Sitting of 30 January 1963

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

    Research Establishment, Porton
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence if he will stop research into the development of germ warfare at Porton, transfer this establishment to the Ministry of Health, and open the establishment for inspection by health workers from all countries.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): No, Sir.
    Mr. Allaun: Is the Minister aware that a germ bomb warhead has been or is being developed for the American Sergeant missile? Will he give an assurance that we entertain no such idea? If the work at Porton is purely defensive against germ warfare, why cannot he open its doors to health visitors from other countries?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We are bound by the Geneva Agreement as to the use of such weapons. We are, however, entitled to defend ourselves or to retaliate. As to visitors, bona fide research workers sometimes go there and, subject to security restrictions, they can go on doing so.
    Mr. G. Thomas: Does not the Minister think that he has enough destructive power without stooping to preparing for germ warfare as well?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: How to defend ourselves against germ warfare.

    Beverley and Hastings Aircraft (Replacement)
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Defence if a decision has yet been reached on a replacement for the Beverley and Hastings aircraft.
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Minister of Defence whether he has now completed his joint studies with United States and other bodies before coming to a decision about allocating contracts for the OR 351 aircraft.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. Our consideration of this problem is not yet complete.
    Mr. Farr: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that there are many urgent reasons why a decision should be reached soon, not the least of which is that, unless a replacement is decided on in the fairly near future, there is a real danger of these two types of aircraft falling out of the skies?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: This is an important matter, but it is also a complex and potentially very costly one. It is related to the inter-related use of carriers by the Royal Navy or transport aircraft by the Royal Air Force and requires very careful consideration before we decide on it.
    Mr. Eden: Has not this decision already been very long delayed? Will my right hon. Friend do all he can to speed it up, particularly bearing in mind the important implications not only for our defences but also for the employment position in various parts of the country?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I am under considerable pressure from advocates on all sides in this discussion. I naturally like to take as early a decision as I can.
    Later—
    Mr. Edelman: May I have an answer to Question No. 17?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member was not in his place. That Question was answered with Question No. 2.

    Nuclear Weapons
    Mr. Kershawasked the Minister of Defence whether he will ensure that in future nuclear weapons for the use of the Armed Forces shall be of British manufacture.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir. The warheads used by our deterrent forces will, however, continue to be of British manufacture.
    Mr. Kershaw: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind in considering this matter that the technological advantages as well as the political flexibility are much increased if these weapons are under our manufacture and control?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes. I will bear all those matters in mind.
    Viscount Lambtonasked the Minister of Defence if he will give an assurance that all nuclear weapons when under the control of Her Majesty's Government will be free from any other nation's control.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir.
    Viscount Lambton: Will my right hon. Friend say whether every method of communication relevant to the firing of Polaris will be under British command and in no circumstances could be withdrawn?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Yes, Sir.
    Viscount Lambton: Will my right hon. Friend go further on this point and say that there will be no duplication of the method employed towards the firing between ourselves and the United States?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I have not been following my noble Friend. We have this weapon independently. We can communicate with it and use it without strings and independently, under the terms, whenever supreme national importance so demands. There is no problem about this whatever.
    Mr. Paget: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that if these nuclear submarines are in the N.A.T.O. fleet we shall be able to communicate with them once they are submerged save through the N.A.T.O. network?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We shall be able to communicate with them at all times through our own resources.
    Mr. Wigg: Has the right hon. Gentleman understood the question put to him by the noble Lord the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton)? He is not asking about communication. What he is asking is whether Polaris submarines flying the British flag could fire weapons without being under the control of an American officer.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I hope that they will never have to fire, but they can fire the weapons on British orders at any time.
    Commander Courtney: Will my right hon. Friend confirm for the information of hon. Members opposite that our submarines have been communicating and have been communicated with when submerged for the past 30 years?

    Armed Forces (Equipment)
    Mr. Kershawasked the Minister of Defence what new steps he proposes to take to equip the British forces in the future; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I would ask my hon. Friend to await the White Paper on Defence which will be published next month.
    Mr. Kershaw: In the meantime will my right hon. Friend ensure that the weapons available to the men are the best available and that there are enough men to operate them? Will he in particular ensure that no ceiling is placed on recruitment so that we have not the people to operate these excellent weapons?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: These are the kind of questions which I think could properly be debated when we come to the defence debates in March.

    Nuclear Deterrent
    Mr. Edenasked the Minister of Defence (1) what consideration he has given to the capacity of British industry to manufacture an effective and wholly independent nuclear deterrent;
    (2) what wholly British projects he has studied with a view to backing one of them as a replacement for Skybolt.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Various projects for wholly British manufactured deterrent weapon systems have been considered. In the view of Her Majesty's Government the Polaris system is to be preferred on grounds both of time scale and of cost, as well as the fact that it is already in service.
    Mr. Eden: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the capacity of British industry to provide an alternative weapon to Skybolt was fully taken into account before the Polaris decision was agreed at the Bahamas? Is it not a fact

    913
    that there have been in existence for some time two teams in British industry who have really got to the stage of producing the fundamentals of an alternative British weapons system?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: My answer implied no reflection on British industry. I was concerned only with the time scale and the cost.
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Minister of Defence what is his estimate of the total expenditure to date on the maintenance of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Taking the whole period since 1948 and including the research and development cost, the capital cost of the V-bombers, the cost of the weapons they carry, their running cost and the costs we have met for Thor, the total is about £1,000 million.
    Mr. Swingler: Without anticipating what will be said in today's debate, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman, as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer who resigned and protested against Government extravagance, will be prepared—either today or tomorrow—to "come clean" with the British public and tell them the amount of the bill which the Government now propose for carrying on this illusion?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Certainly we will go into the cost question in the debate, but the figure is under 10 per cent. of the defence budget.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that although the aggregation of cost over a period of 16 years or more may be £1,000 million, that figure properly related year by year to the whole defence programme of this country works out at about £50 to £60 million per annum, which is a very reasonable figure for so massive a defence system?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: There is no doubt that we have had very good value for money.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Mason: Does the estimate of £1,000 million include the development cost of rockets such as Blue Streak, £100 million, Blue Water, £55 million, and other partially-developed rockets which never proved militarily successful?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: As I understand it, it covers the research and development costs that have been put into this.
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Defence what nuclear deterrent projects he intends to develop and put into production to fill the gap before the delivery of the Polaris submarine.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to await the debate which is about to open.
    Mr. Shinwell: Am I understood that in the course of the debate the right hon. Gentleman proposes to develop the case for filling the gap between the strategic air force and our contribution to that air force and the Polaris development and production? Does he intend to do that?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: So far as security considerations permit.
    Mr. Shinwell: But surely that is not a satisfactory answer? Are we not entitled to some information about the possibilities of filling the nuclear deterrent gap in, say, the course of the next five years?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I hope that we will have an opportunity of debating whether there is a gap, what sort of gap it is and what we might do, but I still say, "so far as security considerations permit".
    Mr. Paget: Are we going to hear if the Government have made up their mind whether we can afford both a nuclear deterrent and decently equipped conventional forces? If they have come to that conclusion, how much more is it going to cost and, if not, which course is going to be preferred?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I thought that the Opposition had put down an Amendment designed to do away with our deterrent and I thought that that would be relevant.
    Mr. Bellenger: In view of the limitations which are imposed on the right hon. Gentleman in relation to security, would it not be preferable that we should consider some of these matters in the sort of committee which some hon. Members have suggested for some time should be set up?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That raises a different question which the right hon. Member might like to discuss with his own Front Bench.
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Defence whether, in view of the Bahamas Agreement, he will now direct that the cost of carrying the deterrent shall not be included in the Vote of any of the three defence Services but on a separate Vote or on that of his Department.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, Sir, I regard the question of which Service Estimates carry the cost of the deterrent as of little practical importance.
    Mr. Wall: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that some of the criticism of the Polaris agreement is based on the repercussions it might have on the future of the Royal Air Force and the conventional Navy? Would he not agree that if the cost of the method of carrying the deterrent were borne on a separate Vote it would lead to more flexibility and a better understanding by the public?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That argument carried to its logical conclusion would mean that there would be only one Vote, and that the Vote of the Ministry of Defence. I do not think that one should be influenced by whether the deterrent should be carried on the Royal Air Force Vote or on the Navy Vote. One would use the equipment that is available. One would do it on its merits.
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Defence what projects for wholly British-manufactured deterrent weapon systems have been considered; and what were the estimates of the cost, in terms both of money and diversion of scientific and technical manpower.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Consideration was given to the possibility of a wholly British manufactured project but the factors of time and diversion of effort from other parts of the programme made this less advantageous than accepting an American offer to sell a missile which was already in service and a later mark of which was under development.
    Mr. Hall: May I press my right hon. Friend on this matter. Was no estimate at all made of the cost?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I was hoping to deal with this question of the home
    916
    manufacture of missiles in the course of the debate. I would really rather deal with it at greater length than is possible now.

    Conventional Forces
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Defence what proposals were made to him by the United States Defence Secretary for an increase in conventional forces.
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Minister of Defence what proposals were made to him by the United States Defence Ministers at the Nassau Conference for increasing the strength of the British forces in Germany.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I had a general exchange of views with Mr. McNamara but no specific proposals were put forward.
    Mr. Shinwell: Does not the right hon. Gentleman read the American newspapers and the comments of his opposite numbers in the diplomatic and political spheres in the United States and at the Pentagon? Is he not aware of their demand that we should build up our conventional forces? Can he say whether there is complete satisfaction in N.A.T.O. about the contributions in conventional forces made by the respective countries?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do have a cursory glance at newspapers from time to time, but this Question deals with what the Secretary of Defence said; and he made no proposal.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister recollect that on his return from America he made a statement to the effect that there was going to be no conscription? Does that mean that any proposal was made by the Americans for an increase in the Armed Forces, which would mean conscription? Will the right hon. Gentleman repeat this categorical assurance that Her Majesty's Government do not intend to reintroduce conscription?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I think that I gave an answer about conscription, but it had nothing to do with conversations with Mr. McNamara.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that exactly a week

    917
    ago, when I asked him to give an undertaking that there would be no return to conscription, he refused to give that undertaking?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I am not going to give an undertaking for all time, in any circumstances whatever. That would not be a wise thing to do.

    Polaris Submarines and Blue Steel (Expenditure)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Defence if he will state estimated expenditure on Polaris submarines, missiles and warheads, and on Blue Steel.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: It would be contrary to the normal practice to disclose estimates of future expenditure on defence projects.
    Mr. Allaun: How can the Minister hide behind the security reason when, in America, figures are published weekly of each individual contract? I am not asking for exact figures, but is it not a fact that hundreds of millions of pounds have been expended in addition to our present £1,720 million expenditure? Can the right hon. Gentleman say anything about the estimate suggested in certain quarters that our expenditure will rise to £2,000 million a year in a couple of years? Is that roughly accurate?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I hope that the hon. Member will not follow too pedantically any American or other procedure. Our procedure is that we do not give the figures as they might disclose the numbers.
    Mr. Willis: How does the right hon. Gentleman know what the cost is going to be, since he does not seem to know the size of the programme or the speed with which it will proceed?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That seems a very shrewd question.
    Mr. Mason: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he is giving some very contemptible replies? Is he not aware that in an Answer last week he said that Blue Steel had cost £60 million, and would it not have been more than fair had he given my hon. Friend that reply today? Since that figure of £60 million
    918
    for Blue Steel was estimated by the Auditor-General in 1960, am I to understand that there have been no further development costs involved between 1960 and December, 1962, when the first went into the Royal Air Force?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The hon. Member is right. There is a distinction between past R and D costs and future costs, including production costs for which he asked. It has been the practice in the House not to give production costs because it might disclose information to an enemy or potential enemy. It is true that the past R and D expenditure is about £60 million.

    Surplus Office Equipment (Documents)
    Mr. Abseasked the Minister of Defence whether he is aware of public concern that secret documents are being left in desks and filing cabinets sold to private purchasers; what steps are being taken to ensure that confidential and secret defence documents of his Department are removed from office equipment offered for sale to the public; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Surplus furniture released for disposal by my Department is always thoroughly searched beforehand.
    Mr. Abse: From the cursory glance at newspapers which he told the House a little while ago that he makes, is the Minister aware that documents have been found at Kidbrooke and Wolverhampton which clearly revealed that secret documents were coming into the hands of the public? Surely the right hon. Gentleman must be aware of these facts. If so, is he also aware of the considerable public concern that, despite the alleged security arrangements which are supposed to be in existence, documents of this character can be freely disclosed to the public?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: A glance at the Order Paper will reveal that there is a later Question on this subject.
    Mr. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, arising out of recent events, there are allegations of a great deal of carelessness in Departments in not locking up documents securely at night and leaving them visible with the

    919
    possibility of their being examined by all sorts of unofficial people?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That is a rather different Question from that on the Order Paper.

    Women's Armed Services (Retired Pay)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Defence how many retired officers of

    —

    1962 Code

    1960 Code

    1956 Code

    1950 Code

    1945 Code

    1919 Code re-ass'd. on a/c of 1939–45 War service

    1919 Code

    Pre-1919 Code

    Number of retired officers in receipt of retired pay

    (i) Total

    …

    56

    123

    119

    80

    127

    26

    100

    —

    (ii) Number over 60

    …

    —

    1

    19

    61

    125

    26

    96

    —

    (iii) Number over 70

    …

    —

    —

    —

    2

    88

    24

    87

    —

    Dartmoor (Helicopter Sorties)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Defence which Service Departments organised helicopter sorties to help animals in distress on Dartmoor; how many sorties were made; and what expense was incurred.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force have flown 241 helicopter sorties, at a cost of £26,000.
    Mr. Lipton: Is the right hon Gentleman aware that animal lovers everywhere will be most grateful to the helicopter service for their untiring rescue efforts in hazardous conditions? Is it not, therefore, all the more disgusting that the callous and mercenary farmers in Dartmoor are exploiting the humane instincts of the public in efforts to minimise the appalling suffering caused by the selfishness and negligence of these farmers?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not know what farming conditions in Brixton have been like, but they have been rather rough on Dartmoor. I think that everybody has done his best and we should be very grateful for the efforts.
    Sir H. Studholme: Is my right hon. Friend aware that farmers know perfectly well that it is their responsibility to feed their stock but that because of snowdrifts
    920
    the three Women's Armed Services are in receipt of retired pay under each of the six retired pay codes and, in each case, how many of these officers are over 60 and 70 years of age, respectively.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: As the Answer consists of a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the Table:
    it has been impossible in some cases to get the fodder out without help? Does he not agree that it is just as wrong for people to make irresponsible statements and indiscriminate charges against farmers, as the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has done, as it is to suggest that those people who are worried about animals are sentimentalists? Finally, is my right hon. Friend aware that in consultation with my hon. Friend the Member for Torrington (Mr. P. Browne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Mawby) I have convened a meeting for the middle of next month? [HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] This is a meeting at which the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture will be present and to which representatives of commoners, the R.S.P.C.A., the Duchy of Cornwall, and the N.F.U. have been invited and where we can thrash this matter out.
    Hon. Members: Speech.
    Mr. Speaker: I was about to say that we must stop at Uncle Tom Cobbleigh.
    Mr. Lipton: In view of the completely unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek leave to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Armed Forces (Pensions)
    Commander Purseyasked the Minister of Defence if he will state the increases in the ordinary Armed Forces widows' pensions, on 1st January, 1963, for the over-60 widows of generals, Army captains and privates, and equivalent ranks in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, and for the widows of other ranks whose husbands were pensioned before 1st September, 1950.
    Mr, Thorneycroft: As the Answer consists of a table of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Commander Pursey: Will the Minister assure the House that there will not be further comparatively large increases in the pensions of officers and officers' widows until after more pennies per day have been added to the meagre pensions of the widows of other ranks? [HON.

    Rank of husband (Army equivalent used)

    Those bereaved before 4th November, 1958

    Those bereaved on or after 4th November, 1958

    1919 Code

    1945 Code

    1950 Code

    1956 Code

    1959 Code

    1960 Code

    p.a.

    p.a.

    p.a.

    p.a.

    p.a.

    p.a.

    p.a.

    General

    …

    …

    £59

    £70

    £73

    £78

    £79

    not applicable

    £37

    Captain

    …

    …

    £15

    £17

    £20

    £20

    £21

    not applicable

    £9

    The above increases from 1st January, 1963, assume that the rates drawn are maximum rates.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    Private (37 years' service).

    1s.

    9d.

    not applicable

    not applicable

    3s.

    6d.

    4s.

    1d.

    2s.

    1d.

    not applicable

    (where husband gave full-time service since 31st August, 1950)

    The widows of other ranks whose husbands were pensioned before 1st September, 1950 received no pensions unless their husbands held the rank of Warrant Officer Class 1. The pension increases from 1st January, 1963, for such widows are:—

    Rank of husband (Army equivalent used)

    Those bereaved before 4th November, 1958

    Those bereaved on or after 4th November, 1958

    1919 Code

    1945 Code

    p.w.

    p.w.

    p.w.

    Warrant Officer I (37 years' service)

    3s.

    2d.

    3s.

    3d.

    3s.

    3d.

    NOTE: All increases shown above take account of all pensions increases, where applicable other than the special additional increase at age 70 in the 1962 Measure.

    Commander Purseyasked the Minister of Defence, if he will state the number of years that generals, Army captains and privates, and equivalent ranks in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, on normal engagements, have to wait, after being pensioned, for an over-60 increase in their long-service pension.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: As the Answer contains a number of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    MEMBERS: "Reading."] We always have this support for other ranks' pensions from the other side of the House, yet no hon. Member opposite has ever dealt with the pensions of the other ranks. I repeat that these increases should not be made until more pennies per day have been added to the meagre pensions of the widows of other ranks and pensions awarded to widows whose husbands died before 1st September, 1950, who now receive no Service pension because of the opposition to these pensions by hon. Members opposite?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I fully recognise the interest which the hon. and gallant Member takes in this important matter, but the Question asks for some information and he will receive it. Perhaps he will then consider it and, if he wishes, put another Question.
    Following is the table:
    Commander Pursey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the number of figures involved in this and the previous Question are fewer than half a dozen—[Interruption.]Who is running this House? Will the right hon. Gentleman say why the ex-Service man with the lowest pension should have to wait the longest period for an increase? Why should a man who has already served 22 years for his pension have to serve another 20 years for his first increment, in view of the fact that civil servants

    923
    receive their increase when they become pensionable, or shortly afterwards, and Service officers receive their increases at much earlier periods than do other ranks who have served under them? When will the Conservative Party do something about this anomaly which is a great disgrace to our present welfare system?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will look at the information with which I am providing him and then ask another Question.
    Following is the Answer:
    The current arrangements are as follows:
    The average age of retirement of admirals, generals and air chief marshals is about 57,½59 and 58 respectively and they would therefore be required to wait up to ½ years before getting a pension increase.
    Certain Supplementary List lieutenants (R.N.) who have been entered for duty as aircrew go at age 38—with 22 years to wait before being eligible for any pension increase; Special Duties List lieutenants (R.N.) would normally serve to age 50—with 10 years to wait for any pension increase. Captains, if not promoted to major, go between the ages of 37 and 42, with between 18 and 23 years to wait; if they are captain quarter-master they stay until 53 with 7 years to wait. Flight lieutenants normally retire at any age from 38 to 55: they would therefore have to wait from 5 to 22 years.
    Ratings/other ranks/airmen normally need to complete 22 years service to qualify for pension and if they went after doing so they would have to wait up to 20 years. If required, their service may be extended up to (and exceptionally beyond) age 55, when they would have only 5 or fewer years to, wait for any pension increase.

    Defence Expenditure
    Sir C. Osborneasked the Minister of Defence what has been the total cost of national defence for each year since 1951 inclusive; if he is satisfied with the value obtained from this expenditure; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I will, with permission, circulate the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The value of this expenditure is shown by the facts that we have not had a major war, and that in the operations we have undertaken the Forces have done all that was required of them.
    Sir C. Osborne: Since Stalin and Stalin's policy are both dead and since Mr. Khrushchev has offered to live more peacefully with the West, does not the Minister think that we should pay more
    924
    attention to that and save the taxpayer from these enormous sums which we are spending against an attack from the Soviet Union which may never take place?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The sum spent on defence must depend on the obligations placed on the defence forces of the Crown. I do not see much possibility of an immediate reduction in those obligations.
    Mr. Wigg: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the cost of defence depends not only on the Armed Forces but also on the errors of Government policy?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: But primarily it depends on the obligations which one lays on the Armed Forces. We can discuss how we do this in the debate, but unless one reduces those obligations there is not much prospect of reducing the cost.
    Sir C. Osborne: Is the Minister saying that there is no hope in the immediate future of these colossal sums being reduced?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: To be frank, I think that they are likely to rise at least as fast as the gross national product.
    Following are the figures:

    £million

    1951–52

    …

    …

    …

    1,123

    1952–53

    …

    …

    …

    1,393

    1953–54

    …

    …

    …

    1,358

    1954–55

    …

    …

    …

    1,447

    1955–56

    …

    …

    …

    1,407

    1956–57

    …

    …

    …

    1,519

    1957–58

    …

    …

    …

    1,440

    1958–59

    …

    …

    …

    1,451

    1959–60

    …

    …

    …

    1,484

    1960–61

    …

    …

    …

    1,603

    1961–62

    …

    …

    …

    1,680

    (provisional outturn)

    1962–63

    …

    …

    …

    1,760

    (estimated outturn)

    Polaris Submarines
    Mr. Willisasked the Minister of Defence (1) what is his estimate of the minimum number of Polaris submarines which will be required to provide an effective independent deterrent;
    (2) when he expects to make an announcement giving details of the proposed Polaris programme.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I would ask the hon. Member to await the debate, in the course of which as much information as possible will be made available.
    Mr. Willis: Are we to understand from that Answer that during the course of the debate we shall be given some information about this programme; or is it true to say that the Government have not made up their mind about it and that they are preventing any sensible debate or decisions about this matter because of their withholding of the facts concerning the programme?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Some information about the programme will be given.
    Mr. Rankin: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us now, or shall we have to wait until the debate, whether or not the Mark III missile which we have to use in the Polaris submarines has been proved yet?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: That is the sort of question which could be asked in the debate.
    Mr. Masonasked the Minister of Defence when he will state the plans of Her Majesty's Government regarding the building of Polaris submarines and the programme for introducing them into the Fleet.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I would ask the hon. Member to await the debate opening today.
    Mr. Mason: It is a pity the right hon. Gentleman cannot have a defence debate every time he appears at the Dispatch Box to answer Questions. If during the course of the debate 'the right hon. Gentleman is going to announce the building of a Polaris fleet, either singly or as a crash programme all at once, could he say to what extent a survey has taken place of British shipyards to ascertain whether they have the resources, the nuclear "know-how" and sufficient technical staff to tackle that job if it is to be done speedily?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: These are exactly the sort of questions which it would be perfectly proper to put in the course of the two-day debate we are about to hold.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Will not the cost of this fleet be largely additional to our present arms expenditure?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: No, it will not be largely additional; but I would rather develop the answer to that a little more fully than I can in reply to a question.

    N.A.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O.
    Miss Vickersasked the Minister of Defence, in view of the statement made in Command Paper No. 1915, whether he has discussed with our allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, The South-East Asia Treaty Organisation and the Australia, New Zealand and United States Pact what should be the role of these organizations in the future.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The North Atlantic Council is now considering how best to take advantage of the offer, conceived at Nassau, to add strategic weapons for the first time to N.A.T.O.'s armoury. The Nassau arrangements will in no way reduce Britain's ability to meet her obligations to her S.E.A.T.O. allies and no changes are contemplated in the role of that organisation. The United Kingdom is not a member of the A.N.Z.U.S. pact.
    Miss Vickers: In view of the fact that we are tending to reconsider our defence policy, will it not be necessary to make further arrangements with N.A.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O.?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Perhaps we could develop these points in the debate. For the moment I do not think this will affect our obligations in any way under S.E.A.T.O.

    Defence Budget and Compulsory Military Service
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Minister of Defence what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on the level of the defence budget and on some form of compulsory military service.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We have no intention of restoring compulsory military service, but, as was explained in the 1962 Defence White Paper, some increase in the defence budget must be expected.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Would the right hon. Gentleman please reply about the level of the defence budget? He answered only

    927
    the second part of my Question. If he cannot reply to it now, perhaps he would give us some information during the debate on the point of how far we are to share in the cost of developing the latest type of Polaris missile?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I think I can touch on the latter point in the course of the debate.
    Viscount Lambton: Did I understand my right hon. Friend to say that in no circumstances, even considering the withdrawal of France from N.A.T.O., is it our intention to reintroduce conscription in this country?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I did not say so. I said that we have no intention. I did not say that never would any British Government have conscription.

    N.A.T.O. (Nuclear Force)
    Mr. Zilliacusasked the Minister of Defence what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the establishment, as now officially proposed by the United States, of a European nuclear force in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation with West German participation.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Her Majesty's Government fully support the establishment of a multilateral or inter-allied N.A.T.O. nuclear force as envisaged in the Nassau communique.
    Mr. Zilliacus: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the United States propose to include Western Germany in this multi-national nuclear force? Is it Her Majesty's Government's decision to support the arming in any form of Western Germany with nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The Federal Republic of Germany is already a member of N.A.T.O. and nuclear launchers are already in the hands of those forces.
    Mr. Kershaw: Would it not be preferable to have nuclear weapons in the N.A.T.O. force than to have nuclear weapons in an alliance consisting of France and Germany alone?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: There are very many arguments in favour of including nuclear weapons in a N.A.T.O. force, as my hon. Friend says.

    Infantry Brigade (Movement)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Defence if he will make a statement on the proposal to move an infantry brigade to the Far East.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: There is at present no such proposal. As I said on Monday, 51 Infantry Brigade has simply been placed at 72 hours readiness.
    To avoid any misunderstanding at home and abroad, I should like to take this opportunity to inform the House that a parachute battalion is due to leave for Malaya on Friday to take part in a long-planned exercise there. I do not consider the situation in the Far East is serious enough to warrant cancelling this routine exercise. The advance party has been there for a fortnight.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that according to The Times of today, the Secretary-General of the United Nations considers the situation in this part of the Far East to be very serious? If that be so, does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that his statement on Monday presented a complete underestimation of what is happening in that part of Asia? Does he agree that this position arises basically from the creation of the new Federation of Malasia? Would it not be much better to try to bring in the United Nations to help to negotiate peace rather than use force to establish it?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: If there is any danger in that area I would have thought that the statement I made on Monday showed that the Government were taking reasonable precautions to meet it.
    Mr. Paget: In view of the statement by the Prime Minister of Malaya, reported in The Times yesterday, that this brigade was arriving, and the right hon. Gentleman's statement today that there are no plans for its arrival, could he tell us anything about the liaison between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Malaya?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I am not entirely responsible for what appears in The Times newspaper. There are, of course, these misunderstandings in communications. But I said in my statement on Monday quite plainly that this infantry

    929
    brigade had been put on 72 hours alert, and I think that is a proper precaution to take.
    Mr. Rankin: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect using these words which appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT of Monday of this week? After saying that nothing had happened in that part of Asia, he said:
    "… but it is sometimes prudent in defence matters to make some dispositions ahead of something happening."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January, 1963; Vol. 670, c. 582.]
    Does he not realise that that statement is now shown to be an underestimate of the situation if what the Secretary-General of the United Nations is now saying is correct?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The Secretary-General said that nothing has happened. What he and I have in mind is that something might happen, and so we took some precautions in advance.

  ROYAL NAVY

    H.M.S. "Dreadnought"
    Commander Courtneyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty when it is now expected that Her Majesty's Submarine "Dreadnought" will join the Fleet.
    The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): Her Majesty's Submarine "Dreadnought" will join the Fleet formally in April. Thereafter, she will undergo a series of trials, and may also participate in certain operational exercises before becoming fully operational next year.
    Commander Courtney: May I refer my hon. Friend to previous replies on this matter? In view of the fact that we had a complete set of propulsion machinery from the Americans, why does it take twice the time in this country to get the submarine into service that it takes in the United States?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I concede that it has taken very much longer, but this is to this country an entirely novel and original form of vessel and propulsion machinery, and I think it not unreasonable that she should undergo considerable first-of-class trials before she joins the Fleet. It is true
    930
    that I said that I hoped that she would join the Fleet in the present financial year. April is not far out from the present financial year.

    Shipyards (Nuclear Submarines)
    Commander Courtneyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he will consider other shipyards in addition to Messrs. Vickers, including the Royal Dockyards, when placing orders for the third and subsequent British nuclear submarines.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The third nuclear submarine was ordered from Messrs. Vickers in December last. Otherwise the reply to my hon. and gallant Friend is, "Yes."
    Commander Courtney: Will my hon. Friend confirm that these new contracts will, in the first place, go out to competitive tender? Further, will he confirm that, in order to obviate the delays which have occurred so frequently in the past, one of the conditions of contract will be that the firm concerned shall undertake three-shift working?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I think that the main concern of my right hon. Friend and the nation as a whole is that these submarines should be in operational use at the earliest possible moment. It would be wrong in these conditions to go to competitive tender. In answer to the last part of my hon. and gallant Friend's supplementary question, I very much hope that the trade unions and the firms will negotiate for three-shift working, as it is obviously important that the vessels should be in service as soon as possible.
    Mr. Willis: Are we to understand from those replies that the Government have at last decided what their submarine programme is? If so, will the hon. Gentleman make a statement about it at some time?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I do not think that I can be drawn on that. My right hon. Friend has answered once or twice already that there is a big two-day debate, and this question may well be raised during that.
    Mr. Burden: Will my hon. Friend remember that Chatham Dockyard has a very considerable record in the building

    931
    of submarines, and will he give an undertaking that it will be very seriously considered for any construction of nuclear submarines?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It will certainly be considered.

    Shipbuilding (Fleet Replacements)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will make a statement on his programme of Fleet replacements, in view of its importance to the British shipbuilding industry.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: There are at the moment on order for the Navy from private yards: two assault ships; five G.M. destroyers; fifteen frigates; three nuclear submarines; five conventional submarines; one tanker; together with a miscellany of smaller craft. The replacement programme is, of course, a continuing one and further orders, including those for Polaris submarines, will be announced from time to time in the coming months which will help the shipbuilding industry in its present difficulties.
    Mr. Rankin: I welcome that statement so far as it goes, although I myself would rather see ships of peace being built than ships of war. When he comes to deal with the details of the programme, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that we must keep the skill of the men engaged and also the employment of the squads in the yards because of the necessity to maintain the industry? Will he remember, too, that on Clydeside we are in a particularly distressful position and think kindly of us when placing orders for the requirements for the new ships?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: The total value of these orders for the shipbuilding industry is £185 million. The value of orders to Clydeside at the moment is about £48 million, so Clydeside is not doing too badly.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: I welcome the Answer which my hon. Friend has given, but can he tell us that there will be no diminution in this programme as a result of the Polaris programme?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is rather early for me to give any categorical statement on that issue.
    Mr. Slater: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House what areas are to receive
    932
    these contracts which can be let through his Department? Where does Tees-side, the Wear and so on come into the picture?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I could not predict what areas will win these contracts, but everyone capable of building the ships we need will have the chance.
    Mr. P. Williams: Does my hon. Friend recall that, at the moment, there are contracts to go out for three Royal Fleet Auxiliaries? Does he agree that the important thing is that decisions should be arrived at on these contracts as early as possible so that, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) emphasised, the teams in the shipyards are not broken up?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I hope that we shall be able to announce where the contracts have been won within the next few days.

    Aircraft Carriers (V.T.O.L. Aircraft)
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieuasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will substitute vertical take-off and landing aircraft for types now used on aircraft carriers in order that a greater number of smaller carriers may be used than at present, and that a too great proportion of the striking power of the Royal Navy should not be concentrated in too few and too expensive ships.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The use of some V.T.O.L. aircraft was taken into account in the design studies of the next generation aircraft carriers. Nevertheless, the main factors which determine the size of the ship are the dimensions and number of the aircraft to be embarked and the number of men to fly and maintain them. In this context, the length of the runway is relatively unimportant.
    Mr. Mallalieu: Is not the length of the runway important in this matter? If one were able to have ships without the length necessary for a runway, would not one have far more of them, and would not this spread the risks in a desirable manner?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I concede that it is one of the factors, but—I give this example—a 40,000-ton aircraft carrier

    933
    will carry only half the number of aircraft that a 50,000-ton aircraft carrier will take owing to the size of the hangar, which is a more dominant factor than the length of runway.
    Mr. Willis: What is the tonnage of the proposed new aircraft carrier replacement?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Approximately 50,000 tons.
    Commander Courtney: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the present generation of vertical take-off aircraft are not sufficient in performance for the type of military duties required as are high performance aircraft which can operate only from large carriers?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend is thinking of the limited production of 1127 aircraft, whereas I was thinking in terms of the 1154 or its development.

    H.M.S. "Belfast"
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty why tit has been decided to scrap the cruiser H.M.S. "Belfast".
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. H.M.S. "Belfast" is not being scrapped but is to be placed in reserve and will, I hope, remain available for a number of years for service with the Royal Navy.
    Mr. Dugdale: I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman has made this statement which publicly contradicts the statement in The Times.
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Like my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence, I am not responsible for all that appears in The Times.

    Admiralty Tug, Chatham (Board of Inquiry)
    Mr. Burdenasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if the naval Board of Inquiry, investigating the circumstances in which Admiralty Tug T.I.D. 97 cap sized in Chatham Dockyard on Saturday, 29th December last, has completed the inquiries; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. P. Wellsasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty when the hon. Mem-
    934
    ber for Faversham can expect a reply to his letter of 1st January, concerning the capsizing of Tug 97 on Saturday, 29th December, in Her Majesty's Dockyard. Chatham.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The Board of Inquiry which investigated the circumstances in which Admiralty Tug T.I.D. 97 was capsized in Chatham Dockyard has now submitted its report to the Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth. As soon as the report has been considered in the Admiralty, I will write to the hon. Gentlemen.
    I would like to take this opportunity to express the Admiralty's deep sympathy to the three families concerned.
    Mr. Burden: Will my hon. Friend give an undertaking that proper compensation will be paid to the families of the men who lost their lives as a result of this incident?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I have looked into that. It is difficult to say what my hon. Friend's interpretation of "proper" is, but there will, of course, be awards made.

    Surplus Office Equipment (Documents)
    Mr. Abseasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that confidential and secret documents of his Department have been left in office equipment sold to the public; whether he will hold an inquiry into the circumstance that documents relating to Russian trawlers equipment were left in filing cabinets sold to the public; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The facts are that three official documents—in each case a single sheet of paper—were left in the drawer of an Admiralty desk during a comprehensive series of office moves; the desk was later surrendered to the Ministry of Public Building and Works and sold by public auction.
    Two of the documents, dating from 1959, were classified "Restricted", the lowest security grading. The information in the third document was classified "Secret" in 1959 but was down-graded to "Restricted" in 1960 and was subsequently published in "Janes" of that year.
    Mr. Abse: Is it seriously suggested that this matter can be minimised because of the passage of events or because, at this moment, the documents are not secret, as they originally were? Does not this incident reveal that there are serious gaps in the security arrangements at the Admiralty? Instead of attempting to devalue the importance of these discoveries, would not the Minister do better to thank the Daily Sketch and Daily Mail journalists for, apparently, being able to do the job of security which the Admiralty is failing to do at present?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: No, Sir; I was not seeking to minimise the offence. I concede that there was a mistake, and I am very sorry for it. We are trying to tighten up our procedure. The desk was searched. It appears from our first investigations that these papers must have been either stuck under the drawer or at the back of the drawers. The true facts are that these papers were not secret either when they were placed in the desk or when they were found, and all the material has been published.
    Mr. Abse: Will the Minister confirm one way or another whether the documents related to the equipment upon Russian trawlers, as reported in the Press? At the least, if such documents are being left in desks, it must have a deplorable effect upon our relations with other Powers. Is it or is it not the fact that these documents contained detailed reports of the equipment upon Russian trawlers?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Two of the documents did show photographs of Russian trawlers and the equipment which these trawlers carry. Those documents were never graded higher than "Restricted". I point out to the House that even Admiralty Fleet Orders are "Restricted", so it was not a high grade.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is it known how much the Daily Sketch had to pay for this information?

    Polaris Submarines
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty if he will give an assurance that the proposed Polaris-type nuclear submarine programme will give opportunities to the North-East Coast to participate.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: The Polaris programme will call for additional submarine building capacity. Its extent and the need for additional builders has not yet been decided, but firms which have had recent experience of submarine construction will certainly be considered along with others which have the necessary technical resources.
    Dame Irene Ward: Will my hon. Friend recollect that a long time ago I was asking Questions about ensuring that skills were available in other parts of the country for submarine building? Since all these matters have been under discussion for some time, why have not we had a better Answer than that which my hon. Friend was able to give this afternoon in view of the fact that we on the North-East Coast wish to extend our shipbuilding programme in every possible way?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I can well understand my hon. Friend's enthusiasm for the North-East Coast and Tyneside, but there are a number of factors to be taken into consideration, particularly the speed at which a firm can build these submarines. That is the most dominant factor in this tremendous programme.
    Mr. McMaster: In placing these orders, will my hon. Friend pay attention to the very heavy unemployment in some of the bigger shipbuilding yards in the country?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: Yes, Sir, but unfortunately unemployment is rife in areas other than Northern Ireland.
    Sir C. Osborne: Will this work be done on a cost-plus basis?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It is too early for me to give the details of how it will be done. We will certainly look into that matter. It is unlikely to be done on a competitive tender basis.
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty how it is intended to speed up the design stage of the hulls for Polaris-type submarines, in view of limited design staff.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: Under Rear-Admiral Mackenzie a special unit is being created to direct this challenging programme. One of its first tasks is to set up the necessary design organisation. I cannot at present give any firm

    937
    forecast of the total size of the design staff, but we do not intend that this shall be a limiting factor.
    Mr. Digby: Is there not a shortage in the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors? How will this work be done? Are designers to be brought in from outside?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: It may be necessary to bring in designers from outside for this programme.
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty what officers have been ordered to make arrangements for the carrying out of the Polaris programme; and what is their pay.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: Arrangements for carrying out the Polaris programme are now being made by existing officers in a large number of Admiralty departments.
    The additional appointments so far made in the Admiralty wholly for Polaris duties are those of a Rear-Admiral as Chief Polaris Executive, an Assistant Secretary, a Director of Naval Construction and a Captain R.N. together with some supporting staff. The pay of these officers is that of their rank. There will be other appointments later, but these are still under consideration.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us exactly the sum which will be paid to these officers?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: No, Sir. It will be according to their rank and seniority, and those can be discovered from ordinary documents which are published and are available in the Library.

    Dockyards (Staff and Wages)
    Miss Vickersasked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he will state the number of grades and trades of the industrial and non-industrial categories in Her Majesty's Dockyards, together with the basic wage for each category.
    Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing: For non-industrial staff this information is available in Appendix 8 of the Navy Estimates for this year. The figures there given need adjustment to reflect the 4 per cent, increase given at the last general pay settlement.
    For industrials it would be a large task to set out individually every pay rate, and
    938
    reference to the basic rate only would be very misleading in view of the small proportion not drawing some kind of supplement to the basic rate.
    The general wage structure is, however, set out comprehensively in an Admiralty Fleet Order, of which I will send a copy to my hon. Friend.
    Miss Vickers: I thank my hon. Friend for the information and for the further information which he will send me. Will he look, with the proper machinery, into the basic rate of the lowest-paid workers to see whether they can get a living wage without necessarily having to do overtime?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: This is a matter for negotiation through the normal channels. I will certainly look at it.
    Mr. Burden: Would not my hon. Friend agree that many highly-skilled tradesmen in the dockyards now receive pay which does not compare with that paid in private industry and private yards? Will he give an undertaking that consideration will be given to bringing the wages of dockyard workers into line with the wages of workers doing similar jobs in outside industry?
    Mr. Orr-Ewing: I acknowledge that there are difficulties in this matter, which is under negotiation at the moment.

  BRITISH ARMY

    B.A.O.R. (Tactical Nuclear Weapons)
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for War what tactical nuclear weapons are now available. and will be available within the next three years, to the British Army of the Rhine; and how this scale of weapons compares to that of other nations' North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces.
    The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Profumo): The tactical nucear weapons available to the British Army in Germany are 8-inch howitzers, Honest John rockets and Corporal guided weapons. It would not be in the public interest for me to give the numbers of these weapons, but they are generally in line with those available to our North

    939
    Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. I do not expect the position to change greatly in the next three years.
    Mr. Wall: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the two American weapons to which he referred are wholly under our control? Will he bear in mind that the Americans are replacing their field and medium artillery with no less than five different types of guided missile? Will he undertake to get some British tactical missiles more modern than the two which he mentioned?
    Mr. Profumo: I expect the weapons which I have mentioned to last for some years to come. What happens about replacing them will depend on a number of factors, but, meanwhile, we are, generally speaking, on a level with our allies with the exception of the United States, who have a wider variety of these tactical nuclear weapons.

    Inventions
    Mr. Masonasked the Secretary of State for War what encouragement his Department gives to inventors; to what extent it sponsors their ideas; and whether there has been any recent change in official policy on sponsoring inventions.
    Mr. Profumo: Any inventions which are submitted to my Department are examined most carefully and, of course, we pay for any which we officially adopt. Sponsorship is limited only by the usefulness of the idea and by current Army requirements.
    There has been no change in official policy on sponsoring inventions since the war.

    Widows (Pensions)
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for War how much pension, other than her own pension, a general's widow who lost her husband on 3rd November, 1958, receives for one child; and how much she would receive for her child if her husband had died the next day, assuming in both cases that the officer had retired after maximum service.
    Mr. Profumo: No general's or lieutenant-general's widow who lost her husband before 4th November, 1958, is receiving a pension for a child. One major-general's widow who lost her husband
    940
    before that date is receiving a pension of £41 for a child. A general officer's widow who lost her husband after 3rd November, 1958, would receive, for each child, one-ninth of her husband's retired pay, and that amount would depend on when he retired and what his rank was.
    Mr. Johnson: Does not that Answer indicate the extremely unsatisfactory position in regard to widows who lost their husbands before 1958? Is my right hon. Friend aware that it simply is not good enough to go on telling us that it is impossible to make a distinction between those widowed before that date and those widowed afterwards?
    Mr. Profumo: I do not think that it would be useful for me to add anything to what I said in the debate on Armed Forces pensions on 20th December last year, when I went into this question as thoroughly as possible.
    Mr. Johnson: What my right hon. Friend said on that occasion was completely unsatisfactory. With respect to him, it would be most useful if he would at least attempt to add something to what he said on that occasion.
    Mr. Profumo: I am sorry if my hon. Friend found it unsatisfactory, but I cannot at this moment add to what I said then.

    Pirbright Camp
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for War for how many persons the barracks of the Guards Brigade at Pirbright Camp, Surrey, has been built; how many are in residence; and what has been the cost per person per week of heating the premises during the recent cold weather.
    Mr. Profumo: Pirbright Camp can accommodate 2,300 all ranks. The total working strength of the camp is at the moment some 1,900. The cost per person per week of heating the barracks during the period 1st to 24th January was about 14s.
    Mr. Brockway: May I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on keeping the cost so low in view of our own experience of the great increase of domestic costs? But may I ask him, in view of the great difference between the estimated number to be at these barracks and those who

    941
    are actually at these barracks, whether there was not some miscalculation in its construction?
    Mr. Profumo: No. I am grateful to the hon. Member for what he has said, but we practise the utmost economy in all sections of the Army. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We certainly have not made any miscalculation about the troops at Pirbright. There are several companies of the Guards battalions in central London who frequently go to Pirbright for training, and accommodation has to be kept ready for them, but we have not been heating any part of the camp which has not been used.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (BRUSSELS NEGOTIATIONS)
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Edward Heath): Mr. Speaker, with your permission and that of the House I wish to make a statement on the Brussels negotiations.
The House will recall that, at the meeting of Ministers in Brussels on 17th January, the French delegation requested that the negotiations should be suspended. The five other delegations of the European Economic Community, and the British delegation, opposed this. It was agreed that the discussion on this question would be continued at the next ministerial meeting, arranged on 28th January, first among the Six delegations and then in the full conference of the Seven.
The Six met at about 7.15 p.m. on 28th January and again at noon and in the early afternoon of 29th January. The Ministers of Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands did all they could, during these meetings, to persuade the French delegation to agree on a basis for continuing the negotiations. As the House knows, their efforts were of no avail. I was, of course, kept fully informed throughout their discussions.
At about 4.30 yesterday afternoon, the full conference of the Seven met to consider the situation. I was accompanied at this meeting by my right hon. Friends the Commonwealth Secretary and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Chairman of the conference, M. Fayat, opened the meeting by reading
942
a statement, of which the following is a translation:
"Following the decision taken by the Seven Governments on 18th January last, the Six have resumed their discussions on the proposal of the French Delegation to break off the negotiations between the Member States of the European Economic Community and the United Kingdom. The Five other Delegations of the European Economic Community, and the British Delegation, opposed this proposal at the time it was made. In the discussions held by the Six yesterday and today, various compromise proposals have been examined. It has finally become apparent that the Belgian, the German, the Italian, the Luxembourg and the Netherlands Delegations agree to accept the following text."
And this is a quotation of the text:
"The European Commission is requested to draw up, during the next three weeks, a report on the present state of the negotiations for accession between Great Britain and the Six states of the European Economic Community; in this report the Commission will set out the results already obtained and the questions still in suspense, and will give its opinion on the latter. This report will be transmitted to each of the Seven Delegations composing the Conference. The work of the Conference will be resumed not later than ten days after the submission of this report."
That was the end of the text.
"The French Delegation has refused to accept this text because of a different view which they will explain in the course of this meeting."
After hearing this statement, Ministers representing Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Luxembourg then each spoke in turn. With the exception of the French Foreign Minister, each declared that it was his Government's wish to continue the negotiations and his Government's conviction that the outstanding problems could be resolved. Each one expressed deep regret at the situation which had arisen and anxiety as to its consequences.
Professor Hallstein, the President of the Commission, also spoke. He said that the European Commission would seek to reduce to the minimum the harmful effects of these developments, both within the European Economic Community and in its relations with other countries.
M. Couve de Murville stated his Government's reasons for having proposed a suspension of the negotiations. He argued that they had made no progress since October; that Britain had not been able to accept the disciplines of the Rome Treaty, notably the common agricultural policy; and that the entry

943
of new members to a club which was not yet complete raised serious questions, notably for the founder members.
I then said that, had the Six countries been able to agree on the draft terms of reference for a report by the European Commission which had been proposed by the five delegations, we should have been able to accept them, because they would have shown that the negotiations were being resumed in good faith. I recalled the reasons for our application to enter into negotiations with the Community.
I completely repudiated the arguments advanced by the French delegation for advocating the suspension of the negotiations. I said that we would not turn our backs on the Continent because of these events, but would continue to work with all our friends in Europe for its future strength and unity
The Chairman of the conference then said that, in the circumstances, he was forced to record the fact, with great regret, that the member States of the European Economic Community were prevented from continuing the negotiations. He was convinced that this regret would be echoed throughout the world. M. Fayat then declared the meeting closed.
In my previous statements to the House after ministerial meetings, Mr. Speaker, I have confined myself to giving an account of the events which took place. Perhaps on this occasion I may be permitted a comment. What has happened is a bitter blow to all those who believe in true European unity, but it is not a mortal one. The events of the past few weeks have shown how many people throughout Europe want us to play a full part in its creation. The Governments of the five member States of the Community—whose peoples together number about 120 million—have clearly shown that they are among those who share with us a common view of the Europe we want to see. There is a foundation of friendship and good will for the future.
Mr. H. Wilson: May I, first, put this to the right hon. Gentleman—in a personal sense? Despite our very strong criticisms throughout of the position in which he has been placed through economic weakness and what we consider to be the economic mismanagement
944
which led to the negotiations, and our strong criticism, which we maintain and stand by, of the many unilateral concessions he has given, involving vital British and Commonwealth interests, nevertheless I am sure that I am speaking for the whole House in paying tribute to the right hon. Gentleman's industry and patience and not least to his restraint during these very difficult past days. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that now, turning to face the future, this should not be regarded as a disaster for the country, that we certainly do not so regard it; and that it may be of great advantage to the country if it is now regarded as bringing home clearly to everyone that the future of this country depends entirely on our own efforts and what we are prepared to do and if it brings home to the whole House that no British Minister must ever again be put in the position of waiting outside in the cold—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—is the right hon. Gentleman aware of this? I think he is—while others decide our fate?
Finally, may I put this to the right hon. Gentleman? It may be too serious a matter for hon. Gentlemen opposite to understand, but the right hon. Gentleman does understand it. Is he aware that throughout the past year, from this Bench, we have many times called for the preparation of alternative policies for such an eventuality? In considering these, which the Government are now forced to do, will he pay particular attention to the proposals that we put forward from this Bench on 8th November and 13th December?
Will he also take note that when we are able to debate this matter in the House, whenever that is arranged, we on this side, who have been working very hard on possible alternatives, will have a full range of policies to put forward to deal with the situation?
Mr. Heath: I should like, first, to express my gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman for the comments which he made about myself and the conduct of these negotiations and about the British delegation, even though I am unwilling to accept the context in which he made the comments.
As to the right hon. Gentleman's comments about a matter to which he and

945
his colleagues have so often referred, that of waiting outside in the negotiations, I have tried to explain before that this was a negotiation with a Community in which the Community always had to form a Community point of view. In these circumstances, we always accepted that it was right that before the negotiations with ourselves began, the Community should itself agree on its policy. There has been nothing in any way humiliating about that.
My right hon. Friends will, of course, announce any necessary measures about these matters in due course. When we went into these negotiations, the Government surveyed the whole field of policy and came to their conclusion that this was the right step to take.
We have followed the right hon. Gentleman's statements about future policies, and I would only say to him, as he has indicated that he hopes to have an opportunity to debate the matter more fully later, that I hope that in his attempt to, as he has said, open the country's eyes to realism, he will not put forward the solution that every problem which faces us can be solved only too easily by calling a conference, because that is so often what the right hon. Gentleman has suggested in the trade field, without having specific proposals about it.
These were specific negotiations with a specific purpose. The right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends must be quite clear of the context in which they are putting forward proposals in the debate.
Mr. G. Brown rose—
An Hon. Member: The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is next.
Mr. Brown: The unease of hon. Members opposite is clearly apparent.
Arising out of the Lord Privy Seal's statement, may I put this to the Prime Minister? The Lord Privy Seal's statement was inevitably largely an historical one. The situation that concerns the nation, whatever matters to hon. Gentlemen opposite, is where we go from here. It is for the Government, in the first place, to propose the steps that we should now take.
946
May I ask the Prime Minister whether he agrees with me that this is not a matter which can easily be dealt with by way of question and answer? Is he, therefore, willing to enter into negotiations with us to arrange for a debate on this issue, preferably to be opened by himself, some time next week?
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I am sure that the whole House realises that there should and must be a debate. Perhaps the ordinary measures for arranging a debate could be entered into through the usual channels, which have, I think, always worked satisfactorily to meet the wishes of the House as a whole.
Sir D. Walker-Smith: May I respectfully associate myself with the tribute paid to my right hon. Friend for his patience, industry and high personal qualities in the long and laborious negotiations?
May I, while expressing my pleasure that Her Majesty's Government have not consented to join the Community on terms detrimental to our basic interests and position, ask that Her Majesty's Government should now seek out our Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. friends to discuss ways and means of promoting and expanding trade and make clear to them that Britain does so not in order to bring pressure on the Six, or while awaiting an invitation to further negotiations, but believing in her heart and being that this course is right in itself and full of great possibility for the enhanced well-being of our people and theirs?
Mr. Heath: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his preliminary remarks, the more so as we have disagreed over matters of policy in these negotiations. Perhaps I should make one thing clear, that these negotiations have not ceased because what we have negotiated was unacceptable. The negotiations have been brought to an end for political reasons by one Government against the wish of five member Government's and the British Government and, indeed, against the advice of the European Economic Commission.
There is a meeting of the European Free Trade Association countries already arranged for 18th February, which will

947
give us an opportunity of having a full review of the existing situation. We have always said that our objective must be to increase the trade between the E.F.T.A. countries, with the reduction of tariffs between them.
We have been throughout the negotiations, and are now, in the fullest consultation with the Commonwealth countries about economic matters.
Mr. Grimond: May I congratulate the Lord Privy Seal on his conduct of the negotiations and commiserate with him on their ending? May I ask him whether he does not agree that it is a tragedy that the British Government were not, in fact, founder members and delayed their application so late?
May I also ask whether it is clear that the Government have rejected any proposals for any form of association with the Six, and whether next week, when the debate takes place, or whenever it does, we shall have from the Government some specific proposals for an increase in trade within E.F.T.A. and the Commonwealth and with the G.A.T.T. countries generally?
Mr. Heath: I do not think that one wishes at this particular time to discuss the origins of the movement in Europe, beginning with those of the Coal and Steel Community in 1950. In these negotiations we have made a genuine and earnest attempt to bring them to a conclusion.
With regard to the question of association, there has been no offer of any alternative arrangements in these negotiations by the Community as a whole, and, of course, it does not lie in the power of any particular country to make an offer of any arrangement of this kind.
As to the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, perhaps we may now await the debate which is to be arranged.
Mr. Fell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that what the country demands now is leadership that will forget and which will stop chasing the will-of-the-wisp of the Treaty of Rome and, instead, concentrate on promoting British trade with all those countries in the world with whom we can promote it, that is,
948
with the Commonwealth, with our E.F.T.A. friends and with all those countries of Asia, Africa and South America upon whom the future of British expansion of trade depends.
It is a little surprising to hear that the Lord Privy Seal still feels that the negotiations are not quite at an end. Unless we can make a break now, and say that the negotiations are finished and that we are to concentrate on development with our friends, then it does not augur well for the future of this nation. Let us, for heaven's sake, forget the Treaty of Rome and get on with developing what we have.
Mr. Heath: It must always be the purpose of the people of this country to expand trade wherever they can, because we exist by being, fundamentally, a trading nation. I hope that my hon. Friend will not forget that one of the largest and wealthiest trading groups in the world today is the European Economic Community and that, therefore, it must be a major part of policy to increase trade with that Community.
Mr. Shinwell: May I ask the Lord Privy Seal, whose sincerity and integrity are unquestionable, whether he was surprised at the attitude adopted by the French delegation, whether he is aware that many months ago the French expressed their objection to British entry into the E.E.C. and that M. Pisani, the French Minister of Agriculture, is on record—I quote him accurately—as saying that for Britain to enter the Common Market would mean the complete abandonment of the British Commonwealth? That is the statement made by him many months ago. If the right hon. Gentleman would like me to supply him with the text, I will gladly do so. Therefore, I again ask him whether he was surprised at the French delegation's intransigence.
Mr. Heath: I have explained to the House on previous occasions that the trading arrangements negotiated for the African and West Indian Commonwealth were themselves of a preferential nature and, in many cases, of a greater preferential nature than the existing Commonwealth arrangements.
As to the Asian Commonwealth, very detailed arrangements had already been

949
negotiated to safeguard the trade of those countries, which would not only have protected their trade in the United Kingdom but would have opened trade to them in the European Community as a whole.
As to the remaining part of the Commonwealth—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—for such part of their trade for which arrangements had been concluded, preferences were to have been phased out by 1970: we believe that the essential interests of the Commonwealth countries would have been maintained in these negotiations. We therefore disagreed with M. Pisani's statement.
When the right hon. Gentleman asks whether I was surprised by the action of the French delegation on 18th January, I must tell him that I was greatly surprised, particularly in view of the assurances which I had received in my discussions only a few days earlier in Paris and of the communiques issued after the visit of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister both to Champs and to Rambouillet.
Mr. Hastings: Will my right hon. Friend accept my sympathy and commiseration on the way that things have turned out? Will he also accept that there are those behind him who are no wit less determined now than we were before this happened that this country should be enabled to play its full and rightful part in a united Europe, and, further, that we are determined that this great enterprise shall not for long be delayed by the wilful ambition of one man? In any future arrangements which may now be made, will my right hon. Friend use his influence to ensure that nothing is done to make this aim more difficult?
Mr. Heath: Yes, Sir. I hope that in our discussions on economic and trade matters, to which, in the past, we have often devoted a great deal of time, the House will not overlook the grave political implications of the existing disunity in Europe.
Mr. J. Hynd: The Minister will be well aware that there is more than one serious aspect of the situation. If it pleases General de Gaulle to treat
950
European unity as Tshombe treated Congo unity, that is the business of the Six. There are, however, two other features which affect this country in its relation to Europe, and these have been dealt with by my right hon. Friend.
The third and probably the most important aspect of all is the implication of this matter vis-a-vis the future of the Atlantic Alliance. Will the Government, therefore, give us an assurance that they are now entering into contact with our American allies to discuss the future of the Atlantic Alliance? In the event of an early debate on the matter, can we have an assurance that it will be at least a two-day debate because of the many implications of the situation?
Mr. Heath: The last matter is, of course, one for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, who will, I am sure, have taken note of the point made by the hon. Member
I have no doubt that the question of the Atlantic Alliance will also be discussed during the debate which is about to begin today, and tomorrow.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must take the House into my confidence. I realise intensely the great importance and interest of this matter, but I cannot help thinking that we would be better advised to await a debate. The House has much to do and I cannot help knowing how many important right hon. and hon. Members there are, on both sides of the House, who will not get in during the defence debate because there is not time.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS
  Industrial Injuries Scheme
  Bottomley: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 15th February, I shall call attention to the operation of the Industrial Injuries Scheme, and move a Resolution.
  Savings
  Mr. W. Clark: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 15th February, I shall call attention to the necessity to increase savings, and move a Resolution.
  Royal Commission on the Police (Report)
  Dame Edith Pitt: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 15th February, I shall call attention to the Final Report of the Royal Commission on the Police, and move a Resolution.
BILL PRESENTED
  DRAINAGE RATES
  Bill to provide for the assessment of drainage rates by reference to values determined under section 8 of the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1943, notwithstanding the repeal of that section, presented by Mr. Kimball; supported by Mr. Jeger, Sir H. Legge-Bourke, Sir J. Maitland, Sir G. Wills, Sir H. Stud-holme, Sir C. Osborne, and Mr. P. Browne; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 15th February, and to be printed. [Bill 59.]

WORLD SECURITY AGENCY
3.49 p.m.
Mr. E. L. Mailalieu: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to set up a world security agency in the United Kingdom to co-ordinate and inform Her Majesty's Government's efforts to supplant the ruie of force by the rule of law in world affairs and to provide impetus thereto.
I am lucky, in a way, in that the hazards of parliamentary existence have allowed my subject to be sandwiched between two such important matters as the depression caused by events in Europe and the important debate which is to follow. I have always been struck that this country, which has more reasons even than most countries to wish to do away with violence in the settlement of international disputes and to replace violence by law, has four Government Departments—the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry and the Ministry of Defence—all planning for war, or, at least, not planning for peace, whereas we have not one governmental agency which is planning for peace, or whose primary object is to plan for peace.
After eleven years of office, it is, perhaps, not surprising that Ministers should lack the drive to think ahead, to plan for peace, because this is not an immediate election winner. Having made that little tilt against the Government, I may say that exactly the same consideration applies when a Government has been in office for six years. In fact, the main burden of what I wish to say is that even a brand new Government, coming freshly to their tasks, cannot possibly do the necessary forward thinking which we must do if we are to be able to pull our full weight in international affairs and in international conferences on disarmament and world security.
Every one of us knows the "dog's life" which Ministers must lead nowadays, chivvied around from pillar to post and with their own departmental chores to attend to. How can they do anything else on these general questions but drift—generally on a current which is not only not of their own making, but not of their own choosing?
Speaking of Governments, I must pay full credit to the present Government for the part they played in issuing the Declaration after the Prime Ministers of

953
the Commonwealth had held their Conference in 1961. That Declaration contained a statement which might have been lifted from one of the documents of the Parliamentary Group for World Government, of which I have the honour to be honorary secretary. It was a magnificent declaration and it said:
"A substantial and adequately armed world force should be established to prevent aggression and to enforce observance of disarmament agreements, and an international authority should be created, in association with the United Nations, to control this force and to ensure that it is not used for any purpose inconsistent with the Charter."
But the date of that Declaration was March, 1961, and there has been no adequate follow-up. I am not blaming Ministers for this because, as I have said, I do not think that they have the chance or the time, still less the machinery, adequately to follow things up or to work on details where they have adequately stated principles.
Under my Bill, there would be set up a special agency to concentrate, so to speak, under one roof those who are planning for peace, to co-ordinate their efforts, and to work out the details by which those excellent principles of the 1961 Declaration could be put into effect, so that at any moment a Minister could go to an international conference and be quite certain that behind him he had a plan backed by the highest technical authority.
The embryo is in the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' statement. The principles contained in that statement must be practical in themselves, because Prime Ministers in these days are hard-boiled toughs. They have risen to the leadership of their peoples the hard way and have had to stand up to criticism all the way. If fourteen or fifteen of them—however many there were in 1961 at the Commonwealth Conference—unanimously declare that these principles have a practical application, it seems to me that it should be taken pretty well as read.
But does this House remember that a very short time ago there were only one and a half men in our Foreign Office—
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Who was the half?
Mr. Mallalieu: —whose duty it was exclusively to plan for peace, and only
954
one in the Ministry of Defence, though admittedly a first-class man. That situation was altered as a result of the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. P. Noel-Baker), but the provision is still highly inadequate for the forward looking thinking for peace.
As is so often the case, the United States has reached the post first in this matter and has already set up such an agency. I do not think it was an American Government idea, but they took it up: and in 1961 Congress passed a law setting up an agency for this sort of purpose. It has proved so successful that its appropriation has been increased during its short life out of all recognition.
The truth is that research on how to achieve peace needs more and not less manpower and effort than research on how to fight wars better than before. If the House gives me leave to introduce the Bill, then our priorities will be somewhat rectified and the agency which it would set up would be able to prepare and direct United Kingdom participation in any world security negotiations that there were, and to disseminate information upon these things, so that the Government would have support when they tried to put into practice schemes prepared here at home by this agency. The agency would also study the minimum law necessary not only to achieve peace, but to enable nations to go on developing their own individualities in peace; and it would study what machinery was necessary to achieve a safe disarmament.
So I ask Her Majesty's Government to set up such an agency as soon as may be, to take advantage of the better climate between the United States and Russia, which seems likely at present to achieve some progress towards a nuclear test ban. This progress must be matched by institutional arrangements for planning ahead for peace in all its aspects. I therefore ask the House to allow me to introduce the Bill.
I believe that if I am given permission we shall be brought appreciably closer to the goal which is near to the hearts of us all, namely, the goal of a world free of the scourge of war and of the burden of armaments, in which the rule of force shall have been subordinated to

955
the rule of law, and in which international adjustments to changing conditions shall be able to be brought about in peace.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. E. L. Mallalieu, Mr. Strachey, Sir J. Pitman, Mr. G. M. Thomson, Lady Gammans, Mr. Thorpe, and Mr. Dan Jones.

WORLD SECURITY AGENCY
  WORLD SECURITY AGENCY
  Bill to set up a world security agency in the United Kingdom to co-ordinate and inform Her Majesty's Government's efforts to supplant the rule of force by the rule of law in world affairs and to provide impetus thereto, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 15th February, and to be printed. [Bill 60.]

DEFENCE
4.9 p.m.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I beg to move,
That this House approves the Statement on Nuclear Defence Systems issued following the Bahamas Meeting in December, 1962 (Command Paper No. 1915).
In moving this Motion, it seems necessary that I should give some account of the background against which the recently negotiated Nassau understanding with the United States must be judged. The success in developing the first atomic explosive device was the result of Anglo-American co-operation. I remember-vaguely, for I was not at that time in the inner circles—the code words "tube alloy" which, at first, described the atomic work of British scientists carried on independently.
It was then decided under the Churchill-Roosevelt arrangement that, owing to the danger in which this island stood to aerial attack and the limited resources available in our state of something like siege, the actual development should continue in the United States. It was always a joint enterprise and it was always understood that as the war ended, whatever might be the arrangement about peaceful use, as a military weapon it would continue to be a joint concern.
956
The House will recall the circumstances in which the United States qualified what we believed to be a binding understanding. This was largely due to the excitement caused by certain defections—Pontecorvo and the rest—but the atomic weapon was from the first a joint Anglo-American concern.
When I raised with President Eisenhower, in the early days of my premiership, the moral obligation of the United States to reverse the severe provisions of the McMahon Act and revert to the principle of co-operation between our two countries, President Eisenhower fully accepted this and succeeded in carrying an Amendment of the McMahon Act through Congress. That was in the year 1958.
Sometimes people talk, and sometimes complain of a special relation between Britain and the United States. This is a general phrase which is sometimes justified, or perhaps justified, by the very close understanding in certain fields, by similar methods of work and thought, and by the traditions which bind the two countries. But in this instance of nuclear power there was, indeed, a special arrangement which existed from the start and which has now been restored. In the atomic and nuclear field there is a very full interchange between Britain and America of the results of our separate research. After all, we invented it together, and I cannot see that this is a grievance for our continental friends.
Now I come to the further development of the weapon apart from the delivery system. The House will remember the so-called atomic or A-bomb which Lord Attlee's Government decided to continue to develop and to manufacture. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), when he took office in 1951, continued this policy and when the thermo-nuclear or so-called H-bomb followed, we set to work in this field, too, although handicapped, of course, by the temporary suspension of our close relations with the United States' scientists, now happily restored.
This policy has been followed by successive Governments and, therefore, the House must recognise the continued responsibility of this country in this matter, whatever may be the feeling about the right course to follow now.

957
So far as the Western allies are concerned, the development of nuclear warheads has been something for which from the start Britain and America have been jointly responsible and in which they are now joint partners.
This is not to say, of course, that the British contribution in the present state of the massive application of the thermonuclear system to weapons is, or ever could be, on the scale of that of the United States with a population four times as great and with resources far larger than ours. Nevertheless, both countries are responsible and both have to face their obligations. So much for the weapons; now for the means of delivery.
In those early years, especially in this country where we had pretty good experience of bombing attacks, both at the receiving and the delivering end, everything was concentrated on how to make the weapon, first, an atomic, and then a thermo-nuclear, bomb. It was assumed that it would be delivered by aircraft in the same way as the blockbusters and other high explosive bombs of the war—by aircraft. They were vulnerable to some extent to night fighters and anti-aircraft artillery, and so forth, but, as the House knows, in these defence matters there is always a continuing, almost a classic, struggle between attack and defence.
In a sense, in recent years conditions have tended to swing over from the early period which favoured the attack to conditions somewhat more favourable for defence. We think that the Russians have developed, both in attack and defence, up-to-date, modern and comprehensive systems. I speak about defence methods because both these and the corresponding counter-measures are part of the continual play and interplay in this terrible, if silent, struggle.
But it is clear that gradually the era of the free-falling bomb is drawing to an end. I do not mean that there is any day or month or year when the massive attack from aircraft, even from free-falling bombs, will be something which could be lightly disregarded by any country, but things are moving in this direction, although not quite so rapidly as some would suppose.
We had hoped that by the adoption of the Skybolt weapon, or Skybolt system,
958
which, as the House knows, is a ballistic missile, that is, one which leaves the atmosphere, which is launched from a fast-moving aircraft, we would prolong the effectiveness of the strategic bomber force very considerably. We have every reason to believe that Skybolt's development would be successful in spite of inherent difficulties and complications.
Of course, all these modern methods are full of difficulties and complications. Some succeed almost to schedule; others drop behind and are obsolescent by the time they are completed; others are left behind by more effective rivals; others fail altogether. Nevertheless, in spite of all the hazards inseparable from this type of highly sophisticated missile, we certainly seemed to have made a good bargain. Skybolt had the full and enthusiastic support of the American Services and Government.
We stood to gain all the results of the large American expenditure on Skybolt, both on research and on development. We were in a position to purchase such numbers of the finished missile as we might need, attaching our own warheads to them, of course. Unhappily, during the course of last year, particularly towards the end, the Americans developed serious doubts about the Skybolt system.
I shall revert to this problem, but before going into detail—and I hope that the House will pardon me, for this is a difficult and complicated subject—I want to say that it is not unnatural that many people in this country, on all sides and in all parties, should be considering what should be the British rôle. There are the large number of people who, for different reasons, sincerely believe that it would be best now for Britain to fall out of the game, as it were, or, to put it more correctly, to contract out of the nuclear rôle.
Their reasons are very different, as different as chalk and cheese. There are a number of very earnest people, some pacifists in the general sense, some pacifists in the restricted nuclear sense, who believe that all these weapons are wrong and should be abandoned. We all hope that the day may come when they can be abandoned and we shall not cease to work for it. President Kennedy and I discussed some of these matters, the ban

959
on nuclear tests and other questions, when we met before Christmas.
But I think it only right to put in this warning. A system of disarmament, if it is to carry conviction and restore that sense of security for which, above all, the world is yearning, cannot, at any rate in my view, be restricted to nuclear disarmament. It must comprise at least the first stage of an agreement in the conventional field.
I repeat that there is a strongly-held view that all nuclear weapons should be abandoned without further ado by all Powers if possible, but in any case by Britain unilaterally. This is the spirit which inspires the "Ban the Bomb" and many other movements.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: By the whole Labour Party now.
The Prime Minister: The whole Labour Party? Then I have got it wrong.
But if we accept that the security of the Western world is to be defended largely by American nuclear power, if we are shielded by the American deterrent, then we have no right to claim that we should be doing some kind of moral service to humanity by giving up the British nuclear force. We must agree that a British gesture, while it might have a short-lived publicity value, would not have an influence in the long term on the development of events. I therefore rule that out as a moral gesture. I am not sure, but I gather that the Official Opposition share this view. We are, therefore, left not with a moral issue, but with a practical one.
The second group of critics take this practical point. They say that because the balance of the contribution, or the amount of the contribution, which Britain can make to the total nuclear strength of the alliance is relatively small, and because it is all so difficult, and because it costs so much, we really had better "chuck it" and concentrate all our efforts on conventional armaments. This is the way, they say, to make the most effective contribution to the N.A.T.O. Alliance.
I appreciate these arguments, but I think that many who use them do not realise the fundamental difference between Britain and some of our Continental
960
friends in this field. We have, of course, to make a contribution, and we are making it loyally to the N.A.T.O. forces, but we have obligations also in many other parts of the world, and the defence of the free world, and, indeed, the survival of the free world, is assisted by our efforts in some of these more distant areas.
This adds necessarily to our expenses, especially overseas expenditure. It adds to the complications regarding the character of the weapons to be provided, the training of our men, and the means of conveying them to the field of action whenever trouble may occur. But without some nuclear shield there would be little point in building up this conventional sword, and even if we did concentrate wholly on conventional arms—and this is the point I should like to impress on the House—it would be a great error to suppose that to abandon altogether the nuclear role would make any massive reduction in the burden of defence expenditure over the years.
At present, taking the whole field of projects started, projects abandoned, with work on research and development and the maintenance and building of these weapons, and, of course, assuming that some form of bomber force armed with conventional weapons would be required during this period, the percentage of our total defence expenditure on the strategic nuclear aspect has not run at more than about 10 per cent. of the whole.
If we were now to turn over to a great increase in conventional forces adapted to conventional weapons, I think that we should find, since this means the maintenance, arming and deployment of a large number of men—and this is always the most expensive part of our expenditure—that we should be making a greater expenditure at home and probably incurring a far greater burden on the balance of payments. This altogether leaves out the question whether to do so we should have to revert to conscription.
All this may be right or wrong. We may have to face it, but do not let us be under any illusion that to abandon our nuclear contribution and to step up our conventional forces is a method of cutting defence expenditure. Moreover, what is the precise meaning today of the word "conventional"? If we are to abandon the great strategic nuclear

961
weapon, are we also to abandon what are called the tacticals? For instance, the nuclear armaments which the present Canberras have and any of their successors will carry? It is the view of the Government and of their predecessors of both parties, up to now, at any rate, that it would not be right for Britain to abandon the nuclear weapon at this stage. What the distant future can bring no one can foresee. There are four reasons which have actuated us in this decision.
First, we think that it is the duty of allies to contribute what they can to the strength of the alliance. We have at present a powerful force of bombers. They are a formidable contribution to the allied strength. We have a nuclear knowledge and capacity. Even if our nuclear forces were to be reduced relatively to the rest of the alliance, of which I see no immediate sign, they would still be very great in world terms. It is something we have, and we ought therefore to contribute.
Secondly, and I say this after thinking much about it—it is only my opinion, but I hold it sincerely—I do not believe that our Western Alliance could really stand permanently if in this vital field the United States were given for all time the sole authority. We are allies. We must remain allies, but we must not become satellites. I can understand why the French Government, who are a world Power as well as a continental Power, wish to develop their own nuclear force. I must frankly say that I hope they will accept that such a force has obligations as well as rights.
In a moment I shall come to how we can best preserve the rights of European countries relative to America and still avoid some of the dangers of the proliferation of national nuclear forces, but I believe, if it is not extravagant to say so, that it will not be a happy position for the United States themselves, nor would their relations with their allies over the years remain good, if all the countries not quite so great as they, but still great countries, were to hand over for ever complete control of this unique weapon to the American Administration of the day.
Thirdly, the effect of our British nuclear power in the past: has meant that we have been able to make a very valuable contribution in international fields of
962
discussion, particularly as regards disarmament. I do not believe that the standing of our representatives in these matters—consider this very question of the bomb tests—would remain the same if we were now to abandon this effort, nor do I believe that it would be good for the world if our influence were to be reduced.
Fourthly, and this is perhaps the most vital argument of all, there may be conditions, there must be areas, in which the interests of some countries may seem to them more vital than they seem to others. It is right and salutary that a British Government, whatever may be the particular conditions of a particular dispute, should be in a position to make their own decision without fear of nuclear blackmail. It would be wrong and dangerous to particularise further, but most hon. Members will probably realise what I have in mind.
Yet, curiously enough, I have observed that some of those who are most insistent that we should abandon any degree of nuclear independence are always demanding, with equal stridency, that we should have a foreign policy which is absolutely independent, and particularly in opposition to the policy followed by the Americans. This seems to be a strangely contradictory point of view. I put this forward, therefore, as our fourth reason. I would hope that Britain will be able, for as long as possible, to maintain her position free from threat, and should be able, should the necessity arise, to make her independent decisions on issues vital to her life.
But this is not purely a British view. Soon after our meeting ended President Kennedy gave a Press conference. He told me beforehand how he would explain to his own people our insistence upon the right to use these weapons in matters of supreme importance, because—and these are the words he used—they are "the necessary requirement for any sovereign nation".
Mr. S. Silverman: Any sovereign nation?
The Prime Minister: Any sovereign nation which has them and which can contribute them to the N.A.T.O. Alliance must also have this sovereign right. I will come to that point in detail later.

963
The President went on to dwell at some length on this, and I am glad that he did so, because it makes clear that the agreement that we have made is based upon a fuller understanding of each other's views, and is not a shallow formula devised to patch up or hide each other's difficulties.
I must now revert to the situation which confronted us when my colleagues and I went to the meeting. I was fortunate enough to have with me the Foreign Secretary and the Minister of Defence. The Commonwealth Secretary was also in the area—[An HON. MEMBER: "He was in the air."] He was in the area on duty, and I called him up to join us. Although a final decision had not been formally taken we knew that the American Government had really lost confidence in the Skybolt system for their own use.
This was a view not lightly reached, and one which must have caused them considerable internal embarrassment, because the whole American bomber force was looking to the Skybolt missile with considerable impatience to give the United States Air Force a new life and strength, as one of the main props of the American defensive system. Moreover, the United States Government had spent large sums of money—about 350 million dollars—on existing development. This money was spent not only by the last Administration; on the contrary, as soon as the Kennedy Administration came to office they stepped up the allocation for Skybolt, and they will now incur very heavy cancellation charges. There was a political as well as a financial interest in keeping Skybolt going, if possible.
There was, in addition, an industrial interest on the part of the aircraft industry in general and the Douglas Aircraft Corporation and its subsidiary manufacturers in particular. This depended not on our orders—or only to a small extent upon them—for the United States Government were planning to buy many times as many missiles for their forces as we would have purchased for ours. So there was a fairly formidable lobby inside the United States in favour of Skybolt. Anyone with experience will know how difficult it sometimes is to resist these pressures. They are the decisions which Administrations have to take.
964
I am saying all this to show that it is absurd to believe that those decisions were taken lightly, and equally childish to suppose that with all this great interest in Skybolt the United States Administration cancelled it just to spite Britain, or to drive us out of the nuclear field. To believe this, anybody must really be very guillible.
During our talks in the Bahamas the President was very frank and fair. He quite agreed that, looking back over my meeting at Camp David with President Eisenhower, in 1960, it was clear why it was agreed that we should have Skybolt. At that time, as I recall it, the emphasis was on mobility. We were just deciding to abandon the fixed rocket. There were two possible systems in the mobile ballistic rocket field. One was Skybolt and the other was Polaris. Neither system had been fully perfected, and both were complicated and costly. At that time I must say frankly that I was greatly influenced by the fact that we in Britain already had a bomber force, with all that that implies in morale, men and material. The V-bombers were being constructed and large orders had been placed for them. I reached the view—and I think that it was not unreasonable—that if the Americans would sell us the Skybolt missile, although it would not be a permanent solution—nothing is ever permanent in the defence field—at any rate it would get us through a long period of years with the least disturbance.
I was fortified in this view by the high degree of confidence and importance which the Americans attached to Skybolt. In return, the only offer that I was able to make, and was glad to make, was that when the Polaris system was developed we would, by making facilities available in this country, add enormously to its strength and efficacy. Now, Polaris is successful, not only in research and development, but in manufacture. It is operational, and the Americans already have about 20 submarines in service.
There is, therefore, a complete change from the situation obtaining at the Camp David meeting. President Kennedy recognised this and, in particular, saw clearly how much we had depended on Skybolt and how disappointed we were at the situation which had arisen. Under the Skybolt agreement we had the right to go on with the development ourselves.

965
The President, however, thought that this would be hard on us and was prepared to share the further costs of development, although he made it clear that the United States would not buy any Skybolt missiles for herself.
However, it did not seem possible to imagine that, in such circumstances it would be likely for us to succeed—with our much smaller resources, and working through an American company—in a development for which the American forces had no use. It is "hard enough to carry out schemes of this complication in one's own country; at a distance of 5,000 miles or so, with a project losing all its priority, we should have been at great and—we thought—unacceptable risk.
Therefore, after consulting my colleagues, I declined this offer. The President next offered to make available a weapon called Hound Dog. It was a good weapon but, unfortunately, technical reasons connected with the construction of this cruise-type missile—it was not a ballistic missile—and with the construction of our own bombers made this impracticable.
The only alternative, therefore, was the Polaris complex—the submarine, of course, to be of British manufacture, the warhead to be British-made, and the rocket and its accompaniments to be sold to us by the Americans, like Skybolt. Under our agreement we shall be able to obtain the latest model of Polaris available at the time. This arrangement is made practicable because any new mark of Polaris will have to be designed to fit into the existing submarines, in which so great an investment has been made by the Americans.
A change of policy of this kind brings with it many problems, and I do not disguise them. For example, it brings in the problem of the so-called "gap". On this aspect I should, however, point out that if the Skybolt project had been developed now and we had gone on with it—or the Americans had—there would have been a gap anyhow. Even if it could have been made operational it would have been ready much later than we had expected. Nor can anyone say with certainty that there is any particular moment, any month or year, at which the bomber force, armed with stand-off bombs, can really be written off by an aggressor.
966
There are other measures in this field which can be taken and which, so far as security allows, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence perhaps will deal with. But even though some period of reduced efficiency has to be accepted—as it would have had to be even with Skybolt—that will mean no more than a period in which our contribution to the total deterrent would be somewhat less effective than we had hoped. A period in which the striking power of the independent force, though still considerable, would be somewhat reduced.
But, if the decision to stop Skybolt may mean for us a short period in this decade when our V-bombers may find it more difficult to penetrate, it also means that there will be a much longer period in which this form of a submarine deterrent might be expected to remain effective. What we lose, therefore, at the beginning—and I do not believe that it is disastrous—we shall more than make up at the end.
In any case, I do not see how the Opposition can lay any emphasis on the gap, for their policy involves, as I understand it, not a narrow, temporary and uncertain gap. If their policy succeeds and we abandon the whole enterprise, it means that between us and any other nuclear Power there will be a great gulf fixed, final and eternal. These are the considerations, therefore, which, in my view, are important.
There are other considerations about Polaris which in my view are important. First, in our island there is certainly the great advantage in having a seaborne missile instead of one operating from fixed sites in this country, or even one dependent upon fixed aerodromes. Secondly, there is perhaps the most vital point, that a submarine weapon is in many ways the best suited—now that it has been invented—for our purpose. It is a second strike weapon. It is the nearest thing to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford described as "indestructible retaliation". In spite of all the difficulties, I believe, therefore, that we reached the right decision at the Bahamas, that is, on the assumption, which I have made, that the British deterrent is to be maintained. On that assumption, in this situation Polaris is the right weapon.
Now I wish to say something about independence, and it takes up the point

967
of the other aspect of the Agreement. When the Bahamas Agreement was first announced, some doubt was expressed as to whether it really was independence. I have quoted the President's view. I confidently assure the House that I would not have made the agreement unless my colleagues and I had been fully satisfied that it safeguarded our independence. First of all, these Polaris missiles, with all their accompanying and immensely complicated paraphernalia, will be British property from the time we buy them. These arrangements will be similar to those proposed for Skybolt. In conventional arms, of course, people buy and sell very freely from one country to another.
Next, apart from the missiles and some of their associated equipment, the warheads and the submarines themselves will be built in Britain and will be, therefore, completely our own at all stages. Thirdly, the submarines, when they are completed and equipped, will be entirely manned by British officers and men owing allegiance to the Crown and receiving their orders from Her Majesty's Ministers. In all these, what I would call practical aspects, there will be no difference between Polaris and Skybolt.
We have agreed—I will come to this in some detail—that we will regard the Polaris submarines in their normal function as being for the purpose of international defence of the Western Alliance. I shall deal with this aspect later and only say now that we hope to devise a practical method of operating such a system.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Will the Prime Minister—
The Prime Minister: No. I am going to finish my speech. If necessary, I will answer questions at the end of the debate tomorrow, when I wind up the debate.
Because of this change, I felt it right to agree with a specific phrase in the agreement safeguarding the right of the British Government of the day to use this fleet for what purpose they may decide when they believe that supreme national interests are at stake. I have seen it suggested that this is a somewhat restrictive course of action. But, on examination, I believe that the House
968
will agree that it is not so. These weapons, as we all know, constitute the most terrible form of warfare. However serious the situation, no Government would use them lightly to counter a bluff, or to resist a bully. They would only be morally justified in using this immense power to counter a threat in a situation which was of supreme importance to the nation.
As I have explained, President Kennedy clearly recognised the necessity for such a phrase, and because of the importance which we both attached to it I agreed to bring up to date the moral undertaking which we and the United States already have, that is not to use nuclear weapons anywhere in the world without prior consultation with each other, if circumstances permit—[Laughter.]Well, you may get shot at only a few minutes before you answer back, and hon. Members opposite are laughing at that.
I therefore gave the President—this is important as to what the American view of the case is—an assurance that should the British Government wish to operate this independent clause I felt sure that I and my successors would give the same notice of intention. As I say, this undertaking brings up to date in the new circumstances the existing understanding. But the fact that the United States Administration wanted me to give this assurance shows how fully they accept the reality of our independent rights.
Before I come to the international implications of the Nassau Declaration, there are certain—
Mr. Percy Collick rose—
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport: Sit down.
Mr. Collick: Would the Prime Minister—
Hon. Members: Sit down.
Mr. Collick: Would the Prime Minister kindly clear up this point? Is it not the fact that under the agreement the operational control of these Polaris submarines remains under American control?
The Prime Minister: No, I am coming to that in a moment. It will be entirely

969
under our control, although it will be—just as our bombers work in with the American strategic bombers—put under the N.A.T.O. system. It will be under our control and the independent clause is always in the hands of a British Government.
The reasons for the wider international plan I will come to, and I believe that they are sound and progressive. There are certain matters before I come to that with which I should like to deal. I ought to make it clear that there was no detailed agreement at Nassau in the sense that all sorts of points have to be covered in a more formal agreement. We made arrangements in broad outline. The detailed agreement is now being made. It will cover in addition to the missile, such things as equipment for fire control, launching, guidance and navigation.
Since then the American Administration at all levels have shown their desire to bring this agreement to a rapid conclusion. We have already sent a team to Washington. An American team came here and the work of drafting the more formal agreement is now in hand. This is the same procedure as we adopted for Skybolt. But it is clear that we shall also—perhaps it will come in the defence debate, or later—have to make plans to design the nuclear submarines and put them into production—
Mr. Emrys Hughes: How many?
The Prime Minister: Fortunately, we have a full knowledge of the design and manufacture of a nuclear-powered submarine. We have one just completing her trials. We have one building and another on order. It will take about a year to prepare the plans and designs for the new submarines, which, naturally, have to be specially adapted and are a more advanced type, for the inclusion of the missile.
We hope that the keels of the first submarines may be laid in 1964. Initially, we plan to have four or five and the first of these, if all goes well, should enter service in 1968. How many ships we should build in all is, of course, a matter for the future decision of Government. Our present thought is that each vessel should contain the same number of missiles as the American submarines, that is, 16.
970
The House will also want me to say something about the estimated cost. Long experience has led me to know how difficult it is to attempt to give a precise cost in any of these more advanced forms of weapons. There are, however, certain indications from which we can make reasonable estimates and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence will deal with this in more detail tomorrow, but there are two points that I should like to make first.
Had the Skybolt succeeded we should, of course, have had a financial advantage in the earlier years after their delivery because we would have used them with the existing bombers but, of course, sooner or later, perhaps some time early in the 1970s, we would have had to contemplate replacing the whole of the present bomber force, perhaps with the same but probably with more expensive and newly-designed aircraft.
Secondly, I must deal with some speculation which appeared in the Press about the nature and scale of the British contribution to the development costs of the Polaris missile. It has been suggested that this might saddle us with a large and unknown financial commitment. I must, therefore, make clear what the position is. It is estimated that up to the end of 1962 about 2 billion dollars—£700 million—had been expended on the research and development of various marks of Polaris missiles. Those who think that we should make our own rockets might stop a moment to consider this immense cost.
This is the agreement we have reached. Should we decide to buy the Polaris missiles—for this is a permissive agreement—and we decided to buy the existing marks now in service, the question of any contribution to development charges will not arise since these have all been incurred by the American Government, before the date of the agreement. However, it is more than probable that we would want to buy the new mark of the missile, which is still under development. It depends on how well the development goes. Moreover, the process of development will not cease even with the new weapon. No doubt there will be a continuing development. It is, therefore, a point of greatest importance that we should have the continuing benefit of the latest research and development work so that our submarine fleet could be

971
re-equipped with the most up-to-date weapons.
If, as is the most likely, our initial purchase will be for the rocket system now approaching production, and which. I think, will probably be ready long before the submarines are ready and if we were to purchase any subsequent development, we should, as seems only reasonable, make a small contribution to these heavy initial costs and our contribution will be in this form. It would be related in no way to the actual money spent on research or development which, as I say, is nearly £700 million. It will be related to the final production price and a sum will be added of 5 per cent. to the price which will cover all possible claims to other new weapons that may be devised.
It would be the actual production price for the production line plus 5 per cent. [An HON. MEMBER: "'On which mark?"] If we buy the new marks. Imagine what this amounts to in these enormous costs. It is impossible to foretell what will be the final price of a new missile although, of course, we know the price of the one now in service. But, to illustrate the point, for every £1 million worth of rockets and associated equipment which we purchase, the additional charge we would bear would be £50,000.
Mr. Harold Wilson: When referring to the different marks of Polaris and talking about the long time before the equipped Polaris would be ready, would the right hon. Gentleman make quite clear to which he is referring? We think we are clear about his reference as between Al, A2 and A3.
The Prime Minister: We cannot be quite certain, but if we were to acquire Al or A2 we would bear the actual cost of production. If we were to buy a later mark we would pay 5 per cent, additional on the cost of the weapon, nothing to do with the production or development of the thing, but simply 5 per cent, extra. This, I think the House will agree, is a very fair and I would add a very generous arrangement.
Taking all in all although I cannot at this stage give very precise estimates I would say this. I do not believe that if we accept the need for a deterrent which will be truly independent when our supreme national interests are at
972
stake and at all times a great contribution to the Western Alliance I do not believe the charges which may fall upon the public revenue are greater than the nation ought to be asked to bear.
There is one other aspect of all this—and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) for allowing me to come to it in this order—which I must now set before the House. The Skybolt agreement was a purely bilateral agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom. Since that agreement was made three years have passed. Both the British Government and the present American Administration believe that now is the moment to make a forward movement towards international arrangements in this field which will allow the N.A.T.O. Alliance to carry at least some of the responsibility now lying so heavily upon the strongest ally, and heavily too upon this country.
This had been equally a matter of concern in President Eisenhower's time and we had many talks about it. When this point was made in the Bahamas, frankly, I could not argue against it, for it is the very point which I have been urging both in Britain and America for the last few years. It was in this spirit that President Eisenhower and I made our Declaration of Common Purpose in 1957. We said:
"it is not within the capacity of each nation acting alone to make itself fully secure. Only collective measures will suffice."
We added that Britain and the United States regarded their possession of nuclear weapons
"as a trust for the defence of the Free World."
In 1958, I spoke in America about the ideas of interdependence which flowed from the Declaration of Common Purpose. Finally, at Massachusetts in 1961, I made this my theme and used these words:
"Although the nuclear deterrent gives us security it is not yet so organised as to contribute fully to our unity."
My thought was, and is, that while Europe may have been content to place complete reliance upon the United States—and to a more limited extent Britain—for her defence in the early years, when some countries were shattered, such a position will not be tolerable for ever. This predominance cannot be made the

973
basis of a lasting partnership. I therefore said at Boston—and I quote these words for they are very relevant to what we have just done—that
"We must find a way of meeting the legitimate feelings of our European allies. Naturally, every extension of trusteeship, every increase in the concept of partnership, has its dangers. But the health of our whole N.A.T.O. Alliance depends on finding a way of building a partnership in the nuclear as well as in the conventional field."
I went on to say:
"This question is fundamental. Its organisation is an issue on which the unity of the Atlantic community may well stand or fall."
I therefore thought it right to discuss with President Kennedy how this new arrangement could be made the opportunity for achieving some advance.
There is the problem of France—at the moment particularly difficult to assess—not in the same historical partnership in the development of nuclear power and still a long way behind. There is the problem of Germany, precluded, indeed, by the treaty from the manufacture of nuclear weapons, and certainly determined to honour that treaty, but, naturally, with its modern growth and strength, not wishing to be wholly excluded from any share in the control of policy regarding their use.
Then there are other countries of Europe, some, like Italy or Turkey, which have accepted nuclear weapons on their territory, and others who have not been asked to accept any share in the defence system. All, naturally, are concerned in these great questions which may decide their future. I think it right to start examining in a practical way some method of working out a more united and a more modern allied policy in which the political and defence uses of nuclear strength could be evolved. It may be that some time will pass before a definite comprehensive plan can be worked on and made practicable. This was the opportunity to make a start.
There has been much discussion in this and other countries about what is called a "N.A.T.O. deterrent". All sorts of plans have been put up—many of them unworkable and many of them not yet accepted by any member Government. Nevertheless, these suggestions are not to be despised. I fully recognise the good faith of those who are trying to find a solution to this problem—the problem of
974
maintaining the ultimate deterrent and satisfying the national traditions of our countries, while at the same time working for a more united alliance.
I therefore believed that it was right that we should regard this Polaris fleet of ours, when it comes into being, as under normal conditions part of our contribution to the general Western scheme of defence. But I raised the point with the President that this force would take a long time, several years, before it would come into being. The Americans themselves have taken about five years on these machines. Could not something be done, therefore, to give an impetus to this force?
With the full agreement of my colleagues I proposed that we should now make a start by allocating some of the bomber force now stationed in Britain, already targeted for joint operations in co-operation with the American strategic bombers, to a jointly planned undertaking. Could we not allocate some of this force to the N.A.T.O. Alliance? I felt that this would make a start and would be a proof that we in our country were not following a narrow nationalism, but were prepared to work in loyalty with the alliance.
The President accepted this idea and the Americans will also contribute. I will go even further. At present our bomber force is organised in a single command, and must so remain—the historic Bomber Command. Its squadrons may, of course, from time to time be detached to any part of the world—to the CENTO or S.E.A.T.O. areas, or outside. But they are a single command for training and operations, and they have a conventional as well as a nuclear rôle.
We want to make the most effective contribution that we can to the new N.A.T.O. nuclear forces, while remaining in a position to safeguard our national interests and to fulfil our obligations outside N.A.T.O. The terms of such an agreement must be carefully worked out, but I do not think that it is impossible to settle this satisfactorily. Once it is settled, we should be ready to assign our V-bomber force for the defence of the Western Alliance.
The House has been very patient with me. I have covered the various developments and the part which Britain has

975
played from the start, and the problems which now lie before us. I would sum up by saying that my colleagues and I believe—and I hope that a greater part of the House will agree—that the arrangements reached are both sound and imaginative. We believe that they should receive the support of the House and the country. Of course, some will feel that we should now drop out, exhausted, from the race, either from moral or from physical pressure. There are others who assert that the Americans will, in the long run, let us down over Polaris, as it is said—in my view, falsely and cruelly—that they have deceived us over Skybolt. There are some who say that the interdependent aspect has been exaggerated. There are some—wrongly, as I have tried to show—who doubt the true character of our independent rights.
But it will be for the House and the country to judge, and I am not ashamed of the stand which we have taken on this agreement and in relation to these grave matters. Nor, looking back on the long history of this country, do I think that this policy is in any way inconsistent with the best and noblest traditions of our people.
5.4 p.m.
Mr. George Brown: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
"can have no confidence in a Government whose defence policy has collapsed and which, at Nassau, entered into an agreement which, by seeking to continue the illusion of an independent British nuclear deterrent', imposes further economic burdens upon the nation and makes more difficult the solution of Great Britain's defence problems".
I should like to start, perhaps unusually, with a word of sympathy for the Prime Minister. Inevitably some hard things will be said in due course about his handling of the nation's affairs, as we see them, not only on defence but on the Common Market and on our economic condition. But that does not preclude all of us, I am sure, from understanding the strain and the worry which are on his shoulders at this moment, and those who have been through the situation know what he must feel. We all of us understand it and sympathise with him.
976
Having said that, let me add that the Prime Minister's speech today left me feeling that to a large extent it was an historical survey. No doubt he believes it to be a faithful historical survey, although I shall raise some points on it as I go through it. In addition, it was an attempt to examine the philosophical basis of defence at this period of time, and in that I thought that he was hopelessly at sea.
I was very glad indeed that the Prime Minister rebuked as fiercely as he did those of his right hon. and hon. Friends who only a week or two ago were, to use his own words, so cruelly and falsely accusing the United States of having let us down. Let us be quite clear that he was addressing his hon. and right hon. Friends with those words, because nobody else did it.
The basic difficulty in all this discussion, and, indeed, in examining the country's defence policy, is that we have no settled foreign policy and absolutely no defence policy or strategy at all. The Government sometimes talk as though these two things are in separate compartments, but of course they are not. Until the Government know what their foreign policy is and how far they are tied in to an alliance conception and how far they want to act independently, it is impossible to get the defence policy right either.
All the past assumptions on which the Government over the last eleven years have based their defence have, in fact, collapsed. Today we are neither geared for independent national effort nor are we able to fulfil effectively our alliance commitments. All the various chosen weapon systems and vehicles have been switched and switched again over those years, and finally all of them have been dropped. Now there is a vacuum where there should be a policy. There is Chaos where there should be order in the Service Departments and in the Ministry of Defence. There is utter confusion and inefficiency over the provision of manpower, weapons and equipment for our forces. The, I imagine seriously intended, announcement the other day from the War Office that only bachelors need now apply to join the Army surely sums up the whole wretched position. No wonder our friends abroad are aghast at our performance; no wonder others openly snub and jeer at us.

977
To say these things is not to rejoice in them. I hate the position in which I believe the Conservative Government have got the country. The safety and security of our people and of our country are much too important for mere party considerations. But it is equally true that not to face the facts when they are there is dangerous and stupid. Actually to distort the facts, to try to fit them into either party advantage or Ministerial face-saving, is even worse. That is exactly what the Prime Minister and successive Ministers of Defence have been doing for years past. They have deceived themselves. They may have deceived the country—they have clearly deceived their own back benchers—'but the world outside has not been taken in, and that is the real issue which Members opposite should face.
In this debate there is so much to be discussed and it is so hard to compress what one has to say, but there is another defence debate to follow shortly, apart from tomorrow—we shall soon get to the ordinary defence season—and so I will limit myself today to looking as briefly as possible at three things. I will look first, as the Prime Minister did, at what seems to have happened; secondly, where we think the major mistakes occurred, and thirdly, what answers we think should be given to the vital questions that must govern policy.
With regard to the third, let me make something perfectly clear in order to forestall the usual chant from hon. Members opposite of "What would you do?" First, we are not responsible for the mess in which the nation's defence policy is at the present time. Indeed, we may claim, and I think fairly, judged by the record, to have offered advice over the years which, if taken, would have avoided this mess arising.
Secondly, we do not even now know whether we have the full story or whether we have been told all the facts. I say that for this reason. I am not, after these years of association with this aspect of our national affairs, without some close contact with it. I am not without some knowledge of what is going on. I believe, I think with reason and with informed support, that the situation which will be found by the next incoming Government, which will then have access to the advisers and access to the facts, will be found
978
to be as bad in every single respect as that which the 1940 Government found at the end of the Baldwin and Chamberlain era. Clearly, a set of detailed decisions by us will have to await that day. Priorities can only be determined when we see clearly the extent of the deficiencies both of policy and supply.
Over all these years, the major mistake has surely been an obstinate refusal—I thought continued by the Prime Minister today—to accept the consequences of the tremendous development and the tremendous change in the nature and balance of the nuclear weapon situation in the world. This situation, that is to say, the nature of nuclear weapons, the nature of their delivery systems and the balance between large blocs, has changed not only in degree in the last five years but in total conception of the consequences of it.
The requirements today for the credibility of a nuclear deterrent, the relative importance to it of conventional forces and weapons—and the Prime Minister tossed this aside almost as easily as he tossed the Commonwealth Secretary aside at an earlier point—the practicability of what small nations can today do, all these things have profoundly changed as a result of the development not so much of nuclear weapons as of the carriers required to deliver them.
Large parts of the Prime Minister's speech were devoted to nuclear weapons as though it was that matter which determined today one's approach to whether to have an independent deterrent or not. Of course it is not; it is the change in the delivery system which controls us today. This was not so true five years ago, and much less true ten years ago. That is why it is no criticism to say of any of us, or anyone else, that one's thoughts today are not what they were in, say, 1958. Mine are not. But it is not only some of us on this side of the House whose thoughts are not what they were in 1958. Some very influential and high-ranking figures in the defence world of this country do not think, speak or write today, or, I suggest, advise today. as they did in 1958. On the contrary, to cling stubbornly, as the Government are still doing, to ideas which seemed valid then is, in my submission, to be convicted of disastrous myopia. This I

979
believe to be the main cause of the total collapse of Government defence policy.
We should long ago have ceased to argue about, let alone continue feverishly trying to maintain, an independent British nuclear deterrent. The issue today is not whether we should have one or should not have one. After the collapse of Blue Streak—let me say that we have no responsibility for that—and as new delivery systems arrived on the scene, each one involving still greater demands upon resources even than those which the Government found insupportable in the case of Blue Streak, the whole question of an independent British deterrent became an illusion and a trap for us.
We could, of course, pretend, and the Government chose to pretend and are still pretending, but this required some other nation to lend itself to the pretext and to let us have what we could not ourselves provide. But no one, except those determined not to see, could be deceived by that. But, egged on by political forces on their own side, the Government lacked the will to stand up to them. This is exactly the illusion, the pretence, that the Government have chosen to take refuge in.
Let me make the position clear so that when we are answered tomorrow it will not be as the result of a slick distortion of the argument. Let the argument be frankly faced on its merits—and despite the grin on the face of the Prime Minister the argument not only has merits but some very respectable and sincere backers outside the House. Of course, we have the V-bomber force and, with it, its weapons. This is no mean force, and no one is suggesting, responsibly, that that force should be thrown away. But sooner, and much sooner than the Prime Minister tried to suggest with his reference to some time in the future, the V-bombers will inevitably be obsolete. By obsolete, I mean that they will be too highly vulnerable to the likely interception means that will then be available. The Prime Minister is entitled to say to me that he knows more than I do. I would be a little more impressed by that if the Government had been a little more often right in their arguments in the past. I know of no responsible military authority whose advice I would willingly listen to who believes that we have more than
980
two or three years at the most in which to regard the present V-bomber force as in fact an invulnerable and credible means of delivery of the nuclear deterrent.
Having said that we have them for that time, what is the position? Instead of the Government facing what is bound to happen to that force, we have been spending vast sums of money at the cost, as other Secretaries of State know, and none better than the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty, of neglecting other vital defence needs, at the cost of totally distorting the defence pattern, and at the cost of maintaining an out-of-date service set up in an attempt, doomed from the start to failure, to try to provide a succession for the V-bombers.
This is why we had the ill-fated Skybolt Agreement. It is called a Skybolt Agreement. We are now told how much the Americans agreed. It appears from some things which were said at the time that it was not much of an agreement. I have before me—it is the only thing I could get in time, but I have no reason to think that it is inaccurate—the official statement issued in America by the American Information Service.
Mr. Lincoln White said this on 13th April, 1960, which was certainly never challenged then by our Government:
"It is our understanding that the need by the United Kingdom is not immediately urgent and that the British Government is not' at this time in a position to state with certainty what delivery system would be most suitable from their standpoint."
This is 1960 we are talking about. The quotation continues:
"However, we have informed the British Government that the United States Government would be prepared to sell Skybolt to the United Kingdom when it has been developed and if the United Kingdom Government would wish to procure it."
There is not much of an agreement in that. No wonder the Prime Minister rebuked his right hon. and hon. Friends for saying that the Americans had let us down. They had not been tied to very much, and they had not been asked for very much. In 1960 it was not even urgent, and we did not know what we wanted. It was a very vague agreement.
Let me say this, too, because the Government are still not coming clean on this. It was always highly speculative. It grew more and more speculative. I

981
trust that we are to hear the ex-Minister of Defence during this debate. He has some speeches on the record to stand up to. There never was any real secret about the speculative nature or the uncertain future of this weapon.
There was never any mystery why I knew this and why it turned out in retrospect that my advice and my prediction were right. Only the Ministry of Defence and the Minister's public relation officers, who must be the most active public relation officers in the whole of Whitehall, know why throughout that time they were at such pains to deny it all. I was given the same information, I think, as Ministers and their advisers were given. But whereas I listened and tried to understand and draw the appropriate conclusions, Ministers and their advisers chose to ignore them and, instead, to act as though they were blind, as though they were deaf, and as though they were incapable of mental effort. In the House Ministers in their denials came very near to actual suppression and distortion of facts they must have known to be true.
Mr. Harold Watkinson: Would the right hon. Gentleman be kind enough to say where he got his facts from? He has said that he got his facts from reliable sources. Perhaps I may say one thing now, which I intend to say later if I am fortunate enough to catch the eye of the Chair. I do not want to damage Anglo-American relations any more than the right hon. Gentleman does. However, I want to tell him now quite straight that the last time I met the American Defence Secretary he was only anxious to know from me how many Skybolts we wanted, which does not sound as if there were any feeling in his mind at that time that the weapon was not going into use.
Mr. Brown: I will answer the question and then I will read a passage from a letter which has appeared in the Press, to which I hope the ex-Mindster will also direct his attention. I am asked where I got my facts from. As the Minister knows full well—because I never paid a visit nor saw anybody without first informing him and virtually seeking his authority—I got them from American Service Departments and from American military installations. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well that I sometimes saw them when he was
982
present. The present Minister of Defence knows that the last time I saw the American Defence Secretary, which was before the right hon. Gentleman himself saw him for the first time, I returned to this country and, as I knew he was going, I rang him and asked him whether he would like me to see him and tell him what I had been told. Only the right hon. Gentleman knows why that meeting never took place. There can be no accusation that anything I did or knew was not available or known to Ministers.
Now let me come to the ex-Minister's statement. This has always turned until now on an argument between him and me as to who had been told what. The implication has always been that the Defence Secretaries in America somehow cheated and told me things different from what they told the Minister. That can be the only implication. On 18th January, I am glad to say, a letter appeared in the Daily Telegraph which I had long awaited. It was a letter from Air Chief Marshal Sir George Mills. Sir George Mills is a very distinguished Service officer, a very distinguished airman, who has only recently returned from being the chairman—I think that was his designation—of the British Defence Mission in Washington and in the Pentagon. Sir George Mills was there through all the time when I was offering the advice I believed to be true and when Ministers were denying it. Perhaps the House will bear with me while I put it on the record. I start halfway down the letter, but nothing that goes before affects this point. Sir George says this:
"Now for the American side. The words 'let down' imply that a hard and fast agreement has been broken. This is not the case.
We have been warned constantly from the beginning that continuation of the project was not 100 per cent, certain "—
"from the beginning", let me emphasise—
"and that the Americans would have to scrap it if it did not meet their requirements over date or cost."
They—that is the official side, not us—had been told that constantly from the beginning. I trust Ministers will listen to this. It will not do the Prime Minister any harm to listen here, since he clearly does not listen outside.
"In fact I cannot recall any conversation between senior American and British people

983
when Skybolt was discussed and this straightforward warning was not given. We must not blame the Americans if we British were inclined to interpret these warnings with an element of wishful thinking and hope that all would go well in the end. The plain fact is that the Americans gave us ample warning that it might not."
It was in the face of those ample warnings—now confirmed by one of their own official Service chiefs—that the Government preferred to go on pretending that this weapon was going to come; and then the Government supporters got angry with the Americans when it did not come.
I turn to another important facet of this matter. Had we got the weapon it would not have been independent. How can something for which one totally relies on some one else to provide be prescribed as independent, especially when it is never final? No modern rocket ever can be. They go on developing. They go on getting more and more sophisticated and one must stay with the improvements all the time or, sooner or later, be landed with an out-dated and useless piece of ironmongery.
As the Prime Minister indicated, we could never have stayed with the developments. We should, therefore, have been increasing our dependence on the Americans at every stage if the thing was to be kept up to date. Although the Prime Minister did not seem to have this in mind, precisely the same objections apply to the Polaris deal. Whatever there was to be said for this bird, this missile or, as it is better known, this weapons system three years ago is now, in my view, irrelevant. The existing bird, the A.l—and even the A.2—will be wholly out of date, I suggest, five years from now. I do not think that anyone will dispute that.
Consider the A.3. The Prime Minister spoke about it today and used the words, "If all goes well." It would be so refreshing if only someone would come to the House and talk about defence problems with a clear recognition of the fact that nothing ever does "all go well" in this highly complicated era of rocketry, guidance systems, computers and the rest. The A.3—the bird about which the Prime Minister spoke—is not just an adaptation of something which now exists. It is not a question of minor changes. The projected
984
A.3 Polaris is, in the words of its manufacturers—who must me presumed to know—80 per cent, a new bird. Heaven knows what will be involved before it ever arrives, whether it will ever arrive or what it will have cost by the time it does arrive. It is as speculative at this stage and as uncertain as Skybolt ever was, and the Government are repeating exactly the same blindness over this as they did over Skybolt.
I thought that the Prime Minister seemed to accept, by implication, that we shall not have any submarines to put even the existing ones in before they are out of date. I recall that the other day an hon. Member opposite suggested that we could get over the difficulty by renting a submarine. You can rent a telly, you can rent a car; but, good God, you cannot rent a nuclear independent deterrent. We shall not have submarines in which to put them until those missiles, by virtue of their range and other equipment, are out of date. Remember, in any case, that everything to do with Polaris would turn on the communications and command systems. I should like the Minister of Defence to tell us something about this, for I recall that he has had a good deal of experience in this direction.
Regarding the communications and command systems, without having them wholly in our hands independence would be an absolute farce. Are we assuming, do we know, or have we been told, that the Americans are really willing to turn them over to us? I confess that I would be surprised to learn that they have. In any case, we are entitled to know, because this is absolutely at the heart of any assessment of this important matter.
Even the answer to the submarines problem may have to be found before we can get a squadron into service. In the meantime, as before, we will again be spending vast sums—and resources like science and productive capacity count more than money here—starving other defence needs and be failing to fulfil our essential commitments, as we have been doing all along. I will leave to other hon. Members a detailed examination of the contradictions and, I think, previous flaws in Mandsiterial statements, especially about costs. What the Prime Minister said about costs today did not seem to match up with what has been said on the other side of the Atlantic. I pray for the day when, even once, the Prime Minister

985
could seem to come back from having made an agreement able to show us that he knows what he has agreed to and that the other chap seems to know the same thing at the same time.
What are the inescapable conclusions? We shall have no effective nuclear deterrent at all in the independent British sense after about 1964–65. The Prime Minister fluffed this one today. He talked about "a gap" and, from the gap, talked about reduced efficiency. What he means by "the gap" is that there will be a period of years starting about 1965 and continuing—as I shall try to show—until about 1972, when we shall not have just reduced efficiency but we shall not have an independent British nuclear deterrent. That is what the gap means. The Prime Minister said, in effect, "If the Opposition had their way the gap would go on for ever". But if one has a gap it means that for about seven years there will be no independent deterrent, and in this fast moving age it may be for ever because the whole situation will have changed after that.
Mr. Victor Goodhew rose—
Mr. Brown: I normally give way. I hope the hon. Member will forgive me. There are two two days for the debate. The Prime Minister, who I am attacking, is well able to look after himself and he is to speak again. A number of hon. Members wish to speak and if I allow interruptions in my speech it will only make it longer.
Mr. Goodhew rose—
Hon. Members: Give way.
Mr. Brown: I hope the hon. Member will forgive me if I do not give way.
Mr. Goodhew: The right hon. Member is making an important point about whether or not we will have an independent nuclear deterrent. He has not made one point clear throughout his speech, namely, whether in fact he desires to have such a deterrent, and I should be grateful if he would say where his party stands in this matter.
Mr. Brown: I answered that. Had the hon. Member been listening he would have known that I dealt with defence problems when I spoke earlier and, regarding our existing form of deterrent,
986
said quite firmly that I was for keeping that. I am now discussing—and had the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) been listening he would know that I have been on this topic for some time—what I regard as the totally misguided and doomed to failure activities of the Government in trying to find a successor to it.
I think that this gap, which to me seems inevitable and which the Prime Minister confirmed, will last about seven years. The right hon. Gentleman says, "Let us get back into the business at the end of it". May I invite the House to look at what he is proposing? On his own proposals, if all went well, we should be back after this long gap on a tremendously reduced scale from the V-bomber force. The Prime Minister looks surprised. Either we have been given some very misleading figures about the present size of the V-bomber force and the bombs which it has available, or he has not done the sums about four or five submarines. I had taken the figure as six. I had assumed a squadron of six, but the Prime Minister is talking about four or five. Even if it were six nuclear submarines carrying 16 missiles, which makes 96 missiles, each missile capable of carrying only half a megaton warhead, is the Minister of Defence, no matter what his right hon. Friend is willing to do, ready to go on record and say that that goes anywhere near equalling our present nuclear deterrent force? Is the Secretary of State for Air willing to accept that?
If it turns out that we could get that, we would be back on such a reduced scale compared with the present one that it does not make any sense at all. Hon. Members should remember what seven years in this fast-moving field means. It means that the whole nature of the deterrent will have changed and the whole nature of delivery systems. The Nassau Agreement, I submit to the House, does not make any more sense than did the previous decisions.
There is, too, the additional complication of integrating this optimistically described independent force with the so-called multilateral deterrent of N.A.T.O. I will not develop that point because of the time, but I want to record my deep and sincere doubts, not so much on whether it can be done, although I have doubts on this, as I gather has the

987
Prime Minister, but about the wisdom of setting up such a force at all. If it arrived it would wholly change the outlook of N.A.T.O., militarily and policy-wise. It would raise grave political problems, all of which the Prime Minister has dodged. It would seem to be, inevitably, absolutely chaotic in command, and, of course, it must make nonsense of the independent deterrent claim. It seems to me to be a very doubtful idea. I greatly suspect the extent of any real examination that has yet been given by any Minister of Defence here or in America to this proposition.
A large part of the case for an independent deterrent has always turned on the claim—and the Prime Minister made it again today—that it would add to our political influence and our political voice. There was a time when I took that view myself, but it cannot be claimed now. We have the independent deterrent now. That is the Prime Minister's case. Who would say that we had much influence on events in recent years? [HON. MEMBERS:
"Suez."] Oh, much more recent than that. [HON. MEMBERS:
"Brussels."] Good heavens, we do not know nowadays even that they have happened until some bureaucrat comes out to an ante-room and tells us so that our Ministers can go home again. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, indeed. If the Secretary of State for War will contain himself, I will decide what is up to me.
I want to make this very plain to Ministers. It is because they will not face the facts that are happening that they fail to draw the right conclusions. The possession by us of an independent nuclear deterrent today has not given us influence or strength in the world. But let hon. Members consider this. If we were fulfilling our N.A.T.O. conventional commitment, if our forces had modern arms and equipment, if we had the ships and the 'planes with which to transport and service our land forces, if we were able to meet, perhaps in a combined Service fashion, some of the other overseas commitments which, we are not in a position to meet today, then we might very well develop the influence over events that today we do not possess. And may I point out that Germany has this kind of influence with conventional forces
988
whereas we have not with an independent nuclear deterrent? That is worth thinking about.
To do this requires a deep examination of some issues which I suggest it is time the Government got down to examining. We must examine our national commitments to determine the priorities and to determine which of our commitments have to be retained and fulfilled. In this connection, it is time that we made a firm decision about our attachment to the Atlantic Alliance. Let there be no more half-references to the possibility of further withdrawals. The necessary fulfilment of our role in it is clearly our priority No. 1.
Secondly, we need an examination, which clearly we have not had, of the size and nature of the forces required to fulfil these commitments and priorities when we have established them. We need a deep inquiry, which rumour says is beginning to take place, into the modern organisation of these forces, into what the Services should look like, into how many separate Services we need, and into the realm of the Ministry of Defence. Until these and related questions are tackled—and for eleven years they have been dodged by every successive Minister of Defence, including the Prime Minister—we shall go on wasting time and wasting money, as the Government have done through all these dreadful eleven years, and the chaos and the confusion and, at the bottom, the dreadful absence of any sensible provision for Britain's safety will remain.
It is my submission that this Prime Minister and this Government have fully earned not only our censure but the censure of the nation. They should recall Leo Amery's much quoted Cromwellian advice to Mr. Chamberlain and immediately go.
5.50 p.m.
Mr. Harold Watkinson: It is always rather difficult for a former Minister to address this House on his own subject, and I do not think I should have done so if I had not felt sincerely that the danger of discussing the problem—and we are discussing a nuclear problem, although the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) strayed a lot wider than that—is the amount of misunderstanding, arising almost to mythology, which can

989
damage the standing of the deterrent, and the Western deterrent as a whole, on which peace rests.
Therefore, I felt that I must try as best I could to make a short and quite factual intervention. The facts are not damaging to the Government, but they largely destroy the right hon. Gentleman's argument, except those parts which I have heard many times before. The right hon. Gentleman and I have had many battles in this House. I should like to say one thing to him quite sincerely. I still think he is wrestling with his conscience. I still think he really supports a British nuclear deterrent but he cannot say so.
There is one other point which I must make and it is entirely factual. I do not intend to stray from the facts as I see them. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that if he had access to the Ministry of Defence he would find there a record of disagreement and complete disorder between the Government's advisers and the Government. One does not quote one's advisers, but perhaps now that I stand slightly apart, it is only fair to those who served me so well for nearly three years to say that there was never any major disagreement of policy between myself, the Government and the Chiefs of Staff.
I want to turn to the one-tenth of defence effort which is represented by our contribution to the nuclear deterrent. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, one can only examine this against the Attlee decision, the right decision, to give us a nuclear armoury. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman—and my right hon. Friend stressed it, too—that it is not a problem of making nuclear warheads. It is a problem of means of delivery. Our contribution should be judged by this yardstick: does it, in the eyes of a possible aggressor, make a valid contribution to Western deterrent strength? I do not believe anyone in this House would say that those brave young men of Bomber Command—I think the right hon. Gentleman accepts this—do not today make a valid contribution to Western deterrent strength. I think it is only fair that this should be said. We should seek to do this not as odd man out, but as a worth-while ally. By reason of geography and politics we make such a contribution now.
990
The argument is: can we continue to make it? Can we do this at a reasonable cost? To do this, I think the Minister of Defence has to try to get all the options he can. Any research and development of any system of delivery will cost at least £100 million. That is initial research and development. The Americans, with their great resources, can afford a number of such projects and scrap those which do not suit their evolving policies. We cannot. Therefore, the very generous offer which the United States Air Force made to British Bomber Command in the very early days of Skybolt was clearly an offer which we should not and could not have rejected.
What they said was, "We are going in for this weapon. We know it has difficulties. We know it is a highly technical problem but we think we can solve it. We want you to come in with us on very generous terms, and that is that you do not pay for this weapon unless it is finally successful". As to knowing about the progress, of course, we had technicians integrated in the team all the way through. As to letters from very distinguished former servants of the Government who served in Washington, I would only say that the one that the right hon. Gentleman quoted was not a party to a very great deal of the negotiations.
However, we could not refuse this offer. Nor could we refuse the other very generous offer which was made—and which I should like to put on record—that we should have a naval mission in the United States Navy and that they should be able to understand the whole pattern and development of Polaris. This the Americans freely offered to us, and we were clearly right to accept it.
I should like to put something else on record. I very much enjoyed my collaboration with the United States Secretary of Defence. We worked well together and I have no criticisms to make of him or of what he did. It is only fair to say that up to 13th July his reports to me and the many discussions we had were that the development was going satisfactorily. His last request to me on this weapon system was to know how many missiles we wanted. I put that on the record as some answer to the right hon. Gentleman who has said time and time again in this House that

991
his information in Washington was much better than mine. It may or may not have been.
I go further and say that I do not think the United States were right to cancel this missile. Only time will show, but I still believe in what I call the "mixed bag of clubs". If we are going to keep the peace, we must try to present to a prospective enemy every possible challenge we can. One of the things that right hon. Gentlemen opposite will not accept is that we are not trying to wage a war with nuclear weapons. We are trying to stop a war starting, for the sake of our country and the peace of the world, and that is a very different operation.
I ought to say, too—because I feel very strongly about this—that I would not have touched with a barge-pole the final offer made to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to go on with Sky-bolt on our own. I am sure he was right to reject it. After what the President of the United States and Mr. McNamara had said, it would have been crazy for us to go on with it. I am sure that it was completely right to reject it.
Let us look at the positive side. These were options freely and generously given. I should like to pay my tribute to the generosity of successive American Governments. They cost us nothing, and they allowed us to have other options of our own. We were enabled to perfect Blue Steel at a very high cost indeed. That weapon, plus the other thing we were able to perfect, which I cannot discuss in this House—for one of the alarming things when one stops being Minister of Defence is the recollection of the number of pieces of paper which were put in front of one, and one has to sign saying that one has forgotten this and that; the right hon. Gentleman knows what I mean—a thing called electronic counter-measures, which is all I can say about it, at great expense have given us a Bomber Command that is an absolutely valid contribution to the deterrent for another four or five years. Of that I am quite certain.
It also allowed us to do another thing at great expense, and no doubt my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence will have more to say about this tomorrow.
992
I should, however, like to mention it. It is a perfectly valid part of the argument which the right hon. Member for Belper omitted entirely. It enabled us to begin to develop an entirely new weapon system called the TSR2. The first of these aircraft, I understand, is likely to fly this year. It is three years ahead of anything the Americans are doing. They have now started to copy it. It is a pity they did not take it from us on a basis of interdependence. They will be three years behind us. This weapon system is almost impossible to intercept in normal conditions, and it provides both a tactical and a strategic nuclear capacity.
Those three options would have been impossible for us on expense grounds, had we not rested on the generosity of the Americans in letting us in on Sky-bolt and Polaris at that time practically on a no-cost basis. I think I should say quite fairly, as I have also said that if, as I fear may be true, the Americans are wrong to have got out of the air-lauched missile business, they will welcome the coming of the TSR 2 as a quite unique contribution to the Western deterrent. Let us not forget that this is another possible British contribution to the mixed bag of clubs concept, a combination of airborne and seaborne deterrent.
I do not wish to detain the House. I sum up the facts as I see them in this way. Through the V-bombers, with Blue Steel, E.C.M. and certain other things, we have a valid contribution, for four or five years, against the worst which one can imagine a possible aggressor could bring against them. Then we have the TSR 2, which, if it succeeds, will be something we really contribute to the Alliance because, as I have said, the Americans have, I believe, started it now but they are nearly three years behind us.
I think that a limited Polaris commitment is right. To make one comment, not criticism, I hope that we shall not plunge too deeply into this. I think that the limited commitment is right. It meets our concept of the mixed bag of clubs, because it will certainly be overlapped by the TSR 2 system as well.
In my view, the facts clearly underwrite what the Prime Minister said. I have stuck only to the facts. I stand,

993
perhaps, a little apart from the struggle of politics for the moment. I enjoyed my battles with the right hon. Gentleman very much. We always tried to be frank with one another, and I think that he will say that what I have tried to put to the House is, at least, what I believe.
There are not many in the House who have lived with the nuclear facts over the years. There are just a few on the Government benches, and none on the other side—that is nobody's fault—who have had a full knowledge of what is meant by nuclear warfare and who have had to sign away their knowledge, and rightly so. Those who have lived with that knowledge for some years, knowing what would happen if a certain decision had to be taken, knowing what would happen if the American President spoke certain words over a certain telephone, are not in the slightest doubt that no expense, no stratagem, no shifts of policy, if one likes, no change of weapons systems, is too high a price to pay to maintain the precarious balance on which the whole fate of the world rests.
In this island, we make a unique contribution to maintaining that balance by reason of geography, by reason of our present and future contribution, the facts of which, as I saw them, I have tried to set forth, and also for the reason that one does, I believe, need a contribution on both sides of the Atlantic to avoid the possibility of the nuclear blackmail which could be played if America remained the only nuclear Power. I am surprised that this is not something which the whole House is willing to support. I am equally surprised that the Opposition's Amendment, which goes far beyond criticisms of nuclear weapons, should contain, in effect, a slur on British Forces which, with their success in Regular recruiting, their successful policing of the world, and the dedicated work of the men of Bomber Command, are doing a job which deserves the support of the House and the country and should get it.
6.3 p.m.
Mr. J. Grimond: The speech of the ex-Minister of Defence, the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. W. Watkinson), was rather thinner on facts and, perhaps, more polemical than he led us to suppose it would be. There are two attitudes which
994
came out of his speech against which I must make some protest.
One is the continual talk of a British independent nuclear deterrent, with, in every other sentence, the statement that it is, in fact, entirely dependent on the Americans. The right hon. Gentleman praised the Americans again and again for their generosity. He said that he thought that Skybolt was a much better weapon than Polaris, yet he is not prepared that this country should pay for Skybolt, so he would accept Polaris because it is given to us by the Americans. That may be right, but it really makes nonsense of all the talk about a totally independent British nuclear deterrent.
Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman should quote my words correctly. I said that the bargain was that we did not pay for Skybolt unless it was a perfected weapon, in which case we certainly would pay for it, and pay the proper cost.
Mr. Grimond: That is not the point I am making. The Americans offered that we could go on with Skybolt and pay for it ourselves. The right hon. Gentleman opposes that.
The other point which occurs again and again in speeches from the other side of the House, against which I, as a Liberal, must protest, is the argument that because many years ago a Socialist Prime Minister once let off an atomic bomb we must go on having atomic bombs for all time whether they are any use or not. This seems to be Conservatism gone mad. I do not accept this historical argument in favour of weapons unless it can be shown that the weapons are some good.
The House of Commons is absolutely right, before it comes to the Bahamas agreement at all, to call the Government to account for the waste and muddle which have characterised our defence policy almost ever since they came into office. We have yet to have an account of the total wastage on the weapons which, have been thrown on the scrap heap but which were, at one time or another, to be our independent nuclear deterrent. We have yet to have a full account of how far we are behindhand in equipping our conventional forces with adequate weapons.
How was it that the end of Skybolt was such a shock? I still believe that it is a most extraordinary story. Of

995
course, anything which this Government touch comes to pieces in their hands. The myth of Tory skill in management has now turned into a joke. But let us consider what we have been told today. The Prime Minister, at least, had the decency to say that, for over a year, there had been doubts about the future of Skybolt. Yet the right hon. Member for Woking, the ex-Minister for Defence, says that he was constantly, right up to the end, told that this weapon was certain to come into service. I wonder whether the Government read the accounts of proceedings before Congressional Committees. We have been told that they were never in disagreement with their experts. What did their experts tell them? If their experts were totally wrong, what steps are being taken to replace those experts? Anyone who read the ordinary reports and devoted any study to these matters was well aware that Skybolt was by no means a certainty for a very long time.
The Prime Minister tells us that Polaris is a much better weapon. If it is a much better weapon, why is it only the failure of Skybolt which makes us go in for it? If it is so much a better weapon, why did we not suggest to the Americans that perhaps we ought to change over earlier?
What consultation was there with our allies before the Bahamas agreement? I am told that there was none. The Prime Minister tells us that it is extremely important to build up a system of consultation in N.A.T.O. I am told that there was no consultation whatever, as far as he was concerned, when he went to Nassau. It is not only General de Gaulle who is annoyed about it. This diplomatic incompetence may, indeed, have had profound effects upon our Common Market negotiations; it may well have been the final straw which determined General de Gaulle that he would blackball us in the negotiations. But it is not only General de Gaulle who resents it. It is resented, I am told, by our other allies. It is not a very good start if our intention is that we should have better consultation within N.A.T.O.
The very details of the agreement appear to be in dispute. Even now, after the Prime Minister has spoken, it is not
996
at all clear exactly what they are. It is true to say that, by the time the submarines are ready, the present Polaris missiles will be out of date. It is not much of a benefit to this country to be told that we shall not have to pay anything extra for missiles which, in the event, we shall never want. The missiles we shall want will be the new ones, and we are to pay 5 per cent. of the final cost of these missiles, that final cost including the cost of development. Yet we have been given no idea of what it is likely to be.
In his speech, the Prime Minister seemed to me to reiterate exactly the attitude which many people in this country see all too clearly in General de Gaulle and find so deplorable. He said that he approved the statement that a sovereign State today must possess nuclear weapons, and he said that it was perfectly clear that we had to maintain our independent deterrent. So long as we take that attitude we cannot complain about other countries taking the same attitude. I believe that it is a highly dangerous attitude and does a great deal of damage.
The kernel of the Bahamas agreement is that the Americans are to supply a missile for a British strategic nuclear warhead, which, if all goes well—the chances of it going well are not very good, judging by past experience—will be ready by 1968 or later. For this purpose, we are to spend £300 million in building four or five submarines. The question which Parliament has to answer is whether this is a necessary or useful deployment of our defence resources. To my mind, the answer should be an unequivocal "No".
The first aim of our defence policy must be the safety of our people and the defence of our interests. The second must be the policing of parts of the world where we have special interests. Surely it is agreed that the first aim can be achieved only in concert with our allies. Our relationship with our allies in N.A.T.O., for instance, is not the same as it was in old-fashioned alliances, and cannot be so. The forces of N.A.T.O., in particular, are integrated and the defence of the free world demands closer and not looser arrangements between allies in defence and foreign policy.
Therefore, the right defence policy for the West is one which allows the Alliance

997
as a whole to meet aggression with the weapons appropriate to the threat. A policy which is capable of meeting conventional attack only with strategic nuclear weapons is neither credible nor desirable. If we are to have a sensible alliance, it must be able to meet a conventional threat with conventional weapons. We must not at once raise the stakes and begin threatening nuclear warfare. Until we achieve disarmament, we must be able to match conventional weapons with conventional weapons.
It is not on the nuclear side of the Alliance that we are weak. There is no sign that the Alliance as a whole is unduly weak in nuclear weapons. But there is every sign that it is weak in conventional weapons. It has been said—it was said again this afternoon—that the existence of the British strategic nuclear deterrent, if it exists, adds something significant to the Alliance. This is just not so. It may be a perfectly good weapon. But that is not the question. The question is: does it add anything significant to the West's nuclear deterrent. The Americans are building forty Polaris submarines. The British are about to try to build four or five. The Americans also have a whole range of other nuclear weapons. Do hon. Members who support the Government's policy really think that the Russians reason in this way, that they say, "We would risk a war with the West—we would risk it becoming a nuclear war—if we had only the Americans to deal with, but if in addition to the Americans there are four or five British submarines, of course, we would not dream of risking war"? Do they really think that the addition of four or five British Polaris submarines to the general deterrents of the West is significant in Russian minds?
Captain Walter Elliot: Would the right hon. Gentleman distinguish between a worth-while contribution to the Western deterrent and the independent British nuclear deterrent?
Mr. Grimond: I do not know what the hon. and gallant Gentleman means. I am talking about an independent British deterrent. The Government's argument is that it adds something significant to the general deterrents of the West, and I say that that is nonsense.
998
The Prime Minister says that we must contribute something to the Alliance. Of course we must, but what is the good of contributing something which our allies do not want? The plain fact is that there is absolutely no demand in the Alliance that Britain should keep strategic nuclear weapons. American strategic backing is enough for the Alliance.
The next argument for these weapons is that as long as we have them the British will be fully consulted in any crisis. This has been constantly put forward, I admit from both sides of the House. That argument surely cannot be used in view of what happened at Cuba. Certainly consultation is of the greatest importance, but if the Prime Minister implies that the British bomb, or the British V-bomber force, or the Polaris submarine will solve the question of consultation, I simply cannot believe that he understands what it is all about.
Our allies are not interested in our power; they are interested in consultation about the power of the Americans and the use by the Alliance of nuclear weapons. The idea that we can force our way into the conference room by brandishing some nuclear weapon has proved to be untrue. It did not get us in over Cuba. It has not prevented Germany or France from being consulted, and they have even fewer, if any, nuclear bombs.
Another argument for this policy is that if the Americans withdraw from Europe and refuse to involve themselves and use their nuclear weapons in some occurrence in which we find our interests vitally affected, we might be left naked. To begin with, it must be said again that the Americans have given the clearest undertaking that they do not intend to withdraw from Europe, and the Government have constantly said that they accept that undertaking. Therefore, this is not an argument which can lie in the Government's mouth because they have constantly said that they reject the view that the Americans would withdraw from their undertaking. I suppose the argument is directed to the totally unlikely event of the Alliance virtually breaking up.
I suggest that if the Alliance is breaking up, if we are in a desperate situation

999
or are in disarray in the West, this will not be helped by the possession by the British of four or five nuclear submarines. That would not meet the situation at all. Precedent for this points clean against the Government's argument because at the time of Suez there was a divergence, and the Tory Government and the American Administration took different views. There was a time when the Russians threatened nuclear intervention. But even the Tory Government had the good sense at that time not to begin rattling their own nuclear weapons. There was no suggestion, and quite rightly, that at that moment our nuclear strategic weapons would have been of much use.
The Prime Minister talked about nuclear blackmail. What does this mean? Who is to blackmail whom? If the Russians blackmail us and we are not supported by allies, the position would be extremely serious and I doubt whether Blue Steel or four or five Polaris submarines would be the answer. Perhaps the Americans would blackmail us. If so, we should be told because this throws a very curious light on the Government's views of the Alliance. I challenge the Government to give us an example of the situation which they have in mind in which it is essential for this country to keep its own strategic nuclear weapons. Let them tell the House the sort of situation which they envisage.
It is inconceviable that we shall go into a nuclear war alone. It may be said that it is true, but that Europe may want some say in nuclear weapons. Let us be clear about this: the possession by the British of four or five Polaris submarines will make it not easier but more difficult to find a suitable solution in N.A.T.O. or to satisfy any desires on the part of Europe to have a say about nuclear weapons. It may be that N.A.T.O. should not require its own strategic nuclear deterrent if it pursues sensible policies, but there are some circumstances which make it at least arguable that it should have it.
One of these circumstances is that if Britain and France persist in maintaining their own weapons there may well grow up a demand from Germany for nuclear weapons which would be irresistible. I do not think that any hon. Member views that with great enthusiasm.
1000
The least bad way to satisfy the Germans might be to give N.A.T.O. control of some nuclear weapons. This should be done not by creating another covey of these weapons but by putting some part of the existing United States deterrent under N.A.T.O. This is what the President offered to do in 1961, and if we want to follow that line that is the offer to take up. The question of how these weapons are to be controlled in N.A.T.O. is of great difficulty, but that is something which those who want them will, no doubt, work out.
Not only is this agreement, so far as it perpetuates a British nuclear strategic capability, unnecessary and misdirected but it will have some positively harmful effects. First, it is symptomatic of a wrong appraisal of Britain's role in the world and encourages this country in a wholly wrong attitude to its role. Our role is not to attempt, for reasons of out-of-date grandeur, to be an independent Power on our own but to play our fullest part within the wider and new groupings.
Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: Within what?
Mr. Grimond: Within wider and new groupings.
It also prevents Britain from using whatever influence she might have against the spread of nuclear weapons. Again I hope that there is no one in this House of Commons who views with complete equanimity the spread of these weapons to country after country. But how are we to argue against it if we insist on having them ourselves?
Finally, it is a waste of our resources. We are still not clear what it is going to cost. The Prime Minister was extremely cagey. He more or less conceded that it would cost more. My goodness, he is right. The present estimate is £300 million. This, I understand, is for Polaris itself—for the submarines; but on top of that I suppose we shall have the usual charge in defence budgets for the weapons, for the warheads. At the same time, I think I am right in saying that of the defence budget of £1,700 million some 13 per cent. is devoted to the so-called nuclear deterrent. Hon. Members opposite may say that this is a small amount, but our conventional forces could well use it, and if this Polaris

1001
agreement means there is going to be any further diversion from conventional to nuclear weapons I think it is a wholly retrograde step in our defence policy. There have been suggestions that before we get Polaris we are going to spend more money on Blue Steel. That suggestion has not been made this afternoon, but I think we ought to have it clearly from the Government that they are not going to waste any more money on that.
I am very glad to see that the Minister of Defence is here because he, when not in office, had very strong views on how we should spend our money. Perhaps J need not remind him closely of his speech of 23rd January, 1958. He said we could not spend vast sums on nuclear weapons and also on keeping up the Welfare State. He said that
"for twelve years we have been attempting to do more than our resources could manage … First, we have sought to be a nuclear Power, matching missile with missile and anti-missile with anti-missile … At the same time, we have sought to maintain a Welfare State …
He went on later to say that
"it may be that in the West in future no one really will be independent in nuclear power."
Finally, he 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…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd January, 1958; Vol. 580, c. 1295–7.]
Since he has become a member of the Government, spending both on arms and on the Welfare State has increased. There has been no reduction; it has increased, and I believe that it is the main cause of loss of confidence in the Government that Ministers constantly say out of office the opposite of what they say when they are in office. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us in this debate what he thinks of that speech which he made, which I thought a very good speech, and whether it is the Welfare State which is to be given up to enable us to maintain the independent nuclear deterrent.
He also apparently takes the view that those who want to get rid of our nuclear deterrent should support conscription, the implication being that the nuclear deterrent is in some way an alternative to conventional arms. I regard this as a most dangerous doctrine. I think it is one of the most dangerous thoughts at the back of the Government's mind, that they
1002
can save on conventional arms by having nuclear arms. If they really believe that they can avoid this by having Polaris then the sooner the country realises it the better. I think the doctrine that we can beat off a conventional attack with nuclear arms simply is not credible. In fact, no Government could do it. Let us have it clear that nuclear arms and conventional arms are not alternatives to meet a given situation.
The Prime Minister has said that there is a large defence problem outside N.A.T.O. and he suggested that strategic nuclear arms might be useful outside the N.A.T.O. area. Again I think the House should probe what is meant by this. Does he really think that if, for instance, we found ourselves in an incident in Asia we should need a British independent nuclear deterrent, or does he think we could ever go to war, for instance in Asia, without our allies, without the Americans, or does he think that perhaps if a war breaks out, as it has done, between China and India we could give any aid by nuclear arms? Let the people ponder that situation. How useful it would be if we were able to say to the Indians, for instance, "We can offer you conventional arms". But how dangerous and how useless if we were in the position if we could help them only with nuclear arms. I suggest it would terrify our allies in C.E.N.T.O. or S.E.A.T.O. if they thought that British aid would have to come in nuclear arms. As for our police responsibilities, surely it is not contemplated that in Africa or other places—the Gulf, for instance—we should carry out our police responsibilities by nuclear arms?
Therefore, I think that there is surely no valid argument for this basic policy from which the Nassau agreement stems. There is no reason for this country to waste resources on trying to keep up the independent nuclear strategic deterrent. Therefore, this agreement is a bad agreement, and it stems from the lamentable failure by the Government to pursue their proper rôle in the world. It is directed at a false aim, it wastes our resources, and, lastly, it hampers the effort of this country to make a constructive contribution either within or without N.A.T.O., and hampers also in the effort to get the proper procedures within N.A.T.O. and the means by which it can control its own weapons more effectively.
6.26 p.m.
Sir Alexander Spearman: I think there is a certain amount of doubt in the country as to whether either under a Labour Government or under a Conservative Government we have had full value for the vast sums we spend on defence, and whether we have not, by attempting to have a little of everything, not got enough of anything. I want this afternoon to talk not so much about Polaris as about how we are going to fill the gap in the six or seven years before that is available.
I do not agree with those who say that there are no advantages in our having an independent nuclear deterrent. I can well imagine great advantages. I do not agree with those who say that we should have an independent nuclear deterrent quite regardless of what it may cost or how effective it may be; I want this afternoon to examine just what the advantages are.
First of all, would it help us to carry out the great responsibilities which we have all over the world? That requires large forces for policing, and British troops have been in action many times since the end of the war, but no one has ever suggested that we conceivably could use the nuclear deterrent for that purpose. Would it be of assistance towards protecting the Alliance as a whole? Of course, I accept what my right hon. Friend the former Minister has said, that we have a very formidable bombing force, but I understand that that adds only 2 per cent, to the striking force which America has in the N.A.T.O. area. Therefore, however powerful it is, it would, from the Alliance's point of view, be superfluous.
Will it protect the United Kingdom in particular? It is sometimes said that circumstances could occur in which we would be, in some legitimate project, in disagreement with the United States, and, therefore, could not rely upon the United States coming to our support. That seems to me to be pretty unlikely. After all, we could hardly have done anything more in disagreement with the United States than we did in 1956, but then, as soon as we were threatened with missiles, at once the United States came to our aid. [HON. MEMBERS: "What?"] The Americans came to our aid at once, saying that if
1004
we were attacked they would immediately retaliate with all their nuclear force.
Moreover, is it really credible that the Russians would believe that we on our own would start a nuclear war? And if we did, might they not be tempted to wipe us out first of all? Of course, all things are possible and this might happen, but if any householder is going to insure against every conceivable risk he will spend all his income in premiums.
Fourthly, would it give us any greater influence in the Alliance? With regard to the United States, I cannot see how it would give us greater influence unimportantly to duplicate what they are doing instead of usefully complementing it. If only we could supply them with something the Alliance needs, then to some extent they would be dependent upon us. How influential it would be with other countries seems to depend on how effective the weapon might be. It would be easy for us to have a weapon which would enable us to say that we had an independent nuclear deterrent. But unless it could penetrate the Russian defences, and there appears to be very general doubt about the number of years in which bombers can do that, and unless it could retaliate after the enemy had struck—and I do not see how we can reckon on doing that except by the immensely costly process of keeping the aircraft in the air all the time—we should not really impress our friends nor alarm our potential enemies.
In the past it has been vital that this country should get, as soon as it could, any immensely superior new weapon because it would certainly be used. How could bows and arrows stand up to gunpowder? But surely nuclear weapons are not comparable because they are not a sword that we are going to wield but rather a shield for protection. The whole purpose of them, as I see it, is not to be used but to prevent other people using them.
So I come back to the point that the extent of the influence which nuclear weapons would give us depends upon how effective they were, and that depends on time—and they take an awful lot of time—and on money—and they take an awful lot of money. I wonder whether it is fully realised how our resources compare with those of the two major Powers. The

1005
United States of America—and I imagine, it is the same for Russia—are spending more than £5,000 million on the nuclear deterrent alone. We were told today that we are spending £170 million. The Americans are spending 30 times what we are spending. They are spending on the nuclear deterrent alone more than three times the whole of our defence contribution. Indeed, I see from the President's financial statement that the increase between the amount spent in 1960 and what is estimated to be spent in 1964 will be twenty times what we are spending on the nuclear deterrent. It may be that they have been extravagant. Maybe it could be done more cheaply. But anyone with an income of £170 a year who tries to live at the same rate as someone with £5,000 is in for grave difficulties.
There is no doubt that these missiles on indestructible bases cost the earth. Two things are certain about them. First, whatever estimates Government Departments give, they will turn out to be much, much more. Secondly, many of them will have to be dropped, partly because of unforeseen technical difficulties and partly because they will have become obsolete. Therefore, it is not enough to make one or two; one has to be prepared for many. It might be said that these weapons are valid only until they leave the drawing board.
As I see it, it is impracticable for us to spend thousands of millions of pounds, and, if we spend hundreds, the money is terribly likely to be wasted. What is the cost in terms of what we shall have to do without in the way of social services, higher taxes or what I particularly want to talk about—conventional weapons? Sometimes people say that conventional weapons are quite impracticable for us in the West because we cannot match the Russians. That seems a hopelessly defeatist point of view. We have twice their population and three times their resources. It will, of course, mean sacrifices, but what tiny sacrifices compared with the cause of peace.
How important is it to have conventional weapons? That depends on what we think Communist policy is. If we think there is a real danger of the Russians going for all-out nuclear war, I say at once that it is not worth while spending money on conventional weapons. But if their aim is—and there seems a good deal of evidence for this—world
1006
domination, just as strong today as at any time, and that they are prepared to use some force to get it, provided they do not risk all-out war—and Cuba seemed to be an example of that—then I say that if our conventional weapons in the West are weak we are running into fearful dangers. Surely it would be a great temptation for the Communists to make some quick move to grab Berlin or Denmark or somewhere else and present us with an appalling overnight dilemma. What should we do? Would it be piecemeal surrender, or should we start nuclear war? It seems to me that Mr. Khrushchev put himself in just that position over Cuba, that because of the immensely strong American conventional forces he was faced with the choice of either retreating or starting nuclear war.
I wonder whether the Russian outlook is so very different from what it was when Palmerston spoke of the Russians 100 years ago. He said:
"The policy and practice of the Russian Government in regard to Turkey and Persia has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it has met with decided resistance."
Alas, war is a very deep-rooted institution in the human world, and I do not believe we are going to get rid of wars until very radical things are done. There have been many wars since 1945, but not since Hiroshima has an atomic bomb been dropped in anger. I can well foresee more wars, but I have no reason to suppose that they will be nuclear wars. To me it is absolutely vital that the West as a whole should have a nuclear force, but that, to me, is no substitute for conventional weapons. I believe that our conventional contribution could be decisive, because of the encouragement it would give to our allies, and perhaps more now than ever before after the events of last week. It is said that we should speak from strength, but surely we must much more be able actually to act from strength. Therefore, it seems to me that we must give our conventional forces first priority. I should like our conventional forces to be the first charge so as to fulfil our pledges to N.A.T.O., in regard to the number of troops and to see that they are as well equipped as the Americans, and then we should use the residue for our nuclear contribution.

1007
Finally, I want to say something about independence. It seems to me in these days that in the old-fashioned sense of the word it is a completely outdated conception held only by those who are living in the past. To me it is a means to an end, and the end is peace, security, progress and freedom, and I do not see how independence today is going to get us any of those. In the past, of course, a small island could stand alone because of its qualities of courage, determination and endurance, but in a nuclear war they would count for nothing. A nuclear war in future would be run by technicians infinitely remote from their opposite numbers.
I was rereading the other day a remarkable book written by a remarkable man and published by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in 1930. I will quote a sentence from "The Endless Adventure":
"If Europe would escape from the bondage of Moloch, there seems to be only one way: her states must be robbed of their sovereign independence, or, of their own free will, they must give it up. … Their imagination working on their memories may show them a prospect of evils, in comparison with which even the loss of their sovereign independence will appear tolerable."
That was written twenty-five years before the hydrogen bomb.
If before 1914, or perhaps again before 1939, we had listened to the warnings and had been prepared to make the sacrifices to be strong and united, those wars might have been avoided. When they came we ungrudgingly made sacrifices of a high order, but trivial in comparison with what would be required in another war. I cannot help thinking that the proverbial visitor from Mars will think that we are a very strange people if we do not learn from these two lessons and save ourselves in time.
I do not admit for one moment that we are no longer a great nation, but we must face the fact that we are not the same sort of great nation. There have been great changes. I believe that we have a positive role in the future just as important as any in our history. It is to give a lead and to galvanise the West into the sacrifices which may be necessary for the survival of civilisation as we value it.
It seems to me that in the last few days the German, the Italian, the Dutch
1008
and the Belgian Governments have shown how much they need us, and have shown impressively how much they want us to co-operate with themselves. I believe that this is a role which we are very fully qualified to fill because of our great political experience, because of our worldwide associations and because of our great place in history.
6.43 p.m.
Mr. R. H. S. Crossman: I assure the hon. Members that my speech will be short. It will be all the shorter because of the two speeches from the back benches to which we have listened.
This defence debate repeats the pattern of previous defence debates. The Government's case is argued only by the Government or by ex-Ministers now in comfortable retirement, while practically the whole of the rest of the House on both sides argues the case for a conventional strategy which exposes the Government's illusions. It would be a sheer waste of time for me, after the speech of the Leader of the Liberal Party and the very remarkable speech of the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman), to repeat all over again the arguments used by our Front Bench, although we have not had a single reply to them from the Prime Minister. I will confine myself to following where the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby left off.
I wondered how it was that a sane and intelligent man could be clinging to this nuclear deterrent. I should like to quote from a leader in The Times this morning which gave an interesting analysis of the explanation. As we all know, The Times has been a late convert to sanity on this subject. It now believes that we should abandon the illusion of the independent nuclear deterrent. This leading article diagnoses the situation. It reads:
"For Britain has so far faced only half the truth about her position. That she is no longer a great world Power in the American-Russian class is accepted. That there is no divine right whereby she will without exertion automatically stay a leading second-class Power has not sunk in."
I think that this is exactly what is wrong with the Government's policy. If we wish to remain, as we must remain, a leading second-class Power, we must remember that we cannot do so if we continue to delude ourselves by seeking

1009
the trappings of power instead of the kind of effective military power which a second-class Power can wield.
I want to take the Government's argument and to show that this attempt to narrow the debate down to the exact pros and cons of the Bahamas Agreement is misleading. We must see the agreement against the whole 10 years of a defence policy which is in ruins—and it is in ruins because the Government have tried to undertake a policy which goes far beyond our available strength. To be effective a policy must be commensurate with our ability to carry it out. If we seek constantly to do far more than we are able to do, we end by doing nothing at all. The lesson of these 10 years of Tory policy has been that we have sacrificed a real ability to do a little by constant, grandiose efforts to seem to do a lot.
Let me put this to the Minister of Defence: we make unique demands on our Service leaders. We ask of our three Services something which no other Power in the world asks. Let me make it clear why we do this. We ask five things. First, we ask our Services to give us our full N.A.T.O. commitment. We do not make them do it, or anything like it, for we have watered down the commitment. Indeed, 12 years ago our divisions in Germany were the best-equipped divisions in Germany, whereas now they are the worst-equipped divisions in Germany. Now we are a laughing stock in Germany because of the lack of modern equipment for our forces. Why is this? It is because these forces now rely on nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy, and have been trained to rely on them and not to rely on their conventional weapons.
Our first commitment, then, is the fulfilment of our N.A.T.O. obligations. In addition, we have large overseas commitments, of which the Prime Minister spoke; unlike the Germans and others, we have that extra task to do. It is true that this is a double responsibility which we share with our allies, the United States and France; both of them seek to fulfil their positions in N.A.T.O., to meet large overseas commitments and to have an independent deterrent. But, in addition to trying to do what the French and the Americans do, we try to do it under two very special conditions. The first condition
1010
under which we try to meet a N.A.T.O. commitment, to have an independent deterrent and to meet large overseas commitments, is that by which we have only manpower recruited voluntarily. The other countries have various forms of conscription. We deny that to ourselves, which creates an additional difficulty in fulfilling our obligations.
Secondly, to cap all this we clamp a financial ceiling on our forces—which is the fifth of my conditions. If Mr. McNamara or General de Gaulle's Minister of Defence were told that in addition to trying to be a nuclear Power, to meeting overseas commitments and to being a N.A.T.O. Power they were to have only professional soldiers and to have a severe financial ceiling over which they could not go, they would simply say, "I cannot do the job under those two conditions. If you ask me to have a great independent deterrent, to have overseas commitments and to do my full job in N.A.T.O. with forces which include only volunteers, and without having enough money to do it, I will say that I cannot do it."
There I have analysed in precision why, although we have tried to do most, in fact we have done least of any N.A.T.O. ally. We have tried everything, and yet out of it has come a great exposure of weakness. That is the decisive and depressing fact. What is so deeply depressing is that the latest decision on Polaris means an extension of the strategy leading once more to inevitable weakness.
I do not want to go too far back into history, but I must refer to Suez, because that was the first great demonstration of weakness. I am not discussing the rights and wrongs of Suez, but the Keightley Report on the Suez operation shows that after millions of £s had been spent on the Air Force, and millions of £s had been spent on re-equipping our forces, we still had no anti-tank guns and we were short of landing barges. In terms of every kind of conventional weapon Suez was a demonstration not of greatness, but of catastrophic weakness. Even with the support of the French, we could not mount a conventional expedition without demonstrating our inability to carry it out.
What happened after Suez? There was the possibility then of considering the operation and drawing conclusions

1011
from it, but what actually happened? We had the 1957 Sandys White Paper. Instead of the Government saying, "Heavens alive, we have a few holes in our equipment which we must fill in", they decided that in addition to having conventional weapons they would make themselves an independent nuclear Power. What did the Sandys White Paper say? It said that we were to have a streamlined nuclear force, and get rid of National Service. We were to cut away our conventional forces. At that time there was to be no conventional Navy. The Government's decision to cut our conventional forces used to alternate between doing away with the Navy and doing away with the Air Force.
Instead of objectively studying the position to see what went wrong and deciding what could be done to put it right, the Government took a tremendous gamble. They took a gamble on British technology and said, "We will gamble everything on getting an independent deterrent of our own which really is British. We will get a replacement for the V-bombers". Everything was gambled on a British weapon and a British means of delivery.
I do not go in for horse racing, but I gather that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has experience as a racehorse owner. I am told that he has only one horse, and that that is why he is not a millionaire. My hon. Friend does not try to compete against people who own 30 or 40 horses. He does not go in for the Derby and then try to win the Grand National with the same horse. I think my hon. Friend would agree that because he owns only one horse he cannot compete with those owners who have large stables. This is precisely what we have done in terms of our defence policy. If someone has only one horse in his stable, he should not be surprised when that horse does not "come off". We have gambled, and we have lost.
That is what happened with Blue Streak. It was clear that we could not have a British deterrent, because we could not do it ourselves. We had to deceive ourselves, and so we then had Skybolt. That was the next stage of higher lunacy. Then, to deceive themselves that they had an independent deterrent, the Government decided that
1012
they would get an American system and call that the British deterrent. Many people can say that they are on record as warning the Government to be careful. Nearly everyone who has taken part in defence debates can say that he is perfect on this point. I say nearly everyone, because that does not apply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Schweppes.
When we came to the end of Skybolt, we all said that there was a chance that the Government would now stop this ludicrous policy, but now we find that we are to have Polaris, another gamble on an American weapon for the purpose of having an independent British deterrent. The case presented to us for having Polaris is so that we might go on keeping up the pretence to ourselves of having the deterrent.
I do not think that we need argue this any further, because, as The Times pointed out, this is not a question of argument. This is a question of right hon. Gentlemen opposite deceiving themselves for the sake of adhering to their policy. They are sacrificing the real defences of this country for the semblance of nuclear defence. Everybody in the world, except the Government and their supporters, can see what is happening. Everybody can see the ridiculous position in which we now find ourselves.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite criticise the folie de grandeur of General de Gaulle, but he does not try to be a grand nuclear Power with borrowed weapons. He at least goes to his country and says, "If we are to be a nuclear Power, we will have French weapons. They may not be good ones, we may be a little backward and primitive, but at least we will be independent." He does not run to President Kennedy and say, "Please, Mr. Kennedy, make me a little independent". He believes in independence. General de Gaulle has folie de grandeur, but right hon. Gentleman opposite merely have a self-deception of grandeur. This is a ridiculous illusion.
Mr. Scholefield Allen: And a dangerous one.
Mr. Grossman: I agree. As the right hon. Member the Leader of the Liberal Party and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby pointed out, this

1013
will lead inevitably to the Germans wanting nuclear weapons and to the proliferation of them. This is not a joking matter. The Nassau Agreement is an attempt by the Government to keep up the illusion. The Americans say, "Poor old boy, we must give him something to keep him sweet".
We have made our position clear. We believe not only in conventional weapons, but that this country, within N.A.T.O., must stand for a conventional strategy in Europe, because the whole of Europe is imperilled by Britain's dependence on nuclear weapons and by her weakness in conventional arms. Until we and Europe get our conventional weapons up to strength, until we can get our divisions up to 25, we shall be at the mercy of nuclear weapons. We must go forward until we are strong enough to tell the Americans to take their weapons back and back until they are finally back in the States and we can stand up for ourselves.
That is what we on this side of the House believe in, but we accept that we cannot do it tomorrow. It will take years to implement this policy. No change of this kind can be brought about overnight. It will take many years to put it into effect, but we want it laid down as a decision of this country that we are going to lead Europe into pulling herself together and believing in herself. I am not talking about General de Gaulle, but about believing in ourselves and not relying on nuclear weapons. If we do this, disengagement can become a reality.
It is no use talking about disengagement if we continue to rely on nuclear weapons. Once we have built up our conventional forces, we can tell the Russians to get their nuclear weapons out on their side while we do the same on ours. This is the role that we see for ourselves. I do not want us to deceive ourselves with this slogan about conventional weapons. I accept that, after the last 10 years, this policy will demand tremendous sacrifices by this country, and necessitate tremendous changes which will take time to carry out. It will not be easy. To do all this in Europe and to look after our overseas commitments with the men we have will be a great risk, but we think that it can be done.
1014
This week there was trouble in Brunei. The commander-in-chief in the area said that he had to have more troops. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley pointed out, we had to rush around to find a few thousand men to send there. We had to steal the Gurkha signals unit from the Rhine Army. No doubt the men of that unit will be counted twice, once in the Rhine Army and once in Singapore. There may be trouble in Kowloon because of something that China has said, or trouble in Singapore—any kind of minor disturbance which produces a request for minor reinforcements cracks open our whole defence system, because it is so near the bone. Any crisis, however small, exposes and tears it apart, and shows how we are double-accounting all over the world. If any serious crisis arose we should have to call up our emergency reserves by decree.
Is it wise to do this? Can the Government persuade me that if we abandoned the deterrent it would make no difference? I am not saying that it would save money. I would never suggest that we ought to abandon the deterrent for economic reasons. But we could then at least put our conventional forces into decent condition and fulfil our commitments, and not be placed in this desperate position of tightness, with everything on a shoe-string and every unit being run down.
We must not underestimate the financial cost of the voluntary system. The Americans know it. We should try to keep the volunteers, but we must not run away when we discover that in order to keep them we have to provide married quarters. We cannot ask men to volunteer for the Army and, at the same time, say that the Army is for bachelors only, because we cannot afford to accommodate married men. We do not have to do this with National Service men. If we are to have volunteers they will cost a little less in periods of unemployment—we have been getting them on the cheap within the last six months—but in periods of full employment it will be extremely expensive for us to provide the necessary rates of pay and pensions, which already amount to over half the cost of the Army, to buy men out of ordinary private life.
This is the price that we have to pay if we are going to have a volunteer Army.

1015
Can we pay the price of £200 million or £300 million for the independent deterrent at the same time? That is how the cost of the deterrent makes all the difference. It makes it impossible for us to pay for proper conventional forces—including manpower, housing and equipment.
I do not know what the answer is. I doubt whether any hon. Member knows. We have been reminded by the ex-Minister of Defence that we are not in the secret. It was a great mistake when the Government turned down the request for a Select Committee on Suez. If there had been such a Committee, dealing with the equipment side of the operation, with a report to the Government on what had gone wrong, we might have had a better 1957 White Paper. If the House allowed such a Committee to investigate the facts, and restored its old position, in which individual Members had an obligation, at least we should have 40 Members who knew the facts, instead of merely the Government plus those to whom they care to give information.
We have to talk in slogans, because we are denied reality. A Defence Committee would not end party politics, because there are usually majority and minority reports from Select Committees, but there is something to be said for a Defence Committee, or some such Select Committee, in that it would mean that a few more people would share the Government's secrets, and it is good for the Government not to have a monopoly of secrecy with which to diddle the House of Commons. We are the most diddled Parliament in the Western world. We are told least, because we are the only Parliament without a Defence Committee. The Government can diddle, diddle and diddle, because nobody is allowed to know anything until it is too late to act.
This Government are on the way out. My Front Bench is on the way in. I advise it, first and foremost, to inform the country of the gravity of the situation. It must do so now, because with something as bad as this it will take many years and many sacrifices to put it right. It is possible to use every debate not to score debating points but as a method of bringing home to our people what The Times said in its remarkable leader, namely,
"Up to now Mr. Macmillan had the likelihood of being remembered as the Prime
1016
Minister who took Britain into Europe. Now he is left only with the credit of having led the Conservative Party back from Suez."
If only he had led it back from Suez—but he did not. He led it forward from Suez to Nassau—and Nassau was a greater piece of grandiose folly even that Eden's Suez fiasco.
7.5 p.m.
Mr. John Hall: I find this a rather depressing debate because, having listened to speeches from hon. Members on the Opposition front and back benches, I find myself in the unenviable position of agreeing with practically everything they have said. Having said that, and knowing that I have this sense of agreement, I begin to wonder whether my views are correct.
The one fault I have to find with the debate so far—and perhaps it is understandable—is that although it has been a very critical analysis of the nuclear deterrent policy followed by Her Majesty's Government, it has lacked constructive suggestions as to the alternative policy that we should follow—what we should do in order to prevent the horror of war from breaking out, and the kind of defence organisations that we and our Western Allies should have. Towards the end of my speech I hope, briefly, to say something about that.
First, there are some points about the Nassau Agreement with which I am in wholehearted agreement, and with which I think the whole House will be in agreement. First, I agree that the decision not to proceed with Skybolt, in cooperation with the United States, was a correct one. Secondly, I agree that we now have a new and closer arrangement for the organisation and control of strategic Western defence in N.A.T.O. Thirdly, I agree that in strategic terms the nuclear defence of the Western Alliance is indivisible. Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly with the last paragraph of the agreement, which refers to the importance of increasing the effectiveness of our conventional forces on a world-wide basis.
I even welcome the substitution of Polaris for Skybolt. It is more effective as a second-strike weapon than Skybolt might have turned out to be, so far as it is necessary to have either Skybolt or Polaris. I do not believe that we require a second-strike weapon. In other words, I do not believe that this country needs an independent nuclear deterrent.

1017
I also question whether the conception of pooling the nuclear resources of the allies in a N.A.T.O. force is possible at present, since we have not yet created in N.A.T.O.—as far as I know—the necessary operational mechanism, and since France stands aloof because she is determined, come what may, to develop her own independent deterrent. During the last year or two the Americans and ourselves have been trying to find some formula which will persuade the French to drop their own idea of having their own deterrent, and this last agreement at Nassau was perhaps another step in that direction. But, whatever we do, I do not think that we shall be able to persuade President de Gaulle to give up his conception of an independent French nuclear deterrent, manufactured and controlled entirely by the French. To that extent, it must be more difficult to have a N.A.T.O.-controlled weapon.
I agree, as probably everybody does, that up to the present, taking the past and present rôle of this country, the V-bomber force has played a not unimportant part in the nuclear deterrent of the Western world. We must give credit to the Royal Air Force for the part it has played in this—a part which has been acknowledged many times by our American and other allies. But we are concerned not about the immediate present but about what is likely to happen in the future. I find it difficult to understand what real contribution can be made by our comparatively small, so-called independent contribution of Polaris, considering the overwhelming nuclear force which is at the command of the United States. I support previous speakers who have brought out this point.
The only real reason which I can see for us purchasing Polaris weapons is merely as a means of contributing in some small part to the total cost of providing the Western nuclear deterrent. It really means that we are paying for some of the weapons which we give to the pool. That is the only reason which I can see for doing it. If that is the reason, I can think of far better ways of using the money than buying Polaris.
Captain W. Elliot: After that remark, will my hon. Friend explain how he distinguishes between a contribution to
1018
the Western deterrent, worth while or otherwise, and an independent nuclear deterrent?
Mr, Hall: If my hon. and gallant Friend will contain himself in patience I will come to that point.
I now come to the point at which I was proposing to discuss the question whether there are arguments in favour of our having an entirely independent deterrent. For the purpose of this argument I will assume for a moment that even the purchase of Polaris—were it in our possession—constitutes an independent deterrent—although I find it very hard to accept that point of view. However, for the sake of the argument, I will postulate that hypothesis.
It is claimed that it is necessary for us to have an independent deterrent—and I confess that in past years I have tended to hold this view myself—because there may come a time in the future when we are left alone; when we want to engage in some operation in some part of the world which does not command the support of our allies, either the United States or perhaps the rest of our N.A.T.O. allies. Under such circumstances, if we attempted to carry out some police operation in a part of the world for which we are responsible, it might be that some powerful enemy possessing a strategic nuclear missile might say, "Stop doing that or we will use our nuclear missile". That is what is described as "nuclear blackmail".
I find it extremely difficult to think of circumstances when we would take the risk of exposing this country to nuclear annihilation because of some operation of ours in some other part of the world when we had not the support of our allies. It could be suggested, perhaps, that if there were trouble in North Borneo and we tried to put in troops and were warned, for example, by Russia, which threatened to use a nuclear weapon, the possession of an independent nuclear weapon ourselves would prevent that. If we think that, we delude ourselves. I do not believe that any Government would accept the risk of plunging this country into that kind of destructive war for that type of operation, and I do not think that any Government would accept that risk unless Great Britain herself were

1019
threatened by direct attack and that was the only means that we had of defending ourselves.
Mr. John Eden: I had understood the circumstances to be a little different—that our conventional forces would possibly be persuaded to withdraw from activities in North Borneo, for example, by the threat of a nuclear attack against this country, and that the whole purpose of our possessing a deterrent is to be able effectively to counter and repel such a threat.
Mr. Hall: With respect to my hon. Friend, it could be an effective deterrent only if it were credible. I do not believe for one moment that any great Power opposed to us in this respect would think that we were likely to use a nuclear deterrent in order to continue a conventional operation, such as a policing operation in some place like North Borneo, or anywhere else in the world, where we are likely to be concerned in an operation alone, without the support or sympathy of any of our allies. I find it hard to accept that, and also to accept the view which is sometimes expressed—especially by people who for many reasons dislike the United States of America—that there may come a time when America would stand by and watch us being liquidated. It has been mentioned that during Suez America was opposed to the operation. But when we were threatened by Russia with the use of the nuclear weapon—
Mr. Crossman: We had a nuclear deterrent.
Mr. Hall: We had a nuclear deterrent—America immediately responded and said that were we attacked with nuclear weapons she would come to our aid. So I cannot see that that is a good reason for us having our own independent deterrent.
It was suggested by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that it would be a great mistake to allow America to have a monopoly of nuclear weapons. With the greatest possible respect to my right hon. Friend, it seems to me that all the time that we are going to buy nuclear weapons from America she has got the monopoly, and will retain it. I cannot see the force of that argument.
1020
There was one argument used which was very true, that we delude ourselves if we think that if we dispense with our nuclear weapons in this country and maintain an effective defence, which means increasing our conventional forces, we shall not save money. It will cost a great deal more in the first few years. But I doubt very much whether in the end the total cost of conventional forces, enlarged as they would have to be, would be as great as the sum total which the cost of a nuclear deterrent would eventually reach.
Year by year the intricacies and development of these weapons becomes so appallingly expensive that the present cost will in the next few years pall into insignificance. I have never yet known the cost of weapons to come down. It always goes up year by year.
I now come to the point about whether we can afford to maintain and develop an independent deterrent, even supposing it was desirable that we should. We have said that Polaris may cost anything from £250 million to £350 million. I do not think that figure has been quoted today, but it has been canvassed in the newspapers and elsewhere. That is only the first step. This is the first mark of the Polaris, and the cost of "keeping up with the Joneses" thereafter will increase every time we have to replace this weapon with a more advanced version. Can we afford to develop our own deterrent?
I have attempted, rather unsuccessfully, to ascertain from the Minister of Defence the estimate for producing and manufacturing our own nuclear deterrent, on a continuing basis controlled and manufactured entirely by ourselves, and what it would mean in terms of money and the diversion of technical and scientific manpower. I have not succeeded in getting an answer. But looking back on the history of Blue Streak, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), it does not seem that we could face the problem of the cost of developing our own entirely British independent weapon.
Mr. George Wigg: It is one of the illusions from which we still suffer that Blue Streak was a British weapon. It is the fact that never at any time has Great Britain ever fired a ballistic missile of her own manufacture. Blue Streak

1021
was the American Atlas and the engine was being produced by Rolls-Royce under licence. It is an illusion that Blue Streak was a British weapon.
Mr. Hall: That enforces my argument. I will not debate whether it was fully British or not.
Having said all this, it is up to me to try to produce some form of constructive policy. What should be our policy? In the first place, I think that we might make a reality of the statement in the Nassau Agreement that the nuclear defence of the West is indivisible; and we should make a reality of the agreement to increase the effectiveness of our conventional forces so that we are not forced—as we may well be now—to use a nuclear weapon as a first strike and not a second strike weapon.
We must look at our policy of conscription and the way in which we wish to raise our forces. Looking at the fourteen nations which at present make up the N.A.T.O. Alliance, we find that at the moment, in contribution of manpower alone, and taking that manpower as a percentage of the male labour force of each country, we are the thirteenth out of fourteen on the list. When Germany increases her forces to about 500,000 or thereabouts in the next year or two, we shall be the last on the table from the point of view of manpower contributions. We shall be the only nation, apart from Canada, which does not have conscription. If this system works so well for us, why do not all the other nations have it? If they did, they would find that the military contribution to N.A.T.O. in terms of manpower would fall dramatically.
It has already been mentioned that we have had great difficulty in providing a comparatively small force to meet a temporary and not very severe emergency. I think it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) in a Question a day or two ago that of the units which went out all were grossly under strength and if called upon to go into operation within a short period after landing they would all be of inadequate strength to carry out their job.
If we are to have an effective policy, there is one suggestion I make. If the Western Powers are to have an effective conventional force this country should increase its ability and effectiveness
1022
in dealing with policing operations. We should not have to scrape the barrel every time we have to meet a sudden demand. We should also increase the ability of the Western Powers as a whole to take the first shock without having immediately to respond with nuclear weapons. If a conventional attack began to increase to a point where we could not hold it conventionally, we would be giving time for the Americans to use what is called their controlled response to nuclear attack, which would give us some hope of limiting the nuclear damage to a point where we might still save civilisation because people would realise that there was no future in continuing a war of that kind.
If we are to play our part in this, how are we to produce the forces required? First, on a purely organisational basis, I re-echo what an hon. Member opposite said. We should have a complete review of our conventional forces. It is time we had an investigation of the type of the Esher or the Cardwell investigation. The present structure of our defence with the Minister of Defence and the Service Ministers is top-heavy and needs streamlining. I cannot believe that we require that sort of top organisation to control the forces we need. As to the size of the conventional forces we need, I am not going to argue about the figures which have been bandied across the Floor of the House time and time again in debate after debate. We should decide and take a political decision based on defence facts—not try to fit defence facts to a political decision.
If we are to increase our forces, and if it is beyond our capacity to raise the required forces by voluntary recruitment, we should introduce—and face the fact that we have to introduce—some form of conscription. I do not believe that we require complete national conscription. I believe that would produce more men than are needed, but we probably require some form of selected conscription. I am now going to make a suggestion which perhaps will be laughed at, or shot down in flames. I should like to see conscription for peace. I should like the young men and women of the country to be given an opportunity not only to contribute their services to the fighting services but to the under-developed territories of the world.

1023
There are four major demands made on our manpower. I give them, not in any order of priority, but as they occur to me. First, there is the necessity of keeping our economy going. Secondly, there is the necessity to maintain our social services. Thirdly, we have to provide for defence purposes, and, lastly, we have to provide some help for other countries. Those are the sort of demands made on our manpower today. What priority we should give to them is a matter of judgment. I think we should have a form of selective conscription, first, to fill the gaps in defensive organisations and to put in no more than we need for the total number required. Then we should provde a corps of workers in the important technical and professional jobs required urgently by under-developed countries who could offer their services to those countries.
That would have the effect of giving a really constructive training to men and women which would be of great value to them when they train in National Service and which would provide a fund of good will for us in the under-developed countries. Most important, it would give real help of a constructive kind to countries which need it most. That kind of approach would make a much more worth-while contribution to maintaining the peace of the world than anything else.
I make one other suggestion. Ever since I have been a Member of this House, just over ten years, I have listened to and been able occasionally to take part in debate after debate on defence. I have listened to debates on disarmament and the whole problems of war. Yet, ten years after I came to this House we are still no further forward, perhaps we are further back. I remain convinced that it does not matter what machinery of control we devise for disarmament, it does not matter what agreements we may have between nations directly or through the United Nations, we shall never eradicate the dangers of war until we find some way of changing the human mind, heart, or spirit, whatever we may call it.
It is a curious thing about human beings that they have a desire for peace but they have the will to go to war. We have never yet in any part of the world
1024
so far as I know made a really determined constructive effort to find what are the basic causes of war, what makes people want to go to war. There are in the United States and Holland and, I think, in Sweden, and there is just starting in this country, certain small research organisations devoted to trying to find what makes human beings, against all sense, decide to commit racial suicide, which is what war is today. I think that the one contribution we could make is to stimulate and support research of that kind. Until we can find why, despite all logic, human beings decide to go to war and encompass their own destruction, we shall never be able to solve the question of the prevention of war and have genuine disarmament.
7.30 p.m.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: We have listened to a very courageous and independent-minded speech to which the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) had clearly given thought. Although I differ profoundly from his conclusions, I believe that it was a sincere speech representing the point of view of those for whom he spoke.
On the other hand, he was bold enough to advocate conscription. The Government do not want conscription and the Opposition will not have it. Any political party which went to the country this year or next to tell the young men that it was prepared to conscript them into the Armed Forces would be risking political defeat. Whether we like it or not, hatred of military service is deeply held in this country, because the fathers and other relatives of the young men hate it as much as the potential conscript.
Commander Anthony Courtney: Will the hon. Member explain how it is that the Royal Navy is able to get as many men and boys as it wants?
Mr. Hughes: I could dilate upon that subject, but I have a good deal to say. I agree that this is not a naval problem. I gather that the hon. Member for Wycombe was arguing about conscription for the Army.
Mr. John Hall: The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) should not overlook that what I had in mind basically was conscription for peace, which would give young men and

1025
women the opportunity of constructive work on the frontiers of peace throughout the world.
Mr. Hughes: I have no quarrel with that aspect of the argument, but if people are to be conscripted for a constructive effort at one time and conscripted into a mechanised Army at another, there will be two different kinds of conscription. I believe that the people would not support conscription. It is a political impossibility.
This debate is different from those in recent years on this subject. This is the first time that the Opposition have moved what amounts to a Motion of censure on both the British and American Governments. When the Prime Minister returned from his consultations with the President of the United States on the original Polaris agreement, the Opposition said that they would not censure the Government on the agreement to establish Polaris bases in Holy Loch. Some of us thought that the Opposition neglected its opportunities and duties to test the feeling of the House on that agreement. The Prime Minister said in reply to Questions on the subject that he had the feeling of the House. When he returned after consultations about the tests we had the same procedure—the Government did not move a Motion and the Opposition did not contest the agreement and we had virtually a coalition agreement between the Opposition and the Government endorsing the Prime Minister's policy.
But this occasion has been different. There is now a definite challenge to the latest agreement with President Kennedy. The agreement is an American-British declaration of defence policy, and it is now the Opposition's attitude that the Government must be censured. This marks an entirely different approach by the Opposition, and those of us who have bean critical of the Opposition Front Bench in the past now give it 105 per cent. agreement.
We listened with approbation to the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). I hope that we do not embarrass him by mentioning our support of his criticism of Polaris. These are strange days and there are new attitudes in politics. Who knows but that before long the right hon. Gentleman will be going to the Palace as
1026
Prime Minister, wearing a top hat and frock coat—
Mr. G. Brown: No top hat.
Mr. Hughes: —and saying, "Sister, I have come to say that we are finished with the Whole idea of the hydrogen bomb; we are finished with the whole idea of the deterrent; I was wrong and the nuclear disarmers and Lord Russell were right and we should never have expelled him from the Labour Party".
Attitudes are changing because of what I believe to be the pressure of public opinion, and I hope that change will logically continue to the point when the Government ask for the money for these projects. Some of us have challenged the idea that there is any defence of this country in a nuclear war. Some of us challenged the original Polaris agreement, on the ground that this country was committed to being in the front line of a nuclear war without any opportunity for consultation or decision. That is precisely what happened in the Cuban crisis.
Mr. G. Brown: We do not want this agreement 'business to go too far. What I was objecting to was the allegation that Polaris was an independent British deterrent. Nothing I said today related to the issue of our providing facilities for the North Atlantic Alliance using Polaris as part of an American-provided deterrent for the alliance.
Mr. Hughes: My right hon. Friend has made his point and I do not want to pursue it. He has made his explanation as he was entitled to do. What I am arguing is that in a modern nuclear war there is no real defence of this country. If a war had started over Cuba, if the rockets had gone up and the bombs had been dropped, this country would have been destroyed and its people annihilated without any consultation. To talk about that as defence in any ordinary sense of the word is ridiculous. We have reached the stage where war has become impossible as a means of defending the civil population.
Ultimately we will have to tell the United States of America that we will no longer be involved in the sort of strategy which is likely to obliterate and destroy our people. This attack on the Prime Minister's agreement with the

1027
President is a definite change in the Labour Party's attitude towards defence which I welcome. It has been said more than once in the debate that the new agreement will put an economic burden on the country. The Amendment says that it imposes
"further economic burdens upon the nation and make9 more difficult the solution of Great Britain's defence problems".
It certainly imposes further economic problems which the Prime Minister today tried to tone down. It may be true that the half a dozen or so submarines will cost only £400 million.
Mr. Eric Lubbock: Only?
Mr. Hughes: I used the word "only" in the sense that the Prime Minister used it. He said that we could support it. However, does anyone think that it will end there? Will not these nuclear submarines require an escort? Will we not require planes, based either on land or on aircraft carriers, to protect the submarines? Surely we will not allow submarines costing £40 million or £50 million to go without some kind of escort? Very able authorities point out that, rather than £400 million being the total sum, it is likely to be nearer £1,000 million before the bill ultimately comes to be reckoned up.
Our economic situation is very precarious. Either today or tomorrow the Prime Minister or some other Government spokesman will say, "Consider the help this will give to the shipyards and the unemployed". We must pay attention to that argument. It is likely that unemployed workers, or workers likely to be unemployed, on the Tyne, at Chatham or on the Clyde will say, "Yes, let us have these submarines because they will provide some kind of work". This plea was made at Question Time. We may be able to employ thousands of shipbuilding workers on Polaris submarines. The workers cannot be blamed for saying, "We will work on this rather than on nothing".
However, the economic plight of the country must be considered. It must be remembered that if the workers in shipyards are employed building naval vessels they will not be building the type of ships needed so that the commercial prosperity of the country can be restored.
1028
While our people are engaged on Polaris submarines, shipyard workers in Japan and Germany, East and West, will be engaged on building the modern ships necessary to modern commercial needs. At the end of the day our shipbuilding centres will be pools of stagnant unemployment. An economic crisis will be inevitable. Thousands and thousands of workers will be unemployed and at the end of the day our commercial competitors will have captured the market. I warn hon. Members not to be deluded into thinking that our economic problem can be solved by going in for inflated armaments bills.
President de Gaulle has been mentioned. I differ ideologically and fundamentally from the dictator or semi-dictator who is President. Many people in this country say that General de Gaulle is sticking up for France. In a sense he has shown guts which the British Prime Minister is not showing. President de Gaulle has said, "I am not going to allow the defence arrangements of France to be put in the hands of America". There will be a good deal of sympathy for his attitude.
Many people in this country believe that today too much power of decision in a matter which might lead to the obliteration of this country is in the hands of people in the Pentagon and in military circles in America who believe that this island is expendable. This debate, although it may range round the technical question of Skybolt or Polaris, goes deeper. The question is whether our policy is to be decided here by the House of Commons or is to be decided by people in America who are pushing the vested interests of big armaments concerns.
Captain W. Elliot: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. Would he agree with me that the possession by this country of an independent nuclear deterrent would help to achieve what he and I both agree about?
Mr. Hughes: I am afraid that I have not been able to convey my meaning to the hon. and gallant Member. The Prime Minister half lifted the curtain when he talked about the various lobbies. There was a lobby pushing Skybolt and a lobby pushing Polaris. I read in one financial newspaper that 15,000 people were engaged in one American industrial centre

1029
on building Skybolt. In another part of America they are building Polaris. There are big financial and vested industrial interests concerned not with the future benefit of this country but to defend their own economic position in society. We should not allow the future of this country to be decided by some kind of lobby in America.
I hope that we shall not hear any more about it being necessary for this country to have the hydrogen bomb—the independent nuclear deterrent—so that we can use it at conferences. I remember the arguments which raged in the Labour Party. At one vital Labour Party Conference it was argued that we must not go naked into the conference chamber, that we must have the H-bomb. Not much importance can be attached to that argument now. We have been arguing with the French in Brussels week after week, month after month. Nobody can say that our possession of the H-bomb helped us to solve our problems at the Brussels conference. We did not get near solving them. We did not go into a conference over Cuba. However, when we went into conference over a vital economic and international issue, namely, whether we should enter the Common Market, our possession of the H-bomb made not the slightest difference.
This country, although it may not do it diplomatically, will be forced into what is practically a condition of neutrality, a condition of disarmament. It will be forced into disarmament for the economic reason that, if we are to build up our industrial fabric and our social life, we shall have to use our brains, education, manpower and organisation, and we simply cannot afford an expensive armaments programme at the same time.
Therefore, I welcome the Amendment. I welcome the new attitude towards defence which has been expressed in speeches from these benches. If the Labour Party goes into power, as I hope it will in a few months' time, and is faced with this problem, unless it decides to go forward with a radical reduction in expenditure on armaments it cannot fulfil its pledges to the people—cannot spend more on housing, cannot spend more on education, cannot spend more on social welfare. If a Labour Government get into power and, because of an inflated armaments programme, neglect their promises
1030
to the people of this country, we will deem it our duty to carry on the same kind of remorseless criticism of them as we have of the Tories.
7.50 p.m.
Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: Rarely have I heard such honest words at the end of a speech from an hon. Member of an Opposition party. One of the difficulties of debating something which has passed is that it is extremely hard to be constructive if one is trying to condemn something which has already been done. I can think of no more abortive an exercise than recriminating about the unalterable past, and the one thing the Opposition might have thought about before tabling their Amendment was to what extent they could get the agreement altered or whether they even wanted it to be altered.
If the Opposition were now to say, "Let us alter the agreement" Britain would be made the laughing stock of the world. One hon. Member opposite, I think the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), denigrated the British troops overseas and said that our forces in Germany today were the laughing stock of Germany. Those sort of remarks are characteristic of a totally irresponsible Opposition—
Mr. Wigg rose—
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I intend to give way—which contains within it, nevertheless, one or two hon. Members—one of whom just rose to interrupt me—who know a little more about what they are talking and realise the effect which denigratory remarks have on our troops who are doing their job. I certainly absolve the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) on that score.
Mr. Wigg: It is not fair to ascribe those sentiments to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Cross-man). He was talking not about the quality of the troops—he is the last man to denigrate the British troops as such—but was addressing his remarks to the Government Front Bench who are responsible for sending our troops there as among the worst equipped in N.A.T.O.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I would be the last to complain if the words used by the hon. Member for Coventry, East were so couched as to make that clear,

1031
but they were not. We must accept this agreement whatever we may have thought beforehand and one feature I openly welcome is the decision that we should have a naval means to deliver a nuclear warhead.
The debate today has been characterised, as it so often is, by a tendency for hon. Members to talk as though a nuclear war were inevitable, to discuss how dreadful it would be if it took place and how indefensible this country and a great many others would be should nuclear war break out. That is perfectly true. It is totally irrelevant to the debate, however, because our discussion today is about the means for preventing a nuclear war happening. The talks at Nassau were not concerned with what should be done when it has broken out.
Those discussions were designed to ensure that the United States and ourselves should be able, somehow, to see that there was a sufficiently convincing deterrent—and a practical one—to prevent it ever breaking out. Let us get the position clear and realise that that was the concern of the Nassau discussions. The amount of time wasted today by hon. Members talking about what would happen if nuclear war broke out is a great pity.
Mrs. Judith Hart: Can the hon. Gentleman name one hon. Member who has done any such thing?
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I would have thought that the hon. Member for Coventry, East got fairly near to doing so and so did some of the remarks of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). I do not absolve hon. Members on this side of the House either. Certainly my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) were both guilty on the same count.
If I had to take the opinion of anyone as to whether this was a good or bad decision the first opinion I would like to know would be that of the Chiefs of Staff, and I have no reason whatever to suppose that they are not 100 per cent, behind the decision.
Mr. Wigg: How does the hon. Member know?
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The right hon. Member for Belper suggested that what was said by a Chief of Staff ten years ago is not necessarily true today. When circumstances change should one not change one's mind? It is worth recalling, however, that as recently as 1st November, 1961, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Dermot Boyle gave an address at the Royal United Services Institution on the whole question of the nuclear deterrent. He was the last previous Chief of Air Staff, and I wish to quote a passage or two from his speech because it is highly relevant to what has been said today about Britain not needing an independent nuclear deterrent. He said:
"People argue that no country would dare to attack us because America would retaliate. Is this realistic? May I just take you through a little exercise for one moment. Suppose we got at loggerheads with some bully on some issue which was no concern of the Americans, and in no way tied to N.A.T.O., or other treaty agreements, and on which the Americans disagreed with our point of view. Suppose we held out on this idea that in fact nobody would dare to touch us because the Americans would retaliate; and suppose the bully did write us off. Is it realistic to think that America would then attack them? With no treaty obligation to do so? I do not think so. Instead the following would be the argument which would be understandably developed on the other side of the Atlantic. The poor British, we are sorry about what has happened but we did not agree with what they were doing. Certainly we are under no obligation to retaliate on their behalf, and anyway they are now gone, and there is nothing we can do to bring them back. To get involved in a nuclear war in such circumstances would be lunacy."
I believe that other circumstances can be visualised. I particularly visualise the forcible argument, which I support, that unless Britain has a nuclear independent deterrent it is conceivable that Britain could never be sure of being able to use her conventional weapons in a case where the opponent was not a nuclear Power. Those who say that we should have stronger conventional forces because we have a big policing job to do must realise that we must make sure that the absence of a nuclear weapon by us will not prevent us from using them to keep the peace.
Mr. Lubbock: I am interested in the doctrine being advanced by the hon. Member because it leads us to the conclusion inescapably that we should have to use nuclear weapons to retaliate against this hypothetical bully who, presumably, is not armed with that means.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Quite so. It may be that he is or is not. He could still be a bully, irrespective of whether he has nuclear weapons.
Mr. Gordon Walker: Is the hon. Member suggesting that we might need to drop bombs on Africa, Asia or the Middle East?
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I am saying that if Britain has nuclear weapons Britain is then, on her own, in the position of being able to say to someone who looks like provoking a major conventional war that if he does he will have nuclear weapons dropped on him. If that does not deter him from starting a conventional war, nothing will. At least it seems to me that we are more likely to be able to keep the peace if we have one. Once we start talking about what happens after the balloon goes up we get completely irrelevant to the issue before us today. Once nuclear war starts, the deterrent policy has failed. I accept that straight away, but I believe that the likelihood of its ever starting is far less if we have a nuclear deterrent.
Mr. Stan Awbery: Is not any potential enemy putting up exactly the same argument as the hon. Member is putting up now? If we build up to meat some potential enemy, then the potential enemy is building up because we are building up, and so the growth in armaments continues year after year.
Sir H. Legge Bourke: Yes, of course. I accept that that is a risk, but what is the alternative? The alternative, as the late Aneurin Bevan is so often quoted as having said, is going naked into the council chamber and possibly naked into battle too. Of course there are calculated risks here. The whole defence policy of the country, whether Labour or Conservative, is based on calculated risk. It has to be, alas. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said, what we have really to get down to is the need to change the minds of men if we are not to have wars or risk of wars. But as long as we have risk of wars, conventional or nuclear, Britain is in a better position to influence events by having a nuclear deterrent of her own.
Then there was the question of whether Polaris or an air weapon was
1034
the better. I would pay great attention to what the Chiefs of Staff have said on this matter and to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson) said this afternoon. I only wish that he were here to hear me say that he was the first Minister of Defence since the war to show that he had a glimmering of what was involved in British strategy in the future. He was the first to say that unless Britain bases her strategy on a maritime conception she is unnecessarily imperilling herself and not making use of the one thing that no one can take away from us, and that is our geographical position on the globe.
I welcome Polaris as a means of Britain having a nuclear deterrent, because I think that of all the nations who should base their deterrent policy on the ocean, Britain is the one. I have used this argument several times before in dealing with Air and other Service Estimates and I will not repeat now what I have already said. But I say that we still have the most extraordinary central position in the world and nobody can take that away from us. It is because of this that oceanic communications and using the ocean in grand strategy is fundamental to the safety of this country. Without Polaris I do not think 'that we can take the fullest advantage, and even economic advantage, of our situation on the face of the globe.
This does not mean to say that I would hope to see us abandoning certain other projects. I am sure that we were right not to go ahead with Skybolt once the Americans said that they were not going to place orders with the company which was making it even if it went on making it for us. We should have been in an impossible position if we had gone ahead, but I hope that we shall not let up for one second on our research and development of manned aircraft.
I believe that we are on the thresh-hold of one of the most major advances in aeronautics visualised for a long time. We have to think in terms of flying at literally 20 times the speed of sound at a height of 200,000 feet or more. I do not want to see a penny pared off research and development in this field. If we reduce this expenditure we shall regret it sooner or later. One thing that sticks out a mile, from our point of view, is

1035
that we must be absolutely in the forefront of means of communication. If we drop out of the manned aircraft field somebody will get ahead of us there, as everywhere else. We shall have to spend far more money than we have been daring to spend. We shall have to get far more injection into the Post Office, in particular, of the idea of space communications. We have little time to do these things because others are overtaking us fast.
I have always believed that this country will have or will not have a successful defence policy according to the attitude of mind in Parliament towards expenditure on defence. The Amendment reeks of the very thing which makes quite certain that Britain will not have a good defence policy. Whenever one sees regret being expressed that so much money is likely to be spent on defence one knows what the trouble is.
I know perfectly well that there are sincere pacifists, like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), who genuinely believe that all weapons are wrong and nobody should have any. One respects them, but there are unfortunately the stupid people who believe that we can afford to give away all our weapons no matter how many weapons others have. I have always respected the sincere pacifist for the courage of his convictions. But when natural dislike of war—and who does not hate war?—leads one to support acclimatising the public to thinking that we can spend too much on ensuring a peace in which individuals are free, we are damaging hopes of the country ever having a decent defence policy.
Mr. Gordon Walker: It was a little unfair to say that the Amendment suggested that we should reduce expenditure on defence. It says that the present policy of the Government was to increase it too much.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I know. The right hon. Gentleman is playing with words. It is perfectly obvious in what is being mentioned here:
"… can have no confidence in a Government whose defence policy has collapsed and which, at Nassau, entered into an agreement which, by seeking to continue the illusion of an independent British nuclear deterrent, imposes further economic burdens upon the nation and
1036
makes more difficult the solution of Great' Britain's defence problems."
I say that we ought to be spending more than we are spending today, and as long as we have hon. Members saying that we are already spending too much and certainly ought not to spend any more, we are encouraging the very thing we do not want to encourage.
Mr. Awbery: It is not a question of the amount of money that we are spending but what we are getting for the money.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: The hon. Member has interrupted me before. I have given way very fairly in the course of my speech. I cannot give way again.
We have a major duty of leadership in the House in getting people to think sensibly on defence. As long as the nation goes on having Members of Parliament who are pressing all the time to increase the welfare budget and at the same time saying that we are spending too much on defence, then so long will the country be in unnecessary peril. All I ask is that at the end of the debate those who believe, as I profoundly do, that peace with freedom for the individual can hardly be too expensive, will at least examine their consciences before they vote tomorrow night; and I hope to see the Amendment thrown out on its ear where it deserves to go.
8.10 p.m.
Mrs. Judith Hart: It is a little unfortunate that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) has such a subjective recollection of what is said in the House and of things written on paper in the House. He has made three accusations in the course of his speech, all three of which, as far as my recollection goes, were totally unfounded. One was that my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) had been irresponsible in referring to our troops abroad. I never heard him make any such remarks, nor, I think, any of my hon. Friends. He drew none of the inferences suggested by the hon. Member, but my hon. Friend is well able to defend himself.
The second statement that the hon. Member made was that we on this side of the House were suggesting cutting down expenditure on defence. The hon. Member may have his judgment on what we actually say in the Amendment, but he must admit when he reads the Amendment

1037
that my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) is not playing with words when he says that we make no suggestion in the Amendment of cutting down defence expenditure. We say that we resent the imposition of further economic burdens because of what we consider to be the illusion that we can maintain our own independent deterrent. This is very different from what the hon. Gentleman said. I hope he will look again at the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East and at the Amendment, when he will see that this is so.
I would make only one further comment on his speech. When outlining his policy and saying why he believes that the nuclear deterrent is still so necessary for Britain, it would only have been fair if he had made perfectly clear that what he says involves a declaration that this country would regard itself as perfectly justified and free to use nuclear weapons first if we were threatened with conventional weapons. If he says that clearly, people can make their judgments about his views, but I do not think he expressed fairly what was involved in the policy that he was putting forward.
It seems to me rather fortunate—as a result of events which many people regard as disastrous, although I myself do not—that we should have our debate on this issue immediately following the known conclusions of the Brussels negotiations. One thing that is quite clear is that the two events taken together—the Skybolt event and the failure of the negotiations in Brussels—create together a more fluid situation in relation to the defence policy of this country than I have known in my political lifetime since the end of the war. I do not think there has ever been a time, as there is now, when one could say that things are bound to be very different in the years ahead and that we have now to decide in what way we wish them to be different. We have decisions to take and we have an opportunity, if we choose to take it, to take a completely fresh look at events around us and decide the way in which we would like to shape our own history, certainly in the next decade. What I find pleasing is the way in which this has been recognised by some hon. Members opposite. In particular, the speech of the hon. Member for High Wycombe
1038
(Mr. John Hall) reflected the most refreshing new look at the situation that I have heard from hon. Members opposite since I came into this House.
I remember in the second defence debate to which I listened when the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) indicated that, in his view, the negotiations and the concept of the political unity of the Six in Europe were much more closely linked to the military policy of Europe as a whole, and of this country in particular, than was generally realised. I think he was absolutely right at that time to point this out. He referred to the political unity of Europe, involving, as it clearly did or does—whichever is the correct tense to use now—a degree of military co-operation which would have involved our own defence. That this is so cannot be disputed, but many of the assumptions on which we have based our actions in this country over the last two or three years, and on which President Kennedy has based many American policies in the last year or two, can now no longer be made. Because of Brussels, military policy is in the melting pot and there is a chance to look clearly at the possibilities of choice that lie before us.
I do not want to repeat more than very briefly, in order to introduce the main point of my argument, what has already been said in this debate, and that is in relation to the arguments which have been put forward in the past to justify the maintenance of the British independent deterrent. Some of my hon. Friends have already made it clear that the two arguments which have been used by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence to show that we must keep our independent deterrent or our independent contribution to the deterrent—whichever was the phrase which was fashionable in the year in which it was uttered—were, first of all, that we must make our voice heard in the councils of the West and that unless we had nuclear weapons we would not be able to do so; and, secondly, that we had a special relationship with the United States and this was so because we ourselves possess nuclear weapons.
It has been made abundantly clear during the debate that the single event of Cuba destroyed any illusion either

1039
that we had a voice in the councils of the West or that we had a special relationship with the United States—a special relationship of such a character that we were brought into consultation before effective American decisions affecting war and peace were made.
Indeed, this afternoon the Prime Minister, when speaking about consultation on the use of nuclear weapons, was very careful to say that he accepted that consultation could take place before the use of nuclear weapons by America and ourselves—if circumstances permitted. He was careful to ensure that that phrase was included in his remarks. Clearly this must be so. It is inevitable that this is so because of the speed of reaction to events which the Cuba situation produced in America and Russia. Therefore, since neither of these arguments are any longer rationally tenable after Cuba, then new arguments must be used.
The new argument which hon. Members opposite are producing is really what the discussion must be about if one is arguing, as I am, within the context of the generally-accepted assumptions of this House. As some hon. Members know, I am a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but I recognise that in this House it is necessary to convince people who do not share my own moral assumptions on this matter of the practical justice of the unilateralist case that is put forward. But, leaving on one side the practical argument for abandoning the nuclear deterrent, it is argued that we have special interests in many parts of the world and that we must be able to make our own decisions without the danger of nuclear blackmail. That is what the Prime Minister said. I can appreciate the anxiety of many hon. Members about this. Clearly, one can regard the situation in which nuclear blackmail might be a possibility in one of two ways—either in the sense of a local incident, a local bush fire, a local danger of our interests being threatened in some parts of the world, or, as was said by an hon. Member opposite, a situation in which we are threatened with nuclear weapons because of conflict in some other part of the world in which we have some interest.
The assumption in this argument, whichever way it is put, is always that
1040
this would involve one of our essential but not necessarily major interests. I think this is so, because if it is not so the logic is that it must be such a major situation that it would involve others besides ourselves, and it would therefore no longer be the kind of limited situation which hon. Members opposite are talking about. If it is a big enough situation to go beyond, for example, the specific interests of Kuwait or Aden or Brunei, then it is the kind of dispute, conflict and flashpoint which will involve other people too. Then America becomes interested, Russia becomes interested, and one is no longer dealing with the kind of situation which hon. Members postulate.
The answer to this argument is, I think, to be found in what has been said recently in The Times. We have all been reading with fascination what has appeared in The Times during the past two or three months, and I think that its defence correspondent gave a complete answer in an article on 8th January. First, he put forward very cogently the argument which some hon. Members opposite have been using, that is:
"If Britain relied entirely upon the United States for the nuclear shield the Government would be inhibited from undertaking independent military operations of almost any kind. Operations like those in Kuwait or Brunei might have to be abandoned in face of a Russian nuclear threat, if the United States were not prepared to extend to purely British interests the nuclear guarantee which protects the alliance as a whole."
This is, at least, part of the argument. The defence correspondent of The Times goes on to say:
"This theory implies that Britain can support a separate policy of nuclear deterrence based on the 'second-strike capability'. It assumes that, under the threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, the British people will give their support to military operations of which their allies disapprove, as long as they are secure in the knowledge that if the British Isles were totally destroyed, there would still be somewhere a nuclear striking force to bring retribution to the enemy.
This may make sense for vast countries like the United States or the Soviet Union. For a small and densely populated island it is a doubtful proposition."
He goes on to say that, even if it were accepted as a reasonable proposition, it is doubtful that it could be achieved.
On Wednesday, 23rd January, The Times used another argument in its leading article in relation to precisely the same situation.It pointed out that one

1041
of the illusions which some people in this country were finding it difficult to shed was the illusion that
"there is a likely set of circumstances in which a British Government would use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons independently of its allies. Such an action would split the nation at a time when unity was never more essential. Yet it is upon the assumption that such action could seem valid that the proposals made at the Bahamas conference ultimately rest."
The Times goes on to say that, at this stage, this country ought to examine the case for having an independent deterrent at all. We know what its conclusions were.
Captain W. Elliot: The hon. Lady said that the deterrent would not apply to a densely populated country like ours in the same way as it would, for instance, to America. Surely, the point here—I do not at the moment want to argue about whether our deterrent is credible or not—is that if one has a deterrent it must be credible. If the argument is that it is not credible, that is fair enough. If, on the other hand, one is talking about a deterrent, it must deter.
Mrs. Hart: I was quoting the defence correspondent of The Times. However, the point is that the credibility of one's deterrent is in itself in some measure determined by the extent to which the enemy believes that one would be prepared to use it. If having it used against oneself would destroy one's entire country, one would take an attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons different from what might be one's willingness to use them if part of an enormous country like the United States or the Soviet Union, some of which, presumably, would survive even if nuclear weapons were used against it. I thought that it was generally accepted that the credibility of the deterrent depended in part upon the damage which would be done to one's own country if it were used against oneself.
Captain Elliot: I put it the other way: the credibility of the deterrent depends upon the amount of damage which is acceptable to the enemy. If one's deterrent will inflict greater damage than is acceptable, then he is deterred.
Mrs. Hart: Perhaps we can reach a happy compromise by saying that both factors come into it. I think that the
1042
factor I have mentioned is of greater importance.
In the present situation, the old arguments to justify the possession of the independent nuclear deterrent are no longer tenable. The new ones are, to say the least, extremely doubtful. In the view of a great many people—I am here speaking not only about members of C.N.D. and people like that but of others, including the defence correspondent and leader writers of The Times—the new arguments for the retention of the independent deterrent also are untenable.
In this situation, must we, as a nation, sit back and accept the policy which our Government put forward? They are a Government with whom we have had many profound disagreements, but, nevertheless, they have been the British Government, the Government who stood for Britain. They have come out of Brussels covered in confusion and shame. Their defence policy is in fragments about them. Must we, therefore, assume that Britain will now be a third-rate Power with no influence? Must Britain assume that, because of the events of the past ten years and, in particular, of the last year or two, she can no longer have any part or voice in the councils of the world, as she used to have? If there were some new kind of policy which could open up the possibility of Britain exercising influence in a new kind of way, it would, surely, be worth looking at.
Clearly, there is one way worth examining. I put it no higher than that. I am myself convinced that it is what we ought to do, and so are many other people in this country, but, knowing, if I may say so, the prejudices and illusions of hon. Gentlemen opposite and knowing that it would be a new idea to many of them and one which they would be inclined to dismiss rather easily, I ask them simply to look at it.
We on this side of the House recognise—and there have been times when the Prime Minister also has recognised—that one of the only effective ways to limit the danger of war and to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, which in itself adds to the risk of war, is to create areas of disengagement, nuclear-free zones. We used to think of this purely in terms of Europe, speaking of the Rapacki Plan, the Gaitskell plan, the idea of creating an area in the middle of Europe in which

1043
there would be no nuclear weapons, in which there would be separation of the countries which otherwise could come into conflict with each other.
This concept is now taken in a much broader sense, as one capable of application in many parts of the world. There are at present at the United Nations—though very little it being done about them—Brazilian proposals for a nuclear-free South America, proposals for a nuclear-free zone in the Balkans and proposals for a nuclear-free Africa. All these proposals offer the possibility of effectively and substantially reducing the risk of war in so far as war may well arise from a local conflict which sparks off further conflict or itself blazes into something bigger.
Let us consider what part we could play if we were at this point to say that we accept that our independent deterrent no longer has any meaning and we ask ourselves what we can do instead. How can we take this opportunity for initiating some new kind of action and doing something which will build up Britain in the world and make the British people feel good again about the role which they can play.
Hon. Members opposite should not underestimate the extent to which we understand the attitude of the British people. They are patriotic. They want to feel proud of what their Government are doing. They have had little opportunity to do so during the past two or three years. I suggest that we should take the idea of no independent deterrent for Britain as a basis, and add to that this further highly controversial proposition, that there should be no nuclear bases of any kind in Britain. We should examine what this means before we dismiss it out of hand. I am not just sloganising. I am not merely saying "No Polaris bases here". I am trying to look at the matter clearly and carefully. If the idea of having no bases in Britain were presented as an isolated piece of policy, one's attitude would be very different from one's attitude if it were presented as the one thing which impeded implementation of a new policy which embraced a great deal of new thinking, and it could take us a considerable way towards peace.
I suggest that the continual existence of nuclear bases in Britain is the only
1044
thing which, if we no longer have an independent deterrent, prevents us from saying, "We are taking the initiative in the creation of a nuclear-free zone in Europe". Since we know that in a very shout time there will be no effective military need for a Polaris base in Britain—the Polaris submarine can equally well be fuelled from America, certainly in the next year or so—there is no logical reason why this one factor of bases in Britain should hold up an attempt to implement a new policy, with Britain beginning a European nuclear-free zone and inviting other non-nuclear nations in Europe to join us, thus helping to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons in Europe.
With that sort of initiative, we might shake up the political situation in Europe. General de Gaulle might decide that this was the way to exercise leadership in future rather than build up his own deterrent. These things could be done separately; they are not necessarily linked together. From that point, we could take the initiative in the United Nations to establish nuclear-free zones in other parts of the world under international guarantee, under the guarantee of both great Powers, thus creating a situation in which many areas where we have vital interests and where hon. Members opposite fear there might be the danger of nuclear blackmail would come within nuclear-free zones in which there was no possibility of the use of nuclear weapons.
This is something which I believe is worth considering. Again, I agree with The Times. I am sorry to keep quoting The Times. I am sure that it has never bean quoted from this side of the House so much as it has been in the last week or two, but it is showing such remarkably good sense and is so often summing up the feelings of a great many people. It ends one of its leaders by saying that the future of Britain depends on the kind of people we are. I am sure that that is true and that the British people would like an attempt made to examine the kind of initiatives which I have been putting forward.
8.33 p.m.
Mr. Brian Harrison: I hope that the hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) will not be disappointed if I do not take up some of the

1045
suggestions which she made, such as that concerning the shaking up of Europe and not knowing exactly what might come out of it. I thought that was rather a dangerous and vague suggestion, but possibly it was rather like the pools assessments that we had a week ago from a panel of experts.
Mrs. Hart: What I suggested was that what we had done so far had produced a very bad situation and that to take another course of action might produce an improvement.
Mr. Harrison: I understand slightly better.
It is very difficult for a back bench Member to take part in a debate like this, because of the obvious secrecy about many of the things put forward by the Government and by his own Front Bench. It is also, in some ways, very presumptuous for a back bench Member to criticise the Government when he does not have the facts which are available to Ministers and cannot understand the various considerations which have forced people to arrive at various decisions.
Before I deal with the question of Polaris, which I wish to deal with primarily, I might say that we should remember that we are discussing the White Paper on the Bahamas Meetings and that quite a lot was achieved other than the agreement about Polaris. There was, apparently, agreement on a series of other factors in trouble spots or flash spots in the world, such as India and Berlin, and with regard to the treaties for dealing with the conclusion of nuclear tests. However, I wish to deal, as most hon. Members have done, primarily with the defence aspect and to look at what we have achieved with regard to an independent deterrent.
Any independent deterrent must be two things. First of all, it must be credible. People must know and believe that it can and will be used in the last resort and that it is in a fit state to get to its target. Secondly, it must be financially practicable. It must be of such a scale that a country can carry the full burden of financing it and of continuing to keep it operational.
I would not deny that the Foreign Secretary's job would be very much simpler and easier if we had a vast number
1046
or deterrents and enormous forces and were able to wield the big stick. But that is not the situation today. As a country of limited resources we can no longer act as the full policeman in the world. We have to contribute to some form of collective security, and I do not think it possible for us to envisage an occasion when we would have to use a nuclear weapon independently of our Allies.
We should look at the history of what has happened with regard to our endeavours to get a separate deterrent. First, some months ago doubt was expressed in the House about the likelihood of the United States carrying forward the full Skybolt programme. There seemed to be difficulties and Skybolt did not seem to have a certain place in the whole United States plan because of the programme in connection with other weapons which was being evolved. Just before that, Britain had abandoned the Blue Streak, and it was some time before that that Members of the House began to have doubts about the possibility of Blue Streak ever being used.
But from the day—I think it was 13th April, 1960—that the development of Blue Streak as a weapon stopped, Britain lost the means of having an independent nuclear deterrent, after the bombers, with the free-falling bombs, were no longer recognised as capable of getting through the protective screens of the countries likely to threaten us. I feel that anyone who really believes otherwise is deluding himself, because one cannot have an independent deterrent if one is dependent on somebody else to supply it.
There is, however, one thing which has come out of this Polaris agreement and which I feel is the sort of thing the Government should be saying that they have achieved in this agreement, because I feel it is by far the more important. It is not that we have a pseudo-independent deterrent but that part of the United States Strategic Air Force and of the United Kingdom Bomber Command have been formed or are being formed info a N.A.T.O. nuclear force. I think that it is only within that organisation or a similar organisation that it is possible for the deterrent to be effective for the West. Polaris itself is tied in, and Polaris will remain part of the N.A.T.O. nuclear force, and I would be prepared to think

1047
that the opportunities or the need which Britain will ever have for using it independently are nil, and therefore I think it is almost humbug to say that we have got an independent nuclear deterrent.
However, we are obviously going to be more dependent on the United States still, because, to quote another part of the White Paper:
"The United States will also study the feasibility of making available certain support facilities for such submarines."
Therefore one is in fact really helping to finance part of the American or Western deterrent, and that, I think, is a very good thing as far as it goes, but I think that it is ridiculous to say that this is an independent British deterrent.
There are two other things about this that I should like to say. First of all, is the deterrent, such as we are allegedly welcoming in this White Paper, in fact an economic one? I do not think that it is. We understand—I think my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said—that it will be in 1968 or so that we shall have the submarines, and we shall by then have laid out an enormous sum of money. It is not posible yet to be quite sure how much it will be. While I do not for a moment think that we can get conventional forces on the cheap, I do think that one must recognise the fact, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister pointed out, that the deterrent represents an additional 10 per cent, on the defence budget—the deterrent as it is planned as a result of this meeting in the Bahamas. And we are to carry on with a deterrent like that, with this tremendous additional expenditure, particularly when one of my right hon. Friends, a former Minister of Defence, resigned over a sum one-tenth of the one involved in this expenditure.
Then let us look at the credibility of the British deterrent as such and whether in fact it could be used individually. We are to have probably five or six submarines; of those submarines one or two will have to be in dry dock; and when they leave port they will probably be followed and tailed. I know that there are some people who say that it is very difficult to follow submarines, and I have no doubt that that is correct, but here the ordinary back bencher does have a very difficult time, because one
1048
Minister of Defence—and we have had a lot of them in the last 10 years—said that they are difficult to follow, and yet we have the report in The Times of 11th February, 1959, of a Press conference at which my right hon. Friend now the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations said of Polaris that
"Too little attention has been paid to the limitations of missile-firing submarines. Why, for instance, should it be assumed that they will remain undetectable and invulnerable? Their numbers will be comparatively few because of their great cost, and the movements of a very limited force could be closely watched by an enemy."
Since then there has been an opportunity of developing very extensively methods of detection, and yet we are asked to believe that six submarines can provide a real deterrent for this country.
I do not think we have a credible deterrent. I do not think that the money that is being spent on that deterrent is being spent in the best possible direction. I would much rather see that money being used in a limited sphere to supplement, but not complement, the structure that one will have in a N.A.T.O. or North Atlantic deterrent. But to set up a complete set of signals and a completely independent—because it is an independent deterrent—set of controls, and so on, is, I think, very, very wrong.
I also find it very difficult to understand why we are running when we have not really started to walk. In paragraph11 of the White Paper it is stated that the President and the Prime Minister:
"agreed on the importance of increasing the effectiveness of their conventional forces on a world-wide basis."
I find it extremely difficult to think that our conventional forces are effective when the strengths of the battalions in the Strategic Reserve are as low as 400 and 500 and when it is necessary to bring a signals unit to supplement a brigade headquarters or to exchange signals units to supplement various headquarters as between Germany and the units which are standing by ready to fly out should an emergency arise elsewhere.
I would beg the Government to look very carefully at whether they are not squandering money over this present policy, because we have had, I think it must be admitted, very poor results for the vast amounts that have been spent on defence in the last 10 years.
8.48 p.m.
Mr. K. Zilliacus: The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison) has very clearly exposed the sheer unreality of the Government's independent nuclear deterrent bluff—and a very expensive bluff it is. I agree with everything that he said on that subject.
But the issue is a little wider because both Government and Opposition look upon defence as a collective enterprise to be conducted through N.A.T.O., CENTO and S.E.A.T.O., and on that subject Dean Acheson, in his speech at West Point on 5th December which annoyed everybody so much, said one thing that I believe makes sense:
"In proposals to discuss with our N.A.T.O. allies a sound plan for military defence, agreed political policies and agreements and institutions for economic expansion are all interdependent and mutually inter-acting … The weakness in the allied position lies … in that, lacking agreement on political purposes and courses of action, the alliance may be an actual impediment to action."
That is the American view, of course, and they acted on it, first of all, in the matter of Skybolt and, secondly, in the matter of Cuba. That was the original cause of their new attitude over Skybolt. Whatever may be the validity of the technical reasons advanced for dropping the Skybolt programme, there is not much doubt that there was also the political motive that the Administration wished to assert the principle that the United States alone should control nuclear weapons in the Western alliance and should alone take the decision when to use them. That is the view that the President acted upon and has since asserted as a matter of principle over Cuba.
The House may recollect that on 31st October in the debate on the Address there was some reference to the article by the Washington correspondent of The Times of 24th October, who pointed out that an entirely new situation had been created for America's Allies, as well as for the Soviet Union, by the action of the United States over Cuba. He said that the President had in fact assumed the supreme political authority that was always inherent in the American nuclear deterrent. He added:
"The firm belief of the United States Administration is that as the leader of the alliance, with control of most of the nuclear power
1050
available to the West, if has a right and duty to defend itself and its allies—even to the extent of bringing about a nuclear exchange.
It is also firmly believed that in the present urgent situation there will be no time for consultation, that a threat of war cannot be met by committee decisions."
That is the context of the Government's new defence policy.
The point was rubbed home by the then Washington correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph, Mr. Peregrine Worsthorne, on 23rd December, when, in a penetrating analysis of American policy, he said that he had it from advisers of the President in the White House that the United States not only insisted upon taking decisions on these matters without consulting its allies if the situation was urgent, but also without consulting its own people. He said:
"What is perhaps not sufficiently realised in Britain is that the thermo-nuclear age is bringing about a change in the relations between the United States Government and the American people as it is between Washington and the allies …
Britain and Europe have to reckon with not some lightly formed American impulse prompted by national ambition but rather with the deepest purposes of a President at the very peak of his authority, convinced that he has at last found his historic mission as the leader of the West as a whole…
As with so much else in Washington these days, the full measure of Mr. Kennedy's concept of thermo-nuclear leadership found its practical expression in the recent Cuban crisis. Neither the Allies nor the American public nor Congress were really consulted."
That is the reality of the position, and the American Under-Secretary of State, Mr. George Ball, told the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians on 20th November that" Cuba is still with us".
American policy has not changed. The menace of further aggressions against Cuba still hangs over that island. American policy is a policy of cold aggression, accompanied by preparations for and threats of hot aggression in which it expects to involve its allies, if necessary to the point of nuclear exchanges and without their being consulted. This is only one sample of the kind of thing for which we may be called upon to fight, or, rather, to submit to extermination without consultation.
The Government's reaction to this situation has been to give the United States a free hand and to say that we will support them whatever they do, and never mind about the Charter, never

1051
mind about international law, never mind about Britain's trading interests, and never mind about the survival of our people.
On the other hand, paradoxically, the Government say that we ought to have an independent nuclear deterrent by grace and favour of the United States. I cannot make out whether the Government delude themselves with this paradoxical policy or are merely trying to deceive the people, but in any case it does not make sense.
General de Gaulle's policy is the other term of our defence problem. On the one hand we are bounded by American policy and America's claim to dictate to her allies, and on the other we have President de Gaulle, who can at least say "No", which is something our Government do not appear capable of doing.
General de Gaulle has also been bitten by this idea that he should have an independent nuclear deterrent. From the military point of view, his pretention is even more absurd than that of our Government. It is based on the idea that when the new type Mirage aeroplanes are ready they will be able to carry atom bombs equal to about three times the size of the Hiroshima bomb. But of course by the time these planes become operational they will be obsolete and will not be able to arrive without being shot down. A modern atomic bomb is about 50 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb and the modern hydrogen bomb about 1,000 times as powerful.
The military basis of this policy is completely unreal. The only thing to be said is that President de Gaulle is at least logical about his policy, in the sense of Cavour's, the Piedmontese statesman's, definition a century ago, that French logic consists above all in turning obstinate when circumstances change. That seems an apt description of President's de Gaulle's policy and pretensions today.
But at least President de Gaulle is logical about it. He says, "We must have our own nuclear weapons and our own means of delivering them made by ourselves. We cannot accept the Nassau Agreement because it is a mere delusion
1052
to believe that if we pool our forces or put them into a multi-national force under American command we can pull them out at a moment's notice for our own purposes. We would merely disrupt the multi-national force and its whole system of communications and command and paralyse it at the moment when it might be wanted."
A further point is that the Prime Minister is discreetly vague about just what he wants his independent nuclear force for. But President Kennedy was much more outspoken about that, because at a Press Conference on 10th January, when asked by correspondents what was the purpose of this policy, he explained that perhaps the British Government were thinking of being faced with the same situation as that with which they were faced at Suez when the alliance was divided and Britain did not have enough nuclear weapons at her disposal to stand up to a nuclear challenge to that policy.
That was put in more general terms, with soldierly bluntness, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy Garrod in The Times of the 25th January, and since we have been quoting Air Chief Marshals in this debate I should like to contribute my Air Chief Marshal's remarks. He took issue with The Times for saying that
"not much belief is now given to the idea that the independent deterrent might be needed some day to support British military operations in conditions of Russian hostility and American neutrality."
He said:
"On the contrary such a situation is highly probable.
Imagine a so-called liberation movement instigated by Russia somewhere in the Near or Far East"—
and of course any popular rising is always called a movement instigated by the Soviet Union—
"where we have important interests. We send a force to restore order and protect our interests. Russia objects to our action and threatens us with nuclear attack if we persist. The national interests of the United States may be directly opposed to ours in this small war in a remote area. If there is oil to be had, she may be eager to see our influence removed so that she can supplant us. This has happened before now.
Is it seriously suggested that the United States would not use strong political pressure on us to withdraw and accept defeat? Without our own independent deterrent we should be forced to comply."
The implication behind that idea is that when the United States disagrees with

1053
us and urges us to pursue a more moderate line—which would also mean that the United Nations would be saying, "Settle this thing by the peaceful means to which you are pledged under the Charter"—we would go ahead with a war for which, as in the case of Suez, the Government would be condemned internationally for being the aggressor, but would be prepared nevertheless to carry their aggression to the point of nuclear extermination, out of sheer bellicose fanaticism. The whole thing is insane. I cannot believe that the Government mean this kind of talk. They are not bereft altogether of a sense of responsibility for civilisation and for the survival of their own people. But this is what they say.
In one of two articles commenting on this policy The Times defence correspondent, on 8th January, took the line that it was very doubtful whether any Government could get the support of the people in subjecting them to the risk of nuclear extermination for the sake of a policy pursued in defiance of our Allies—and, I would add, in defiance of the United Nations—in some part of the world remote from our own soil. The whole conception implies, first, that power politics can be pursued with nuclear weapons, although we are so inferior in them that that would mean sheer national suicide, and, secondly, that the whole system of international relations to which we are pledged under the Charter is just a scrap of paper to which we need pay no attention.
The thing makes no sense whatever, It is intolerable that the Government should put forward this kind of thing and spend God knows how many millions of pounds trying to sustain this bluff.
But the Opposition's policy also needs drastic revision, in the light of the situation with which we are confronted by America's action and claim, in connection with Cuba, to be able to commit her allies to nuclear war—that is, to extermination—without even consulting them. First, I agree with every word of the Motion of censure put down by the Opposition, including the section condemning the Government for imposing further economic burdens upon the nation. But I point out that a policy of enlarging our conventional forces would cost at least as much, and probably more, and would
1054
also involve a return to some form of compulsory military service.
I honour those on my side and opposite who face that situation openly and say that they want compulsory military service. I do not want it and believe it is dishonest to try to pretend that that is not implied in the policy which the Americans are trying to force upon us, and which, as far as I can make out, is the official policy both of the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. It is no improvement on Tory policy. It is just as much beyond our means, and it just as much implies our forces being cannon fodder, or a burnt offering, for the vagaries of the Pentagon. I object very strongly to that.
It also means the nuclearisation of N.A.T.O. The Labour Party has said all along that it objects to nuclear weapons for the European members of N.A.T.O. and particularly to West Germany's getting nuclear weapons of any sort, as part of the N.A.T.O. forces or otherwise. Today, in response to Questions, the Minister of Defence made it clear that the Government have surrendered on this point, as on every other. But the Opposition must face the issue. I cannot believe that the idea of arming Germany directly or indirectly with nuclear weapons would be supported by our people. It is a crime against humanity to arm a country which refuses to recognise its frontiers as final, and lays claim to the territories of other countries.
There is also the question of the collective political control of N.A.T.O. The Labour Party still talks as though that were a feasible proposition, and adopts the attitude first adopted at the Margate Conference in 1953, which was that the Labour Party maintains
"full support for N.A.T.O. as a limited system of collective security in which all members have equal rights and duties, and collective policy is decided by common consent, not by one member, be it the United States, Britain or any other".
In the first place N.A.T.O. is a military alliance which, by lining up some permanent members of the Security Council against others, which have retaliated by forming the rival Warsaw alliance, has completely wrecked, paralysed and stultified the collective security system of the United Nations, which depends on the unanimity of the great Powers in the Security Council. N.A.T.O. is the

1055
opposite of collective security and a return to the old balance of power which collective security was intended to replace. It is a grim farce to talk about equal rights and duties for members of N.A.T.O. when the United States has asserted and acted on the exactly contrary view. The Government have taken that lying down as they do everything else. They are the all-in appeasers, the Chamberlains of the third world war.
There is no reason why the Opposition should stand for this, and it is not a good idea to turn a blind eye to this completely new situation. I have the answer to it, and it is also the answer to the question put by the Prime Minister about how we may be independent in our foreign policy if we abandon nuclear weapons. I say that that is the only way to be independent, because nuclear weapons are not the banner of our independence but the badge of our servitude to the United States owing to our fear of the Soviet Union.
We have to apply the principle which the Opposition have often proclaimed, that our foreign policy should determine our defence commitments. On the foreign policy of the Opposition we could reach agreement with the Soviet Union tomorrow as regard Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, both on political settlements and disarmament. It is our allies who oppose these policies and pursue policies with which the Labour Party, at any rate, profoundly disagrees and which afford no possible basis of settlement.
What we ought to do is call attention to the fact that N.A.T.O. may legitimately be invoked only in cases of unprovoked aggression, and say that this means that so long as our allies pursue policies which we regard as provocative and dangerous we will not be committed to go to war. The acid test is whether they will come to terms with us on how to make peace. Unless and until they do that we should start pulling our troops out of N.A.T.O. and pushing the American bases out of here. We cannot be independent so long as we continue to pursue a policy which results in our being dragged at the chariot wheels of the United States pursuing a course which makes peace impossible and ultimately will make war inevitable.
9.3 p.m
Mr. R. T. Paget: The policy just recommended by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus) was one which I think was pursued with rather unfortunate results in some of the countries which lie to the east of what is now called the Iron Curtain. So far as I am concerned, that is certainly not the line of policy which I propose to commend to the House.
This has indeed been a most interesting debate. It is one in which I think the Government can have found little comfort. Of all the speeches which I have heard, only the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) supported the Government. The hon. Member is famous more for his courage than for his judgment, and I commend him for his courage at least on this occasion.
There was a speech of approvement, I think, from the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson), the former Minister of Defence. But I must say that I find it very difficult—one has debated this so often with him—to find out what the right hon. Gentleman means or what are his ideas. He will keep telling us about Britain's independent contribution to the Western deterrent. I should have thought that a contradiction in terms. A contribution is part of something, and the moment it becomes independent it ceases to be a contribution. That is the point to which we have never yet succeeded in getting the right hon. Member to advance. At what point does this contribution become independent?
That is the problem one is up against here. We have had two very courageous speeches by two hon. Members who have paid the most studious attention to defence, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) and the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison). Both of them have come out, I think for the first time, firmly against a British independent deterrent. I believe they are quite right. I believe that is the logic of the situation.
It does not seem that this is a matter in which Skybolt or Polaris, or indeed Blue Streak if it had been successful, really matter very much. I am profoundly grateful that Blue Streak was not successful. If we had this island

1057
studded with a number of perfectly independent but immobile rockets, I think they would frighten me a great deal more than they would frighten the Russians. The point of deterrence is that this is primarily a psychological weapon. The whole point of it is that one is delivering a threat. It is no use delivering a threat that nobody will believe.
Who is going to believe our nuclear threat? Non-nuclear Powers? Are we going to threaten Egypt or Indonesia? Frankly, I should have thought it inconceivable that we would initiate nuclear war against a non-nuclear Power. Even if we did, we certainly would not require one of these sophisticated methods of delivery. Any existing aeroplane would be sufficient. That leaves us with one single Power, Russia. Remember, we are talking of independence.
We have to visualise that we have withdrawn our aeroplanes, which are now integrated into N.A.T.O., and our Polaris submarines, if and when we have them, from the N.A.T.O. set-up. We have withdrawn them from the Command, withdrawn from the signals network and from the whole set-up of which they are part. We have a quarrel with the Russians from which the Americans and our other allies have dissociated themselves. At that point, and on our own, we threaten them with our nuclear power. Does anybody conceivably believe that?
Mr. Eden: We reply to the threat of a nuclear attack. We make it quite clear that a nuclear attack on this country would yield no worth-while advantage to the attacker.
Mr. Paget: Who is going to believe us? Remember, we put ourselves in a position in which we have withdrawn from the Alliance.
Mr. Eden: No.
Mr. Paget: Certainly, because independence does not arise until that point.
The Minister of Defence (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): May I intervene, because the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has such a confused attitude on this matter? We are at present targeted in completely with the Strategic Air Command in the Atlantic Alliance. This has not affected the independence of Bomber Command by one jot or tittle.
Mr. Paget: I should have thought that the confusion resided entirely in the right hon. Gentleman's mind. When Bomber Command is targeted, controlled, integrated, with N.A.T.O., how on earth can he say that it remains independent at that time? It is only independent when it is withdrawn from N.A.T.O. command and used under our separate command. That is what the Government just will not awaken to. Independence means available for independent use without Americans, available for independent use when one has withdrawn it from the Alliance. There is no point in independence at any other time.
In those circumstances, probably even the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there is no credibility. Nobody will believe that sort of threat or that we should commit suicide in quite such an unpleasant way. If we initiated nuclear war against the Russians we should be a cinder next morning. What has killed the credibility of our nuclear deterrent is not delivery systems but a question of geography. The big units have built themselves up to such a point that neither we nor the French are convincing, for geographical reasons, in threatening the Russians. The consequences to our-selves would be too obviously appalling. Whether we like it or not, if we are to have any credibility we are committed to the Alliance.
That being so, is a nuclear contribution which the Alliance does not want the best contribution which we can make to its power? Is that the best use of our resources? When hon. Members see the weakness on the ground in Germany they will agree that the answer is obviously that it is not. Nuclear weapons are not the only form of deterrent. It is necessary to have other forms of deterrent on the ground. As I have said, nuclear weapons are primarily psychological weapons, and in that respect it is the mental posture which is at least as important as the technical capacity.
What are we threatening? We have passed from the Foster Dulles age, when massive retribution was threatened as an answer to any form of aggression anywhere. The Kennedy Administration has abandoned that posture. It is probably sensible to do so, because in any case it was a posture which depended on the late Mr. Foster Dulles. He alone looked

1059
and sounded, and maybe was, crazy enough to do it. Since him, nobody has been that credible. The attitude taken by the Kennedy Administration is not that they will immediately resort to massive retribution. It is that they will respond first by conventional means, then perhaps by one or two nuclear weapons to show a determination and then by a limited counter-force action, all designed to bring about a pause and to give an opportunity for second thoughts.
If there is to be that sort of policy, it becomes highly important where the pause takes place. Where the pause takes place is settled by one's capacity to resist on the ground. At present our capacity to resist on the ground is almost pathetically small. I ask hon. Members to visualise the circumstances in which perhaps there was a squeeze on Berlin, with some divisions being moved, as it has been suggested they might be moved, to test the will and see if the communications to Berlin could be opened by force. If the Russians replied to that by sweeping across the Northern plain, which is undefended and open, they could be on the Rhine before we could reach the Weser. Starting at night they would be all mixed up with us in the morning, offering no nuclear targets at all.
One would be in precisely the opposite position to Cuba. In Cuba the Americans had the conventional forces, naval and air, on the ground. Any resort to nuclears there would have involved the immediate destruction of the object of the operation. It would have been tactically fatal. The Russians would put us in a position in which a resort to nuclears immediately would render the divisions by the Berlin corridor and the other ones in the American positions behind the Bohemian mountains available for complete destruction. So there could be a new situation on our hands, brought about by the weakness of our ground forces, in a matter of hours or at most days before the assertion of the nuclear threat brought about the standstill. Unfortunately, the standstill would probably leave Germany reunified under the Communists.
That is the sort of danger we are up against in view of the weakness of
1060
our forces on the ground. Therefore, to go in for a Polaris programme at great expense does not make any sense. The minimum expense I have heard is £200 million, for what is in reality simply a status symbol when our requirements for ground forces have been so gravely neglected. The way in which our forces in Germany are equipped is a disgrace. There is an absence of the air lift which we require to give us mobility. There is an absence of a capacity to provide even as small a force as is required in Brunei without robbing the Signals of B.A.O.R. and even then having to use battalions fantastically below strength. At this point, to proceed to go in for the extravagance of a Polaris programme does not seem to me to make any sense at all.
I want to say a few words about volunteer forces, because some hon. Members opposite have suggested that we should go in for some form of selective service. I do not believe that this is either necessary or desirable. It is obviously wrong to compare the manpower effort of a country which has a volunteer army with that of a country which has a conscript army. In a volunteer army there are much longer terms of service. In a conscript army much of the force is engaged either in training or being trained and it is nothing like equivalent to a much smaller volunteer force. While in terms of money one's volunteer force is much more expensive, it is not more expensive in terms of manpower or equipment. In real terms it is not more expensive, though from a purely budgetry point of view—that is, the share of spending power one gives to the soldiers as against other members of the community—it is more expensive.
It seems to me that we are certainly a rich enough country to be able to provide ourselves with the volunteer forces we need; and the recruiting figures certainly seem to show this. Indeed, the terrifying thing is that apparently in order to go in for this nuclear extravagance we are economising at the very point which we should be expanding. I hope that in this debate we may have assurance that we are not actually going to throw away one of our brigades of Gurkhas—because that has been decided—for here are absolutely first-class troops available. For nothing other than economy the suggestion has been mooted

1061
around, which I hope will be sat on, that these troops will be thrown away.
There is obviously a sharp cut-down in recruitment for the Army. Married men are not being taken, largely, I imagine, for reasons of economy. A whole series of other nets—as to educational standards and things of that sort—exist so as to get fewer recruits; to keep the price down at the very time when this kind of expenditure on Polaris is being considered. It does not seem to make sense. Indeed, the visit of the Prime Minister to Nassau seems to be in line with the sort of frivolous irresponsibility we expect from him. It is the visit to Moscow at the time of the Berlin crisis without informing or consulting his allies and for which, of course, Adenauer has never forgiven him. It is the wind of change speech which we get in Africa and which pulls the carpet away from all the people who are trying to negotiate settlements, and ends up in Sharpeville where a lot of people who trusted him get shot.
We go to Nassau, again without consulting out allies, and he comes back with a fait accompli proposal which General de Gaulle is to be invited to join. Has he no sensitivity and knowledge of the reaction which that is going to draw? And he does this at the very moment when he is supposed to be trying to conciliate the French in order to get into the Common Market. These are the frivolous irresponsibilities of these performances, done, apparently, without proper thought and with nothing worked out so that when he comes back with an agreement we do not even know what we are paying for or precisely what we have agreed—all done without an ally having been consulted and the obvious row on his hands when he gets there. It is time he decided that his term of service and usefulness to this country, if it ever existed, came to an end.
9.29 p.m.
Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend, if I may call him such, the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) referred to the Prime Minister in such terms, particularly with regard to my right hon. Friend's speech in Africa, because on that occasion the Prime Minister was absolutely frank with the world. He was realistic in pointing out the position as it really was. Had my right hon.
1062
Friend not made that speech the hon. and learned Member for Northampton could have accused him of having been dishonest.
The hon. and learned Member asked who would believe us if we had the deterrent. I have yet to read or hear mentioned that Mr. Khrushchev has ever belittled our V-bomber force. If he had been as indifferent as the hon. and learned Member suggested we should have heard about it by now. This is a very considerable force to which I will refer in a moment. I do not think that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence made absolutely clear what proportion of Bomber Command would be allocated to N.A.T.O. The hon. and learned Member seemed to think that the whole of the Command would go to N.A.T.O., but perhaps we shall have a clear statement on that point tomorrow.
The hon. and learned Member also referred to the British effort in Germany. It is frequently said on the Continent that we are not doing all that we should do in Europe, but the Americans recognise that this is only one of the roles which Britain is fulfilling. They have said repeatedly that they recognise the roles we are fulfilling in the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf and South-East Asia. I only wish that they would make clear to the world their real feelings that Britain has these other roles, admittedly with conventional weapons, in other parts of the world besides Europe. These are roles which the Americans themselves cannot play. We are the only nation that can play them. We even stepped into Thailand early last year. When it is asked what Britain has done, I would point out that if it had not been for Britain there would have been catastrophe in Laos. We certainly pulled the irons out of the fire on that occasion.
The right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) said he thought that the V-bomber force ought not to be thrown away, but he then qualified it by saying "for three or four years", and eventually came down to one or two years. His right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker) said about this time last year that Bomber Command ought to be run down. I was mystified at the time by that statement, because a great number of V-bombers have yet to be delivered and I

1063
should have thought that the force had a role to play, and even possibly a conventional rôle.
I thought that the right hon. Member for Belper did not quite give the credit to British efforts that he might have given. Here I am critical of the ways employed which led to the agreement in Nassau, but I am completely with my own Government that Britain should have the deterrent. I have disagreed in many respects about the way the Government have gone about it. I shall say this with a frankness which I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence will appreciate and will not misunderstand if I speak rather plainly. The right hon. Member for Belper said that our submarines would be out of date by the time they are built. Unless the necessary methods of detection are brought about, I cannot see why that should be so. Perhaps tomorrow some hon. Member or right hon. Member opposite will elaborate on this.
Very little has been said about disarmament in the debate. This is a matter to which we ought to give attention, because one has detected in recent weeks that Mr. Khrushchev is talking more and more about disarmament as time goes on. He refers to it continually, and it may well be that in the immediate years ahead real progress will be made in that direction. Here I am with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister 100 per cent. on what he is trying to achieve, but I differ from him on the method. If disarmament comes about in five years' time we shall have a great deal of money written into Polaris, and we shall have done away with the V-bomber force when I should have thought that it would have been cheaper to carry the weapon in the air. There is a definite possibility of the Prime Minister, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev working on disarmament, but we have a better chance of getting disarmament if Britain can play her role even in the disarmament discussions, and we are more likely to play that role if we have something to back us up there, too.
Over the years the Opposition and back benchers on the Government side have found it extremely difficult to make their contributions to debates on these questions. We are inhibited to a great
1064
extent. When one has a piece of information which is known to be secret, one is not allowed to mention it. The situation is the same now as it was when Lord Alexander was Minister of Defence. I should have thought that as the years went by progress would have been made in determining how to disseminate information among hon. Members so that it could be passed on to the public. I will not elaborate on this point, but I must say that I am more or less in agreement with the hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). I think he is on the right lines.
To some extent, these matters of defence, not always but sometimes, transcend party. The country's future and the safety of the people are far more important than anything else, because however successful we are in trade, unless the country is secure we are in for trouble. I recognise that there is a divergence of view on the deterrent between the two sides of the House. I have done my best in my constituency, in Macclesfield and Congleton, to discuss with my constituents how they feel about the matter, and I am convinced that the majority of people in my constituency want Britain to have its independent deterrent. They would prefer it to be a British deterrent. I am convinced of that.
I only hope from the political point of view that the party opposite will pursue the policy which they have done, because it will not be well received in the country. Hon. Members opposite may remember the poll which was carried out by the Daily Herald 18 months or two years ago on this question, when four out of five people who were questioned thought that Britain should have a deterrent and three out of the five were Labour voters. Perhaps the party opposite will carry out another poll and see what the position is today.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Polls are very good these days.
Sir A. V. Harvey: I would not attach too much importance to them, because they change very rapidly.
There is a viewpoint held by some people—I do not subscribe to it myself—that neither the Soviet Union not the United States would ever use the deterrent unless their own homeland was threatened. We ought to think about that. What we may feel

1065
today about our friends may be quite different in five or six years' time. Although the situation in France has been building up in the last five years, a few years ago we thought that we had given enough blood and tears fighting for the French, that at least in our lifetime there would be a relationship which would be well cemented. But it does not seem to be so. We have got to have a deterrent if we are to play a part in the world which our people think we should play.
Two or three weeks ago I was able to visit the United States. I paid a rush visit to try to get some first-hand information on these weapons in California. I spent a day with the Douglas executives, Donald Douglas and his son—very fine men, both of them. I am sure that the Prime Minister was right in not accepting what was quite a generous offer by Mr. Kennedy to go fifty-fifty on research and development. There is no doubt that the Douglas company is having a very difficult time, like the aircraft industry here. It has lost a lot of money in building the DC8. Undoubtedly that great concern will be kept going. Because Skybolt has been "ditched", other contracts will be given to it.
When these contracts for Nike, Zeus and the anti-missile missile are given to the Douglas concern, it is obvious that its top scientists will be put on the new contracts and the personnel will be diluted. The Skybolt project would continue for a long time 6,000 miles away from Britain, with dollars going out and with not much control. The Prime Minister was absolutely right in taking that decision. The Douglas people were very frank. When I talked with Mr. Bram-berg, their chief scientist, I was told that Skybolt so far was the best missile they had ever tackled. They had had the least trouble with it. They had had trouble in getting the motors to fire, but that is not difficult to overcome.
I had discussions later in the day with the Nortronics people who make the guidance system, a very fine concern, a subsidiary of Northrop. They told me that on the sixth test Skybolt did exactly what was expected of it, no more and no less. It went 800 miles down the line absolutely straight. The retro-thrust cut out when it should have done. It was all shown on the computers. They let it go on for another 80 miles to see what would
1066
happen, but it was never meant to do a re-entry; it was not equipped with the code. It did exactly what was expected. I was told at Northrop that the men are not research and development workers but production workers. The guidance system had reached that stage, and it was actually in production.
I had the opportunity to speak also to the British people, the Ministry of Aviation team and the R.A.F. officers. Their collaboration with the Douglas people and the other Americans concerned was all one would expect, first-class, very close collaboration. They were happy in what they were doing. They were highly optimistic about the possibilities of Skybolt, and when they heard the decision that it was dropped they were dumbfounded. They could not believe it or understand it any more than the Douglas people could.
I am satisfied of one thing, after having discussed the matter with all these people and, afterwards, in Washington. Officials in Washington admitted that it was a mistake ever to say that Skybolt was "ditched" for technical reasons. I think that the Americans are now being frank enough to say that it would have been better not to adduce technical reasons for stopping the work, and I think that it ought to be seen in that perspective.
Now, a word about the British personnel in California. I remind my right hon. Friend that there are several hundreds of them there with their wives and children, people who went out in the expectation of a tour of two and a half years. They have to have motor cars to get to work over great distances. They have bought their cars on hire purchase, and their furniture. I hope that the Treasury will be as lenient to these men as they were to the personnel after Suez so that we do not leave a mess behind in the United States. I am sure that this will be taken care of, but I just mention it.
In September, we were all led to believe that the tests with Skybolt were going well. We have been told by the former Minister of Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson), that he was told in July that the tests were going on. Why the sudden change? On this one issue of Skybolt, the right hon. Member for Belper has been fairly consistent. Although he has changed his

1067
mind quite frequently on Polaris and other matters, he has been consistent about this weapon.
Mr. Gordon Walker: And right.
Sir A. V. Harvey: I cannot understand how one could conceivably condemn a weapon in the first six months of its scientific life. Every weapon and every aeroplane today presents a difficult problem. One cannot see the troubles one will meet. The right hon. Gentleman condemned this weapon when work had just started on it. It seemed an extraordinary thing to do. Of course, when vast sums are being spent, one has people on one side and on the other, those for and those against, those who have axes to grind or vested interests in the various Services.
It is an extraordinary thing to be told in September that the weapon was going well and the tests were proceeding and then, immediately after Cuba, to find that there has been a change of mind. I recognise that, of course, finance comes into it, but certainly not technical reasons. The Americans have ample other weapons.
I do not know whether Mr. Kennedy sees himself as playing some great role in the world, trying to do a deal with the Chinese or with Mr. Khrushchev vis-à-vis the Chinese, and he does not want to consult the countries of Europe. It could be so. On the other hand, in what happened at Nassau he certainly put out a friendly hand to this country. It is all very confused, to say the least.
I have heard that there are 600 to 800 B52s in the American bomber force. To carry four Skybolts under the wings of these aircraft would have necessitated redesigning and remaking wings for that entire fleet. If so, the bill for it would probably have been £400 million—£500,000 an aeroplane. In those circumstances, I can understand why the bill has become so large.
As I said earlier, I think that it would have been cheaper, and certainly more popular with the people of Britain, had we developed our own weapon for the V-bombers which would have seen us through the next seven or eight years. I always thought that Polaris, fine weapon though it is, would follow later. In my
1068
view, it has come five or six years too soon. I always hoped that the life of the bomber force would be what was intended. We have a bomber force which is every bit as good as that of the Americans. Some people say that it is even better. It is smaller in numbers, but it is made up of remarkable aircraft with the elite of the Air Force flying and maintaining them. The "know-how" is there. As I see it, it is a pity not to use that force for its intended purpose.
I ask my right hon. Friend, when he speaks tomorrow, to tell us what exercise was carried out to see whether the guidance system could have been brought out of Northrop so that British scientists and technicians could see what they could do to produce a weapon. The Americans are able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, but I am not convinced that their research is any better or even as good as British research. One has only to look back over the last 20 years to see what we have done. The radar system and the jet engine are British inventions. There is capacity in the electronic industry in this country to produce a weapon.
We are given various figures for weapon costs. Those in industry hope that they will cash in on the cancellation of Skybolt and will sell something to the Government. Those of us who discuss these matters with industrialists are inclined to be given very optimistic figures and dates, but I should have thought that a weapon could be produced in this country for less than £200 million. That would be the bill on top of the cost of the V-bomber force.
The figures for Polaris vary. If the number of Polaris submarines is to be six, I have heard it suggested that, with the mother ships, storage bases and the extraneous equipment required, the bill might be nearer £500 million than £400 million. I should like to know whether any of the three Services will have to sacrifice some of their weapon programmes to meet that target.
I have never looked on the airborne ballistic weapon as something which would finish, unless there was disarmament, when the Vulcans were worn out or went out of service. I was told by the Douglas people that they were looking forward to a range of about 1,500 miles from Skybolt. We know that two or three years ago the Government

1069
were considering, after the Vulcans had gone out, using something like a VC10 as a platform for the weapon. That would have been a very cheap and efficient way of carrying the weapon if the weapon had been produced. But whether the Government have gone into this in the detail that they should have done, I am not sure.
The V-bomber force as we know it has a conventional role. It could even drop leaflets, apart from high explosives. It could go to Borneo. The Polaris submarine has no other role whatever except that of the deterrent. That is important to the nation since we do not have unlimited finance.
If we are to have a deterrent, I should have preferred it to have been a British weapon. I think that if we have to depend on another country, while it is all right today, it may not be all right when the time comes. We shall undoubtedly have to depend on our American allies when it comes to servicing and personnel for the Polaris submarines, which are full of electronic equipment, and they may well have to go over to America to be maintained. But if our bomber force is to be run down in the years ahead and the American bomber force is also to be run down, what is to be done to contain the Russian air defence system? Tens of thousands of men are employed at present on radar and rocketry and so on. They will probably be employed on other work. I should like to be told by the Government that this matter is not being neglected.
The Prime Minister said that there might be four or five Polaris submarines. Is it a sufficient number to be really effective? I would say not. I should like to know what is the hitting power of the fleet envisaged compared with the maximum hitting power of the V-bomber force, and I should like to get it in a percentage rather than in figures. I think that there is a danger that if we have only four or five submarines operating from a small island like ours the vessels will be shadowed; and the killer, I imagine, would usually have the advantage in shadowing our Polaris submarines. If one has 40 or so, as the Americans will have, one is in a very much more favourable position. A few, of which one or two would be in dock and only three or four travelling, are not enough to give Britain a deterrent.
1070
I hope that ways and means will be found somehow to improvise to give us a weapon not only to fill the gap but to cover the period of possible detection. Polaris as it is today is a very fine weapon, but Who can say that detection will not be possible before the end of this decade? Who would have thought in 1937 that we should be spotting aircraft by radar in the Battle of Britain in 1940? But is was done. Ten years ago everybody was astonished by the bangs of supersonic aircraft; we are now building with the French—I hope it will go on—a supersonic airliner to fly people to New York in three hours. Who really would like to cross his heart and say, "Detection of submarines will not take place"? The question needs very careful considering. If it happened we should be very vulnerable.
Mr. Awbery: What happens in a few years' time if Polaris becomes outdated and is no good? It is possible, as with other weapons.
Sir A. V. Harvey: That may be. We cannot look all that far ahead.
What is worrying me is the possibility of detection, and because of that I think the manned bomber has a role. I am not saying that because I have been in the Air Force and associated with it for so many years. I really believe there is a role for the manned bomber. I had that view expressed to me by senior officers in Washington. They feel that there is a vital role for the manned bomber for several years ahead.
The Nassau Agreement as we see it today is nothing more than an outline. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will not take amiss what I am trying to explain, because all this has given me considerable worry in these weeks. It seems to me that there are a number of details which have got to be settled before the agreement is brought about; there is a great deal to consider, which can take two or three months. I suggested to Dr. John Rubel in the Pentagon—(he is No. 2 to Mr. McNamara—not that he should, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Belper suggested, rent a submarine; but, I said, If you want to retrieve the situation, overcame the misunderstanding between our two nations, why not

1071
loan us a submarine and make a practical gesture to the British people to show that you trust us completely?"
The question I would ask my right hon. Friend is, is anything like that happening? What is to happen if the Americans discover a better weapon than Polaris? This is a question I had put to me just now. Do we go along with it? Are we to be kept informed?
The cost of Polaris, I imagine, will be spread over several years. I wonder if that is the reason for the slow delivery of our Polaris submarines. In America today, with all their "know-how", from the word "Go" they are launching Polaris complete in 18 months. Surely if they can do it in 18 months we could do it in three to three and a half years. I hope that the Government, if they are to have the weapon, will not spread equipping the country with it over many years, but will make a real effort and get on with the job. I think that the criticism of the Government over the years has been their inconsistency over a lot of these matters, the changing of their mind, instead of getting on with the problems and treating them as a Battle of Britain effort. If we are going to do it, let us do it properly and throw everything we have into it.
It is generally admitted in Washington now, according to the information that I was given, that they regret the handling of the Skybolt situation at Nassau. The impression I got was that they would now like to have set up a joint committee between the two countries and sat down together and given a reasonable statement which would have been published afterwards. But that did not happen.
As the Prime Minister is here, I want to tell him that I should like to have an assurance tomorrow from the Minister of Defence on whether the Chiefs of Staff are absolutely with him today on the matter as it rests. Are they in agreement? Can we be told that tomorrow?
We have been told that the Prime Minister did well, and I think he did extremely well, to get what he did. However, the Americans having ditched the Skybolt agreement as they did, there ought not to have been any question of the Prime Minister's battling hard to get Polaris. I should have thought that if
1072
one broke an agreement with a friend and ally one should say, "We are sorry this has happened. Will you have this instead?" But the Prime Minister had to battle for it. What has disturbed me is that in dealing with a close ally we have had to go to extremes to make our case.
I feel that on all these matters rather too much emphasis has been placed on scientific advisers. I will not mention any names from either side of the Atlantic. However, scientific advisers do not carry responsibility, but the Chiefs of Staff do. I hope that all the people concerned who have responsibility, technical and otherwise, will be brought into all these matters.
When the Minister of Defence returned from Nassau he said, "There is a great future for the Royal Air Force. I am not worried about it." I hope he will explain tomorrow what that future is, because I can assure him that the morale in Bomber Command today could not be lower. Those men need propping up; they require some encouragement in a practical way. The young men in that command are the elite of our country today. They have been keyed up to do the job for which they have been trained for several years. It will be a great tragedy if they are not to fulfil the role for which they have been trained.
I want now to refer to the French effort with the deterrent. This is something which has disturbed me for some time. When General de Gaulle was offered Polaris, I imagine it was not a very genuine offer because he could not make the warheads. He had to say "No", and everybody knew he would have to. Indeed, it would have been better if the offer had not been made. But he is going ahead to provide France with a deterrent, first of all a free-falling bomb and afterwards a stand-off weapon. No one should underestimate the capabilities of the French electronics and aircraft industries, for they are extremely able, and they may produce something quicker than we or the Americans think. That is something else to bear in mind. If the French bring about such an achievement and we have not got a deterrent, where will Britain be? I have seen Britain pushed around enough on other things. If we are to be allowed to be pushed around by General de

1073
Gaulle, that is just about the end. I hope that the Government will take these matters into account.
An hon. Member opposite talked about conventional weapons and conscription. I hope that conscription will not come about. We have achieved great success with our recruitment, and we should continue on that line.
I would tell my right hon. Friends that I want us to have a deterrent, and I should like us to do it in the most efficient and cheapest way possible. They should put everything they have into it to make it work and give us something of which the people of the country will be proud and by which they
1074
will be reassured. If my right hon. Friends do this, I am sure they will meet with the approval of the great majority of the British people. I am convinced that the great majority want a deterrent.
I hope that the Labour Party will think twice about the Amendment, which is not in the interests of the country. The right hon. Member for Belper, who made a very fine speech, did not, however, speak with his usual conviction on this subject. I do not think his heart was in it.
Debate adjourned.—[Mr. Hughes-Young.]
Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

POISONS
10.0 p.m.
Dr. Barnett Stross: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Poisons List Order 1962 (S.I., 1962, No. 2669), dated 3rd December, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11th December, be annulled.
Would it be reasonable, Mr. Speaker, also to discuss the second Prayer—
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Poisons Rules 1962 (S.I., 1962, No. 2670), dated 3rd December, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 11th December, be annulled.
Mr. Speaker: If that is the wish of the House, I think that it would be most convenient.
Dr. Stross: We are dealing with a subject of some complication. Both of these Measures stem from one piece of legislation—the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933. I have looked at a good deal of the previous legislation, going back more than 100 years, but I think that to refer to that would be out of order, because these matters stem from the 1933 Act. In every case, however, and certainly in this, the purpose of legislation is twofold. It is, first, to control the sale of poisons to the public and, secondly, to reduce the danger to human and animal life which may result from their indiscriminate sale to the public by unqualified persons. In other words, as the Under-Secretary of State to the Home Department is fully aware, the purpose of these Measures is to say who shall be responsible for prescribing a particular drug or so-called poison, whether it shall be a doctor, dentist or veterinary surgeon, or whether certain substances shall be made available in certain designated places, or completely and freely available.
My first question is why the Under-Secretary is here to listen to the debate. In other words, why is the Home Secretary responsible? I have made a note of some of the reasons which have been given. The Departmental Committee on the Poisons and Pharmacy Acts, which was set up in 1930, considered this very question of why the Home Secretary
1076
should be responsible and it gave the reasons in three short paragraphs. I hope that I will be able to state arguments to the complete satisfaction of the Home Secretary to show that the Committee was wrong and perhaps we shall be told that the Home Secretary will gladly rid himself of this responsibility from now on.
The first paragraph said:
"the Home Secretary, as the Minister responsible, in England and Wales, for the prevention of crime and all qusetions of 'police', is directly concerned in the control of the sale or supply of poisons and should, therefore, have the decisive voice in the making of rules which he has to administer",
The second paragraph said:
"the Home Secretary is directly responsible for the administration of the Dangerous Drugs Acts, which are closely connected with the administration of the Poisons and Pharmacy Acts and embrace substances included in the latter Acts; and he is brought by the duties of that administration into close contact with the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain on many points."
The third paragraph said:
"the Home Secretary acts on behalf of the Privy Council in the House of Commons in regard to all questions relating to the administration or amendment of the Poisons and Pharmacy Acts."
Those are the reasons given, and I want to argue that the whole matter should be reconsidered.
There is a great deal of confusion here, and there is certainly divided responsibility. For example, at present the Home Secretary is responsible for the control of dangerous drugs, but the Minister of Health is responsible for tine control of therapeutic substances, and everybody knows that what is a therapeutic substance today may tomorrow be considered to be a dangerous drug. Secondly, when we are dealing with food adulteration and food additives, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food are jointly involved. This is another example of confusion. Thirdly, when we are dealing with the Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) Act, 1952, we find that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food alone is responsible for the regulations.
Therapeutic substances, as they are in these Rules, are very often placed in the Poinson List Orders in Part I or Part II, and in the first of these Statutory Instruments we find 31 substances, either

1077
singly or in groups, brought in for the first time. They include a whole group of diuretics. I propose to mention only one. I shall not attempt to get my tongue round some of these names. Diuretics include chlorothiazide and its derivatives. What is fascinating is that in this case there is a declaration, although it is not directly in these Rules, that any future derivatives of this will be included as well.
Secondly, I notice a slimming preparation in the list. Thirdly, I see antiinflammatory agents and drugs used in the treatment of high blood pressure, hypertension, and also a drug which is used to alleviate mental depression. There is also a group of anti-histamine drugs. I do not see what these have to do with the Home Secretary. This is wrong, and the answer is that 1963 is not 1930. In 1930 Pandora's Box was not properly opened, and chemists and manufacturers were not giving us all these strange, new, remarkably valuable synthetic drugs, some or all of which tend to have side effects and have to be carefully watched. I am sure that if the Committee were sitting now it would come to a different conclusion, because in 1930 the practice of medicine was very much simpler than it is today, and we have undergone a revolution. We cannot under any circumstances associate the control of these drugs with the fact that the Home Secretary has control over the police and is associated with the suppression of crime.
If we are to leave the Home Secretary out of it, to whom should we give the duties? I think that the right thing to do is to say that they should be the responsibility of the Minister of Health, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, for he has a definite part to play in the application of these Rules, and all future ones, and the Secretary of State for Scotland.
I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will be able to answer this point. This again is a complaint, because it seems that if the intention is to protect the public we are going about this in the wrong way, and that we ought to reverse our philosophy and technique if we are to give the public maximum protection against dangerous substances, whether they be drugs or rank poisons.
1078
The 31 substances which have been newly added in Part I of the Order have been added because, after trial and free use by the public, and easy and free sale, they have been found to have side effects, some of which may be unpleasant and dangerous. They are added so that they will not be obtainable except on the prescription of a doctor, veterinary surgeon or dentist. Surely it would be wise to provide that virtually all new drugs should first go into that list—unless we are quite sure they are safe—and then, after experience of two or three years, perhaps be taken off the list. The Rules contain provisions whereby these substances can become exempt by being placed in the Fourth Schedule, which refers to the exceptions which are made, such as syrup of wild cherry, and the use of sodium fluoride in mouth-washes or dental pastes. These can be used more freely if, in the first place, most preparations are put into Part I when they first come from the manufacturer, so that only a doctor, veterinary surgeon or dentist may prescribe them.
I have only three short questions to ask the Joint Under-Secretary. The first concerns criteria. What criteria are used, and what mechanism is employed, to put a drug or substance into Part I or Part II of the Order? Is it done on the advice of the Poisons Board? If so, why does it take so long before action is taken? Why must it be necessary for disturbances in the Press, for a campaign to be started, and for Members on both sides of the House to point out that an undesirable drug is being widely used without any control on it, and is doing great harm to our constituents, before any action is taken? It is not good for the Home Secretary or his Department that this should happen so regularly.
Lastly, will the Under-Secretary give us an explanation, however brief, of the reason for the change of procedure in the appointing of what is described as
"a person duly authorised by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food"
instead of the former method, where the qualification is listed?
I have no specific criticism to make about the Poisons Rules, except the question of principle, as in the case of the Order. I am delighted to see that sodium arsenite and potassium arsenite are no

1079
longer to be used in sprays, because it is now accepted that these substances are dangerous to agricultural workers.
10.14 p.m.
Sir Hugh Linstead: I agree with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stress) and his hon. Friends that it is a useful service to have a short discussion of these Statutory Instruments through the machinery of the Prayer. Although none of us would wish to delay the Order or the Rules, it is clear that they now provide an extremely clumsy machine to achieve the purpose behind them.
Basically, the intention is to protect the public against deliberate or accidental poisoning. Yet, if we survey the medical field today, we see that it is far more than protection against crude forms of poisoning that is required by the public. What the public requires today, in reference to medicines in particular, is protection against impure medicines; medicines inaccurately manufactured; medicines being freely sold which give rise to addiction; medicines which may give rise to acute or chronic toxicity; medicines with deleterious side effects; the making of unjustified claims of therapeutic working and medicines which are dangerous if administered without proper supervision. It is extremely difficult under the corpus of medicine legislation—at the moment a patchwork of historical accidents—to give the public that comprehensive protection to which it is entitled.
I am sure that the hon. Member was quite right when he referred to the fact that it is only history which can make sense—if indeed it is sense, that even history can make—of the present situation. In fact this House and the Government have never faced the problem of how best to control the supply of medicines to the public as one comprehensive problem. That has become more obvious to us recently because we are discovering that medicines can give rise to far more social problems than was realised 100 years ago, or 50, or even 30 years ago when the drugs of addiction were first recognised. The tranquillisers, the oral contraceptives and drugs of addiction of the simple kind—heroin, morphine, cocaine and so on—give rise to social problems which can no longer be neglected by the Government. One appreciates
1080
that people carry benzedrine to pep them up and aspirin to deflate them—if that is the term—and even barbiturates to give them a quiet night's sleep.
The attitude of mind in the public is. I am sure, at any rate partly due to the fact that in this country we have legislated only for medicine as poisons. We have never really taught the public to regard medicines as something in almost all circumstances to be taken with caution. A very distinguished physician said to me a little time ago, in relation to the thalidomide tragedies, "When I was a young medical student we were always taught that in no circumstances were we to give drugs of any kind to expectant mothers. That is now forgotten. Our professors no longer teach that to medical students and some of these troubles arise because of that attitude of mind".
What I wish to say generally with regard to these Statutory Instruments is that they are a valiant attempt with inadequate machinery to deal with a problem that is much wider than is represented by the work of the Poisons Board. I had the privilege of serving on the Poisons Board for over 20 years and I can pay tribute to the work done there voluntary by members and by civil servants. Nevertheless, it is not the right instrument for the task to be fulfilled.
There are no fewer than seven Acts of Parliament dealing either with poisons or medicines. I have here a list of eight authorities responsible in one way or another for prescribing standards for medicines or standards of purity on different subjects. There are certainly three groups of enforcement authorities, the Health Ministry, local authorities and the Pharmaceutical Society. With that jungle of confused legislation and confused responsibility, it is beginning to become extremely clear that we need a comprehensive review of the whole field and the replacement of these bits of historical legislation by one comprehensive statute.
One or two principles ought to be clearly recognised. The first is that, legislatively speaking, there must be a separation of legislation on medicines from legislation on poisons. In the second paragraph of the Poisons Rules, 1962, there are references in two succeeding lines, one to a medicine and the next

1081
to a sheep dip. I put it to the House that we cannot legislate for two things as far apart in daily use as a medicine and a sheep dip merely because of the accident that they both contain sodium arsenite, which is what the Rules seek to do.
The first thing is to separate legislation on medicines and poisons. That would help on the point made by the hon. Member that over a part of the field the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food should be the responsible authority and the second principle should be the responsibility of the Minister of Health rather than the Home Secretary. Anyone who looks at the Schedules to these Instruments will agree with what the hon. Member said, that the Home Secretary should be most willing and glad to shed the responsibility which goes with these mystic lists. Thirdly, we ought to look for one basic Statute to deal with the whole of the necessary legislation covering the control of medicines in the public interest.
Fourthly, this will require at the service of the Minister of Health some expert advisory body which can tell him which are the medicines which need which control. I am not sure that I go quite so far as the hon. Member did in saying that everything new should be put under the control of medical prescription to start with and freed only after three or four years' experience has shown that to be necessary.
Dr. Stross: I qualified that by saying, unless one is absolutely certain that that procedure is not needed.
Sir H. Linstead: I do not think that there is anything between us. The hon. Member will probably agree that the only way to discover what a new medicine will do to 50 million people is to give it to 50 million people and that there must be some element of risk and doubt. It boils down to this. What should be envisaged now is an inquiry into the whole field that we have been looking at rather superficially tonight, with a view to formulating a consistent policy and putting it before the Government in the hope that in due course a Government will put it before the House. If we are to carry on as we are doing now with this old, and in some cases
1082
Victorian, machinery we shall have unsatisfactory results in spite of the efforts of civil servants and experts to make the machine work.
10.23 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I am tempted to follow the lead given by the hon. Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) and to try to widen this debate to include a discussion of the whole question of the control, testing, distribution and approval of all drugs, ethical and non-ethical. However, I shall resist that temptation if only because I should probably very soon be straying outside the rules of order.
I content myself with one or two general observations which, I readily admit, have already been underlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) and the hon. Member for Putney. There is hardly anything which either of those hon. Members said with which I find myself in disagreement. We all recognise, to put it no higher, that it is an anomaly that the control of poisons today rests with the Home Office. As both hon. Members pointed out, this is an historical accident because that was the Department responsible for the Pharmacy and Poisons Act of 1933, but I do not think that a very good reason for continuing this practice into the 1960s. It must lead to considerable difficulties. It certainly leads to some difficulty for hon. Members.
We are all aware of the sort of process which is put in train when a drug comes under suspicion and the suspicions are ventilated in the Press. One turns instinctively to the Minister of Health for some guidance and then finds that this drug is on sale over the counter in chemists' shops because it is not on the Poisons List. One then has to switch one's attack to the Home Office to try to get the drug put on the Poisons List, if there is a case for that. This all takes time. The hon. Member for Putney said that from his experience he feels that the Poisons Board does excellent work, but it seems to me that it is not one of the most rapidly moving agents of Government.
The Minister of Health cannot divest himself of his responsibility in these matters. He has a duty if only to advise prescribers about drugs, and he has to institute a parallel investigation with his advisory committee, which may have

1083
different personnel, or some personnel common to the Poisons Board. I do not know about that.
Sir H. Linstead: One observation arises from what the hon. Member has said. It is worth putting on record that the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society has been very wise in this respect and has given advice to chemists well in advance of action taken by the Home Office. In the vast majority of cases that has stopped the sale of these questionable drugs across the counter. But the fact that this has to be done emphasises how slowly the machine works.
Mr. Robinson: I am glad that the Council gives that advice, but I think that the hon. Member would agree that occasionally drugs slip through even that net.
This must lead to some inter-Departmental confusion, as in all cases of divided responsibility, and it is a situation which we ought to try to bring to an end. I certainly support the view of the hon. Member for Putney that the time has come for a fresh look at the whole problem, and certainly to consider whether it is still appropriate that the Home Secretary should be the responsible Minister in this field.
May I ask one or two specific questions about the machinery? What is the process which takes place before Instruments such as these are drafted and laid before Parliament? From where does the initiative normally come to consider the addition of substances to the Poisons List? Looking through the list I notice that a well-known tranquillising drug, perhaps the most commonly used tranquilliser in mental hospitals, does not appear on the list. This is not conclusive; I am only a layman, and it may be there under another name. But it would be surprising if it were not there, because I am sure that it is not a drug which ought to be freely available to those who go into a chemist's shop.
Clearly this is not the only machinery which divides drugs into ethical and non-ethical drugs. If the Minister can answer this question I should like to know how it comes about that drugs which do not appear on the list and have no statutory ban upon them nevertheless are regarded
1084
as drugs which can be supplied only on prescription. Are substances ever removed from the list and in what circumstances does that come about? How often is consideration given to a new batch of drugs? Does the Poisons Board "meet only if there is a demand for some new substance to be added to the list, and from where does the demand come? Does it meet regularly? What decides how frequently Orders of this kind come before Parliament? It would be helpful if the House were given some answers to those questions.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will carry back to the Secretary of State, and indeed to the Minister of Health, who has considerable responsibility in the matter, that, at any rate in a small House, a unanimous view from the Opposition benches and the Government back benches was expressed critical of the present machinery and asking whether the time has not come to take a fresh look at the whole problem.
10.30 p.m.
Dr. A. D. D. Broughton: I do not wish to detain the House for long, but there is one item in these Rules to which I should like to refer. When the previous Poisons Rules were made in 1961—Statutory Instrument 1961 No. 1612—included for the first time among the substances which could be retailed only on medical prescription was
"Suprarenal gland medulla, the active principles of; their salts; except when contained in preparations intended for external application only or in inhalants."
When these Rules came into operation it was discovered that the exemptions to that rule did not include rectal preparations or preparations intended for use in the eye. I wrote to the then Home Secretary about this. I should like to express my appreciation for the courteous manner in which he received my representations and for the sympathetic consideration that he gave to them. I understand that he passed on my views to the Poisons Board, which was agreeable to this alteration being made. I am very glad that the suggestion which I ventured to put forward has been incorporated in this new Statutory Instrument.
10.32 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): I am very much obliged to the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Dr. Broughton) for giving us at least one good word tonight. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) raised a number of extremely interesting, highly important and in some cases very far-reaching questions, which were echoed both by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Sir H. Linstead) and the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson).
I am sure that hon. Members who have spoken will appreciate that it is scarcely possible for me to give an impromptu answer to the extremely grave and far-reaching suggestions that have been made. I clearly could not do so without very careful consideration and consultation, and what I want to say to the House now is that that careful consideration and consultation is exactly what we shall give. I give that undertaking on behalf of my right hon. Friend and the other Ministers concerned.
I will, however, try to answer some of the particular questions which have been raised tonight, but before I do so I want to make two brief apologies. My first apology is for not possessing the same technical familiarity with many of the substances about which we are talking which has been shown on both sides of the House tonight. I am even more a layman than most. I wish I could say that all these names are Greek to me, but unfortunately they are not.
My second apology is for the fact that I am the Minister answering the debate. This point was raised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central. I assure the hon. Gentleman—I am sure that no one in the House will doubt my assurance—that this is not in the least a case of any empire building on the part of the Home Office. The Home Office is much more accurately described as the residual Department and I would describe myself as the residual Minister. We take responsibilities for which there is no other, obvious, appropriate location but I do not in saying that want it to be thought that there are not good positive reasons why these responsibilities rest with us. Nevertheless, we would willingly give them up if any other better
1086
arrangements could be found within the present structure.
As the subject of poisons has not been debated for a long time in the House it might be helpful if I gave a brief explanation of the present structure. I will not go into the history of it, although it has a very interesting historical development, as several hon Members have already gone into this. I have made a list of 10 or 11 Acts of Parliament governing different aspects of the use and control of drugs and poisons, and there are, of course, four Ministers who share responsibility for different aspects, and such non-statutory bodies as the General Medical Council and the Pharmaceutical Society. The Departments are Health, Agriculture, Board of Trade and the Home Office.
Since these Acts cover many different aspects of what my hon. Friend the Member for Putney referred to as" one comprehensive problem, "they deal with the control of sale, control of quality, manufacture, importation, sampling, distribution, analysis and so on and this diversity was recognised in the first Report of the Poisons Board—of which the hon. Member for Putney was a member—in which it was stated that any changes would affect not only the practice of medicine and pharmacy, but also industry, horticulture and agriculture. It also stated that, inevitably, such changes would affect a large number of interests and would be bound to cause overlapping to a certain extent. I do not find it surprising, therefore, that the Statutes are numerous and that several Departments are involved.
Although we shall give very close consideration to the suggestions that have been made tonight, it is at first sight difficult to see how all these responsibilities could be brought under one roof. The relevant Act in relation to the Prayers is the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933, for which my right hon. Friend is responsible. Before that Act the Privy Council was the central authority for both pharmacy and poisons, but the Departmental Committee which led to the 1933 Act, and which reported in March, 1930, recognised the distinction of the profession of pharmacy from the control of poisons and recommended that while the Privy Council should continue to be responsible for the former a Minister in Parliament should be

1087
responsible for the second. It recommended further that the Minister should be the Home Secretary, for the three reasons which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central read out from the Report of the Departmental Committee. Those three reasons were first, the Home Secretary's position in relation to the prevention of crime and questions of police, secondly, his responsibility for dangerous drugs and, thirdly, his responsibility for answering for the Privy Council in the House of Commons.
I would entirely agree that no very great difficulty would arise over the latter two responsibilities if it were decided to make a transfer. But, of course, the first reason is an important one which nothing can be done to change. The Home Secretary has this responsibility in relation to the prevention of crime and police questions which no other Department has and which, I am sure, it would not be suggested should be transferred to any other Department.
It is possible to exaggerate the danger of divided responsibility which arises from the present arrangements. I have already indicated how widely the responsibilities are distributed in this and related fields, but it is right to point out that, in any case, whatever arrangements one chooses to make, two things would remain inescapably the case. First, the Departments concerned would have to keep in close touch, as they do now, and there would be inevitably more than one Department concerned.
Secondly, whatever Minister were responsible, whether he were the Minister of Health or my right hon. Friend, as now, that Minister must act on expert advice, and the expert advice would come from very much the same quarter that it comes from today. In the case of poisons, as far as the relations between Departments are concerned, the Minister of Health has two representatives on the Poisons Board, the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland each has one representative, and whichever Department were responsible there would be more or less the same representation and the Minister would have to act on the advice of that Board which certainly, as everyone has agreed, has given admirable service during the 30 years it has existed.
1088
The present balance of the Board is this: it includes nine official members from the Departments which I have mentioned, five from the Pharmaceutical Society, and one each from the General Medical Council, the British Medical Society and the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Whatever Minister it were responsible to, its composition would hardly be very different and its responsibilities would have to be very much the same as they are now.
But what is more important is the answer to the questions which have been raised tonight—such questions as how the Board does its work, how long it takes to do it, and the criteria which it applies in making up its lists. As for the way it does its work, it is open to anybody to make representations to the Secretary of State to the effect that a particular substance should be subject to control as a poison. In practice, the great majority of such submissions come either from the manufacturers themselves or from the Pharmaceutical Society, or from one of the Departments represented on the Board.
When a representation is made, it is the duty of the Home Office to collate all the relevant information on the substance in question and to anticipate a question which might very well be asked, and which in a sense has been asked by implication tonight. It is not the responsibility of the Board to carry out any tests itself. It makes use of information already available. It has neither the means nor the responsibility for testing substances itself. The information is presented to the Board. It may say that the information is inadequate, in which case further research will have to be done. But it is not the responsibility of the Board to carry it out.
The Board normally meets once a year. But there is no fixed routine. For the information of the House, the last two meetings were in September, 1961, and May, 1962. They were considerably less than a year apart. The next meeting will take place in the middle of next month. The regularity of meetings depends upon the urgency and volume of the business that has to be dealt with.
The Board, having met, makes recommendations to the Secretary of State about the controls which ought to be applied to

1089
the substances referred to it, as set out in the Poisons Rules under the 1933 Act. If the Secretary of State accepts the Board's recommendations, which of course he normally does, he publishes notice in the trade and professional journals indicating his intention to make an Instrument to give effect to the recommendations put before him. When he does that, objections are sometimes received and they are considered and the Order is then either not made or made in the form in which it now lies before the House.
In parentheses I might say that I was very struck by the suggestion of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central that the procedure should be stood on its head, so to speak, and everything should be on the list until it is taken off, instead of the Board's responsibility being that of putting things on the list. This is one of the questions which I know the hon. Member will not expect me to answer impromptu but to which I will certainly see that very careful consideration is given.
On the question of timing, this depends to a considerable extent on the number and urgency of cases referred to the Board and on the number of objections, if any, which are lodged by manufacturers and others when notices are published. Of course, it also depends to some extent on when the last meeting took place, because if something arises just after a meeting, unless it is an extremely urgent case, it will inevitably have to wait for some time. If it is an extremely urgent case the Board can be summoned ad hoc to deal with it, but unless it was very urgent that would not normally be done, bearing in mind that the members of the Board are busy and eminent men.
Mr. K. Robinson: Has the Joint Under-Secretary by any chance got any information about the number of occasions on which the Board has been summoned ad hoc in recent years?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir W. Anstruther-Gray): Order. Without wishing to interrupt the debate at all, perhaps I should express a doubt whether on this Question that we are now considering,
"That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty ߪ"
1090
annulling this Order, we are right in going too far into the details, the composition and behaviour of the Board.
Mr. Woodhouse: I am very sorry to get out of order. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman and I will find a way of exchanging an answer on these questions on another occasion. But I shall not be out of order if I say a word in answer to the question put to me about the criteria by which it is determined which substances should or should not be put on the list, because I think that is highly relevant to the subject before us tonight.
The essential consideration is whether the unregulated sale or supply or storage or transport of a given substance would be a danger to the public. Something a little more precise than that is needed for the guidance of the Board in practice and it is handicapped by the fact that there has never been a fully satisfactory definition of a poison—a fact which the Board has itself recognised from the beginning, though it has found in practice a middle way between the Oxford Dictionary definition and the definition given in Taylor's Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence, which seems to work pretty well. But it is possible to define what is meant by the dangers against which the Act is a safeguard, and these are defined—I need not read them out—in the first Report of the Board, in paragraph 12, a definition which has never had to be revised.
There is a further distinction of some importance between Part I and Part II of the list which we are considering. The distinction is broadly that Part I includes substances which are used in the treatment of human ailments, and Part II includes all other substances that are in common use and which it is not necessary and desirable should be used, such as animal and poultry medicines, household articles like caustic soda and pesticides. Most of the recent additions to Part II which are included in this Order, four in number, are phosphorous compounds used as pesticides.
As to the additions to Part I, I do not know if my arithmetic is as bad as my chemistry but I made the number 33 and not 31. They include a wide variety of drugs which will be much more familiar to other hon. Members than myself, some which act on the central nervous system,

1091
Anti-histamines and diuretics to which reference has been made, some of which were originally put on the market for the treatment of anxiety states or as what I have heard described as anti-obesity agents which I take to be the same thing as slimming pills. They were being abused as stimulants and that is why they have been put on the list.
It has been argued that they should not be treated as poisons at all. In the absence of a definition of a poison, this is for me a difficult matter on which to pass judgment, but the fact is that under present legislation there is no other way in which they can be treated.
This leads me to the point raised about the desirability of changing the present arrangements. The House will know that the Minister of Health appointed a working party on this subject, and it will also know of the work of the sub-committee of the Medical Advisory Committee on which my right hon. Friend answered a Question last November. It is not for me to enlarge on those matters, nor would the House wish to question me about them.
A point I want to clarify is that it is not the concern of the Poisons Board how these substances are put to legitimate uses. The Board is concerned only with dangers to the public from their unregulated sale or supply. There are many cases of drugs having been used by the medical profession before they were considered by the Poisons Board, and inclusion in the poisons lists does not mean that they are prevented from being used for legitimate purposes.
The tragic use of thalidomide is a case in point. That we put on the Poisons List in 1960 before general public awareness had come about of the disastrous effects of thalidomide on pregnant women. The date on which it was put on the Poisons List is neither here nor there as far as the tragedy of the use of thalidomide was concerned, because it could still be used under doctor's prescription, as indeed it was. So it is important that the Poisons List procedure should not be criticised for failing to serve purposes for which it was not designed.
Nevertheless, I repeat the undertaking which I gave at the beginning, that my right hon. Friend will pay the most
1092
careful attention, in consultation with his colleagues, to all the suggestions that have been made in the debate.
In conclusion, I should like briefly to answer on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture the point raised about the change of nomenclature in Order No. 2670. This arises as a matter of internal convenience in the Ministry of Agriculture. It has reorganised its field officer staff, as a consequence of which the term divisional pests officer has been eliminated, which would have the result that under the Poisons Rules, as they stand, only the divisional executive officer would have the power to sign strychnine permits, and this could be extremely inconvenient if he were absent for any length of time. The reference to
"a person duly authorised by the Ministry of Agriculture"
has, therefore, been substituted, and I can give an assurance that this will be an official of the Ministry of Agriculture. He will be an official not lower than the rank of higher executive officer, which I am told is often the rank of the second-in-command at a divisional headquarters, and his appointment will be conferred on him by a formal document under an official seal.
I hope that, with those assurances and with the further assurance that all the points that I have not been able to deal with tonight will not pass unnoticed and forgotten, the hon. Gentleman may see fit to withdraw his Motion.
Dr. Stross: In view of the assurances which have been given, I gladly beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

EMPLOYMENT, NORTH-EAST COAST
Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. I. Fraser.]
10.54 p.m.
Dame Irene Ward: Some hon. Members may wonder why I have decided to address my remarks tonight on employment on the North-East Coast to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour. I do so deliberately, because of all the Government Departments the Ministry of

1093
Labour has the greatest responsibility for ensuring that high level of employment which we think is so essential in all parts of the country as well as on the North-East Coast.
When one looks at the number of Ministers to whom one has to address Questions on the subject of employment, one realises that the Treasury, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of Defence, the Service Ministers, or whoever it may be, do not have the major responsibility for employment. They look at all problems in relation to the responsibilities of their respective Departments, and sometimes those who are deeply interested in our part of the country feel that employment receives too slight a share of their consideration. I therefore thought that it would be more appropriate if I said what I wanted to say to my hon. Friend, because at all levels his Department is interested in employment. I hope that my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend will ensure that when discussions are taking place about matters of policy which affect employment the Ministry of Labour is fully represented and that nobody dislodges it from the position it ought to have in the deliberations.
On behalf of the North-East Coast in general I repeat our appreciation of the appointment of Lord Hailsham. I would also like to say how glad I am that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has set up a co-ordinating committee of the Cabinet to help Lord Hailsham in the job that he has undertaken. It takes a jolly long time to win Parliamentary battles, and I remember last year moving a Motion, which was passed by the House without demur, on co-ordination. I feel, perhaps quite curiously, that the passing of that Motion has had some effect at any rate in producing a co-ordinating committee to help my noble Friend the Lord President of the Council and Minister for Science in the very responsible appointment which he has recently received.
Quite a lot of attention has been given in the North-East Coast to what is termed "crash programmes" for dealing with our, unfortunately, growing level of unemployment, and I hope that some of the suggestions which have been put forward which can be regarded in that
1094
category will be dealt with, but my object tonight is not to discuss crash programmes but to direct the attention of my hon. Friend to the need for a permanent programme to place the North-East Coast in a position to compete successfully with all other parts of the country in attracting industry which will give us permanent and satisfactory employment.
For the brief time that I shall address the House I want us to consider the need for a permanent policy, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to help us to consider what is right. I should emphasise that our problem is not merely one of temporary unemployment. A great many of our coal mines are working out. We are facing a decline in shipbuilding, shipping and in heavy engineering, and everybody says that the future for shipbuilding, and shipping in particular, and probably heavy engineering too, is one of permanent difficulty.
I see three things which are essential to help the North-East Coast—the introduction of new principal industries, which should also be permanent; the improvement of communications, and the assurance that the people of the North-East Coast shall have adequate training facilities. Although there are many other points I could raise, they are the chief ones.
I deal first with the question of the introduction of new industries. I very much regretted the rather casual Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Civil Lord of the Admiralty to my Question this afternoon about sharing out the work on the building of the Polaris submarines. If we are going into a new field of employment which would be suitable for our shipbuilding industry. now is the time for us to ensure that the North-East Coast gets it fair share. The same might be said for the development of nuclear marine propulsion.
The North-East Coast would be well suited to build these submarines and develop marine propulsion by nuclear power, because that has a future, and it is one in which the shipbuilding industry of the North-East Coast should share. I want to make it quite clear that although we have spent enormous sums of money on aircraft and on the building of submarines at Barrow-in-Furness, for the purpose of defence, little of that money has been spent in our area. I shall be

1095
bitterly disappointed if we do not have an opportunity of extending our shipbuilding activities into the new fields which are opening up.
The rumour has gone round that orders for some submarines will go to the Royal dockyards. I hope that we shall have an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that the existence of a high level of unemployment will be the major factor in the placing of new orders, and that dockyards where there is not a high level of unemployment will not be able to scoop the pool.
I now turn to the question of communications. There is a feeling among those on the North-East Coast that the major roads going through the Midlands to Scotland are tending further to isolate them. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is always so certain that everything is being done for the best in the best of all possible worlds, but it is difficult for the Northumberland and Durham County Councils and the people of the North-East Coast to find out what is happening. When I attended a deputation to the Northumberland County Council the other day to find out about the new Tyne Tunnel, which is making very good progress and will help our communications, I found it impossible to get any decision out of the Minister about the access roads. I gather that Lord Hailsham is to see the local authorities when he is in the North next week. The effort that has to be put in to try to extricate Ministerial decisions requires the attention of somebody as vital, virile, live and flexible as Lord Hailsham.
As for the question of training, the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Labour are trying their best to ensure that our part of the world benefits from more skilled labour. We welcome that, but I think that the effort being made is far too small. I do not believe that that is the fault of the Minister of Labour: it is the fault of the Treasury. It is always difficult to get at the Treasury.
It is necessary to train our labour to take up new skills and new techniques. We have the best labour in the world on the North-East Coast and I think that my hon. Friend should seek a great deal more assistance from the Treasury in order to be able to
1096
establish more Government training centres. I am sure that if the matter is properly handled, the trade unions and the employers will co-operate.
In the dark days of the depression in the 1930s, even in the days before the public conscience was stirred as much as it is today, we had much more assistance for our men. I remember the transfer from hand riveting to welding in the shipbuilding industry, and I think that a great deal more could be done in that direction.
I have been talking to the Minister of Defence about the Polaris submarines. My right hon. Friend is very charming, but I like to have things on paper, and I wish to give the Parliamentary Secretary as much opportunity as possible to tell us what the Government have in mind. Members of the Northern Conservative Group are to see Lord Hailsham tomorrow and we have a number of plans to put before him. If he is not crabbed by the Government I believe that we shall be able to find a permanent solution to the problems of the North-East. Everyone is looking for development in the right direction and I have great confidence that this will come. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to press for our problems to be dealt with as soon as possible.
11.8 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour (Mr William Whitelaw): I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) for informing me in advance of some of the points which she wished to raise. I am glad of this opportunity to reply to her, not only because I come from the North myself, but also because I have always admired her selfless determination to serve the interests of the North-East. She has spoken with her customary vigour and she has rightly, I might say almost inevitably, reminded me of her valuable Motion on co-ordination between Government Departments. In this connection she is entitled to claim some credit for the appointment of my noble Friend. I am very pleased to know that the appointment gives her satisfaction. I can assure her that my noble Friend will read her suggestions with great care.

1097
If he had not done so already, I am sure that after their interview tomorrow he will take an early opportunity to do so.
In particular I have no doubt that he will note what she said about the Tyne Tunnel and its access roads. Clearly that is a matter for him and I do not think I should refer to it further. If I fail to deal with some of the points which have been raised by my hon. Friend I can promise her that they will be studied by my noble Friend and my right hon. Friend as well as by the Department. I shall write to her to convey any further information which she may wish to have. In this respect I am grateful to her for the powerful support which she is offering to my right hon. Friend on such matters as training, and I am sure that he will be very pleased to hear of it.
I am glad that my hon. Friend has chosen in this Adjournment Motion to call attention to employment on the North-East Coast rather than unemployment, for I am sure that this positive approach is the right one. None the less, I know that she will agree that it would be right for me to set out the relevant unemployment figures for the North-East. They provide the background against which action must be planned and taken. For this purpose I have assumed that the North-East Coast comprises Northumberland, Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire. In this area there were this month 78,790 unemployed, including about 15,000 temporarily stopped. This represents a rate of unemployment of 7·1 per cent. This is a considerable increase over the figures for the previous January, when there were 43,413 unemployed, or 3·8 per cent. These, I need not tell the House, are serious figures, and I certainly do not seek to escape their implications by blaming the weather. It must, however, be appreciated from the exceptionally high number of temporarily stopped that the January figures are somewhat distorted.
Mr. Edward Short: By how much?
Mr. Whitelaw: It would be difficult to give an exact estimate, but I think that the hon. Member, who is very fair in these matters, will agree that clearly there is some distortion. I seek to put it no higher than that.
1098
I think, therefore, that for a realistic view of the size of the problem which the North-East faces we should look at the December figures. In December there were 60,524 unemployed, of whom about 4,000 were temporarily stopped, which gives a rate of unemployment of5·5 per cent. I think that the difference between the 4,000 temporarily stopped in December and the 15,000 temporarily stopped in January gives some measure of the effect of the weather. In the previous December there were 37,132 unemployed, or 3·2 per cent.
It is very easy to talk in percentages over a whole area, but I think that we are all very conscious that there are some individual, smaller places within these areas which have been hit even harder and have percentages higher than that which is general for the whole area. A study of the figures for recent years also reveals another important aspect of the problem which faces us: the deterioration in the position of the North-East is, in fact, a recent development. For example, if one looks at the figures for the northern region for 1960 or 1961 one sees that although they were always higher than the national average, they were at the same time always lower than those for Scotland and compared very favourably with those for Wales.
The fact is that this area has been adversely affected by two partly interrelated problems. It has, of course, shared in the increase in the level of unemployment which the country as a whole has been experiencing over recent months. Secondly—and I think that this would be accepted as the more important point for the purpose of our debate—the area has suffered from a marked fall in activity in the basic, heavy industries, on which it particularly depends, such as shipbuilding, ship repairing, heavy engineering, metal manufacturing, coal mining and also construction. This is the sort of problem which we face. I think that we all know very well that the situation involves considerable personal hardship and we all wish to do everything we can to remedy it. All hon. Members are at one about this.
Nevertheless, I think it would be unrealistic to assume that we are going, any of us, to find a simple overnight solution to all the problems of the area. What we must aim to do is to place the

1099
economic and social life of the North-East on a firm basis and to ensure that the new employment provided is stable. Here I so much agree with what my hon. Friend said about having a permanent policy for the future of the North-East.
So much, then, for the general problem. Now I want to set out some of the action which has already been taken to deal with it. First, there are the general expansion measures introduced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. These, as the House knows, include the easing of credit facilities and the reduction in the level of Purchase Tax. I think everyone recognises that a general expansion of the whole economy is a basic essential for improving conditions in the North-East, and, indeed, must provide the background against which the special long-term measures can be taken. Some of my right hon. Friend's measures, such as improved investment and depreciation allowances, are particularly aimed at the heavier sections of industry on which the North-East relies so much.
My hon. Friend rightly stressed that an improvement in shipbuilding would be of great value and of great benefit in the North-East. Here she appreciates, probably better than most, that we have to consider the problem against the fact that this industry is everywhere suffering from a world-wide excess of shipbuilding capacity over demand.
No doubt my hon. Friend will have seen that the First Lord of the Admiralty has recently announced that in order to provide help for employment in the shipbuilding industry the Admiralty intended to invite tenders for a new fleet replenishment ship and for another tanker, in addition to the two for which tenders are already being considered. These tenders will be open to competition from yards throughout the country, and no doubt the yards in the North-East will tender very keenly for these contracts.
The Admiralty, as my hon. Friend was quick to point out, has already announced that it is planning a programme for building Polaris-type nuclear submarines. My hon. Friend stressed particularly that she was determined to ensure that the North-East had a chance to build some of these nuclear submarines for the Admiralty.
1100
This is certainly a possibility which I am sure the Admiralty will study with great care.
I share my hon. Friend's belief in the excellent workmanship and design shown by the yards in the North-East, but I think the fact is that, so far, the Admiralty has not ordered a sufficient number of these craft to allow them to be shared around all the yards which might be capable of building them. I think, therefore, that my hon. Friend will have to wait to see the results of a programme for building Polaris-type submarines which the Admiralty is at present undertaking. In the meantime, I have no doubt that what she has said will be noted by the Admiralty.
Dame Irene Ward: It had better be.
Mr. Whitelaw: I expected my hon. Friend would feel like that.
My hon. Friend made another extremely important point, with which I shall now seek to deal, about training. This, I think, is extremely important. We have to ensure that we have a proper supply of skilled labour. It is becoming increasingly clear everywhere that one of the most important factors of industrial growth and expansion is the existence of an adequate supply of skilled labour. Industry has a special responsibility here to see that it is providing training now for a sufficient number of young people to meet the demands in the years to come.
Last year in the North-East the number of boys entering apprenticeships increased by 593 over the figure for the previous year. In view of the difficulties the region has experienced this year, I think that this is an encouraging achievement. However difficult it may be, we must relate our training plans to an expanding economy. It would be tragic if in the future there should be a shortage of skilled labour in the North-East.
Mr. Paul Williams: There is now.
Mr. Whitelaw: —however unlikely that may seem to some people now. My hon. Friend says there is even such a shortage now.
Mr. P. Williams: Yes, a terrible shortage.
Mr. Whitelaw: It has certainly been so in previous expansions. If it is true now, there is no doubt it may well happen again. I therefore hope that both employers and trade union leaders in the North-East will do everything in their power to help themselves and to co-operate on training for the long-term benefit of their whole area.
We in the Ministry of Labour are determined to play our part in helping with the training of the young and the re-training of adults whose existing skills are no longer required. At the Government Training Centre at Newcastle we are already providing training in a number of trades, including engineering and radio and television servicing for adults and first-year apprenticeship training in engineering and basic clerical work.
My right hon. Friend has recently announced a new traniing centre at Tursdale in County Durham as a contribution to offsetting the effects of the decline in coal mining there. We hope to start a class for apprentices who will not be sponsored by employers in the spring and classes for adults in the summer.
As the House also knows, my right hon. Friend has recently put forward major proposals on the general question of training and retraining. This is not the moment to elaborate on those, but I can assure the House that the Government are determined to play their full part in seeing that in implementing these plans the needs of the North-East are properly met.
As my hon. Friend has also said, an important contribution to maintaining skilled labour in the North-East is to ensure that skilled men do not drift away.
1102
The best way of doing that is to provide sufficient local work for them. I do not propose to talk about jobs in prospect, for I know that there is a reluctance to accept the value of these figures.
Mr. Short rose—
Mr. Whitelaw: I am sorry. I must get on. I have quite a few more things to say. I shall look instead at the industrial development which has been authorised in the area. During the 10 years beginning December, 1951, I.D.C.s were issued by the Board of Trade for projects in the northern region which were expected to give rise to about 63,000 jobs. A recent development of particular importance has been the decision to build a number of advance factories in the area. In addition to the factory at Jarrow, the Board of Trade is in the process of building seven additional advance factories—at Crook, Seaton Delavel, Aycliffe, Chester-le-Street, Hartlepools, Blaydon and Sunderland. We very much hope that, quite apart from the extra employment that these factories will provide themselves, they will serve to encourage further industrial expansion in the areas in which they are sited.
The North-East will also benefit from the very considerable increase in public expenditure this year which should provide a good deal of work for the construction industry—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-four minutes past Eleven o'clock.

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Missiles
  Missiles
  Ex-Polish Army Personnel
  Ex-Polish Army Personnel
  Polaris Submarines
  Polaris Submarines
  Recruitment (North-East Region)
  Recruitment (North-East Region)
ROYAL NAVY
  Royal Dockyards (Contracts)
  Royal Dockyards (Contracts)
BRITISH ARMY
  Windsor Castle (Scots Guards)
  Windsor Castle (Scots Guards)
  National Service Men
  National Service Men
SCOTLAND
  Safety in the Home (Fireguards)
  Safety in the Home (Fireguards)
  Areas of Special Beauty (Preservation)
  Areas of Special Beauty (Preservation)
  Developments and Improvements (Capital Expenditure)
  Developments and Improvements (Capital Expenditure)
  Hospitals
  Hospitals
  Mackenzie Committee (Evidence)
  Mackenzie Committee (Evidence)
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Vulcan Bombers
  Vulcan Bombers
  A.T.C. Facilities, Chigwell
  A.T.C. Facilities, Chigwell
SHIPPING
  Flag Discrimination (United States)
  Flag Discrimination (United States)
  Shipbuilding Workers (Employment)
  Shipbuilding Workers (Employment)
  Sheerness (Deep Water Facilities)
  Sheerness (Deep Water Facilities)
  Nuclear Marine Propulsion
  Nuclear Marine Propulsion
  Rochdale Committee (Report)
  Rochdale Committee (Report)
  Merchant Seamen (Employment)
  Merchant Seamen (Employment)
ROADS
  Lighting
  Lighting
  Danger Spots (Surface Heating)
  Danger Spots (Surface Heating)
  Snow Clearance, West Country
  Snow Clearance, West Country
  Old People's Home, Weston-super-Mare (Warning Signs)
  Old People's Home, Weston-super-Mare (Warning Signs)
  Seaton Delaval-North Shield Roads (Condition)
  Seaton Delaval-North Shield Roads (Condition)
  Beverley
  Beverley
  Port Talbot By-pass
  Port Talbot By-pass
  Crossroads, Darfield (Accidents)
  Crossroads, Darfield (Accidents)
  Double White Lines
  Double White Lines
RAILWAYS
  Walthamstow-Victoria Line (Car Parks)
  Walthamstow-Victoria Line (Car Parks)
  Railways Board (Road Goods Services)
  Railways Board (Road Goods Services)
TRANSPORT
  Road Vehicles (Weights and Dimensions)
  Road Vehicles (Weights and Dimensions)
  Transport Services (Co-ordination)
  Transport Services (Co-ordination)
  Adverse Weather Conditions
  Adverse Weather Conditions
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Egg Subsidy
  Egg Subsidy
  Rodent Control (Sodium Fluoroacetate)
  Rodent Control (Sodium Fluoroacetate)
  Milk Containers
  Milk Containers
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Blue Steel
  Blue Steel
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax Offices (Saturday Opening)
  Income Tax Offices (Saturday Opening)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Grants and Services
  Grants and Services
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Power Supplies (Industrial Disputes)
  Power Supplies (Industrial Disputes)
  Electricity Industry
  Electricity Industry
TECHNICAL CO-OPERATION
  Indonesia
  Indonesia
COAL
  Transport
  Transport
  Colliery Horses
  Colliery Horses
EMPLOYMENT
  Fife
  Fife
  British Forces Employees, Aden
  British Forces Employees, Aden
  North Dorset
  North Dorset

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chester
The Earl Beatty—Took the Oath.

RETAIL MEAT PRICES
2.36 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the rather more detailed information on the retail prices of meat requested by the National Farmers' Union will be made available to the public]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD): My Lords, as I informed the noble Lady on January 24, and as I had explained on December 11 with illustrations, this request presents many difficulties, and it is still being examined. Accordingly the question of publication has not yet arisen.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, might I ask the noble Lord whether he could tell the House what type of detailed information the National Farmers' Union have required?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Yes, my Lords. The National Farmers' Union asked for separate price indices for home-produced beef, mutton, lamb, pork and, if possible, bacon.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: Might I further ask the noble Lord this: if information like this is requested by an organisation from the Government,
310
must both parties—in other words, the Government and the organisation—agree that the information be made public if requested?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Yes, my Lords, I think that follows. I would not claim to give an authoritative answer, but I would assume that is bound to be so.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: Finally, might I ask the noble Lord whether, if I were to put down a Question at a later date, the second part of my Question could be answered? I am sorry if I have not made my question clear. When the information has been made available to the National Farmers' Union, will the noble Lord then be able to state whether it may be made public?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, when it has been made available I shall be happy to answer the noble Lady's Question. But, as I have explained, we have very considerable difficulties in obtaining information which would be really significant or dependable in regard to this question.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, on a point of procedure, the noble Lord just announced that it was necessary for both the National Farmers' Union and the Government to decide whether a matter was to be made public. Surely if a Government Department decided that a matter should be made public it would not be necessary to ask for the agreement of any private organisation.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, it may well be that I misunderstood the noble Lady's question. What I understood her to ask was whether the agreement of both would be required for the matter of any consultations between one organisation and a Government Department to be made public. Naturally, figures produced by a Government Department and in the possession of a Government Department can be made available if that Department considers it advisable. I am sorry if I misunderstood the noble Lady's question.

LONDON TOWN PLANNING
2.39 p.m.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, now that it has been decided radically to increase the limits of London, whether they could state if any action has been taken to ensure that the developments that will in due course be made in the added areas conform to a properly prepared town plan as a guide to those who will be responsible for the changes which will eventually take place.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): Yes, my Lords. May I invite my noble friend's attention to the provisions contained in Clause 25 of the London Government Bill now before Parliament? Briefly, this clause provides that the existing development plans for the areas in question shall remain in being until such time as the Greater London Council can prepare a development plan settling the general policy for the area as a whole, and until the new London boroughs can bring their detailed local plans up to date in conformity with that general policy.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that information, may I ask him whether, in view of the unfortunate condition that has resulted in London to-day, owing to the non-existence of any properly controlled town plan, he does not recognise that it is exceedingly important that such a mistake should not be repeated in the development which is bound to take place in the enlarged London which will materialise as the years go by? Would he therefore make a point of insisting that local authorities conform to a real town plan in this connection?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I do not think I should necessarily go along with all the statements contained in my noble friend's supplementary question. But if he will look at Clause 25 of the Bill now before another place, I think he will see that that provides for exactly what he is requesting.
LORD BOSSOM: My Lords, again I thank my noble friend for his answer. But, having had the experience I have had, I believe that if he thinks about it he will agree that they do not always conform to matters put into Bills.

U.N. MILITARY ACTION IN THE CONGO
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(a) Whether the use of British taxpayers' money on military action for political compulsion is contemplated in any other sphere supplementary to the Congo;

(b) Whether it is to be understood that the hazard to civilian life in the Congo arising from military action of mercenaries foreign to the soil has attracted vehement disapproval in the United Nations by Her Majesty's Government's representative;

(c) By what instrument after completed conquest is it contemplated the dissenting area in the Congo is to be governed.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, your Lordships will recall that my noble friend the Foreign Secretary explained our views on the Katanga situation to this House on January 23. On that occasion the Foreign Secretary pointed out that, while it was difficult to judge whether the United Nations had exceeded the relevant Security Council Resolutions, it was more constructive for us to help bring about an implementation of the U Thant Plan for National Reconciliation, which could lead to an agreed settlement in the Congo. Her Majesty's Government have, of course, made clear on numerous occasions their view that force should not be used by the United Nations to impose a political solution. The answer to the first part of my noble friend's Question is therefore "No".
As for the second part of the Question, Her Majesty's Government have supported United Nations action designed to secure

313
the removal of mercenaries from the Congo, and it would appear from Press reports that the majority have now left.
In reply to the last part of the noble Lord's Question, U Thant's Plan, which has been accepted by both Mr. Tshombe and Mr. Adoula, provides for the association of Katanga with the rest of the Congo, under a Federal Constitution. Katanga, like any other Province, has its own elected provincial authorities to administer the territory within the Federal Constitution.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for that reply, and particularly for its fullness. It would seem, by inference, that we must accept subservience to the United States, since she, by her subvention, is in fact paying for the operations an Central Africa. Is it to be understood from that that in a vast area, with people of many languages, guided largely by tribal customs such as we find in the Congo, the pursuit of aims by force rather than by civil action is more likely to bring results?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, we, and I think the United States and the United Nations, are all aware of the social character of the Congo. Although we sometimes differ as to the correct methods to be applied, I think we are all agreed in working for a peaceful and united Congo under a Federal Constitution.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I just ask whether it will not be both satisfactory for the British taxpayer and more likely to introduce sane and reasonable policies in the United Nations and outside it if Her Majesty's Government make it plain that, while still continuing to support the United Nations, we will be perfectly firm in refusing to pay into the budget of the United Nations anything more than what I may call our statutory contribution?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, that, of course, is a question which I cannot answer at this moment. I think my noble friend Lord Home said to your Lordships on January 23 that we could not expect to go on for ever paying our subscription to this operation when so many other people refused to pay theirs.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, am I not right in saying that there has been a recommendation from the International
314
Court laying it down that all expenses involved in operations by the United Nations should be paid by all members of the United Nations; and is that not the proper way to deal with the matter rather than by asking this Government to withdraw their contribution?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, we were glad to note the decision of the International Court on this point, which we had been awaiting for a long time. It remains to be seen, of course, whether, and to what extent, other members of the United Nations will obey the decision of the International Court.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, has the noble Earl any information about any State which is about to obey, or is arranging to obey, what the International Court has laid down?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Yes, some countries pay their subscriptions with regularity, but others do not.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, has not the Assembly itself accepted the opinion of the International Court? If so, are they proposing to proceed with the matter and bring some pressure upon the States that have failed to pay up till now? Secondly, may I ask the noble Earl whether or not the problem is that there is no permanent organisation in the United Nations to deal with the sort of situation that we have in the Congo, as I hope will come out in a debate which is fixed in this House for February 20.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, on the first question, I do not think the occasion has yet arisen for any action to be taken by the Assembly, and I cannot say what action they would be likely to take. As to the noble Lord's second question, I think he asked whether there was any organisation in the United Nations capable of dealing with the Congo. Was that the question?
LORD OGMORE: My question was: is not the difficulty in cases of this kind due to the fact that there is no permanent force or organisation in the United Nations to handle a situation like this? I hope that this will come out in the debate here on February 20.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That is a view which has been shared for a long time, I know, by many of your Lordships—the question of an international force.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, has not the noble Earl just propounded a most curious argument, namely, that if others do wrong, we should do likewise?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I would point out to your Lordships that this is, so far, a hypothetical question, because the point has not come at which we have to make any decision of this kind; nor has the point yet come at which it would be necessary for the Assembly to take any action in accordance with the decision of the International Court.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, is not the position now that Mr. Tshombe has withdrawn from the policies that he has followed before and is doing his best to come back to a policy for unity in the Congo; and would it not be just as well, therefore, to let that mature, and then to let the Foreign Secretary deal with the matter if it arises?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, subject to the observation that we, of course, are not responsible for the Congo, I think the noble Viscount's observations are wise ones.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, arising out of the noble Earl's reply to the supplementary of the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, with regard to troops in the Congo, read in conjunction with the statement in the Press this morning that it is understood that the total number of troops which the United Nations is using in its operations in the Congo are going to be substantially reduced, can it be understood that Her Majesty's Government will press that the first release will be the Indian troops, so that they may mitigate the taxpayer's expense in giving aid to India in their difficult situation?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, my Lords, I certainly could not accept any kind of discrimination like that. In general, we hope, as my noble friend told your Lordships the other day, that it will soon be possible to convert the United Nations military effort into one of financial and technical assistance for the Congo.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, arising out of my noble friend's original reply, may I ask him whether he will tell the
316
House what progress has in fact been made in regard to U Thant's Reconciliation Plan? In connection with that, can he tell the House whether the request for the withdrawal of the British Consul in Elisabethville has now been rescinded?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I am not quite sure what fields of activity the noble Lord is thinking of. If he means the Federal Constitution, the details have to be considered and worked out by the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments together, and I am not able to say what progress on the details of the Constitution has so far been made. But it is some measure of progress that, partly owing to the very strenuous efforts of the British Consul in Katanga, the situation which developed a few weeks ago has not led to a war, and that Mr. Tshombe, as the Leader of the Opposition said, has now accepted the U Thant plan. That in itself, I think, could be described as a measure of progress.
LORD COLYTON: Has the request for the Consul's withdrawal now been rescinded?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, we are in touch with the Central Government in Leopoldville about that. My own last information was that it had not yet been pressed.

BREAKDOWN OF COMMON MARKET NEGOTIATIONS
2.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask whether Her Majesty's Government will answer the Question, of which I have given Private Notice: Whether Her Majesty's Government will to-day make a statement to your Lordships' House on the position which has arisen upon the termination of negotiations in Brussels?
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, it would be my intention, for the convenience of the House, to repeat in parallel terms a statement which I understand is to be made somewhat later in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal. I think that would probably be the most convenient course for me to take.

MOTOR VEHICLES (VARIATION OF SPEED LIMIT) REGULATIONS, 1962
2.54 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1962, dated November 5, 1962, a copy of which was laid before your Lordships' House on November 13, 1962, be approved. The First Schedule to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, set out the present maximum speed limits for different classes of vehicle. Your Lordships will remember that we amended that Schedule in 1961 by increasing the speed limit for buses and motor coaches from 30 m.p.h. to 40 m.p.h. We now want to make a number of detailed amendments to the Schedule, and, to avoid asking your Lordships to approve a number of individual amendments, we have redrafted the entire Schedule to incorporate both the 1961 amendment already made and those I am now proposing to your Lordships. A considerable part of the Schedule, of course, remains unchanged, and includes the whole of paragraphs 5 to 14 inclusive.
I think it will help your Lordships if I start by outlining the principal changes which are involved; that is to say, the real substance of the; matter. First, the maximum speed limit for goods vehicles without trailers will go up from 30 to 40 m.p.h.; and in this category are included articulated vehicles. Second, the general speed limit for goods vehicles with trailers will go up from 20 to 30 m.p.h., but in the case of light goods vehicles towing light trailers or caravans the limit will go up from 20 to 40 m.p.h. Third, the limit for cars towing heavy trailers will go up from 20 to 30 m.p.h., while that for cars towing light trailers or caravans will be raised from 30 to 40 m.p.h.
Fourth, the maximum speed for tractors and locomotives (as the law still refers to heavy tractors over 7¼ tons), provided that they conform to certain standards of design in regard to brakes, tyres, springs and wings, will be raised from 20 to 30 m.p.h., and, if they are towing trailers of similar standards, from 12 to 20 m.p.h. Fifth, the limit for motor tractors with two or more trailers and locomotives with
318
more than two trailers will be raised from 5 to 12 m.p.h.
I want your Lordships to cast your minds back to our debates on the passage of what is now the Road Traffic Act, 1962—in fact both passages of that measure through the House. It was more than once made perfectly clear at that time that there was strong feeling in the House that if there was to be full and proper enforcement, and severer penalties in regard to restrictions imposed on road users in the cause of road safety, those restrictions should be reasonable, realistic and up to date—in other words, respectable in the true sense of the word. This resulted in undertakings to review the question of speed limits, both those imposed on roads and those on vehicles. In fact, it has been thought right not to introduce Sections 5 to 9 of the Road Traffic Act until such a review has been carried out, so that people do not incur the heavier penalties involved for offences held to be of a trivial nature. That is a point which the House stressed very strongly.
My Lords, the basic reason why we want to raise the vehicle speed limits to those I have mentioned is because the present ones are out of date. We all know how widely and flagrantly the present limits are disregarded and the extent to which this makes enforcement by the police virtually impossible. It has been said again and again, both here and elsewhere, that people will not respect a law which appears quite unreasonable. Secondly, the present limits do not take account of modern standards of construction of both vehicles and roads. To give your Lordships an illustration, the limit of 30 m.p.h. for vehicles under 3 tons unladen weight was fixed 32 years ago, and has remained the same ever since. We believe that the new speed limits are realistic and that people will respect them more, and that means that they can be effectively enforced.
Of course, I know that many lorries now travel at speeds much higher than would be permitted, even under this new Schedule. But it does not mean automatically that the majority will necessarily travel any faster on the roads than they are doing now. I think it may well mean that many will travel slower than at present, not perhaps as a direct result of these changes, but by the circumstances which these changes will help to

319
bring about. By that, my Lords, I mean the greater respect that a more realistic limit will entail, the greater facility for enforcement and, of course, not least, the new penalties attached to speeding which are waiting to come in when the new review of speed limits generally is completed. To-day's proceedings naturally form a part of that review.
I might remind your Lordships briefly of what the new penalties are. First, it will be within the discretion of the courts to disqualify a driver for any speeding offence. At present this cannot be done for a first or second conviction. Secondly, speeding becomes one of the offences, conviction for any three of which in a 3-year period leads to automatic disqualification for at least 6 months. Third, the maximum fine for any speeding offence will be raised to £50, whereas at present the maxima are £20 for a first offence and £50 subsequently. I know that some people have reservations about the effect that these provisions may have on enforcement, because they have feelings of unease about their application by the courts. But we believe that they will be effective; otherwise, of course, we should not have wanted to bring them in and the proper course, surely, must be to give them a fair and proper chance to work and judge the effect when they do so. In the meantime, to-day's Regulations must be considered on the assumption that they will be properly enforced, and I am certainly going to agree in advance with any noble Lord who draws attention to the importance of that.
I think that some of your Lordships may be worried about the effect of these Regulations on certain types of goods vehicles. I think those types would probably be those which are badly maintained and perhaps defective, large vehicles and those which may be overloaded. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that he has kindly given me notice that he will concern himself with the first, that is badly-maintained vehicles, and I will say no more about them at this stage until I hear what he, and possibly other noble Lords, may have to say about them. Later on I shall also say something about the larger vehicles about which I told your Lordships recently that we were considering proposals.
320
But, my Lords, on the third type—that is, vehicles which may be overloaded—I should like to say something now. If I may use words something like the old song,
"A deep-laden cruiseship is nearing Bombay, going in the opposite direction from old Blighty's shore",
I believe it contains the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who is specially interested in overloading of vehicles and raised the matter not long ago in this House. I said at the time that we were considering measures that might be brought in to secure the prevention of overloading and the noble Lord himself, and the House as well, will, I feel, be glad to hear that we have now taken the matter a stage further. My right honourable friend has set up a departmental committee and given them the specific task of working out a scheme for fixing the maximum load that each and every goods vehicle may be allowed to carry.
Those of your Lordships who have taken an interest in road haulage matters over the years will probably remember the Plating Scheme, which was got ready in 1939 but was never introduced because the war broke out. The scheme was called that, because under it metal plates would have had to be fixed to all goods vehicles stating their maximum permissible laden weights. It is something of that kind which is now in contemplation; but, of course, the problem which this committee have to face is a good deal bigger than it was in 1939. Their task is to work out a practicable and economical means of fixing maximum weights, not only for new vehicles but also for the 1½ million goods vehicles, which are already on the roads, many of which have been modified since they left their manufacturers. They will take into account engine power as well as brakes, springs, and other features of construction. My right honourable friend has invited various interests concerned to give their advice to the committee as well. It is no good my saying that consideration of this scheme will not take some time, because it will, and legislation may be necessary to implement it later on, but I hope at least that what I have said to-day will help your Lordships to recognise our determination to arrive at some course of action to tackle this problem of overloading.
The final point that I want to make to your Lordships is that these new speed

321
limits are only the maximum speeds at which the various classes of vehicle can legally travel. They are not in any sense bound to travel at them at any time, and there would be even less sense in assuming that they would travel at them all of the time; and it would, of course, be quite wrong if they did, except when road and traffic conditions are suitable. As always, and as is true with every vehicle on the road, it is up to the driver to decide his speed in relation to the circumstances. The effect of the amendments is that, when it is safe to do so, the driver can drive rather faster than before while keeping within the law and within the bounds of reason having regard to modern circumstances. I need hardly say that what is now proposed has no effect whatever on road speed limits. Where a 30 m.p.h. limit applies, drivers will have to keep to it, irrespective of their maximum vehicle limit. Similarly, on a motorway, where unless they are drawing a trailer no limit applies, there is no change.
My Lords, I dare say there are a good many points that I could have covered and I could have made a lengthy introduction. But I think I will not do so now, and I will endeavour later on to answer any questions or to satisfy any further points that your Lordships may have. Meanwhile, I commend the new Schedule to your Lordships for the contribution it makes to the efficiency of our traffic, and for the facility it will give for better discipline and better enforcement for its safety. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Motor Vehicles (Variation of Speed Limit) Regulations, 1962, be approved.—(Lord Chesham.)
3.9 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD LORD SHEPHERD had given Notice of his intention to draw attention to the Annual Reports, 1960–61, of the Licensing Authorities appointed under the Road Traffic Act, 1960, and, in particular, the need to increase the number of commercial vehicles tested; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister and to the Government on two counts this afternoon: first, for the Minister's concise explanation of these Regulations, and, secondly, for the Government's agreement to postpone this debate until to-day instead of having it before Christmas, as was originally proposed. Obviously, with the Business then before the House we should not have been able to give these
322
Regulations the serious thought they deserve. My Lords, I think it could be said that through this postponement we are not to have the pleasure of the very pungent comments of our noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth, who is to-day, I hope, enjoying the sun on the high seas; but I am sure the House will remember the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, on November 21, when he drew the attention of the House to the many aspects of road accidents and to the appalling cost that our people have to pay each year.
The Minister is right when he says that these Regulations revoke the entire Schedule of the 1960 Act, and I feel that I should say to him that, while this may be a very tidy method to be adopted by the Government, it places the Opposition in particular, and certain other Members of the House, in some difficulty, because over the years we have adopted a rule, which I think is a very good rule and is one that should be kept, that in this House we should not oppose Second Readings, Third Readings or Regulations when principles are involved, but that when the Schedule to the Act is being discussed then the House should have an opportunity of considering all the classifications of the vehicles involved. But, by the use of these Regulations, we are put into the position that we must accept or reject the complete proposition.
We on this side have carefully considered the position, and we have decided that, whilst we are very disturbed about some aspects of the Government's proposals, we should be wrong to attempt to divide the House. But this was in fact considered in 1958. I was looking at the Report of that debate, in which the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, undertook that when Regulations were being brought forward—I freely agree that the discussion then related to Clauses 1 and 2 of the Act dealing with testing, but he undertook this, taking into account the feelings of the House—a White Paper would be issued, and that the House would then have the opportunity of discussing the White Paper and even, if necessary, of carrying it to a vote, so that we could register our opinions without having to break what is, I think, and I am sure is agreed to be, a very good tradition.
Obviously the largest number of vehicles involved in these Regulations

323
is that for commercial vehicles, approximately 1,500,000, who are having their speed limits raised from 30 to 40 m.p.h. We on this side of the House do not wish to retain restriction if it is unnecessary, but we have considerable doubts whether, even if we agree that a small commercial vehicle may travel in safety on the road at 40 m.p.h., we could agree that a 10-ton vehicle or one of those very heavy tankers which are now coming on to the road carrying a wide range of merchandise is equipped mechanically to travel at that speed. The Minister said (and this, I gathered, was his main case) that because the present speed limits are now being disregarded, treated with contempt, and are certainly not being enforced by the police, that is necessarily a ground for raising the limit. We know that in a 30 m.p.h. speed limit area many vehicles travel in excess of that limit, yet quite recently we made that limit a permanent law. The fact that new vehicles are coming on to the road is certainly a valid point, but when can one say that a new vehicle comes into the class of vehicle whose equipment enables it to travel at 40 m.p.h.? I should estimate that, since we considered the speed limits in this House, approximately 60,000 new commercial vehicles have come on to the road. That would mean approximately 900,000 vehicles that were then adjudged fit to travel at 30 m.p.h. My Lords, I wonder whether all the vehicles in that group of 900,000 come within the classification which the Minister has put, as being reasonably safe to travel at these higher speeds.
The noble Lord said that at the moment these speed limits are being broken blatantly. I think it is a fact (and if we, as motorists, were honest we should accept it; and one can speak with some degree of privilege here this afternoon) that there is a marked tendency for all of us, even in a 30 m.p.h. limit area, to drive at 32 or 33 m.p.h. We know that we can do it reasonably because it would be very difficult in fact for the police to be able to prosecute—and certainly we should have the opportunity, in our mirrors, of seeing if a policeman was behind us. I believe that, unless there is very much greater enforcement by the police and the magistrates, these new speed limits will be
324
broken just as much as the present speed limits. Therefore, we have to accept that if a 3-tonner or a 10-tonner is to-day breaking the 30 m.p.h. limit out in the country on a reasonable road, then once that limit has been raised to 40 m.p.h. it will, in fact, be travelling at 45 to 48 miles an hour.
In this connection, I would draw the attention of noble Lords to the Road Research Report for 1961. At page 26 it shows that where some roads were controlled for the holiday periods with a limit of 50 m.p.h. there was a very small reduction in the number of vehicles which voluntarily reduced their speeds. In fact, they reduced their speeds only if there was known to be a patrol in the area. So if the Government are right, if they really believe that the new speed limits they propose will be maintained, there must obviously be far greater enforcement—and. I believe that that can be done only if there is a considerable increase in road patrols. Unless that is done, we shall not get enforcement.
I speak as one who drove lorries in my early days in the Army, and I can say that there is a considerable difference between one vehicle and another according to its size and speed. If you drive a van, you have one road-holding capability; if you drive a 3-tonner or a 10-tonner, the position is quite different: and with a load and an increased speed, there is a considerable difference in road handling, particularly in pulling up. I wonder whether the noble Lord could tell us, when he comes to wind up, what would be the difference in the pulling-up distance of one of these heavy tankers which now go through our country roads at between 30 and 40 m.p.h. I think there would be at least a 70 to 80 per cent. increase in distance required, and this would certainly be higher if the roads were wet.
When one considers these speed limits one must also take into account the roads on which they operate. Most of our roads, apart from the A.1 and some of the other main roads, are very winding roads; visibility is often very poor, and the camber leaves a lot to be desired. These heavy vehicles travelling at these speeds will be increasingly hard to control. Therefore I approach this problem with some anxiety. I fully

325
accept that greater speed of delivery of merchandise is comparable to increased output in a factory, but nobody would say that increased output should be obtained if there are to be increased dangers to the operatives. Therefore, while I agree it is right that we should try to increase our delivery services, we must take into account not only the general public but the drivers.
I felt that, as we could not oppose the Regulations this afternoon, I should try to put forward, as I originally wanted, a proviso that if the Government were in favour of these increased speeds then we should increase the standard of maintenance of vehicles. Of course, I should not have been in order to move a proviso to a Regulation. Therefore, in consultation with my friends, I put down the Motion that stands in my name and to which I will now speak. And I hope that if and when the Regulations are approved the Government will see their way to accepting it. I make it quite clear to the noble Lord that I do not move the Motion in the terms of a proviso. This is a straightforward declaration by the House that, having examined the figures, which I will give them, a higher standard in the inspection of commercial vehicles is very necessary.
First, I fully accept that among the big operators—British Road Services and some of the comparable private operators—there are proper facilities for inspection and maintenance of vehicles. But I must draw the attention of the House to certain figures. At the end of 1961 there were 1,438,969 road vehicles on the roads. "C" licence holders operated 1,253,000 and there were 573,000 operators. In other words, among the "C" licence operators there were, on average, two vehicles per operator. I would not believe there is anyone who would say that such operators would have the facilities to provide their own examination and to increase their standard of maintenance. I would draw the attention of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, to these figures. I have given the number of commercial vehicles on the roads in 1961. In 1961 his Department examined 110,000 vehicles: less than 8 per cent. of all the commercial vehicles on the road. This was fewer than the number examined by his
326
Department in 1960. In fact, the percentage of commercial vehicles being examined is declining.
Why is this? I understand that the Minister has 320 examiners for the United Kingdom—320 men to examine all commercial vehicles. Their duties do not relate just to commercial vehicles. I understand that they have to examine all the public service vehicles of this country. I believe in 1961 they examined 87,000 public service vehicles. I wonder to what extent, with that number of examiners, the examination was undertaken satisfactorily, and whether they can examine all the various parts in vehicles that can go wrong.
I draw the attention of the House to the Report. I would like first to draw the attention of the House to the position in Yorkshire. In that area the licensing authorities had to deal with 127,000 vehicles. The number examined was a mere 14,000. Of that 14,000 vehicles examined, the use of over 3,000 was prohibited because they were in some way or another defective. But of that prohibited number which had to be repaired within ten days, 907 were so bad that they were prohibited from carrying on with their journeys. I would draw the attention of the House to the Report of the North-Western Traffic Area. They have 204,000 vehicles. Less than 4 per per cent. of those vehicles were examined during 1961: 8,294. Of those vehicles, 3,000 were prohibited and had to be repaired within ten days, and over one-third of those vehicles were for immediate prohibition. They were so bad they had to be taken out of service immediately.
If one goes right through this Report one finds the story is very much the same. May I take the case of South Wales, in which area there are 52,000 vehicles? The number examined was 5,300; prohibited, 2,562. Fifty per cent. of the vehicles examined in that area were prohibited for defects. Immediate prohibition was imposed upon 754. Let us take the Western Area. I am sorry to go into these details but the House should understand the situation. In the Western district there were 90,000 vehicles. Of these 7,881 were examined; 2,818 prohibited; 685 immediately prohibited. This is what the Report says, and its comments are very similar to those of all

327
the different authorities throughout the country:
"Most owners of large fleets keep their vehicles in satisfactory condition without pressure from the Licensing Authority's technical staff, but there has been no noticeable improvement in the maintenance of the vehicles owned by many of the smaller operators whose motto seems to be: 'If it goes, it's all right.' This seems likely to continue so long as the official examination of goods vehicles can, as now. cover not more than about 9 per cent. of the total vehicles. If this could be stepped up to a detailed examination of about 25 per cent. of the vehicles then it might be possible to approach the standard of maintenance achieved with public service vehicles."
Public service vehicles require an annual inspection. Scotland is no better. There they have 105,000 vehicles; examined: 13,000; prohibited: 3,141. One thousand of those vehicles were prohibited immediately; they were so bad that they had to be taken out of service straight away. As I say, you can go through the whole book and find that the conditions are everywhere the same.
May I just bring in the total figures? Of 110,000 inspected last year 31,506 received "prohibited" notices. Of those vehicles 9,000 were so bad they were taken out of service immediately upon the instructions of the examiners. I think that that is a terrible picture. I understand that the defects of these vehicles are similar to those on motor cars and relate to steering and brakes.
Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will agree with me that, as in the case of motor cars, there is a marked improvement from defects according to the age of the vehicle, with the possible exception of first- and second-year-old vehicles. Vehicles which are six, five or four years old show the same percentage of defects. If we agree to these regulations this afternoon, we should regard an increase in the number of vehicles examined as a matter of urgent priority. This can be done only by an increase in the number of inspectors. I hope that in the not too distant future, certainly by 1965, the Government will be in a position to start carrying out tests on these vehicles. I think that there should be a concerted effort by the Ministry of Transport to improve the standard of maintenance of heavy commercial vehicles carrying heavy loads through our country roads and towns.
I have one or two other points to make, but I believe that it is the wish of the House to hear the important statement on the Common Market and I have agreed, through the usual channels, to break my speech.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not think that there is any particular need for the noble Lord's courtesy, because I have not yet had word that it is entirely clear. Therefore, if he continues to make his speech that may be even more convenient than if he sits down.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if the noble Viscount the Leader of the House will give me "the nod", I will meet the wishes of the House.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, before the noble Lord continues, may I ask him one question? If he carries his proposal to its logical conclusion of having more and more inspectors, there will be more inspectors than lorry drivers before long.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if we did that, we should have no unemployment in this country to-day. It is remarkable what 320 examiners perform to-day on nearly 200,000 vehicles.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: They have done very well.
LORD SHEPHERD: If there were an increase of another 300 examiners, it would be possible to raise the percentage of examinations to about 25, and that would have a marked effect on the standard of maintenance of these vehicles.
I was pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that at last something is going to be done about the question of loads on vehicles. The present legislation is obviously very unsatisfactory, but as this matter is being considered by a Departmental Committee, I hope that the House will be content with that. The abuses are obvious to all who use the roads, and legislation makes it possible for these to happen. It is possible to carry 14 tons on a four-wheeled vehicle. What I would regard as an ordinary 3-ton four wheeler cannot carry in safety at 40 m.p.h. a load in excess of 5 or 6 tons, but at present it can carry 14 tons and still be within the law.
My Lords, I have been given a note to say that the Government are now ready,

329
and if it be for the convenience of the House, I will break off so that the House may hear the statement of the noble Viscount.

BREAKDOWN OF COMMON MARKET NEGOTIATIONS
3.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. With your Lordships' permission, I wish to repeat a statement which is now being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal on the Brussels negotiations.
Your Lordships will recall that, at the meeting of Ministers in Brussels on January 17, the French Delegation requested that the negotiations should be suspended. The five other Delegations of the European Economic Community, and the British Delegation, opposed this. It was agreed that the discussion on this question would be continued at the next Ministerial meeting, on January 28, first among the Six Delegations and then in the full Conference of the Seven.
The Six met at about 7.15 p.m. on January 28 and again at noon and in the early afternoon of January 29. The Ministers of Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands did all they could, during these meetings, to persuade the French Delegation to agree on a basis for continuing the negotiations. As your Lordships know, their efforts were of no avail. We were, of course, kept fully informed throughout their discussions.
At 4.30 yesterday afternoon, the full Conference of the Seven met to consider the situation. My right honourable friend the Lord Privy Seal was accompanied at this meeting by my right honourable friend the Commonwealth Secretary and by my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture. The Chairman of the Conference, Monsieur Fayat, opened the meeting by reading his statement, of which the following is a translation:
"Following the decision taken by the Seven Governments on the 13th January last, the Six have resumed their discussions on the proposal of the French Delegation to break off the negotiations between the Member States of
330
the European Economic Community and the United Kingdom. The Five other Delegations of the European Economic Community, and the British Delegation, opposed this proposal at the time it was made. In the discussions held by the Six yesterday and to-day, various compromise proposals have been examined. It has finally become apparent that the Belgian, the German, the Italian, the Luxembourg and the Netherlands Delegations agree to accept the following text:
'The European Commission is requested to draw up, during the next three weeks, a report on the present state of the negotiations for accession between Great Britain and the Six States of the European Economic Community; in this report the Commission will set out the results already obtained and the questions still in suspense, and will give its opinion on the latter. This report will be transmitted to each of the Seven Delegations composing the Conference. The work of the Conference will be resumed not later than ten days after the submission of this report.'
"The French Delegation has refused to accept this text because of a different view, which they will explain in the course of this meeting."
After this statement, Ministers representing Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy and Luxembourg then each spoke in turn. With the exception of the French Foreign Minister, each declared that it was his Government's wish to continue the negotiations and his Government's conviction that the outstanding problems could be resolved. Each one expressed deep regret at the situation which had arisen and anxiety as to its consequences. Professor Hallstein, the President of the Commission, also spoke. He said that the European Commission would seek to reduce to the minimum the harmful effects of these developments, both within the European Economic Community and in its relations with other countries.
Monsieur Couve de Murville stated his Government's reasons for having proposed a suspension of the negotiations. He argued that they had made no progress since October; that Britain had not been able to accept the disciplines of the Rome Treaty, notably the common agricultural policy; and that the entry of new members to a club which was not yet complete raised serious questions, notably for the founder Members.
My right honourable friend, the Lord Privy Seal said that, had the Six been able to agree on the draft terms of reference for a report by the European Commission which had been proposed by the five delegations, we should have been

331
able to accept them, since they would have shown that the negotiations were being resumed in good faith. He recalled the reasons for our application to enter into negotiations with the Community. He completely repudiated the arguments advanced by the French Government for the suspension of the negotiations. He said that we would not turn our backs on the Continent because of these events, but would continue to work with all our friends in Europe for its future strength and unity.
The Chairman of the Conference then said that, in the circumstances, he was forced to record the fact, with great regret that the Member States of the European Economic Community were prevented from continuing the negotiations. He was convinced that this regret would be echoed throughout the world. Monsieur Fayat then declared the meeting closed.
My Lords, my right honourable friend goes on in his statement, using his own words:
"In my previous statements to the House after Ministerial Meetings, I have confined myself to giving an account of the events which took place. Perhaps on this occasion I may be permitted a word of comment. What has happened is a bitter blow to all those who believe in European unity; but it is not a mortal one. The events of the past few weeks have shown how many people throughout Europe want us to play a full part in its creation. The Governments of the five Member States of the Community—whose peoples together number some 120 million—are among those who share with us a common view of the Europe we want to see. There is a foundation of friendship and good will for the future."
3.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, we are obliged to the Leader of the House for giving us the comments which have been submitted in another place by the Lord Privy Seal. There can be no doubt at all that the action taken by the French in this instance is a severe blow, not only to the British Government in their aims but also, apparently, from the statement just read out, with quotations
332
from leading representatives of the remaining five Members, a great disappointment to many of them. On the other hand, I think the House must be generally disappointed that the totality of this statement excludes anything very much with regard to how Her Majesty's Government propose to face the situation.
I think this occasion is sufficiently important—and I hope the Leader of the House will agree—for us to say a few things specifically, even if it takes a litle time. The history of this, of course, is outstanding. For only a short period ago—that is, in 1959—the Conservative Government were apparently quite convinced that it would be a great mistake to try then to apply for admission to the European Economic Community, because of, among other things, the outstanding damage which might occur, on the one hand, to the relationships, economic and friendly, that we had with the Commonwealth, and, on the other hand, the great risks that would be involved for the agricultural community. Then later (the actual date I cannot specify) somebody must have persuaded Her Majesty's Government that it was essential (at that time most emphasis had been placed on the economic position of the country) in order to do something effective to rectify the effects that were recurring in our economy that we must make this application.
The House will remember the comments in debates in both Houses of Parliament at that time. What happened in the end was that there was a vote in Parliament favouring the Government's proposal to make application to enter the European Economic Community. But I must recall to your Lordships' memory that, among those who were agreeing on that basis were many who said that entry into the European Economic Community must be such as to accord with the specific pledges which had been given by the Government for the security of the relationships between us and the Commonwealth, to maintain the advantages to them and our friendship with them, and that there must be a proper protection for British agriculture. I mention only those two things. On that basis, even in the very critical, although divided, House in another place, the actual permission for application by Her Majesty's

333
Government to the European Economic Community was given. I think it is absolutely essential that we keep these facts in mind.
Now we are faced with a fairly brief statement by the Government which makes it clear that in the negotiations, which have lasted since almost the first statement made by the Lord Privy Seal in Paris on October 10, 1961, they did not wish to propose any amendment to the Treaty of Rome; for nearly two and a quarter years (and many people think that this great country of ours has been held in suspense for longer periods than was ever necessary) we have never received such concessions as would be likely to satisfy the two main pledges of Her Majesty's Government originally. And now at this stage the negotiations are broken off by the action of France.
I do not wish this afternoon (perhaps in some Foreign Affairs debate I will) to speak at length on what the action of the French has been, although action by France in this sort of way is not new in this particular respect. But later, as the developments went on, the question of the political side of the application for entry became more fixed; and I recall the debate in the Conservative Conference at Llandudno, when the great majority of the delegates were sent away with an increasing confidence of the assured success of the negotiations which were continuing. There were many people in the Conservative Conference, it seemed to me (they were not, of course, representing all the Conference) who felt that they had reservations to make about the political aspects of entering into Europe on the kind of basis that was foreshadowed through the Rome Treaty.
Now here we are and we get the last thing in this statement to-day—I have not yet seen that latter part of the statement made by the noble Leader of the House; it was evidently a part of Mr. Heath's personal statement being made in another place. We see that the political intentions are certainly retained by the Government, but we do not know exactly upon what sort of terms they would wish to develop those political relationships in Europe for the future. But I am bound to say to the Foreign Secretary (and I am glad to see him here) that in the minds of many people,
334
some of whom are in favour of the Common Market and some dead against it, the whole political situation is changed by the movement of President de Gaulle and Dr. Adenauer into a kind of two countries united in Europe, so that they may, if possible, dominate the policy in Europe. This brings a new factor into the various counters to be placed before us, looked at and assessed. This is a new situation compared with the time when the Houses of Parliament gave permission to the Government to enter into negotiations.
The only other thing I want to say—it may take a minute or two—is this. I am disappointed—and I expect that many others in the country are—that this winding-up by the Lord Privy Seal which has been given to us by the Leader of the House does not go far enough for this day. I look at the present breaking off of negotiations in this ruthless manner by France, they themselves having entered into this new agreement with Dr. Adenauer to change the balance of Europe; and I regard it as a challenge to our greatness here—and we are a great country—and it is about time that our Government took a step in the direction which will really appeal to the whole of the United Kingdom, and laid down a policy which can show that we are no more afraid of the future here than when France broke and we faced the world alone. That is the spirit in which we now have to tackle both the economic and the political issues that open up before us because of this contretemps which has occurred. I lay that specifically before the Government, and especially before the Foreign Secretary.
I do not think we shall gain at this time by heavy personal attacks, such as were made apparently earlier today and reported in the evening Press, by one of Her Majesty's Ministers. I am not suggesting that. But I think we should take urgent action in certain directions. I hinted at some of them last week. I think one of the first things we have to do is to reopen our consultations with the Commonwealth, and also that before we get into the real grips of a conference we should have equally effective and useful talks with E.F.T.A. There is much that can be done within the industrial, agricultural and other aspects of commerce and finance in the sphere of those three great organisations to make some

335
immediate change from the terrible uncertainty which, apparently, our financiers and producers have had in this country for the last eighteen months. One could see the reaction on the Stock Exchange yesterday when, because this happened with regard to Europe, there was an immediate rise in the general stock prices, as if at last we were to be released from the insecurity of which Mr. Macmillan spoke only last week and its factor position in the building up of the recent unfortunate unemployment.
It is action now which must be taken. As my right honourable friend said in another place the other day, we have to go even wider than that. I think there is every indication in some of these speeches or notices which President Kennedy has made recently that they are in the middle of considering what other tariff concessions might have to be made to a number of countries. I think that what we want is a really well-considered world food policy, to do something with regard to the surpluses we get in our Western countries and democracies to come to the aid of the undeveloped countries, which can yet make great markets for all the nations concerned in return for what can be done in that direction. As soon as you have an understanding—I believe you can get it with the Commonwealth and E.F.T.A. on this matter—then you can go ahead with further negotiations in two directions: with the United States and perhaps with GATT. Mr. Diefenbaker of Canada has already spoken about his need to approach GATT as early as possible on some of the matters. You cannot get a wide extension of Imperial Preference very easily through GATT. It is a difficult organisation to get preferences through. But now is the time to consider and consult together to enable this country to face another challenge in a different kind of field, in a way, but yet of equal importance to our nationhood, our reputation and the whole economic future of our comrades.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, before I am asked, as I have no doubt I shall be asked, a series of supplementary questions—and, indeed, I welcome them, both from noble Lords on this side and on the other side—perhaps the House will forgive me if I make one or two rather simple comments on what the noble Viscount has
336
said. In the first place, I do not think I have had the opportunity before of congratulating him on the appearance of his name in the recent Honours List, and we are all looking forward very much to welcoming him in his further ennobled capacity very shortly.
Secondly, I think we must all remember that this matter raises very wide issues indeed, and we must be careful not to use this statement as a means of debating the whole sphere. I believe we have a Foreign Affairs debate coming, and I think it is possible that there may be further Government statements, as the week goes on, on different aspects of the matter. It would be a pity if we were to examine now the whole of the world situation in this new light. I quite accept from the noble Viscount that it is the business and responsibility of the Government to give Parliament an indication of where they think we should go from here. I believe my right honourable friend was right to separate his statement from such a debate, and also to make it clear in the very cautious comment he made in his statement that this is not an occasion to express any feelings of resentment that some of us may quite naturally harbour at what has been done. I think we should keep very calm and cool on that front.
I would say this, if it would be to some extent an answer to the criticism made by the noble Viscount. I think it is quite clear that this country must now try to get together upon a reconsideration of its national attitude. I will not go into the details of the history which he recounted from his own point of view, but it was a subject upon which there were differences. There need be no such differences now. There will, of course, be Party differences about matters of national policy, but I think this is an occasion when we can really try to rally public opinion behind a sober policy of national and international action which will redound to the advantage and to the honour of this country. I do not think we could do that too quickly, but I think we should all think out our own position very carefully indeed.
I do not agree that in this matter this country stands alone. That was the only point of difference I had from what the noble Viscount said. It is France who stands alone. I will not say any more

337
than that. The whole of the Five, the whole of the Seven, the United States and the British Commonwealth are on the other side of this particular barricade, and France is isolated. This is not a position we welcome. Moreover, I think we must say, and say quite frankly, that what concerns us in the Government, and what I imagine will concern the House, too, is less the future of this country, which we believe to be assured, than the future prospects of Europe in the Free World. This is the issue which has arisen for decision.
We do not believe in an inward-looking Europe. Apparently there is one man in Europe who does. We believe in an outward-looking Europe. It was to take part in that that we made our application, in good faith, and negotiated in good faith, for a long period of time. It is difficult to see how, if these political objections to our application were discovered, they needed to be discovered after one and a half years of negotiation. But our attitude is unchanged, and I hope we may look forward to threshing out afresh the issues which face this country. Of course, we must continue to consult on the basis of the new events, both with our Commonwealth partners and with our EFTA partners, with GATT, with the Americans and with others who are affected thereby—the Five in particular. These things will be done. I think the first and absolutely solid thing to do and to say is that we must first clarify our own minds about what we want to do and then consult all the other relevant people about our common objectives.
3.58 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I will not attempt to detain your Lordships at all now, but I should like to thank the noble Viscount the Leader of the House for his statement and also for taking all the points which I hoped to make when he got to his feet to answer the noble Viscount, the Leader of the Opposition.
I think this is not an occasion for a debate on this subject. This is the first time on which we have been given the full, authoritative Government statement on what has happened, and we are most of us—nearly all of us, I think, with respect to my noble friend on the Left—very disappointed about what has happened. It seemed to me that the most
338
important point the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made was that it is in a sense France who stands alone. Of all those seven countries who were gathered together in Brussels discussing this matter, all but France were joined together. Your Lordships may have read in The Times newspaper a day or two ago a letter—written with what authority I do not know—from an Anglophile Frenchman, who pointed out that France itself is to a certain extent divided, and that division shows a strong feeling for Britain throughout that great country whom many of us still admire and love in spite of some mistakes which she may make.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: My Lords, I must interrupt, if I may, for half a minute. I seldom feel deeply about political matters, but this is not an internal thing between Parties and, as the noble Lord opposite has said, we are together. This is a turning point in British history, and all I would ask (I have no concern with the Government to-day) is that we should not rush the Government. It was impossible for us to consult with others of the English-speaking world outside Brussels as to what we should do in the event of these negotiations to enter Europe breaking down because everybody knew that we were negotiating and discussing. But now we must surely give the Government a few days in which to think out the future destiny of this country, which stands at this moment on the brink of an entirely new era as to our economic and national future.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount the Leader of the House whether the Government agree that the broad agreement which seemed about to emerge in Brussels recently is one best designed to further the long-term interests of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, Europe and the whole Western World? And will they perhaps seize any new opportunity that presents itself to achieve a solution on those lines?
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, while very much regretting this breakdown and the action of President de Gaulle, may I ask the Government whether they will take every action they can to see that no evil effects fall upon NATO, as NATO is the guardian of the Western World and without it we should not be discussing this matter to-day.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, may I ask the Government two questions? While not differing in any way from the noble Viscount, Lord Stuart of Findhorn, may I ask the Government when they are likely to be able to make a statement on the profound economic changes which are consequent upon the breakdown of these negotiations? The second question is: do the Government accept that they now have an opportunity, seizing this moment, of rekindling the fires of enthusiasm, of national unity and national purpose which have been damped down over the past months, or even the past year or two; that this country now has a chance to be united and to conquer all the difficulties, as I am quite sure we can if the Government give the leadership which we hope and expect?
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, as a very junior Member of your Lordships' House may I make one comment, and then ask a question? The first thing I should like to say is how delighted I am that the noble Viscount the Leader of the Opposition has echoed the words of an excellent editorial which appeared in today's issue of The Times, to the effect that the country is facing a challenge to-day as it did twenty-three years ago. Then I should like to ask my noble Leader one question: whether Her Majesty's Government would consider approaching the Governments of Italy and Germany to ascertain their reaction to the proposal by the Benelux countries that discussions should continue, although they could not be implemented, in which case France might be placed in a position whereby in due course she might find that she would have to change her attitude?
I also wonder whether my noble Leader could be a little more explicit with regard to what I understand were the technical details as to why France would not agree to a consideration being made and a report being made by the Commission. I should like to end by saying—and I say this in all humility—that I feel it might be wise if we were to limit our criticisms of de Gaulle, because my feeling has been that the more criticism which is levelled towards de Gaulle the more it tends to make the French, who in many cases do not share his views, change their attitude to the extent of their
340
getting more and more behind him—what is known in French as se serrer les coudes.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I say as one Back-bencher how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Stuart of Findhorn. I am sure that the House as a whole thinks that it is right and fair that Her Majesty's Government should consider carefully what they are going to say to Parliament and the nation at this serious juncture in our affairs. I only ask my noble Leader whether he realises that some of us very much hope that that statement, when it is ready, will be made in a considered way by one of Her Majesty's Ministers to Parliament and will not be given in an excited interview at the airport.
4.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think we all share the dislike of excited interviews at airports, particularly those who have been subjected to the pressure to give vent to them on every occasion when we leave or arrive in this country; so I think I can agree with that. I thank noble Lords for the various comments and questions they have put, and I will try to answer some of the points rather shortly. I was very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, for his intervention on behalf of the Liberal Party, and to my noble friend Lord Stuart of Findhorn for what I thought was a very timely reminder that, if we are right in thinking that this constitutes a very important occasion for reappraisal of ail our policies, we must think them out with great clarity. I fancy that the Opposition, as well as the Government, will wish for time; and I think the ordinary people of the country will want to consider in calm what the implications are.
I was not able to take down at speed Lord Gladwyn's question, but without committing myself to the form of words which he uttered, it certainly is the case that we did believe that the negotiations could have gone forward to a successful conclusion. That was also the view of the Five, and I think that emerges from my right honourable friend's statement.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, if I may just interpolate for a moment, is it not a fact that Parliament has not had really detailed information as to what concessions have been made by this country

341
so that they could be properly examined? The agricultural leaders, for example, would not dream of accepting the settlement so far made on behalf of agriculture.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It is not for me to criticise, but I thought that we had too much detail and too little clarity. At all events, it is certainly the view of the Government that the negotiations could have gone forward to a successful conclusion. That was the view of the Five, and that was certainly the expressed view of my right honourable friend.
The noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, raised the important question of the future of NATO. Obviously that must concern us and the Americans, and I am sure it will concern the Five. Equally obviously, we must see what we can do to keep the Alliance in effective being. I am not pretending for a moment that the action which has been taken by one member of the Community against ourselves makes it any easier for any of us. But I quite agree with the general objective of which the noble Lord has spoken. In answer to my noble friend Lord Balfour of Inchrye, I cannot give a date for a statement on the economic changes. I was thinking there might be a statement this week on some part of it, but hardly the comprehensive statement he is looking for. I entirely share his view that whichever part of the House we may sit in we clearly must try to lead public opinion to a less unhappy frame of mind than it has been showing recently about many things. I have sometimes feared that cynicism might kill this country one day, and I think we could all play a part in leadership in preventing a decay in the national morale in that sense.
I would not have gone as far as the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, on the question of 1940. I do not think this is a bit like that. I think that is to over-dramatise it. I think our future is bright, our prospects are good. I have never had any fear for this country outside the Common Market or inside the Common Market. I think we need to show what I was saying, to throw off some of the atmosphere of cynicism which has covered public opinion lately. But I really do not feel that we are facing a 1940-like situation. I have much more confidence in the basic soundness of the situation, national and international, than that. I would therefore deprecate, to that
342
extent, drawing these analogies with the more desperate moments of the last war against Hitler.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLS-BOROUGH: My Lords, I must say that I feel that my analogy was not in anyway cynical. But on aspects of the general problem I must say we have been told, again and again, by the Government and supporters of the Common Market that if we did not go in it would be a disaster.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not want to engage in controversy with the noble Viscount, because I certainly did not intend to say, and I do not think I did say, his intervention was cynical. What I was claiming, in answer to my noble friend, Lord Balfour of Inchrye, was that we must get rid of cynicism—all of us. If I were to draw up an eleven in this House for cynicals to play against non-cynicals, the noble Viscount would probably captain the team of non-cynicals. So I do not make any kind of charge against him there. I cannot really say what the reactions of Italy and Germany would be to the Benelux suggestion. We have been in close touch with the Five and of course it is a question for those Governments. I equally cannot give any details of what the French said to the other Five as to why they would not agree to the other Five's statements. This was done in conclave from which we were excluded, and I can give only the information contained in my right honourable friend's statement. I entirely share the view of my noble friend that we should limit our criticisms of personalities in this case, if only because our own dignity and self-respect requires that we should remain extremely calm and restrained: indeed some people might have another and less honourable reason—that General de Gaulle rather likes them.

MOTOR VEHICLES (VARIATION OF SPEED LIMIT) REGULATIONS, 1962
4.15 p.m.
Debate continued.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is with some difficulty that one resumes making a speech. I propose to be very brief. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, would agree that there are two regulations

343
which govern the question of the loading of vehicles, Regulations 68 and 73. So far as 68 is concerned, that is mainly to protect roads and bridges, and it is the only one under which the police, with the approval of highway authorities, can weigh a vehicle to see whether it contravenes a regulation. Regulation 73 is the one dealing with dangerous loads and it is the one, I think, which gives most of us concern. It is not possible now, as I understand it, unless there is an accident, for a load to be weighed by the police. I wonder whether the Minister would consider strengthening the position of this Regulation to such an extent that the police, if they believed a load to be too heavy and dangerous, could weigh it.
I put only one further point to the noble Lord, Lord Chesham. There is some possibility, I understand, of a new regulation to increase the overall size and weight of commerical vehicles in this country. I would ask the Minister whether he would agree that, if and when that regulation is presented, the Government will include in it a clause dealing with the speed limit, so that we can discuss not only the wisdom of increasing the size of the vehicle and the weight of the vehicle but also the relevant speed limit.
In conclusion, may I say that I am very glad the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, is to take part in this debate. He is the Chairman of the Road Haulage Federation. I believe that if the haulage industry will recognise some of the defects in its organisation, particularly those points on which I have spent a good deal of time (I apologise to the House for doing so), they themselves could do a great deal voluntarily to improve the situation, and I am sure the Government would welcome the co-operation of the industry. Equally, they could do a good deal to stop the present abuse, the contravention of the law relating to records and the hours worked by drivers. I see from the Report that there were 13,000 convictions last year for contraventions of these very important speed requirements in our legislation. I hope that the Government, if they receive approval of these Regulations this afternoon, will promise the House very speedy treatment on the question of raising the standard of maintenance
344
of the vehicles and speedy treatment of the weights that are carried by the vehicles. I think we are taking a very big step. I hope there will be no dire consequences from it. I have a lot of faith in the drivers; I think their skill does a lot to prevent accidents. But I do believe that we must look at these two important factors if we are to reduce in any way the appalling loss of life on our roads to-day.
4.19 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I must apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for not being present when he first referred to me. I am grateful to him for referring to me, but I should like to point out to him that I am Chairman of the Road Federation and not the Road Haulage Federation. Nevertheless, my own Federation will naturally do all it can, and has done in the past under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, to take all steps possible to promote the safety of all who use the roads.
I rise in support of my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary, who, in his usual sound, sensible and concise manner, described these Regulations. I am glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, opposite that those noble Lords do not propose to oppose them. These proposals continue the very logical attitude which was adopted six years ago when the speed of goods vehicles was raised from 20 m.p.h. to 30 m.p.h. My main concern in considering these proposals is that they should not add in any way to road accidents. There was no dramatic or tragic increase in road accidents because of the previous rise. The Road Research Laboratory carried out full investigations and found—I am using their own words:
"no clear indication that the change had had any effect on the number of accidents per vehicle on the road."
It is too easy, when discussing road traffic matters which closely concern safety, to become perhaps a little overheated, to blame one section of the community or another, and perhaps to exaggerate in bringing examples to mind; but perhaps one could be excused for expressing in strong words one's feelings on a subject such as road safety. One can rightly be criticised if one forgets the facts, or if the facts are

345
manufactured, as I have said, out of thin air.
None of your Lordships would wish to approve any measure which might increase the danger to road safety. As I have already said, this Order does not. To my mind, the provisions are nothing but rational and desirable, nothing but a reflection of technical progress; and, as my noble friend Lord Chesham said, they are realistic. The law must keep abreast of progress or it becomes empty of meaning and is transgressed. And it is particularly easy for regulations concerning motor usage to lose touch with reality, so rapid are the technical advances in vehicle manufacture. Braking capabilities, to take only one example—the one which is most relevant to road safety—have increased enormously in a few years.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, mentioned that it would be dangerous for some types of vehicle to travel at the higher speeds given in these regulations. But, unless I am under a misapprehension, there is no obligation on drivers of vehicles to drive at the upper limit; and professional lorry drivers, who are a sound race of men, are just as anxious for their own safety as is any other responsible citizen. I am sure that the time has come, as it came in 1957, to amend this particular law and to bring vehicle speed limits into line with common sense. The kind of thing which I have in mind in saying that these new Regulations will add to road safety is, for instance, the improvement they will effect in traffic flow. Overtaking hazards will certainly be reduced, and the dangerous frustration which drivers feel when they find themselves behind a lorry which is not allowed to go at a speed greater than 30 m.p.h., will surely now be reduced. This sort of frustration has caused far too many accidents in the past.
I should now like to turn briefly to the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and to refer to the report of the licensing authorities, to which the noble Lord has drawn our attention. I am unable to find any breakdown in the report which shows the reasons for prohibitions, and it is perhaps a fair assumption that only in the face of immediate prohibitions were the faults serious. Even in these cases it does not
346
appear to be possible to say what bearing the faults might have on road safety. A number of them were, no doubt, quite technical breaches of the Regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, mentioned, the total number of vehicles examined in the year 1960–61 constituted around 8 per cent. of the total number of goods vehicles on the roads. Although that seems to be a small percentage, we must remember that the inspectors will select for examination only those vehicles which look as if they require attention; they will hardly waste their time on checking vehicles that look reasonably new, and therefore faultless.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, also mentioned that in the September quarter of 1961 there was a total of just under one and a half million goods vehicles registered, yet there were more than that number of new registrations in the years from 1953 to 1961 inclusive. From this, it would probably be fair to say that in 1961 the average age of goods vehicles was well under four years, and therefore old goods vehicles are but a small proportion of the whole. It is interesting to note that in the West Midlands licensing area, as in a number of others, voluntary action has been taken by the road haulage industry, in conjunction with the licensing authorities, to establish vehicle maintenance committees. This action helped to bring about a 17 per cent. decrease in the number of prohibitions, and this in spite of a considerable increase in the number of the vehicles examined.
Before concluding, I should like to return briefly to the safety regulations. I have not so far touched upon that other excellent reason for accepting the proposals before us—namely, their effect on industrial activity. The retention of any unnecessary restrictions resulting in longer journey times for road transport must handicap industry, and to do that now is the last thing that any of us wants. I do not suggest that there will be as rapid an increase in transport productivity as there was after the previous raising of the speed limit in 1957; the average speed maintained by goods vehicles does not rise in proportion to the maximum speed permitted. Nevertheless, there will certainly be an increase, and this is all to the good. When one considers all the benefits which these proposals could bring, I am sure your

347
Lordships will agree that we should give these Regulations our whole-hearted support, and that we should congratulate the Government and my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary for putting them forward.
4.29 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, no one in this House will wish to cross swords with the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, on the statement which he has made, that from time to time it is necessary to examine the situation regarding speed limits in this country. With the improvement in design of motor cars and the improvement of the roads, obviously, from time to time we must consider whether some of the speed limits that have existed, possibly for some years, are now out of date. Nevertheless, I cannot feel that the fact that car design is better, or that roads are safer, is necessarily a reason for raising the speed limit. There are many other factors involved, and one has to take the overall picture of the situation before so serious an action as raising speed limits is taken.
For instance, while it may be easy to justify the raising of the speed limit for a number of categories of traffic, to put them together, as is done in these Regulations, thus suggesting, possibly unwittingly, that it is therefore all right for people to drive faster than they have done in the past, may lead to misunderstanding. I readily accept that it may not be the intention in raising speed limits; yet that may well be the interpretation which is put upon the Regulations by those who do not take full consideration of what they entail.
My Lords, I am not one of those who believe that speed is necessarily dangerous in itself, for there are circumstances in which accidents can be avoided because one is able to drive a little faster. That is certainly true where the driver is a person of skill and experience. Nevertheless, there is no doubt whatever that when an accident takes place speed greatly aggravates the consequences. Therefore, one ought to be very careful indeed about giving any impression that faster driving is tolerable, unless every safeguard has been examined.
For that reason I find it very difficult to accept the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, and the noble
348
Earl, Lord Gosford: that because people have been habitually breaking the law and driving too fast, therefore it is necessary to bring the law up to date and allow them to go on driving in that way.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord Bishop—and I apologise for doing so—I certainly had no intention of taking that line of thought at all.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: I am sorry if I misunderstood the point which the noble Earl made.
I would go on to add that I have examined this new Schedule very carefully, and it seems to me that a good many of the adjustments which have been made are normal and reasonable. There is, however, one category which gives me grave cause for concern, and I hope that the Government will give it further consideration; that is, the wholesale uplifting of the speed limit for all classes of commercial vehicles from 30 to 40 m.p.h. It seems to me illogical, first of all, to make no differentiation between the types of commercial vehicle. I readily admit that there are some commercial vehicles—small, light vehicles—for which the 40 m.p.h. speed limit may not necessarily be undesirable, but I cannot accept that the raising of the speed limit for these great heavy vehicles which crowd upon our roads at the present time from 30 to 40 m.p.h. is desirable.
It seems to me that there are a number of reasons why this is dangerous action. First of all, there is the question of fatigue. I am not arguing that it is necessarily more tiring to drive one of these vehicles at 40 rather than 30 m.p.h. Nevertheless, these drivers do have very long periods of driving, and I cannot believe that towards the end of a long period a man's judgment is not in some way impaired, and that the consequences of an error of judgment will not be worse if he is driving faster rather than slower.
On the question of overtaking, the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, advanced the argument, which I fully appreciate, that if lorries are encouraged to go at 40 m.p.h. that will avoid impatience and irritation on the part of those who are sitting behind the slower vehicles and who try to pass, possibly when they should not do so. But there seems to me

349
to be a contrary argument which is equally valid; that is, that if a lorry is going at 40 m.p.h., to pass it a car has to go at at least 50 m.p.h.. It may be on a narrow road, and we all know that passing on roads which are not absolutely clear and wide can be an extremely dangerous operation. If an accident takes place, because the speeds are accelerated, the consequences are even worse.
My Lords, my main reason for feeling anxious about this matter is the sheer fact of having these huge juggernauts on the road driving at this speed. I can speak from a good deal of personal experience, because in the county in which I live, and across which I spend much of my time driving, there are the roads going to the great industrial centres Of the North, and to Manchester, Liverpool and Birkenhead docks. Many of our roads are comparatively narrow, and I have had experience of driving on these roads in company with such great vehicles. I should be the first to recognise the skill and the courtesy of the drivers of lorries; they have much to teach the ordinary driver in matters of courtesy; of giving signals when it is safe to pass, and so on. But I have also had experience of driving in a mist or at night, when one suddenly meets a stream of these huge lorries looming out of the dark. It is a very frightening, serious experience from the point of view of speed. I feel that there is every reason to restrict the speed of these great lorries to 30 m.p.h.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, quoted figures for his statement that when the last uplifting of the speed limit took place there were no evil consequences. I know that statistics can be made to prove almost anything and that it is most dangerous to argue from them. I can only say to the House, in contradistinction to what the noble Earl has said, that in the eight months following the last raising of the speed limit the figures in regard to persons involved in accidents rose from 6,922 to 7,500, a rise of almost 600; and that between 1958 and 1961 there has been a rise of nearly 4,500 personal injury accidents involving heavy goods vehicles.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, will the right reverend Prelate allow me to interrupt? In fairness to the noble Earl, I must point out that he did not quote any figures. I wish he had done so
350
because we should then have known the source of his statement that there had not been an increase in accidents. In fact there was, and the figures prove it, as the right reverend Prelate has just read out.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, I merely read out an extract from the Road Research Laboratory Report, which gave no figures but said that there was no indication that there had been an increase. May I ask the right reverend Prelate whether he can give the percentage of increase of goods traffic on the roads which goes with those figures?
LORD ELTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl to give a reference to the Road Research Laboratory Report from which he has just quoted?
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: May I give it later?
LORD ELTON: Thank you.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, I am sorry if I appeared to misrepresent the noble Earl in any way. I am afraid I cannot give the percentage. That is why I stressed that I fully appreciated that figures by themselves were dangerous things to use, though I felt that they indicated a rather different nuance of approach from that which the noble Earl had given us.
My Lords, I do not think I need do more than simply remind your Lord ships of something of which we are all so deeply conscious: the deplorable state of the roads as regards accidents, and, therefore, the need to take the greatest care before doing anything that would give any suggestion that we were letting up on the restrictions which ought to be observed on the roads. I therefore very much hope that the Minister will be prepared to have another look at this question, and possibly to reconsider certain aspects of the Schedule to the Regulations.
4.41 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I should like to congratulate the Government, if I may, on making it possible—as apparently one can in your Lordships' House—to have a discussion on these Regulations in conjunction with a Motion such as has been put on the Order Paper by my noble friend, Lord Shepherd. In dealing with new Regulations such as

351
these, which carry the implication made by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that they are likely to be observed, one ought to look at them in relation to how existing rules and regulations, Road Traffic Acts and the rest are observed. It is generally accepted among lorry drivers and many car drivers, whether rightly or wrongly, that chief constables, who are the authorising authorities for prosecutions, do not authorise prosecutions unless the person was exceeding the speed limit by more than 5 m.p.h. Those of us who sit in petty sessional courts notice that from the speeds quoted by police constables when they have been following vehicles the drivers of which have been prosecuted for exceeding the speed limit. Therefore, let us face the fact that what is the legal limit, or at least the limit below which prosecutions will not take place, is almost 45 m.p.h. and not 40 m.p.h.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said that there was no requirement on the part of the driver to drive to the maximum. I agree there is not, except that his employer requires that he should. Every operator carrying on a long-distance operation prepares a schedule for his driver. It is the correct thing to do from the point of view of a successful operator, for he knows that the driver will be at a particular point at a particular time. He knows where he can get in touch with him, even to the cafés which are in use by the driver. The schedule of operation which the driver has to maintain is worked out at the maximum speed limit, which at the moment is 30 m.p.h. and will be 40 m.p.h. Of course, those of us associated with the transport industry know that much of the exceeding of speed limits is in order that the driver can get a little extra time at the café at which he is going to call.
I intend to be perhaps a little critical, but I want to make it quite clear, as did my noble friend, Lord Shepherd, that I am not being critical of the best type of operator. There are operators within the road haulage industry, the larger firms and, of course, British Road Services, who are operating their vehicles safely and whose standard of maintenance is exceedingly high. In fact, they run workshops and employ mechanics of a standard which enables their fleet to
352
be first-class in roadworthiness. They, in fact, prepare their schedules in order that the driver does not exceed speed limits. They enforce the maintenance of the log book so that the driver does not work excessive hours, and they maintain a good standard of maintenance.
But let us face the facts. In spite of what the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said in regard to the prohibitions, and especially in regard to the immediate prohibition being the only one that is serious, that really is not so. The fact is that over a very wide field of road-haulage operations every phase of the Road Traffic Acts is flouted daily on every type of licence. Whether it is an A, B or C licence, the conditions of the licence are being flouted. One has only to look at the report of the traffic inspectors to see that that is so.
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, made reference to the fact that these were only a proportion, and that, obviously, inspectors did not inspect vehicles which appeared to be maintained to a good standard. I can understand that. After all, I have been associated also with the working of the Factories Acts, and what does a factories inspector do? There are all too few factory inspectors within the Ministry of Labour, and the inspector knows the employer who complies with, and is very often in advance of, legislation so far as the working of the Factories Acts is concerned. So he concentrates his efforts on what in the industry are termed "rat shops", and the better class of employer is never visited. That is true so far as Ministry of Transport inspectors are concerned. They are so few on the ground, they have so much to do, that as sensible men they confine themselves to cases where they think there is the greatest possibility of evasion of the law. That means that there is a wide range of vehicles, belonging to the good operators to whom I have referred, which are never investigated. That does not in any way alter the fact that there ought to be more inspectors and more inspections of vehicles.
The standard of maintenance of vehicles is shockingly low. It is not unfair to say that, over a vast field of road haulage operations, maintenance is done on a shoestring. What is the problem? The vehicles of many of the

353
small operators are obtained on hire purchase; there is pressure from the finance companies, who finance their purchase, for the maintenance of the hire purchase payments. Within the field of transport, unfortunately, there are also middlemen who are taking the profit out of the rates for a job. They get a transport job of one form or another, but they themselves have no vehicles; therefore, when they have obtained a contract they turn round the corner, trying to find an odd man with a vehicle or two, in order to carry out the work. They cut the rates, but the man operating on cut rates has pressure to maintain his hire purchase payments when he is in difficulty. Sometimes on contract work the operator has to wait some time for his money, and the banks are not easy when the Government say that they should not be easy. Therefore, when there is financial pressure the first thing that goes with many of these operators is the standard of maintenance. It is not unfair to say, as one inspector does in the report, that some operators look upon a vehicle as roadworthy if the engine will start and the vehicle will move.
The other point is hours of work. Again over a wide field of operation within the road-haulage industry there is flagrant abuse of the log book. Log books are falsified every day of the week, and, unfortunately—I have to admit it—there is almost an unholy conspiracy between the employer and the employee. Maintaining the statutory hours under the Road Traffic Act means, of course, a limitation on wages. Therefore, in order to get enhanced wages the lorry driver works in league with the employer so that the log books are falsified.
The right reverend Prelate made reference to whether there is a difference between the fatigue arising from driving at 30 m.p.h., and driving at 40 m.p.h. Let us say this quite frankly: that if one is driving a heavy lorry for excessive periods of time, the reaction of the driver is not as quick at the end of the day as it is at the beginning; and the longer the hours the greater is the likely frequency of accidents and also the severity of accidents. Therefore, enforcement of the existing Road Traffic Act is one of the most vital factors in road safety in this country. There is the other point, too, of overloading. It
354
is stated within the industry that, outside the large-scale road-haulage contractors, nine vehicles out of ten are overloaded at some stage or other; and, of course, that overloading and unsafe loading is very great indeed.
Now I want to turn to another and most important field where lorries are affected by these Regulations. I refer to the vehicles operating in association with civil engineering. Here I should say that I am not a civil engineer. Nine-tenths of the lorries engaged are operated under piece-work arrangements. Therefore there is an inducement to the lorry driver to speed. After all, the more journeys he makes the greater tonnage he carries and the greater his pay packet at the end of the day. Not only is there a violation of working hours but there is an encouragement of the violation of speed limits, and there is also an encouragement of and the winking at the overloading of vehicles. One may say that the standard of maintenance of road-haulage vehicles over a wide field is poor, or not of a high standard; and we all know that, so far as those engaged in civil engineering are concerned, because of their difficulties in going on to sites, backing in and out, and so on, mudguards, number plates, rear lights and the rest "go for a Burton". As a result, the standard of such a lorry, on the basis of its appearance and effectiveness, is very low indeed. I doubt very much whether there is one noble Lord in the House at the moment who, when he has come up behind them, has not cursed sand-and-gravel lorries or rubble lorries for being deficient of mudguards, as a result of which one's windscreen and everything else suffer badly.
Therefore, my Lords, we ought to look at these Regulations not only on the basis of the better type of firm who will observe them and who will do their best to see that their employees observe them to the letter, but also on the basis that, in this road-haulage industry, there is a "free for all" over a very wide field, which creates the possibility of danger as well; and that those whose standard of maintenance, hours of work and loading are bad are given rights under these Regulations equal to those given to the good operators. Therefore there is an obligation upon the Government to see that these Regulations are

355
given only to an industry which really starts out with the intention of carrying them out.
If we are going to have these Regulations and the general Regulations under the Road Traffic Act honourably observed, then there are only two ways of dealing with the industry: either large-scale monopolisation or nationalisation. The present "free for all", with large numbers of independent operators, just means chaos within the industry, which in turn means that we cannot get regulation of or safety for the people who work in it. Therefore, my Lords, I should like to suggest, in the interests of the road-haulage industry itself, and in the interests of the best operators within that industry, that the Government ought to set up an inquiry into the operation of the industry—and not only into the operation of the industry as an industry, but also into the cost of that industry to the nation.
We hear a lot about the £150 million deficit so far as the railways are concerned. Perhaps I ought here to declare, not an interest, but a bias, as an ex-railwayman. I certainly have a greater affection for the railways than for road haulage; and I would agree that instead of using road services there ought to be a greater use of the railways than there is at the moment. On the question of the cost to the nation, the subsidy to the road haulage industry is more than ten times the £150 million to the railways, when one looks at it on the basis of the provision of the permanent way, the cost of accident services, fire and police, special loads and so on—and especially if one looks at the cost over the recent weeks. This winter the county councils and county boroughs have spent millions of pounds of the taxpayers' and of the local ratepayers' money in order to keep the roads free from snow as best they could for road haulage. The road haulage industry has contributed nothing. It has cost British Railways many hundreds of thousands of pounds, but that cost of snow-clearing to the railways has not been a cost on the taxpayer directly: it has been a cost to British Railways, and will be included within a deficiency. Although it may be outside the scope of this debate, I wonder whether the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, will tell us what is
356
the cost to the road transport industry of snow-clearing during the recent bad weather.
My Lords, I would conclude by urging that the Government should look at the question of the operation of the industry. I agree that, in terms of the best operators, who maintain their vehicles well, who maintain a high standard of driver and who give every facility for that driver to conform to the law, it is just foolish to keep them to speeds that were in operation 30 to 40 years ago. Given observation of the law, then these Regulations are good; but in an industry where there is flagrant flouting of the law those who flout it ought to be controlled much more than they are. One method of doing that is by making an increase in the inspectorate of the Ministry of Transport, who have an unsavoury job to do.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him a question about something he said, which rather confused me? I think he said that the tendency in the civil engineering industry was to overload lorries. When I was in the civil engineering industry we used to buy sand and gravel and aggregate by the cubic yard, and the cubic yard was measured by the cubic capacity of the lorry. The tendency was for the lorry never to be full enough, not to be overloaded. Perhaps the noble Lord could explain that point.
LORD LINDGREN: There are two things. Work is often awkward in the civil engineering industry, particularly on works paid for by the Ministry of Transport, and particularly road-making. Contracts for tipping lorries, for instance, are let to persons who do not possess a tipper at all. A third party comes in, tenders for the contract, gets the contract and then starts to look around for people who have a tipper that can be used. He then sub-lets to these people. They get a cut rate because the middleman has taken a rake-off, and they are in business. Moreover, the drivers are on piecework of tonnage and number of loads a day. If, by piling up to a peak on top of a lorry, they can get on an extra ton—and they can—then there is an agreement or a tendency for both the driver and the contractor to do it. In some cases on the civil engineering side the contractor or sub-contractor is the lorry-owner as well, but sometimes, of course,

357
it is an employee. There is an overloading of lorries, so far as sand and ballast are concerned. There is a great deal of difference between a wet weight and a dry weight. If you get wet sand on a lorry, it can add a considerable amount to the tonnage and to the weight on the springs.
5.0 p.m.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester I wish to say a few words of regret and protest at the proposal in these variations of orders to raise the speed limit on goods vehicles—undifferentiated, lumped together—from 30 to 40 m.p.h, But after nearly 30 years of arguing with successive Ministers of Transport on this sort of subject, I realise that it is a mere waste of breath to plead with the Minister when he is in his present mood. I say "his present mood", because it seems to be one of the mysteries of abnormal psychology that, no sooner has an honourable or right honourable Member become Minister of Transport than he develops a most virulent attack of schizophrenia.
In one half, the "Jekyll" half, of his split personality he is acutely conscious of his primary duty of saving life; and then, like Mr. Hore-Belisha, he will declare that it is speed that kills; or, like Mr. Marples, he will clap a speed limit on particularly dangerous stretches of roads over Bank Holiday weekends. But when the other half, what I would call the "Hyde" half, of his personality takes over he can think of nothing but traffic jams and five-mile car queues, and of his over-mastering duty to keep traffic moving faster. I am sure we all have some sympathy with "Mr. Hyde" in that mood.
I myself certainly cannot forget that I have had the privilege of driving cars since before the First World War. Like many others of your Lordships, I have had the privilege of driving cars on British roads when the motorist had the road more or less to himself. And one does sympathise with the tribulations and frustrations of the contemporary car owner in his millions, and therefore to some extent with the "Hyde" moods of the Minister of Transport. Nevertheless, with an annual casualty list of 300,000, it cannot be right for the Minister to take steps which I believe can be shown to be more than likely, to be almost certain,
358
to increase the totals of deaths and injuries.
In his "Jekyll" mood the Minister of course knows very well, because it has been reported by the Road Research Laboratory, that it is only the best 10 per cent. of cars which are capable of stopping within the distance given in the Highway Code. And whereas the best 10 per cent., travelling at 40 m.p.h. can stop in 120 feet there are many cars—one might almost say most cars—and drivers who require twice that distance to stop: while even the best 10 per cent. require twice that distance on a wet surface.
In his "Jekyll" mood the Minister will be constantly conscious that the Highway Code states that vehicles other than private cars may need twice the distance to pull up on dry roads. But in his "Hyde" mood the Minister is all too ready to forget these considerations and to make the plausible but sophistical and, I think, threadbare plea which we have often heard in this House (but not, I am glad to say, this evening), that it is not speed that matters but speed in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Of course, taken literally and strictly, that is perfectly true—indeed it is a platitude. What you have said is that when speed is not wrong it is right. But it is the latent implications and the inferences which are constantly drawn from that platitude that are entirely false. When you say speed is dangerous only at the wrong place and at the wrong time you should add that a driver can almost never be certain that what he is assuming to be the right place and the right time will not, suddenly and disastrously, prove to be very much the wrong place and the wrong time. A lorry is proceeding at 40 m.p.h. in apparently safe conditions. Suddenly a child 30 yards ahead falls off his bicycle, or a car emerges from a turning, or some idiot cuts in and overtakes an oncoming car. If that happens, the lorry driver will need to stop in a very much shorter distance than 80 yards if he is to avoid infanticide or a head-on crash. Of course the Minister knows this. His experts are presumably feeding him with truisms of this kind every day.
He knows that Mr. Newby, of the Road Research Laboratory, addressing the

359
Traffic Engineering Group of the Institute of Civil Engineers stated—and here I come into conflict with the mysterious attribution to the Road Research Laboratory by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford—that if the speed limit were raised then accidents would be almost certain to increase, and had increased in all the cases studied. The Minister will know—what the right reverend Prelate reminded the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, of just now—that in the eight months immediately following the raising in 1957 of the speed limit on heavy vehicles from 20 to 30 m.p.h., the accidents to such vehicles involving personal injuries rose from 6,922 to 7,500 and have been rising annually ever since—from 12,917 in 1958 to 16,396 in 1961. It is said that statistics can prove anything, but here the noble Earl and I have both quoted from the same source, the Road Research Laboratory, and presumably one or the other of us is wrong. I hope and think that it is not me.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, will the noble Lord permit me to interrupt him? As I said to the right reverend Prelate, I am sure that those figures would be much more realistic if they were given as percentages of the number of vehicles on the road. The fact that the actual number of accidents increases does not mean that the accident rate is increasing.
LORD ELTON: I think there are figures that cover that point.
LORD STONHAM: Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Elton, will permit me to say that if he will refer to page 3 of the document he is looking at he will see that from 1945 to 1953, where the 30 m.p.h. speed limit was imposed on various sites, there was a reduction of 10 per cent., and in the same eight years when the speed limit was removed there was an increase of 45 per cent. in accidents. This is a comparable period.
LORD ELTON: My Lords, the Minister no doubt also knows—and I think that this is relevant to what we have just been talking about—that in the Ministry of Transport returns for 1961, we find that a goods vehicle is involved in every fifth accident which involves death or serious injury; and that last September, in a Press release by the
360
Ministry, it was announced that the largest proportion of increase in casualties, 11 per cent., had occurred among drivers and passengers of goods vehicles, the vehicles themselves having increased over the same period by only 1 per cent.
The Minister knows well enough all the facts about the unsatisfactory maintenance of many of these vehicles whose speed is to be increased, of which we have been reminded by both the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren. But when what is uppermost in the mind of the Minister is the need to keep traffic on the move, all such considerations, one cannot help feeling, will be ignored. I cannot help picturing experts summoned to the Ministerial sanctum pausing before they knock on the door, wondering whether it is going to be Jekyll or Hyde who answers. For if it is Hyde, the kind of facts and arguments which would have been welcome enough to Jekyll, will be given extremely short shrift. It is said that there was a particularly dictatorial head of an Oxford college, in the days when it was still possible for the head of an Oxford college to be dictatorial, who was presiding over his governing body during a long and heated debate. At the end of the debate, everyone present voted for the Motion except the head of the college, who alone voted against it. He then said, "Well, gentlemen, we seem to have reached a deadlock". I cannot think that under such circumstances the Minister of Transport would be so defeatist.
I only wish that it were possible to delete this particular clause from the Orders, but obviously, under the circumstances, that is not possible. Deletion would be welcome to many of those who are most intimately concerned with driving on the roads. I do not think that anything has been said this evening of the fact that the Transport and General Workers' Union are against this variation, as are the Union of Road Transport Workers and, needless to say, the Cyclists' Touring Union and the Pedestrians' Association for Road Safety. All these bodies would welcome rejection of the Order, if only that were possible; and so, I cannot help thinking, when he reverts from Hyde to Jekyll, would the Minister himself.
5.14 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Shepherd in that, with the willing co-operation of the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, we have had a somewhat wider debate than might otherwise have been the case and I think we have found that extremely useful. There is a tremendous temptation to quote statistics in debates of this kind. It is almost inevitable. I am going to try to get mine "off my chest" quickly, particularly because the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has dealt with some of the points on which otherwise I would have touched.
To compare like with like—and I think this really answers the point at issue at the present time—in the year 1961 there was an increase of nearly 50 per cent. in passenger car accidents on no-limit roads, as compared with accidents on roads where there was a speed limit, whereas the increase in goods vehicle accidents on no-limit roads was less than 30 per cent. I submit that that is wholly due to two reasons. The first is the better standard of driving and care by road vehicle operators and, secondly, the fact that there was a limit imposed on goods vehicles. I think that these are reasonable assumptions. My objection, and I think the objection of every noble Lord who has so far spoken, except the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, is to an increase in the speed limits under conditions where it has been shown beyond any dispute whatever that we are not yet ready for such an increase on any count. I regard this step as deplorable, irresponsible and likely to lead to disastrous results in the shape of increased road casualties and deaths.
There is no question whatsoever that when speed limits are raised or removed, there is an increase in the accident rate. The Road Research Laboratory has done a great deal of work on this and there is no reasonable shadow of doubt. The Road Research Laboratory says, in this document from which I am reading:
"The proportion of vehicles travelling faster than the limit was always considerably less after it came into operation than before. Conversely, where the speed limit had been raised from 30 to 40 m.p.h. on some main roads in the London area, the proportion of vehicles exceeding 40 m.p.h. rose from 9 to 14 per cent."
The only argument which the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, put forward for
362
this Order which we are considering to-day was this: "The basic reason for raising the speed limits on goods vehicles is that the present ones are out-of-date. The police cannot enforce them because people will not respect a law they regard as unreasonable." If that argument is valid in this case, then it would be just as sound to suggest reducing the penalties for burglary, because, judging from my considerable correspondence from burglars, I assure your Lordships that they regard the present law as very unreasonable and they certainly do not respect it.
Here we have a situation where 85,000 people are seriously injured or killed on the roads every year, a great many unfortunately through goods vehicles, and we are told that the time is ripe, because of mechanical advances, to make progress, as the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said, by saying to drivers of goods vehicles that they can now drive at 40 miles per hour. As the right reverend Prelate pointed out, all experience shows that people regard that as incitement to go further and, of course, they will go faster than 40 m.p.h.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth—he is very sorry, and I am very sorry, that he is not here to-day to take part in this debate—pointed out in a recent letter to The Times:
"In 1961, 41,700 drivers of commercial vehicles were convicted of speed-limit offences, and of these only 131 suffered any suspension of licence, a penalty generally accepted as the most effective deterrent to the committing of this offence."
This is under present conditions—1961. Now we are increasing the speed limits. The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, suggested that it would be easier for the police to detect offenders with a speed limit of 40 m.p.h. than if it were 30 m.p.h. I suggest that such submissions are quite untenable.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth in the same letter asked:
"How can Parliament will the increase in vehicle speeds and withhold the wherewithal to see that the limits they impose are effectively policed and enforced?"
That is one of the major points made by my noble friend Lord Shepherd. Lord Lucas of Chilworth went on in the letter:
"I am not opposed to the raising of the present limits so long as the safeguards I

363
have set out are accepted. If they are not, and the road traffic law is in the future to be treated with the contempt it has been in the past, any increase in vehicle speeds will put all road users at greater risk, the greatest falling upon the drivers of these vehicles themselves, who last year suffered an increase of 11 per cent. in their killed and seriously injured."
The noble Earl, Lord Gosford, asked for a quotation of the percentages, and he wanted them currently. According to the most recent figure available, there has been an increase in percentage of 11 per cent.
We have had the good fortune to-day to be able to consider the Ministry of Transport's own Blue Book on this subject. My noble friend Lord Shepherd quoted some of the most important figures, and I am not going to repeat them. But I want to deal with a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, when he said, "Of course, the traffic examiners are not going to stop the new vehicles and look at them; they just stop and examine those which look somewhat rickety." I do not know whether the noble Earl has read the Report, but every traffic area refers to road checks as the most important means of deciding on defective vehicles—and with a road check they stop even the flashing new vehicles, as well as the old shambling ones. The Northern area reported road checks on 1,420 vehicles, with 627 prohibitions; that is to say, 44 per cent. of the vehicles stopped had to be prohibited. In some cases of prohibition the vehicle must be put right within ten days; but in about one-quarter of the prohibitions in every area the vehicles had to be taken off the road. In other words, they were a menace.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: May I ask the noble Lord whether, by any chance, he has any statistics which would give the ages of the vehicles concerned?
LORD SHEPHERD: What has that to do with it?
LORD STONHAM: The point is that those vehicles are licensed and are being used on the roads; and I know of no regulation which orders an old vehicle off the road. If the noble Earl is suggesting that the Government should bring in a regulation to that effect, then I should no doubt support him. But I am dealing with conditions as they are and as they
364
are revealed in the Government's book. I have calculated that, taking the proportion of prohibitions out of the 8 per cent. of the vehicles checked, 400,000 goods vehicles using the road today are unfit to use the roads. In other words they are a menace in their present condition to anyone using the roads. I should have thought that the most important people to be considered in this matter are not the owners of commercial goods vehicles, who perhaps are going to make a bigger profit out of them, because they go faster and turn round more quickly, but the 50 million or so people who are using the roads. And it is their safety which is the most important factor.
We have had no word from the Government about how these speeds will affect the question of safety. We are told that a good driver who can drive faster will be able to avoid accidents. There is nothing in the speed limit regulations to stop you from accelerating to pass a vehicle if it is going to avoid an accident. I do not know whether or not I am a good driver. I have been driving a car now for 42 years—going back in time with the noble Lord, Lord Elton, to when we were almost lonely knights of the road—and I have never yet had an accident or a claim of substance on an insurance company; and I like on occasions to drive cars fast. But some of the present-day behaviour of these road vehicles is utterly intolerable. Last Tuesday I left your Lordships' House in my car, and going round Parliament Square was a heavy lorry "breathing down my neck". Your Lordships know that they keep snorting their accelerator, and you look up. I turned down Victoria Embankment, and he was there still on my tail. I looked at my speedometer, and I was doing 30 m.p.h. down the Embankment. I then pulled over and let him draw level, and I kept parallel with him as he went along. I gave it up when we were both doing 45 m.p.h,. and he went on to do 50 m.p.h. on the Victoria Embankment. There were several policemen about, but nobody stopped him. Every noble Lord in the House knows that this is going on all over the country all the time.
There was an article in the Observer on September 16 last by Gordon Wilkins, who said:
"Nothing I have ever written for the Observer has drawn such a response from

365
readers as my protest against the proposal to raise the speed limit for heavy lorries to 40 m.p.h. The great majority of letters have endorsed my view that our road system is not adequate for these higher speeds.
"The letters reflect the fear of people who travel the roads in small cars. 'My young son and I were chased at 50 m.p.h. by an unloaded brick lorry', writes a man from Cardiff. 'The driver appeared incensed when I tried to get away and was attempting to cruise about one yard behind me'.
"A mother writes from Northwood: 'What can the ordinary motorist do to make his views and fears felt? I shall soon be taking my two children by road from Northwood to Harrogate. It is not the distance or the other cars I shall be afraid of—it is the heavy ruthless lorries. A friend of mine was literally forced on the verge two years ago on this very journey. Her car was a write-off.'
"A doctor from Peterborough writes: Please go on stressing the dangers of these huge vehicles, subject to no tests, getting away with speeds and lighting deficiencies which would soon attract police attention if cars were concerned.'"
My Lords, I have had many letters from people all over the country, and here is one from Port Talbot:
"The traffic conditions on the A.48 in this area are absolutely criminal. I have been pressing the Ministry of Transport for the last three years to do something about it, and nothing has been done. Now, to make matters even worse, heavy traffic, including huge oil tankers from Llandarcy, are to be speeded up to 40 m.p.h. On the eastern side of this road, through Baglan, the footpath is only one and a half to two feet wide, and old people like myself living here are terrorised beyond measure, and many are unable to face it. Many of the vehicles are overloaded, and frequently heavy goods are hurled from speeding traffic on to the footpaths endangering the lives of pedestrians. Many fatal accidents have occurred, and this portion of the road is so notorious that it is now known as 'The murder mile'."
The writer of that letter sent me a sample of the kind of stuff which flies off the lorries, as big as a man's head, to the infinite danger of people walking along the road. These are people who are moving about the country on their lawful, peaceful occasions; these are their feelings, and we all know that they are true.
I should be prepared, if a case were made by the Government, to agree that in certain conditions speed limits could be raised; but not when 400,000 of those vehicles are not fit to be on the road at any one time. This is not my opinion. This is in the Government's own document. I have never before read comments by civil servants so stringent
366
about their own Department as the comments in this book on the state of traffic. Just let me briefly read one or two of them. The Yorkshire Area reports:
"The tendency to regard offences against the Act and the Regulations as a normal hazard of the haulage industry appears to receive some measure of encouragement from the attitude of many lay magistrates who impose inadequate penalties."
This is a civil servant writing. The North-Western Area reports:
"Thirty-seven per cent. of all vehicles inspected were issued with Prohibition Notices. … These figures suggest that there is room for considerable improvement in the condition of goods vehicles, and the desirability of inspecting a greater proportion of them."
The West Midland Area reported a 60 per cent. increase in convictions in a year and a 30 per cent. increase in warning letters. It says:
"Perhaps those concerned will now read the writing on the wall as well as the letters."
But the Government refuse to read their own writing—because this is Government writing about which we are speaking. The East Midland Area also says:
"Even taking into account the higher speed of operation on motorways, this would appear to be a deplorable state of affairs."
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, could the noble Lord repeat that? Where is it from, and what did he say?
LORD STONHAM: The East Midland Area had a road check on the M.1. Out of 154 vehicles involved 56 were prohibited, and the report adds:
"Even taking into account the higher speed of operation of motorways, this would appear to be a deplorable state of affairs."
I agree with that statement. But the noble Lord wants to speed up those vehicles.
LORD CHESHAM: No.
LORD STONHAM: Well, to make it possible for them legally to be speeded up. The noble Lord declares that we want to raise the speed limit but that people do not have to travel faster. He might be asked the question: "Why raise the speed limit if they do not want to travel faster?"
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I must interrupt at this moment. The noble Lord must not use a quotation relating to a

367
road on which there is no limit for commercial vehicles, in support of his argument against raising the speed limit a certain amount on other roads. That is the only point I wanted to make.
LORD STONHAM: That is quite fair, but I did say it was on the M.1, with no speed limit. I quoted it in full. The point is that I was referring to the prohibitions. In other words, more than one-third of the vehicles involved in that road check were regarded as not fit to be on the road.
LORD CHORLEY: When they get off the M.1 they are just the same vehicles.
LORD CHESHAM: But they slow down.
LORD STONHAM: But they are a bit over-heated, and not quite the same vehicles. They are more liable to accidents because they have come under strain. This is the point I want to put to the noble Lord. One-third of those vehicles which were tested were unfit to be on the road, and there is no suggestion whatever—and the noble Lord made none—that there are going to be more examiners, more enforcement officers, or any steps taken to ensure that these vehicles are more roadworthy before we increase the speed limit. I should have thought that, in the interests of safety, the first essential before we increase the speed limit is to see that sufficient steps are taken to make quite certain that the vehicles are more roadworthy and able to act properly in an emergency.
The noble Lord, Lord Elton, quoted the figures of the distance needed to pull up, and that distance must be doubled in wet weather. With only one-tenth of the vehicles on the road able to brake in accordance with the requirements of the Highway Code—these are the conditions under which we are considering an increase in the speed limit.
I was giving some of these Civil Service comments. The South-Eastern Area reported that the steadily rising incidence of cases involving serious and flagrant breaches of the law indicates that there is a great deal of room for improvement in the haulage industry generally. This is not a politician making a statement; it is a civil servant making a statement to his own Department. That
368
is why I am suggesting that it is not so much the road hauliers who want to read the writing on the wall as the Ministry of Transport who want to read their own writing, and then perhaps we should get better results.
I am concerned with the question of enforcement. With the present 30 m.p.h. limit many of these vehicles, as we know, travel at 50 and 60 m.p.h. I quoted one which I followed last week, on the Victoria Embankment doing 50 m.p.h. It was a heavy, old, chemical lorry, a tanker, probably containing dangerous or corrosive fluids. There are many such going about the country which can be involved in serious accidents. I would ask how this Order is going to be enforced? If you read the Order, it lists 29 different classes of vehicles each with its own speed limit. There are five different speed limits, ranging from 5 m.p.h. to 40 m.p.h. I would say that it is impossible, with the best will in the world, for the police to be familiar with all the types of vehicles to which the different maximum speed regulations apply; they just cannot do it. There are no discs or indications on those vehicles as to what maximum speed limit should be applicable to them. They were abolished some time ago.
I know the noble Lord has told us that his right honourable friend, who is considering the question of overloading, has now set up a departmental committee to work out a scheme to fix maximum permitted loads. That is another good thing, and I suppose that in two or three years' time we shall get the report from the committee and something will perhaps be done about that. Meanwhile, we are having this increase of speed limits with no indication on the vehicles as to what the permitted speed limit is, and no indication as to how it should be loaded, or if it is overloaded.
My noble friend Lord Shepherd has pointed out the very limited circumstances in which the police can get a van examined. We have heard nothing about the damage to road surfaces. We see on the television the potholes on the M.1, although we are spending another £1½ million on it. There is the extra damage to road surfaces caused by these extra speeds. A four-ton lorry of unladen weight taking on six tons, making an overall ten tons, can travel all over the country for just less than

369
£1 a week vehicle licence. This book says that the average mileage done by a four-ton vehicle is 20,000 miles a year. There are 245,000 lorries of over three tons, so they are travelling, according to the book, 5,000 million miles a year, and they pay only £17 million a year between them in road licences: less than a penny a mile for the use of the roads all over the country in payment for the damage that they do. They are going to do far mare damage if they travel at faster speeds. And remember, my Lords, we are considering the possibility of bigger lorries. The 10-ton lorry does to the road surface sixty times more damage that a 1-ton lorry, and the faster they travel the more damage they do.
I would ask the noble Lord, therefore, if he will ask his right honourable friend to consider the possibility of having graded speed limits according to the size and weight of vehicles and to the loads they are carrying. It is surely indefensible to have, as we have in this Order, the same speed limit for a Minibus as for an 8-wheeler with 24 tons all-up weight. That is what this Order allows: 40 m.p.h. for a Minibus and 40 m.p.h. for an 8-wheeler which can have 24 tons all-up weight. When it is travelling at 40 m.p.h. how quickly can it stop? And if it cannot stop there is going to be a serious accident. With the overloading and very poor standards of maintenance which are so prevalent, it is impossible for many lorries travelling at high speeds to stop in a reasonable space.
I think, therefore, that before the Government increase the speed limits we should have sufficient examiners to make sure that the vehicles are roadworthy, because, as my noble friend Lord Shepherd said, if we can have examination of 25 per cent. of vehicles that would be enough to ensure that the other road users would see that their vehicles were kept in order. We must by Statute limit loads well within the compass of the vehicle. At the present time an operator can buy a 4-wheel lorry built to carry 7 tons; he can add a third axle and run it at an all-up weight of 20 tons though the chassis, brakes, steering and tyres are designed to cope with only 11 tons.
I feel that the Government should withdraw this Order. I know that we
370
are not voting against the Order as such, but we are also considering the Motion moved by my noble friend. I think the facts are so much against it that the Government should withdraw the Order because these proposed speed limits are not realistic in prevailing mechanical and traffic conditions. I know that the noble Lord regards them as justification for the higher speed limits, but in my view they provide the very reason why, under present conditions, we should not have the higher limits. I think that, before we increase the limits, immediate steps should be taken to enforce the present speed limit; that we should restore the use of discs on vehicles to indicate their permitted speed; that we should step up police action and prosecutions for infringement. We should also increase the number of examiners to double or treble the road checks, and get the faulty lorries off the road and end the exploitation of drivers through their working excessive hours.
My noble friend Lord Lindgren mentioned that, and also the fact that chaps had to be in league with their employers to work overtime so that they got a decent wage. I should have thought the answer to that would be to give the men a decent basic wage so that they do not have to do excessive overtime and break the law to live. I think that we should limit the weight and loads and not increase the speed limit for the heavy lorries, but reduce it to 20 m.p.h. I think we should increase the cost of vehicle licences for heavy lorries so that they pay more for the damage they do. This is a very serious matter which is concerning a great many people in this country. and I do hope that the Government will withdraw this Order and not take the disastrous step they propose.
THE EARL OF AIRLIE: My Lords, before the noble Lord replies, would he consider following the example of the United States? I think I am right in saying that most of the accidents these days are connected with lorries. Perhaps I am wrong; if so, I am sure he will correct me—the noble Lord says that I am. I thought that most of the accidents there were connected with lorries, and in the United States one finds lamps placed all over the rear of lorries, and that is very conducive to avoiding accidents. I thought that if we could consider putting

371
rear lamps all the way round the square on the back of the vehicle it would militate against so many accidents happening.
5.45 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I will certainly bear the noble Earl's suggestion in mind. He will understand it if I do not go further into that suggestion to-day when we are debating speed limits of commercial vehicles. We have not had a particularly long debate but a debate which has been extremely thick in suggestion and point, and I must frankly ask your Lordships' indulgence and forgiveness if it takes me a little time to wind up on behalf of the Government. It is a little difficult to know where to start, and I think I should start by getting rid of the worst part of it, the somewhat unworthy thought which crossed my mind when I saw the names of the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, together with the names of other noble Lords opposite; that there might be some matter of political or ideological reason.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is the noble Lord suggesting that my noble friend Lord Lindgren and I are the only two Members of your Lordships' House to have any political inclinations?
LORD CHESHAM: I am not suggesting that at all. I am suggesting that the thought crossed my mind, unworthy as it may have been—I will repeat myself in case I did not make it clear—that the views of the noble Lords might have been to some extent coloured by their political feelings on the matter of road transport. Indeed, at the end of his interesting speech the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, indicated that. His political enthusiasm took him interestingly but, if I may say so, unsuitably outside the range of the debate -because I do not believe that anyone could really pretend that the cost of snow clearance has any bearing on speed limits for commercial vehicles.
LORD LINDGREN: Snow slows up the speed of the vehicle.
LORD CHESHAM: It occurred to me, too—again an unworthy thought—that both the noble Lords I mentioned have a very considerable personal vested interest, may I call it, in the railways. That I think is well known. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, shakes his head,
372
but, if I am not mistaken, I believe that he is the leader of a national organisation which has nailed to its mast the motto "Save the railways". If I am wrong I shall be delighted to withdraw that statement.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am Chairman of the National Council of Inland Transport, which has no kind of Party affiliation whatsoever. The noble Lord used the term "personal vested interest", which is normally taken to apply to some kind of financial interest. I assure your Lordships that I have no kind of direct or indirect financial interest to declare in transport.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I accept that most readily, and I never intended to imply that there was any financial interest. That is not what I said. I said "personal" vested interest, and if there is any suggestion of finance in that I withdraw it at once. They have an interest in railways.
LORD LINDGREN: A bias.
LORD ELTON: May I interrupt for a moment to ask the noble Lord if he would explain why having an interest in railways which is not a financial interest should in any way invalidate opinions about road safety?
LORD CHESHAM: If I may just continue with the thesis I am developing, that will become clear to my noble friend, among others. I think it is true to say that people who have feelings like that on the railways may be expected to be a little prejudiced. I said that that unworthy thought had crossed my mind. If the noble Lord, Lord Elton, had allowed me to continue, I should have gone on to say that I had dismissed those unworthy thoughts from my mind; that I had treated what had fallen from the noble Lords concerned as being appropriate to the occasion, and that I intended to deal with, at any rate, some of the points they made at their face value within the context of the debate.
Haying said that, with some difficulty, I will proceed, if I may, to consider some of the points which were raised by the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Chester, in an interesting speech. I do that because (he will forgive my saying so; I do not know what his circumstances are to-night) I know that

373
right reverend Prelates sometimes have to catch trains. The first point with which I want to deal is one which I consider he misunderstood a little, if I may say so, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, and the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I had not thought, and I had not intended to argue, that the basic reason for this change of speed limit was that, because everybody gets away with exceeding the present limit, therefore it must be changed. If I gave that impression then I did not make ray point sufficiently clearly. I pointed to the fact that it is widely and flagrantly abused—as indeed it is—as evidence of the mental attitude in this connection of people who regard the present limit as no longer respectable in its true sense. That is what I meant and that is the spirit in which we have approached this problem. I say that in the hope that I have made myself clear the second time.
I must, of necessity, with so many points, dart from one to another somewhat briefly. I want to turn very quickly to the question of fatigue, which the right reverend Prelate raised, as did the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren. This is obviously a matter to which attention and careful regard must be paid: it obviously cannot be ignored. But so far there is no evidence that any problem arises from it. Taking the accident figures for 1960 and 1961—and fatal and serious accidents at that—in 1960 there were 19,781 vehicles involved, and out of that number it was stated that the number of drivers ill, fatigued or physically defective was 62, which is under 1 per cent. I will spare your Lordships the figure for the following year; it was even less.
As I understand it, research which has been done abroad, and to a certain exent here, does not indicate that the eleventh hour of driving which is permitted under the present regulations is necessarily any more dangerous than the first. But I do assure the noble Lords concerned that this matter is being carefully watched, and various studies are being undertaken in an attempt to see whether there is any necessity to change the hours on safety grounds—and I am talking at the present time, of course, only on safety grounds. It is rather difficult to assess, and medical approaches have not been very conclusive up till now. But your
374
Lordships may like to know that the Applied Psychology Research Unit of the Medical Research Council is doing work at this present time in co-operation with the Road Research Laboratory, and accident statistics are also being broken down, so far as possible, to discover what can be found. But so far there is no indication that working proper hours is likely to lead at either speed limit to danger of fatigue.
Then I come to the vexed question of overtaking. The right reverend Prelate made a perfectly good point, that it takes longer, both in time and distance, for a car travelling at a given speed to overtake a lorry that is moving faster. Of course that is true, but this is a point which has been very carefully considered, and our conclusion is that that undesirable effect is more than offset by the fact that less overtaking is required in a more uniformly moving stream of traffic. We have considered that point very carefully, as I say, and our conclusion definitely came out that the point mentioned by the right reverend Prelate was outweighed by the advantage. I was a little struck by the right reverend Prelate's calling in aid the very large lorries looming out of the dark in a fog at high speed. I thought, if I may say so, that, like some of Lord Stonham's more lurid prayers in aid, it was a little overdone. Is it really true that large lorries drive at 30 or 40 m.p.h. in fog in the dark? I doubt it; and, quite frankly, I do not believe that in conditions of darkness and fog a majority of lorry drivers are going to approach either speed limit, 30 or 40 m.p.h.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, if I may intervene, I did not say that they were, and I should not like to give the impression that I thought they were. I was merely saying that I find these vast lorries on the road, in the dark and in the mist very alarming, and if they are going to be given permission to go faster they will be even more of a menace and danger than they are at the moment.
LORD CHESHAM: That no doubt would be so. I was trying to apply /the right reverend Prelate's analogy to the case in point. I was making a rather poor job of connecting the two, I must admit. I agree with him, although I frankly do not think it is of great support to the case in point.

375
I should like now to turn to this question of accident figures, and I want, I hope without getting muddled or indulging in controversy, to try to sort out the slight tangle that seems to have occurred about what quotation came from where. First of all, I should like (and I think this is most important, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, pointed out) to look at what is going on now. He quoted from a letter which was written by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, to The Times, pointing out that the number of goods drivers killed and seriously injured increased last year by 11 per cent. That figure is correct for the nine months ended September 30, 1962. For the sake of the record, and to keep it straight, it is only fair to add that now that the figures are available for October and November that figure for the 11 months goes down to 8 per cent.
LORD STONHAM: It is still an increase.
LORD CHESHAM: It is still an increase, but it is fair for the sake of the record. The noble Lord said 11 per cent. Taking in two more months the figure is 8 per cent.; so there has been a decrease to an extent in two months.
I have no evidence for saying this, and I am going to apologise to your Lordships for voicing a purely personal opinion, but I will take personal responsibility for it; it does not represent the view of my right honourable friend or of the Department. I think that there is a strong possibility that the increase in casualties—because, as I am about to indicate, the accident rate of goods vehicles remains good—is due to excessive speeds. That is why I said, and why I still say—and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, completely—that enforcement is the answer to this problem. I am happy to say that the police recruiting situation is better than it was. There has been an increase of 5,000 policemen in the country in the last two years, and the traffic side must have had its benefit from that. But it must go on and, as I said (I do not want to go into this point in detail again), I think that this measure is going to result in better discipline and better enforcement, and that is probably as big a reason as any other
376
why I am in favour of it. I think that is vital.
Every instance of things happening on roads that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, quoted from the harrowing letters that he read out was, as I was careful to note, an offence under the law at present. I wrote down on my notes brief details of what he read out, and opposite I wrote in large letters "Enforcement". That is the answer to every single problem that he mentioned. Many of them, as I recall, are slightly outside the scope of these actual Regulations, but are to do with the road safety of commercial vehicles-such things as lumps of stuff being flung off them. But that is the situation.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, could I ask the noble Lord just one point on that? I fully accept that he is entitled to his opinion that, when they come into force, these regulations may make enforcement easier. Can the noble Lord give a real undertaking that, if within a reasonable period of these Regulations being passed it is clear that they are in fact being broken and are not being enforced by the police, he will have no hesitation in coming to this House with a Regulation bringing the speed limit back to what it now is?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would be good enough to wait until a later stage in my remarks. I take note of what he has said, but I am coming back to that. I just wanted to try to deal with this point about accident figures, because in the House generally I think there has been a small measure of misapprehension regarding an extract read by my noble friend Lord Gosford which has remained unidentified. I should like to put the Record straight on that. The quotation comes from a report entitled The Effect of the Increase in Speed Limits for Heavy Commercial Vehicles. It is dated February 1958 and is issued by the Road Research Laboratory. I should like to read a slightly longer extract, including that which we have already had, because, if I may say so, it will be a little better in context. It reads:
"An analysis has been made of the casualties to drivers of heavy goods vehicles between 1953 and 1958 in relation to the numbers of vehicles on the road, with particular reference to the effect of increasing the speed limit for such vehicles to 30 m.p.h.

377
on May I, 1957. For various reasons including fuel rationing in 1956–57 attention is confined to casualties occurring in the months of May to October of each year.
"In built-up areas in 1957 and 1958 the casualty rate per vehicle licence was higher than in the earlier years, except for 1955. However the casualty rates for drivers of light goods vehicles and for drivers of motor vehicles during the period 1953 to 1958 showed trends rather similar to that shown by the rate for drivers of heavy goods vehicles. There is no clear indication that the change in the speed limit for heavy goods vehicles had any effect on the casualty rate per vehicle. On the other hand, there were sharp rises from 1957 onwards in the number of heavy vehicles on the road and in their mileage, and these were responsible for increases of 10 per cent. or more in casualties to their drivers above the expected annual increase."
For the sake of the Record, and so that the shorter extract we had cannot be juggled about with, I have, I am afraid, taken rather a long time to make that point; but I think it is important. Apart from what I have ventured to state purely as my personal opinion, I think the increase in the rate has probably been due to increased traffic.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful for the fact that the noble Lord has traced this cutting and enlarged upon it, although I think Lord Gosford would agree that it is quite unrecognisable as what he read out. But what has just been put before us does indicate that the accidents were either the same or that they were more numerous when the speed limit was raised from 20 to 30 m.p.h.; and that is exactly what we are saying.
LORD CHESHAM: I am not altogether following the noble Lord's conclusion, which appears to be in the opposite sense to that to which the Road Research Laboratory came and which I have just read out. That is in fact what I did say, but perhaps it would be easier for the noble Lord to see it in Hansard to-morrow. I am sure that he will look extremely carefully a t it.
LORD WILMOT OF SELMESTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord this: is it not a fact that in the case of accidents involving heavy road vehicles which travel faster, the casualties occur among the people they hit rather than among the drivers of the heavy vehicles themselves?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I was talking about casualties to the drivers
378
or occupants of the vehicles. The question of whom they may hit is another matter. It is not one to be ignored, but it is not what I was talking about at the time.
I want now to come on to a point which has perplexed a number of noble Lords, the right reverend Prelate and also the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who referred to the matter when he said that different vehicles handle in different ways, some harder, some easier. The right reverend Prelate thought that it was illogical not to differentiate between vehicles. This is a point which has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. I do not pretend that this 40 m.p.h. limit is a perfect solution in a perfect world. It can be argued that it is somewhat high for some vehicles, but it is equally strongly argued that it is certainly too low for some others, particularly the lighter type of van.
The point—a very telling one, I think—is this. Before 1957 there were differential speed limits of 20 and 30 m.p.h., as your Lordships know, between vehicles over and under 3 tons unladen weight. The effect of that was that the vehicle manufacturers spent a great deal of time and effort in building down their vehicles so as to get just under the unladen weight limit. The operators—I will be quite frank—pared down the unladen weights of vehicles that were over the safe weight limit by fitting lighter tyres, and anything else they could think of, to reduce the unladen weight in order to qualify for the higher speed. They then sought to put on the vehicles the same loads they should have put on the heavier ones in order to run them at the higher speeds. That is what happened.
LORD LINDGREN: If I had said that, the noble Lord would have accused me of bias in favour of railways. Now he is admitting the same point that I made.
LORD CHESHAM: The noble Lord may have made it among a sea of others. But I do not think I should have accused him of bias, particularly as I was about to make the point myself. The point has been put to us very strongly by the vehicle manufacturers that if we went back to a similar system of differential speed limits the same evil would happen again. In

379
addition, the time and effort of the manufacturers, who are doing a great job in the export market at the moment, would be diverted to chiselling away at their designs and specifications so as to get round the law. The dangers of overloaded vehicles would be increased. I think that that is the greatest evil. It is for that reason we have rejected any proposal far differential limits within the general class of goods vehicle.
My Lords, if we are to have a uniform limit, 40 m.p.h. is the best compromise. It may be that it is too high for some and too low for others, but if and when a satisfactory plating scheme comes along—and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for his support and his welcome to such a scheme (although I thought the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, was a little less pleased about it; he seemed a little cynical as to whether it would make any difference in a matter of years)—and every goods vehicle has its maximum permissible all-up weight marked on it, it should be possible to introduce differential speed limits according to laden weights without running the risk of incurring those undesirable evils, which I have just been describing, of building too light a vehicle for too large a load.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Lord's argument is quite sound in relation to, say, 1-ton, 30 cwt. or 2-ton vehicles: but it would not stand up in relation to the heavy 10-tonners and tank vehicles about which the right reverend Prelate was concerned. There you could have this differential between the very heavy vehicles and the lighter ones.
LORD CHESHAM: I have heard much expression in this House of concern about the dangers and evils of overloading, dangers and evils about which I have expressed my agreement and announced action to be taken. And, taking all in all—which is what I consider we must do—we feel that what we are proposing avoids the greater evils.
The noble Lord mentioned large vehicles, and I think I had better now make some mention of our future thoughts on the subject of still larger vehicles. I mentioned this matter the other day in reply to a question by the
380
noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and I have a little more that I can now add. The preliminary survey to increase the maximum weights and dimensions for normal motor vehicles in this country is now in the process of going out for consultation in the normal way with interested organisations. Your Lordships might like to know roughly what is in mind about this. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd suggested that as and when regulations were made to alter permitted weights and dimensions of vehicles there should be a qualification included as to their speed. I think that I must put that point straight at once. It is not possible to do it in exactly that way. The reason is that speed limits are imposed under Section 24 of the 1960 Act, which calls for Affirmative Resolution. The dimensions and weights come under Section 64, and are subject to the Negative Resolution procedure. Therefore to include a speed limit in dimension and weights regulations would be inappropriate. If it were thought desirable to control the speed of the larger vehicles it could be done by the laying of separate but simultaneous regulations to do so, and, if that was not done and any Member thought it should be done, by praying against the Section 64 regulation in order to get an assurance that action would be taken under Section 24.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Lord will remember the words I used at the beginning of my speech as to the difficulty on the part of the Opposition in opposing regulations in the Division Lobby. I would draw his attention—I will not press him on this—to the debate on the Road Traffic Bill (I think in 1958), when there was a discussion on the whole problem of regulations, whether subject to the Negative or Affirmative Resolution form. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, then said that White Papers on these regulations would be brought forward so that the House could at least have the opportunity of voting, on a White Paper. I would suggest to the noble Lord that if we are going to have these new regulations he should bring them forward in a White Paper so that the House can consider, debate, and, if necessary, vote upon it. I think that that is the least the Government can do for us in this matter.
LORD CHESHAM: I am grateful not to be pressed on this matter at the

381
moment, and I assure the noble Lord that I will certainly consider what he has said in the light of what I have just said. I do not think I can say more or fairer than that.
As to the proposals, I will indicate very briefly what they are and also how they compare with limits in Continental Europe. First, as to width. At present we have a limit of 7 feet 6 inches, although some heavy vehicles have authorised widths of 8 feet. Buses, since 1961, have had a permitted width of 8 feet 2½ inches. We have in mind that all vehicles should be permitted to be 8 feet 2½ inches. That width is current throughout the Continent, and there are no proposals of which I am aware for any increase.
So far as length is concerned, my Lords, with rigid vehicles our present general limit is 30 feet, but buses and coaches have been allowed 36 feet since 1961. We have in mind that all types of rigid vehicles should also be allowed up to 36 feet. That is rather less than in some Continental countries, where rigid vehicles go to 39 feet 4 inches, which is the limit recommended by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport. For articulated vehicles the present limit is 35 feet, and we propose increasing it to 42 feet, that figure having been selected on the equivalent manoæuvrability of an articulated vehicle compared with a 36 feet rigid one. That is considerably less than the European Ministers of Transport figure, which is 49 feet 2 inches, and which West Germany has already adopted.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, is there not in Europe some limitation on the roads which the larger vehicles can use, and can the noble Lord say whether his right honourable friend will be contemplating, at the same time that these measurements are increased, some limitation on the roads where these larger vehicles can be used?
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to finish my remarks on this subject, because I want to go on to the maximum weight on a 2-wheeled axle, on which the present limit is 9 tons. We are proposing to raise that to 10 tons provided that it has twin tyres. On the Continent 10 tons is general, and France goes to 13 tons.
382
My Lords, our present limit for multi-axled rigid vehicles is 24 tons, which we plan to raise to 28 tons, subject to the vital and highly important question of axle spacing. This is the only instance in which we are in any way ahead of the Continent, who have their limit at 26 tons. For multi-axled articulated vehicles we plan to go up from 24 to 32 tons, again subject to the all-important question of axle spacing. That is already common on the Continent. France goes up to 35 tons, and the Commission of the European Economic Community propose 36 tons. We already permit our heaviest vehicles with a trailer to reach 32 tons, which is the same maximum weight as we now propose for an articulated vehicle. We do not propose to increase the limit for the vehicle and trailer.
My Lords, on the particular point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, I would say that we believe that the figures I have just mentioned—which will probably need some study in Hansard—are the largest that can be allowed to circulate generally on the roads of this country. We are studying, from the point of view of the largest vehicles which would come from the Continent or might be engaged in international traffic with the Continent, definite specified routes on which they might be allowed in this country. It will probably take some time to work that matter out, and as and when the scheme comes to fruition the largest vehicles will be allowed to use only selected roads suitable for them. In this connection, there is one point that I might make. That is that not every operator chooses the biggest vehicle available. Operators choose what suits them best, and the mere fact that in due course proposals will be more formally made to increase vehicles does not mean that they will all be that size. I think—though it is an estimation—that about three-quarters of the present vehicles are smaller than the existing permitted maximum sizes, and Appendix F of the Commissioners' report makes quite interesting reading in that connection.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, asked me a specific and technical question about braking distance. I should have mentioned this matter before, and I am sorry that I did not do so. He asked me what was the increased stopping distance between speeds of 30 m.p.h. and

383
40 m.p.h. If you assume an average lorry, and a braking efficiency of 50 per cent., at 30 m.p.h. it would pull up in 60 feet; at 40 m.p.h. it would pull up in 105 feet. But I think I should be justified in mentioning at this time that I have some further simple figures on braking efficiencies. They are made from a summary of some thousand tests carried out in 1960, showing the average brake performance of various vehicles. The average works out to 58 per cent. for 4-wheeled vehicles, 54 per cent. for articulated vehicles, 52 per cent. for 6-wheeled vehicles and 50 per cent. for 8-wheelers. Quite a number can, and do, go up as high as 66 to 70 per cent., so I think that that should provide a certain amount of interest to the noble Lord.
The noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, raised an interesting point—he has disappeared for the moment—about operators forcing drivers into circumstances where they had to exceed the speed limit to get their job done. That, I think, was the gist of his remarks.
LORD STONHAM: No.
LORD CHESHAM: I took it to be so, my Lords, that he meant that they had a very tight schedule which did not give them time to stop for a cup of tea.
LORD STONHAM: My noble friend said that 90 per cent. of the drivers in civil engineering—he also mentioned gravel lorries—worked on piece work with their loads. Therefore, there is an incentive for the men to do the job very quickly, perhaps unsafely quickly, in order to earn more money. It is as simple as that.
LORD CHESHAM: It is just a question of enforcement again, my Lords. So the noble Lord and I are again at one on this matter. I need not go into the detail I had intended, of the legal position of operators causing their drivers to operate over the limit. All I need say is that in the particular instance that he chose, of gravel and sand lorries, the Regulation is one of the easiest to enforce, because they must be calibrated lorries and they are the one class of lorry in which overloading can rapidly be measured.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord proceeds, I think he is
384
rather misrepresenting the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, who, I think, said no more than that employers were keeping their drivers up to the maximum speed limit by their schedules, and that if the speed limit increased the employers would keep them up to the increased speed limit. The noble Lord went on to say that if drivers wanted a little longer in their cafes they, the drivers, would be tempted for that reason to exceed speed limits. But the noble Lord was not accusing the employers of being a party to this.
LORD CHESHAM: I am glad of that, my Lords, because of course if that is so—if he had reason to believe that the drivers are being ridden unreasonably hard without being forced to exceed the speed limit (if they were forced there are penalties prescribed by the law for the person forcing them to do so)—it is a matter of working conditions which I should have thought would have been taken up and negotiated with the unions concerned. That is not something with which we are concerned to-day.
I want now to come to one of the most important things of the lot, which has certainly engaged the attention of the noble Lords, Lord Shepherd, Lord Lindgren, Lord Stonham and, to a lesser extent, other noble Lords. That is the question of maintenance and testing. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, started off by using extracts from the Annual Report of the Licensing Authorities to urge his case, and that was backed up by other noble Lords. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, slightly overstated the case, but that is by the way. Without going into it—and I am certainly going to make no attempt to go into chapter and verse of the detail of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, quoted—I am in full agreement with the noble Lords that the present situation is unsatisfactory, and we are giving, it very serious consideration on that account. It is not perhaps quite as bad a case as the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, made out when he quoted the round figure of 110,000 vehicles examined out of 1,400,000 on the road although that is quite correct as a figure and is the figure of the examinations that were carried out by the Ministry under Section 183. He was quite right in saying that a large number of public

385
service vehicles were examined in addition to those. That figure does not include them, and they are, in fact, the subject of a separate report.
I would just say here that the noble Earl, Lord Gosford, said he had no doubt that some of the defects found were technical ones. But although some of them may have been minor they all related to maintenance and condition, and in some way had a bearing on the road safety of the vehicle. I think I must say that in all justification. What the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, did not take into account is the number of goods vehicles up to and including 30 cwt. unladen weight which are subject to the annual test under the periodic scheme, which is under Section 65. I know that that test is not as thorough as the one to which goods vehicles are normally subjected under Section 183, but it does cover the most important of the safety requirements—brakes, lights and steering.
In 1962, 190,000 light commercial vehicles up to 30 cwt. were tested under the periodic scheme. It would not be any good my trying to give your Lordships comparable figures for 1960–61, because the scheme only started in that period and was confined then to 10-year-old vehicles, whereas now, of course, it is six. I seem to remember being charged by one noble Lord opposite in particular with doing something to bring the age down further, but more of that anon. The numbers that are subject to that test will grow as the age limit is brought down, but it will still leave the problem of the over-30 cwts. which are not in the scheme. I quite agree it would be ideal, and we should favour it, if we could ensure that all the older vehicles were examined every year by our examiners; but if we did that we should have to double or treble the staff of 320 which the noble Lord mentioned, which figure is quite correct. I do not believe it could be done on financial grounds, and it would be even more difficult by way of finding the necessary men to fill the posts. That is the snag. We could, I suppose, increase to some extent the amount of time that the existing staff spend inspecting goods vehicles at the expense of what they spend on inspecting the public service vehicles, but I think your Lordships would agree, that that would be retrograde. I think it is thanks to the very
386
thorough examination that the passenger vehicles get that their mechanical condition is of a very high order, and if we were to relax on that I think that in the long run their very good safety record would suffer.
The alternative to increasing the staff is to include vehicles over 30 cwt. in the Section 65 tests, and we intend to do our best to find a solution, or to seek a solution and find it, on these lines. One of the difficulties is that only a limited number of the ordinary garages which operate the existing scheme can cope with the heavier vehicles. Of course, the problem could be dealt with by setting up Government testing stations, like the one at Hendon, all over the country, but that would involve an enormous amount of capital expenditure falling on public funds. Some local authorities undertake some vehicle testing, and it would perhaps be possible to get some of them to extend their facilities to take in heavier ones; but that, again, is going only a certain way to meet the problem.
LORD SHEPHERD: But would the noble Lord not agree that the cost of the inspection of private cars does not fall upon the public purse? Why, therefore, could we not have a small levy on a commercial vehicle, in the same way as we do on a motor car, in order to get these inspections carried out?
LORD CHESHAM: We probably could, my Lords, but I was talking about the capital cost of providing the stations suitable for inspecting the heavy vehicles all over the country, not the cost of operating the scheme.
LORD SHEPHERD: But the capital cost can be recovered over a period from the receipts from these inspections.
LORD CHESHAM: Perhaps, again, the noble Lord will allow me to finish. I was pointing out the difficulties of working a scheme; I was not saying it was impossible on that account. I hope he realises that. But it would be quite hopeless, and dishonest to the House, if I were to put forward a scheme saying that that is what we are working on without pointing out the difficulties which have to be overcome in bringing it in; I should be misleading the House.
There is another possibility, and that is to make use of the existing facilities,

387
which are mainly privately owned—mostly by road haulage organisations—for maintaining the vehicles on the road. We are studying all these possibilities. The solution may not be a clear-cut one, and it may involve different arrangements for different categories of heavy vehicles over 30 cwts. Studies are in a rather early stage at the moment, and I hope that your Lordships will understand if I am reluctant to indicate with any further degree of precision the direction in which our thoughts are leading. We have to take account not only of the technical problem of getting them properly checked, but also of the administrative, legal and financial problems as well. We shall need time for this, my Lords; not only to work out the scheme, but to enter into the necessary consultations and to work out detailed proposals.
Having said that, I should like to go on to say that I accept the purport of the Motion to follow this debate, which stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, and I am certainly in full agreement that this is a problem which must be solved. We are determined to find a solution to it. In fact, when the noble Lord comes to move his Motion I hope he will not mind my accepting it with a couple of remarks, which I must just make at the time; and I hope he will realise that we are as much in earnest about the necessity of maintaining these vehicles properly as he is, and as are other noble Lords who have supported his case. With those words, and with what I have said about tackling the problems of overloading and maintenance, I hope your Lordships can see your way clear to approving these Regulations.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TESTING OF COMMERCIAL VEHICLES
6.40 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for his replies that have been given to all the other speakers in the debate. I do not propose to speak on my Motion but will move it formally.
388
But may I make one point?—and it concerns these 320 examiners. They are obviously grossly over-worked. They have their public service vehicles, they have goods vehicles to examine; they have to supervise the inspection of motor cars, and I believe it is true that they are also involved in enforcement over a wide range of matters in the haulage industry. The number is obviously not enough. I believe that it should be doubled. I think that if the country knew the state of the figures and facts it would demand it. I hope the Government will feel it is the desire of this House that something De done urgently. I beg to move.
Moved, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the Annual Reports, 1960–61, of the licensing authorities appointed under the Road Traffic Act 1960, and, in particular, the need to increase the number of commercial vehicles tested.—(Lord Shepherd.)
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it is unnecessary to say very much more, except that I accept the purport of what the noble Lord has said. I said a moment ago that all possibilities were being examined of increasing the efficiency of the testing machine, as it were, and that does not rule out the fact that it may at some stage be possible to increase the number or vary the duties of the vehicle examiners. This is a matter that shall also have attention. In accepting the noble Lord's Motion I must ask him to accept the qualification that as I undertake to lay before the House Papers at some stage I have already mentioned why it may take some considerable time before any Papers can be laid in the sense he wishes. If he will accept that, then I am happy to accept his Motion.
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Lord will not preclude me from asking at a later stage: where are the Papers?
LORD CHESHAM: The noble Lord is not precluded from doing that in the slightest degree, and if I were able to tell him anything about progress, I would do so.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PUBLIC SERVICES IN WINTRY WEATHER
6.43 p.m.
LORD MANCROFT LORD MANCROFT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether in view of the tendency for abnormal weather in this country to become annually more normal they will inquire of the appropriate authorities in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada how they manage to prevent their transport and other public services from grinding to a standstill as soon as the weather in the winter becomes wintry. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it may be thought that Her Majesty's Government have enough to contend with at the moment without listening to my grumbling about the weather, but I thought it might be useful for a very short while to look at the experiences of the last horrible month and see what lessons are to be learned and what we can do to prevent a repetition of the miseries in the future. Because we shall have a repetition. We shall be taken by surprise again; we shall again have nothing in preparation and shall again be grumbling that the weather is abnormal. One of the horrors of the war was the "bomb bore" who regaled us with stories of the blitz. One of the horrors of the last month has been the "freeze bore" who regaled us with his stories of the great freeze. I will regale your Lordships with no such horror. The worst thing that happened to me was that a power cut was made while I was shaving with an electric razor.
Bluntly, we have all hated the last month with the possible exception of the manufacturers of candles and oil heaters, the plumbers and those lawyers who rather ghoulishly talk about the weather as being "good probate weather". The most ominous of the reports we have read have been those of a water shortage, because we know perfectly well what happens in this country directly we have a water shortage. It is immediately followed by a flood. The country is knee-deep in cold and dirty water. We see pictures of stout Sapper sergeants rowing housewives at Wallingford round the back streets in punts. I shall be told that this is abnormal, and I maintain that it is normal. If, for various technical reasons, the Press should be short-handed at the moment, they need not worry. They can
390
use the same pictures as last year; and they will do for next year as well. (I am not an expert on climatic conditions in Mesopatamia in the 4th millennium B.C., but I am prepared to bet that what really caused Noah to get out plans for the Ark and start building was listening to Mrs. Noah grumbling that the well had run dry.)
This will then be followed by a heat-wave. We shall be told that it is abnormal. We have no means of coping with that either. I shall be putting down Motions about the lack of air conditioning. This will be followed by drought and we shall be told that that is abnormal. And I shall receive from the Isle of Wight County Council firm instructions not to water my garden. The Isle of Wight County Council is an admirable body of men and women, very patient indeed, in view of the fact that half the House of Commons and nearly all the House of Lords live in the island. But I cannot make them understand that I do not want to water my lawn when it is raining. That, I think, is what has worried most people in the last few weeks. People cannot understand why in this day and age, in this year of grace 1963, when all the scientists combine to contrive means to blow us all to perdition, they cannot produce some means of stopping the cooker going off when you are halfway through boiling an egg.
Bear in mind, to begin with, that things do go wrong abroad. We are not the only people making mistakes. In weather such as we have had recently they have gone wrong, often catastrophically. I had a letter only yesterday from our noble friend, Lord Amory, the High Commissioner in Canada, commenting on the risk of points being frozen, which has been talked about here. He ends by saying:
"I have been able to write at such length because I am waiting for a train which has not arrived on time because the points were frozen."
Everything does not go right abroad. They do grind to a standstill in exceptional weather like this. Everything does not always go wrong here. I should willingly pay tribute to the railway men, the busmen and the milkmen who struggled on and carried out their work in appalling conditions, and to some local authorities, too. Their good work only shows up the slackness and bad preparation of far too many other local authorities. I am certain

391
that Her Majesty's Government did their best too. As I have no right to reply to this debate under an Unstarred Question, I would thank Her Majesty's Government in advance, on the off-chance that I may get a satisfactory reply.
It will, of course, cost far too much to copy what is done in those countries which have very heavy and severe winters. I am not suggesting that we should have a full insurance policy against this sort of weather happening every year. It is silly in one moment to complain about the extreme burden of Government expenditure and in the same breath propose other means of spending Government money. We are familiar with the cry, "Government spending must be cut to the bone—but not to my bone". And in another place we are used to Members calling for a greater reduction of Government expenditure, "but not in my constituency." One must be reasonable about this, and the cost of full insurance will be intolerable. But I maintain we could do more to insure against a reasonable risk.
Consider the actual cost of the last 30 days: road clearance running at £2 million a week; three days cost B.E.A. £100,000. What of the other airlines? The charges on the National Health Services are up 20 per cent. since Christmas. The fruit and vegetable trade tell us they have lost £10,000,000. Heaven knows what the other farmers have lost. Add to that the cost for all transport delays. Insurance claims for floods, frost and accidents have cost about £15,000,000. There are the repairs to postal and other utilities; and there is the loss through building and other industries being at a standstill. Sport and entertainment have heavy losses; and, my Lords, there is a loss of £75,000 per week on the takings for Bingo. The difference between all that—and I am told that it amounts at the present time to between £130 million and £150 million: that is what we have lost in the last month—and a basically sound insurance policy cannot be all that much.
I see that the Minister of Transport is asking for a report from his road engineers so that he may profit by their experience. Good. I hope he will listen to them, because we have sought advice before and not taken it. London Transport had consultations recently with the Swedish Underground about snow
392
clearance. I do not think that much came of it. A joint committee of Swiss and German Railways conferred with our railways in 1957. I do not think that much came of it.
May I offer my noble friend Lord Derwent, who is to reply, a few other observations which he may like to pass on to his right honourable friend? In Canada, the snowploughs keep the roads open at a speed of 30 to 40 m.p.h. The first snowplough that I saw on a main road here, obviously constructed by a joint committee headed by Mr. Heath Robinson and Mr. Bud Flanagan, was going backwards at about 3 m.p.h., shovelling snow all over the driver. Half the ploughs have not been able to get through, or have been unable to remove snow from the road when they got there. In New York, over 11,000 of their dustcarts have snowploughs attached. We in this country have no machines for spreading salt on pavements. In Westminster, I believe they converted milkmen's trolleys for this purpose. If one walks through my Borough of St. Marylebone, one sees that our paving stones have been pushed up. They all have to be relaid and repaired, at great cost—and I give you one guess as to who is going to be asked to make a contribution to the cost.
Very few local authorities in this country know that the I.C.I. have perfected means of storing salt in bulk in the open. My right honourable friend is now perfecting an electronic device for reporting to his engineers when main roads become dangerous through ice. I hope that that will be copied widely. I hope also that he will inquire more carefully into the problem of the under-heating of roads. I know that it is expensive—£2 per square yard—but surely on any count it would be worth it, certainly at key points.
What about railways? We nearly had a coal disaster because of the great freeze-up. In Canada, coal trucks are thawed out in steam-heated sheds. In Czechoslovakia, all coal trucks are heated from below. In Canada, points, which freeze up so frequently in this country and cause so much damage, even in short spells of frost, are thawed out with steam heat. In Switzerland, they are permanently heated by electricity. I realise, of course, that in this country we have a real problem with the density of our railway

393
system; but I believe that much more could be done. I am told that it would cost £20 million to heat the 100,000 vital points on our railway system. I should have thought that it was worth it. And is it really true that there is no means of communication between the guard and the engine driver on express trains? That seems to me to be absolutely crazy.
About airports; half the Canadian airports—115 of them—are kept permanently clear, and the other half, the smaller airports, are converted for use of skis. What are we doing in this country about perfecting a means of heating and clearing runways? I know that any means of fog dispersal—FIDO, as it was called during the war—is very expensive. But have we made any progress at all towards some satisfactory means of clearing fog and snow from our main airports?
Would my noble friend be good enough to consult with the Ministry of Health about hospitals and about auxiliary power and lighting?—because I think the public are confused about this. There was a letter in The Times, which had to be slightly amended and which caused considerable confusion. I should have thought that all hospitals having theatres, incubators and iron lungs should have a compulsory form of alternative power. It seems to me to be ridiculous that in Luton four ice-cream vans had to be called in aid to provide power for the operating theatre and that in Surrey there was a hold-up for 3½ hours because of the blackout. What really is the situation? I am sure that the public are worried about this.
And when my noble friend has finished chatting with the Minister of Health, perhaps he will buttonhole his right honourable friend the Minister of Housing. Outside plumbing in this country has become a bad joke. In Sweden, the bathroom and pipes are always in the middle of flats, and they do not have this trouble at all. In Denmark, flats and factories are centrally heated by surplus hot water from power stations, and in Canada, the plumbing comes in from basement installations four feet under ground. I am told by a Swedish architect, who wrote to me when he saw this question on the Order Paper, that he recently visited a 10-year-old comprehensive school at Crookston, Glasgow, built on the top of a hill. He reckoned that the
394
cost of putting in double windows would have been paid for in three years by the fuel saved.
We owe a debt of thanks to my honourable friend Sir Gerald Nabarro for introducing his Bill for making the insulation of industrial premises compulsory, but what has happened to his proposal for the compulsory insulation of domestic premises? Bad insulation is costly, but I am told that the cost of efficient insulation amounts to only 1 per cent. of the cost of a house. A Swiss paper has sent me an article emphasising the importance they attach in Switzerland to double glazing and extractor fans. I wonder why we do not revise the model bylaws for new thermal installation rules. I would also, with all respect, draw attention to this article sent me, which began:
"It is, of course, understood that all British architects are mad."
I am not adding my voice to that comment. I merely suggest that the building improvement, which has been impressive in recent years on the subject of pipes, heating and insulation, needs to be accelerated.
Lastly, there is the all-important question of fuel. I do not know how much the insufferable Mr. Doyle contributed to our miseries in the last month. It always enrages me, in an unofficial strike when the ringleaders say that they do not want to inconvenience the public. It is, of course, the inconvenience to the public that provides them with their best weapon. Does your Lordships' House believe that we should have a power go-slow in a heat-wave?
I suspect that something else is wrong. In the United States the fuel companies have emergency supplies permanently available. In France, they are able to pipe power across in peak periods. I suspect that the Central Electricity Generating Board have seriously underestimated the growth of normal demand in this country, a growth to which they themselves have contributed by their advertising and high-pressure salesmanship. Only 7 per cent. spare electricity capacity was available in the last month, and up to 14 per cent, would be needed to cope satisfactorily with the long freeze. The cost of that, spread over a period, would have amounted to 3d. in the pound on our electricity bills. It would appear to me, therefore, that there is a need for better

395
planning, pooling and conserving of our fuel resources. That is one of the most important lessons that have come out of this last month. Whether the Gas Council's war with the Coal Board helped, I do not know. Something clearly was wrong.
We have had a long day, and I shall not take up any more of your Lordships' time. I would re-emphasise the main points. I am not suggesting that everything is bad in this country, and that everything went wrong. On the whole, we pulled ourselves together remarkably well (I hope I am speaking correctly in the past tense) and made the best of a bad job; but we could have done a great deal better with a little more planning, a little more forethought and a little more belief that the winter was not abnormal but much too normal. But I am not suggesting that all was well elsewhere.
The Mayor of Sudbury writes to me saying that in Ontario the average snow, fall was 93 inches. The temperature was 22 degrees below zero. That is Fahrenheit; in view of what happened yesterday I am not going to translate it into Centigrade. It was 45 degrees last year. Yet he tells me, there was and is no dislocation in Sudbury and no unemployment. Perhaps the noble Lord would like to call the Mayor of Sudbury in aid—because he has offered his services.
I do not argue that we should take out a full insurance policy—as they do in Switzerland, Sweden and Canada—for a hard winter which may well never occur. That would be unrealistic and ridiculous. But I do suggest that we should take a little more care and plan a little more carefully. We should have a reasonable insurance policy and should be able to avoid a certain amount of trouble. And trouble will arise again. Not for a whole month, perhaps; it may be for only a short time. But we shall be plunged into a comparatively shorter misery. Our national figure is St. George. I suspect that it ought to be Ethelred the Unready.
My Lords, I do not ask my noble friend for detailed answers to any of these questions. I merely ask him if he will give me an undertaking to consider these matters and prepare for next year, or later on this year, when it will inevitably happen again: because I believe that we have a tremendous amount to
396
learn out of the miseries we have gone through in this last month, and we should be foolish not to try and learn it. There is one thing I should like to ask my noble friend, in conclusion—perhaps I should know the answer, but I do not: can he tell me where I can buy a good pair of spats?
7.1 p.m.
THE EARL OF AIRLIE: My Lords, I cannot possibly follow the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, in his witty speech, for which he is well-known, but we all owe him a debt of gratitude for raising this matter to-day. The last thing I want to do is to throw stones at Her Majesty's Government who are subsisting through a difficult time at the moment. But I am confident that your Lordships desire to have this matter ventilated, because the people of this country have been through a good deal of misery during this last month. One is proud of the brains which have been manifested in the organising powers of this country, but there is no question that we have failed in this last month and that we are the laughing stock of the world. One has only to look at the cartoons coming from Canada, one of which I saw this afternoon, to realise that.
There are certain things that I should like to put to the Government. First of all, the hospitals, which have already been mentioned, ought not to be handicapped again in the same way as they have been. Something ought to be done about this. Then, local authorities should be warned that they will not receive housing grants unless they put their pipes, not outside, but in places where they will not freeze up. Thirdly, there is the question of heating on the railways. I live in the Scottish Riviera, where we have had a modest time compared to people in the South: I had to come down here to get really cold. But there is no doubt that our railways are very lacking in heating facilities. Quite frequently a man comes along and says: "You have to realise that this is cold weather." Of course it is cold weather; but this trouble does not occur in Canada. As the noble Lord, Lord Man-croft, said, we cannot have a full insurance policy against these things; but we can do a great deal better than we have done.
There is the question of coal shortage. The National Coal Board put on a very

397
good show, and they emphasise central heating with coal. But they neglect to make sure that the necessary article to carry this out is available at a moment's notice. You cannot get coal for love or money. It is monstrous that the public should be put to this inconvenience in 1963, quite apart from the cost involved. The noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, gave some figures. Whether they are correct or not I cannot say; but there is no doubt that it has cost a lot of money. This is a country of development, and there must be a sufficient reserve power to meet the demands made upon it. The people deserve this, and they should have it. Ours is not a temperate climate, but a climate of extremes; and it must be remembered that they are short extremes and, therefore, you cannot have a full insurance policy.
Finally, on the question of the roads, these are not properly kept open. The proper way to keep roads open is never to let the snow gather; and there should be an emergency shift of men ready to go and deal with the snow as soon as it falls. If we did what the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, advocates, get in touch with the Northern countries and adopt their policy, we should be a great deal better off than we are now. The fact is that this country is not geared to meet emergencies owing to the fact that this is not a temperate climate but, as I say, a climate of extremes. We must travel more and keep up to date. Things change from year to year. I live, as I say, in the Scottish Riviera, and I have managed to keep warm. I have had put in (and I would advocate it to your Lordships) perspex for the large windows and polythene for the small ones. This double window glazing for windows facing North is not above the average man's ability to carry out for himself. I have kept perfectly warm, and others could do the same. I would advocate to the Government that, before they issue instructions to the local authorities for housing schemes, double glazing should be put in effect.
7.7 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I should like to inform the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, that he has the full support of the Opposition in regard to this important matter he has raised. But before tackling certain points, I should
398
like to take up his gloomy forecast of the continuation of abnormal weather into normality. I think we should look to our meteorological history. It is, after all, a mere 7,000 to 8,000 years since the ice age when this country was, in fact, actively joined to Europe, and it is perhaps a natural adjustment in present political circumstances that the ice that joined us to Europe should return.
We are, we understand, in an interglacial period. It may well be that there has been a minor bit of glaciation this year. But Simpson, who made a great study of the climate of the pleistocene age, forecast that in another 30,000 years' time there would be no snow on the earth at all. This would offer even more uncomfortable prospects, because the sea would be several hundred feet higher, and we should not be able to ski; and this would happen, curiously enough, at a time of lower solar radiation. It is when we get increased solar radiation that, so far from it getting warmer, it soon gets colder, because there is increased evaporation, the cloud cover increases and we then move into a glacial spell. What is so mysterious to me, and, I think, to the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, is that one never really has to bother about the cold in the arctic. Perhaps I may refer to that, because I did occasionally find of some value my experience as a rather incompetent arctic explorer of the past.
I should like to take up a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Airlie, who said it was important to remove snow right away. In this country we do not really understand snow. We think of it, roughly, as something for Christmas cards, and a nuisance, as slush in the towns. Snow is a very flexible material which changes its nature at different stages. When it first falls it is so soft that if you have enough of it it is practically impossible to get through it on skis; and, obviously, if there is a wind, wherever there is an obstruction, which may be in the nature of railways and roads, you immediately get a snow drift. This is the moment when it must be swept, and when, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made clear, certain local authorities really "went to town". I believe that the engineers of the Hampshire County Council were up for several days on end, and swept, so far as I know, practically every road, except the unadopted road in which I happen

399
to live—but that is another matter. They really worked hard at it.
As soon as the wind comes the snow begins to drift hard. At this stage it may be difficult to sweep, but your Lordships will be encouraged to know that this is the moment at which one is able to build an igloo. You should equip your car with a saw or a large knife, because the igloo is built out of blocks of snow. If you are able to move, instead of suffocating in your car, you can go out and, in the space of an hour, build a very comfortable igloo in which the temperature will be reasonably warm and in which you can remain for a long while. Then comes the later stage, when with more wind and some thaw the snow ceases to be snow and becomes ice. This is the time when it really is too late to do anything very much about it. You can only wait for the thaw, unless you have some very powerful scrapers indeed.
I think we ought not to concentrate our concern on the public services only. It is, of course, the private services which are inadequate. The problem of the coal supply has not been a lack of coal in the coalfields; it has been the size of the stocks held by the coal merchants. I do not know the answer to this. It is no good blaming Lord Robens of Woldingham about it. Nobody is proposing to nationalise private coal distribution. We all get taken by surprise. This is a matter of our outlook. We become extremely helpless individuals when we are confronted by snow. We saw the pathetic picture of men, searching Dartmoor for an escaped prisoner, slithering over the snow, going into it up to their knees and thighs. If they had been provided with two moderately long pieces of wood of a flat nature, even if they had never worn skis in their lives, they would have been able to travel. I would recommend that the Government have a suitable supply of short skis. They are much easier to use than long skis, especially for old men, and they would introduce some mobility.
I will not go so far as to advocate that we establish a stock of sledges and dog teams. The tragedy of present-day exploration is that dog teams have almost entirely disappeared, and the most flexible
400
way of getting around has given way to Snocats and Weasels and various different pieces of machinery which are very suitable until such time as they break down—when you find that you are unable to eat them. It may well be that we could, none the less, as the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has suggested, prepare just a little more. I would suggest to the Government that, although this particular kind of weather spell may not recur for another ten or fifteen years, it will come again some time; and it would be reasonable if the Government (who do not generally shrink from issuing guidance on many subjects) were to introduce guidance of some kind to make sure that local authorities—and I think it is local authoritites who are particularly concerned—were ready to act quickly.
Some of the problems we cannot solve. The problem of electricity breakdown when thaw and frost occur at the same time is something you cannot cope with anywhere in the world. The Arctic is a place over which you can always travel provided the temperatures are low enough; but the moment they rise to somewhere near freezing point you are in trouble. In summer, you cannot travel there. Even Nansen spent two months sitting on an ice flow surrounded by patches of water, unable to move. It was the effect of fog and freezing which caused the major power cut. None the less, I think it is worth studying.
Incidentally, water is always a problem in cold countries. Water is the most difficult thing for an Arctic explorer; it is one thing he is apt to be short of. Here again, I think we might be given some advice. If you have to provide your own source of water from a frozen supply it is easier to use ice than snow. If you try to melt snow in a pan you almost invariably burn the pan. This might also be included in the hints to householders. I do not think I need go into the question of frostbite, of which I do not think we have had many examples.
Considering what has happened in previous years, I should also like to add that I think it is rather satisfactory how much better the public services have coped as compared with 1947. This is particularly true of the railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, made clear, we owe a great debt to people who have gone on

401
working in these conditions. I am very sorry that the Bingo industry lost £75,000. I can only presume that somebody saved £75,000 and this may not have been a wholly bad thing. But it is true that they were not equipped at London Airport. I am told that there were two machines for clearing the runways, and one of them fell over at the crucial moment. I was diverted to Manchester as a result. I think there are further steps that can be taken. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, will heed the weighty and serious arguments which the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, has put forward.
7.17 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, although the very sensational news from Europe has somewhat overshadowed the headlines of the Press in recent days, the importance of the Question which my noble friend Lord Mancroft has put down is still very much with us, particularly as the weather forecast to-night predicts that temperatures will return to the twenties. Sussex had four inches of snow this morning, and there may well be much more by to-morrow morning. Therefore this problem is certainly still with us, especially as it is now only the nether and of January, and in 1947 the really big Arctic spell started only in the middle of January.
My own decision to take part in this debate was prompted primarily by the fact that during this spell I have been travelling regularly from my home in Surrey to London by rail, as have, no doubt, many of your Lordships. It has been taking between two and three hours on certain occasions. May I at once pay a very sincere tribute to the railwaymen during this time, especially to the train drivers and the signalmen and to those who keep the permanent way and the points clear. One reads certain rather scurrilous letters in the national and local Press blaming the railwaymen and the railway drivers. It may well be that the heads of British Railways require some criticism, and I would urge the Government to try to persuade the public relations staff of British Railways occasionally to use a little more tact.
The other day I was travelling to work from Ashtead in Surrey to Waterloo, and the train ground to a halt at Raynes Park. It stopped there some time and
402
somebody got out of the train, asked a porter what was wrong and received an extremely insulting answer. I am not suggesting that it was the porter's fault that anything was wrong, but no notice was displayed along the line as to what the trouble was, and this was at a time when there was relatively little snow on the ground: in fact, it was during the recent thaw. I feel that a. great deal of public criticism, some of it ill-informed, could be allayed by a little more cooperation from the public relations staff of the railways. I should say, in fairness, that at Waterloo, and indeed at the main line termini and at many of the wayside stations, information has been given very readily; but in some circumstances public relations has fallen down, and this has added to the discomfort of the general public.
It has been mentioned that in Canada and other countries the fact that it freezes almost constantly means that the railway lines can be kept more or less up to schedule, and one of the troubles in this country is that one gets a freeze for a few days, then a thaw and then another freeze, and it is admittedly very difficult, in those circumstances, to keep the points clear. But I wonder whether my noble friend would consult his scientific experts to see whether any kind of compound can be thought about which would enable points to be kept clear in our vagaries between freeze and thaw, which are, after all, not unusual. I daresay there are many scientific difficulties about this, but I wonder whether it has really been considered sufficiently.
The terms of the Motion mention countries such as Canada, Sweden and Switzerland, but I suggest that we in the South can also take quite a lead from Scotland. I have lived in Scotland on and off for some years, and although I rarely visit that country nowadays I nevertheless get the local Perthshire paper and see pictures of how transport manages in that part of the country. It has often been said that Scotland gets much more snow than here, although this year I do not think that has been strictly true. Nevertheless, roads such as the Devil's Elbow and the A.9 at Drumochter Pass and elsewhere are kept open through long stretches of the winter and with much more severe snowfalls which often include drifting.

403
I agree that one of the difficulties in the South is the shortage of manpower. I wrote to the engineering department of the Leatherhead Urban District Council and asked their views on this matter of snow clearance, and I think I should say, in fairness, that this council have done a very good job, no matter how much criticism may be directed towards them, and I think that local councils generally have done an exceptionally good job during this bitter weather. Of course, some have fallen down in certain respects. Some of the tractors and snow-ploughs which have been used have been woefully out of date, but I do not think that is by default of the councils; it is often the direct grant from the Exchequer to local authorities that has put them in this position. Surrey County Council have even had to import salt from Yugoslavia to put on their roads. I feel that the Government must look into this question of seeing that the local authorities get sufficient money to keep the roads open.
It is all very well for people to write to the newspapers and say: "Why wasn't my road cleared?" Certainly in our area the local authorities have done their level best to keep not only main roads clear but many of the side roads, but they have been handicapped not only by shortage of men—which is a problem which any Government must find very difficult to solve—but also by being without equipment, which is something I feel the Government can look into very carefully.
I now touch briefly on the subject of hospitals, and I should like to ask my noble friend whether he would consult with his right honourable friend to see that hospitals so far as possible are warned in time of a power cut, because, as I said just now, the winter is still very much with us and we may well have to expect more power cuts. It seems a lamentable situation that hospitals should have to hire generators from ice-cream firms and American Army bases. Lives are often at stake here and it is false economy not to provide for these contingencies. I do not think that this Motion has been put down necessarily to criticise the Government but it has been very well timed, and I hope the Government will take cognisance of the fact that the measures which have been
404
suggested must be taken, otherwise we shall have a picture of false economy causing more and more hardship.
7.29 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD DERWENT): My Lords, one thing is clear from what noble Lords have said: none of them wants to throw stones at Her Majesty's Government, only, apparently, at me. I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in the discussion on this Question of my noble friend Lord Mancroft. I hope during the course of my reply virtually to answer all their questions except some of my noble friend's own hypothetical questions which he will not want answered to-night. I will be as quick as I can, but I am afraid I have to cover a great deal of ground, because from what noble Lords have said to me outside the Chamber they are each particularly interested in a different aspect of the question. May I, before I start, say how grateful I was for the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, who, apart from Arctic exploration, raised certain interesting points which we will indeed study?
As regards the speech of my noble friend, Lord Mancroft, I agree with the theme behind it, which was his request to investigate what, if anything, had gone wrong, but I must join issue with him over the terms of the Question. I am sorry to labour the point, but unless we get it right some of the things I am going to say will really rather make nonsense. The noble Lord's Question rests on three premises: first, that the severe winter that we have been having, this abnormal winter, is becoming more and more normal. When it comes to a question of costs, it is important, I think, to show my noble friend that in fact these abnormal winters are becoming more and more abnormal. I will not go back too far in the investigations I have made, but perhaps I may go back to 1765, which I think is more or less modern; it is 198 years, roughly 200 years ago.
The method I have used for proving my point is this: I have taken the weather in the London area, because the figures show that when London has had an abnormally severe winter so has the rest of the country in that year, and if most of the country has had an abnormal winter so has London. The

405
London figures were easier to get at; that is why I have taken them. To decide what we call an abnormal winter we take the months December to February, which are the cold months—December, January, February—and we call a winter abnormal when the average temperatures during those three months are less than 37 degrees. We find in this period of 198 years that there have been 29 of these winters only, and 6 fell in the period 1765 to 1800 (rather less than fifty years), 11 in the period 1801 to 1850, 7 in the period 1851 to 1900, but only 5 in the 62 years of this century, unless, of course, February happens to be a very cold month, in which case I regret to say this year will be the sixth this century. But on the whole these very cold winters seem to come less often in the latter part of the period.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Did he give the impression that if we have a warm February this will not count as an abnormal winter?
LORD DERWENT: No. I am saying that in calculating these abnormal years I have taken the three-months period. It may well be that if it is a warm February the average will go up for the three months. What appears to happen is that we occasionally have an isolated very cold winter over the whole of that period. Whether this is an isolated year or not, I shall not be able to tell you till next year. But on tae whole these cold periods come in small groups. They do not seem to come very often. They usually come in clusters at intervals of about 60 years. The last such cluster was in the 1940's. Then we get other periods of virtually mild winters, except perhaps for the odd week. What I want to say to your Lordships is that the troubles are caused by prolonged winters, not very cold weather for very short periods. This is one of those years, but they are not normal years.
Having made that point I would say that the second premise of my noble friend's argument—it is an implied one, and I think the implication is clear—is that transport and other public services in the United Kingdom grind to a standstill at the onset of winter weather. I really think this is somewhat of an exaggeration. Even in the exceedingly severe weather we have experienced since Christ-
406
mas, although services have been interrupted and delayed, with much inconvenience and considerable hardship in certain cases, except for very short periods nothing came to a standstill. What I should like to examine is what in fact has happened, what we have done in the country generally (I am not speaking about the Government) and what we may be able to do.
May I take first the highway system?—because probably that has been the hardest hit. My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport some time ago asked his divisional road engineers to report on how the local highway authorities have been getting on, what they did in their particular areas to cope with the problem, whether they were successful, what they, the divisional road engineers, would recommend and so on. That information, of course, has already started to come in, and when this cold weather is over it will be collated. We have not waited until the end of the period to have a look at this.
With regard to motorways, they have been accepted as a direct responsibility of the Ministry, and they have been kept open throughout. There has been no occasion when they have been closed, though for short periods the total width of the road has had to be reduced. As regards the trunk roads, for which the local authorities are agents for the Ministry, they, on the whole, have been blocked for only very short periods. In the West country, which is in many ways the worst hit area, complete blockage of trunk roads, which occurred in one or two places, was of short duration and single-line traffic was restored almost at once. The total width of the roads was not—I quite appreciate that.
During this period we are talking about some 30,000 men and 10,000 appliances have been engaged in snow clearance on the highways. The highways authorities' resources were supplemented by 700 appliances owned by the Ministry of Transport. I think that answers one of the questions of my noble friend, Lord Auckland. Machines and men were borrowed and hired from contractors, private firms, the Army and the Royal Air Force. I will not do it at this late hour, unless your Lordships want it, but I could give very detailed examples of the appliances that were used, and where

407
and when; but I think that perhaps this evening we need not go into that.
Now I turn to the railways. They certainly did not grind to a standstill. There have been, I agree, delays and cancellations, but train services can often be run when no other form of transport can run and that has been happening in one or two cases during that bad time. There is one thing I want to say about the railways in these conditions. We have a problem in the United Kingdom which is not met anywhere else in the world. Our railways have the highest density of traffic of any country in the world. If you have, shall we say, a line down the Danube which runs half a dozen trains a day each way, and one gets blocked, there is probably a certain amount of time to clear that and it may not affect the other trains greatly. But in our higher density, if one train gets stopped the pile-up of other trains being stopped accumulates very rapidly indeed. It is a point we ought to remember when we are criticising railways for not running the services they should in this bad weather.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? Is not one of the greatest disadvantages on the Southern Region the fact that the electricity is conveyed by the conductor rail which almost invariably gets covered with ice?
LORD DERWENT: I do not think I am going to go into that technical problem this evening. That is a matter for the Southern Region, and I know that it is being examined. What stage they have reached I am not sure at the moment.
I think your Lordships would like to know what is happening about points heating, because that is one of the great problems of all railways, even in the countries that my noble friend has mentioned, such as Sweden and Canada. What are we doing? A greater number of mechanical aids in that direction are being used this winter than ever before in British Railways. The most vital problem of all is this fact of the snowing-up and freezing-up of switch points. I am giving a few figures here, because I want to make quite clear that the railways are most active in regard to this
408
matter. As the result of intensive experiments by British Railways, 719 points heaters were installed and working at the beginning of the winter, and during the winter another 698 have been, and are being, completed. Of those that were ready at the beginning of the year, nine were electrically heated and the rest were gas-operated. Six hundred of the existing points heaters have been installed in the North-Eastern Region, where experiments have been concentrated in three areas—York, Darlington and Newcastle. This is the largest scheme of its kind in the world. We are not lagging behind other countries in this way. As regards keeping in touch with what goes on abroad, the method used at the moment is a Dutch technique and is carried on in conjunction with James Mills, Limited, of Stockport. They have developed this method of heating points.
Turning to the question of how much we are going to spend in any given year, I must repeat that this is an abnormal year. If we are going to have all the points heated within one year or two years it means that something else has to go by the board: for there is not enough money to do the whole thing at once. In view of what we have installed in the winter, I think it is right that the cost of these improvements should be spread over a number of years. It has been estimated that these heating units cost about £200 each, so that if we were to equip all 100,000 or so switch points, that would cost nearly £20 million. At the moment, therefore, we are doing it at junctions only. We are keeping very closely in touch with the railways of France, Switzerland, Holland, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden all of whom have a problem. But it is a slightly different problem from ours. Certain parts of France know that every year they are going to get a certain quantity of snow at a particular time and they have to contend with it. We can take a little gamble by getting our railways system modernised more gradually.
May I just mention one matter which has not been mentioned to-day in your Lordships' House but has been mentioned in the Press? I refer to the question of the ports. No major port has been affected in any way by being snowed up, although one or two of the small ports have been affected by ice and so on. But, of course, the turn-round of shipping

409
has been delayed, and I must say that, from all I have heard, the work done by the dockers in this frightfully difficult weather for them has been really quite remarkable.
The third premise in my noble friend's Question is that people in Sweden, Switzerland and Canada are conspicuously more successful than we are. It is difficult to know if this is true. As a matter of fact, having produced this assumption in his Question my noble friend then proceeds to blow it up himself. I do know this, however: that a friend of mine has been travelling around by train in Switzerland and he says that nearly all the trains during his visit were half an hour or three-quarters of an hour late, and a number of them had no heating because it had given out. He says that he also saw a number of men crouched by the points lighting straw to heat them. This is in a country that always has snow, and in this exceptional year they, too, have suffered almost as much as we have. I will not go on to deal with Canada. There are a variety of things that I could read to your Lordships showing that their troubles are extremely severe.
There is one other matter that I think your Lordships should consider—namely, that methods and appliances which work well in other countries do not always work well here. There are two features of our climate which make things difficult. Its high degree of humidity creates all kinds of difficulties. As the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, mentioned, in our winters, and particularly our severe winters, we have a lot of fluctuations about freezing point. That presents all kinds of exceptional difficulties which, in countries like Sweden, do not arise.
There is one point raised by my noble friend Lord Mancroft, on the subject of communications between guard and driver, that I think he would probably like to have cleared up. A telephone link between driver and guard is already installed in many multiple unit trains—which I suppose my noble friend will know refers to small diesels with sections which are put together. To provide that system generally on locomotive-hauled trains would mean costly wiring and connectors in every passenger and freight vehicle liable at any time to be used as part of a train. This would he extremely
410
expensive; and although it would dispense with the need for such connecting wires, the terminal apparatus of a radiotelephone system would be far more complex and expensive and less reliable than a conventional system. There are few occasions when telephone communication, whether by radio or wire, between the driver and guard on a railway train would be advantageous, and it is not particularly relevant to cold weather conditions. The railways do not therefore consider that the expense would be justified, either now or, so far as they can see, in the future.
May I say one word more about snow ploughs, and so on? My right honourable friend the Minister of Transport is in constant touch with countries in Europe and across the Atlantic as regards equipment, and he will continue to keep in touch. As a matter of fact, some of the plough heads used here were imported from Switzerland and Germany. The general arrangements for snow clearing and for the prevention of snow on highways rest with the local authorities, and the work is done by them. The question then arises whether a local authority is going to set up, even with Government help, machinery, plant and the whole set-up to deal with abnormal years. The ratepayer is going to have something to say about this because not only is it most expensive, but the capital so employed is, most of the time, locked up and useless. It is only in occasional years when it is used and really it is a great waste of money. I think I have answered all the questions on transport, unless noble Lords have anything to remind me of.
May I say a word about hospitals, which I know was another question raised by my noble friend Lord Auckland? A recent survey indicated that all hospitals at which operating theatres exist have emergency lighting provision, and all hospitals which undertake major operations have emergency lighting and power at least for their operating theatres and other important departments. There are no operating theatres in about 10 per cent. of hospitals, and most of these have not the emergency alternative. The cost of providing all hospitals with the full standby cover—that is, for the whole hospital as well as the operating theatre—is most difficult to estimate precisely, but it would be a large sum and it is considered that

411
improvements in this regard should be taken slowly, because the essential ones are already in operation.
During this particular cold weather (there is always room for improvement; we are not suggesting otherwise) our major airports were out of action only on very few occasions. The greater part of these were due to blizzards which made flying dangerous, and not to inability to clear runways. There was also, of course, some disruption of services due to the aircraft themselves being iced up or snowed up. For instance, Heath Row was closed during a blizzard—nothing to do with ice—for eight hours on December 30, followed by two hours for snow clearance, which could not be done during the blizzard. On January 20 it took 6½ hours to deal with freezing rain falling on the runway. So far as I know, those are the only occasions of closure of Heath Row. Gatwick, with only a single runway, had slightly more delays; Stansted had no actual closure at all; Prestwick was never closed, and so on. So, my Lords, in fact nearly all the stopping of flying was due to the inability of aircraft to take off in the bad flying conditions, and not to the runways.
My Lords, I should like to say a word or two about fog. The inability of aircraft to operate in conditions of poor visibility in fog is not a problem peculiar to the United Kingdom, as we all know. Research and development is going on very fast, and during the December fog a Ministry aircraft, fitted with the blind landing system developed by the Royal Aircraft Establishment, landed and took off several times at Heath Row in conditions of "nil" visibility. We believe that this country leads the world in automatic blind landing, and it is because of the progress in this field that Mr. Thorneycroft in 1961 stopped development work on FIDO. The December fog, which we all remember, closed Heath Row to all traffic for four days. It is interesting to note that Gatwick, which is a diversionary airport to Heath Row, was not closed at all during that period.
One noble Lord raised the question of water—I am sorry to be so long, but it is your Lordships fault for raising so many different subjects. First of all, in regard to freezing of mains, some has occurred, although it has been very rare. The
412
protection lies in the depth at which mains are buried. At least 3 feet of cover continues to be insisted upon by the Ministry of Housing. We are under great pressure—though we have not given way at the moment—to have a less cover than 3 feet, but that is the regulation. In regard to filters, some types of filter used in water purification, which involve a slow percolation of water in open filter beds, are vulnerable to freezing, although this does not happen very often. There is no remedy which would not involve enormous expenditure. As I say, this causes very little trouble, and we are not likely to take any steps over this.
In regard to domestic water trouble, there is continuing pressure by Her Majesty's Government—this is not really a Government matter—to secure maximum protection against freezing in the design stage; that is to say, the location of plumbing away from the outer walls. There are various Ministry of Housing recommendations to the water undertakers and those who make the building by-laws. We continue to stress this, and I would suggest that your Lordships might like at some time to look at the Ministry of Housing Circular No. 57/56, which urges local authorities and water undertakers to insist that their by-laws should be altered in order to bring this about. There is virtually nothing we can do with the old houses—I do not mean those which are ready to be pulled down, but those which have their plumbing outside. If we tried to put this all inside the expense would be fantastic, unless the owners themselves desired to do it. Local authorities will have to wait until those houses are ready to be pulled down. A most valuable defence against waste of water is that any occupier of property should protect his own property by lagging, and should know where he can turn off the water supply if there is a burst on his premises.
Perhaps I may say a word or two about soil and waste pipes, which in many houses are to be found outside. They can, of course, be placed either externally or internally. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government are engaged in the preparation of building regulations to supersede building by-laws in England and Wales, apart from the County of London. The draft which has been sent out for comment provides that soil and

413
waste pipes should be placed internally in all buildings. From the comments which have been received, including those of medical officers of health, it seems to be a moot point whether they should be placed inside. The Building Regulations Advisory Committee are at present considering what advice they should give to the Minister. This matter is not an easy one to decide.
As regards power generally, apart from the difficulties arising from unprecedented demands upon gas and electricity, the main troubles were due to the effects of a freak combination of high density air pollution, high humidity, and, freezing conditions on exposed electricity transmission equipment. If we had only had a little rain after the fog things would have been much easier. I am told that these conditions are extremely rare, in combination, anywhere in the world. Research is going on co see what we can do about this, but so far no one quite knows the answer.
My Lords, in regard to coal, the industry has suffered from frozen washeries, frozen coal in wagons and consequent shortage of wagons. But throughout the difficult period—though I take the point made by my noble friend that the matter needs looking into—they did maintain all the supplies to industry, including the power stations and gasworks. Domestic coal has been the difficulty, and the problem has been one of delivery more than anything else—not so much in the North, as in London where demand has been three or four times greater than was expected. The railways have been extremely helpful to the Coal Board in this matter. There are plentiful supplies of coal at the pithead, and it is entirely a question of movement. This concerns mainly the house coal market, and not coal supplies for industry. Remedial measures are in operation and are working well, and we hope that such measures will continue to work well if we get another bad spell.
As regards gas, the trouble stemmed primarily from the demand, which in some cases was as much as 50 per cent. above normal—a quite fantastic demand. I am not saying that it should not have been expected, but I think they did surprisingly well, considering all things. The situation is now normal all over the country. The emergency movement of coal to low-stocked gas installations by road, rail and sea worked well, and on the
414
whole they got what they wanted. It was simply a question of the enormous amount of gas that was needed.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, has the noble Lord any information on fractures of gas mains caused by frost, which in many cases have caused not only loss of power but loss of life, owing to gas seeping into houses?
LORD DERWENT: No, my Lords, I regret to say that I have no more information on that point, beyond what the noble Lord himself has, which we have read; but there will be a report on that in due course. We have not yet received it from the Gas Board: they have to look at it first.
On electricity, the highest maximum demand met so far has been over 29,500 megawatts, on January 22, and that was the day when the highest potential maximum demand was estimated at some 32,000. There has been under-estimation in the electricity industry, and I will tell your Lordships why. The generating plant takes from five to seven years to build, and the industry has to estimate the demand it must plan to meet at least five years in advance. That, I think we all know, was just one of the difficulties. This is often before industrialists or builders have thought of the projects whose demand will eventually have to be met in five to seven years' time. So in preparing its programmes the industry plans to meet the demand in average cold winter weather with a plant margin of 14 per cent., and this covers also what they estimate may happen in a particular bad year in the period ahead. The plant programmes, on which capacity available this winter was based, were determined in 1956–57 when demand was expected to grow at 6 per cent. per annum. So they said in 1956–57: "This is what we expect in 1962–63. We have a 14 per cent. margin"—or they thought they had at that period—"and we think the demand is going to grow by 6 per cent. per annum."
Since 1956–57, the rate at which the load is expected to grow has been raised progressively, because they realised that 6 per cent. would not be enough, and last year the rate adopted was 7·9 per cent. However, the capacity needed to meet this rate of growth in demand cannot be fully commissioned until 1967, when the 14 per cent. margin will, if the present calculations are right, be there. It is not an

415
easy calculation for the Electricity Board to make, and, as it turned out in this very bad year, they have underestimated; but the estimate was made in 1956–57.
Before 1967 they must obviously take some more interim measures, and the Generating Board plans to install 700 megawatts of gas turbines in 1964–65. These are small generators of 50 to 70 megawatts capacity, powered by aero engines. They can be built much more quickly than conventional plants; they have a low capital cost, but except as a temporary measure are not advisable, because they have a high running cost. Next winter the 14 per cent. margin is likely to be even more strained than this winter, should something go wrong; but in 1964–65, with the first batch of these gas turbines in operation, the position should be better than it is now. Next year is rather a crucial year, I know.
As regards the cuts we have had, there have been widespread electricity cuts both by the Generating Board and in parts of the distribution system. There have been 22 deliberate cuts on the Generating Board system, all between January 3 and 27, and these have been attributable to two main causes: the work to rule in the first three weeks of January—this mainly affected power stations in the London area—and severe icing, to which I have already referred, over dirty insulators which, owing to lack of rain, were still covered with grime from the smog in the beginning of November. Those are the two main causes of the cuts. There are certain other things, into which I will not go, which the Generating Board are planing to do.
416
I think the question of spreading cost over a period of years is important. The unrestricted demand was reduced in three ways over this time: first of all, by the Generating Board's cuts and reductions in voltage and frequency; secondly, by other breakdowns and low voltage on the Area Boards' systems; and, thirdly, by exhortations to consumers to economise. Only the reductions in the cuts by the Generating Board are known. To have eliminated these cuts would have required an extra 2,500 megawatts of generating capacity, together with the associated transmission and distribution capacity, the cost of which might have been in the region of £270 million. My Lords, these and extra things which we are going to do must be spread over years.
May I just say one thing? I know that Mr. Doyle was mentioned, and I do not want to say too much about that regrettable affair, which did have a very adverse effect. I should, however, like to take the opportunity of paying tribute to the devoted service of the great majority of workers in the industry both at this time and throughout the cold spell.
My Lords, I do not think I have much else to say, except that, on the question of learning from foreign experience, the supply industry of this country has very close and regular contacts with its counterparts overseas, covering all aspects of electricity. I hope I have answered all your Lordships' questions, although at rather a great rate. If any of your Lordships has any particular points which I have not referred to, and to which you would like an answer, I hope you will let me know.

  "DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY" PLEAS
  "DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY" PLEAS
  BREAD AND FLOUR PRICES
  BREAD AND FLOUR PRICES