Sitting of 30 June 1960

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
  Lords Amendments considered and agreed to.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Industrial Development, London Area
    Mrs. Butlerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will consult with the Minister of Housing and Local Government and local planning authorities in London and the Home Counties with a view to formulating a more effective policy for controlling the spread of commercial and industrial development in the area.
    The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I consider that the policy of controlling industrial development in London and the Home Counties by means of industrial development certificates is effective. In operating it, I am in touch with my right hon. Friend and with local authorities. I have no powers over commercial development.
    Mrs. Butler: Does the Minister appreciate that, despite the efforts of planning authorities, employment in the area bounded by the Green Belt increased by 91,000 between 1953 and 1958, with consequent pressure on available housing accommodation, and now that the land in the area—not only in the centre but that adjoining the Green Belt—is reaching £100,000 an acre, pressure on planning authorities to permit greater development is increasing, because that is the only thing that can be done economically with land at that
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    price? Is it not essential that there should be co-ordination of land policy for the area as a whole if the build-up of commercial properties in the central areas of the region is not to be intensified?
    Mr. Maudling: I agree that the problem of expansion of industrial employment in the London area is a very difficult one. We are operating a fairly stiff policy with regard to it, but it would not be sensible to put a total ban on any additional employment because so much additional efficiency in industry would be lost if we operated any rule as stringent as that.
    Mr. Jay: While I agree that an absolute total ban is impossible, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied with a situation in which, if he refuses an industrial development certificate for a factory, the Board of Trade does not have to pay any compensation, whereas if a London local authority refuses permission for an office building it is forced to pay heavy compensation? Does not the matter need reconsideration?
    Mr. Maudling: It may need reconsideration, but not, I think, by the Board of Trade.
    Mr. Jay: Then, does it not need reconsideration by the Government?

    European Free Trade
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will particularise his efforts during the last three weeks to bring together the European Economic Community and the European Free Trade Association; what degree of success he has achieved; and what further steps he intends to take to this end.
    Mr. Maudling: At the meeting of the Trade Committee in Paris on 10th June it was agreed to establish machinery for examining immediate trade problems which will arise as a result of the formation of the two groups and to continue discussion of the long term at a further meeting.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what industries were considered? Is he aware that the Scottish paper-making and fishery industries and others are vitally interested in the effect

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    which these complicated organisations and reorganisations will have upon their future? What steps is he taking to ensure that such Scottish industries, particularly those in Aberdeen, are adequately protected?
    Mr. Maudling: The hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned one or two industries which may suffer greater competition as a result of the European Free Trade Association. On the other hand, we feel that the gain that will come to Scottish industry as a whole as a result of a widening export market will more than counterbalance the difficulties, and we believe E.F.T.A. to be in the interest of Scotland and, indeed, the whole of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Has there been any significant change in the attitude of either the Government or the Common Market Powers which will bring about success in this field?
    Mr. Maudling: The position is quite simple. We have said on more than one occasion that we and our colleagues in the Seven are anxious to negotiate with the Six a long-term settlement, and we recognise that, in order to reach agreement, big concessions may be needed. But the Six at the moment are not prepared to negotiate in any way at all about a long-term settlement. Therefore, until there are two parties willing to negotiate, it is difficult to make any progress.

    Geneva Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the President of the Board of Trade what decisions were reached at the sixteenth session of the Geneva Agreement on Tariffs and Trade at which Her Majesty's Government were represented and which ended in Geneva on 4th June, 1960; what estimate he has made of their effect on Scottish trade and industry; and what steps will be taken to implement these decisions.
    Mr. Maudling: The discussion at the session related principally to such general matters as the consistency of the European Free Trade Association with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the desirability of expanding the exports of less-developed countries. The Contracting Parties to the General Agreement took certain formal decisions;
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    for the most part, they were of minor importance and permitted individual Governments to take action which would otherwise have been technically contrary to the General Agreement. As the list of these decisions is rather long, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It would not be practicable to estimate the effect of these decisions, if any, on Scottish trade and industry.
    Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that certain Scottish industries have been greatly prejudiced by the recent organisations and reorganisations referred to in the Question? What I really want to know is what steps he is taking to protect those Scottish industries.
    Mr. Maudling: The Question asked about the decisions taken at the last meeting of G.A.T.T., and I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the actual decisions taken. The hon. and learned Gentleman will see from that that they have not much relevance to the particular problem which he rightly has in mind.
    Following is the information:
    Decisions were taken by the Contracting Parties to the G.A.T.T. at their 16th Session, held in Geneva from 16th May to 4th June, on the following matters:

    (i) for the establishment of a Council to deal with urgent matters between Sessions;

    (ii) for the waiving of the provisions of Article I to permit South Africa to increase certain duties while incidentally increasing the preferences enjoyed by the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland;

    (iii) for the suspension of the provisions of Article II referring to the binding of duties to enable New Zealand to introduce a new tariff;

    (iv) for the extension for 60 days of the period granted to Brazil within which certain tariff concessions are to be put into effect;

    (v) for the extension of the suspension of the provisions of Article II to enable Greece to introduce a revised tariff;

    (vi) for the extension of the time-limit for the negotiations of modifications to certain tariff concessions;

    (vii) for the release of Ceylon and Cuba (under procedures in Article XVIII) from certain obligations so as to enable them to apply measures to meet special difficulties in the establishment or substantial expansion of particular industries;

    (viii) for the extension of the period prescribed in paragraph 3 (a) of Article XIX during which contracting parties might avail themselves, in the event of the failure of consultations with the United States about restrictions on imports of lead and zinc, of rights under that paragraph;

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    (ix) for the retention of paragraph (j) of Article XX for a further 5 years;

    (x) for the participation of Spain and Portugal, pending full accession, in the work of the Contracting Parties;

    (xi) for the extension of the date for accepting the Declaration on the provisional accession of Switzerland;

    (xii) for the establishment of Working Parties in the Latin American Free Trade Area, the Avoidance of Market Disruption, and Restrictive Business Practices.

    Moquette (Imports)
    Mr. Houghtonasked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what decision he has reached on the application of the Moquette Weavers Association for increased duty on Belgian moquettes;
    (2) whether he is aware that imports of moquette now constitute 75 per cent. of the total trade in this material; and what reply he has given to the representations of the Moquette Weavers Association on the effect of imports from Belgium.
    Mr. Maudling: I am aware of the high level of the imports of moquette. The Board of Trade announced on 16th June that it was considering an application for increased import duties on moquette furnishing fabrics and invited representations from interested parties. A decision will be taken as soon as possible after these representations have been received and considered.
    Mr. Houghton: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may ask him why these things take so long? My vision of the Board of Trade is of a Department of diversified activities choked with piles of paper. Why do not things come out quickly?
    Mr. Maudling: Because we are determined to get a satisfactory answer, even, if necessary, at the cost of a certain amount of delay. An application was first put in to us in May 1959, but was revised and re-submitted in February of this year. The important thing is to give full opportunity to everyone concerned to put their views to us, because it is not only the home manufacturers who are concerned. It is the home consumer and also the importer. If people are to continue to have confidence in this machinery, it is most important that the Board of Trade should give everyone a full chance to state their case before it
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    reaches its decision. I know that this sometimes causes disappointment, but I think that it is the right policy.

    Reece Button-hole Machine (Import Duty)
    Mr. Fitchasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will remove the import duty on the Reece button-hole machine, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Wigan.
    Mr. Maudling: I will consider an application from a representative body of users for the removal of this duty.
    Mr. Fitch: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Does he realise that this import duty discriminates against the small tailoring firms and that its removal certainly will be welcomed by them?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that there is quite a problem here about removing the duty, which I will certainly consider if it is put to me, and remission in individual cases. I think that the problem is the rule that for administrative purposes there must be a minimum figure below which applications for remission of duty cannot be considered.
    Mr. Jay: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain to the House the apparently rather extraordinary situation in which the fewer machines a person imports the higher duty he has to pay?
    Mr. Maudling: This was the result of the Wilson Smith Committee recommendations in 1954, which imposed a value limit. If the total value of machinery being imported was below £2,000, an application could not be considered. The point was to cut away the very large administrative difficulties involved in handling a great number of applications. It was a rule adopted as a result of the Wilson Smith Committee Report in 1954 and is, on the whole, a sensible rule.

    Oils and Petrol (Distribution)
    Mr. Darlingasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will introduce regulations to require that oils and petrol shall be delivered to garages and filling stations through approved flow-meters, so as to ensure that garage proprietors and filling station operators get the exact quantities they pay for.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power at present to make such regulations. Proposals for dealing with liquid fuel and lubricants will be included in the Weights and Measures Bill which is in preparation.
    Mr. Darling: I thank the President of the Board of Trade for the information that the new Weights and Measures Bill will cover this point. Can we rely on it that it will be covered in the Weights and Measures Bill when we get it? When are we likely to get the Bill?
    Mr. Maudling: It certainly will be covered when the Bill is produced, but on the timing of it I cannot add anything to what I said to the hon. Gentleman last week.
    Mr. Boydenasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has now decided to refer the distribution of petrol and lubricating oils to the Monopolies Commission for inquiry.
    Mr. Maudling: As I told the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) on 23rd June, I am considering further references to the Commission, but I am not in a position to make a statement on what they will be.
    Mr. Boyden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable discontent among small garage proprietors; that members of the public are probably being mulcted to provide the very large profits of the oil companies; and that we could very well allow a considerably greater amount of competition? Will he give this very urgent consideration?
    Mr. Maudling: I certainly am aware that these views are expressed, and the fact that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) gave notice that he would raise this on the Adjournment will no doubt stimulate me to more rapid action.

    Unit Trusts
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the President of the Board of Trade, since unit trusts are debarred from door-to-door selling but insurance companies are not, what steps he proposes to take to safeguard the public now that insurance companies are entering the unit trust field; if he is satisfied that it is in the public interest
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    that direct restraint on unit trusts should be maintained; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Maudling: Unit trusts are not prohibited from door-to-door selling but no unit trust sells units in this way and I am assured that the insurance company in question does not intend to do so either.
    As to the second part of the Question, my Department has been in consultation with unit trust managers about amendments to the Board of Trade requirements and hope soon to receive their comments.
    Mr. Osborne: I am obliged for that reply. Would not my right hon. Friend agree that, through unintentional misrepresentation as a result of high-pressure salesmanship, a situation could develop in which people would be buying at the door, which would not be desirable? If that situation were to develop, would my right hon. Friend watch it and ensure that some restrictions were imposed on this method?
    Mr. Maudling: We certainly will keep a close watch on it.

    County Durham
    Mr. Boydenasked the President of the Board of Trade how the figure of 10,000 new jobs in County Durham was arrived at; where the jobs are expected to accrue; and by what date.
    Mr. Maudling: The figure of 10,000 new jobs in the administrative County of Durham was based on confidential estimates by firms of their future employment within the next four years in new and expanding projects in the County. More than half these jobs are expected to accrue before the end of 1962 and a substantial proportion during 1960 and 1961. They are divided between the different parts of the County, excluding county boroughs, approximately as follows:—

    South Tyneside

    2,500

    Wearside, Central Durham and areas to the west of Durham

    3,400

    North Tees-side and the Hartlepools

    Over 3,000

    South Durham

    1,000

    Mr. Boyden: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there has certainly been

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    delay but not satisfaction? My constituency, or the exchange areas which serve my constituency, have had nearly 2,000 people out of work for over twelve months, and the figure is now running at about 1,700 and 100 boys. What steps does the right hon. Gentleman think will be taken, particularly in the mining areas? Very often the development takes place at Aycliffe and other areas. What developments can he anticipate in the mining areas of the south-west of the county?
    Mr. Maudling: Taking County Durham as a whole, I think that the position is a good deal better than it was. I entirely agree that there is much more still to be done, but I think that the figure I have given shows that there is probably a lot in the pipeline. In fact, 10,000 is a modest estimate. We can probably go a little higher than that.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we are bound to regard these figures somewhat sceptically in view of our past history, when huge figures of potential employment have been stated but, when they have been worked out, they have been less than half of what we were given?
    Mr. Maudling: The House is probably entitled to regard any estimates made by Ministers with scepticism. That is one of the main functions of the House of Commons. Having looked at this closely, I feel that these are pretty firm estimates. They are based on what the companies have told us, and 10,000 is a little below the figure I could have stated if I had given the maximum.
    Mr. Pentlandasked the President of the Board of Trade what evidence, by way of research and economic studies, is being taken by his Department in order to assist him in the preparation of a plan to meet the long-term industrial requirements of the County of Durham.
    Mr. Maudling: The preparation of development plans is a matter for the local planning authority. My Department is, of course, responsible under the Local Employment Act for determining the development districts in which the assistance provided by the Act can be made available for the encouragement of new enterprises and reports on the
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    industrial situation in parts of the country, including the County of Durham, where special problems reveal a need for additional employment, are made by my regional officers in the area as occasion requires.
    Mr. Pentland: That is not enough. Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that what is really needed in the County of Durham is a positive plan that will indicate quite clearly what the county's future industrial prospects are? Is he aware that one-third of the working population of the county is engaged in the basic industries that are now in a phase of contraction? We already have much adult and juvenile unemployment, and the provisions in the Local Employment Act are only scratching the surface of the problem. What is to happen to the county in the future?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly tell the hon. Member all I can, but I am sure that the preparation of local development plans is best left to local authorities, who understand the position best. In the Board of Trade, we try to steer industrial development into areas like Durham, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where there is a serious unemployment problem, but I cannot predict what will happen in five years' time, because I do not know which industries, in five years' time, will be trying to expand and, therefore, what there will be available to steer.
    Mr. Pentland: Is it not the case that there is to be a contraction in the colliery areas? Is any plan forthcoming from the Government to meet that emergency when it arises?
    Mr. Maudling: Our plan is to try to steer industry to the area, and from the figures I gave I think that it is quite clear that quite a substantial amount of new employment is likely to accrue to the County of Durham in the next few years.

    Woollen Goods (United States Tariff Quota)
    Mr. Jayasked the President of the Board of Trade what response he has received from the United States Government to his request for a relaxation of the United States tariff-quota on imports of woollen goods
    Mr. Maudling: I had a helpful discussion of this matter in Washington two weeks ago with representatives of the United States Administration. I am satisfied that they are doing everything possible to find an early solution.
    Mr. Jay: As this is a peculiarly vicious form of restriction and as this argument has now gone on for several years, can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how much longer the industry has to wait for actual action by the United States Government?
    Mr. Maudling: I am fairly confident that it will not be very long now.

    Motor Vehicles (Toughened Glass)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will amend the British Standards specification for toughened glass for motor vehicles so as to specify a maximum as well as a minimum number of fragments per square inch.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power to amend a British Standard as my hon. Friend suggests.
    Mr. Johnson: If it were possible to specify a maximum number of particles, it would mean that the figure could be low enough to ensure being able to see at least the outlines of objects in the event of a windshield shattering, while at the same time providing the necessary standards of safety.
    Mr. Maudling: That sounds a very good argument. I must be very careful on this, because the British Standards Institution is a wholly independent body and I am sure that the Government should not in any way try to influence its decisions.

    Local Employment Act
    Mr. Peytonasked the President of the Board of Trade what further information he will now give concerning payments made to privately-owned companies under the Local Employment Act.
    Mr. Maudling: It will be my intention to include in the Annual Report to Parliament on the operation of the Local Employment Act figures showing the total payments made by loan and by grant to private firms under the Act
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    in as much detail as can be disclosed without revealing information about the agreements made with individual firms, which I do not consider it would be proper for me to publish.
    Mr. Peyton: Could not my right hon. Friend look at this again and consider giving the House information from time to time, both about the individual firms and the amount, if not the exact terms of repayment? Does he not understand how quite intolerable it is for the ordinary private Members of Parliament to see this spectacle repeated again and again—Parliament authorising action and then not being told the result of that action? I hope my right hon. Friend will take this point seriously.
    Mr. Maudling: I have looked at this several times and it worries me a good deal. What we will make available is the amount of money provided by the Government and the results obtained from the provision of that money, but to specify in detail what our confidential arrangements with individual firms were would frustrate our policy, and the readiness of firms to come forward into these areas and accept Government assistance might in a considerable degree be prejudiced if they knew that all that went on between us and them had to be revealed to the House of Commons. I know that it is very difficult, but after looking at it several times I am satisfied that it is the right decision.
    Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is the Government's reticence in this matter an indication of the need to walk delicately in what is now realised as a foolishly-conceived policy? If not, can we have from the right hon. Gentleman a better justification that he has now given? For example, does he realise that the total amount of loans to individual firms such as Colvilles and Richard Thomas and Baldwins have been disclosed? Why cannot he state, in the form of a White Paper, the actual amounts, even if he has to withhold details of the terms of repayment?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly look at that. I want to give as much information as possible without frustrating the purpose of the policy which, whether or not my noble Friend agrees, we still believe to be the right policy, but to

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    give individual details of individual contracts with individual firms would really frustrate the purpose of that policy. We want to give the total picture of what the Government are doing. As to loans and grants, I can act only on the advice of B.O.T.A.C., an independent advisory committee. That is a precaution inserted into the Act by Parliament, and I think that it is a good one.
    Mr. Jay: While I think that there is force in the right hon. Gentleman's objection to giving the names of the individual firms—which, after all, follows the practice of the Inland Revenue—could he, without going as far as that, give more particulars, such as the rates of interest on the loans?
    Mr. Maudling: I have not yet settled the form of the annual report, in which I am anxious to include as much information as possible. I shall certainly take this suggestion and other suggestions into account when settling the form of the report.
    Mr. Peyton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the importance of this matter, I beg to give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

    Soviet Trade Delegation (Talks)
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on his recent talks with the Soviet Trade Delegation in London.
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the President of the Board of Trade what trade agreement has been made with the Soviet Trade Delegation in London.
    Mr. Maudling: These talks were the first of a series of five annual reviews of the operation of the Soviet Five Year Trade Agreement of May, 1959. Since the Agreement, trade both ways has increased substantially, and the range of goods involved has widened.
    The two delegations arranged for an increase in the total quotas for consumer goods, which will now amount to £4 million each way, and for the import of Soviet equipment up to a total value of £2·5 million against corresponding exports of United Kingdom goods. The detailed quotas within these totals are to be fixed in discussion with the Soviet Trade Delegation.
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    They also agreed upon arrangements for further discussions on trade including a Treaty of Commerce and Navigation.
    Mr. Osborne: I thank my right hon. Friend especially for the item on consumer goods that the Soviet Union will buy from us. What group of raw materials or goods can the Soviet Union sell to this country to give them the sterling they require to buy the goods we want to sell to them, and so provide more employment here? Did the Russians press for any special group of goods that my right hon. Friend felt could not be included?
    Mr. Maudling: They pressed very hard on oil, and we said, "No." The fact is that in recent years the value of Soviet exports to the United Kingdom has been twice as much as the value of the stuff they have bought from us, so I think that they are in a position to buy a lot more from this country. According to the Russian figures, our exports to Russia in the early months of the year have been up about 39 per cent. over our sales there a year ago. If so, I think that this trade is expanding very well.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Did they raise the question of having to divert orders from this country to Continental countries because of the Government's refusal to change their mind about oil imports?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not recall that, but the threat to divert orders from one country to another is part of the normal mechanism of trade agreements throughout the world.

    Machine Tool Industry
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet had a report from the committee set up towards the end of January this year to report on the machine tool industry; and what action he is now taking to assist the machine tool industry.
    Mr. Maudling: I understand that the Sub-Committee has almost completed its inquiries and has started to prepare its report to the Machine Tool Advisory Council. The question whether any further action should be taken to assist the industry will be considered when this is received
    Mr. Davies: While thanking the President of the Board of Trade for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that since the Report of the Metal Working Machine Tool Productivity Team in 1953, the Government have apparently taken very little action over this vital British key industry? When the right hon. Gentleman is considering help to the industry, are we once again to have a pattern of help in which masses of money will be given to private enterprise without a full report to Parliament? Will he look seriously at the four or five main criticisms—I will not repeat them—made of this industry in the past ten years? Unless Britain does something about this, we shall lose our place industrially in the world.
    Mr. Maudling: I think that the pattern of any help to be given to the industry must wait until we see from the report whether such help is needed and, if it is, what form it should take. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to decry too much the efforts of this very important export industry. In the first four months of this year its exports were 38 per cent. up on the same period a year ago—a fine achievement. I am sure that this is one of our most important industries, and a key industry whose products, as the recent exhibition at Olympia showed, compare with any in the world.

    Fertilisers (Monopolies Commission's Report)
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the President of the Board of Trade why there was a delay of four and a half years in the publication of the Report of the Monopolies Commission on the fertiliser monopolies in this country.
    Mr. Maudling: Although the reference was originally made on 29th October, 1955, work on it was much delayed by the discussions which resulted in the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956. After the Report had been received on 23rd July, 1959, the Board of Trade had to consider requests by the parties concerned for the excision of material that might be included in the Report. Publication was further delayed by the printing strike in the autumn of 1959.
    Mr. Davies: While once again thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his reply, may I ask whether he is aware that some of us—perhaps on both sides of
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    the House—feel that these Reports presented to Parliament do not contain the material with which Members should be provided? Can he say why this Report, presented so late, did not give figures of profits and costs after 1957, when we are now in 1960? Is he aware that this industry costs the British public £30 million in subsidies to farmers, and that farmers pay £100 million to the fertiliiser manufacturers? Will he try to get the Report brought up to date, so that Parliament can be honestly and truly informed of the position in the industry?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that it was a very good Report and that, by and large, the impression given of the industry is very satisfactory. I think that there was a debate in which the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture took part, and my impression is that the information was then brought up to date.
    Mr. Willey: But it is recognised that the Report is incomplete, because the sulphate of ammonia agreements were excluded from the terms of reference of the Monopolies Commission. Will the right hon. Gentleman do his best to see that this is considered by the Restrictive Practices Court, because until we get those we cannot have a complete picture of the operation of monopolies in fertilisers?
    Mr. Maudling: I am afraid that the order and timing of taking cases by that court is in the hands of the registrar, who cannot be influenced by Parliament, but I am sure that note will be taken of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

    Soap Powders and Detergents
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the President of the Board of Trade if he will make regulations under appropriate Acts to ensure that accurate measures of the contents, and where practicable a statement of ingredients, are clearly marked on the containers of soap powders, detergents, and similar consumer goods.
    Mr. Maudling: I have no power to make such regulations but I am considering the inclusion of proposals about the marking of soap and detergent containers with the amount of the contents in the new Weights and Measures Bill.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. Has he considered the fact that modern point of sale design techniques make it very easy to produce extremely misleading packages and that the housewife has no means of knowing whether the giant packet of soap powder has in it more or less than the ordinary one?
    Mr. Maudling: That is a very interesting point and in framing the Weights and Measures Bill it is the sort of thing that we have in mind, but I cannot prejudge exactly what will be done about it.
    Mrs. Braddock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most of these packets are filled by machinery and that the weight is known when it is put into the packet, but that very few of the packets are full when they reach the consumer? If the weight were put upon the packets when they were being filled, it would be of very great assistance to the housewife in enabling her to know that she was not being diddled.
    Mr. Maudling: I have precisely that sort of consideration in mind.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Could not we have the price put on these packets, because when one looks at one and sees "3d. off", one never knows what price the threepence is off?
    Mr. Maudling: That is a question that I have often wondered about myself and have wanted an answer to, but I have not known to whom to put down a Question.
    Mrs. Slater: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Co-operative movement already puts the weight of the contents on its packets? If the Co-operative movement can do it, so that the housewife knows how much she has bought for so much cash, is there any reason why other firms cannot do the same? Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long he thinks it will be before the Weights and Measures Bill is introduced?
    Mr. Maudling: I cannot comment on the competitive position of the Co-operative movement in these matters. I think that should be left to the consumer. As I have said, the Weights and Measures Bill is nearly ready and I hope very much that it will be introduced in the next Session.

    Imports
    Mr. Jayasked the President of the Board of Trade what has been the percentage increase in United Kingdom imports of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods, respectively, in the past six months, compared with the corresponding months one year earlier.
    Mr. Maudling: In respect of the six months ending 31st May, 1960, the increases are nil, 21 per cent. and 47 per cent., respectively. The last figure includes materials for further processing.
    Mr. Jay: Are these not rather striking figures which show that the present weakness of our balance of payments is not so much due to increased raw material imports because of industrial expansion as to the relaxations which the right hon. Gentleman has been making in the last eighteen months on imports of manufactured goods?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think so at all. I anticipated that supplementary question. As I said before, the category of industrial or manufactured goods includes a great deal of semi-manufactures which are required for our own industry. So far as I can make out from the figures, which I have studied very closely, the increase in the imports of finished manufactures is related to these liberalisation measures only to a very limited extent. On the other side there has been a very big increase in our export of these things. We cannot expect to sell them abroad freely unless we buy freely.
    Mr. Jay: Why is the increase in the whole class of manufactured goods so much greater than that of raw materials?
    Mr. Maudling: It is precisely because in that field people want to buy more things. There is a rising demand not, I think, because of liberalisation. Even without liberalisation measures one would have had an increase of very much the same size in this group.

    Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire
    Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the area which includes Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire is the only area in Scotland where unemployment is higher than in June, 1959; and what action he proposes to take to attract new industries to this area.
    Mr. Maudling: I am aware that unemployment in the Stranraer Exchange area has risen from 5·6 per cent. in June, 1959, to 6·2 per cent. in June, 1960, but unemployment in the other two exchange areas in Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire, Castle Douglas and Newton Stewart, has fallen. Stranraer is a development district under the Local Employment Act and the Board of Trade will continue in its efforts to interest firms in this area.
    Mr. Brewis: My figures are 1,499 and 1,455. I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he does not think that is a serious position in such a large area, and whether he would not consider Dumfries and Dalbeattie very suitable centres for industry and schedule them under the Local Employment Act?
    Mr. Maudling: I will look into that point. The figure for Stranraer Exchange area is 6·2 per cent., but that for Castle Douglas has fallen from 2·8 to 2·3 per cent. and that for Newton Stewart from 3·8 to 3·2 per cent. over the last twelve months. There has been a definite improvement there.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how the 6 per cent. Bank Rate and other restrictive measures will help to solve this problem?
    Mr. Maudling: It will help to keep the economy of the country stable and sound—
    Mr. Manuel: What about Stranraer?
    Mr. Maudling:—which is of fundamental importance to Stranraer just as it is to any other part of the country.

    Stranraer
    Mr. Brewisasked the President of the Board of Trade how many applications for assistance under the Local Employment Act have been received from the Stranraer development area.
    Mr. Maudling: None, Sir.
    Mr. Brewis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is very disappointing, and will he use his influence with other Government Departments, such as the Admiralty, to see whether Government contracts could be placed in the area?
    Mr. Maudling: I will certainly look at that. I agree that it is very disappointing, but the fact is that, although
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    we call this area and other areas to the attention of people who are expanding, there has not as yet been any application for help. We shall certainly persist in doing all we can.
    Mr. Ross: Are not the results here most disappointing? Will the President of the Board of Trade ensure that, in the panic to do something, his Ministry does not forget that new industries are wanted in Scotland, and will he tell his Department to stop trying to bribe with financial inducements firms to go out of areas of traditionally unstable employment, such as Kilmarnock, to other areas?
    Mr. Maudling: I do not think that my Department is in a panic, nor do I think that we indulge in bribery. The problem in Scotland is to provide more jobs; whether they are from new or from existing industries I am not sure matters one way or the other. The great thing is more jobs.

    Milford Docks, Ltd. (Loan)
    Mr. Peytonasked the President of the Board of Trade for what reasons the Treasury has lent £128,000 to Milford Docks, Ltd.; and on what terms.
    Mr. Maudling: The loan of £128,000 as announced by the chairman of this company was made under the Distribution of Industry Acts for the purpose of providing the company with finance to enable it to handle the increased business expected to be offered at the dock and thereby to reduce the rate of unemployment in the locality. The terms of the loan are confidential.
    Mr. Peyton: Can my right hon. Friend say whether or not this company could have found the finance from normal sources without having recourse to the Exchequer? More generally, now that we have an instance of one chairman who is not quite so shy, does my right hon. Friend think that those companies which are getting admitted and definite advantage from public sources should not have their convenience subordinated to the interests of Parliament and the country?
    Mr. Maudling: It is not a matter of their convenience. It is a matter of making the policy work. I am not concerned with the convenience of the companies. I am concerned with getting

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    companies into areas where employment is needed. That is the important thing to bear in mind. On this particular case, the provision in previous legislation was that people could apply to D.A.T.A.C. for help only if they could not get money elsewhere. Under the new legislation recently passed by the House, the condition that the Government should be the lender of last resort no longer obtains.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Have not the Government and Parliament a special responsibility for employment in this area? We built a dockyard there and established hundreds of people there. Then it was closed suddenly and it was left a derelict area. Should not the Government be doing something now to repay the debt that we owe to this community?
    Mr. Maudling: I think that what the Government have been doing is helpful. This loan, like other loans, is made in accordance with the recommendation of the independent and expert committee appointed under legislation passed by the House.

  KENYA

    Unrest, Nyeri
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the causes of the unrest in Nyeri in Kenya; and what steps are being taken by the Government to remove them.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): There is some evidence of a revival of secret activity in Nyeri, including the administration of unlawful oaths, and the extortion of money by false pretences and intimidation. The police are vigorously investigating possible offences and a considerable number of people have already been convicted by the courts. In addition the murder of Wambugu Kimathi is still under investigation, and curfews continue to operate on four villages under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance.
    Mr. Swingler: In view of this disquieting news, has the Colonial Secretary examined how far this recent outbreak of violence and recurrent activity is connected with the very low standard of life and the lack of economic opportunities in the area?
    Mr. Macleod: Frankly, I doubt that there is a connection there. No fewer than 150 persons have been convicted of extorting money by false pretences, and I do not think that that could be explained by the circumstances to which the hon. Member has referred. Moreover, although the Central Province certainly has economic problems, they are, on the whole, less in Nyeri than in many other places there.

    Wages
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present minimum adult monthly wage in the rural areas of Kenya; and what are the average wages in the rural areas generally and in the rural areas surrounding Nairobi, respectively.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: At present, there is no statutory minimum wage except in Nairobi and other major towns. But discussions on the question of rural wages have been taking place for some time between the Kenya Government and the employers and workers, and the Minister for Labour will shortly put proposals for minimum wage regulations in rural areas to his Advisory Board.
    The average monthly wage for employment of all kinds in all rural areas is 99s., and in rural areas surrounding Nairobi 116s., but average agricultural wages are lower than this.
    Mr. Swingler: Is not this a matter of real urgency? Has the right hon. Gentleman seen reports that there are jobs available in the rural areas around Nairobi but the wages are so low that it is impossible for workers to support themselves? When his own Labour Commissioner in Nairobi says that 180s. a month is the minimum that should be maintained to support a man and his wife, is it not deplorable that wages of 99s., about half that amount, are being paid?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not think that we should attack the problem this way round. The Minister of Labour is putting proposals to his Advisory Board. I will remind the hon. Gentleman—I dare say he knows—that the Minister for Labour is an African, Mr. Ngala, who has an immensely important portfolio and who was, indeed, chairman of the African Elected Members Association at

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    the Lancaster House Conference here. It is enormously important for us not to suggest that he is not doing or cannot do his job. I am quite content to leave the matter to the Kenya Government and in his hands, with his Advisory Board.
    Dr. Stross: But does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the cost of food in Nairobi itself is probably higher than it is here, and this aggravates the problem for men who attempt, quite naturally, to find enough food and shelter for their families?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, it does, but this Question is not concerned only with Nairobi but with all the other areas. I dealt with the Nairobi problem a week ago.

    Solidarity Centre, Nairobi (Official Opening)
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will make a statement about the official opening by the Governor of Kenya of Solidarity House, Nairobi, and, in particular, about the message of Mr. Reuther, the United States trade union leader, which was read at the opening.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The Governor formally opened the "Solidarity Centre" on 19th June. I understand that, contrary to certain Press reports, no message from Mr. Reuther was read out at the opening. Mr. Reuther's message was delivered the previous day at the annual conference of the Kenya Federation of Labour, at which no Government representatives were present.
    Mr. Wall: In either case, will my right hon. Friend draw to the attention of American trade unionists, or do his best to do so, that it is due to British Colonialism that we have the unique association of nations known as the Commonwealth which is expanding year by year in influence and in power?
    Mr. Macleod: Yes, I agree, and I have said that firmly on a number of occasions in America. There are two slightly different points here. I disagree firmly with what he said, but I do not wish to attack his right to say it, which is a very different matter.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Will the Colonial Secretary take this opportunity of welcoming the development of strong trade unionism in Kenya?
    Mr. Macleod: I am, by and large, in favour of strong trade union movements everywhere.

  ADEN

    Political Parties
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what steps he is taking to encourage the growth of political parties in Aden; and whether he will define the term "Adeni", without which definition it is difficult for political parties to organise and plan ahead.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: In his address to the Colony Legislative Council on 15th January, 1960, the Governor said that he regarded the development of an effective party system as fundamental to the kind of Parliamentary democracy which it is hoped to attain in Aden. I associate myself with this view. The formation of political parties must, however, be a matter for public action. A definition of "Adenese" has hitherto been attempted only in relation to membership of the Aden Civil Service. In view of the difficulties then experienced, I am not sure that it would be wise at present to introduce the term into any statement of franchise qualifications.
    Mr. Wall: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that there are two difficulties facing political parties in Aden, one being the widespread immigration from the Yemen and the other being the failure to define this term? One may not be able to do much about the former, but will he look again at the latter?
    Mr. Macleod: I will certainly look at the latter. In my main Answer, I gave my doubts about the matter, but I am quite content to look at it again.

  NYASALAND

    Detainees
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the number of detainees from Nyasaland; and when he proposes to release them.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Twenty; they will be released when the Governor is

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    satisfied that this can be done without serious prejudice to public security and order.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Does the Colonial Secretary not realise that it simply is not good enough to leave this very important matter to the decision of the Governor? Does he recall that all sorts of dire consequences were predicted if Dr. Hastings Banda were released, but that he himself took action and those predictions have been found to be absolutely false, the situation in Nyasaland being quite tranquil? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the danger that the Nyasaland Constitutional Conference will run into heavy weather unless he takes action to release the political detainees before the Conference begins?
    Mr. Macleod: The cases of all these men are under review the whole time, not just at the six-monthly review. I could not associate the holding of the Constitutional Conference with matters like this. I have made it clear on many occasions that these are not matters about which one can bargain; they are matters which must be considered only in the context of law and order.

  COLONIAL TERRITORIES

    Hospitals
    Mr. B. Harrisonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many hospitals of more than a hundred beds have been built since 1950 in Colonial Territories for which he is now responsible.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am consulting Colonial Governments and will write to my hon. Friend when I have the necessary information.

  TANGANYIKA

    Scholarships, United Kingdom Universities
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Tanganyikans are in receipt of scholarships at United Kingdom universities and are reading for an honours course.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Thirty-seven, of whom two are reading for honours degrees in science and 14 are taking postgraduate courses.
    Mr. Skeffington: Will the Colonial Secretary agree that this is a rather small number for a country of 8 million Africans which is closely approaching independence? Is he aware that offers are coming from universities in the United States, and from Iron Curtain countries, for Tanganyikans to go there, and would it not be a good idea if we gave greater encouragement for Tanganyikans to come to British universities?
    Mr. Macleod: The full figures are not as small as may, perhaps, appear. The hon. Gentleman's Question, of course, limited my Answer. There are 450 students in all, 77 of whom are at universities, and these, of course, are considerably higher figures that the one I gave. Naturally, I entirely take the point that, for a country which has progressed so far, the more students of this sort it has the better.

    Employment, South Africa
    Mr. Skeffingtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Tanganyikans are now employed in South Africa, having been recruited in Tanganyika by the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association; and what facilities are provided in this respect by the Tanganyika Government.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am asking the Governor how many Tanganyikans are currently employed in South Africa. The Tanganyika Government operates an employment exchange and transit centre in the Southern Highlands Province through which Africans wishing to proceed to South Africa can offer their services and can be medically examined. Last year, 8,568 Africans were engaged through the exchange for employment with this Association.
    Mr. Skeffington: Is the Colonial Secretary aware that a number of institutions and individuals are rather concerned at this export of some of the finest Africans from the Territory at a time when it will soon be facing very acute problems in increasing production? Will he investigate further and possibly make a statement later?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not think I need investigate here. For many years, it has been common practice for as many as 10,000 people or more a year to go from the country to work in the gold mines.

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    However, some questions on this matter have recently been raised in the Legislative Council in Tanganyika, as the hon. Member probably knows. I should have thought that it would be right, if any action is taken, for it to be initiated there.
    Mr. P. Williams: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking or some information about assurances and facilities in respect of health conditions provided by this Association when recruiting labour? For instance, is it true that workers are taken on at a certain medical standard and that the Association or whoever employs the people concerned guarantees to look after the health of the people so recruited?
    Mr. Macleod: The Association does not, in that sense, recruit them. It takes applications from those who volunteer. On the point about medical standards, there is a good deal of very detailed care. I will itemise it in a letter to him, if my hon. Friend 'wishes.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Young Children, Ndola (Death Rate)
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in view of his responsibility for the care and protection of minors, he will state the death rate for children under 5 in Ndola, Northern Rhodesia; and how many of them died of malnutrition.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am consulting the Governor of Northern Rhodesia and will write to the right hon. Member when I have his reply.
    Mr. Dugdale: Is the Minister aware that, according to the Central African Examiner, 60 per cent. of all Africans who died in Ndola last year were children under 5 and that half of these died from malnutrition? Is it not right that the Colonial Secretary should personally inquire into what is a very serious state of affairs?
    Mr. Macleod: I have not seen that article. I shall, of course, send for it and look at it. The figures the right hon. Gentleman gives certainly seem to point to a very serious state of affairs. As soon as I have the Governor's reply, I will consider it in the light of what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
    Mr. G. M. Thomson: If the right hon. Gentleman finds that these figures are true, will he promise the House that he will take very urgent action to improve these conditions?
    Mr. Macleod: It is rather a mixed responsibility because the question of malnutrition, both as a disease and a subject, is a federal rather than a territorial matter. I will pursue with the appropriate people the right action as soon as I have seen the report.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Potash
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, in view of the fact that discussions with the principal buyers of potash have now been concluded, he will now include potash amongst those fertilisers receiving the benefit of a subsidy.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Hare): I am afraid that none of the objections to a subsidy on potash has been removed as a result of these discussions. A major part of our supplies is still obtained through one firm, but competition from other sources is increasing and we shall continue to watch the position.
    Mr. Hall: Does my right hon. Friend realise that that is a very disappointing reply, especially for those farmers who work on land similar to the Chiltern Hills in my constituency and require to use a great deal of potash? Will he make further efforts to remove the remaining difficulty in the way of giving a subsidy for this type of fertiliser?
    Mr. Hare: My hon. Friend will understand that, as matters are, with so much of the supply going through one firm, we would have no assurance that the subsidy, or some part of it, would not be passed back to the supplier, with little or no benefit to those whom my hon. Friend wants to help.
    Mr. Webster: Is my right hon. Friend aware that where intensive cultivation of crops is carried out for a long time over the same parcel of ground, such as strawberries, this type of producer-subsidy is of the utmost value?
    Mr. Hare: Yes, but my hon. Friend should realise that, in spite of the lack of subsidy, farmers and horticulturists are using nearly 80 per cent. more fertiliser than they did in 1952–53.

    BROADCASTING COUNCIL FOR WALES (CHAIRMAN)
    Mr. G. Robertsasked the Prime Minister what steps he took to consult Welsh opinion before making an appointment to the post of chairman of the Broadcasting Council for Wales.
    Lady Megan Lloyd Georgeasked the Prime Minister what reply he has sent to the representations made to him by the Broadcasting Council for Wales, protesting against the appointment of Mrs. Rachel Jones as the chairman of the Council.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I naturally undertook consultations before making a recommendation for this appointment. As a result, and after taking into account all the requirements laid down in the Charter, I am satisfied that Mrs. Jones is eminently suitable for this post, and I have replied to the Broadcasting Council for Wales in that sense
    Mr. Roberts: Does not that Answer show that there was no consultation with Welsh opinion before this important appointment was made? Is it not the fact that an increasing number of local authorities and other public bodies in Wales are protesting vigorously against this appointment and particularly the way in which it was engineered? In view of the prevailing strong feeling in Wales, is it not high time that the Prime Minister rescinded this decision and made an appointment which at least would be acceptable in Wales and defensible in this House?
    The Prime Minister: I am afraid that I cannot accept those suggestions. I feel that the major part of Welsh opinion feels that the time has now come to allow Mrs. Jones a chance to see how well she can do this job.
    Lady Megan Lloyd George: As the Broadcasting Council for Wales is composed of distinguished persons of great experience in this sphere, as they are
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    in a special position to assess the qualities needed in a chairman of the Council and as our protests are supported by an overwhelming body of opinion in Wales, will not the right hon. Gentleman reconsider this totally unacceptable and unsuitable appointment?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot accept that this is the responsibility of anybody except the Government.
    Mr. W. R. Williams: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this appointment has staggered exiles from Wales as much as it has amazed and annoyed people in Wales?
    Mr. J. Griffiths: While I recognise that this is a Government appointment, surely the Government are obliged to pay some regard to the Charter which lays down certain requirements. I have never in my experience found an appointment so universally condemned. This is the universal opinion in Wales. I do not think that there are any exceptions to it. There was only one in the Council, and there are obvious reasons for that. Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that he is at present regarded in Wales as having flouted the wishes of the people, particularly the one-third who take pride in preserving their language? Since we want an opportunity to discuss this matter fully on the Floor of the House, will the right hon. Gentleman make available, either in the OFFICIAL REPORT or by putting copies in the Library, the exchange of letters between himself and the Council?
    The Prime Minister: I will consider the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. With regard to the first part, I cannot accept that everybody who does not speak Welsh is incapable of understanding Wales or the Welsh people. The chief accusation against this lady is that she does not speak Welsh, and, as I have pointed out, she shares that disability with two-thirds of her countrymen.
    Mr. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that he is Prime Minister for the whole of the United Kingdom and not speak so patronisingly about a language which is the first language of many of us in the House and of many people in the country? Does he realise that, though he speaks

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    continuously in the way he does about the other one-third of the people, they are, in my opinion, among the best in the country?
    The Prime Minister: I did not speak patronisingly about the Welsh language. It is a very fine language, like the Gaelic language. Quite a lot of people in Scotland speak Gaelic. The view of many people and myself is that the future of the Welsh language depends, to some extent at any rate, on the support of non-Welsh-speaking Welshmen and on general interest in Welsh culture. For this purpose, I believe that this lady is very well suited.
    Mr. Gaitskell: As half the broadcasts in Wales are in Welsh, it is extremely difficult to see how the chairman can do his or her job properly without being able to understand them.
    The Prime Minister: There is such a thing as translation. But the function of this lady is to represent the Welsh point of view with the Governors of the B.B.C. I feel sure that she can adequately and successfully carry out this function.

    UNDER-DEVELOPED COUNTRIES (AID)
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Prime Minister what communication he has sent to President de Gaulle in connection with the latter's proposal to establish an agency for East-West co-operation in aid to under-developed countries.
    The Prime Minister: It is not customary to disclose the contents or existence of confidential messages exchanged with other Heads of Government, but there have been conversations on this subject with the French Government at various levels.
    Mr. Edelman: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that this valuable but neglected proposal was first put forward by the President in March in Paris and was later repeated in Washington? It was also put forward as a suggested item for consideration at the Summit Conference. In view of its significance, will not the Prime Minister consider revising the proposal and making approaches to Mr. Khrushchev about this important matter?
    The Prime Minister: I am very much interested in this question, which we are still discussing; but, unfortunately, the best opportunity when I hoped it might have been raised has passed from us. We must now seek how best to take up this and other matters at the most appropriate moment.
    Mr. P. Noel-Baker: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that in principle it is desirable that we should find some means of working with the Soviet Government in the provision of economic aid for under-developed countries?
    The Prime Minister: At the moment, Western aid is about twenty times as great as the comparable effort of the Sino-Soviet bloc. Do not let us denigrate what we do. If other things had gone as we had hoped, we might have found a valuable field for co-operation between us and the Eastern bloc. That hope for the moment is more difficult, but certainly is not abandoned.

    PEACE AND DISARMAMENT
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Prime Minister whether he will appoint a Minister for Peace and Disarmament.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The functions which I think the hon. Member has in mind are fundamental to the responsibilities of the Foreign Secretary.
    Mr. Edelman: Will the Prime Minister consider rehabilitating the word "peace", and, in view of the great complications and difficulties of understanding exactly what is going on in Geneva, would not it be desirable to have this post so that ordinary persons may see exactly what the Government are trying to do in respect of disarmament?
    The Prime Minister: We on both sides of the House have done our best to contribute to the search for peace. We have had our setbacks, but we have not abandoned hope. As regards disarmament, there is a very complicated situation at the moment. I have tried to explain as best possible the present situation. This may be a matter for debate. But I know the hon. Gentleman's real interest. I will do anything that I can to set forward what he has in mind. I do not think, however, that

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    the appointment of a Minister other than the Foreign Secretary for this purpose would help us.
    Mr. C. Osborne: If on second thoughts my right hon. Friend agrees to this appointment, will he see that the gentleman's first task is to solve the problems of the party opposite?
    Mr. Chetwynd: The hon. Member is about two days out of time.
    Mr. Shinwell: In view of the failure of the Blue Streak policy and the failure of the Government, and of the Minister of Defence in particular, to provide adequate equipment for Her Majesty's Forces, could not this appointment be transferred to the Minister of Defence?
    The Prime Minister: I am never quite sure which side the right hon. Gentleman is on. But this gives me an opportunity of saying that I ought to have given my congratulations to the Leader of the Opposition. There was a moment when I was getting quite nervous.
    Mr. Callaghan: Does the Prime Minister propose to ask the permission of Mr. Speaker to reply to Question No. 46, in view of the lack of confidence in the Chancellor of the Exchequer?
    Captain Pilkington: Did my right hon. Friend see that, according to today's Daily Herald, the Government are now in a panic? Would he care to comment?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 4TH JULY—Supply [19th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
Consideration of the Motion to approve the Agriculture (Threshers and Balers) Regulations.
TUESDAY, 5TH JULY—Report stage of the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 6TH JULY—Conclusion of the Report stage of the Finance Bill.
Consideration of the Motions to approve the Anti-Dumping (No. 1) Order, 1960, and the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Imported Hardwood and Softwood Timber) Order.
THURSDAY, 7TH JULY—Supply [20th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on Beach Pollution by Sewage, until Seven o'clock.
Afterwards, a debate will take place on an Opposition Motion relating to the Colonial Development Corporation.
Consideration of Motions to approve the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations and similar Regulations for Scotland.
FRIDAY, 8TH JULY—Third Reading of the Finance Bill.
MONDAY, 11TH JULY—The proposed business will be Supply [21st Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate on the Economic Situation.
Mr. Gaitskell: In view of the reports in the Press that the negotiations on Cyprus have been concluded, when may we expect a statement? Is it proposed to introduce early legislation dealing with the independence of Cyprus?
Mr. Butler: The negotiations have not been finally concluded, but we trust that they will be. When they have been, I will certainly discuss with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister the possibility of making a statement. It is our intention and wish that following the successful conclusion of the negotiations, the necessary legislation will be in time to pass, through the House.
Mr. Gaitskell: Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that the negotiations will be concluded and the legislation introduced in time to pass through both Houses of Parliament before the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. That is our hope. If things go according to plan, that should prove possible.
Mr. Gaitskell: When does the right hon. Gentleman expect the report of the Stedeford Committee on the Railways?
Mr. Butler: I can give no date in the immediate future for receiving the report
Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that on 1st June, a summary of the recommendations of the Chandos Committee was reported to the House? This is an important series of recommendations and reports for the future of the British shipping industry and, more particularly, the Cunard Line. Can my right hon. Friend give any assurance that this matter will be debated before the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: I cannot at the moment make a further statement on this matter. The best thing that I can do is to note the wish of my hon. Friend.
Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the grave disquiet in the country on the question of the price of land? Can he give an undertaking that this question, which is becoming a major scandal, will be debated, if not next week, before the House rises for the Summer Recess?
Mr. Butler: This is, naturally, engaging the intelligent attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government. Whether a statement will be made, I cannot say.
Mr. C. Osborne: In view of the fact that many of us on the back benches find it difficult to get into economic debates, and as the debate on Monday week will be the last time that we will be discussing economics before the long Recess, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the possibility of giving us an extra hour for that debate?
Mr. Butler: We have not got as far as considering that yet, but I will note what my hon. Friend says so that as many hon. Members as possible may be heard.
Mr. Donnelly: In view of the number of important changes which have taken place in the Government's defence policy since the Blue Streak debate, and of the transitory nature of defence, is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the importance of having a defence debate before the summer Recess? Can he tell the House something about this?
Mr. Butler: I cannot discuss the merits or demerits of the question in answer to business questions. It does
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not, however, look very likely, in view of the pressure of business, that there will be time for such a debate.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is disquiet about the report that a very large sum of money is to be handed over to Archbishop Makarios for expenditure in Cyprus? Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that, before doing this, he should consider spending some of that money in Scotland?
Mr. Butler: The needs of Scotland have been already approached by the new legislation introduced into the House this Session. As regards the alleged money granted to Archbishop Makarios, there is no difference from the general plan envisaged throughout of certain grants and moneys made available for the future of Cyprus, which has been under discussion for many months.
Mr. Short: Reverting to the Public Service Vehicles (Travel Concessions) Bill, is the Leader of the House aware that recently the Scottish T.U.C. passed a unanimous resolution asking for this legislation? Will the right hon. Gentleman now put into practice some of the humanitarianism about which he so often speaks and give us time for this Bill?
Mr. Butler: If the hon. Member, with his usual pertinacity, would follow that up by sending me a copy of the resolution or views, I shall be glad to study them.
Mr. Roy Jenkins: Assuming that the Government cannot possibly have it in mind that we should adjourn for the Summer Recess without a debate on Britain's relations with Europe, can the right hon. Gentleman say when it will take place?
Mr. Butler: No, I cannot give a date, partly because this depends upon the evolution of policy and partly because it depends upon the discretion which may be displayed by hon. Members opposite in choosing different subjects of debate.
Mr. Wigg: While I have every sympathy with the Government in seeking to avoid a debate on defence, surely the right hon. Gentleman must have slipped a little in saying that it will be impossible to find time before the Summer

1561
Recess. He can find time if he wants to facilitate a debate, even if only on the Appropriation Bill. Can he not do that?
Mr. Butler: There are indefinite possibilities, including the possibility of hon. and right hon. Members opposite choosing this as a subject for debate. Certainly, on any occasion on which it is chosen, the Government case will be found to be resounding and effective.
Mr. Paget: The Leader of the House has used the word "evolution" concerning policy. May we take it that he recognises that this is a purely fortuitous process without application of human intelligence?

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  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
    [18TH ALLOTTED DAY]
    Considered in Committee.
    [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1960–61
    CLASS VI

      VOTE 8. MINISTRY OF LABOUR
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      That a sum, not exceeding £15,035,000, 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, 1961, for the salaries and expenses of the Ministry of Labour, including expenses in connection with employment exchanges and the inspection of factories; expenses, including grants and loans, in connection with employment services, training, transfer, rehabilitation and resettlement; a grant in aid of the Industrial Training Council Service; expenses in connection with national service; repayment of loan charges in respect of employment schemes; expenses of the Industrial Court; a subscription to the International Labour Organisation; and sundry other services. [£7,513,000 has been voted on account.]

  APPRENTICESHIPS
  3.41 p.m.
  Mr. Austen Albu: In discussing the Vote for the Ministry of Labour we have chosen the subect of apprenticeship and industrial training because it seems to us to be one of the gravest problems facing the country at present. If I may start with a quotation, it will be from a letter which I have only just received from a youth employment officer.
  It reads:
  "The latest financial news makes me (and no doubt every other youth employment officer) tremble in my shoes. If production is cut down I can see another recession coming like the one which began about October, 1957, and which caused school-leavers so many headaches and heartaches in 1959. Only, of course, it will be much worse next time because the big bulge' will start in a few months' time. God help us and the kids if the recession and the bulge coincide."
  That is the theme on which I want to open the debate. My friend's anxiety is supported by the figures which have

  1563
  been given from time to time by the Minister in reply to Questions in the House, and they make a grim comment on the optimism expressed by the present Minister of Power when he spoke in the last major debate on this subject on 30th April last year.
  There are two main aspects of this problem and two considerations which we should bear in mind. The first is the social one, the problem of whether or not we shall be able to provide enough jobs, and adequate training in these jobs, for the boys and girls who will be leaving school in the next few years during the large increase in the number of school-leavers which is commonly referred to as "the bulge".
  The second is whether or not the quality of the training which these boys and girls will get when they go into industry will be adequate for the task which faces our economy in the next few years, an economy which will increasingly face competition from gigantic market bases, large-scale investment and a high degree of scientific and technical advance. During the current year—and no doubt the Minister will draw attention to this when he replies—the situation may temporarily have been relieved by the temporary fall in the number of school-leavers and by the General Election boom, but now we are beginning to face the bulge of school-leavers in the next two or three years at exactly the time when Government action has been taken to reduce the level of economic activity. This is a very serious situation indeed.
  By 1962, it is expected that there will be 494,000 15-year olds leaving school in England and Wales. The figures will start rising next year. This is an increase of nearly a half over 1956. The peak for the 16-year olds will be reached a year later, with 121,000. Here, the figure is about three-quarters over the 1956 figure. These are the years for us of challenge and of opportunity. They are a challenge, because if we do not cope with them successfully we shall do irreparable harm to the lives of the boys and girls and to the social future of the country. They are years of opportunity, because they give us a chance to make
  1564
  up the great backlog of training and education which we badly need to make up if we are to retain our industrial position in the world.
  How is industry preparing to face this opportunity and this challenge? I must worry the Committee with a few figures because they provide the only way which one can demonstrate what is taking place. The number of boys who have been entering apprenticeship or other forms of skilled training during the last few years and who are going into skilled jobs has gone up from 93,200 in 1956 to 98,700 in 1959. The 1956 figure was a very low figure. In fact, the actual rise for boys has not been a rise in the proportion of those entering employment, but a very substantial fall, from 39 per cent. to 34 per cent. of all those entering employment. The number of girls has risen from 17,352 in 1956 to 20,631 in 1959. I suspect that this also represents a fall, but I have no information about the percentages. In any case, the numbers for girls are very small.
  The figures for skilled training and apprenticeships for boys show a very serious fall, particularly because the apprenticeship market is very sensitive to economic conditions. In 1958, the number of school-leavers entering apprenticeships was the lowest for many years. The year 1959, when figures went up very substantially, was, of course, an economic boom year. Nevertheless, the figures for that year still show a fall when calculated as a proportion of those entering employment.
  Another way of looking at this problem of the amount of facilities for training that are available and of what the industry is doing is to look at the trends in part-time day releases, because most firms that provide decent apprenticeship schemes allow their apprentices at least one day release every week. Here the figures are again very alarming. In England and Wales, in 1957–58, 33·2 per cent. of boys under 18 in employment were given day release. In 1958–59, the proportion had gone down to 31 per cent., and numbers had dropped from 192,000 to 187,000. The number of girls increased from 50,636 or 8·7 per cent., to 51,743, but that was a slight fall in proportion because the

  1565
  percentage was 8·5. The main apprenticeship trades are engineering, shipbuilding and building, but even in engineering and shipbuilding the proportion of boys released under part-time day releases has fallen substantially in England and Wales, from 73·9 per cent. to 58·5 per cent. Last year, in Scotland, the figure was as low as 53 per cent.
  It is true that there is a very great variety—this is one of the problems—in the availability of apprenticeships and the amount of day release given as between different industries. It is not surprising that our nationalised industries do very well in this regard, as the figures for both apprenticeships and day release show—in the mining, gas and electricity industries, British Railways, and so forth. British Railways have first-class training workshops. I visited one at Crewe the other day However, I am sorry that British Railways could not bear the small cost of keeping on the 57 apprentice fitters which they recently sacked from the Doncaster works, thus not setting a very good example to private industry, which should also be doing better.
  However, by and large, no doubt, the nationalised industries do very well, as do many of the large firms, which do more than their share of providing skilled workers to enter industry, but the great mass of small and medium-sized firms, even in engineering and shipbuilding, which are the main apprentice trades, do not—even building, in which fewer than half the firms operate the national joint apprenticeship scheme.
  Not only do the opportunities vary greatly between industries. They vary greatly between different parts of the country. Last year, the proportion of boys entering employment who were able to obtain apprenticeships or training in skilled trades varied as much as from 23 per cent. in Wales and 32 per cent. in London and Scotland, to 42 per cent. in the East and West Ridings, and the proportion was very similar in the Northern region. In some cases these were very substantial falls in the proportions over the last few years, particularly in Scotland.
  Unfortunately, even these figures may be exaggerated. The Committee over which the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) presided reported on the difficulty of obtaining accurate statistics
  1566
  about the number of apprenticeships or the requirements of industry over the next few years. These figures are obtained, I believe, from youth employment officers, or largely from them, and those officers have very great difficulty in obtaining hard information. Those officers are dealing with young men and women when they leave school at 15, and apprenticeship does not begin until the age of 16. Therefore, the youth employment officer has to guess or take the word of the young men and women about whether or not they will be apprenticed.
  Many firms take on boys and girls—mainly boys—but if a trade recession comes along shortly afterwards they may refuse to indenture them at 16, although the boys and girls may be regarded as having entered apprenticeship. So the numbers will be less than at first sight they appear to be. Many firms take on several boys, but indenture very few of them. Yet those boys may well have told the youth employment officer that they were apprenticed. Consequently, the figures may be exaggerated. They are certainly inaccurate.
  This is the situation which we are now facing. There certainly is not much sign of our getting even the 20 per cent. increase in the numbers of apprenticeships and trainees in skilled occupations which is supposed to be the target of the Industrial Training Council, a target which is based on nothing more than the rise in the number of school leavers, and one which most informed opinion would believe is completely inadequate, because we must cater not only for the increase in the numbers of school leavers, but for the increased proportion of those who leave school and obtain training in industry.
  The situation from the point of view of the three interested parties is best summed up by the Crowther Report, in paragraph 509, which says:
  "Prospects for the next five years can he looked at in three ways. From the point of view of the individual employer, they may not be unsatisfactory—he stands a fair chance of getting all the apprentices he can usefully train and of being able to select them much more carefully than he could in recent years."
  That merely means that there is a surplus of boys and girls coming on the labour market.
  "From the point of view of an individual boy, the situation is alarming. Since the war,

  1567
  his elder brothers have progressively had a better chance of securing a job with day release—his own chance and his younger brother's look like being worse. From the standpoint of the State, the situation is also disquieting. It seems doubtful whether it can succeed even in holding the position to the present percentage figure of release. It looks to us as if a static situation, instead of the improving one to which we have become accustomed, is the best that we can hope for during the next five years."
  Later, in the paragraph, the Report says:
  "One of our witnesses quoted to us the remark of a German industrialist—' We envy you your bulge'."
  The Report goes on:
  "We trust that there may be no need to add 'But we are astounded at the way you have wasted the chance to build up your capital of skill'."
  I suggest that we are wasting our chance to build up our capital of skill.
  Turning from what I regard as a very depressing and even alarming picture to the measures taken to deal with it, I would say right away that I consider this to be a Government responsibility on two grounds. The first is that the Government must be concerned with the social well-being of the young people who will be growing up into manhood during the next few years and will be the citizens of the future. Secondly, it must be a Government responsibility to ensure that our economy is adequately equipped with scientific and technical training, with skilled craftsmen with an appropriate level of education, and sufficient investment to cope with the highly competitive world which our exports and our industries will face in the next few years.
  I believe that there is the beginning of a realisation of this on the Government side. An indication of this is the small scheme which the Minister of Labour announced in April to provide in Government training establishments a first-year apprentice training for apprentices from small firms. We must be clear about this and be careful that we do not confuse two things. We are not talking about pre-apprentice years; this is the first year of apprenticeship. I believe that it is, as such, a good idea, but the number of places which the Minister is providing—300. I believe—is utterly inadequate by comparison with the figures which I have quoted and will
  1568
  represent nothing more than a tiny pimple on the mountain of the problem which we are facing.
  Apart from that, the Government have confined themselves to a grant to the Industrial Training Council of £75,000 to further the appointment of training development officers. This year's estimates contain the "magnificent" total of £35,000; that will not make a great impression on an already reluctant and apathetic industry.
  Let us look at the first report of the Industrial Training Council, that for 1959, which has just been published. What has the Council succeeded in doing? It has appointed two training development officers and one assistant, and only one of the three has been appointed in a major manufacturing industry. It has set up an advisory service for small firms. I am tired of advisory services. We have had them all over industry during the last few years. I do not know what effect they have. The Council produces a great deal of propaganda material which I am sure will find its way to the place which most propaganda material sent through the post normally reaches.
  The British Employers' Confederation, one of the bodies represented on the Industrial Training Council, has circularised a large number of its member firms to urge them to take on more apprentices during the bulge period. One hundred and fifty-four large companies have promised substantially to increase their numbers, but 147 companies said that they could not for various reasons associate themselves with the appeal made by the President of the British Employers' Confederation. So it does not look as if they will provide much in the way of increased numbers. The fact is that there are no signs in most parts of the country that adequate provision is being made or is likely to be made to deal with this serious situation.
  Learning a skilled trade today depends on a number of chances. First, boys have much better chances than girls. It is time we began to look more seriously at the opportunities for skilled training for girls leaving school. The second is that the chances vary greatly in different parts of the country. They have a much better chance to get apprenticeships or a

  1569
  learnership for a skilled trade in Bradford than in Cardiff, or London, or Glasgow. The other thing, and this is quite important, too, is that there is a much better chance of getting an apprenticeship if the boy happens to know the foreman, the manager or somebody else in the firm. This does not necessarily mean that those who are most suited for training necessarily get it.
  In a recent inquiry which was conducted by the youth employment officer who recently wrote to me it was found that, of 100 boys who were interviewed coming from secondary-modern schools and comprehensive schools, 54 said that they wanted craft apprenticeships. Of those 54, 49 actually got them. One-third of those who got them had not been considered by the youth employment officer and the education authority as really suitable for training through apprenticeship, while one-third of those who were considered suitable did not get apprenticeships.
  This is an extremely inefficient way of going about the whole training problem, and it also leads to heartbreak. If we get many boys who really are suitable and who have the mental ability and adaptability to learn a skilled trade, and we shove them into some rather dead-end occupations, we shall merely break their hearts and may well turn them into delinquents. It seems to me that this is, socially as well as economically, an undesirable and inefficient arrangement.
  A good apprenticeship scheme needs, first, a good system of selection. I do not mean that, initially, it should be a sort of 11-plus examination which should determine for ever what job a person is to have and what degrees of skill a boy or girl should have and be trained for finally. Hon. Members may have seen an interesting letter from Dr. Alec Rodger, a well-known psychologist, in The Times of 17th June, in which he appeared to favour an arrangement by which there could be tests at different levels of training before final decisions are made as to exactly what degree of training and what exact trade a boy or girl should enter.
  There are some who say that there are not enough able youngsters, indeed, that there are not enough with the ability to train in this way. This is a defeatist and undemocratic argument, which has
  1570
  been applied to the universities, higher education and secondary education. We are always hearing it, but the fact is that it is completely untrue. Dr. Rodger went into some detail about it and points out that in two years' time there will be three able youngsters of 15 years of age for every two four years ago, and nobody can pretend that at present all those who leave school are getting the education and training—the Crowther Report strongly underlines this—of which they are capable.
  I am convinced that we shall not get progress either in the numbers we require being trained, or in the quality of the training, unless the Government play a much larger part in the process; and in this I am supported by a very interesting recent memorandum, which I have no doubt the Minister has seen published by the Association of Teachers in Technical Institutes and the National Union of Teachers. I find myself in very substantial agreement with most of their proposals, and particularly I agree with them that the Government should accept a basic responsibility for ensuring that there are provisions in industry for training and that these are adequate. They suggest that in each industry, where it does not already exist, there should be established a joint national apprenticeship training council, composed of employers, employees and representatives of education and the youth service.
  On this, I have a comment to make. There are already over 100 such bodies with established schemes, but the trouble is that they are not operated by the firms within the industries. Very few of them are in active operation, and it seems that they never will be unless there is some kind of compulsion on individual firms, or some greater incentive provided by taxation or otherwise than at present exists.
  There was also the suggestion of the A.T.T.I. that regional and district committees in this national joint scheme, would help, and I should like to suggest that the schemes for different industries should be linked through local committees of the industrial training council which, so far as I know, does not exist at present. The A.T.T.I. has also suggested that it should be obligatory on all firms to provide appropriate training for every entrant into a skilled or semi-skilled

  1571
  occupation, and here the appropriate training means more than the formality of signing indentures or calling the boy an apprentice.
  Appropriate training today must, at least in the first year, mean that there should be training in special training workshops where proper tuition can be given by properly trained instructors. Any training scheme worth its salt should be under the charge of a proper training officer, who should not be, as at present, some sort of superannuated foreman or manager for whom the firm no longer has any use, or a retired Service Officer who has had no trainng whatever in training itself. He should be a person who has been properly trained to do the job, and there are people of that kind today.
  In fact, one of the advantages at a different level of the Government's sandwich scheme—the diploma in technology scheme, where one part of the qualification has to be met by training in industry, is that the firms are being forced to look more closely at the type of training they receive. The colleges themselves are demanding that a lad should get proper training in the other half of the sandwich scheme, although that is at the professional level, but what applies there applies equally at the craft and technician level.
  The training can adequately be given by the large firms, though there are many large firms in engineering which do not do so, particularly in shipbuilding, which is extremely backward in this regard, where too many young workers and apprentices are employed as cheap labour. The other smaller and medium-sized firms can find their way to do it by operating in group schemes, though there are not nearly enough of them. They are at least beginning to grow very largely encouraged by such bodies as the consultant firm of Industrial Administration running schemes for the Engineering Industrial Association, the Gloucestershire training group and now the Coventry Chamber of Commerce, and so on. These schemes are growing at much too slow a pace. Finally, there can be training in technical colleges or Government establishments, and the A.T.T.I. suggest that the cost of it should be shared. I believe that the Government will have to have far more of this
  1572
  sort of thing, partly by extending their own scheme to first-year apprentices and go much further if we are to catch up with the terrible backwardness with which we are now faced, and if we are to carry the scheme right on to give complete apprenticeship or training in some of the backward parts of the country.
  We have to face the fact that there are many of the smaller firms which cannot afford to recruit the extra numbers, or provide adequate training for them in the numbers that will be required in the next few years and who will not train more than may be immediately needed for production. They certainly cannot provide the quality of training that is required and far too many of them use their apprentices at any rate in the first three or four years of apprenticeship as cheap labour.
  May I now turn to the nature of the apprenticeship system itself and the quality of the training which it provides. It has not lacked examination during the last few years. There has been the committee under the hon. Member for Mitcham, the reports by Lady Gertrude Williams and Dr. Kate Liepmann, as well as the Crowther Report, which deals mainly with technicians and not so much with craftsmen, but which also contains interesting comparisons with what is done in other countries. All these reports are critical of our present arrangements, and I hope that both sides of industry will approach their study of our present apprenticeship system, both as to numbers and quality, with open minds.
  The difficulty is to see the pattern of employment in the years ahead—how many skilled workers will be required, what degrees of skill, what trades and industries are likely to expand and what to contract, and what new processes are likely to be discovered and introduced into industry. I believe that if we can get away from the concept of apprenticeship as an entry into a trade or profession, and look upon it solely as training for a trade or profession, it would, perhaps, be easier to deal with.
  I want to start with certain basic assumptions. The first is that in the future many of our individual craftsmen will have to be technicians, much more highly qualified and much more highly educated. Secondly, the number of both craftsmen and technicians—who may become more difficult to distinguish—will

  1573
  rise as our exports more and more become capital goods of an advanced design and requiring a high degree of scientific and technical skill in their manufacture.
  Thirdly, well-trained and well-educated craftsmen are adaptable, especially if their education and training is broad, and we shall need adaptable craftsmen and technicians in the years ahead. Fourthly, we shall need a large number of what we call semiskilled workers. They, too, will need to be very adaptable, because the products and processes of industry will be subject to rapid change, which we must accept. They will need much better training and a continuance of education, like the craftsmen themselves, although their training need not be as long. The vast majority at present receive no training and no further education.
  Fifthly, we have also to give much greater attention to the neglected occupations, of which agriculture is one, and certainly to the commercial occupations. The Meeking Report drew attention to this. In commercial education and training we are miles behind those who are likely to be our main competitors in the future, the countries of the Common Market in Europe.
  Finally, there must be more opportunities for girls to train. I am sure that the only way to deal with this problem is to treat apprenticeship as a continuation of the educational process, with proper standards and proper qualifications.
  It is sometimes said that the trade unions will never accept a system of qualifications, but in 1939, giving evidence to the I.L.O. inquiry on vocational education and apprenticeship, the T.U.C. agreed that it was desirable to co-ordinate and recognise certificates issued after examination on the termination of apprenticeships.
  It may be that individual unions at present, would not go as far as that, but, certainly, we could see a great extension of the use of the City and Guild certificates. The City and Guilds are working out a very good scheme for craftsmen, not technicians but craftsmen, at a level which is exactly right, and we should do everything we can to encourage people to take those qualifications.
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  There is a serious danger of our indulging in what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) said in a very different context last night was our national disease of complacency. We go on saying that British methods are the best. They are best, I suppose, because they enabled us to become the leader in the Industrial Revolution some time in the middle of the last century, when many of those methods were established. But, today, we have a great deal to learn from other countries who have picked up ideas and established methods of manufacture after ours were first established.
  We need much more research into methods of training. The inquiries which I have mentioned were mostly conducted by economists and sociologists and, so far as I know, nothing has yet been done in the way of a study by educational psychologists. For that reason, and also because I would like to break down the educational and social barrier which exists between apprentices and students—because today there should be a continuous progress in the degrees of education and training received by boys—I should like to see responsibility for industrial training transferred from the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education.
  After all, one half of the task is already in the hands of the Ministry of Education—the technical colleges are the responsibility of that Ministry. At present, we are falling down partly because responsibility is split. It is not because I have anything against the Ministry of Labour, but because I do not think that a Department which is concerned with employment conditions, as the Ministry of Labour is, is the right Department to deal with training which has become more and more an educational process.
  It would have an added advantage, because the Ministry of Education would then retain responsibility for all youngsters between the ages of 15 and 16 during the difficult transition period before the school-leaving age is raised, but while more and more youngsters are voluntarily staying on at school.
  During the next few years, the Government face a very grave responsibility. They have the responsibility of determining whether there will be jobs at all

  1575
  for those leaving school, or whether those leaving school are to have to stand around street corners, with the inevitable deterioration in their outlook and in their personalities, and whether they are to stand around without jobs.
  Even if there are jobs, are they going to be the sort of heart-breaking dead-end jobs which many youngsters have to go into today, or jobs with adequate opportunities for training? That is something which is definitely a Government responsibility.
  Lastly, will the quality as well as the quantity of training available match the needs of our industry in future, needs which many industrial employers do not yet themselves sufficiently recognise? It is only the most progressive employers who understand what will be the needs of the future. If we do not provide that sort of training, we shall certainly not be able to compete with our main competitors in the world, because we shall be able to do so in future only if we are able to produce and sell abroad specialised products of advanced design requiring great skill in manufacture.
  So far as I can see, there has been no real recognition of these problems. The Government's approach is the laissez-faire one of leaving it to industry to solve their problems. I think that I have shown that industry is not solving these problems and has no intention of doing so. If nothing is done by the Government, there are ahead of us all the elements of a grave social disaster.
  4.16 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Peter Thomas): First, may I say how much hon. Members on this side of the House welcome the debate. I agree with the hon Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) that this is a most important matter. It is extremely important, especially at this time, that we should not lose any opportunity to ventilate our views on the subject, because I am sure that our views, together with those of the people who are interested, can be of great assistance in overcoming what is clearly a problem in many cases.
  Perhaps I can be permitted sincerely to congratulate the hon. Member on what was a most effective and informed
  1576
  speech. I attempted to take down many of the points he made, but he made so many that, I regret to say, I am not in a position to answer every question that he raised. However, I am in full agreement with him about many of the things he said, and my right hon. Friend will be addressing the Committee at the end of the debate.
  The main point which the hon. Member put before us was that we must regard the problem facing us, that of training for skill, as the responsibility of the Government. He said that we had a laissez-faire approach to this matter because we were willing to allow the main responsibility to remain with industry. I should make perfectly clear at the outset what our view of the matter is. We feel that the responsibility for providing industrial training rests primarily with industry. That was the view, as the Committee will know, which was expressed by the Carr Committee.
  We may have differences on this subject, but most hon. Members will agree that, in practice, over the bulge years which are now upon us, there is no alternative other than for industry to furnish the major effort.
  The second matter is that although there is an obvious need, as the hon. Member proved, for a re-examination of training practice with a view to change and improvement, our traditional apprenticeship system should form the foundation of future training arrangements. At its best, that system produces a type of skill second to none in the world. There are some extremely fine training arrangements in the best of firms. The immediate problem is that the best in our system should be more widely spread.
  The third matter is the need for quick progress, and, therefore, as we have the bulge on us next year, we must build up on that which exists. If we think in terms of making radical changes in our training system we may well cause disturbance in industry which might defeat the purpose of our activities.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the bulge, and that is the most important consideration. In fact, it was the anticipation of this unusual increase in the number of school leavers which was the main reason that prompted the inquiry of the sub-committee of the National Joint

  1577
  Advisory Council, which led to what is called the Carr Report. The bulge has roused varying reactions. I have been around the country since becoming Parliamentary Secretary and it is interesting to hear those reactions. They vary between expressions of very grave apprehension as to what will be the effect of this large number of school leavers on the labour market, and expressions of optimism and welcome at the golden opportunity to remedy deficiencies that exist in our manpower.
  The Carr Committee's conclusion was that for the country as a whole the bulge will not present a problem of employment. But despite that firm conclusion a very large body of opinion is very seriously concerned about employment prospects for young people, particularly, as I found, in what can be called the more difficult areas. It was about this that the hon. Gentleman also expressed concern today.
  It would be wrong to be over-optimistic about the matter, and I do not intend to be complacent. But events since the Carr Committee's Report have not given us cause to question its conclusion that the problem of the bulge is not one of employment. We have passed through what has been called the "little bulge"—the bulge of 1957 to 1959. During that time we absorbed into employment over 150,000 more young people than if the pre-bulge rate of school leaving had remained constant.
  During that time there was a recession, and we are, therefore, able to test, to some extent, from past experience exactly what is the effect of a recession when we have a bulge. In January, 1959, for instance, which was at the height of the 1958–1959 recession, 88 per cent. of the school leavers at Christmas got into employment within a month. In January, 1960, when the economy was again fully on its feet, 90 per cent. of the school leavers who had left at Christmas were in employment within a month.
  These are interesting figures in as much as they indicate that in a recession the people who suffer most—because at that time, in 1959, there was a certain amount of unemployment—are not the school leavers. There were, however, less favourable areas, I know quite a lot about these and I appreciate fully the feelings which people have expressed about them.
  1578
  They are areas like Scotland, Wales and the Northern region of England. Nevertheless, even in those difficult areas—which were going through great difficulties at the time—in January, 1959, 80 per cent. of the school leavers got into employment within one month of leaving school at Christmas. In the worst region, which was the Northern—I regret that it possibly still is—94 per cent. of the school leavers were in work by the middle of February, 1959.
  Members have probably read the latest figures about school leavers at Easter. Over the country as a whole, 0·8 per cent. of the Easter school leavers were unemployed on 13th June. Even in the black areas, in the Northern region, all had been placed in work except 2·5 per cent. The June count of unemployment amongst youngsters between the ages of 15 and 18 is 11,700, but there were, at the same time, vacancies for 116,500. It is clear, therefore, that many areas face not a problem of absorption, but of a shortage of workers. Indeed, that applies to adults as well as to young people.
  Girls were mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. In all regions today vacancies for girls exceed the unemployed. In the Midland region the ratio is 40 vacancies to one girl unemployed; in Scotland, it is six to one; in the Northern region it is four to one; in Wales, where it always has been a problem, the ratio is three to one. But the House is probably more anxious about the prospects for boys. In areas of high employment the shortages are only a little less marked and the least favourable is, again, the Northern region. The number of unemployed boys exceeds vacancies by 100 to 86.
  Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Do my hon. Friend's statistics stretch to Northern Ireland?
  Mr. Thomas: I do not cover Northern Ireland, because it is not within the ambit of our regional areas. I am sorry that I cannot give my hon. Friend the figures for Northern Ireland. I am very glad that I am not responsible for the situation there.
  I mention all these figures to the Committee, but I do not want to minimise the situation. There are difficult areas and the situation is least favourable in

  1579
  the three regions which I have mentioned. Nevertheless, and, in particular, in the development districts, there has been a distinct improvement since last year. In Wales, the unemployment figure of young people between 15 and 18 has been practically halved. In Scotland, it has fallen by one-third. In the Northern region the signs of improvement, which are still somewhat tentative and recent, mean that the situation for young people is still a difficult problem.
  Mr. William Hannan: While not denying that the situation has improved, is not the hon. Gentleman aware that it is twice as bad as it was in 1957? Will he address himself to that point?
  Mr. Thomas: We have had many questions about the situation in Scotland, and I appreciate the difficulties, but I am putting forward facts. I do not want to avoid the difficult areas. I could have put in figures for Britain as a whole, for that picture is one of very low unemployment and very many vacancies—almost ten vacancies to one person unemployed. The position in the difficult areas is clear. It is bound up with the general employment situation. It is not peculiar to young people.
  The question everybody asks is this: what are the future prospects? As the hon. Member for Edmonton said, there will be a very steep increase in the number of school leavers in 1961–62. In 1961, the number of school leavers seeking work will amount to 660,000, which is 37 per cent. more than in 1956, and in 1962 it will probably be 720,000, which is almost a 50 per cent. increase over 1956. It is obvious that the prospects will depend primarily upon our ability to maintain an active and competitive economy and our success in steering industrial expansion to less favourable areas.
  I do not want to introduce something which is alien to the general content of the debate, but I thought that the youth employment officer who wrote to the hon. Member was being a little pessimistic about the Chancellor's measures, which, as we see them, are aimed at steady expansion and steady prices, which will be far healthier and
  1580
  more helpful than allowing the growth in the economy to go beyond our resources, and lead to inflation.
  In considering the absorption of the bulge into employment, the proportionate addition which the bulge will make to the general labour force gives a better indication of the size of the problem than a mere comparison between the annual leavers. By this yardstick the whole bulge, from 1956 to 1952, is likely to add between 3 per cent. and 4 per cent. to our labour force and, judged by the expansion of our working population in recent years, it should be absorbed without much difficulty. I say this because it is only right to endorse the Carr Committee's conclusion that the problem of the bulge is not so much one of employment as of the kind of employment and, in particular, whether there are sufficient training arrangements.
  The hon. Member devoted the major part of his speech to that consideration. In the course of it he said that inquiries had been made, without very much success, to find out what skill was needed for the future, and possibly what numbers would be required. I agree that it has been found difficult to obtain a precise estimate of industry's future requirements of skilled workers, but I think that all hon. Members would agree with the Carr Committee's conclusion that industry will require all the skilled workers that the bulge can produce. If any evidence of that is required it can be found in the large and persistent unsatisfied demands for skilled workers which we find all over the country. I should have thought that that was striking evidence of the need to expand training for skilled occupations.
  The hon. Member also talked about the progress that had been made. I do not want to pretend that progress has been other than somewhat disappointing in many ways. There is clearly a vital need for a determined and increased effort on the part of all concerned, in particular on the part of industry. Fortunately, this year gives us a slight breathing space, and it is important that the Government, the I.T.C. and the leaders on both sides of industry should use this interval in an effort to drive home to individual managements and union membership the fact that upon our investment in training hangs, to a large

  1581
  extent, the resilience and viability of firms in the long term, the future security of employment for their workpeople and, cumulatively, the economic wellbeing of the nation.
  Having said that, I still think that the outlook is not as depressing as it was painted by the hon. Member. There have been some slight, but hopeful, signs of progress. In 1959, the downward trend in the numbers entering apprenticeships and similar industrial training was arrested. Although, during the first half of the year, there was a continuing decrease, which caused very great concern, at the end of 1959 the total of apprentices, among boys and girls, coming into industry was almost 9,000 more than in 1958.
  As the hon. Member said, the increase in the number of boys was 5,500. It is true that because of the increased numbers coming on to the labour market—there were 46,000 more than in 1958—the percentage dropped from 34·4 to 33·6 in 1959. I have obtained the figures for girls, for which the hon. Member asked. The increase in that case was from 6·9 per cent. in 1958 to 7·4 per cent. in 1959. I agree with the hon. Member that, in the main, this was probably a reflection of the upturn in the economy, but I think that it was also a reflection of the efforts made to bring home to industry the lessons of the Carr Report.
  The second helpful sign is that although the overall figures are small there has been a steady increase both in the number and percentage of youngsters from 15 to 18 years of age entering employment leading to recognised professional qualifications, which, especially in the case of boys, offer prospects of progressive careers.
  Thirdly, there has been a steady increase in the quite high percentage of young people who have not taken up employment by the age of 18. In 1956, it was 21·4 per cent. and in 1958 it was 23·7 per cent. This reflects the extended use which is being made of the opportunities for higher education, and it is a reasonable assumption that this growing group of young people is taking jobs at a higher level of responsibility, and with better prospects of promotion.
  The hon. Member mentioned the suggestions put forward by the A.T.T.I. I have seen the suggestions, and I would
  1582
  say that they are quite revolutionary, that they introduce an element of compulsion, and would not be appropriate for the present situation, with the bulge immediately in front of us. But I do not want to go into the matter in any more detail.
  As for the I.T.C., that is a voluntary body composed of leaders of industry, and if we are to pursue a policy of persuasion I suggest that there is no better body to whom we can turn. It is difficult to see what body would have more influence with both sides of industry. Neither the British Employers' Confederation nor the T.U.C. has powers of control over the detailed policies of its constituent associations.
  The 'hon. Member said that the president of the British Employers' Confederation wrote to large companies and asked them substantially to increase their intake of apprentices, and received 154 firm commitments—-but that, unfortunately, 147 said that they could not commit themselves. I suggest that a figure of 154 firm commitments is rather good, in that it must be extremely difficult for a firm to be able to say unequivocally what it will be doing in the future. There were 154 firms who were able to commit themselves, and another 62 who said that they were in sympathy with the aim. This surely demonstrates the power of persuasion lying with the president of the B.E.C.
  Mr. Albu: If the idea is to increase the intake by 20 per cent., and only half the firms increase their intake by that percentage, surely the total increase will be only 10 per cent.
  Mr. Thomas: The firms were asked to commit themselves. That is a different thing altogether. It is to be hoped that all the firms will increase their intake of apprentices, but it is difficult for a firm to commit itself definitely to do so, and it is somewhat satisfactory to know that a large number of firms actually did commit themselves to do so.
  There has been criticism of the I.T.C. Its activities are directed towards an expansion during the severe bulge years, starting in 1961. It would be premature to criticise this body until we have had an opportunity to assess the results of its efforts. The main problem lies with

  1583
  the smaller and medium-sized firms, as the hon. Member said.
  Of the larger firms, those who have training facilities very often provide excellent training which could not be better. It is true that there are some small firms with equally good training facilities, but unfortunately, it is also true that there are many smaller firms who feel unable to do any training. It is in these firms that help is needed. There are exceptions, and despite what was said by the hon. Member for Edmonton I would include 'building as an exception. The smaller firms in building do a considerable amount of training. But the smaller firms in Britain are the biggest employers of skilled labour in the aggregate, and it is clear that great attention must be paid to the smaller and medium-sized firms.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the value of group apprenticeship schemes and joint training centres and I agree with what he said. I pay tribute to the associations that he mentioned and to others for their activities in enlarging these connections with the smaller firms. The practical difficulty is in the first year when training costs most and produces least. There is no doubt that things like pre-apprenticeship courses in technical colleges and first-year apprenticeships in the G.T.C.s would be of great value to these firms.
  I am sure that the Committee will welcome the circular sent to all local education authorities yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. In it he suggests ways in which the education service can co-operate with industry in providing increased opportunities for young people to train for skilled employment. It will be remembered that one of the three suggestions he makes is that technical colleges, in collaboration with both sides of local industry, should develop full-time courses of education and training covering the theoretical and practical work normally carried out in the first year of apprenticeship. This is something which we should all be delighted to see enlarged.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the G.T.C. apprenticeship scheme, which he called a little scheme. We do not suggest that it is anything more. The Committee will recollect that it was said
  1584
  that this scheme is directed at the smaller firms. It is not intended to solve any problem numerically, but to offer a good example and to assist them in following the pattern of training. As I see it, it is also a good example of the way in which the Government can give a lead to industry to co-operate, as opposed to coercion or compulsion. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it obviously will not make a great numerical contribution, but it could do a great deal of good.
  The Committee might be interested if I said something about this first-year training in G.T.C.s. Efforts to get employers to nominate recruits for eight engineering classes are at present in progress. There has been good local publicity for the scheme. A leaflet has been distributed to employers within the range of the G.T.Cs at which classes are to 'be started and they are encouraged to visit the G.T.C.s to discuss the scheme and to see the arrangements for it. Visits to firms thought to offer a potential field for the scheme are being made by youth employment officers.
  It is perhaps too early to judge the full effect of this publicity, but we certainly hope that employers will respond well and make full use of the excellent facilities which we hope to provide. Discussions on the application of the scheme to building occupations have taken place with the National Joint Council of the Building Industry, which welcomed the scheme in principle, but thought that, in practice, firms would find it difficult to release apprentices for a whole year for centre training. The Department is exploring, with the industry, the possibility of finding a basis on which initial training of apprentices in G.T.C.s is likely to prove more attractive to the industry.
  We have also put proposals for setting up classes in radio and television servicing and motor car repair to the joint bodies concerned. I hope that everyone will assist in getting a good response from industry. I think that this first-year training in our G.T.C.s could be a great help. I know that at the moment it is not intended to be more than a pilot scheme, and, therefore, it does not make a great numerical contribution. But if there is a good response, we shall be only too happy to consider its extention.

  1585
  At the Letchworth Staff College for Industrial Supervisors—this is some indication of our work in this matter—there has been an increased demand from industry for training places at the college and this demand has been sufficient recently to justify a small expansion. We have now a programme for 17 courses this year offering 454 places to member firms of the British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education, and the British Iron and Steel Federation, compared with 318 places in 1959; 253 in 1958; and 182 in 1957. Courses are fully booked until the end of September and a number of places are already reserved for courses at the end of the year.
  While there is no certainty that all the supervisors are employed on apprentice training, priority is given to nominated apprentice instructors and indications are that nearly all, about 95 per cent., have such responsibilities. Inquiries from firms suggest that it is an apprentice training need which is creating this increase in demand.
  The hon. Gentleman made an interesting suggestion that Government responsibility for apprenticeships should be a continuing educational process and should be transferred to the Ministry of Education. I do not think that it would be seemly for me to criticise it in any way.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: It is a very good idea.
  Mr. Thomas: I do not feel that I am in a position to comment on this, but perhaps I may say one or two things.
  The present position is that apprenticeship is considered primarily as a matter for settlement and regulation between the two sides of industry and Government responsibility for it rests primarily with the Ministry of Labour as a manpower and industrial relations question. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is to be expected—indeed, I hope that it will be so—that education will have a growing part to play in the sphere of industrial training.
  This growth of the educational side of industrial training is already particularly marked above the craft level. I cannot see that this means that industrial training can be regarded in the near future or, indeed, in the foreseeable
  1586
  future as lying wholly, or even mainly, within the educational system.
  Mr. Frederick Lee: Will the hon. Gentleman promise faithfully to save the apprentices of the future from the present Minister of Education?
  Mr. Thomas: I am not in a position to promise anything in this debate.
  Particularly at the craft and lower levels an important and integral element of industrial training consists of practical experience and an acquaintance with the tempo and conditions of industrial life which are best acquired—indeed, they can only be acquired—in industrial employment. I think it right to say that apprenticeship cannot be regarded merely as a matter of imparting instruction and acquiring experience. The conditions under which apprenticeship training is given; the relationship between apprentice wages and the full rates; the numbers trained; the scope of training and the types of work to which it should give access are bound, at craft and lower levels to be a matter of joint concern to unions and employers. In a very real sense it is an industrial relations matter.
  It is important, also, that industrial training should not be divorced from general employment considerations. To treat it merely as part of the education system would carry the risk of its being regarded as an end in itself—an entirely proper objective for general education—and not as a means to employment.
  I regret that I have probably spoken far too long in this debate, but I am grateful to the House for having listened to me. I think that it can be said that we are all agreed about the vital need to provide more—and, in many cases, better—training facilities. Not only is there a social need, but an economic need. The stability and quality of our society is involved. The Government, particularly in the field of education and technical training, will certainly play their part. I hope that this debate will re-emphasise the call to industry that the opportunities presented by the bulge must not be missed.
  4.51 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I am sure all will agree that this is one of the most important debates

  1587
  which has taken place in this House for a very long time. This is an important and vital question. It would be desirable to have an annual report on the state of the educational training, technical, scientific and industrial craft training, in British industry. The subject is of such importance that it is worthy of that.
  Some figures were given by the Parliamentary Secretary showing that there had been a check in the downward trend of entry of apprentices into industry. That is all very well, but I had the privilege—and it was a privilege—throughout my working life to have considerable experience of witnessing, and often working in, many apprenticeship schemes south of Scotland and all over the United Kingdom. When I see these figures of an upward trend of entry of apprentices to industry they do not give me any great pleasure.
  A few years ago I was invited by two directors of a company, whose name I shall not mention, to give an opinion on an apprenticeship scheme they had recently inaugurated. They knew of my interest and experience in apprenticeship schemes in the past. They had a small company employing 3,000 or 4,000 men and women. I went through the scheme, read the literature, and talked to the one teacher they had. Then I went back to the board room and they asked me what I thought about the scheme. I said, "It is a very poor scheme. Not one of these boys is getting what I should call an apprenticeship training".
  Fifty boys were merely being trained to produce that company's products. They were being trained to go out as service mechanics for the company's products. When they moved to another field and requisitions came for a new component to replace an old one, they would merely suggest replacing it with the one they had been trained to manufacture.
  That is not an apprenticeship scheme, that is not training a boy to be a tradesman craftsman, mechanical, electrical or otherwise. It is strait-jacketed and too narrow. I could name a dozen apprenticeships schemes which I know very well indeed. One company has spent millions in the last fifteen years in building up a wonderful apprenticeship scheme. A group I know is the most successful
  1588
  organisation in the world in the manufacture of its particular product. No one in the United States, in Russia or anywhere else can touch it.
  It attributes its success in large measure to the fact that, through its comprehensive apprenticeship scheme, it has produced the finest technicians and experts in the world. In 1917 it had a waiting list of 300 who wanted to get into its apprenticeship scheme. They came from all over England and there was a premium attached to the scheme. That trading concern had a sound training for apprenticeship. I have a dozen copies of the scheme's progress throughout the years. It was one of the finest engineering organisations in the country.
  What is the position today? In Scotland it is heartbreaking. There are fifty boys leaving school at 15 years of age and there are half a dozen companies which want apprentices. One company wants five and other wants ten. The company with the best scheme in the area wants only ten apprentices. They get a fair training and the last few have to go to an institution where they are apprenticed; yes, but that is not really apprenticeship. It is not worth the paper it is written on. Hundreds of boys get into these so-called apprenticeship schemes and in the third year they are out on production. They have learned no more about engineering than they knew on the day they started. I have seen this all over the country.
  Thousands of boys enter apprenticeship schemes in factories when they are 16 and never get the oportunity of rising about the pure craft level of a fitter or turner. They should be in good schemes of day release with adequate incentives. I am certain we lose thousands of good technicians, first-class men, because so many of our children are compelled to enter apprenticeship in industrial units which are not fit to accept them. The Crowther Report said that they are taken by industries which consider them useful—of course they are useful, to those industries.
  There is far more at stake than this. Hon. Members opposite quite rightly talk about the difficulty of redeploying labour. We know there are a lot of problems outside apprenticeship training which frustrate the redeployment of labour. I can remember how when war broke out in 1939 fellows came to the

  1589
  workshops saying they had been apprenticed, but when they came into the tool rooms of munition factories to do some of the production engineering work which was called for it was revealed that they had had no training at all. Their range of experience was strictly limited.
  Many industrial concerns, through group schemes, have overcome some of the difficulties which have arisen from poor apprenticeship schemes in some of our factories. This particularly applies to certain parts of the country. If a boy is apprenticed in the South and the Midlands, then even before he has finished his time he knows that he can read the advertisements for highly specialised technicians in the newspapers with some hope of being able to apply for those jobs. He can always consult his superviser about his future prospects. Supervisers and good shop stewards of the Amalgamated Engineering Union listen to these boys. We have experienced it. A boy may say, "I should like to go into metallurgy or to be a laboratory technician". Or he may wish to go into the drawing office or into design. If the boy shows responsibility and ambition, the good supervisers will do all they can to see that he has that opportunity.
  As I know from experience, hundreds of boys move from the best apprenticeship schemes in the Midlands into a position in which they can confidently apply for many of the technical jobs advertised in the Observer every Sunday. How many apprentices on the Clyde or in the Welsh steelworks have the opportunity within their industries to consult the superviser or the shop steward or management? How many of them would ever be given an opportunity to widen their knowledge within their apprenticeships to enable them to move from one unit of production into others where perhaps more skill is needed? Very few indeed.
  The Ministry of Labour has been responsible for apprenticeships. We have been told that our proposals are revolutionary. Hon. Members should bear in mind that my hon. Friends the Members for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), Newton (Mr. Lee), Burnley (Mr. D. Jones), Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) and myself have all been through good apprenticeship schemes. We were trained to be revolutionary. We were
  1590
  trained to scrap as quickly as possible a mechanism which was out of date and to replace it with one more appropriate to the economics of the system in which we worked. We are always revolutionary, because that was our training. We build a production unit, and as soon as we have finished it, we are busy thinking how we can improve it.
  Mr. Dan Jones: And we very often succeed.
  Mr. Bence: We always succeed. We never fail. The engineer has made not two blades of grass grow where one grew before; he has made thousands grow. He has given us washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. Unfortunately, the building contractor cannot give the people the houses they want. If he could, we could certainly give the people everything else they want. We can give them motor cars and furniture but not houses, because the provision of houses is the job of another industry.
  The time has come when the Ministry of Education must replace the Ministry of Labour in dealing with these schemes. I say that with all respect to the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who is responsible for education in Scotland and who is present on the Government Front Bench. No doubt when this debate was mooted it was realised that the educationists ought to have something to say about it. No doubt the Joint Under-Secretary of State will tell us why he feels that they should have something to say about it.
  In some areas a boy of 15 can leave school and enter an industrial apprenticeship scheme with the knowledge that he can get a degree. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton knows that. Boys can get to university through apprenticeship schemes and be assured that at the age of 21 or 22 they will have a full grasp and a wide knowledge of engineering techniques and processes.
  But that does not apply to all apprentices. In some of these schemes, they can be the best boys in the world, but unless they can find an alternative institution where they can be trained, their careers are doomed. They do not have day relief. The curriculum and whole method of training is bad and the facilities are not available to them. I admit

  1591
  that many of the small firms could not afford to provide them, but is that any reason why they should be recognised as institutions in which a boy can be apprenticed? What would happen if someone started a school in Surrey, for example, simply with the desire to make money as easily as possible out of simple people, and awarded the children there a degree? There was a case in which somebody tried to do it, but the education authorities caught up with him.
  It is equally wrong for a firm without the proper facilities for training to take young boys into so-called apprenticeship schemes and subsequently to give them a piece of paper certifying that they have served a five-year apprenticeship. The first year they are making tea. In the next year they are, perhaps, learning a bit of fitting. In the year after that they are in the shop helping another fitter, and in the fourth year perhaps they are doing a bit of fitting on their own.
  Mr. Charles Pannell: For the first three months they are probably tea-boys.
  Mr. Bence: That is what I said. I hope that I am a true Britisher. We drink more tea than any other people in the world, and it is a good thing to be able to brew a cup of tea, but I am bound to say that an awful lot of time is wasted in doing it. All that is not fair to the boy.
  Mr. D. Jones: Or the country.
  Mr. Bence: I am more concerned at the moment with the boys themselves and with their parents, who are under the illusion that their boys are being trained as apprentices by an all-embracing training when often that is not the case and in fact they are being trained merely for a specific, specialised function in a specialised product, which is very bad indeed. I have seen this over the years, going back to 1919. I have seen men who have had so-called apprenticeship training entering an engineering plant and saying, "We have never done this before. This is not the kind of thing we made." The reverse has been the cause of the success of light engineering in the Midlands. I was trained to produce, or at any rate to tool, anything in metal.
  Mr. C. Pannell: I do not want my hon. Friend to think that only engineering apprentices are in the difficulty of being specialised. I have met graduates in history who, when I have asked them one elementary question on the Industrial Revolution, have replied, "That is not my period, old man. I would not know anything about that."
  Mr. Bence: That is true. Apprentices trained in light engineering in the advanced areas of London and the Midlands are never channelled so narrowly into a rut as dons, tutors and lecturers at universities are apt to channel some of their students, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton will agree. We never made that mistake in the large engineering establishments, but finances do not allow the little firms to give the wide training which can be provided by the larger institutions.
  In justice to boys and their parents, the Ministry of Education should demand a standard to which boys should be trained before being turned out as so-called mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, fitters or turners. There should be an accepted standard. When a firm asserts the right to train boys and girls in trades, from which professional technicians can be very largely drawn, the Ministry of Education should take a hand in seeing that the firm is approved and provides a minimum training. It should ensure that a proper standard of training is carried out.
  A boy who leaves a grammar school at 17 or 18 to go to a university to become an economist or an historian studies in accordance with curriculum supervised by the Ministry of Education. In the same way, a boy who leaves a secondary modern school to continue his education and training for his future life in industry should be satisfied that the institution to which he goes for his training can provide the proper standard and quality of training.
  A young man going to a university can be confident that the education to be provided will be of high quality. To whichever university college he goes, he is certain that he will have the same qualities of learning and education as the young man who goes to another college or university 100 miles away. When boys leave school at 15 to go for apprenticeship training, it is a vastly different

  1593
  story. It is hit and miss and, unless they go to the large companies, much of it is a complete miss.
  I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to apply himself to this problem. He should not consider merely the numbers entering apprenticeship training, whether they are rising or falling. It is the quality which matters in this age. From every 100 apprentices entering apprenticeship schemes we must find at least ten first class technicians. We must establish a movement from apprenticeship schemes to the universities. The sandwich schemes must be expanded. In Germany in the last century this was never divorced from education. In Russia today apprenticeship is a continuation of education. There is not much of which I approve in the Soviet Union, but wherever a boy in the Soviet Union is apprenticed, whether it is in Siberia or Armenia, he is certain that he will receive the same standard of training, and have the same access to learning and knowledge, as any other boy going to any institution in the Soviet Union.
  I hope that the Ministry will do as I suggest, because in Wales and Scotland hundreds of boys now serving apprenticeships will gain from those apprenticeships very little knowledge and insight to fit them to cope with the increasing number of specialised techniques and trades operating in modern industry.
  I was in an industrial plant not long ago. I left industry only ten years ago. I saw amazing processes. There have been revolutionary changes in the motor industry. The only boys who get sufficient training or have even an idea of those techniques are those trained by the motor manufacturers who have an interchange system.
  We want training both in Wales and Scotland. We want our youths in Scotland to have the same training as those afforded in the best institutions in the Midlands. If we do not provide such training, it will become increasingly more difficult to spread the light engineering industry in Scotland. The figures for the last eight years show that apprenticeship in Scotland has been declining.
  The Parliamentary Secretary said that we must not go too fast or must not do too much in case we disturb industry or cause some disturbance.
  Mr. P. Thomas: I did not say that we must not go too fast. I said that we must not make radical changes from the tradition.
  Mr. Bence: Is not that the same? This is where I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Much needs disturbing in British industry. Dynamite should be put under much of it. There is not much wrong with radical treatment to get rid of something sick or ill. There is nothing like a little brimstone and treacle. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not be afraid of disturbing things. If they do not get disturbed now and again they begin to gather moss. If they are rolled too fast, they do not do anything. There is moss growing in some of our industrial institutions.
  This morning I saw a technician from one of the largest light engineering manufacturers in the world. He is visiting this country. I have known him for a long time. He is a technician of the highest order. He said that Great Britain has cause for alarm because in Italy, France and Germany—throughout the Common Market—there is an intensive drive to create new capital and train more and more engineers and technicians.
  A conscious effort is being made by Common Market countries. No one should believe that we are second either to Germany or France. In many cases they are second to us, but the effort is there. If we are to remain first in the field, as we are in many ways, we shall have to set a pace in this country of disturbing industry. We shall have to push on with the radical adoption of new methods of training of our boys and girls in British industry.
  5.20 p.m.
  Mr. John Page: It is with the greatest trepidation that I speak in this Chamber for the first time, and I hope that hon. Members will be good enough to forgive the many errors of form and substance that I may well corn-m i t. I am greatly encouraged, however, because I am confident that hon. Members on both sides will welcome what I wish to say about my predecessor, Sir Albert Braithwaite. I did not know Sir Albert personally, but I have learned a lot about him during the past two or three months. Every hon. Member has told me what a kind person Sir Albert was and has spoken of his sincerity.

  1595
  I believe that his judgment, particularly on industrial matters, was greatly respected, and there are probably few hon. Members who could have had so many friends as he had on both sides. Time and time again in the constituency I am told of his generosity, and the help that he was always ready to give; and his generosity was always without publicity, without condescension and without strings. I feel at once very proud and very humble to be following him as Member for Harrow, West.
  The constituency which he served so well is an interesting one in the context of this debate, because we have virtually no industry in it at all. The industrious, self-reliant people who live there either go up to London or into the neighbouring constituencies for their work. The same appiles to the young school leavers in Harrow. They, too, have to look away from home to find the jobs into which they will fit best. I think they are lucky, because very often when there is one industry on the spot it is almost the accepted thing for the school leavers to enter it. In Harrow, the opportunities for school leavers are made very much wider.
  Harrow is what is called a dormitory area, but judging from my correspondence since becoming a Member of Parliament I can assure the Committee that my constituents are not asleep. They are particularly awake to the opportunities they must find for school leavers in their own families and others in the area and are helped by the go-ahead youth employment and education staffs who pioneered the Harrow convention of local headmasters and industrialists. 'In Harrow, we are much more fortunate than are those people of whom the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) spoke. The grammar school sixth formers can often get university places, but the less able and those in the fifth forms and in the secondary modern schools who are able to take the extended course cam often find student or craft apprenticeships if they have a scientific background.
  Nevertheless, there seem to be two groups of school leavers who often find themselves out in the cold. In the first group are the boys who are not academically minded, whose families
  1596
  cannot give them much help, who are late developers and are not able to take the extra course. We in Harrow have a particularly soft spot for late developers, remembering, as we do, the record of our most renowned apprentice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill).
  The danger is that these school leavers without many qualifications may enter industry in its lowest forms and for the rest of their lives feel inferior to their brighter colleagues who have been able to get industrial apprenticeships. It should be the country's ambition that every school leaver who enters industry should get some kind of training in it.
  I understood the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East to suggest that every boy should have a craft apprenticeship or something similar. He expected most boys to get an apprenticeship. I do not think that that is possible, or even desirable, but they must have some kind of basic industrial training. I trust that I understood the hon. Member aright?
  Mr. Bence indicated dissent.
  Mr. Page: Then I am wrong, and I am very sorry. I thought that that was the hon. Member's point.
  As I was saying, these boys must have some kind of training that will make them flexible and adaptable and able to move about within industry with adequate knowledge and ability to engage in the less-skilled jobs in light engineering and similar industries Various experiments have been carried out on these lines, either on a day-release basis or, sometimes, on the basis of a term's release. The younger boys who are not taking up a craft apprenticeship are released by the firm to a technical college for something like twelve weeks running, and are there given a general "top-up" in the kind of skills and information that will be helpful to them in industry generally.
  They are also helped to develop the mathematics and the English that they learned at school. I reserve my opinion, but I think that if all the industrial training were in the hands of the Ministry of Education there is a danger that boys who now feel that at last they have got rid of the school atmosphere and are going into the world on their own to try to make a name for

  1597
  themselves might feel that they were still in the school atmosphere and would lose the initiative they had when they first felt that they were on their own.
  This was particularly mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago by someone who is running one of these courses. He told me that in their English school lessons a number of these boys found that Shelley's odes left them cold and they did not attempt to take any further interest in their English course. When, however, he handed them the petrol pump of a car and told them to dismantle it, reassemble it and then write a description of the method used, they suddenly found some point in being able to express themselves. If the Minister felt that such courses were possible of application. I wonder whether they could be run on a pilot basis in some of the Government Training Centres?
  The other category which gets left in the cold, as the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) mentioned, are the school leavers with a non-scientific bent who have not the academic qualifications to get to a university or into a highly-qualified occupation or profession. These people often want to go into the commercial and administrative side of industry, and I think that managements are often extremely backward in their recognition of the various commercial qualifications that are now available.
  A management very often gives absolutely no encouragement to what one might, perhaps, call young white-collar workers entering the firm, either to improve themselves by taking courses, or by giving them day release. I regret to say that in many cases managements ignore the value of such things as the National Certificate in Business Studies which, by their own efforts, some of these young people may take.
  I believe that the managements in the largest firms are taking this commercial training seriously, but in many medium-sized and smaller firms such interest is quite unknown. In them, only in the production shop will one find the latest equipment and techniques being used. Their offices are very often still in the quill-pen stage. By denying to the office and commercial worker the status that should go with his responsibilities and qualifications, such firms are stretching very greatly the loyalty to the company
  1598
  that the office worker has so long traditionally given.
  Finally, I should like briefly to look at the kind of industrial world that these school leavers will be entering. Since the war, we have seen the beginning of a new industrial revolution, and I think that ordinary people, particularly those like myself, who entered industry after the war, are not satisfied with the way in which it is organised at present. There is a real wish for a new climate in industrial relations, and I believe that that real desire will make itself felt. These people are extremely worried when they read that large numbers of people have been dismissed from a company's service because of redundancy. They are also extremely worried when they read that the unofficial strike of a few men has put thousands of their colleagues out of work.
  I have studied with some care the industrial programmes of the different parties, and I think that although in the strategic field of publicly-owned or privately-owned industry there is a great deal of difference, in the tactical field of industrial relations and what can be done to improve them, there is much agreement.
  Speaking as one who was until so very recently outside the House, looking in, I believe that there is no institution in the world more perfectly constituted than this House to give leadership to industry and those engaged in it. On both sides there are hon. Members of great knowledge, experience and prestige in all the different parts that go to make up our industry as a whole—the shareholders, the directors, the employees, the trade unions, the Government and the consumers. If all hon. Members on both sides of the House would give their blessing to measures that could improve industrial relations and the spirit of co-operation and mutual respect between those engaged in industry, this House could make no greater contribution to full employment, and full enjoyment throughout the lives of our young people, whose future we are discussing today.
  5.33 p.m.
  Mr. William Hannan: I am sure that those Members who have just heard the maiden speech

  1599
  of the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) will join with me most sincerely in extending to him our corporate congratulations on a first-class speech. He said that he hoped, like all of us have done, that he would be forgiven for any imperfection of form or substance. I personally did not hear any.
  The hon. Member's speech was interesting and it was obvious that he knew something about the subject. Coming into the House of Commons as a result of a by-election, and following the former hon. Member for his constituency, his effort was all the more meritorious. I am sure that we all want to congratulate him. Whether on a subject like this, which is not contentious, or on more contentious subjects, we hope to have the pleasure of hearing the hon. Member in future debates.
  The importance of apprenticeships depends upon the overall employment in the country as a whole. I was impressed, although not always in agreement with him, by the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, in which he underlined that fact. It is precisely because of the disparity and inequality of the dispersal of industry throughout the country that in Scotland at least we have this quarrel with the Government.
  I do not want to give the impression introducing a nationalist note. Questions and Answers in the House have already, I hope, shown to the House and to the country the great feeling of distress and anger which prevails in Scotland because, although speeches are made like the one we had this afternoon from the Parliamentary Secretary, the method of assessing the improvement in the employment of young people and the number of apprentices is based far too often on what obtains in the south-east of England and in the Midlands. That is not a true comparison.
  The attitude of the trade unions to apprenticeship will be measured in the future by the success or otherwise of the Government's own policy. I am quite sure that the trade union movement will co-operate and agree to review the circumstances of apprenticeship of five years or four years, whatever the case may be, provided that the Government will show an earnest of their sincerity in maintaining full employment and in
  1600
  not upsetting the economy every two or three years as they have been doing. Indeed, in the last week we had a further instance of it by the increase in the Bank Rate which has created lack of confidence not only among the trade unions, 'but among the employers themselves. If they could see for some years ahead a stable policy of full employment, I am quite sure that they would be willing to co-operate.
  Apart altogether from present-day circumstances, I am one who believes that the changing pattern of society to which the hon. Member for Harrow, West referred—the new techniques and automation—will force the Government of the day, whether Labour or Conservative, to look at this question of consciously planning the future of industry and encouraging young people to take a much greater and more informed place in industry. For that reason, I think that the trade unions will be only too willing, for their part, to review the whole subject of apprenticeships.
  I come now to the comparison between Scotland and the Midlands and South-East of England in the matter of employment. It is quite true, as the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government as a whole have claimed, that employment has improved in Scotland, even among young people. Of course it has. The point I wish to emphasise is that, although the figures have come down between March and April, the present figure for April is twice as high as it was in the corresponding month of 1957. That is a fact. There were 3,200 young people unemployed in Scotland in March, and the number has come down to 2,800, but that 2,800 still represents 25 per cent. of the total of boys unemployed in the whole country. That is the significant feature. In March, 1957, the proportion was only one-ninth. Today, it is a quarter. Again, I emphasise the importance of the employment position as a whole in any consideration of apprenticeship schemes.
  One of the most significant answers which the Ministry of Labour gave in the House on this matter was given by the Parliamentary Secretary on 13th April this year, when he said that 37 per cent. of all men under 20 years of age in Scotland had been unemployed for six months or more, whereas in the Midlands the percentage was only 1·6. Another comparison given on the same

  1601
  day was that there were 37 unfilled vacancies for every 100 boys registered as unemployed in Glasgow, that is to say, there were three boys running after each job, whereas in Birmingham, a city of comparable size, there were actually 28 jabs for every boy.
  These are the matters to which the Minister must pay close attention. Again, although the Parliamentary Secretary said, in introducing the figures, that 80 per cent., or 90 per cent. at one stage, of all boys and girls of 15 years of age had entered a job within one month, in Scotland the period is three months. Moreover—this is a most important point, and I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said in a most able speech—these 15-year-olds are entering jobs which are not always compatible with their ability and aptitude.
  I am informed by the Glasgow Youth Employment Officer that, in 1955–56, 40 per cent. of our school leavers entered apprenticeships. In 1956–57, the percentage was down to 39·5. In 1958–59, it was 31 per cent. There has been a decrease of 10 per cent. in the number of young people entering apprenticeships within the last four years. Of course, the Government may argue that this downward trend is due to several factors. It could be due to the overall unemployment situation in Scotland and—I believe that this is the main reason—the unhealthy state of the order books of employers, or it could be due to the discontinuance of National Service, which means that new entrants are no longer needed to replace the time-served apprentices.
  It could be due to the fact that, with fewer jobs available than hitherto, employers are more selective in choosing the right people, and therefore, there is less wastage. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton made this point, which is a very important one. Employers are not always getting the best men. I think that the hon. Member for Harrow, West referred to this in relation to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). We are not arguing that all boys should become apprentices, but it is true that employers are entitled to have the boys who have the aptitude and ability for the job and those boys ought to have every opportunity for training.
  Mr. Bence: My words should not be interpreted as meaning that all boys should have apprenticeships. My point was that all boys who enter an apprenticeship should have the confidence and security of knowing that their apprenticeships in the institutions in which they are are as good as the apprenticeships of any other boys anywhere else.
  Mr. Hannan: I think that the point has been made. In the Report of the Sub-Committee of the National Joint Advisory Council, of which the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) was chairman, which we know as the Carr Report. it was said, in paragraph 18, that
  "The number of apprentices needs to be increased and the training of all brought up to the standard of the best."
  It is precisely here that some of us have a quarrel with the Government and, if I may say so, with all respect to the Carr Committee, the Report did not go far enough. There is no conscious planning in what the Carr Report suggests.
  I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton believes, that the Government, whether they like it or not, must in the future come down on the side of consciously organising this business, in conjunction with the Department of Education, from the earliest stage. I go even further than some of my hon. Friends and I say that 15 or 16 years of age is, perhaps, really too late. Young people now are growing up earlier and they are adults at 14. This is one of the reasons for the trouble about girls in uniform; they are already young women. There is a new attitude beginning to appear in the minds of our young people.
  There are great differences in the courses open to young people after selection for the secondary modern school in the South and our junior secondary school in Scotland or for the senior schools and grammar schools. In the latter, the course open for the young person is quite clear; he can get his higher certificate and go on to university. We have failed for years to see that the pupil in the junior secondary school has a similarly clear-cut course open to him to achieve some technical training in accordance with his ability. I feel that there should be some test, though not necessarily a strict test, and the boy or girl in the junior secondary school or the

  1603
  secondary modern school should be encouraged to think that he or she is every bit as clever as his counterpart in the other schools.
  There are different ways of being clever in this world. Heaven save us from all the university pundits. We have all enjoyed the description given by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) of the blot on his examination papers. Many of us on these benches, and some on the benches opposite, have managed without such examinations. We have for too long concentrated on providing the best and, indeed, all the facilities for those who can go to university. I am not saying that they are getting too much. I hope that the Government will not think that I am suggesting a cut; we have enough cut already. What I want the Government to do is to pay more attention not only to the training, but to the recruitment of young people for apprenticeships.
  What do the Government propose to do? Despite the pronouncements of the Carr Committee and despite the present shortage of skilled men, there are today fewer lads entering apprenticeships than for some years past. This is not due to less favourable employment opportunities because, even in 1956 and 1957, when industry was more buoyant, the tendency towards a decrease in apprenticeships was evident. There is a problem here which is made more urgent by the changes which automation is bringing, changes of which the trade union movement is only too well aware. I think that, with greater consultation, we ought to be able to tackle the matter in a more forthright manner.
  The present Minister of Power, when in Glasgow at a conference, said that it was proving more difficult to find suitable jobs for young people. He said, however, that it was due to lack of economic activity rather than to an increase in the number of young people from the schools. Do the Government still stand by that statement, which was made only in January, 1959? In Scotland, there is less economic activity than in any other part of the country.
  The Minister of Power went on to advise employers that in determining schemes they should not base their estimates on a recession, but that in any
  1604
  case the bulge in 1962 as compared with 1956 would be 35 per cent. in Scotland as against 50 per cent. for Great Britain. It is no consolation to us to know that there will be only a 35 per cent. as against a 50 per cent. increase in the bulge numbers when economic activity is so stagnant and there is no growth of industry to take up these people.
  The Government and the Carr Committee have referred this matter to the Industrial Training Council. As is known, the youth employment committees are opposed to the suggestion, made by the secretary of the Industrial Training Council in Glasgow, that if young people could not find employment in Scotland, they should go to the Midlands. That was the worst taste or psychology that he could use. It is the same kind of attitude as was prevalent in the inter-war years, when young people left the Welsh valleys to come to London.
  Think of the parents and of the young people who are growing up in their areas. Is it right that these young people of the age of 15 or 16 should leave home because of the attraction of jobs in the Midlands or London? If the Minister has not heard of the protests, I assure him that strong representations were made against that kind of approach.
  The Industrial Training Council was set up more than a year ago. In an article in Education, Dr. Alexander had this to say:
  "… some attempt should be made to build up a reservoir of skilled labour".
  He added that
  "this, of course, is where the Industrial Training Council should be a power-house of ideas and action. In fact, it is not only moving at a snail's pace, but appears to be blissfully unaware that its exhortations are returning as empty echoes. …The £75,000 offered by the Government as a pool into which industries can dip for half the cost of appointing training officers is as yet untouched."
  Will the Minister confirm whether that is still the position? Dr. Alexander continued:
  "Up to the September closing date there have been no takers, and the I.T.C. have now extended it indefinitely."
  That related to an advertisement for a full-time officer, since when an insipid leaflet has been issued.
  Everybody would be glad if the presupposition of the Carr Report and of

  1605
  the Government that the existing slack in the economy would be invigorated were substantiated, but the action of the Government last week in raising the Bank Rate bodes very ill indeed.
  I want, in conclusion, to refer to the position of further education in Scotland as compared with England and Wales. The White Paper on Technical Education in 1956 confirms that of every four young people taking technical education classes, only one in Scotland is granted day release. In shipbuilding and engineering, whereas 90 per cont. are on day-release in England and Wales, in Scotland the figure is only 16 per cent. These are deplorable figures. Relating the releases for boys under the age of 18 to the total number of those under 18 in Scotland and England, for example, the figures for the respective industries are as follows. In chemicals and allied industries, 9 per cent. get day-release in Scotland as against 65 per cent. in England and Wales. These figures are from Answers supplied by the Minister of Education for England and Wales and by the Scottish Office.
  In construction work, whereas in Scotland 22 per cent. have day-release, the figure for England and Wales is 47·6 per cent., or more than double. In textiles, 3 per cent. get day-release in Scotland as against 14·6 per cent. in England and Wales. In agriculture, forestry and fisheries, the figures are 1 per cent. in Scotland and 4·4 per cent. in England and Wales; in the distributive trades, 3 per cent. in Scotland and 8 per cent. in England and Wales. The Scottish employers have a bad and depressing record in this respect, particularly in shipbuilding and engineering, whereas in the great public industries of mining and quarrying 50 per cent. of the boys get day-release.
  The White Paper says that
  "Although the increase in the figures from 600 in 1939 to … 25,000 in 1954–55 represents substantial progress, development has not been as rapid or as far reaching as it ought to have been or as it has been in England, where 355,000 young people were released from their employment in 1954–55."
  Today—again, I agree with what the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland had to say the other day—although there has been an increase, it is nothing in comparison with what we ought to
  1606
  have had. The principal reason is that in Scotland our technical education started with central institutions and is not based on many local colleges.
  The situation concerning day-release in Scotland is extremely bad, despite recent improvements. The Government must think again in new terms of linking up the junctions much better between the primary school and the junior secondary school and from the junior secondary school to the technical and commercial colleges. Some of us on this side believe strongly that what is now needed is the provision of junior technical colleges to provide courses to be linked with the junior secondary schools in Scotland and that a two-year course or something of that nature should be provided for our young people who leave school at the age of 15—possibly, pre-vocational courses—to be linked with the full apprenticeship course in agreement with the trade unions and the employers.
  That is a brief outline. I know the difficulties. The Government will ask whether we want compulsion in this matter. The situation has reached the stage where some of us must speak out to both sides of industry, the trade unions and the employers. I do not want the boys aged 14 or 15 to have only industrial training—heaven forbid—but they must be trained for taking their part in the outside world. When their subjects of arithmetic, science, English and the rest are related to the actual job they do in the workaday world, these subjects will begin to live for them. As they are now treated, it is no wonder that a youngster says, "What is the good of all this to me? What is the good of algebra, science and mathematics to me?" Inside the factory the trade union shop stewards and journeymen can do much to encourage these young men and not to sneer, as too often happens, at the efforts of those at night school or on day-release.
  These are some of the important matters about which many of us feel very strongly. I urge the Government to give serious consideration to the junction between the secondary modern school and the junior technical college from which the best products can go on to the technical colleges and to the higher reaches of technical training.
  6.1 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Carr: First, I should like to add my congratulations to those of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) on his excellent maiden speech. I was particularly glad that he mentioned the question of training for the commercial and administrative functions in industry. This is important, and I am sure that it has been too much neglected, although steps are being taken to try to improve it. I have some knowledge of the excellent scheme of commercial apprenticeship which was launched a few years ago by the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, and, although the response to it is as yet disappointing, I hope that that and other schemes will be pushed forward and that a larger number of people will take advantage of it.
  I was also glad that my hon. Friend had something to say about the hopes and aspirations of all those who work in industry and the need to develop cooperation and partnership between the different elements in industry. This matter is relevant to a debate on training because, although many other factors go towards the creation of this spirit in industry, I have always believed that training in itself helps to give those who work in industry a greater sense of purpose and well-being in their work. This is perhaps the foundation of the creation of the spirit of co-operation and good will.
  It is two-and-a-quarter years since the Committee over which I had the honour to preside published its report. I can-not pretend to be satisfied with the progress which has been made since then and it is obvious that other hon. Members on both sides of this Committee are not satisfied. The question which we have to consider is what we are to do about it. How can we try to make further progress? The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said that, in his opinon, the Government must in future play a much larger part. I think that he went so far as to say that the Government ought to take chief responsibility for training for skill. He coupled this general hypothesis with the specific suggestion that responsibility within the Government should be transferred from
  1608
  the Ministry of Labour to the Ministry of Education.
  It has been said that this would be a rather revolutionary change. I think that, if anything, that is an understatement. The revolution would not be only or even principally within the Government. At least as great a revolutionary change would be required in the thinking of management and employers in industry. I suspect that it might involve the biggest revolutionary change in the thinking and attitude of trade unions.
  Mr. C. Pannell: They are the greatest traditionalists of all.
  Mr. Carr: I agree that they are often the greatest conservatives in the land. Their strength stems from that most excellent quality which so many of them possess.
  We ought to guard against radical changes of this kind at present This was very much in the mind of my Committee when it recommended against trying to make revolutionary changes at this time. We must try to get results in the next few years. One thing is quite certain, as the Parliamentary Secretary said. If we try to bring about revolutionary changes in the system in the years 1960 to 1964, all that we are likely to achieve is a failure to build up and get working the new system which we want to create, while the old system will do less than it is doing now.
  While I would not wish to see everything going on as it is and would not disagree with some of the things which I believe were in the mind of the hon. Member for Edmonton in getting the Ministry of Education to play a larger part, particularly in the first year of apprenticeship, I would be unable to support him in the radical solution which he propounded.
  Mr. Albu: To avoid misunderstanding, I should say that I do not suggest that the Ministry of Education should undertake the training itself, although I want to see the Government establish more training centres. What I suggest is that Government responsibility for the problem of industrial training should be transferred from one Department to another.
  Mr. Carr: I realise that, but, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, the point is that as long as the bulk of training

  1609
  for skill at apprenticeship level is done in industry it is part and parcel of industrial relations. I can see that there would be great difficulties and perhaps a great slowing-down if one were to make chiefly responsible any Government Department other than the Ministry of Labour. I would, however, welcome the Ministry of Education playing a more and more active part in helping us in this task.
  I have no doubt that all members of my Committee were well aware that the recommendations which we made would, in themselves, get nothing done because they did not include compulsory power to force industry to adopt them. I do not see how they could have done so, and I still believe that we should have been wrong to try to introduce compulsive power into any of our recommendations. We recognised that we should have to depend on an increasing awareness in industry. The most I think that we hoped for was that our report might help to stimulate and concentrate that awareness and perhaps guide it in the best ways. We hoped that that, coupled with the increasing publicity which the whole subject was bound to receive, would stimulate the necessary action.
  The only recommendation which we felt able to make to give a specific urge, a controlling hand if one likes, to the development of industrial training was that there should be set up what is now known as the Industrial Training Council. It was very gratifying indeed to all of us who worked on that Committee to find this recommendation being accepted and acted on so quickly. As hon. Members know, the Industrial Training Council was in being only three or four months after my committee produced its report. There can be few committees, as hon. Members will well know, which have had the pleasure of seeing one of their principal recommendations acted on in three or four months rather than three or four years. That was a good start.
  Although I have heard, both outside and inside the Committee, a considerable amount of criticism of the work done by the Industrial Training Council, I do not associate myself with it. On the contrary, I should like to congratulate the Council on what it has done. But there is a sting in the tail of my praise. While I think that we can congratulate
  1610
  the Council on what it has done so far, the time is rapidly approaching when we must ask it to embark in new directions and to give an even more energetic and specific lead than it has done hitherto. I emphasise, however, that this is a matter of timing and in some of the suggestions that I shall now make I am not saying that I believe that the Council should have done all these things already. I am saying that the time is rapidly approaching when it should do them.
  I should like to mention some of the actions which I believe should be taken and in which the Industrial Training Council must take first responsibility in giving a lead. First, the most important action that must be taken is to find a local focus and stimulus for increasing training for skill. Since my Committee's report appeared, inevitably I have been asked to speak on this subject in a large number of places throughout the country and I have done so. The more I have done this the more I have become aware of a need for a local focus. I have had the feeling that there are people who are seized of the problem and who want to do something about it, but did not know how.
  Whatever the theory, it is no use saying to some firms, "You belong to a certain industry and your link goes back to London or to some other national centre," and saying to other firms in another industry, "Your link goes back somewhere else." This does not work in practice. This may be all right for big firms but very many, particularly the smaller firms, are not even members of their own employers' associations. Their centre of interest is local and it is most important to create locally points for stimulation and control over this matter.
  Therefore, I would like to see the Industrial Training Council setting up local committees. They need not necessarily be exact counterparts of itself at national level—indeed, I do not think that they should be. The committees ought to cover the same areas as the Youth Employment Service areas, and certainly they ought to include the Youth Employment Service among their representation. Their first task should be to make a factual survey of the problem. One of the things I learned in going about the country and talking about the

  1611
  subject was the extent to which the scale of the problem varied from one area to another.
  We generalise and talk about a 50 per cent. increase in school leavers entering an industry during a certain period. This is the average over the country, but I was startled by the deviations in certain localities. In some areas the problem is more severe than the average figures would indicate and in others it is much less severe.
  We must bring the problem down to a local level. A local inquiry must be conducted, not in the first place on an industry by industry basis. The inquiry should first find the number of children and then try to analyse the potential vacancies for children in the area. Only then should it break down the problem on an industry by industry basis. There may be other ways, but I suggest that having done this and having analysed the problem on a local basis, through the medium of these local committees, the Industrial Training Council should then appoint training officers at least to those areas where the problem shows itself to be particularly great. These local training officers not to an industry, but to an area. Until this is done we shall not have much progress.
  Firms simply do not take much notice of written communications and circulars. They take notice when somebody appears on the doorstep seeking a personal interview with the managing director or, in the case, of large firms, with the personnel manager, with plans to do something about it. When firms are approached on that basis it is surprising how many participate and take action. I almost believe that the more circulars and leaflets are sent out the less action is achieved.
  This leads me to the second point on which I should like to see more action. I do not want to hold up the point I am about to mention as a panacea for our problems, but if we are to have many more apprentices among many small employers one of the methods to be developed is group apprenticeship. This has been mentioned many times and always with approval in the House, but if one examines industry and particularly the engineering industry one finds that there is something sour about this subject. I
  1612
  do not want to point a finger because it might lead to trouble and make matters more difficult, but there is a certain amount of jealously between one association and another and this unfortunately holds up progress.
  The Engineering Industries' Association, a relatively small association if not in numbers then in the character of the firms that belong to it, is not an employers' association but a trade association, and that is one of the difficulties. But this association, with its enthusiasm for group apprenticeships, has created about 18 groups in which between 500 and 600 apprentices are receiving training at the moment. Most of the apprentices receiving training in these group schemes are employed by very small firms. Judging from what I have seen of these schemes at work, they may not be ideal in every respect, but I believe that the firms in these group schemes are training apprentices and training them better than would have been the case had we been without these group schemes.
  If a small body like this Engineering Industries' Association; with certain difficulties on which I will not enlarge, can get groups established, currently training between 500 and 600 people, then if the great Engineering and Allied Employers' Federation adopted the same idea with the same enthusiasm we should get not 500, but 5,000 extra apprentices. It must be done not by just sending out circulars, but by putting a man in the area and giving him the job of making personal approaches to firms which, potentially can do more training and saying to them, "I am the person who has come along to organise this. Will you join in?" If that approach is made, I think we shall be surprised at the many firms that respond.
  Mr. James Boyden: Would the hon. Member not agree that his own Committee made very strong recommendations and suggestions about local committees and group apprenticeships in 1958 and that something has seriously gone wrong, since those suggestions have not been carried out? Would he not agree that the Ministry of Labour is at fault and has not got on with it very rapidly?
  Mr. Carr: I think that the hon. Member has misunderstood. It was made

  1613
  clear that it was not for the Minister to set up these local committees but for industry, and it is industry that is failing, not the Government. Industry must be stimulated to take action. The Committee over which I had the honour to preside was, apart from myself, composed entirely of leading members of trade unions and employers. Some people may say that that was a weakness in the Committee, but I still regard it as a strength.
  There are a number of other matters in which I should like to see the Industrial Training Council taking a more active lead in the near future. There is a growing urgency to identify the skills in which apprenticeship or some formal scheme of training either is available or should be available. I particularly emphasise the latter, because with the technological development, particularly that loosely described as "automation", coming upon us, the types and range of training which people will need will vary. I do not believe that this can be left to an industry-by-industry approach. Some overall body, such as the Industrial Training Council, must take responsibility for identifying both those skills for which formal schemes are already available and those trades for which they should become available in the near future.
  Coupled with this, the Council should take a vigorous lead in persuading industries to look at their syllabus of training. That is another point which was mentioned in my committee's recommendations. I am not saying that in this country we should go quite as far as is done in Germany in dotting the i's and crossing the i's of the syllabus, but it would probably be very helpful if the syllabus for each trade was laid down much more specifically and centrally than it is at the moment.
  Similarly, the Council should take the lead in encouraging each industry to set up a trade test of some kind, a subject which has been mentioned today, and something which I believe would do more than anything else to ensure that the quality of training which people got in different firms gradually reached a uniform standard. We want leadership in this from the Council, and then I believe some of the resistance to trade tests might begin to diminish.
  1614
  There is also the question of the length of training. Another recommendation by my Committee was that each industry should review the length of training appropriate to it. The length must depend on the syllabus. My Committee said that, rather than shortening the period of training, it would, in general, prefer to see the breadth of the syllabus increased because we wanted the training to be as wide as possible. I cannot 'believe, any more than the Committee indicated that it believed, that there is anything magical about five years or that five years is the right time for such a wide variety of different trades. Who is to give a lead about this? Are different industries looking at this? The Council should rapidly begin to prod, and prod vigorously, the various industries into looking into these things. Although I accept that it could not compel, I believe that serious prodding by the Council would produce results.
  This leads me to speculate about the services which the Council will need if it is to do this work. The members of the Council are among the foremost leaders of the employers and the trade unions. That is a cause of great satisfaction. It means that both the organised employers and the trades unions are taking the matter seriously and putting their top men on the Council, but because they are the top men on both sides they are also extremely busy men.
  I do not believe that the actual members of the Council can possibly be expected to give a great deal of time to this particular subject. When one has a Council of that kind, with top men who are limited in time, although great in influence, it is essential that they should be backed up not only by a secretariat which is well led—in its present secretary the Council is most fortunate—but by a secretariat which is adequate in size and power. If all the things about which I have spoken are to be done, there must be a secretariat attached to the Council which is capable of getting through a great deal of work, obtaining information and formulating recommendations to put before the very busy men who constitute the Council.
  I do not believe that with its present secretariat—unless, that is, I have a wrong understanding of its size and powers—the Council will be able to do

  1615
  the sort of work that I have been suggesting. I feel that the secretariat must be considerably strengthened. The Council will still have no executive authority but it will have the working ability to seek information and to go prodding. If it is to make personal approaches to industries for information—that is much better than sending circulars—it must have people with time and authority who can go out talking to people. That may, unfortunately, be time-consuming, but my experience is that it is the only way to persuade people actually to get on with the job.
  Finally, I have two other points right away from the field of the Industrial training Council. I should like to see more steps taken to enable first-year training of apprentices to be done outside industry. I welcome the scheme announced by the Minister of Labour for the Government training centres. It is only a pilot scheme, and my right hon. Friend has not claimed more than that, but it will be a move in the right direction. I should also like to see technical colleges developed to give on a much greater scale first-year training for apprentices. I very much welcome the circular which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Education has sent out in the last few days.
  I believe that both these developments promise well for the future. However, they raise one other point. Are the courses for the Government training centres and first-year training courses in the technical colleges, as they develop, to be pre-apprenticeship courses or part and parcel of apprenticeship? In the sense that they must count as one full year of the apprenticeship period, I am sure that they ought not to be pre-apprenticeship courses. It would be ridiculous to give people training of that kind and then say "You must still go on and do your full five years in industry afterwards." Consequently, in that sense they must be part of apprenticeship and not pre-apprenticeship.
  In another sense I think that the answer probably ought to be very different. I suspect that one of the difficulties that the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education will find is that the courses will not be as well subscribed for as they ought to be so long as they are open only to boys and girls who have already been accepted as apprentices by
  1616
  specific employers. The trouble is that one first has to get an employer to accept and enter a boy or girl. Therefore, I feel that in the end these first-year courses will have to be made pre-apprenticeship in the sense that they will have to be open to boys and girls even though they may not already have been indentured by an employer. I think that in that way we shall be able to fill them, and in that way we shall be relieving the burden on industry, because if one goes to industry, even to small employers, with a boy and says, "Here is a boy who has already had a year's good training which counts as one year off his apprenticeship period" we shall find more employers willing to take them on.
  6.29 p.m.
  Mr. Dan Jones: We are faced with a desperate shortage of skilled men in the engineering industry and, in relation to that, a desperate shortage of places for apprentices. That seems to be a remarkable contradiction. Indeed, it would be a very humorous one, were it not so tragic. I see the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour frowning, but, nevertheless, I believe that is a fact. There is a shortage of skilled men. There is similarly a desperate shortage of posts for apprentices, which seems to suggest a very serious contradiction.
  It has been said—I think the Minister believes his own utterances—that a good many of these shortages are due to the fact that small companies cannot possibly afford them. I cannot subscribe to that. It should be recognised that small companies employ skilled men, and as a consequence, they have obviously taken them as the result of the training given to them by other people. That seems to me to suggest that we are encouraging, or, at any rate, tolerating, a form of industrial cuckoos. On the one hand, we recognise that small companies have no training scheme, but we are complacent about the fact that they employ skilled labour. The House ought to be mindful of the fact that all too frequently these people who do not train these apprentices themselves are very often in a position in which they can offer the odd few coppers over the hourly rate to attract people to them, which must, inevitably, make for a good deal of disturbance in industry and add to industrial costs.

  1617
  I should like to come back to my first point, which is, in effect, that we, predominantly a manufacturing nation, can apparently waste so much of our youthful product, which, to me, seems to be a very serious indictment. With regard to group training schemes, which, I think, could make a marked contribution to the solution of the difficulties of the small company, it might be of interest if I quoted for my support as reputable, indeed as reasonable, a national trade union leader, possessed of tremendous moral courage, as the president of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Speaking to our conference of apprentices which is held annually, he said:
  "It is, however, a scandal and a massive indictment upon industry that the progress of group apprenticeship schemes is so lamentably slow. Apart from the reluctance of so many smaller employers to participate in such schemes, it is deplorable to contemplate the lack of encouragement given in employers' quarters where much more sense of human and national responsibility should be expected."
  That, I repeat, is from one of the most reputable trade union leaders in this country, and I think that it answers to a major degree the case about the inability of the smaller people to embrace proper apprenticeship schemes.
  The truth is, I think, that the intention is not there, and as a consequence I believe that that indictment could not only be placed upon the smaller employer, but that it transfers itself, in my opinion, to the Government as well. After all, they are tolerant of this situation, and I am not pretending that I am telling the Committee anything that it does not already know, I am merely instancing this fact to show how, in my opinion, at at any rate, this situation is reacting not only upon the apprentices, not only upon the economics of the country, not only upon the young lad who wants to get into an apprenticeship, but is reacting similarly upon the good employer, for he knows perfectly well that he is spending money on training people and that a very large part of what he is spending he is going to lose when they finally complete their training.
  In my opinion, all these facts add up to a situation which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) so very rightly said—I see the Parliamentary Secretary smiling, but I do not regard this as humorous—requires radical treatment and I agree
  1618
  with my hon. Friend. Radical treatment is required to pep these people into doing what is right and proper, not only for apprentices, but for the needs of the country, the development of our economy and the potential of our young people.
  Further, I want to draw the attention of the Committee for a moment to the Reports of the Young Employment Committee for 1956–59, which give figures showing that in this year 358,000 boys and 343,000 girls will be available for industry. I ought to say here that I subscribe to the argument in favour of girls being considered for apprenticeships in industry. There seems to me to be no reason at all why they cannot be. Returning to the figures, those numbers will increase by 1962 to 475,000 boys and 454,000 girls, an overall increase of 228,000 people. I believe that the Ministry of Labour should be telling us now how many of these additional people who will be available for industry will, in turn, be given the opportunity of serving this country either as craftsmen or technicians; in short, how many are to be offered proper apprenticeships in the engineering industry.
  I comfort myself with the observation that no less distinguished a person than the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), when speaking in his constituency—and I should imagine that there could be no greater guide, if either the Government or anyone else is prepared to listen to reason—told the country that he did not know who would win a hot war, but that he did know who was winning the cold war. He referred to the tremendous progress which Russia was making in training her youth. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East said that it does not matter in what part of the Soviet Union anyone is living, because they all get the same training.
  There are many features of the Soviet Union which we do not like, but that is one to which we can point in order to show how much and how lamentably we are lagging behind. My hon. Friend is perfectly correct when he says that it does not matter in what part of that vast country people are living, the training is the same, and they all finish up as very good technicians. They are not as we are, because they are much more

  1619
  self-supporting, but we should recognise the fact that they are much more successful in the tremendous availability of their raw materials, whereas we are so predominantly a manufacturing country.
  I should like to make reference to the wages situation, and I agree that this might offer some kind of key. In relation to wages, these apprentices have a very unhappy history. I know quite a bit about them, because I have negotiated on their behalf, and I know how they feel. Those of us who are following events in the country today must similarly know how they feel, because they registered their feelings very recently in no uncertain way. That registration was quite unofficial, and there are people on the other side of the Committee who are always prepared to indict the trade unions, so that is why I say that this registration was unofficial.
  Nevertheless, let us have a look at the facts. Prior to 1937, these apprentices had no form of trade union representation at all. We in the A.E.U. were the first people ever to sign such an agreement. It was not a very handsome agreement, but, nevertheless, we had established some form of official recognition, to be given to these lads. From 1937 to 1943, this situation remained, and then another agreement was made. This agreement, fortunately, was not followed by unofficial strikes. It was during the war years, and an agreement was reached that at the age of 15, a young lad should be paid 22½ per cent. of the skilled rate, rising in graduated increases to 62½ per cent. of the skilled rate, at 20 years of age. Those facts explain why the lads feel that they are not having a square deal. The percentages have remained the same 17 years after the original agreement. The only difference has been a supplementary increase of 5s. 6d. at 15 years of age and 1 is. at 20 years of age, an agreement negotiated in 1953.
  This year has seen the lads making further unofficial efforts to improve the position. Those of us who have negotiated these agreements and who appreciate their sanctity know that that sort of action cannot be taken, which is why these moves have been unofficial. Nevertheless, it is true that the moves have come from a deep-rooted objection to
  1620
  conditions, and especially to the present level of wages.
  If I make a point of referring to wages, I ask the Committee to believe that wages are a factor of which employers are constantly taking advantage, because for every apprenticeship there are at least two or three applicants. In that unfortunate state of affairs, it is possible to damp down wages to the point where the lads are forced to the sort of situation which I have described.
  Negotiations are now going on and I should hate to say anything which would interfere in any way with what I hope will be an amicable settlement, but I think that it can be said that the offer now is an increase from 22½ per cent. to 27½ per cent. at 15 and then in graduated segments to a maximum of 75 per cent. If that agreement is accepted, however, the supplements will be withdrawn.
  That is not good enough. In terms of cash, it means 3s. 10d. at 15 and Us. 4d. at 20, and the increases will not apply to those apprentices who, by reason of good time-keeping, or any form of merit, or initiative, or piece rates, are already obtaining the equivalent. I am certain, for those reasons, that the shortage of vacancies is helping to bring about this situation, and I am sure that if there were more apprentices their ability to negotiate proper rates would be increased.
  It is significant that the rates paid to an industry which is one of our largest exporting industries should be the lowest in the country. That is a salutary fact. It is a situation which the Government must end. Whether wittingly or otherwise, they are in some way to blame.
  We recently saw an award made as the result of the recommendations of the Guillebaud Committee. If there is one situation which requires another Guillebaud Committee, it is the situation of apprentices in this country.
  6.43 p.m.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. Edward Heath): This has been a most interesting and valuable debate and I welcome it, as did my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. This is the first occasion for a year on which we have been able to discuss this most important subject of apprenticeships.

  1621
  We are trying to achieve results in this matter by providing information for everybody in industry, for employers and for trade unions, by using persuasion and influence wherever we can. Through the activities of the Industrial Training Council we are seeking to increase the number of apprenticeships and learner-ships and other forms of training for skill which are being provided, and to improve the standard of that training. As we are using these methods, the more discussion we have on the subject, the better. That is why I welcome the debate so much.
  A number of detailed points have been raised and very useful suggestions have been made from both sides of the Committee, and I assure hon. Members that I shall examine all those suggestions most carefully. I was very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) took part in the debate and I congratulate him on his maiden speech. We were all glad that he should have shown an interest in these affairs and that he should have talked about some aspects of industrial relations. In offering my congratulations to him, I hope that he will maintain his interest in these subjects and that he will constantly take part in our discussions of them.
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary described the position in great detail and I do not wish to go over the ground which he covered. Indeed, as this is only a half-day's debate, I have tried to leave as much time as possible for hon. Members to make contributions. My speech will, therefore, be brief. Nevertheless, I want to comment on some of the points which have been made and briefly to deal with one or two general themes.
  Many hon. Members have spoken about the increased number of young people in employment in the three years 1961, 1962 and 1963 although not, of course, in the present year. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) mentioned a letter which he had received from a youth employment officer. Suggestions are often made about ways of dealing with the employment aspect of the problem, but I emphasise to the Committee that the answer to it must depend fundamentally, like all other employment, on a healthy, competitive and expanding economy.
  1622
  Fundamentally, the objective of the measures of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is to maintain the economy expanding at a reasonable rate—not, as the hon. Member said, to cut it back. The objective is to maintain it in a position in which it can expand reasonably. If that is done, then we have every hope of absorbing the young people who will be coming from our schools in those three years.
  Some of our difficulties at the moment spring from the fact that, compared with the number of vacancies, there is a shortage of labour in many parts of the country. If those additional numbers were coming forward now and in this summer, they would be able to fill some of the vacancies which we are wanting to fill and which the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) mentioned when giving his comparative figures of industrial areas.
  Of course, there will be differences in different parts of the country, for several reasons. In the first place, there are differences in the bulge. In Plymouth and Mersey-side, for instance, the numbers are considerably greater than they are in some other parts of the country, and we shall see the same phenomenon later in the new towns.
  As we know, the general employment position differs in different parts of the country, in the North-East and Scotland in particular. The numbers will vary with the different types of industry in different parts of the country. They will also vary with the situation in each—with whether it is an area of old or new industry, whether it is expanding or declining. Those factors are very relevant to the figures which the hon. Member for Maryhill gave about the rather steep decline of apprenticeships in parts of Scotland, which are caused by the decline in shipbuilding and ship-repairing in particular.
  So, in the nature of things, we cannot achieve uniformity over the whole country in these industrial matters. There are bound to be variations and differences. I must emphasise that the objective of Government policy in the Local Employment Act so far has been, by inducing industry to go to certain areas, to try to iron out some of those differences. As that Act succeeds, so we shall see the numbers becoming more evenly spread in different parts of the country.

  1623
  Of course, the inducements to industries to go to these areas are there to be used. It is true to say that in a time like the present, when industry may find it more difficult to secure some of the capital it needs for expansion, the inducements being offered to go to the development districts, the difficult areas, become even more valuable than hitherto. The employment situation for young people is bound to depend greatly on the state of the economy, and we shall do our utmost to make sure that it will absorb the young people coming from school.
  The need for more skilled men is very obvious. Nobody under-estimates this problem in any way, certainly not the Ministry of Labour. We recognise the tremendous challenge which lies in these young people leaving school and wanting training. We have a shortage, in particular, of skilled engineers and of skilled workers in the building trades. This emphasises the great need for these skilled men. I hope, therefore, that this present situation, and the measures I have mentioned, will not be interpreted as meaning that we do not require more skilled men in these industries.
  Some of our difficulties arise in this situation because of this very shortage of skilled men. More unskilled men could be employed if they were available. I hope that employers and unions will not say that the numbers of skilled men should be allowed to decrease. I hope that they will recognise that in the long term their interests and those of the nation lie in allowing the number of skilled men to increase.
  Mr. D. Jones: I do not think that the Minister is being fair to the unions. The number of skilled people can increase now almost ad infinitum by their registration, so it is not fair to give the impression that the unions are in any way holding back an influx of skilled men. That is not the case.
  Mr. Heath: I hope I did not give that impression. I did not intend to, and I do not wish to be unfair to anybody. But mental attitudes do change in industry, depending on the state of the economy. I expressed the hope that these modern views would persist, although, alas, there are some places in industry where they do not.
  1624
  I turn now to the question of responsibility for dealing with these matters. The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) said he placed the responsibility for this firmly on the shoulders of the Government. He did not elaborate very clearly exactly what he meant by this. He made one or two suggestions. He mentioned, for example, the selection of apprentices going into firms. We would all welcome the best possible means of selection to get the best qualified young people. Was he emphasising the need for firms to look at their own processes of selection, or was he implying that the Government should accept responsibility, and that the Government should set up some organisation which would say who was going to be an apprentice and the firms to which he should go? There is a fundamental difference between those ways. If he suggests that firms Should look at their own procedures, then I agree wholeheartedly and we will do everything to encourage them to do so.
  He also suggested that this responsibility should pass to the Ministry of Education. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) dealt with this very adequately. I do not wish to go into this argument because I do not want to give an impression that there is any departmental dispute about this. The Minister of Education and I are anxious to ensure the best possible results. There is the closest co-operation between the two Departments. Indeed, the circular just issued by the Ministry of Education on this subject bears witness to that, as does the fact that the Youth Employment Service is administered very effectively jointly by us. I can assure the House that we shall continue to have the closest co-operation on these matters.
  We have adopted some of the suggestions made in the debate a year ago. I gladly acknowledge that. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has referred to the training at Letchworth. It was suggested in last year's debate that this should be increased, and it has been increased by 50 per cent. That is the sort of thing that the Government ought to do and will try to do increasingly, because it is the sort of thing which has a multiplier effect. We train people who then train others, and so it spreads. We were grateful for that suggestion for an increase.

  1625
  The idea of an initial apprenticeship training scheme was made last year. That has been adopted by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education in the circular that he will send out. The idea of Government training centres was also discussed and that, too, was adopted in the statement that I made in April.
  The hon. Member for Edmonton criticised us for not starting with a much bigger scheme. We considered this at length and looked at it as clearly as we could, but I believe it is right that we should start in a comparatively small way and build up. A great deal is involved in this, such as equipment, buildings and instructors. I believe it should be developed in that way rather than by starting off with a large scheme, for the reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. We operate the new procedure in a way in which small firms can take part, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned. We have created our customers, and as they come forward we will consider the question of expansion.
  Mr. Albu: How will the selections for these schemes be made—by the schools or by the firms? What is the Government's responsibility?
  Mr. Heath: Under the present arrangements, we take the people who have already been accepted as apprentices by firms. The process of selection, in so far as there has been any, for initial apprenticeships has been gone through by the time they want to go to a centre under the present arrangements. Any selection, if there were a shortage of places available, would be made after selection for apprenticeship.
  Some hon. Members have had a great deal to say about the Industrial Training Council. Some were congratulatory and some critical. I am sure that the I.T.C. will welcome the remarks. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and I will take an early opportunity of talking to the chairman of the Council about what has been said. I welcome in particular the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. I also welcome the suggestion he made that there should be local organisations similar to the I.T.C. In Cardiff such an arrangement has already been set up and I understand that it is working successfully.
  1626
  Last week I saw some representatives from the City of Glasgow and they asked me to consider whether a similar organisation could be created either for Scotland of for Glasgow. We are examining that proposal. Then there is the fundamental question of what powers it is to be given. There we have the support of the Carr Report and both sides of the industry. They come down in favour of persuasion.
  That was also the view taken by the hon. Member for Edmonton in last year's debate, although some of his hon. Friends have differed today. I welcome the points made about the I.T.C. and the suggestions as to how it can improve things. I also agree that now is the time when we can make further progress, because it is in the summer of next year that the large numbers will be coming forward.
  I have very little time left to deal with the other points raised. I know that some hon. Members and some educationists in the country are unhappy because they would like to think that in industrial training the offering of places should be similar to that at universities and other higher institutions of education. They would feel happier if they could see the way ahead much more clearly.
  I understand that, but I do not think that under the present arrangements within industry we shall ever have quite that sort of fixed arrangement. At times both sides of industry naturally find difficulty in committing themselves as far ahead as would enable that to be done. I appreciate the point of view of some hon. Members. I hope that they will not think that because exact preplanning is not possible, we are not doing everything we can to see that When the time comes the places will be there. But it is a very real question whether we should continue to develop in this way, or take over and carry out the operation ourselves. That would be the ultimate outcome if we were to choose any alternative arrangement.
  Two other suggestions were made. One was that each industry should have an apprenticeship council, and that it should be made compulsory. At the moment about 120 industries have apprenticeship organisations. Each one does not necessarily cover the whole of its industry. They were built up or

  1627
  revived after the war by youth employment officers, largely with the help of the training department of the Ministry of Labour. It is possible to encourage those industries which have not already got them to have them, but whether they should be made compulsory by law is a different question.
  There is also the problem of providing appropriate training, again by compulsion. The implication of this is that we should have a complete Government system of inspection and training in industry. So far, this has also been left to industry, through the bodies which industry sets up to examine these matters and the other matters mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham. That I would gladly encourage, but to make it compulsory is part of a different approach to the whole question.
  In conclusion, we are acting in the way I have described to persuade and help industry to tackle this problem vigorously and provide the places which are required. I hope that industry will study carefully the views expressed in this House today, and will take them seriously to heart and try to follow them. I am sure that if they do, it will be in the long-term interest of those whose livelihood is in industry as well as in the interests of the nation as a whole.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Gibson-Watt]—put and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  DISABLED PERSONS (TWO-SEATER CARS)
  7.4 p.m.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I beg to move,
  That this House, believing that similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes, should be assured equal treatment, calls upon the Government to provide two-seater cars for paraplegics and other persons now qualifying for tricycles under the National Health Act, 1946.
  Before I proceed with my speech, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I should like to ask whether it is your intention to call the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): That is the intention of Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I want to deal with some of the background to this subject in some detail. As the House is aware, we have already had an Adjournment debate on this matter, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health made a very unsatisfactory reply. It was unsatisfactory not in the form of delivery, but in the conclusions which it contained. I take it that those conclusions were conveyed to us as being those of the Minister. It is useful that we have the Minister of Health with us this evening, for he can answer for the decisions he has taken.
  We are dealing with about 13,000 men and women who, by their disability, have qualified for the Government-provided, power-propelled tricycle. I do not propose to repeat any of the arguments about the unsatisfactory nature of this provision which were brought forward in the Adjournment debate, but I am pleased to see that the Government themselves regard the present tricycle as being entirely inadequate for wounded ex-Service men. That, in itself, is a recognition which we welcome, and the provision that is being made for them by the Government is welcomed by all of us. But does not it contain a condemnation of the tricycle that is available for non-Service people?
  It seems rather ridiculous that, on the one hand, a person with a disability that has been acquired in the Armed Forces will have a two-seater car—
  Mr. E. G. Willis: Not necessarily.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That a disabled person who qualifies for a tricycle should have a two-seater car—
  Mr. Willis: No.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That is the Government's promise. [Interruption.] We shall see as we proceed. I am talking about those who have qualified, and I understand that the undertaking given by the Government is as I have expressed it. Those who have qualified—[Interruption.] My hon. Friend had better wait. Those who have qualified for power-propelled tricycles are now to be provided with two-seater cars if their disability occurred in the Armed Forces. Whether there are any qualifications about that we shall see later.
  Let us consider the categories of persons involved in the provision of the power-propelled tricycle. I have gone to some trouble to track them down. Let us regard the qualifying conditions as agreed. The first category consists of members of Her Majesty's Forces; the second, members of Civil Defence; the third, members of fire brigades; the fourth, civilian victims of the war; the fifth, the industrially disabled—many of them miners—and the sixth, victims of illness and disease—the poliomyelitis sufferers. Those are the six categories, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have pressed for the provision of something better than the present tricycle for them.
  It is against this background that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues gave an election pledge, which I shall deal with in the light of some of the contentions made by the Parliamentary Secretary in the Adjournment debate. Paragraph 4 of the Conservatives' General Election manifesto, under the heading "Security and Retirement", contains two sentences which I wish to quote, and I am not tearing them out of their context. They are:
  "Those disabled in the service of their country will remain the subject of our special care. Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  That is the end of it. That is not torn out of its context. Here it is, without qualification. I will repeat it:
  1630
  "Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  That comes right in the middle of a block of sentences dealing with the National Health Service.
  Lord Balniel: First, those disabled in the service of their country.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Very well, we will deal with that point, I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised it. What is meant by "disabled in the service of their country"? If the hon. Gentleman is right, the provision of the Government should be for those who are disabled in the service of their country. Is it only those in the Armed Forces who were disabled in the service of their country? Surely that is the point.
  The second sentence eliminates any qualification. If it was intended to be qualified why was not the election pledge contained in more precise words? Let me deal with how the right hon. and learned Gentleman regards what the Government are now doing as a redemption of the promise. In answer to one of his hon. and gallant Friends, on 4th April, he said:
  "My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and I have decided to implement the promise to provide more suitable vehicles by providing small cars for those war pensioners disabled in the service of their country who are eligible for Government power-propelled tricycles."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April. 1960; Vol. 621, c. 11.]
  Apparantly, this is to be done under the Royal Warrant, or so we were informed by the Parliamentary Secretary. It is not to be done under the National Health Service. But all war pensioners do not come under the Royal Warrant.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) will bear that in mind. There are war pensioners who have been taken in by the National Health Service. There are civilian injuries pensions still paid by the Assistance Board. So what we have is not a fulfilment of the promise on the narrowest basis that the right hon. Gentleman places on these words. All we have are the war pensioners disabled in Her Majesty's Forces. That was not the pledge. The pledge was not on the narrow basis of war pensioners. Let me repeat it again:
  "Those disabled in the service of their country will remain the subject of our special care"

  1631
  If that is to be regarded as a qualifying phrase it means that the war pensioners who were not disabled in the Armed Forces are now to be excluded under the terms of the arrangement which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made.
  We have the position that of all the six categories of persons who qualify for power-propelled tricycles, only one category, the smallest, is to be provided with two-seater cars. That was not made plain in the Conservatives' election pledge. It did not say that this would be done only for those in the smallest category. It was said, without qualification, that all those disabled in the service of their country would be the subject of special care.
  Let us consider some of them. I know that this is taking the House back to a time before many hon. Members present were in the House, but the civil injuries scheme provided for equal benefit for all who were injured in the war provided that they sustained what was called war service injuries. The pamphlet, "War Pensions for Civilians" was published. There were official leaflets relating to war pensions for civilians and members of the Civil Defence services. They were disabled in the service of the country, but they are excluded from this improvement. Is that redeeming the promise contained without qualification in the Conservative election manifesto? There were two official pamphlets, issued by the Ministry of Pensions and National Service, laying down the categories of war pensioners injured in the service of their country who, on the interpretation of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, should be looked after under the terms of this pledge.
  Let me go a step further. What other classes are excluded? Let us take the disability for granted.
  "In the service of their country."
  Is that to be a qualification? Should not this apply to the Bevin boys, who had no option? Should not it apply to persons who were directed and to those who were called out of the Army and sent back to the mines? The justification for taking them from the Army and sending them to the mines was that they would be of greater service to the country in the mines than in the Army. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman
  1632
  says that they were not disabled in the service of their country. How can he justify that? It really is beyond me.
  What about the men directed from the Army back to the Fire Service in London, during the blitz? Some of them were war pensioners. They received a war service pension. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not propose to do anything for them. What about the police? During the blitzes some policemen were drafted out of the Army and sent back to serve in London, in Coventry and in other places. Some of them were disabled in the service of their country and are war pensioners. I say to the right hon and learned Gentleman that he is playing ducks and drakes with the pledge placed before the people by himself and his colleagues during the election.
  I think that the Tory pledge was very narrow, accepting the interpretation placed on it now. When it was placed before the people during the election it was assumed to mean what was said, that the badly disabled, without qualification, would be looked after in this respect. I take the view that we ought to say that equal treatment shall be available for all those people with equal disablement.
  I do not complain about an order of priority in the provision of the two-seater cars. I can understand the more or less sentimental case for some distinction in the order of getting the cars by those who sustained their injuries in the fighting services and those who acquired their disability by other means, although, for the life of me, I cannot see the Government's justification for distinguishing between the war pensioner who acquired his or her disability in the London blitz and the men and women who acquired their disability in the Armed Forces. They were all part of the fighting Services. This is a ridiculous distinction and the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who has great experience in these matters, legally and otherwise, ought not to put that sort of case before the House.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): Is the right hon. Member suggesting that the Civil Defence personnel covered by the personal injuries scheme of 1949 are not war pensioners and are not being given this either? Is that what he is suggesting?
  Mr. Ness Edwards: What I am saying is that the civilians under the civilian injuries scheme who do not come under the Royal Warrant, in so far as we accept the interpretation placed on this concession by the Parliamentary Secretary, do not come under the terms of the announcement the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made. If he is now going to say that war pensioners of any category, whether the pension is paid under the Royal Warrant as his hon. Friend said, or through the Assistance Board, or through the National Health Service, are all to be eligible, he is extending it far beyond the provision that the hon. Lady indicated to the House in answering the Adjournment debate. I hope that he will say that it is not limited in the sense his hon. Friend suggested.
  I come to the paraplegics generally, and, first, to the men in the mining industry. Here is a very serious position. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will nay regard to it. He ought not to hide behind the ambiguity of his election pledge. He ought to do the decent thing. He ought to accept the terms of this Motion. The Amendment really concedes the intention of the Motion. We do not condemn the Government for having done what they have done. What we ask is that they should do more: that they should apply this concession to all who from the point of view of their disablement require it.
  According to the terms of the Amendment, which are very much the terms in which the hon. Lady spoke in the Adjournment debate, we are told that it cannot be done because of cost. Let us see what is being done. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that we are doing a great thing and that it is to cost £200,000. The concession is to be given to only 1,700 yet for £2½ million he could apply it to 13,000. Are we now to be told that because the election pledge will cost £2½ million it is not to be implemented? That is the question the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to answer.
  Yesterday, the House was under the shadow of a very great tragedy. Yesterday, 45 men were brought up from a pit, dead. That shook everybody. I was pleased to see the generous rush of human emotion which spread over this House at the news, but in practically every mining village in South Wales there is a man who has lost half his life. He
  1634
  has a wretched tricycle with which he waits at street corners, afraid to go too far because, if something happened to the tricycle, there would be no one to help him with it. If he goes anywhere he has to go on his own. There is no one to help him out or into the machine. We are entering into a great crisis of manpower in the mining industry. These tricycles can be seen in the streets of the mining villages and are not a great encouragement for recruitment of the young men we want to enter the industry.
  I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to bear this very much in mind. We had a debate earlier today about training. How many of the paraplegics who have been trained depend on the charity of their employers to take them back and forth to work? They ought to be going under their own steam, someone going with them to see that everything is all right.
  I say this to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I have not discussed it with my hon. and right hon. Friends. Take this Amendment off the Order Paper. We will take our Motion off on one condition, that the Minister will undertake to extend this concession, this new provision, to all the rest of those disabled in the same way as he has satisfied the need of the ex-soldier. We want something to be done. We want to encourage the Government into a little bit of extra virtue than they have so far shown. I hope that when the Minister replies he will bear in mind that there are 13,000 people who could be very much convenienced. Their lives could be filled to a much greater extent if they could be given the convenience he has provided for a very narrow category.
  7.29 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles and on the speedy fulfilment of their pledges in regard thereto; records its awareness of their desire further to improve the vehicles provided for disabled National Health Service patients; but recognises that regard must he had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation".

  1635
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) spent some little time when moving his Motion in explaining for his own purposes what he regarded as defined by the terms "war disabled" and "war pensioner". I thought he got quite a long way from the wording of the Motion, which refers to the proposal that persons with a
  "similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes,"
  should be assured of equal treatment.
  I hasten at this stage to assure him that my right hon. and learned Friend will wind up the debate, so he will have a further opportunity of pursuing the matter with my right hon. and learned Friend. In replying to the speech of the right hon. Member, I need to go back into history for a while in order to get the position quite clear about the supply of vehicles for disabled persons.
  When hon. Gentlemen opposite were the Government of the day, they gave cars to war pensioners but not to National Health Service patients. Until 1948 the only powered vehicles issued to war pensioners were tricycles of a somewhat antiquated type and very different from the tricycles issued today. They were open vehicles and, in effect, motorised invalid chairs. I stress that the categories of eligibility were very broadly the same as they are today, or have been until my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement.
  It was in July, 1948, that the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) announced to the House his intention to provide cars. He said:
  "… a limited number of small cars, not exceeding 1,500, will be made available over the next two years for supplying … to certain classes of very seriously disabled war pensioners who may elect to receive a car in place of the motor propelled tricycle to which they are entitled under existing regulations".
  The right hon. Gentleman said also:
  "When the needs of these classes have been satisfied, any balance … within the number stated will be distributed … to other very seriously disabled war pensioners at present supplied with motor propelled tricycles to enable them to obtain or retain employment",—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1948; Vol. 454, c. 1103.]
  The right hon. Gentleman said that he hoped to include also the blind war pensioner.
  1636
  In the event, no cars were issued to the less seriously disabled who required them for employment purposes, because a ceiling figure of 1,500 was insufficient for the rest, and it was in fact raised by stages, again by a Socialist Government, to 1,950 cars.
  In introducing the car scheme, as in many other matters in the treatment and rehabilitation of war pensioners, hon. Gentleman opposite, then the Government of the day, recognised the principle of preference and priority for war pensioners in our social services. I am sorry to see from the Motion that they appear now to have departed from this principle, because the Motion attacks the preference given to war pensioners, whereas it has always been held that the country owes a debt of generosity to those who have been disabled in the service of their country.
  Continuing with the history of the cars, in April, 1952, the ceiling was raised to 2,000 by a Conservative Government. In 1955 it was raised to 2,100. Then there was the statement in the Conservative election manifesto last year, which the right hon. Member for Caerphilly saved me quoting, because he quoted from it. This statement has been misinterpreted by many, as I said in the Adjournment debate. It is quite clear in its wording. Following that promise given at the General Election, a decision was quickly made. On 4th April, 1960, my right hon. and learned Friend announced his intention to provide small oars for those war pensioners disabled in the service of their country who are eligible for Government power-propelled tricycles.
  The implication that this is any kind of new scheme is not correct. What is happening is that we are carrying on and extending an existing scheme introduced by a Socialist Government and beginning to run down because the number of war pensioners is diminishing.
  Mr. Willis: Is it not true that people who are at present entitled to tricycles are not all going to receive them?
  Miss Pitt: They are. We have said that it will be by stages. We shall deal with the most severely disabled first. Perhaps I shall be able to make it a little clearer as I go on. In his statement my right hon. and learned Friend said

  1637
  that it would necessarily be some months before cars were available and we would deal with the most severely disabled first. In fact, we hope to begin issuing cars next month. They will be Mini-Minors, in case hon. Members wish to know what type of car will be available.
  So far from playing ducks and drakes with the pledge, as the right hon. Gentleman announced, I think that we have honoured the pledge which we gave at the General Election and have indeed followed the principle of maintaining preferential treatment for war pensioners.
  The Opposition Motion calls for cars for all disabled persons who qualify for tricycles. I said in the Adjournment debate on 17th May that I was not without sympathy for this plea. The tricycle is not designed to carry a passenger, and I understand the desire of those who have tricycles both for companionship and, on occasions, help.
  In the Adjournment debate the right hon. Gentleman said that the cost should not be insuperable. In capital at least an additional £2½ million would be required and, when the supply was complete, there would be an additional maintenance cost of about £1 million a year.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: Is the figure of £2½ million upon the basis of replacing them all at once or as and when they have to be replaced? All my information is that, unless one Ministry insists upon adding Purchase Tax and claiming it from another, cars can be made available at a prime cost which is almost the same as the cost of tricycles.
  Miss Pitt: The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) anticipates my speech. I was about to go on to say that the basis of the cost I have just given is replacing over a period.
  Mr. Paget: The hon. Lady has not answered my question. Does the figure of £2½ million take in Purchase Tax? The problem I have had with various Ministers when I have tried to negotiate on this is that they say that to have cars is more expensive than to have tricycles because of Purchase Tax. That seems to be an odd point of view for one Government Department to take against another. I think the hon. Lady will find that most of the £2½ million is Purchase Tax.
  Miss Pitt: I am not sure, but I think that it does not include Purchase Tax. If I am incorrect, I will ask my right hon. and learned Friend to amend that statement when he winds up.
  It would be a major development to provide cars for all National Health Service patients. It would be a continuing and growing commitment for the future, because the number of patients in the National Health Service, unlike the number of war pensioners, will rise, not fall, and we would always have the problem of replacing the cars when they became old.
  The figures which I gave to the House in the Adjournment debate and have repeated tonight are broad estimates. They take no account of future returns on sales of the old cars if they were saleable. They are also based on the assumption that a scheme introduced now would be spread over eight years to give full value to existing tricycles.
  The capital cost would be much greater if the period were shortened and usable tricycles had to be scrapped. We have also assumed in giving these figures that over the years the annual rate of increase would be the same as at present. We have assumed that eligible applicants would increase by about 550 a year. It might well be greater.
  There are about 5,000 disabled persons eligible for tricycles who have not got them because they are unable to control them for one reason or another, and these people would get cars with nominated drivers if such a scheme were introduced. Again, we think that this may well be a considerable under-estimate.
  Therefore, however sympathetic one feels, the suggestion made by hon. Members opposite must be considered in the context of costs against all the other claims. The tricycles have been improved over the years, and the vehicles are very good for their purpose—as, again, I explained in the Adjournment debate. I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's word "wretched". They are considerably improved and do a good job. From all the contacts I have with those who drive in them, I find that they are happy to use them, although, of course, there is the point that they would like companionship.
  I do not rule out further improvements in the design of the tricycle, but we

  1639
  have made no commitment about introducing larger vehicles for the disabled generally. I must remind the House of the words appearing at the end of the Amendment:
  "… regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims …"
  on our resources.
  For that reason, I have to say that the Motion standing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman and his friends is not acceptable.
  7.42 p.m.
  Mr. Tom Brown: It is always difficult not to be misunderstood when debating a subject like this, particularly by those who have only a superficial knowledge of what is in the minds of those who have put down this Motion. Disabled ex-Service men, and those getting the advantages of the amenities under the Royal Warrant, may misunderstand, so I should like to tell them and others just what we have in mind.
  Our desire, and I think that it is a righteous desire, is to broaden the principles and application of the Royal Warrant to give to those who have been crippled in industry the same treatment as, or treatment similar to, that given to those injured in the two world wars. I knew that the Ministry would approach the question strictly on the cost basis, but I hope that that idea does not figure very largely in the Minister's mind, because the cost of our proposal is not so great that it cannot be met by a gradual process. We do not ask for this to be done at once, but that a start should be made as quickly as possible, and the aims pursued as fast as our economic resources will permit.
  As long as we have wars we shall have sick, 'broken, bruised and crippled men. That cannot be avoided. As long as we have industry, we shall have sick, broken, bruised and crippled men. No legislation can prevent accidents. They will happen. Only a few days ago we heard of the terrible disaster in Wales. We are given to understand that all precautions were taken there to prevent an accident of that type—but it happened, and killed 45 men and boys.
  We cannot avoid accidents by legislation, but we can minimise them and their
  1640
  effects. Once they have happened, we have to provide for and protect the unfortunate victims. Our job here today, as it has been in the past, is to do all that we can to make the lives of these unfortunate people as comfortable and as pleasant as we can, with all the facilities that are now at our disposal. This is the age of science, of affluence, of qualified men. We have men, we have money, and we have machines in the form of two-seater cars for the unfortunate cripples of war and industry.
  I hope that the Minister will not think that we are unduly criticising him. Far be it from me to criticise a Minister or a Department from whom I am asking something—I am too old a negotiator for that. We are not criticising the Minister. We are asking him to broaden and quicken the distribution of two-seater cars. Our intention is to extend the provision of these vehicles to the unfortunate victims of industrial accidents, namely, paraplegic cases.
  Accidents happen in all industries, but one cannot help but think of the scenes in our mining villages. During the last day or two I have been thinking very seriously about a number of cases in the little village in which I was born, and in which I still live—all paraplegic cases, crippled in industry. I think of Peter Armstrong, 6 ft. in height, of Peter Winstanley, and of William Cunliffe. They all lived in the same roadway as myself.
  All were crippled in industry. One has gone to his reward, another gets about the village roadway in a hand-propelled wheel chair, and the third cannot get into a propelled wheel chair. Cases like that strike the heart of one who lives in a mining village. I make no apology at all for singling out the mining industry, because there are more paraplegics in it than in any other industry and one's mind travels naturally to those who have been injured in the pits.
  I should like to read an extract from a letter to show to the House and to the country what these men undergo when they are struck down by accidents to the spine and become paraplegics. I have permission to use this letter, and I shall use it with the full force of the argument used by the man who has

  1641
  written it. He lives at 223, High Street, Alsagers Bank, Stoke-on-Trent, and he writes:
  "Regarding my disabilities and accident, I met with my accident on 22nd April, 1938–22 years and two months ago last Friday. My spine was fractured seriously, and in consequence, during the whole of that period I have had the loss of control of all bowel movements and have been under the necessity of wearing a surgical appliance for the urine, and when I have been dressed one can visualise what such conditions have entailed, not only for myself but all the unpleasant and disagreeable tasks over that long period for my dear wife, slaving at the washtub. But I have been richly blessed, for I have had a heroine for a wife whose loving and devoted nursing care and attention at all hours of the day and night have contributed so much towards prolonging my life."
  Furthermore, and this is the point I want to emphasise, he says:
  "In July, 1954, I had an operation for the removal of a cataract on the right eye which, I am pleased to say has been of great benefit to me, for I have … lost the vision of my left eye. In 1955 I was further certified to be suffering from silicosis."
  There it is—paraplegic case, loss of an eye, and now certified to be suffering from silicosis:
  "It may interest you, Mr. Brown, to know that I have been an in-patient in one of our local hospitals for treatment … on 25 different occasions between 13th February, 1954 and 9th April, 1960."
  I want the Minister to note the following—I shall not enlarge on it, but I want him to note it:
  "… since prescription charges were introduced, I have paid a sum of over £16, and a sum of £7 2s. for prescriptions as an old-age pensioner since 27th February, 1959—"
  and he adds these words:
  "the greater the adversities the greater the burdens."
  That is a paraplegic case, and one which, in my judgment, would be well served by the provision of a two-seater car, with, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, a nominated driver. Here is a man who has never left his home except to travel to and from the hospital, a man who is suffering from a disease which, as the Minister will know, requires all the fresh air that can possibly be given to him. Yet, because he is not provided with a means of transport, he has to stay indoors, or sit in a chair just inside the house or in the small garden. That is just one case. One could go on for the next hour or more telling the House of the hardships of paraplegics who have no means of transport.
  1642
  The present position is that the Ministry of Health supplies single-seater motor tricycles to civilian disabled whose disability involves total or considerable loss of use of both legs, and who are otherwise capable of handling a suitable machine. The Ministry supplies a storage shed, and meets the cost of repairs, including replacement of tyres. Seven gallons of petrol are supplied free every six months. No road tax is payable and the Ministry arrange for third party insurance cover. That is what the Ministry is doing now.
  War pensioners—and, again, I preface my remarks by saying that I hope that I shall not be misunderstood—who are 100 per cent. disabled are issued, under the same Royal Warrant, with cars. Road tax and third-party insurance are met by the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, and an annual grant of approximately £70 is made towards running and repair costs. That comes from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. The cars, which are adapted for hand control, may be driven by the disabled person or by a nominated driver.
  I now come to the point which we mentioned in the Motion. In the coal mining industry there are 500 to 600 men who have suffered paralysis of the lower trunk and both legs due to industrial accident, in the service of their country. A large number of these are young men and the great proportion are married men with children. Whereas the war disabled are provided with cars, the men disabled in industrial service to the nation are provided with single-seater tricycles. That provision does not reflect any credit on the nation.
  The coal industry's social welfare organisation has done a great deal for the welfare of disabled mineworkers in the provision of better housing accommodation and holidays. Incidentally, I would say that houses for paraplegics are not the same as houses for ordinary civilians. Everything is different. I have visited bungalows which we have built in Lancashire for these men. We have recently built three bungalows for paraplegics at Blackpool. Everything—windows, doors and toilets—is different in form from those in ordinary houses. We are doing a great service for paraplegia men so far as our money will allow. In cases of breakdown a paralysed man is unable

  1643
  to go for assistance. He has to move about the village and towns in a tricycle. Normal family relationships are already impaired in many ways and any enforced separation when paraplegia patients go out in their tricycles is an added burden.
  Therefore, we contend that what we ought to do as a country—I am not speaking from a political point of view—is to make provision for these men. It can be done, it should be done, and it should be done as quickly as possible. I hope that the Minister and the Department will not advance the argument that the nation cannot afford it. The nation can afford it if it has the will and determination to do it. Let us see that it is done and that we provide comforts, amenities and pleasantries for those unfortunate men who have been overtaken by adversity.
  7.59 p.m.
  Lord Balniel: Every hon. Member will share the feeling which the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) expressed in his speech and will share the feeling which moved hon. and right hon. Members opposite to put down this Motion. I do not suppose there is anyone in the country who, having the blessing of good health, would not do everything in his power to enhance the happiness of these unfortunate people and provide for their well-being, or who would not do anything he could to make it possible for those who have not many blessings to share a wider life with their wives, families and friends and do something to bring them within the ordinary community in its everyday activities. Those are feelings shared, I am sure, by everyone in the country.
  I hope that it will be possible before long for my right hon. and learned Friend to accept what is outlined in the Motion. I believe that that was the tenor of the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary in speaking to her Amendment. I gather that it is the intention of the Government to accept as soon as practicable the terms of the Motion.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Do I understand from the Front Bench that the noble Lord's statement is in accord with their will?
  Lord Balniel: The right hon. Gentleman has interrupted my speech. I speak for myself, of course, and my right hon. and learned Friend will speak for the Government. We have had a clear exposition of the Government's view from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I, of course, speak entirely on my own account.
  I hope that we may set as an objective to strive towards the widening of the present allocation of the two-seater vehicles. I say that, associating myself with the hon. Member for Ince in his very special interest in the mining industry in his part of the country.
  It will be accepted by hon. Members on both sides that, when we have to allocate the rather limited resources of the State, it is understandable that we should give priority to those who have served and suffered in the service of the country. This is a priority which is generally accepted. On the other hand, it is very difficult to differentiate in logic between a person who is a paraplegic, a person who has suffered industrial injury, or a person who has been injured in a road accident or something of that kind, and a person who has suffered during war.
  It is very easy for us to put on the Order Paper these rather warm-hearted Motions calling for an improvement in one section of the National Health Service. This is particularly easy—I say this in no party sense—for those who have sure knowledge that they will not be called on for several years to implement the terms of them. It is very easy for people to put on the Order Paper a Motion such as the one now before us in the sure knowledge that they are not the ones called on to determine the priorities. The determination of priorities is very difficult. It is rather difficult to justify to the country the provision of transport for persons who are in good health and give that a priority above cancer research, hospital building or the many other very important matters coming within the Health Service.
  I have this question to put to my right hon. and learned Friend. I understand that the provision and allocation of tricycles under the National Health

  1645
  Service Act is made under Section 3 (1, b), which provides that the Minister has power to provide
  "medical, nursing and other services required at or for the purposes of hospitals".
  Has my right hon. and learned Friend power under the existing law to provide these two-seater vehicles to paraplegics who are receiving their benefits under the National Health Service and not under Royal Warrant? I may be wrong in my interpretation, but I am by no means certain that legislation is not needed if we are to implement the purport of the Motion now before us. Of course, I am not averse to such legislation if it be necessary.
  I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on the very liberal way he is interpreting the Act as it is now. His is a far more liberal and generous interpretation than hon. and right hon. Members opposite were able to adopt. They will recall very well that their interpretation resulted in only 4,800 persons being allocated tricycles, whereas my right hon. and learned Friend has stretched his interpretation of the law and over 11,000 persons now have tricycles.
  It is notable that there is absolutely no mention in the Motion of the cost. My hon. Friend mentioned that the cost, according to present calculations, would be £2,500,000 spread over eight years, with an additional yearly cost of £1 million.
  Mr. Paget: As the Minister and his predecessor know, I have negotiated with several Ministers on this. If the Department used the Isetta car which I myself drive, the price at which each vehicle, without Purchase Tax, could be made available would be about £220. I believe that what is being paid for the tricycles today is over £300.
  Lord Balniel: I am perfectly happy to accept what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. I understand that my hon. Friend has already given an undertaking to look into the matter of cost and no doubt at the end of the debate we shall hear an answer on that point.
  I very much hope that, after the two years necessary for allocating these two-person vehicles to war pensioners, my right hon. and learned Friend will have it within his power to extend and
  1646
  broaden the existing provisions so as to bring within their scope all persons who are in need of two-person vehicles.
  8.8. p.m.
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I have been very concerned with this problem for many years. I entirely agree with the proposition that a man who received his injury in war should have an automatic priority, if priorities are necessary at a time when we have never "had it so good" and if priorities for these basic needs are necessary in a community as rich and productive as ours.
  I will take one case I have in mind. This is a man I know who was born in a room in Northampton. He was thirty-two years in that room. He heard people bringing his food up the stairs, and he wondered what stairs were like. Suddenly, a tricycle was provided. I certainly will not call these tricycles "wretched" by any means. They have been a miracle and a wonder to many; they have opened the whole world to people who were cut off from it. Suddenly, with the provision of a tricycle, the whole world was opened for that man. What joy he experienced! Never have we provided money which has brought more happiness than the money which has been spent on these tricycles has brought.
  Hon. Members will know of the clubs which exist and of the expeditions which the members have. There is a special place for them at the Cobblers' football ground, at Northampton. British Railways make provision for them so that these men can be brought into the guards' vans and travel on the trains. There is one man who has attended every away match of the Cobblers during the last fifteen years, a man for whom life had previously meant no more than a single bed. These people who were once useless and a burden suddenly become useful members of society because of these tricycles.
  The man to whom I have referred has a job with British Timken Ltd. That is a firm with which I often disagree and I have on occasion had controversies with its somewhat Americanised and extremely Tory manager, Mr. Pascoe. But I always remember something which this man once said to me. He said, "People are really kind to us to start with, but we become a nuisance. But

  1647
  this firm never tires of being kind". That was a wonderful tribute and I am happy to repeat it.
  Now let me return to my point. It may come as a surprise to some of my hon. Friends, but I am profoundly a Socialist and because I am a Socialist I believe that the first thing for which one should look is need. It is only when needs become equalised that we can ration or distribute by money. For instance, if there are not enough radios to go round, the blind should have the first supply and no one should be allowed to have a radio until all blind people have been supplied.
  What I am now about to suggest will be very much more controversial. Old people whose lives are constricted by age and by the old-age pension, who cannot get about very much and do not read because they have not been in the habit or knowledge of reading, and whose eyes, perhaps, are not used to it, should have priority within our pension system for television sets because they have a much greater need for them. The difference which a television set makes to an old person's life is amazing.
  That is what I mean by priorities of need. People in our society who have lost their legs and thereby the power to move have a priority of need for the mechanical means of movement. We should not be talking about priorities within a group. We should be talking about priorities within the nation. There are cars for those who can walk and take public service vehicles and anything else. Therefore, there ought to be cars for those who need them and whose need is so great. That is where priority in our society should lie.
  I now turn to the rather absurd question of cost. In a society as rich, prosperous and full as ours, it is ludricous to say that we would impoverish ourselves by providing these vehicles for those who are in great need of them. It has been said that the cost would be about £2½ million. Even if I believed that it would be about£2½ million—and I do not—I should like to know whether that figure includes Purchase Tax. This point has been raised in correspondence with the Minister. Am I right in thinking that the £2½ million includes Purchase Tax?
  Miss Pitt: It excludes Purchase Tax.
  Mr. Paget: That is an advance on the previous negotiations.
  Previously, the Ministry has said that it could not carry out this proposal because of Purchase Tax. There are other cars, such as the Isetta and the Heinkel, available. They are on a mass production level. I believe that their price is cheaper than the price which the Ministry is paying for tricycles. That was certainly so a year or two ago. Am I right in saying that the cost of the tricycle today is about £350?
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I would rather give the figures when I speak.
  Mr. Paget: If the Minister would say whether I am right I would be grateful. I understand that that is about the figure.
  Without Purchase Tax it would be possible to provide cars like the Heinkel and Isetta for about £220. No doubt for this special purpose and for many of the clients some special adjustments or adaptations would have to be made. This would put the price up a bit, but I do not believe that, even including the cost of maintenance and perhaps of petrol, there would be very much difference, between the two types of vehicle.
  The difficulty has been the sort of Poor Law attitude which has been adopted. It has been felt, "We can supply these people with an invalid tricycle, because that is a medical appliance, but we cannot supply people with luxuries for nothing at the national expense." That has been the attitude of mind and it has been brought on by an interpretation of the National Health Service Act, with which, as a lawyer, I do not agree, namely, that once the vehicle becomes a two-seater it could not be provided. I do not believe that that is a right interpretation of the Act. If it is, I can promise the Minister that the House would pass through all its stages in a day the necessary amending legislation.
  These tricycles have been wonderful things. They have brought immense and amazing happiness. But we are a much richer community now. We are not talking about priorities as in the days of rationing after the war. We can choose our priorities on a wider basis for those who need them. Let us do it now.
  8.17 p.m.
  Mr. Ian Fraser: There was a good deal in the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) with which I was not in agreement, as will become apparent in the course of my short speech. I speak as a fairly severely disabled war pensioner and also as a motorist who covers necessarily a very great mileage in the course of the year because my constituency is a long way away. I can, therefore, perhaps claim to speak with a certain amount of practical knowledge of the questions which arise in this debate.
  I am not so severely disabled as to qualify for one of these machines, but I am sufficiently disabled to have been among people who live in a different way from those who are not disabled at all and who are for that reason separated by a gulf from the disabled. I have spent several periods in Roehampton. I am a part of that splendid and humorous, if rather grim and macabre, fellowship to which Roehampton is a reality. I know what goes on in the minds of people who are more severely disabled than I am.
  The first point that strikes me about this debate is a point of serious principle and a point upon which it has seemed to me that hon. and right hon. Members opposite were hedging a little in the course of what they have so far had to say. It seemed to me that the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), who moved the Motion, implied that the Opposition was not really challenging the principle that ex-Service men should have a definite preference in matters of this kind. The Opposition Motion, however, which is powerfully signed—which would seem to imply that in the event of the Opposition coming into power, this would be its policy—states that
  "similar disability whether arising from war service, industrial employment or other causes, should be assured equal treatment".
  There is nothing there about maintaining any form of priority or preference for the ex-Service man.
  This is no light matter. The priority of the ex-Service man's call upon his country is very deep-seated. It is something which any Government should hesitate long before thinking of abandoning. I believe that if hon. and right hon.
  1650
  Members opposite were in power, they would not abandon it.
  It is true—and the right hon. Member for Caerphilly made a great deal of this—that many civilian disabilities are incurred in circumstances as a result of which they have a moral right to be treated on the basis that they are incurred in the country's service. I have in mind many of the mining injuries, which were so movingly referred to by the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), many of the industrial accidents, and so on. Furthermore, a great number of serious disabilities are incurred not in the country's service, but in circumstances meriting the deepest sympathy from everybody—for example, many congenital conditions which people have from birth. It is, however, the fact that the Service man directly and definitely gives up his own, and, in great measure, his family's, freedom in the service of his country during the time he is serving with the Colours.
  It is a principle of real importance that there should be no tendency, springing from good will towards the whole population and not, I recognise, from any ill will towards the Service man, to go back to a condition of things that will be familiar to people who read Kipling and who are familiar with the situation of the Services in the nineteenth century and before, a condition when the Service man felt that he was far more welcome to his country in war than he was in peace. It is of real importance that nothing should be done to impair the principle, which has been accepted for one or two generations at least by Governments of both parties, that there should be a real preference for the Service man in this matter.
  Mr. Paget: Is not the priority today between the man who cannot walk and the man who can, and not within groups of those who cannot walk? Why do we need priorities there? Why cannot they all have priority?
  Mr. Fraser: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member, because that brings out the point on which we are directly opposed. I am arguing precisely that it is right to maintain a preference and a priority for the Service man under the conditions which obtain. I do not believe that if the party opposite were in power, it would infringe that preference.

  1651
  The gravamen of the Opposition case relates to National Health Service patients. It seems to me that even within the category of National Health Service patients, it is neither wrong nor harmful to have a considerable degree of discrimination in the way in which cases, all of which are seriously disabled, are treated. I cannot see any real parallel between, for example, a disability incurred while gallantly taking part in a rescue in a mining disaster and a disability incurred while driving recklessly or escaping from the police in a stolen car. There seems to me to be scope for great discrimination in the way which we treat disabilities which in themselves may be equal in nature.
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Does the hon. Member believe that he is giving fair examples by contrasting the extreme cases of a criminal act and a mining rescue? Surely, those are not fair examples.
  Mr. Fraser: I deliberately chose an extreme case on either side. I maintain—hon. Members opposite need not agree with me on this—that that is an important principle and that on moral and rational grounds there is good cause to discriminate in the treatment of disability cases. This is where I am arguing against the Opposition's case.
  Mr. Mendelson: My point is that there should be no discrimination. What I complain about is comparing the extreme examples of a criminal act and a rescue. These are not fair examples.
  Mr. Fraser: Admittedly, one could take two cases which are nearer together. The principle which I am maintaining, however, should be clear to the House, whether or not the House agrees with it.
  The opposition Motion proposes the provision of two-seater cars. I am not clear why two-seaters were chosen—surely, the Mini-Minor is not a twoseater—but the two-seater cars are generally the answer. I speak as a disabled person with a good deal of practical knowledge of the invalid vehicles which are issued. On more than one occasion, constituents have brought them to me to inspect. I have been underneath them and poked about inside them. I am a practical motorist and know
  1652
  something about them. I am sure that in only a proportion of cases among National Health Service patients, as, indeed, among war-service cases, is the two-seater car or the Mini-Minor the best answer.
  It is unfortunate that these specialised invalid vehicles which are now in issue in their modern marks are called tricycles. There is something pejorative about the word "tricycle". "Tricycle" is in some sense a term of opprobrium suggesting a simple or even ramshackle vehicle. That is definitely not correct. As my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary claimed, it is not true of the modern issue of this vehicle.
  There are things about it which are important. It is very often easy to get into, in a way in which, for example, the bubble car would not be and even the Mini-Minor would not be. In many types of physical disability it is easier to control a vehicle of this kind. A most important point is that it is distinctive on the roads. Other motorists know what it is. It is normal for motorists to treat with particular care and respect on the road an invalid car. It is furthermore less dangerous sometimes if it is driven with less than 100 per cent. skill than would be a car such as the Mini-Minor, which is a car which has passed me on the road at well over 60 m.p.h. Running and maintenance, too, are often more economical than is the case with a full two-seater car.
  I am sure for these reasons that it is true that some of the severely disabled, be they war pensioners or National Health Service patients, will always prefer the type of vehicle that the present invalid tricycle is. But, having said all that, I would be the first to admit that the therapeutic value of a car which is a real car, a normal car like other people's, can be very great in many cases. It is not only the point which a number of hon. Members have referred to, the extra capacity of the car to carry a wife or a friend or someone to look after the driver. It is even more the feeling of normal life which goes with that.
  On this, I would say to the House that even that feeling of normality, that wish to be completely normal, is not universal among the severely disabled. There is

  1653
  a form of dignity attached to very severe disability which becomes part of the personality itself, and there are those—I can thank of actual examples in my own experience, some of them perhaps the most memorable people I have met—who are, in this curious and perplexing way, suited by being severely disabled. It becomes part of their personality. They are prepared to go their own way, and among those we should find a number who would have no wish to change from the tricycle to which they are accustomed.
  Even in my very short experience of the House, I have found myself on more than one occasion going to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Health and asking him for things for my constituents, and I have certainly never found him anything but a most ready and sympathetic friend, I say in the same spirit that I believe it is absolutely right to maintain the priorities that we have maintained and absolutely essential to have regard for cost. The state of affairs would never arise, including the time when right hon. Members opposite are in power, when one could disregard the cost of a thing like this. But I hope that the Government will move in the direction of extending an option of having these cars on a particularly selective basis among National Health Service patients.
  I should like to stress that it should be a selective basis and not in any sense a universal right of issue. Let us be clear about what we are doing if we offer cars to the severely disabled, and this applies to the war pensioners just as it does to National Health Service patients. I speak with real feeling on this, because I know the difference between what is an appliance and what is not. My leg is an appliance which the State gives me. My car is not an appliance. An ordinary car, however modified for somebody who is not 100 per cent. fit to drive, is not of the nature of an appliance, though I think it is true that the special invalid car is of that nature.
  If, therefore, we extend the issue of ordinary cars, however they may be modified, we are not issuing therapeutic appliances although they may have a therapeutic effect. We are engaging in a welfare distribution. We are giving a precious possession to that person. Cer
  1654
  tainly that may be a right thing to do, but that is the nature of the act we are doing. I hope that we shall proceed, as time goes on and resources allow, in that direction, but I hope that we shall proceed with a full regard to all the circumstances, including discrimination in the way in which the injury was incurred, the type of injury, the source of injury, the means of the disabled, and all other circumstances. Given all that, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will find himself in a position to proceed in that way.
  8.35 p.m.
  Dr. Horace King (Southampton, lichen): I speak on behalf of the Invalid Tricycle Association, with which, like the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers), I am closely associated.
  First, I want to correct an impression which may have been given, quite inadvertently, by the Parliamentary Secretary when she last replied to my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) in an Adjournment debate on 17th May. In that debate the hon. Lady referred to some remarks that I had made in the House on 14th December last expressing the Association's tremendous appreciation of the benefits conferred by the Minister on its members.
  That was, however, only part of what I had said in that debate. On 14th December some of us were pressing the Minister to speed up the inquiry into whether invalid tricycles could be replaced by something better. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Norwood (Sir J. Smyth) had raised the subject, and the Parliamentary Secretary had told him that the promise made about cars related only to war pensioners. I then intervened and said:
  "Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that, while the Invalid Tricycles Association appreciates tremendously the benefits the Minister has conferred upon its members, not only the happiness but also the health and the safety of the crippled, to whom mechanical transport is the only means of conveyance, are involved in this inquiry? Will the most earnest consideration be given to the great mass of those cripples? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1959; Vol. 615, c. 1031.]
  Those like myself who are actively associated with the Invalid Tricycle Association and the Association itself

  1655
  have always held this view. We appreciate what the Minister has done. At the same time, we are asking for much more to be done. There is no doubt that the invalid tricycle has been a boon to the paraplegic and the amputee. Many a cripple who never left his home from one year's end to another has had the joy of getting out into the sunshine, into the country and into human fellowship since we provided him with a mechanical means of conveyance.
  It is a joy and inspiration to attend meetings or social gatherings run by the Association. Inside the hall there will be various kinds of invalid tricycles which have brought some who can stumble into the hall or be helped into the hall. Inside the hall itself there will the invalid tricycles still containing the people who have had to be put into them when they got out of bed and can never get out of them until they get back home. They are happy gatherings. Many of these people would have no social existence at all but for the invention of the invalid tricycle and its provision for them by the Minister and his predecessors. I can think of some of my own friends in the Association who, literally, had never left their homes for many years until we first provided them with this wonderful new invention.
  I was glad to hear my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) refer to the marvellous Association rallies. Some of these cripples travel hundreds of miles in these mechanical conveyances to rallies which have to be seen to be believed. For some of them the tricycle is a means of getting to work to earn a living. I think of one Southampton man, paralysed down one side, who was told that he would be bedridden all his life. With indomitable courage, he got from his bed and conquered his paralysis sufficiently to be able to struggle to a day's work whenever he could persuade someone with a car to carry him to work. I remember when I persuaded the present Minister of Health to supply him with an invalid tricycle what a revolution of happiness it made in that man's life. The man was a cripple whose courage surpassed almost anything I have ever seen.
  We certainly appreciate all that the Minister has done. Hon. Members
  1656
  appreciate the very friendly contacts which we have with the Ministry of Health. Some of us were afraid when the Government transferred this group of problems from the Ministry of Pensions to the Ministry of Health that we were going to lose some of the warm humanity which has always marked the Ministry of Pensions. I am glad to say that our experience is that the same efficiency and the same kindly humanity pervades the Minister's own Department.
  Having said that, I must add that when a cripple goes out in his invalid tricycle he goes out alone. If there is trouble with his tricycle, if there is trouble in starting it, or even if he has trouble in getting in and out of it, if he has to get out because of an accident, if he has the slightest difficulty, he has to face that difficulty alone. In a small car, there would always be someone able to help him. He needs companionship on the road. These people in the invalid tricycles who travel 100 or 200 miles across England to a rally literally travel alone. The driver cannot take his wife with him, and a crippled wife cannot take her husband with her. They cannot take a child or a friend in an invalid tricycle.
  Now that the technicians have broken through, now that the invalid tricycle, which has steadily improved during the post-war years out of all recognition, is beginning to give place to the small car, I hope the Minister is going to let civilian cripples share in this new boon which science has brought to us. I think it was right to give the first priority, if priority had to be given, to the claims of the crippled ex-Service men. Disabled ex-Service men hold a special place in the hearts of all of us and the all-party Committee which supports the claims of B.L.E.S.M.A. welcome the Minister's decision to provide Minicars for the acutely disabled ex-Service men, and I know what joy that brought to the annual conference of B.L.E.S.M.A.
  But amputation is amputation and paraplegia is paraplegia, whether the victim is a man or a woman, a civilian or a soldier. The handicaps are the same, the hardships are the same, and all these disabled citizens, military, ex-military or civilian, are citizens needing all the help the State can give. They need help to earn their own living, they need help to be able to get about outside their homes,

  1657
  to enjoy friendship, and particularly they need companionship to enable them to live as full a life as their disability will permit and modern invention can provide.
  I know that in an earlier debate the Parliamentary Secretary argued that legislation was needed to bring this about. Some of my hon. and right hon. Friends on both sides of the Committee—because this is a non-party debate on a non-party matter—have advised me that no legislative change is necessary but that it can be done within the compass of the present legislation. Whether it needs a change of the law or merely an administrative change, I hope that the Minister will assure us at the end of the debate that he will do something about it.
  The annual conference of the Invalid Tricycle Association shortly to be held has given pride of place on the conference agenda to a resolution which I think answers the speech to which we have just listened from the disabled ex-Service man who addressed the House about priorities. I quote from the resolution:
  "This Annual General Meeting of the invalid Tricycle Association welcomes the decision of the Minister of Health to replace the three-wheeled invalid vehicles at present on issue to the seriously disabled ex-Serviceman with a small motor-car more suited to modern conditions, and requests the Minister to make a similar arrangement for the National Health Service patients."
  I know the joy that the Minister's first decision brought to this year's annual conference of B.L.E.S.M.A. If as a result of this debate today something similar could be announced at the annual conference of the Invalid Tricycle Association, the Minister would be again adding joy and real happiness to a very worthy and very courageous group of British citizens.
  8.45 p.m.
  Miss Joan Vickers: I am very glad to have the opportunity of joining in the debate. Like the right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards), I had the opportunity to raise the matter on an Adjournment debate, although mine was rather earlier, on 16th November, 1959. I am very pleased, too, that the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown) suggested—and he is always very wise in these things—
  1658
  that this should be a gradual progress, and I am certain that it is the intention of the Ministry that it should be.
  I take exception to what was said about these "wretched tricycles". I lend my house for the meetings of the Invalid Tricycle Association in Devon-port. The members are extremely happy people and at these meetings they arrange their tours. Incidentally, they often go abroad and do not simply tour in this country.
  Very good arrangements are made in my area for invalids whose tricycles break down. Passing motorists will always stop, but we have a list of garages which can be telephoned and which will always send out a breakdown van.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: Does not the hon. Lady realise that in isolated Welsh villages and mining valleys the problem is entirely different from that in the large towns?
  Miss Vickers: I cannot imagine any place so isolated that there is not someone passing during the day. I gather that Wales is not quite so deserted that there will not be someone coming, at least a lorry driver, on his journey from place to place.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: That is not the point. In the large towns it is possible to get these people together in groups, but in the isolated villages, where there is only one such invalid, it is impossible to have the sort of association which there is in Northampton, for instance, or in other parts of the country.
  Miss Vickers: I agree that there are special difficulties. I can drive a car, but I have no knowledge of the insides, and if I am driving alone and have a breakdown, I am equally stranded, although, I admit, I could walk if necessary.
  The invalid tricycles have given tremendous service. One of the important things we have to remember is that we must suit the vehicle to the individual, because, however generous the Ministry might be, there will always be those who could not manage a car and who would be infinitely happier and safer in a smaller type of vehicle.
  Only last Friday, I had 34 completely disabled people to tea in the House of Commons. This is the fourth year that

  1659
  the group has come. I arranged for them to be pushed round by Red Cross people so that they could see the House. I mention that because other hon. Members have drawn on their experience in mining districts.
  In my constituency, there is a disabled people's home which, I am very glad to say, my right hon. and learned Friend has visited. There are eight flats for disabled people who can look after themselves, there is a recreational hall, and there are 22 flats for people who cannot look after themselves. Because of that home I have been able to make some study of their problems, and I know the difference between those who would be able to manage a Mini-Minor motor car and those who definitely need the other type of vehicle. Whatever happens, I hope that the present vehicle will not be superseded and that we shall always have the invalid tricycles, whether with petrol engines or electrically driven, because their loss would be a great loss to many people. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will keep them on the market.
  To help the progress and delivery of these cars, it might be found that some people would be prepared to pay for them. I have just had a case of a man who is employed in a railway inquiry office and who, although he does not get a tremendous wage, is able to buy his own car. I should like to see a scheme of loans run by the Ministry so that such people who were in work and who could pay back over a period of months or years could buy their own cars or, if they had a car, could have the gadgets which, I understand, cost about £70 and are renewable about every five years.
  I should like to see an extension of such a scheme, particularly of loans given to persons so that they can buy their own cars. The loan could be made on reasonable terms and the Minister might be able to make it without any form of interest. Such a scheme would cut down the waiting list considerably.
  I want to make a plea, as I did in my Adjournment debate on 16th November, for less strict differences in the categories of the persons who can obtain cars. Would it not be possible to sell the propelled car—the invalid tricycle—to these people if they could afford it?
  1660
  These vehicles are not on the market and a number of people I know—some of them single and earning £10 or more a week—would be willing to buy a car but do not come into the category of being allowed one because they can walk. They find it difficult to walk and when they get horn from work after their struggle they are tired and cannot make an effort to go out again. If they could have one of these small vehicles it would minimise their difficulties considerably.
  I gather that there are priorities first for the person who has two amputations, one just above the knee. It is very difficult if one has two legs cut off below the knee, for that is a less high category. I believe that that is too difficult a distinction. There is also the question of total loss of use of both legs and limited walking ability. It is difficult to judge the limited walking ability of an individual. Some of them can walk just sufficiently to enable them to get to work but have to give up work sooner than normally because the daily journey gets more tiring, especially, as they may put on weight because they cannot take much exercise.
  I also make a plea for the housewife. Hers should be a job which should qualify for this. I know of a woman with five children who has both legs off. She should go shopping but is unable to do so, and her husband has to do it. Before we consider giving out these two-seater vehicles we should make available a larger range of the other vehicles. It is essential to decide whether we are going to specialise in a few or help a greater number of people. I come down on the side of helping the greater number in their disability.
  I believe that practically nobody is too badly disabled to take part in the life of the community somewhere, and therefore I think that we can give this benefit over a greater number of people. I understand that in 1951 there was a total of 6,238 cars issued—of the invalid tricycle type—and in 1959 there were more than 13,000. That has been a tremendous step in those few years and of great benefit to many people.
  The annual cost of upkeep is considerable—about £1½ million. One has to take that into consideration. I hope that the Minister will consider those who can be self-supporting within the community and can really take their part in it, as

  1661
  in the case, quoted by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), of the man who could not get downstairs for 32 years.
  I hope that when the two-seater cars are provided more than three hours' tuition will be given. I understand that that is the period which is laid down—and in the Adjournment debate I drew the attention of my hon. Friend to the fact that some people receive only about half an hour's tuition. If these larger cars are supplied I hope that their drivers will have to pass a test similar to that laid down for persons who are not disabled. Disabled people will find it quite different driving the new cars, and I know that disabled people driving ordinary cars fitted with special gadgets have to pass quite a severe test. It will be quite a responsibility for many of these people to drive a car if they take with them their wives and children.
  The only other question is that referred to by the Piercy Committee in paragraph 311, namely, the need for closer co-operation between various Government Departments and a clearer definition of the responsibilities of the various Departments. I am thinking mainly of the difficulties which will arise in connection with the two-seater car. One hon. Member said that a garage is provided for the tricycle, and I presume that one will have to be provided for the car. This will take up quite a lot of room. There is considerable delay even in providing an individual with his tricycle because of the difficulty of providing a garage.
  The two things are done by different Departments. Whoever decides to deliver the vehicle should ascertain that a garage is available before the vehicle is delivered or is put on the list for delivery. A person may be told that a car is waiting for him but that he cannot have it because there is no garage.
  Mr. Paget: Is the hon. Lady aware that I have not had a garage for years? Cars do not have to live in garages.
  Miss Vickers: The hon. and learned Member is responsible for his own car, but these are Ministry cars, and the Regulations provide that garages must be provided. If the hon. and learned Member is not satisfied with his car, I presume that he can change it as and when he requires, but these invalid cars
  1662
  have to remain the property of the Ministry. It may be that A is told that his car is ready for him but there is no garage, while B who may have a garage will not be able to receive a car because he is not next on the list. I hope that this point will be cleared up, because it has caused considerable difficulty.
  Although I sympathise with the need of ex-Service men, and agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) that the Invalid Tricycle Association and B.L.E.S.M.A. have welcomed the suggestion that ex-Service men shall have priority, I hope that we shall nevertheless take account of the civilian disabled and make the restrictions upon their obtaining these vehicles a little less stringent.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: I wish to speak in this debate not so much because there are a large number of miners in my constituency—those hon. Members who represent mining constituencies will be able to speak for the miners—but because there is also in my constituency a settlement for disabled men, the Thistle Foundation, which has been visited by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary and by the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. The settlement houses about 100 disabled men with their families and it is probably one of the finest in Britain. The disabled men there can live with their families and at the same time, obtain the necessary treatment. There are also workshops in which they can work.
  I visit this foundation frequently and I have to deal with a large number of Parliamentary cases involving residents there. I always feel rather humble in the face of the tremendous courage displayed by these men. I have a great admiration also for the way in which wives assist them. They have to put up with a great amount of inconvenience and sometimes with the irritability of their husbands, and the need to perform unpleasant jobs, and all the rest of it. That is why I am glad that at last the Minister has recognised the unfairness to a disabled man caused by the fact that he may not have been able to take out his wife or his family for perhaps twenty or thirty years, or even longer.
  When dealing with the various cases arising from the Thistle Foundation, I

  1663
  have been struck by the number of varying circumstances producing differing treatment of what would appear to be almost the same type of disability. It has been said in the debate that a man who has served his country should be given priority, but I find that even among men who have served their country, and who are suffering from the same disability, the treatment is quite different.
  Everyone is aware of the notorious difficulty of dealing with cases of disseminated sclerosis. I know of cases of men who get high pensions under the Royal Warrant and others who get nothing. A man who might have been delivering a message from his headquarters may qualify and a man who might have been going on leave might not qualify. They may be both in the Service and perhaps have been driving through the Royal Dockyards, but one qualifies and the other does not. There is an enormous difference between those who qualify and those who do not, but who are both Service men, and the person who qualifies under the National Insurance Acts. There are other people who qualify under the Industrial Injuries legislation and I am puzzled about all this.
  The families of these men have exactly the same problems to face yet there are enormous differences in the amounts which they receive. Many of the people living in the Foundation realise this and it often causes niggling criticism. One family thinks, "Fancy, Mrs. So-and-So, next door, has this, that and the other, and her husband has exactly the same disability as mine". That is not a good thing socially.
  The Amendment to the Motion "congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles …" but I understand that all the war disabled pensioners who have power-propelled tricycles will not get cars. I forwarded a case to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary only last week. War disabled pensioners who qualify by having power-propelled tricycles provided by the Government were under the impression that they would get cars, but apparently a Ministry circular has been sent to them telling a number of them that although they have a power-propelled tricycle to enable them to get to work,
  1664
  they will not qualify for a car. I see that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary is standing near Mr. Speaker's Chair. He should come into the Chamber to listen, because I am referring to a case which I sent to him.
  I think that we ought to be told where the line should be drawn, and who exactly among the disabled ex-Service men at present possessing power propelled tricycles are to have them replaced. There is a general impression abroad that everyone who has a power-propelled tricycle is to have it replaced. That cannot be so if a circular has now gone out telling a number of men that they are not to have their machines replaced. The Government ought to be more frank about this. They should tell these men what the position is, because it is a tremendous disappointment to them if they think they will get a replacement and then find they are not eligible.
  A man I know quite well wrote to me last week. I have been trying to get him a car. He has had a power-propelled tricycle for some time. He wrote very bitterly, saying that he never bothered because he thought he would be given a car. He said he had not enjoyed going out in the company of his wife for forty years. I cannot remember the exact wording of the letter, because I sent it on to the Ministry. There must be many other cases like that, because this scheme has only just begun. We ought to be told what the Government are doing and who are to get these cars.
  Many seriously disabled persons are disqualified because of the way in which their category is interpreted. I have been told that if a person could walk the distance from where I am standing to the Clerks at the Table he could not get a car, but, if a person could walk only from where I am standing to the Dispatch Box he could get a car. This distinction seems unreal.
  What my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) said in opening the debate was quite fair. The Government are to replace power-propelled tricycles for ex-Service disabled men and my right hon. Friend asked that when that had been done—and it will take two years—the Government should say, "We think it a fair proposition to do the same for civilians, whether they have been injured in the mines or in

  1665
  any other way." Surely that is not unreasonable. In spite of the speech made by one hon. Member about priority being given to ex-Service men, I am quite confident that ex-Service men themselves would like to see this done. They do not like to feel that they are a privileged community and to see others living alongside them unable to enjoy something which they can enjoy.
  Much has been said about the question of cost. We are told that this would cost £2½ million, but, spent over a long time that would be only a few hundred thousands a year.
  Mr. William Ross: Shades of George Buchanan.
  Mr. Willis: Yes, shades of George Buchanan.
  Are we at this time to say that we are unable to do this very small thing? I do not want to make a political point by talking about Blue Streak and the £100 million that involved, but there must be many millions of pounds wasted by any Government every year in following up various lines of research and development and such ancillary matters. This is not too small an amount to expect any Government to be able to spend. Putting it very brutally, the Government can afford £100 million on Blue Streak for the purpose of destroying men's limbs, but cannot afford £2½ million to help get the men about after we have tried to destroy them.
  These men have served their country. It does not matter whether they are civilians. I say that having been a serving man who has had fifteen years' service in the Navy and in the Army. I am quite sure that the Service man does not want this. Whether a man has injured himself in a pit or fallen down the stairs, thus breaking his back or injuring himself in some other way, the problem for his wife and family and himself is exactly the same as if he had fallen or become injured in some other way. These men, no matter how they came by their injuries, have the same financial problems, the same difficulties with their children, the same difficulties in getting about, and the same human and social problems.
  We are not asking that Service men should not get their cars until the industrially disabled men get theirs. Our point
  1666
  is—I feel that most of the House is with us—that, having made the provision, it is not too much to ask that disabled miners, civilians and others should also get them if they fall within the categories.
  9.12 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: There is perhaps a touch of irony in the debate at this time, because if my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport had been sitting in the place of my right hon. and learned Friend we would have been taking him to task and asking him to take action to prevent motorists from becoming invalids. We are now discussing how we can enable invalids to become motorists. Sometimes when one considers the situation on the roads one wonders whether there is great advantage in having a motor car in these days.
  I am sure that we all agree that, when dealing with people who are unable to get about, it is right and proper that if the State is providing general welfare it should do something to help these people. It is right that we should deal with the ex-Service men first and give them priority. Many hon. Members are ex-Service men. Hon Members on both sides will agree that many ex-Service men have no one else to help them. They came out of the Services, and that was the only background they had. They had not worked for a firm. They had not even belonged to a particular community because they were away for so long. They depend entirely and absolutely upon the State. Therefore, if there is to be a priority, it is right and proper that it should be given to ex-Service men. After that it is also a good thing that we should do what we can for the civilian who is in any way incapacitated.
  It would be helpful to the House if my right hon. and learned Friend can say what the future holds, without promising anything immediately. Perhaps he will say whether it is possible to deal with hard cases. Perhaps cases might be dealt with in due course where persons are living in country areas and have to go farther than others who are living in towns whose present vehicles are adequate.
  I should also like to reinforce the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for

  1667
  Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers), who asked the Minister to consider making some of these vehicles available for sale. There are people who would buy them, and could make good use of them; who could afford to buy them, and would be independent enough to want to do so. If my right hon. and learned Friend could say something about that, it would be very helpful.
  In this debate there seems to be a general feeling that many of the people who have the tricycles want a motor car. I am not sure that all of them necessarily want to have the two-seater. One sees these people occasionally at football matches with their tricycles, and they seem to enjoy going about on their own in these vehicles. That is not to say that there are not others who would like to have two-seaters, but I sometimes wonder whether, nowadays, we are going a little too far in expecting that the State must always immediately fill in this sort of gap, and make changes that increase the charge on the public purse.
  I wonder whether we should not ask the country to do this now, today, as a public service quite outside the National Health Service. We live in an affluent society, and the number of motor cars is increasing year after year. The Government are providing these tricycle vehicles, but the Opposition's Motion suggests that they should go further and provide motor cars. The Government do not feel at this moment that they can concede that. Does it have to be left that way?
  Is it not possible for those who now have one-seater vehicles to be assisted in the acquisition of two-seater vehicles by local organisations and local people coming to their aid? Would it not be possible for Rotary clubs, or even for private individuals to think about this—as I believe many do now for old people—as an individual service that they are prepared to give? In many cases these people have sons and daughters who could do just that. Others have not, and I think that we in this House have a right to say, "Here is a service that can be given quite outside the Health Service, something that individuals can do to help those who have the minimum requirement—the one-seater vehicle."
  1668
  We happen to be a bit better off. We are not incapacitated. We are working, and earning good money. We are prepared to give up a day or so a month to assist these people. This kind of Christian charity is something that is quite non-political. When one gets a request in a Motion like this, one sometimes feels that all the emphasis is laid on Government action, and nothing is left for the individual. It may be possible for the Government to deal with this problem stage by stage but, quite apart from what the Government can do, the country itself will, I am sure, recognise that it has a responsibility in the matter.
  9.20 p.m.
  Mr. J. Hill: I regret some of the speeches that have been made, because in them there has been a tendency to place the ex-Service man against the man broken in industry. I would remind the House that many of the men broken in the pits would have been in the Services had they been allowed to join. They were not allowed to join, because at that time they were considered more essential in getting the coal in order to conduct the war. That is why I regret the comparison—and I take second place to no one in my admiration for and sympathy with these men who were broken in the war.
  What are we asking? We are asking that the man who has the motor-propelled tricycle should be provided with a two-seater car. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) asked whether there were not charitably-minded persons prepared to help, but the people about whom we are concerned are asking not for charity but for what we think is a right from the Government of the country—
  Mr. K. Lewis: But, surely good neighbourliness cannot in any circumstances be described as charity. It is just good neighbourliness.
  Mr. Hill: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about good neighbourliness, but I am not prepared to agree that the good neighbour should have to spend his money on what, in my opinion, is a Government responsibility.
  It is less than a year since I left the coal pits. There I had the unhappy experience on various occasions of

  1669
  helping to carry out men with the lower part of the body destroyed for all time. Their courage had to be seen to be believed. As a trade union official, it was my custom to follow up the cases to the hospital, and to visit them there.
  We have the Edenhall Hospital in my constituency, where these cases are now dealt with, and I visit that hospital periodically. It is perfectly true to say that although these men are very happy with the tricycles, they would be much happier had they two-seater cars so that their wives could accompany them on many a run that they have to take by themselves.
  I do not think that we are asking anything unreasonable when we ask for a two-seater car for that type of case. Even Billy Butlin is as generous as the Government 'because in Scotland he gives these cases of paraplegic miners a free holiday at holiday camps. That is something in line with what the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford has suggested. Not only does he give the men a holiday, but he gives their wives and families a holiday, too. If a firm like that can give this help, what is to prevent the Government from supplying two-seater oars?
  I understand that recently my organisation, the Scottish Area of the National Union of Mineworkers, sent a resolution along these lines to the Ministry asking that these cars should be provided. I do not want to repeat what has already been said, but I hope that the Government will think again and will consider giving these people something which, although it will not restore the power in their legs, will at least give them the pleasure of having their wives accompanying them at all possible times.
  9.25 p.m.
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: I wish to address myself briefly to two points made by the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary. I think that we must all accept that finance comes into this matter. That is common ground and, throughout the debate, it has been recognised. I submit to the Minister, however, that we are not here dealing with the problem of establishing priorities only within a narrow compass, but are obliged, as a House of Commons to look at social priorities beyond the immediate problem we are discussing.
  1670
  There is really no contradiction here at all.
  I have had many conversations with colleagues, ex-Service men like myself, miners and people in industry whom I represent when we have discussed this whole matter. Our joint conclusion—this is the real case the Minister has to answer—can be put in the form of question. Is it not shocking that, in the second half of the twentieth century, we cannot so arrange our social priorities that we have our ex-Service men, those who have given service to the nation in the coalfields and suffered injury, and those who have been seriously injured in the steel industry and in other industries, all included within the comparatively small group of people who can be given this aid today?
  I appeal to the Minister to address himself to that case. Administratively, of course, no one is asking for everything to be done overnight. It is a gradual process. There is no difficulty at all in the Government announcing tonight that this gradual process will include those categories of people mentioned in our Motion.
  Secondly, as the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) said, we have a duty to widen the circle of people who can be helped in this way. Everyone will accept that. But, of course, we understand that, in widening the circle, we must always keep in mind categories where the incidence of injury is higher than in others. That is the meaning of the reference to industrial injuries in the Motion, and that is why I, together with others, have mentioned miners in particular. We are not impractical enough to suggest to the Minister that he must have no regard for the incidence of injury in various categories. Therefore, while accepting fully the principle enunciated by the hon. Lady, I say that, in interpreting and applying it, categories must be considered.
  My last point goes a little beyond the immediate substance of the debate. This debate has been comparatively free from political disagreement, and I want to keep it that way. There have been many occasions on which the general problem of social advance has been discussed between the two sides, but I have always taken the view that there are several problems on which, with the practical

  1671
  approach of hon. Members and the various associations whose interests have been represented in the debate and of those who give advice to the Minister, common ground can be reached.
  It is perfectly possible, because the chances are there with the available practical means of doing what is required, to reach an agreement which can do justice to the categories of people concerned and which can be carried and justified in the country by those who have particular interest and knowledge in the matter. I appeal to the Minister to treat the problem in that spirit when he replies.
  9.30 p.m.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: During this debate we have heard a great deal about priorities from the Minister and from every hon. Member opposite who has spoken. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) dealt with this point. It seems to me that the Government are basing their case on priorities.
  The Parliamentary Secretary recalled that it was a Labour Minister who first set these priorities. She said that the Socialists gave preference and priority to war pensioners. We do not deny that. We are not ashamed of it. That was 1948, four years after a dreadful war. But this is 1960, twelve years later. Our Motion does not ask that anything should be taken from the war pensioner. We are delighted that he gets what he is getting today. It merely asks that what is enjoyed, if one can call it "enjoyed", by the war pensioner should be enjoyed by others who are disabled, not for the same causes, but in the same way.
  The first page of the Tory Party's manifesto—and I have quoted this often in the last few months—asks
  "Do you want to go ahead on the lines which have brought prosperity at home?"—
  not the lines that perhaps at some time in future will bring prosperity. So that only a few months ago the Government were telling the people that we were a prosperous nation.
  The sole reason given for the Amendment is that we cannot meet what is
  1672
  being asked for in the Motion because of cost. The Amendment states:
  "but recognises that regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation."
  What a different picture this is from that painted in the manifesto. Judging from the Amendment and from the Minister's speech, one would think that our country was living in miserable poverty, not prosperity.
  I now turn to the part of the manifesto which was brought to the notice of the Government by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards). I am certain that many disabled people who have tricycles on reading that manifesto took it that it applied to them. It refers to
  "Those disabled in the service of their country"—
  "service" with a small "s". If the Government had been honest and if what they said was what they meant, they would have said "in Her Majesty's Services", but they did not. They merely said:
  "Particular attention will be given to providing more suitable vehicles for the badly disabled."
  The paraplegics in my constituency—and in my constituency they are mainly miners who have been disabled in the mines, but there are those who have been disabled in the steel works and every type of heavy industry—had a right to expect on reading that manifesto that it applied to them.
  Both the Amendment and the Parliamentary Secretary's speech are mean, miserable and complacent. All the back benchers who have spoken from the Government side have said that we cannot afford this concession. The hon. Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) said that we all wanted to help these people. He went on to say, however, that when we have to allocate limited resources of the State we have to choose our priorities. I will deal with that later.
  I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. I. Fraser), according to whom, apparently, even if we were not able to afford this concession, we should set up an artificial barrier to maintain priority for the ex-Service man. That is very

  1673
  foolish. In my constituency, there are disabled miners side by side with disabled ex-Service men. I know men of both categories, and I know that the disabled ex-Service man would want his comrade who had been disabled industrially to have everything that he has himself.
  Mr. I. Fraser: The hon. Lady will remember that I said there were a number of categories of disabled National Health Service patients who on moral and rational grounds had a perfectly equal claim with the ex-Service man to sympathetic treatment in this way. I was maintaining, however, that in that class there should continue to be priorities and preferences. I claimed the first for the ex-Service man, and I suggested that among the National Health Service patients there should be priority according to the way in which the disability was incurred and the need of those affected.
  Miss Herbison: I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I do not believe that he is out of sympathy, but I think that when he reads the whole of his speech he will understand why it gave me the impression that, whether or not priorities were necessary, he still feels that there should be priority for the ex-Service man.
  What kind of priorities are we talking about? What is the scope of this problem? The cost to meet what we ask in the Amendment is £2½ million, not in one year but spread over eight years, with £1 million for maintenance. Let us consider what is happening under the fiscal policy of the Government, who cannot afford £2½ million spread over eight years. By the initial allowance for motor cars, the Chancellor loses £50 million annually, as against £2½ million over eight years—£50 million to people who are much better off than those about whom we are talking. Indeed, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), who boasted that he has never paid anything under Schedule A, will be given the initial allowance for his car.
  Reputable sources have estimated that the Government lose £100 million a year through tax evasion. To these two items of £50 million and £100 million a year my hon. Friends could add others. Against these, however, the Government
  1674
  quibble about an additional £2½ million spread over eight years.
  By the Amendment and the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, the Government have shown that they are trying to set one group of citizens against another. I was glad to hear the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who made it clear that we should not be discussing priorities between these two classes of people.
  The priorities today are the priorities in the nation as a whole, and if that were accepted by the Government they would have no hesitation in accepting our Motion. We ask that all who need a car in the special categories, the industrially disabled and the paraplegics, should have the same benefits as the war pensioners. We are delighted that the war 'pensioners have these benefits. We know how great the benefits are, and it is because we know it that we want them for other people who are similarly disabled.
  Much has been said about companionship, and letters have been quoted. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) with his intimate knowledge of this matter from the institution in his own constituency, gave examples. There are paraplegics whom I know well in my own constituency. It is not only companionship that they need on their outings. These men have to have their wives perform the most intimate personal services for them.
  The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. K. Lewis) said that perhaps other people would take them out in a car. That is a good thing, but many will not go out in anybody else's car. They want their wives with them not only for companionship, although that is important, but because of these personal attentions which they must have from them. I know that from friends of my own who are in that position. My hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), in the letter which he quoted, also showed this very clearly. It has been said that the tricycle has opened new vistas for many of these people. It has and we are glad of that, but these vistas are still limited. Many of these men cannot go very far because they need somebody with them, and there is strong reason for that.

  1675
  It seems to me that the Government often appeal to what I would call the lowest in our people, the sort of "I'm all right Jack" philosophy, but I would say to the Minister, who seems to think that a joke, that the British people in the main are decent, generous people and that if we were to put this matter to them this evening they would say to the Government, "Find that £2½ million over these years." There would be no vestige of hesitation. The Government talk a great deal about prosperity and in the next breath tell us that they cannot find £2½ million for these humane purposes over eight years.
  We on this side of the House believe in priorities, and we regard what we ask for this evening as an important priority. It has always seemed to us that in a civilised, Christian country the strong and able amongst us ought to take care of the sick, the weak and the disabled. That is all we ask for in the Motion. I hope that the Minister has listened carefully to the debate. I am sure that if they had not felt that they had to back the Government, his hon. Friends would have been much stronger in their speeches. Let the Government be as generous as I am sure the British people would want them to be. Let them give us what we ask for in the Motion and withdraw their Amendment.
  9.44 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): We have had a very interesting debate with some very constructive and moving speeches. We had particularly good speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. I. Fraser), my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) and my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) and, among hon. Members opposite, the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). On the whole, they have been speeches reasonably free from party or political controversy. The right hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) will not, I am sure, expect me to put him in quite that category.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: I hope not.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman is by temperament combative, and it is a very attractive quality. I know that he will not mind if, from time to time, I pick up his points; I am sure that he will certainly not take it amiss. However, I do not want, on the whole, to make that sort of speech, at any rate not more than I can help, because I do not feel that this is the appropriate occasion.
  We are concerned here with a subject of great importance and much human interest. We are concerned with disabilities which are tragic however they are sustained—disabilities borne, as we all know, bravely and cheerfully by those who have sustained them, and these people are, of course, entitled, and indeed receive, the constructive and compassionate interest of hon. Members on all sides of the House.
  This subject throws into particularly sharp relief two complementary, if not conflicting, considerations which I have encountered very much in three years of dealing with health and welfare matters. In the first place, in all these health and welfare matters we are, of course, dealing with people who, in the words of Bishop Gunning's prayer, are afflicted or distressed in mind, body or estate. For that reason, we have a special duty and natural impulse to do our best for them. But our natural impulse is inevitably conditioned by our means.
  The hon. Member for Ince said he hoped that cost was not in my mind. I wish that it was not. I think that anybody who has been Minister of Health would wish that it was not in his mind. But, unfortunately, it has to be in my mind, because the cost of the National Health Service is high. The Exchequer share of the Service is a quarter of the whole of our Income Tax yield, and perhaps an even more striking thing, it alone is more than five times the total Budget that Mr. Gladstone introduced for the country only 100 years ago.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: So what?
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I should have thought that it was fairly obvious. It was obvious to one or two of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends, even if it is not as yet to him. It is obvious that there will be times when our will is not matched by our means, and there

  1677
  will inevitably be times when our purse does not allow us to go as far as our hearts would take us.
  I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton when he said that we shall never get a time when we can disregard costs in this matter. I think that that was not dissented from in the short but interesting speech of the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson). I see that the right hon. Member for Caerphilly seeks to intervene, but I rather hope that I may be allowed to proceed without interruption, not that I would shrink from it, as the right hon. Gentleman knows.
  So we start from that basic position. Indeed, so far from its being a paradox, I would say that it is a platitude, and none the worse for that because most human wisdom is by now enshrined in platitudes. However, it is the sort of platitude that we all realise quickly enough in our private affairs, though in our public affairs we are less likely to take account of it, at any rate all those who are not charged with the immediate responsibility for finding the means.
  It is this inescapable point, unwelcome though it may be, which our Amendment is designed to bring out. If the right hon. Gentleman's Motion had contented itself with saying that, although we provide a good service, we should seek to improve it and provide a still better one as and when circumstances and resources allow, he could have initiated a useful debate, and I do not suppose that he would have found a single dissenting voice.
  Of course, that is not what the right hon. Gentleman has done. He has largely disregarded the economic aspect. Indeed, he, though not all his hon. Friends, rather based his case on a repetition of his attack on the vehicle. I am glad to think that I do not really need to answer that, because there has been a general concensus of opinion in the House that these are good vehicles. That does not mean that the Mini-Minor car is not a better vehicle, but these are good vehicles and very different vehicles from the early motorised wheeled chairs with which this system started.
  The hon. and learned Member for Northampton and the hon. Member for Itchen referred to the Invalid Tricycle Association rallies. I attended the last annual one at Whitsun and saw what
  1678
  they can do, appreciated the distances they had come, and so on. The right hon. Gentleman ought to have been there, for then he would not have made the speech he made on 17th May decrying these vehicles, because they are good vehicles. Indeed, we are leading the world in the provision of vehicles for the disabled. These are not my words. They are the words of the chairman of the Invalid Tricycle Association, who wants cars. Certainly, he does, but he is candid enough to say that we are leading at the present time.
  When we have debates on economic affairs in the House, the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) very often talks about league tables. We have not heard anything about an international league table in this debate, because we are top of the league. We have not heard any comparisons, we have not had suggested in a single speech the name of any other country which is doing more than we are in this matter.
  Having said that, I freely concede that it is a disadvantage that these vehicles—I agree with my hon. Friend who said that we should not call them tricycles—do not carry a passenger. So it is natural that we should cherish the wish to move towards the provision of cars which do so, but we did not feel that, together with all the other advances in the social services that we are making, and having regard to the economic questions to which I have referred, we could do this for all, and so the question was could and should we do it for any.
  We thought that one category stood out—the category which we had singled out in our election manifesto.
  Mr. Ness Edwards: You did not single it out.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: Certainly; it is dealt with in one short paragraph of two sentences which have to be read together. The first sentence makes it quite clear that the reference here is to war pensioners
  "disabled in the service of their country"—
  a well-understood phrase. It does not imply any lack of appreciation of those who are injured in peace-time; of course, it does not, because peace has its casualties no less than war, but the phrase is well understood. We were following a traditional preference and priority started,

  1679
  as is admitted, by the Labour Government and given effect to, not only in the matter of vehicles but in various other matters like priority of admission to certain hospitals, and so on.
  These war pensioners are a clearly defined category for whom this traditional preference already existed. I am sorry that there has been some misunderstanding about Civil Defence. They come in—the policemen, firemen, etc. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Police War Reserve and the National Fire Service, and they come in. We have written to some of the Civil Defence people already in regard to their vehicles. We felt that this category could be dealt with now, and we have dealt with it, but I do not think it is so easy to divide up any other categories. My hon. Friend suggested a selective basis, and so did the hon. Gentleman, but I think that when we pass from the war pensioners to the National Health Service patients any splitting-up of the categories will lead to great difficulties. They are all very deserving categories, but we cannot give one priority against another within the context of the Health Service.
  Mr. Mendelson rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry, but I have only five minutes, and I cannot give way.
  We cannot divide up National Health Service patients, because we would find great difficulty in balancing the claims of one deserving category against another and with them it is rather, as in the case of Wordsworth's clouds, we move together if we move at all. In effect, we have our two categories—the war pensioners, with whom we have dealt, and the National Health Service pensioners, who are about eight times as numerous and who make a much bigger cost problem. We have worked out the cost figures as fairly as we can and I believe that, so far as estimates can be, they are the right figures.
  As the hon. and learned Member for Northampton knows, I cannot give detailed figures because they are the subject of Government contract and in the ordinary way one cannot do that, but I can tell him that the cost is based on the Mini-Minor, does not include a Purchase Tax element, is much more than
  1680
  the petrol tricycle to which he referred and on which he put too high a price, and that it does include, among other things, the annual increment of new patients which is not the case with the war-pensioner category.
  Mr. Paget rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry. I cannot give way. I have only three minutes left in which to say what I want to say.
  Mr. Paget rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: I am sorry, but I cannot give way.
  We have been left in some difficulty about the attitude of the Opposition in this matter, because we do not know whether they think it wrong now that there should be the traditional priority, or whether they think that if we could not do it for all, for economic reasons, we should not have done it for the war pensioners, as we did.
  Miss Herbison rose—
  Mr. Walker-Smith: The hon. Lady objects, but we are in some difficulty about knowing what the Labour Party's policy is in this respect, because its election manifesto made no reference to the subject, so we are left in some difficulty about the views of hon. Members opposite.
  Miss Herbison: If the right hon. and learned Gentleman would give way, there would be no difficulty.
  Mr. Walker-Smith: We believe that our Amendment presents the facts of the situation accurately and in proper perspective. I submit that the House can be confident that we will pursue the well-being of these deserving people in all categories conscientiously, constructively and compassionately. I believe that the progress which we have made in the vast and varied field of the health and welfare services shows that that confidence is well founded and I ask the House now to endorse that view.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House proceeded to a Division; but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Ayes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Noes had it.
  Proposed words there added.
  Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the provision of cars for disabled war pensioners in place of power-propelled tricycles and on the speedy fulfilment of their pledge in regard thereto; records its awareness of their desire further to improve the vehicles provided for disabled National Health Service patients; but recognises that regard must be had to all relevant circumstances including cost and competing claims on the resources of the nation.

  RAILWAYS (GRAVESEND-ALLHALLOWS LINE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bryan.]
  10.3 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Kirk: I am very glad to have this opportunity to raise a question of great importance to my constituency—the proposal of the British Transport Commission to close the branch line between Gravesend and Allhallows-on-Sea. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for coming here to listen to this debate, for I realise that he is in a slightly difficult position on occasions such as this, because there is a very definite procedure which has to be gone through before such a line is closed, and at the moment we are at a fairly early stage.
  The Transport Users' Consultative Committee met yesterday to consider the proposal of the Commission, and we have heard today that it does not propose to support the Commission in its application. But this, of course, does not close the matter. It is open to British Railways to take other steps if it thinks it has to go through other channels to achieve its object. It is, therefore, advisable to place on record now certain points about this railway line.
  Nobody could regard this as a main artery of traffic; indeed, it is a cul-de-sac. But it has a curious history, and an interest in the area through which it runs, and it is of vital importance to a large part of my constituency. The line was originally built for the personal convenience of Queen Victoria, who used it to board the Royal Yacht at a small pier rather grandiloquently named Fort Vic
  1682
  toria where, in a hopeful spirit, the railway company also built a hotel. As there was nothing there but a large section of marsh, they were unable to entice large numbers of tourists to watch the Queen being carried to her yacht by four marines.
  After the death of her late Majesty nothing much happened for about thirty years, until in 1932 it occurred to the Southern Railway Company that it might be possible to develop a neighbouring beach at Allhallows as a rival to South end. It therefore constructed a spur of the line for about one and a half miles to Allhallows for passenger traffic, in the hope that it would develop. But development did not take place, although in the last ten years there has been development of another kind in the area, with the construction on the Isle of Grain, on the site of the old pier, of a very large oil refinery.
  The rolling stock of the line might be thought by those who did not know to date from the time of the great Queen, but I am informed that it is some ten years younger than that. It was built in 1913 and is still in operation. It consists of two coaches, pushed one way and pulled the other way by a small tank engine. Nobody could regard it as either modern or efficient, but it has served the needs of my constituency for about fifty years and now there is a sentimental attachment for it. It is known as the Gravesend Flyer, and on a good day, with a following wind, can attain a speed of 30 m.p.h. It might be thought that there was a case for the retention of the railway line as an ancient monument and an argument that if the Ministry of Works took it over it might make a profit. But it serves a vital purpose as a connecting link.
  The area which it serves is a long narrow funnel of land between the mouths of the River Thames and the River Medway. Most of it is marshland, but there is a tongue of solid ground in between, and quite a lot of the surrounding marshland has been drained. Along the high ground there are a number of small and very ancient villages. At each end of the peninsula there are large industrial establishments. At the eastern end there is the oil refinery on the Isle of Grain, employing 2,000 people, and this is likely to increase its employment possibility, and

  1683
  there is a village of Grain with about 900 people, who have nothing to do other than work in the refinery, because there are no facilities for recreation.
  At the western end there is a large cement works by the village of Cliffe and a factory manufacturing a substance known as Uralite and Cellactite, known as the British Cellactite and Uralite Company, engaged in plastic work. It depends largely on the railway, as this factory is situated on the marshes at the end of a road which is liable to subsidence, along which buses do not travel. It is one-and-a-quarter miles from the nearest village. But the railway runs straight past the factory and there is a station there for the convenience of the factory, for its staff both entering and leaving.
  There will be two main arguments connected with the closure of a line such as this. The first is economic. Nobody doubts that at the moment this line is making a considerable loss. We all know that it is necessary in the interests of the country as a whole that losses on the railways should be eliminated or scaled down as far as possible, and this might appear to be the sort of line in connection with which action should be taken. But it is the argument of my constituents and myself that the present loss is largely unnecessary. It is caused by the fact that the trains that are run are run at inconvenient times, in many cases failing to connect with the main line trains from Gravesend to London.
  The aged stock must take a great deal to maintain, but I am told that for some strange reason it has to go overnight to Tonbridge, which is 40 miles from the line, and has to be run up and back again every morning, no doubt at great expense. By maintaining a diesel shuttle service it would be possible to reduce, if not largely to eliminate, the loss.
  It is claimed that the present service is completely inadequate. For example, when the mainline schedule of trains from Gravesend to London was altered there was no alteration in the trains from Grain to Gravesend, and passengers were unable to take advantage of what had previously been a fairly convenient form of travelling from Allhallows and Grain to London. In the same way the Grain refinery has complained on many occasions to British Railways that no trains
  1684
  run into Grain at any time which is convenient to the refinery, either to bring staff to and from the refinery or to convey visitors to see the refinery; and there are a large number of visitors who wish to see it. So it may be claimed that a lot of the loss is the fault of the British Transport Commission.
  We believe that a diesel service could be provided, but British Railways maintain that this would be a diesel pocket entirely surrounded by electrified lines. But that will happen in any case, because the Commission propose to close the line for passenger service but maintain a freight service running a diesel locomotive. That being so, I find it difficult to understand why it is impossible to do the same for a passenger service.
  The number of passengers has been going up steadily over the last few years. During the Whitsun weekend over 3,000 people alighted and departed from Allhallows station. The number of passengers using the station has increased by 5,000 between 1958 and 1959 and all the other stations notify an increase in passenger traffic. A large number of houses are being built in the various villages along the line, and it would appear that future prospects would be good if British Railways would maintain a reasonable service of small diesel rail cars.
  The Commission proposes that when the line has been closed it will subsidise a neighbouring bus company which runs buses into Gravesend. It is calculated that the subsidy will be about £5,000 a year. The local authorities estimate that the loss on a diesel rail car could not possibly be more than £1,000 and probably would be in the neighbourhood of £500, bearing in mind that in any case track maintenance would have to continue in view of the fact that a freight service is to be run. In that event it would appear to be a good deal cheaper for British Railways to keep the service going with diesel rail cars rather than to close it down and subsidise an alternative bus service.
  I make this my final point in order to give my hon. Friend plenty of time to reply. Such an alternative service is in fact impossible to maintain on anything like an equivalent road. The nature of the land is such, and the condition of the roads is such, that in any case any bus

  1685
  service running from Gravesend to Allhallows would take nearly three times as long as the train service. The train service takes 45 minutes and a bus service will take over one hour and 40 minutes, and it would appear therefore that no equivalent service within the meaning of the word could be put on.
  There is only one decent road on the whole peninsula, from the outskirts of Rochester to Grain, and this road carefully avoids all the villages through 'which the buses would have to go to pick up and set down passengers. It would appear that the buses would have to travel along by-roads designed for only one car at a time and where there are very few passing places, sharp bends and so on. The result would be inconvenience to my constituents who wish to get out of their villages to do their shopping—because in most of them there are few shopping facilities—and those who wish to travel to and fro to work and public communications would be very limited.
  I have tried, briefly and moderately, to put forward the case as I see it against the closure of this line. I cannot expect my hon. Friend to answer, because the Minister is not yet seized of the matter. What I hope to achieve tonight is to persuade the Minister to bear in mind some of these factors if the case comes before him. Although we realise that some uneconomic lines will have to be closed, there may be cases—and this may be one—where there are circumstances which would make the situation worse were the line closed. I hope very much, therefore, especially in view of the decision made yesterday by the Transport Users' Consultative Committee not to support British Railways in this matter, that the Commission will think again and keep the line open and provide an efficient and decent service.
  10.15 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): Sometimes I am tempted to indulge in an orgy of self-pity when I find that work is getting a bit too much for me. On occasions like that I must admit I take consolation from the fact that some of the aspects of the work I have to do have their brighter side. One of those is that from time to time
  1686
  I have to stand at this Box to deal with Adjournment debates about the closure of branch lines.
  What I find a pleasant feature of these debates is that each train which it is proposed shall be withdrawn from service has a delightful name. A few weeks ago I had to stand here and deal with an Adjournment debate raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Jennings) about a train called "The Tutbury Jinnie" and now my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) has raised the case of another train called "The Gravesend Flyer". I do not think you, Mr. Speaker, nor I, nor anyone who listened to my hon. Friend could fail but be entertained and impressed by his knowledge of the history of this line.
  May I come right down to today's date by telling the House what is the present position about this application by the British Transport Commission to withdraw certain passenger and freight services from this line from Gravesend to the East? The Commission believes that this proposal should be brought into force because it will save a great deal of money, a point to which I shall return later in my remarks, and, as is the normal practice in these cases, it submitted the issue of withdrawal to the Transport Users' Consultative Committee for the South-Eastern area.
  As my hon. Friend said, the committee met yesterday to consider the case. There were, I am told, 24 objectors who claimed the right to be heard, including a number of local authorities. After the hearing, I am advised, the committee decided against the Commission. According to the information I have, the committee stated that it was not satisfied that the economic justification for the proposals made outweighed the hardship that would be caused to those at present using the line. It therefore recommended that the proposal of the Transport Commission should not be approved.
  May I say a word about the legal position? As my hon. Friend appreciated in what he told the House, my right hon. Friend and I are in a difficult position at this stage of the game. Section 6 of the Transport Act, 1947, requires that when an area transport users' consultative committee considers a proposal and comes to a conclusion, it

  1687
  should send its minutes of the meeting to the Central Transport Users' Consultative Committee. That central committee, as I think the House knows, has the power either to endorse the decision come to by the area committee, or to reverse it. There have been cases in the past in which the central committee has in fact reversed, or substantially modified, the recommendation made by an area committee.
  As recently as 1958, in the case of a proposal by the Commission to close a branch line between Newton Abbot and Moretonhampstead, in the West Country, the area committee found that the proposal was one which should not be proceeded with in the way it came before the committee. The central committee, on the other hand, when it reviewed the case by considering the minutes of the area committee, decided that with different modifications the original proposal of the Commission should be put into effect.
  I mention this to explain the situation of my right hon. Friend. If the area committee's minutes are reviewed by the central committee and the central committee comes to a different decision from that reached by the area committee, under the Act it is entitled to make a recommendation to the Minister of Transport and, under Section 6 (8) of the Act, my right hon. Friend is empowered to issue a direction to the Commission. Therefore, the proposal which is the subject of this short debate tonight must be considered, at least by me, to be still in the consultative machinery which Parliament has laid down. For that reason, I hope that the House will appreciate that it is not proper that I should comment in any detail one way or another on this proposal.
  There are, however, one or two observations which I should like to make. These observations are not intended to be prejudicial in any way for or against, but to be purely factual. As the House knows, it is the Government's policy to give general support to the Commission in divesting itself of those of its activities which have become hopelessly uneconomic. When we use the expression "hopelessly uneconomic", we mean activities which are not only unprofitable at the moment, but which appear to have no foreseeable chance of ever becoming
  1688
  economic or profitable in the future. That means that in a number of cases branch lines which are quite unremunerative now, and will be in the future, will have to go.
  I should like to refer here to the most recent statement of policy on the part of the Government on this matter, namely, the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 10th March last. He said:
  "… the industry"—
  that is, the railway industry—
  "must be of a size and pattern suited to modern conditions and prospects. In particular, the railway system must be remodelled to meet current needs, and the modernisation plan must be adapted to this new shape.
  "… the public must accept the need for changes in the size and pattern of the industry. This will involve certain sacrifices of convenience, for example in the reduction of uneconomic services."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 10th March, 1960; Vol. 618, c. 643.]
  That is our standpoint on this matter. It is only necessary to add that, although in each case of a branch line closure the economy is usually comparatively small, the savings which might be made by the Commission could well be substantial over a period of time. All the small savings it makes add up. The cumulative effect is very considerable.
  In this case, the Commission estimated in its proposal to the area committee that, if the committee agreed to the withdrawal of the service, the Commission would save £25,000 a year. This may not seem much. It no doubt seems a very small sum to my hon. Friend's constituents, but multiplied many times over sums of this order amount to a very considerable total.
  We have always to bear in mind the background to these cases, namely, the substantial deficit which the Commission has accumulated over the years. The House knows that the Transport Commission's Report for 1959 was published only this morning. It shows a net deficit of £73·8 million over all its activities, and a total deficit on the British Railways side of its activities alone of £83·9 million.
  In the statement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in introducing the Budget, he told the House that this year we estimate that the Commission's deficit will be £90 million. Provisions were made to bring

  1689
  above the line for the first time the finance which we will have to provide for the Commission to meet this bill. This is the amount the taxpayer will have to find. That estimate was produced before we knew what would be the total cost of implementing the wage increases which the Guillebaud Committee forecast in its Report. No one, however prejudiced he may be, can find room for easy optimism in figures of this magnitude. That is the background to all these small branch line cases.
  I come now to the two principal points raised by my hon. Friend about the Allhallows line. The first was whether it would be possible by the use of diesel traction, and perhaps better timing of the services, to obviate much of the present loss. I must at once tell the House that this is a matter of management for which, again, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is not responsible. It was certainly a point in the case put by the Commission to the transport users' consultative committee, and a matter with which that committee dealt. In its statement of case the Commission said something like this, "Even if the train movement costs and the wages of the train staff were eliminated, we calculate that the passenger revenue, which is about £12,900 a year, would still be insufficient to meet the remaining expenditure of running the line".
  The Commission said that if it got rid of the present steam train and put on a diesel car instead, and provided a service at hourly intervals, it would cost about £25,700 a year. If it merely substituted a diesel train for the present steam train, running to the same timetable, it would cost about £20,100 a year, and if it reduced the frequency of the service to intervals of 90 minutes, the cost would be £16,500 a year. As the House will see, each of these figures is above the present passenger revenue of £12,900, and I doubt whether the number of passenger journeys one could expect by an improved service like this would really total the amount of the expenditure. That, however, is perhaps a comment on the merits of the case, which I promised not to make.
  My hon. Friend's other point was of somewhat greater importance. I understood his argument to be that there may well be cases—and this, he suggested.
  1690
  was one—where it is virtually impossible to provide equivalent alternative transport facilities if the rail service is withdrawn. He said that the bus services which, in the majority of cases, constitute the equivalent transport facility might be incapable, because of all manner of physical circumstances, of adequately meeting the need that exists.
  I would go so far as to agree with him that in this particular area it may well be difficult to augment the services and provide a full equivalent transport facility by some method other than the train. As my hon. Friend said, the geography of this district is difficult. The road pattern—I admit that this comes on the other side of my Ministry's activities—is not an easy one.
  I understand that the soil is marshy, liable in some places to flooding, and that roads have had to be built on the really firm tracts of land. The consequence is that some corners and sections of the roads are not particularly easy for buses to negotiate. Presumably, however, the conditions are not so bad that it is impossible for bus services to be run, because the Maidstone and District Motor Services Ltd.—the firm mentioned by my hon. Friend—was apparently prepared to provide additional bus services if it was given a subsidy by the Commission, which the Commission said it was willing to give.
  Whether or not there were sufficient and adequate alternative transport facilities available to passengers who at present go by train was presumably a matter that was weighed by the transport users' consultative committee when it discussed the case yesterday and that point will no doubt be considered again by the central committee as and when the matter gets to it.
  I want to stress one point, because I believe it to be important, not only in the context of this case but in that of so many of these cases. It is the fact that throughout the country, and particularly in the countryside, the use of private transport, as opposed to public transport, is growing. It is, indeed, one of the main reasons for the railways losing traffic, and one of the main causes leading to these closures of branch lines. That is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister meant when he said

  1691
  that the industry must be remodelled, in effect, to this new pattern of transport and its use by the nation as a whole.
  I believe that we still have a great deal of work to do before we correctly gauge the extent of the changes that have been going on, but for our part we will do what we can to come up with the right answers when the moment is appropriate. But I do not believe that we can decide these matters simply by guess. We have to recognise that people are making use of transport facilities that they themselves want. In some cases it will be rail; in some cases it will be bus services; in others, people will use the Moped, or the scooter, or even the motor
  1692
  car. This is a factor that we have to live with in transport in this country today.
  We at the Ministry will not seek to direct people as to the form of transport they should use. We believe that we will best succeed in doing the job that the nation has set us to do by ensuring that the people themselves choose the form of transport that they want, and that we must remodel the public transport system of this country to conform with their desires.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.

TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Barrow Steel Works (Redundancies)
  Barrow Steel Works (Redundancies)
  Resale Price Maintenance (Inquiry)
  Resale Price Maintenance (Inquiry)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Horticultural Co-operative Marketing (Committee)
  Horticultural Co-operative Marketing (Committee)
  Fisheries (Grey Seals)
  Fisheries (Grey Seals)
  Meat (Staining)
  Meat (Staining)
  Safety and Welfare Staff
  Safety and Welfare Staff
  Eggs (Subsidy)
  Eggs (Subsidy)
  Departmental Staff
  Departmental Staff
  Improvement Grants
  Improvement Grants
  CYPRUS
  CYPRUS
  GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE
  GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE
HOME DEPARTMENT
  School Crossings
  School Crossings
  West Indian Immigrants
  West Indian Immigrants
  John Straffen
  John Straffen
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
  Detained Persons
  Detained Persons
INDIA
  Financial Assistance
  Financial Assistance
  Nagas
  Nagas
  SOMALILAND (INDEPENDENCE)
  SOMALILAND (INDEPENDENCE)
  ARGENTINE (BRITISH COMPANIES)
  ARGENTINE (BRITISH COMPANIES)
EAST AND CENTRAL AFRICA
  Technical Colleges (Degree Courses)
  Technical Colleges (Degree Courses)
  Post-graduate Studies
  Post-graduate Studies
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Eurocontrol
  Eurocontrol
EDUCATION
  Building Programme
  Building Programme
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Fuels
  Fuels
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Bank of England (Report)
  Bank of England (Report)
  University Expansion Programme
  University Expansion Programme

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD MERTHYR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester

BUILDING CODE FOR TALL BUILDINGS
3.5 p.m.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask leave to ask the Question standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Bossom.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, seeing the number of tall buildings over twelve storeys high that are now being built or contemplated, they will cause to be issued an appropriate building code for such constructions dealing with strength of materials, forms of construction, general safety, and so forth, such as has been found essential in the country where this type of building was mainly developed.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, I understand from my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government that preparatory work on reviewing the current model building by-laws which were issued in 1952 by his Department is about to begin, and that the trend towards the construction of more high buildings will certainly be borne in mind in this connection.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, will Her Majesty's Government have regard to the fact that the Victoria Tower was built 100 years ago and still seems to be standing perfectly well, although considerably taller than most of these modern buildings?
A NOBLE LORD: Not perfectly well.

FOREST FIRES IN SCOTLAND
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the recent serious forest fires in Scotland, the Forestry Commission intend taking further precautions in an attempt to safeguard plantations.]
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, the Forestry Commission is continually seeking to improve methods of fire protection and fire-fighting, both in its own forests and in private woodlands. The improvements it has made include extending the use of up-to-date equipment such as short-wave radio, intensifying patrols and increasing the volume of publicity. There is a detailed Standing Fire Plan for each of the Commission's forests which is reviewed annually, and in the course of that review any recent developments or changes in technique are naturally incorporated. In addition, a senior officer of the Commission is specially charged with the duty of reviewing fire protection arrangements and recommending new measures whenever necessary.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply. May I ask the noble Earl whether he would agree that it would be in the national interest and in the taxpayers' interest if the Forestry Commission in Scotland got together with the private woodland owners and tried to organise some effective forest protection against these fires? Might I also ask the noble Earl whether he is aware that the pamphlet issued by the Forestry Commission, called Forestry Practice, says, under "Planning Woodlands to Reduce Fire Risk":
"The standard width for internal firebreaks is 30 feet. In a big woodland block a few barriers up to 60 feet may be advisable."
Does the noble Earl consider this adequate for Scotland, where there are many areas having a considerable amount of heather, since 30 feet is not a barrier against fire when there is heather?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: On the question of co-operation with the private

821
owners, my right honourable friend and the Forestry Commission are doing a great deal to liaise with the private owners. The Forestry Commission now has in course of preparation a pamphlet which is to go out to private owners setting out all the provisions under the Fire Services Act, 1947, giving lists of the firemasters in the areas and requesting that plans should be made and that mutual aid schemes between the Forestry Commission and private owners should be set up. With regard to the technical question as to whether the 30-foot and 60-foot firebreaks are adequate, I am afraid that that is a technical matter which I should not like to answer without notice. But I will take note of what has been said.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl this question? First, however, I should like to say that in the North we are all very grateful to the Forestry Commission: we derive enormous help from it and are great admirers of it. I would ask the noble Earl whether he will do his best to impress upon the Forestry Commission and everybody concerned that no fire is a private matter—not when it is raging, or even afterwards. Will the Government consider whether it would not be worth while having a public inquiry into the causes and handling of these many fires which have taken place, in order that we may elicit the lessons to be derived from the disasters that have occurred?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I doubt whether a specific public inquiry into these matters is necessary. Each of these fires is, of course, examined, and the reports of the firemaster and of the Forestry Commission Area Officer are most carefully examined by the Forestry Commission and by my right honourable friend.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether his first answer to the Question applied to the whole of The United Kingdom and not merely Scotland, and could be say whether his Department is responsible also for trying to prevent the very frequent and dangerous fires which occur on commons?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, the precautions taken by the Forestry Commission in Scotland are different
822
from those in England and Wales owing to differences in the organisations; but my Answer will certainly cover England and Wales. There is already available in England and Wales a pamphlet issued by the Forestry Commission. I do not think that the Department of my right honourable friend is actually responsible for putting out fires on commons, but I will look into the matter again.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, in view of the difficulty of swiftly concerting fire fighting measures as between the Forestry Commission and private woodland owners, would Her Majesty's Government contemplate introducing a system such as exists in Australia, whereby fire fighting areas are established independent of any boundary of ownership or local authority or county, under an elected fire captain with wide powers both in respect of establishing and maintaining fire fighting equipment and of carrying out actual operations in containing and fighting a fire?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I should suppose that conditions in Australia are somewhat different from those in the United Kingdom, but I am sure that my right honourable friend and the Forestry Commission would most carefully examine any plan of which the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, has knowledge. I should like to reiterate what I have already said: that these fire-masters have, under the 1947 Act, especially in Scotland, wide areas—often transcending county or local authority boundaries—over which it is their duty to co-ordinate the whole of the fire fighting services, including those for fighting forest fires.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, would the noble Earl say whether the Forestry Commission consulted private woodland owners after the recent forest fires?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord means whether they consulted private woodland owners as a whole, but I have no doubt that when a forest fire breaks out the officer of the Forestry Commission consults any local private woodland owner affected. I do not know that there has been any official inquiry with bodies representing private owners concerning any particular fire.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I meant to ask whether the Commission had consulted owners in the area.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, yes. I am quite sure that the local liaison is good and that the Forestry Commission consult local owners when fires break out.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, the liaison is needed before fires break out.

SOMERSET COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, on behalf of the Promoters of this Bill I desire now to move three Amendments to it. I am in a position to assure your Lordships that these Amendments are not ones of substance, that they are all drafting Amendments and that they comply with the Standing Orders. In those circumstances, I do not anticipate that your Lordships would wish to have details of them, though they are available if required. I now beg to move that these three Amendments be agreed to.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not know whether or not this is normal practice but it is the first time in my experience that the House has been asked to agree to Amendments which are not before it and which they have not seen. I am quite prepared to accept that, from the point of view of the noble Lord the Lord Chairman of Committees, they are drafting Amendments; but I have had some experience of alleged drafting Amendments. I have sometimes found that they are rather more than drafting. I feel that the House is entitled to look at them and to satisfy itself that these are purely drafting Amendments. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could tell us whether this is in accordance with the practice of the House.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, it is in accordance with the practice of the House, although admittedly it is not a common occurence, that Amendments to a Private Bill should be moved on Third Reading. I can assure the noble Lord that in my own experience it has happened within the past few years. If, however, there is the slightest doubt about this matter I do not hesitate to say that I will not move this Motion to-day, so that the House will have an opportunity of seeing the Amendments; and I will circulate them to the noble Lord. In those circumstances, I do not move the Amendments.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, the Bill having been read a third time, is it still open for Amendments to be put forward again?
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: Yes.

HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS (MAGISTRATES' COURTS) BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments to be printed.
PUBLIC HEALTH LABORATORY SERVICE BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to with Amendments: the said Amendments to be printed.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION
3.17 p.m.
Debate resumed (according to Order) on the Motion moved yesterday by Lord Henderson: That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the international situation.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE): My Lords, I think we shall all agree that yesterday's debate was a very valuable one. Perhaps the most useful thing I can do to-day, in opening, will be to take up some of the points that were raised by your Lordships yesterday. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, spoke of the need to consider other States of the world besides Russia, China and the United States. I remember his words:
"I think that a little work among the foot-bills might be useful."
I should like to assure your Lordships that Her Majesty's Government are constantly seeking to maintain good relation with all the countries of the world, both big and small, and to consider their interests in the search to create a peaceful world.
Noble Lords will be aware, of course, that next week President Frondizi of the Argentine will pay an official visit to this country; and this is the first time that a President of the Argentine will have done so. We have already welcomed President Prado of Peru to this country. Their Majesties the King and Queen of Thailand will come on a State Visit on July 19, and we also look forward to the State Visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen of Nepal in October.
I do not have to remind the noble Earl, Lord Attlee—indeed it would be impertinent to do so—of the importance we attach to the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences. He himself attended so many of them. In the course of his remarks the noble Earl mentioned another great country—Brazil—.now engaged on creating one of the most dramatic new capital cities of the world, Brazilia. Her Majesty's Government during the past years have done their utmost to strengthen the old British friendships with countries of Latin America. Noble Lords will remember
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the highly successful visits of Their Royal Highnesses The Duchess of Kent and Princess Alexandra to Mexico, Peru, Chile and Brazil in the Spring of 1959. And senior Ministers of Her. Majesty's Government, including the President of the Board of Trade, the Minister of Aviation, and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster have, by their presence in the countries of Latin America, demonstrated the goodwill and interest of the United Kingdom. The countries of Latin America are more and more actively participating in the affairs of the world and showing themselves to be an integral part of what we loosely term "Western civilisation".
In the East, my Lords, the Colombo Plan has afforded us the best possible means of co-operating there with our Asian friends. In the course of yesterday's debate the noble Lords, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, Lord Rea and Lord Chorley, and other noble Lords stressed the need for human contacts—the meeting of the ordinary peoples, I think they described them. It may be of interest to your Lordships to know that, quietly but I think very effectively, the Central Office of Information arranges visits to this country of people in every walk of life from abroad. Last year just under 1,000 foreign visitors, including journalists, politicians, trade unionists, businessmen and local government officials from some 60 different countries came to this country and were helped to see all the aspects of our British life. And this year it is our hope that the number will be increased.
All this, my Lords, is quite apart from, and in addition to, what is done by the British Council, and last year some 4,700 foreign visitors came to this country under the British Council's auspices. So, although perhaps it may not be quite so large as many of us would like, I think that a very considerable effort is being made to achieve those very desirable things to which noble Lords referred yesterday, the meetings of the ordinary peoples. Of course we should wish that it were possible for easier contact to be made between ourselves and the peoples of Soviet Russia and of China; for certainly I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye when he said that we are all human beings; we all love our families;

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we all must have something in common; and the more we are able to meet one another, the greater the hope for peace in the world is likely to be.
The question of China was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, who initiated this debate, and the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. With great respect, I must say that I think that the position was somewhat over-simplified. When the vote was taken last year in the General Assembly on the question of Chinese representation, the resolution postponing consideration of the question was adopted by 44 votes in favour to 29 against, with 9 abstentions. These figures, my Lords, speak for themselves. It is for this reason, as has been explained so often in your Lordships' House, that it is the view of Her Majesty's Government that any attempt to force the issue at the present time might lead to a situation which would have the most damaging effect upon the future working, and perhaps even upon the very existence, of the United Nations itself. Such is the depth of feeling involved. Never theless, as my right honourable friend has always made perfectly clear, he does not consider that it is possible to hope for a realistic disarmament agreement without China's signature. The first step in the second stage of the Western plan, to which the United States subscribe, is to have a general conference to which China would be invited.
My Lords, a number of noble Lords referred in considerable detail to the problems of European economic co-operation, to the problems of European integration. In particular, I remember the speech of my noble friend Lord Birdwood, the speech of Lord Lothian, the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and the observations of Lord Craven. I will try in the course of a few moments to deal with the points raised by these noble Lords, and I will also try to deal with the points, or perhaps to reflect some of the ideas, raised in the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stranc—which, if I may be allowed to say so, I thought a particularly balanced and careful speech.
It has been said that Britain has wished to sabotage the great movement on the Continent which created the three Euro-
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pean Communities of the Six. I do not believe for one moment that this assertion can stand up to any serious or impartial examination. We British are by nature slow and deliberate, but we have never faltered in our determination to seek ways and means of closer European co-operation. It was for this reason that the Foreign Secretary clearly stated last January in Strasbourg our belief in the greatest possible degree of unity of purpose and action between all the countries of Western Europe. At the same time, my right honourable friend explained our attitude towards the three Communities of the Six. He said:
"We welcomed the Rome Treaty for its own sake, because a strong political unity of the Six is good for Western Europe and for Britain. We welcome it and we will support it."
He expressed the hope, however, that this new European entity created by the Rome Treaty should not develop as an inward-looking political or economic group.
I was glad to hear last week in Strasbourg a distinguished delegate from the Community of the Six assert that the Economic Community will justify its existence only if it is capable of generating a momentum such as will bring about the closest collaboration between the unified area and the other economic areas of Europe. Our membership of the European Free Trade Association brings us into even closer relationship with our fellow Europeans. Together the Seven E.F.T.A. countries form a trading group of 90 million people, sharing a high standard of living and possessing many and varied industrial and agricultural skills. We in the Seven believe that both groups, if they should so decide, could still retain their separate identities and objectives while participating together in the economic fusion of Western Europe. We are convinced that the fears expressed in some quarters that a wider European economic arrangement would destroy the personality of the Communities of the Six are utterly without foundation. Contrary to what I think some noble Lords said yesterday, there has in fact been an improvement in the atmosphere attending discussions upon these questions. I am not going to suggest that all the problems—and they are many and very real ones—which face all the countries of Western Europe can be easily solved. But we are ready to consider anything

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which is likely to contribute to a solution of the main problem. Happily, there seems to be in all European countries a better comprehension of what the problem is.
I should like to recall the words, in his carefully reasoned speech of yesterday, of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, when he referred to the Treaty of Rome as a complex instrument whose ultimate objective is political. My Lords, any decision that Her Majesty's Government reach will be taken only with due regard for our Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. partners; and, as the Prime Minister has said, we could not contribute to a solution by adopting sudden changes of course or by abandoning old or new friends. We have to see this problem in the round, and to ensure that any action we take will in fact be a genuine contribution to the solution of the European problem.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, on that point may I ask the noble Marquess whether this particular problem in relation to the Commonwealth was in fact discussed at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference; and, if so, with what result?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I think that, if the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition agrees, it would be more appropriate for the Commonwealth Secretary to answer that question later.
My Lords, however preoccupied we may be with relations between the two main groups in Europe, we must not forget the countries who sometimes refer to themselves as "le groupe des oubliés"—the countries of free Europe who belong neither to the Six nor to the Seven. Any solution which we find to the problem of drawing the Six and the Seven closer together must provide for the special circumstances of these countries. They can rest assured that their interests will continue to be fully considered, as they now are in O.E.E.C. As your Lordships know, O.E.E.C. has made a very great contribution to our prosperity. The O.E.E.C. is now being reorganised, and Her Majesty's Government welcome the prospect of full United States and Canadian participation. This will open wide fields for future economic co-operation.
My Lords, allusion was made to Spain in the speeches yesterday of the noble
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Lord, Lord Windlesham, the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and the noble Earl, Lord Craven.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: May I ask the noble Marquess whether he has finished with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strang?
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I have finished with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, for the moment. I now wish to refer to Spain. The forthcoming visit of the Foreign Minister, Señor Castiella, is welcomed by Her Majesty's Government. This is a natural step in the improvement of Anglo-Spanish relations, which has now been going on for some time. Your Lordships will remember that we supported the admission of Spain to the United Nations in 1955, and to O.E.E.C. in 1959. The President of the Board of Trade visited Madrid in 1958, and Señor Ullastres, the Spanish Minister of Commerce, came here last year. The last Lord Mayor of London paid a most successful visit to Spain last year, and the Mayor of Madrid has just returned a visit here. We welcome this improvement in relations with Spain, and we hope to get to know her better. As one who has lived many months in Spain and repeatedly visited that country, I have a friendship for the people of Spain—a dignified and proud people.
Lastly, my Lords, I should like to deal with the question of world government. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, tries his utmost always to approach the problems to which he addresses himself in your Lordships' House from an unequivocally Christian standpoint. I also know that he would be the last to suggest that other noble Lords in all parts of this House, both within the Government and outside it, were not trying in this respect every bit as hard as he. Only the most cynical or the most shallow could fail to sympathise with the anxieties and the questionings in the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and the many others who think like him—the questionings which he expressed yesterday so simply and so sincerely in the phrase [col. 814],
"… I cannot imagine any Christian being happy about a foreign policy that depended in the last resort on the use of a deterrent".
I hope that I have quoted the noble Lord's words correctly.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I am sure the noble Marquess has quoted me correctly, but I meant the H-bomb deterrent.
THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: I thank the noble Lord. My Lords, whether Christian or not, surely it is our duty to face up to facts, however unpleasant they may be. Of course, no one can be happy about the possibility of mass destruction; but, surely, as the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, so forcefully pointed out to us in the last foreign affairs debate, it is the horror and it is the frightfulness of this possibility which has preserved and is preserving the peace of the world. Twice within the last half-century national leaders have calculated that the gamble of a world war and all its concomitant misery was worth while. We have now reached a stage in world history where such a gamble with nuclear weapons is unthinkable. But, my Lords, let us not delude ourselves that what we describe as a conventional global war would be tolerable. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary said last week in Vienna:
"Peace or nuclear war is not the right question: the question is peace or war".
Disputes can be settled only by discussion and negotiation, however prolonged. It is perhaps important to remember the 400 frustrating and agonising meetings which finally resulted in the signing of the Austrian State Treaty.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, have expressed the view that, in the ultimate, world government provides the only way out. Naturally, in the course of yesterday's debate the detailed plans which the advocates of world government might put forward were not discussed. If I have in the past referred to world government as Utopian, this does not mean that I consider that the work which is being done in this direction is vain. Surely, my Lords, from bitter experience, we are all slowly learning the meaning and the value of interdependence.
I must confess that I could not help being surprised when I heard the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, say in the course of his speech—and I quote his words [col. 766]:
"I am not enamoured very much of a United Europe; I want a United World".
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If I may be excused such a simple analogy, this is like a great tennis player saying, "I am not particularly interested in the preliminary rounds; I want to play only in the championship". The noble Earl went on to say that what he wanted was:
"total disarmament coupled with a surrender of sovereignty to a re-made United Nations".
Perhaps those nations which have enjoyed sovereignty for centuries may be beginning to learn that sovereignty may in fact cause the end of freedom. But the emergent countries, with less experience of self-government, may look upon the exercise of their more recently-achieved sovereignty in a very different light.
If there is to be world government, can we seriously think that at the present time the Soviet Union would participate in it except in a Communist world? Could China, with her burning faith in the Communist creed, participate in a centralised Executive which did not wholly share in her ideology? Nevertheless, I can think of nothing which would add greater impetus towards some form of World Order than agreement on a plan of general disarmament under effective control.
The Soviet leaders say that, despite the failure of the Summit Conference, they still believe in "peaceful co-existence". We hope that eventually the Communist countries may come to see the necessity for something approaching our own conception of good relations between countries—tolerance instead of suspicion, co-operation instead of rivalry. Peace with justice is our goal. May I repeat the words of my noble Leader? We will persevere to this end.
3.43 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, we are obliged to the noble Marquess for the comments which he has made on yesterday's debate, and I have no doubt that as time passes there will be comment upon what he has said on behalf of Her Majesty's Government. This debate was introduced by a characteristically clear and able speech from my noble friend Lord Henderson, who, like myself, is a Labour survivor from the Foreign Office. I am the oldest surviving Labour ex-Foreign Secretary. I still think—though one must reserve the right to change one's mind—that the general line that Ernest Bevin pursued as

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Foreign Secretary was right. I see no reason to overthrow it or to repudiate it. I think that he was right. He tried very hard to do business with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. He was patient for about two years of trying, until in the end he realised that, while efforts must continue, it was necessary to have collective security for possibilities, and so N.A.T.O. was born. I was glad to hear yesterday the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, who was an able and conscientious Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign Office in those years; I listened to him with interest.
Part of what I shall say this afternoon will be my own personal opinions, to which I do not necessarily wish to commit in every respect the Party to which I belong. I am a great believer in Britain. I think that it is a country which has contributed much to the life of the world and that it is worth preserving. It is a country which has done good in the cause of freedom and its freedom is worth preserving. It has been in danger before, from the Nazis. It could be in danger from other countries. So I believe that it is necessary for our country to be defended and to participate in the collective protection of the peace of the world. I believe in security and freedom for all countries, not only ourselves, and I hope that that is the general view of all of us. Government policy should be directed to those ends.
There is the possibility of aggression, and while that is a possibility we must have collective security. While the world is safe, and aggression is either unlikely or unlikely to succeed, then there may be time for the modification of policies. For aggression can be not only military: it can also be political. A number of countries have lost their freedom as a result not of military action, but of political action and of fifth-column activities, and this is something which has to be considered as well.
Soviet foreign policy and military policy are quite simple. I should like to streamline the argument about defence, if I can. The policy of the Soviet and other foreign countries is to strengthen themselves and to do everything they can to weaken the countries of the democratic West. That policy is quite understandable from their point of view, but
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I do not think that it is one that can be genuinely supported by any good British citizen. We cannot submit to a situation in which the totalitarian countries are much stronger than we are and in which we have no adequate individual or collective defence. Therefore, I would say that we must have defence, and that collective defence, or collective security is likely to be the most effective means. I do not think that it is wise for politicians to be dogmatic about the nature of that defence in detail because we cannot know what the future has in store.
The present Government have themselves done some switches and "wobblings about" in their defence policy. It is the enjoyment of the Conservative Party nowadays to point to the disunity in the Labour Party about defence and to some extent that is justified; but the Government cannot be scornful of us too much. At one time they stood for universal military service; then they abandoned it partly because of agitation by members of the Labour Party. They then came to the conclusion that the nuclear weapon was changing the whole situation of ground forces and decided that we should rely upon nuclear weapons rather than on what are known as conventional forces and they are manufacturing the hydrogen and atomic bombs. Now, in the light of experience, they have abandoned the manufacture of Blue Streak, at any rate, and whether they are going to manufacture some other nuclear weapon we do not yet know.
There is a confusion in the minds of the Government about whether our contribution to defence should be in ground forces or in more terrible methods of warfare as well. So I do not think that the Government can be too critical of the Labour Party, because they themselves have not a clear record. The Government have changed their defence policy more than once and their policy is now in a state of flux—though perhaps that may be inevitable in the nature of defence. That is why I prefer to make a streamlined argument on principle—namely, that we must have defence; that it should be collective defence, and that we must keep an elastic mind about the particular make-up of that defence, because it may have to be changed as time goes on.

835
I am a warm believer in multilateral disarmament—disarmament in all countries by agreement. I must say that I think the Government could have been quicker in responding to Mr. Khrushchev's declaration in favour of all-round disarmament. They may have thought that he had reservations in what he meant by it, but surely it would have been better if the Government had at once responded and said: "So do we. Let us talk about it and try to get an agreement on it." The hesitation and delay may have caused suspicion in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Indeed, this is one of the problems that we face in the conduct of foreign policy and defence policy: that the Government are not quick enough in these arguments. On that occasion, I feel that had they responded with an affirmation in principle and an invitation to the countries behind the Iron Curtain to talk and try to settle the business, although maybe nothing would have come of it, it is possible that something may have come of it. But they did not respond and, consequently, I think, lost the opportunity.
But multilateral disarmament, coupled with suitable inspection and control, is the right thing. We cannot support unilateral disarmament, whereby this country is disarming irrespective of what other countries are doing. That would mean not only military weakness, but weakness in the conduct of foreign policy; because if the representatives on the other side of the table know that you have unilateral disarmament, irrespective of what they have done, they are going to hold you up to ransom and get much more of their own way. Therefore we think that unilateral disarmament is a mistake and that it would be wrong; and that is a view from which we do not propose to depart.
In the meantime there is a great world debate going on about foreign policy and about armaments. It is a debate in which I feel that the British and the West are tending to get the worst of it. We do not seem to be good at conducting our side of the debate. This is a great question of world public relations, and it seems to me that we are failing and letting the Communists win that battle; and it is no doubt that they are getting a good deal of opinion on their side
836
which, in my judgment, they do not deserve. I wish that our Government, therefore, could be quicker off the mark, quicker in the uptake, quicker in response and arguments than they are. We not only need that in the world in order to do better, but we need a good deal more explanation of foreign affairs and defence to our own people in this country, where, too, I do not think we are doing so well.
I do not believe the United States are doing so well, either. They seem to have made a good many mistakes. We all have a personal liking for President Eisenhower, and we all remember his services during the war. But, if I may say so, it is a mistake for an American political Party to choose a Presidential candidate not on the basis of his proved ability, or, at any rate, some degree of proved ability, to do a job which is one of the heaviest and most difficult jobs in the world, but solely because he has a name that will win the election. That was the basis upon which President Eisenhower was chosen as a candidate at the Presidential Election. I very much hope that when both political Parties in the United States choose candidates next time it will be on the basis of their competence and ability and not solely on the fact that they have a name which is calculated to produce votes. It is not our business who they choose or who wins the election; it is only our business in the sense that we want the President and the Secretary of State of the United States to be good at their jobs, because we are Allies of theirs and they are Allies of ours: and long may that be so. But if somebody does make mistakes, it comes down on all of us.
The Paris Summit gathering failed. I think we were all ready for the possibility that nothing much in the way of effective achievement might come out of it, though we all devoutly hoped that it would. All of us, I think, supported the summoning of the Summit meeting. Well, the Geneva Conference has broken up. The Summit meeting never broke out. Mr. Khrushchev decided that he would not go into the conference and, consequently, it did not even begin. His case for not going in was the flight of the U2 aircraft on a spying mission over the Soviet Union. It was a clumsy thing to do at that time; and I think the American Government were rather

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clumsy in the subsequent explanations they made about it, and made the situation rather worse for themselves and for the rest of us than it had been before.
It is possible, of course, for a Government not to know what its secret agents and Secret Service are doing. It is one of the disadvantages of a Secret Service that it is secret. We had our own troubles with Commander Crabbe, in the swimming, or whatever it was, underneath Soviet ships while two distinguished representatives of the Soviet Union were being treated as honoured guests in our country. That was not a very bright idea, either. But our Government said at the time that they did not know that this gentleman was doing what he was doing; and it is possible that it was so. And, as my noble friend Lord Stansgate, I think, has whispered to me, they do not know now. I think that may well be true.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: You have been Foreign Secretary.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Yes, I have indeed. One does not always know what is happening. I expect that the Secret Service hold the view that if they tell Cabinets everything they are doing it will not be long before somebody will start talking to somebody else—because politicians have a liking for and get a kick out of knowing something nobody else knows—and they are afraid of the information getting to the enemy. That may be the reason; but it is one of the difficulties of having a Secret Service. It may be that the Government of the United States did not know. But I thought that they might have given a precautionary order that, while the Summit meeting was assembling and while it was being carried on, they should "lay off" any dangerous tricks at the expense of the Soviet Union. But they did not, and Mr. Khrushchev made the most of it with considerable propaganda ability. I think it was a clumsy business, and most unfortunate, because it provided an excuse to Mr. Khrushchev. It may be that he did not intend the conference to function in any case, but we cannot be sure about that. There is all the difference between his breaking up the conference out of the blue and the United States presenting him with a possible excuse for breaking it up; and that is what they did.
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Mind you, my Lords, I think that Mr. Khrushchev was in part talking with his tongue in his cheek. It is all very well for him to be shocked about spying, but I should say that there are more spies, agents and political tools in other countries in the service of the Soviet Union than there is of any other country in the world. After all, we had our experience of Mr. Fuchs, whom we had received as a refugee, whom we treated very well and gave a job in this nuclear business. He entered the service of the Soviet Union against us and may have been the beginning of the quick Soviet advance in the nuclear field. Then there was Dr. May; and there were Burgess and Maclean. And it is true that every Communist Party in the world, including the Communist Party of Great Britain, is an instrument of the Soviet Foreign Office. They eminently want us to be weak and the Soviet Union to be strong.
However, I think Mr. Khrushchev might have been a little more restrained in his indignation. He might well have gone red in the face, but I do not see why he should have gone blue in the face about this U.2 incident. All countries do espionage, and they will go on doing it until we have real, genuine, all-round disarmament. Then it is probable that espionage will not be necessary. This espionage is a very nasty business. On the other hand, the men who engage in it are often very brave men who take their lives in their hands. It is not a job that I would run after myself. But it is there, and it has an attraction for some people, and undoubtedly it exists in every country in the world.
Personally, I find it difficult to assess the personality of Mr. Khrushchev. He is a likeable man in many ways, a cheerful, busy, energetic person. Moreover, he has this attraction for me: that he is one of the few top leaders of the Soviet Union who belong to the working class. Most of them are professional class or middle class, and some of them even of aristocratic descent. He is a genuine proletarian, and I like him for that—part of my class prejudice! He can be jolly, very friendly and even boisterously friendly; and I like that, too. My only worry about Mr. Khrushchev is that he does walk about as if he has Heaven knows how many card votes in his pocket. He has certainly some power behind him. Some

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weeks he is friendly and talks about peace and urges disarmament, and so on, and says a lot of things with which we can all agree. It may be the very next week he will be threatening the West with complete destruction and trying to send shivers down our backs. It is very important that we should not have shivers down our backs. We must not lose our nerve, and we must not let anybody make us lose our nerve. We have to keep our heads about this business. So Mr. Khrushchev is a complex personality.
It has to be recognised also that the Soviet Union is not a democracy, but a totalitarian State. It is run by one political Party, and all the others have been wiped out. But within that political Party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I am inclined to think that there is some form of Party democracy. There was not much of it when Mr. Stalin was the chief man. He had little ways of his own. I do not suppose there is an extraordinary surplus of it with Mr. Khrushchev, but my impression is that he finds it expedient, or has to discuss matters with his colleagues; and, arising out of those discussions, they find what the predominant view is and the result is that the predominant view becomes binding—a Party decision outside Government—on the Soviet Government, and binding on all the members of the Party, and nobody is permitted publicly to dissent from it. I think myself that that is a miserable life. We have our troubles in the Labour Party at the moment. We shall get over them all right. But I would sooner we have a little trouble because some people are getting off the line a bit than I would have a Party where everybody is afraid to say what he believes. I think that that would be wrong. At any rate, I am trying to say what I believe.
Within the Communist Party, dictatorship there may be, but argument proceeds and even votes within the Presidium or the Central Committee. If they do not like votes they may collect them like British Cabinets do in a typically British fashion, when somebody is counting the votes under the counter. But once the decision is reached it binds all of them, and the public outside does not know what has happened until the pronouncement comes. They call it the
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dictatorship of the proletariat. It is nearer to the dictatorship of the Communist Party Secretariat than the proletariat. But it works.
I say these things only because I think we must appreciate that it may well not be a complete personal dictatorship by Mr. Khrushchev—at any rate, not yet—and that he has to live with his colleagues of the Soviet Communist Party. They may pull him up now and again, or push him into another line he does not particularly want to take. That might well have been the case in the Paris trouble, even if the Americans had not been so foolish about the U2 affair. It may be the same about Geneva, where the Conference has been taking place. I thought it was very bad that, when he must have known—because it had been announced—that the Western Powers were preparing an answer to the Soviet proposals in which they might, for all I know, have been willing to make concessions to the Soviet point of view, two or three days before the delivery of these counter proposals the Russians walked out and left the Conference so that it became ineffective. This is not good, and I hope that the Soviet leaders can take these conferences seriously and work at them.
Our Government proposed a motion at the United Nations in favour of disarmament. I do not think there was much to quarrel with in it. I think it was a pretty sensible body of doctrine. It was carried by the United Nations with, I think, only the Communist countries dissenting. That was the situation. The Communist countries announced that they would not accept it or co-operate in it, and would not serve on the Commission it was proposed to appoint to explore these proposals further.
This is not good, and I wish some people who have a habit of thinking that the British are always wrong would remember these things. Because we are sometimes wrong, and when we are it is our duty to say so, there is no harm in saying when the other chap is wrong, and balancing the case for and against. We must try to reach the Soviet people, as was said yesterday. It is going to be difficult, but it would be a fine thing if we did. It is one of my proudest recollections that I got two articles into Pravda explaining the British point of

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view. They did it very honourably and nicely. I wish it could be done again, just as we should be quite willing, and are quite willing, to print the speeches and pronouncements of Mr. Khrushchev.
I wish we could get ordinary relationships with the Soviet people and the peoples in the satellite countries without its being necessary to have officially conducted parties. We must also try to get ourselves better understood by the uncommitted nations, who are going to play an important part in the deliberations of the United Nations and, indeed, are doing so already. If we could get them either on our side, or at any rate not against us, and secure a free exchange of views between us, it would be a great blessing for the country and for the world.
The United Nations should be the great hope of the world. It is there; it exists; and we all hope for the best, One thing it needs is that when nations refer disputes to the United Nations, as they are supposed to do—they do not always do it—it is important that they should feel that they will get a fair and impartial hearing at the hands of the United Nations, instead of the ganging-up of groups of partisans who make up their minds about it before ever the issue is debated in the United Nations. I like the idea in principle of a World Government. I think that in the end we have to get there, but it will take time. It will need reform in the United Nations and a change of attitude if that great idea is to be successful and effective. We need to keep our people informed about these matters. The world is waiting for a rational, kindly, friendly, constructive leadership. It is my hope—and I should be proud of it—that our country will be able to give that leadership that the world so needs.
4.10 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, a friend of mine staying in London took me last week to see three films by Charlie Chaplin revived from 1918. I have not seen a film for many years. I would not have missed one that I saw then for anything in the world. It was a film called Shoulder Arms, and gave Charlie Chaplin's view of what World War I was like in 1918. It presented World War I as being great fun in the trenches. Can anyone think of war
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to-day as fun? To-day, thanks to science, war is utterly different from what it looked like to Charlie Chaplin. All war must be abolished, if it is not to abolish mankind. On this point I am delighted to agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Marquess who opened this debate said: that the choice is between peace and war, not between peace and nuclear war, and that as war, if once it breaks out, would lead to nuclear war, war must be abolished wholly.
But war cannot be abolished by negative methods. Positive measures are needed to-day to ensure that nations in future do by justice what hitherto they have tried to do for themselves by force in settling their disputes. That, of course, means total disarmament of all nations. It means a World Authority to enforce disarmament, to ensure disarmament, a World Authority to set up a World Court to declare justice and the world's police to enforce it. Noble Lords may have noticed that in saying this I have used, not the term "World Government", but the term "World Authority". I am not afraid of using the term "World Government", but it needs explanation, because it is my conviction that you can get and must get a World Authority to put an end to war while leaving freedom to every nation to manage its own affairs in everything else except the murder of other nations. Indeed, forcing peace upon all the world would increase the freedom and independence of every small nation in the world, because it would not have to kow-tow to the big nations to defend it. I shall come back to that point before I end. But let me say only that in this question of words I agree wholeheartedly with what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said yesterday, in using the term "World Government". He may be right on that term. On substance, I am delighted to think that I agree with him completely.
I hope your Lordships will forgive these truisms about the necessity of abolishing war. Truisms have a curious way sometimes of being true. Less than a year ago the abolition of war seemed well on the way. Now progress has stopped, and one asks, naturally, how and why. It may be merely a surviving tradition from World War II of getting one's way by violence. It may be because there are great organisations for

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war in all great countries—such organisations that led to what I think we all realise as the mistake about the U2 by the United States. It may be that there are armed forces or others putting pressure on Khrushchev in Russia. I do not know. It looks as if it might be that. It may be that as people are looking forward to disarmament they are beginning to realise the practical difficulties of disarmament, of turning over from the making of arms to utterly different occupations, without mass unemployment. It may also be—and I think there is something in this—the attempt to solve, simultaneously with this major question of substituting justice for war between nations, the minor problems, important as they are, like those of Germany or Formosa and many others. I hope we are going to concentrate on the main problem of replacing war by justice between nations. But, whatever the reason, we have to admit that to-day we live, instead of among Summit Conferences, in a period of mutual criticism—I say criticism, not recrimination—between the leaders of the great Powers.
The question arises for us here of how ordinary citizens, if I may without disrespect describe ourselves in this House as ordinary citizens, should behave under these conditions; and on that I would venture to give four pieces of negative advice, four "Don'ts" to ourselves in this House. Do not let us give too much public advice to our own Government as to how they should deal with other Governments when they are seeking agreement on the abolition of war, on what they should say to them, and just when and how. I have had a good deal to do, when I was a civil servant and otherwise, with trying to get difficult things through Governments. I am inclined to think that probably our own Ministers know the ways of thought of Khrushchev and his friends better than I do, and perhaps better than a great many of your Lordships do, and I do not know that I want to give our Prime Minister advice on how he should act in these difficult negotiations. Volunteered advice given only in public is apt to complicate the problem, which is already difficult enough, of getting reason—permanent reason, lasting reason, the same point of view continually—out of people with whom he has to negotiate. That is my first "Don't".
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My second one is, do not ignore the practical difficulties of actual disarmament when you come to it. Think them out carefully in advance. But do not question for a moment the need for total disarmament. The Leader of the House yesterday, in the admirable speech that he made, said just one or two things that slightly chilled me. He talked of persevering in defensive alliances. Of course we have to keep defensive alliances going, but I do not want to advertise that as the main thing on which we should persevere. He talked of persevering in showing the superiority of our free system. I need hardly tell the Members of this House that for me the free system of this country is the only tolerable way of life, and that if we became Communists I should have to go to America or Brazil or somewhere else; for I could not stand that absence of freedom. But I do not want to go arguing with Mr. Khrushchev on the superiority of our way of life as a way of getting peace in the world. I wish the noble Earl had gone on to add that we should persevere and work continually for total disarmament by whatever method is most likely to bring that about.
Above all—and this is my last and most important "don't"—do not criticise as a Utopian dream the replacement of war by justice between nations when they differ. If ending war is Utopian, it is still necessary to end war. The choice for us to-day is not between Utopia and the pleasant easy world our fathers knew. The choice is quite simply between Utopia and Hell. I said that in Oxford, 20 years ago, in speaking with Professor Gilbert Murray to found Federal Union. I said it before World War II, before Hiroshima and Blue Streak and all those things were ever thought of. If it was true then, it is unquestionable now; and it is true in more senses than one. If we could bring war to an end we should make a real Utopia in this world. In abolishing war by something on Federal Union lines we should not take away from mankind anything that any ordinary man anywhere wants. In all nations, all ordinary men—and, even more, all ordinary women—irrespective of colour or language, desire two things above all: peace and to manage their own affairs. We need to take nothing whatever from any nation

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except arms and the right to use them in mass murder. We can, and in my view should, leave everything else to each nation, however it is ruled, whether it is democratic, autocratic or authoritarian, whether it is socialist, communist totalitarian, presidential, Spanish-totalitarian or whatever else it may be. Whether it is ruled by a Parliamentary party which is Socialist, Communist or Conservative, we should leave to each nation the management of its own affairs.
On that aspect, may I say just a word on two speeches that were made yesterday? The noble Lord, Lord Strang, devoted great attention to the problem of the Six and the Seven. I suggest to your Lordships that that is quite irrelevant to this question. Nobody supposes that we should commit ourselves for all time to something that we, might want to alter. If ever we find something we are prepared to accept for all time, it will be when we have peace and a World Authority to prevent war. Then we can retain freedom to make our own economic arrangements; and I hope that those arrangements will be friendly towards other nations, and not the other way. That will remain in our hands.
May I also refer to one other speech with which I agreed entirely, that of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. He said that we must give up sovereignty. I believe that I have already said in this House that it seems to me absurd to claim that an essential part of national sovereignty is the right to commit mass murder of citizens of other countries. That is like saying that an essential liberty of the individual is the right to steal if he wishes to do so. We do not allow that, for we have order in an orderly society; and I believe that we can have order in the world. In fact, we shall not decrease anything to which the ordinary man looks as his sovereignty.
I want to come back to a point I have mentioned before. If we can put an end to war, we can put an end also to the dependence of small nations upon large nations who patronise them. We increase freedom throughout the world; and that, I believe, increases sovereignty, even though nations cannot make war or help to make war. It is only a small point of wording on which I differ from
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the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. Secondly, having abolished war we could give mankind the material means of happiness beyond his wildest dreams. I personally should like to see at least half, probably more, of all the millions the nations of the world are now spending on armaments handed over to the United Nations, to be used by them in raising the standard of life and education—even of university education, to which we attach such importance, and rightly, in this country—wherever those standards are too low, and also in bringing men together to settle their common problems by mutual understanding. That is the positive contribution that would be made possible by ending war and arms.
I suggest to your Lordships that the world I have tried to paint to you would be Utopia in the truest sense. Such a world could be brought about now by five, six or seven men now leading the Great Powers in the world. If they said, "We will not make war", who else could possibly make war? They could bring that about, and by doing so these men would win a place in history and in the everlasting gratitude of mankind, greater than any man has won before. None of them can earn this gratitude by himself. Together they can earn it. They can be remembered for ever in Valhalla. As I have used the term "Valhalla", I should perhaps explain that after research in our admirable Library I find that "Valhalla" has two meanings. In Northern mythology it means the hall assigned to those who have died in battle, that they may go on feasting there with Odin. But "Valhalla" in modern English, like that of Lord Acton, is a place assigned to persons worthy of very special honour. So it looks as if the leaders of the Great Powers to-day were destined for Valhalla by one route or another—by dying in battle, as I hope they would die with all the rest of us if we die, or by giving to mankind the greatest gift in history, the gift of peace with justice and freedom. The choice of route to Valhalla is theirs jointly. Please, please, dear leaders, think in modern English rather than in the language of ancient mythology, which is dead. Valhalla for you for ever!
4.30 p.m.
LORD CASEY: My Lords, I should like to take advantage of the debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, although I wish to speak on a different area and on quite a different subject. I should like to speak about India, in particular, and about two subjects in relation to India: first, briefly, about the series of Indian Five-Year Plans, and, secondly, the population pressure in Asia and perhaps in India in particular. I believe that these two subjects are of national and international importance. They are really linked subjects, because I think it will be admitted that no long-term economic progress in India, and perhaps in many other countries, can be achieved unless there is some substantial diminution in the rapid rate of population advance in India and other countries. I realise perhaps as well as the next man the impropriety of making any critical comment about the internal affairs of another country, of another friendly country, and perhaps in particular of another Commonwealth country. But I do not propose to be in any way critical. I aim merely to draw your Lordships' attention—and, I hope, most sympathetic attention—to matters of great consequence that I do not believe have been much discussed in your Lordships' House, or, indeed, I believe, in this Parliament.
My own direct interest in and concern with India was stimulated by the fact that I spent two years' apprenticeship in an important Province in undivided India, which gave me some conception, at least, of the problem India then was, and to an extent still is, struggling with and trying to cope with. India is struggling with man's ancient enemies: poverty, ill-health, illiteracy, and unemployment. I want to remind your Lordships, quite briefly, about the series of kidian Five-Year Plans, the first of which began in 1951 and the second of which ends in March, 1961, when the third Indian Five Year Plan begins. I believe it is no exaggerated use of words to say that this series of Indian Five-Year Plans represents the greatest economic effort ever made in the world's history by a democratic country. The first Five-Year Plan largely succeeded, and added appreciable strength to the Indian economy. The main emphasis, as no doubt your Lordships remember, was on
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agriculture; and the output of food grains was substantially increased. There were good seasons, and terms of international trade were generally favourable to India, and she had high prices in exported products. As a result, the national income of India increased, on an estimate, by about 18 per cent. and real per capita income by about 11 per cent. These satisfactory results were achieved with only relatively moderate external financial aid of a total of about £200 millions for the five-year period.
The second Indian Five-Year Plan was very much more ambitious and aimed at a 25 per cent. increase in national income. The main emphasis was on industrialisation and the development of heavy and basic industries. The second Plan met considerably less favourable conditions than the first. The seasons were patchy and the terms of trade moved quite appreciably against India. As a result, the second Plan had to be heavily trimmed, and the anticipated targets will not be anything like as fully realised. Substantially greater financial economic aid is being needed than had been anticipated.
Planning for the third Plan is already well advanced. It is a very ambitious Plan with a total outlay of something approaching £8,000 million sterling, nearly five times as much as the first Plan and nearly double the second Plan. It will entail very large increases in the need for foreign exchange. The basic industries will be stepped up and light consumer industries increased. Agricultural production will be increased to endeavour to met the increased demand for food. It is a most ambitious Plan which will necessitate all the external aid India's friends can provide.
This is not the time or the place to discuss the problems that the third Indian Five-Year Plan will produce. Mr. Nehru is well aware of them and has spoken of them publicly. I think it is enough to say that, whatever obstacles arise in the course of the third Plan, India must be given the credit for making a gigantic effort, unprecedented, I believe, in any non-Communist country—this vast effort to modernise her own economy. To this end India, under the direct and tireless drive of Mr. Nehru,

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is bringing a remarkable degree of purpose, imagination, constructiveness and technical skill.
A matter of high consequence in respect of the third Indian Plan is the expressed hope that the rate of economic advance that will result if the third Plan is successful may enable the Indian economy to get over the static stage and into the self-generating economic stage. As I have no doubt your Lordships know, it is a theory of economists—or perhaps even more than a theory—that every developing country needs to plough back a certain percentage of its national income into investment, in productive plant and equipment, before its economic development can become self-generating. India's rate of savings and investment has to become sufficiently high to get the economy moving with sufficient momentum to lift it to a higher plane of production, capital formation and steadily rising living standards. The Indian economy has not yet reached this "take-off" stage, but the possibility is envisaged that it may during the third Five-Year Plan, or at any rate not very long thereafter; and I believe all India's friends will readily join in the hope that such a highly important potential achievement will come about. The high rate of population increase is generally regarded in India, and I think elsewhere, as being one of the inhibiting factors which may delay—which will delay, probably—getting over the economic hurdle, because population growth reduces the amount that can be set aside for capital formation.
I. want now to deal as briefly as I can with another subject of what I believe, and what I think is very generally believed, is of the highest order of importance, economically, socially and politically: that is, the mounting population pressure in Asia and perhaps in India in particular. As your Lordships no doubt are aware, this subject of population pressure and the need for and means of coping with it has been the concern of demographers and medical specialists for many years, but until about a year ago this general broad subject had not attracted the attention of the general public, nor, indeed, I think, was it regarded as a subject for polite discussion. However, last year saw what can only be called an outburst of popular
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attention and concern for the general subject, which has been described as "family limitation", "planned parenthood", "contraception", "birth control"—all synonyms from the same subject.
To-day I wish to speak only of the subject in regard to India and in other Asian countries similarly placed. I realise that the subject has a relevance in other areas but I want to confine my attention to the Indian scene. Never in the history of mankind, perhaps, have human beings multiplied as rapidly as is happening today. The present rate of population growth on top of the present high population figures in a country like India means that the danger point is rapidly approaching. In fact, in certain countries—and I think India is one of them—mounting population pressure is apparently in course of defeating the objective of raising the living standards from the present low levels to something more acceptable of modern standards. As I say, the population pressure problem, on top of the very high populations in India and other countries in Asia, creates social, political and economic problems of the highest order.
As I have said, the problem of population pressure has been the subject of intense demographic study for a number of years, and I believe it is right to say that, on the established facts and figures, those who study the subject objectively believe that there is no solution possible other than family limitation. In the absence of an acceptable, effective and early solution of the family limitation problem, it seems inevitable that the countries in which this problem is critical will be subjected to mounting social and economic pressures which may be destructive of their existing social and political structures. Speaking of India, I believe the essential figures to be that the population is of the order of 420 million at present; the death rate is about 20 per 1,000 (I am speaking in round figures); the birth rate is about 40 per 1,000, and the current net increase in population is 2 per cent. a year, as against 1·2 per cent. a year about ten years ago.
It is generally agreed in India that the population problem cannot be left to take its own course, to solve itself. If

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it were, all the vast effort of successive five-year plans will be largely wasted from the point of view of trying to raise the extremely low standards of living—as well as the problems of unemployed and under-employed becoming less and less manageable. Another figure of consequence (and I will not give your Lordships many more figures) is that there are about 100 million families in India, about three-quarters of them living in the villages, which emphasises the difficulty of coping with the problem of family limitation. Of course, there is no antagonism, from the religious point of view, to birth control in India.
Rather than attempt to quote figures to make my point as to the seriousness of the population pressure problem in India, I propose to rely on three short statements from highly representative and responsible Indians to establish what I believe is the fact; that is, that there is incontrovertible evidence of the urgent need for a substantial and early drop in the Indian birth rate. About a year ago Mr. Nehru said:
"We have found that we can never plan for the nation, and our Five Year Plans have no meaning if the population grows at this rate."
Again, in the same context, Mr. Nehru said that
"the necessity for some kind of limitation of the growing population becomes an urgent matter for us."
Mrs. Lakshmi Menon, the Deputy Minister of External Affairs in the Indian Government, has said this:
"However fast we progress, the population seems to overtake us and render nugatory even the positive progress we have been able to make. Thus our progress in education, health and economic development, spectacular as these might have been in other circumstances, have been hardly noticeable, because in the race between development and population, the population has mercilessly outpaced development".
Mrs. Menon went on to quote from John Stuart Mill that
"The production of large families should be regarded in the same light as drunkenness."
Mr. Karmarkar, the Indian Minister for Health, has said:
"For us in India, this problem of population control is as vital as the problem of planned economic development. All our efforts to achieve a higher living standard will be frustrated if we do not take effective steps to keep our population within proper limits. An
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important aspect of the work is the evolution of suitable and readily acceptable contraceptives,"
Speaking of the situation in Pakistan, President Ayub Kahn said a little over a year ago:
"If we continue to increase at the present rate it will ultimately lead to a standard of living which will be little better than that of animals".
He went on to say that
"the menace of over-population is tantamount to spreading misery".
As I have said, my Lords, the problem of population growth has been the subject of close demographic study by the United Nations and by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East; and, if I may quote very briefly from one of their most recent Reports, that says:
"The growth of world population during the next 25 years has an importance which transcends economic and social considerations. It is at the very heart of the problem of our existence".
The most important incidence of population growth is in Asia, of course, where nearly half the world's population lives; and on present trends, if nothing is done about the population-growth problem, the population of Asia is likely to double itself in the next 30 years.
I think, and it is generally believed, that the main reason why this problem has become so acute in the post-war years is because of the successful death-control methods that have been used—the important and increased improvements in public health. Even in countries where the birth-rate is static, by reason of improved public health measures, the reduced death-rate has meant a net increase in the population. In other words, by effective diminution of the death-rate, the net natural increase has become formidable and menacing—and I may say that the Indian death-rate is still declining. However much this is to be welcomed, it will inevitably exacerbate the population-pressure problem. The basic problem will be to feed, clothe, house, educate and employ the rising tide of Indian population, with (unless something is done about the population-pressure problem), a consequent reduction in the already low living standards of the country. The simple fact is, I think, that if birth-rates do not fall, then inevitably, in due course, death-rates must rise.

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A great deal of scientific research work has been done in recent years in an effort to evolve an acceptable means of family limitation by simple means that will be cheap, effective and without undesirable side effects. Although there has been considerable progress made, I believe it is true to say that the optimum method has not yet been found. Looking at the matter in the broad, I believe that the problem means the studying in minute detail of all phases of the reproductive cycle, both male and female, in an effort to discover some point (or it may be points) in the cycle at which some chemical substance, taken by mouth, preferably at not too frequent intervals, can interrupt the process of reproduction. This is a gigantic task, which necessitates much more intense scientific study than is now being devoted to it anywhere in the world; and it needs a very great deal more money to finance that scientific research, if the answer is going to be found within a short period of years.
The Planned Parenthood Federation in the United States recently published a list of unanswered questions in reproductive physiology for scientific institutions to consider doing research work on. I believe that it is not an exaggeration to say that there is no more important way of helping India and other countries similarly placed than by intensifying the search for the ideal means of family limitation. That is not to say that there are not existing methods which could be put to work on a widespread scale, pending the perfection of what one might call an oral deterrent. But existing methods are not the final answer, although they may be usefully looked to to fill the gap—which I think one might possibly call five years—until the optimum method is evolved and proven.
There are those who maintain that the proper answer to this problem is to produce more food. If we apply this argument to India, the subject of what I am trying to say to your Lordships to-day, and to other Asian countries similarly placed with a high and rising population, I believe that the fallacy of regarding increased food production as the answer will be seen. As many of your Lordships know, India is a country of very small individual agricultural holdings—
THE EARL OF CRAVEN: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that it is also impossible to produce enough food in China, where I believe the population is increasing even more rapidly?
LORD CASEY: I am not sufficiently acquainted with mainland China to be able to intelligently answer the noble Earl's question. As I was saying, India is a country of very small agricultural holdings, so small that mechanised farming practice is relatively impossible. Any substantial increase in the production of foodstuffs in India means many more large-scale, widespread and vastly expensive water conservation and irrigation schemes, as well as the increased production of chemical fertilisers on a grand scale. Calculations of the cost, and of the time element involved in bringing these aids to the many scores of millions of small farms in India, demonstrate the complete lack of feasibility of relying on increased food production as an important means of meeting the population-pressure problem. Even if India decided to concentrate on the expansion of foodstuffs as a means of coping with this problem, and if it were done on any significant scale, it would absorb so much of India's resources that the many other things that are crying out to be done—industrialisation, education, the betterment of transport and the like—could not be proceeded with or their advance would be greatly inhibited.
However, it is not necessary for me, or for anyone else, to argue for a policy of birth control in India, or in Pakistan. Family planning has been accepted as part of the national planning in both countries. In each of the first and second India Five-Year-Plans progressively more money was hypothecated for family planning schemes, and in the third Five-Year-Plan in futuro a greatly increased amount of money is being spoken of. President Ayub Khan of Pakistan has said that family planning is recognized as a Governmental responsibility and that adequate financial help will be forthcoming. So that to advance any arguments for the adoption of family planning in India and Pakistan would be pushing at an open door. The reason why I have taken up your Lordships' time in pursuing this subject is to stress the fact that a vast amount of scientific research is still necessary before the optimum means to be

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adopted by family planners is discovered. This will necessitate a formidable amount of research in all those countries with adequate resources to pursue it. And I hope very much that this great country will not hang back in this highly important regard of accelerated and expanded research into the vast field of discovering and perfecting anti-fertility substances and procedures. I believe that it is not an exaggeration to say that, short of the great problem of peace and war, there is no more important matter in the world today than the successful coping with the population pressure in Asia generally and particularly in India. I hope your Lordships will agree that the suggestions I have chosen to speak about to-day, although they may differ from the subject matter of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, who initiated this debate, are sufficiently important to warrant ventilation in your Lordships' House.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Casey. He branched off a bit, if I may say so. In a wide-ranging debate of this character one must be selective, and that is what I propose to be. It is not fashionable at the moment to applaud the utterances of Lord Montgomery of Alamein; but while I do not agree that everything he says is right, I find that very often he gets to the heart of the matter. Ten years ago he said:
"The task before the nations of the West is primarily political. Economic fusion and military strength will not be obtained until the political association between the group of nations concerned has first been defined."
He was dead right. It has not yet been defined, and I hope that it will not be long before it is. Again, the other day the noble Viscount wrote in the Sunday Times:
"The first task of Western leadership must be to strengthen N.A.T.O. politically and to give it that leadership and unity which it has always lacked".
And again he says:
"Europe must render to the United States the help she is entitled to expect as leader of the Western Alliance by standing together as one united whole".
Once again the noble Viscount got to the root of the matter.
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I am not going to dilate upon the subject of N.A.T.O. this afternoon; but I suggest that both the political structure and the command structure of N.A.T.O. are in need of radical revision. The West has been trying to conduct a global struggle against the centrally-directed forces of Communism without any central organs of political decision to direct common policies upon a global scale. We have been doing that for about ten years. I suggest to your Lordships that we can no longer afford an invisible strategic directing committee in Washington; an impotent political council in Paris; and, for N.A.T.O., a Supreme Commander who has to take orders from a vacuum; because that is what we have at the present time.
A year ago Professor Friedmann of Columbia University wrote a letter to the New York Times in which he said:
"Continuous refusal to acknowledge a political reality, without attempting to alter it, will embarrass the West."
He was right. That is precisely what has happened. New trends have been deliberately ignored, by the United States in the Far East, and by ourselves in Europe. Policies designed to maintain the status quo everywhere cannot be maintained in the modern world over a period of years. To-day nearly all the dykes have broken, under the pressure of winds and seas of change, the very existence of which we have refused to recognise. That goes for all over the world.
I have been not so very long in your Lordships' House, but I have been long enough to know that it is better and wiser to confine one's speeches to something one knows something about. Therefore I am going to confine my speech this afternoon to the relations between this country and Europe, because I was mixed up in this business pretty closely for ten years. I gave a good part of my life to it. I think that to-day we face a momentous decision: either to go into Europe or to stay out. And we cannot make a fair assessment of the situation, or a wise judgment, unless we know something of the immediate historical background. Therefore, with great trepidation, I am going to remind your Lordships of some of the events that have taken place since the war, if only for the record—it will save your

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Lordships' time, if you want to look up what has happened, to got it down in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I have checked my facts, so they are quite accurate.
I think that the speech of the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, makes this even more necessary because he implied what I think the Government genuinely feel: that somehow or other it is the Continental Europeans who are to blame for the situation we are in at the present time; that we are doing our best, we are trying like anything, but they are so suspicious, so doubtful about us and wondering what we are going to do, that they make everything difficult for us. I am going to suggest that is not quite so easy as that. Perhaps they may have some grounds for suspicion.
At the end of the war, as the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, said yesterday, we could have had the leadership of Europe on any terms we liked. We were the only country that had neither been defeated nor occupied. We deliberately turned down that leadership. And history will not easily forgive us. An initiative, however, did come from this country. Mr. Winston Churchill (as he then was), the greatest living Englishman in the eyes of the Continent of Europe, advocated at Zurich in 1946 a united Europe; and again in 1947 he said that Britain was:
"geographically and historically a part of Europe, with a full part to play as a member of the European family."
Those are his actual words; and they did not, pass unnoticed on the Continent.
I am now going to do something that is quite unforgivable, and which I shall never do again as long as I live in your Lordships' House: I am going to make two brief quotations from speeches of my own delivered over ten years ago. The first was in another place on May 5, 1948—that is just twelve years ago—in which I said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 450, col. 1382]:
"It seems to me that the supreme object of our policy should surely be to build a democratic world order so strong that no State or combination of States will dare to challenge it … such a democratic world order can only be built by the creation of a United States of Western Europe, in some form or other, in close association with the British Commonwealth, and with the United States of America, upon whose material strength the entire structure must in the first phase depend. … The process must
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be one of spiritual growth as well as material progress; and the end must be a series of organic acts of union. I see no other way. The choice that confronts Hon. Members … is fundamental. I do not think it is obscure. It is the choice between international anarchy and the rule of law; between the rebirth or the doom of our Western civilisation".
The second quotation, which is shorter, is from a speech that I made at the first meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in August:, 1949. I then said:
"Sovereignty, in the sense of the exercise of absolute political power, is the supreme source of law. Whenever it resides in groups of individuals within a society, and not in the society itself, there is internal anarchy. Whenever it resides in nation-States,"—
and this is a point that has been brought out in this two-days debate—
"and not in a society of nations, there is international anarchy. For my part I am convinced that the doctrine of the sovereign equality of nations is not only nonsense but a mathematical formula for war. I share the belief of my friend, the late Lord Lothian, that insistence on absolute state sovereignty is one of the principal causes of the evils of our modern world; and hold the view that the only solution of this problem lies in some merging or pooling of national sovereignty—not so much the surrender as the joint exercise, by common consent, of certain defined sovereign powers."
My Lords, that is the end of the quotations, and I sincerely apologise for them, though I think that they are extremely good. Those were my views over ten years ago, and I have never since seen the slightest reason to change them. They seemed to command a fairly wide measure of assent at the time, although they did not receive any support from the Labour Government of the day.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Or from the Conservatives.
LORD BOOTHBY: I am coming to them, and they get much rougher treatment than the Party of noble Lords opposite. A resolution was passed by the Strasbourg Assembly enjoining the Committee of Ministers to develop a European political authority
"with limited functions but real powers".
All the Conservative members of the British delegation voted in favour of that resolution.
Next came the Schuman Plan, devised by Jean Monnet, as we have heard, for a Coal and Steel Pool. It was rejected out of hand by the Labour Government of this country, who refused even to take

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part in the discussions, on the ground that any invasion of national sovereignty would be quite unacceptable. It was this that led to the foundation of the Six.
Then came a bombshell. In August, 1950, Winston Churchill (as he then was) demanded in the Consultative Assembly at Strasbourg:
"the immediate creation of a European Army under a united command and subject to proper European democratic control, in which we should all bear a worthy and honourable part."…
And he added:
"Those who serve supreme causes must not consider what they can get but what they can give."
Can one blame the Europeans for thinking that he meant something by this? Certainly I thought he did. And on this issue the speeches of the Conservative delegates to the Council of Europe were positively lyrical. The present Prime Minister said that it was a "tremendous decision". He went on to say:
"Of course there are doubts and fears. Perhaps there is a suspicion that Britain may be so blind as not to see the danger through European eyes, and that she may, in a mood of despair, of weariness, seek safety in isolation. Mr. President, there is a single answer to that … Britain's frontier is not on the Channel; it is not even on the Rhine; it is at least the Elbe. … I believe that if our German comrades join with us in a European Army, they must be granted, from the beginning, equally honourable military status. … There should go out to-night a recommendation which should send to the peoples and Governments in every part of the world a ringing note of courage and of faith."
That was the reaction of the present Prime Minister to the proposal for a European army. Needless to say, the Labour Government would have nothing to do with it. Once again they refused to take part in the discussions which led to the projected European Defence Community, on the ground that it would commit us to a supra-national authority. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, might have taken a rather different view if he had had longer at the Foreign Office: he had not time to alter course. I do not think (he will correct me if I am wrong) that he was as inflexible on the subject of Europe as was the late Mr. Ernest Bevin; and I think he would have altered course had he stayed there. However, he was pushed out, because there was a General Election
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in the autumn of 1951, and it brought a change of Government.
In November of that year a debate took place at Strasbourg between representatives of the Consultative Assembly and the Congress of the United States. I was invited by the new Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill, to represent the Conservative Party in this debate and, by implication, the Government; and under friendly pressure from Senators Wiley and McMahon, I agreed that our attitude towards the projected Coal and Steel Community and the European army would be the acid test of our sincerity. A week later the Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (as he then was), confirmed this view at a full meeting of the Consultative Assembly. On the subject of the European Army he said:
"I cannot promise full and unconditional participation, but I can assure you of our determination that no genuine method shall fail for lack of thorough examination which one gives to the needs of trusted friends.— There is no refusal on the part of Britain."
That same night, at a Press conference in Rome, the Foreign Secretary Mr. Anthony Eden (as he then was) nounced that Britain would take no part, under any conditions or in any circumstances, in the European Army which had been demanded by Churchill in the Council of Europe. This announcement was greeted in the Council of Europe not unnaturally—and I think it really should be remembered—with the utmost consternation and dismay. I have never seen a more demoralised assembly. Indeed, so moved were the Conservative delegates to the Consultative Assembly, of whom I was one, that on December 3 we sent a formal protest to the Prime Minister, the concluding paragraph of which was:
"We venture to appeal to you to take some positive action designed to restore British prestige in the Consultative Assembly, and to show that His Majesty's Government mean to play their part in the military defence and economic development of a united Europe."
That protest was signed by every member of the Conservative delegation; and there was no reply.
Meanwhile, M. Spaak resigned the Presidency of the Consultative Assembly in order to lead the campaign for a "Little Federation", without Britain. This was a formidable event, because the establishment of the Six was now well

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under way. My Lords, I want to say this quite frankly. These events were regarded on the Continent of Europe, and particularly in France, as a straight betrayal of Europe on the part of Britain. I do not think it was quite as deliberate as that; but that is how they saw it. And I am not sure that they were wrong, because it certainly was a complete reversal of the course which they had been led to believe by Churchill that a Conservative Government would adopt.
Look what happened next. There followed the long struggle, the exhausting struggle, over the European Defence Community. We now have it on the authority of Mr. Anthony Nutting, at the time Minister of State at the Foreign Office, that Mr. Eden reacted to his suggestion, and that of Sir Gladwyn Jebb in Paris, that we should at least guarantee to leave our troops on the Continent of Europe for the duration of the Treaty "like a kicking mule". This was not even a proposal to join the European Army; it was merely to give a guarantee to keep our troops on the Continent.
For my part, I said what I am about to say to your Lordships on the subject of the Common Market: that the only thing for the Government to do, if they believed that the E.D.C. was the right thing, was to join it. In a letter to The limes on July 12, 1954, I said that the alternatives were the rejection of the E.D.C. Treaty by the French Assembly, or a "shot-gun wedding" between a resurgent Germany and a fear-ridden France. I further said that Franco-German reconciliation was the necessary prelude to the establishment of any genuine partnership in the common defence of the West; that it had been put in jeopardy by our attempt to force the French to enter a European Army and a political union which we were not prepared to join ourselves; and that we must face the fact that there could be no hope of European unity except on the basis of British participation in one form or another.
After a few days I received a letter, which I have here in my pocket. The interest of it really lies in the signature. It is that of Michel Debré, not unknown at the present moment. He said:
"Je n'ai pas besoin de vous dire, une fois de plus, à quel point votre dernière lettre au Times a été, pour nous, d'une lecture récon-
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fortante.… Je dirais presque émouvante, à tel point nos pensées sont identiques. Croyez, je vous prie, Mon Cher Député, à l'assurance de mes sentiments distingués et les meilleurs."
That was the view in France at the time, and that was the view of M. Debri5, at the time. I say these things to your Lordships because I think it is important that we should bear them in mind.
In the event, when the French rejected the E.D.C. Treaty we had to do a salvage operation, and put British troops on the Continent, which we had said for two years we would not do. The truth is that it was too late. With one shining exception, the Ministers ran out on Europe—and I deliberately use the words "ran out", because there is another word beginning with "R" which I think would be indecorous for your Lordships' House. It is a single word. But that in fact is what happened. The shining exception is sitting in front of me at this moment upon the Woolsack, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Kilmuir. I think he will not take exception if I remind him that he once said to me: "You and I really do believe in European union. And we shall not be forgiven." Fortunately for this country, he was forgiven. But he is the one man who stood up all the time and never deviated, while the rest went back.
Nevertheless, there came a last chance—I am nearly through the historical side of this matter, but we have to know this background before making the decision that lies ahead of us. The Strasbourg Plan of 1952, endorsed unanimously by the Assembly of the Council of Europe, was designed to harness the industrial resources of Western Europe to the raw materials of its associated territories overseas, with the object of expanding the production and trade of the whole. I was a member of the drafting committee. It envisaged a double-tier preferential system, an international Central Bank to co-ordinate monetary policies and investment plans, international commodity schemes (which think aroused considerable support in the Labour Party), and the automatic provision of credit for countries in balance-of-payments difficulties. It was rather a complicated plan, but many of the finest economic minds in Europe gave great thought to it. I think it could have been a great success; and, if so, we should never have had the division

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between the Six and Seven to-day. But it was pole-axed by the Treasury overnight. They simply came down and said that they would have nothing to do with it. Then, as Mr. Nutting says in his book, the "last bus had gone so far as we were concerned."
The Common Market went ahead. We sent no Minister to their Messina Conference, and only an observer to their Brussels Conference. This observer was a junior official with purely negative instructions. He made no constructive contribution to their discussions at all.
Then, "suddenly last summer", the Common Market became reality, though we had never really believed that it would. As the Daily Telegraph said:
"a new industrial giant, a mighty union of some 165 million people, in which we have elected to have no part."
Look now for a moment at the economic facts. I am not indulging in theories. Since 1953, British production has risen by 28 per cent., as against 72 per cent. in Western Germany and 76 per cent in France. Last year our exports increased by 4·5 per cent. in value, and to the sterling area they fell by 5 per cent. In contrast, the exports of France and Germany rose by 15 per cent. and to the sterling area by 7 per cent. So, whereas our exports to the sterling area fell by 5 per cent., theirs rose by 7 per cent. The rate of industrial investment, including dollar investment, and the consequent growth of productivity in the countries of the Common Market, is at present far greater than our own. The potential market there is the richest, the greatest and the most rapidly expanding in the world.
When we suddenly woke up to the fact that the Common Market existed, having drugged ourselves into the belief that it was a fantasy, what did we do? We immediately panicked and rushed into the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Seven. I believe that this was a profound mistake, and I say so without hesitation. Why? Because it consolidated the division of Europe, instead of healing it. You are not going to get successful negotiations between the Seven and the Six. Do not "kid" yourselves that this is going to happen, because it is not. All we are doing with E.F.T.A. is to consolidate and aggravate
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the present division of Europe, and to provide the Government with another alibi for keeping out of Europe altogether. We should have joined the Common Market and brought in as many of the others afterwards as we could. And that is still the right course. When all is said and done, tariffs are only one part of the arsenal of modern economic weapons—and that a negative one. Positive common economic policies are the necessary complement of any reduction of trade barriers.
The choice, to which I referred at the beginning of my remarks, which now confronts us is a naked one. This is, as I believe, full participation in the Common Market or active estrangement. I do not believe there can be any compromise, still less agreement between the Six and the Seven. A friend of mine on the Continent of Europe said to me: "The trouble in negotiating with your Mr. Maudling is that he has never known what he really wants, and does not know to-day." It is impossible to negotiate with a man who does not know what he is trying to get. The Six are suspicious—of course they are. But have they not good reason? I have tried to show that they have. Every time we say that we might join the Coal and Steel Community, or Euratom, they think we are up to our old game of sabotaging European unity. I have tried to prove to your Lordships this afternoon that they have good justification for their suspicions because we have done it over and over again. They believe that our main objective at the moment is to smash up the Common Market, and smash up the measure of unity they have been able to achieve. Our task is to allay that suspicion, because I believe that we can still lead a United Europe. The choice is: Do we go into Europe, or do we become an isolated off-shore island? Because that is what it may well end in.
There is no choice between the Commonwealth and Europe, and there never has been. We are no longer living in the 'thirties. Imperial Preference, which mattered then, is a diminishing factor; and will be of negligible importance in another five or six years, with the present development of world economic affairs. The Commonwealth is an invaluable political association of multiracial States, many of which have

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already recognised the necessity for participation in regional groupings. Why then, should we not participate in a regional grouping? I suggest to you, my Lords, that the Commonwealth want us to get into Europe and to lead Europe and to use a Scottish expression, they "want in" to the great European Market themselves, and they can get into it very much easier if we are a member of it.
What is involved? Primarily, acceptance of the political implications, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, said yesterday. They have been defined by General de Gaulle as follows:
"The nations which are becoming associated must not cease to be Themselves, and the path to be followed must be that of organised co-operation between States, while waiting to achieve, perhaps, an imposing confederation."
What is there to be frightened of in that? "Confederation" is defined in the dictionary as
"a permanent union of sovereign states for common external action".
The Common Market goes a bit further than that, because it includes common internal action in certain defined spheres: a gradual integration of social and economic policies culminating, I hope, in an organic political union.
I would just ask those of your Lordships who are frightened of this to cast your mind back to the year 1956. Whatever views you may hold on the subject of Suez, the fact remains that in that year Western Europe proved unable to affirm or to defend, either by diplomacy or force, its vital interests in the Middle East; and this, surely, was due to the fact that small countries, acting separately, have no longer any place or power in the modern world. We must create in Europe a political and economic unit capable of standing on its own feet in face of the gigantic political and economic organisations of the Communist world, on the one hand, and the United States of America, on the other. Otherwise we may well sink, one by one. At the same time we should bear in mind the wise words of Winston Churchill in 1950:
"We are not making a machine; we are growing a living plant."
My Lords, our policy towards Europe since the war has been as futile and as feckless as it was before the war. As
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Sir Winston Churchill wrote of the latter (our policy before the war):
"in this sad tale of wrong judgments formed by well-meaning and capable people, we now reach our climax. That we should all have come to this pass makes those responsible, however honourable their motives, blameworthy before history."
I believe, passionately, that our record in our dealings with Europe since the war will be viewed very gloomily by the historians of the future. It may even be compared with our record during the reign of George III in relation to the American Colonies, unless we pull up our socks, as I think we have a last chance to do. I agree with my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, that peaceful co-existence with the Communist world must be our primary aim; but let us get peaceful co-existence in Western Europe first At the present moment Western Europe is literally at Sixes and Sevens. I cannot agree with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, when he talked about total disarmament anti world government in the measurable future. In a world wracked by a titanic struggle between two totally opposed political and economic systems, this seems to me to be utterly unrealistic. It may come one day, but it will not come in the immediate future.
I used to think that the Foreign Office was the nigger in the woodpile. Now I am not so sure, after what the noble Lord, Lord Strang, said yesterday.
"We have to contemplate the possibility of joining the Six, It may be that there is no middle way."
Again Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, another Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, wrote three years ago:
"If we now decide to assume the rôle of leader of a Confederate Europe our action will win the approval of the Commonwealth, and the existence of a European Executive possessing real power and authority will certainly lead to a closer co-ordination of policy in matters of world import."
I suspect that the Treasury is the root of this evil, as indeed it is of most others in this country to-day.
My Lords, I hope that this speech of mine will not be described in the Guardian to-morrow as "a despairing and impassioned call which stirred the blood of those present rather in the manner of a tea-bell." That is how the Guardian yesterday described the speech of an honourable member in another place. My

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speech has been impassioned, but not despairing. It now seems to me that all those years of unhappy frustration at Strasbourg may well have been worth while. I recall to mind Sir Winston Churchill saying to me when he first launched the idea of a United Europe, "This will either catch fire or not"; and then, as an afterthought, he added, "Or it may smoulder for a time, and then blaze". I rather think that this is what is now happening.
This is my last word, and I do apologise for being so long; I will never be so long again, but in a sense it is an apologia pro vita mea. "There is a tide in the affairs of men". Do not let us forget that. We have not got too much time. For us the European tide is ebbing—I will not say fast, but it is ebbing, and certainly the ship has cast off. There is no longer time to wade in, to test the temperature of the water, and to come out if we do not like it when it gets up to our ankles. The time has come to jump.
5.28 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, when I came into your Lordships' House this afternoon a noble friend remarked that I was fighting the sixth bull. The trouble is that I am fighting the same old bull, Europa, which at least two of your Lordships have already fought with some skill this afternoon. The noble matador the Marquess of Lansdowne made some very graceful passes at it, although keeping a discreet distance from the bull. Now that great toreador of "telly", the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has left the ring after delivering the coup de grâce with his usual panache he went in right over the horns, armed with Mr. Anthony Nutting's sword. The trouble is that this poor—I was going to flatter myself and say "young"—middle-aged picador is left without a bull. However, I have some notes.
I am afraid I agree with those of your Lordships who have described our policy in and towards Europe since the war as a failure. I should like, with less knowledge than the noble Lord I follow, to glance at some of the reasons for that failure, not out of any academic or masochistic pleasure but because I think they may have some bearing on the future.
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To begin with, I believe that in the later 1940s we totally underestimated the underlying toughness and resilience of Western Europe. We also misjudged, I am afraid, the vitality of the European idea. With the renaissance of Europe, especially in the Six, so visible even to the casual tourist, our mistake is now quite clear. But behind these misconceptions lurk, I believe, deeper and more Freudian inhibitions and suspicions. We have feared a revival of Boche militarism. We have hesitated to be too mixed up with those volatile and possibly neutralist French and Italians. We have suffered acutely from what I might call the "Daily Express complex".
I believe these inhibitions to be pretty unrealistic. In my view, German youth to-day is non-militaristic and extremely European-minded. If I were asked to forecast whether France or Germany was likely to become the dominant partner in the Six, I personally would put my bet on France. But whether these qualms were justified or not, was the answer to try to insulate ourselves from Europe and from these capricious Europeans? If we feared the Germans and suspected the French, was not the sensible answer to bring Britain closer into Europe and to strengthen European institutions with the British presence?
I am sure that we conscientiously believed we could not marry Europe without divorcing America; but in fact it would have been quite possible for us to contract a perfectly respectable bigamous relationship with both at the same time. In my view we were wrong to think that our relationship with the United States would be impaired if we were to draw closer to Western Europe. On the contrary, it has been our very unwillingness to do precisely this which has caused so much American irritation. As I see it, the real truth of the matter—the heart of the matter—is that both America and Western Europe are vitally important to us. Nothing could be more fatal for us than if we were ever faced with a choice between the two. But I do not suppose for a moment that we are likely to be faced with this distressing option. The Six are firmly committed to the Atlantic Alliance. But if we have real doubts about this, surely the answer is not to edge away from Europe towards Ireland but rather, from

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the strongest position we can possibly win for ourselves within Europe, to do all we can to reinforce Atlantic institutions.
There is much in this post-Summit period which I think is well worth doing in this sphere. There are hardy annuals, like trying to put flesh and blood into the idea of military interdependence and trying to inject real life into the ritual of political consultation between the N.A.T.O. members. There is the task of bringing up the new Atlantic baby—the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a promising child—as quickly as possible. There are new possibilities, like the formation of an Atlantic Institute, which are coming up over the horizon.
A third misconception about Europe was even more fundamental, and stemmed, perhaps, from an instinctive, albeit outdated, view of the Commonwealth. I think we tended to regard the Commonwealth (as perhaps some of us still do) as a power unit, dispersed it may be, but of the same nature as the United States, Russia or indeed Europe. I believe it was this, more than anything else, which really prevented us from going into Europe when the going was good. Again, I hope your Lordships will not think I set a low value on the modern Commonwealth. I do not. It is a unique link, and not only for ourselves, with the New Asia and the New Africa. It is also a mixed forum of immense value where the great questions of the latter 20th century—problems of economic development and colour—can be debated and, we hope, resolved with reasonableness land moderation as between equals. But because I regard it in this light, I do not assume that our membership of this club need necessarily debar us from applying for membership of the European club. After all, some members of Brooks's are also members of Whites's—
LORD BOOTHBY: Not many, thank heavens!
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, the fourth factor which was at the root of our difficulties over the Six was the supra-national issue: our inability or our unwillingness to contemplate significant surrenders of national sovereignty to European institutions not under the ultimate control of this Parliament. That,
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I believe, is probably still the great residual problem. The noble Lord, Lord Strang, drew our attention to it yesterday.
These factors underlying our coyness towards Europe have one common characteristic. They are, in the main, political. I know that there have been important economic and technical difficulties, but these have not been the really determining ones. It is also true to say that, by and large, all these factors have been present in the post-war attitudes (I hesitate to use the word "thinking") towards Europe of the two major political Parties.
What of the position to-day? What if we of the Seven cannot reach a real accommodation with the Six? In that event the risks for us and for Europe are just as great as some of the previous speakers in this debate perhaps suggested. Equally so, the gains from a real accommodation would be worth a very high price. Economically, I believe that if we stay out there is a very real prospect that over the next decade or so the Six will drive our exports out of third market after third market. Equally so, if we get in, we shall share in their remarkable economic dynamism, to which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, drew attention. Do we wish to be a stranded whale on our off-shore Island? Would it not be better to bask prosperously in the Bay of Biscay? It is a very real question.
Politically, the potential dangers and the potential gains are equally great. Europe has already been sliced in half by the Russians. Do the Six and the Seven really wish to be reproached by history for having re-divided what was left? Put positively, is not the whole lesson of our century that the future lies with the big units—the big battalions like the United States, Russia and now China? Should not our aim, the aim of the Six and of the Seven, be to make Europe a unit of the same weight? And if it were possible to construct a closely knit Western Europe, might it not, over the long pull, exert an irresistible magnetic force upon the captive Europe of the East?
And what of our influence? I am inclined to think that now in 1960, twenty years after Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, our influence within Western Europe may be less than it was in the dark

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days of 1940. If the present trend continues, so will this drift. Is it an idle conjecture to suppose that at some Summit Conference in, say, 1980, we shall find the Big Five represented by the United States, the Six of Europe, Russia, China and India, whilst we are pensioned off by our richer European neighbours, a new Ireland of the Western world?
There is a further political danger in the present political situation on which I should like for a moment to focus your Lordships' attention. It is that we run the risk of exporting to our dependent or lately dependent territories, especially in Africa, the divisions we have allowed to emerge in Europe. As your Lordships know, the rival European Powers in the nineteenth century imposed a highly artificial pattern on slumbering Africa. It would be ironical if now, in the twentieth century, they were to distort the economies of that newly awakening continent.
It is very easy to say that the present state of our relations with Europe is rotten. It is easy enough to say that without a real accommodation with the Six the slide will continue. It is much more difficult to suggest precisely what we shall do about them—
LORD BOOTHBY: Join them.
EARL JELLICOE: It is possible that we shall secure some short-term accommodation through the Trade Committee of 21 in Paris. And it is nice to think that we can perhaps feel our way, stage by stage, first testing the temperature in Euratom, then in the Coal and Steel Community, before finally deciding to take the plunge in the Common Market. That may possibly be our immediate objective—I do not know. But, like other noble Lords, I must confess that I am sceptical now, when the going for us is no longer good, whether the Six will allow us to approach their shrine in this crabwise fashion. Perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Strang, suggested, we may be able to find some convenient halfway house. But the trend is towards merging the institutions of the Six, and I suspect that in the end it may turn out to be a question of "all or nothing".
LORD BOOTHBY: Hear, hear!
EARL JELLICOE: So I feel we must squarely face the question, "Should we
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or should we not go the whole hog and apply for membership of the European Economic Community?" I do not know the answer to that question; but I suspect, with other noble Lords, that so long as the Six continue to be an outward-regarding group, as they now are, our membership of that group should not prevent us from continuing to play our full rôle in the Commonwealth and in the Atlantic Alliance. Likewise, I think we must remember that under the Treaty of Rome we should have some fifteen years to complete the necessary structural changes in our national economy before the merger becomes complete—that is to say, twice the length of the Second World War.
Yet even if we can overcome most of these obstacles, two great obstacles will remain. The first is our membership of the European Free Trade Association. It may have or may not have been a mistake to create E.F.T.A. But the fact remains that it is now created and that we have our commitments and our responsibilities towards it. We cannot just shrug them off. I do not think that would do us any good in Europe or in the world.
Secondly, there is the great residual problem of the surrender of sovereignty, which the noble Lord, Lord Strang, probed yesterday. To what he said I would add only the following reflections. De facto and de jure, we have already in N.A.T.O. and in the W.E.U. undertaken commitments which involve an erosion of absolute national sovereignty. We have already expressed our willingness to examine the possibility of entering Euratom and the Iron and Steel Community. So supra-nationality in itself cannot be total anathema to us. And the Western disarmament proposals, of course, involve much more vital entrenchments on national sovereignty than do the provisions of the Rome Treaty. In any event, the noble Marquess, Lord Lansdowne, had rather tough things to say about national sovereignty this afternoon.
I personally should have thought that General de Gaulle's conception of a confederal Europe is one which should be acceptable to us. Nevertheless—and here I would part company with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby—we must recognise that the Gaullist concept of the new Europe is not that of Dr.

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Adenauer, let alone that of the Brussels technocrats. We must recognise that their very clear ambition is to convert the European Economic Community as soon as possible into a fully federal politico-economic unit. That is the supra-national high jump we may have to face. Admittedly, it may, in the event, turn out to be only 3 feet high. But I share the doubts of the noble Lord, Lord Strang, whether it would be wise or honest for us to enter the contest if we are not able to reach the Olympic qualifying standard.
My Lords, the atmosphere around the Six and the Seven is now a little lighter. I am glad that a breathing space has been won, and that the Government have apparently decided at the highest level to use this pause to re-examine the fundamentals of our policy towards Europe. I am convinced that that reexamination must be really drastic and long-term. We shall, I hope, approach it not in the sense of discovering what is the least we can get away with with the Six, but rather the most we can possibly offer. We must think not in terms of 1960, let alone 1930, as we have tended to, but in terms of 1990. A lot of "sacred cows" have been set up. If necessary, they need to be ruthlessly expelled from the cowsheds of Whitehall. Above all, this re-examination must not be conducted with too tender a regard for sectional interests. We really cannot base the fundamentals of British policy on the price of bacon or onions, or even orchids. This means, of course, a really thorough examination of policy. But this must not become an excuse for procrastination. Perhaps this is our last chance, as the noble Lord who preceded me suggested, of striking the right relationship with the hard core of Europe—the Six. But this is not a bus that will wait for ever and there are some pretty impatient drivers at the wheel, especially in Brussels. After all, we have already kept Europe waiting fifteen years at the church door.
May I, to conclude, make two small suggestions, neither of them novel? The negotiations which may lie ahead, and which I hope will lie ahead, will require great skill, perseverance and consistency. So will the initial preparations in Whitehall and any preliminary exchanges with the E.F.T.A. and Commonwealth countries which we may have. We just
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cannot fail again. First, I trust that the ultimate responsibility for the conduct of these initial preparations, and any subsequent negotiations, will be laid quite firmly at the door of the Foreign Office. They will impinge on all the great central issues of British foreign policy, and ultimately, in my un-Marxian opinion, all the really basic decisions to be taken are, in essence, political.
Secondly, I should hope that a very senior Foreign Office Minister would be specifically charged, under the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, with the job of handling the formulation and conduct of our policy in and towards Europe, and with nothing else. At present, as I understand it, this is not the case. I am sure that some clear-cut and exclusive definition of ministerial responsibilities towards Europe is absolutely necessary if our policy in and towards Europe is to be prosecuted with the essential consistency and priority.
My Lords, although there is from time to time on the Front Bench opposite us a splendid array of smoking volcanoes, the Opposition in this country is not at present really able to oppose, unfortunately. I believe that this makes it all the more essential that on this historic issue of British policy towards Europe in the last half of the twentieth century the Government should really govern. And give a clear, positive ead.
5.48 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, after the great speeches we have heard in this debate, I hope that I may be excused for a very slight contribution. At least it is short. I want to talk about Russia and Germany. Perhaps I may take as a text something which Mr. Khrushchev said when in Paris last month. He said he wanted friendship with the Germans
"But we do not want a recurrence of militarism which is very dangerous in Europe."
I believe that in this very revealing remark there may lie a clue to the amazing Russian behaviour in Europe since the war. I think that the Russians are still terribly, and reasonably, afraid of German Chauvinism, just as many of us are in this country who know the Germans well. I say unequivocally that we owe a debt to the Russians for keeping Germany apart—not that we should give them any credit for this because

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they have been acting only out of self-interest. But I believe that it is about the luckiest thing that has happened to us for a very long time.
This may not be a popular view, and it is not the official view of any political Party, but I would ask you to consider whether it is not in fact the truth. I do not wish to weary your Lordships with a list of crimes against humanity committed by the Germans during the last 15 years; the record is there. But I cannot forget them, and I can see no reason to doubt that this same people is capable of those same things all over again.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Earl? In speaking of crimes against humanity, would he not regard the Russian tyranny in Eastern Germany as a crime against humanity?
THE EARL OF ARRAN: Not in the sense of concentration camps, gas chambers, and all those things which we hate more than anything else.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: How would the noble Earl describe, for instance, the shooting of 60,000 Polish officers by the Russians in the forest of Katyn?
THE EARL OF ARRAN: The noble Viscount is referring, no doubt, to the Katyn massacre?
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: Yes.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: It has never been officially recognised who did this fearful and dreadful thing. The Foreign Office has never said who it was, or who did this
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: But why did the Russian Government not allow the International Red Cross to investigate?
THE EARL OF ARRAN: I just do not know the answer; I am merely saying that the cause of this fearful thing has still not been fully established.
EARL JELLICOE: While we are on this general subject, could I ask the noble Earl how he would regard the deportation of the Balkan and Crimean populations?
THE EARL OF ARRAN: I regard it as a frightful and shocking thing; but the German cruelty was a cold-blooded and organised cruelty, and I do not believe that the Russians work quite that way. These are two different kinds of cruelty: the savage cruelty of a primitive race and the organised cruelty of a cultured race which knew exactly what it was doing and did it.
Anyway, my Lords, I was saying that I thought that this fear was also shared by the Russians, and their experience of Germany is ten thousand times more than our own. It just occurred to me to wonder whether, in our future negotiations with them, we could not proceed with an openly acknowledged fear of another 1914 or another 1940. At present, both sides are in the humiliating position of having to play the rôle of suppliant to the former enemy. Russia woos East Germany; we woo West Germany. I think that if we were to stop doing this and were to say to the Russians, "While we do not like each other at all, we know at least where our mutual potential enemy lies", then I think it possible that we might be able to move forward together. I cannot believe that the Soviet Union wishes for a war: I know that the Western democracies do not. I believe that if we could come to terms with Russia over Germany, we should have gone a very long way towards securing that relaxation which we all so passionately desire. I put this out as a thought; one which I have held for a very long time, and which others much wiser and more knowledgeable than myself also hold. It is at least a possible key to the problems which keep us from peace.
5.54 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I was waiting for the noble Marquess, who I thought was going to intervene at this stage.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I apologise to the noble Viscount. My difficulty really was that I was kept at an official engagement, and I have heard practically nothing of the debate this afternoon. In these circumstances, I do not think it would be proper for me to intervene.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I am quite sure that that means that the noble Marquess considers that, after this very long debate

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of yesterday and to-day, and the variety of subjects that have been covered, both the Leader of the Opposition and the noble Earl the Leader of the House have pretty difficult tasks to perform; so perhaps I ought to be grateful that I have not to answer some new problems which might have been raised by the noble Marquess.
My Lords, we have had a very good debate for the last two days on these very important matters, and I am grateful to my noble friend for the manner in which he introduced our discussions from this side. Although the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, considers that the Opposition are at present smoking volcanoes—
EARL JELLICOE: I meant active smoking volcanoes.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: —they are not able to intervene apparently, in his view, in opposition at the present time. However, under his dictum we do not seem to come under the sentence which I think once came from the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, on to one of his Front Bench Members; that he was an extinct volcano! Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, with all that picturesque language and phraseology to which he has treated us to-day, could have added to those parts of the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe.
I want first of all to say a word about what were the basic features of the speech of my noble friend Lord Henderson—the Summit, the setback in international diplomatic relationships caused by the cancelled visit of the President of the United States of America to Japan, and the like. I feel that the case has been so thoroughly "inquested" to-day and yesterday in all parts of the House that it would not be worth my while to go over the various points that I had originally intended to cover. What I do say is this: that when excuses are specially made for the position of Mr. Khrushchev in the matter of the walkout from the Committee of ten, which has happened since, then I think we ought to have in mind that, whereas they came along on June 7 with a revised disarmament plan—a very important, very widespread plan, strangely changed in
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the order of the presentation of its various points—they came with the already unanimous agreement of all the satellite States; and it was pretty clear to me, at any rate, that that would have been the case whatever scheme had been submitted by the U.S.S.R. The U.S.S.R. are the dominant factor. There may be formal consultation, but, in fact, what they say has to go with all the others.
The difference between the presentation of these matters by the U.S.S.R. and by the free nations is this: that in the case of the free nations—both inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and outside that organisation—if you want to do things of this kind, with any hope of being realistic and of having lasting effect, you must have proper consultations with each of the free nations with which you are associating. In the circumstances, while I have felt many a time during debates on disarmament during the last two or three years that this or that country was dragging its feet unnecessarily, nevertheless I think it is absolutely essential, with a gathering of free nations, that there should be adequate consultation between the constituent members of an alliance such as N.A.T.O. before you finally put your last comments to the conference.
However, I feel that all the suggestions which have been made as to keeping calm and continuing negotiations wherever possible are absolutely sound. We certainly shall not gain anything by becoming panicky about the situation. That does not mean that we have too much time to waste. The pressure from our Government and from all other Governments should be such that our point of view is felt now by way of diplomatic submissions; because it might help, as one of my colleagues said yesterday, in view of the forthcoming Presidential Election in the United States of America and the fact that the incoming President will, as is usually the case, have to take some months to settle into the main question he has to handle internationally. It may be at least twelve months, and perhaps even longer, before there is an opportunity to have another meeting of the Summit character. I therefore want to emphasise especially the case that was made by my noble friend Lord Attlee, in his quite remarkable speech yesterday on world government: that, in the words that were used

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by him and by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, we ought in the meantime to do all the work we possibly can in the foothills before there is another Summit Meeting.
A number of other questions were touched on during the debate. I was particularly interested in the fact that three noble Lords yesterday touched on the coming visit of the Spanish Foreign Minister. May I say at once that I hope very much that his visit will prove to be of substantial importance; that he will be well received, and that it will lead to a further improvement of our relations with that country? That is the desire of all of us. In view of some of the matters raised by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, I wonder whether he felt he had been quite fair to those who are critics of Spain. An article appeared in the Catholic Times last Friday, June 24, with this heading:
"The Franca Régime is un-Christian."
The article said that a petition had been submitted to the Government with the names of 340 priests from the Basque Province, urging that much more should be done in Spain to secure liberty and better treatment. After some of the things I have said in the last few years, I appreciate enormously the fact that my noble friend Lord Pakenham has actually been in Spain and made direct representations to the dictator, Señor Franco. We have seen one or two cases where evangelical places of worship in Madrid which had been closed down have been reopened.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, may I inform the noble Viscount on the matter he has just mentioned, this alleged protest of 300 Catholic priests? The fact is that no Catholic priests have signed any protest at all. One of the bishops to which it was addressed has confirmed that 300 names were on it but no signatures, and that since then one of the priests who was alleged to have signed it has written to the Bishop of Pamplona saying that he had never signed any protest and had never heard of it. I have not seen the Catholic Times, because I have been abroad, and in any case I do not subscribe to it. But for the noble Viscount's information these are the facts.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I should like to see something more supporting in evidence than that some bishop has said that this was the position. It would be interesting to get to-morrow's edition of the Catholic Times and see whether there is any withdrawal of the specific statements in the article from which I am quoting. Certainly I know that there is a serious state of affairs in Spain, with strong feelings among the population about the restrictions on their liberty, and not least about the restrictions on their religious liberty. I am profoundly grateful to my noble friend Lord Pakenham for the representations he has made and to know that there has been some little result. In these days we must all want to develop all we can religious freedom and religious toleration.
The noble Earl, Lord Craven, said yesterday that he was impressed by the fact that in Spain Communism had been beaten. He did not go on to tell us what he meant by the beating, but some of us remember that the neutrality during the war to which the noble Earl referred was with the idea of keeping Gibraltar away from any dispute; and we remember that under the so-called neutrality we had the presence of the Spanish Blue Division assisting the Germans in their main campaign.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount is making some rather sweeping statements. Does he suggest that the Blue Division would have been employed against the British, the Americans or the French? Would he agree with me that they were employed only against Soviet Russian troops?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, this régime, which has been ardently defended by the noble Lord, was capable at one moment in the years 1936 to 1938 of having Hitler's and Mussolini's troops in Spain to defeat the opponents of their dictatorship and were willing to send the Blue Division to assist the dictators in their war operations.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount is still incorrect. The support which the Nationalist side received came to Spain well after support had been sent to the other side by the

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Communists. The second was the result of the first. That is the fact.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I well remember the position. I remember speaking at the American Council of Foreign Relations on September 1, 1956. My memory is fairly good, and I am taking these two facts together. I would remind the noble Lord that Russia was our Ally when Spain sent the Blue Division. Does he approve of that?
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, at no stage in the war was Russia our Ally. They happened to be fighting the same people we were fighting.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I think the noble Lord had better go back and read the broadcasts made by the Prime Minister, whose leadership has been so well described by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. I hope that when noble Lords get up and make the kind of speeches made yesterday on Spain, they will try to take all sides into consideration, because it is essential that we should get the facts straight.
I should like now to say a word about another matter which has occupied a great deal of your Lordships' attention in this debate—that is, our position with regard to Europe. In general, the position of the Commonwealth in regard to this matter was referred to only occasionally. In his eloquent and impassioned speech, the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, spoke on this question and expressed the view that if something had been done at a particular time, the Commonwealth would probably have been willing to join in, and things could have been arranged. I do not know whether the noble Lord still reads the prominent Commonwealth papers—I know that he used to do so—but perhaps he read an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail of June 15, which would certainly have pleased him in one respect. This article said that the Commonwealth, the Six and E.F.T.A. are all concerned about indications that this country is now trying to get into the Six. They asked a very disturbing question: what is likely to be the effect of this upon Commonwealth trade? Canada is a rapidly developing country. It is true that she is very much crossed with American capital investment, but she is very much concerned about her trade
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direct with Europe and with the Commonwealth at large.
As I understood the article—I speak from memory, but my thoughts went back to it as I listened to the noble Lord—the Canadians send about 24 per cent. of their exports to Europe. They point out that in fact in the last twelve months or so the German nation, just one of the Six, have increased their exports to the Commonwealth by 10 per cent., while in the same period British exports to the Commonwealth declined by 5 per cent. They think that with the moving all through the various promised stages of development that the Common Market have in view they will be coming to an external tariff, and the Dominion of Canada—and they may well be followed by Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in this matter—will be wondering exactly how that external tariff is going to affect them.
Incidentally, when all these statements are made about our joining the Common Market from the point of view of business and investment, I think we might sometimes remember of what importance the Commonwealth market is to us, and the enormous investments that we have in our own Commonwealth. While I fully realise the importance of developing on the freest possible basis the trade in Europe, and of taking advantage of every possibility of developing really good political integration in thought, in will and in common purpose, that is quite another matter, it seems to me, from going as far as has been suggested by the noble Lord in his speech—although I am bound to say that I recognise that he has never held any other view upon this matter than he has expressed this afternoon. But when he attacks the Labour Government's position of 1945 to 1950, when we were trying to turn what was an internationally bankrupt position in our own country—we not only having tremendously overspent our current earnings right through the war, but having spent £45,000 million to £50,000 million in the war; and also having a debt of nearly £30,000 million—
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, if the noble Viscount will forgive me for interrupting, I am sure he will admit that I attacked the Conservative Governments just as vehemently as the Labour Government, if not even more vigorously. I

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would also remind the noble Viscount that the Labour Government, under the terms of the American Loan in 1945, offered to eliminate Imperial Preference altogether.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I do not happen to be so good in my memory on that point as I have been on others, but I will look it up with the greatest of pleasure. It certainly did not happen.
LORD BOOTHBY: No; the whole thing broke down.
VISCOUNT STANSGATE: It was Mr. Winston Churchill who opposed Imperial Preference in the most vehement terms in 1907.
LORD BOOTHBY: So did you.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Let me continue, if I may, upon this Common Market business. I should welcome at any time the development of trade and commerce used as a means of cementing friendship and general goodwill and common purpose. But the noble Lord has admitted, and the general statement is made, that the Common Market now, the E.E.C., has become a great political issue; and apparently the noble Lord thinks that upon that you can develop quite rapidly all sorts of other political developments. If I read aright in my mind (I hope I have done) what is likely to develop along that way, I should say that before long you would be asked to have a European Parliament, as such—not merely the kind of meetings you have been having at Strasbourg—and by direct elections; and decisions taken there, on a vastly wider basis than have ever yet been contemplated, would be in control of our ultimate policy, and would certainly affect any Government (that is why I am cautious at the moment; I say no more than that) that believed sincerely that whatever they did for the best of their country could never really be the best unless there was a planned economy for the benefit of its own community. Therefore, I cannot feel, in spite of all the applause that the noble Lord got, sometimes even from my own Benches, that we can rush quite so quickly as he seemed to imagine that we ought to do.
The other point is this. It is probably fair to say that there is a reason-
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able charge to be made against the Government of his Party, who, having been so exceedingly prominent in bringing up the whole of the matter under discussion away back in the late 'forties, and with strong pressure from Mr. Winston Churchill at that time for what he wanted, have dragged their feet from achieving the object which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, so desperately wishes to achieve. On the other hand, I think that the E.F.T.A. organisation might well be used to our advantage. And yet it has been charged that the only reason why the British Government went into the formation of E.F.T.A. was in order to try to force a way into the Common Market Six.
The noble Earl the Leader of the House is going to reply presently. I rather gathered from some words that fell from him yesterday that he is likely to think on this matter as I do, but I should like him to say so specifically: that having made such a vastly improved Treaty arrangement with E.F.T.A., and being, after all, the most prominent Power in that association, we ought not to be asked to carry out, and certainly ought not to carry out, the operation of saying that we are joining the Common Market Six whether or not the others are going to be admitted; that, having entered into that honourable organisation, we can as a country and as a Government speak only on behalf of all the Seven at once. If it becomes a question of "crashing in", as some people describe into the Common Market Six, I am certain that anybody is well entitled to say that that does not lead us anywhere. Yet it does not get us out of the difficult position which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, was talking about—although I did not agree with the dire prospect that he painted if we did not happen to get into the Common Market Six—of becoming an elephant on an off-shore Island—
LORD BOOTHBY: A whale.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: Yes, a whale. It is a picturesque phrase, but it has no relation to the economic facts. We should not be just pushed off with things like that. I am going to suggest, first of all, that there is strong opposition in the Common Market Six to our admission: and it is not wholly economic; it is political, as

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well. I am not going into the details of that now, although if I had more time I should be glad to do so. I have not the time, owing to my other appointments this evening. But they are against us politically. Jean Monnet has been a prominent advocate and organiser of the Common Market Six from the beginning, as well as of the Coal and Steel Community and Euratom ideas. I am certain that he is not in favour of our coming in.
LORD BOOTHBY: I am sure that he is in favour of our coming in.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: He is in favour?
LORD BOOTHBY: Yes.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: All the reservations, and so on, that I have listened to have not led me to think in that way at all.
I would say that there are certain other things that might be done. First of all, I cannot see that we should have any real ground for quarrelling inside E.F.T.A. if, on a particular commodity, we were able to get the kind of Treaty which Denmark has already, I think, with Western Germany. I do not think we could grumble that anyone on E.F.T.A. has the right to look after a particular commodity understanding or agreement from that point of view. But, as regard to the attitude of Canada and the United States when the external tariff comes in, I think that we should have at least some idea of what we ought to do. I believe that the United States and Canada will probably follow the same kind of policy.
When the noble Marquess was speaking this afternoon, I tried to get from him some idea as to what had been the view of the Commonwealth Premiers when possibly they were discussing this matter, but, of course, at that stage I could not get an answer. It seems to me that Canada is most likely to "chip in" with the United States action with regard to the European market, and to make the best effort they can to get over the external tariff which is to be allowed the Common Market Six. I think, therefore, that we ought ourselves to join with them, perhaps using the influence of the whole of the Outer Seven to say, "If you are going to have an extraordinary tariff,
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it ought at least to be not so high as to injure the trade of both sides, and ought to be the kind of tariff which will enable us still to sell our goods". That is another method which we could employ at the present time, and I hope that the noble Earl the Leader of the House may be able to say something about it.
In view of the time, I shall say nothing more except upon one subject which is of considerable concern to me, and that is the general position in the Middle East. There has been a considerable silence during the debate of the last two days about the Middle East. It looks as if we have come to a stalemate in mind and thought as to what can be done about the general situation. I do not know whether any of my noble friends or noble Lords opposite read from time to time, as I do (I read it almost every week), a paper called the Jewish Observer. It certainly keeps me thinking constantly about the situation in the Middle East.
Last week, this paper pointed out again that the Middle East is certainly taking a changing place in the general structure of the international position. The headline said that it might be described as the end of the Middle East. That would be far too broad a brush with which to paint a picture of the situation. That is not so. But in fact the whole oil supply position in the world has changed so rapidly in the last three years that the discoveries in the Middle East are far less than have been going on, apparently, in other parts of the world. You have the new discoveries in Africa coming into supply. The Russians themselves have developed so many wells in Russia, and have developed such an extraordinary pipeline system from East to West across the Soviet Republic, as to change largely the prospects of the oil position in the world to-day. How far it has brought any check upon Russian ambitions in the Middle East is another matter.
I feel very deeply the loss of the great political influence and leadership which this country had in the Middle East. When we consider that our British trade is suffering, as well as the Israeli nation itself, from the constant and continuous boycott under the orders of Nasser and all those who are combined with him, it seems a poor return to this country for the initiation (which I think was at the

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instance of Mr. Anthony Eden, as he then was) of the Arab League. There is the boycott going on. Here is the traffic through the canal to and from Israel stopped altogether. Here are the complaints to the United Nations, with decisions arrived at. Nothing happens. We go on suffering in trade, Israel is boycotted, and the situation goes almost from bad to worse.
We have been watching with intense interest for the last couple of years the developments in Iraq and the possible suggestion that Kassem was going to break up the power of Nasser in that area. In the last two or three weeks there seems to be an idea that Kassem and Nasser can make peace between themselves and get back more to the operation of the old basis of the Arab League. All this—as a result, perhaps, of the policy which we adopted at the time of the Suez crisis—leaves us without any real influence or leadership in the Middle East. Of course, that means the spreading of our available forces in the area to carry any kind of authority to any diplomacy we may enter. I should like to hear from the Government to-day what is their present view of the situation in the Middle East and what is being done to bring it home to the United Nations at large to get some action taken to try to stop this deliberate insult to the rest of the world by refusing passage to Israeli ships through what has been always an international free waterway. I think that is a scandalous position, and I hope very much that the Government will be able to say that they will continue to bring pressure to bear in regard to that.
I would say this in conclusion. I should like to think that what my noble friends, Lord Pakenham, Lord Attlee and others have said about world government was something which could be accomplished very quickly. I have doubts whether it could be on anything like the breadth of territory which some people to whom I speak about world government seem to think would be covered by it. I have never departed from the view which I expressed to the House in 1934 and in the John Clifford lecture, which was entitled, The World Court; the Way to Peace. The first way to approach some form of development of world govern-
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ment at the present time is to get all the States in the United Nations to agree to a World Court, with the decisions of that Court to be made and accepted by the constituents, and, if they are not accepted, there should be a Police Force able to enforce them. You cannot possibly ask nations of the world to go wider and wider into arrangements written on a piece of paper with regard to world government, unless, as my noble friend Lord Attlee said, you are able at the same time to give them some basis of security—and security is fundamental. On that point I would add that the interruption of the noble Earl yesterday of my noble friend Lord Henderson seemed to me to be very important.
I would just say this to the noble Earl: I do not want him to be under any misapprehension as to where the Labour Party official policy is on defence; I do not want him to be under any misapprehension. We have seen the great, almost boastful, changes made in the policy of the Government in 1957, relying much more upon the nuclear deterrent and intended to make economies in the overall defence budget by reducing conventional forces. Now you have stopped the very expensive venture, which had already been on for a long time, of the production of Blue Streak, and you have given up your own independent production of a nuclear deterrent. But, you have, it is said, the stand-off bomb which can be delivered by aeroplane; and you have the V-bomber force.
My first point to the noble Earl, in view of his interruption yesterday, is this. We certainly do not intend to give up or throw away the existing nuclear deterrent that you have—certainly not. When we come to the question of what should be the future position, then we say that, having led us into this position, and having already had to spend far more than you could really afford, apparently, from the crises you get from time to time in finance, on Blue Streak, you are now asking us to believe that you will have an independent possession of a nuclear weapon which has never yet come off the drawing board, let alone anything else; a weapon which is not due to be delivered for years ahead, of which no tests have been taken, on which you have no actual evidence at

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the present time that can give you confidence that it is going to be a really good nuclear deterrent. So I say now, in view of the changed circumstances, it remains true that as long as the U.S.S.R. and her satellites claim that a nuclear weapon is necessary to them, so long this country will have, in company with its Allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the nuclear reply, until you can get agreement under a really controlled disarmament.
I hope that I have made the point perfectly clear to the noble Earl the Leader of the House, but it certainly means that we should not at the present stage propose to go in ourselves for research and production of that type of nuclear weapon. That is the policy. It leaves us absolutely in the right position of not letting down the defence of our country. We are sorry that the action of the Conservative Government has led us into the position in which we have had to make this decision.
I should like to thank all my noble friends on this side of the House who have taken part in the debate and all other Members who have taken part in the debate. I hope that, when we have listened to the noble Earl the Leader of the House to-night, we shall go away with more confidence and hope with regard to the future than when we came to the debate. That certainly is the kind of intention we had in mind.
6.34 p.m.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, as the noble Viscount has said, it is not an easy task to wind up a debate of this kind, but two days have enabled your Lordships to review and weigh some of the great problems which face the United Kingdom, which face the Free World, and to have a look at their wider implications for mankind. All the speeches that we have heard—and I think I have heard nearly all of them—have made a most telling contribution to our thoughts on these matters and on the issues we are trying to solve. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, must feel that his Motion was timely and be rewarded by the quality of the response.
The broad subjects have really, I think, selected themselves: the chal
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lenge to Governments and to statesmen in the world to-day to try to break the grip of fear which has fastened itself on world society—the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and a number of other speakers yesterday. Of course, the problem of fear is almost as old as man, and we know, and I need not name, the places in which we see fear operating in the world to-day; there are fears between peoples and races the roots of which are deep in history and where the situations are still unreconciled. I suppose the world could go on living with fear, although the evidence of history is that it erupts from time to time into war, but a very powerful case can be made to-day that the fear of war and the fear of the consequences of war have perhaps overridden the fear of men for each other. I think it is true to say, therefore, that the annihilating power of bombs and rockets has made men pause before they fight and that the existence of the nuclear deterrent has prevented war. If you were to abolish the nuclear bomb to-morrow I believe that war would be nearer than it is to-day.
On the other hand, with all the paraphernalia of nuclear armaments as they accumulate, the rockets, the sputniks, the submarines that go under the sea for months at a time and cannot be located, the possible widening of the circle of nations who can make fissile material and therefore arm themselves with bombs, do we feel sure in our own minds that in these circumstances security will hold? I think it is possible, more than possible, that an armaments competition can gain a kind of momentum of its own which Governments of the world will perhaps find it almost impossible to arrest. Therefore, although I admit that the nuclear deterrent is a safeguard of peace, I myself have felt that, nevertheless, provided we always accept the fact that any reductions in armaments must retain the balance of power between East and West, the world will be a safer place if we can reduce the levels both of conventional weapons and of nuclear weapons. And there will be more confidence in the world in this security if, concurrently with that, we can insert an international machinery of inspection and control which will make the extra security a reality. Therefore, while I

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feel the deterrent is playing an essential part in maintaining the peace, nevertheless I believe that we should pursue with all our might policies to try to achieve balanced disarmament.
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and a number of other noble Lords, yesterday talked to us a great deal about world government. The question I always want to ask is: how do they propose to begin? It is no use thinking in a sort of pink cloud of benevolence and magnanimity. You must do something to start the process towards world government. And surely world government or world authority, whatever word you use, must have two ingredients. There must be a code of conduct established, and some international body to adjudicate upon it. Secondly, surely, there must be an international instrument to make sure that the findings are obeyed. One attempt was made. I believe the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, was present when the Charter of the United Nations was devised. Many months and many good minds were spent upon perfecting it; and therefore the world has made one attempt to establish a code of conduct. If your Lordships will look at the Charter of the United Nations I believe you will find that it is not a bad code of conduct for international relations.
Again, the instrument to enforce a decision of the United Nations and peacefully to settle disputes was set up in the form of the Security Council. I will not go into the reasons why the Charter of the United Nations has not led to a better code of international conduct, or why the Security Council has failed as an instrument to ensure peace. But I have a strong feeling that it is not the fault of the rules; that the rules are well written, but that no rule will work unless the great Powers who command the strength are really prepared to work them.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, that is the real fallacy. The noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said that the statesmen should get together and say that there will be no more war and that they wish to organise peace. I believe the right
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honourable gentleman the Prime Minister, at least, has played a considerable and constructive part in doing just what the noble Lord asked to-day.
LORD BEVERIDGE: Exactly. I entirely agree.
THE EARL OF HOME: But I am afraid it takes more than one to settle these matters, and therefore I should have thought that while we must continue to try to get the statesmen together to attempt to abolish war, nevertheless, concurrently, we must do some useful work on what the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, yesterday called the "foothills". It seems that we have in being one Conference from which results may be obtained. If we could bring results from that, with the co-operation of the Russians, that would lead on to a wider move. I mean, of course, the Conference on nuclear tests, where the differences are narrow. If we could establish an agreement and get a system of inspection and control established on the ground and seen by the Russians to be working, they might then lose some of their historic obsession with espionage and see that international machinery can be established which will achieve results that they and we want to see.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl this question? What some of us who support world government are anxious to obtain from Her Majesty's Government is a direct declaration that they favour world government as a principle and an ideal. But from the noble Earl to-day, as on previous occasions, we have not had that assurance, although we have had it, in a personal sense, from the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who is a high Minister in the Government.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, it is rather like saying that one is in favour of Utopia. I myself have no objection to saying I am in favour of world government—
LORD PAKENHAM: I am much obliged to the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF HOME: But I want to make progress on that, and there is a long, long way to go before we get world government. It is much more practical to start on the lower level and to try to work up.

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The noble Lord, Lord Casey, will forgive me if I do not follow him closely into a very large problem, which, as he truly said, had close relationship to the problems of peace and war—namely, the expansion of population in Asia measured against the potential food supply. The noble Lord talked of the Indian Five Year Plan. I believe the extent of that Plan is not yet settled. From the Indians' point of view it will have to depend on their calculations as to the rupee resources they can make available, and on the external resources which can be mobilised to meet the gap. The United Kingdom, I think, has done a lot. I would only issue this warning: if we overspend overseas and, as a result, weaken international confidence in the pound sterling, then we shall have done a great disservice to the Commonwealth and to India. But within the limits we have at our disposal we wish to help India with her Plan, as we have done in the past.
Then I would turn to the second great subject of the debate—namely, the question of the relationship of the United Kingdom, of the European Free Trade Association, and of the Commonwealth to Europe. Yesterday we heard a speech from the noble Marquess, Lord Lothian, and to-day we heard powerful speeches from the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and my noble friend Lord Boothby. He gave us the history of efforts to promote European union since the war, a most interesting account, illustrated by quotations from various authorities of which clearly he preferred his own. It was a speech which I thought could certainly entitle him to claim that he had been consistent over a great many years and that he had shown considerable foresight and perhaps wisdom. On that I reserve judgment just for the moment.
LORD BOOTHBY: Could not the noble Earl just withdraw the word "perhaps"?
THE EARL OF HOME: Not yet. I shall study the noble Lord's speech with great care. Clearly, most powerful arguments can be given for the United Kingdom drawing closer to Europe. The world has suffered enormously from the political divisions of Europe; and so has the Commonwealth. The economy of Europe is clearly expanding very fast,
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relatively faster than that of any other area in the world: and we should like to do everything we possibly can, within wisdom, to help Europe to a new economic and political cohesion.
If we approach the Common Market with caution, that is no real excuse for anyone to say, or Europeans to feel, that we are sabotaging the efforts of the Six. We have never intended to do that, nor have we ever intended to make our membership of the Seven anything more than an attempt to build a bridge between the Seven and the Six. The point on which I thought the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, fell into error was when he described our membership of the Seven and membership of the Commonwealth as giving alibis to the Government. We have no wish for an alibi, but surely one has to show great caution and concern when considering the effects of any new arrangements in the realisation that the Commonwealth is in itself a great political and economic structure which is exercising great influence in the world, and that the basis of the political strength of the Commonwealth is very largely built on free entry for foodstuffs and raw materials into the United Kingdom and preferential treatment for manufactures.
The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, quite truly said that our exports to Europe were 14 per cent. of our total export trade. Let me give him some figures of what imports into the United Kingdom from the Commonwealth mean to Commonwealth countries. Imports of food, beverages and tobacco from the Commonwealth countries into the United Kingdom last year were worth £721 million—or 47 per cent. of our total imports of those commodities. All those came in by the means of free entry into the United Kingdom. Secondly, there is the question of basic materials. Imports of them last year amounted to £426 million, 46 per cent. of the total; and on all of those, on that large sum, the Commonwealth countries were of course given preference. That shows that our Commonwealth trade is something which we must think of with great care, and so must the Commonwealth countries. When the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, says, "Will the Commonwealth 'want in'?" and uses that homely Scottish phrase, I would say that, like Scotsmen, too, they want to know what they are in for.

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In answer, therefore, to the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition when he says, "What is the Commonwealth view of the closer association of the United Kingdom and the Seven with the Six?", I think the Commonwealth view may fairly be stated to be this: that they have suffered from the political division of Europe and the wars there have been in Europe, and therefore they want to do everything they properly can to contribute to the political cohesion of Europe; and they are willing themselves to make certain sacrifices, for instance in the preferential system, if that will help the United Kingdom to strengthen her economy by coming closer to Europe. But they will want to see what "actual proposals" mean. And, of course, at the time of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference we had not been able to measure, and we still cannot measure, what would be the price of coming closer to Europe.
These matters are all being examined and re-examined. All I want to say is that our membership of the Seven means this. We are in close touch with the Seven and we will negotiate along with the Seven; and we are members of the Commonwealth, and at every stage in the consideration of how we might get closer to Europe we will take the Commonwealth with us in consultation. I am not saying whether a plan can be devised—frankly, I do not know—to which the Commonwealth could give full support. But the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, may be quite sure that we are examining these matters with the full knowledge of how important these subjects are for the future of this country, both economically and politically, and that we are working on them in association with our comrades in the Seven and with our partners in the Commonwealth.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, and the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough—and this is the last thing I have to say—in the speeches they have made to-day, I think found considerable common ground with most of your Lordships who have talked on the matters of policy towards Russia and of defence and foreign policy; and I think there is considerable agreement as to how we should
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proceed to try to resolve the immediate difficulties following on the collapse of the Summit and the Russian boycott of the Disarmament Committee. And the whole House, I believe, would like to see us, as I said yesterday, persevere to try to get results and to try to persuade the Russians of the advantages that would come from tackling the disarmament problem in a practical way now.
The noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, analysed the Communist techniques. I think most of us would agree with his analysis. He came to the conclusion that there should be no unilateral disarmament so long as there was a threat to peace, and the way to meet the threat was collective defence. To that, the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, added just now an account of the Labour Party's defence policy. I am glad that I found a day in the calendar when a Labour Leader could tell me exactly what it is. I now understand what it is. I am not going to quarrel with him on the details. I understand from him, quite plainly, that the Labour Party approve of collective defence, approve of our Alliances, of keeping close to America, and approve that there must be a nuclear element in our defence so long as the Russians have it. That represents very considerable common ground, I think, with the Government's approach.
And so, my Lords, I think we may conclude this debate, and I believe I can truly say it has been helpful to the Government, very helpful, to have the problems of Europe analysed by those people who have given a great part of their lives to these problems and to trying to help us to understand them. It has been very helpful that we have been able to receive the support of the House in trying to recover from the difficulties following from the failure of the Summit and the collapse of the Disarmament Committee. And I should hope the debate has shown, on the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, that in these essential matters of foreign policy there is a large common ground between us and we can go forward with a national policy.
6.56 p.m.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, we are very grateful to the noble Earl the Leader of the House for the speech he

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has just delivered. He has had quite a task in this debate in having to deliver two speeches. I do not propose to follow hint in that matter. But I was very glad to hear the noble Earl the Leader of the House, and my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, say that this debate has been both valuable and constructive, and has covered many issues. I think that every speech I have heard—and I have heard most of them—has made its own contribution to our debate.
There have been 24 or 25 speakers. I would like to make only one personal reference. We had among those speakers the noble Lord, Lord Casey, who was until recently the Minister for External Affairs in Australia. We all recognise from his speech this afternoon how highly informed and experienced he is in a part of the world which is of very great importance to all of us, and I am sure that we all look forward to hearing further contributions from him in our international affairs debates. There are one or two points I should have liked to make comments on, but we have had nearly two days on the debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, is waiting very patiently to proceed with his Bill. I think it would be in accordance with the wishes of all noble Lords if I now brought the debate to a firm conclusion and asked permission to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CORPORATE BODIES' CONTRACTS BILL
6.58 p.m.
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

CLEAN RIVERS (ESTUARIES AND TIDAL WATERS) BILL
Amendments reported (according to Order).

NOISE ABATEMENT BILL
7.0 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill, which my honourable friend Mr.
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Rupert Speir, the Member of Parliament for the Hexham Division, introduced in another place. He had the support of Members of all Parties; and in the debate on the Second Reading Her Majesty's Government, through the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, welcomed the Bill. After the Second Reading, indeed, my honourable friend had the invaluable help of the officials of that Ministry, and of Parliamentary Counsel. The result is a Bill which, though modest in scope, I confidently commend to the approval of this House. As one who worked for many years with the first Lord Horder in the cause of noise abatement, I am happy to be associated with the improvement of the law which this Bill proposes, but I do not wish to exaggerate its effect. I propose to explain very briefly its main purpose and effect, and then, if necessary, to answer at the end of the debate such questions as noble Lords may wish to nut to me.
My Lords, there are two main ways in which noise may come within the control of the law: first, a noise may be affected, directly or indirectly, by an express statutory provision; secondly, it may be a nuisance at Common Law. To deal first with statutory provisions, there are two main classes which are of importance to the cause of noise abatement. First, there are the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations made under Section 64 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. I mention the consolidating Statute, but, of course, we have been familiar with such regulations for 30 years or more. Some of those regulations are of great importance when we are considering noise. They are the regulations which deal with fitting a silencer, with the use and maintenance of a silencer, with driving with excessive noise, and with the obligation to stop the engine when the car is stationary. Those are examples of regulations affecting noise. These regulations are not in any way affected by this Bill.
The second main class of statutory provisions affecting noise are to be found in the by-laws made by county councils and the councils of boroughs under Section 249 of the Local Government Act, 1933, and other Acts. Local authorities are thus enabled to make by-laws for good rule and government

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and the suppression of nuisance. The Home Office model by-laws contain a considerable number dealing with noise—for example, with music near houses, music near churches, music near hospitals, wireless loudspeakers, noisy hawking and noisy animals. All those topics have been dealt with by by-laws. This useful by-law-making power remains undiminished and unaffected by this Bill. That is expressly provided by Clause 4. In addition to those two main sets of statutory regulations, there are a number of particular sections of particular Acts which also regulate or prevent particular noises. A good example is contained in an Act which received the Royal Assent very recently indeed. Section 7 of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960, prohibited aerial advertising—a matter of direct benefit to the cause of noise abatement.
Apart from such statutory provisions, noise comes within the scope of the law only if it is an actionable nuisance at Common Law. In general, noise can be restrained, if at all, only if private individuals seek an injunction in the courts. That brings me to the important change in the law proposed by Clause 1 of this Bill. This clause does not make anything an actionable nuisance which is not an actionable nuisance already, but it does provide a new remedy. Perhaps, in a slight diversion, I may here deal with a point put to me in conversation by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Leicester. He had hoped to speak in this debate but could not; and I should like to deal shortly with the point he raised. He feared that the effect of Clause 1 of the Bill might be to stop the normal use of church hells. I think I can reassure him. The present Bill does not make the ringing of church bells a statutory nuisance except in a case in which the courts would already hold that there was an actionable nuisance at Common Law. In fairness, perhaps, to the right reverend Prelate, I should mention to the House, or to the non-legal Members of the House, that there was a rather exceptional case in the year 1851, reported, under the title Saltau v. De Held, in volume 61 of the English Reports at page 291, in which an injunction was granted to restrain the ringing of the bells of a Roman Catholic Church so as to occasion a
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nuisance. If the right reverend Prelate would refer to that case, or would have a word with me about it, I think he will find, if he studies the judgment, that there is nothing to cause him alarm.
My Lords, if a noise or vibration is a nuisance at Common Law, the first clause of this Bill makes it a statutory nuisance subject to Part III of the Public Health Act, 1936. Under that Part of that Act and this clause, the local authority will be able to require the abatement of the nuisance by abatement notices served on the persons causing the nuisance, or on the owners and occupiers of premises on which nuisances arise. Such a notice, if not complied with, can be enforced by the local authority by proceedings in a magistrates' court. Further, complaints can be made by any three or more persons who, as occupiers of land or premises, are aggrieved by the nuisance.
I do not wish to go through all these clauses in detail, because any points that any noble Lord wishes to raise I can deal with in reply. But it may be convenient if I say that, under subsection (3), it is provided that in the case of noise or vibration caused in the course of a trade or business it is a defence to prove that the best practical means have been used for minimising the effect of the noise or vibration. This will provide a defence similar to that provided under Section 94 (5) of the Public Health Act, 1936, in respect of dust or effluvia.
My Lords, the whole of Clause 1 is based on a model clause for inclusion in local Acts, and a number of local authorities, including nine county councils, have provisions on these lines in their local acts. Among these authorities are the London County Council, the Buckinghamshire, Cheshire, Essex and Middlesex County Councils and, among county boroughs, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Croydon and Portsmouth. The Bill makes an improvement on the model clause by including vibration and by substituting the simple words "which is a nuisance" for a much longer and clumsier description of noise contained in the model clause. In effect, it may fairly be said that Clause 1 of the present Bill gives local authorities throughout the country an improved version of the powers already enjoyed by many of them under local Acts.

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The other main clause of the Bill, Clause 2, limits the use of loudspeakers in streets. It prohibits their use for any purpose between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. and prohibits their use at any other time for advertising any entertainment, trade or business. Subsection (2) contains a number of exemptions, and subsection (3) exempts a loudspeaker used by hawkers of perishable commodities, notably ice cream vendors, to announce their presence. The exemption applies only if the loudspeaker is operated so as not to annoy. Perhaps I should inform your Lordships that it was this subsection that, almost alone in the whole measure, gave rise to some controversy in another place. The promoter indicated on the last day when the Bill was discussed that this subsection would be further considered, and I can inform your Lordships that we may well find that we can further improve it when the Committee stage of this Bill is reached, perhaps by defining the hours during which the exemption shall operate.
Those are the main provisions of the Bill. It does not affect motor traffic noises, which are dealt with by regulations of the Ministry of Transport. It does not deal with aircraft noise, an immensely difficult subject, which could not possibly be tackled by a Private Member's Bill of this description. As your Lordships are aware, my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham, the Minister for Science, recently set up a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. A. H. Wilson, F.R.S., with these terms of reference:
"To examine the nature, sources and effects of the problem of noise and to advise what further measures could be taken to mitigate it."
When that Committee reports we should be in a better position to plan more far-reaching legislation. Meanwhile, I hope that this House will approve this modest and useful measure and pass it quickly into law. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Conesford.)
7.15 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, your Lordships will wish me to say a few words about the Government's attitude to this Bill. As the noble Lord,
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Lord Conesford, has said in introducing the Bill, it is in some respects typical of the way in which our legislation advances. We have here a modest measure, introduced in another place by a Private Member, which gives general effect to provisions which have for some time been in force in a number of areas up and down the country under local Acts. When Mr. Speir introduced this measure in another place, he was at pains to point out that it did not amount to a comprehensive code to deal with noise in all the forms in which it assaults us these days, but that is not to say that the Bill is not valuable in its limited approach.
Modern inventions have led to a great increase of noise. We have all, presumably, our own opinions about the most devilish—pneumatic drills, aircraft, motor-bikes and whatever it may be. Indeed, the feeling has grown up in recent years that the level of noise we have to endure to-day must ultimately have an effect on our health and wellbeing, if not actually on our sanity. It was because of this that my noble and learned friend the Minister for Science set up a Committee under Mr. Wilson, as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has said, to go into the whole problem of noise. I should like to assure your Lordships that the Committee's terms of reference will enable them to carry out the widest possibly inquiry. So, though all of us may have strong views about particular noises which we ourselves think ought to be prohibited or, at any rate, controlled by law, I think that we ought to wait for the Report of this Committee before introducing any wide-ranging legislation. In the meantime, the Government welcome this Bill as a useful though necessarily limited measure.
7.18 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth asked me to say how sorry he was that he could not be in his place to speak for the Opposition on the noble Lord's Bill. I am sure that we all appreciate the modest way in which the noble Lord moved his modest Bill. In a sense it is a "gun-jumping" Bill, because the Government are making a thorough investigation of this difficult problem of noise. I think that the Bill is a little more useful than the noble Lord, Lord

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Conesford, indicated. I believe that it will have two beneficial effects. First of all, it will enable ordinary householders to get together and take simple action to abate a particularly annoying noisy noise which is afflicting them persistently and is manifestly a nuisance. Secondly, the mere threat of action by a local authority will often stop a producer of a noisy noise, who may never have thought of it. Therefore, though it is a modest and limited Bill, I think that it is bound to do a lot of useful work.
The noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, said that we all wonder which is the most devilish noise and which is the most noisy. A noise is the most difficult thing to define. It is defined officially by the British Standards Institution as "sound which is undesired by the recipient". They go on to sub-divide noises. First, annoying noise, which is, of course, subjective—you cannot estimate whether it is annoying outside what one feels about it; secondly, noises which reduce efficiency—and they have to be pretty loud noises actually to reduce efficiency; and thirdly, noise which is so bad as to make people deaf—and this has to be quite terrific. The technique of measuring noise is very difficult, because the human ear is immensely sensitive and the range it can cover in noise is very wide indeed, not only in range and frequency but also in power. So great is the range in power that it has to be expressed as a logarithm and cannot be expressed in direct figures, because the figures would be simply enormous.
The degree of noise is expressed in decibels. A noise of 150 decibels would produce permanent instantaneous deafness. But that is a simply tremendous noise. At 90 decibels one can get permanent deafness if a person is exposed to it for about ten years for several hours a day. You can make a person hear you at five feet against a 60 decibel noise, and a 30 decibel noise is so small that you can hardly hear it at all—unless it happens to be in the house next door when you can hear it very well indeed.
It is the sudden noise that often causes the trouble. One of the noises that so irritates me is the banging of car doors at night, and car doors are banged at night by a great many people now. It is a new problem, because as a result of all the on-street parking at night enormous
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numbers of people have a car which does not belong to them parked regularly outside their home. The people bring this car along at one, two or three o'clock in the morning, bang the door and wake one up. I think they can be "got" under this Bill, although the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, said that it does not deal with automobile noises. I think they are almost certainly creating a statutory nuisance under his Bill; and I hope they are, because it seems to me that if three householders complain about the regular banging of motor car doors at night, it is a nuisance if it is done at that sort of hour. In the same way, the continuous ringing of church bells can be a nuisance. I love the sound of church bells—a jollier noise one could not hear—but when it comes to ringing bells for fun, bellringers are usually restrained a little and try to choose times when people are not likely to be too much upset by them; and I think they can be restrained, and have been restrained in the past.
The trouble with noise is that it has two effects. It is a primitive call to action, as it were, and that at once raises your blood pressure and raises your pulse rate and gets you ready to do something; and a sudden noise therefore disturbs whatever it is one is doing. Secondly, it is an invasion of one's privacy, which is also a somewhat primitive thing well built into the personality. We have no legislation which lays down maximum permissible noises for our motor cars or, so far as I know, for anything else. Certainly in industry we have no maximum permissible noises. But in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Bermuda they have statutory maximum permissible noises.
Bermuda is an interesting case, because they had such a noise from mopeds and other small two-stroke bicycles that it became positively unbearable. They introduced legislation, and these machines are now all tested in a Government testing station to make sure that they do not make too much noise when measured against some set scientific standard. There is no great difficulty about doing this, and I understand that the Ministry of Transport are looking into it, because probably the noisiest noise which annoys us now is the noise of motor cycles and two-strokes. I think

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they are probably the main source of extraneous noise in our homes. The difficulty up to now has been to get a definition which would cause all the manufacturers to fit the same equipment to abate the noise, because if it were left to the individual manufacturers they might cut it out to get the price down, knowing that if they did not their competitors would. There is, as the noble Lord said, an Order in Council which prevents legal action against noise due to aircraft.
One of the great difficulties about noise is that it costs quite a lot of money to suppress. If your neighbour happens to be making a row in his next flat, or if the sound provisions of the walls are inadequate, as people often complain they are in some modern flats, to increase the insulation of a wall by 5 decibels means doubling the weight of the wall, which is quite terrific in order to get a relatively small improvement. It is the same with the muffling of aircraft noise. "Silencers" are a bad name; they do not silence them, but merely muffle them. In the case of vibrating pneumatic drills, to which the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, referred, the difficulty there is that the process of banging—which is what these things do—is inherently noisy, and unless some other way of breaking up the road can be devised it is almost impossible to see how the noise can be reduced.
The noble Lord in introducing his Bill referred to the question of the ice cream and lollipop men. I must say that I like their little noises; I think they are very jolly. But if I were a shift worker and were asleep in the morning, I should not like them. That, really, is the substance of the trouble. I hope that the noble Lord will look favourably on some limitation of the noise that they make in the morning, When the shift workers may be presumed to be asleep. I hope that we can at least make provision to help those folk Who are likely to be asleep at times when these lollipop people are, quite legitimately, selling their lollipops and amusing us.
I am glad that the Government have set up this Committee. One cannot estimate the harm that noise does. It is amazing what the human frame can stand up to. When I was in hospital a kindly nurse brought me a long-playing
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record of the musical Carousel and proceeded to play it to me. I was feeling very ill and absolutely horrified at this proposal. But Divine Providence caused me to go to sleep, and I slept throughout the whole of the record, which just goes to show how human beings can cope with the awful noises Which afflict us. The adjustability of man is wonderful, but, at the same time, the price that we pay long-term may not be so wonderful. So that we welcome this little measure and we welcome still more the fact that the Government are having a thorough look at the problem; and I hope that legislation of a much more powerful kind will be coming within a short time.
7.28 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, I propose to say only a few words, mainly for the purpose of clarification by my noble friend Lord Conesford, who is to speak again at the end of the debate. If I understand the Bill rightly, Clause 1 modifies the existing law so that noise need no longer be injurious to or dangerous to health to be actionable at law; and Clause 2 specifically mentions only noise from loudspeakers on highways. How is one to define noise which is a nuisance? What may be a nuisance to one person, or to three or more, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Conesford, may not be a nuisance to another person or three other persons.
Chambers Encyclopœdia, under the heading "Noise abatement" stresses the difficulty of enforcement with regard to this question of the reduction of noise: in fact, it gives three methods of approach to the problem. One is the elimination of or reduction of noise from engines, machinery, vehicles, et cetera; the second is the sound insulating of buildings and individual rooms—and there is already an Act which covers that question; and the third is the prevention of excessive noise through legislation. I am hoping that it will be possible to enforce this Bill with regard to a number of cases where there is excessive noise. Chambers Encyclopœdia says:
"The unreasonable use of wireless sets, noisy motor cars and so forth can be prohibited by law, but in most of such cases the problem of defining for practical purposes permissible and non-permissible noise renders the enforcement of such laws difficult."

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Although there are such things as noise meters and so forth, how is one to enforce such a law when one finds that what may be a nuisance to a number of people may not be a nuisance to others? I have in mind a visit I paid the other day to the studios of His Master's Voice, a member of the E.M.I. Group, when a "rock and roll" session had just been recorded. They were playing it back in the booth where one listens to these recordings after they have been made. So far as I was concerned the level at which the recording was being played back definitely reached the threshold of feeling and not the threshold of hearing, whilst those who were there were quite happy and were not being inconvenienced at all. I suppose they were used to this sound and their ears had become more and more hardened to its impact.
I should like to ask my noble friend Lord Conesford whether one or two noises are covered by this Bill. There are a number which I find most unpleasant. One is the question of open exhausts on highways, and the excessive use of the horn. He may say that those two types of noise, as the noise caused by the closing of a door, to which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, referred, are covered under Section 64 of the Road Traffic Act. But I should like clarification on that point.
Another noise which can be most objectionable is the noise of certain outboard motors at holiday resorts. Several noble Lords have mentioned pneumatic drills. To quote decibels like the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, I believe that at ten feet the noise these drills give off is equivalent to 100 decibels. I was wondering whether, if three householders get together and thought that the noise of a drill in the street was a nuisance they are able to take action at law to suppress it. There is also the noise from underground trains, if one happens to be living near where they emerge to the surface or where the trains run through a cutting. There are windows which are only a few feet above the track. In that case householders who are living there find that noise extremely objectionable. What happens then? Can they bring a case at law against the London Passenger Executive? Those are one or two of the noises about which I was
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wondering whether action can be brought under this Bill.
7.33 p.m.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I do not rise to delay the passage of this Bill, still less in any way to oppose it. But like the noble Lord who has just spoken, I should like it made a little clearer whether the Bill achieves any of the things in which I am interested. The thing about which I am principally concerned is the increasing noise produced by motor-cycles. They have always been very loud. The power of silencing their exhausts is very slight, if any, and I am told that in recent times—just in the last few months—the users are deliberately increasing the noise produced, by muffling or dealing with the exhaust in such a way as to produce a great deal more noise, probably in order to get a little more power. I consider that in every respect they are a nuisance in my conception of the term.
The difficulty has been, first, that one cannot define exactly when they exceed the maximum and, secondly, of getting any policeman or other person to stop them in their headlong rush. These motor-cycles are travelling up and down the great thoroughfares of the country at something like 70, 80 and 90 miles per hour, and are travelling in the streets of London in the evening, when the traffic is light, at anything from 40 to 60 miles per hour. I am perfectly certain that many of these motor-cycles are travelling at over 50 miles per hour in London. It seems to me that there ought to be some means of stopping the terrific noise they produce, the deafening noise, in the streets of London. Does this Bill do anything at all to help stop this nuisance? Does it help the policeman to stop the man? Can an ordinary person stop him? Or am I wrong in thinking that this Bill has no influence on them at all, and that we must look to this Committee who are being appointed, and hope that they will deal with it when the time comes?
7.35 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, in welcoming this Bill I apologise for taking up your Lordships' time at this late hour, but, first of all, I should like to support what the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, and other noble Lords have

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said about the noise made by motorcycles. I confess that I first rode a motorcycle some years before I was entitled to have a licence. That was a good many years ago. I consider that riding a good motor-cycle is second only in thrill to riding a good horse. But "I could not agree more" that there is absolutely no reason why they should make such a beastly noise. I believe that the actual percentage of power lost is fractional when you come to the speeds at which the modern machine can cover the ground. I should like to add that to what the noble Lord, Lord Pethick Lawrence, has said in asking my noble friend Lord Conesford if something can be done. To my mind, these machines should not be allowed to produce such extra noise unless they are operated on a track for racing purposes, where the percentage of power really does count.
There is one other point I wish to make. Assuming that the Bill applies to Scotland, which I think is correct, I would tell your Lordships that at about a quarter to three on one of these recent lovely, hot summer Sunday afternoons, I was asleep on my lawn (which I regard as a proper way to spend a summer Sunday afternoon) when the silence of our country village was shattered by the noise of a loudspeaker, which continued for something like twenty minutes. It was advertising a religious service of a somewhat obscure sect, which was to take place some miles away that Sunday evening. This was frankly a nuisance, and gave rise to feelings far from Christian, which I found great difficulty in suppressing. May I inquire whether such a loudspeaker, which was affixed to a vehicle, and which was for advertising, is covered by Clause 2 and is outwith the exceptions under the Clause?
7.39 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, I will try to answer the various questions, if I can remember them. Perhaps it will be convenient, while it is fresh in my mind, to answer the question that was last put to me. The Bill certainly applies to Scotland. I was not quite certain, from what the noble Lord said, whether this annoying loudspeaker was in the street. If it was in a street, it is covered by Clause 2.
May I now proceed at once to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord
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Pethick-Lawrence? The problem of the motor-cycle presents no legal problem at all. It presents only an enforcement problem, and the conduct he describes is wholly illegal under the present law. That law is not affected by the present Bill. If the noble Lord will be good enough to read the speech that I made in introducing this Bill he will see that I mentioned the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations of the Minister of Transport. Most of these motor-cyclists that are making themselves such a nuisance on the roads are guilty of breaches of one, or sometimes of several, of those regulations. A common practice by some of the riders of these motor-cycles is to remove the silencer altogether. That is an illegal act, to ride a motor-cycle on the road without a silencer.
If I might mention an earlier reform of the law that I was able to bring about, in the year 1934 I managed to carry, through my noble friend Lord Elton in this House, against the Government of the day, a provision which became Section 8 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, now Section 68 of the Consolidating Act of 1960. This made it illegal to sell for use on the road a vehicle that it would be illegal to use on the road. As a result of that provision, most of the motorcycles as supplied to the public are, I think, such as can lawfully be used. I would add, to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, that there is nothing to prevent the Minister of Transport, in the light of scientific improvements, from strengthening under existing legislation the provisions that deal with the maximum noise permissible. But what I want to make quite clear to the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence is that these abuses by motorcyclists, removing the silencer or tampering with the silencer, and then using the machine on the road, or riding the bicycle so as to cause unnecessary noise, all constitute offences. Nor do the police always fail to prosecute; but unfortunately the police have a great many things to do and they are rather undermanned. But my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Pethick-Lawrence, is that the conduct of which he rightly complains is already illegal. Such improvements in the law as he desires can all be made apart altogether from this Bill, but this

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particular Bill, I am afraid, has not much relevance to it.
My noble friend behind me, I think, did not appreciate what I am afraid is rather a technical point. The phrase in Clause 1, "noise or vibration which is a nuisance", does not mean anything to which a particular person objects. It means something which at Common Law is an actionable nuisance. If he asks me what is an actionable nuisance, I am not going to risk using my own words, but will read a useful short passage from a modern judgment. It is a quotation from V anderpant v. Mayfair Hotel Company [1930] 1 Ch. 138. The passage I am going to read is from the judgment of Mr. Justice Luxmoore, at page 165:
"Before I deal with what the evidence has established, I will state what constitutes an actionable nuisance by noise. Apart from any right which may have been acquired against him by contract, grant or prescription, every person is entitled as against his neighbour to the comfortable and healthful enjoyment of the premises occupied by him, and in deciding whether, in any particular case, his right has been interfered with and a nuisance thereby caused, it is necessary to determine whether the act complained of is an inconvenience materially interfering with the ordinary physical comfort of human existence, not merely according to elegant or dainty modes and habits of living, but according to plain and sober and simple notions obtaining among English people: see Walter v. Selfe and the remarks of Knight Bruce, V.-C. It is also necessary to take into account the circumstances and character of the locality in which the complainant is living. The making or causing of such a noise as materially interferes with the comfort of a neighbour when judged by the standards to which I have just referred, constitutes an actionable nuisance."
That is an authoritative statement, and it is a nuisance in that sense which can be dealt with under Clause 1. The effect
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of Clause 1 of this Bill is that, if my noble friend is subjected to a nuisance of that kind, as described by Mr. Justice Luxmoore, instead of himself having to bring an action in the Chancery Division, after the passage of this Bill into law he may be able to persuade the local authority to proceed themselves; and if he does not succeed in that he might find two other occupiers of premises equally affected and the three together may go to the magistrates' court.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, thought that perhaps I underestimated the utility of the Bill I was introducing. I am very grateful to him for that statement, because I would much rather be told afterwards that the Bill had proved more useful than I had said it would be, rather than that it should be the other way round. But when he says he is quite confident, or fairly confident, that he might be able to deal with the banging doors of a motor car under Clause 1, I can only say that I am not aware, though similar provisions are in force in various parts of the country, that that has yet been successfully done. But good luck to him!
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
House adjourned at twelve minutes before eight o'clock.