very wrong or wicked in advertising. It is not among the great human activities, but it is a useful and necessary adjunct to the processes of production. Advertisement does not spoil The Times or the Daily Mirror—or,indeed, even the Radio Times. The slides and advertising films at the local cinema are quite good entertainment. Advertising on television need do no great harm provided it is a secondary activity and not a main revenue source of the programme-making authorities. I see no objection to advertisements on all television channels, though I notice that those noble Lords who are associated with I.T.V. would hate to see the B.B.C. debauched by the admission of advertising. I do not think there is anything very wicked about putting advertisements on the B.B.C. provided they take a small, second place—and that means provided there is no cash competition between the two channels.
LORD BOOTHBY: There would be.
LORD TAYLOR: I think I can answer the noble Lord's query in a minute. One would add this rider, however. All advertisements occupy a position somewhere between information and propaganda. The informative advertisement helps the purchaser to make a choice of purchase on reasonable grounds; the propaganda advertisement seeks to persuade by slogan and repetition, without the intervention of reason. Mr. Howard M. Last, who is the Advertising Manager of the Kellogg Company, put it thus:
"With television, we can almost sell children our product before they can talk. They know who the 'TV' heroes are before they can say full sentences. In the old days, children are what their mothers bought; now the kids tell their mothers what to buy."
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That quotation is from The Cornflake Crusade, an excellent book which I can recommend to your Lordships. It is the story of the building up of the cornflake industry in the United States.
In to-day's issue, Mr. Punch's learned editor puts it thus:
"I have been on holiday from Independent 'TV' for some months, and the holiday has done me good: I can now listen to the jingles with interest, sometimes with pleasure; I can even stomach the animated cartoon symbols, the dancing bottles, the vocal packets of suet, the crooning sachets of shampoos and so on. The mood will not last, I know, so I propose to have my say before disenchantment sets in. The commercials have improved quite remarkably during the last two years—not, I hasten to add, in aesthetic appeal, but in their general efficiency. The jingles are jinglier, the visual explosions more violent, the accents more mid-Atlantic than ever. Everything, it seems, is N… N-E-W! And, of course, more scientific. The pace is killing. Within a minute or so we are confronted by close-ups of cat food, shampoo, blocked nasal passages, self-slicing jelly-mix, disinfectant, nylons, lollies and more cat food. We have never had itso good."
In the long run, my Lords, I doubt if the human race will stand for this nonsense. In the meantime, I suppose selling breakfast foods and detergents by these means does little harm. It would be another matter entirely if these sales methods were applied to the selling of ideas. On the other hand it must be pointed out, as other noble Lords have already pointed out, that most "TV" users dislike "TV" advertising, especially the insertion of advertisements in the middle of programmes. If we must have them, let us limit them to a minute in the hour. and let us keen them to the proper programme intervals.
As a consumer and as a worker, I do not like monopolies, commercial or public service, though there is sometimes no other way of doing a thing. The B.B.C. was the best monopoly that there has ever been. It remains, I think, the best sound broadcasting system in the world. The Beveridge Committee could see no way of breaking that monopoly without destroying their standard of service. Mr. Selwyn Lloyd argued cogently, in his Minority Report, that the television monopoly had to be broken, but he failed to show how two or more channels separately controlled could give real alternative programmes rather than competing light programmes.
I have thought a lot about this and I think that there is an answer. Suppose

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we create by charter and licence a National Television Corporation as a second public service system, to work alongside the B.B.C. television service. Suppose we divide the television licence fees equally between the two for a ten-year period. If necessary, the licence fees could be increased, as they are a minute proportion of the capital cost of a television set; in fact, television is the cheapest form of visual entertainment ever devised by man. Suppose we allow both channels to carry advertisements, subject to real and proper control, which must be observed. Finally, suppose we write into their constitutions that they shall produce different types of programmes on alternate weeks. Thus, in Week I, the B.B.C. would produce a popular or light programme and the N.T.V. a more serious or Home Service style programme; then, in Week II, they would reverse—the B.B.C. would become serious and the N.T.V. light. By doing this, we should have broken the monopoly; we should have produced competition in quality, whether for serious or for light-programme-style entertainment, and we should have given viewers a real choice of alternative programmes, different in content and in purpose. Then, when a third channel became available, a third competitive corporation could be created and a three-week programme cycle could be worked, of light, medium and "real tough stuff".
The great discoveries of science have to be matched by equally great legislative action. That is the challenge of our time. When wireless telegraphy was invented, almost its first use was for the noble purpose of saving life at sea. Then, when the miracle of sound radio broadcasting came, it was a Conservative Government under Mr. Baldwin which decided that this must be used as a public service for the benefit of society rather than as a means of private profit. In pioneering sound and television broadcasting, the B.B.C. have led the world. Now we are slipping back, and by a deliberate and brave act of social policy we must put things right. Good organisations cease to be good if they become too big. I think that one television channel, with its vast and costly programme output, is enough for any one public body to handle. So I commend to your Lordships and to Her Majesty's Government a second and
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a third public service corporation, not in financial competition, but charged to produce true alternative programmes, as an experiment in social progress to meet the wonderful potentialities which the cathode-ray tube offers to the hearts and eyes and minds and spirits of mankind.
6.45 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, it is certainly a somewhat curious turn of the wheel which has resulted in my winding up for the Government on the first major discussion of commercial and other television since the passing of the 1954 Act. Most of the noble Lords who have adverted to this fact have supposed that I must have changed my mind. I noticed that they had not. Those who were against it in 1953 and 1954 said to-day approximately what they said about it then, only pausing for a moment to say that the event had confirmed their worst fears, while those who were in favour of it in 1953 and 1954 were equally emphatic that the obvious success of the Government's plan made it impossible to argue that it was other than well-conceived and extremely successful.
I do not know why I should he assumed to be in any way an exception to the rule in your Lordships' House. Steadfastness of purpose and consistency of outlook on so wide a scale should surely be supported by a member of the Government and is an ornament to any legislative assembly.Nor do I find myself particularly embarrassed. The only embarrassment I find is that, whereas in 1953 and 1954 I thought I could speak with some authority upon television because I was a regular viewer and an occasional performer, I must confess that no Minister ever has time to look regularly at television and therefore can obtain his views only at second hand. Moreover, the intense interest with which one's colleagues scrutinise one's performance so inhibits that performance when it actually occurs, on the rare occasions when one can get the necessary clearances, as they are called, to appeal at all, that I no longer regard myself as an expert on this subject.
I am assisted in my genuine equanimity in accepting this challenge by the reflection that the Government brief to which I am speaking insists that I should

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remain firmly on the fence, for a number of reasons which I hope will seem wholly satisfactory to your Lordships' House, as I frankly say they are satisfactory to me. If I should happen to put a toe down on one side of the fence or the other, as I shall do from time to time, I hope your Lordships will accept it that the more solid part of my anatomy is still firmly ensconced where it ought to be.
Perhaps I have progressed further, in a sense, than some of your Lordships from my 1953-54 position without in any way being ashamed of or altering the substance of things I tried to say to your Lordships then. This will not be the first time I have urged Parliament to take a course different from what it took. I remember doing so in another place all the way through the 1945 Parliament, when a chain of monopolies was erected, one after the other, by the Party opposite. The important fact which I would urge your Lordships to learn from this double experience of mine is that when Parliament has deliberately come to a particular conclusion of policy, that gives rise to a series of obligations which make it neither desirable in the interests of the nation nor, I think, particularly honourable in either of the contestants in the dispute to seek to alter the status quo before the experiment has had a reasonable run. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor said, it is true that a deliberate experiment was made in 1954 that gives rise to moral obligations on the part of the Government and, I would venture to say, on the part of any Government which inherits the responsibilities. There are obligations to the B.B.C., which were solemnly undertaken from the Woolsack, and there are obligations to the Authority and programme companies which ought to be honoured by a respectable community.
It may be that the companies have made much bigger profits than was then anticipated. I frankly concede that I did not expect such profits to be made. I thought that in a period of full activity, as it then was, the scope for advertisement was probably more limited than it has subsequently turned out to be. It well may be that the success of the companies and the success of the advertisements were accentuated by the approach of an international recession which was not at that time anticipated. But one thing of which I am certain is that, Par-
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liament and the nation having entered into obligations of honour towards the recipients of these franchises, Parliament and the nation ought to honour their bond both to the public broadcasting corporation and to the network that we set up in 1954. I think that anything else would he something less than honourable. That is primarily the general line I wish to take.
I should at this stage congratulate both my noble friend Lord Boothby on his introduction of this subject (if I am no longer qualified to speak with authority, nobody can pretend that he is not an acknowledged expert; everything he says is controversial, and the more interesting for that, although not always the more unexceptionable for it) and to join also in praise of the excellent maiden speech made by the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme. The noble Lord apologised to the House in that an element of controversy had entered into his speech. I do not think that that requires any apology at all. I have never taken the view that a first speech in either House of Parliament ought to avoid controversy. I think that this was a heresy first promulgated by the last Speaker in a speech in 1945, and I have never subscribed to it. What I think is true is that a first speech ought never to cause offence; but that is a different thing. The noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, said a number of things with which some Members of your Lordships' House will not agree—and the noble Earl, Lord De La Warr, said so—but he did not say anything which was not well worth listening to or which could have caused the most sensitive mind the slightest degree of offence. It was, if I may say so, the sort of maiden speech which a Member of either House would be proud to make on a subject about which he had thought deeply and had strong feelings. I am glad that the noble Lord has broken his silence and I hope that he will come here more often.
There is, however, one thing that should say about this debate. I think that, listening to the speeches, an observer from Mars would feel that there was something very wrong about our broadcasting system. Those who, on the whole, favour the commercial system, like the noble Lord who introduced the debate, tended to say a number of rather harsh things about the B.B.C.; and those who, on the whole, favour the public service system, as did

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many speakers, not only from the opposite side of the House, tended to decry the commercial television network. I am perfectly sure that if that were the impression received by my suppositious Martian it would be totally contrary to the fact. Whether we favour one system of broadcasting rather than another, I am quite certain that this country has probably the best broadcasting system in the world; and that I say in respect of the commercial network and the B.B.C. I will, when I come to deal with one or two other speeches, indicate in greater detail my praise for it. But, as I see it, the acknowledged reputation in other countries of both sets of broadcasting authorities seems to be one which evokes greater praise than usually penetrates the aura of public debate here; and I think that is the true view.
The other thing I would say on the same theme is that it tends to be overlooked, and has been rather overlooked in this debate, that both networks are, in fact, public services. Their differences I will dilate on in a moment, but it would be wholly wrong to say that either the B.B.C. or the network over which the I.T.A. presides is not a public service. Both are public services. The B.B.C., oddly enough, I think, have nowhere this laid down in their Charter. No one has thought of saying so, although it is clearly implied in the very institution and in the existence of the various national advisory councils and their constitution. Their obligation is to provide a balanced programme, a varied programme and a programme of high quality which people will listen to and look at. It is a public service. Unlike the situation with the B.B.C., the Television Act, 1954, imposes upon the Independent Television Authority precisely this obligation to provide a public service. Nothing could be more explicit than the terms of that Act. All the factors that I have enumerated as being the obligation of the B.B.C. are precisely laid down in that Act of Parliament: balance, quality, impartiality and the other factors that are required. The I.T.A. presides over a public service.
I would say, in passing, that those who took a view contrary to the Government in 1954 underestimated a little the value and extent of their own judgment in writing into the Act a number of safeguards (which were bitterly opposed from
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various quarters of both Houses) which seem to me of considerable value and a great improvement on the original animal which, as my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye rather teasingly reminded me, I referred to as a "mule." It has, at any rate, added, I think, hope of posterity to the mule, and in many respects it has improved it.
Where then does the difference reside? First of all, it lies in this. Whatever fancy methods of financing broadcasting may be thoughtof—and several have been mentioned in the course of this debate—the only sources of finance which have ever been successfully tried in practice are two: the licence fee and revenue from advertisement. Quite obviously, if you have a licence fee you run the danger of paternalism; and we all dislike paternalism. Obviously, if you rely on advertising, you render yourself liable to be accused of triviality and meretriciousness; and we all dislike, or at any rate pretend to dislike, triviality and meretriciousness. When you run the two systems together it may be that you get the best of both worlds or it may be that you get the worst of both worlds.
I would say, however, that some noble Lords have not fully appreciated the repercussion which one must necessarily have on the other for better or for worse. Some speakers have said that the B.B.C. ought to live in their own ivory tower, not sullied by any reference to popular appeal, and produce programmes of the utmost quality. My noble friend Lord Boothby was profoundly shocked that their lily white hands should be sullied by even the prospect of advertisement—a view which coincides, according to my information, exactly with that of the Governors of the B.B.C., although not with that of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor; and I am bound to say that on this point I have never been quite so orthodox as perhaps I ought to be.
LORD TAYLOR: Does that mean that the noble Viscount agrees with me or with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby?
LORD BOOTHBY: With me.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I would say that I am not so shocked as my noble friend Lord Boothby at the prospect of the B.B.C. drawing revenue in part from advertisements, which would at any rate have the effect of breaking a monopoly.

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I would say, in a personal capacity and for reasons which will appear, that it would be wholly wrong to suppose that there was a change of attitude in the Corporation or on the part of the Government, in so far as they have an attitude on the matter at all.
It is, however, inevitable that the relationship between these two networks must be mutual. I would say that the B.B.C. had had a profound influence on the programmes of Independent Television, who cannot afford to have it said that they never balance the prestige aspect in programmes which may originally have been undertaken for financial reasons. I am not suggesting that. I do not take the view of the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, that they are not inspired by a particularly high sense of public responsibility. I should say they were. But one of the sanctions of the Act is undoubtedly the presence of the B.B.C. running on the public service principle, and I would say that it was always intended to he so.
Similarly, it is wholly unrealistic to think that the B.B.C. are not going to be, and ought not to be, influenced by what is going on on the other channel. If people are going to be asked to pay £4 a year for every receiving set they buy, £3 of which is licence and £1 Excise Duty, for a service that they never use, I can assure the House they are not going to pay that money indefinitely, because they will instruct their Members of Parliament to bring that situation to an end. It follows that the B.B.C. are driven, at any rate to some extent, to cater for mass audiences; and for my part I have never desired that they should do anything else. I would say that it is inevitable, on the scheme that has been introduced, that the two systems would have their legitimate and proper repercussion upon one another.
The next point I would make is that I cannot share the view that Parliament was ever misled about the intentions of the Government in this way. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, appeared to be surprised that what had been created was a second monopoly. He was not in this House then, but I must tell him that that is exactly what I prophesied would happen, because at that stage, and with only two channels available, that was all that ever could happen. Whether anything better will be forthcoming in
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Chapter three is a matter Which he has discussed, and the House has discussed. But what has happened so far has happened exactly according to plan. To my mind, neither House nor Parliament nor the country has been in the least misled.
Nor has it been misled in the least, so far as I can see, about advertisements. The whole burden of the song which then came from the Woolsack, as I well remember during those debates, was that the whole policy of the Government was to entrust the control of advertisements (which is a very important matter) to the I.T.A.; and that is what has happened. What is alleged to be the Government pledge is this. The Assistant Postmaster General on June 22, 1954, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 529, col. 245]:
"I have always envisaged that, so far as the spot advertisement is concerned 10 per cent—that is, six minutes an hour—would probably, or possibly, represent about what the Authority would regard as reasonable."
A more clear statement that it was not appropriate for Government or Parliament to interfere with the responsibilities which were going to be put on the Authority I cannot possibly conceive. I must say that when I see these dreary, pompous letters in the Press, complaining that Parliament has been misled, or that some Government pledge has been broken, I am filled with astonishment that people should be so lacking in a sense of humour and that their memories should be so short. The Government have always said that this was to be a responsibility of the I.T.A., and the Government are perfectly consistent in insisting that that responsibility should rest there. Even on the finer point of whether the advertisement period should be a maximum of six minutes or an average of six minutes, if noble Lords care to pursue the matter they will find an average clearly put forward by Mr. Gammans on June 14, 1955.
I frankly feel that this idea that Parliament has been in any way misled about this matter is one which does not bear the smallest examination of any kind; and I think this rather needling, carping criticism about the details of advertisement is doing no good to those who put forward the public service view of broadcasting. On the contrary, I think that if the system is to work at all, it is wholly inappropriate for Parliament to intervene unless there is a gross breach

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of the Act, which I do not think has yet taken place or is likely to take place in the future, with the responsible persons in charge of the I.T.A. I would say seriously that, whatever the rights or wrongs of this particular controversy, it is at least something about which the sanction of the switch has a certain relevance, if nothing more. The public do not, in fact, turn off the advertisements. They would soon do so if they felt at all concerned about it.
I should like to embark upon some of the details, although I think the House would agree with me that I should be unwise to pursue all the various hares that are merrily running round this debate. I think I ought to deal with one or two of the major points which have been raised in this broad framework. The case which I am going to present to the House is that the time for decision on some of the subjects, like the whole future of television, has not yet arrived. I think that is sound. It is not that it is "a hot potato", as it has been called. It is not something which the major Parties fear. I think that the time has not yet arrived, for the reason put by my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye. The Charter of the B.B.C. does not run out until 1962, and the franchise of the programme companies does not run out until 1964. I should have said there was a great deal to be said for the noble Lord's theory that they should be allowed to run out together, but I do not want to be understood as entering into any commitment whatever on that score.
Quite clearly, however, I believe that it would be wrong to pre-judge that kind of general issue without a careful inquiry into all these matters when it can be reviewed again, because—and here I want to be quite plain—although I think it is not quite legitimate to complain of the profits of those who have risked their money during the period for which they have got their franchise, and during which they can ask for reliance upon the good faith of the Government, it would be wholly unrealistic not to consider that when profits on this scale have now been established, the terms upon which future franchises are given must be subject to review. After all, it is our business to be good stewards of public monies and to secure money from public services; and
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whichever Party are in power, and whatever kind of inquiry is instituted, they would, I am sure, take that clear view. It does not follow from that that there should be no decision on the question of the third channel.
At the risk of being rather dull and technical, I want to say a word or two about some of the things that have been said this afternoon about the third channel. Thee are many applications for a limited amount of broadcasting space. There is the B.B.C., whose case has been ably argued. There is the existing I.T.A. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has the interesting and attractive theory that he can break the existing monopoly, which now consists of two, by adding a third monopoly, which would then be three. It is a controversial suggestion with which not all of us would agree at first sight. But it is another contestant: it is another runner in the race. And so, obviously, is the suggestion that the third channel should be financed on the pay-as-you-go or subscription basis. American experience has not so far proved encouraging, but these are matters which must be considered seriously and treated on their merits.
I think I must insist that the whole of this question must depend upon a prior determination of the answer to the question: what are we going to do about line definition and colour television? Those two matters are currently before the Television Advisory Committee, and it would be wrong, quite independently of what I have said about the ultimate future of broadcasting, to pre-judge that until we have had the views of the Television Advisory Committee on that point.
May I just indicate the kind of problem which is likely to arise? I think the House would readily concede that colour television is probably inescapably bound up with line definition. You would not want to make two changes in your receiving sets when you could make do with one. Secondly, supposing the Television Advisory Committee do report that the existing 405-line definition is inadequate, and that they do not want to turn to the American 525 or the French 819 but prefer, as the noble Lord, Lord Boothby suggests, the common European 625, it means that, for the purposes of any transmission on that particular definition, every receiving set in the country is obsolete, and either you must duplicate

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your services to some extent or everybody will have to buy a new television set. If it were the latter, I feel sure that no Government would survive the outcry which would emerge.
It follows, then, that you are faced with the problem of a third channel which might either use 405 lines, in which case I venture to suggest you would hopelessly pre-judge the question of line definition and prevent a change, or run on 625 lines, when you must make some provision whereby those with existing sets would not have to change until, as time flowed on, their sets became obsolete and wore out in the ordinary course of duty. That means, I think, the provision of possibly more than one service on the 625-line definition, if that were adopted. It means the evolution and marketing of a universal receiving set for that channel which would also be able to turn onto programmes on the existing channel; and I think it means that the final position on that point could not rationally be taken, by this Government or any Government, until—it need not be too longdelayed—some advice had been received on the subjects of line definition and colour television. In addition, this complication would have to be borne in mind: that as 625-line definition transmits to the receiver an amount of information which exceeds that transmitted by 405-line definition approximately in the square of the ratio of 625 to 405, the width of channel requisite for 625-line definition is substantially greater than that on the existing method of transmission. Those are questions which ought to be looked at impartially, and I hope that I have explained to the House the kind of questions which the Government ought to consider before coming to a conclusion. I have already indicated that in the more distant scene we must have an inquiry before the ultimate decisions are arrived at.
The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, who gave a speech which I know interested us all very much, asked a number of questions about the religious philosophy underlying the existing authorities. I do not know how far I, as a member of the Government, ought to answer those questions. I am not sure that he did justice to the Director-General (as he then was) of the B.B.C. in his statement of the existing position. I do not think
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that a public service can be wholly impartial in questions which go to the root of morality, such as good faith, civilised behaviour, and indeed, within limits, of sexual morality too. We are all aware that these are questions which divide men very deeply, about which they demand freedom of expression, and yet about which, in a Christian community, there are certain identities of view, whether or not people hold the same theological opinions which support them. I do not think it is desirable for Governments to interfere very much in that kind of question, or for Ministers replying for Governments to expound more than a tentative personal view. I think the less that Governments try to prescribe religion and morals, the happier and more peaceably we shall live together.
I would also say that the content of programmes ought to be pretty wide and pretty free, and free from intolerance of any kind, religious or anti-religious. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenhan, found the statement of the B.B.C. confusing. I was not altogether clear about what he was really trying to tell us. It was clear that he did not wish to build a faggot for Mrs. Margaret Knight, or even impose a muzzle on her. But we cannot forget that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, Professor Ayer—there were others mentioned, and one could enumerate them—are among the most articulate and learned members of the community. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenhan. and I both accept the Christian faith, but I am not sure that it is really to our advantage., or to the advantage of our children, that in matters of public discussion we should seem to stack the pack against those who do not.
The battle for faith and morals, which is an age-long battle which we all have to fight, is, I am personally convinced, best fought by men entering the arena with bare hands and nothing more, and in the end it is the quality of our own testimony in succeeding generations which will prevail. If we seek adventitious aids, the authority of the State, the power of suppression, which we can do and which Christians have done for many generations past, and must do perhaps within limits of faith and morals even to this day, to that extent we shall render our testimony suspect. I am not at all sure that we should be wise to pursue this

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line of talk to any very great extent. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, of what St. Augustine of Hippo said on this topic in a little known work called De Catechizandis Rudibus. He was talking then about the tolerance to be extended to heretics, a subject very dear to my heart. He said:
"The heretics are the best schoolmasters of Catholic doctrine because they teach the church to define its own position and to think out its own position."
I believe that that is something which ought to be remembered, and I do not think the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, whatever he may think of my orthodoxy, is likely to quarrel with St. Augustine of Hippo.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, may I just say this to the noble Viscount? He has misrepresented the case I placed before the House. I was quoting what Sir William Haley said in 1948, when he referred to the fostering of Christian values and said that the whole preponderant weight of the programmes is directed to this end. That, I gather, is still official doctrine, and I was anxious to discover what meaning was attached to the words "Christian values". So far as that is concerned, the noble Viscount in his speech has said nothing.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The last thing I should want to do, especially on a matter of this kind, would be in any way to misrepresent what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, or what was in his mind. The part of his speech I had in mind when I was making my personal reply to it was that part where he used the phrase that these values which he and I both hold dear should, I think his phrase was, be unequivocally supported and sedulously fostered by the authorities. It was only to this that I was directing my mind when I made the remarks I did, and I think perhaps our views about this subject, although they represent an identity, I should have thought, of faith and morals in this matter, are not perhaps the same on this issue of the extent to which the broadcasting authorities may be concerned. If I do differ from him, I do so with reluctance; and certainly I should not wish in any way to misrepresent what he thought. I hope I have made my own position plain.
LORD PAKENHAM: I am sure of that.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I would end by saying this to the noble Lord, Lord James of Rusholme, who to some extent, I think, however much we enjoyed his speech, introduced a jeremiad. I do not myself share his gloomy view. Whether the system be such as is represented by the B.B.C. or by the commercial television network, I think the net effect of television on both channels is wholly good. It is very easy for us—may I say "us intellectuals"?—to decry the triviality and at times the frivolity of popular programmes. But the net effect of broadcasting on both sound and vision is that very many people who would never hear serious discussion at all now hear serious discussion sometimes; very many people who would never have admitted to liking music now are passionately interested in quite serious music. People who knew nothing about the world outside their own country are becoming interested in other lands and other continents. People who ordinarily would never enter a church or see a religious service are now admitted into the sanctuary. People who are kept at home, people who cannot move, people who are ill, people who are blind, and people who are young, and perhaps are denied the things which have made life most worth living to us, now have them available.
If you say to me, a father of a family, as you are entitled to do, "Yes, but there are dangers too. Yes, but right into the middle of your drawing room is the picture of the harlot and the adulterer. Yes, but dishonesty, viciousness and sin are depicted", then I say, "Yes, but they must meet it sometime or another in their lives, and they must learn to face it. Far better, I would say, that they should do so now in my home, with their father sitting by them to talk about it, than that they should see it, possibly under the influence of drink, in bad company, when the whole thing looks attractive and may lead them astray." So I cannot say that this great new invention is other than a net service for good, nor will I believe that the things which we have done have ultimately perverted the integrity of this nation.
7.24 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, before I beg leave to withdraw my Motion, perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words,

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because for me this has been in every way a most satisfactory afternoon. In this extremely high level debate, I have achieved in its entirety the precise purpose I had in mind—and, incidentally, I have backed the winner of the Derby; so that the combination of the two has left me in a very placid frame of mind and a state of considerable equanimity.
Like the Lord President of the Council—indeed, like the Government—I am more or less on the fence in this matter; but I am a little coarser than he is, and certainly more critical.
I never thought that I should live to accuse the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council of complacency. That never seemed to me to be a characteristic of his—rather of mine—but this afternoon he seemed to be a little complacent about British broadcasting in general, saying that really it was doing nothing but good, better and better, higher and higher, and was probably the best broadcasting system in the world. It is pretty good, but it could be a jolly sight better. Both the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. could be a jolly sight better, and I think we ought to go on nagging and gnarling at them. I think that criticism is the breath of life. as my noble friend knows very well, and that complacency is death—it stinks of death. So we must keep on at them in the hope that they will go on getting better. Certainly they are better than they were a little time ago, but, my goodness! there is still room for a great deal of improvement on all sides.
With regard to my noble friend Lord Pakenham, I would say that nobody respects his passionate sincerity more than I do, but as his speech proceeded I could not but help feel a slight sympathy for Sir William Haley and for the B.B.C., receiving these letters and having to write back the same sort of slightly equivocal answer, because I think it is the only answer that could be given; and, like the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, I was not quite sure when he sat down what he was driving at. Does he really think that the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for example, should be strictly limited in, if not entirely eliminated from, broadcasting or televising? If so, I would very much disagree with him because I feel that nobody can deny that while the noble Earl is almost a militant atheist, he is probably the greatest philosopher living to-day, and I am sure that we should
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miss a great deal, and would have missed a great deal, if we had not the advantage of listening to and seeing Lord Russell on radio and television on many occasions during the last few years. I am sure that a slightly equivocal attitude on the part of the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. towards the question posed by my noble friend Lord Pakenham is almost inevitable in the circumstances, and I do not quite see what else they could have said.
Lord Teviot was, of course, straight hostile. He wants me removed from television, secured between the tongs, and as fast as possible. There is nothing I can do about it. I am one of these television personalities, according to him, who is doing such infinite damage to the public life of this country—coming along and talking about things before anybody gets the chance to talk to the Prime Minister, saying that the Colonial Secretary is a liar. But it is not so very long ago that a noble Lord spoke on these Benches and said that the whole of the Africans were liars. Nobody minded that very much. I think we are all getting a bit too mealy-mouthed over this affair. A little vigorous controversy does not do us any harm. It was characteristic of a lifelong Liberal that he should have advocated censorship of this kind. He also said that we should control and censor these television personalities if we cannot get rid of them. His speech was slightly offset, to my great relief, by the speech of Lord Auckland, who was good enough to say that this television personality did not upset him to quite the same extent as clearly it has upset Lord Teviot.
I would conclude simply by saying this. After listening with intense interest to every speech, and with particular interest to what the noble Viscount the Lord President of the Council had to say about the new channel, upon which I thought his remarks were authoritative, of extraordinary interest and absolutely right, I still feel that what I might almost call the Balfour-Bessborough-Boothby plan holds the field. Roughly speaking, it is that we should let the B.B.C. stick to its present network, which gives it national coverage; keep it clear of commercial television and give it enough money from licence funds to enable it to maintain the high standards which have been set up; and, as soon as is practicable on the right channel, as the Government will be advised by their technical advisers, set up

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another network, either under this I.T.A. or another I.T.A., because there is no other method of getting rid of the two monopolies which do not really compete with each other. I believe that that is the only way to get rid of the danger of monopoly. And ultimately, at a later stage, we may move to a system of "P.A.Y.V." which is another extremely interesting development.
As I have said, my only purpose was to stimulate thought and discussion, and in asking leave to withdraw my Motion I would commend the Balfour-Bessborough-Boothby plan to the earnest consideration of Her Majesty's Government. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

INQUIRY INTO CAUSES OF CRIME
7.30 p.m.
EARL WINTERTONrose to ask Her Majesty's Government if they will appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the causes for the increase of crime, in view of the fact that only a Royal Commission possesses the legal authority to hear sufficient evidence for a comprehensive review of the whole subject. The noble Earl said: My Lords, at this late hour of the evening I propose to make only a few rather truncated remarks in advocating the points contained in the Question which I have upon the Order Paper, but before doing so I should like to depart to some extent from precedent—I am sure with the approval of every Member of your Lordships' House present—to say how much we miss to-night the presence, because of his lamentable death, of Lord Templewood, who contributed so much to our discussions. He was a very old and dear friend of mine and I know your Lordships will allow me to pay this tribute to him. No one could have been a more affectionate friend, no public servant could have had a greater sense of integrity; and no one that I knew in my long experience was less afraid of incurring unpopularity; and when he had incurred unpopularity he refrained from attacking, either in public or in private, those who had criticised him.
My Lords, this is a very big subject following upon a most interesting debate
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that we have had upon another big subject, and I want to put my points very shortly. My first is this: the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary to whom, if I may, I should like to pay a tribute as a very great Home Secretary, stated, I believe in another place, or at any rate in a speech, that frankly he and his advisers and Her Majesty's Government in general were not able to say what was the real cause of the very serious increase in crime. Incidentally, it is an increase which has been almost exactly matched in two countries with a standard of living as high as ours—Sweden and Switzerland—and there seems to be some universal cause for this lamentable state of affairs.
My second point is this: that while I may be wrong in thinking that a Royal Commission is the best form of inquiry, I am convinced (and I have taken advice here from some distinguished Members of your Lordships' House and others, who agree with my views) that only a comprehensive inquiry will be sufficient to find out the roots of this trouble. A Royal Commission, of course, possesses powers in the way of calling witnesses which are very extensive, and I do not think that partial inquiries such as that of the Committee presided over by my noble friend Lord Ingleby, which is inquiring into child crime, or the new Institute of Criminology at Cambridge, would cover the ground.
I want to put one or two points that have arisen in the discussions that have taken place in your Lordships' House and in another place, because they strengthen my case for an inquiry. I believe there is considerable divergence of opinion which, in accordance with custom, was expressed very politely in your Lordships' House in the debate that we had a short time ago on this subject. The divergence is between those whom I would describe as "redemptionists" and the "deterrers". The redemptionists make the point that the primary duty of the State when dealing with crime is to endeavour to redeem the criminal; and they use the argument that a great number of criminals are those who come from broken homes and generally unhappy home surroundings.
The noble Lady, Baroness Wootton of Abinger—who has asked me to say that had she not had another engagement

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she would have liked to be present to have said a few words—says that statistically speaking it is not altogether true that the majority of criminals come from bad home surroundings. But, say the redemptionists—and I think perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, could be described as a redemptionist—we shall never deal with this question until we have more Christian and moral teaching. Now I am not going to take sides, one way or the other, but the deterrers reply by saying that it is all very well to say that we must have more Christian and moral teaching, but that, on the admission of the Churches themselves, only some 10 per cent. of the population attend church and only a further 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. accept the theology of the Churches; therefore what is the use, they ask, of talking of more Christian teaching when there is this huge void? Surely, say the deterrers, the proper thing to do is to make crime so unpleasant for the criminals, both by the penalties imposed and the form of imprisonment which they undergo, that we shall stop this increase and reduce the amount of crime to reasonable proportions.
I will end this point by saying that, while I do not take sides, one way or the other, I do submit to your Lordships that there is this very serious difference of opinion. Both the redemptionists and the deterrers—if I may in vent those two terms—can claim support from Christian and moral doctrine. We are taught, as Christians. that we ought to forgive and that forgiveness is one of the greatest virtues of the Christian religion. We are also told that the wicked must be punished. May I be permitted to give a personal reminiscence? When I went to church as a boy I heard a great deal about hell fire, and one was told that the wicked would be punished for their sins, not only in this world but in another world as well. I have not heard a sermon on hell fire in the Church of England church which I attend for, I should think, at least thirty years. Say the deterrers, in the atmosphere in which they have been brought up the youth of to-day can be made to be good only if they know that it is going to be very unpleasant for them to be bad.
I submit that this is the kind of question into which a Royal Commission should go. And here I come to a very con-
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troversial point on which, again, I express no opinion except to say that I am not satisfied that the situation is clear. The advocates of the abolition of hanging, and those who accepted the compromise in the present Act of Parliament because they were advocates Of it and those (among whom I number myself) who thought it was right that flogging should be abolished, could say at one time, apparently, from a statistical point of view, that there had not been any increase in types of crime previously punishable by those penalties as a result of the reduction of the penalties.
I do not know how the position stands to-day, but I think this point requires consideration; and here again a Royal Commission, I believe, is the proper body to go into it. While it may be true that there has been no proportionate increase in these two types of crime compared with the increase in other forms of crime, it may be the fact that the enormous number of offences of breaking and entering and burglary which go on at the present time are partly due to the fact that a man armed with a lethal weapon who enters a warehouse can say to himself, "It is not like the old days. If I cosh a watchman I shall not be flogged and if I happen to kill him I shall not be hanged." That may be so; and, there again, I feel it is a matter which should be looked into.
Now I come to a very controversial point, and that is the question of the attitude of a section of the public, and of many newspapers, towards crime. I do not want to use wounding terms, but it is true to say that in certain circles, in certain newspapers indeed, there is more tolerance—I will not say sympathy—towards murder and sexual perversion than was the case a few years ago.
But the matter does not end there. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, in a very interesting lecture, which some of your Lordships may have heard over the sound radio (I do not know whether she was right or wrong, but I should think that, with her great experience, she was right), pointed out that there was a kind of class attitude towards different kinds of crime. She said that those with earnings which put them in the motor-car owning class did not regard it as at all a serious matter if a man was had up for driving a car under the influence of drink, or for causing a

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road accident, and that he suffered no social stigma. In fact, I think the matter goes further, because if Mr. John Gordon in writing in last week's Sunday Express is to be believed, there are cases of men convicted for quite serious motoring offences who have continued to be magistrates. The noble Baroness said that this had an effect on people of another class, who said, "If these people are able to get away with serious offences endangering life, why should not we help ourselves to something?" She went on to say that some people, at any rate, saw no harm (to use a vulgarism) in scrounging from the boss, because he was the boss. He was richer than they were and they could scrounge from him. That raises very interesting points.
However, to come back to my original point on the main issue, I think that a Royal Commission is required to inquire into whether this greater tolerance has led to an actual increase in the two very serious crimes that I have mentioned. That information could be ascertained, I think, only by taking evidence, for example, from chief constables and others. Recently there was a very disturbing incident reported only in one paper. No fewer than ten men at Oxford were prosecuted for importuning for sexual perversion, of whom, I believe three were undergraduates; and the Chief Constable of Oxford said there was no doubt that there had been a great increase in sexual perversion in the last few years.
I come now to the question of murder. I think that, whatever view any of your Lordships may hold on hanging, you would all agree with me that the hysterical attitude towards the man Marwood was deplorable and did a great deal of harm. A serious feature of it was, according to some observers, that it was not so much in favour of Marwood as due to dislike of the police. The situation was made infinitely worse by a most disgraceful attack upon the Home Secretary, made by that notorious political pulpiteer, Canon Collins, who accused the Home Secretary—a most dastardly accusation—of having been influenced in his decision by his desire to protect the police. It was particularly unfortunate that the Canon should have made this remark, because only three weeks before he had to apologise for having slandered someone else.
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As I say, I do not know how far this tolerance has increased these two crimes. I think that in some quarters there is—it may be a good thing—a tolerance towards crime of all kinds which did not exist a few years ago. A small example of that (here I admit I am on rather delicate ground) was what happened after the Conservative Party Conference at Blackpool. To judge from some Leftist newspapers and two or three journalists, the people who were removed were treated with a sort of brutality that one might expect from the Gestapo; and some of these journalistic commentators went as far as to say that it was going to do the Conservative Party a great deal of electoral harm. What happened? Recently there was an action brought by these two young men. They lost it and they have to pay, quite properly, very heavy damages; and the statements of these journalists, one of whom gave evidence, were completely rejected by the magistrate. I submit that all these things, cumulatively, could have a bad effect on crime and criminals.
My last three points—and I do not wish to detain your Lordships for more than three or four minutes more—are these. There was great indignation among some Members of your Lordships' House (and I am not attempting to support what he said) at a speech made by my noble friend Lord St. Oswald in the last debate on the subject, in which he said the police had done things which made them unpopular. I neither support nor disagree with my noble friend Lord St. Oswald; I do not know sufficient about the facts. But there seems to be some evidence which, if true, shows a wholly regrettable state of affairs that the police have not to the same extent as formerly the support of the public. I have heard it suggested that the reason is that they come into contact with otherwise law-abiding members of the public to a far greater extent than their predecessors over motoring offences.
That brings me to another point: how far is the increase in crime due to the appalling shortage—for it is nothing else—of police in the Metropolitan Police Force, in whose area crime is particularly bad? I think I am right in saying that the force is between 3,000 and 4,000 short in an establishment of 18,000 or 19,000, which is a very lamentable state of affairs.

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How far is it due to the fact that, apart from the shortage in London and elsewhere, so many of the police are engaged on other than ordinary patrol work: dealing with traffic, dealing with motor cars? There just is not the personnel there. And how far is it due to a matter which I raised in a Motion for Papers some two months ago—to what I then described (and I had, I may say in parenthesis, great support from the Press) as the bad organisational state of some of the provincial police forces, in the sense that some were much too small and there was not the right liaison between them? Lastly, how far is it true that those old Aunt Sallies, at some of which we have been throwing things this afternoon—sound radio, television and the cinemas with their gangster films and other things— are responsible for crime, especially among the young?
I submit to your Lordships that all these matters which I have mentioned should be the subject of a comprehensive inquiry. I do not believe that the position is irredeemable. I cannot believe that this great nation is fundamentally lawless. I would say that in many respects it is one of the most law-abiding nations in the world. But there is this disturbing element of criminals, and a large proportion of them do not get caught.
That brings me to my last point of all: are the penalties for some forms of crime sufficient? Where it is a question of a fine, many fines are based, as those of your Lordships with judicial experience know, upon the value of money of 100 years ago. Here again I am on delicate ground. Have the very varying sentences of both higher and lower courts, which have been criticised pretty often in the Press, a deleterious effect on the preservation of law and order? I apologise for speaking longer than I had intended, my Lords, but those are the reasons I put forward in asking the Question which appears in my name on the Order Paper.
7.51 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I hope the House will allow me, before I sit down, to say a few words about the late Lord Templewood. That was really all that I had in mind to say, or almost all that I had in mind to say, when I awaited the speech of the noble Earl,
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Lord Winterton. But I did put myself down to speak, apart from my tribute to the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood, because I should not like the noble Earl, Lord Winterton, to bring up a very important issue in this House and then to find no one on the Opposition Front Bench here to show our deep respect for him. He knows that I have spoken on this subject rather often in this House, at rather great length, and rather recently, and therefore he will not expect me to cover all of its aspects. I hope the noble Earl will, at some not too distant date, put the subject down again, if not in this form, in a slightly different form so that we can go into it together.
I should be very ready to support him in a demand for a very strong inquiry into crime generally, but I should be more than doubtful whether a Royal Commission would be the right procedure. I feel that it would require what I believe one calls an expert body. And in saying "expert" I have in mind two kinds of person: on the one hand, the Home Office Research Unit—people who could clear up the facts of crime so that the position would be quite clear; and, on the other, people who have given their lives to dealing with these problems—judges, magistrates, clergymen, probation officers, prison officers, warders, and people of that kind.
EARL WINTERTON: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, and I thank him for the very friendly things he has said about me, but he realises, of course, that a Royal Commission would take evidence from the very people that he has mentioned, who could give the most expert evidence on this subject.
LORD PAKENHAM: I appreciate that. But perhaps, in view of the lateness of the hour, the noble Earl will forgive me for doing no more than simply recording my opinion and leaving it to the Lord Chancellor to tell us later what he has to say. However, I would gladly discuss the whole question with the noble Earl on the Floor of the House at sonic. time in the future. He put me in a difficulty which had not occurred to me when he denounced, in Parliamentary but very vehement language, my friend Canon Collins, a gentleman whom I hold in very high esteem and who is, if I may say so, a fitting representative of the noble Earl's Church. When I think of the great

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interest the Church of England is taking to-day in social affairs, I am prompted to think that Canon Collins is one of the foremost of the Church of England leaders in this field; and I am glad to think that I am one of the patrons of "Christian Action", of which Canon Collins is a director. I hope I can say that much without becoming too much involved in argument.
The noble Earl also referred—in language not quite so vehement, but almost as vehement—to those who supported the petition for a reprieve of Marwood. I was one of those who signed that petition.
EARL WINTERTON: No. I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. I referred to the hysterical scenes outside the prison. The noble Lord was quite entitled to sign the petition, as was anybody else.
LORD PAKENHAMI am grateful to the noble Earl for that explanation. I signed that petition, and I wrote to the Home Secretary. When I was asked by the Press (as it appeared to be known who were the Members of the House who had signed the petition) what my feeling was about the decision of the Home Secretary, I said simply that I felt great grief—and I hope one is entitled to feel great grief on an occasion of that kind.
Talking of hysteria, I am bound to say that I did receive, through that expression of grief, quite a number of "poison pen" letters—mad letters, really. One letter was not from a madman but from a person who said that his father, his grandfather, and his great grandfather had all been clergymen—he did not say what denomination—and who said that he gathered from my statement that I almost approved of the crime. Quite a number of people used language of that kind. Fortunately, this gentleman's letter had a telephone number on it, unlike most of the letters written by people on such occasions, and I rang him up. He was a little surprised to find that it was I who was ringing him up. I said: "Did you really mean to use this language, suggesting that I approved of the crime?" He said: "Did I actually say that?" I said: "Yes, it is in front of me". My Lords, I had not existed for him as a real person. I was simply
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a depôt, a receiving point, for this discharge of hysteria. However, I have been at the receiving end of the other kind of hysteria, and I repeat my great grief at the decision of the Home Secretary.
Before I sit down I should like to say something in a different key altogether, which I hope will be acceptable to all the Members of the House, including my old friend, the noble Earl, Lord Winter-ton. We all realise that the hour is late, but I have been asked to speak for all noble Lords in this House who have not been able to stay in expressing our profound respect for the memory of the late Lord Templewood. It is certainly not for me, who knew him only in his later years, to pass any judgment on the more controversial phases of his pre-war politics; but I know that all of us on this side of the House would wish to pay tribute, as the noble Earl has done so well, to the prudence, the far-sightedness, the colossal industry, and the idealism, that he exhibited in carrying through the Indian reforms. I know that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, if he had been here, would have been anxious to say something on that subject. As an old Minister of Civil Aviation, it would be right for me to say how well aware I am of how much the development of all kinds of aviation in this country owes to him. We recall that he took all sorts of flights, which I imagine were far more hazardous in those days than they would appear to be at the present time. His achievements as Ambassador in Spain were of signal value to the Allied cause; and, as the obituary notices have shown, he has left behind him a legacy of selfless and successful labours in many fields.
I have been asked by the National Association of Probation Officers to render their tribute along with mine, and I gladly do so tonight. I speak as one who knew him in his last years in this House, and particularly in his capacity as a penal reformer. If I had to sum up in a sentence my impression of him (and our association grew closer as time went on, until it was very close at the end) I would speak of him in connection with penal reform as a committed, a dedicated man. His was, I think—and those who have known him in past years can perhaps confirm this—a complex nature, and it may be that in some earlier periods that had not always been an advantage to him. But when I knew him all seemed to be

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simplified in his old age in a burning passion for truth and justice; and it was a great pleasure to fight with him—if I may use the expression, "beneath his petticoats"—and to accept the leadership of one who was so much more eminent than we were.
It may be that he shortened his life by joining me and others in initiating the recent debate on crime and prisons which we had in your Lordships' House only a few weeks ago. He told me that he had influenza at the time, and some of us may remember that he left the House on that occasion. When he reappeared later he was still suffering, I fear, from that, and it may be, therefore, that his participation in that debate shortened his life. If so, all of us here—certainly I, who was rather directly concerned with it—will have many regrets. But I am sure that he has no regrets. He died as we in this House had always found him—a Christian statesman with an unrivalled knowledge of the world, but with his eyes set on higher things. Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to his lifelong companion, his noble wife, who sustained him at every stage of his journey.
8.0 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will bear with me for a moment if I join my noble friend Lord Winterton and the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, in saying how great a loss this House has suffered from the death of the noble Viscount, Lord Templewood. As the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has reminded us, our debate of April 8 was the last occasion on which lie took part in the deliberations of your Lordships' House, and it is significant and not irrelevant to my noble friend's Question this evening that the last decade of Lord Templewood's long career had as its main concern the causes and the cure of crime in this country.
He played so many and distinguished parts in our national politics, to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has referred, that those of us who worked with him—in my case, for almost exactly a quarter of a century—are apt to forget that the cause which lay nearest his heart was penal reform, and that among the multitude of his achievements not the least was his tenure of the office of
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Home Secretary. It is interesting that his last speech in your Lordships' House dealt with one of the points which my noble friend made in his speech to-day, and I think that we should do most to honour Lord Templewood's memory if every one of us contributed to the best of his ability towards raising the moral standards of the community and consequently towards reducing the volume of crime. That was a point he urged on us with great force and to me with moving power.
I think that my noble friend Lord Winterton would agree with me, from his infinitely greater experience, that one of the most difficult problems of being a politician in the complicated modern State is to see clearly the wood for the trees amidst the enormous pressure of details that fall upon the Administration to-day. It was because Lord Templewood succeeded in that almost superhuman task, not only of seeing the wood clearly but of also keeping his own ideals clear, that his memory will always be green. We join with great feeling in the sympathy which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has expressed towards his wife.
My noble friend Lord Winterton began by making the point once again that the increase in crime is one of the most disturbing facts of this period. He said that it used to be thought that crime was caused largely by poverty, and that if poverty could be removed the incentives to dishonesty, which accounts for some 85 per cent. of indictable crime, would be removed. We have learned by bitter experience that this is not so. At a time when the country is more prosperous than it has ever been, and when a great many of the evils of bad housing, ignorance and ill-health have been, if not overcome, at least much reduced, we find that crime is greater than ever before.
We are coming to recognise that the problem is far from simple; that it is not a question of finding one or two major causes of crime that can be removed by Government action, but that it is a question of studying a whole complex of factors which interact to encourage or inhibit the growth of crime. It is from that point of view that I should like to put my reflections before my noble friend, because they have led me not to doubt the necessity for an inquiry, but to doubt whether a Royal Commission is the

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proper form. My noble friend will forgive me if I deal with his points in outline, because every one of them could easily be the subject of a long speech in itself.
My noble friend dealt with the difficulties of redemptionists in deterrence. My answer to that, if I may put it shortly, is that since 1895 and the Gladstone Report it has been clear to all but a very small number of those who study penology that deterrence in itself fails. My noble friend described deterrence clearly and powerfully. That has been tried and has failed, and from that time the dilemma has been to find the combination of deterrence and reformative treatment that is needed. There must be an element of deterrence. The removal of a wrongdoer from society has deterrence as one of its aims. But it is the combination that we are looking for. I entirely agree with, and I do not think that there are many of us who would question the noble Earl's point about the fall in moral standards. Certainly anyone who did me the honour of paying any attention to my own period as Home Secretary, whatever view he might have of other of my opinions, would agree that that was a point whose importance I took every opportunity of stating and of underlining.
With regard to the question of capital punishment, a Royal Commission reported on this matter a relatively short time ago. Despite a limitation in the Commission's terms of reference, I do not think that we could get much further information on the subject than the reading of that Report will give. In the end, one comes to certain subjective judgments on the matter. One has to take the effect on the minds of ordinary criminals, and I have no doubt at all that hanging does prevent a section of ordinary criminals from stepping from dishonesty to violence and the killing of a person in a house. But it came out clearly, when we discussed this question two years ago, that though this is my opinion, based on my own experience, other people have, and are entitled to have, different views. But I do not think that there are new facts on this question—at any rate, not from the consideration I have given.
The flogging point, which the noble Earl probably has in mind, is one of the
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most interesting, because, as he knows from his experience, the only major crime for which flogging was used was robbery with violence. That punishment was abolished in 1948. From 1949 to 1955 there was a decline in robbery with violence at a time when, broadly, there was a rise in most crimes; certainly there was a substantial rise in crime from 1949 to 1951. Since then there has only been one year, 1958, when the number of cases of robbery with violence has been more than in 1948; and as the noble Earl is aware, in 1958 the figures of indictable offices were going up extremely quickly.
I have said something of the attitude of the public, and I should like to deal with two other matters. I would assure my noble friend that since I have been Lord Chancellor nobody has been made a magistrate, to my knowledge—and I see every one of them—who has committed a serious motoring offence. There may be some discussion as to what is serious, but certainly I have never appointed, for example, anyone who has been convicted of being drunk in charge of a car. I have not actually checked it before coming in, but I cannot remember appointing as a magistrate anyone who has been convicted of dangerous driving. I would not say that I have not appointed someone who has been fined for parking. I may, in an exceptional case, after a long period have appointed someone who has been convicted of careless driving; but again I cannot remember it. Certainly it is my practice not to do it. I hope that that will be some assurance to the noble Earl.
EARL WINTERTON: May I put this point to my noble and learned friend, because I do not think I could have made myself clear? According to the contention which appeared in a newspaper—it may be false—there had been cases of magistrates who had committed serious motoring offences continuing to sit on the bench afterwards.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am grateful to my noble friend. It is difficult to get the exact nuance. I thought my noble friend was dealing with appointments, and I shall go on to deal with that. Any magistrate who is convicted of a serious motoring offence is dealt with by me. Again, I might in certain cases, if he had given a long period of good service before the offence, move him to the

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supplementary list rather than remove him from the commission. But Iwant to make it quite clear, as the point has been raised in this House, that it is quite wrong to give the impression that I should pass the matter over.
The other point made by my noble fiend concerned the rise in the number of cases of homosexual crime. That, of course, is absolutely true, and that was the reason why, when I was Home Secretary, I included that point in the terms of reference of the Wolfenden Committee. So that there again we have had the matter considered. We have had an interesting debate on that point, in which I think the three of us took part, and we can examine it again. But we have had the problem examined.
I have tried to show that a great number of matters have been examined, and the facts are before us, but I want to make two points as to causation. Of course, fundamentally the causes of crime lie in human weakness, but human weakness reacts in different ways to different circumstances and to different stimuli: environment, upbringing, opportunity and the moral climate of the group or neighbourhood in which the individual finds himself. Basically I believe that the problem is a moral and spiritual one. Secondly, it is a social problem of considerable complexity. We have only recently begun to study the way in which men live and interact in society. The tools of that study—sociology, psychology and criminology—are relatively new. They are being developed and the Government are most anxious to assist their development and their application to this problem of crime.
Therefore I attach great importance—and I think I can speak for my right honourable friend Mr. Butler in this—to the creation of the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge. I believe it will give a powerful impulse in this direction. My right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland, through the work of the Joint Research Unit of their two Departments, will do all that they can to help and stimulate research, both at Cambridge and elsewhere, on these problems. I believe that research is a better method of approaching them than the appointment of a Royal Commission. I differ with great diffidence from my
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noble friend and his experience, but I should like to give him my views so that he can consider them. A Royal Commission is a valuable means of gathering facts and assembling opinion, but I believe that the problem here is principally one of obtaining information which is not at present available to anybody, and for this purpose the techniques of criminological and sociological research are more appropriate than those of a body which proceeds by hearing evidence.
My noble friend thought that a Royal Commission was alone in possessing legal authority. I was interested in the way he framed his Question, and I had a look at that legal problem. It surprised me, and I am sure it will surprise him, to know that, apart from having the right to ask a witness to take the oath, on which the witness can make a decision, a Royal Commission has not got the power to compel witnesses to give evidence. That can only be done by an inquiry set up under the Tribunals and Inquiry Act, 1921—a form of inquiry which I may say was praised with faint damns in your Lordships' House the last time we discussed it a few weeks ago. I only say that as a matter of interest, because I was myself surprised. I do not think the point I make is a very relevant one. In fact, it is not a question here of extracting from unwilling witnesses knowledge which they are known to possess. Unfortunately, nobody at present holds the key to this problem. It is one that we must study by whatever means seem most likely to produce results.
While it is not absolutely unknown for a Royal Commission to put in hand research on a relatively limited subject, I believe that where the problem is so wide and so difficult the answer will be found only by research carried out on a number of fronts by a number of disciplines, acting sometimes independently, sometimes in co-operation; and this kind of work seems to he eminently for the universities to undertake, assisted and encouraged, as they will be, by the Government.
I have put the point quite shortly. Again, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if I make this perfectly clear. What I have said does not mean that

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active measures to deal with crime must be postponed until years of patient research have produced the knowledge of its causes. The Government are doing everything possible to deal with the penal side of crime on the lines set out in the White Paper, which I shall not repeat to-day, and to co-operate with those influences in society, and in particular the churches and voluntary organisations concerned with welfare and education, to maintain sound moral standards and to stimulate those forces in society which are resistant to the growth of crime.
I say again what I said in the last debate. It is morally wrong for Parliament or anyone in the country to attempt to represent this as something which is wholly the concern of the Government. It is a concern for Parliament. It is a concern for every individual person of good will and, of course, it is a great concern for the churches as leaders of thought. I ventured to say last time that there is perhaps a special, heavy responsibility on us who aspire to be and hold ourselves out to he the political leaders of the people of this country. That must go on. My own view is that, apart from all we can do, there is a double inspiration which we must get into the people of this country and which perhaps your Lordships will forgive me if I put personally. I see it in two persons: someone like Peter the Hermit, who will remind people of their sins and the failure
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of their moral standards—that is a matter for the Church—and, at the same time, someone like Sir John Moore with the Light Division at Sheerness 150 years ago, who will translate ideas into the practical methods by which the lives of many people can be put on a better plane before crime comes for the first time and casts the shadow. These are duties in the fields of religion and the playing fields which none of us can avoid. Having answered my noble friend on a rather detailed basis as his speech required, I hope he will forgive my emphasising once again the general view which I so strongly feel.

ROUND OAK STEEL WORKS (LEVEL CROSSINGS) BILL [H.L.]
Commons Amendments, considered and agreed to.
ROYAL WANSTEAD SCHOOL BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to.

FINSBURY SQUARE BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, without amendment.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past eight o'clock.