Sitting of 19 November 1962

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Farm Machinery (Safety)
    Mr. Clive Bossomasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he will take to bring to the attention of the farming community the need for greater and more stringent safety precautions for farm machinery, especially tractors.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Christopher Soames): New regulations laying down a safety code for farm machines have been made recently and the Agricultural Departments are using all the means at their disposal, including free leaflets and farm visits and demonstrations by an enlarged staff of field officers trained in safety work, to improve standards and encourage safety consciousness on farms. The Department's film on tractor safety has been seen all over the country.
    Mr. Bossom: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that everything possible is being done on farms to reduce the number of accidents? Is not more education needed of tractor drivers, especially about maintenance?
    Mr. Soames: We can never be satisfied. Deaths in the year up to 30th September were 19 down on the previous year to a figure of 119. That is a marked improvement, but accidents on farms will not be permanently reduced until farmers as a whole are persuaded that adequate safety precautions are both good farming and good business. I welcome the industry's initiative in forming safety committees in a number of counties.
    Mr. Peart: What consultations has the Ministry had with manufacturers and the Engineering? Is not the design of safety precautions the key issue?
    Mr. Soames: There is a later Question about that specific matter.

    Exports
    Mr. J. Wellsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what has been the value of exports of pedigree livestock in each year of the last 10 years;
    (2) what has been the value of exports of agricultural and horticultural produce other than pedigree livestock in each year of the last 10 years.
    Mr. Soames: I am sending my hon. Friend tables showing the details for which he asks, and I will also place a copy of the tables in the Library of the House. Over this 10 year period exports of breeding cattle increased from£490,000 to£790,000 (an increase of 60 per cent.), and exports of agricultural and horticultural produce more than doubled, from£23 million to£49 million.
    Mr. Wells: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that Answer and the good news it contains. Can he give any information about the steps which the Government are taking to forward this most important export?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. Both my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and I are doing everything we can to bring the importance of this matter to the notice of potential exporters, and a large number of societies and organisations have had talks either with the Board of Trade or my Ministry on this subject in the last year.

    Animals (Intensive Rearing)
    Mr. Burdenasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will introduce legislation to make himself responsible for ensuring that any future projects involving the intensive rearing of lambs or any other four-legged farm animals do not involve cruelty to the animals either by the infliction of pain or by rearing under conditions that deny them natural light, pasture, and open-air freedom.
    Mr. Soames: No, Sir. It is already an offence under the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, to cause unnecessary suffering to any animal. Whether cruelty exists under any particular system of husbandry is a matter for the courts to decide.
    Mr. Burden: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that if there is to be, as apparently there is, an extension of the intensive rearing of four-legged animals under the broiler system, it is time that the Government laid down some minimum standards at least to ensure that the animals are kept in reasonable conditions and not reared in an unreasonable way?
    Mr. Soames: I do not believe that there is any reason to suppose that these animals are not kept in a reasonable condition. The whole object of the intensive rearing system is that the animals should thrive at a much quicker rate than they would under a different system, and animals will not thrive if they are suffering.
    Mr. Bence: Will the right hon. Gentleman introduce legislation to prevent any possibility of the forced feeding of four-legged animals? Is he not aware that birds are force-fed into the crop, which is slightly different from the forced feeding of a four-legged animal?
    Mr. Soames: I do not know of any examples of that.
    Mr. Burden: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there was evidence of real cruelty to calves reared under this system in Holland, which was beginning to spread to this country, and that the Dutch Government introduced legislation to ensure that proper standards were maintained?
    Mr. Soames: A survey carried out a year or eighteen months ago indicated that a few score farmers throughout England and Wales were rearing calves for veal by intensive methods. My latest information is that the numbers doing so are falling. Experience has shown that there is no reason why beef should not be reared this way in perfectly satisfactory surroundings.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that his regular inspection facilities are sufficient to find out what is happening?
    Mr. Soames: Cruelty is a matter for the courts. The Protection of Animals Act exists, and if there is evidence of cruelty to animals, then it is a matter for the courts.

    Fishing Grounds (South Atlantic)
    Sir D. Robertsonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in locating new fishing grounds in the South Atlantic; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Soames: As my hon. Friend knows we set up at the beginning of last year as Advisory Group on Experimental Fishery Work, consisting of representatives of the industry the White Fish Authority and scientific advisers, to advise, among other things, on exploration for new fishing grounds. As a result we have considerably increased the number of research voyages. These have so far been confined to the North Atlantic, but the Advisory Group are now studying the possibilities in the South Atlantic.
    Sir D. Robertson: Does not the situation of the fishing industry, whose catch has gone down by over 100,000 metric tons each year since 1959, demand that much quicker action should be taken? This Committee is taking a long time, and it seems to me that the essential work which could be done by the Government sending out exploratory trawler expeditions is not being done, and year after year goes by and nothing happens.
    Mr. Soames: To be fair, it is not correct to say that nothing has happened. Voyages have been undertaken recently to the "Farm" area of South West Ireland, to the Dohrn Bank, to East Greenland and to the edge of the Continental Shelf north of Scotland, and there have also been voyages to the East Barents Sea and the south-west coast of Norway. We are doing this in cooperation with the industry, which is represented on this Committee. The Committee and the industry are considering with us the possibility of going further afield into the South Atlantic, but I do not believe that it would be fair to say that at the present time the Government are not making available to the industry the facilities which it thinks should be made available.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is it not the case that the grounds in the North Atlantic to which the right hon. Gentleman referred are well-known to the industry to be over-fished or too dangerous to fish in because they are uncharted? Further, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that Japan and Russia are producing millions of tons of fish while we are not producing a million, though once we were the greatest fishing nation of the lot? Something really should be done about this matter.
    Mr. Soames: I do not want to give either my hon. Friend, who very wisely has this very much at heart, or the House the impression that a lot is not being done. We are working in close cooperation with the industry, and it may be that a voyage to the South Atlantic is something which the industry would like to see done in the future, but so far, not unreasonably I think, we have concentrated our research work on those grounds which vessels at present in existence in the fleet could reach.

    French Wheat
    Mr. Bullardasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent the heavier imports of French wheat in September and October this year have been a cause of the low market price for the home-grown wheat crop; and whether he will estimate the increased cost to the Exchequer in deficiency payments arising from this cause.
    Mr. Soames: Imports of French wheat have not been very large this season, and I do not think that so far they have been a major factor affecting the price of home-grown wheat. As regards the future, the outlook seems more reassuring, because I understand that the French have already made export contracts for a large part of their disposable surplus of wheat and that much of the remainder will be required for animal feed.
    Mr. Bullard: Yes, Sir, but will my right hon. Friend put me right over this? I understand that the French wheat has been bought from French farmers for about£30 a ton and sold here for about£20 a ton. Would not it be very unfortunate if, at a time when it is being
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    said that the deficiency payment for home-grown crops is too high, these figures were to be seriously added to by dumping wheat from France, or Belgium, or any of the other European countries?
    Mr. Soames: I would not quarrel with the figures given by my hon. Friend. Under a different system of support the market price for wheat in France is higher than in this country, but, as regards dumping to which my hon. Friend referred, it is not only a question of the dumping and the actual price at which the article is sold. It would have to be proved that damage was being done to the home industry.
    The figures are that in August and September of this year 14,000 tons of French wheat were imported from France, compared with 17,000 tons the previous year. I have not the October figures, but these are very small in comparison with the total crop.
    Mr. Mackie: Does not the right hon. hon. Gentleman realise that it requires only a small quantity of wheat on top of the biggest crop that we have had for a long time to create the conditions to which the hon. Member for Kings Lynn (Mr. Bullard) referred?
    Mr. Soames: I am sorry; I did not understand the hon. Gentleman's question.
    Mr. Mackie: Between 14,000 tons and 17,000 tons is nothing when we have a surplus in this country anyway. What creates the difficulty is the fact that wheat is coming in, irrespective of the quantity.
    Mr. Soames: It is the other way around. It was 17,000 tons last year and 14,000 tons this year. There has been less imported this year than last year, but where our import regulations generally are concerned our system of support is based, first on market prices to the farmers, and secondly, on free imports subject to anti-dumping regulations.

    Fishing Vessels (Grants and Loans)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is yet in a position to make a

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    statement on the operation under the recent Sea Fish Industry Act of the grants and loans to foreign shipyards, indicating how many orders for the building of ships have been given and how many grants and loans, respectively, have been applied for and authorised and the amounts of those grants and loans to British and foreign shipyards, respectively.
    Mr. Soames: Under the 1962 Schemes there have been 41 applications for grant: 40 of these were for loan as well. There have been no applications for a vessel to be built abroad. So far 11 applications have been approved for grants totalling£94,000 and loans totalling£65,000. These grants and loans are given to our fishermen; they are not available to shipyards, whether in this country or abroad.
    Mr. Hughes: In thanking the Minister for these figures, may I ask whether he does not realise that the giving of grants and loans to foreign shipyards in competition with British, and particularly Scottish, shipyards where the position is acute and menacing for the coming winter, tends to increase the already great and growing unemployment in those shipyards? Will he say what practical steps he plans to deal with that sad situation.
    Mr. Soames: First, I am responsible for the fishing industry and not for the shipbuilding industry. Secondly, the figures show that when we brought in these new regulations we were right when we told the hon. and learned Gentleman that we did not think that he had anything to fear, that it was unlikely that grants and loans would be paid to foreign yards to any appreciable extent as a result of these regulations. As I said in my Answer, since they were brought in there have been no applications at all for vessels to be built abroad.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the current negotiations with the Common Market countries, what steps he is taking to protect and expand the British fishing industry and British exports of fish.
    Mr. Soames: The Government's policy for the fishing industry is embodied in Command Paper 1453 and the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1962. The European Economic Community have not yet started to discuss their fisheries policy, but the Community countries are substantial importers of fish and our exports might be expected to benefit accordingly if we were to join.
    Mr. Hughes: Whatever result may emerge from the Common Market negotiations, would the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is very satisfactory that the great nations, who have apparently antagonisms in other spheres, co-operate and work together in scientific matters, particularly in the exploration of the sea? But notwithstanding that, will the right hon. Gentleman say what plans he has to protect British fishing in those circumstances?
    Mr. Soames: I am glad the hon. and learned Gentleman feels that there is scope for international action in research, and, as he knows, we made some contribution to this by a ship that was built in Aberdeen, the "Discovery". We shall certainly continue to play our part in this.

    Forestry Industry (Working Party)
    Mr. Gibson-Wattasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will give the composition of the Working Party of officials set up to advise him on the future of the forestry industry;
    (2) when the Committee looking into the forestry industry will report; and whether its terms of reference will allow all sides of the forestry industry to give evidence to it.
    Mr. Soames: The Working Party, whose appointment I announced in the House on 1st August, includes representatives of all Departments who have an interest in all the different aspects of the subject, and I hope to receive its report during the spring of next year. It has asked a wide range of organisations connected with all aspects of forestry for written evidence and has already received several memoranda.
    Mr. Gibson-Watt: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his somewhat noncommittal Answer. I had hoped that he would be able to tell us why it was that

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    representatives on this Committee had not been taken from all parts of the forestry industry. What he has told us is that they have been taken from all Departments, and that is why I say that his Answer is non-committal. Can my right hon. Friend assure us that in taking evidence this Committee will take it from all parts of the forestry industry itself, both producers and merchants, by which I mean the trade?
    Mr. Soames: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his supplementary question. This Committee was set up as a direct result of what was announced by my predecessor in July, 1958. When my predecessor made that statement about forestry policy he said that the Government intended, within five years, to review, in the light of national needs, the Forestry Commission's planting programme for the years after 1968, and also the structure of grants to private woodland owners. This is what the Committee is doing.
    In answer to the second part of my hon Friend's supplementary question, the Committee has already sought evidence from about 30 organisations, representing, I think, all interests concerned with forestry, both public and private, but if my hon Friend knows of any body of people who are interested in this and from whom evidence has not been sought, perhaps he will let me know and the Committee will be prepared to consider it.
    Mr. Willis: Is the Committee dealing with forestry in Scotland?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. It covers Scotland as well.

    Sugar Industry (Irish Republic)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, whether he will publish the precise terms of the agreement announced by his Department in a Press Notice of 1st November as settled between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic to extend the powers of the British Sugar Board for the benefit of the Irish sugar industry.
    Mr. Soames: The Press Notice, a copy of which was placed in the Library of the House, gave the fullest details avail-
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    able of the arrangements which had been agreed in principle for trade in sugar between Britain and the Irish Republic. I shall be presenting these arrangements to the House in the debate on the Second Reading of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill on Wednesday. A formal agreement cannot be signed or published until the necessary legislation to amend the powers of the British Sugar Board comes into force, but I am arranging in the meantime to place a copy of the draft agreement in the Library of the House.
    Mr. Nabarro: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the provisions of this agreement look suspiciously like the British consumer and taxpayer subsidising a foreign sugar refinery in the Irish Republic by a substantial sum of money every year to enable that foreign refiner to make an onslaught on the British sugar market, and does he consider that it is the duty of his Ministry to give money to the Irish to undermine British sugar refiners in this country?
    Mr. Soames: This is a subject which could be explained perhaps in greater detail. This is a complicated agreement and régime for the sugar industry as a whole. This arose out of the new régime that was brought in some time back which would be of benefit both to the Commonwealth and the refineries at home. The side kick, as it were, from this was that it affected the price at which Irish sugar would be imported into this country. The extra surcharge has been accruing meanwhile to the Sugar Board. This will not affect the price of sugar to the consumer in any way. Irish sugar has been coming in at the rate of about 12,000 tons recently and under this agreement it is limited to 10,000 tons.
    Mr. Nabarro: Does not my right hon. Friend recognise that the British sugar refiners see no advantage to their interests in this matter, and has not he seen the report in the Evening Standard of 15th November to the effect that the Irish Sugar Company is known to be producing large quantities, selling its products on the Continent, and preparing an onslaught on the British sugar market? Why should my right hon. Friend assist the foreigner against interests in this country?
    Mr. Soames: I doubt whether it is preparing an onslaught on the British sugar market, because in the agreement the figure is limited to 10,000 tons and it must all be Commonwealth sugar.

    Swine Fever
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will now announce the date upon which a compulsory slaughter and compensation policy for swine fever will be introduced.
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. A compulsory slaughter policy for swine fever with compensation will be introduced in England and Wales and Scotland on Monday, 11th March, 1963. The Secretary of State for Scotland and I will be making a joint Order for this purpose in the near future. Full details of the Scheme were given in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Clive Bossom) on 31st July, 1961.
    Mr. Browne: I am astonished and delighted to hear a straight answer to a straight question from my right hon. Friend. Would he appreciate how much good this will do in the farming industry, and could he tell me what would be the cost of this to the country per annum?
    Mr. Soames: I am glad to have been able to astonish my hon. Friend. It would be of the order of about£1¼ million per year.

    Deficiency Payments
    Mr. Oramasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state for the financial year 1961–62, and in respect of each product for which a deficiency payment was made, what percentage increase in market prices would have been necessary to provide producers, from market prices alone, an income equal to that which they received from actual market prices plus deficiency payments.
    Mr. Soames: I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT estimates of the figures requested for the guarantee year 1961–62, together with those for the two previous years, since figures for a single year can be affected by unusual market fluctuations. Deficiency payments in 1961–62 accounted for about 16 per cent. of the total market value of all food produced in this country.
    Mr. Oram: I shall await these figures with interest, but can the Minister at this stage say whether they do not reveal that if Britain should enter the Common Market and abandon the deficiency payments system without getting something pretty substantial in return, then either British farmers will suffer considerably if these price increases are not brought about or British housewives will suffer very considerably if they are brought about?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman knows that under the common agricultural policy the market prices will be considerably higher than they are in this country. As to the question of the increased cost of food, there are other Questions on that subject on the Order Paper.
    The following is the information:

    ESTIMATED AVERAGE UNIT DEFICIENCY PAYMENT EXPRESSED AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE ESTIMATED AVERAGE MARKET VALUE

    Guarantee years

    ——

    1959–60

    1960–61

    1961–62

    Fat Cattle

    …

    3

    10

    31

    Fat Sheep

    …

    46

    25

    56

    Fat Pigs

    …

    16

    16

    27½

    Milk

    …

    1½

    4

    3½

    Eggs (Hen)

    …

    34

    21

    18

    Wool

    …

    15½

    18

    18½

    Wheat

    …

    34

    43

    24

    Barley

    …

    42

    48

    38

    Oats

    …

    29

    43

    40

    Maize
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will give the tonnage of maize imported into this country during the first ten months of 1962 as compared with the same period in 1961, and the estimated tonnage of the home-grown barley crop for 1962 as compared with 1961.
    Mr. Soames: In the first nine months of 1962, maize imports amounted to about 3·5 million tons compared with about 2·4 million tons in the same period last year. I regret that the figures for October this year are not yet available. The homegrown barley crop this year is provisionally estimated at just over 5½million tons compared with just under 5 million tons last year.
    Mr. Browne: Can my right hon. Friend say why it is necessary for us to have

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    higher imports of maize this year in particular when we have a record barley crop on our own home farms to get rid of?
    Mr. Soames: Yes, Sir. But my hon. Friend will bear in mind that he asked for the figures for the first ten months of the year and I am able to give him only the figures for the first nine months of the year? Much of this was when the last harvest was being shifted, and he will remember that in the early part of this year the price of barley was quite high. It was all shifted off our farms and there was this considerable importation of maize brought about by a higher demand for feedingstuffs as a whole.
    Mr. Browne: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that we shall get rid of the home barley crop satisfactorily in spite of these imports?
    Mr. Soames: Last year the importation earlier in the year doubtlessly led the trade to look for other sources of supply when the barley was higher priced, including maize, and substantial commitments were made to buy forward. Much of this maize is now coming in but while we have this large home crop to be moved the compounders have given a general undertaking to do their best to take up home-grown barley, and I must look to them not to prejudice this by committing themselves to excessive purchases of maize abroad.

    Wood Pigeons
    Sir J. Duncanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is aware of the recent evidence collected from the lightships off the East Coast of England that there is a migration of wood pigeons from the Continent of Europe; and what additional steps he intends to take to deal with this pest.
    Mr. Soames: I am told that a few wood pigeons arrive on the East Coast of Britain in most autumns. Occasionally, as in 1959, large numbers have been recorded, but even these are relatively small in relation to the resident population. It seems that these birds eventually emigrate from the South Coast. As a result of the intensified drive against wood pigeons, 340 rabbit clearance societies have mounted shoots this year compared with 163 in 1961.
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    There has also been an intensification of nest destruction and our experiments with narcotic baits are being continued.
    Sir J. Duncan: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that these migrations from the Continent are much bigger than his Ministry will ever admit and that the article in Country Life last week shows that very large numbers of pigeons come in? As scientific evidence must be available about how homing pigeons home, would it not be possible to have some scientific means of diverting wood pigeons from this country by some form of radar or radar communication?
    Mr. Soames: That seems to me to be an interesting proposal, but it is a question which had better be addressed to my noble Friend the Minister for Science.

    Horticultural Marketing
    Mr. Darlingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will conduct a survey of wholesale fruit and vegetable markets in England and Wales with a view to preparing a national plan for a modern, efficient and economic marketing service.
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of horticultural marketing.
    Mr. Soames: The whole problem of horticultural markets and marketing generally is a matter of prime importance to the industry. Under recent Government policy horticultural markets are generally the responsibility of local authorities and the responsibility for the improvement of the techniques of marketing is something which must be left primarily to the industry itself. Of course the Government is seized of the importance of the whole question and are giving thought to the matter, but I am not now in a position to make a statement.
    Mr. Peart: That statement is very unsatisfactory. Is not the Minister aware that, in view of the coming dissolution of the Horticultural Marketing Council, there is urgent need to improve marketing in this sphere? Whether we go into the Common Market or not, we must

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    have improved marketing in horticulture, the responsibility far which must be with the Government. It is not sufficient simply to leave it to the industry to survey policy.
    Mr. Soames: The Horticultural Marketing Council was not set up to take over responsibility of the Government but to take on responsibility which the industry itself had. It was set up with the full intention of allowing the industry to improve its marketing arrangements. It had a three-year run; Parliament voted it money for three years. It was made clear at the time that if at the end of three years the industry decided to provide enough money to keep it going, it would be kept going, but that if the industry decided that it was not sufficiently in its interest to keep this body going, further Government funds would not be forthcoming. It is, naturally, a source of regret that the industry did not see fit to keep the Horticultural Marketing Council going. On the other hand, there have been various proposals from the industry about how to replace the job done by the Council. [Interruption.] This is for the industry to do under its own steam. Various proposals have been made and we shall be looking at them with interest.
    Mr. Darling: Has not the Horticultural Marketing Council been charged with the task of planning or replacing the country's markets? At the moment, nobody is carrying out this task. The need far reorganisation of our marketing system is urgent. If the Ministry will not take on the job, nobody else will do it. Is this how we are to meet the challenge of the Common Market, with no ideas and nothing whatever being done?
    Mr. Soames: The Horticultural Marketing Council was not charged with reorganising the country's major markets. I agree that there are some private markets, but, generally speaking, they are the responsibility of local authorities.
    Mr. Peart: Is not the Minister aware that the markets in many of our centres are completely out of date and that even in France the Government have accepted a measure of responsibility? Why do we lag so much behind? Why do not the Government do something?
    Mr. Soames: The Horticultural Marketing Council has not yet been wound up. An announcement has been made. It will not be wound up until the middle of next year. As I said, I am not yet ready to make a statement.

    Fowl Pest
    Mr. Darlingasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if adequate supplies of fowl pest vaccine are available to meet all demands, especially in the worst affected areas.
    Mr. Soames: Adequate supplies of subsidised fowl pest vaccine are available to meet the demands in the worst affected areas. Issues of the subsidised vaccine were made available on 5th November in Lancashire and in ten Eastern counties, and supplies were extended to Hampshire and Nottinghamshire on 12th November. We hope to make supplies available throughout the country by the end of the year.
    Mr. Darling: In thanking the Minister for that assurance, although, perhaps, greater speed may be needed, may I ask him a question about the vaccine? Are there any difficulties about storing it? If not, would it not be a good idea to have consultations with the manufacturers to ensure that we have adequate supplies in hand? If we get far too many supplies, could we not consider helping some of the new nations in the Commonwealth who have the fowl pest problem on their hands, too?
    Mr. Soames: I do not foresee any difficulty in supplies once we get the original supplies moving. We must get an impetus behind the work, because it is a new event to manufacture this vaccine on so big a scale. However, I do not envisage any difficulty in supplies once we have the whole country covered. As to helping Commonwealth countries, this could certainly be looked into if any other country wished to follow our example and to go in for a policy of dead vaccine.

    Farm Accidents
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the effectiveness of the working of the Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions)

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    Act, 1956; and what proposals he has in mind for further regulations under that Act.
    Mr. Soames: While there has recently been a welcome reduction in the number of deaths from farm accidents, more experience is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn about the success of measures taken under the Agriculture (Safety, Health and Welfare Provisions) Act, 1956, in reducing accidents. I believe the Regulations and their enforcement by my Department will help in this way, but the active co-operation of everyone connected with farming is needed to make the safety code effective.
    We have already made Regulations for the guarding of nearly all machinery used on farms and are now considering proposals for regulations on brakes.
    Mr. Hayman: Will the Minister bear in mind that, despite what he has said, according to his Department's Report on Safety, Health, Welfare and Wages in Agriculture to 30th September, 1961, it appears that in 1960–61 fatal accidents with tractors numbered 64, including five children under the age of 15, compared with only 40 in the previous year? Does not the Minister regard this as something really serious?
    Mr. Soames: The Orders and Regulations have been brought in over a period of time and a lot of them cannot become effective until we have given the industry time to bring in all the necessary safeguards on existing machinery. My figures are that fatal accidents on farms in England and Wales during the year ended 30th September, 1961, were 138 and to 30th September, 1962, 119. I agree that this figure is not significantly lower than it was some years back, but I hope that the hon. Member will bear in mind that it will take time for all the Orders and Regulations to come into effective operation.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will my right hon. Friend consider getting in touch with the National Agricultural Advisory Service in the Isle of Ely and surrounding areas and see whether other parts of the country could follow up the excellent series of exhibitions and propaganda which has been produced by this body with a view to bringing home to everybody the intention of the Regulations?
    Mr. Soames: We are extending those demonstrations. They have taken place throughout the whole country and were not limited to the Isle of Ely. If, however, there were any features of special significance from the Isle of Ely which my hon. Friend thinks were of special help, I will, of course, take note of them.

    Toxic Chemicals
    Mr. Haymanasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make a statement on the present use of toxic chemicals in agriculture and food storage; and what sums were provided by his Department for research on these matters in each of the last three financial years.
    Mr. Soames: The general position on the use of toxic chemicals in agriculture and food storage in this country is described in the Report issued a year ago of the Sanders Research Study Group. As I announced at the time, the Government accepted the Committee's recommendations for further research and is carrying them out through the various research councils and other competent bodies. These are the bodies mainly responsible for research. So far as my Department is concerned, additional surveys of food for possible chemical residues and other investigations are being considered. I regret that separate details of the cost are not available.
    Mr. Hayman: Will the Minister bear in mind that the Report to which he has referred said that more fundamental research should be undertaken? In view of the serious effects of these toxic chemicals, both to wild life and in food storage, will the Minister thoroughly pursue the matter?
    Mr. Soames: Yes Sir. The Agricultural Research Council has set up a scientific committee under the chairmanship of Professor Frazer with just that object in view, to watch over the whole field.

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Pearlasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied that entry into the European Economic Community will not prejudice producer marketing boards.
    Mr. Soames: There is, in general, no incompatibility between the functions of the agricultural marketing boards and the objects and methods of the common agricultural policy. Though some adaptation of their powers and duties might prove necessary, a wide range of functions would continue to be open to them. The Government therefore believe that the boards would have a valuable rôle to play in an enlarged Community of which this country was a member.
    Mr. Peart: Is the Minister not aware that there has been uncertainty in view of a previous speech? Will he convey to Europe in particular that producer boards—the Milk Marketing Board, for example—are an essential lynch-pin of security for many of our small farmers?
    Mr. Soames: We regard them as being of great importance and as being able to contribute considerably to the general economy of our agriculture.
    Mr. P. Browne: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, in principle, there should be no reason why future marketing boards should not be set up once we have joined the Common Market?
    Mr. Soames: From the point of view of the Common Market, whether it is a producer marketing board for one commodity or another is not a primary factor. It would depend on the reason we had from a national point of view under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1958.
    Mr. Morris: Can the Minister give an indication of what adaptation of the powers of the Milk Marketing Board will be necessary?
    Mr. Soames: The milk regulations have not yet been published by the Community and so it is not possible to say. I have in mind that the Government would be responsible for seeing that the common agricultural policy was carried out and to that extent they might have to take extra powers over the producer marketing boards to ensure that they were fulfilling the common agricultural policy.
    Sir J. Maitland: Is my right hon. Friend aware that last year in public in Paris Dr. Mansholt expressed an opinion that producer marketing boards were an exceedingly advantageous form of agricultural administration and that he was in favour of them?
    Mr. Soames: I cannot remember the exact words used by Dr. Mansholt. I know that the Community had this much in mind as being a valuable part of the common agricultural policy. There are large-scale producer co-operatives on the Continent which are not dissimilar in their objective.
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what estimates he has now made of the increases in the retail price of butter, cheese, eggs and milk which would be necessary consequent upon the adoption by this country of the common agricultural policy of the European Economic Community;
    (2) what estimate he has now made of the increase in the cost of food per head per week which would be consequent upon the adoption by this country of the common agricultural policy of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has now made of the increased cost of food for the average family in the event of Great Britain joining the Common Market and accepting the agricultural policy of the Six.
    Sir C. Osborneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has now made of the increased cost of food per week for a family of five people in the event of Britain joining the Common Market and all British farm subsidies under the joint agricultural policy being abolished; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Soames: I cannot estimate the extent of the rise in food prices in general or the particular items, because it is not known what the prices for different commodities are going to be in the Common Market period; the pace of any rise would depend on the length of the transitional period. But we have reasonable grounds to expect that, if we joined, the average increase, taking one commodity with another, would be small and gradual.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the Minister aware that Mr. Weingarten, chief economist of the National Farmers' Union, has made a categorical statement about increases in the prices of certain commodities which would result were we to join the Common Market? Is the Minister aware that

    813
    he said that butter would go up to 6s. a lb., that eggs would go up from 3s. 3d. to 4s. 5d. a dozen, that the price of cheese would be up by 50 per cent. and that he gave a whole lot of other figures? Is the Minister also aware that Mr. Strauss, in his recent book on the Common Market, has based estimates on the I.L.O. food index which tend to show that the average increase in price per head per week for food in this country if we join the agricultural policy of the Common Market would be an increase from 4s. 6d. per head per week to 5s. 3d. per head per week, and can the Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I have two Questions, Mr. Speaker——
    Mr. Speaker: The trouble about the hon. Lady's supplementary question so far is that it has consisted of giving information. May we have the question?
    Mrs. Castle: I was giving the information because the Minister seemed to be so devoid of it. As everyone else in the country seems to have this information, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that he owes it to the consumers to put some estimate before them now, so that they may know what kind of increase in food prices to expect?
    Mr. Soames: It is not the duty of the Minister to hazard wild guesses in this regard for the benefit of the House of Commons or Parliament——
    Mr. Stonehouse: He should make accurate estimates.
    Mr. Soames: To make an accurate estimate is quite impossible, because we do not know what are to be the harmonisation prices of different commodities. Neither do we know what the length of time is to be while we are changing over from one system to another. Broadly speaking, the increases referred to by the N.F.U. economist and the hon. Lady are increases at the farm gate, which is quite different from any increase which is likely to take place in retail prices. A large element in the retail cost is the cost of manufacture, the cost of distribution and the like. I hope that the hon. Lady will not fall into the same trap as did other hon. Members opposite at the time when the food subsidies were removed some years ago. At that time all sorts of scare stories were current
    814
    about the price to which certain commodities would rise, but these fears were nowhere near realised.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the less than frank answer by the Minister related in any way to the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman to keep a "poker face" before the South Dorset by-election, bearing in mind the very great interest which consumers now have in the likelihood that prices will rise? In view of the Minister's answer to Question No. 16, that deficiency payments account for 16 per cent. of the price that the farmers receive, is not the estimate produced by agricultural economists, that food costs to the average family will go up from£5 4s. to something like£6 a week—an average rise of over 15s. a week for each family—likely to be the case? Is not it about time that the Minister was frank about this matter?
    Mr. Soames: The hon. Gentleman can make any estimate he chooses. From the point of view of the Government, there are various essential factors which they do not know. I can only stress them again. We do not know what will be the harmonisation prices in the transitional period, neither do we know how long that period will be. So we cannot tell the extent to which there will be a rise in food prices. We have always acknowledged that a feature of a common agricultural policy would be an increase in food prices to the consumer. But we cannot make an estimate of what might be the increase because there are so many matters about which we cannot be certain.
    Sir S. McAdden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I share, in a diminished measure, the apprehension of the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle)? But is not it a fact that the estimates which the hon. Lady has given of the possible increase in prices fall very far short of the estimates given at the time when the food subsidies were removed, when it was said that the price of eggs would rise to 1s. each and that butter would be 10s. a 1b.?
    Mr. Soames: That is quite true.
    Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that in an interview he gave recently to the English Press Dr. Mansholt stated the percentage increase? Is the Minister

    815
    further aware that the cereal regulation which the right hon. Gentleman has praised could well mean higher feed prices for livestock producers, which might have another effect?
    Mr. Soames: Of course, a rise in the cost of cereals would bring about some rise in the cost of the derivatives of cereals and everything manufactured from them. There has never been any denial of that.
    Mr. M. Foot: Since the Minister says that there are so many unknown factors, how is it possible for him to hazard the wild guess that the increase in price will be only small?
    Mr. Soames: Because that is self-evident.
    Mr. Paget: Is not the right hon. Gentleman's problem that neither he nor the Government will state the price of food which is to be paid and, therefore, he is not in a position to say what it is? Under the Common Market policy, will not it be settled in the interests of Europe?
    Mr. Soames: To a large extent the harmonisation prices will be arranged at each agricultural price review for particular commodities in the same way as our present system of guaranteed prices. What we cannot do now is forecast what the prices are likely to be at the end of the transitional period.

  MINISTRY OF AVIATION

    Airports (Public Address Systems)
    Mr. Woodburnasked the Minister of Aviation whether he is aware of the difficulties experienced by foreign visitors and home travellers in understanding many of the messages and instructions given over broadcasting systems in airways stations for which he is responsible; and whether he will ensure that the apparatus works efficiently and that operators should be trained to articulate and announce clearly.
    The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Julian Amery): I am well aware that public address systems have their limitations. The equipment at aerodromes for which I am responsible is, I understand, efficiently maintained, and at Heathrow
    816
    the operating staff, both of my Ministry and of the airlines, are specially selected and trained. At the other aerodromes, announcements are usually made by airline staff, and I will bring the right hon. Gentleman's observations to the notice of the airlines concerned.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a serious matter, not only in this country, but in railway stations and air stations all over Europe? People miss planes and staff have to spend time looking for passengers who have not heard the destination or the plane announcements. Is there any way of getting these people to articulate properly so that passengers can understand their plane times and destinations? Will he take steps to give them some tuition in elocution so that they speak clearly?
    Mr. Amery: I take the point of the right hon. Member. There is a good deal in it, although there may be some difference of opinion as to correct articulation north and south of the Border.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend arrange with the chairman of B.E.A. to ensure that less chit-chat takes place in B.E.A. aircraft, particularly as passengers are asked to look at a little booklet on safety which is given to them? There is far too much chit-chat. Could not my right Friend see that it is cut out?
    Mr. Amery: I take the point made by my hon. Friend.

    London Terminal Control
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Aviation to what extent aircraft, not on scheduled flights, and under no ground control, can fly in or through the London Terminal Control area and in the airspace used for holding aircraft awaiting their turn to land; and whether he proposes to subject all aircraft entering these zones to ground control.
    Mr. Amery: Aircraft not under ground control may fly in the London Terminal Area and in the holding area only when they can comply with the visual flight rules. In instrument weather conditions, all aircraft are subject to Air

    817
    Traffic Control. Since early 1961, all aircraft flying in the airways and in the control zones around Heathrow and Manchester have been required to comply with instrument flight rules in all weather conditions. We are now examining the possibility of extending these rules to the whole of the London Terminal Area.
    Mr. Rankin: Is it not a case that at the moment any pilot can fly in the London Terminal Control area in visual flight conditions outside the control zones and notified air space without advising Air Traffic Control of his flight, his future intentions or his whereabouts? Is that not a danger to the great amount of controlled traffic which is in the holding area, or could be in the holding area, at that particular time?
    Mr. Amery: I am satisfied that there is no unnecessary or unacceptable risk involved in our present system, but this does not mean that we are not always continuing to improve it as traffic increases. At present only a small number of aircraft may be flying above 5,000 feet in the London Terminal Area which are not flying under Air Traffic Control.
    Mr. Rankin: Does the Minister not realise that so long as a great many holding patterns are outside the control zones there is bound to be possible danger to other protected aircraft?
    Mr. Amery: If the hon. Member looks at what I have said, I think he will see that under present circumstances there is no unacceptable risk involved.

    B.E.A. (Scottish Services)
    Sir D. Robertsonasked the Minister of Aviation if he has now completed consideration of the application from British European Airways for an annual subsidy on Scottish services; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir. The Coroporation's recent application is being considered, but I am not yet ready to make a statement.
    Sir D. Robertson: Is it not a fact that the Highlands services in Scotland are threatened with curtailment unless they get a subsidy? Will the Minister say
    818
    why the Government permit a rival private service to be run on three days a week between Manchester and Glasgow and Wick when there is an excellent daily service provided by B.E.A.?
    Mr. Amery: That is rather a different question. If my hon. Friend would like to put down a Question on that I shall do my best to answer it.
    Mr. Hoy: Does not the Minister realise that it makes it all the more difficult for B.E.A. to fulfil its functions in this part of Scotland if his Ministry sanctions an opposition service of this kind?
    Mr. Amery: I refer the hon. Member to what I said in answer to the debate recently when I volunteered some ideas on this subject.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: Will my right hon. Friend consider whether first-class flights with an inclusive fee for drink and food are economic on a one-hour journey and whether there is any evidence to show that the additional£3 has attracted passengers other than those travelling on expense accounts who would be travelling anyway?
    Mr. Amery: The level of fares is a matter for the Corporation.
    Mr. Lee: Would the Minister agree, following this interchange of questions and answers, that the Licensing Board is interpreting the Act in the way in which the House believes it should be interpreted? Will he consider many of the judgments which are being made by the Board to see if there is adequate coverage on the routes? If so, will he refuse to agree to license any more?
    Mr. Amery: I am always ready to consider anything which the hon. Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) suggests.
    Mr. Speaker——
    Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Question No. 49, which is in my name, is practically on the same point. Could I be allowed to deal with it in a supplementary question?
    Mr. Speaker: I think that if we did that we might tend to prevent the right hon. Gentleman getting there.

    Leeds and Bradford West Riding Airport
    Mr. A. Robertsasked the Minister of Aviation what financial help he proposes to give to the development of the Leeds and Bradford West Riding Airport.
    Mr. Amery: I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member on 19th February, 1962. He was then told that the local authorities had been informed that their application for a grant towards the cost of developing Yeadon Airport could not be approved.
    Mr. Roberts: Will the Minister bear in mind the great demand for this airport and that no help whatever has been given by the Ministry to any part of Yorkshire? Can he inform the House if it was his Department which advised a certain Government not to use the Leeds Airport but Manchester Airport?
    Mr. Amery: My understanding is that there was an application for financial aid which was made and considered on its merits. Among the criteria adopted is the local authorities' need for help and the authorities were not able to demonstrate such a need.
    Mr. Jeger: Will the right hon. Gentleman concede that there is a great demand in Yorkshire for an efficient airport, but this particular one does not fulfil the need? Will he therefore conduct an inquiry as to the best possible site for an all-Yorkshire airport and help it to be established?
    Mr. Amery: I think that is a matter for the Yorkshire local authorities.

    B.O.A.C. (Accounts)
    Mr. Croninasked the Minister of Aviation what action was taken by his Department in accordance with subsections (1), (2) and (3) of Section 22 of the Air Corporation Act. 1949, to ensure that the accounts of the British Overseas Airways Corporation in the years prior to 1961–62 contained more accurate estimates of the capital value of its aircraft fleet, having regard to the circumstance that the British Overseas Airways Corporation accounts for 1961–62 contained additional aircraft obsolescence provisions of£31,717,000, of which£26,245,000 applied to previous years.
    Mr. Amery: May I first congratulate the hot Member on his escape from last week's tragic accident?
    I have no power to determine the actual amounts to be included in the Corporation's accounts as distinct from the manner in which they are presented.
    Mr. Cronin: May I thank the Minister for his kindly wishes? As the matter has been referred to, I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would like to express deep sympathy with the wife of the noble Lord who was involved in this tragic accident while performing his Parliamentary duty, and also the wife of the gallant squadron leader, Squadron Leader Stott, who died in the course of his hazardous work. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
    Returning to the Question, is it not the case that the assets of B.O.A.C. were grossly overloaded in the Reports of the last few years, and surely in the terms of the 1949 Air Corporations Act the Minister had powers at least to make some representations to see that the public were not misinformed as to the financial position of B.O.A.C., as indeed they were?
    Mr. Amery: As I said, we have no powers to direct the Corporation in this matter. Advice has been given from time to time when our advice has been sought. Sometimes it has been followed, sometimes not.
    Mr. Cronin: It is quite clearly indicated in the Act that the accounts must follow the proper commercial practice, and it is quite clear that they did not follow proper commercial practice in this case. Surely it is the duty of the Minister to intervene when there has been at least a technical breach of the law?
    Mr. Amery: No, Sir, it is not our duty to intervene on the accounts, on the figures. We are responsible for the presentation of the accounts, but not for the totals included in those accounts. When our advice has been sought we have given advice. Sometimes that advice has been taken and sometimes not, but our advice is on the form and not on the quantities.
    Mr. Burden: If in fact there was a gross over-valuation of assets, does not this illustrate the wisdom of my right

    821
    hon. Friend in asking a very highly qualified professional man to look into the whole affairs of B.O.A.C. in this connection?

    British Space Vehicle
    Mr. Croninasked the Minister of Aviation what consideration he has given to launching an entirely British space vehicle using British first, second and third stages.
    Mr. Amery: Her Majesty's Government gave full consideration to the possibility of developing an entirely British satellite launcher. The cost of any such project would be heavy. The Government accordingly decided that the balance of advantage lay in collaboration with other European countries. My predecessor therefore signed the Convention for the European Launcher Development Organisation.
    Mr. Cronin: Is it not the case that the Government already had Blue Streak as the first stage, they have Black Knight which, with only minor modification, could be used as a second stage, and the only expense involved would be the third stage? Surely there would be a good purpose in having an entirely all-British launching project?
    Mr. Amery: The cost would have been about double had we engaged on it ourselves.

    Beverley and Hastings Aircraft
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Minister of Aviation if he will make a statement as to the replacement of the Beverley and Hastings aircraft.
    Mr. Amery: As I told the House in the aviation debate on 18th July, 1962, the question of a replacement for the Beverley and Hastings aircraft is under consideration. This involves the study of a number of different projects as well as the possible harmonisation of the British requirement with that of other N.A.T.O. allies. A decision will be taken as soon as a full examination of all the implications can be completed.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that if another N.A.T.O. ally's plane is used it will at least be built in Britain?
    Mr. Amery: I should be very surprised if anything other than what my hon. Friend suggests were done.
    Mr. Edelman: Underlining the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills), may I ask whether the Minister will bear in mind that this matter affects not merely one particular locality but the whole of the British industry? In those circumstances, and whatever decision he makes, will he see that the work is equitably distributed throughout all those areas which are at the moment threatened with redundancy?
    Mr. Amery: I will certainly have regard to what the hon. Member said.
    Mr. McMaster: In view of the delay in reaching a decision on this matter, would my right hon. Friend consider placing an interim order so that planning can go ahead and there will be no unnecessary delay in replacing the old and ageing planes?
    Mr. Amery: I do not think that it is possible to place an interim order until we have decided which design to go for.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: While appreciating the difficulties in this matter, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that a decision is long overdue? Will he give an assurance that, whatever else is done, American aircraft will not be ordered to fulfil this requirement?
    Mr. Amery: It is not in my hands to give an assurance as to the design eventually adopted. That is a matter for the Staffs concerned.

HUNGARY (MR. G. M. WYNNE)
The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:
Mr. A. HENDERSON: To ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he will make a statement on the handing over of Mr. G. M. Wynne by the Hungarian Government to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will now answer Question No. 70.

823
Her Majesty's Minister in Budapest was officially informed by the Hungarian Government on 14th November that since the majority of the espionage offences alleged to have been committed by Mr. Wynne were against the Soviet Union, he had been extradited by the Hungarian Government to the competent Soviet authorities in accordance with the relevant provisions of the agreement on legal assistance concluded between the two Governments in 1958.
This means that the Hungarian Government, having detained Mr. Wynne on suspicion of espionage, and having kept him incommunicado for anything up to twelve days, have now handed him over to the Soviet authorities. So far as we know, a prima facie case has not been established against him in a Hungarian court nor has he had any facilities to prepare his defence. In addition, our representatives in Budapest have been prevented from satisfying themselves as to his welfare and from ensuring that he has such facilities for his defence as elementary principles of justice require.
On 15th November, my noble Friend delivered to the Hungarian Minister an aide-memoire in which he protested most strongly against the behaviour of the Hungarian Government in this matter and asked, in the interest of the relations between our two countries, to be informed without delay whether Mr. Wynne was now on Hungarian territory and what steps the Hungarian Government would now take to satisfy Her Majesty's Government as to his welfare and to ensure that he was given adequate facilities, including access to a Consular officer, for the preparation of his defence against whatever charges had been laid against him.
Later on the same day my noble Friend similarly requested the Soviet Ambassador to bring to the notice of the Soviet Government his deep concern in this matter, asking to be informed without delay of the nature of the proceedings instituted against Mr. Wynne by the Soviet authorities, and requesting facilities for him to be visited by a Consular officer and to be given legal aid in his defence.
A reply has not yet been received, and the Soviet Government have not
824
informed us where Mr. Wynne is or what proceedings they are taking against him.
Mr. Henderson: In view of the fact that Mr. Wynne was arrested by the Hungarian Government, will Her Majesty's Government press them to state in which country, whether Russia or Hungary, this alleged espionage took place, and also why the Hungarians handed Mr. Wynne over to the Soviet authorities?
Secondly, will the Government continue to render every possible assistance to Mr. Wynne and press again the Soviet Government, if it is a fact that he is in the Soviet Union, to allow a representative of Her Majesty's Government to see Mr. Wynne?
Mr. Thomas: I can certainly promise that we shall continue to press as strongly as we have done in the past. The right hon. and learned Gentleman asks where these offences were committed. I have no information apart from that which I have given the House. We were told that the majority of the offences which were alleged against Mr. Wynne had been committed in the Soviet Union, but no specific charges have been made against him and, in fact, no allegation has been made specifically by a representative of the Hungarian Government that any offences were committed by Mr. Wynne in Hungary.
As to why he was handed over to the Soviet authorities, I can only say that it was said that he was handed over under the terms of the 1958 agreement between the Soviet and the Hungarian authorities. It was a very wide agreement and it is possible that there is machinery in it for handing people over from one country to another. As far as we are aware, no charge was made against him and he has not had an opportunity to answer any charges in any Hungarian court.
Mr. Mayhew: Is the Minister aware that considerable indignation is felt about this on both sides of the House? Can he recall any precedent, even in the worst period of the cold war, for action of this kind against a British citizen behind the Iron Curtain? Will he tell us whether it is the case that four days have passed without our being informed by either the Hungarian Government or

825
the Soviet Government as to which country Mr. Wynne is in? Do we recognise this extradition agreement between these two Governments? Is this a normal practice? If not, have we stated to the Soviet Government and the Hungarian Government that we do not acknowledge their right to extradite Mr. Wynne in this manner? Is it not the case that Mr. Wynne was warmly welcomed on his visit to the Hungarian Government and to Hungary? Can the Minister possibly explain why this action was taken at a time when it seemed that there were indications of a slightly healthier relationship between this country and the countries beyond the Iron Curtain?
Mr. Thomas: It is true that Mr. Wynne was warmly welcomed into Hungary. He is a businessman and he was the managing director of an organisation dealing with industrial exhibitions which goes into the Iron Curtain countries Relations between Hungary and Britain have certainly improved over the last eighteen months, and a matter like this can have no other quality than to impair the relations which exist between the two countries.
I was asked whether I can recall a precedent. I must confess that I cannot recall a precedent such as this. It is true that four days have passed and that we have received no reply from the Soviet Government or the Hungarian Government. The extradition treaty is published in the United Nations Treaty Series. It is in much more general terms than those to which we are accustomed in extradition treaties. It seems to cover espionage offences, which are not included in our treaties. The matters of which we complain are, first, that a British subject was arrested in Hungary on suspicion of espionage, that he was arrested in a very melodramatic fashion, that no charges have been specified against him, that no one has been allowed to see him, that no court appears to have considered his case, and that he has now been handed over to another country.
Mr. Holt: May I ask the Minister what further action he intends to take if he does not receive a reply to this special request?
Mr. Thomas: I could not answer something which would be hypothetical. We hope that we shall have answers soon from both the Hungarian Government and the Soviet Government. If Mr. Wynne is in Russia, we hope that the charges will be brought against him, if there are charges to be brought, that he will be given an opportunity to prepare his defence, and that representatives of this country will be allowed to see him to assist in the preparation of his defence and to see that his welfare is looked after.
Mr. Marten: Can my hon. Friend confirm to the House quite categorically that Mr. Wynne had no connection whatsoever with British Intelligence?
Mr. Thomas: As far as I know, Mr. Wynne had no connection with British Intelligence.
Mr. Elwyn Jones: Has not what has taken place been a gross abuse of extradition procedure? Is it not important to emphasise to both the Russian and Hungarian Governments that this kind of behaviour really makes reasonable international exchange and relationship almost impossible?
Mr. Thomas: I am very much obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman. That expresses exactly what we feel about it.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS
Mr. W. Yates: On a point of order. As I saw you, Mr. Speaker, on Thursday last, and discussed Question No. 73, may I inquire whether the Postmaster-General asked leave from you to answer this Question?
Mr. Speaker: No.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  TANGANYIKA REPUBLIC BILL
  Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

  COMMONWEALTH SCHOLARSHIPS (AMENDMENT) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  3.42 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. John Tilney): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The House is aware that the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan stemmed from the Trade and Economic Conference held at Montreal in September, 1958. By that plan 1,000 scholarships were awarded, half to come from the United Kingdom. The scheme for this was worked out at the first Commonwealth Education Conference held at Oxford in July, 1959. This was followed by a White Paper—Cmnd. 894—in November, 1959, and after that the Commonwealth Scholarships Act, 1959, was passed by Parliament setting up the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission to administer the plan in the United Kingdom. The Bill seeks to amend that Act.
  I think that the House will be interested in the record as it now stands. The following countries have stated that they will make the following awards under the plan: the United Kingdom, 500; Canada, 250; Australia, 100; India, 100; Pakistan, 40; New Zealand, 25; Federation of Malaya, 12; Ghana, 10; Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 10; Ceylon, 6; East Africa, 4; Nigeria, 8; Sierra Leone, 2; Cyprus, 3; Jamaica, 2; Hong Kong, 2; and Malta, 1. That amounts to 1,075, which is 75 more than was envisaged at the time of the Montreal Conference and which, I think the House will agree, is all to the good.
  In the current year, 1962–63, 475 out of our total of 500 have been awarded and taken up. As is to be expected at the start of any new scheme, it cannot attain full momentum at once, but the large bulk of the awards have been taken up from other countries as well. The
  828
  House is aware that the scheme is primarily for post-graduate study. Some of the awards are for undergraduates from countries which are without universities or where no courses on subjects which the candidates wish to study are available. The scheme has been in operation since 1960 and is an outstanding success. Seven hundred and twenty-four Commonwealth scholars and fellows hold awards at present in 13 different Commonwealth countries, and 475 Commonwealth scholars are in the United Kingdom now.
  I think that the House will be interested in a quotation from the Annual Report on the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, issued by the Commonwealth Education Liaison Committee, which states, on page 14:
  "From reports received both from the scholars and from the universities it appears that the majority have settled down well and have produced impressive work to their tutors and supervisors."
  Mr. G. M. Thomson: Can the hon Gentleman help us by telling us whether that quotation is from the first Annual Report or the second?
  Mr. Tilney: It is from the first Annual Report. There have been one or two failures, but the bulk have done outstandingly well, The tutor of one scholar at Cambridge reported that he was the best student he had ever had. The same report came from another tutor at Manchester University.
  The House may be aware that a difficulty has arisen in the administration of the plan in the United Kingdom because of Section 2 (a) of the 1959 Act. This limits Commonwealth scholars in the United Kingdom to 500 at any one time. This limit has been found to be too restrictive. Clause 2, which is the principal provision, seeks to remedy this problem.
  When the Commonwealth Governments agreed on the Scholarship and Fellowship scheme, of which this country is providing 500 scholarships out of 1,000, it was expected that the normal tenure of a scholarship would be only two years, but the experience of the Scholarship Commission so far is that over half of the scholars wish to read for their Ph.D. This may mean that they want their course to last up to three

  829
  years in all. However, a substantial proportion of the scholars do not require their full third year, but take their degrees and go home within a few months of the start of their third academic year.
  So long as the total number of awards at one time is limited to 500, these shorter extensions block a scholarship unit to cover the full academic year, since the units cannot be filled again until the following autumn. It is very rare to fill a vacancy in the middle of the academic year and it is for this reason that there is only one annual competition. The list of nominations from the sending countries for that competition must be received by the Scholarship Commission by the beginning of each calendar year if successful candidates are to be found places in our universities. Therefore, the preliminary selection and examination—often there are several thousand candidates—have to take place during the preceding months.
  The result of the annual competition is announced in the summer, and the scholars take up their awards in October, at the beginning of the academic year. If a successful candidate were to be asked to 'postpone taking up his or her award until later in the year it would entail a delay of, perhaps, eighteen months or more from the date of his or her application, and the likelihood would be a withdrawal of that application.
  The result of the inability to take up the full quota is that the money provided by Parliament has not been fully spent. The quota of 500 drops to 450 between April and October of each year, and the average current number for the year as a whole is less than the 500 visualised by Parliament when it passed the 1959 Act. This Bill does not mean any change in policy. At the start of each academic year, the Scholarship Commission will have available, if this Measure is passed, somewhat more than 500 scholarships, but these will fall away between the spring and summer of each year, giving an average of 500 over the year as a whole.
  It was assumed at first that two years would be the normal tenure of a scholarship and, as a result, in the first two competitions that were held, 250 new awards were advertised, but, due to the
  830
  third-year extensions being much greater than expected the Commission is now limited to no more than 200 new awards. If this restriction can be removed, as it will be if the Bill is passed, between 225 and 230 awards will be available at present costs.
  The Delhi Conference reported that it would be unfortunate if third-year extensions caused the number of new awards made annually to be reduced. Although by this amending Bill there appears to be no limit on expenditure, it is the Government's intention to make awards within the spirit of the allocation of 500. Moreover, the overall limit of£6 million over five years which is imposed by the Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960, for expenditure under both Acts, will apply.
  Clause 1 brings the 1959 Act into line with the Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960 by covering the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. There are no universities in those places to which candidates for United Kingdom scholarships from abroad could go, and that was not realised in 1959. The Scholarship Commission pointed out that there might he Channel Islanders or Manxmen who have graduated at a United Kingdom university but wish to apply for scholarship awards in another country, and this Clause would put that matter right.
  I trust that this Bill will be welcomed on both sides of the House.
  3.54 p.m.
  Mr. G. M. Thomson: We on this side of the House accept the Bill as a necessary change, for the reasons outlined by the Minister, but I must tell the hon. Gentlemen that we regret that the Government have not taken this opportunity of introducing a Bill dealing with Commonwealth educational co-operation to do something a great deal more imaginative than is proposed in this miserably modest little Measure.
  As the Minister has said, the Bill follows the second Commonwealth Education Conference at Delhi, which produced a Report containing a great deal of interesting material. Out of the many recommendations and proposals coming from that Delhi Conference it would have been perfectly possible for the United Kingdom to have given a lead to

  831
  the other Commonwealth countries by doing something much more ambitious than this. The net result of these proposals is an increased public expenditure on Commonwealth scholarships of, perhaps,£20,000 a year, out of a total expenditure of£½million.
  That, by itself, is a very small increase, indeed, for a very important and worth-while purpose, but matters are a bit worse than that. As the Minister explained—but, perhaps, did not bring out as fully as he might have done—this£20,000 extra on the Commonwealth scholarship side of Commonwealth educational co-operation is to come out of the same total of£6 million which the House voted for all these purposes under the Commonwealth Teachers Act. The Government are, therefore, handing out a very small contribution for a good cause with one hand, and, in effect, taking it away with the other.
  The Financial Memorandum attached to the Bill explains that the overall limit of£6 million at present imposed by Section 1 (3) of the Commonwealth Teachers Act, 1960, will continue to apply, and the Commonwealth Teachers Act states that payments shall not in the aggregate exceed£6 million. I understand that this£6 million is a quin-quennial grant and is expected to last until about 1965 so, at the moment, there is no question of actually preventing expenditure on other worthwhile purposes because of the increase in scholarships, but that might easily happen before 1965.
  The Government propose to spend over the rest of the five-year period about£60,000 more on scholarships but, at the end of the day, it will come from moneys that would otherwise be used for sending teachers to key posts overseas or for providing places at training colleges here, and for supporting the other very good schemes for teachers' training that we have under Commonwealth educational co-operation.
  Even in regard to Commonwealth scholarships, however, the Government could have proposed something a great deal more ambitious than is found in the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the Report of the Delhi Conference, he will find the following statement in paragraph 16, page 21:
  832
  "The Committee was agreed that not only could the plan"—
  That is, the Commonwealth scholarships plan—
  "as at present operating be expanded with advantage, but that there were several directions, considered in this Report, in which it could be extended. These would bring benefits to and meet the needs of the countries of the Commonwealth. Such expansion and extension must depend on finance, and finance was clearly involved in many priorities outside the terms of reference of this Committee."
  There we have the reason why this Delhi Conference Report is in many ways a singularly unsatisfying document; a meeting of first-class education experts with very good schemes ran up against the various Chancellors of the Exchequer of the Commonwealth countries. I again express regret that the United Kingdom Government did not try to break that negative atmosphere by setting an example, as they could have done, by bringing a better Bill before the House.
  At the same time, I would, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, pay a tribute to the Commonwealth scholarships scheme. It has been one of the most excellent Commonwealth plans that we have seen for a number of years, and any of us who have had the privilege of welcoming the Commonwealth scholars when they arrive here in the autumn of each year will have found what an excellent group of young men and women they are, how much reality they give to so many of the things we say about the Commonwealth, and what the possibilities are of this kind of plan continuing and expanding as time passes.
  The Commonwealth scholarships scheme does a good educational job, but it also does a good job for the Commonwealth, because it provides just that kind of cross-fertilisation of Commonwealth contacts which gives the Commonwealth more reality as a world-wide community. The scheme has also provided something more. It is based on the principle of mutual aid; that is, it is not simply a scheme in which the richer and more privileged members of the Commonwealth help the poorer and the less privileged. It is a co-operative scheme in which East Africa finds places at Makerere College for people from New Zealand just as New Zealand provides

  833
  places for people from Africa. In this way, it takes the edge off what can very often be the corrupting donor-recipient relationship in the emerging and developing countries, and helps to cope with one of the practical problems of giving economic aid by the richer to the poorer countries. For these reasons, it is an especially important scheme.
  I should like to comment on various aspects of the scheme, as we have seen it working, now that we have had two years experience of it. I was glad that the Minister made some mention of the point which has been raised from time to time about the need to make these Commonwealth scholarships available to non-academic students of various sorts, and not to confine them simply to the more academic type of post-graduate student. If the Minister looks back at the Report of the original Commonwealth Education Conference at Oxford in August, 1959, he will find there that this point was emphasised at that time. He will also find that when the original Bill came before the House, a number of hon. Members on both sides of the House pressed this point.
  If the hon. Gentleman turns to the Report of the Delhi Conference he will discover there that the very point was being repeated in 1962 just as it was made in 1959. It was pointed out at the Delhi Conference by a number of the developing countries of the Commonwealth that there should be a special regard for providing Commonwealth scholarship awards for professional and technical people, as well as for the ordinary academic post-graduates. This is especially important to the newer and poorer countries of the Commonwealth, and it is very disappointing indeed that, after all the discussion there has been on this aspect of the allocation of these scholarships, the record should be such a poor one.
  Going through the awards, as far as I can see only one has been made in the field of adult education, which was emphasised by the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) and by other hon. Members in earlier discussions. I should have thought that a number of our excellent adult colleges in this country ought to have had the pleasure of welcoming a Commonwealth scholar in their midst. In the new African
  834
  nations, which the Minister knows intimately, the kind of people who can make the greatest contribution to the problems of development in their own countries, and get the best advantage from a year or two years' education, is the mature type of person who has risen to a position of leadership in his own community, but who has not had the advantage of very much formal education in his youth.
  I hope that both the countries nominating people—for they have a big responsibility in this matter—and our own authorities in this country, allocating places here, will pay some attention to this, and will try in the years ahead to widen the scope of the awards under the scholarships scheme. I hope that they will pay particular attention to the need for technical and technological awards under the scholarship scheme. I think that this is a very important aspect of it.
  The fact is the present concentration of the scholarship awards on mainly academic post-graduates means that the benefits of the scheme are unevenly shared throughout the developing Commonwealth. One of the mistakes which we in this country make very frequently in looking at our problems of giving aid to the developing countries of the Commonwealth is to lump them all together, as if the emerging countries are all of a similar character. This is very far from being so. For instance, countries like India and Tanganyika are both developing countries in a very real sense of the term. They are both facing similar problems of economic development, and the income per head of the population is about the same at£20 per annum.
  But a country like India has vast resources of graduate manpower at its disposal, whereas in a country like Tanganyika, if the offer of the provisions of the Commonwealth scholarships scheme is made, the reply invariably is, "We have got only a handful of graduates, anyway, and we are really not able to take advantage of it." If the awards could be widened and made more flexible they would provide more effectively what was the purpose in the minds of many people at the inception of the scheme.
  Secondly, I want to say a few words on one of the main reasons for introducing this piece of legislation. It is

  835
  on the fact that a number of Commonwealth scholars in this country want to stay on into their third year. I accept what the Minister said about this. It would obviously be very wasteful if a student who has been enjoying this valuable kind of help for two years, had to leave before completing the course of study and gaining his Ph.D., or whatever other qualification he was seeking. At the same time, I would utter a word of warning to the Minister. I hope that not too high a proportion of Commonwealth students will be allowed to become three-year scholars. I should like to see a bigger proportion of one-year scholars, so that we can share the immense privilege of this kind of scholarship more widely in the developing Commonwealth.
  Let us face it. Anybody with experience of this subject knows the danger in the emerging countries, where the privilege of higher education is so immense, of people becoming permanent students and going on from one scholarship to another, and from one part of the world to another and rarely going back to their own countries, which are supposed to be the recipients of the expertise which they acquire. It think that we ought to watch the scheme so that it is not too much a professional students scheme. All the time we ought to keep in mind that the aim here is the provision of that kind of higher educational training which is of the greatest use to their own countries when they go back to them.
  One of the reports mentions this problem, with which we are all familiar, and that is that it is sometimes difficult to persuade successful students who have come from overseas to go back and use their training in their own countries. For my part, I would support being very tough about this, both in terms of the nominating country setting up conditions under which people get the scholarships, and in the framing of our own regulations in this country, to ensure that these people do go back and use the advantages of their higher educational training. I am sure that the vast majority of them do, but we have to bear in mind that there are a few who do not.
  The third point to which I want to draw attention is that, now that we have
  836
  had the scheme in being for two years and getting into the third year, we have an opportunity of looking at how it is working on a Commonwealth basis—not only at what Her Majesty's Government have done, but how other countries of the Commonwealth are playing their part in the scheme. I have emphasised the importance of the scheme as a Commonwealth piece of mutual aid. When one looks at the figures, so far as I have been able to find them for the latest figures have not yet been published, one discovers that it works out something like this.
  India originally undertook to provide 100 Commonwealth scholarships, but the latest figure that I can find is that only 22 have so far either been provided or taken up. Pakistan undertook to provide 30 and two have so far been taken up. Malaya promised 12 and three have been taken up. Ghana promised 10 and so far as I can discover none has been taken up. The Central African Federation promised 10 and three have been taken up. Ceylon promised six and two have been taken up.
  These were the figures at the end of two years and the scheme was originally supposed to be a two-year one. So one cannot be wholly happy about the way the original target of 1,000 scholarships has been fulfilled. It is, perhaps, easier for an hon. Member on this side of the House than it is for a Minister when discussing these matters, to say that it is important that these targets should be fulfilled and that the scheme should remain a 'co-operative one in which all Commonwealth countries participate fully.
  There is an immense value in students from this country or from Canada, New Zealand or Australia being able to go overseas to universities in India or Africa. From India's point of view—and I admit that I do not know the particular difficulties involved here—it would be well worth her while reaching her full target of 100 so that those places are taken up as quickly as may be practicable.
  I said earlier that I thought the Bill disappointing because one must see it against the background of the immense challenge of educational poverty in the newer and poorer countries of the

  837
  Commonwealth. Measured against this—although our record in this country is a good one—it does not match the scale of the problem which faces us. I looked up some figures earlier today for the African countries and the latest statistics I could get on secondary education for Tanganyika show that only 1½per cent. of the age group who should be receiving secondary education is getting it. In Nyasaland it is 1·2 per cent. and in Sierra Leone, now an independent member of the Commonwealth, it is 2·8 per cent.
  Professor Arthur Lewis, who did some research work on the problem of education in the developing countries a year or two ago, pointed out that if the developing countries were to get "off the ground" educationally, 4 per cent. of this age group would need to enjoy secondary education. Statistics such as those I have quoted show the tremendous gap which remains to be filled.
  I always remember that during the period of emergence in Nyasaland I asked a Question about the number of African graduates in Nyasaland. I was told that in that country, which is roughly the size of Scotland, there were 22 African graduates—although 12 happened to be in gaol at the time. This underlines the educational poverty that exists, particularly in the new African countries. Looking at it that way, and at the proposal the Government are now introducing—£20,000 on scholarships without adding anything to the total expenditure planned on Commonwealth educational co-operation—it looks completely inadequate.
  We are doing this in a world in which the United States, for example, has launched its tremendously imaginative Peace Corps, a big part of which is an educational offensive to help the underdeveloped countries. We must, therefore, move much faster. However, in fairness—comparing the present American effort with ours—as far as I can discover ours still matches theirs in terms of numbers of teachers sent to developing countries, and probably more than matches theirs in terms of the quality of the work we do, since we have a great deal of experience behind us.
  I sometimes think that we do not say enough about the scale of educational
  838
  help we give to developing countries inside this country. Together with the hon. Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby), I am chairman of a Commonwealth education committee. We carried out a study of overseas students, particularly coloured ones, in London a year or two ago. What was striking about that was the high proportion of places in London County Council and other local authority technical colleges taken up by overseas students studying for entrance to various forms of higher education.
  This is a valuable piece of educational aid which is being carried out by our local authorities and if I were the Minister I would be finding out roughly what scale of finance subsidy is involved and I would be adding this to the more formal amounts of aid which we give by way of the scheme under discussion and in other ways. Our local authorities do a remarkable job for which they get far too little credit in the direction. We hear a lot about the problems of an excessively high number of overseas students in their ranks. But, this work is one of the most valuable ways in which we help the developing countries.
  The Government are making difficulties for themselves terms of their help to overseas students, particularly at university level, by their failure to plan for sufficient places to meet the needs of students in the United Kingdom. It would be disastrous for the reputation of this country if things got to the point where people were beginning to feel that there was a direct conflict and competition between the overseas students and the children of our constituents who are trying to get places at universities.
  I hope that when the Government come shortly to consider, the Report of the Robbins Committee, on the structure of higher education in Britain, they will make arrangements in their planning to provide an adequate number of places, not only to meet domestic British university needs, but also so that we can play our full share in providing places for people coming here from overseas.
  Important as the Commonwealth scholarships are as part of our general Commonwealth educational help, probably even more important is the help we give in providing places at our training colleges here for teacher trainees and in sending teachers to the developing

  839
  countries, where they fill key posts for some time. There has now been a welcome break-through in the difficulties of persuading teachers in this country to give a period of service in the developing countries of the Commonwealth.
  For some time after the Commonwealth Education Conference made its recommendations the response from teachers to go overseas was extremely disappointing. I am told, however,—particularly with regard to teachers for East Africa—for which the Government are prepared to——
  Mr. Speaker: I would remind the hon. Member that although on Second Reading we have very wide debates, the point which the hon. Member now appears to be raising seems to be practically in space as regards the Bill.
  Mr. Thomson: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I would like to clear up this matter.
  Mr. Speaker: I would welcome help about it. I may be wrong, but the hon. Member seemed to be going far away from the topic.
  Mr. Thomson: With respect, Mr. Mr. Speaker, I did not wish to go too far from the topic, but the difficulty we are in is that we are being asked on Second Reading of a Bill to step up expenditure on Commonwealth scholarships by£60,000 over the next three years, out of a sum of£6 million laid down in an earlier Act, the Commonwealth Teachers Act.
  There arises out of this the whole wide subject of Commonwealth educational arrangements. We are bound to ask, therefore, whether, in approving this expenditure on Commonwealth scholarships, we are not going to take away money from the even more important job of providing——
  Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Member. He is quite right. It is a valid argument. I did not appreciate the fact that he was directing his argument to that point.
  Mr. Thomson: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to pursue this much further, because I have already been speaking for too long. In any case,
  840
  I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) intends to explore the implications of this further in her winding-up speech for the Opposition.
  I am glad that the Government have achieved this break-through in persuading teachers to go overseas. I have been involved in a number of exchanges across the Floor in recent years about this matter and I have sometimes been told by Ministers that they could not get a better response to the efforts they were making to persuade teachers to go overseas because so many teachers already served abroad. All the evidence now shows that there is a demand among teachers in this country who are prepared to give service to the developing countries overseas.
  The obstacle to their going is not lack of idealism on the part of the teachers but, rather, the unwillingness of the Treasury to provide enough money for them to go. One of the most encouraging aspects we are finding is the willingness of technical teachers to serve overseas. The need for their assistance in the developing countries is particularly required because of the wide lack of technical educational facilities in those countries. In the light of this I hope that the Minister, before we wind up the debate, will assure us that the Government will not allow this£6 million limit which is laid down to hold up the expansion of the various activities in the field of Commonwealth educational co-operation.
  As I understand the position, there is no present risk that essential expenditure on sending teachers overseas or providing places in training colleges here will be held up because we vote this extra money for Commonwealth scholarships, but it may well be that before 1965 is reached we shall need to spend more than£6 million on all these things put together. I hope, therefore, that before the debate ends we can have an assurance from the Government on this point. If we have that assurance, we on this side of the House will accept the Bill as far as it goes while regretting that the Government have not taken the opportunity to give a much more imaginative Commonwealth lead on all these tasks.
  4.20 p.m.
  Mr. R. P. Hornby: As I think he well knows, I share the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) for the part that educational co-operation can play in Commonwealth relations and the contribution that the more developed countries can make to the less developed. The hon. Member described this as a miserably modest Measure. Although I agree with nearly all the individual points that he made, and while I think that the Bill is certainly modest, I would hardly describe it as miserable for the reason that, as I think everyone who has studied it will agree, it is a Measure asked for and wanted by the Commonwealth countries concerned in the Commonwealth scholarships scheme.
  The Bill is doing something for which the Delhi Conference specifically asked. It is removing the limit of 500 scholarships tenable at one time and thereby enabling scholars to stay on for a third or part of a third year without denying someone else a place under the scheme. The cost is about£20,000 a year. Nevertheless, I think that the hon. Member for Dundee, East is absolutely right in raising the question of the relationship of the Bill to the Commonwealth teachers training scheme. This extra£20.000 a year comes out of the overall figure of£6 million that can be spent up to the end of March, 1965, with powers to increase the sum thereafter.
  It would be interesting if we could be told by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations at what rate our expenditure on these schemes is running at present. Are we coming anywhere near this total figure? If so, to what extent is this extra£20,000 on the Commonwealth scholarships scheme likely to impede the teacher training schemes both in this country and overseas?
  Although I welcome the Bill as a valuable though small Measure but an advance in this respect, I think that there is an urgent need for looking at educational aid and co-operation in a much wider context. This is a piecemeal Measure, admitted as such and valuable as such, but we also need a much broader picture because the range of our educational co-operation is very wide. It
  842
  embraces the teachers training scheme, the Commonwealth scholarships scheme and also the activities of the British Council and our connections with U.N.E.S.C.O. and similar organisations. It embraces the number of places we find for overseas students in the universities and elsewhere in this country and also the hostels we provide for them.
  In looking at a scheme like this and in asking ourselves, as we always have to do in social service and other matters, where the priorities lie, it is important that at some time, and preferably in the near future, we should gather these various aspects of educational co-operation together and look at them as a whole and not in the piecemeal manner we have to look at them in this debate. Perhaps one such occasion will be when we have an opportunity of considering the next Report of the Department for Technical Co-operation, which examines the premises on which we give aid of various kinds and the manner in which we administer it. I hope that this is not straying too far from the confines of this Bill and that this will be done before very long.
  This scheme is widely recognised as a valuable one which all the Governments who attended the Delhi Conference wish to see continued. I was interested in the figures which the Under-Secretary was able to provide of the number of places now being taken up and the number of Governments who are co-operating.
  If we and other members of the Commonwealth are to have the maximum value from the scheme, it seems to me that two points, amongst others, need emphasising. The first is that we and other Governments should be as sure as possible that the courses for which we nominate students or graduates are courses suitable to their needs. The second, as the hon. Member for Dundee, East has already said, is that when they have taken these courses the graduates should go back and contribute to the needs of the country from which they came.
  On the first point, of nominating students to appropriate courses, it has been said in the Delhi Report that it would be extremely valuable if a clearer picture of the university facilities of the Commonwealth could be built up and

  843
  made available to all the contributing countries. Certainly, Australia and, I think, New Zealand have already prepared handbooks of facilities available in those countries. It would be helpful if all the other countries in the Commonwealth could follow that example. It would be helpful, going one stage further, if a full picture of the university education facilities of all the countries contributing to the scheme could be amassed so that the nominating countries could see what facilities were available in all the countries concerned. I do not think that this would be a very complicated document to compile, but it would be a valuable one which would help to make the scheme more beneficial.
  The second point has also been mentioned already by the hon. Member for Dundee, East. It concerns what happens thereafter to those who receive these scholarships. When considering the priorities it is important to ask ourselves what happens to the students. Do they go back home? What do they do thereafter? It is not for us to decide what nominations other Commonwealth countries should send here. As various reports have always made it understood, they must make their own decisions and arrangements. But in considering the relative priorities in finance as between this scheme and another, and in regarding this, rightly, as part of our aid programme, we are inevitably bound to ask whether we are contributing through these scholarships to people going on to other scholarships and remaining in one of the developed countries or going back to their own country which greatly needs their trained service.
  Satisfaction on these two points would greatly reassure those who would like to see this scheme develop and expand. I repeat that we need better information about the courses available and an assurance that those who go on the course are, for the most part, going back to work where they are most wanted.
  Finally, I would reiterate the point which the hon. Member for Dundee, East made about our ability to contribute to Commonwealth education, which is linked up with the amount that we are able to do for ourselves in this respect. Our ability to supply teachers for over-
  844
  seas depends on our ability to recruit them here. Our ability to train people in this and in other fields depends on the facilities that we have available.
  In considering, as we shall have to do before long, the Report of the Robbins Committee and our plans for higher education in this country, it is most important that the needs of overseas students within our institutions here should not be lost sight of. If they were to be squeezed out through inadequate facilities here, the loss to our own universities and to the Commonwealth as a whole would be very great.
  4.31 p.m.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: As far as it goes, I welcome the Bill, but I must, in no carping spirit, say that it is tragically inadequate both in relation to the thirst for education in many parts of the developing Commonwealth and to the hopes of the second Commonwealth Education Conference at Delhi.
  Of all forms of aid, educational help is the most needed, and certainly in the countries of which I have personal experience—for instance, Ghana and Nigeria—the most acceptable. My complaint against the Bill is that it is a lost opportunity. Of course, it is very easy to be full of good intentions and, therefore, I propose to be as specific as possible.
  The Minister spoke as though the question was one purely of acclimatisation. I have been to the British Council and have seen some of its work. In the first twenty-four hours of a Commonwealth student's arrival in Britain the work of the British Council is excellent and leaves nothing to be desired. The British Council does its best for these Commonwealth scholars who ask for help later in the course, but the difficulty is a very natural one. They all come in the middle or the latter end of September, and the British Council is overwhelmed and is not in a position to do all that it would wish, and so many of these scholars, when they first come here, feel somewhat lost.
  It may be said by the Minister that there are orientation classes. My information from the students, scholars and others is that the orientation classes are impersonal and sketchy and at the most they last for fourteen days. In fourteen days they are supposed to undertake what is called the assimilation of a new cultural

  845
  background. To the sociologists in the classroom this seems little more than a catchword and a phrase, but to reduce to human terms this new cultural background there is an immense obstacle.
  I wish to draw, without being too autobiographical, on a personal experience and reduce it in terms of one case. At the training college where I did my teacher's professional training there was a Nigerian student who, along with us, was reading Whitehead and the history of Western education, studying the works of the American sociologists, doing intelligence tests and all the other semi-mathematical details of Western science that are now done at teachers' training colleges. Getting to know him well, because he came to study with us, I realised that he was going through all the rigmarôle of the educational theory that is supposed to be necessary for teachers in Western Europe.
  Eighteen months later, after he had left this training college, I went to stay with him in Abeokuta, Nigeria, and, to try to pay back the sort of hospitality which had been extended to him in Scotland, he extended what he regarded as the greatest honour that he could do me. He took me to see his chief. Here was this Nigerian student, when we were seeing his chief, for thirty-five minutes prostrate in front of the Allake of Abeokuta, talking to him. The tension that must have arisen in that man's mind when he first came out of Nigeria to study this professional course must have been considerable.
  I think that when one reads the Report of the Delhi Conference and considers the method of supplying finance as suggested in the Bill, one must give a high priority to the induction courses that are necessary to overcome tensions. In paragraph 21, on page 4 of the Delhi Report there is a recommendation that more attention should be paid to induction courses. My idea of an induction course is very different from the fourteen days mentioned in the general memorandum. My idea of an induction course is that it should come at the beginning of July—incidentally, a not unimportant consideration, when the weather is warmer—to enable the student to gain some familiarity with the language before starting his scholarship course or student's course.
  846
  I may be asked whether I do not know that all these students know English, if not as a first language at least as a second language. But they have a great difficulty in hearing, and it is hard to exaggerate the importance of this consideration. To put the matter in concrete terms, hon. Members on both sides of the House may have a very good understanding of French, but that understanding might not do them such good service if they had to go to Guinea and understand French as it is spoken even by the diplomats of Mr. Sekou Touré. There is a very real problem here, and this, again, is an argument for spending more money on the induction course.
  It has been suggested that it might be worth the Minister's while to pay undergraduates to take, possibly one by one, or in groups of six, three British students and three African or Indian students, round Britain in the months of July and August, in the way that undergraduates do jobs conducting buses and in other such ways; that they should be given a lump sum with which to entertain and to give intuition to students from Asia and Africa, and that they should be asked at the end of the period to give a written report on how they had spent this money.
  It may be said that this would be expensive and that it would amount to many thousands of pounds, but I would beg the Minister not to be penny wise and pound foolish but to realise that he must insist that there should be a proper training period and a period of acclimatisation instead of the fourteen days period which exists at present.
  If group tours of Britain do not find favour, what about university induction courses during the month of September?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray): Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the hon. Member, but it seems to me that he is getting rather wide in his argument.
  Mr. Dalyell: With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, this Bill is concerned with how money should be most properly spent in connection with Commonwealth scholars. I ask you whether it would be in order to discuss possible alternatives of how, given a sum of money, it might be spent?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I am sure that if the hon. Member proceeds and connects his argument from time to time with the Bill, he will find no difficulty.
  Mr. Dalyell: To continue my argument about induction courses, is it not tragic that the course in the hostels which was conducted by the British Council at Edinburgh had to Dome under the financial axe of 1961, as it was too costly? Now, instead of there being an induction course in the hostels, there is a clay seminar and the students have to return to their separate "digs" at night.
  It may be argued by the Minister that this does not matter and there is no great difference, but there is a terrific difference if scholars can form friendships during their early period in this strange country. Are the temporary financial embarrassments of the United Kingdom Government to be made the excuse for not fulfilling this country's destiny? Let there be no mistake; the Commonwealth is bound together by training colleges, technical colleges and universities rather more, perhaps, than it is bound together by political acts.
  I want the Minister to tell us what the Government intend to do about induction courses. In paragraph 14 on page 32 of the Delhi Report it is said:
  "Their value is, we feel, considerable in enabling students to settle down quickly and to derive maximum benefit from their stay in the donor country."
  I specifically refer to "digs", emphasising that, if the most is to be derived from Commonwealth scholarships, sheer physical accommodation becomes absolutely crucial in determining whether their aims are realised or not. I do not say this with the slightest wish to wreck the intention of the Bill, but I am convinced that, unless we take account of the, so to speak, physical comfort of those in receipt of such scholarships, then the scholarships themselves may become utterly worthless. In this House we should be discussing how to make the scholarships as meaningful as possible with the very limited amount of money there is at the disposal of the politicians.
  There is sometimes a great deal of criticism of "digs", mostly for the wrong reasons, at the expense of landladies. It is my opinion that the landladies of
  848
  Britain have done a wonderful job for Commonwealth students. They have, perhaps, been rather ill used by public opinion because a row constitutes news and good relations do not make headlines. Apart from the particular case of Mr. Julius Nyerere who, after he became Prime Minister of Tanganyika, spent two days with the landlady in Edinburgh who had put him up for four years when he was at the university studying, I have seen no good references to the great job done by very many landladies in rather difficult circumstances.
  My criticism is of a different kind. If coloured men are to come to this country for academic purposes, they should be with students. The most valuable part of their education may well lie in informal discussions, perhaps late at night, with people of their own age. This is part of education, and we should be making it possible.
  It cannot be argued that the British Council form of hostel is ideally suited for Commonwealth scholars and students. One-third of the students they meet in such a hostel should be British. It may be said that this sort of arrangement does not work, that, although it is easy to talk in the House of Commons about the different colours and different races living together, they do not necessarily form a happy group.
  Again, may I be excused for drawing on personal experience? In the Garden Hostel of King's College, Cambridge, there were many life-long friendships formed between coloured and British students. Many of us who were able to do so took such students home at Christmas time and during the Easter vacations. If Commonwealth scholars are to get the most out of their scholarships, they should be taken into British homes, because being taken into the home by a fellow student is very different from being taken into homes officially under the auspices of the British Council. In the light of paragraph 18 on page 33 of the Delhi Report, is the Minister prepared to allocate more than£3 million for the provision of hostel places?
  The alternative is grim. The universities will expand, and, as they expand to take British students, the demand for accommodation will grow even greater. The good landladies will be faced with a

  849
  choice—incidentally, there are no landladies in my constituency, and I make no constituency point—between a British student with a certain amount of affluence and, perhaps, a Nigerian or an Asian student who may have only his scholarship to support him and who may, indeed, not be using all that for the purposes for which it was allocated. Is the Minister prepared to embark on a crash programme of special residences for international students? I warn him that, if he is not, the scholarships he gives, even if they are increased in quantity, will not be improved in quality.
  I come now to the most unsatisfactory feature of all, the fact that there are students who can find no accommodation except in unfurnished houses. As one who, for political reasons, has been in the Woodside division of Glasgow, the centre of accommodation for the University of Glasgow, I know of the most unsatisfactory circumstances there, where perhaps 10, 11 or 12 students at the university all get together in a cold and inhospitable set of "digs" in a house which was built, possibly, in the early part of the nineteenth century. If the scholarships are to do what the Minister expects of them, we cannot expect students to derive the maximum benefit from them in circumstances like that.
  It is important to consider the financial worries which many Commonwealth scholars have. Does the Minister realise that half the amount of some bursaries is paid to dependants in the home country? It is reasonable to insist that the British Government, before giving such scholarships, should insist that the receiving country make provision for relatives. Here I believe is the reason why some students go into cheap and unsatisfactory "digs". I put the direct question to the Minister: is he prepared to ensure that the whole bursary is used for the purposes intended? In the light of paragraph 19 on page 33 of the Delhi Report, is he prepared to insist that a guarantee of adequate allowances to dependants by the receiving country should be a condition of acceptance of the scholarship by the British Government?
  Another problem on which the Bill casts no light at all is the extension of the scholarship period, a subject touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for
  850
  Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thornton). In paragraph 14 on page 3 of the Delhi Report it is argued that the scholarship period should often be extended. Clearly, this ought to be done where to do so is useful to a developing country, but it must not be allowed to mean that there are fewer awards. It is tragic that we have the dilemma, whether to extend the scholarship period or to help more students to come. If a man is worthy to have his scholarship extended, then, in the 1960s, it surely ought to be possible for one of the so-called affluent societies of Western Europe to do it not at the expense of potential students who might follow later.
  Of course, I have in mind the proviso made in paragraph 3 on page 18 of the Delhi Report that there is no point in going ahead for a Ph.D when a master's degree would do. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East when he says that we do not want any "eternal" students, but, at the same time, we must have our priorities right.
  What happens when a student returns to his own country? The Government should recognise formally or by promotion the completion of successful study abroad. Equally, there is an obligation on students to return home, otherwise the development programme of their countries could become disjointed. There is not very much point in giving scholarships unless there is a guarantee on the part of the recipients that they are prepared to go home to their developing countries and to help in key positions. Without this, the very programme on which the people who sent them depend may become disjointed. I think that the recipient country might give financial inducements to do this work, not only in direct teaching but in the key job, which is the training of teachers. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to ask recipient countries to give a financial inducement to those who go home to train teachers rather than to become administrators or politicians?
  On the related question of British teachers who go abroad, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to agree, in the light of what Sir Charles Arden-Clarke and other have said, that they should be at least as well off as if they had continued in service here at home? In paragraph 35 on page 37 of the Delhi Report there

  851
  is mention of a three-pronged attack on some of the difficulties which Commonwealth scholarships create. It is said that we should inspire confidence that the interests of teachers will be preserved, that there should be a challenge to teachers on the need for overseas service, and that a climate of opinion should be created among employers of teachers favourable to overseas service.
  To carry out these virtuous things it is necessary to have tangible answers to some questions. First, how far is the Minister willing to pay special allowances to augment salaries? Is he prepared to give terminal grants to teachers in the form of a lump sum when they return to the United Kingdom? Is he in a position to accept a code of secondment under which a teacher is guaranteed, according to seniority, either a comparable post on return home or his old salary for a period of two years after his return? One of the virtues of the Bill is that this is not a one-way traffic from Britain to developing countries. This works both ways. But if it is to work meaningfully both ways, questions such as these have to be answered.
  Of crucial importance is the question whether the Minister is prepared to finance, and to ask other Commonwealth countries to finance, an interview fund which almost entirely pays for a teacher's flight back to his country towards the end of his period of service abroad or in the United Kingdom if a Commonwealth teacher is concerned if he is listed on a short list for a post of seniority.
  With some hesitation I ask whether the Minister is prepared to offer financial inducements to local education authorities who employ teachers who have done a period of service overseas? I realise that there is a code in operation which has not yet had time to work in practice, but the Minister must admit that local education authorities and authorities abroad are under a powerful temptation not to irritate their own electors by preferring a teacher from abroad to "Buggins" who has been on the spot faithfully waiting his turn. A relevant consideration is that teachers who have been away on service abroad under the Bill or a related scheme are the richer for having been away, and local
  852
  authorities should be asked to accept this.
  The Delhi Report raises the question of special links such as those which exist between New Zealand and Fiji and Tonga. The New Zealand headmaster of the grammar school in Tonga speaks of the continuity of interest which is created by the relationship between Tonga and New Zealand, of inspectors going to and fro from New Zealand and of the feeling that he is still part of the ladder of promotion in New Zealand. He refers in another context to the new experience for stale teachers provided by work in underdeveloped countries.
  Is the Minister prepared to take the initiative in developing special links between certain parts of this country and certain parts of the developing Commonwealth in the way that New Zealand has developed such links? Is he prepared, as is recommended in the Delhi Report, to send out survey teams, which the Australians do, and, indeed, as is done in Europe by the Salzburg Seminar of American Studies, to find out exactly what is needed and to which individuals the Commonwealth scholarship scheme can be of most benefit? If the survey teams from this country have an idea of the problems of an under-developed region they will know where to place scholarships in this country whereas at the moment it is done more or less at random. The survey team should be made up of lecturers from training colleges and technical colleges who can advise the team on where to go in groups. However worthy the Commonwealth scholarships scheme may be, the fact is that people often go in two's and three's and not to the places most suitable for further training.
  It is relevant to mention the problem which faces principals of training colleges. They want to know, not over one year, but over five or seven years, which students are coming to them from abroad so that they can give their lecturers an opportunity to prepare the right courses. I ask the Minister to ask Dr. Inglis, Principal of the Moray House College of Education, which has done pioneering work in this sphere, for his opinion on the question of how much notice should be given to principals of training colleges who are expected to take part in this scheme

  853
  and to commend again the sort of informal link which has grown up between the Moray House College of Education and, say, the Bahamas, so that courses can be arranged which appeal to a particular territory or groups of territories. What initiative does the Minister propose to take in establishing links between the north-east of England and, say, Pakistan, or the North-East of Scotland and, say, a territory such as Nyasaland?
  There is the connected question of in-service courses. The Minister will have read in paragraph 24 on page 34 of the Delhi Report about the visit of 55 teachers from Britain to Nigeria over a period of six to eight weeks. Will the right hon. Gentleman finance similar visits to other territories, because we know of the value of these visits both from those who went and from the Nigerians.
  Paragraph 25 on page 34 of the Delhi Report speaks of the need for an experienced teacher to go to an underdeveloped country for a period of from four to six months. It seems to me from personal experience that this is unsatisfactory timing. It is too short to give a person time to settle in properly and too long for a person to go flat out, as was illustrated by the Nigerian visit, which was the pilot scheme. Would it not be better to arrange for those who have what we in Scotland call "parchment", the inspectors' certificate, after two years to go when they are at the peak of their enthusiasm and before they are married?
  It is very much easier to induce young men and women to go to development countries for two years before they are married in order to give their best and, at the same time, to carry out the corollary, namely, on the assumption that they have richer experience for having done so, to ask education authorities to give them priority in promotion prospects when they return.
  It is an important part of the implications of the Bill to consider rural education in developing countries. Because of that I make no apology for taking up the time of the House on this important subject. The Moray House College of Education pioneered lectures to overseas students, lectures which were conducted by headmasters of Scottish
  854
  rural schools. I wish to draw attention to page 10, section 66, of the Delhi Report, where it says that
  "a recognition of the special claims of rural teachers for inclusion in teacher-training schemes"
  is vital.
  Specifically, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman, in the light of pages 76 and 77 of the Delhi Report, what steps he would recommend to improve the qualifications of those who are already teaching in rural schools in the Commonwealth. Would he, to help rural schools, consider providing such things as ex-Army jeeps for transport of pupils from outlying districts to central schools, and is he prepared to finance, even fairly cheaply, the building of halls of residence in the Commonwealth?
  Unless we do this sort of thing, whatever value is attached to the Bill will be lost, because without the physical means of carrying out what we believe must be done for these people it is no use giving them an expensive training in this country for, for instance, rural teaching and then not give them the simplest instruments to put the fruits of the training into action.
  But perhaps one has to be realistic. It is no use having simply pockets of Commonwealth scholars studying rural education, say three at Hull, two at Cambridge and three at Glasgow. It would be more to the point to organise one concentrated course where they can get the benefit of experience. I would urge that in the Commonwealth scholarships scheme more attention should be paid to what the Delhi Report regards as one of the most vital aspects of education in the Commonwealth.
  In the same breath, and equally vital, there is the question of technical teachers. I should have thought that it was no more than enlightened self-interest on the part of this country to take this seriously. Apart from the benefits which it would bring to the peoples of the developing Commonwealth, the fact remains that they themselves would have—and they would similarly train their pupils—familiarity with British machinery. What happens too often now is that the lawyers and economists come here, but those seeking technical training have to go to Germany.

  855
  If the right hon. Gentleman wants to make a decisive contribution from the points of view both of our own country and of the Commonwealth, the best thing he could do would be to expand the Bill in order to create much greater facilities for potential technical teachers at all levels to come to Britain. It stands to reason that if a technical teacher from Nigeria goes to train in Cologne, Aachen or Dusseldorf, he will see the machinery made in those places or somewhere else in Germany and will become familiar with that machinery. For this reason, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to pay special attention to the training of technical teachers.
  There is, however, I would reckon, a specific problem here, and that concerns the inequality of standards. The fact is that those who have a degree in engineering from India are often of little more than the standard of the holder of a Higher Certificate in Britain. We should understand this and should not be too stringent about the qualifications which are given to Commonwealth scholars before they come here. We must also use some common sense about those whom we select. Otherwise, if we apply too strictly the rules of rigid entry we shall favour those who need help less. So I ask the right hon. Gentleman to look into the whole question of over-rigid entry.
  I would also ask the right hon. Gentleman, in the light of page 55, Section 27 of the Delhi Report, how far he is prepared to extend the special training scheme whereby 40 to 50 bursars receive six months' special training at a technical college and six months' planned industrial experience before proceeding to a one-year course of technical teacher training. I would suggest that such courses should be enlarged outside university towns, where the pressure on accommodation is considerable. I would bring to the right hon. Gentleman's notice a very successful experiment in a different field, namely, the Tulliallan Police College, in Clackmannanshire, where many Nigerian, Ghanaian and Asian students are to do their police training. This is in an area of considerable unemployment in Scotland and does something to take up the resources, however small. It is at least a drop from the right bucket.
  856
  There is another question which is directly relevant to the subject of the Bill, and that is the teaching of English as a second language. In the Report of the Committee on Financial Problems of Educational Expansion, which appears on page 80 of the Delhi Report, Governments are urged to underwrite specific projects which could be developed for Commonwealth education. It appears that the right hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to take the initiative in establishing English language institutes such as those at Allahabad and Hyderabad.
  In discussing the amount of money provided for scholarships, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would not rather consider whether similar sums of money would not be better spent in setting up English language institutes, in particular, in under-developed countries. There is scope here for the system of regional links between, say, Lancashire and the West Indies, of which the Delhi Report makes so much.
  The next question that arises in connection with the scholars is the new method of audio-visual aids. In the light of Chapter 10 of the Makerere Conference and section 78, page 12, of the Delhi Report, would it be possible to supply each returning Commonwealth scholar with a number of television sets in the form of aid? These are very important key people and we want their influence to extend as far as possible. In case the right hon. Gentleman thinks the suggestion foolish, I would remind him that the subject was raised by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer a fortnight ago, when, according to the OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 636, he said he would look favourably on that form of aid to under-developed countries which came from unutilised resources in Britain.
  I think that certainly as a matter of urgency the right hon. Gentleman ought to contact Mr. Roy Thomson and his trustees—Lord Alexander, Lord Williamson, Lord Kilmuir, Mr. Coltart and Mr. Thomson, junior—to find out what programmes are being made for underdeveloped countries in the new organisation which they are setting up at Mearnskirk, south of Glasgow. It is absolutely vital that Commonwealth

  857
  scholars who are to become teachers should be in on this novel project from the beginning.
  If I may be allowed just one irrelevancy, it might be fitting to say that since the days when Carnegie and Rockefeller pioneered large-scale philanthropy in a big way no man has used his money more intelligently than Mr. Roy Thomson in giving£5 million to set up this foundation south of Glasgow in order to help students, scholars and teachers from underdeveloped countries organise their own television programmes. I may say that this is an unsponsored remark because I have no connection, business or otherwise, with Mr. Roy Thomson. This is something which has never been done before. It is an exciting experiment and directly relevant to the question whether the most is made of those fortunate enough to get Commonwealth scholarships.
  The Delhi Report also raises the question of books. I should like to congratulate the publishers, because there is too much criticism and not enough realisation of the good things done by them. Although it is true that publishers of books for underdeveloped countries are in a lucrative trade, they are doing a highly imaginative jab. I welcome the statement on page 58 of the Delhi Report whereby ten to twelve bursaries are for practical experience in publishing houses in the writing, preparation and production of textbooks. Paragraph 33 on page 57 of the Report is definitely disturbing, however, when it says:
  "…our discussions made it clear that there is a growing unsatisfied demand for reading matter of all kinds, ranging from primers and simple readers for children and new literates to literature and reference material for general and specialists."
  It goes on to talk of shortage of paper for textbook production.
  If the Chancellor of the Exchequer's promise of two weeks ago is to mean anything—he promised that he would look favourably on that form of aid to under-developed countries which came from underemployed resources in Britain—let him take note that, if they are short of paper for textbooks and other materials in the Commonwealth, these are precisely the things which are made in my constituency, where there is an unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent. This is the Chancellor's acid test.
  858
  Is the Under-Secretary of State prepared to bring this to the Chancellor's attention and ask him specifically if he can help? If the Chancellor's promise meant anything, he will look into the question of providing an adequate number of textbooks for under-developed countries as a form of aid. If the Chancellor will not consider this sort of question, then his promise, which impressed some of us in the House, is absolutely meaningless.
  My time is running out, but I would raise the question of mobile bookshops, again a useful form of aid.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon Gentleman again, but this is the Commonwealth Scholarships (Amendment) Bill. It is true that it is an order to refer to the Commonwealth Scholarships Act, 1959, but there is nothing of what he is talking about in that Act that I can see.
  Mr. Dalyell: Then, with respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I will say, finally, that this Bill should lend itself to a vast and dramatic expansion. But if we are to have the expansion that is necessary, then immediately we come up against the problem mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East—the fact that people are already asking whether British youngsters are to be deprived of a university education for which they have the right qualifications because we must accept so many students from Africa and Asia.
  If the sort of expansion that is meaningful is to be achieved at all, there must be a great expansion of universities, especially, I suggest, in those areas where there is scope because of the availability of labour to carry out the necessary buildings.
  Candidates are asked, rather sadly, in Scotland at election times whether they are aware of the shortage of university places. The Under-Secretary of State's supporters as well as ours have been asked this. Indeed, he can ask the man who is now contesting Glasgow, Woodside, on the Conservative Party's behalf, whether this is so or not. He can ask his friend what he says to constitutents who say at meetings, "My Johnny, who has the qualifications to enter a university, cannot get in, while 'So-and-so' from Nigeria can."

  859
  If the sort of programme we would have liked the Bill to embody is to be put into operation, then, urgently and quickly, the Government must establish more universities. Scotland especially should have not only one but at least four more universities. This is a matter of considerable urgency.
  5.14 p.m.
  Miss Joan Vickers: I shall not go into all the points raised by the hon. Member for West-Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) but I presume that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State would not have brought this Bill forward today if he had not been prepared to provide places. Indeed, if there were no places for our own people he would not be bringing forward a Bill as beneficial as this because it is for the further co-operation of students in this country and overseas.
  I wish that the hon. Member and others would not refer to "coloured students". Surely it is possible now to refer to "overseas students" or to mention them by their country of origin. This Bill deals with people of all colours—white, yellow and black, so let us in future refer to people either as "overseas students" or by their country of origin. It is most unfortunate that we should continue to use the phrase "coloured students".
  Mr. Dalyell: I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Lady, but I think that she will agree that I referred to "coloured students" in the context of a particular problem—that of landladies. I used the phrase in that context in the interests of honesty.
  Miss Vickers: Nevertheless, I think that it would be possible to refer to them by their country of origin and not as "coloured" even in the context of landladies.
  I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is the Commonwealth countries themselves who select students, and not this country, and therefore it is up to them to say whether students are "tied" and go back to their own countries. Many countries do tie their students for a period of up to two years. As for induction courses, I agree that it is necessary to have some preparation. For instance,
  860
  I realise that, in going to Scotland, there may be some difficulty for them in understanding the accent.
  One of the best ways to prepare is to do so in their own countries just before they come here. Having been recently overseas myself, I should pay tribute in this connection to the work done by the Corona clubs, particularly for women, before the students come here. It is more important to do this work before they come here than after, since they have so many distractions on arrival.
  I am glad to see that we are to take the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man into this scheme.
  At the recent Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in Lagos, delegates from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man played an excellent part.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;
  House counted, and, 40 Members being present—
  Miss Vickers: I was mentioning that I was glad to see that the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are to be included in the Bill. I was saying that, at the recent Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference, representatives from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man did a very good job, and I hope that the facilities for both these territories, as they have no universities, may be used for informal contacts, on which I should like to say something more.
  My chief interest in the Bill, which I suppose arises out of the second Educational Conference at Delhi, lies in the fact that we are trying to get more cooperation and understanding between Commonwealth countries, and in that context I want to quote what the President of India said in his message to the Conference. He expressed the hope that the spirit of mutual assistance and cooperation would be greatly strengthened and would contribute to the strengthening of the bonds of friendship and good will which hold the Commonwealth together. But if we are to hold the Commonwealth together, we must work a little more quickly than at the moment. He went on to say:
  "Without the expansion of educational facilities progress is apt to be tardy and lopsided; indeed it may result in the creation of

  861
  undesirable stresses and strains to have material progress with inadequate education."
  Can we go quickly enough with this educational programme to stop the stresses and strains which were mentioned by the President of India?
  I have just returned from overseas and I appreciate that there are many people hoping to take scholarships in this country and elsewhere who will probably not be able to do so. Can my hon. Friend say how the selection is made? I appreciate that countries select their own students, but do we know the numbers on the waiting lists who want to come to this country and those on the waiting lists to go to other countries?
  As is also said in the Report:
  "…co-operation will not be a living reality unless the Governments and the peoples of the Commonwealth continue to strive together in a common effort. There must be a feeling of common purpose and of urgency, and cooperation must grow into new fields."
  Although I welcome the Bill as a step forward, I am not sure that we understand the urgency of the present situation. The Report goes on:
  "Governments will always face difficulties in meeting the financial needs of education, which are almost limitless, and available funds must be deployed to the best effect."
  I should like to know whether this is being done. Although we have the Report of the Delhi Conference and a report on how scholarships are being allocated, we do not have any details about how the 1959 Act has worked. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to tell us how much co-operation there is among the Commonwealth countries and whether the plan is really working and what provisions are made in the Bill for the further speeding up of future action.
  I understand that the original plan envisaged two-year scholarships, but some degrees take longer. For instance, a Cambridge Ph.D. course often requires students to stay longer, especially on research work. Is all the money now being allocated to provide new scholarships, or will some of it go to help people already here to continue their present scholarships? How the money is allocated will make a great deal of difference to the future. Are we extending the scheme to many more students, or simply helping those already here to continue their researches?
  862
  If my figures are correct, I think that the co-operation is a little disappointing. We have sent only 10 United Kingdom students to Canada, while Canada has sent 17 here; we have sent four to Australia, which has sent us 15; India appears to have sent 35 and we have sent none to India, while Pakistan has sent 18 and we have sent to Pakistan only one student. How are we co-operating in sending our students overseas? I am glad to see that two have gone to the University of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, but not enough United Kingdom students are going overseas, and it is as important for United Kingdom students to go overseas as for Commonwealth students to come here. There are many very good universities in the Commonwealth and I hope that my hon. Friend will say whether enough students are going from this country and whether it is possible to increase the number.
  When the Minister was speaking in the House on 25th November, 1959, he said, as reported in column 374 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, that the discussion at Oxford was based on the principle of mutual assistance, but so far as I can see, we do not seem to be having much mutual assistance at present. Each country has something to give and each student has something to gain by seeing other countries with different needs and different circumstances. Very few women appear to be taking up scholarships of this kind—the number appears to be fewer than twenty. Have many been turned down? The education of women is extremely important.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) mentioned my interest in what I call "informal" education, that is, the education of men and women who are individuals in their communities. This was mentioned by the Minister on the Second Reading of the 1959 Bill. What progress has been made with informal education, which I regard as extremely important?
  The hon. Member for West Lothian mentioned the British Council, which was also mentioned in our earlier debate. I then made some suggestions about extra hostel accommodation and about a hiring scheme on the lines of that of the Royal Navy. Is there sufficient accommodation for these students? It is essential that they should not have any

  863
  domestic worries or duties during their period here, because in the comparatively short time that they are here, especially with the higher scholarships, they need to devote their entire time to study.
  Are the scales of allowance working out fairly and are there any hardships? It appears that a student with a scholarship is allowed to bring his wife, but that a student with a fellowship is allowed to bring his wife and children. Is there sufficient money and are individual students able to bring their wives and children if they so desire?
  The hon. Member for West Lothian also mentioned the use of the English language. How many students have a sufficient working knowledge of the English language to undertake these scholarships? I have noticed that, probably owing to the shortage of teachers, the standard of English has deteriorated. Are overseas students given extra tuition in English when they come here, or are they simply expected to work alongside others whose first language is English without extra help?
  The exchange of senior educationists was also mentioned in our last debate and it was suggested that there should be bilateral exchanges. Have any such exchanges taken place? Has my hon. Friend found that there have been any of the short-term visits which were envisaged by his predecessor when the scheme was introduced?
  This is one of the most important Bills to come before the House this Session. The whole future of the Commonwealth depends on our mutual understanding. At the Lagos Conference I suggested that, just as the United Nations has a development decade, we might consider having an education development decade throughout the Commonwealth.
  I hope that this Bill will further this idea, and that my hon. Friend will be able to give us more details of exactly how this scheme is working and whether we can look forward perhaps to an extension of the scheme if it proves to be as valuable as we hope it will. With those few words I conclude by saying that I support the Bill.
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. James Boyden: I support the hon. Lady for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) when
  864
  she refers to the small number of women scholars appointed. One of the troubles is that both in this Amendment and the Act the approach to them is too orthodox I appreciate that it would be difficult to earmark particular scholarships or a particular percentage, for women, but this problem in fact affects more than half the Commonwealth. Educate the women and you educate the families.
  I think that more imagination is needed by the administrators in getting through to this group. Indeed, it is along these lines that I want to make a special plea about the number of scholarships awarded for social education. The emphasis on social education was a central feature of the Dehli Conference, and I do not think that in relation to this Bill, and in relation to the Commission which awards the scholarships, there has been enough appreciation of the importance of social education.
  It seems surprising that the Government have not realised how successful they have been in this scholarship project. At the moment the sum of money provided is almost derisory in relation to the success which the Government have had in creating this general interest in the scholarships, because one of the reasons for producing this Bill is that the scholarships have been so well taken up that there is a need for more Ph.D. scholarships and a much greater need for scholarships all the way round.
  I am surprised that the Departments concerned with this have not resisted the Treasury more and seen that a larger sum of money was provided. As the hon. Member for Devonport said, more urgency is required, because speed is the essence of the matter. If enough scholarships are not provided, talent and goodwill will be wasted. Looking back over the history of State scholarships in this country, one sees that the university ladder is now broader than it has ever been, and I think of all the talents that have been wasted because our present attitude did not prevail many years before. I am disappointed that more imagination and more concentration on this problem has not been made in the Bill.
  On most occasions I have disagreed with Lord Eccles, but on this occasion I should like to pay tribute to the rôle he

  865
  has played in this sphere of Commonwealth educational co-operation. He gave personal attention to the Council for Education in the Commonwealth, and at Delhi he played an outstanding part in bringing to the centre of our educational thought the educational problems of the Commonwealth. One of the most striking phenomena of the century is the way in which all the Commonwealth countries have come together in this scheme, but this is my point of criticism. I do not think that the response of our Government has been adequate to the response of the ordinary people in the Commonwealth countries and that of their Governments. At the same time, however, I give credit for what has been achieved.
  My theme is that just because the Delhi Conference laid so much emphasis on social education, there ought to be greater provisions for social education scholarships, and a special administrative drive to ensure that this type of student comes forward. The Report of the Second Commonwealth Education Conference says in paragraph 11:
  "There was complete agreement in the Committee about the need for social education and it was generally considered that social education should receive a much higher priority in educational development programmes. Unless special attention is paid to social education, economic and social development programmes will continue in a state of imbalance. Social education needs not only government financial and administrative support but also the active participation and co-operation of the people. Countries will find different ways of administering these services but there must be strong central direction and support."
  It is that for which I ask the Government, and not only by earmarking scholarships. The Parliamentary Secretary and I know that the number of applications for social education scholarships is very low. In 1961 there were only two applications. The reason for this is that the imagination and energies of the voluntary bodies in the sending countries have not had that central stimulus and support from us which is necessary.
  In his letter of 21st December, 1961, to me the Minister of State said:
  "Therefore, until a greater number of nominations for study at colleges of adult education are received, I do not think that the appointment of an expert in adult education as a member of the Commission would be justified."
  I had written on behalf of the Adult Education Committee suggesting that
  866
  one way of making sure that proper administrative action was taken, and enough stimulus given to this scheme, was to have someone in the Commission who was an expert on adult education, and specialised in it. It is putting the cart before the horse to suggest that because the demand is not there an adult educationalist should not be given recognition on the Commission. I urge that this is one of the ways of bringing social education more to the centre of things.
  One thinks of Ruskin College, Hill-croft, Fircroft College and Coleg Harlech. These colleges have played a great rôle in English adult education, and are playing it in Commonwealth social education. If one of their principals were on the Commission, he would see to it that they took steps to deal with the problem.
  On the voluntary side, the Parliamentary Secretary perhaps knows that the British Council has taken steps to ensure that voluntary bodies are well seized of the fact that facilities are available in England to cater for many more adult scholarships. Our college facilities are excellent. The interest of the college authorities is great, and perhaps the best way of putting it is to quote a paragraph from the document which the Adult Education Committee send to its various contacts in Commonwealth countries. It says:
  "The British long-term residential Colleges have always catered for adult students from overseas, and many of their graduates have made their mark on their return to their own countries. In the last twelve years the Co-operative College alone has catered for nearly 300 Commonwealth students. Two are now Ministers in the Tanganyika Government, others are Principals of Co-operative Institutes, Commissioners and Registrars of Co-operative Development etc. An ex-Fircrofter is a leading member of the Malawi Party in Nyasaland"—
  Unfortunately that is no longer so, because this brilliant young man, who was a distinguished Fitcrofter, was killed in a road accident. That is the degree of "success" which I have in mind. I am concerned not so much with the wordly success of the students, but with the social impact they have made. Judged by that standard of success, many of them have made a great impact indeed.—
  "another is the Malayan representative in Europe for U.N. refugee work. The Chairman of the Nigerian Coal Board studied at Coleg

  867
  Harlech, ex-Ruskin students have been Ministers in British Guiana and Sierra Leone, Tom Mboya is General Secretary of the Kenya African National Union, and others are serving as Ambassadors, Permanent Secretaries, trade union leaders, labour officers, members of legislative councils and mayors throughout the Commonwealth. Hillcroft has been catering for the wives of prominent officials, and for teachers and social workers."
  These are the people who have gone before and have been assisted very often by private funds. In fact, only three have been assisted by the scholarship funds we are discussing. Greater efforts must be made to use the fund and to use these scholarships to bring in the people who will play a great rôle in the future of their countries so that they come and study at our residential adult colleges and universities. There is a special paragraph in the Delhi Report which makes specific recommendations about this. Referring to the need for social education, it states:
  "Social education is still a developing field in which there is a shortage of people who have both training and experience and who can plan and develop programmes particularly in the less developed parts of the Commonwealth. It is felt that experienced and mature persons should be sent from these countries where they would already be in a position of leadership in the communities to which they belong, to gain overseas training and wider experience specially suited to the needs of the communities in which they work. The training that they undertake ought to be of one or two years' duration and take the form of special courses without necessarily leading to formal qualification. Such training could be undertaken in institutions offering formal qualifications."
  and, of course, in the places that I am suggesting.
  I think that the practical difficulties are these, and it is to these that I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will pay especial attention. In the first place, it is very much easier to appoint a scholar who has definite academic qualifications which one can weigh up. One takes a risk when one appoints a person on his experience or contributions to public work. Those are much more difficult qualities to assess. Therefore, it is easier to look at the paper qualifications and to appoint on those. Indeed, it is much easier to extend the award to a third year to successful students. But I think that in some respects this must be resisted and unorthodox methods taken to find the types of students to whom I have referred.
  868
  There is, of course, the difficulty at the sending end. An active trade unionist, or an active social worker is usually devoted to the cause he gives his life to, and it is very difficult to persuade him to give up his active work for one or two years to improve his qualifications. As I have suggested, one of the ways in which support could be given to the Commission in doing its job is to appoint people to the particular body which know its own field inside and out. Another way is to give much greater support to the voluntary bodies in the field. All over the Commonwealth there is a net of voluntary adult education bodies. There are strong links with the Workers Educational Association and the Council of Social Service and Voluntary Services Overseas. There are a good many links which the British Council and the Government need to strengthen and, indeed, to give strength to their publicity.
  I think that it would be quite fair to say that if this field of social education is ignored the social discontent, the frustration in a good many countries will be very much exacerbated. We have in England and in other Commonwealth countries a great fund of experience in this matter and, at the moment, judging by the results and the awards, we are not taking anything like enough advantage of it. I hope the present debate will persuade the Government to make our contribution in the future much more effective.
  5.44 p.m.
  Mrs. Eirene White: We have had a very interesting debate on this relatively modest Bill. It has been an interesting debate because everyone who has spoken has done so out of longstanding concern and, in some cases, experience in these matters. We should be very grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary if he is able to speak a little more widely in his winding up than he felt able to do in his introductory speech, and bring in some of the wider implications of this great effort in Commonwealth co-operation.
  It is a very inspiring effort in Commonwealth co-operation. I think that we have all felt that. I had the privilege of being at the Oxford Conference at which the first plans were made. I was told that at Delhi, valuable though this experience was to those who went there,

  869
  there was a slight feeling that it was taking a little long to get off the ground and that perhaps we were not going far enough and fast enough. It seems to me that there are several problems which we have to consider very carefully if this scheme is to be an even greater success than it has been so far.
  One is the matter which has been dealt with in a specific aspect by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden). It touches the countries where there are not very many graduates, and those graduates, few as they are, simply cannot be spared, but there may be, on the other hand, a number of people of mature years who could benefit very considerably indeed by the kind of adult education course, a briefer one—normally one year—which has been described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland.
  Let us look at the table, for example, in the second Annual Report of the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission. Might I say in passing that it is most unfortunate that this debate should have taken place the day before the Report of the Commonwealth Liaison Committee is to be published and a week or two before the Report of the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission. It is a great pity that the-published figures available to us are twelve months or more out of date. Taking the last figures available, which were the awards for the academic year, 1961, if we look at these in appendix 5 of the Report we see that, naturally enough, the great bulk of the awards made under this scheme—that is awards tenable in the United Kingdom—go to countries like Canada OT Australia and, of course, to India and Pakistan with their very large populations. We would expect them to have a large number. But when we come down to the long tail of countries with one or two or three awards, one feels that they are not getting the full benefit of this scheme, because it is not really tailored to fit their particular needs. One notable exception is Hong Kong, which although a small country has a university of long-standing, and has apparently been able to produce quite a number of scholarship holders.
  Although we all know that awards are made by the British Council, under other schemes, to deal with some of the
  870
  people whom we have in mind, nevertheless this Commonwealth scholarship enterprise is perhaps unduly heavily weighted in favour of those who have proportionately a large number of graduates and can spare their graduates for the relative luxury of taking Ph.D. degrees. At the other end are those who have already reached considerable academic distinction. Part of the scheme was that there should be fellowships as well as scholarships and the fellowships were intended for those who were scholars of repute, heads of departments, professors and so on, in their own countries. The proposals are modest enough. I believe that in the United Kingdom we offer five. I think that I am correct is saying that three are the most that have been taken up.
  It seems rather a pity that this interchange of scholars at a very senior level indeed does not seem to have worked. This may be because there are other opportunities for them and this part of the scheme is perhaps not so much needed. If so, we should be told about this. If this part of the scheme is not required for fellowships, ought we, perhaps, to increase the number of awards to people at the other end, whom we have just been discussing, in less formal education? In discussing the Bill, we are entitled to have rather more information on these subjects than we have so far been given.
  I feel strongly about the adult education aspect, partly because I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, have considerable personal experience of some of the adult education colleges. I take issue with my hon. Friend, however, upon one point. He said that there were ample facilities in those colleges. All I would say is that as far as Coleg Harlech is concerned, until we get more money from the Ministry of Education we will not have ample facilities.
  Mr. Boyden: They have made facilities available really at the expense of their own students, because of the meanness of the Ministry of Education.
  Mrs. White: Precisely. There has been a clamp-down on the adult education colleges, matched only by that on nursery schools. We have had no extra capital for extension of adult education colleges since the end of the war, although they would offer precisely what was

  871
  needed for a number of students, especially from the less developed countries. It would not be easy for them, although they do their best, to provide much in the way of additional places for people for whom the kind of education which they offer is precisely what is needed.
  I hope very much that the Under-Secretary of State will consult his colleagues in the Ministry of Education and point out that from the viewpoint of the Commonwealth, this is an important side of education and that if we do not have sufficient provision at these colleges, this is a matter to which the Ministry should give further and closer attention.
  Naturally, I should be happy if more awards were made to women. I recognise however, that perhaps there have not been so many applicants, partly because to take a further degree—and most of the scheme is concerned with those who would wish to take two degrees—occupies a good deal of time and many women will already have entered into domestic commitments and not feel able to leave their home countries for as long as is needed to take a second degree. A number of women come to this country for second decrees, but not many, it appears, do so under the provisions of this scheme.
  I should like to say how much concerned I am with some of the problems mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), who referred to the conditions which awaited those who are fortunate enough to obtain awards under the scheme. I am deeply concerned at the inadequate arrangements that are made for lodging some of these scholarship holders. As was pointed out when the first Bill was introduced in 1959, the age of the people taking these scholarship awards is normally to be not less than from 22 to 28, with a maximum age of 35; the fellowship holders can be much older. The scholarship holders can be up to 35 years of age and are likely to be at least in their middle or late twenties. Therefore, the majority of them would be married and some, of course, would have families of young children.
  In those circumstances, it is unreasonable to expect them to do their best work if they do not have proper accom-
  872
  modation when they come here. I have been disturbed to read in the Reports of both the Scholarship Commission and the Commonwealth Education Liaison Committee of the difficulties which have faced these students. They are advised officially to come without their wives in the hope that their wives will be able to come later if and when satisfactory accommodation can be found.
  That is most unreasonable. If my husband were offered a grant on that basis, there might well be domestic strife. The whole purpose of today's Bill is to extend the time from two to three years. If my husband were offered such an award and went to a foreign country for three years, I should certainly say that I would go with him. I need not particularise, but I am sure that most married women would take the same point of view.
  If I were to go with my husband, I would obviously expect to be able to have proper living accommodation for family life. This simply is not available. Very little accommodation suitable for married couples, particularly if there are children, is available at the university centres. This has become an acute problem, particularly in London and Oxford, as I know from personal information, and it may well be so in other places. The least we can ask for in passing the Bill, which is intended to increase the number of persons in this position, is that the Government should take far more seriously the provision of accommodation for married students in the universities.
  I know that at Oxford this matter has caused the greatest possible concern. By making considerable efforts among our own graduates and by a generous grant from the Nuffield Foundation, my own college—Somerville—has started a building for graduate students. This is mostly for women from overseas, although we shall certainly hope to accommodate some United Kingdom graduates also, to give them the possibility of decent living accommodation while in Oxford. At the moment, all they have is a bed-sitting room in Walton Street or Cowley. We can offer them nothing whatever in college except the right to dine there once a week. There is no common room for them—absolutely nothing.

  873
  Whatever we have done we have had to do entirely by our own efforts, including borrowing quite heavily, to erect the new building. We have had no help whatever from the University Grants Committee. I was speaking recently to Lady Ogilvie, who has been one of the most active protagonists of another project. She, incidentally, is also a member of the United Kingdom Scholarship Commission. She and her colleagues in Oxford are trying desperately to get money to erect a building, which has been planned, to provide accommodation for married students. Again, they cannot get one penny from the University Grants Committee towards it.
  If the group of scholars with whom we are concerned under the Bill are to carry out their studies with success, I trust that the Under-Secretary of State will make representations to the Treasury and point out that this also is a proper subject for grants and that unless proper conditions can be provided, a good deal of the value of the money which we are being asked to expend under the Bill will be lost.
  Where people come with wives and families, provision should be made for some sort of emergency fund. I have heard only recently through the National Union of Students of a family, for example, in which the wife and children came with the husband, who was a scholarship holder. The wife fell ill and domestic help had to be provided to look after the children, but it was found that there was no way of meeting such an emergency. This may be a relatively minor point, but it is something which makes a difference to whether this sort of scheme can be a success.
  I know that the Government have made money available for more hostel accommodation in general, although I am not convinced that it is necessarily being channelled quickly enough into the right places. I understand, however, that money which has been proposed for additional hostel accommodation, for all overseas students and not merely for the small group referred to in the Bill, has resulted so far in plans having been made—I do not think that progress has gone any further than that—for an extra 500 student beds in London and about 800 outside London.
  This might sound quite encouraging until one looks at the numbers of over-
  874
  seas students now in this country. I was myself surprised to find that, compared with the 1959–60 academic year when there were 47,000 students in this country from overseas—that is, students of all types—by 1961–62 the figure had risen to more than 60,000. In other words, there has been an increase of 13,000 in two years. Therefore, the number of student beds which I have mentioned does not seem to amount to all that much
  Of the total from overseas, more than 13,000 are university students. This brings one to the point, made by my hon. Friends the Members for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) and West Lothian, that it is essential that in a scheme of this kind which, even in a modest way, increases the number of students at the universities, we should have adequate provision for university places in general. It would be tragic if the proportion of about 10 per cent. which we now offer to students from all over the world should have to be reduced because the Government have been lagging in the provision of university places.
  Surely this is one of the things which must concern us most. It is true that the number who come under the Commonwealth scholarship scheme is not very great. But they are students at post-graduate level and, as is made clear in the Report of the University Grants Committee, students who are undertaking research at this level are, naturally enough, taking more time proportionately of the university staff than those at undergraduate level because their research needs careful supervision, more particularly if it is undertaken in the scientific and technical spheres.
  Therefore, we are deeply concerned that anything, even a small increase in the numbers, should mean that we are putting an extra pressure on the university departments, many of which are at present considerably understaffed. I do not wish to go into much detail but I would direct the attention of hon. Members to the Report of the University Grants Committee which was published only a few days ago. There it is pointed out that we now have a considerably less favourable ratio of staff to students in almost all the university faculties, other than medicine and dentistry, and this is particularly important in dealing

  875
  with post-graduate and research students.
  In fairness to our own students we cannot afford to allow this ratio to deteriorate further. I hope that in the interests of the Commonwealth students further pressure will be put on the Treasury to increase its grants and to maintain a better ratio of stall to students in the universities. If this were done, no one would be more pleased than hon. Members on this side of the House, because we believe passionately that one of the best things which we can offer to our comrades in the Commonwealth is the opportunity to study in this country. We do not wish to diminish in any way the facilities available to our Commonwealth students.
  We wish the Bill well, but we shall be extremely disturbed if, in passing this Measure, and increasing the number of students from the Commonwealth, we do so with the feeling that it is to the detriment of our own students.
  6.4 p.m.
  Mr. Tilney: By leave of the House, I will endeavour to answer some of the points which have been raised and the questions asked during this very interesting debate. I am glad that the Bill has been welcomed from both sides of the House. If not all the questions are answered—many of them should really be directed to my right hon. Friends the Minister of Education or the Secretary for Technical Cooperation rather than to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations—I will see that answers are in due course sent to all the hon. Members concerned.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) regretted that nothing more imaginative had been done and thought that this was merely a matter of a cost of£20,000. The hon. Gentleman and, I think, my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby) suggested that the£6 million might be expended before 1965. I am doubtful whether that will be so. The rate of expenditure in the current year is estimated to be approximately£1 million. In the next financial year it is expected to rise to£1¼million, and in the final year
  876
  of the quinquennium, 1964–65, to£1½million, which was the rate anticipated when the Commonwealth Teachers Act was passed. It has taken some time for this scheme to gather momentum. The administration of the£6 million fund includes a limited sum being kept in reserve for contingencies which has not so fair been allocated.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, East also suggested that there were many mature people without formal educational qualifications who would make first-class leaders in their home countries. To some extent this is a matter for the local education authorities, and I should like to quote a letter from Lord Scarbrough, Chairman of the Scholarship Commission, which was written on 29th March to my noble Friend the Minister of State:
  "The task entrusted to the Commission is to provide the best which this country has to offer in the way of higher education for those from Commonwealth countries selected for awards. It is for that high purpose that the Commission has received full co-operation from the universities in this country, particularly in the giving of places to Commonwealth scholars and in the interest in these scholars taken by university teachers. If we give in to the demands of Commonwealth Governments for a quicker turn-round of scholars, a demand which in certain cases can well be understood"—
  as, indeed, I understand it—
  "we shall impair the prestige which Commonwealth scholarships have already acquired and will run the risk of a fall in the general quality of candidates for them. We shall be departing to some extent from the high purpose entrusted to the Commission and we shall run a risk of losing some of the interest which universities have hitherto taken in the plan. I feel it important to strike this note of warning at this early stage lest there be too much readiness to acquiesce in the requests from overseas without realising their full implications."
  Mr. G. M. Thomson: After reading that rather peculiar and discouraging letter, does the hon. Gentleman really think that half-a-dozen Commonwealth scholarships in half-a-dozen adult residential colleges will make the universities of this country feel that the scheme no longer has academic prestige?
  Mr. Tilney: Surely in this plan we are discussing the post-graduate, highly educated man or woman. There is a major demand for that type of person in the Commonwealth countries particularly the new Commonwealth countries.

  877
  I was glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to the danger of some going in for what I think he called a permanent scholarship. It is, of course, immensely important that they should go back to their home country to do a job there.
  Mr. Boyden: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman is ruling out the award to adult scholars which is admitted under the present regulations?
  Mr. Tilney: If I may, I shall deal with the point about adult scholars later in my speech.
  The hon. Member for Dundee, East said that this was a disappointing Bill. He referred to the great scale of the problem and the small percentage of educated people there were in many of the newly independent Commonwealth countries. I know of the vast need for education in Northern Nigeria. The hon. Member referred to East Africa and other territories of Asia. The demand is absolutely tremendous, but this is a limited Bill dealing, as he said, with a technical application of the 1959 Act.
  He also referred to the Peace Corps of the United States of America. This seems to be a different conception dealing with a different type of person from those whom we are considering today, although I ant glad that he said we in Britain seem to be doing as well as the United States of America. It has to be remembered that our national income per head is only half that of the United States. The hon. Member appealed for more teachers to work in the Commonwealth. No one would like to see that more than I would, but naturally some are afraid that if they go they may lose their rung on the ladder of promotion. I appeal to all local education authorities to bear in mind that people who go may be much more qualified to teach when they come back than those who have stayed at home.
  The hon. Member raised a number of other points. Teacher training is, on the whole, going very well. At the time of the Oxford Conference in July, 1959, there were 730 Commonwealth teacher training students in this country. Now there are 1,225. Four hundred bursaries under the Oxford Conference scheme are being awarded by us annually. The hon. Member asked about the supply of teachers. I agree that the recruitment is going better
  878
  now. The British recruitment agencies, such as the Department of Technical Cooperation and the British Council, are continually trying new ideas. For instance, there is a team of teachers going overseas together and there is a scheme to recruit young graduates who have been trained as teachers but who have not yet had any teaching experience in Britain. That is at a time when adventure may well appeal to them and before they have taken on domestic and financial commitments in this country. In this connection earlier marriage here has proved a problem in recruitment. As to technical colleges, I am glad that tribute has been paid to the work of local education authorities. About 9,000 Commonwealth students are now working at the technical colleges. The Minister of Education is about to send out a fresh circular drawing the attention of authorities to the welfare needs of these students.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ton-bridge looked to the future and urged that more should be done in many fields. He referred to the Delhi Conference recommendations. This House should take note that Britain put forward two of the few concrete proposals for new schemes brought before that Conference. We have offered up to forty-five bursaries for a two-year course beginning in September, 1963. Applications from developing countries of the Commonwealth have already been invited. The aim of these technical teacher training courses will be to produce teachers of craftsmen and technicians, and the subjects of training to be offered to the first intake of bursars will be mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, constructional engineering and building.
  As to experts in the teaching of English as a second language, the first ten of the thirty experts under the British scheme announced at Delhi have recently been recruited by the British Council from about 100 applicants. Those selected have just begun a year's advanced training at the universities of London, Leeds and Edinburgh. They will be available in the autumn of 1963 to serve on secondment in Commonwealth countries which ask for their services and can use them in key posts. In addition, schemes for training here for teachers from overseas, and for the supply of British teachers for developing

  879
  countries, which originated at the first Commonwealth Educational Conference in Oxford in 1959 have continued. They have not been starved of money because of new schemes. Nor will they be starved by diversion of the£20,000 a year to the scholarship plan as a result of this Bill.
  The House may be interested to know that in 1961 only one Commonwealth scholarship was awarded in adult education, but two were awarded in 1962. Only four nominations have been made by Commonwealth Governments for adult education and three of these have received awards. It will be understood that the Commission can award only on the nominations received. Therefore it is not the fault of this country that there are fewer scholarships awarded for adult education.
  Mrs. White: While fully appreciating that, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to pay attention to the suggestion that other ways and means of calling attention to these awards which could be provided in this country? If someone were placed on the Commission with knowledge of this special field that could be done.
  Mr. Tilney: I am not sure that it necessarily follows that someone with this special educational qualification being on the Commission would ensure that more awards or more applications for awards were made. Certainly we shall bear in mind all that has been suggested in the debate today.
  As to the review of the Government's plans for Commonwealth educational cooperation, the time for having a fresh look at existing schemes and considering new ideas will be before the next Commonwealth Education Conference, which is to take place in Canada in June, 1964. I am grateful for all the various suggestions which have been put forward. These will be considered long before then.
  The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), whose advice on education is always interesting and original, made many points and had many questions to ask. I took note of a great many of his questions, but when I got to fifteen I thought it best to decide to write to him to give the answers. I agree with a number of the points he made. I also have been interviewed by the Allake
  880
  Chief of the Abeokuta, but not in a prostrate position. Of course, the atmosphere in Africa and Asia is entirely different from the atmosphere here, yet there is a major problem, to which he rightly referred, of induction into our life. But I think it worth while bearing in mind that the British Council's efforts in Britain in receiving overseas students was highly praised at the Delhi Conference and that the process of induction is continuous and goes on throughout the whole period of the scholarship course. I appeal to those who receive an award of a scholarship not to arrive, as many of them still do, with their wives and families, for when they do it makes the problem of finding accommodation for them that much more difficult.
  I agree with the hon. Member's remarks about the landladies of Britain. He said that in his constituency there were none who looked after scholars. There are a great many in my constituency on Merseyside. I agree with what he said that one reads about the bad landladies and never about the good.
  Mr. Dalyell: Would not the hon Gentleman agree that the purpose of the whole argument about the induction course centres round the fact that the Commonwealth scholarship is limited to one or two years and that, therefore, six months is vital? Six months lost in learning, as often happens during the course, could easily be made up three months before the course began.
  Mr. Tilney: We shall look into that, but it would cost much more money, and I am not sure that it would be possible.
  Mrs. White: May I refer to the hon. Member's comment about lodgings for married holders of scholarships? He suggests that they should come on their own because it is difficult to find lodgings, but surely they ought to be accommodated with their wives. The wives may easily have an opinion on the lodgings. They will have to live in them ultimately.
  Mr. Tilney: That also applies to many people in this country when they move about England. I appreciate that there is a difficulty and that ultimately more may have to be done about hostels, but that is a matter for the University Grants

  881
  Committee. We shall look very carefully into this matter.
  We are delighted to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devon-port (Miss Vickers) back from Lagos. She has done much for the Commonwealth in many ways. She asked a number of questions, including how selection was made. The Commonwealth Scholarship Agency, which is usually an arm of the Government in many Commonwealth countries, advertises the offer and vets the applications. This agency then decides which candidates, if any, it wishes to nominate to the awarding country. The awarding agency—the Commission in the United Kingdom—then obtains expert advice from a member of its panel of advisers. This adviser assesses the merits of the candidate and comments on the suitability of his plan of study, and where a candidate can carry it out. The Commission then makes a final decision on the selection.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport asked how much co-operation there was within the various Commonwealth countries. The demand for Commonwealth scholarships to be held in the United Kingdom was so great that in 1961–62, there were 4,017 applicants for about 250 new awards available in the year. She asked whether the Bill extended the scheme. It enables new students to be accepted, because without the extension we should be limited to about 200 instead of the 225–230 to which I referred in my earlier speech.
  It is not all our fault that only 22 Indian awards have been taken up. The United Kingdom has been invited to make only three nominations for each of the past two years. In 1961, there were no candidates. But there were 14 applicants in 1962, and the Scholarship Commission is intensifying its efforts to encourage the United Kingdom people to apply. In 1962, three United Kingdom candidates were nominated and one was successful.
  The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) made some pertinent remarks about adult and social education. He may be interested to hear that there have been only four nominations in three years, and three were given awards. A question was raised about the knowledge of English by many scholars.
  882
  The standard is high or competent. If an individual scholar needs special help in improving his English, he is given it under the terms of his scholarship.
  Comment was also made about adult education. The detailed composition of the Commission has no known effect on the distribution of nominations received among the various fields of study, and the Commission's adviser in education is competent to assess the merits of any candidate in this field of study.
  Mr. Boyden: If the Parliamentary Secretary is taking the attitude that the organisation is all Tight, he should be saying something about how the Government can stimulate interest in the fields in which it is obviously lacking. There is a lack of applications in adult education and social education, and from women. Surely he should address himself to that.
  Mr. Tilney: I referred to the circular which has bean sent to local education authorities land other bodies.
  I am glad that the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) referred to the inspiring efforts in Commonwealth co-operation. I entirely agree with her that there are many countries in which graduates cannot be spared because they are doing a vital job in adminstering their own country. She said that only three fellowships had been granted, but in point of fact six in all have been taken up. She urged that more women should be in the scheme, and I agree, but 38 hold awards in the United Kingdom and there are 75 in all, which is not a bad proportion.
  She said that scholarships were mostly for people in their mid or late 'twenties. But the surprise has been that the applicants are much younger than expected. That is why in many cases the full three years is needed and not the two years originally envisaged. Like many other hon. Members, she made a plea for more accommodation and more facilities in every way. Of course, we should all like to see that, but there is no bottomless purse, and I think that on the whole Great Britain is not doing all that badly.
  I am glad that the hon. Member for Dundee, East paid a tribute to this Commonwealth scheme. It is a mutual

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  scheme among all countries of the Commonwealth. We are all in it, of every race and of every income. I am glad that the House on all sides appears to welcome the Bill.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. McLaren.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

  COMMONWEALTH SCHOLARSHIPS (AMENDMENT) [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified.]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of this Session to amend the Commonwealth Scholarships Act 1959, it is expedient to authorise any amendments of that Act which, within the limit for the time being imposed by or under section 1 (3) or (4) of the Commonwealth Teachers Act 1960, increase the amount payable out of moneys provided by Parliament under section 2 of the said Act of 1959.—[Mr. Tilney.]
  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  NUCLEAR TESTS
  6.31 p.m.
  Mr. George Brown: I beg to move,
  That this House regrets the decision of Her Majesty's Government to proceed in the near future with the testing of a British nuclear device thus endangering the prospects of an early international agreement to ban nuclear tests.
  It cannot be necessary to say it, but perhaps I had better say it so that I get the framework right. No one will doubt my view, or that of the overwhelming majority of my party, that, so long as the world is organised as it is today, the West needs to have deterrent forces and deterrent weapons. It is not that issue which is involved in the Motion. There is the world of difference between the West being organised to deter any nuclear, or indeed any other, attack, and each of us feeling that we must or can
  884
  ourselves still in present-day circumstances be so organised.
  There are two issues involved in the Government's decision. One is the matter of timing, which ordinarily one would think was a minor matter but which in the circumstances now prevailing takes on a much more serious look. The second is the apparent lack of purpose about the Government's defence policy. There has been no greater critic of that in the recent past than the Minister of Defence, who is to follow me. It will be interesting to hear him explaining the views that he has held with such vigour over the past year or two in the light of the decision, for which he must accept responsibility, to proceed with this test.
  The background to the decision is this. The world has, and feels, a tremendous need, perhaps above all else, for an agreement to end the horror of nuclear testing. It fears what is going on. Anybody who reads the letters in the correspondence columns of The Times will understand this. Everybody has been disturbed by what happened in Liege last week or the week before, but the world does not know, and it knows that it does not know, how many horrors of the same kind are being caused every time somebody tests a nuclear bomb in the atmosphere or under the sea. Therefore, the world wants to get rid of this horror. It regards any nuclear testing, wherever it takes place, as being part of the whole process that produces this poisoning of the atmosphere and this deforming of human beings.
  The world also wants to end nuclear testing for another reason. Very few nations now have the capacity effectively to make nuclear weapons. Quite a number of other nations are on the way. The world feels that it wants to get to an agreement to ban tests before anybody else has the ability effectively to make these weapons. Its wants to discourage and, it would hope, prevent any other people entering this field.
  There is a second reason why we all want to get an agreement as quickly as we can effectively to get rid of nuclear tests. This is because of the influence which the mere making of such an agreement—the mere carrying out of such an agreement—would exert on other agreements which would help us to establish

  885
  effective, peaceful and acceptable coexistence.
  If we could get an agreement on nuclear tests which worked, it might—it should—it probably would—lead us on to agreements on other things—on the establishment of non-nuclear zones, for which we on this side of the House have been arguing for a long time and which have now been taken up in all kinds of quarters; on areas of withdrawal of forces, which would be a tremendous reinsurance against the dangers of the accidental starting of hostilities. It might well lead us on to the beginnings of agreements on disarmament, however limited in the beginning, which otherwise we will not be able to start with.
  It is against this background that the Government have chosen this moment to announce that we are to go on, when everybody else seems to be stopping, with yet another nuclear test of our own. The Government announced it in the most peculiar way. It is now becoming the fashion of Ministers—last week it was the Prime Minister; today it is the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations—to abuse the Press. Considering the support which the Tory Government have had from the Press over the last ten years, they are biting the hand that has fed them. The fashion now is to keep on accusing the Press of mispresenting the habits of the Government.
  If only Ministers would start making their announcements about policy in an open way in the House of Commons, instead of by inspired "leaks" outside which are brought about either by way of Writter Answer or of Press conferences, we should not have the very thing they are complaining of. The new Minister of Defence took up the habit of his predecessors when he sought to announce this decision quietly and under cover by way of an inspired Question to which there would be a Written Answer. I do not know whether the idea was to "get away with it" without anybody noticing it, but to announce a decision of this magnitude in this way seems to me totally to underestimate what the House and the country expect of the Government.
  I want now to establish the perspective of what we are talking about. This is not a nuclear test in the atmosphere.
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  Therefore, it does not have the same kind of consequences that either the Russian or the subsequent American tests have had. Clearly, this test is of limited size. Clearly, the fall-out is not only confined, but is also very small. In no sense can it be called a new series of atmospheric tests. Therefore, it cannot justify the sort of things that were written in the Russian newspapers.
  But, having said that to establish perspective, it does not thereby justify what the Government are doing, and my purpose this evening is to show why I think that even within those limits this is extremely foolish and very unjustified. The Prime Minister said the other day that because it was only a small matter, only a little thing—like the chambermaid's baby—it did not matter; that it would not worry the Russians enormously or even at all, I think he said. But if it is such a very small thing, why are we taking the risk of doing it at all? The Minister must justify to us why this should be embarked on.
  Our very first objection in this matter is to what is called the fourth Power problem. If we in Britain claim the right at any moment that seems to suit us—irrespective of what is going on elsewhere in the world, irrespective of how near the world is to an agreement, irrespective of the risks of starting a new series—to have tests, on what grounds can anyone else be discouraged? How, then, do we prevent, not only the French but all kinds of other nations choosing a date that suits them? In other words, how do we then argue for an agreement that nations which are not yet nuclear Powers will be required to observe?
  It seems to us, without any question at all, that the whole chance, the whole possibility of an international agreement which will be accepted, must be jeopardised by our plunging in at this very last moment when we seemed to be possibly on the way to an agreement. I am sure that the House does not underestimate the amount of progress that was being made. In recent times, the West and the Soviet bloc have got very much nearer than only a short time ago seemed possible.
  We appeared to have had the end of a round of tests that we thought should never have been started, a round of tests which the Russians started when they

  887
  ended the moratorium, which the Americans followed, and which the Russians, in turn, followed again. We seemed to have got to the end of that round. The Americans have announced the end of their series of tests, and the Russians have indicated that theirs is about to end. Mr. Zorin has proposed that at the end of this week the negotiations should be restarted, with the atmosphere of the end of the road.
  Not only that, but the American and Russian positions on testing, and on the requirements for a test agreement, have come very much nearer together. The new Western proposals—to which I gather we are ourselves a party, as well as the Americans—are a very considerable advance on what we had previously put up, in the sense that they are very much nearer to what the Russians had said they might accept.
  We have reduced very considerably our demands for on-site inspections, we have reduced very considerably all the demands we had been making for checking. We have not made new specific proposals of the numbers we wanted, but we have indicated that the number would be a great deal less than we had previously been asking for.
  On the other hand, the Russians have indicated that with the development of these "black boxes" and other proposals, it would be very much easier for them to agree to some evidence being made available to us. There are still differences between us. I do not argue that we are totally agreed, but the gap was a good deal narrower than it had yet seemed to be.
  We must not ignore the fact that, in this situation, Mr. Khrushchev himself appears to be having some difficulties, not only in his land but in the countries that make up the bloc for which he has to speak and within which he has to operate. One has to keep that in mind. But here was a situation in which we seemed to be much nearer to getting an agreement. Indeed, Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Kennedy have written to each other in the sense that neither of them seemed to be wanting another test. At that very moment, our Government, the British Government—which does not play in that league at all—announce that they intend to make another test.
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  Our first case is: could there be a more foolish moment at which to make that particular announcement—
  Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: Is it not very important in this to distinguish between an agreement not to carry on any further atmospheric tests and an agreement not to carry on any more underground tests? As I understand the position, neither the Russians nor the Americans have undertaken to stop underground tests.
  Mr. Brown: I had intended to deal with that later, but if the hon. and gallant Member wishes I shall deal with it now.
  The Russian proposal, with which, I gather, there is no difficulty in agreeing, is that we should all agree immediately to end those tests that are, as it were, self-policing—atmospheric tests, high-atmosphere tests and tests under the sea—and that we should have a moratorium on underground tests while we discuss how to check those. That is the proposal. What we are doing is preventing there being a moratorium while we discuss how to check those tests, and what seems to me to be so utterly foolish, if there is willingness now to discuss the means of checking underground explosions, is for us to butt in and prevent there being a moratorium while the discussions take place. That is just what we are now doing.
  Why had we to make this decision at this time? We had not insisted upon this test earlier. I will come in a moment to what the Prime Minister said about it, but we have not had it, or insisted upon it. There are two questions one has to ask. The first is: why do it now? The second is: for what purpose are we doing it at all? On the first question, the Prime Minister has made a series of statements which, like almost everything he has to say, I find almost incomprehensible. I gathered from him the other day that he had the same trouble with me, but I must say that whatever trouble he has with me, it is nothing to what have with him—nothing at all.
  I will offer the Prime Minister's remarks to the House, and perhaps hon. Members will then decide whether they can see his meaning. On 8th February,

  889
  the right hon. Gentleman announced the March test. He said:
  "In this connection, we are now satisfied that substantial technical and military benefits can be obtained by testing one particular British nuclear device underground."—[OFFICIAL, REPORT, 8th February, 1962; Vol. 653; c. 629.]
  That seemed clear—one seems to be one—arid everyone assumed that that was what the Prime Minister meant.
  But let us go on with the story. On 31st May, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he intended to test any more nuclear weapons in Nevada. The Prime Minister replied:
  "We have no present intention of testing further nuclear devices in Nevada."
  It is only fair to say that he went on:
  "It would be wrong, however, for me to give any firm assurance for the future…"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1962; Vol. 660, c. 1583.]
  I understand that. Firm assurances for the future, the Prime Minister cannot give. The ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), knows that, because one morning he was in the Cabinet and the next evening he was out. There was nothing very firm about that.
  On 31st May, we had that statement:
  "We have no present intention of testing further nuclear devices in Nevada."
  That statement seemed to tie up with what the right hon. Gentleman said on 8th November; that the Government had only one which they wanted to test. He now comes along out of the blue, so far as the House is concerned, but with a number of inspired pieces in the Daily Telegraph beforehand, to announce that we are to test another one. This is what he said:
  "We have for some months been planning another test…Owing to the heavy pressure upon the facilities at Nevada we have not been able to arrange this as I had hoped in the early months of the autumn."
  The right hon. Gentleman said that in column 197 of the OFFICIAL REPORT.
  In column 199, in answer to the Leader of the Liberal Party, he said:
  "I am sorry that it was not possible to finish it, as I had hoped, during the end of the summer or early autumn."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1962; Vol. 667, c. 197–9.]
  890
  At the beginning of the summer, on 31st May—which must be regarded as about the beginning of the British summer—we had no intention of testing another one. Yet we had been considering for some months when we got to November, and, but for the fact that the Americans have been so wicked as to occupy the Nevada grounds, we would have had it over by the end of the summer. I suggest that it looks like quibbling, evasion and shuffling.
  When did the Government decide that they needed to test another nuclear weapon? How long in advance does one normally set these things up? My suggestion is that the Government all along knew that they would want to take the last test a bit further, but that they had no intention of doing it now until it looked as though the Americans and the Russians were getting ready for not only an agreement but for a moratorium on underground tests and then at that moment, without the necessary pre-planning, the Government jumped in, to stake their claim, a claim which they would not have staked if that had not been the position. In other words, they have deliberately and wilfully run the risk of jeopardising this agreement in order to get this test in now.
  In the other place, a short time ago, the Foreign Secretary said, if I quote him correctly, that the trouble with nuclear Powers was that as they went on they became like an aged courtesan who, as the years went by, kept on saying "Please God, let me have just one more." What the Foreign Secretary then said seems to apply very much to what he and his colleagues are doing at this moment—"Please let me have just one more."
  The questions here are simply not explained—why we have to have another test, or what would happen if we did not have it. One of the interesting things is that the Prime Minister, speaking in this House the other day, said that if there were an agreement before we got the test in, we would have to reconsider our position, implying that we would then not have it. But this does not suggest a very high degree of importance. If we could reconsider our position—and, I assume, not have it—if the agreement were reached, we could obviously reconsider our position and not have it while seeing whether an agreement

  891
  would be reached. Therefore, the Government cannot, in the Prime Minister's own statement, support the contention that this is a test of such importance that we must run all the risks that are involved in it.
  I move on to ask what is the purpose of this test. The Prime Minister tells us that he would not expect us to press him too hard as to what the purpose is. Speaking for myself, if I found him more willing in public to stand up for what he says in private I would find it a little easier to trust him. My problem with the right hon. Gnetleman is that when one talks to him in private one gets one answer and when one talks in public one gets a totally different attitude. One's attitude is affected when he does not tell us, because we have to try to find out. What he told us the other day was that the first test, the March test, was connected with the existing weapons system. He said it in answer to a question of mine. By that I take it that he means, connected with the delivery system or the guidance system of our existing bombers, because that is our existing delivery system.
  On top of that we know that we have no possibility of having any rockets with which to deliver nuclear weapons. We are now totally out of the business. We went partially out. We went out of the long-range business when the Government crashed with Blue Streak. We have now cancelled Blue Water. We have, so far as I know, no other proposals for nuclear weapons except that the Civil Lord, making a speech in this House, for a change, rather than outside, said, "We have Blue Steel." I will come to Blue Steel, but Blue Steel is not, in fact, a rocket. Blue Steel is an altogether different weapon, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.
  Since we have no requirement and no project for new means of delivery, since we shall be, in any independent sense, out of the nuclear deterrent business when the bombers become obsolete—the ones we have at the moment are properly described as obsolescent—it seems very clear that we are insisting on this test in order to refine weapons that we are even now presumably unable to deliver.
  892
  I ask the Government to justify Why we, who no longer can have an independent deterrent, should jeopardise the chances—I put it no higher than that—of getting a world agreement to abolish nuclear testing, for what could only be a refinement carrying us over a very short and temporary period. But there is, as the Minister of Defence foresaw, the possibility that we are thinking of Blue Steel, the stand-off bomb of 100 miles or whatever it is—anyhow, a very short range—which is to extend the life, so they say, of the existing bombers, and maybe thinking of Skybolt, the American stand-off bomb which is to succeed our own Blue Steel and again extend the life of the existing bombers.
  We have an agreement with the Americans about the exchange of atomic information. They are only going to let us have Skybolt if they have it themselves. There is no suggestion that they would produce Skybolt for us unless they produced it for themselves. Since we are relying upon them to send us Skybolt, why is it that we could not rely on our agreement for the exchange of atomic information which goes with the missile? It will have a warhead on it. Why, in that case, must we do the refining and the research work for ourselves at this enormous risk?
  It is impossible to resist the thought that what is in the Government's mind is not a need for weapons, not a need to do research work but, more than anything else, to "have just one more," as the Foreign Secretary put it, to have the last word, in order to try to re-establish the myth that we are or can be an independent nuclear deterrent Power. I suggest that it is more for that reason than for anything else that we are running all the grievous risks that are involved in this. It is now a myth, and the Minister of Defence himself knows it.
  The Minister of Defence has made speeches in this House, including one from the third bench back opposite very recently, not only saying that it is a myth but denouncing the Government for not recognising that it ought to be so.
  There is no possibility of this country going on being an independent nuclear deterrent Power. I do not need to call Mr. McNamara or the Americans in support here. I do not need to remind

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  the Minister of Mr. McNamara's public declaration about the way our bombers are targeted in with the S.A.C. targets. I point to something else. Once we become dependent on other nations for the supply of the means of delivery, the independent British deterrent has gone. The means of delivery are much more significant now than the capacity to make bombs or warheads. If we can have only other nations' means of delivery, on their terms, we are not independent.
  In the circumstances, it is absolute nonsense to try, by continuing testing, to build up the impression that we are, in fact, independent.
  Many things stop us. There is the size of the job and the lack of the resources we have to put into it. There is the time for which individual means of delivery last. There is the cost of moving over from our present bombers to a new race of supersonic bombers. That cost, as the Minister of Defence, if he does not already know, will soon find out, is far beyond the Government's capacity, or the capacity of the nation, even if we continue, as we have been over the past ten years, to starve the Services of their necessary conventional equipment. Even if we do that, as we all now know that we have done, we still shall not be able to find the money for a new race of supersonic bombers and for the Skybolt missile to go with them.
  The Minister of Defence followed me to America. He had talks with the same people in America as I had. He must know that the cost of equipping bombers with Skybolt, even assuming that we ever get it, will be so unbelievably high that we could never sensibly embark on it.
  If the thing is out of our reach in that way, as it is, there is, defence-wise, no case at all for going on testing nuclear weapons. Politically, for the reasons I gave earlier, it is extremely dangerous for us to go on testing nuclear weapons—dangerous because it gives the lead to others, dangerous because it encourages the fourth Power problem to develop, dangerous because it jeopardises the possibilities of an agreement when we seem to be so much nearer having one than we have ever been.
  894
  It would be much more sensible if the Government were now examining what our policy should be in a world where nuclear weapons exist. In the first place, what policy should we adopt as a country towards the possession and control of nuclear weapons within the Western Alliance? It would be much better, I submit, that the provision and possession of nuclear weapons should be in the hands of one member of the alliance, but that the political control over them should be a matter in which we and other members of the alliance play a part.
  Instead of trying to duplicate the provision and possession of nuclear weapons we ought to be trying to put right what is at the moment grievously wrong, that is, the lack of adequate political control within the alliance over decisions which might involve the use or the threat of the use of nuclear weapons. If the Government would direct their mind to that problem they could render a real service instead of duplicating the provision which already exists.
  Also, they could stop all this nonsense, to which, I gather Mr. George Ball again gave tongue last week in Paris—but with many qualifications, I am happy to note—about the possibility of a European or a N.A.T.O. deterrent. These are very dangerous ideas, dangerous ideas which the Government are encouraging. There are Americans who are talking about a European or a N.A.T.O. deterrent, hoping in that way to get the Government out of their dilemma about their own independent deterrent. I repeat that it would be much better to forget that nonsense and talk about the establishment of effective political control within the alliance over the nuclear weapons which exist, leaving the provision and possession in the hands of one Power.
  The second part of our policy ought to be to establish our position in regard to possible agreements. Here I come to the point raised by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke). I shall not repeat what I said then. Clearly, the new suggestions are a help. It would be a good thing—we do not need to argue too long about the mechanics of it—to get rid of the tests in the upper and lower atmosphere and

  895
  under the sea. They do the most harm. Let us get rid of them at once. If we could then discuss seriously, hut within much narrower limits, the way in which we could control and check underground tests, that would be a tremendous advantage.
  We ought to be prepared to pay the price, I suggest, of a limited moratorium while the discussions go on. I do not suggest an unlimited moratorium. I would not suggest for ever; but we could put a date to it and say that for that period—this is roughly what the Russians seem to be suggesting—we would agree to have a moratorium. It is this which, I believe, the Government have destroyed.
  A Government who were really seized of the problems of the nuclear age and of the worries of people in it, a Government who really understood what the defence of this country and our contribution to the defence of the alliance required, would, I submit, be approaching the problem in that way. Instead of that, they are going on testing. What the reasons are we do not understand. No doubt, the Minister of Defence will now explain.
  For reasons which seem to us to smack more of prestige, a rather moth-eaten, fiy-blown prestige, than anything else, or a desire to have the last word, or a desire, perhaps, to be able to say to General de Gaulle next year, when we get nearer the date of entry to the Common Market, that we have something to share with him—for some of those reasons or for other reasons which to us make no sense, the Government, instead of following the policy I have suggested, have come forward with this ridiculously ill-timed proposal and have taken the grave risk of jeopardising the chances of agreement.
  I believe that the country regrets the Government's decision. I believe that the security of our nation and the strength of the alliance do not require the decision which they have made. Indeed, it is very difficult to see how what they have decided to do could be squared with what the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence wrote not very long ago in the American magazine Foreign Affairs Quarterly.
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  For all those reasons, I ask all right hon. Members to join with us in recognising that the Government have made a very grave mistake and are pursuing a mistaken defence policy. I ask the House to carry the Motion tonight in order to show how much we regret the attitude and the line which they are taking.
  7.10 p.m.
  The Minister of Defence (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): The background to this debate is concerned with grave matters, for the question of nuclear tests casts its shadow over both the East and West and both sides of the House of Commons. When one speaks about these matters and the steps to be taken about them, I think that one should not talk in terms of a bargain about the Common Market or some such matter, which the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) referred to. These are graver issues for all concerned. [Laughter.] Right hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, but I do not think people in this country laugh about the question of nuclear tests. I do not think that people in this country treat them merely as a matter of party debate. This is a national and, indeed, an international issue which we should approach with gravity.
  The Opposition have elected to debate this subject on a Motion cast in very narrow terms indeed. They have referred to one test of one device and suggested that that will endanger the prospects of a test agreement. I shall deal with that Motion. But the right hon. Gentleman, in his speech, introduced a number of overtones into the debate. He raised the question of whether there ought to be, or could be, an independent deterrent. He raised the question of whether it was really possible to have anything effective of that kind. I say at once that if one takes the view of the right hon. Gentleman that all this is a waste of time, then it is a waste of time to test it. But I cannot help but feel that it would have been franker with the House to put down a Motion condemning the whole approach in this regard to Britain's defence policy and not to shelter behind some narrow Motion of this character. As I say, the terms of the Motion are limited and, as I shall show, they are drawn on a fairly solid misunderstanding of the facts.

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  The right hon. Gentleman complained that I had initiated, as is quite customary for both parties in this House, a Written Question on this matter. I make no apology for a Minister, weeks in advance of the event, initiating a Written Question on the Order Paper so that the whole world may know what he is doing.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman Mr. Sydney Silverman (Nelson and Colne) rose——
  Mr. Thorneycroft: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will tell him why. He has been here for some time and has knowledge of our proceedings. May I explain this to him? To put down weeks in advance of the event or to initiate on the Order Paper a Written Question so that the whole procedures and machinery of democracy can be used to debate it, to raise it on the Adjournment, to do anything—is this really concealment? I make no apology for proceeding in that way.
  Mr. G. Brown Mr. G. Brown rose——
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I shall finish what I have to say on this point and then I will give way.
  I think that the action taken by the Opposition in seeking, quite properly, after having had this notice, to raise this matter, not in question and answer across the Floor of the House, but in full debate so that all the facts of the case can be put on both sides, is a perfectly proper way to deal with a matter of this kind.
  Mr. Brown,: Will not the Minister address himself to the point, that on the day on which he gave his Written Answer there were a number of Questions on the Order Paper to which an Oral Answer could have been given? To every one of those Oral Questions an answer was not given but was evaded. In any case, did not the right hon. Gentleman have the device, the resort, of asking you, Mr. Speaker, for permission to make a statement to the House at the end of Questions?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: But I did better than that. Having given the Answer, I left it to the right hon. Gentleman to choose the particular form in which he would raise it. I think that he has chosen the right one, and, for my part, I welcome very much the opportunity of
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  being able to answer much more fully in debate than I would have been able to do in answer to a Question what he had to say.
  Mr. S. Silverman Mr. S. Silverman rose——
  Mr. Thorneycroft: Not for the moment.
  Hon. Members: Give way.
  Mr. Silverman: I shall not detain the right hon. Gentleman long. I understand very well the view which he is expressing, that it was in every way desirable that the House should have a debate on this matter. But is he really saying to the House, with all his Ministerial experience and his experience as a Private Member, that this is the only way to bring it about?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: No; but I think that it is a very good way to bring it about.
  I turn to the history of these matters. On 1st September, 1961, the Soviet Union broke a three-year moratorium on tests by a massive series. It was rather odd that the right hon. Gentleman, in the whole of his speech, made no reference whatever and expressed no word of criticism about the Russian tests but spoke only of this one solitary test of ours. As I say, on 1st September, a three-year moratorium was broken, and our attitude was laid down on 31st October by the Prime Minister.
  It is worth while recalling what my right hon. Friend said on that occasion:
  "…if tests must be conducted for good military or scientific reasons, if possible they will be made underground where there is no danger of pollution. I have specifically in mind the possible need to ensure the safety in peace and the effectiveness in operation of weapons either newly in service or under development.…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st October, 1961, Vol. 648, c. 32.]
  Those were the criteria which the Prime Minister laid down at that time.
  Since then we have faced two massive series of tests, both of them in the atmosphere. Throughout this period we have carefully followed the criteria which my right hon. Friend laid down. One test, of a scientific nature, was carried out last March. One test of certain military applications will be carried out shortly. Those two tests compare with

  899
  the massive testing, whether measured in numbers or megatons, carried out by the U.S.S.R.
  I think that the House would agree with me that our test programme has been modest. Our restraint is, indeed, manifest. Out of quite a number of possibilities for testing and suggestions that have been made to us, we have limited our tests to two. We have done something else which I think is important; we have not made an atmospheric test. We have kept both these tests underground. We applied the criteria strictly in this case. The test is necessary to check a nuclear device for its required performance. Certain modifications have been introduced, and we want to check that the sequence of events is the same as that predicted. It is of great military importance for more than one British weapon. So the test is necessary. It is necessary both for the safety and for the efficiency in operation of a military weapon. When I say that, I think I am entitled to ask the House, as I speak from this Dispatch Box, to accept my assurance in a matter of that kind. It is not a decision which any Minister of any party would reach lightly or without giving the fullest consideration to the case put to him. Does the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) wish to interrupt me on that point?
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I merely wish to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman seriously imagines any Minister, on having a test, would say anything else?
  Mr. Thorneyeroft: I think I have heard the hon. and learned Gentleman advance rather stronger arguments than that. What I say is that I have had other proposals which I have not accepted. But when the Minister of Defence of any party, having looked at all the arguments, gives an assurance that in his view a test is necessary for the efficiency and safety of a military weapon, I think he is entitled to ask the House to accept his assurance,.
  So the test is necessary. We sought to make it earlier, but this was the earliest that it could be fitted into the tests currently going on in Nevada. The right hon. Gentleman talked as though we had
  900
  specially selected a date in order to be as mischievous as possible. That is not so. This is the first date upon which the device could be fitted into and tested in the series going on in Nevada.
  I think the right hon. Gentleman initiated this debate and the Motion with some misunderstanding of the situation. On 13th November, the Labour Party issued a statement which said:
  "The Government's announcement yesterday could hardly have come at a more unsuitable moment. Mr. Kennedy announced the ending of the American series a week ago."
  But Mr. Kennedy had not announced the end of the American series. [Interruption.] These are facts relevant to the Motion. The Labour Party——
  Mr. G. Brown: I did not say that.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I acquit the right hon. Gentleman of saying it. I am merely saying that this was the Labour Party hand-out on 13th November; and it was wrong. What President Kennedy had said was:
  "The medium altitude shot fired this morning"
  That was 4th November—
  "off Johnston Island concludes our present atmospheric test series in the Pacific. Underground nuclear weapons tests, free from fallout, are continuing in Nevada."
  That is very different.
  Nor, apparently, is it true of the Russians. It is true that they had intended and hoped to end their series on 20th November. But our latest information is that they will not manage it then—I am not saying this in criticism of them; I am stating the facts as I understand them—and it seems probable, to the best of our information, that their tests, probably atmospheric, though on a smaller scale than previously, will continue until about the end of the year.
  The facts are that the American tests are continuing and perhaps Russian tests, atmospheric ones, may be continuing. We have just one test in all that—and that underground—which is in no sense the start of a new series. I think that the attempt to portray that as somehow the decisive event, the one big thing amidst all these events which will make the difference as to whether we have a nuclear test ban or not, is rather difficult to sustain in debate. Indeed, I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House

  901
  know quite well that the Russian decision on a test ban—[Interruption.]— one never knows; it may be an important one—is a decision which will be taken as a result of a clear idea on her part as to where her interests lie.
  Mr. G. Brown: Irrespective of what Great Britain does? What a noble declaration!
  Mr. Thorneycroft: The question of a test ban is a grave matter, and it will be dealt with in more detail by my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs when he winds up the debate. There is no one in the House of Commons, on either side, who would not wish to have such a ban and to work towards it. But it must, of course, be a multilateral ban and not a unilateral one. Our position has long been clear. We have long sought such a ban. As recently as last August, we—when I say "we" I am talking about the West, ourselves and the Americans—offered either a complete ban with some minimal arrangements for verification—it is not unreasonable in this world that men should seek some verification in these matters—or, if the Russians did not like that, a ban on atmospheric, space and underwater tests with no conditions whatever attached to it; and this offer remains open today and can he taken up, as I understand it, at any time.
  It seems to me that the Motion touches only the fringe of this matter. I do not believe it really can be suggested that this one test could have the effects which the right hon. Gentleman has sought to ascribe to it. Listening to his speech, I felt that his motives—I am not saying that they are wrong motives—his reasons and his arguments went really into a different plane altogether. He was really saying, "You ought not to have this deterrent." He used to believe in the deterrent. There was a time when he was one of its most powerful and courageous advocates. Many of the leaders of his party have believed in it—Lord Attlee is one, the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) has spoken in favour of it, and Mr. Aneurin Bevan was one of its most powerful advocates, and at a very critical moment in his career he spoke courageously for it. Pamphlets have been issued and published by the Labour
  902
  Party, all of them calling our attention to the need to have a degree of independence in our deterrent. Does the right hon. Gentleman wish to interrupt me?
  Mr. G. Brown: Only to ask the Minister of Defence whether he has noted that subsequent to all these things which we did in order to support the Government—at some cost to ourselves—this Government brought about the Blue Streak fiasco, after which there was no possibility of having an independent deterrent.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I think it is an extraordinarily limited approach to a great subject to say that because one does not pursue one particular form of delivery, therefore one no longer wishes to exercise control over an independent deterrent.
  But the right hon. Gentlemen opposite believe, as I understand them—I want to put this fairly, and if I put it wrongly I hope the right hon. Gentleman will correct me—that the United Kingdom deterrent is insignificant.
  Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: That is their view, as I understand it. The logic of their argument is that we should be engaging ourselves upon unilaterally dismantling it. Do I express this rightly? I am most anxious to get this correct.
  Mr. G. Brown: If the right hon. Gentleman is as anxious as that, I will help him. As we have repeatedly said, and as I stated again today, our present V-bombers will be obsolescent at some date not too far away—and for that statement I rely on the words of the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson) when he was Minister of Defence. If we are to remain an independent nuclear Power, they should be superseded by a new means of delivery, which can only be a missile. But there is no British missile coming along. The Government are not even trying to get one. Therefore, when these bombers fade out we shall have no independent means of delivery. At that stage we quite clearly will have no independent deterrent.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I think I have got it. I am anxious to get it. As I understand it, the Opposition say that our

  903
  deterrent is altogether insignificant. They say that even if they do not dismantle the deterrent it will in any event run down and that we will never have the weapons or the means of delivery. Of course, if right hon. and hon. Members opposite hold that view, I can well understand their saying that we should never test the deterrent. That is a perfectly logical view. But I am bound to say that it is rather a strange argument. They criticise us for throwing away the independence of our foreign policy if we talk to our European allies, yet they are prepared to rely wholly and absolutely upon the United States for deterrence.
  I recall what the right hon. Member for Belper was saying a few years ago. He said:
  "I want us to have our own foreign policy, and that means having the power to carry it out.…Our vital interests are not always the same as America's vital interests. That being so, the threat to bring the deterrent into play must exist here as well as across the Atlantic."
  Mr. G. Brown: What is the date?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: That was in 1957.
  Mr. Brown: When was Blue Streak cancelled?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: Those were the right hon. Gentleman's words then. He seems to have slipped a considerable way from that position. In any event, we do not share that view. We believe that we have a need for an independent nuclear deterrent.
  Mr. Brown: Who is going to deliver it?
  Mr. Thorneycroft: The time could come with the inter-continental ballistic missiles which are growing in number in the Soviet Union and are pointing at Washington and New York, when the Russians might gamble on the possibility that a threat to us would not inevitably bring American retribution. The independent deterrent makes that gamble just not worth while. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman deliberately widened the debate to take in these matters and it is right that I should reply to them. He says that we would not be able to deliver it, that our bombers are obsolescent and the rest. I
  904
  say this to him with all the emphasis I can: there is no gain or prize that any country could possibly win by the defeat of this country which could possibly compensate it for the appalling destruction it would suffer in the process. That is true today and it is a relevant fact to the defence policy of the country.
  Mr. Michael Foot: It is a first strike.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: It is not a first strike. This is what a deterrent policy must mean. It is part of the defence policy of this country.
  This Motion should be rejected. The test is needed for military purposes. It will bring rewards both in safety and in effectiveness. It will not affect the final issue of a test ban treaty. It is not the start of a new series. It is not an isolated event but part of tests proceeding in the West and in the East. Those who oppose it have shown quite plainly, by the right hon. Gentleman's speech, that they are actuated not so much by the test ban but by a desire to weaken the credibility of our deterrent. I ask the House to reject the Motion.
  7.35 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Mason: The Minister of Defence's reply was wholly inadequate, was outmoded and will prove to be very expensive. Towards the end of his speech I detected an inherent fear in the Government, particularly in him, that there might be an occasion when the Americans would not be prepared to help us if Russia threatened. They fear, in other words, that the Americans are prepared to go to the extent of pressing the nuclear trigger to defend their own homeland, but are not prepared to do so for us. That is why they believe that we must go ahead with our test and maintain an independent British deterrent.
  We are obliged from this side of the House to oppose this test because this may not be the only one. Last March, the Prime Minister gave the impression to the House and to the country that the test then was our final test and that from then on we would, if necessary, continue to receive nuclear information from the series of tests by the Americans from our base on Christmas Island.
  We should condemn the Government for an act of folly carried out in

  905
  indecent haste. This is a panic decision to enable them to beat a possible test ban. It is indicative of the Government's fanatical desire to prolong at any cost the preservation of the independent British deterrent. As both the Minister of Defence and my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said, we cannot examine this decision without first looking at the background.
  There have been three years of negotiation over a nuclear test ban, with 353 meetings, a series of draft treaties, numerous debates in the General Assembly of the United Nations, the work of the 18-Power Commission, and the letters between President Kennedy and Mr. Khrushohev, with the possibility also of a test ban agreement being part of a package deal over hot spots worrying both East and West.
  In addition, non-aligned and neutral countries have been applying great pressure on the nuclear Powers, unanimously declaring against any new series of tests. Meanwhile, scientists of the three nuclear Powers have been working frantically to advance and perfect detection instruments and assistance for assessing seismatic tremors.
  Already, there is general understanding among the three major Powers on test detection. We already know that we need not worry unduly about detecting atmospheric tests, stratospheric tests, those immediately above the ground, and those under water. We can easily detect their whereabout and their strength and which Power was responsible for them. All that remains is the small kiloton, low-yield, underground tests.
  Recently it appeared that there were two possible methods of getting agreement between East and West on banning tests. The first was that detection instruments, manned, or to be inspected occasionally, by neutrals, should be placed in the nuclear Power countries. A few inspection posts and the "black box" now being developed and full of detection and recording instruments might be the answer. They need not be permanently manned. They might be inspected only periodically because of the advances which have been made in detection instruments, and not many of them would be required in the Soviet Union.
  906
  The second possibility would be the complete answer. It is the perfection of detection systems whereby the apparatus is placed in non-nuclear countries and is manned by neutral nation scientists and able to record and verify a nuclear explosion anywhere. In this connection, there have already been experiments by the Atomic Energy Authority, the Eskdalemuir experiment being an example. If this system could be perfected, we would be on the verge of removing the final obstacle to agreement, especially from the point of view of the East, because it would not be necessary to have posts or inspectors inside the Soviet Union. This system, if developed—and we are on the verge of a break-through now—would be able to test the power, the purpose and the character of an explosion and record it without going into the territory of the nuclear Powers.
  I condemn the Government, first, on the timing of this test when we are on the verge of a positive break-through in test detection and to peace. If we can get a test ban agreement. we shall have taken the first positive step towards disarmament. This test is an act of folly at this stage. It will inflame not only national but world opinion. It is no argument for the right hon. Gentleman to say that it is a small test and underground and radioactively clean. The fact is that Britain has resumed testing, and that is what all the nations which are not nuclear Powers will recognise.
  It has been done in indecent haste. It is indecent because we are trying to race this possible test agreement and prove to the world that nuclear-wise we still exist. We are trying to bolster up our inevitably weakening deterrent strength. Russia and America must be thinking how ludicrous it is that Britain must still have her nuclear squeak, and that is what it is compared with American and Russian nuclear and thermo-nuclear power.
  Mr. J. A. Leavey: If the two great nuclear Powers regard it as ludicrous, how can the hon. Member take such exception to it? Surely the ultimate in illusion and the most dangerous of all illusions, as I am sure will be recognised by the hon. Member, is to imagine that the policies of the Soviet Union will be dictated in any respect by a test of this sort. Surely the

  907
  hard fact of the matter is that they will be decided by the strict instruments of power and by the facts of international life and not by this sort of test. In those terms, it cannot do any damage.
  Mr. Mason: We have set aflame in the world a strong opinion against Britain, particularly among the non-aligned or neutral nations, by resuming testing.
  Secondly, the aim is to make effective the partial prolongation of the independent British nuclear deterrent. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper said, Blue Streak killed off its logical successor. Immediately there was no missile delivery system to follow the end of the V-bombers' life, the independent British nuclear deterrent could not continue. There was no logical successor. We do not have a Mach 2 jet bomber on the stocks. It is true that we are building the TSR 2 as a replacement, but it is not a successor of the Victors and Vulcans. Indeed, we cannot build such an aircraft for commercial purposes on our own—hence the Anglo-French study. So we are not planning a replacement of the present bomber force.
  What the Government are trying to do, for as long as possible and at colossal cost, is to prolong the British independent nuclear deterrent. Both the right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister have said that the test is for military purposes, and I can only assume that the test is for Blue Steel, which is the only nuclear weapon which we are developing. We are not producing it for the antiquated atom or hydrogen bomb which can now be conveyed in the Canberras, Vulcans and Victors. The test is for the Blue Steel weapon and that is the reason we are hastening the test. It is to try to get sophistication of the trigger mechanism of Blue Steel, to perfect the small nuclear warhead, to make a more durable nuclear device to withstand all that is required in the launching method, the loading of the missile, the carrying aircraft noise, the launching and the guiding.
  The further prolongation of the effectiveness of the British deterrent hinges upon the success of this test. If it fails and there happens to be a test ban meanwhile, that will be the death knell of our nuclear effectiveness. It means in total that Blue Steel is not yet perfected—it is
  908
  not in service with the Royal Air Force—and this is a last frantic bid by Her Majesty's Government to keep up with the nuclear Joneses. Blue Steel may well become another Blue Streak failure.
  Mr. George Wigg: There is a third possibility. My hon. Friend will remember that at one stage I was engaged in violent controversy with some of my colleagues on this question and that my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) suggested that the test was for an atomic anti-tank gun.
  Mr. Mason: I am quite satisfied that the only really effective weapon which we are producing, or attempting to produce, is Blue Steel. That is precisely what the test is for. I said that Blue Steel might well prove to be another Blue Streak failure and that is what is frightening the Government.
  In November, 1955, it was estimated that the cost of this new weapons system—missile, engines and navigation system—was£12½million. By 1957, the cost has risen to£20 million; by 1958, it had risen further to£35 million and by September, 1960, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report, to£60 million. That was more than two years ago, and the cost of the development of this new weapon system is now nearer£100 million. We still have no missile and we are still having to conduct tests for its perfection.
  Bearing in mind that the bombers which are to use Blue Steel depend entirely on the American radar network for alert—that is, the Ballistic Early Missile Warning System—and that they are entirely dependent on the American U2 espionage and MIDAS for target information and that the eventual successor of Blue Steel will be the American missile Skybolt, how can Her Majesty's Government withstand the criticism that there is no independent deterrent and that the cost of this nuclear squeak is proving colossal?
  As I said in my opening remarks, there is also the growing fear in the Government's mind that Britain may be left in the lurch by the Americans. There is a growing uneasiness and fear, as shown in the final sentences of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, that the United States of America—and this is possibly

  909
  true of the U.S.S.R. as well—is prepared to show determination to press the nuclear trigger only if its homeland is threatened.
  Cuba was the example of that, but the United States was noticeably hesitant over Hungary, Berlin, and the Berlin Wall. There appear to be two distinct attitudes of determination. This seems to be frightening Her Majesty's Government, and I wonder whether, as the right hon. Gentleman said, this is the real reason why the Government are insisting on testing and struggling to keep some kind of a deterrent force. I do not know, I can only hazard a guess about that. What I do know is that this decision is an act of folly. It is irresponsible. The Government are deciding, at a crippling cost, to maintain a deterrent force which is rapidly becoming obsolete. In the eyes of the world, especially the Afro-Asian countries, Britain's name has suffered yet another blow.
  7.51 p.m.
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: There are two questions under discussion in this debate. First, the prospects for a ban on nuclear tests. Are the prospects better now than they were? Secondly, whether or not the Government's decision to undertake this test in Nevada jeopardises those prospects.
  I should like to address myself to the questions in that order. First, the prospect for the nuclear test ban talks. I do not think that my right hon. Friend expressed an opinion on this, but I agree with the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) that the prospects seem better than they were some months ago. I think this because there is, after all, a limit to the value one can extract from indefinite testing, and I think this also because of a change which, rightly or wrongly, I detect in the Soviet assessment of the American scene.
  I have always felt that Mr. Khrushchev's desire for a military détente with the West is a genuine one, because he sees in such a détente the only means of bringing out the contradictions which he regards as inherent between the classes within a Western nation, and as between the various national members of the Western alliances. The military threat is the one thing, according to his way of seeing it, which prevents the contradictions from asserting themselves,
  910
  and this I believe is the fundamental difference between the Soviet viewpoint and the Chinese viewpoint.
  This desire to see a military détente seems to me to have been complicated by the consciousness of the great Soviet inferiority vis-à-vis the United States in long-range missiles, and also by the Soviet Union's, or in particular Mr. Khrushchev's, own apprehensions about the pressures which public opinion, and Congressional opinion in particular, might exert on an American Administration, and this is where I see a change.
  One does not know what were the motives for the Russian move in Cuba. One can only note the results in retrospect, and one result, it seems to me, is that the placing of forty-odd missiles in Cuba did what Soviet missile-carrying submarines never did. It shocked American public opinion into a realisation of the full implications of a deterrent policy.
  As a speaker at the October Revolution celebrations in Moscow said:
  "The United States of America for the first time felt the breath of nuclear war."
  Whatever mortification Cuba may have brought to the Soviet Union, it seems to me that from their point of view there is this advantage to be extracted from it, that in future an American Administration is likely to have a better control over its public opinion, Over its Congressional opinion, and in consequence American response is likely to be a moderate one. Indeed, I think the characteristic of Mr. Kennedy's decision was not only its firmness; it was its moderation.
  One must add this to the fact that even before Cuba Mr. Gromyko, on 2nd September before the United Nations, made a special concession. He dropped the insistence on total nuclear disarmament before proceeding to conventional disarmament, something which was quite new. If one adds these things together, I believe it true to say that the prospects for success in the nuclear test ban talks are now greater than they were some months ago, but this is the point that I want to make. If this is so, we as a country have played no part whatsoever in this. We have played no part in this improvement.
  I come now to the second question. Are these prospects which have improved

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  jeopardised by the British test? Just as I think that this country played no part in bringing about the improvement in the prospects, so also I believe that this test can play no part in bringing about any deterioration of the prospects. I want to suggest that what we do, or what we do not do, does not in any way enter into the calculation. This is true, and the regrettable thing about this debate—and I am sorry that I missed the opening passages of the speech of the right hon. Member for Belper, but what I am about to say is true of the passages that I heard—is that both Opposition and Government have committed an error in exaggerating our national position.
  The Opposition case, it seems to me, exaggerates the psychological influence of what we do, just as it seems to me that the Government's case exaggerates the physical importance of what we do.
  Mr. Charles Loughlin: I appreciate the point made by the right hon. Gentleman, but would he accept that the danger is that the test that we propose could constitute an excuse to the Soviet Union for resuming tests, or for a continuance of tests, in precisely the same way as the French test constituted an excuse?
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: Certainly it could constitute an excuse, but that is not jeopardising the prospects. That is not making the Russians determined to do something which otherwise they were not going to do. That seems to me the essential point.
  I thought that the case put forward by the right hon. Member for Belper was a little lopsided. He was saying that this test might jeopardise the prospects of a nuclear test ban. On the other hand, he also said that the British deterrent is unnecessary. It adds nothing to the balance of terror, and equally this test adds nothing to the balance of terror. In other words, the psychological importance which the right hon. Gentleman was ascribing to the test was out of all proportion to its physical importance.
  Mr. Dan Jones: In the eyes of the neutrals?
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: We are talking about the prospects of nuclear test talks.
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  I am not one to disregard the effects of neutral opinion, but what matters for these talks is what the great Powers think.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: I do not altogether go with the right hon. Gentleman, but if what he says about my right hon. Friend is true, then clearly the speech of the Minister of Defence was equally lopsided, for the complementary reason.
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: Certainly. Indeed, I was about to say that. It was lopsided. I regret that both the right hon. Member for Belper and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence exaggerated our position. The position of my right hon. Friend is that the test has absolutely no effect on opinion in Moscow or Washington. On the other hand, he says that this test is one of military importance. He went on to add that the British deterrent is of great military importance. In other words, the physical importance which he attributed to this test was, with all respect, out of all proportion to its psychological insignificance.
  I agree that these positions are lopsided, and I think that the sensible thing for an ordinary backbencher like myself to do is to try to achieve a balanced position and take a bit from each case. I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that this test will have no effect on the nuclear test ban talks. If I may take something from the speech of the right hon. Member for Belper, I believe that the Opposition are right in saying that the British deterrent adds nothing to the great balance of terror between the Soviet Union and the Western Alliance, and clearly this test adds nothing to that nothing. I will put a little more fundamentally the reason why I think that this test will have no effect and will not jeopardise the nuclear test ban talks.
  I suggest that the real answer lies in the fact that the physical importance of the British deterrent is declining, and with it that the political importance of the United Kingdom as a deterrent power is declining. Let us look first at the physical importance of the British deterrent. I shall not argue the desirability or undesirability of the British deterrent. I do not want to indulge in

  913
  such width. But the technical case for the British deterrent is that at a time when the offensive has such tremendous advantage over the defensive, even a relatively small expenditure of money, even a relatively small bang, can bring about such destruction that it is effective. This is the case for the British deterrent.
  That is perfectly true. My right hon. Friend said, and I agree, that it is true for today, but what my right hon. Friend did not say was this—he did not go on to add that this is true for, I believe, a rapidly shortening period of time. I believe it to be true for a shortening period of time for these reasons. Our expenditure clearly is only a fraction of the expenditure of the Soviet Union or of the United States of America. But not only is it a fraction, our expenditure on the deterrent is relatively stationary; theirs is increasing fast. It is therefore a fair presumption that with this fast rate of increase at a much higher level of expenditure they will effect improved developments, new methods, both in offence and defence, in, for instance, the hardening of missile sites, anti-ballistic missiles and so forth, improved developments with which we shall not be able to cope. These developments are—I think that it is a fair argument—bound to make a relatively small bang less and less effective with the lapse of time. It is against this background that I suggest that this test makes absolutely no difference, and that is why it is unlikely, in my view, to jeopardise the test ban talks. So much for the physical importance of our deterrent.
  The other reason why I think that this test will not in any way jeopardise the test ban is that I believe that our political importance as a deterrent power has seriously declined since Cuba. What happened in Cuba is that both the great Powers for the very first time practised the perilous game of nuclear bluff. We did not practise; we looked on apprehensively and fearfully. We were passive spectators, but we did not practise. For the first time we have had no experience in the practice of modern power. This opens up, I suggest, an enormous psychological chasm between ourselves on the one hand and, on the other, the United States and the Soviet Union, and because of that I believe that the two great Powers will look to each other,
  914
  and what we do or what we do not do, as I suggested earlier, so far as they are concerned has no effect whatsoever.
  In my view, the Government's decision to hold this test is not in any way heinous. I regard it rather as sad and in some ways unfortunate—sad and unfortunate because it has prompted a debate in which both Opposition and Government have attributed to our actions din this field a greater importance than in fact they have. I think that the effect of this debate has been to make us as a country look a little pretentious and therefore a little foolish. I yield to no one in wanting to see this country pull its full weight in international councils, but it seems to me that we stand a better chance if we refrain from putting on false airs and assuming a false valuation. I think that the way to do this is to measure ourselves realistically and to match our military contribution accordingly.
  8.5 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Holt: I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hail Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) because I find myself almost completely in agreement with his approach to this problem. I agree that this test is not dangerous because it might influence the Russians to delay a ban. I think that it is much more untimely and irresponsible for the reasons that he gave, and that it is really time now, after the debates that we have had about the British independent nuclear deterrent, the Government agreed that they had completely the wrong approach to it and started to move in another direction, because they still have the responsibility for achieving the best kind of defence of this country and they are not doing so by continuing the pretence that our own so-called independent deterrent in any way achieves that purpose.
  The Prime Minister said, however, on 13th November:
  "I do not think anybody in my position…could have failed to be convinced of the need for this test following on the one in March."
  Later, he said that it
  "is necessary to make it"—
  that is, the deterrent—
  "effective."

  915
  I do not know whether that was just a mistake in wording, but if it is taken literally, it is an assumption that even the Prime Minister considers it not to be effective now.
  Even on the Government's assumption that it is necessary to have a British independent deterrent, we require an explanation from them about how the test is only proposed to be taken now. The Prime Minister put Christmas Island at the disposal of the Americans Ito make their tests and yet, apparently, the British Government wished to carry out the tests at Nevada and we have had to delay ours for months because of the tests that the Americans wished to make. It would rather seem that, as far as the Americans are concerned, we have been treated in a rather off-hand way. The real reason may be that the Americans did not consider that our tests were of any importance to the Western deterrent, and on that they could be right.
  I should like to know, for instance, whether our team has been out in Nevada for a long time waiting in a queue until the American tests were finished. The Prime Minister said in answer to, I think, the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. W. Yates) that
  "it is necessary under the terms of our agreement on the amendment of the McMahon Act."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1962; Vol. 667, c. 198–9, 201.]
  Was he saying that even now, there is no really useful exchange of information in this field, even on the kind of information that we might obtain in this test? It would appear that we are merely duplicating in the minutest form something which, surely, must be known to the Americans if it is assumed that the information which we are trying to get is something to do with the trigger mechanism for setting off the 'nuclear warhead.
  One is brought back to the basic problem of whether all this—the way in which the test has been delayed, the obvious refusal of the Americans in any way to exchange information or to coordinate nuclear research with us and their attachment of no importance to the British nuclear test—underlines the point made by the right hon. Member for Hall Green, that the British independent deterrent and all to do with it is a matter of no interest whatever to the Americans
  916
  and, in their opinion, in no way improves the deterrent power of the West.
  This point was finally and harshly brought home to us in the Cuban affair. Neither the United States nor the Russians took the slightest notice of us. It did not make the slightest difference what we thought and I suppose that even now, the British Prime Minister still has not had an answer to the letter he sent to Mr. Khrushchev.
  I wonder whether this test has any serious purpose. I tended not to agree with the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) in suggesting that this was a wilful action by the Government. I rather suspect that it has much more to do with the kind of continuous muddle that we have had from them on so many of their policies recently. If, however, it had a deliberate intent, could it be that this is just a way of trying to blast Britain into Europe and of appealing to Adenauer and de Gaulle to take notice again of the fact that we have a deterrent? If that is the purpose, it is the wont possible way of getting an entry into Europe and one which I deplore.
  Mr. Julian Critchley: Surely the hon. Member must realise that France is not in the slightest bit interested in sharing control of our 135 V-bombers. She is more interested in getting her control over the Atlantic Western deterrent as a whole.
  Mr. Holt: That may be so. On the other hand, it may also be that if the French cannot get that they would be interested in trying to create a European deterrent and that Britain might make a contribution towards it. That is certainly not the line which I hope to see develop if we go into Europe. It would be a dangerous path for us to start upon in building up the unification of Europe based upon the idea that we were going to build up another great continental nuclear Power.
  The bomb has given us none of the things which were claimed for it by those who originally supported it. It has given us neither prestige nor any influence over our friends, nor has it given us respect from our enemies. It is intriguing to see the Minister of Defence standing at the Dispatch Box and trying to defend it. The right hon.

  917
  Gentleman was very careful when he made his speech following his resignation as Chancellor of the Exchequer, but on 23rd January, 1958, he clearly left with the House the impression that he thought that the money being spent on the nuclear deterrent was a great waste.
  The right hon. Gentleman said:
  "The point I want to put is the quite simple one that for twelve years we have been attempting to do more than our resources could manage, and in the process we have been gravely weakening ourselves…First, we have sought to be a nuclear Power, matching missile with missile"—
  The right hon. Gentleman did not criticise it, but he went on to say:
  "It is not a mean thing to wish to be independent in nuclear power of both the East and the West, although it may be that in the West in future no one really will be independent in nuclear power."
  That was in 1958, and how right the right hon. Gentleman was.
  The right hon. Gentleman later said:
  "Our basic problem, whether it is in the Welfare State or whether it is in arms, or whether it is in both, is that we should plan to spend less than we are planning to spend at the present time, and unless we do so the£ sterling will continue to decline in value."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd January, 1958; Vol. 580, c. 1295–7.]
  Certainly, in that and in other remarks which he has made outside the House subsequently, the right hon. Gentleman has left no doubt in many people's minds that he considered the whole thing both a great waste of money, and, from the defence point of view of the country, quite useless.
  This action is irresponsible because it shows a lack of appreciation by the Government of the direction in which their energies should now be applied to improve the country's defence, which, surely, is in the direction of ensuring that there is no further spread of nuclear weapons. Whilst we go on pretending that for ourselves it is necessary to have our own independent nuclear deterrent, how can we convince other nations who, at present, do not have these weapons, or who may be starting to get them, that it is in their interests not to have them? We have experienced the rising cost of these things, we have recognised that we cannot keep up with the other two great nuclear Powers. We have, in fact, recognised that even if we have a nuclear deterrent of our own, it can be only a very small one.
  918
  When the Minister of Defence gives us the example of what might happen if one day we were threatened by Russia, and the United States of America was not prepared to take the risk to stand by us, he is only repeating the point which was made by the Leader of the Labour Party when tackled in a debate five or six years ago on this subject by the hon. Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. S. Silverman). He said that one day America might leave us to our own devices and then it would be a good thing if we had our own nuclear weapons.
  Can we really believe that, if that happened, we would be in any safer position and that we would be prepared to carry out a kind of threatening match with Russia? We could be completely obliterated by the Russian nuclear deterrent. Our whole island could almost be blown out of existence. If we wish to seek the defence of the country against such a position, we must do it in other ways. The most important thing is to see, first, that the alliance with the United States of America never gets to the position where she might leave us in the lurch, and, secondly, to strengthen the unification of Western Europe.
  Captain Walter Elliot: Surely the point is not what we think about whether America may not come to our assistance, but what a possible enemy thinks.
  Mr. Holt: The only possible enemy in this context is, surely, the U.S.S.R. I suggest that threatening the U.S.S.R. with nuclear weapons is something which is "not on". I cannot imagine any Prime Minister who could carry on such a threatening match, and the U.S.S.R. knows that.
  Mr. Critchley: If this is true, is not it a remarkably strong argument for Europe and Britain to have a common independent deterrent? Let the hon. Gentleman think carefully before answering.
  Mr. Holt: For Europe and Britain to have a joint European independent deterrent? Is that the point of the hon. Gentleman?
  Mr. Critchley: I am sorry, it is my fault. The point I am making is that if the hon. Gentleman says that Russia would not be

  919
  afraid of any English deterrent, and I accept that point, is not that an argument for Europe as a whole, a united Europe, including Britain, having its own nuclear striking force or nuclear capability? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would extend his argument in that direction.
  Mr. Holt: I agree that it is an argument for a European nuclear deterrent with Britain included. I agree that such a position is an argument for that. But I do not think it an overriding argument. I think that there are good reasons why we ought not to have a European nuclear deterrent. I do not wish to develop that at the moment. I say that it is much more in the interests of this country not to try to safeguard our position by building up a European deterrent and participating in it. We should do all we can to ensure that there is no further spread of nuclear weapons. While they are solely in the hands of the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. we are likely to be in a much safer position than we should be if the possession of the weapons were spread. I should like to see the Government working to that end.
  Surely it is sense to try to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons. Surely it is nonsense to go on testing British nuclear weapons, and the sooner the Government realise it, and stop doing so, the better.
  8.23 p.m.
  Mr. Gilbert Longden: I am at a slight disadvantage compared with the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) in that I do not know how effective is our deterrent and I do not know how valuable this test which is under discussion will be to us. But I am not naturally inclined to take a low or defeatist view of my own country, and therefore I am perfectly prepared to accept the views of a series or succession of Ministers of Defence who have told us that our nuclear deterrent is exceedingly effective; and to accept the word of the present Minister that the test which is about to be made will produce valuable military knowledge.
  It is, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence, the whole approach of the Opposition to this matter
  920
  which is under discussion tonight. That is indicated, if by nothing else, by the fact that the word "underground" is omitted from the Motion. It is a very important word in this context. The attitude of some people in this country —they are represented, as is perfectly proper that they should be, on the benches opposite—seems to me similar to the attitude once adopted by authority, by the then "Establishment" of the day, to Galileo—"He is telling us things we do not like to hear and showing us things we do not like to see. Stop him; and we will pretend that these things are not there." But the things were there. The bomb is there and it will not disappear merely because we say that we want nothing to do with it.
  Personally, I am glad that it is there, because man has invented no stronger sanction against war than the bomb. From now on the only thing to do about war is to prevent it, for there would be no cure and the bomb is the best prophylactic that we have got.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Then let everybody have one.
  Mr. Longden: But that is only so long as every potential aggressor knows for certain that nuclear attack will be met by nuclear reprisal, and only for so long as it remains true that all the bases whence such reprisals could originate cannot be destroyed in the first strike. In other words, so long as we maintain a rough balance of power.
  That is the theory of the deterrent, and the official Opposition accepts it. This is what the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) said in the debate on defence on 5th March:
  "We accept without question that there should be a deterrent in the Western Alliance, and that there should be a balance of deterrence to prevent the outbreak of war in the world. We quite agree that if that balance were disturbed the danger of war would be increased. Therefore if the balance is upset, the West has a duty as well as a right to restore it…I am a multilateralist. I believe that there must be only all-round controlled disarmament. I believe, standing here now, that it the balance is upset by one side it must be restored by the other."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1962; Vol. 655, c. 70–72.]
  That is sound doctrine and I hope—I think it appears from what was said by the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) tonight—that it is still the

  921
  doctrine held at any rate by that part of the party opposite which sits above the Gangway.
  The next question, therefore, is: should we in Britain contribute to the Western deterrent? Both parties opposite say "No." As we have heard, it was not always thus with the leaders of the Labour Party. The National Executive of that party adopted the following resolution in 1955:
  "Labour believe that it is undesirable that Britain should he dependent on another country for this vital weapon. If we were, our influence for peace would be lessened in the counsels of the world. It was for that reason that the Labour Government decided on the manufacture of the atom bomb, and that we support the production of the hydrogen bomb in this country."
  Many times in this House similar sentiments have been expressed by the Leader of the Opposition and by many of his senior colleagues. Even as lately as 1959 in a joint declaration by the Labour Party and the T.U.C. on disarmament and nuclear war it was stated:
  "Those who believe in unilateral nuclear disarmament…are sure that the greatest contribution Britain could make would be to announce that, as an example and a lead to the rest of the world, we had decided to abandon unilaterally and unconditionally the manufacture of nuclear weapons and to destroy those we already possess. This policy has been decisively rejected both by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party…"
  But, very unfortunately, this no longer reflects Labour policy—with the greatest respect to the right hon. Member for Belper—and I find it hard to accept that it was the failure of Blue Streak which caused this volte face.
  I believe, however, and I think it is the majority opinion among hon. Members on these benches, that until general disarmament Britain should continue to contribute to the Western deterrent, and for four reasons. First, is it worthy, even if it were prudent, for us to shelter under the American umbrella? Not, I think, until the time comes—if it ever does come—when we form part of a European-Atlantic Federation. Until then I firmly believe that it is our first duty to preserve the security of our country and our free Christian way of life and that until then, and until the last resort, we must be self-reliant. I firmly believe that to give up the independent deterrent at this moment—I do not know what may happen later on—
  922
  when we are assured that it is effective would be to reduce our influence in the Western Alliance and our ability to decide our own affairs and to commit our future to whatever our friends might consider expedient or our enemies merciful.
  The second reason is that while we have to retain armed forces they must be equipped as effectively as any potential opponent's. "You cannot deny to your armed forces the weapons the other side possesses", as Mr. Sam Watson once roundly declared. Thirdly, I do not believe that this intended "example" would be followed by any of the other nuclear Powers. Indeed, it is devoutly to be hoped that it would not be followed by the United States of America. I have never discovered what the campaigners for nuclear disarmament would do if it were. Sit and submit, I suppose. Socialist Commentary for September, 1960, put it this way:
  "It is farcical for the people of this little island to imagine that whatever they give up will make the slightest difference other than making war more likely by disturbing the balance of world power…Unilateralism always falls back on the belief that, by going it alone, we can escape the fate of the rest of mankind. Pie in the sky? Yes, and dangerous at that."
  Though the editors of Socialist Commentary may hold different views today, that quotation accurately expresses my views.
  Mr. Holt: Would not the hon. Member say that having an independent British nuclear deterrent is going it alone?
  Mr. Longden: Of course we are not going alone.
  Mr. S. Silverman: It would not be independent then.
  Mr. Longden: Independent if it is necessary. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not wish anyone to think that I believe the American Government would not support us in any kind of emergency today, but who can tell of the future?
  I believe there is another reason why we should not unilaterally renounce this aspect of nuclear research. Whether we like it or not, the human spirit will continue to explore nature's uncharted seas. Some scientific Columbus will arise

  923
  every now and again to extend our horizons. He may well be British, for we are rather good at that sort of thing. I believe it would be wrong to seek to pinion the wings of our scientists when the scientists of other nations are allowed free rein, and in any case it would be futile.
  I do not fear what they may discover, for their discoveries can be harnessed to man's benefit, while the more frightful their potential destructiveness the less likely are they to be used to his detriment. For all these reasons I think we are right to continue with our British bomb, but I do not think that enough effort has been made by my right hon. Friend to carry our people with us in this vital but highly controversial matter. The seeming indifference of the Government to public opinion is well illustrated by the manner and the timing of their announcement of the test. They must surely have expected the panic among the timid which would ensue.
  Among the less desirable fruits of this indifference is the marked increase in the number of those—especially among the young—who support the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I do not believe that the majority of these young people are Communists or cowards. I believe that the majority are inspired by a false idealism because nobody, least of all their teachers, has ever taught them anything better. So rootless, faithless and unkempt they go marching away to their lost horizons. I could not help thinking of them when I read in the Sunday Times Lady Violet Bonham Carter's judgment of "The Missing Generation":
  "They were not security-minded like people are today and I think they had a thirst for adventure just as people have now a thirst for pensions"
  Certainly there is nothing adventurous about a Communist society. It must be the most unmanly creed ever invented. Man has often been subjugated by force, but never before of his own deliberate desire.
  What, then, of this test? I think most people would agree that if we are to retain our weapon it is reasonable to let our scientists conclude the last of a series of tests underground which they say—and I do not think anyone in this House is capable of contradicting them
  924
  —is important to our military knowledge. It is not one more test; it is the end of a series of tests. This test of ours will give rise to no contaminated fallout. Since the Russians have long since declared their intention of completing their last series of tests in the atmosphere, it is to my mind a somewhat exaggerated fear that our test will "endanger the prospects" of our negotiations at Geneva.
  Of course everyone wants to see a very early successful outcome of the test-ban Conference as a good step on the way to general disarmament, but it takes two to make an agreement. I am glad that my right hon. Friend tonight reminded us that ever since April, 1961, there has been lying on the table at Geneva an Anglo-U.S. draft which the Russians will not sign because it includes powers, in case of a suspected test, to verify a denial by any of the signatories that a test has been made. Since then we have offered to ban all tests in the atmosphere, in the oceans and in space without any international verification whatever. As for underground tests, for as long as it is not possible to be certain whether explosions are natural or artificial, we have made two offers: first, that any necessary verification should be undertaken by a United Nations agency, and secondly, that scientists from our three countries should again confer to try to make verification foolproof. None of these offers has been accepted by the Russians. Until they do accept them there can be no question of a moratorium.
  Finally as to general disarmament, I add this. Anyone who has tried to follow, as I have, the endless negotiations on disarmament must come to the conclusion, if he is unbiassed and objective, that the Western allies have done, and are doing, all in their power to achieve agreement. Only last week in New York the United Kingdom and the United States submitted a resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations urging the 18-Nation Committee on Disarmament to conclude a treaty with effective and prompt international verification to prohibit nuclear weapon tests in all environments for all time. Only fifty-one States voted in favour of this resolution and ten actually voted against it, the Soviet Union and the nine satellite States.

  925
  I do not know what more we can do, but until agreement can be reached upon general and complete disarmament under effective international inspection and control, I believe we are doing the best that can be done for the safety and honour of this realm.
  8.37 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) began his speech by saying that on the issue before the House he was prepared to believe almost anything that the Minister told him. In that sense the rest of his speech was an essay in supererogation, because there was no necessity for him to continue after he had expressed his agreement with anything which the Minister might say about these weapons.
  Mr. Longden: I am sure that the hon. Member does not wish to misrepresent me. I said that I would agree with what my right hon. Friend said about the effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent. Nobody else here can know anything about it, and I am quite prepared to accept what the Minister tells me about it.
  Mr. Foot: I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that he accepted the whole of the Minister's case on the issue which we are discussing in the debate. But he went on to an even more remarkable proposition. He said that the factor which protected the world was the invention of these nuclear weapons. He described them as the most effective prophylactic against war that we could possibly have. If that is his view, I cannot understand why, at the end of his speech, he said that he was in favour of disarmament. Why have a disarmament convention to do away with the prophylactic if it is so effective?
  Mr. Longden: It would be better if nobody had any nuclear weapons or any weapons of any kind. That would be safest of all. But while weapons exist, nuclear weapons are the best prophylactic against war.
  Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman interrupts me every time, but that is not what he said in his speech. He said at the beginning of his speech that the most effective sanction which we could have against war was the invention of
  926
  the nuclear weapons. It is, therefore, illogical for him to be in favour of a disarmament convention. He should have thought out the argument better before he lectured the House in that fashion.
  But I am more concerned with what the Minister said because, unlike the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West, I am not inclined to accept everything which he says even when he is speaking about military weapons. I thought that it was rather curious that the Minister should start his speech with an appeal for gravity in this debate. He is the last Minister in the Government who has a right to appeal for a grave approach to these problems, particularly after the last speech which he delivered to the House.
  He suggested that we were not discussing today a tuppeny-ha'penny matter like entry into the Common Market. We are discussing a really serious question. I agree with him, at any rate, about that. It is a mast serious question, even though no one would claim that the explosion of one British rest is an event which will change the whole course of world politics. I do not think that! anyone claims that. But we are considering whether we regret or approve of the Government's decision to go ahead with this test.
  The Minister got himself into considerable difficulties in this respect because he talked at one time about the modesty of these tests which are conducted by Britain. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) went a good deal further and said that these tests add nothing to nothing. He said that they would have no effect whatever on future policy. But it is very difficult to sustain the proposition that Britain is engaged only in very modest tests at the same time as one maintains that they are extremely important, indeed indispensable, for maintaining our safety and the efficiency of a military weapon.
  Presumably the military weapon, even though we are not told what it is, is a weapon of some importance for the whole of the independent nuclear deterrent which the Government claim that we possess. If that is not so, then the argument for conducting these tests is even weaker than we thought. If it is

  927
  necessary to have these tests for the efficiency of a military weapon which is contributing very greatly to the maintenance of an independent nuclear deterrent, then it is not possible to dismiss these tests as modest affairs.
  The Government are always in this difficulty. They make such exaggerated claims about their independent nuclear deterrent. The Minister repeated the same claims today. He said that we still have the power in this country, quite independently, to be able to inflict appalling, even catastrophic, damage on the Soviet Union. The Government claim that the independent deterrent is so powerful, so well sustained, so well burnished, that we can inflict savage devastation on the whole industrial power of the Soviet Union. In other words, we have an absolutely first-class nuclear deterrent.
  It is a remarkable claim, because on the Government's own evidence we are spending far less on our nuclear deterrent than are the Americans and the Russians. Presumably we cannot have a more effective deterrent than that which we have already. Here we are claiming that because of the skill and brilliance of Ministers and civil servants, and the military people who work for them, although we in Britain are spending far, far less money than are the Russians or the Americans on nuclear weapons, we still maintain an effective deterrent. It is claimed that with these two little Nevada tests which the Government insist on having, we shall maintain our independent nuclear deterrent and keep it absolutely effective for the purpose of deterring the Russians.
  The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West believes that. The Minister said that he believes that the testing of these military weapons is necessary for maintaining the essentially British nuclear deterrent. Anybody who believes that shows remarkable innocence and gullibility. Why do not the Government tell us more about this military weapon which is so powerful that, with the two Nevada tests, we can make it so effective? Why do they not tell us what it is?
  If it is such a powerful weapon, and if it is part of the deterrent, the more the Russians are told about it the better.
  928
  We should set some spies on and let them hear all about it and take the news back to Russia. If our deterrent is so powerful, and if our Nevada tests will keep it so burnished, the more spies who are able to report this back to the Soviet Union, the better. The Minister may think that this is not a valid argument, but it is. He said that this military weapon is very powerful, but I do not think that anybody who has studied the matter can believe that.
  The Minister had another argument. He asked, "Who can believe that these modest little tests will have any effect on the whole course of the ban that other nations may agreed to?" The right hon. Gentleman suggests, in effect, that these tests are bound to do us some good and to assist in improving our military situation. When I heard the Minister talk in that way I was reminded of Uncle Ponderevo in H. G. Wells's story "Tono Bungay". After they had been selling "Tono Bungay" to unsuspecting citizens for a long time, at a considerable return, Uncle Ponderevo said to his nephew. "How can you tell it never does anybody any good?" I think that is roughly the claim the Government are making for these weapons.
  To put it the other way round, does the Minister think that these modest little tests will help towards an agreement on banning nuclear weapons? He could not claim that. Therefore, I do not think that he was on very firm ground there.
  Another argument of the Minister was to say that the Government would have liked to have done these tests earlier. As the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) said, why were we prevented from carrying them out earlier? Was it that the Americans said, "We think that your test is so inconsiderable and matters so little that it does not matter at all to the Western Powers when you do it?" Is it a fact that Britain was told by the Americans that we had to wait until they had conducted all their underground tests before we could have a chance of conducting ours? I hope that the Minister of State will give us a precise answer to that question. Then we shall be able to decide how much importance the American Government attach to these modest little tests about which we have heard.
  The Minister's arguments were so weak that they lead to the suspicion that the

  929
  Government are doing it for some quite different purpose. The Minister denied that these tests were being done in order to assist some plan for getting Britain into the Common Market. However, the right hon. Gentleman did not exactly deny the charge. I am not saying that this is categorically the case, but what some people have suspected is that there might be some connection between these tests or the other tests that the British Government have done in the past and their desire eventually to make a concession to the European Powers over the Common Market.
  It is not sufficient for the Prime Minister to say, as he did in reply to a Question recently, that this is nothing to do with it and that it is a fantasy. What we want from the Government and what the Government ought to be able to give, if they are as innocent in this matter as they pretend, is an absolutely clear statement that they are opposed to the whole idea of the establishment of a European deterrent, are opposed to the way in which it has been canvassed in Europe, and absolutely deny the statement made the other day on the authority of a very eminent reporter of the New York Times that, in fact, Britain is beginning to make an agreement on this matter.
  Why do not the Government say that they are absolutely opposed to the establishment of a European deterrent and that they will not in any way incorporate their so-called independent deterrent with a European deterrent? Why do not they kill this rumour absolutely, if it is a rumour, as they have every power to do, instead of allowing it to persist and continue?
  A large part of this debate is bound to turn on the whole argument about the independent nuclear deterrent, so-called. It is certainly true that some of us on these benches carry the argument very much further than my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who put the case for the Motion, but this does not mean to say that we are not in favour of the Motion as well
  Some hon. Members have referred to what happened in Cuba. The right hon. Member for Hall Green gave what some might describe as a very humiliating account of the rôle to which this country was reduced in that week. Nobody consulted us, nobody cared whether a British nuclear deterrent was in existence. The
  930
  American President went on with his plan to carry on with an act of war against Cuba, and he went on with a blockade on the high seas, without consulting this country. Indeed, we now learn from the Washington Post that the American President had made up his mind to embark on action ten days before he made his speech on the Monday of Cuba week. If that is true, he had a further ten days in which he deliberately decided not to consult the British Government.
  But what was our position, with the nuclear bases in this country, and with the Polaris vessel sailing from Holy Loch? The situation was that if the American Government had decided, as they said at one moment they were prepared to do, either to drop nuclear bombs on Cuba or to invade Cuba, and if the Russian Government had retaliated in the same terms in which the American Government were talking, this country would have been obliterated. And We would have been obliterated partly because of the existence on our soil of the nuclear weapons that are supposed to defend us.
  Therefore, far from these nuclear weapons—and, of course, the maintenance of the independent deterrent is part of it all—far from the nuclear weapons or the nuclear bases defending us, they made us open to an attack, open to total destruction, in a war about the cause of which we had never been consulted. Nobody had asked us about the rights or the wrongs of it. That was the position in which we placed ourselves by the maintenance of these nuclear weapons that are supposed to be defending us.
  That is why those of us who believe that, far from these weapons defending us they are magnets for an attack, wish to press towards unilateral or multilateral action to get rid of them altogether, and we are glad that the Opposition Front Bench are now opposing the maintenance of a British nuclear weapon, although they have not yet come to accept the dangers implicit in the maintenance of nuclear weapons on our soil.
  The right hon. Member for Hall Green referred to Britain's situation during Cuba week in terms different from those I have used. He said that this country's influence during Cuba week was nil. The American Government did not ask us.

  931
  and the Russian Government did not hear from us until it was all over. During that week, Bertrand Russell had a much bigger effect on the nuclear situation than did the Prime Minister. We had absolutely no influence. The existence of the independent nuclear deterrent gave us no power. It did not even get us into council chambers.
  From that, the right hon Member draws the deduction—and in this sense he is correct—that it is sad and, he says, unfortunate, that we should have false ideas of grandeur in having these tests. It is a delusion, and the Government are attempting to delude the country. The right hon. Member went on to say that, in his opinion, both Goverment and Opposition have an exaggerated view of the influence that Britain can have in these matters. I do not think that this country can sway the whole world or decide the whole course of history by what it decides to do about nuclear weapons, but I think that we could have much more influence than we now have.
  There is the problem of Berlin. We have said nothing about Berlin, although my hon. Friends on this side of the House have fresh proposals to make on that subject which the British Government have refused to make. During Question Time the other day, there was mention of a disengagement plan for Central Europe; a plan for clearing nuclear weapons out of the whole of Central Europe. That would be a great step forward, but the Government are absolutely silent on the subject.
  There is the question of peace in the Caribbean. The American Government are still engaged in the blockade of Cuba, absolutely in contravention of international law. Some newspapers say—indeed, the American Administration have come very near to saying—"We will give no pledge yet that we will not invade Cuba"——
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. I am trying to follow the hon. Gentleman, but I think that he is getting rather far from the Motion. Perhaps he will try to relate what he is saying to the carrying out of these tests.
  Mr. Foot: I think that it is relevant in this sense, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that
  932
  the right hon. Member for Hall Green said that this country could have no influence in world affairs, and he spoke as if that was the end of the matter.
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member, but he has misrepresented me. I did not say that this country could have no influence on world affairs. My contention is that there was a chance of this country having a proper influence on world affairs if it gauged its power realistically, but that if it gauged its power unrealistically its influence would be less than it otherwise would be.
  Mr. Foot: I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I agree that I have misrepresented him and I also agree with what he has just said. I apologise for unwittingly misrepresenting him earlier.
  My argument is that so long as the Government pursue their idea of an independent nuclear deterrent, so long as they think that they can play some part in the world by these wretched little tests, which some of us think do not matter one way or the other and which the Government do not know how to defend—sometimes they say that they are modest little tests and sometimes they say that they are of vital military importance for the defence of the country, but they cannot have it both ways—so long as they pursue those ends they will never direct the ideas of the world towards disengagement plans and to a real nuclear ban.
  This is the way in which the Government could give leadership to the world, but it is a form of leadership which was totally absent during the most critical week in human history, Cuba week, when our Government abdicated completely. They have abdicated completely ever since. They did not even dare to protest against what our allies did during that period without consulting us. Yet here we are told that the independent nuclear weapon gives us strength and power. What happened during Cuba week was total and final condemnation of the policy which the Government have been pursuing.
  8.58 p.m.
  Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) [has been indulging in an exercise which one is entitled to perform

  933
  when in opposition, but an exercise which nevertheless is likely to mislead a great many people who do not realise how difficult it is for any Government in power to disclose to the Opposition, or even to their awn side, exactly what reasons lie behind the development of weapons which must be kept secret.
  Any of us who have attempted to probe into the field with which this Motion deals must inevitably find ourselves over and over again running up against the security bar which is absolutely imperative for a Government to employ. Many of us may regret that fact, but I strongly support what my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) said in his excellent speech, namely, that the Government could bring the general public at large a little more into the picture as to what is really involved in this question of testing and what, in fact, this particular test is related to. I sympathise strongly with that plea. I do not think that sufficient has been said by the Government to educate our people into all that this matter involves.
  In particular, it is important that if we cannot be told what our own tests are achieving, we should be told a little more clearly what the Russian tests have resulted in. The Russians have carried out their own high level tests over the Arctic and the Government must have formed some assessment of what those tests mean. Indeed, it is one of the reasons why we agreed to the Americans starting their high level tests again after the three-year moratorium was broken by the Russians last year. It would help our people, particularly our young people, to understand a little more why we have to adopt the policy we do if the Government could tell them more at least about the results of our enemies' tests, if not the results of our own.
  As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence said in opening, the Motion is very narrowly drawn. I severely criticise the Opposition for leaving out the word "underground" from the Motion. The Motion as it stands can only give comfort to our enemies. It may be true, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) tried to show, that this second testing of, I assume, the same device underground, in other words, the
  934
  completion of a test made earlier of that device, may lead the Soviet Union to use as an excuse for going on with its underground tests the fact that Britain is doing this test now.
  I am quite prepared to believe that the Russians will use that argument, but, in my view, it ill becomes the Opposition in this House to put the idea into their heads, which is precisely what they have done. [Laughter.] I am quite prepared to believe that the Russians may be intending to use this argument already, but it ill becomes the Opposition, in that case, to support them in it, which is what the Motion does. If the Opposition had made clear, at least, that they were satisfied that this test was to be only an underground one, that would be a little less obnoxious, but the Motion as it stands is an open encouragment to our enemies to say that very thing publicly.
  Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. As I understand it, this country is at present not at war with anyone. Therefore, would not the coupling of the words "our enemies" with the words "Soviet Union" be an attack on a friendly Government?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I find nothing out of order in what the hon. Gentleman has said.
  Mr. Silverman: Then you ought to.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I distinctly heard the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne tell you that you ought to do something if you had not done so.
  Mr. Silverman: I did say that.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: May I put it to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that that is grossly out of order and that the hon. Gentleman should be asked to withdraw?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I did not hear the hon. Gentleman. If he did say that, it is out of order. I must ask him to withdraw it.
  Mr. Silverman: Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I know of no rule which makes it compulsory on any Member of the House of Commons to agree with every Ruling which is given from the Chair. I do not agree with your Ruling. I shall obey it, but I do not agree with it.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: In that case, the hon. Gentleman should put down a Motion.
  Mr. Silverman: Perhaps I will.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In using the word "enemies", I was including anybody who wished to—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I was including anybody who wished to see this country come down, and I believe that the Communist Party does.
  Mr. Silverman: But the hon. Gentleman did not say the Communist Party.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: No; but I will say the Russians, too, if the hon. Member likes that better.
  Mr. Silverman: Then do not say it again.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I hope that the House will now be able to judge where the hon. Member's sympathies are.
  Mr. Silverman: Hon. Members have always been able to judge that. I have been here long enough for them to be able to judge.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The Motion helps those who wish to criticise this country in the world. If it does not put the idea into their heads, at least it encourages them to say the same thing. I ask the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who is lounging there, whether he thinks that the first underground test which we carried out after the Russians had broken the moratorium was right or wrong.
  Mr. G. Brown: The answer to that, quite clearly, is "wrong", for the reasons which I gave in my speech, which the hon. Member was present to hear. From the moment when we ceased to be able to maintain ourselves as an independent nuclear power, which cessation took place under his Government, not ours, tests of nuclear weapons which would have been sensible had we been going on as a nuclear Power ceased to be sensible and thereby became wrong.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: At least the right hon. Gentleman is consistent in that he disapproved of the first part of the underground testing of this device and therefore is against the second part. At
  936
  least that is logical, and I respect the right hon. Gentleman for his logic.
  The right hon. Gentleman has based this proposition on the assumption that the only value in having a nuclear weapon of any sort is if we can provide the launching device for it. He seems to think that that has got to be a rocket. I do not accept that at all. If the right hon. Gentleman will study what I have said in repeated debates, on the Air Estimates in particular, he will see that I have always felt that there was a future use for manned aircraft here and that we would be well advised to go ahead with a development along those lines.
  I do not know where my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green has gone, but, if I may say so in his absence, it ill-becomes someone who held the office of Minister of Supply for as long as he did to pontificate in the way that he occasionally does in this House and disappear from view the moment he has made a speech and hardly come back again when he, as Minister of Supply, could so very easily, if he had come off the fence one way or the other, have insisted that we went ahead with some of the projects which we may now lack.
  Mr. Walter Monslow: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the resignation speech of the present Minister of Defence when he said in this House that Governments in this country for the past twelve years had gone from crisis to crisis, that this country was spending beyond its capacity and that we ought to call a halt?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his memory and for remembering that quotation. I recall that speech, and it is the result of every Government having got the priorities wrong since World War II and having spent too much on welfare before looking after defence. [Interruption.] I have been saying that ever since 1945. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has not heard me say it before. As long as we as a nation go on insisting on putting welfare before defence, we shall not be properly defended.
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This is getting wide of the Motion, which deals with tests, not welfare.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I apologise, Sir Robert. I will come back to the Motion.
  This discussion arose because the right hon. Member for Belper thinks that it is not worth our while having a separate nuclear deterrent and that we should rely on the United States in the alliance. I find it very hard to understand how people like the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green are prepared to criticise the Americans for what they did over Cuba and at the same time to say that we should be totally reliant on them for the nuclear deterrent. I do not say that the right hon. Member for Belper shares the views of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale on Cuba, and I do not propose to elaborate on the Cuban issue because you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, have already ruled it out of order. But, as long as anyone in this country says that what the United States have done over Cuba or anything else in foreign affairs is not necessarily right and that we should take an independent line from them, it is even more necessary for us to have an independent deterrent rather than rely on theirs.
  Mr. G. Brown: Clearly the hon. Gentleman has studied this matter. May I put this to him? How many of our V-bombers does the hon. Gentleman think can carry Skybolt, even supposing that Skybolt becomes available? How many bombers does he think we shall have available?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I have no more idea than the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Brown: Then the hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I do not believe that Skybolt is the only means of delivering an atomic weapon.
  Mr. Brown: There is no other.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I do not believe it. If it were true the whole V-bomber programme, right from its inception, would have been a complete waste of money, and I do not believe that it was. I believe that our V-bomber force today, and the manned aircraft which will eventually follow it, will ensure that, whatever happens on the rocketry front, we shall still be able to deliver the nuclear deterrent.
  Mr. Mason: Does not the effectiveness of the so-called independent British nuclear deterrent at the moment depend upon the ballistic missile early warning system of the United States, and do not the targets of the V-bomber force depend entirely on the espionage efforts of the U.2s and the MIDAS satellites? Also does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there are no models on the stocks as the logical successors of the V-bombers and that we are building no rockets?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The hon. Gentleman would not have asked his first question unless he thought that he was right and I was wrong. As neither of us has the security clearance to be able to check either way, both of us are speaking in some ignorance of the matter. But I noted that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence was shaking his head very vigorously while the hon. Gentleman was putting that question to me.
  Mr. G. Brown: What does that prove?
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) was in the Chamber when I followed the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. It is very irresponsible——
  Mr. Mason: It is a fact.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: —for any hon. Member to trade on what he knows to be the public ignorance about matters covered by security, and about which we ourselves know we are very often ignorant, because we, too, are bound by security.
  All I would say on this is that I am convinced that our V-bomber force could deliver a weapon which could do immense destruction to our enemies, and the knowledge in our potential enemy's mind that this is so has at least kept us at peace for a long time.
  I think it is worth asking how many hon. Members have thought what would be happening on the northern frontier of India today if China and India were both nuclear powers. I wonder very much whether there would not still be peace there. As to all these observations about getting rid of the nuclear weapons, where do we get to at the end of that road? Sooner or later the man with the biggest number of bows and arrows will win. Unless disarmament includes

  939
  banning the use of fists, sooner or later nuclear disarmament will lead us back into the most likely state to produce war.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West. I believe that the existence of the nuclear bomb is of very great value to mankind as long as mankind is prepared to do the stupid things it has been prepared to do this century. I believe there is a difference between "awe" and "fear". Some of us have lived through two periods of fear when we knew that our enemies had more conventional arms than we had.
  An Hon. Member: Some still have.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I dare say. Where should we be without the nuclear weapon? I believe that the fact that this weapon inspires awe in people tends to make war less likely, whereas when there is an unbalance based on conventional weapons, fear very often leads to war. For this reason above all others, I am very unsanguine in my hopes about any disarmament being achieved.
  I believe we must retain some nuclear weapons in our own hands, and the more doubts we have about the way our allies behave, the more doubts we have about how our allies will behave in the long term, and the more doubts we have about the lasting qualities of our alliances, the more important it is that we should retain some nuclear weapons of our own. I will not accept, as the right hon. Member for Belper seems always to assume, that it ceases to be independent merely because. We have bought it from somebody else.
  The right hon. Gentleman always argues that the mere fact that we must rely on the Americans to manufacture the deterrent means that when we have it in our possession it will not be independent. This proposition that no one else can be independent unless he makes everything he possesses is total rubbish. The important thing is that one goes to the person who can manufacture it best. There is no point in manufacturing it ourselves if it is going to break us and if someone else is already manufacturing it.
  The question is not whether we make it but whether we have it. That is what
  940
  matters to me. We are independent if we have got it. If we have to rely on someone else owning it and eventually moving it about, that is not a state of independence as I understand it. The Labour Party and the splinter group on its left seem to be coming into line on one thing, and it is exactly the same line as they adopted in 1939 when they voted against conscription. They know it is unpopular. They know that there are no votes in it, and therefore they hit the Government of the day whatever the effect on the nation. It is contemptible.
  9.16 p.m.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: The Minister of Defence said that this should not be a party debate, that it was too great a national issue for that. I agree with him. This is a great national issue and the only reason why we are having a party debate on it tonight is that the Government have taken a decision that it wholly wrong.
  The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) propounded the rather extraordinary doctrine that any attack on the Government is an attack on the nation. But it seems to me that the contrary is true. Not to attack this Government would be a disservice to the nation, not only in this matter but also in many others as well.
  I thought that the right hon. Gentleman made a rather feeble defence against the charges levelled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) about the manner by which this decision was announced. It was furtive to do it by way of an inspired Written Answer. The right hon. Gentleman produced the extraordinary idea that it was inconceivable that he could have inspired the Question, because this would have allowed the world to know weeks before the decision.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I did inspire it.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: Then I cannot understand why the right hon. Gentleman said that it was inconceivable that he should give something out weeks before it happened. The reason for the inspired Answers was that the decision was already known to the British Press and the Soviet radio.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: I did inspire the Question. It came out in the Press because I got the Question put on the Order Paper.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: If the right hon. Gentleman compares the dates, he will see that it was already known. It was on the Soviet radio, earlier. However, this is not a very important point, though he did labour it quite hard. But why did the right hon. Gentleman inspire a Written Question? Why did he not ask Mr. Speaker's leave to make a statement at the end of Oral Questions, so that we could ask him questions?
  When the first of our tests was made, earlier this year, the Prime Minister made a statement to the House, so that we could immediately question him. But this time the Minister of Defence chose to inspire a Question the Answer to which did not take the form in which the Prime Minister made his announcement. Now the right hon. Gentleman propounds the doctrine that he has some how done us a great service, because we are able to have a debate. He speaks as though the only cause of a debate is a Written Answer.
  Mr. David Webster: How did Earl Attlee announce the building of the British atomic bomb?
  Mr. Gordon Walker: That has nothing to do with this issue. I need not go into that. We are talking about a particular issue. I was dealing with the arguments raised by the Minister of Defence. The right hon. Gentleman seems to be losing his sense of proportion and political reality. He is treating this matter, this great matter which he said was a great national issue, as another "little local difficulty", just as he did with the Vassall case.
  Hon. Members: Order.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: That is perfectly in order. The right hon. Gentleman is losing his sense of judgment; he gets flippant; he makes light arguments; he laughs things off; he plays them down.
  We have many powerful reasons for putting down and pressing our Motion. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper said, there is no strategic need for this test. It is only a part of an attempt to pretend that we are an independent nuclear Power with an
  942
  independent nuclear weapon. Since the ending of Blue Streak, this has clearly become wholly beyond our means, leave alone any questions of morality. Whatever the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely may say, in the long run, if we cannot have missile carriages, missile vehicles, we will slowly fall out of the race. The right hon. Gentleman practically said as much.
  The right hon. Gentleman attacked my right hon. Friend for changing his mind about whether Britain should have an independent nuclear weapon. My right hon. Friend adopted his present logical position after the decision to abandon Blue Streak. It was the position that we could not afford the missile vehicle without which we could not maintain an independent nuclear weapon. That is what made him change his mind and it was a perfectly logical decision from that state of affairs.
  What has happened has been that we have learned the lesson of the Government's failure—Blue Streak was a great Government failure—and the Government will not yet admit, at any rate, not out loud, the lesson to be deduced from it. The right hon. Gentleman quoted a speech by my right hon. Friend in 1957, but I must quote part of the right hon. Gentleman's resignation speech in 1958. What he said then is not compatible with what he said tonight. He said:
  "…for twelve years we have been attempting to do more than our resources could manage, and in the process we have been gravely weakening ourselves…First, we have sought to be a nuclear power, matching missile with missile and anti-missile with antimissile…It is not a mean thing to wish to be independent in nuclear power, of both the East and the West, although it may be that in the West in future no one really will be independent in nuclear power."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd January, 1958; Vol. 580, c. 1295.]
  That was quite good sense, but the sort of economic thought which he was then expressing is not compatible with the extravagant language, in two senses, which he was using tonight.
  Mr. Thorneycroft: The right hon. Member is perfectly entitled to quote my resignation speech, but he has been extremely selective in doing so. I do not ask him to read the speech as a whole, but he will see that I drew a long

  943
  list of the things which we had attempted to do, including welfare, and said that we had to choose priorities among them.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: I have read the whole speech several times. The right hon. Gentleman made it perfectly clear that he regarded the maintenance of independent nuclear weapons by Britain as intolerably extravagant.
  I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman then said about our not being able to be independent. One reason why we do not have an independent nuclear weapon is simply that it is not independent. As Mr. McNamara has said, the only justification for the British maintenance of the weapon is that it is wholly integrated with the United States weapons system and "so targetted" as he put it. In other words, the final great argument for the independent British nuclear weapon is that it is not independent. The one logical argument for it is that it is integrated and makes a slight addition to the American nuclear deterrent.
  There is another argument which the right hon. Gentleman did not use, but which is often used in this connection, namely, that we must remain an independent nuclear Power, or retain an independent nuclear weapon, because this gives us rights of consultation and influence in the world and so on. He could not use that argument because it was blown sky-high by Cuba. He could not use it. This was an argument which has often been used, but has been singularly absent on the other side tonight.
  The main argument that we use is that of timing. I think that the Government have made an incredible and indefensible blunder in the timing of the decision, and the announcement of the decision, and they have had a very critical Press. The Times, in its leader of 13th November, said:
  "If the Government had wracked their brains to choose a bad time for proclaiming a new nuclear test they could not have hit on a worse moment than now."
  That view has been echoed in nearly all the Press.
  This is the moment when President Kennedy has announced the end of his tests. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The end of a series of atmospheric tests. I do not dodge these things. I am coming
  944
  to this. The Russians have announced that, if not on 20th November, then soon, they will end all tests, and Mr. Zorin has proposed that talks should start, I think at the end of this week. In other words, the Government have chosen the moment to launch this little test of ours when the world is beginning once again to have real hope that a test ban can be achieved in the world.
  It is said that the United States is going on with underground tests, and maybe Russia is, and therefore why not we? This is the argument that is used. There are two things that I have to say to that. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, this has the danger of stopping the moratorium which the Russians have proposed on underground tests, and, secondly, there is a difference between ourselves and the great super-nuclear Powers. This is a new test, a suddenly announced test, an unexpectedly announced test, and an unnecessary test. It is different from the Russian and American series of tests.
  The cast of this argument is really that we are equal with the super-nuclear Powers. This is the only sense in which one can really use the argument that because they have underground tests we can have underground tests, and so on. The Government are like the frog in Aesop's Fables that blew itself up until it finally burst. The Government are trying to do more than can be done, and this argument betrays their whole approach.
  But the trouble here is not merely a sort of isolated self-inflation by the Government, because all this is happening in the context of the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons, and this is one of the really great dangers facing the world. This talk of an independent nuclear deterrent, this test which is trying to emphasise it, to underline it, increases this perilous notion of an independent European deterrent. It is bound to do so. It was given rather ambiguous support by George Ball over the weekend. We must stand against this stupidity of an independent European nuclear deterrent, and this Nevada test is bound to weaken our stand in this matter.
  The Times, in its leader of 13th November, suggested another possible purpose for the Government's test, that

  945
  the aim may be to give General de Gaulle
  "a reminder that Britain would have much to contribute to an Anglo-French nuclear pool if ever a European deterrent were set up."
  If the test in Nevada is a part of some devious Common Market policy, this would be absolutely reprehensible and indefensible. It is being widely said not only in The Times, but in the New York Times—that the Government have laid themselves open at any rate to this suspicion being very widely entertained, because, after all, people are trying to find Ian explanation of why the Government chose this time to announce and carry out this decision, and I want to come hack to the point of timing.
  The Government are committing what think is an act of folly at a crucial moment in world affairs. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) said, and I agree with him, that there is now a much more real hope of a world agreement to ban these nuclear tests. The Americans and Russian positions have been getting closer and closer. The Prime Minister said in his Guildhall speech on Monday that there was only a small gap now to be bridged to get agreement on a full test ban.
  There are, of course, remaining difficulties. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) pointed out, there will still be the difficulty of how to police the underground tests. But progress is being made there, and there is hope there, too, of a compromise based on the "black boxes" of the Russians and the neutral inspectors who have been suggested by the Americans.
  A nuclear test ban could be of really critical importance for the world. It would greatly reduce two of the major dangers facing the world. One is the poisoning of the atmosphere by tests and the other, equally important, I think, is that is would get away from the danger that now faces us that the balance of deterrence is an unstable balance. So long as countries can go on making scientific tests and improving their weapons all the time, then each side can never resist making these scientific experiments and further progress, because each is always frightened of being outstripped by the other. To preserve the balance of deterrence, one is always raising the stakes to
  946
  a higher level of terror than before. Therefore, the world gets more and more dangerous and the balance of deterrence always gets higher and higher in terms of terror.
  A nuclear test ban would mean two things above all. It would mean that the two great nuclear super Powers would impose upon themselves, a restraint on their scientific experiments, very great restraint, even if underground 'tests, atmospheric and stratospheric tests went on, it would lay restraint on atmospheric and stratospheric experiments by either of them which would endanger the continuous upsetting of the balance which is always being restruck and restored at a higher level of terror.
  Secondly, it would give both these Governments a very major common interest, which would be to stop other Powers indulging in nuclear tests of the kind that they had agreed to ban. This would be an immense gain to the world and that is why a nuclear test ban is the greatest real hope in the world. It will not, of course, solve all the problems, get rid of nuclear weapons and all the rest, but it will be the one great step that can be made in this direction, and a realistic—I agree with the hon. Member for Hall Green—and now attainable step. I beg the Government to recognise that this decision that they have taken is in the context of this hope of getting now an international test ban which could have all these great effects upon the world. Even if they do not accept all our arguments, I ask them to consider whether this little test of ours may not involve some danger to the conclusion of a nuclear test ban treaty.
  The Minister of Defence, in one part of his argument, was rather tending to say that nothing we could do could have any effect on Russia, that this was only a little thing, that it would not be noticed. I do not agree, I take a rather higher view of the effect of the things that we can do. The Times, to quote from the leading article once more, made, I think, an extremely important point in this connection. It said:
  "Counsels are divided in Russia, as they are in America, over the expediency of agreeing to any test-ban and pletny of Russian military men are eager to seize on any pretext for going on with their tests."
  If that is so, it means that our decision might have an effect upon the internal

  947
  arguments, possibly in the United States, but particularly in Russia. Nobody can deny that this Nevada test involves danger that it might provide a pretext for the people, these Russian military men, who are described in the leading article in The Times.
  It would be criminal if the Government did anything that could tilt the scales against the achievement of a test ban when its achievement is now becoming a real hope. I beg the Government to think again. We have made party points between us, but this is not a party debate. This is a vital issue for us and for the world. I beg the Government to think again. I beg them to realise their responsibilities. I beg them to reverse this decision before it is too late.
  9.36 p.m.
  The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. J. B. Godber): The final passages of the speech of the right hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) certainly struck a chord in me. I realise the sincerity with which the right hon. Gentleman put forward those views, and I agree with him entirely as to the great importance of achieving a test ban treaty. Indeed, that is what I have been spending most of this year trying to do, and so the right hon. Gentleman does not need to convince me of that. It is, however, a vital matter, and it is right that we should consider where we have got to in relation to it.
  The Motion which we are debating deals with one aspect of the matter and the debate has ranged much wider. The Motion, which, I assume, is intended as a Motion of censure, in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, states:
  "That this House regrets the decision of Her Majesty's Government to proceed in the near future with the testing of a British nuclear device thus endangering the prospects of an early international agreement to ban nuclear tests."
  That is the wording and it is a narrow Motion, but the debate has ranged more widely.
  In the early stages of the debate, in answering the speech of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence dealt with our needs for the test on military grounds. I propose to
  948
  consider the second part of the Motion and in the short time which remains to examine the damage which the announcement of the test has done, could do or will do to the prospects of a treaty.
  I was struck by the fact throughout the whole of this short debate that nobody on the other side of the House, so far as I have heard, has criticised the Soviets for the part they have played—[Interruption]—yes, for the part they have played in the two massive series of tests. In this connection, I could not help recalling one or two words from The Times editorial this morning commenting upon Lord Avon's book. May I quote just one sentence:
  "Twenty-five years later it is still breathtaking to read how hard facts were dismissed as though they were hostile witnesses…every manner of excuse was found for the dictators".
  There really is something there.
  Mr. Gordon Walker: Is the hon. Gentleman insinuating that we supported Russia in renewing the tests? That is the implication of what he is saying. Of course, we attacked them, and we attack them now.
  Mr. Godber: I am glad that right hon. and hon. Members opposite do attack, but having spent so much time in attacking one British test, they might have spent some little time in regretting the Russian tests.
  Mr. G. Brown: That is the meanest thing the hon. Gentleman has done.
  Mr. Godber: It is not what I have done. It is what right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have done.
  Their arguments, as I understand them, appear to be based on the fact that the United States has finished its series of atmospheric tests and the Soviets are believed to be nearing the end of theirs. No undertaking, however, has been given by either side about not continuing tests. The United States has made clear that its underground tests will continue.
  In that context, I could not understand the question of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) when he asked me specifically, did the United States tell us that our test was so small that we must wait until the United States tests were over? Clearly the hon. Gentleman

  949
  does not understand the matter at all if he asks questions in that form, because in fact no indication whatever has been given that the United States underground tests are to be stopped. So that that question has no relevance whatever in relation to this debate.
  The United Kingdom test underground will not stand out in any way from the general pattern. I think it important to remind the House once again that we shall have carried out two underground tests during a period in which the Soviet Union has carried out two massive series of atmospheric tests and the United States has carried out a series of atmospheric tests. It has been claimed that this second underground test of ours is of tremendous significance, but I do not think that bears investigation.
  I think it important to consider that not only have neither of the two countries said they are ending underground tests, but The Times report of 8th November of what Mr. Khrushchev said in relation to the probable ending of the present series included a statement that he said:
  "Our people will continue working on future experiments."
  Those are the words which are quoted from Mr. Khrushchev, so it is clear that there was no imputation on their part that they were proposing to end tests. Therefore, this whole question of dates seems to have acquired a wholly unreal importance in the minds of right hon. and hon. Gentleman opposite. This is a point which I must stress, because the whole question of the series being ended and, therefore, of our test being an isolated test is quite unreal and does not face the facts of the case at all.
  If the Russians are ending their atmospheric series in the near future, I suggest that it is not for any significant reason from the point of view that hon. Members opposite were arguing. We know that the climate of Novaya Zemlya makes it difficult for them to carry on for much longer at this time of the year, and it is quite normal, therefore, that for purely seasonal reasons they should have been ending their tests. If there is any significant date it is 1st January, 1963.
  Why do I say that? Because it was put forward in Geneva in the summer as a suggested date when countries might finish their series of tests and might come
  950
  to an agreement. It was put forward by Mr. Padilla Nervo, the representative of Mexico, in May, and he repeated it in June when he suggested 1st January, 1963. Further than that, it has been embodied in a General Assembly resolution passed in the United Nations only a fortnight ago. The resolution was put forward by about 37 neutralist countries. In operative paragraph 3 it urges the Governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States to settle the remaining differences between them in order to achieve agreement by 1st January, 1963. In operative paragraph 6 it refers again to this specific date. So that if there is a date which has any relevance, it is that date. And, of course, the United Kingdom test will be over before then, so that there is no relevance in any arguments used tonight about this having an effect on our ability to achieve a treaty.
  Mr. Mason: And if the test does not succeed?
  Mr. Godber: There is no reason to suppose that it will not, and I am certainly not answering hypothetical questions in relation to that.
  Now I can turn to the psychological effects to which hon. Members have referred with regard to this particular test. Some rather extraordinary arguments have been raised. There might be some force in this if in fact it were an atmospheric test which was taking place. But this is not the case, and other underground tests will be continuing on both sides, so far as we know. The Russians are realists in these matters and are not going to be swayed by the psychological reasoning to which hon. Members have referred.
  The Motion we are debating talks about
  "endangering the prospects of an early international agreement".
  What are the prospects? I have been rather disturbed listening to the debate this evening to hear the very optimistic things which a number of hon. Members have said about how near we are to agreement. I wish to heaven we were; we have been working hard enough and trying hard enough for it. Much as I should like to agree with them that we are so near, I must point out the facts in relation to this matter.

  951
  The Geneva Conference will be reconvening a week today. I was a little puzzled when the right hon. Member for Belper appeared to give credit for that to the Soviet representative for having urged it. In fact, some of us were urging it upon him at great length. Actually we should have reconvened a week ago, but it had to be deferred to 26th November, The Sub-Committee is still sitting, and I shall be flying back to Geneva tomorrow morning to take part in it. It has before it at the moment the Soviet draft agreement of 28th November last year. It also has the memorandum of the eight neutral Powers to which hon. Members have referred and two Western draft treaties of 27th August, 1962, and subsequently the two resolutions which the general Assembly passed in the last few weeks.
  So far the Soviet Union representatives have refused to sign the partial treaty which we put forward on 27th August, which covers tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water. They have refused to agree to any obligatory on-site inspection in a comprehensive treaty. In other words, in relation to the underground tests they are not willing to accept on-site inspection and they have refused to provide us with the information they claim to have which they say would make on-site inspection unnecessary. We have offered them this partial treaty in the three environments, which we are prepared to sign straight away and it would obviate all tests which cause fall-out. The only argument they have put forward is that they say it would legalise underground tests. That does not stand up for a moment, because they would be no more legal than they are at the moment.
  They have refused the comprehensive treaty because they are not prepared to submit to on-site inspection and have refused to give the information which they claimed to have. That is why I say to hon. Members that, much as I should like to be optimistic, we have in fact still a very difficult part to cover.
  Mr. G. Brown: In view of that, will the hon. Gentleman tell us what the Prime Minister was talking about at the Guildhall last week, because it was on the Prime Minister's assessment of the
  952
  narrowness of the gap that I was in fact relying?
  Mr. Godber: Certainly the gap has narrowed, but it has narrowed because of the move of the West and not because of the move of the Soviet Union. That is the point I am making. The gap has narrowed substantially because of the texts of the draft treaties of 27th August, in which we have gone a long way to meet them, but they have refused to meet us on those texts. The gap has narrowed because the West has moved. Now I suggest it is for the Soviet Union to make a move to try to meet us.
  I certainly do not wish to discourage them in any way from doing so; I have been trying to encourage them over and over again. Since the last Pugwash meeting they have shown some interest in the "black boxes" about which a great deal of comment has been made. I think the hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) referred to them. The important thing in relation to the black boxes is that they could be a supplement to other arrangements. There is no doubt that some people in their eagerness to make progress have overlooked the fact that this recommendation made by the Pugwash meetings, which was made by three Americans and three Soviet scientists, did not envisage that the use of black boxes would obviate the need for on-site inspection. They said that they had explored the possibility of developing this system in such a way as to reduce the interference with the host country and still obtain the maximum amount of seismic information with a view to reducing substantially the number of necesary on-site inspections. But this was with a view to reducing the number of on-site inspections, not to eliminating them.
  This is the key to the whole problem. If the Soviet Union will revert to the position which they adopted until 28th November last year, an agreement would be possible tomorrow. Until 28th November they agreed to on-site inspection. They have since moved away from this, as we have moved towards them. While this black box idea may have something in it which could help, it does not get over the basic problem of the need for some degree of on-site inspection.

  953
  It is apparently being argued that if we were to lead the way by refusing to make any tests of any kind, this could lead the Russians to reach an agreement. There is no shred of evidence in support of such a contention. We agreed to a moratorium, which lasted three years, but it did not achieve a treaty, and there is clear evidence that the Russians used the last year of that period in preparing a massive series of tests while pretending at the conference table that they were negotiating in all seriousness.
  It is possible to argue that if the West were to increase their own tests it might make the Russians realise that it was in their own interests to achieve an early agreement, but there is no vestige of evidence to support the contention that if the West abandoned all testing the Russians would follow suit—unless they were satisfied that it suited their military interests to do so.
  I have shown clearly that in relation to the American underground tests, the British tests fit naturally into the present series. One might suggest that if the West deliberately increased its testing the Russians might feel the need to reach an agreement, but there is no evidence that if the West abandoned all their underground testing or all testing it would lead the Russians to seek an agreement more quickly. It did not do so before, and it is no good pretending that it is necessarily likely to do so now. It is only too obvious that the Russians judge all this strictly from the military standpoint and that no humanitarian considerations enter into it at all. I remind hon. Members, in case they have forgotten, of the way in which Mr. Khrushchev boasted only a year ago about the 50-megaton bomb which he was then about to explode. I have the quotation here, but I will not weary the House with it; but it is as well to remind ourselves of that Russian attitude in relation to these matters.
  Having said that, I agree that we must try by every means possible, in particular, by trying to improve scientific means of detection and identification, to find a basis for an agreement on which we, the United States and the Russians can agree. This is where I agree very much with the right hon. Member for Smethwick on the need to reach agreement. I assure him that the Government are
  954
  very much playing their part in seeking to reach an agreement.
  I was sorry to hear one or two hon. Members suggest that they thought that the United Kingdom was not playing a full part in this. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) said that the United Kingdom played no part in improving relations. I do not mind him saying that I have done nothing, but my predecessors and my official team have been working hard and continuously on this and deserve something better than that comment. In particular, I pay tribute to Sir Michael Wright, who has been working continuously on this problem over a very long period. They have played a very substantial part in bringing the West into such a strong position as it has today; the Western position must be accepted by any reasonable person who looks at this matter without any degree of bias.
  We shall continue with these discussions. We have as a basis these documents about which I have spoken. We have these two Western draft treaties. I urge and beg the Soviet Union to accept either of them or, if they cannot do so, at least to help us by taking us into their confidence more in relation to such scientific advances as they claim to have achieved. We for our part will do all we can, will meet them in any regard in relation to this, and will look at any proposals in relation to black boxes or anything else. We would like our scientists to meet with theirs, just as we want to continue meeting at our present level, both in the Sub-Committee and in the disarmament negotiations as a whole. We want to try to make a success of this, and I pledge that Her Majesty's Government will continue to do all they can in this regard.
  I agree with what has been said, that this could be a valuable lead in to disarmament in the wider sphere. Here there is a tremendous opportunity. We have become engaged in Geneva in detailed discussions in relation to what could be done in the first stage of disarmament. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hall Green referred to something Mr. Gromyko said in the General Assembly in September. My right hon. Friend related it to a nuclear test agreement, but I think that he will find that this was solely in relation to the first stage of disarmament. This proposal,

  955
  like all others, we are prepared to discuss in detail, and I hope that we shall be doing so within the next two or three weeks.
  We want to get down to detailed negotiations again. If we could get a nuclear test treaty, if we could get some of these other measures which are down on the agenda of the Disarmament Committee as a whole, if we could get some other measures for reducing tension in the world, that is what we want above everything else. I assure the House that we will do all we can in this regard.
  I say with all seriousness that if anything has made agreement more difficult it is the action of the Opposition in seeking to inflate this issue and in having what I would term this ridiculous and unjustified Motion of censure tonight. They have moved it as a vote of censure. They have not justified it by one iota. In no single sense have they done so. For twelve months now I and my United States colleagues at these negotiations have been systematically exposing the weakness of the Soviet case in these negotiations, while we have been making fresh offer after fresh offer to try to find some way to bridge the gap between us. As I have indicated, we have not yet had any response but we must keep on trying.
  Although the Soviet authorities endeavour to keep the facts away from their own people, there is no doubt that in their determination to keep on testing they have been seriously embarrassed by the weakness of their own position, and this constant pressure must have some effect on their future policies. This is a point which I think is sometimes over-
  looked and which I must stress, that in fact public opinion does begin to play a larger part in the Soviet Union.
  Mr. S. Silverman: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Godber: I am glad to have that support. Therefore, it is important that they should know the strength of the Western case. If the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) agrees with me, he should help in showing how reasonable the Western case is so as to enable the Soviet people to realise what it is their Government are doing to them in not agreeing to a Treaty.
  By moving the Motion of censure tonight and by trying to exaggerate out of of all reason the effect of this one British test, the Opposition have provided the Soviets with an easy excuse for further polemics. This has made my task at Geneva more difficult. [Laughter.] It is no good trying to laugh it off. I hope that hon. Members opposite will be gratified when they learn how fully their speeches will be reported in Pravda.
  This Motion of censure, this sordid little exercise designed to extract party advantage out of the deep feelings of distaste that everyone in this country has for these grim weapons, without any consideration for its effects on the efforts of Her Majesty's Government to achieve a lasting ban on all tests, is a measure of the irresponsibility of right hon. Members opposite. I reject this miserable, ill-judged, wholly unjustified Motion of censure with the contempt that it deserves.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 224, Noes 299.

  Division No. 5.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Boyden, James

  Deer, George

  Ainsley, William

  Bradley, Tom

  Delargy, Hugh

  Albu, Austen

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Diamond, John

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Dodds, Norman

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Awbery, Stan

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Driberg, Tom

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Callaghan, James

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon, John

  Baird, John

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Beaney, Alan

  Chapman, Donald

  Edelman, Maurice

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Cliffe, Michael

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Bence, Cyril

  Collick, Percy

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Benson, Sir George

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Evans, Albert

  Blackburn, F.

  Cronin, Jonh

  Fernyhough, E.

  Blyton, William

  Dalyell, Tam

  Finch, Harold

  Boardman, H.

  Darling, George

  Fletcher, Eric

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, W.)

  Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

  Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W.(Leics, S.W.)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  Bowles, Frank

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Loughlin, Charles

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Crmrthn)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Ginsburg, David

  McCann, John

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

  MacColl, James

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Gourlay, Harry

  MacDermot, Niall

  Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  McInnes, James

  Ross, William

  Grey, Charles

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Mackie, John (Enfield, East)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  McLeavy, Frank

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Mahon, Simon

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Gunter, Ray

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Hannan, William

  Manuel, Archie

  Small, William

  Harper, Joseph

  Mapp, Charles

  Snow, Julian

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Mason, Roy

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Hayman, F. H.

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Healey, Denis

  Mellish, R. J.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Steele, Thomas

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Millan, Bruce

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Milne, Edward

  Stonehouse, John

  Hilton, A. V.

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Stones, William

  Holman, Percy

  Monslow, Walter

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Holt, Arthur

  Moody, A. S.

  Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Morris, John

  Swain, Thomas

  Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)

  Moyle, Arthur

  Swingler, Stephen

  Howell, Danis (Small Heath)

  Mulley, Frederick

  Taverne, D.

  Hoy, James H.

  Neal, Harold

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Oram, A. E.

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Thornton, Ernest

  Hunter, A. E.

  Owen, Will

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Padley, W. E.

  Tomney, Frank

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Paget, R. T.

  Wade, Donald

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Warbey, William

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Parker, John

  Watkins, Tudor

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Parkin, B. T.

  Weitzman, David

  Jeger, George

  Paton, John

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Whitlock, William

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Wigg, George

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Peart, Frederick

  Willey, Frederick

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Pentland, Norman

  Williams, D.J. (Neath)

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Williams, LI. (Abertillery)

  Kelley, Richard

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Prentice, R. E.

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  King, Dr. Horace

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

  Lawson, George

  Probert, Arthur

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Ledger, Ron

  Proctor, W. T.

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Woof, Robert

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Rankin, John

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Redhead, E. C.

  Zilliacus, K.

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Reid, William

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Upton, Marcus

  Rhodes, H.

  Mr. Short and Mr. Rogers.

  NOES

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Aitken, W. T.

  Box, Donald

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Cooke, Robert

  Allason, James

  Boyle, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward

  Cooper, A. E.

  Amery, Rt. Hon. Julian

  Braine, Bernard

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Arbuthnot, John

  Brewis, John

  Cordle, John

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt. -Col. Sir Walter

  Corfield, F. V.

  Balniel, Lord

  Brooke, Rt. Hon, Henry

  Costain, A. P.

  Barber, Anthony

  Brooman-White, R.

  Coulson, Michael

  Barlow, Sir John

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Barter, John

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Critchley, Julian

  Batsford, Brian

  Bryan, Paul

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Buck, Antony

  Crowder, F. P.

  Bell, Ronald

  Builard, Donys

  Curran, Charles

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Burden, F. A.

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Berkeley, Humphry

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

  Dance, James

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Bidgood, John C.

  Campbell Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Biffen, John

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C.E.M.

  Bishop, F. P.

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Doughty, Charles

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Chataway, Christopher

  Drayson, G. B.

  Bossom, Clive

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  du Cann, Edward

  958

  959

  Duncan, Sir James

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pym, Francis

  Duthie, Sir William

  Kimball, Marcus

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Ramsden, James

  Elliott, R.W. (Nwcastle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Rawlinson, Sir Peter

  Emery, Peter

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Leavey, J. A.

  Rees, Hugh

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Renton, Rt. Hon. David

  Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Farr, John

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Rippon, Rt. Hon. Geoffrey

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)

  Forrest, George

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)

  Foster, John

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Russell, Ronald

  Freeth, Denzil

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  St. Clair, M.

  Gammans, Lady

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Seymour, Leslie

  Gardner, Edward

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Sharples, Richard

  Gibson-Watt, David

  MacArthur, Ian

  Shepherd, William

  Gilmour, Sir John

  McLaren, Martin

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

  Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

  Godber, J. B.

  Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute & N. Ayrs)

  Smyth, Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John

  Goodhart, Philip

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher

  Goodhew, Victor

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Gough, Frederick

  McMaster, Stanley R.

  Speir, Rupert

  Gower, Raymond

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Grant-Ferris, R,

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Green, Alan

  Macpherson, Rt. Hn. Niall (Dumfries)

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maitland, Sir John

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Gurden, Harold

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  Marshall, Douglas

  Talbot, John E.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Marten, Neil

  Tapsell, Peter

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Mawby, Ray

  Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Maxwell-Hyslop R. J.

  Teeling, Sir William

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

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

  Temple, John M.

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Hastings, Stephen

  Mills, Stratton

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Hay, John

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Hendry, Forbes

  Morgan, William

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Morrison, John

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

  Neave, Airey

  Turner, Colin

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Hobson, Sir John

  Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Holland, Philip

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Hollingworth, John

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell

  Hopkins, Alan

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Walder, David

  Hornby, R. P.

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Walker, Peter

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Webster, David

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Partridge, E.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Whitelaw, William

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Peel, John

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Percival, Ian

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Jackson, John

  Peyton, John

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  James, David

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Wise, A. R.

  Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Jennings, J. C.

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Pott, Percivall

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Woollam, John

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)

  Worsley, Marcus

  Joseph, Rt. Hon. Sir Keith

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Mr. Chichester-Clark

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  and Mr. Finlay.

  CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS (LEVY)
  10.12 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. David Price): I beg to move,
  That the Cinematograph Films (Collection of Levy) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations, 1962, a draft of which was laid before this House on 30th October, be approved.
  These Regulations are a further running adjustment to the arrangements which have existed since 1950 for a levy on cinema exhibitors for the benefit of producers of British films. The House may recall that these arrangements were originally voluntary ones within the industry but were made statutory with the coming into effect of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1957, and consequential Regulations made under that Act.
  Despite a fall of about 10 per cent. in cinema admissions over the last year, payments into the levy fund in the 52 weeks ended on 13th October this year amounted to£3,850,000, a drop of only 3 per cent. on the previous year's record figure.
  The main purpose of the new Regulations is to increase from£250 to£300 the amount which a small exhibitor may take in any one week before incurring levy liability. The change should restore the value of the exemption as a measure of relief to small exhibitors by allowing for the increases in cinema operating costs which have taken place since the existing£250 limit was fixed in July, 1960.
  While the direct effect of the change will be to help the smaller exhibitors, it is in the interests of the industry as a whole that as many cinemas as possible should be kept open. While it has been estimated that an increase in the exemption limit to£300 would reduce the annual levy by about£130,000, it is expected that increased seat prices will, in fact, make good at least part of the loss.
  The opportunity of this change in the regulations is being taken to remove an anomaly relating to educational entertainments. Two forms of exemption are at present overlapping so that a small exhibitor could lose some or all of the benefit of his£250 concession by reason of his takings on educational entertainments, even though those takings were in themselves exempt. The new Regulations will make the two exemptions fully com-
  962
  plementary, as is already the case when there is a combination with any of the other exemptions such as, for instance, the one in respect of charitable entertainments. This amendment in respect of educational entertainments is unlikely to have any significant effect on levy collections.
  Both amendments have been accepted by all the trade associations in the industry and the agreement of the Cinematograph Films Council has been obtained. I hope, therefore, that, after this brief explanation from me, the Order will also commend itself to the House.
  10.15 p.m.
  Mrs. Eirene White: I do not think we need detain the House long over these Regulations. The matter has been fully discussed in the trade. It was referred to the Cinematograph Films Council and it has been generally agreed. We are all concerned to keep as many cinemas as possible in operation in this country, and although, as the Parliamentary Secretary rightly said, there will be some reduction in the levy payments by the cinemas due to this remission, in the long run it is worth the while of the producers, who are the beneficiaries of the fund, that the outlet for their products should be maintained even though they lose a little in levy meanwhile.
  I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has any idea of how many cinemas will be affected by this proposal. I know that the answer is to some extent hypothetical. We do not know what future takings might be. But I assume that, in reaching the figure£130,000, there must have been some calculation of the number of cinemas involved.
  One thing which the Parliamentary Secretary did not mention was the request from the trade that this alteration in the levy exemption limit should be retrospective. The announcement was made by the President of the Board of Trade in reply to a Question from me last July, and it was hoped by many small cinemas, many of which are in difficulties, that the fact that it was clear that the President of the Board of Trade had made up his mind that this Change should be instituted would lead to some retrospective legislation, time obviously being too short when the announcement was made to give effect

  963
  to it before the House rose for the Recess.
  I have had some correspondence with the President of the Board of Trade about this matter and I was satisfied that it was not possible under the Act to make this retrospective even had we wished to do so. It would be useful for the record if the Parliamentary Secretary said a word or two on that, because there was a certain amount of feeling in the trade about it.
  There is no need to quibble about the anomaly concerning takings from educational entertainment. I cannot think that the cinemas we are discussing have so many educational entertainments that it would make very much difference, but it is clearly an anomaly in logic if not in practice. Therefore, we pose no objection to that.
  The effect of this rather minor change in the Regulations will be, I hope, to help the small cinemas which are still in considerable difficulties, and anything that we can do to help them, with the agreement of the other parties to the fund, is all to the good. We therefore support the change in the Regulations.
  Question put and agreed to.

  OFFICES, SHOPS AND RAILWAY PREMISES [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make fresh provision for securing the health, safety and welfare of persons employed to work in office or shop premises and provision for securing the health, safety and welfare of persons employed to work in certain railway premises, it is expedient to authorize—
  (1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of—

  (a) any expenses incurred by the Minister of Labour in carrying the Act into effect;

  (b) any increase attributable to the Act in the expenses of the Minister of Power which, by virtue of section 3 (3) of the Ministry of Fuel and Power Act 1945, are defrayed out of moneys so provided;

  (c) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable by way of General Grant, Rate-Deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland;

  (2) the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received under the Act by the Minister of Labour.
  Resolution agreed to.

  ATOMIC ENERGY ESTABLISHMENT, CAPENHURST
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. F. Pearson.]
  10.19 p.m.
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro: This Adjournment speech is concerned with atomic energy matters in their civil and military aspects. I draw attention particularly to the threat of the closure of a large part of the immensely expensive plant of the Atomic Energy Authority at Capenhurst in Cheshire.
  One of the difficulties under which private Members of this House labour is that we are evidently not allowed to scrutinise by parliamentary debates the immense sums of public money which have been vested in the Atomic Energy Authority. In the nine years of the Authority's existence—that is, in the period between 1954–55, which was the first year it operated, and 1962–63—a sum of no less than£684 million, after taking into account net receipts in respect of the Authority's sales of fuel, isotopes and similar products, has been vested. In the current year the expenditure is almost£68 million. My source for these figures is the Report of the Atomic Energy Authority year by year, and notably the Eighth Annual Report for the period which ended 31st March, 1962.
  I was interested to know, upon hearing of the proposed closure of a major part of the enriched uranium plant at Capenhurst, how much money had been spent on that enterprise, and I asked my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on 5th November whether he would state the capital sum entailed. He replied:
  "For security reasons I cannot disclose the cost of the Capenhurst plant."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th November, 1962; Vol. 666, c. 33.]
  These figures could not be given. I think that is very unsatisfactory. There is no security entailed at all in telling the British nation how much money has been vested in a certain plant, which has a dual purpose, to provide enriched uranium fuel for reactors employed at nuclear power stations and for research, which is the civil application, and to provide fissile material which goes into
  966
  bombs and nuclear weapons. The Russians could not learn anything from it.
  Neither could they learn anything from a statement about the number of people employed at Capenhurst. These are domestic matters, and to shroud inquiries in Parliament upon the application of these huge sums of money for nuclear energy purposes, in a plea that it is "for security reasons" that particulars cannot be divulged, is an out-of-date policy which should soon be revised and reformed.
  We know of the civil application of much of the enriched uranium fuel from the fact that it is published in the third appendix of the Atomic Energy Authority's Report for last year under the title:
  "The Authority's reactors as at 31st March, 1962."
  This is a Stationery Office publication, and the Russians or anybody else on the other side of the Iron Curtain who want to know What we are doing in the form of civil power reactors have only to turn up this table and see how many reactors are actually operating, and, which is more, the type of moderator, the coolant employed, the fuel employed and a lot more particulars besides.
  Therefore, I tell my hon. Friend that in future I do not think he ought to reply to me that lie cannot give me capital expenditure particulars on security grounds. While I do not expect the Parliamentary Secretary to be able to change policy, it is a matter for his noble Friend the Minister for Science to consider.
  I now come to the important matter of Capenhurst. It is an almost unique plant. There is no parallel of it anywhere in the United Kingdom. There is only one parallel to be found anywhere in the world, and that is in the U.S.A. There are only two of these plants in the Western countries—one in America and one in Britain—making enriched uranium fuel and similar products for both military and civil purposes.
  The Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Sir Roger Makins, at a meeting in the Authority's board room with the trade union side of the Joint Industrial Council and the staff

  967
  side of the Whitley Council on 10th October, said:
  "Demand for enriched uranium has virtually come to an end."
  That is a very important statement. It conjures up in my mind at once what will be the implications of the demand ceasing.
  Might I ask my hon. Friend whether this means that the plant at Aldermaston, responsible for the manufacture, testing and research work on nuclear weapons, is to be run down in parallel fashion to the running down of the enriched uranium plant at Capenhurst? Secondly, does Sir Roger Makins' statement to the effect that demand for this uranium fuel had ceased mean that we have enough fissile material in stock for all future requirements, both for nuclear weapons and for nuclear power stations? Because, if it does mean that, we must have very large stocks, and I am interested to know what and where those stocks are, whether such stocks deteriorate, what is the value of such stocks, and what is the cost of them in comparison with our only competitor in the Western world, namely the United States.
  After all, the British taxpayer has invested£700 million to£800 million in the last eight years in atomic energy plants for contributing to the creation of huge stocks of enriched uranium and similar fuel products. Therefore I think that we should be told what is the future of Aldermaston, what is the condition of stocks and what application it is considered by the Ministry of Science these stocks will have.
  Furthermore, are we to cease the manufacture of H-bombs, A-bombs, nuclear warheads and the remainder at Aldermaston because we have enough fissile material? Is it proposed that as a result of the closure of Capenhurst there is to be any change in weapons policy? If my hon. Friend cannot answer that tonight, I think that he should be prepared to make a statement in the early future.
  Finally, does it mean that if we cease making this highly enriched uranium we have enough H-bombs in stock for all foreseeable requirements in future? If we are to stop making fissile material and put the plant on a care and main-
  968
  tenance basis or drastically curtail it, are we to leave the residual in a condition capable of rapid expansion should either the military or the civil need require? I think that my hon. Friend should answer each of those questions in some detail tonight.
  I want to say a word about the question of staff displacement and redundancy at Capenhurst, which is surely much more than a parochial issue. Of course it is well known that the nuclear establishments in Britain, whether Calder Hall or Dounreay, or Risley, or Aldermaston, or Greenfields Preston or any of the remainder, have built up over the last few years quite unique teams of scientists, technologists, and industrial associated staff. Five hundred men were declared redundant at Capenhurst last June. Efforts were made by the Ministry of Labour to place them elsewhere. Now we are threatened there with a redundancy of massive proportions. Fifteen hundred men are to be displaced so that a total of 2,000 men out of the entire staff employed at Capenhurst are to be displaced.
  One wonders why there was no previous consultation with appropriate and representative bodies on the staff side before the announcement was made by the Atomic Energy Authority at the beginning of October. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour wrote me a letter on Friday, knowing that I had this Adjournment debate tonight, and I quote:
  "It might be worth noting that the letter of the 25th October which, I understand, has been sent to all Members of Parliament is not from the full Whitley Council but from one local branch of one of the organisations (the Institution of Professional Civil Servants) represented on the Capenhurst Whitley Council, and is misleading in a number of respects."
  I think that my right hon. Friend is wrong, and I propose to say why. I have before me a statement distributed to hon. Members. It is headed:
  "Statement by the Capenhurst Whitley Staff Committee to Sir Roger Makins.—16th October, 1962."
  I am not talking about the covering letter, which was certainly written by one union, but the statement is by the Whitley Staff Committee, and that is a very important and representative body. While I do not intend to quote the statement in full and so weary the House,

  969
  it contains some fairly tough language, language which having been distributed—and presumably the words were carefully chosen—ought to be answered by the Parliamentary Secretary tonight. It says:
  "The staff at Capenhurst are utterly disgusted and shocked, not only by the threatened redundancy, but also by the lack of care and good management displayed by those responsible for overall policy. The sudden realisation of the position has had a completely demoralising effect on all staff. As a result we find it difficult to place confidence in the Authority Board of Management."
  The statement continues in similar terms for a good while, and then concludes with these rather damaging words:
  "Compared with the Central Electricity Generating Board and the National Coal Board, the Authority"—
  that is, the Atomic Energy Authority—
  "public relations are deplorable. We would have like to have seen expressions of confidence in the future of the Authority and better public relations propagating knowledge and confidence in nuclear energy."
  I hope that my hon. Friend will reply at once to the allegations that the public relations of the Atomic Energy Authority are deplorable. That should be answered tonight and answered by the Parliamentary Secretary in the context of the fact that 1,500 highly-skilled and trained scientists, technologists and industrial staff or to be displaced during the next twelve months from this immensely important plant, and the fact that most of these men are buying their own houses or living in Authority houses, and in view of the state of employment on Merseyside, which is well known, and where it will not be easy for such highly skilled men to be absorbed.
  I want now to refer to the civil application of the products of the enriched uranium plant at Capenhurst and to speak against the background of Britain's application to join Euratom. Assurances given to the staff of the Atomic Energy Authority formerly have been that in the event of defence work falling within the Authority, it would find alternative civil work to employ staff and resources released from military applications. Would the Parliamentary Secretary say what are the prospects of placing these nuclear scientists, physicists, chemists and industrial staff in civil work where their special knowledge of nucleonics may best be employed?
  970
  I remind my hon. Friend that the Central Electricity Generating Board is at present fairly well staffed in this respect. There are nuclear power stations at Calder and Dounreay, at Hunterston, at Berkeley and at Bradwell and Sizewell, but all those nuclear power stations could not absorb more than a tiny percentage of this large displacement of 1,500 men from Capenhurst. I should like to know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has any information to give to the House tonight as to the possible absorption of these valuable men in other nuclear or associated work in the United Kingdom?
  I want now to say a word about the immense strategic importance of Capenhurst. As I have said, the United States is the only other country outside Russia which has a plant for producing enriched uranium. France is planning to set up its own plant. It has been stated and I have always assumed that the Americans can produce enriched uranium at a lower cost than we in Britain can produce it. The main reason for this is that the immense American resources of electricity generation, based on water power, natural gas and other means not available to us in Britain, generally means that electricity is cheaper in the United States than it is here.
  It follows from that, without going into too much technical detail, that the enriched uranium of the kind produced at Capenhurst is generally cheaper to produce in the United States than it is here. But as Britain has applied to join Euratom, as the Western European nations are all planning to establish reactors of their own, which country, the United States of America or Britain, is to supply this enriched uranium to those reactors in Western Europe? Will there be a tariff erected by Euratom against American enriched fuel coming in? Will Britain have a tariff advantage inside the Common Market? What are the import duty considerations inherent in the despatch and export of enriched uranium fuel, an immensely valuable export from this country, and is the British taxpayer ever going to see back any return on his£700 million after receipts from investment, in a civil sense, in view of the big build-up of enriched uranium in stock and otherwise in Great Britain?
  I think that that question ought to be answered, if not tonight, at an early date,

  971
  because I would be rather jealous, and also a trifle irritated, if I thought that Britain, which has led the world in the development of nuclear power applications for civil purposes and the generation of electricity, were going to be outwitted by the United States of America at the last lap in supplying new nuclear power stations in Western Europe with fissile materials simply because a mistaken policy, if it is a mistaken policy, had been followed at this moment, in shutting down Capenhurst almost completely, or reducing it to only a trickle of output, to a very small output, and thereby prejudicing our opportunities in the future of supplying important new plants within Euratom with fissile materials of the kind which will be required.
  I conclude by saying that I hope the House will take not only my criticisms in this matter. I think that the House would be unwise to accept only my strictures in this matter. I quote Sir George Thomson, F.R.S., the chairman of the first British Committee on Atomic Energy in 1940–41, and consultant to the Atomic Energy Authority, from a letter he wrote in the New Scientist of 8th November, 1962. He said:
  "Many will have heard with great regret of the further reduction of work at the Capenburst establishment for the separation of uranium-235, described in Leonard Beaton's article, The slow-down in nuclear explosive production (18 October) and especially those who have had the privilege of seeing something of the work of the establishment.
  The scale of a factory must obviously depend on the demand for its products, and Capenhurst has only the one, but it has features which require special consideration.
  We and the US have a monopoly of this process which is essential to the production of enriched uranium, whether this is to be used for reactors or bombs. There has been virtually no interchange of ideas between the US and ourselves in this department of nuclear engineering, contrary to what happens in all, or almost all, of the others. If we were to drop out, the US would have a complete monopoly. It is well known that the willingness of the US to supply cheaply enriched fuel has been an important force in selling US reactors abroad.
  It seems unlikely that the designers of future reactors will be content with the proportion of uranium-235 to uranium-238 with which nature happens to have provided us. Enriched fuels are likely to be even more extensively used in the future than at present.
  All this is to point out what a valuable asset the nation has at Capenhurst—for which
  972
  it has paid a good deal—and in particular in the remarkable enterprise, ability and enthusiasm of the very able staff there, all in fact which is meant by the expression 'know-how'. One cannot run an establishment of this kind below a certain level without deterioration in morale and in efficiency, which is likely to lead to a demand for still further reduction. It is to be greatly hoped that this level will not be passed by the present reduction. If there is danger of this it would be well worth our while to accept a certain financial loss to prevent it.
  We may perhaps follow the United States lead and provide cheap 235 for British reactors."
  That is the case. I do not expect it to be completely answered tonight. But at the same time—[Laughter.] It is no use my hon. Friend laughing. I have set the case down, but, first, he has not the time to answer it in detail—I have seen to that—and, secondly, I would not expect a Parliamentary Secretary to answer it. This is a matter of such massive importance to the British Nation that it ought to be considered at Cabinet level and become the subject of a Cabinet Minister's statement on every aspect of what I have said. I for one will not take kindly to the closure of a plant which has cost, I do not believe tens of millions of pounds, but over eight or nine years, possibly£100 million, and the run down of which may well undermine our competitive power for supplying Western Europe with enriched uranium fuel as their nuclear power programmes develop for civil use.
  10.41 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has given me eight minutes in which to reply to the large number of questions he has raised, and that, of course, it is completely impossible for me to do. I can only try to answer one or two of the more important matters he has raised, and, in passing, I should like to say that I think it a pity that he did not seek to catch the eye of the Chair when we debated the programme of the Atomic Energy Authority and other scientific matters in July on an Opposition Supply Day.
  The Capenhurst plant has not been closed. Its output is being reduced to the minimum level necessary to keep it in production. The plant produces uranium which contains more than the natural proportion of the fissile isotope

  973
  U235. This enriched uranium has been needed mainly for military purposes, and the process is extremely difficult technically. It requires a very large plant, and it uses enormous quantities of electricity. Much of the detail of the process secret. I shall certainly consult my hon. Friend about the security points raised by my hon. Friend, but I cannot hold out any hope that there will be a change of policy.
  Because this plant was built primarily for military purposes its future, to some extent, has always been uncertain, due to the possibility that disarmament agreements would make the production of enriched uranium unnecessary for military purposes. However, it is true to say that those who have worked at Capenhurst have always hoped that civil uses for enriched uranium would, by the time the military cut-off became necessary, reach sufficient proportions to maintain demand for the product. Unfortunately, that has not happened. It is likely that in the future reactors burning enriched uranium will be used on a commercial scale. My hon. Friend will be aware from reading the report of the Atomic Energy Authority of the research being done into reactors using this type of fuel. The fact remains, however, that none of these reactors are coming into use as providing the furnaces, so to speak, for atomic energy power stations producing electricity, for a number of years. Therefore there can be no large-scale civil demand for enriched uranium for some years to come. But I can assure my hon. Friend that that level at which the plant is now being maintained excludes any possibility that demand on the civil side will not be able to be met. The level of output at the present time is the subject of research and development in order to enable improvements in technology still to be made——
  Mr. John M. Temple: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Freeth: No, I have no time to do so.
  The reduction in the output of the Capenhurst plant is necessary because the requirements for this material for defence purposes will soon be nearly satisfied. This is a point my hon. Friend raised. I can however assure him that the large military requirements for fissile
  974
  material, which include both uranium 235 from Capenhurst and plutonium from the Calder Hall and Chapelcross reactors, have been regularly reviewed over the years and balanced against prospective supplies. These supplies include not only new production from the United Kingdom plants and material recovered from obsolete weapons, but also certain quantities of U235 which are part of an exchange agreement made several years ago with the United States Government.
  My hon. Friend seemed to consider that the Authority was responsible for the defence requirements of this country. The fact is that the Authority has taken part in the reviews which have been held regularly, but it has no responsibility for the level and timing of defence requirements. The Authority, for which my noble Friend is responsible to Parliament, is itself responsible for meeting the requirements of the Defence Department. Any questions my hon. Friend has about the number of nuclear weapons we have should be put down to the Minister of Defence. I must emphasise that the process of balancing requirements and supplies is by no means a simple one. Both sides of this account are continuously affected by changes, some of them technical in character, which cannot be forecast far in advance. In recent years the calculation has also had to take account of the recovery and re-use of material from obsolete weapons. This is not a field in which the requirements of a given policy can be forecast with precision over more than a short period of time.
  My hon. Friend also referred, as did the Authority's announcement of 10th October, to the future of the Authority's Aldermaston establishment, the majority of whose employees live in my constituency, so I have a particular interest there. The level of activity at Aldermaston is not likely to change significantly over the next 18 months or so. Thereafter some reduction in the activity cannot be ruled out but close attention has been given to the possibility of introducing new work into A.W.R.E., and into new factors in the defence field. I cannot go further on that tonight.
  At Capenhurst the necessary reduction of output is being brought about by a phased process spread over a period of eighteen months. My submission is that there is nothing at all unreasonable or

  975
  worthy of criticism in this situation, provided always that the reduction is carried out with proper consideration for the wellbeing of the staff concerned, and with the fullest possible consultation with the official representatives of the trade unions and the staff organisations. I believe that the humanity and care with which the Authority has approached the difficult problems of possible redundancy at Capenhurst can best be shown by the way in which the 479 persons who in June were declared to be over and above the needs of the plant have fared in the intervening five months.
  The 479 included eighty non-industrial workers. Four of these, over the age of 65 years, have been retired and forty-two, who include professional grades, have left either to take up employment elsewhere or for personal reasons. Of the industrial workers, only one, a bricklayer was discharged as redundant. We still have a balance of twenty-six, all of whom are craftsmen, who have still to find employment. I very much hope that it will be possible to deal satisfactorily with the 1,500 or so surplus staff mentioned in the October announcement.
  976
  This figure is likely to comprise 270 nonindustrial staff including about 110 professional and technical people. Of the remaining 1,230 330 are craftsmen and 900 are industrial employees of other categories.
  My hon. Friend asked a Question of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour on 5th November about the prospects these people have of re-employment. My right hon. Friend is to do his best with the aid of his officers in the area to help the men who need it to get alternative employment. I hope that the new Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port will be able to provide substantial opportunities for re-employment. We have an agreed severance payment and redundancy scheme for the industrial staff and a redundancy scheme for the non-industrial staff——
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at eleven minutes to Eleven o'clock.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Live Poultry and Hatching Eggs (Import)
  Live Poultry and Hatching Eggs (Import)
  Aberystwyth (Agriculture College)
  Aberystwyth (Agriculture College)
  Livestock (Synthetic Oestrogens)
  Livestock (Synthetic Oestrogens)
  Protection of Plant Obtainments (International Convention)
  Protection of Plant Obtainments (International Convention)
  Farm Safety (Inspectors)
  Farm Safety (Inspectors)
  Tractors (Accidents)
  Tractors (Accidents)
  British Railways Meals (Fish)
  British Railways Meals (Fish)
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Helicopter Services, Central London
  Helicopter Services, Central London
  Jet Engines (Noise)
  Jet Engines (Noise)
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  Air Service Licences (Appeals)
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PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
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COAL
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  Hapton Valley Pit Disaster (Findings)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Medway Power Station
  Medway Power Station
HOSPITALS
  Nurses, Sheffield
  Nurses, Sheffield
  Montagu Hospital, Mexborough
  Montagu Hospital, Mexborough
  Nursing and Domestic Staff
  Nursing and Domestic Staff
  Sheffield Regional Hospital Board
  Sheffield Regional Hospital Board
  Guy's Hospital (Doctors' Accommodation)
  Guy's Hospital (Doctors' Accommodation)
  Waiting List, Cardiff
  Waiting List, Cardiff
  Nurses, Cardiff
  Nurses, Cardiff
  Nurses, Dearne Valley
  Nurses, Dearne Valley
  Regional Hospital Boards (Expenditure)
  Regional Hospital Boards (Expenditure)
  Hospital Beds
  Hospital Beds
  Hospital Confinements, Sheffield
  Hospital Confinements, Sheffield
  Nurses
  Nurses
  Disabled Ex-Service Men (Accommodation)
  Disabled Ex-Service Men (Accommodation)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration (Review Body)
  Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration (Review Body)
  Paraplegic Miners (Motor Cars)
  Paraplegic Miners (Motor Cars)
  Sleeping Tablets
  Sleeping Tablets
  Fluoridation
  Fluoridation
  Milk Vending Machines
  Milk Vending Machines
EMPLOYMENT
  Port Talbot and Glyncorrwg
  Port Talbot and Glyncorrwg
  Suicide
  Suicide
  Bargoed Area
  Bargoed Area
PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS
  Post Office Building, St. Martin's-le-Grand
  Post Office Building, St. Martin's-le-Grand
INDIA
  British Nationals (Safety)
  British Nationals (Safety)
ROYAL NAVY
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)
  Troop-Carrying Aircraft, Gan
  Troop-Carrying Aircraft, Gan
POST OFFICE
  Member for The Wrekin (Telegram)
  Member for The Wrekin (Telegram)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Children's Homes
  Children's Homes
  Royal Commission on the Police
  Royal Commission on the Police
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Lichfield Town Map
  Lichfield Town Map
  FOREIGN SERVICE (MR. McDERMOTT)
  FOREIGN SERVICE (MR. McDERMOTT)
  CONGO
  CONGO
  FOREIGN SERVICE PERSONNEL (COMMUNIST-CONTROLLED COUNTRIES)
  FOREIGN SERVICE PERSONNEL (COMMUNIST-CONTROLLED COUNTRIES)
SCIENCE
  Shipping (Nuclear Propulsion)
  Shipping (Nuclear Propulsion)
ROADS
  Road Junction, Morley
  Road Junction, Morley
SHIPPING
  Nuclear Propulsion
  Nuclear Propulsion
BRITISH ARMY
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)
  Departmental Employees (Day Release Classes)