Sitting of 7 March 1963

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (BOLTON)
  Bill to confirm a Provisional Order relating to the county borough of Bolton, presented by Sir Keith Joseph; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills and to be printed. [Bill 77.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Building Land
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what steps he is taking to make more building land available and to improve its use near green belts, in view of the shortage of building land.
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph): Local planning authorities are constantly being reminded of the need to allocate more land where it is wanted for development. I have recently issued a planning bulletin which asks authorities to consider increasing housing densities. I would also refer my hon. Friend to my recent statement on new towns for Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester and to the Government's White Paper on employment, housing and land in the London area. The regional studies now in hand for the most heavily congested areas will deal with the long-term land requirements there.
    Mr. Digby: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but I hope that we
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    shall not have to wait for the regional studies. The difference in value between agricultural land and land with planning permission appears to be widening even today and it is a very real problem. Would it not be a pity to wait until the surveys come in?
    Sir K. Joseph: I undertake to press ahead with these surveys just as quickly as possible.
    Mr. C. Hughes: Is it not the case that there is five to six years' supply of building land around London, which is now frozen by speculators? What steps is the Minister taking to release this land for building?
    Sir K. Joseph: I have reason to hope that the rate of building of houses around London will tend to go up. This is on land to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Of course, the Government are looking further ahead and that is why the regional plans will show what needs to be done further out in the way of new communities and expanding communities.

    West Midlands (Five County Borough Scheme)
    Mr. Talbotasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether proceedings in the High Court of Justice have yet been commenced against him by local authorities in the west Midlands in regard to his proposal to implement the Five County Borough scheme.
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. Wednesbury Borough Council and Darlaston Urban District Council have informed me, however, that they intend to take proceedings.
    Mr. Talbot: While congratulating the Minister on his temporary escape, may I ask him to reflect that the local feeling in the west Midlands is very strongly against his proposal for their local government reorganisation? Will he further reflect that one of the features which is most publicised by his circulars and other propaganda is that the wishes of the inhabitants should receive paramount consideration, and would he not agree that his scheme appears to ignore this feature entirely?
    Sir K. Joseph: I cannot accept my hon. Friend's assertion that public

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    opinion is unanimous in the attitude that he describes, and, of course, public opinion, vital though it is, is only one of the considerations to be borne in mind.
    Mr. MacColl: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what his timetable is for the west Midland reorganisation scheme? Is he in process of preparing an order, or is it held up during these proceedings?
    Sir K. Joseph: I think that it would be sensible to go ahead with the consultations necessary for the preparation of an order, but, of course, when and whether an order can be made will depend on the outcome of the application made to the court.

    County Reviews
    Sir J. Maitlandasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will ensure that county councils, when proposing new boundaries for county districts, have complete freedom to deal with exceptional cases and problems peculiar to their areas and that they are not restricted by rules laid down by his Department.
    Sir K. Joseph: There are no hard and fast rules for the conduct of county reviews. It is for each county council to make such proposals as it thinks desirable in the interests of effective and convenient local government.
    Sir J. Maitland: Is the Minister aware that that is not quite how the county councils are interpreting Circular 35/62 which indicates pretty strongly that the Minister would be reluctant to continue small districts? Is he further aware that the creation or maintenance of districts which have the same common interests is just as important as, perhaps even more important than, looking at this from an arithmetical or geographical point of view in order to get the optimum number of people in any particular district?
    Sir K. Joseph: I have tried to make it plain that each case should be judged on its merits, taking into account all the factors, but I am not able to disguise that one of the most important factors is the relationship between size, population, services and cost, and that is why I
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    brought this out without setting any arithmetical minimum in the circulars to which my hon. Friend has referred.
    Mr. More: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his admirable policy does not seem to have percolated to all the reviewing authorities? Is he aware that at the meeting of my county council which I attended on Saturday, it was said on behalf of the reviewing panel that the Minister had issued positive instructions that local authorities must be made larger?

    Government Buildings (Planning Permission)
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether Government Departments are required to obtain planning permission before erecting buildings.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): No, Sir, but Government Departments consult local planning authorities about their proposals and the assistance of the Department is available if there are difficulties.
    Mr. Shepherd: Is my hon. Friend able to say whether a State corporation requires planning permission? Does he think that something can be done to improve the supervision of buildings erected by Government Departments—for example, the Post Office—and industrial buildings in the middle of residential areas?
    Mr. Corfield: In reply to the second part of the question, the plans of a Government Department for proposed development are submitted to the local planning authority. If there is dispute, my right hon. Friend or one of his representatives takes the chair at a meeting between the two sides. In reply to the first part of the supplementary question, the answer, broadly, is "Yes".
    Mr. M. Stewart: Will it not be rather difficult for the Government to carry through their policy, say, for the limitation of office building in London, if Government Departments or corporations like British Railways can erect buildings in defiance of the general trend of the Government's policy?
    Mr. Corfield: The question does not arise of a Government Department erecting buildings in defiance of Government policy. As I have tried to explain, the procedure laid down in Circular 100, issued in 1950, follows closely the procedure of the Act, and when controversial issues arise a public inquiry is held in exactly the same way as in the case of a private applicant. Where the application is not of a controversial nature, as I have said, my right hon. Friend in effect arbitrates between the local planning authority and the Government Department which is undertaking the development.

    Derelict Land (Reclamation)
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what acreage of derelict industrial land was reclaimed by local authorities in 1960, 1961, and 1962, respectively.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend is not in a position to give figures year by year, but I can say that since 1st April, 1960, when the Local Employment Act came into force some 42 acres of land have been reclaimed with the aid of grant under that Act and the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949. In addition my right hon. Friend has granted loan sanction covering the reclamation of some 220 acres more though not all of this will necessarily have been dealt with in the period.
    Mr. Boyden: What has happened to the 1,171 acres that the Parliamentary Secretary thought would be reclaimed by local authorities in a five-year period? Would he like to comment on the fact that that figure of just over 1,000 acres was only one-seventh of the derelict land that local authorities had in their development plans? What is he doing about this?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Member must appreciate that the initiative in these matters lies with the local authorities and that there is inevitably delay between proposals in development plans and the proposals coming forward to my right hon. Friend for loan sanction or whatever approval may be required.
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs how the number of schemes completed and grants
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    paid for the reclamation of derelict land in the financial year 1960–61 under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, compares with the number of schemes completed and grants paid since the passing of the Local Employment Act, 1960.
    Mr. Corfield: Under the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, 13 schemes were completed and grants amounting to £77,394 were paid in the financial year 1960–61. Four schemes under the Local Employment Act have been completed and grant of £470 has been paid in respect of one of them. Further grants amounting to £40,000 have been promised for schemes approved under this Act including those already completed.
    Mr. Boyden: Two hundred and fifty acres and less than twenty schemes! Does not the hon. Gentleman consider it about time that there was a new approach to this problem in regard not only to finance and organisation but to technical methods?
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend has made it clear over and over again that he would welcome more schemes. He has called for a return from all local authorities in the development districts giving an estimate of the number and approximate cost of schemes that could be started in the near future. As the hon. Member knows, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has agreed to review the size of the grant when this information is available.
    Mr. MacColl: Will the Minister bear in mind that no matter whose fault it may be, these figures are pathetic and that the clearing of derelict industrial land in the old towns is a vital part of rehabilitating them for new industries? Will not the Minister put this at the top of the Government's economic programme?
    Mr. Corfield: I cannot promise that the Government will put it at the top of their programme, but I assure the hon. Member and the House that my right hon. Friend is anxious to encourage local authorities to come forward with more schemes. As I have said, however, the initiative lies with them in the first place and must do so.
    Mr. Boyden: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the replies, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware of the danger of accidents and to the health of children arising from sites which are left derelict and the debris lying about for long periods after the demolition of houses; and if he will introduce legislation to make it compulsory for sites to be cleared immediately when property is demolished.
    Mr. Corfield: There does not appear to be a need for fresh legislation. Powers are available under a number of statutes enabling local authorities to reclaim or improve the appearance of derelict land. This could include sites on which debris has been left. Local authorities also have powers under Sections 27 and 29 of the Public Health Act 1961 to require the clearance of demolition rubble in most circumstances.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this problem is not peculiar to Bristol, but is general throughout the country? After a house has been taken down, the debris is left there, rats infest the area, the place becomes an eyesore, and the property nearby loses its value. Will the Minister give instructions to local authorities that the debris must be cleared when a property is demolished?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am also familiar with some of the problems of Bristol. Nevertheless, I do not think that this is a matter of lack of legislative power. The number of statutes and provisions in the statutes which enable local authorities to take action of this sort is very large, and, I should think, almost completely comprehensive, but if the hon. Gentleman writes to me about any particular difficulty under any particular statute, I shall look into it.
    Mr. Awbery: Could it be made compulsory and not enabling?
    Mr. Corfield: This is essentially a matter for the local authorities concerned.
    Mr. Harold Davies: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman was given figures of accidents to children as a result of this neglect of demolished property?
    Mr. Corfield: No, Sir; but in any case I think that that is another question.
    Mr. Millanasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will make 100 per cent. grants under the Local Employment Act, 1960, to local authorities who initiate schemes for the improvement of derelict land or for the improvement of basic services in response to the appeal made by Her Majesty's Government that such schemes costing up to £15,000 each should be introduced as a means of alleviating unemployment.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend, with his right hon. Friends the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Scotland, are urgently reviewing the level of grant under Section 5 of the Act for treating derelict land.
    He has no proposals for altering the grant for improvement of basic services.
    Mr. Millan: When is the decision to be made about this? Is it not obvious from the answers given to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden) earlier this afternoon that local authorities are not getting ahead with the job of clearing derelict land, for the reason that they are reluctant to add further to the rate burden which so many of the Minister's hon. Friends are already complaining about?
    Mr. Corfield: I have already told the House that my Department wrote on 15th February to the local planning authorities concerned with development districts, asking them to supply within three weeks information with regard to schemes that could be undertaken. When that information is available my right hon. Friend will consider the question of a grant.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Does the Minister recognise the great urgency of arriving at a quick decision in this matter? The unemployment figures in the development districts in which we are interested are getting worse and worse week by week, and an urgent decision is imperative.
    Mr. Corfield: Yes, but it cannot be alleged that three weeks is an excessive time within which to ask local authorities to provide this information.
    Mr. Rankin: Does not the Minister agree that a principle is involved here? Is it not the case that unemployment

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    is not just a local phenomenon but a national problem? In view of that fact, ought not the Government to assume liability for 100 per cent. grant?
    Mr. Corfield: The hon. Member must realise that the clearance of these derelict sites does not give rise to a great deal of employment, owing to modern methods of mechanisation.

    Employees (Closed Shop)
    Dr. D. Johnsonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will introduce legislation to forbid the introduction of the closed shop by local government bodies for their employees.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend deprecates any coercion of local government employees to join trade unions or associations; but experience shows that local authorities generally show good sense in their approach to this matter, and he does not think that this is a matter for legislation.
    Dr. Johnson: Is my hon. Friend aware that local authorities do not show good sense in all cases and that I can supply him with particulars of an instance when the insistence upon joining a trade union was pursued with great ruthlessness and persecution of an individual who was not a member of the staff of the council in question at the time the resolution was passed? [Interruption.] Secondly, is my hon. Friend aware also that once—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is quite insufferable that questions and answers should be drowned by shouts.
    Dr. Johnson: Is my hon. Friend aware, secondly, that when this practice occurs, it is by the nature of things apt to be irreversible even if the complexion of the council changes?
    Mr. Corfield: I agree with my hon. Friend that there are exceptions. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend takes the view that this is a matter primarily for the pressures of public opinion exercised through the electorate rather than for legislation.

    Town Centre Redevelopment
    Mr. Sydney Irvingasked the Minister of Housing and Local Govern-
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    ment and Minister for Welsh Affairs what advice he has given to local authorities about their participation in the arrangements for the central redevelopment of towns.
    Mr. Corfield: Planning Bulletin No. 1 "Town Centres—Approach to Renewal" contains advice to local authorities on this and other aspects of town centre redevelopment. I am sending the bon. Member a copy.
    Mr. Irving: While recognising that on the planning side the bulletin is excellent, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that on the financial side it is less successful? Will he consider the urgent need to give local authorities more constructive guidance about financial arrangements with private developers so as to protect the community interest not only now but well into the future?
    Mr. Corfield: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the financial side is under further consideration, and we hope to issue another bulletin specialising on this aspect of the matter.

    Hove
    Mr. Marloweasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs when the Boundary Commission will open its inquiries into the south-eastern area; whether its terms of reference include power to recommend county borough status for the non-county borough of Hove; and whether the fact that the borough now has to bear some 30 per cent, of the rate burden of the county is a material factor for the Commission to take into account.
    Sir K. Joseph: It is too soon to say when the Commission will start this review, but it is unlikely to be before 1964. It will have power to propose county borough status for Hove. The Commission may take account of any matters which seem to it to be relevant to the effectiveness and convenience of the local government organisation.
    Mr. Marlowe: Can my right hon. Friend tell me how the Commission can give effect to a situation in which in the administrative county there is a population of approximately 375,000, whereas in the borough there is a population of

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    71,000, which means in effect that a population of less than one-fifth of the county is paying nearly one-third of the rates? Is it possible for this position to he rectified?
    Sir K. Joseph: This is one of the considerations which the Commission will no doubt bear in mind when it studies the situation.

    Building Operatives
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, in view of his intention now to control or limit the construction of commercial, office and similar large buildings, what is his estimate of the increased number of building operatives and other workers who will in consequence be available in six and twelve months' time for the building of domestic accommodation, particularly in the London area.
    Sir K. Joseph: As the object of the Government's policy is to get a better distribution of office growth over the whole of the London area and further afield, I would not necessarily expect a fall in the number of building operatives involved. Besides the main obstacle to be overcome in securing more housing for London is land.
    Mr. Sorensen: Can the Minister say whether one of the objects of controlling and limiting the number and size of buildings is to enable a certain number of building operatives to be diverted for domestic purposes? Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is being done to make sure that this labour, when diverted, is used in that way?
    Sir K. Joseph: As I tried to explain in my Answer, I do not think that this will result, since what the Government are trying to do is to get a better distribution of offices. If we want more housing, we must look to the building industry for higher productivity, and, over the years, more industrialisation.

    Rents
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, in view of the continued hardship caused by high rentals for domestic accommodation, if he will now seek to empower local
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    authorities to institute fair rent tribunals or to adopt other means of curbing excessive rents where it can be demonstrated that the demand for accommodation is far greater than the supply.
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will seek to extend the powers of rent tribunals to fix rents for unfurnished lettings.
    Sir K. Joseph: I announced in my recent White Paper (Cmnd. 1952) that I intend to carry out a survey of the housing in London, where the pressure on housing is as acute as anywhere in England and Wales. I propose to await the results of that before reaching any conclusions. Meanwhile, as the White Paper showed, I am seeking both to increase the supply of houses for Londoners and to reduce the demand. Re-imposition of rent control would help neither.
    Mr. Sorensen: Does the Minister appreciate that, quite apart from whatever value may be attached to this inquiry, there is information at hand in the local councils to indicate the burden of excessive rents? Under these circumstances, will he at least consider granting permissive powers to borough councils to institute fair rent tribunals to take action to curb excessive rents?
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. The real need is for more housing, and that is what the Government intend to achieve. In the extreme case where rents are exhorbitant and threaten homelessness, the local authority has power to invoke the compulsory purchase order procedure.
    Mr. Lipton: Does the Minister realise that the compulsory purchase order procedure is long, complicated, and expensive? Now that rents have reached fantastic heights, especially in London where so many people are homeless, has not the time arrived for some kind of appeal against extortionate rents? Did not the right hon. Gentleman promise the L.C.C. deputation last December that he was going to give favourable consideration to the suggestion it made along these lines?
    Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir. I promised to undertake to study how to reduce the pressure on housing in London, and the new Town and Country Planning Bill is one part of that undertaking.
    Mr. Sorensen: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

    Hove (Rates)
    Mr. Marloweasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he is aware that the proposed new rate poundage for the borough of Hove is equivalent to an increase of 4s., and that many residents will have a rate demand exceeding 50 per cent. of last year's rates; and whether, in view of the fact that this is due to the increased demand for education from the East Sussex County Council, he will remove part of the cost of education from the rates to the Exchequer, or give consideration to increasing the block grant to the county.
    Sir K. Joseph: I understand that the council has been recommended to make a rate of 9s. in the £ for 1963–64 which is equivalent, on the basis of 1962–63 values, to an increase of 4s. on the present rate of 20s. Allowing for the effects of the revaluation, Hove householders will pay on average about one-third more in rates next year than this.
    As regards the second part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education to Questions last Thursday. The estimated increase in the county council's expenditure on education is in fact far less, even ignoring its substantial increase in general grant, than the increase in the total amount which it requires in rates.
    Mr. Marlowe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the present situation on rating in my constituency has caused grave bitterness and resentment; that he is being held to account for this; and that unless some positive action is taken by the Government they will find themselves in considerable difficulty?
    Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir, but I think that ratepayers are fair enough to recognise that the greatly expanded programme of education, health, and welfare being undertaken by the Government, with public approbation, has its effect on local rates. The point is that the taxpayer is already bearing
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    more than half the cost of this, and I hope that my hon. Friend will bear this in mind.
    Mr. M. Stewart: When the Rating and Valuation Bill was going through the House, did not the Government undertake that, if it appeared that ratepayers were going to pay about 30 per cent. more than they were paying, the Government would use the special powers in the Bill to cushion them against this?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Gentleman is generally more precise than that. What the Government undertook to do was to consider using their derating powers when the rise in the share of the burden on domestic ratepayers in a county or county borough as a whole exceeded, on account of revaluation alone—but not on account of increased rate call—about one-third. That has not happened in any county or county borough.
    Mr. Bellenger: Will the Minister study the results of some of the reassessments in London boroughs? If he does so he will find that in many cases there has been a 100 per cent. increase in rateable value, and that the appropriate increase in poundage will have the effect of more than doubling the payment that has to be made by ratepayers. Has not he powers under the Act to make a reduction in the rateable value—I believe that it is up to 20 per cent.—if he thinks fit?
    Sir K. Joseph: No. The right hon. Gentleman must separate the effect of an increased rate call on the one hand and the effect of revaluation on the other. Generally, where there is a concentration of industry the householder has not suffered an increase in his share of the burden of rates on account of revaluation.

    Rates
    Sir Richard Pilkingtonasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what representations he has had from the Association of Municipal Corporations about the impact of the rising rate demand on people with fixed incomes; and what reply he has sent.
    Sir K. Joseph: The answer to the first part of the Question is "None", Sir. The second part does not therefore arise.
    Sir Richard Pilkington: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, however it is done, the Government must take some action to help those people who are worst affected by the rate increases? Many examples have been sent to him by myself and my hon. Friends. Will he take some action in the matter?
    Sir K. Joseph: I am obviously most sympathetic to my hon. Friend's approach to the problem, but he will recognise that the taxpayer is already bearing more than half the cost of these local authority services. Thanks to the Government's action, industry and commerce have now lost the concessions they had, with the result that the domestic.ratepayer is bearing only—I say "only" cautiously—24 per cent. of the total cost of these expanded services.
    Mr. Wade: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on 30th November, 1960, in the Second Reading debate on the Rating and Valuation Bill, his predecessor said:
    "If nothing were done the share falling on the householders would be greater—"
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Verbatim quotation from speeches is out of order at Question Time.
    Mr. Wade: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his predecessor indicated that it was important not to subject householders to too severe a jolt? Surely that is precisely what is happening in a number of cases. Is there not now an obligation on the Minister to grant some form of relief in those cases?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Sir K. Joseph: I was waiting for other hon. Members' supplementary questions. It is true that in some areas, especially where there is a lack of industry, revaluation has shifted some of the burden of rates on to householders, but it is to a far lesser extent than was anticipated when the pledge was given by the Government when the revaluation legislation went through. I am considering the case of areas particularly concerned, and shall be writing to them shortly. But I must repeat that the Government had in mind an increase in the share of rates, due only to revaluation, of about 30
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    per cent. before using their derating powers.
    Mr. Eden: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that Bournemouth is an example of the area to which he has just been referring? On the question of representation, can he assure the House that he has had full representation from Bournemouth, drawing to his attention the likely effect upon elderly people, in fixed income groups in particular, of the increased rate call?
    Sir K. Joseph: Any decision to which I come on the problems of Bournemouth will be based on the most vigorous representations by both my hon. Friends who represent constituencies there, and by the most articulate explanation of the results, both of revaluation and the rate call, by local authority representatives.
    Mr. Dugdale: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the hon. and gallant Member for Poole (Sir R. Pilkington), the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) and the hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) did or did not vote for the Government's revaluation Bill?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There is no obligation upon a Minister to give information of that kind.
    Mr. Manuel: On a point of order. We should be jealous of our duties in this House. With due respect to you, Mr. Speaker, am I to understand that you are ruling that the Minister may not answer?—[Interruption.] He was rising to do so.
    Mr. Speaker: I rule that the question is out of order, because questions are permitted only if they are within the realm of the Minister's responsibility. The Minister does not have a duty to report the contents of Division lists in the House.
    Mr. Manuel: Will you control the House, Mr. Speaker? Will you ensure that there are not about a dozen "Mr. Speakers" trying to carry out your duties from the benches opposite?
    Mr. Speaker: I hope that I may have the assistance of the House in general in getting on with Questions.
    Mr. D. Smithasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will recommend the appointment of a Royal Commission or institute an independent inquiry into the rating system with the object of devising a more equitable distribution of the rate burden throughout the community and of finding additional or alternative means of raising local revenue.
    Mr. Awberyasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he is aware that the new valuation for rating places a burden upon those who are least able to bear it; and if he will institute an inquiry into the most equitable method of raising money by local authorities to pay for the social services and amenities which they provide.
    Sir K. Joseph: I am not at the moment convinced that the appointment of an inquiry would do anything more than raise hopes unduly of finding some substantial new source of revenue—unavailable to the Chancellor.
    Mr. Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the stage has now been reached at which expanding local services, which are very welcome to all members of the community and are shared by them all, can no longer be paid for by any one section of the community? Will he also bear in mind that of the 25 million wage earners, about 9 million are paying nothing whatever, or very little, towards the rating system? In view of the grave anxiety expressed by so many ratepayers, which has been echoed here this afternoon, will my right hon. Friend reconsider his decision and once again confer with his Cabinet colleagues?
    Sir K. Joseph: I think that my hon. Friend was forgetting for the moment that this expanding burden, as he rightly calls it, is being shared between the taxpayer and the ratepayer and, among ratepayers, between the domestic ratepayer and industry and commerce. The Government have to bear in mind all these interests, ratepayers and taxpayers, as well as industry and commerce, and they have to bear in mind the vitality and economic prudence of local authorities.
    Mr. Awbery: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, from the number of questions which have been put to him from both sides of the House, how disturbed hon. Members are about the increases in rates? He states that they have not been brought about by the new system of valuation. What we are complaining about is that the new system of valuation is unjust in its effect upon those people who are unable to pay. We are asking for an inquiry into the valuation system so that a more equitable system can be devised by the Government.
    Sir K. Joseph: I cannot accept that the revaluation is unjust. My hon. Friends voted for it in the round because not only did it put valuation for all on the same basis, but it withdrew concessions which otherwise would have been enjoyed to this day by industry and commerce.
    Mr. Hocking: Will not my right hon. Friend agree that insufficient consideration has been given to alternative sources of revenue for local authorities and to alternative means of payment? Will he give further consideration to those two points?
    Sir K. Joseph: I do not think that alternative sources of revenue offer very much relief to the taxpayer because, as far as I know, all the substantial ones are already available to the Chancellor for his own use. As to alternative means of payment, I am shortly to get in touch with local authorities about increasing the means of paying by instalments.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that ratepayers are also taxpayers and that what concerns a great many people is the inequity of the system inasmuch as an old person in one house pays the same rates as six families in a house next door? Is not this flagrantly wrong? Will the right hon. Gentleman look at the question of a local income tax as a sensible way of dealing with the problem?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member must realise that if one lady is living in one house of the same size as that occupied by six families and is paying the same rates, she must be under-occupying to a formidable extent.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that so long as extremely high interest rates and land profiteering continue, there will continue to be a burden of rates on local authorites?
    Sir K. Joseph: No. This is an absolute red herring. Hon. Members opposite should recognise that under a Tory Government the vast and simultaneous programme of development on all fronts is so large that we need all the capital we can find. That means paying a proper price for the money that is lent.
    Mr. Harold Daviesasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will now consider alternative methods of local government financing in view of the difficulties currently being experienced by local authorities in operating the present rating system, since the burden falling upon ordinary householders takes no account of their capacity to pay.
    Sir K. Joseph: I have no reason to think that local authorities generally find themselves in difficulties in operating the rating system, though it is true that unavoidable increases in their expenditure face them with the disagreeable necessity of increasing the rate call.
    As for the burden on householders, the rate bill of the average householder during the present year comes out at rather less than 10s. a week, for which he receives a wide range of services.
    Mr. Davies: Whatever the statistics may say, the reality is that millions of people are unable to meet the rate bill. The operative phrase in this Question is, will the right hon. Gentleman "now consider alternative methods". Does he not already possess powers under the 1958 Act by means of which, if he wanted, be could make an increase in the block grant for this transitional period? In view of the present crisis in the country, something should he done. Will not he apply an increased block grant and at least consider alternative methods?
    Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member has committed a wild mis-statement and exaggeration. The average rate burden of the average household is less in real terms than it was before the war owing to the
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    greatly increased contribution of the taxpayer to the rapidly expanding local authority services. The block grant was increased substantially last year to cover this year and next year, and the taxpayer is paying his full share for local authority services.

  HOUSING

    Tender Costs (Frost Damage)
    Mr. Sydney Irvingasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if, in approving costs per house, he makes any allowance for the cost of installing a safety valve or similar device for minimising frost damage to water pipes.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend does not examine tender costs in this degree of detail. Local authorities are free to use devices of the kind mentioned if they think they are likely to give satisfactory protection against frost.
    Mr. Irving: In view of this winter's experience and the disastrously high cost of the damage, is the Minister satisfied that enough local authorities are taking this kind of precaution? If not, what will he do about it?
    Mr. Corfield: Since 1950, local authorities have been required to submit with their tenders statements that the dwellings concerned will conform with the provisions laid down in the Housing Manual, 1949, which stresses the importance of protection against frost and of heating installations generally.

    Slum Clearance
    Mr. Owenasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what steps are being taken to speed up slum clearance in the areas of heavy unemployment; and whether he will make a statement.
    Sir K. Joseph: Most of the local authorities with the heaviest slum clearance problems are in parts of the North where unemployment is now relatively high. Some time ago I set up a regional office in Manchester with the specific task of helping the northern authorities to achieve a much higher slum clearance rate: and as I announced in reply to

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    my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) on Tuesday, I intend to establish another office in the North-East. Five-year building programmes are being approved which will speed up the rate of clearance and replacement.
    Mr. Owen: Is the Minister aware that of 50 slum clearance black spots, 45 are in the North? Does he realise that if this immense and urgent problem is to be effectively tackled, it can no longer be left wholly to local authorities? There is urgent need not merely for regional planning, but for a basic national drive to deal with this pressing problem.
    Sir K. Joseph: That is exactly what the Government are doing and the local authorities are responding splendidly. In the area to which the hon. Member's Question refers, the local authorities' programmes are increasing 75 per cent. this year over last year.
    Mr. Jeger: Is the Minister aware that there are patches of heavy unemployment in areas which, as a whole, are not scheduled as areas of heavy unemployment? Will he take the initiative in seeing that there is a gigantic slum clearance scheme which extends throughout the whole country and not merely to the areas in the North-East to which the spotlight has been directed?
    Sir K. Joseph: I am putting the heaviest pressure upon all local authorities with slum clearance problems to make as much speed as possible. That is why the Government announced only two weeks ago that there would be extra land for the main areas of slum clearance by way of new town provision. The effort is succeeding, as witness the programmes of which I have spoken.

    Old People's Bungalows (Heating)
    Mr. Wainwrightasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will make an additional subsidy grant to those local authorities who plan to have installed some form of central heating in both existing and future aged people's bungalows.
    Mr. Corfield: No, Sir. Subsidies on new dwellings are paid at a flat rate per dwelling. It is for the local authorities
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    to decide how best to equip the dwellings they are providing for particular purposes. On the question of improving existing dwellings, I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on 28th February.
    Mr. Wainwright: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that that Answer is rather puerile? Is he not aware that there is a feeling in the country at the moment that every house and building ought to have some form of central heating? That being so, does he not agree that our aged people, especially during the kind of weather we have been having, ought to have the benefit of central heating? Does he not realise that the cost of heating a house is very high for these old-age pensioners who can afford only one fire? Ought not we as a nation to make certain that the heat from that one fire is utilised to the fullest extent?
    Mr. Corfield: I think that the hon. Gentleman is confusing the issue. The basic purpose of the improvement grant is to provide improvements by way of facilities which did not exist in the original building. Its purpose is not to provide for the replacement or maintenance of existing facilities.
    Mr. Bence: Would the hon. Gentleman consider examining the possibilities of group central heating for old folks' houses? Recently there have been quite a lot of accidents with heating appliances in the houses of old folk, and possibly group central heating of a group of houses would be an economical and practical proposition.
    Mr. Corfield: Where this is suitable, these individual cases are examined on their merits, but again it is for the local authorities to put forward cases they have in mind.

    Improvement Grants (Water Pipes)
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what would be the average additional cost of providing internal water-pipes in the installation of a bath, w.c., and hot-water system, respectively, under the standard and improvement grant procedure.
    Mr. Corfield: Water pipes are of course fitted inside the house; but drainage by way of soil and waste pipes can

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    be either inside or outside. Generally speaking, there should be no material difference in cost whichever method of fitting is used. Additional cost might be incurred if the run of an internal pipe involved disturbance of existing fixtures: this extra cost would, however, rank for grant.
    Mrs. Butler: Is the Minister aware that in recent weeks frost damage has often been very severe, especially in the case of bathrooms and kitchens converted under grant in the back additions of houses which are often very exposed to the weather? In view of what he has just said, will the hon. Gentleman look at the matter again in order to try to ensure that water pipes and waste pipes are fitted internally under the grant procedure.
    Mr. Corfield: I will certainly do so, but I again emphasise that where the improvement involves the alteration of pipes any extra cost incurred as a result of taking precautions against frost is eligible for grant.

    Housing Act, 1961
    Lieut.-Colonel Cordeauxasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (1) how many management orders have so far been made under Section 12, and how many notices have been served requiring landlords to provide certain amenities under Section 15, of the Housing Act, 1961;
    (2) if he is satisfied with the working, up to the present time, of Part II of the Housing Act 1961; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Corfield: In mid-1964 local authorities will be asked to submit reports on the workings of the multi-occupation provisions of the Housing Act, 1961. Until then my right hon. Friend will not know the totals of orders made or notices served, or be able to make an informed statement about the working of Part II of the Act. Local authorities must be given a chance to obtain adequate experience in the use of these new powers before my right hon. Friend comes to any general conclusions about them.
    Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux: Whilst appreciating that it is still early days since the regulations dealing with Part
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    II of the Housing Act came into force, may I ask whether my hon. Friend is aware that in Nottingham, where this evil of multi-occupation slums is particularly rife, we have made quite a good start involving the serving of over 100 notices under Sections 12, 15 and 16? Is he further aware that we in Nottingham welcome Part II of the Act and believe that we can make a very good job of it.
    Mr. Corfield: Yes, Sir. By courtesy of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux), my right hon. Friend has recently been given information which shows that the city council is making very good use of these powers, and I know that my right hon. Friend will wish to compliment the city council on its positive and lively approach to the problem.
    Mr. MacColl: On the other side of the picture, is the hon. Gentleman aware that one metropolitan borough—and he will not have any difficulty in identifying it—has gone on record in public that its contribution will be minimal because of the lack of public health inspectors? Will the hon. Gentleman take urgent steps to consult various bodies on how this survey and the enforcement of notices are to be carried out with adequate staff?
    Mr. Corfield: I will certainly look into individual cases, but the general situation must wait until the result of the reports to which I have referred is available.

    Peterlee (Rents)
    Mr. Shinwellasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether his instructions to the Peterlee Corporation to increase rents were due to losses sustained by the Corporation owing to the liquidation of the contracting firm of Milton Hindle.
    Mr. Corfield: As I informed the right hon. Gentleman on 28th February, no instructions were given to increase rents.
    Mr. Shinwell: That is not part of the Question I have asked. Does not the hon. Gentleman look at the Question before he answers? Is he aware that I asked whether any loss was sustained by the Peterlee Corporation because of the failure of the contracting firm of

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    Milton Hindle? Is not that in the Question, and would the hon. Gentleman answer it?
    Mr. Corfield: The situation, as I understand, was that the prices originally quoted by this firm were very substantially lower than those quoted by any other contractor but the costs eventually incurred were no greater than if the next lowest tender had been accepted at the outset.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for having answered my Question. Is he aware that the failure of this contracting firm to meet its obligations led to an expenditure of about £250,000 and as a result the Corporation suffered a substantial setback in the building of houses which had been in contemplation, and in consequence a very serious loss of revenue? Is that one of the reasons why the Ministry has encouraged the Corporation to increase rents?
    Mr. Corfield: My information is that the final accounts show that the extra cost to the Corporation as a direct result of the liquidation was £87,248. As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the Corporation is under a duty to balance its housing accounts and we have no reason to believe that this loss has led to any unreasonable increase in rents.
    Mr. Shinwell: In view of the answer the hon. Gentleman has now given—that the Corporation sustained a loss, because of the failure of this contractor, of over £87,000—I ask the question again: has the Corporation been encouraged to increase rents in order to meet the loss sustained?
    Mr. Corfield: As I informed the right hon. Gentleman at the outset, no encouragement has been given by my Department to the Corporation to increase rents.

    UNITED STATES POLARIS SUBMARINES, HOLY LOCH
    Mr. Rankinasked the Prime Minister whether the terms of the agreement he made with President Kennedy limit the number of United States Polaris submarines to be based in the Holy Loch.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I assume the hon. Member is referring to my agreement with President Eisenhower. This placed no limit on the number, but it was our understanding at the time that not more than three of the submarines using the Holy Loch would be there at any one time.
    Mr. Rankin: Is it not the case that we are still in a very inexact position in regard to numbers? Do I take it from the Prime Minister's Answer that the only limit on the number of submarines will be the size of the loch itself? In view of the fact that the number of these vessels is bound to increase greatly, for the others which have to be housed in future will the Prime Minister look for some loch furth of Scotland?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The limit is what from time to time is agreed and at present the agreement is three.

    PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARIES AND UNDER-SECRETARIES OF STATE
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Prime Minister whether he will arrange for the titles of Parliamentary Secretary and Under-Secretary of State to be changed to that of Deputy Minister, to rank below Minister of State in those Departments where there are Ministers of State.
    The Prime Minister: I recognise the intention behind by hon. Friend's suggestion, but these are traditional titles and any change would require legislation.
    Moreover, I am doubtful whether the title Deputy Minister might not indicate a rank higher than that of Minister of State. However, I will certainly consider the matter.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it would give pleasure if he considered the matter, because a large number of members of the public, of the Armed Services and in industry are used to a definite chain of command and do not understand the title, "Parliamentary Secretary"? A number of my hon. and right hon. Friends feel that it should be made clear beyond peradventure that a Parliamentary Secretary is really a deputy Minister.
    The Prime Minister: Although I shall consider it, I think that a considerable step has already been taken because I have given instructions that all Departments should follow de same rule—I think there were four or five exceptions—that in making their lists the names of Ministers should be printed first and then the names of leading officials, starting with the Permanent Secretary.
    Mr. C. Pannell: Is the Prime Minister aware that while we have this ridiculous position that a Minister is paid at a lower rate of remuneration than even the Permanent Secretary, in these conditions it may well be that the Minister has to be No. 2, let alone the Parliamentary Secretary? Is it not time that the Government faced the question of remuneration with more courage?
    The Prime Minister: This Question did not relate to rates of remuneration: it related to what I might call the protocol.

    PROCEEDINGS OF THE HOUSE (RECORDINGS)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Prime Minister what consideration has been given to making recordings of proceedings of the House, so that matters of historical interest may be preserved.
    The Prime Minister: This proposal has been made previously, but has not commended itself to the House. I am not aware of any substantial body of opinion which would favour it now.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: Will my right hon. Friend bear clearly in mind that I am not suggesting contemporary use of the recordings, but there are many great speeches of the past, notably those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), which have been lost for all time, and it would have been great if we had been able to retain them?
    The Prime Minister: If, as it were, they were to be put into the museum for the future, that is a rather different question, but even then I think that the technical difficulties would be quite great.
    Mr. Bellenger: Does the Prime Minister realise that the corridors and the Library of the House are full of recordings of previous proceedings in this
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    House and that the further we get away from the period the less are people interested in what Gladstone said in 1894?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, but I have often heard reference to it all the same.

    PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (SPEECH)
    Mr. M. Footasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech delivered by the Chief Patronage Secretary to the Scottish Young Unionists' Conference in Glasgow on 2nd March, in regard to the machinery of government, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Chief Whip tells me that the Patronage Secretary made an excellent speech. I do not doubt that it conformed to the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Foot: Does the Prime Minister think that it is conducive to his own dignity that he should have the Chief Patronage Secretary going round the country as the chief barker for himself? Does he not think this shows a suspicion that there are no volunteers for the job?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir, not at all. I think that the observations which the Chief Whip made have been made by many others.
    Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Scottish Unionists will welcome this additional publicity for a forthright and sensible speech which was greatly enjoyed by those who were privileged to hear it?

    DOCTORS' AND DENTISTS' REMUNERATION
    Mr. Pavittasked the Prime Minister on what date he received the report from the Review Body on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration; and when this report will be published.
    The Prime Minister: I received the Review Body's advice on 27th February. It is being considered and I hope to make a statement shortly.
    Mr. Pavitt: Will the Prime Minister expedite the statement which he is to make? Is he aware that there is widespread opinion in the medical profession that there has been undue delay? Is he aware that the last time there was undue delay the final settlement amounted to a 29 per cent. increase? Will it not be embarrassing for the Government if they have to have a similar sized increase while at the same time they are refusing the teachers' claim?
    The Prime Minister: I do not think that one week is an unreasonable period for the Government to consider a report of this kind.

    WALES (AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE)
    Mr. Morrisasked the Prime Minister whether he will co-ordinate the activities of the Ministries of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and Education, in regard to the future of a Welsh agricultural college; and what steps are being taken to reach an early decision.
    The Prime Minister: I consider that no special action on my part is called for, as the Departments concerned are already in the closest consultation on this matter.
    Mr. Morris: Is the Prime Minister aware that this unborn college is having a unique and unnatural period of gestation? Is he aware that the Minister of Agriculture has been stalling on an announcement on this issue, consulting everyone he can on the need for the college? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that we were promised a statement before Christmas, that no statement was made and that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture has now stated that we have to wait a further few weeks? Will the right hon. Gentleman impress on both his colleagues the need for an early announcement on this important issue?
    The Prime Minister: I am quite ready to take that limited kind of responsibility on my shoulders.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Does it not call for the Prime Minister's special consideration that a promise was made that a decision would be announced well before
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    Christmas? Will he consult the other Ministers and speed up the decision?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I have said that it was to be made within a few weeks and I hoped that would settle the matter.

    SCOTTISH LAW OFFICERS (STANDING COMMITTEES)
    Sir J. Duncanasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the difficulties that may arise from the absence of the Scottish Law Officers from the Scottish Standing Committee when it is considering the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, he will as an experiment move to amend Standing Orders so that a Law Officer may appear and speak at the Bar of the Committee and give such legal advice to the Committee as is required.
    The Prime Minister: If any such experiment were to be made I think that it ought first to be discussed through the usual channels.
    Sir J. Duncan: If my right hon. Friend does not accept the suggestion, may I ask whether he will try to think up some better one and consult through the usual channels? In my view, and that of a great many other people, this is a continuing problem and not a party problem.
    The Prime Minister: I feel that that is so, and I think that it would be very suitable if there were some discussions on the matter.
    Mr. G. Brown: Let them stand for Parliament.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: As an alternative, will the Prime Minister adopt the suggestion which I made on Second Reading of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill and submit the Bill to an expert committee of Scottish lawyers who know the difference between English and Scottish law, and so make the Bill much more useful to Scotland?
    The Prime Minister: This is a problem and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) for raising it, and it might be discussed. If it were not for the unlucky fact of the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector

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    Hughes) not being a member of the Scottish Bar I could advise him to cross the Floor of the House.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Is the Prime Minister aware that if he wants to discuss this proposal through the usual channels it will get pretty short shrift as far as we are concerned? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly, because the Government have it within their own power to bring Scottish lawyers into the House, unless they are afraid of the consequences of any by-election which might have to be held.
    The Prime Minister: On reflection the right hon. Gentleman will see that he has taken rather a narrow view of a problem which arose during the time of a Labour Government in my lifetime and was solved by making Mr. Hugh MacMillan Lord Advocate, but am in the House of Commons. This is a problem which may recur, but I did not think that it was something about which I should do more than recognise its existence at Question Time.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Will the Prime Minister say whether it is a fact that the present Lord Advocate accepted his employment on condition that he would not be coerced by the Tory Party into taking a seat in Parliament?
    The Prime Minister: No. Sir.
    Mr. C. Pannell: Does the Prime Minister appreciate the very weak moral position which the Government would he in about bringing Scottish Law Officers to the Bar of the Committee unelected when in fact it was the cohorts on the other side of the House who refused permission to Mr. Wedgwood Benn to proceed to the Bar of the House when he was properly elected?
    The Prime Minister: That brings up a question which may or may not be put right and dealt with in the course of this Session but which would not solve the problem of the Lord Advocate for Scotland.
    Sir T. Moore: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that we are a little disturbed by the present situation in which there is no legal mind in the Scottish Grand Committee to advise Ministers who are dealing with very intricate and difficult Bills? Would my right hon. Friend consider the suggestion that
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    one of the present Law Officers in Scotland might sit on the bench above in the Committee and be there available and ready to answer any question that might be suggested to him?
    The Prime Minister: No doubt the Ministers are excellently briefed, but this is clearly a question which, if it was decided, could be decided only in a particular way by the general good will of the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. H. Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 11TH MARCH—Supply [9th Allotted Day]: Navy Estimates, 1963–64, will be considered in Committee on Vote A.
TUESDAY, 12TH MARCH—Second Reading of the Town and Country Planning Bill, and Committee stage of the Money Resolution, which it is hoped to obtain by seven o'clock, when the Chairman of Ways and Means has set down opposed Private Business.
Motion on the Prison Commissioners Dissolution Order.
WEDNESDAY, 13TH MARCH—Remaining stages of the Weights and Measures Bill.
THURSDAY, 14TH MARCH—Supply [10th Allotted Day]: Army Estimates, 196364, will be considered in Committee on Vote A.
FRIDAY, 15TH MARCH—Private Members' Motions.
MONDAY, 18TH MARCH—The proposed business will be: Supply [11th Allotted Day]: Committee.
Service Money Votes.
Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he is highly optimistic if he thinks that we can conclude all the remaining stages of the Weights and Measures Bill on Wednesday? Will he recognise that we are giving no commitment or understanding that, in the course of that day, all the remaining stages will be completed?
Mr. Macleod: I take note of that and, of course, at the appropriate stage those who are handling business on the two sides of the House will no doubt consult and see how we can get on.
Sir G. Nicholson: Will my right hon. Friend be a little clearer about the Prison Commissioners Dissolution Order? How long does he think will be set aside for the debate on it on Tuesday? Is he aware that there is some feeling of need for elucidation of the reasons for the Order?
Mr. Macleod: I understand that point. As my hon. Friend will realise, it is not possible to be precise as to how long, for example, opposed Private Business will take. But I think it reasonable to put the business for that day in the order I have announced, and I hope that we will be able to embark on discussion of the Order at a reasonable hour. I realise, of course, that I have given undertakings on this matter to the House.
Mr. Grimond: The right hon. Gentleman has told the House the Government do not intend to take action on the reform of the House of Lords before the House has had a chance to debate the Report of the Select Committee. As this has not been included in the business for next week, can he give us an assurance that there will be opportunity for debate before Easter?
Mr. Macleod: Yes, Sir. I am almost certain that there will be a debate before Easter. I hope to get it in before the end of this month.
Sir A. Hurd: Does my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food hope to be able to make a statement soon on the outcome of the Farm Price Review?
Mr. Macleod: Yes, Sir. I understand that he will be making a statement on Wednesday of next week.
Mr. W. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman yet able to say when the Secretary of State for Scotland or the Prime Minister will make a statement on the urgent measures needed to reinvigorate the Scottish economy? Is he aware that he, probably unwittingly, misinformed the House on this point last week when he said that discussions had
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been taking place between the Secretary of State and my right hon. and hon. Friends on this matter?
Mr. Macleod: I think that last week, when the hon. Gentleman put a similar point, I did misunderstand. I apologise. There are, of course, the usual opportunities on Supply days, on the Floor of the House and upstairs at a later stage in the Session. I have not anything to add to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said on Tuesday in answer to Questions.
Sir W. Robson Brown: May I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the Motion, standing in my name and the names of some of my right hon. and hon. Friends, calling for a new Select Committee, with wide terms of reference, to consider the procedures of this House and other related matters? Will he give an early date for debate on this matter?
[That this House, believing that reforms in Parliamentary procedure are urgently required, urges Her Majesty's Government to appoint a new Select Committee on Procedure with wide terms of reference, and that in particular consideration should be given to which detailed business should be removed from the Floor of the House to standing committees and to the appointment of all-party committees to consider matters of economic, industrial, technical and scientific importance.]
Mr. Macleod: These are very important matters indeed, and, of course, are worthy of the fullest consideration. I am very anxious to find a solution to them, although, as my hon. Friend will understand, I am not attached to any particular solution at the moment. As I have previously said to the House, one matter that is now under urgent consideration is the question whether we might be able to introduce a little flexibility into our programme by taking at least part of the Finance Bill in Committee upstairs.
Mr. Swingler: Will the right hon. Gentleman make a statement on the ever-increasing practice of calling Standing and Select Committees to meet at four o'clock in the afternoon? Is he aware that this is extraordinarily unfair on quite a large number of hon. Members

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and that he will not have any hon. Members available to attend business announcements very soon if the Government go on calling more and more Committees for this time of day?
Mr. Macleod: If the hon. Gentleman has a particular point he would like to put to me, perhaps he would do so. We always try to adjust the time of the Committees upstairs, if possible, so that there will be no clash. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is thinking of Tuesday's business. This procedure has been followed with the London Government Bill.
Mr. John Hall: The Motion calling for a new Select Committee to examine our procedure goes a little beyond the question of taking the Finance Bill upstairs.
Mr. Macleod: Naturally, I recognise that it goes far beyond that particular subject, which I only mention as an example. Many much wider matters are raised, but I would rather not make at this time a statement on individual Motions, particularly on one that goes as wide as that.
Mr. Awbery: In view of yesterday's statement about the Rochdale Committee and of the urgency of the matter, can the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to discuss the Rochdale Report?
Mr. Macleod: Not in the immediate future. It is a matter which the House, naturally, wishes to discuss and examine. Through my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport yesterday, I gave an undertaking that an opportunity for debate would be given in due course.
Sir H. Oakshott: Can my right hon. Friend give any news of the return of the Colonial Secretary from East Africa? Will he be able to make a statement about East Africa, and Kenya in particular, next week?
Mr. Macleod: I believe that my right hon. Friend is returning on Monday or some other time early next week. I have already conveyed to him the request for a statement in the House.
Dr. Mabon: May we take it that the Government do not intend to introduce a Bill dealing with the Rochdale Committee's recommendations this Session, and that this is why the debate on the Report is being delayed? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider giving an early day for a debate on the Report?
Mr. Macleod: It would be wildly optimistic to think that legislation can be brought in this Session. But, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport said yesterday, a great deal can be done in advance of legislation. He announced the setting up of a Council, and quite apart from that there will be opportunity later this Session, although not before Easter, to debate the Report.
Mr. Eden: Will my right hon. Friend draw the Prime Minister's attention to the Motion, signed by a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, calling for a communications satellite system? Can he say whether we might soon debate a statement of Government policy on this subject out of which a debate could arise in the House?
[That this House, recognising the vital importance to our defence and trade interests of a British space communications satellite system, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to ensure that one Minister is responsible for co-ordinating research and development on such a project and urges them immediately to place the relevant study contracts with a view to establishing a system based on cooperation with the Commonwealth and in association with British industry.]
Mr. Macleod: This is certainly a matter of the greatest importance. I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has seen the Motion. But I cannot now add to what was stated in a Written Answer by the Postmaster-General about a fortnight ago.
Mr. Lipton: In view of the grave issues affecting the freedom of the Press which follow from the imprisonment today of two journalists, will the House have an early opportunity of discussing that problem? Or shall we have to wait until we get the report of the Vassall Tribunal before having an opportunity to deal with the matter?
Mr. Macleod: These certainly are grave issues. Anything which affects any issue of conscience naturally is. When the Report, or as much of it as security conditions allow—and, of course, I have no knowledge of this at all—is laid before the House, hon. Members will wish to debate it and we will try to find time for a debate.
Sir T. Moore: I must again refer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) about the abolition of the Prison Commission. A great number of hon. Members feel very strongly on this matter and would like fully to express our views to the Government. To take the risk of introducing this Order at possibly a late hour would really not be treating the House with the courtesy which we invariably get from my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Macleod: I can assure the House that I will not introduce the Order at a very late hour. That is the object of the undertakings I have given. One must make forward assumptions, as it were, about business and it looks to me reasonable to have put it down for Tuesday; but we must see how Tuesday's business goes.
Dr. King: In view of the growing concern of members of all political parties about the rate burden, concern about which is exemplified in the Motion standing in the names of many of his right hon. and hon. Friends, will the Leader of the House give consideration to the possibility of our discussing this important topic soon?
[That this House, conscious of the necessary changes under the rating revaluation of premises due to come into force in April, 1963, believes that the time has now arrived for the rate burden to spread more fairly amongst all citizens, for the financing of education to be transferred,
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by stages, to the national Exchequer, whilst retaining local control, and for a full inquiry into possible new methods of raising revenue for local government services.]
Mr. Macleod: I cannot take that matter any further, particularly at business time, than the Minister of Housing and Local Government did this afternoon.
Mr. P. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the House would be serving the nation very well if we found more time in which to debate major principles, such as that involved in the Motion on satellite communications, to which reference has already been made? This is not just a question of the Government taking a decision, so can my right hon. Friend undertake to find time for matters of this nature to be discussed in the House?
Mr. Macleod: If I may say so, this is one of the reasons why many people would like to see more time made available so that some such matters could be discussed. But on the general question in relation to policy decisions about satellites, I cannot add to what has been said by my right hon. Friend in the House.
Sir G. Nicholson: I am sorry to have to refer once again to the subject of the Prison Commission, but is my right hon. Friend aware that even half a day—that is, if the whole half-day were given to it—would not be thought by many hon. Members to be enough time in which to discuss this matter?
Mr. Macleod: I do not wholly accept that, but, in any case, this is, of course, exempted business. No "chopper" comes down on it, so it will depend on what time it starts as to whether this meets the convenience of the House.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [8TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

  AIR ESTIMATES, 1963–64

    VOTE A. NUMBER FOR AIR FORCE SERVICE
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    That a number of Officers, Airmen and Airwomen, not exceeding 148,000, all ranks, be maintained for Air Force Service, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.
    3.46 p.m.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Hugh Fraser): As hon. Members will have observed, the net total of Air Estimates for next year amounts to about £503 million. Allowing for the transfer to Civil Estimates of about £50 million, this is very close to the figure in the original Estimate for 1962–63.
    I think that the Committee's attention need only be drawn to two matters regarding the figures at this stage. First, the form of the Estimates is, perhaps, unfamiliar as it has been modified in line with the revision of the Civil Estimates introduced last year. This, I believe, is an improvement. Secondly, as responsibility for construction and maintenance of most R.A.F. works and buildings will rest with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works, the cost of these will in future appear on his Votes.
    Accordingly, to keep the Committee fully informed, I have asked my hon. Friend to particularise and to deal with these matters in detail later in the debate. My Department will, of course, remain responsible for formulating Royal Air Force requirements, but not, in the main, for their execution. If, of course, there are any other points hon. Members would like to raise at which this new layout can be improved for the future, I hope that they will draw my attention to them during the debate. For, given three Services, I am sure that the House will wish to use some form of parliamentary pro-
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    cedure such as we embark upon this afternoon as its instrument of scrutiny and analysis of military management and expenditure.
    On the double and, perhaps, overoptimistic assumption that hon. Members have read both my Memorandum and attended or perused the defence debate, I hope that I will be forgiven if I attempt to steer a middle course, avoiding both the tedious repetition of what has already been stated in this excellent document or indulging in some of the wider arguments or important statements made earlier in the week.
    As I see it, the purpose of this debate is to adjudge the rôles and performance of the Royal Air Force within our overall defence concept and to evaluate its future long-term equipment and requirements. It is both a progress report and a forecast over the five to seven-year cycle of events that is needed for bringing new equipment into squadron service.
    This, of course, is our annual exercise. But this year it is of perhaps especial importance: first, because of the cancellation of Skybolt; and, secondly, because of various doubts expressed about manned aircraft and the reappearance, in spite of the Government's stated belief in the three Services and decisions on two new major aircraft for the R.A.F., of those military, if mainly literary, recidivists who would decentralise and dissipate air power as was proposed in the 1920s and 1930s.
    We try to look ahead for five years. Who, five years ago, would have prophesied that, within one twelvemonth, Russian units would have appeared in Cuba, Chinese troops would have invaded India, it would have been announced that Marshal Malinowsky proposed shortly to inspect Russian installations in Indonesia and that the Russians could launch a missile firing satellite? Who would be bold enough to define what, five years from now, will be the limit of the spread of atomic weapons, or the repercussions of a crisis in Chinese-Soviet relations, or the full and total military implications of space?
    It is against that background that I open this debate on the Royal Air Force. Both in our alliances and in our own

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    defence, air power by its mobility, flexibility and versatility, makes a unique contribution. To use the fashionable phrase, it offers the maximum number of options, at the earliest point in time, and often at the lowest cost. These arguments, of course, apply to all air forces. For us, with our worldwide commitments and limited finances, the manned aircraft has, through its multiplicity of function, an overwhelming advantage.
    This afternoon I would like to discuss the Royal Air Force's capacities under three heads: in the defence of this country, of our alliances; and in its world rôle. Those are somewhat arbitrary divisions of an air power which is and must be essentially unitary. V-bombers from this country can be deployed to Aden in under 12 hours, a fighter squadron from this country can be deployed to Germany within three hours, but I hope that these divisions will serve.
    Within the overall N.A.T.O. concept, and in so far as our defence can be isolated from that of N.A.T.O., the defence of this country falls primarily on three Royal Air Force Commands—Bomber, Fighter and, of course, Coastal. I should like to say a word about each of these.
    The issue of the strategic nuclear deterrent has recently been debated—a few days ago and earlier in the year—and I do not wish to go over the same ground again this afternoon. I would, however, briefly remind the Committee of certain aspects of our policy so far as it concerns Bomber Command. The Command will continue to provide our strategic nuclear striking force for some years until Polaris submarines come into service with the Royal Navy.
    To maintain the effectiveness of this force, we are continuing to re-equip the front line with Mk. 2 Vulcans and Mk. 2 Victors. These have a substantially improved performance over the earlier marks. The Blue Steel stand-off weapon is now in service and squadrons will be progressively re-equipped. Tests with this weapon on the ranges in Australia have shown very satisfactory results. Thus up to about the mid-'sixties the programme is as planned.
    The decision to cancel Skybolt will, however, inevitably mean that towards
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    the end of the period and until the Polaris fleet is in being, the powers of penetration of the bomber force will gradually diminish as the strength of Soviet defences grows. To increase its effectiveness at this stage we shall introduce improved navigational equipment and more powerful and much more varied electronic countermeasures.
    Moreover, we are developing for the V-bombers a nuclear device originally conceived for use with the TSR2. These measures will give the force a wide choice of offensive tactics. Additionally, in the latter part of the period, the TSR2 itself will come into service. The high performance of this aircraft, particularly at very:low level, will present a very difficult problem to any defences. With its large radius of action, the TSR2 will be available to supplement our strategic nuclear striking power both before and, if necessary, after the introduction of Polaris.
    I know that some hon. Members opposite have implied that the strategic capability of the TSR2 has, so to speak, suddenly been invented. This will not do. Hon. Members opposite have not been doing their homework on this matter. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson) referred to this strategic capacity in answer to a Question as early as November, 1960, so that hon. Members can see that this has not been recently invented. In its very early conception, this aircraft had built in a strategic capability.
    Mr. Frederick Malley: May we get this clear? If it was designed as a strategic aircraft, why, when first put to the House in the 1959 White Paper, was it described as an Army support weapon? It could not have been a very good Army support weapon if it was a strategic strike bomber.
    Mr. Denis Healey: And last year.
    Mr. Fraser: It is a very complex and advanced weapon with considerable versatility which includes both strategic and tactical capability.
    Mr. R. T. Paget: Now that it has ceased to be an Army support weapon and has become a strategic weapon, is it also to be assigned to N.A.T.O.?
    Mr. Fraser: If the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) will bear with me, he will see that this aircraft has several rôles, one of which is strategic and another of which is tactical. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell that to the 1922 Committee."] Hon. Members opposite will find that to restore some sort of order in their own party is even more complex than it is in the 1922 Committee.
    I turn now to Fighter Command. At home, the main threat has steadily swung over from manned aircraft to missiles. The station at Fylingdales, which will complete the chain of stations in the ballistic missile early warning system, will come into operation this year. But oven in the missile era we shall need fighters to prevent reconnaissance, to identify and intercept intruding aircraft, and to deter and prevent the jamming of our radar system. For these tasks Fighter Command will be equipped with progressive developments of the Lightning, including the introduction of the collision course weapon Red Top.
    Matching these developments in aircraft performance, new radars are being brought into operation with more powerful equipment for detecting and tracking aircraft, especially in conditions of extreme jamming. These air defence radars have been so planned as to fit into an overall system for providing radar cover over this country for the control of both military and civil air traffic.
    Because of the change in the threat and to make the best use of our fighter capacity we have decided to reorganise Fighter Command. All routine administrative matters will in future be handled by the Command headquarters, while three new sectors will be set up to handle day-to-day training and the actual conduct of operations under the general control of Command headquarters. These three sectors will cover Scotland, the North and the East of England. I only regret that this change will mean abolishing the famous groups which fought the Battle of Britain.
    Coastal Command, of course, works in very close co-operation with the Royal Navy and with the naval forces of our N.A.T.O. allies. For maritime operations we rely on the Shackleton. The performance of the aircraft itself and its complex
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    equipment for the detection and destruction of submarines are being steadily improved. Although in these days of high-speed jet aircraft the Shackleton may give the appearance of being somewhat elderly, it has shown itself to be admirably fitted for the task and has performed with conspicuous success in exercises with N.A.T.O. and S.E.A.T.O.
    Of all the N.A.T.O. contingents, our Maritime Patrol Force is second in size only to that of the Americans and in quality second to none. In the past year our Shackletons have taken part in as many as 17 N.A.T.O. or national exercises and operations.
    A great deal of thought has been given to the aircraft to succeed the Shackleton. The characteristics of the aircraft can be fairly easily defined. What is less easy is to anticipate the nature of the equipment which it will have to carry. Research into improved methods of detecting and destroying submarines is extensive and continuous both in this country and with our allies. It is one of those fields, like that of electronic counter-measures, in which a silent and secret battle is constantly waged between the scientists investigating offensive and defensive techniques.
    In addition to its military rôle, I would like here to pay tribute, and I am sure that I do so on behalf of the whole Committee, to the rescue activities of the Command which, with forces of other commands, have achieved magnificent results in recent weeks in conditions of difficulty and, often, of peril.
    I would now turn to the R.A.F.'s contribution to the various alliances to which this country is party, to N.A.T.O., to CENTO and to S.E.A.T.O., and to the protection it affords where the special interests of this country or of our friends are menaced, as they have been recently, in Kuwait in 1961 and in Brunei last December. The Royal Air Force contribution to N.A.T.O. is substantial and includes the Valiant bombers based in this country with an all-weather strike capability; the strike, reconnaissance and air defence squadrons which form part of the 2nd Allied Tactical Air Force in Germany; the whole of Fighter and Coastal Commands, as well as reconnaissance elements based in this country

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    and in Malta. This is a formidable contribution.
    Moreover, we have, of course, announced that we are prepared, on appropriate terms, to assign the whole of the V-bomber force to N.A.T.O. in accordance with the intentions expressed in paragraph 6 of the Nassau Agreement.
    For CENTO we provide the Canberra force based in Cyprus, which can use both nuclear and conventional weapons, and will shortly be rearmed with AS30. In addition, we have a Maritime Reconnaissance element in the Middle East. In S.E.A.T.O. there is no formal assignment of forces in peacetime, but close co-operation with the other S.E.A.T.O. forces is practised. I wish particularly to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the close links established with our allies in South-East Asia were demonstrated by the detachment of a Hunter squadron to Thailand last summer.
    Membership of these alliances is not merely a matter of joint planning, or of formal designation or assignment of forces. Behind our garrison forces, there is the capacity for swift central reinforcement by commands at home.
    The importance of the strategic nuclear deterrent is such that it sometimes tends to obscure the other functions of Bomber Command.
    Before leaving the subject, I should just like to remind hon. Members that the V-bombers are capable of delivering with great accuracy, and in all weather conditions, a very substantial weight of high explosive, between 10 and 20 tons per aircraft. Bomber Command also has a small but highly efficient strategic reconnaissance element capable of providing both conventional photographic and radar cover of vast areas in a very short space of time. Finally, the Command provides a tanker force for air-to-air refuelling, which already plays a vital part in our mobility plans for the Royal Air Force.
    Outside Europe there will be a continuing need for fighters in the conventional interceptor rôle and this will remain for many years; especially when one considers the growing potential of aircraft in areas in which we may be, or could be, in conflict. It is part of Fighter Command's task to reinforce the air
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    defences in overseas theatres as required, and as hon. Members will know, we carry out frequent practices using flight refuelling techniques. For the protection of our main bases overseas we also plan to introduce the Bloodhound 2. This will be coming into service early next year and it will then, as it is used for training here, also be available for reinforcements overseas as the need arises.
    There are two further matters of especial importance to our worldwide rôle. I refer to our transport forces and the new techniques of short take-off and vertical take-off and landing. I believe that the development of both is essential to our flexibility and especially so in overseas theatres. There is little point in providing transport aircraft if one does not also provide the combat aircraft to protect them and the troops they carry in transit or on arrival. For the support of troops the possibilities of dispersal through vertical take-off techniques have not yet been fully evaluated. But I am certain that they show immense promise. Our movement capacity has been greatly increased in recent years and this trend will continue. We are building up a transport force of very high quality and details are given at some length in the memorandum which hon. Members have before them.
    Summing up, we have placed in service the following new aircraft in the last 24 months: 5 Comet 4s, 30 Argosies, 20 Whirlwinds and 15 Belvederes. As the Committee now knows, a decision has been taken to replace the Hastings and Beverley with an aircraft based on the AW681 and this will have a vertical take-off potential. I recognise that the development of a specialist aircraft of this size for military use is bound to be expensive when there is little likelihood of its civil application. But it must be remembered that without a tactical transport of this sort to move the ground forces and their equipment into the immediate theatre of operation it would be necessary to set up a land line of communication which would be far less flexible and infinitely more costly. It is in terms of flexibility and versatility that I turn to the Canberra and Hunter replacement.
    Mr. F. J. Bellenger: Is the right hon. Gentleman proposing to say anything more as to the capabilities of

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    Transport Command regarding Army installations and troops, or is he proposing to leave that to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War to refer to when he presents his Estimates?
    Mr. E. Shinwell: This matter of the Transport Command is of considerable importance. Recently, it was announced—I think by the Secretary of State for War—that we were to abandon sea trooping arrangements. Is it possible to ascertain—I do not know whether it can be done now—whether any saving has been effected as a result of abandoning sea trooping arrangements and relying on air trooping arrangements? The Minister used the term "less costly". I do not know in what connection. If it is in this connection, is it possible to provide statistics?
    Mr. Fraser: I am sorry. I used the term in the operational sense, lines of communications in an operation. Without a vertical take-off transport aircraft which could get to the advanced theatre of operations, we should have to construct land lines of communication which would be more costly from the point of view of numbers and so forth.
    The question which was asked by the right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) was reflected also in the question of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). Questions regarding the actual numbers to be moved could probably best be dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War. I can say that in the design of these aircraft our two staffs keep very much together and this design of OR351 is a joint Army-Air Force design to meet that requirement. Nearly all the heavier material which my right hon. Friend would want to move could be moved by this new aircraft.
    Mr. Shinwell: Is it less costly?
    Mr. Fraser: I think that questions about the actual trooping should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, as the largest number of troops are from the Army. There is a clear policy laid down that the use of Transport Command is primarily for operations or military exercises. Transport Command does do a certain amount of movement of individuals, and fills in the gaps. But
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    mostly, trooping is carried on either by contract by the charter companies or by the national Corporations.
    Mr. John Rankin: Since when?
    Mr. Fraser: By the charter companies.
    In considering the successors to the Canberra and the Hunter aircraft, both of which are doing, and have done excellent service, we have had in mind the need for high performance and hitting power and, more particularly, the ability to operate without elaborate airfield facilities. Since the last war the growth in aircraft performance has called for ever longer runways and more elaborate airfields which tends to restrict and endanger the deployment of tactical forces. We are determined to break away, and to break out of the rigidity imposed by the need for 2,000 or 3,000 yards of concrete.
    I referred earlier to the strategic capability of the TSR2 and hon. Members who follow these matters will be familiar with the general characteristics of this aircraft. The characteristics to which I wish to draw the attention of the Committee especially are its long range and its ability, despite its size, to operate from grass or semi-prepared surfaces. These two factors will give it remarkable flexibility, particularly in tactical operations in support of the Army.
    I am sorry that the hon Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is not present. The other day he suggested that the TSR2 would not fly. I believe that it will be flying within the next 12 months. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not present for other reasons. But, as a close student both of racing and of defence matters, he is perhaps—as I see racing is shortly beginning again—paying more more attention to Ruff's Guide to the Turf this week than to Aviation Week.
    The same thinking has inspired our decision as to the Hunter replacement. For ground attack and close support of ground forces, the advantages in the ability to take off and land in really short distances or, if necessary, vertically will be revolutionary. The Hunter replacement will be based on the Hawker P1154, concept. Hon. Members may have seen the remarkable demonstrations of the Hawker P1127. I think that everyone who has seen it must have been impressed by its extraordinary versatility. The

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    Committee will recall that, with the Americans and the Germans, we are building a small batch of P1127 aircraft for evaluation purposes, but for operational purposes an aircraft of greater performance than P1127 will be necessary.
    When, even today, so many countries dispose aircraft in the MiG 21 class, it is plainly essential for the Hunter replacement to have a good supersonic performance so that it can carry out its tasks in the battle area and be capable of some air defence capacity. We have, therefore, decided that the Hunter replacement should be based on the P1154, which will have the manœuvreability demonstrated by the P1127 but with the much higher performance.
    These two aircraft—the TSR2 and the Hunter replacement—will enable us to maintain a contribution to the N.A.T.O. tactical air forces of a quality second to none and will form the backbone of our worldwide tactical striking power for the support of ground forces in limited war.
    Mr J. Cronin: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the question of the TSR2, can he tell us, even in the vaguest way, something about the range? He now says it is a strategic aircraft which, presumably, means it can reach the capital cities of any possible hostile countries.
    Mr. Fraser: I am not going to reveal the real range of this aircraft, but it has a strategic capacity, which, of course, implies a considerable range. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and some of his Friends will come to Weybridge and see some of the demonstrations when it is flying.
    Mr. E. Lubbock: Without revealing the range of the aircraft could the right hon. Gentleman give us a definition of "strategic range"?
    Mr. Fraser: I am sure that if the hon. Member has a map he can work out the ranges involved in our ability to deploy a strategic force against a possible Russian threat.
    Mr. John Eden: Might not we be permitted to consider what it has to do with the Opposition, who themselves wish to get rid of the deterrent altogether? In those circumstances, the question of range seems to be utterly academic.
    Mr. Fraser: The efforts of hon. Gentlemen opposite are directed towards keeping their party together by trying to denigrate every effort that this party is making.
    I would now like to say a word about manpower. The last National Service man has now left the Royal Air Force. We now have an all-Regular force and, as hon. Members will see from the table at Appendix HI to my Memorandum, we have a very high proportion of airmen serving on engagements of nine years or more.
    With the ending of National Service we are also planning a major change in the career structure for airmen and airwomen in the ground trades. The present arrangements have been in force since 1951. Under these arrangements ground tradesmen are divided into two categories—skilled and advanced. Skilled airmen are promoted to N.C.O. rank by selection. In the more advanced trades, however, many have the choice of promotion to N.C.O. in the ordinary way, or of progressing up the technician ladder on which promotion depends on time and the passing of trade tests.
    This structure was well suited to a mixed force of Regulars and National Service men, but it is less satisfactory for an all-Regular force with increasingly complex equipment. Management and skill have tended to become divided and it is no longer satisfactory to separate the supervisory function of the traditional N.C.O. from the producer function of the technician ranks.
    From 1st April, 1964, we are introducing a new and simpler structure under which there will be only one kind of career in each trade and advancement will depend on a combination of skill and supervisory ability. This will be better suited to today's needs and will lead to a more efficient use of skilled manpower. These new arrangements will be announced to the Service and my hon. Friend may say more about this when he winds up the debate. I have arranged for a copy of the explanatory pamphlet which is being issued to every airman to be placed in the Library. I should, however, emphasise that no airman will find his pay reduced when the new structure is introduced.
    The young man considering a career in the Royal Air Force now knows

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    something of the tasks of that Service and the way in which they are being met. He will, however, wish to be reassured about the future of the Service, particulady if he is considering a flying career. At present, our aircrew recruiting is going well, but from some of the things he reads and hears today he may have gained the impression that following the cancellation of Skybolt the R.A.F. will become little more than an air transport force with functions ancillary to those of the other Services. Nothing, as I have tried to show this afternoon, could be further from the truth.
    To such a young man I would say three things. First, the job that the Royal Air Force has to offer is abundantly worth while. It is no less than the prevention of the outbreak of war by the maintenance with our allies of effective air power, or, if limited war should cone, to arrest its spread by rapid reaction.
    Secondly, I hope that I have shown this afternoon that the main rôles of the Royal Air Force remain no less important in the future than they have been in the past. They are, I repeat, strike, both strategic and tactical, nuclear and conventional; air defence; reconnaissance; close support; maritime operations and air transport.
    Finally, the great virtue of air power is that it offers speed and flexibility to a degree unparalleled in the other elements. In its short fifty years of life the science of military aviation has developed far more rapidly than any other branch of warfare in any comparable period. I believe that it will go on developing at a pace dictated by the continuous improvement in technical performance. The implications of vertical and short take off and landing which I have discussed earlier this afternoon are but one illustration of this. No swifter way could be found, I believe, of squandering resources than to dissipate the control of air power in penny packets as an adjunct to other military functions. The history of military aviation has confirmed one abiding principle, that if we are to exploit these characteristics of speed and flexibility the control of air power must be exercised by a unitary, specialist and professional air arm.
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    I am confident that this country will continue to need the services which only a unified air arm can provide. I am confident, too, that the Royal Air Force alone can fulfil this need, and will fulfil it in the future with that high standard of efficiency which is its proud tradition.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order. I should like to ask, Sir William, what your intention is about calling the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster)? At what stage is it to be called if it is in order?
    The Chairman: The Amendment is perfectly in order. Whether it is called will depend on the course of the debate and whether the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) wishes to move it.
    4.20 p.m.
    Mr. Frederick Mulley: I am sure that it will be the wish of the whole Committee that I should congratulate the Secretary of State for Air on his first presentation of the Air Estimates. I am wondering whether he will present any more, not because I think that there will be a change of Government between now and this time next year, but because I wonder whether there will be any Air Estimates. I do not think that there will be a change of Government because it seems to me that the Government are showing the same speed and enthusiasm about going to the electorate as a schoolboy, detected of crime, shows in going along the corridor to his headmaster's study. I suspect that when the meeting takes place the answer of the electorate will be similar to that which the headmaster usually gives.
    As I say, I do not anticipate any enthusiasm for an election, but I wonder whether it is proposed in the reorganisation to do away with Service Estimates debates. I very much hope that that will not happen. They are very important, not only because of the opportunities and privileges which they afford hon. Members, but because the Service itself should feel that it commands the attention of this House at least once a year. Although the Secretary of State may lose the title of Secretary of State in the reorganisation, I hope that the identity of the Service will be preserved

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    and that there will be a senior Minister in the Ministry of Defence responsible for the Service who will be answerable to this House and also able to meet hon. Members. I hope that our very proud tradition of the right of Service men to go to his Member of Parliament will continue and that we continue to meet the Minister, take deputations to him and correspond with him on the Service man's behalf. I very much hope that these characteristics will be retained in the reorganisation.
    I should like to welcome the presence of the Minister of Defence. We say very hard things about him, and probably will continue to do so, but it is worth noting that he has shown great courtesy to the House, both in the defence debates and by his presence today, which is in marked contrast to the behaviour of his predecessor. I hope that he will be able to spend a good deal of time listening to the debate so that he becomes more intimately aware of the views of hon. Members on the Service problems which we try to develop in these debates.
    I wish to pay my tribute to the efficiency and record of the Royal Air Force. We yield to no one in our admiration of the Service, and I hope that it will not be argued, as sometimes it is, that when one takes a political view different from that of the Government one is trying to get at the Service.
    Like many hon. Members, I have had the opportunity—and we greatly appreciate this—of going on visits arranged by the Secretary of State to Royal Air Force units at home and abroad. I think that on these visits we have all been much impressed with the standard of efficiency which we have seen. We should like, through the Secretary of State, to thank the units concerned for the very great trouble which they take to give us the maximum information and to thank them for the hospitality which they invariably show.
    I am sure that it is the wish of the Committee that we should pay, as we sincerely do annually, a tribute to the Royal Air Force for the errands of mercy at home and abroad which they carry out, often at great danger and peril to themselves, throughout the year. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will convey that to the units concerned on our behalf.
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    I agree with what the Secretary of State said about the purpose of Estimates debates. These are not occasions for a reiteration of the great strategic arguments, but I cannot agree with him that the only function of these debates is to assess the rôle and efficiency of the Royal Air Force. We must do more than that. We must look at what the Government are doing, or are failing to do, for the Royal Air Force, and assess to what extent the Government are doing what the Royal Air Force can reasonably expect them to do. The issue broadly turns on the question of manpower and on the other big question with which the right hon. Gentleman dealt at some length, namely, aircraft and equipment.
    First, on manpower, I assume that the increase in pay which the Royal Air Force and the other Services should have had a year ago will be paid from 1st April this year and that there will be no more nonsense about letting down the Services on the pay commitment. I am glad to have the right hon. Gentleman's confirmation of that.
    I notice that the number given as the strength of the Royal Air Force—and the regular adult males are the ones who really count in this calculation—is 129,200 as against the 132,600 which it was estimated this time last year as the figure we should reach. Does this mean that the Secretary of State has failed to recruit the number which he expected to recruit during the year, or is this a calculated Government decision to cut down the size of the Service? It seems that the Government have not made up in Regulars what has been lost by the 5,000 National Service men. Since the National Service men have left the Royal Air Force, I am sure that it would be the wish of the Committee to pay tribute to the tremendous work that they have done over the years, especially in the technical branches.
    Perhaps the Under-Secretary will enlighten us about what is meant by the vague phrase in the Memorandum "Progressive reduction of forces". It is time that the Government were much more candid with the Committee about the problems of particular trades and shortages in the Service. We all appreciate that one cannot look at the total figure of any force, whether it be Army,

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    Air Force or Navy, and think that, because one has reached the target figure, one has a balanced force.
    I was very disturbed last year to read in the Memorandum that more officers were needed for the technical branches, more doctors and dentists were needed for the ground branches and that shortages in the clerical and domestic trades were greater than expected. The Secretary of State's speech does not remove our anxieties on these matters.
    What is meant by paragraphs 84 to 89 of the Memorandum? Here we have such phrases as:
    "Recruitment of pilots and air electronic officers was slightly below the desired rate".
    Later, we read:
    "… there is a continuing need for more professionally qualified engineers".
    We are then told:
    "… it is not easy to recruit scientists and technologists."
    Under the heading "Airmen" it is stated:
    "There is a temporary deficiency in certain trades, notably the Wireless and Teleprinter Operators, Nursing Attendants, Police and some unskilled assistant trades."
    We then come to what seems to me to be the high mark of complacency:
    "These shortages do not seriously impair operational efficiency".
    What does "seriously impair" mean? Obviously, it does not mean that no planes can fly, but surely we should have had some explanation about these vague phrases from the Secretary of State. I am sure that they must cause concern to those who are desirous, as I know he is, that the Royal Air Force should be at maximum efficiency.
    Mr. H. Fraser: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will deal wish these points when he winds up the debate. I am not disturbed about this at the moment. Certain special categories should be dealt with, but overall we are not here talking about high deficiency rates—99 per cent. or anything of that kind—in trades.
    Mr. Mulley: We shall listen to what the Under-Secretary of State has to say, but for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he is not disturbed about this is not a sufficient answer. Many things have happened in this country which have not
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    disturbed the Government Front Bench, but they have caused great concern to all manner of people in the community.
    I am sure that the Royal Air Force will be concerned about this. As the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, so much depends on the technical trades, on electronic engineers and on the servicing of planes. The more sophisticated the planes become, the more we depend on these skills. One wonders whether, behind our pilots and flying crews, not only here but in other parts of the world, there is the necessary skill not only to meet the day-to-day working and training programmes but to give them the necessary back-up if, heaven forbid, we should have to use them in action.
    I wonder, too, whether the Under-Secretary will tell us from which R.A.F. trades at the moment it is impossible or forbidden for a man to buy himself out. I wonder whether he will tell us, also, how many airmen were involved in the long queue of people trying to become Parliamentary candidates as a means of getting out of the Service. Normally, we have understood this to be an Army problem, but I am wondering whether that is so, and whether there are not many airmen who may be seeking Parliamentary honours in this way. Perhaps, the hon. Gentleman will give us the figures.
    Now I should like to look at the aircraft and equipment provision for the R.A.F. This, of course, is not only a matter for the Air Force, but is of great interest and vital concern to the many workers in the aircraft industry and also to communities in which those aircraft works are situated. Obviously, no one would suggest that we should buy aircraft for the R.A.F. simply to meet an unemployment situation in a particular area, but I think that the industry is entitled to ask that there should be some planning, a forward look, in the arrangements for transport aircraft and other military aircraft that would permit the industry to arrange its affairs rather better than has been the case in the last years.
    I would suggest that the idea of forming a Ministry of Aviation has been a lamentable failure. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Defence, when he was doing rather well at the Treasury, resigned. The failure he was at the Ministry of Aviation, however, seems to

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    be the way to success, and I hope that he will not make such a hash of defence that he will get higher up the ladder.
    We really must look much more carefully than we have in the past at the relationship between civil and military aircraft and the problems of the industry, because year after year we get a list of planes about which people are thinking but there seems to be no real forward planning on what we should buy; and during the last five years £1,150 million have been spent on aircraft and equipment. The Secretary of State told me last week that 35 per cent. of this sum had gone on Bomber Command, 25 per cent. on Fighter Command and 10 per cent. on Transport Command. I am wondering where the other 30 per cent. went, because on the face of it that seems a little difficult to understand.
    Mr. H. Fraser: Although I seem to have lost the paper on which I had written figures, roughly there were commands like Overseas Command, commands in the Far East and the Middle East, and so forth. I will show how this other percentage falls out. The figures are quite clear. If the hon. Gentleman will ask another question I will give full details.
    Mr. Mulley: We must clear this up, because when a figure is given for the cost of planes presumably the allocation to Transport Command covers planes in England, Germany, or anywhere else. It is the same with Bomber Command. If that is not so, then the sooner the Minister of Defence looks into the accounting at the Air Ministry the better.
    I think that it would be valuable if the Under-Secretary could deal with that point in replying to the debate tonight. Although we have heard less of it today, I think that there is a great contrast in the Government's policy, about which they make grand speeches relating to our global responsibilities, and what they have done to provide mobility for our forces. I do not think that the Navy can fulfil the mobility rôle. I think that that is principally a rôle for Transport Command of the R.A.F.
    If one looks at the activities of the only other global Power, the real global Power—the United States of America—one sees what it has done and is doing
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    in terms of provision of transport aircraft. One of the first things that President Kennedy did when he took office was to increase the order for transport planes, particularly the C130s. I understand from evidence given to Congressional Committees recently that Mr. Macnamara is to treble the expenditure on transport planes in the next financial year and is aiming to have an Air Assault Division with 320 planes of its own assigned to it.
    The Howze Committee, in the United States, which reported last year, said that in the next five years, if it is to meet its global commitments, the United States should increase its transport force from 1,650 to 5,450 planes; and we know that 132 of the Starlifters—C141s—are coming into service in 1965. Each will be capable of taking a payload of 38 tons for 4,000 miles.
    What is the total capacity of our own Transport Command in comparison with the United States? Quite clearly, we cannot hope to get anything like it has, but surely 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of its capability ought to be within our range if we have these global responsibilities. As I understand, we have fewer than 200 planes in the whole of Transport Command, of which 40 are Twin Pioneers and Pioneers, very small planes that can go for a short range, with a few soldiers, which cannot be counted as transport planes at all.
    I have tried to work it out and I suggest that the total capability of Transport Command is either to carry 1,500 tons for 1,500 miles or to carry about 400 tons for 4,000 thousand miles. In fact, in the whole of Transport Command we have something like the capability of 10 C141s in a strategic global rôle and I wonder what the Government are doing about it. Where have their priorities gone over the years if they have let Transport Command get into this situation with all our global responsibilities in the world?—because it may not always be possible to fly men into the equipment which is handily and tidily stowed ready to pick up. One may need to move people to a situation in which the equipment is not there and we have no strategic freighter capability at all.
    We have, in an emergency, the provision in the 1949 Act whereby civil aircraft can be taken over, but there is not

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    that much civil freighter aircraft available. In many cases, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the floors of the civil planes would need to be strengthened if they were to be used to carry heavy equipment. Even now, when we get down to increasing the transport force with the OR351, that is a tactical and not a strategic aircraft.
    The other question, of course, is how long it is to be before the AW681s come into service. It has been suggested that that will be in 1968, but I doubt whether it will he before 1970. The Government must be candid with the Committee and tell us what their difficulties are on this. Is it the case that they have not yet any idea of what engine is to be put into the plane? We have talked about V.T.O.L., but do the Government know what V.T.O.L. they are to have?
    Is it to be in all the planes? Is it not a fact that the V.T.O.L. system the Government put their money on—the Hawker system for the P1127—will be of no use whatever for a transport plane? Is not that the case? Is it not the case that the Rolls-Royce composite power system has had to be cut because the firm had no support from the Government? It has gone into the Balzac, the French Mirage prototype.
    Is it not likely that, as a result of the procrastination of the Government, although we have led the world in V.T.O.L., when the first operational planes come along with V.T.O.L. they will not be British planes and there will not be a British part in those planes? We need to know what the Government are doing and the way they are letting down the aircraft industry, because a review of the history of military and civil aircraft reveals that we have always led the field until it has come to the time when the Government came into it somehow or other. In the end, we have missed the boat and other countries have got the advantage and the orders, whether it was Boeings with the civil aircraft or in the military field.
    I believe that Rolls-Royce—a great firm—is in great doubts about its future. The Government have been two years on the OR351 project. I ask the Government to make up their mind about the engine that is going in. It would seem that the Spey engine, which has been proved in other aircraft, might be suitable.
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    I ask the Government to get on with the job of at least getting more transport planes. The Government should study the problem of what they are to do between now and 1970. We have 10 Belfasts on order. They are the only strategic freighter aircraft that the Royal Air Force will have. I know that the Royal Air Force, for reasons which have never been clearly explained, is very much against the Belfast. However, the Service must clearly think that the Belfast is of some use, otherwise 10 would not have been ordered. I know that it is an extremely ugly design, but one of the best work-horses that the Royal Air Force has ever had—the Beverley—is also a very ugly plane. I wonder whether the Government ought not to have some more Belfasts, if they can be delivered, to meet this gap between now and 1970, when, anyway, the Hastings/Beverley replacement will only be tactical aircraft.
    We have heard little lately about the Avro 748. How many of these are on order? When will they come along? How many of the AW681s are we to have? How much are they to cost? We have been told by the Minister of Aviation that they will cost £2 million each. Presumably that is for a rather big order. If, by chopping and changing, the Government come down to 10, as they have with the Belfast, how much each will the AW681s then cost? When we are asked to pass an estimate for £500 million for the Royal Air Force, we as a Committee are entitled to know the answers to these questions.
    There is the same sorry story in relation to Bomber Command. Last year, most of the speech of the then Secretary of State, who is the present Minister of Aviation, was concerned with telling us how wonderful Skybolt was to be and with chiding hon. Members on this side for doubting whether it would ever come into existence. If the right hon. Gentleman refreshes his memory, he will find that that occupied about half the then Secretary of State's speech on that occasion. We were accused of being anti-Air Force for expressing these doubts. I hope that by now the Government will at least have explained clearly to Bomber Command that it is the unilateral decision of the British Government that Sky-bolt should be cancelled.

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    We all know that there were no technical difficulties about Skybolt which were not known three years ago. In fact, I understood from quite reliable sources in the United States that Skybolt was coming to a proven stage and, consequently, if it was not stopped from their point of view very soon it would have been very difficult indeed to have stopped it going through.
    We all know that the Minister of Defence put up a wonderful show here in London by fighting for Skybolt, but when he got to Nassau he did not want Skybolt. It is quite clear—it is written in the Bahamas Agreement—that the Government did not want Skybolt even if the United States generously went on to pay half the development costs. It may well be the right decision not to have Skybolt, but at least the Government must explain to Bomber Command that it is their decision.
    Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as is his custom, wants to be fair. He must recognise, if he is fair, that even the American high officials—at least, so I was informed a few weeks ago—are now not saying that Skybolt was dropped for technical reasons. It was dropped because they thought they had other weapons—because they had so diversified. It is not the British Government's fault. Hon. Members opposite are trying to be very clever about the Skybolt issue. They never wanted it to work. They do not want anything British to work. We all know that the fact is that the British Government had no alternative. It was a political decision, taken by the Americans, not by Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Mulley: The decision to cancel Skybolt for the American Air Force was properly an American decision, but, as is stated in the Bahamas Agreement, which I ask the hon. Gentleman to read, the President of the United States made an offer to continue the Skybolt development and to pay, without commitment, half the costs. I made inquiries and found that, in fact, if it had been wished we could have moved Skybolt and developed it here, providing employment and electronic "know-how" for our own industry.
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    However, the Government decided not to have Skybolt. I do not criticise that decision, but it is a little hard when they try to use us as the scapegoats for the decision they themselves took and try to pretend that it was not their fault that Skybolt went. They would have been much better off if they had taken our advice and not gone into the Skybolt contract at all.
    I say this and make a big point of it, because it is necessary to accuse the Government of playing politics in the matter of the provision of aircraft for Bomber Command. I only hope that when the TRS2 does fly, and its capabilities are known, we shall not find that the Royal Air Force has been deceived for the convenience of Ministers in their relations with their back benchers. I cannot see how a plane which was designed and presented to the Committee five years ago as an Army support plane can, without modification—the Minister of Aviation has said that there have been no modifications of a serious character—suddenly become a strategic strike weapon. It may be—let us hope and believe that it is—a very versatile plane, but I doubt whether it has this strategic capability. I only hope that the Service is not being deceived as part of a game of politics, because the Secretary of State will have a lot to answer for if that is so.
    Mr. H. Fraser: I assure the Committee that there is no question of deceiving anyone on this.
    Mr. Mulley: The wonder bomb that is to go with the plane—has it a range of 10 miles? Is it a fancy way of describing the L.A.B.S. technique which the Air Force developed with such great skill for the Canberra? Is it just a tactical rocket, because the TSR2 is not only a tactical plane—it has a tactical armament as well? We shall see when the time comes, because according to last year's Estimates the plane was to be fitted with an AS30. We want to know why this has been dropped. It has gone to the Canberra, we are told. Is it not going to the TSR2 now? If so, why has this change of plan not been explained?
    Mr. H. Fraser: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again. The AS30 is a conventional weapon. It has no nuclear capacity.
    Mr. Mulley: It would not be a bad idea if we went in for a few conventional weapons on our planes. What about the AS33, which, I believe, has a nuclear capability and has an improved guidance system? Are the Government going to get that? We have not been told what they are doing about Bomber Command. Although we are told that the Navy and the Air Force have got to work together now on aircraft, we find that the Navy is going ahead buying Bullpup. Would this have been a suitable weapon for the Air Force? Why do they develop a separate capability?
    As to range, there was a big argument about whether the Air Force should have the Buccaneer on the ground that the TSR2 and the Buccaneer had a comparable capability. We all know, because we saw it demonstrated at Farnborough, that the Buccaneer has to be flight-refuelled; in fact, one has to send a couple up on a mission in order that one of them will have enough fuel to reach the target. Is this what is meant by the TSR2 having a strategic range? Any plane will have a strategic range if it is refuelled enough on the way, but it is not the best way of carrying out a strategic function. The right hon. Gentleman should come clean about this.
    What is the actual meaning of the assignment of Bomber Command? We have been told that it has been assigned to N.A.T.O. Is it under SACEUR's command, or is it still under the command of the Minister of Defence? Is it there under SACEUR for a tactical or a strategic rôle. What exactly is meant by this very unclear statement in the Bahamas Agreement about the assignment of Bomber Command to N.A.T.O.?
    There is the same story in regard to fighters, a story of planes that may be coming along some day. The P1154, the replacement for the Hunter, may be an excellent plane, but when will it come? Is there not great trouble with the engine development? May we be given any sort of date when we shall have these planes, not on the drawing board but in service with the Royal Air Force? That is the question that interests the Royal Air Force: when will it have the planes?
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    Why is Redtop, the air-to-air missile for the Lightning, being developed for the Air Force while the Navy is to buy Sidewinder? I understand that Sidewinder I.D has about the same capability as Red-top and it is much cheaper. Surely, if integration is to mean anything, the Navy and the Air Force should have the same weapons for the same kind of job. I hope that the Minister of Defence is paying some attention to this. It was said in last year's Defence White Paper that this would be done and that there would be integration on weapons between the Services.
    Now, Coastal Command. The Shackle-ton has done a wonderful job, but is there any plan for its replacement? Even the most suitable and wonderful plane cannot fly for ever. With all the time it takes to get plans out of the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aviation or the Ministry of Defence—wherever the hold-up takes place—there ought to be plans now for replacing the Shackleton because of the important rôle of Coastal Command. Why should we always wait until the year after these things ought to be done?
    This is all a saga of paper plans. The only benefit likely to come from reorganisation, as far as I can see, is that all the muddle will be in one building. I wonder whether the Secretary of State for Air, to be fair to him, has any say at all at the moment in what planes the Royal Air Force has, or will have. It may be that the Minister of Defence decides it all. Between the three of them, the Ministers ought to work together sometimes and think of what kind of planes the Royal Air Force wants and decide how and when it shall have them.
    There is a total lack of planning. The Minister of Aviation—the present Minister no less than his predecessor—has been a disaster for the nation. Following the general attitude of the Government today, he gives the impression of acting like Mr. Micawber, waiting for something to turn up. Quite apart from the terrible cost to the taxpayer, these prevarications and procrastinations do great disservice to the very fine body of officers and men we have in the Royal Air Force.
    Sir Thomas Moore: Could I ask the hon. Gentleman a question,

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    or put him right on some of the information which he seems to have acquired somewhere?
    The Chairman: I am a little unhappy at the hon. Member's suggestion that he should put another hon. Member right. Certainly, he may ask a short question.
    Sir T. Moore: The hon. Member made some rather slighting references to the rôle of the Twin Pioneer. Does not he know that these planes have played an invaluable part in the jungle and the desert, where no proper airfields were available, and that they are most highly regarded by the Air Ministry?
    Mr. Mulley: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I should not wish it to be thought that I was criticising these planes in any way. I know of the great rôle which they play and I only wish that the Army had a lot more of them. The point I was making arose out of an assessment of the capability of the Royal Air Force to carry freight over ranges of 1,500 and 4,000 miles. Even the most ardent admirer of the Pioneer would not suggest that it was suitable for that particular function.
    4.55 p.m.
    Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his first speech introducing the Air Estimates.
    I enjoyed the first part of the speech of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), but I thought that the second part was just one long moan and grizzle about very little. It occurred to me that he was following the instructions of his new leader and trying to score points regardless of where they hit. That will not get him very far. I know that he is at heart a great enthusiast for the Royal Air Force, and I am sure he can do better than he did in the latter part of his speech.
    The hon. Gentleman offered criticisms about manpower in the Royal Air Force. If he reads the Memorandum, he will see all the facts set out there. On 1st April, 1963, the strength will be 143,500. Last year, it was 148,900, and on 1st April next yeas it will be 137,200. It is explained that these figures have been brought about by economy in manpower,
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    the disbandment of the Thor squadrons, and so on. I take it that this is going according to plan. Perhaps, when my hon. Friend replies, he will tell us a little more about manpower in the Service and haw it is going.
    I should like to know more about the recruitment of pilots, or the lack of recruitment of pilots, and of air electronic officers. This is a very important part of the Service, and it is said that the numbers are slightly down. To what extent will this affect the manning of aircraft in the future?
    The hon. Gentleman talked about the aircraft industry being let down. The aircraft industry has been completely reorganised in recent years. The airframe manufacturers have merged into two groups. Experience in this short time has shown what a wise decision the merger was. There can now be a greater impact in the development of British projects and things cango forward rather more quickly than hitherto. I do not consider that the industry has been let down at all. A tremendous total of orders has been placed during the past few months which will provide quite a lot of work in the years to come both in production and in research and development.
    The hon. Gentleman referred to engine troubles in the P1154. This is an aircraft which will take off and come down vertically. Of course, there are troubles. There are troubles with every new piece of equipment, be it airframe, engine, or anything else. With our fine scientists and engineers behind these projects, the teething troubles will be sorted out, as they always have been. We are not lagging behind in vertical take-off in fact, we are leading the world.
    Mr. Mulley: I do not wish unduly to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, and I appreciate his great knowledge of these matters. My point was not that there are engine troubles or whatever it may be. I was speaking of the great delay before the industry is given the go-ahead on this kind of development, with the consequence that the Royal Air Force has to wait so long for a plane which, since the Hunter is becoming less and less valuable as time goes on, is urgently needed for the ground attack rôle now.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: I agree that all these things are required urgently; but

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    they have to be phased. I have no doubt that it is better to wait for a few months to do the design stage of the P1154 properly and get things right than to rush into something which will cost more money to put right later.
    I want to refer to the co-ordination of the Services which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence mentioned earlier in the week. Everyone—the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) and many others—is claiming that it is their invention. In fact, ten years ago I made a speech making the same suggestion that something should be done to get the three Services closer together, and I have tried to make almost the same point annually, that in these days it is very important that the three Services should be, not completely integmted, but very much closer together. One regrets the change, but I think that it is necessary.
    I hope that the identity of the three Services on a unit basis will not be disturbed. For example, I hope that the Air Ministry will have a close liaison with the aircraft industry on its new project. Work has sometimes been hampered in the past by the Ministry of Aviation claiming that right. Technical officers of the Air Ministry have had to go round to the back door to bring about that close liaison which is essential with the factories making the equipment.
    But the important thing is that when four or five Ministers are living under the same roof there should be one individual in charge of accountancy. If we are to have the annual argument of how we are to divide up the cake, it will not get anyone very far. I think that we have to have the Board there, working very closely together, standing in for each other, playing each other's rôle whenever possible. It was hinted by the right hon. Member for Belper earlier in the week that the Royal Air Force should be taken over, possibly by the Army. The hon. Member for Belper must do some homework on this, because of all the crazy ideas I have heard in this House that just about takes it.
    Mr. Bellenger: My right hon. Friend the Member for Belper was not advocating that. I think he merely referred to
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    an attempt made after the First World War.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: I must qualify what I said—I was not in the Chamber at that time—but I understood that he hinted at it, or that the Navy should take it over. But I think that it is very wrong to make these broad suggestions without really considering the implications. We have in the Royal Air Force men trained to a "T", and to suggest that their whole career should be upset by the speech of one Privy Councillor in this Chamber is, in my view, most regrettable.
    I shall try to make clear in my argument the value of the Royal Air Force as I see it in the years ahead. It is highly specialised today, if not more so than either of the other two Services. Skybolt has been referred to several times in recent weeks and earlier this week. The United States cancelled Skybolt, in my opinion, because it no longer answered her needs. She did not want it any more. I think also that she did it partly with her tongue in her cheek to get Britain out of this business as far as she could. This was the impression which I got in the United States. It was certainly not because of technical failures. I was assured of that by an Assistant Secretary in the Pentagon. He said, "I regret that we ever took that line".
    The weapon was going extremely well. According to the Douglas people, it was going as well as any other at that time. After eighteen years in this House, I have never felt so strongly about anything as the dropping of this weapon. It was a tragedy. I am not anti-Navy. I am just as pro one Service as I am another. In this case Bomber Command and its highly trained people have been paid for—the bill has been paid. But of course we would have been wrong to have gone ahead with President Kennedy's suggestion to develop this weapon in Los Angeles—6,000 miles away—and the dollars pouring out. We should not know where we would end—
    Mr. Mulley: Why did not we bring it to England?
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Certainly, I would have liked to have seen a British effort and to have seen it done in Britain. I will explain why. Bomber Command has

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    still a mighty hitting power. Do not let anyone underestimate the capabilities of Bomber Command even today or in the next two years. I have never read any report of Mr. Khrushchev belittling the strength of what Bomber Command could do; if he had had a case we would undoubtedly have heard about it by now. Why is it that hon. Members opposite—I am afraid I lost my wool just now—so often denigrate British efforts? The TSR2—hon. Members opposite tried to run it down—is the most remarkable project that British engineering has ever faced, and they are very nearly home with it.
    It seems to me that Britain in these days has to a great extent to look after herself. We do not know what the state of the Government will be in the United States in 1970. [An HON. MEMBER: "Or in Britain."] Hon. Members opposite think they know, but they may have another think coming in a few months time. Polaris is a credible weapon today, but would it be in ten years time, if the numbers remain at four, which I think is a ridiculous number? We want ten or twelve to make it credible. The Soviet, we are told, have at least 500 submarines. They are manufacturing nuclear-propelled killer submarines, and I can see these three or four submarines of ours which might be at sea being tracked and tailed and they would not have any freedom whatever.
    We have also to think, whatever the Americans and the Russians are doing, about what the French are up to. The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) made a powerful speech the other night about the lack of contribution by the French to N.A.T.O. That is so, and I think that it should be said. We are always being accused of being 4,000 or 5,000 troops down in the Rhine Army, but what have the French done in the last ten years? They have had hardly a soldier there; they have been either in Indo-China or in Algeria, and I think that it is most unfortunate that the French have not made a greater contribution to N.A.T.O.
    The French antics, if they were to continue, might well bring about a United States withdrawal from Europe. It may well happen. I think that Britain has to be prepared not only to have its conven-
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    tional forces but also its own deterrent. We cannot decide to drop or bring on a deterrent overnight. It takes many years to build an effective deterrent, and once we are out of the business we shall be out of it for a very long time.
    As I see it, the crews in Bomber Command are today more highly trained than perhaps any other men in all our Services, probably the most highly trained in any Air Force in the world. They will have the TSR2 to look forward to. Little is known about the capabilities of the TSR2—for obvious reasons we shall not be told the range—but I am assured by those who look into these things that the TSR2 has a remarkable range and it has a strategic rôle, and at least we shall have highly trained men to pilot it or monitor it, as the case may be. A weapon like the TSR2 can be moved across the world in a few hours, literally to Australia or anywhere else by air refuelling, and it has a conventional rôle as well. In fact, the British Army could not go into serious battle without a weapon like the TSR2. It could not battle without it. When one thinks of the Polaris bill, which may well be £400 million, and what we could do with that in our own industry if we decided to have a fleet of TSR2s, one realises what could be done by our own efforts.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: Does the hon. Member want both?
    Sir A. V. Harvey: No, I do not necessarily want both. I have made my case clear time and time again on this issue. We should have either a British weapon, or buy it from America, and my view is that we should have a British weapon.
    I am told that in the TSR2 we have probably a three-year lead on the Americans in this type of aircraft. If we have—and I believe that we have—why cannot we come to some arrangement that we sell this equipment to the United States? At present, it is a one-way traffic. We spend the taxpayer's money buying Boeing 707s, but the Americans even stop the small Bonanza Airlines buying a few One-Elevens to operate on internal services. It is incredible that allies should go to such lengths to stop trading together in armaments, all the more so when usually the new thinking on aircraft and equipment like the TSR2 comes from this country.

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    It is the late 1960s and the 1970s which will be the difficult period to cover. By 1970, an altogether new situation may have arisen. Crews may well be flying 30 or 40 miles up in the air space, between the atmosphere as we know it and the real outer space. Twenty-five to 40 miles up, where the air is thin and lacking resistance, enormous speeds will be obtained and aircraft will go round the globe by centrifugal force and land at an airfield.
    Who would have thought a few years ago that this was a possibility? It is a real possibility. It is being done partially by the United States and the Soviet by winged aircraft which will return to base, which are not expendable like the ordinary form of missile. That is one of my reasons for asking where we will be in eight or ten years' time if Polaris is dropped.
    I should like to see Britain forging head in that direction and developing equipment which play a large rôle commercially and as a military weapon. There are many advantages for this type of aircraft over missiles. It is mobile and flexible and in the last resort it can be recalled from its mission.
    In the question of arming our country, it is essential that we diversify our weapons as much as we can afford to. I do not want to see everything being put into one weapon. By diversification, the enemy defences will be confused and tens of thousands of technicians occupied in their air defence system. The critics say that the cost would be too high, but the United States and the Soviet have spent vast sums of money on air space development work. I do not doubt that much of the "know-how" is available to scientists and people in touch with each other. I hope that we can hear more about this from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. I hope that in the months ahead he will interest both himself and other Ministers in it and will get everybody thinking about it.
    We have been told about the P.1154. I should like to know whether this aircraft will have a strategic capability and will not be merely a replacement for the Hunter. What additional rôle might it have? Most aircraft can be stretched and I imagine that this one will be. With the developments which I have outlined, it seems to me that R.A.F. Bomber
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    Command will constitute a continuing effective deterrent to any attack for many years ahead. It could inflict an unacceptable degree of destruction and its very diversification provides security to a great extent.
    In the Defence White Paper, paragraph 15, page 68, states that
    "The Royal Air Force will also continue to bear its responsibilities for maritime operations. Much effort is being devoted to the problems of submarine detection and destruction. For the longer term, studies are also in progress of the characteristics required in a replacement for the Shackleton."
    It goes on to state, on page 70, that
    "The modernisation of the Shackleton and its anti-submarine equipment continues. Exercises indicate that effectiveness against modern submarines will be significantly improved as a result."
    I should like to know more about this, because it has a great bearing on the strategy of our Armed Forces. We are told one thing by the Navy and another by the Air Force and I understand that much knowledge is available and work is being done. To what extent is detection improving? After all, we are an island and we have to think in terms of the Merchant Navy bringing food and other supplies to this country. With other countries having large fleets of submarines, we are very interested in detection, let alone what might happen before Polaris is available. I should like to know more about this.
    In the Far East, I had the pleasure last year of visiting some of the bases with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park. We had an interesting and enjoyable visit, but we saw some transport aircraftBeverleys—at Singapore and there were only four or five of them. They looked "tired" to me and we were told that they would be supplemented by the Argosy. Reading the Memorandum, I find nothing about the Argosy yet being in Singapore to supplement those aircraft. Can we be told something about this later today?
    What is the serviceability of these old aeroplanes? Has the existing radar system been improved or renovated? I was told that if the Army had to move up to Vietnam or somewhere in that region, at least 92 lifts would be required by a Beverley to transport the radar, which means that the Army would not have any radar. I should like to be given assurances about this.

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    References have been made to the errands of mercy by the Royal Air Force. These should not be regarded simply as little things that happen from day to day. During the past year, they have been real errands of mercy. Food was flown to the famine-stricken areas of Tanganyika. Supplies were sent to Iran after the disastrous earthquake and to the flood victims in East Pakistan and Africa. Supplies were flown to India when the trouble with the Chinese flared up. The Shackleton located the "Flying Tiger Constellation" and many passengers were rescued way out in the Atlantic and survivors brought ashore by helicopter. The Air Force is always ready to render this service.
    Do not let us underrate what the Air Force and the manned aeroplane can do for the country. If we let Bomber Command run down, a great many hon. Members will live to regret the day that the decision was taken. There is a school of thought in America at least that there is a real rôle for the manned aircraft in its development form like the TSR2 and others.
    I pose one question. Suppose that Britain did as so many hon. Members opposite suggest and gave up the deterrent as an example. Would the Chinese give up their ambitions and would General de Gaulle give up his developments? I do not think that either of them would. I cannot see the logic of the argument. I know that many of us in the House of Commons disagree about these things on matters of conscience but I believe that Britain must keep its weapon. I am simply disturbed about what type of weapons we keep. We must be in a position to defend ourselves alone if necessary. Then the deterrent will not be used.
    I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the very fine Service which he represents—he is today the senior Minister—and I wish the Service well in the great part which it has to play.
    5.18 p.m.
    Mr. John Cronin: It is always a pleasure to hear speeches made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). He has such an extensive and wide knowledge of the subject that I am usually in agreement
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    with most of what he says. I agreed with a large part of what he said today.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), in his admirable speech, said that a few of us had visited Royal Air Force bases in the Near and Far East. I was one of those who visited those bases, and I feel, therefore, that it would be ungrateful of me if I did not intervene in the debate and show an interest in these matters. Although I am grateful to the Secretary of State and to his colleagues for our visits, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that if my remarks are not entirely laudatory that does not indicate any lack of appreciation for my visits.
    In these debates, it always rests with the Opposition to investigate the activities of the Royal Air Force and to try to assess whether the country is getting good value for its money and whether the Royal Air Force is providing the security and the defensive value that the Memorandum suggests. It should be emphasised that if we speak critically we in no circumstances wish to give the impression that we are in any way critical of the personnel of the Air Force.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park, the hon. Member for Macclesfield and I in all our visits to Royal Air Force bases have been extraordinarily impressed by the efficiency of the officers, N.C.O.s and airmen. There is no doubt that as a body of men the Royal Air Force is second to none as a fighting force. Any criticisms that we make must be directed purely to the rôle that the Service is given and to the weapons with which it is equipped.
    I turn first to Bomber Command, which according to the Memorandum still provides us with a strategic nuclear deterrent. We know that the United States is greatly decreasing her bomber force and greatly decreasing the amount of money that she is spending on it. We also know that the Soviet Union is adopting the same attitude. Paragraph 9 of the Memorandum adds some weight to this view, because it says that the fighter strength is being reduced in our country because the threat is now largely from missiles and not the manned bomber. If other countries are to

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    a large extent giving up or reducing their manned bombers, I think that we must carefully investigate why we are continuing to maintain our V-bombers at a peak level.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: I do not want to quarrel too much with the hon. Gentleman, but is it not a fact that the Russian strategic bomber force has always been relatively small? She has a number of tactical bombers, but her strategic force has always been a modest one. There is no question of reducing it.
    Mr. Cronin: I accept that the Russians have devoted the majority of their bomber force to tactical use with the Army. Nevertheless, I emphasise that Russia's strategic development is being concentrated now on missiles and not on bombers. Such strategic bombers as she has have been reduced in number.
    We have to investigate carefully the value or: Bomber Command as a strategic nuclear deterrent. Concerning the V-bombers, I think the first thing which impresses one is that they are to a large extent a first-strike weapon. The V-bomber can only take off from long, prepared, concrete runways and requires elaborate maintenance and servicing. It can take off from only a limited number of air stations, and those air stations may be obliterated by a first-strike attack. It seems probable that in the event of a first-strike attack very few V-bombers would be able to get off to fulfil their mission against the enemy.
    One has to consider next what would happen to the small proportion of V-bombers which left their bases to drop nuclear weapons on the enemy. Tremendous progress has been made in surface-to-air guided missiles. I have no doubt that the Secretary of State for Air would agree that we have produced a superb one, the Bristol Ferranti Bloodhound. The Americans have a similar type of weapon, and the Russians, who are not behind with this weapon, have paraded their missiles in Red Square.
    These surface-to-air guided missiles have ranges of between 30 and 50 miles and an extraordinarily high degree of accuracy. I think the Secretary of State for Air will agree that they have more than 90 per cent. kill. In fact one missile, the American Nike Hercules, has
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    succeeded in hitting another missile so high is the degree of efficiency obtainable in these missiles. I suggest that the small proportion of V-bombers which went into enemy territory would have great difficulty in getting through to their targets because of these accurate guided missiles.
    In addition, we know that the Russians have several thousand fighter aircraft. A substantial portion of these are Mig 21s, which travel at supersonic speeds and at more than double the speed of the V-bombers. One cannot help feeling that the proportion of V-bombers which survived a first-strike attack and got through to Soviet territory would have a difficult time with these clouds of fighters which would attack them. Even the Chinese have been producing more than twenty-five Mig 17s every month in their own country since 1955. They, too, must have a formidable fighter force. It seems, therefore, that the value of the V-bomber as a strategic deterrent is running down very rapidly indeed.
    Bomber Command is, nevertheless, an efficient force from the point of view of a conventional rôle. It could be used in a tactical rôle, and it probably could be used in a nuclear rôle against an unsophisticated enemy, though I can hardly imagine it being used in such a rôle. But as a nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union, or even against China, it seems to have very limited possibilities.
    Mr. F. A. Burden: I apologise for not having been present to hear the whole debate, but I think the hon. Gentleman must realise that when he talks about interception this depends to a tremendous extent not only on the efficiency of the aircraft itself, but on the radar screen, which is highly technical and necessary for proper interception, and I doubt whether the Chinese are quite so sophisticated in that sphere.
    Mr. Cronin: I accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but I am sure he will agree that there is no doubt about the efficiency of the Russian radar arrangements.
    The hon. Gentleman's intervention brings me to the next point, which concerns some rather vague statements in the Memorandum. In paragraphs 4 and 5 we are told that the V-bombers have

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    had their efficiency increased by improvements in their navigating equipment, in their electronic counter measures, and by the provision of this special new nuclear weapon. I know that the Secretary of State for Air does not want to commit a breach of security in this House, but these statements are a little puzzling. I was under the impression that the highest degree of precision in navigation had been achieved by bombers years ago, and it is difficult to understand what revolutionary change, or even substantial change, can be brought about in the navigating equipment of bombers. Either a bomber knows where it is or it does not, and a long time ago bombers knew where they were when they were on mission. But perhaps we can have some further information on this.
    The Secretary of State for Air is perhaps not prepared to tell us about these electronic counter measures, and for that reason we have no idea what they are. We are told that there are certain important improvements, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot tell us what they are. We must therefore take his word that the V-bombers are now more efficient. This is far from reassuring.
    The same comment applies to these special nuclear weapons which are fitted to the TSR2. The TSR2 promises to be an admirable tactical strike aircraft. I say "promises to be" because it has not yet flown, and we must reserve our judgment on that ground, because in the past the Ministry of Aviation has produced promising aircraft which did not fly either because they were cancelled, or because they were found unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, I agree with the hon. Member for Macclesfield that the TSR2 is a superb tactical aircraft as far as one can assess the situation at the moment.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park pointed out, this aircraft has now been promoted to a strategic rôle and one cannot help feeling that the Government, with the best intentions, might have some political bias for promoting it to this rôle. They are in an awkward position about the cancellation of Skybolt, they will be in an awkward position when there is a missile gap when the V-bombers go out of service, and it may be that from a political point of view it suits the Government to dis-
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    cover a new strategic weapon. The TSR2 has never been suggested as a strategic weapon in any Government document until this year. I hope that the Secretary of State for Air will correct me if I am wrong.
    Mr. H. Fraser: My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson) when he was Minister of Defence referred to this in 1960. The strategic capacity of this aircraft was referred to again in 1961 or 1962.
    Mr. Cronin: These references were of a very vague nature. The Committee can form a judgment only on what has been written in the Memoranda on the Air Estimates and the Defence White Papers—in the days when we had Defence White Papers. In none of those documents has it ever been suggested that the TSR2 is a strategic nuclear bomber. The TSR2 can obviously carry a nuclear weapon, but the essence of a strategic bomber is that it can carry a nuclear weapon in a strategic rôle—in other words, drop a nuclear weapon on a principal city of a potentially hostile country and come back.
    Earlier in the debate I asked the Secretary of State whether the range of this aircraft was sufficient to give it a truly strategic rôle in those terms and he declined to reply on the ground of public interest. His hon. Friends applauded him for saying that. But the whole purpose of a strategic deterrent is that a potential aggressor should be made aware of the fact that it can obliterate his principal cities. It is highly desirable that he should be made aware of this. The United States are only too happy to announce the ranges of their strategic weapons. Although they may not give precise details, they are always willing to say that their B.52s can obliterate the principal cities of Russia, Siberia and China, and that their intercontinental missiles can do the same thing.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Before they have flown?
    Mr. Cronin: I am talking about American weapons.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: Do the Americans say that they can do this before the aircraft or missiles in question have ever flown?
    Mr. Paget: They announced the range of the Polaris Mark II before it was flown.
    Mr. Cronin: I do not want to get away from my main point. This is an interesting diversionary tactic on the part of the hon. Member for Macclesfield which he no doubt learnt when he commanded Royal Air Force formations in the war. We must not escape from the main point, which is that every country—including Russia—which produces a nuclear strategic weapon announces to the whole world its capability and that it can do the job of obliterating the principal cities of its opponents.
    But, although he declares the TSR2 to be a strategic weapon, the Secretary of State is too coy to say whether it can perform a strategic rôle. Why? Surely it is not going to be of such great intelligence value to the Russians for the world to announce definitely whether this aircraft can go to Moscow, perform a strategic mission and come back.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Come back to what?
    Mr. Cronin: Come back—that is the point. I put it to the Minister that no security is involved here. Nobody wants him to announce the exact range of the TSR2. All that we want to know is that the aircraft can carry out a strategic nuclear rôle, in other words, can drop nuclear weapons on the principal cities of a potential aggressor and return. No breach of security can be involved in that.
    Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Is the hon. Member saying that if the Minister affirms that this aircraft can get to Moscow nobody can calculate the distance from here to Moscow and thereby discover the range of the aircraft? Is that his proposition?
    Mr. Cronin: All we want to know is whether it can get to Moscow and back again. If it cannot, then it cannot be a nuclear strategic weapon. It is as simple as that.
    The Secretary of State would be quite happy to confirm that the V-bombers can get to Moscow and return, but he is not prepared to say that the TSR2 can. I suggest the reason is that this aircraft is not a strategic nuclear bomber and that
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    it has no strategic rôle. This leads one to the conclusion that what has been written in the Memorandum to the Air Estimates is misleading—and misleading in an extremely improper way. If the Minister wants to deny this he can do it simply by saying that the TSR2 can attack the principal cities of a potential aggressor and come back.
    Mr. Paget: It is doubtful whether it could get there.
    Mr. Cronin: As my hon. and learned Friend says, it is very doubtful whether the TSR2 could get there, unless it were provided with some refuelling facilities on the way. Operationally, that would seem to be very improbable, certainly over Russian territory.
    I do not want to press this matter too far. No doubt the Under-Secretary will give us some further information on the subject. Perhaps I should have said that I hope that he will give us some further information—because in the last two Air Estimates debates he has made the Under-Secretary's speech in the context that no debate had taken place before it and did not answer any of the questions which were put to him. On this occasion I hope that he will announce the essential fact whether or not the TSR2 is a truly nuclear deterrent—if only for the honour and reputation of his Government.
    I want to refer briefly to some of the commands that I visited with certain hon. Members. These commands would seem to have a somewhat limited value, except as taking-off places for Vbombers—and we have already dealt with that question. In Singapore there are some Canberras, which are strike aircraft. The Canberra has a radius of action of about 500 miles, in other words, the ability to get to the target and return if it is not much more than about 500 miles away. If we take a map of the Far East and put the point of a pair of compasses on Singapore and describe a circle with a 500-mile radius we find that the circle encloses entirely friendly countries. I want to know whether the Canberras in Singapore can take off from air stations in other countries and make attacks on potential aggressors.
    The same consideration applies in Cyprus. The Canberras there certainly cannot reach any potential aggressors,

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    unless they come only part of the way back, and land in intermediate countries. It is very important for us to know whether there are proper logistic facilities for these Canberra squadrons to take off from the airfields of friendly countries in the neighbourhood of Singapore and Cyprus and also Aden.
    I want to say a few words about Fighter Command. According to paragraph 9 of the Memorandum, fighters still have a rôle to play in preventing reconnaissance, investigating unidentified intrusion into our air space and deterring or preventing attempts to jam our warning systems by intercepting the hostile jamming aircraft. But what can a fighter do under these circumstances? It is obvious that a ship can stop another ship simply by hoisting the International Code signal telling it to heave to or suffer the consequences, but what happens when one of our fighters meets a suspicious aircraft flying over our territory or over one of our bases?
    I have talked to various fighter pilots about this problem, and they seem to have been given no useful instructions. Let us suppose that the other aircraft contains a Chinese or a Russian pilot. How does a British fighter pilot indicate to him an order to get out of our territory? How does one order him to land? What action can be taken by our fighter aircraft when they are dealing with some intruder or some aircraft which has no proper purpose in the area in which it is found? That seems an important question.
    I move on to the question of the P.1127, and the P.1154, the vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. In this the rôle of the Royal Air Force has been exceptionally unfortunate. The Secretary of State should have had the grace to blush when he referred to the desirability of the P.1127. This was developed some years ago and the Royal Air Force took no interest in it. At a time when the Royal Air Force was declining to take an interest in the Hawker P.1127 no fewer than nine American companies had offered to buy it. It is also the case, and I have this from a first-hand source, that the P.1127 was developed 75 per cent. with United States money. In other words, it was developed privately and at first received no backing at all from the
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    Royal Air Force. I hope we shall hear something about that because, the Royal Air Force cannot claim much credit for the development of the P.1127.
    The P.1154 will no doubt be an excellent aircraft, but it is a long way from flying. In marked contrast to the delay and vacillation of the Air Ministry, the French ordered a prototype V.T.O.L. aircraft, the Balzac, which flew last year. From modifications and tests of that aircraft it is certain that the Mirage IIIV, the equivalent of the P.1154, will be the first in the air, the first operational vertical take-off and landing aircraft with really powerful strike capabilities. This is an unsatisfactory situation for our country and for our aircraft industry. A revolutionary development in fighter strike aircraft has taken place in spite of the Air Ministry and with no help from the Ministry until it was obvious that it would be a winner.
    The same consideration applies to the SC1, developed by Short Bros. and Harland. I see that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) agrees with me. The SC1 with Rolls Royce engines was developed some years ago. With the same indifference as it showed towards the P.1127, the Air Ministry declined to go further with the SC1. The result has been that the French have bought the rights of the Rolls Royce engines of the SC1 and are now developing and going ahead fast with them in the Mirage IIIV, this important development in which the Air Ministry declined to take an interest. The Secretary of State for Air should be very careful about speaking in a manner in any way to the slightest extent laudatory of the Government about vertical takeoff and landing aircraft because the Government record in this matter has been extremely bad.
    I now wish to say a few words about Transport Command. I can only re-echo what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park in his admirable speech. The Royal Air Force now has no efficient strategic freighter. There is no way of flying bulky, heavy equipment for long distances, 2,000 miles or more. The only strategic freighter at the moment is the Britannia, which has too narrow a cargo cross-section. It can be loaded only from

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    the side and only from a special ramp. The Royal Air Force is at present completely deprived of an efficient strategic freighter.
    In tactical freighters the situation is nearly as bad. We have the large, lumbering Beverley, which is going out of service. The Secretary of State and the Minister of Aviation, however, produced, like a rabbit out of a hat, with tremendous enthusiasm, the culmination of Operational Requirement 351. It would be very helpful if the Committee were to investigate what happened to Operational Requirement 351. The Minister of Defence, who was the last Minister of Aviation, will have knowledge of all this. Operational Requirement 351 was a requirement to provide a tactical freighter for the Army. It had to carry 35,000 lb. over a certain distance, more than 2,000 miles, and land on a runway in 1,500 feet over a 50 foot obstacle.
    The points were thrashed out by the Army and the Air Force in conjunction throughout most of 1960. At the end of 1960 the requirement was finally decided and specifications and tenders were invited. Four tenders were made in May, 1961, so the cards were on the table by then. Between May, 1961, and now all that was necessary was for the Air Ministry, the Army and the Ministry of Aviation to decide which to choose. I hope that the Under-Secretary can give us an idea why it took two years to make the decision. That seems an extraordinarily long time to come to a decision over something which had been thrashed out during the whole of 1960.
    Why was there this extraordinary delay? I suggest that this is intolerable vacillation and indecision on the part of the Government. This is the sort of thing which brings the Government into disrepute in every field of public service, and this is a particularly important one. The Government have decided on the Armstrong Whitworth 681, an admirable aircraft, tailor-made for the requirements, but why should there be this delay? The Government must produce some very definite explanation about this, because it must be an appalling example of inefficiency unless there is a clear-cut reason which can be announced from the Dispatch Box tonight. There is no question of security here. We should be told why it took two years to make this decision.
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    The Committee ought to consider next what the decision involves. All that the Minister of Aviation has decided is to have a design study. Not a single worker is to be employed for the next nine months, not a single riveter or electrician or engineer in Coventry will do an hour's work on the project. This is purely a matter for the design department. It is useless to pretend that some big achievement has been attained in reducing unemployment. It is simply a design study which is to take place in certain design offices. The Government in about nine months might decide not to have the Armstrong Whitworth 681. They have this option. If they are exceptionally fortunate in the General Election, they might decide to cancel it, but nothing in this decision is producing any extra work now and nothing to indicate that we shall have a tactical freighter aircraft in the near future.
    These points need very serious consideration and careful answers in this debate. The Committee is entitled to know the reasons. We have a superb body of men in the Royal Air Force and an organisation of matchless efficiency. One gets the impression that it is hamstrung all the time by being given the wrong rôles and the wrong equipment.
    These are very serious points, and I hope that the Secretary of State will appreciate that we in the Opposition have no other consideration except to improve the efficiency of the Royal Air Force and to maintain the security of our country. We should like some answers to these points, and certainly some better answer than has been attempted so far.
    5.50 p.m.
    Sir Norman Hulbert: In following the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) in the debate, I make only one comment to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, and that is that when he replies I hope he does not publicly announce the range and the performance of the TSR2.
    I must make the usual intimation of my interest in the aircraft industry. My right hon. Friend is one of our smaller customers. When I first entered the House, the Air Estimates were a fraction of what they are today. The Secretary of State was a member of the Cabinet and hon.

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    Members opposite voted against the Service Estimates. We have proceeded far from those days. Today we all admit that we have seen a very major reduction in the status of the Secretary of State and of the Service Chief of the Royal Air Force.
    Whether we like it or not, Service Ministers of the future will play a very small part indeed. They will be the administrators of their Departments under the general direction and policy of the Minister of Defence. Likewise, the Chief of the Defence Staff will be all-powerful. I am sure that a great many hon. and right hon. Members must deplore the speech of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) the other day when he was criticising—most of us thought very unfairly—the present Chief of the Defence Staff. Admittedly Lord Mountbatten is a Member of another place, but it was as Chief of the Defence Staff that he was being so severely criticised, and it is in that capacity that he is unable to defend himself.
    The right hon. Gentleman said:
    "I do not care very much for the gentleman myself … I do not think that he is of much value to the Minister of Defence…although I understand that Lord Mountbatten is alleged to be responsible for initiating the idea of reorganisation, I hope that if we are to have a Supremo the right hon. Gentleman will manage without Lord Mountbatten."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 279.]
    If many hon. Members had the opportunity of giving a fraction of the service to the Crown which Lord Mountbatten has given they could well be proud of themselves.
    In the triumvirate White Paper a great deal is said about the consolidation of the Services, but little or no mention is made of the unification of the non-effective services—the medical, educational, and so on. There was there a great opportunity for inter-Service co-operation which has been attempted in the past but has never met with success because of inter-Service jealousy. If the Fighting Forces can get together, surely the doctors and the schoolmasters can do the same.
    In the part of the White Paper which refers to the Air Force, slight reference is made to the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Those of us who have the honour to serve in that branch mourn its virtual demise four or five years ago, but we
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    all admit that flying an aeroplane today is such a technical matter that there is really little or no opportunity other than for a full-time air officer. But I think that the Air Ministry might examine other aspects of our reserve forces and see what use could be made, on an auxiliary, territorial or part-time basis, of vast numbers of men and women who have some experience of Service life in the Royal Air Force and who would be available still to do many of the jobs which their age does not debar them from doing.
    The White Paper also refers, again briefly, to air traffic control. This country is small. That is one of the reasons why there is so little private flying here today, which is again a great loss, because in the old days it provided a magnificent avenue for getting people air-minded and for the training of pilots in the ab initio stage. But it seems to me that if we are talking of co-operation there is a great opportunity for complete integration of the civil and the Services air traffic controls.
    Transport Command has grown very greatly in the last few years. It is not long since I made a speech in the House about that Command when the Chief of Transport Command had the rank of only an air vice-marshal and the aircraft at his disposal were pitifully few. Today all that is changed. We have an Air Chief Marshal as the Commander-in-Chief now, and in spite of what some hon. Members think we have really first-class aircraft in service.
    Many of us, and especially those who have had the opportunity of visiting the Short Bros. and Harland works in Belfast, are disappointed at the decision to give the new transport aircraft to other manufacturers. Short Bros. and Harland is certainly in a peculiar position. It is almost 100 per cent. Government-owned. It is located in an area where unemployment is the highest in the United Kingdom, and for from my own knowledge the firm has a first-class design team and a band of several thousand loyal workers. We can only hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation will keep his promise—as I am sure he will—and ensure that Short Bros. and Harland receives its share of the sub-contracting work for the new transport aircraft.

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    The White Paper refers to the errands of mercy which the Royal Air Force has carried out, and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) has reinforced it. In the climatic conditions of the last few weeks, aircraft of the Royal Air Force and especially helicopters of the Royal Navy have rendered yeoman service. Many civil helicopter pilots flying the same types of aircraft have also played their part.
    My right hon. Friend referred briefly to manned aircraft and emphasised—probably not strongly enough—that they are to continue in service. That statement cannot be too widely known, because the belief that we are abandoning aircraft and are concentrating on rockets must inevitably have a very bad effect on recruiting for the Royal Air Force.
    The co-operation of the Army and the Royal Air Force in the design of transport aircraft can no doubt be copied in other aspects of aircraft production. After all, a transport aircraft is required to carry naval commando units, Army units and Royal Air Force personnel. The requirements in that respect are precisely the same. Similarly, the requirements for helicopters are the same, as indeed are requirements concerning certain other communications work.
    My right hon. Friend spoke as a very junior member of the defence team. We all hope—and I am sure that he will do his best to see that it is fulfilled—that the value of the R.A.F. is kept uppermost and that the Air Ministry will not allow itself to be further diminished in efficiency and power.
    6.4 p.m.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: I hope that the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Sir N. Hulbert) will forgive me if I do not follow him, except to say that all of us on this side express the wish that the Royal Air Force and its personnel maintain the integrity and quality they have always had in the past. People in these islands, and in many other parts of the world, have a great admiration for the qualities of British pilots and British aircraft over the last twenty years. It would be wrong if any one gave the impression that there are many deprecations of these qualities.
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    Do not let us hesitate to admit that the problem of equipping the services in this modern age is a very difficult one indeed. When I read that an American aircraft designer, with a machine still on the drawing board, claims that it will have a range of 3,000 miles, I say to myself, "That is typically American". No British designer with an aircraft still on the drawing board would say that the ultimate product would have a certain range or power. One can only give an estimate. It is the same with cars. I see that a car which is not yet even in production has been advertised as doing 45 miles per gallon with a cruising speed of 70 miles an hour.
    Designers of aircraft are not designing only for one aircraft to be built or even for only two or three. If a machine is to be designed for the Royal Air Force, it must be one which can be manufactured in quantity by one's industrial base. I remember, as does the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), an aircraft which came off the drawing board and had every prospect of being a winner. The prototype was a good performer. But when it came to the production line there had to be so many modifications to fit production techniques that it proved to be a failure. I believe that the hon. Gentleman flew one of these planes early in the last war.
    The design has to meet production techniques. It is no good attempting to equip the Services with aircraft which cannot be mass produced in a war situation. They must be mass-produced if they are to be any use, and semi-skilled labour must be able to do the job. It cannot be done by hand. The first prototype is made by hand, as is the first frame in experimental departments, but thereafter the job must go on the production line.
    Where are the industrial bases of our aircraft industry? There is one in Belfast. Admittedly, a small labour force of a few thousand is being kept together there. Whatever is manufactured in Belfast, an industrial base for producing aircraft should be maintained there at a very high and efficient level. How do the Government intend to do it? It certainly should be done.
    In Scotland, we have 136,000 unemployed. In the Fort William and Fal-

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    kirk areas there is the aluminium industry, and 85 per cent. of what goes into an aircraft is aluminium alloy. On Mon- day, we asked how much of the production for the Royal Air Force was done in Scotland, but we were told the Secretary of State has no information as to where the things used in the Royal Air Force are produced. That seems to be a crazy situation.
    The hon. Member for Macclesfield talked about Skybolt and Polaris. He said that he would prefer to expand our industrial base and create our own instruments of defence rather than buy them from someone else. I agree with him and that we can do it in this country. During the last war many light engineering companies were encouraged—indeed, almost compelled—to build shadow factories in different parts of the country. I remember one that was built in Wales. I was then a tool maker and I was supposed to go there, but I preferred to stay in Birmingham. The shadow factories that were built throughout Britain were designed to produce entirely military goods for war use, but, through the techniques of their operation, they were able easily to turn over to the production of goods for international commerce.
    Our defence services require highly technical pieces of apparatus and massive products. I believe that 6,000 to 7,000 different components go into an air frame, with its mass of diaphragms. The motor car firms, like the engineering companies, pressed tool and stamping manufacturers all over the Midlands and the South make all this hardware for the aircraft industry—yet the aluminium is brought from Falkirk in Scotland. I am suggesting that a lot of this hardware for the aircraft industry—about £80 million worth—could be obtained in Scotland.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: I cannot follow the hon. Member's point. Is he suggesting that we should build another aircraft factory in or near his constituency? I understand that the problem in that industry today is that it has too much capacity.
    Mr. Bence: The hon. Member has not understood my argument. Perhaps I should explain it in more detail. The hon. Member for Macclesfield made the point that the aircraft industry had
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    been rationalised into a few very large units. These large units are not manufacturing institutions as such. They are really big assembly plants, for they assemble all sorts of hardware bought from all sorts of sub-contractors from many parts of the country.
    They may buy injectors for engines from Simms, of Hendon, pressings from Fishers, of Birmingham, clocks from Smiths, Lanarkshire, and crankshafts from Beardmores. These components are purchased and assembled in these plants. Even Rolls-Royce, in Hillingdon, and Larkhall, in Scotland, are assembling jet engines while the parts which go into them are made by Balfour Marine in London and are despatched to Scotland. I have been suggesting that many of these big plants are just assembly units and not manufacturing units.
    This equally applies to motor plants. Many of them buy out from sub-contractors and, like the aircraft industry, assemble the hardware. I am suggesting that the right hon. Gentleman who is responsible for equipping the Air Force, placing orders, and so on, should consider spending more money in Scotland. The hon. Member for Stockport, North asked for more money to be spent at Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland, in Belfast. I am now suggesting that more should be spent in Scotland.
    Over the last forty years we have seen what happens when a small factory gets an order for, say, 2,000 or 3,000 pressings or machine parts a year. That can often help in the development of the company. This is particularly true of the motor industry in which small manufacturing units are able to expand their output. The techniques which go into the production of aircraft components can be used to produce components for washing machines and many other goods. Many firms like Cliffords not only produce aircraft components, but lots of other things.
    I once worked in a plant in which we made aircraft components, parts for washing machines and typewriters. This sort of thing happens regularly in industry. When hon. Members study the Report of the Estimates Committee they should realise that when witnesses were questioned they said that it was helpful

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    to British industrial, producers if Government Departments enabled them to keep up a steady productive flow, for that helped them in their productivity costs.
    Many industries in Scotland, like engineering, are already very much in existence. Many more could be established and the existing ones reinforced if the Government placed more contracts in the development districts. This applies to the North-East Coast, but I will not develop that point because hon. Members have already spoken about the North-East and Northern Ireland.
    We have had a lot of discussion about the TSR2 and its range. I realise that the prototype, perhaps armed with dummies, may fly and that an idea of its range will be established. I also appreciate that its exact range will not be published. It seems that the Americans try something out and immediately say, "It is capable of 5,000 m.p.h." and that is that. It is also typically American. We are not nearly as rash. We like to make certain of our facts before making them known.
    I must express surprise that anyone should be willing to talk in terms of bombers leaving these islands in a war and returning. This is amazing to me, for I would have thought that if a bomber left with nuclear weapons aboard the best instructions its pilot could be given would be, "Drop your load and get off to Australia, or somewhere like that; do not come back here because we will not be able to service your aircraft."
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: What about the pilot's wife and children?
    Mr. Bence: I recall the hon. Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir) making a speech some years ago in which she said that if anything happened here and we got bombed we would fight on from Canada. Thus it is worth inquiring whether the range of our new projects will enable the aircraft to reach its destination and then be able to get back to some other British territory to carry on the fight.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Very dangerous.
    Mr. Bence: War is dangerous.
    The most important thing is that in designing an aircraft we should ensure that something really reliable is produced; that exaggerated claims about its
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    performance are not made and that the industry which is necessary to keep it in the air—the industrial base—is spread throughout the country.
    This reminds me of the success we had with the Spitfire during the last war. We all recall how we began that war; ill-equipped and without the necessary industrial base to keep what aircraft we had in the air. Fortunately, we got the Spitfire, which proved to be a winner. Those conditions may not recur and it is important that the industrial base is well dispersed and that we are not placed in the sort of situation in which we found ourselves in the years immediately before the last war.
    Most important, we must not put something experimental into service. We must examine everything in detail, remembering that what is bang up to date on Monday may be obsolescent by Friday.
    No matter who governs the country, so long as the nations arm themselves with this sort of equipment it is purely academic to argue about whether money is being wasted, because, although £10 million may be spent on producing the finest aircraft in the world, a winner with a 20,000-mile range, a potential opponent might have devised a means of shooting it down as soon as it leaves the ground. Let us be careful about how we tackle this problem of our air defences.
    6.20 p.m.
    Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: When the debate began, there were about 40 hon. Members on this side of the Committee and no more than 18 on the other side. Since then, the numbers on both sides have dwindled considerably and yet, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air said, we are dealing with something in excess of £500 million worth of taxpayers' money, and the object of these Committees of Supply is to ensure that the interests of the taxpayers are properly safeguarded. I hope that the taxpayers are pleased with us today, or at least those who have taken the trouble to come here.
    Very rapidly these Estimates debates, particularly for the Armed Forces, are becoming a public scandal, because so few hon. Members take the trouble to turn up. The security of the nation is involved, and items including the biggest individual Votes with which we have to deal in the course of the Parliamentary year are discussed in these debates. I

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    know that it is never an attractive practice to start running down the show which one is in oneself, but if we are to have unified control of defence it will be even more important that we do not go on repeating what we have been doing in the last few years—turning up only in tens when we should be here in hundreds.
    I join with those hon. Members who have congratulated my right hon. Friend on introducing his first Air Estimates. Whatever be the future of the Ministerial set-up, it is important that we all realise, as everybody here knows, that my right hon. Friend has his heart in his job and wants to do his best for the Service for which he is now responsible. It is sometimes appropriate that the Secretary of State for Air should not be a former airman. It is sometimes a very good thing not to be in a position of being able to be accused of having a past vested interest in the Service for which one is responsible.
    I would never make a farmer Minister of Agriculture, or a soldier Secretary of State for War, if I had my way. It is very important from the point of view of the taxpayers that they know that whoever is in charge of this, or that, or the other, Department is someone without any vested interest and, therefore, not apt to forget what the taxpayers' needs are.
    I have said on many occasions—and I am glad that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is here, because I have said it in his presence once or twice—that we are not spending enough on defence. We are spending on defence 7 per cent. of our gross national product, but the United States is spending approximately 14 per cent. of its. To me, this country will always be in greater danger than the United States and we ought, therefore, always to be able to justify greater proportionate expenditure on defence here than in the United States.
    I am not saying that we ought automatically to bump up our expenditure to 14 per cent. of the gross national product, but when the newspapers, as over the last few weeks, talk of the increase in the actual number of millions of pounds which we are spending each year, they do the greatest possible damage in the
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    public mind by putting a totally false emphasis on the amount without taking into account what it represents in terms of the nation's capacity to protect itself.
    Mr. Lubbock: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the percentage of our gross national product which we spend on defence is still higher than that of any other member of N.A.T.O. except the United States?
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I accept that without dispute. I would certainly say that every N.A.T.O. country might well make a bigger effort and I am not suggesting that it should not. What I am saying is that the special position of Britain in the world is such, both strategically and because of the inevitable threats which must always surround us, being where we are that we could justify to the taxpayers spending on defence a greater proportion of the gross national product than other countries might be able to spend.
    Coming more closely to the Estimates than so far, we have to make very sure that we have a Royal Air Force which can carry out its necessary role in the three capacities which my right hon. Friend mentioned today—defending these islands, fulfilling our overseas Commonwealth role, and honouring our obligations under alliances. We have to do all those things and I am convinced that the Royal Air Force has an immensely important part to play for as far ahead as we can see. I am also convinced that the manned aircraft will have an increasingly important part to play and that the importance of rockets and ballistic missiles and so on will diminish as the years go by.
    We have to face that a manned aircraft can be controlled and brought back again, or turned round, or stopped, and that that is not always so with a rocket. It is extremely important that we appreciate that the more sophisticated weapons become, the more important it is to ensure that the men are in the right place in this sophisticated system. I am certain that in terms of air power that will always mean that there will be a place for manned aircraft for as long ahead as we can see.
    I want to devote most of my remarks this evening to discussing something which I raised in an intervention in the

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    speech of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation in the debate on defence two days ago. When I did, my right hon. Friend promptly referred me to my three right hon. Friends the Service Ministers. I was referring to the whole subject of customer representation in the various projects which have to be developed.
    The hon. Member for Dumbartonshire,East (Mr. Bence) cannot have read a report to which I wish to refer, the Report on "The Management and Control of Research and Development", commonly known as the Gibb-Zuckerman Report, which deals with the whole question of how to control expenditure on research and development for defence purposes. The Report discusses other matters, but in Chapter 7 says something which any hon. Member who wants to make sense of the subject of defence expenditure on research and development would be well-advised to read.
    The hon. Member suggested that it was impossible to say what the range of an aircraft would be before it was tested, but the operational requirement presupposes that an aircraft must be able to go a certain distance, or it would not fulfil the operational requirement. Anybody who tenders for the operational requirement deliberately tries to meet several factors, of which the range of the aircraft is only one.
    Mr. Bence: The hon. Member is on a different point. Under the continuing research and development which goes on at different stages, at the test bench level and at the drawing hoard level, there is a calculated estimate of what the aircraft will do. Admittedly, when it comes to the contracting stage and to the placing of orders and the demanding of something and the demanding of performance, what the hon. Member has said applies, but I was speaking of the person designing the aircraft.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Those who are better versed in the production of aircraft than I am would say that one of the things at which one can usualy make a fair guess is how far the aircraft will be able to fly. That is at the design stage.
    I mentioned the Gibb-Zuckerman Report in my intervention in the speech of
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    my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation two days ago. Paragraph 192 of Chapter 7 says:
    "An immense responsibility rests on the shoulders of these officers"—
    that is, the Deputy Chief of Air Staff and, under him, the Assistant Chief of Air Staff in charge of operational requirements—
    "and they cannot, in our view, fully discharge this responsibility, bearing in mind the great complexity of modern weapons and equipments, without experience of scientific and technical as well as operational matters".
    The next paragraph of the Report, paragraph 193 goes on:
    "We therefore share the disquiet expressed by the Select Committee on Estimates, which recently reported on the Headquarters organisation of the Admiralty, about the short tours of duty of senior officers in these responsible positions. They are generally so short that it is most unlikely that any single officer will have the opportunity of seeing a major project pass through the more important stages of its development. Lack of personal continuity in the higher positions from which operational requirements are controlled is bound to have its effect on much of the research and development designed to meet the requirements of the Services."
    The Report went on to recommend that the matter be urgently reviewed.
    I approached my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation who immediately referred me to the three Service Ministers. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will be able to say something about this, because I am quite convinced that the Report of the Gibb-Zuckerman Committee is right. It follows very nearly the argument advanced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch) during the defence debate. If we are to have this unification in the Ministry of Defence it is very important that in that Ministry we should have a secretariat well-known in Whitehall which is really versed in all these things and expert.
    Although I suppose that it is more of a Treasury than an Air Ministry matter, may I say that the more we go in for a unification project the more we shall have to pay for having a special form a Civil Service or a set-up which is separate from the rest of the home Civil Service to deal with defence. I will not elaborate that because the point is not particularly relevant in this debate.

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    But we are dealing with the management of public money whenever we discuss the Service Estimates.
    I am quite convinced that my right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West, was right when he said that the set-up now being visualised must involve the disappearance of the Supremo over the three Chiefs of Staff. I hope that my right hon. Friend, while he is in charge at the Ministry, will take this view. I am sure that if we visualise a Ministry of Defence with a Minister and the three Service Ministers below him, with 'the Minister of Aviation, as a sort of quadruplet of Ministers below the Ministry of Defence, it is absolutely essential that the Minister of Defence should be able to go straight to the Chiefs of Staff.
    I hope that the Chiefs of Staff will have direct access to the Minister of Defence. It would be very unusual if the Minister of Defence went behind the Secretary of State for Air to the Chief of the Air Staff without letting the right hon. Gentleman know. I should think it desirable that we should not have an additional Supremo over the three Chiefs of Staff.
    We cannot make sense of the Air Estimates without bringing in the Ministry of Aviation. I do not know whether hon. Members have tried to find out what our aircraft cost every year and how they are paid for, but to do so one must inter-relate the Ministry of Aviation Vote with the Air Ministry Vote. Here I wish to make a particular plea to the Government in respect of procedure for future years. We cannot make sense of these figures unless we have the Ministry of Aviation Vote to examine when we are discussing the Air Ministry Vote.
    I do not know whether it is realised that at the moment we have not got the Ministry of Aviation Vote for the next financial year and can only compare last year's Aviation Vote with this year's Air Ministry Vote. I hope that before we have the Estimates next year we shall be provided with the Ministry of Aviation Vote for the same year.
    I have tried to conduct an experiment. I do not know whether the Under-Secretary of State knows the answer, but according to the Ministry
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    of Aviation Vote last year the total purchase of aircraft amounted to £344 million from that Department of which the Air Ministry accounted for £234½ million. In other words, there was a balance of about £110 million. So far as we can see from the Air Ministry Vote this year, about £225,200,000 will be spent on aircraft, although it is difficult to know whether weapons are included in the total.
    If we go on to see what the Ministry of Aviation spent on aircraft for the Air Ministry we find that in the Vote it amounts to about £205 million; I have rounded off that figure. Therefore, somewhere there is a discrepancy of £29 million and I defy any hon. Member to find it by looking at the Estimates together. The reason is the Ministry of Aviation presents its figures in a manner different from that of the Secretary of State for Air. I am not blaming either Ministry. Either system may be the better. But unless they are inter-related, and seen to be inter-related, it makes it impossible for hon. Members to carry out their duties on behalf of the taxpayers. We do not know how the money is being spent.
    There is this extraordinary bulk agreement to which I have referred in other years and which is more clearly set out than used to be the case, and I thank whoever was responsible for that. It may be that this £29 million is derived from that discrepancy, because in one case the period dealt with is nine months and in the other twelve months. I am drawing attention to this matter because I think that it illustrates the importance of getting the three Service Departments and the Ministry of Aviation together under the same head.
    I believe that the arrangements announced by the Minister of Defence during the defence debate are along the right lines for that reason above all others. I do not think that we can ever hope to make sense of the research and development expenditure in relation to defence unless we have one of the principle spending Departments on behalf of the Armed Forces under the same control, and the only way to do that is to bring the Ministry of Aviation in with the Ministry of Defence.
    Mr. Eden: My hon. Friend will appreciate that the Ministry of Aviation has

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    other burdensome responsibilities outside the sphere of defence which must be borne in mind.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I appreciate that, and it leads me on to something else which I had intended to say.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) and I served for about two years on a Committee which produced just before Christmas a Report called "Science in Industry". Hon. Members on this side of the House and some knowledgeable scientists from outside published this Report, which went into the question of the inter-relationship between defence and civil spending on research and development.
    I will not make long quotations from the Report, but we came to the conclusions that there is a need for a closer relationship between defence and civil spending on research and development. We did not suggest that a defence project should be deliberately arranged to provide a civil result as part of the total result. But we think that there should be a closer inter-relationship between civil and military to ensure that a good idea, which might not be of much use to the Armed Forces, might be used to the full from the civil viewpoint. An amalgamation of the Air Ministry with the Ministry of Defence would provide an opportunity to improve the position. If we can bring the Ministry of Aviation in as well, it would enable a closer relationship to exist between civil and military research and development. For that reason, again, I welcome it.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Will it make very much difference to the state of affairs which existed between the wars, when the Air Ministry was responsible for all aircraft development? In view of the somewhat unhappy results which flowed from that period, I wonder whether my hon. Friend thinks it wise that the Ministry of Aviation should be under the Ministry of Defence.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: One can always take any argument to a reductio ad absurdutn. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should go too far in this way. From what my hon. Friend has just said, I think that it would be too far.
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    I am not suggesting that we should unify the whole control under one Minister. What I am suggesting is that there will be the Minister of Defence and three Service Ministers dealing with the Armed Forces and the general defence policy. Then the Minister of Aviation is being brought in and he will deal with the supply of aircraft for the Army and the Royal Air Force, and there will also be the civil side.
    It may well be that the civil side will have to be hived off somewhere else. I hope that it will not. I hope that there will be a civil branch which, obviously, will not be fully au fait with all the top secrets. But I am certain that it will lead to a better knowledge of what is going on in the military field, which might possibly be of use to the civil field, and follow the recommendation of the Gibb-Zuckerman Report on it.
    There is only one other thing I want to say and that is on the question of short take-off and landing or vertical take-off and landing. I myself believe that the future lies not in the vertical take-off and landing, but in the short take-off and landing. In previous Service Estimates debates, and particularly Air Estimates, I have taken an interest in these matters for some time past. My own belief is that always where one is doing vertical take-off one is bound to have the aircraft at some stage or another working at a dynamic disadvantage. I do not see how it can possibly be avoided. What I think is important is that one should always, if possible, make the aircraft fly at the right speed, at the right height and at the right aspect ratio the whole time, and that, means a great deal more variation in the geometry of the aircraft than we have known up to now. I think that we must go flat out for this.
    We had a great advantage here some years ago when the present Minister of Defence, strangely enough, was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was a cut in research and development which came at the wrong moment for a project which was then farmed out to N.A.T.O. They have spent about £200 million on it since, and, incidentally, the originator of the idea was given no credit for it. Now we are moving into fields far away from that of the original conception. What we ought to think about now is at what speed and at what

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    height we shall be flying at and what type of aircraft we shall be flying in ten, fifteen or twenty years' time. I am prepared to bet that we shall be flying at speeds up to thirty times, the speed of sound in a manned aircraft at heights over 200,000 feet above the earth's surface. I believe that we shall have people working all the week in Australia and coming home for the weekend.
    When the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dunbartonshire, East and also the hon. Gentleman the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) talked about "coming and going" they showed no grasp whatsoever of the strategy of this nation, of the fact that we live on the surface of a globe, and we must think in terms of flying from A to B and having the target in the middle, and making sure that we always have these overseas bases, and implement to the full the policy laid down in the White Paper last year by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson)—the economic advantages of overseas bases with combined forces of the three Services in the right place at the right time in order to maintain our strategic position. In these Estimates, I believe that that is the direction in which we are moving. If my right hon. Friend wants any support for the continuing research into manned aircraft, he has it from me.
    6.45 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Foot: It is agreeable to find myself approving one remark made by the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir Harry Legge-Bourke). He said at the beginning of his speech that he thought it was a scandal that these debates, when we are voting so much money, should not be better attended. I entirely agree with him about that. Of course it is easier to say than to devise a remedy for it, but I think that if it contiues over a period of years, as it has for many years now, with very important debates of this nature being attended by such few Members of the House on both sides, it can do the greatest injury to Parliament. Therefore, I think Parliament should try to discover the reasons why it happens.
    I am not saying it is due to somebody's wickedness or to some malevolent motive.
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    I think it is due to a combination of circumstances, but one of them certainly is the fact that a whole series of other Committees operate in the House of Commons which make it extremely difficult for Members of Parliament to attend debates in the House of Commons itself. Because that is one of the reasons it does not mean to say we should not try to devise a solution.
    I certainly agree with what the hon. Gentleman said in that connection, and that brings me to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) who opened the debate. I am sure he did it out of the goodness of his heart, but he courteously thanked the Minister of Defence for being here. I do not think that Ministers should be congratulated for being here; I think they should be castigated when they are not. The Minister of Defence is paid to be here when we have defence debates, just as I am paid to be here.
    Mr. Mulley: The reason why I drew attention to it was because of the extraordinary contempt that the previous Minister of Defence showed the House by never coming to the defence debates except when he was speaking. I wanted to encourage the new Minister of Defence into better habits.
    Mr. Foot: The hon. Member was encouraging the new Minister after his style and I was doing it after my style. I hope our combined efforts will secure the desired results. Nobody has ever thanked me for being here. Indeed, I do not see why they should. More often they have castigated me for being here than for being absent, but I think Members of Parliament ought to get it into their heads that one of their functions is to attend debates in the House of Commons. I think that would be a great and novel innovation in our constitutional arrangements and it would greatly assist to enhance the status of Parliament throughout the country.
    I now come to the speech of the Secretary of State, who has had congratulations showered upon him. I do not see any reason, except for his speech, why I should not make it unanimous. However, I would like to warn him about certain things. When the previous Secretary of State for Air made his first speech from that Box he congratulated

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    his predecessor. I noticed today the right hon. Gentleman omitted to do so, and I think he was perfectly right. Possibly he has been doing the same thing as I have been doing, namely, reading the speeches of his predecessor. It may be that the new Secretary of State has read the last two speeches of the last Secretary of State for Air introducing the Estimates which persuaded him to start his speech with some philosophic references to the dangers of prophecy. I think he was wise, but the right hon. Gentleman should not really get so testy, as he did on one or two occasions, when my hon. Friends questioned some of the statements he makes. We have every right to question the statements made by Secretaries of State for Air. Some confident predictions were made by the Secretary of State about the performance of various weapons which are not yet in operation. When we on this side were a bit dubious about what was being said, the right hon. Gentleman almost took it as an affront.
    The trouble is that we cannot believe what Secretaries of State for Air tell us. I do not say that offensively to the right hon. Gentleman. I am sure that he is as truthful as continuance in the present administration enables him to be. But I cannot go further than that. It is not a very glowing compliment. My hon. Friend has already referred to the Skybolt fiasco. He referred to it very effectively. But we have a right to look at what was said by previous Secretaries of State for Air. As we are not quite sure whether to believe what the right hon. Gentleman said today, perhaps we should see whether there was any justification for believing what his predecessor said, because I dare say the same people produce the speeches.
    During the Air Estimates debate on 8th March, 1961, it was said, according to the daily part of HANSARD for that date, No. 69:
    "The missiles with which we plan to maintain our contribution to the Western deterrent —the Blue Streak and Skybolt—will be mounted on V-bombers."
    [HON. MEMBERS: "Blue Steel,"] No. Blue Streak was the great weapon in those days. I am talking about what was said on 8th March, 1961. I shall come to 1962 in a moment.
    Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee: I think the hon. Gentleman referred to Blue Streak being mounted on a V-bomber. I do not think that can be right.
    Mr. Foot: The hon. Gentleman must not quarrel with me. I am quoting what was said by the previous Secretary of State, and if there is any quarrel about the technical deficiencies of the statement the matter should be taken up with the Minister of Aviation and not with me. All that I am doing is to read HANSARD. It is a very innocent occupation, but it is sometimes very damaging to the Government. It says:
    "The missiles with which we plan to maintain our contribution to the Western deterrent —the Blue Streak and Skybolt—will be mounted on V-bombers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1961; Vol. 636, c. 504.]
    I am sure that it is nonsense. The hon. Gentleman does not have to persuade me about that.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: No one is more amusing in debate in the House than the hon. Gentleman. He always takes me back to the days when I heard speeches in the Oxford Union, although I was not at the University. What the paragraph says is "Blue Streak"—and then there is a comma—"and Skybolt mounted on V-bombers". He knows that as well as I do.
    Mr. Foot: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no comma here. He must not complain. All I am doing is to quote the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor. This has nothing to do with the Oxford Union. There is no wit here, not a scrap. This is not conscious humour, it is unconscious humour, and it comes straight from the right hon. Gentleman. Let us bring the matter more up-to-date. [Laughter.] It is all very well for hon. Members to laugh now, but this was supposed to be serious when the Government said it last year, so let us see what they said.
    On 12th March, 1962, the Secretary of State for Air began his speech by challenging my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Gordon Walker). He asked, "Would he"—that is my right hon. Friend—"cancel Blue Steel?" Part of Blue Steel has been

    719
    cancelled, but not altogether. The next challenge was,
    "Would he contract out of the Skybolt programme?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th March, 1962; Vol. 655, c. 904.]
    Only a bare 12 months ago that was supposed to be a most damaging question put to this side of the House by the Government Front Bench. The Government have contracted out since.
    Mr. H. Fraser: I do not follow what the hon. Gentleman means by saying that we contracted out of the Blue Steel programme.
    Mr. Foot: Apparently, there has been no alteration in the Government's Blue Steel programme, no alteration whatsoever in the slightest degree. If that is so, we shall have to check to see whether it remains true twelve months later. But there is no doubt about Skybolt. [Interruption.] That is what I am doing, and I am glad to have the Secretary of State's assistance. Together we shall correct the speech of his predecessor and make sure that we have it correctly on the record for the future.
    The former Secretary of State for Air said much more about Skybolt. Not only did he take on my right hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick, but he took on my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), now the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman said:
    "The right hon. Gentleman"—
    that is, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton—
    "in the reference which I have just quoted—which I think I have established to the Committee was inaccurate—cast doubts on the future of Skybolt. So has the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown). I am sorry that he is not present in the Chamber. Both right hon. Gentlemen intimated that Skybolt might not reach us. That is not the view in the Pentagon, or in the United States Air Force at present."
    It may be that that was correct then, but the Government should not be so innocent. The right hon. Gentleman later said:
    "I can tell the Committee"—
    he had just said that he had been on a visit to the United States to see for himself—
    "that we came away convinced that Skybolt will be in service on time."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th March, 1962; Vol. 655, cc. 913–4.]
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    I can understand the Government being innocent, and, perhaps, deceived.
    The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) went very close to making a much more vicious charge against the American Government than I would make, because he went very near to saying that part of the reason why they cancelled Skybolt was that they wanted to interfere with Britain's maintenance of an independent nuclear deterrent, which is a very serious charge about the action of one ally towards another. However, it is not only a question of whether the Government were capable of finding what were the prospects of Skybolt when they went to America and sent missions to America. An hon. Member on this side who also went to America came back, as everyone now admits, with correct information when hon. Members opposite came back with incorrect information. But that is only part of it.
    Mr. H. Fraser: May I put the record straight? The hon. Gentleman opposite came back with entirely wrong information. He said that Skybolt had been a failure on technical grounds.
    Mr. Foot: The right hon. Gentleman should read the speeches of his predecessor. I have referred to the reply made by the Secretary of State far Air to my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton. The Secretary of State last year quoted what had been said by my right hon. Friend. The Leader of the Opposition said 12 months ago:
    "When I was in Washington, a few weeks ago, I heard some of the discussions about the prospects of Skybolt, and I doubt whether the Minister can say, with his hand on his heart, that there is any certainty that it will arrive."
    The Minister then went on to say, with his hand on his heart, that he thought that it would arrive. It is no good right hon. and hon. Members opposite trying to wriggle out of this. The Government got the wrong information and the Opposition got the right information. But that is a very common phenomenon. If that is all that had happened, I should not have mentioned the point at all.
    The point is that the whole of the Government's Air Estimates which were presented last year were based on this assumption, on their own claim. The Secretary of State said:
    "This substantiates my claim that the Sky-bolt missile will be a valid weapon system

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    until well into the 1970."——[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th March, 1962; Vol. 655, c. 913–4.]
    That was the basis of the Government's V-bomber force a bare 12 months ago, and it is no good their denying it. Therefore, suspicion is cast when they come forward today, as they told us in the defence debate on Monday and Tuesday, and say that they have a quite satisfactory substitute for what 12 months ago they were saying was an absolute essential for maintaining our V-bomber force.
    That is partly why the hon. Member for Macclesfield has such a strong case within his own area of argument. He wants an independent nuclear deterrent. I think that he is wrong in wanting it, but he really wants one and he does not want a fake. He says that we could have gone ahead with Skybolt in this country. That is correct, if we spent enough money on it. If all the claims that the Government make for the independent nuclear deterrent—that is that we can deter the outbreak of any war against ourselves; this is the claim that they make for it—are true, I do not see how they can honourably say that they will not continue with it on grounds of expense.
    If the Government really believe that with an independent nuclear deterrent within our own control they can absolutely safeguard the peace of this country and ensure that no foreign Power ever dare attack us, they have no grounds for saying they will not spent £300, £400 or £600 million in order to obtain it. That is not sustainable. Therefore, the hon. Member for Macclesfield is perfectly correct in what he is telling the House and the country on this matter; and the Government are seeking, as we know, to conceal that.
    We have never been told the truth about the matter in all these defence debates. I thought for a moment that the Minister was going to tell us. We never knew what happened over the Skybolt fiasco. When Mr. McNamara came to discuss it with the Minister of Defence, did the Minister say right away that he would rather have Polaris? Of course not. Maybe he had been listening to one of his predecessors saying it was no good anyhow, that it was not an invulnerable weapon. But we know from reports in these newspapers that are so
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    deeply condemned for publishing these things—and people may be sent to gaol when they do it—that when the original proposition was put that the Skybolt programme was to be abandoned the Government thought it a disgraceful proposition. They said that the Americans had deceived them and had no right to do it. We read how the Minister of Defence would make a great stand. But that collapsed very quickly, and we were soon told an entirely different story.
    Therefore, I must say that if the House wants to know the truth of what happened about Skybolt they had much better listen to the hon. Member for Macclesfield than to what is told us by the Secretary of State. This is not a small affair. This is the weapon upon which the Government told us twelve months ago the whole maintenance of their V-bomber and deterrent force was to be sustained; a very important matter. Now the whole situation is altered and the Government come forward and say that we are better off than ever. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. Many of the spokesmen from that side have said we are better off with Polaris than we were with Skybolt.
    Mr. H. Fraser: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the V-bomber force, I think he will agree, if he studies the matter carefully, that what is said is that obviously with the loss of Skybolt there must be a diminution in that side of our defences.
    Mr. Foot: That is quite clear, and I think in saying that the hon. Gentleman has been slightly more candid than the Prime Minister. I do not think that was the impression the Government tried to create in the country after the Nassau Agreement was signed; but even so he is putting it very mildly, because in fact the main weapon on which the Government were relying until a few months ago, until the Americans told them overnight they were not to have it—that main weapon—is gone.
    It is not only the argument about how much faith we can put on what the Government have said twelve months ago that worries me. I remember when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and myself and others engaged in debates on Thor missiles a year or so ago many then said, some for technical reasons,

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    that whatever view anyone took about nuclear disarmament generally, the most dangerous weapons we ever had in this country were Thor missiles. The argument against them was overpowering. These were weapons which could only be used first.
    We had a long and tedious argument from the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman trying to explain how Thor missiles might be used against manned bombers before manned bombers dropped bombs on this country, never taking into account, perhaps, that the Russians had rockets as well. Everyone knew that Thor missiles could only be used first and, therefore, we have argued for several years to get rid of them. Now we are getting rid of them, and good riddance, too. That will save about £4 million a year, as I understand, from the reply of the Secretary of State. It is all done very quietly, but I am sure the Government now understand that. I do not say that this is the only reason why they have been removed, but it would have been better if they had been removed long ago.
    Mr. H. Fraser: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but during the period when we had the Thor missile it was of great importance. But every development eventually becomes out of date. We were perfectly right to have Thor missiles. I believe we are now perfectly right not to have them.
    Mr. Foot: That is the kind of answer which casts doubt on everything else the right hon. Gentleman says. His view is that at the exact moment when he would like to get rid of Thor missiles on technical grounds we have done so; but he is still defending having them a few years ago. That casts doubt on his whole judgment in these matters, because anyone who had studied the matter could see for himself that Thor missiles could only be used first, and it is no good this country, of all countries, having a nuclear weapon, whatever may be the other argument against it, that can only be used first. During the Cuban crisis, if general war had broken out, one of the reasons why this country would have been exterminated would have been because of the presence of these Thor missiles, which were of no use to us anyway. Does the right hon.
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    Gentleman deny that? It is a very serious matter. Many of us have said that these weapons are provocative, anyhow, and that we should clear them out. The Government would not listen and have only been prepared to take them out when the Americans have insisted on it.
    During this debate we have had a general argument about the independent nuclear deterrent, which is, after all, the main purpose for which the Air Force exists. I know that that is not its only function, but it is its primary function. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I know that the Air Force has other functions, but if his claims for the deterrent are as great as they have been no one can dispute that this is not the most important function of all. That is what he has been saying.
    I have been waiting for hon. Gentle men opposite to try to answer the arguments put from this side in the two-day defence debate and today about the independent nuclear deterrent. I must say they very rarely attempt to do so, because they go on repeating the same thing. The hon. and gallant Member for Macclesfield speaks on this issue, and I can understand his point of view. He says that we cannot trust the Americans for ever even if we can trust them now, and he is not too certain about that. The Government say much the same thing, although they phrase it rather more delicately than the hon. and gallant Gentleman; that however much we trust the Americans, we cannot trust them for ever. I can understand that point of view, and if I did not think these weapons were highly dangerous for other reasons, and if it were possible for this country to have a nuclear deterrent of its own which could defend us, I could see the argument. I do not trust the Americans all that much.
    One of the troubles—and this was put very powerfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Jenkins) in the debate on Monday and Tuesday—is that for a country of this size, capable of maintaining a nuclear force of this size, it is an extremely dangerous kind of weapon. In one sense —a technical sense if you like, though it is more than that—if I might summarise the argument crudely, if we have huge nuclear armaments with the possibility of choosing between different

    725
    nuclear weapons and conventional forces, the possibility of our being forced to use the weapon first is much less. I concede that argument. Hon. Members opposite have never attempted to answer the point.
    Always the British Government, because of their obsession about the independent nuclear deterrent, make statements which would be dangerous enough if they were made by the Americans but are infinitely more dangerous when made by spokesmen of a country like ours. Quite a number of people in the United States, arguing about these matters, say that it would be a very good idea to have a common agreed declaration between the Russians and themselves and everybody, if it could be obtained—
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I think he is getting close to turning the debate into a debate on defence. I must remind him that what we are discussing is the Air Ministry Vote. It is permissible to give an illustration, but to enter into a long controversy on the question of nuclear deterrents or not as a policy is clearly out of order.
    Mr. Foot: With great respect, Sir Robert, may I say this? I cannot believe that an argument about the independent nuclear deterrent is out of order because, as I have already indicated, the debate on the Air Estimates twelve months ago was opened by the Secretary of State who began his speech by saying, "I shall devote the major part of my speech to a discussion of the independent nuclear deterrent". The bulk of the right hon. Gentleman's speech on that occasion was devoted to this. That was a debate on exactly the same terms as today's debate.
    The Deputy-Chairman: That is all right on the technical aspect of the nuclear deterrent as connected with its delivery by the Royal Air Force. I must insist that we cannot turn this into a general debate on defence and open up the whole question whether the policy of the nuclear deterrent is right or wrong. We must discuss the nuclear deterrent in connection with its delivery by the Royal Air Force.
    Mr. Foot: I hope that I understand the limitations, Sir Robert. I do not want to
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    go wider than the rules allow. What we are discussing is whether it is proper for this country to devote so large a part of its resources, and in particular its resources of defence expenditure, on an independent nuclear deterrent. That is certainly a central part of our argument. The hon. Member for Macclesfield has already covered—
    The Deputy-Chairman: If the hon. Genteman confines his argument to Air Force expenditure, that will be in order, but we are not discussing the whole total of defence expenditure in this debate.
    Mr. Paget: On a point of order. Can one put it in this way, Sir Robert? It is in order to discuss the efficacy of the delivery of the deterrent, not its morals.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think that puts it very well.
    Mr. Foot: It is a wonderful arrangement, Sir Robert, which only the ingenuity of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) could have discovered, that the Committee is entitled to discuss everything except the morality of the problem. I am sure that would be an arrangement entirely agreeable to the Government Front Bench, and possibly to my hon. and learned Friend too. If I stray into any question of moral principles, I hope that you, Sir Robert, will pull me up at once, because I know that it would be a monstrous instrusion.
    The Deputy-Chairman: We can discuss the morality on another occasion, but not on this one.
    Mr. Foot: I hope that I understand the Ruling, Sir Robert.
    What I was seeking to argue was that the attempt to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent and to maintain this country as a nuclear Power interferes with the only means that we have available for making this country safe. In any literal sense of the word, this country cannot be defended with nuclear weapons. This country can only retaliate or deter. It cannot be defended with them. But the obsession with these weapons leads us into a series of attitudes which threaten the real possibilities of defending the country.
    The other day the Prime Minister gave an example to the House in reply to a

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    Question concerned with whether we should give an undertaking that this independent nuclear deterrent of ours should never be used first. The Prime Minister's reply was this:
    "No, Sir… I must repeat what I have said before. It seems to me very unwise to inform a possible aggressor in advance of the precise circumstances in which he can or cannot make an aggression without danger of retaliation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th February, 1963; Vol. 672, c. 1443.]
    I have heard the Prime Minister on a number of other occasions say that possibly the 1914–18 war broke out precisely because the other side miscalculated what would be the retaliation if they took certain actions. On other occasions he has said that it must be made absolutely clear.
    One of the troubles about Britain being dependent on an independent nuclear deterrent and the Air Force means of delivering it is that it pushes us into the situation, as the Prime Minister apparently believes, of having to say that in certain circumstances we would use these weapons first, which is about the maddest statement ever made by a British Prime Minister.
    There are many other reasons why I believe that the obsession of the Government in this respect prevents us from considering the only ways in which we can defend this country. The nuclear deterrent idea is the rusted nail placed near the compass which upsets the compass and can wreck the Argosy. This is a matter of the greatest interest to this country. Whatever other disagreements we may have, there is full agreement, for example, between myself and those on the Opposition Front Bench that it is in the supreme interest of this country that we should prevent by all means that we can the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Nothing could be more dangerous for this country, above all countries—it is dangerous enough for the others—that these weapons should spread to other countries.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is again going too wide on this debate. I must ask him to restrict his remarks to the function of the Air Force in connection with the nuclear deterrent and not to branch out into the whole moral question of the use of nuclear deterrents.
    Mr. Foot: In my opinion, the question of the proliferation of nuclear weapons is not solely a moral question. It is a political question and, in some respects, a technical question. It was referred to by the hon. Member for Macclesfield, who argued that if we were to withdraw the money which we are asked to vote today and deny the Government their independent nuclear deterrent it would not have any effect oft China or France in their wish to have nuclear weapons. I can see the argument, although I think there are answers to it. The trouble is that the Government, in their obsession to get this money through for the purposes that the Secretary of State described today, leave out of account the much more important question of how we are going to stop the proliferation of these weapons to other countries. The question was asked in the defence debate, when every argument used by the Minister of Defence, supporting the steps which the Secretary of State asked us to agree to today, was one which could be used by every other country to support its claim to have nuclear weapons too.
    Therefore, the Government's determination to pursue their policy of the independent deterrent affects in a whole series of manners, which I will not describe because I might conceivably be out of order, the initiatives which could be taken in foreign policy, which are the only initiatives which could save this country.
    We cannot put the full case today, but the right hon. Genlteman must not be surprised if for a variety of reasons hon. Members suspect what he has told us, not because we think that he wants to mislead the Committee, but because the case for nuclear weapons is one which cannot be presented in full without exposing the whole folly and madness of it. Of course, added to that, the Government have sought time and again to conceal from the House what is the true situation of this country and its defenceless position. In the defence debate—this applies to the Air Force, of course—we had a most astonishing statement from the Minister of Defence:
    "Looking at the equipment which these Services have today and looking at the equipment which I have outlined, I think I can say that never in peace-time in our history have we had Services better equipped or better disposed in the various theatres which we are considering to meet any threat which they may

    729
    be called upon to meet."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 36.]
    That is the claim of this country's Minister of Defence. It is absolutely nonsensical. Everyone knows that the military threat to this country in the form of the devastation which could be inflicted upon it is far greater than we have ever known in our history. It is not the fault of the Government. It is the fault of the invention of nuclear weapons. But what is the fault of the Government is that they make statements of this kind, which some people might take seriously, saying that we are equipped to meet any threat Which might come. Of course, we are not. We cannot be in the circumstances. So it is a gross deception of the people of this country for the Minister to say it.
    That side of it is tragic. The other side of it is comic. If this is supposed to be the situation, why does the Minister of Defence, in one sentence, tell the House and the country that we are better equipped in every theatre to meet any threat which might come upon us, and, in the second part of his speech, say that he intends to change from top to bottom the whole system of defence arrangements which have produced that wonderful result? One would think that, if that were truly the situation, the Minister would say that he did not want a single change in the whole organisation of the Ministry of Defence because it is working so well.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now going back again to a defence debate. I must ask him to keep in order and confine his remarks to the Vote before the Committee.
    Mr. Foot: I accept your Ruling, of course, Sir Robert. I must say, with full respect, that I think that it would be a departure from what has happened in the past two or three Air Estimates debates if the debate were to be limited in the manner you have described. However, having said that, I accept your Ruling.
    I say to both the Minister of Defence, who is not here, and to the Secretary of State for Air, who is, that I hope that they will try to describe to the country the truth about nuclear weapons, both the weapons which we possess and the injuries which this country might suffer.
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    I hope that they will do so, even when, of course, they disagree with us about the way to deal with the situation. If the Minister of Defence continues to make statements such as that which we had from him this week, then it will be proper to describe him not, as he once was, as a local difficulty, but as a global menace.
    7.24 p.m.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Listening to the speeches of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot), I can understand some of the concern felt by the leaders of the party opposite lest by any chance he should get the Whip back and, perhaps, apply it to their backs instead of their applying it to him. It is always a very good entertainment to listen to the hon. Gentleman, but it is a great tribute to the people of this country that they do not pay much attention to what he says.
    The hon. Gentleman made a great attack on what was said on Monday by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. I hope that I am in order in referring to this, Sir Robert, because it does relate to the deterrent power of the Royal Air Force. My right hon. Friend was perfectly right when he said that
    "never in peacetime in our history have we had Services better equipped or better disposed in the various theatres … to meet any threat…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 36.]
    That was demonstrated at Kuwait. It was demonstrated recently in the Far East. It is perfectly true. I know the hon. Gentleman's dislike of the Royal Air Force having a nuclear deterrent, and I know that he would like to wash it out.
    The hon. Gentleman spoke of the proliferation which is liable to take place in the ownership of nuclear weapons and thermo-nuclear weapons by other countries. There is one country just the other side of the English Channel developing a nuclear deterrent. Does the hon. Gentleman really suggest that it would be responsible if any Government in this country, not knowing what sort of alliances might be built up over the next thirty years, gave up all forms of nuclear weapons, when we have one such country right on our doorstep? Are we to take from the Royal Air Force its power to hit back or to attack

    731
    when there is this proliferation going on?
    What influence should we have in foreign affairs in such circumstances? We should not be able to influence any worthwhile measure of disarmament, which, we all hope, may take place. The time may come when we can take a step to reduce the hitting power of the Royal Air Force and Bomber Command, but we should have no influence in those matters at all if we had no weapon of this nature. I hope that the Government will never give up the idea that we should have an independent nuclear deterrent.
    I regard the outline of the reorganisation of the defence forces put forward by my right hon. Friend as the best proposal we have had since I have been in the House of Commons. I come now to something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). My hon. Friend criticised hon. Members—he referred particularly to the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown), who is not here at the moment —for what they do to cause inter-Service friction. He said that the right hon. Member for Belper had suggested that there should be two fighting Services instead of three.
    The right hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Bellenger) came promptly to the assistance of his right hon. Friend, and, of course, he got it wrong, as usual. He said that his right hon. Friend the Member for Belper was, in fact, referring to the row which went on at the end of the 1914–18 war when it was suggested that the Royal Air Force of that day should be returned to and put under the control of the Army. Anyone who has read the life of the first Lord Trenchard knows very well that that was a threat which Lord Trenchard had to resist. If he had not done so, we should certainly not have had the independent Air Force which we had in 1939 and, with an Air Force concerned merely with close Army support, we should undoubtedly have been defeated.
    In fact, the right hon. Member for Belper did say what my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield alleged. This is what the right hon. Gentleman said:
    "In the end there is an unanswerable case for two Services rather than three, whether one approaches it on a functional basis or not.
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    There will be one Service which will have the strike operation, one which will have the transport operation and one which will have the land duties to perform."
    Needless to say, hon. Members were in uproar at that, saying, "That is three". The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
    "There is a case for two Services rather than three. One may be the naval and flying force and the other the land force".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 320.]
    We are used to confusion from the right hon. Member for Belper. We know that he has had a bitter disappointment during the past few weeks, but I have never heard him quite so "good" as that. It is the most awful jumble of nonsense that I have ever heard, and it could do nothing but cause strife between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.
    It is this inter-Service strife which the Minister of Defence is anxious to see stopped and which anyone who has served in the Services wants to see stopped. Most of us regret very much what was done by some irresponsible officers of high rank—I will not say which Service they belonged to—to develop this friction between the wars. It did no good to the country and no good to the Services involved.
    I support particularly the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence that the Chiefs of Staff should come directly under him. I think that is a very worth-while proposal and a great advance on the present system, where we have a Chief of the Defence Staff. We have had this threat for some time that we should have a Supreme Commander with the Chiefs of Staff under him.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but he also, I think, is straying into a defence debate. He must relate his remarks to the Air Force and the Air Estimates.
    Mr. Mulley: I am a little disturbed, Sir Robert, about the narrowness of the view that you have been taking about the nature of the Air Estimates debate. I appreciate that we could not have a general foreign policy or defence debate, but hitherto it has been possible even to argue that the Air Force itself should be abolished—a view I never take—and give reasons of foreign policy, and so on, for it. If hon Members are suggesting

    733
    that there should not be certain expenditure, they ought to be allowed to develop an argument for that. I think that your Ruling may establish a precedent and perhaps very much restrict debates in the future. I hope that is not your intention.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I am the servant of the House in this matter. What one wants to try to stop is a debate which is essentially related to a particular Service being splayed out into a general debate on defence or foreign policy. I must insist that the debate should not develop in that way into a full dress defence or foreign policy debate.
    Sir A V. Harvey: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. While I appreciate your Ruling, it seems that this may well be the last Air Estimates debate in this form and that my hon. Friend ought to be allowed, if I may say so with respect, to put forward his views on the system in this type of debate, whether it is this year or next year, because the Minister of Defence has said that he is seeking opinions from the House before he formulates his White Paper.
    The Deputy-Chairman: What I am asking is that he should relate it to the Air Force. That is all.
    Mr. Williams: Sir Robert, I support you entirely, as usual.
    I was just coming to the point when I was going to introduce the title of the Chief of Air Staff and I was about to plead with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air to use all the influence that he has to see that the Chief of Air Staff and the other Chiefs of Staff—I hope that I am allowed to mention that—are treated as equals and that, if possible, they should not in any way be subject to the authority of any Chief of Staff in the Ministry of Defence.
    The most important thing about the Chief of the Air Staff and the other Chiefs of Staff is that they should retain access to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in the event of any disagreement between them and the Minister of Defence. I think that this is a vital matter for the country. We have developed the Chiefs of Staff Committee over many years and I think that it is quite right that if the Chief of the Air Staff and the Chiefs of
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    the other Services feel that the wrong advice has been tendered to the Prime Minister they should be permitted to attend the Cabinet and give their advice and sound the necessary warning. The danger of the other system is that we shall find the Chief of the Air Staff and the whole of the Royal Air Force under a Supreme Commander and that we shall have a system developing very much like the Ober Commando von Wehrmacht which, I believe, was the greatest contribution to Germany's defeat in the last war.
    One other point which I wish to make in my very brief speech is the plea that considerable tact should be shown in the welding together of the three Services. I think that many of the titles that are used in the three Services, particularly the Royal Air Force, mean a tremendous lot to the people who serve in the Royal Air Force and I hope that we shall not see all of them disappearing. I should not like myself to see the supreme Minister for the Royal Air Force lose the title of Secretary of State. I should not like to see the title of the First Lord of the Admiralty disappear but that, of course, is outside the scope of this debate. But I think that if we are to permit one to remain, then all three should remain, and I am particularly anxious that the political head of my own Service should retain his high position in the political world, just as I am concerned that the others should also.
    My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence will have to face a very considerable number of difficulties in welding the three Services together. I am sure that such a welding is the desire of all officers in all the Services, especially those who have been to staff colleges, and to the Imperial Defence College. They are getting very tired of some of the inter-Service jealousy which has existed in the past. It causes great distress, especially among the junior officers. I think that we have had very great success in welding the Services together already. We have had a magnificent set-up out at Aden, where the future Chief of the Air Staff was a most popular Supreme Commander and did an extremely good job. I am sure that the Royal Air Force will be obsolutely loyal to any Supreme Commander from the other Services under whom it had to serve.

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    We must be careful not to destroy all the esprit de corps of the Royal Air Force. I should not like to see Cranwell disappear. I believe that I am the only representative here of that institution at the moment. It did a tremendous job in furthering the interests of the Air Force and building it up and it is a great compliment to this country that when one goes to the United States Air Academy, at Colorado, and by chance they find out that one has been to the Royal Aix Force College at Cranwell, they jolly well nearly give one the place.
    It is designed very much on our setup. It would be a great tragedy if an institution like that were merged into a common cadet college. I think that it is essential that the officers of the three Services should continue to be trained in their own traditional colleges. It is when we get further up the ladder that one begins to wonder whether they should go on to a general list, retaining their rank, as general officers who can command any substantial force. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should see a squadron of guided missile destroyers commanded by a major general or an air marshal. Obviously, it must be commanded by a technical officer trained in the Navy. But I think that over a certain rank it should be realised that the officers concerned should all be available for a command in the joint Services, and I believe that an exchange of officers between the Royal Air Force and the other Services at the junior ranks would quickly foster a sense of unity.
    My right hon. Friend has been courageous in introducing the White Paper and I think that in the end it will lead to a finer defence force for the country than we have ever had before.
    7.40 p.m.
    Mr. Eric Lubbock: Before the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) started to wander about the passages of the as-yet imaginary British pentagon, he said that one of the main reasons why it was impossible for us to give up the British independent nuclear deterrent was that General de Gaulle was developing one in France. That is a complete non sequitur, as the hon. Mem-Member will recognise if he gives the matter a moment's reflection—unless, per-
    736
    haps, he thinks that General de Gaulle might have used his force de frappe against us as retaliation for the appearance of M. Bidault on television.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: The hon. Member cannot get away with that one. The President of France is developing an absolutely independent power. It is not in the N.A.T.O. alliance. He is keeping it separate. It would be quite wrong for a responsible Government in this country to give up any force of a similar nature here and to rely on the protection of the United States.
    Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Member has merely repeated what he said in his speech, that we should not give up our' own independent nuclear deterrent because General de Gaulle was in process of developing one himself.
    As the hon. Member or Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) pointed out in his speech, one of the reasons for the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which is such a dangerous factor in the world today, is precisely the emulation to which we, in part, led General de Gaulle himself. It is certainly not true now that if we were to give up our deterrent, it would have any influence on General de Gaulle—I concede that—but might it not have been true a few years ago that if we had given up our deterrent, he would not have decided to spend all this money on one of his own?
    Incidentally, I should thank the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale for attending this debate as he complained that no one hitherto had done so. I share the concern of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey), who, unfortunately, is not in his place, that so few hon. Members have attended this debate, but I look upon it from a slightly different viewpoint from the hon. Member.
    The hon. Member said that he would like to spend more on defence. I considered it a pity that a Minister could not follow the hon. Member and give him one of those lectures to which we are accustomed on the size of the cake and the number of slices into which it can be cut. The hon. Member should bear in mind that if he wishes to spend more on defence, he is automatically advocating a cut in expenditure in some other sector. He should tell his constituents exactly where he would make the cut. Is it in

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    education, in housing or in what? There is only a certain size of cake and it can be divided into only a certain number of slices.
    The hon. Member spoke about research and was interesting on the subject of the connection between civil and military research in aircraft. Some of the various projects at present under way will have civil applications and some will not. I should very much like to see more work done under military auspices which could conceivably have civil application later. As far as I know, we are doing nothing whatever on the subject of boundary layer control, which could have far-reaching effects in reducing the cost of civil flying. Neither do we seem to be proceeding with the development of more efficient subsonic engines with improved specific fuel consumption, because the next generation of aircraft to be used by Bomber and Fighter Commands, at least, will have supersonic engines which I do not think will have a civil application. There is, of course, room for difference of opinion about this.
    The Government are going ahead with the Mach 2·2 airliner and they could, I suppose, contend that their experience with the TSR2 engine will be useful in that direction and that the Mach 2·2 engine will be a later version of the engine which powers the TSR2. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) has spoken about vertical take-off and said that at some stage an aircraft which takes off vertically is working at a dynamic disadvantage. I do not quite know what he meant by that. People who intervene on technical subjects in these debates should have knowledge of what they are talking about.
    Mr. Brian Harrison: Does it necessarily follow that because the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) does not understand, my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), who made the statement, also does not understand?
    Mr. Lubbock: Yes, it probably does.
    Mr. Harrison: Oh, no.
    Mr. Lubbock: I used to work in the aircraft industry and I have some experience of the manufacture of aircraft engines. Unfortunately, however, as the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely is not present, he cannot explain what he meant.
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    Both the hon. Member and his hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield talked about the concept of aerospace. The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely said that within ten years, aircraft would be travelling at thirty times the speed of sound and at altitudes of 25 miles. The hon. Member for Macclesfield also suggested that such a project might be advantageous from a military viewpoint. I do not think that either hon. Member can appreciate the cost or the technical difficulties involved in such a project. The Americans have spent vast sums of money on the X15, which is not of a type which is envisaged to take off from an airfield in this country go into orbit, fly around the world and return to its place of origin. Even the Americans are nowhere near that stage.
    The X15 has an engine which fires for less than a minute, and reaches a height of 100,000 ft. It has to be launched from a bomber and then it returns in a glide to a base which requires an airfield 10 to 15 miles long. Even the United States, therefore, is a long way from the development of such a project as the two hon. Member described. I cannot see that such a project would have any civil application. It would be an utter waste of money for us, with the limited resources at our disposal, to embark upon such a project.
    The hon. Member for Macclesfield talked a lot about the credibility of our deterrent, a subject on which I should like to say a few words. It is difficult for Members of the House of Commons to make a judgment on this question because, for security reasons, we are given only the sketchiest of inofrmation. We have to collect little snippets which are given to us by Ministers.
    The Secretary of State for Air said in his speech this afternoon that the powers of penetration of the V-bomber force will gradually diminish as Soviet powers of interception improve. Later, in reply to a question, he said that the failure of Skybolt would mean a diminution of the value of that side of our defences. Why we are really in the dark is that we have no knowledge of the effectiveness of Soviet anti-aircraft missiles. Therefore, we cannot assess the truth or otherwise of Ministers' contentions that enough of the V-bombers

    739
    would penetrate those defences to deter that potential enemy.
    I do not think that our deterrent could possibly have any independent value. It is so small that even if one accepts those contentions that a significant proportion of the aircraft would penetrate Soviet defences, they could be used only in a counter-value rôle, to use the American jargon. There are not enough of them to be used in the counter-force rôle of an attack directed mainly against enemy missile launching sites and airfields. It is inconceivable, therefore, bearing in mind this limitation, that we would ever dare to use the deterrent first. If we used it in a counter-value rôle, it would mean that we were leaving all the enemy retaliation potential intact. That would invite suicide, because the country would then be obliterated from the map. When people are discussing this subject, I think that they often forget that no one with these powerful weapons would intentionally start a war. This should be recognised.
    I do not think that the hon. Member for Macclesfield realises that the Western Alliance is meant to be an alliance based on teamwork. In fact, I know that he does not believe it, because in a previous debate on the Air Estimates he said:
    "… I have very little more time for the Americans than I have for the Russians, because it seems to me that they make a lot of trouble for us …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1961; Vol. 636, c. 522.]
    That seems a curious attitude to adopt towards one's allies, and I look on this business of deterrents in this way, that the West must be a team, and in a team one has to give people different rôles. In a football team one does not expect the goalkeeper to rush up and play at centre-forward, or the centre-forward to rush back and play in goal. Therefore, in the Western Alliance as a whole it is useful for us to split up according to the resources which we have available and play our parts accordingly.
    Our part in this must be a conventional one, because the Americans already have overwhelming nuclear forces, far more than we could ever have, even if we did what the hon. Member for Macclesfield wishes us to do—spend a very much higher proportion of
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    our gross national product on defence. We could raise it to 14 per cent., or to 21 per cent., but the level of our deterrent capability would still be an insignificant fraction of that of the Americans.
    I have one or two questions to ask the Minister about his speech this afternoon. First, with regard to the TSR2 he said that a new nuclear weapon was to be developed which it would be capable of delivering. I think that the House ought to be informed whether this means that additional tests will have to be undertaken. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is listening to my question. I very much hope also that it does not mean that these additional tests have to be undertaken at a time when the negotiations in Geneva have come so close to reaching an agreement.
    On the subject which has been much discussed this afternoon, that of the range of the TSR2, I must tell the Minister that I think it absurd to be so reticent, when, in the Memorandum on the Air Estimates, we are given, in paragraph 27, a statement of the range of the Vulcan V-bomber. It says that the Vulcan bomber made a non-stop record flight of 3,673 miles to Aden in 6 hours, 13 minutes. We are given not only the range of the Vulcan, but, with a little arithmetical calculation, we can work out its speed. I think that the Minister is being far too reticent about—
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: How does that give the range of the Vulcan bomber, unless it is accompanied by a statement that it would have fallen out of the air if it had tried to go any further? Secondly, that statement does not say what it was or was not carrying in the way of an armament payload.
    Mr. Lubbock: It does not give that information, but it says it was a record flight, so presumably this is about the maximum it can do.
    Mr. Max-well-Hyslop indicated dissent.
    Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. He may disagree, but from reading this I assume that this is its range with the minimum payload, because there must be many flights by Vulcans with varying payloads at different times. One reads in the newspapers about flights to Aden and to Cyprus,

    741
    and some years ago there was the flight which ended in tragedy when a Vulcan flew round the world. One was given the time of arrival and departure from each staging post. This shows how absurd is the Minister's reticence on this subject.
    My next question is about the Fylingdales early warning system. Mr. Khrushchev has stated publicly that he has a missile which can go right round the world and attack us from the back door, as it were. I should like to be assured that the early warning system which we are developing in collaboration with the Americans is effective against missiles from whichever direction they come.
    Next, the Minister said that the nationalised air Corporations were entitled to tender for trooping operations. I think that this must have been a slip of the tongue, but if it is true I am delighted to hear it, because the B.O.A.C. has a large number of Britannias which have been taken out of service and are sitting on the tarmac doing nothing. Moreover, it is in the process of withdrawing some of its Comets. I am sure that the Corporation will be delighted at the Minister's announcement.
    I turn next to the AW681. This is bound to be an expensive aircraft. We do not know its specification, but I should like to know whether all the equipment which the Army wishes to be carried in such a freighter can be taken by the AW681, and specifically whether the opening in its fuselage is as large as that in the Belfast. The opening in the fuselage of the Belfast was designed specifically to take all the vehicles which the Army wished it to take. If we are now told that the opening in the fuselage of the AW681 is smaller, then that must mean that it will not do the job the Army wants it to do.
    My final question is on the same subject. The Minister told me when he made this announcement about the order for the AW681 that it could be in service as soon as the developed version of the Belfast. I am given to understand that this is not true. I am told that the Belfast with the Transall type engine, that is, the Tyne IV with larger propellers, could come off the line in Belfast immediately following the 10 on order at the moment, and that, there-
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    fore, one could get this aircraft into service very much sooner than the AW681.
    We are entitled to answers to some of the many questions which have been put this afternoon, and, in conclusion, I say that the reason for the poor attendance about which several hon. Members have complained is that we are never given any of the facts.
    7.57 p.m.
    Mr. Colin Turner: I do not intend to follow the arguments of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), but I shall come back to the comments he made about the performance of the Vulcans and Victors because I do not believe that one can read anything into the statement in this Memorandum. I have been looking at it, and it could have been a time record. It says nothing about it being a record for range, but I shall deal with that later.
    I associate myself most closely with the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). It seems to me that in the Royal Air Force we have made a speciality of the air delivery system. Obviously we get the best value for money in the presentation of our independent deterrent if we use it with a vehicle which we already have, and for this reason alone I believe that the V-bomber force with Skybolt was the logical development of our deterrent.
    I turn now to the people who make the Royal Air Force possible, the men and women in the Service. I am sorry that the only mention of the Women's Royal Air Force in the Memorandum is contained in three short lines. The rôle of the Royal Air Force demands that it is constantly on the alert. This applies to fighters, bombers and transport planes, and it means that both here and overseas a large percentage of the personnel must remain on the stations. The part played by the Women's Royal Air Force, not only in the manning of various services which are essential to the development of our Air Force, but in the general social life of these camps when men cannot get out to enjoy the pleasures of nearby towns, is very important. Many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will remember the visits that we have paid to these bases during the last twelve months. It

    743
    is very important to bear this matter in mind.
    During the last year we have improved the standard of men and women in the Forces and have made it a thoroughly worthwhile career, but unless we can maintain the confidence of the people in the Forces by seeing that there is a future for the manned aircraft and the Royal Air Force, no matter what sort of integration of our defence services there may be, morale will drop overnight. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence and the Secretary of State for War have made it clear that in their opinion there is a longterm future for manned aircraft and all that goes with them.
    I now turn to the subject of Transport Command. When I spoke on this occasion last year I criticised the Government because I felt that they had failed to take the necessary decisions at the right time in respect of our transport force. I am glad that we have decided to increase the order for the VC.10, because this is an essential aircraft. Little remains to be said, on the freighter side, about the Belfast. I merely say in passing that if it was right to place an order for ten of these aircraft it was essential to place one for twenty or thirty. During the months and years that lie ahead, when these aircraft come into service, we shall probably bless the fact that the decision was taken even to order ten—despite the fact that the Royal Air Force itselt may feel that they are rather slow—because they have a tremendous part to play in the strategic force that is essention for our Commonwealth commitments.
    Can my hon. Friend give me any indication when he expects to see the Bel-fasts and VC.10s coming into serious service in the Royal Air Force? We seem to be in danger of falling down on this job. Unless we have the lifting capacity to transport a brigade in about twenty-four hours from here to Singapore, or upon a comparable journey, our strategic reserve may prove to be of little use.
    The Royal Air Force seems to require a fast strategic freighter or transport, but I am wondering whether we could not at the same time make considerable savings in another respect. I know that much thought has been given to the need
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    for getting the troops into the aircraft, but everybody who knows anything about flying, military or civil, knows that a tremendous amount of time is wasted on the ground in getting the people to and from the aircraft. If we have the Belfast it may take a little longer to get our troops to the place where they are required, but we may be able to make tremendous savings through the rapidity with which we can get the people loaded on to the aircraft at the point of departure and then unloaded before proceeding to the scene of operations.
    There seems to be no doubt that the Royal Air Force requires the replacements for the Beverley and the Hastings to start coming into squadron service in 1968. If they come in later than that there will probably be a gap in this form of transport in the Royal Air Force. The Beverleys and Hastings are first-class aircraft, and they have done a wonderful job. They have succeeded in meeting all the requirements, limited though they may be in range, and they have done extremely well. Pilots and crews like them. Now, at long last—and I believe that it is over a year too late—a decision has been made about the AW681, but as yet we have only a design study on it, and I would like an assurance that the Air Ministry believes that it will be in squadron service in 1970. I am seriously perturbed about the matter, because I feel that a gap will arise because, no matter how good an aircraft may be, there is always a certain amount of self-destruction. Now and again an aircraft falls out of the air, or hits an unexpected obstacle on the ground. We may find ourselves very short of this type of aircraft.
    I was interested to read in the Memorandum that experiments have been made using the Arctic route to the Far East. I cannot see that any security reasons prevent an answer being given to my question whether this route, which is obviously better politically, because it does not involve travelling over other countries on the way to the Far East, shows a saving in time. If so, the development of this route should be carried out as quickly as possible.
    We have heard a great deal about Coastal Command and the wonderful part played by the Shackleton in recent years. Nobody would deny that this

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    aircraft has proved to be first-class, and that the little black boxes inside it are doing a wonderful job. Here again, I appreciate that the Royal Air Force may not want to consider a replacement for the Shackleton until it knows what sort of equipment it will require—in case there is a break-through in under-water detection. This break-through may come about far more quickly than is expected, and the black boxes can be developed mare quickly than can the aircraft in which they are to be put.
    We ought to give serious consideration to the sort of aircraft we are likely to require. I would have thought that it was not impossible to make use of already existing aircraft, in the military or the civil transport field, which might meet the necessary requirements. Many aircraft can be adapted to long-range work. We require a relatively slow aircraft, in modern terms, with an endurance of twenty-four hours or more. I would have thought that it was not beyond the powers of our designers and technicians to adapt an already existing aircraft for this purpose. Not knowing the type and size of the black boxes that we might require we should need an aircraft with a fairly large fuselage-carrying capacity, and we ought to be able to make use of an existing aircraft or at least one that is already on the stocks for this purpose. The defence of this country and of the Western world will depend largely on maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft if we are faced with a mass of hundreds of Soviet or other enemy submarines. We would be foolhardy not to have in mind an airframe replacement for the Shackle-ton even if at present we have to put the same black boxes into the aircraft.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: I have been listening with the greatest interest and I share my hon. Friend's interest in this aspect. Has he any particular aircraft in mind for the adaptation he is suggesting? This is a very difficult problem facing the Secretary of State, and I am interested to know whether my hon. Friend has a particular aircraft in mind.
    Mr. Turner: I have not a specific aircraft in mind, but, knowing the difficulty of the task of the Ministry of Defence and the Secretary of State in operating within a global sum, it seems that it
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    would be far cheaper if we could make use of some existing or potential aircraft which we envisage at the moment. I have no particualr aircraft in mind, but I thought this was a view which ought to be expressed. We need a fairly large number of these aircraft. As someone has already said in this debate, once we are producing something and do not have to bear the development costs it is not nearly such an expensive business.
    I turn to the question of the Hunter replacement. It always seemed to me that we tailor-make our aircraft for the Royal Air Force solely to suit the Royal Air Force. We never have in mind any potential export requirements, whether it be to our N.A.T.O. friends or to other countries which might well buy our aircraft. On the other hand, the Americans often develop a less tailor-made aircraft, but they have in mind the possibility of selling it, not necessarily for exactly the same use, to other parts of the world.
    It is essential in times of high expense in aircraft that British industry and the Government should give a little thought on how we can make use in the military export field of the aircraft we have. This comes into the question of the Hunter replacement. Most of the Hunter aircraft, or its replacement, will be used as a tactical strike weapon in defence of the Army in military operations, in many cases in under-developed countries where they cannot deal with sophisticated aircraft. It seems that any replacement must be kept as simple as possible, not only for our own Services, for if we were suddenly to move a squadron of Hunter aircraft or its replacement to a Far Eastern territory with very few facilities, it would obviously be much easier if the ground crews did not have too much complicated equipment with them.
    I do not dispute the facts put forward by the Secretary of State in his speech today. I wonder, however, whether the development of the P1154 is not a too sophisticated aircraft for this job. I know how easy it is for a particular Service to say, "We must have this or that", but a Hunter replacement will mean fairly large numbers of aircraft, and I am not certain that we can afford an aircraft of a very high price to do this job. I should like to think that further consideration was being given to the P1127, or something not quite so

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    sophisticated as the P1154. I throw out this suggestion, although I know it will run counter to all ideas of the Service but it is something which we should bear well in mind.
    We have heard much talk today and in the defence debate about the V-bomber force and the TSR2. It is clear that many hon. Members opposite have not done their homework as well as they should have done on the TSR2. It may be true that there are very few stated facts about it, but if we use the facts we have and look at the original requirements, I cannot see why anyone in the Committee should doubt that this aircraft has strategic potentialities. Hon. Members opposite have said, but I have not heard the Secretary of State say, that this aircraft was designed for a strategic rôle. There is no doubt, however, in my mind from what I have heard that it obviously has the range necessary to fulfil a strategic rôle.
    Obviously we shall not have many of these aircraft because they are expensive. If one has to be flown from one part of our Commonwealth to the other it must have the range to go that distance. Therefore, when we find that through no fault of ours—whatever we hear from hon. Members opposite—that Skybolt is not available to us, it is necessary to make available what other "hardware" we have to assist in filling this gap. Because of the versatility of the TSR2, I believe it is now possible to use it for this purpose. In my view, the Secretary of State made no statement to the effect that it is solely a strategic aircraft or that it was originally designed for that purpose, but, because of its versatility, it happens that it has that ability. From all that one hears and can gather about this aircraft it is a very long way ahead of any other aircraft of this type available in the world at present. What is more important, it seems perfectly clear that there is no known means of defence against it.
    The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), who is no longer in his place, and other hon. Members have repeatedly in this debate and the defence debate written down and underwritten the value of the British independent deterrent, but such statements are made by people sitting here in this Committee.
    748
    What we have to do when dealing with a matter of this kind is to try to look at it as the Russians or any potential enemy would look at it. We cannot be certain that there is always a question mark in their minds. I do not blame them for doing this, but many hon. Members opposite—maybe unwittingly —tend to try to abolish and to run down the value of British aircraft and the value of the deterrent.
    Yet there is not the slightest doubt that the Victor IIs and the Vulcan Hs are the finest bombers of their type available to any country in the world. Those of us who have spoken to leading members of the Royal Air Force who have visited America have found that they speak with great pride about how when they have landed one of these aircraft on an American airstrip it is not only fine to know that we have the best aircraft, better than the Americans have, but to know that the Americans know it as well.
    I have just mentioned the question of considering what use we can make of our aircraft in export sales to other countries, and I come back to the point made earlier. It seems to me very wrong that here we have a great customer who is not prepared to admit that quite often we have a valuable and far better weapon in a particular field than he has available at the time. On numerous occasions we buy American equipment because it is most suitable for our requirements at a certain time, but how much of this buying takes place on the other side? How much of the Royal Air Force equipment, fine as it can be, have the Americans purchased in the last ten years? We lead in the TSR2 development, but have we seen any signs of the Americans offering to buy this aircraft, much as they may need it? There is every indication that the Americans now intend to go ahead and build a similar type themselves.
    There is no doubt that a great deal of information passes between the Air Forces of the two countries, but unfortunately it is nearly always, it seems to me, a one-way traffic. Many of the brightest ideas in military aviation, and, for that matter, in civil aviation since the war have originated in this country. They have been taken up and developed by the United States even though at the same time we had just as good, if not better,

    749
    example of that aircraft already built and available here. This is something which our allies should remember. There is such a thing as admitting now and again that another country, though it may be much smaller, has the "know-how" in these things.
    Finally, I make a plea to hon. Members opposite. They do this country untold harm by underating the value of our deterrent. Part of the deterrence in a deterrent is the mystery that may be wrapped round it. Part of the deterrent is the psychological battle to keep the other side guessing. Many questions have been put to my right hon. Friend today about the TSR2 and the new bomb which we have in mind. But it would be far better to let a question mark rest in the world. This makes for a great pyschological advantage in the battle to ensure that we have an efficient deterrent. It is the duty of the Opposition to criticise a Government for failing to provide the goods at the time when they feel they should be provided, but, at the same time, let us not underrate the first-class equipment we have and the first-class men and women we have serving and supporting it.
    8.25 p.m.
    Mr. William Hamilton: The hoe. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Turner) called to my mind a very big question mark which appears annually in the Estimates about espionage, which we are never allowed to question. There is simply a block sum allocated each year and it is never debated or questioned in the House. We accept it in all its mystery. We understand what it is for, but we do not know the details. My interpretation of the hon. Member's latter remarks is that he thinks we ought to do the same with these Estimates and that we ought to leave many questions unanswered and trust to the right hon. Gentlemen on the Government Front Bench. If the hon. Member thinks that we intend to play that game, he had better think again.
    The hon. Member referred at the outset of his speech to the views of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) was quite right in commending the hon. Member for Macclesfield on at least his honesty in these matters, because he, and, presum-
    750
    ably, the hon. Member for Woolwich, West are very firm and strong supporters of the views of the Air League and, therefore, by inference highly critical of the Government's turnabout in the last few months.
    I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Woolwich, West and the hon. Member for Macclesfield hold these views, because there can be no doubt that the Government shirk—and shirk rightly, in my view—the cost of a truly independent British deterrent, a home-made Skybolt. I was in America when President Kennedy made his television appearance to speak about Skybolt. At no point in that television programme did he say that it had been abandoned for technical reasons. It had been abandoned for cost reasons.
    Therefore, when our Prime Minister went to Nassau and was faced with this choice, President Kennedy said, "You can have this if you are prepared to pay a big part of the cost of it." The Prime Minister refused that, because he was certain that he could return to this country and convince his supporters that Polaris was a very adequate substitute. This was the confidence trick which the Prime Minister was convinced he could pull off, particularly on his own supporters and, he hoped, in the country at large.
    Mr. Turner: I thank the hon. Member for giving way on this point. I support the decision not to proceed independently with the continued development of the American Skybolt. I think that it was quite right, because I do not believe that one can develop an article in conjunction with a firm which is 6,000 miles away. Originally, I should have thought we ought to have developed our own Skybolt, in this country, but I agree with the Prime Minister's decision to abandon Skybolt when the Americans decided not to continue with it.
    Mr. Hamilton Mr. Hamilton rose—
    Mr. Turner: I will give way in a moment. I do not believe that it was a question of money. It was a fact that we did not require it.
    Mr. Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman has made a second speech and I will hesitate before I give way to him again. having had that little experience.

    751
    The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the Prime Minister came back from Nassau and produced something which, whatever else we might call it, is not an independent British deterrent. The two ends of the submarine will be made by us and the middle bit and the missiles by the United States. I am astounded that anyone in this country is expected to believe that that is an independent weapon that can be used by us independently in our own never clearly defined national interest. Surely one cannot sell that to an intelligent electorate.
    The hon. Member for Macclesfield and the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Eden) rushed off to see the Minister of Defence. They intended to have a showdown. But what happened? The chocolate soldiers marched in and were so beguiled by the Minister that they came out perfectly satisfied that Skybolt was out Polaris in, and that we had our own little nuclear deterrent. They believed it—at any rate, they told the public so on television. What they say in the 1922 Committee is another matter.
    Whatever the results, there is no doubt that now the Royal Air Force is bound to play a diminishing rôle over the next several years—that is, assuming that we get these submarines. But that is not to say that the money we are now discussing is exactly peanuts. It totals £503 million. About a dozen hon. Members are present, so we are discussing these Estimates at the rate of about £40 million a head.
    I want to look at some of the items. I am not an expert on defence matters. I served for five or six years in the Army, and I think that I must have been the worst soldier, but I recognise the need for defence until we can get all-round disarmament.
    I believe that this vast expenditure which we regard as necessary for the Armed Forces is also a very much more powerful planning instrument than it has been as used hitherto. I do not regard it as satisfactory if the policy of full employment, to which both sides of the House are committed, rests solely or even mainly on military expenditure. But so long as we have got such heavy military expenditure, and so long as we have to endure a Government—I hope
    752
    not for very long now—who are either unable or unwilling to ensure full employment without that military expenditure, then we must use it for social ends as well as for our military requirements.
    With that in mind, some of my hon. Friends—Labour Members for Scotland, for apparently the Conservatives are not particularly interested in this aspect—questioned the Minister of Aviation on Monday about air expenditure under Vote VII of these Estimates. This totals £244 million, which is not chickenfeed. It is spent on such things as air frames, air engines, armaments, ammunition and explosives, electronic and electrical equipment, instruments, vehicles and other technical equipment and materials including clothing and laundry services.
    Incidentally, that figure is more than four times the total amount spent in Scotland under the Local Employment Act in the three years of its operation since April, 1960. In this context, my hon. Friends challenged the Minister of Aviation on Monday to account for this expenditure. This sum—the Vote was bigger last year, so there has been a decrease—must represent many tens of thousands of jobs up and down the country. My hon. Friend wanted to know—and the public has a right to know—where these jobs are and what jobs are being provided as a result of this expenditure. We are paying the piper. We want to know just what is the tune.
    So my hon. Friends asked certain Questions and I wish to quote a few extracts from the replies given by the Minister. My hon. Friends asked a series of Questions about what proportion of the various items I have described involved expenditure in Scotland. The Minister said, initially:
    "The form in which the records of the Departments are kept does not in general show how much of any store was bought in Scotland… I am not in a position to say in advance where particular contracts will be placed."
    Replying to further pressure from my hon. Friends, who urged him to discuss the considerations in the Government mind when allocating contracts, the right hon. Gentleman said that there were:
    "…two considerations. The first is to get the best value for the public money spent. The second is to have regard, as the hon.

    753
    Member suggested, to the overall condition of industry in different parts of the country."
    So, presumably, the Government have in mind the social content of this expenditure.
    But when my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) asked whether the right hon. Gentleman realised that under Vote 7D—one of those f have mentioned dealing with electronics—
    "… an opportunity could be afforded to Scottish industry to diversify to that degree with some assistance from the Government?"
    the right hon. Gentleman replied, rather strangely:
    "Certainly we have in mind the point which the hon. Member has made, though I dare say"—
    very daring of him—
    "that it is already under consideration in the Departments."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 4th March, 1963; Vol. 673, cc. 6–7.]
    After twelve years of this kind of expenditure the right hon. Gentleman says that he would "dare say", or that he would take the risk of saying something to the effect that it was under consideration in Government Departments.
    I will return later to this matter of getting the best value for money, because I am interested in a point which has not yet been raised, either today or in the defence debates during the last few days. Under Vote 7 alone we are spending £5 million every week and, as the Minister said, the records did not show where the expenditure was made in the past and that he was not in a position to say in advance where particular contracts will be placed.
    The right hon. Gentleman also said, when replying to that series of Questions, that hon. Members would not wish to duplicate expenditure or effort in Departments to obtain information which, he thought, might be important at one moment but might not be important later. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by that? We are interested in finding out where the money is being spent. We want to know and we are entitled to know. I am sure that the information is in the Departments in which it is being spent. If it is not, it had better be, because we will return to this matter of vital importance to the development districts in general and Scotland in particu-
    754
    lar. We have a right to our share, probably more than our share, of the expenditure of this money.
    I referred to the Minister's apparent desire to get value for money and to protect the taxpayer, However, I have with me the Report of the Public Accounts Committee for the Session 1961–62. As hon. Members know, that is an all-party Committee. No politics are involved and a unanimous Report is produced. I do not know whether the public realises just what is going on in the Service Departments and, no doubt, in other departments.
    I will quote a case which appears on page lxii of the Report and which concerns the misappropriation of cash at a Royal Air Force station. The story is briefly as follows. In May, 1960, an R.A.F. accounting officer was discovered to have misappropriated £245. Subsequent investigation showed that from April, 1958, to April, 1960, he had also misappropriated £772 by"flogging"scrap metal. The Report says:
    "The Ministry admitted that the misappropriation had revealed a weakness in the system of control."
    That is the understatement of the Report. It was decided to introduce a new cash book. The officer was court-martialled, cashiered and imprisoned.
    Then, the Air Council, the "big brass" in the Department, had a meeting and decided to grant him a compassionate award of £1,242. The Ministry admitted in the evidence—and the right hon. Gentleman had better read the Report—that this was an award for calculated dishonesty, but the defence was that the Air Council was entitled to make this discretionary award. It cannot make it for a civilian. If a civilian had been caught "flogging" scrap metal, he would not have been entitled to this kind of reward.
    The moral seems to be, "Join the Forces; flog scrap metal for a few years; get caught, and your future is assured." There is no need to try to be a Parliamentary candidate to get out of the Forces. It is much more profitable to "flog" metal and then he found out and get out of the Forces with a reward from the Air Council.
    Mr. George Lawson: Is my hon. Friend saying that the "top

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    brass" paid this compassionate award out of their own pockets?
    Mr. Hamilton: No. It was the taxpayers' money, so that we were getting the worst of all worlds.
    The hon. Member for Woolwich, West, who made a quick exit, like a V-bomber, after his speech, said that we should not ask questions and that we should trust the Air Ministry. We cannot even control an officer caught stealing scrap metal and yet we are asked to accept £500 million of expenditure in an eight hours' debate.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Can my hon. Friend tell me whether this scrap metal was brass?
    Mr. Hamilton: The Report does not say what kind of metal it was. No doubt my hon. Friend can ask a Question and find out.
    I refer now to another case in the Report for the Session 1960–61, about the corrupt practice of Air Ministry officials. This time they were not in uniform—at least, no doubt they were in pin stripes and black jackets and if that is a uniform, they were in uniform. Three officials received gifts from a company and a fourth official got a gift, and also money from the Ministry by false pretences for the benefit of the company. The first three received gifts valued at several thousands of pounds and including two motor cars. They were not doing too badly! The fourth got £225 for the company by falsely certifying a bill which overstated the quantity of work done and the rates payable. The Ministry admitted that
    "It was a piece of laxity in administration."
    Action was taken against an officer who had given a certificate for work done without confirming that, in fact, it had been done. It subsequently transpired that the Ministry had tightened up its regulations, but—and, here again, I quote:
    "it was not until after the trial of two members of the firm had ended in convictions in October of 1960 that the firm was put on a black list for the information of other Departments who might not have had contracts with them."
    I want to ask the question: how long had those regulations lent themselves to abuses of this kind? How long had the abuses been going on? Have all the abuses yet been eliminated? These are enormous sums of money.
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    Reference has been made on several occasions to the sparsity of the attendance in the Chamber for this debate. It is deplorable that Parliament has "contracted out" of its major constitutional responsibility of safeguarding the public purse and it is only when we get the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee turning over a few of the stones that we find the little brutes under them. Goodness knows what is under the bigger stones, had we the time to turn them up. I should have to use non-parliamentary language to describe what might be found under them.
    It seems to me that the whole point of this debate is that we should challenge every statement by the Minister. He made a big gaffe this afternoon when he got away from his brief which, I thought, he read rather indifferently—he probably knew as much about it as I did—and said that there was trooping by the nationalised air Corporations, presumably B.O.A.C. and the other Corporation. I think that that was an error. It shows how much he and his right hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench are at the mercy of the officials in their Departments. The Ministers just get a brief handed to them and they read it here, without knowing very much of what it is all about. It is the poor taxpayer who has to pay—£500 million for the Air Ministry alone.
    I end where I began. If this money has to be spent; if we think that we get value for the money and if the public are not prepared to rebel against the spending of it, at least we should see how it can be expended to give us the military weapons that will deter whatever enemy may rear his head and to serve a social purpose so far as that is possible. Those are the two points I wish to emphasise. Certainly, hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies will return continuously to this matter until we get to know how many jobs will be provided in Scotland, how much of this money is going to Scotland, and whether it is worth while continuing to spend these amounts of money; whether, in fact, the game is worth the candle.
    If this Vote were to be rejected tonight I do not think that I should lose a minute's sleep. And as for the Polaris submarines, which are to diminish the rôle of the Royal Air Force, I do not

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    think that we shall ever see them in this country. But they have served a purpose for the moment and enabled the Prime Minister to allay the feelings of his hon. Friends. They wanted a toy to play with and he has convinced them that he has given them one.
    8.50 p.m.
    Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am sorry that the attendance at this debate is so sparse. But I hope no doubt that Government and Opposition supporters will be able to continue the debate without the presence or assistance of the members of the Liberal Party.
    I was intrigued during the defence debate earlier this week by some of the arithmetic of the hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), which was passing strange. He claimed that in one year we spent £300 million on Blue Streak. I think that the abacus at Transport House must have had a few beads missing at the time. Various hon. Members examined some of the arithmetic produced by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), which was similarly defective. Today, some of us have been discussing the Air Estimates and others have been discussing topics of more interest to them. I should like to continue a line of thought which the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) was developing, namely, the distribution of orders covered by the Votes in the Estimates which we are debating.
    It seems to me—this is not the first time that I have remarked on this in Committee—there is a number of objectives which we can achieve with our expenditure of public money on Royal Al Force equipment. We want to be sure about the objectives at which we are aiming so that we can measure the degree of success that we have had in trying to achieve those objectives. One objective is undoubtedly to provide equipment which most nearly meets the operational requirements of the Service concerned. A second, as has been mentioned, is, if possible, to try to combine that with the operation requirement of somebody else's air force so that we can export some of the equipment and therefore get back at any rate a proportion of the development cost.
    Thirdly, and by no means least important, we should use this, as other parts of public expenditure are used, in a posi-
    758
    tive manner to stimulate or sustain certain sections of the economy. In the announcement on Tuesday this week about the preliminary allocation of the contract for OR351, I did not see any perceptible exercise of the power which this item of expenditure placed in the hands of the Government. In terms of technical merit, I do not think any case can be made out that the technical skill and quality of Short Bros. and Harland is inferior to that of Whitworth Gloster. Short Bros. and Harland was the first firm in this country to develop vertical take off allied with forward movement and wings, whereas Whitworth Gloster have no experience of that. Secondly, although another member of the Hawker Siddeley group has experience of vertical take off from the P1127, it is precisely the opposite system to that being adopted for OR351. I should have thought that, in terms of technical experience, one could make a case that Short Bros, and Harland was not inferior in experience to the firm which secured the contract. Questions of technical merit are always contentious, particularly when the specifications of the two offerings are not known to my-self and probably not to other hon. Members.
    I pass to the other objective to which I drew attention earlier. I do not think that one can sustain the contention that it is more difficult for engineers and draughtsmen in Coventry to find alternative employment than it is for engineers and draughtsmen in Belfast to find alternative employment. In so far as expenditure on Air Force equipment is an item of public economic policy, the case of Short Bros. and Harland should be sustained, because there is no alternative employment for those men, and their skills will otherwise be totally wasted, as well as their current livelihood. The case for giving the contract to Short Bros. and Harland is an unanswerable one.
    More distressing to me than the actual allocation of the contract in this case, which could be remedied by the award of the next contract to Short Bros. and Harland, if the award is made in time to save the structure from disintegration, is the absence of a perceptible pattern of procurement policy. This, again, is a subject on which I have endeavoured before to focus the attention of the House of Commons, because I do not believe

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    that the policy of dealing the cards equally round the table is either in the national interest, or in the interest of the Air Force, or in the interest of the individual companies concerned.
    In whose interest, therefore, can it be said to be? I do not believe that the volume of Government expenditure on military aviation equipment, plus the civil demand generated by our own domestic and international airlines, plus the export demand, both civil and military, is or ever will be sufficient to sustain the aircraft manufacturing capacity which exists in this country at the moment, even after the amalgamations.
    Amalgamations there have been. It is not accurate to say that the industry has amalgamated into two groups. It has not. A considerable proportion of the industry has amalgamated into two airframe groups—the Hawker Siddeley Group and the British Aircraft Corporation. There is also outside it Short Bros. and Harland and Handley Page. The Government apparently took the decision, which was not popular in many quarters, to cut Handley Page out of their will, to disinherit it from public funds. In my judgment, that was a right decision, although this will not universally be agreed. I had hoped that this would be a precedent for further action of this kind, to saying that public money cannot support the whole of the aircraft industry and the Government must therefore select which portions they will sustain and sustain them at a sufficient level of activity for them to have a very real chance of trading abroad—in other words, getting down the unit costs by spreading them over a larger production run.
    It follows from giving the contract for OR351, if in fact the contract has actually been given, but at any rate it has been intimated that it will be given, to Whitworth Gloster, whatever the merits of this action may be, that Whitworth Gloster is entitled to expect to be kept alive by the taxpayer into the foreseeable future. It is a pledge of future support. If it is not that, it is difficult to see what it is. One cannot believe that this firm has been selected on a basis of outstanding technical merit. I am not accusing it of outstanding technical incompetence. I am merely saying that I cannot believe that it has been selected on a basis of
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    dazzling technical merit compared with the rest of the industry.
    What I am anxious to see from my right hon. Friend, and even more from his right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation, and even more from his right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence, is a coherent procurement policy which will itemise definitely and openly which sections of British industry are to be supported out of public funds, instead of postponing indefinitely what will be a painful decision to take, a decision which is bound to generate both political opposition and personal opposition from those affected. But I do not believe that it is a decision which is easier to take by the postponing of it. If the diet of orders to the aircraft industry is insufficient, the whole plant will wither, and even less value be obtained in a social sense from the public procurement expenditure.
    Having made this plea yet again, hope that my right hon. Friend will carry to his right hon. Friends a very strong recommendation for a policy of this kind to be worked out, if it has not been worked out, and to be implemented, which it certainly has not been.
    One hon. Member earlier—I forget who it was—toyed with the idea that the Ministry of Aviation should be connected with or subordinated to the Secretary of State for Air.
    Mr. Eden: I think that my hon. Friend is thinking of the proposal advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) who, if I interpret his words correctly, hopes that the Ministry of Aviation, or at least that part of it concerned with military aircraft, should come in more closely under the newly-formed Ministry of Defence.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: In that case, I did misunderstand. So long as it comes under the Ministry of Defence, I have no great objection but let it not come in under the Air Ministry. A considerable number of people in completely different firms in the British aircraft industry have expressed unanimously to me the interesting opinion, drawn from their experience, that, in dealing with the Admiralty in regard to naval aircraft, they are able to get decisions very much more quickly, particularly with regard to necessary

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    modifications and proposed modifications, than when dealing through the Air Ministry. As this is reported to me as a consistent pattern, there is probably a lesson to be drawn from it.
    What I do not seek to secure—indeed, I seek to prevent it—is a repetition of the situation in which the Navy was before the last war, when it had to go down on bended knee to the Air Force for its aircraft, and it was left kneeling without the aircraft. During the war, the Navy was starved of aircraft, and even Coastal Command was allowed to have aircraft only when they had been proved to be lacking in utility to the other branches of the Royal Air Force. This is a situation which must never be allowed to recur. Therefore, although I do not object to closer liaison between the Ministry of Aviation, as the coordinating procuring body, and the Ministry of Defence, let it never be brought further under the influence of the Air Ministry at the expense of the Admiralty.
    In saying that, I do not mean to deny the undoubted advantage which will stem from endeavouring to secure "commonisation" of equipment between the Admiralty and the Air Force in so far as the rôles which the aircraft perform are compatible. Indeed, I think it not unreasonable to suggest, since there is considerable evidence for it, that, had the Navy not ordered the Blackburn NA.39. now known as the Buccaneer, and thereby contaminated it with its blessing, the Royal Air Force might very well have ordered that aircraft, and thus got for the taxpayer in general very much better value for the public investment which went into it.
    Mr. Mulley: The hon. Gentleman knows a great deal about this. Will he go on from that point about the Buccaneer and say that the Buccaneer could also fulfil a strategic nuclear function?
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I am not, unfortunately, in a position to say what is the nuclear capacity of the Buccaneer. Atomic weapons nowadays can be made in very small sizes.
    Mr. Mulley: I refer to strategic rather than nuclear.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: There seems to be a certain amount of confusion about
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    what the term strategic implies. The essential of the term strategic, I would have thought, is that one can get it to whatever target one wants it to get to, which, by implication is not a target which is very close to the front line. Aircraft which are based on a carrier can under certain circumstances get much nearer to a strategic target than aircraft which are not. Here again, one may be able to fulfil a strategic function with naval aircraft of considerable shorter range than one could with land based aircraft. I offer that to the hon. Gentleman as a consideration which he might hang on to his petard if he wants to.
    Lastly, I want to stress another point raised in the debate which concerns the replacement maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft. I am very concerned about this, because during the last war I think I am right in saying that the ratio of British anti-submarine vessels of one kind or another to the German submarines with which they were in competition was about three to one, whereas now the ratio of anti-submarine vessels in the Royal Navy to potential hostile submarines is about one to four. In other words it has gone twelve times the wrong way.
    Since our "fire brigade" mission depends to a very considerable extent on commando carriers and aircraft carriers, and as, to put it mildly, some of the potential targets for such operations are now equipped with Russian submarines, it could upset the whole of our planning if two, three or four aircraft carriers were sunk by quite conventional submarines in the possession of unfriendly States, although these unfriendly States had reached no very advanced stage technologically.
    As we are undeniably short of conventional anti-submarine vessels, it is all the more important that we should have a generous supply of reliable and up-to-date maritime reconnaissance and antisubmarine aircraft. I would therefore suggest to my right hon. Friend that if, within the next few months he or his right hon. Friend were able to announce that the contract for such an aircraft would be given to Short Brothers and Harland that would return to that company and its employees the confidence which has been knocked right out of it

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    by the award of OR351 to Whitworth Gloster.
    Incidentally Short Brothers and Harland have very considerable experience of producing aircraft of this type. Probably the finest aircraft it has ever produced was the Sunderland, which gave magnificent service in this way during the war. It seems to me that this would be a solution to more than one problem. It would be a solution to the problem that we have not either enough or sufficient technically up-to-date maritime reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft. It would ameliorate the unemployment position in Northern Ireland and it would also consolidate the position of Short Brothers and Harland. Therefore I strongly urge my right hon. Friend not simply to consider that recommendation which I press upon him, but to act upon it as well.
    9.9 p.m.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: As many of the older Members will recollect, I have been taking part in these debates for fourteen or fifteen years. As the total amount of the Air Force Estimates has gone up, so the attendance in the House of Commons has gone down. By the time that the Air Force Estimates get up to £600 million, presumably we will be able to carry out our deliberations in one of the telephone kiosks.
    I join with the hon. Member far the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) in his theme that the attendance of Members in the House on these occasions has become a public scandal. It has largely devolved upon hon. Members expressing great knowledge from their experience of technical problems, whereas hon. Members who are supposed to represent the taxpayer hardly seam to put in an appearance.
    I am following my conventional rôle as a representative of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because we have not seen a Chancellor of the Exchequer here on these occasions since the beginning of our defence debates. It has always been a mystery to me why people get so enthusiastic about the various items of Purchase Tax—on confetti and on perfumes, for example—but never seem to put in an appearance when we are spending such a large amount of money.
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    I should like to make what, I thought, might be a constructive suggestion, although my constructive suggestions are not treated with the respect that they deserve. My suggestion is that now that Dr. Beeching has been relieved from attending to the affairs of the railways, he should be let loose upon the Air Ministry and should go through every item, in the same way as he has gone through the items of branch lines and railway stations, and ask, "Does this item pay?" When Dr. Beeching had been successful in doing this, I would be one of his strongest supporters and would be in favour of promoting him to look after the affairs of the Admiralty and the War Office.
    Mr. Lubbock: At an increased salary?
    Mr. Hughes: On a commission basis.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: What would his salary be?
    Mr. Hughes: It would depend on what he saved. There is any amount of incentive.
    I do not believe that these matters can be solved until we get a permanent advisory committee to each of the Services, and to other Ministries also, comprising hon. Members who have knowledge and experience, who meet regularly and who have the time, attention and enthusiasm to devote to these matters before ever they reach the House of Commons in Estimates form.
    I have had long experience of local authorities. There would be a far bigger proportion of town or county councillors turning out to consider, say, the estimate for a new slaughterhouse than of hon. Members who turn out for these Estimates debates. Until the idea is accepted that we have to keep an eye on bureaucracy and upon the gentlemen whose business it is to provide these Estimates, these Memoranda and these explanations, I will always feel that we are dealing in a very slipshod way with the taxpayer's money.
    I wonder sometimes, not that these Estimates are so high, but that they are so low. I have seen the specialists who appear to give evidence. They know quite well that they can palm off almost anything upon a deluded and negligent House of Commons. Until there is a

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    drastic reform of the method of dealing with the Estimates on a reasonable and rational Committee basis, we shall always be subject to these ever-growing exorbitant sums which are presented to the taxpayer.
    There is a growing scepticism about the large amounts of money which are being asked for this year for the Defence Services. The question being asked in many places is: is the nation getting its money's worth? I found this question asked from a rather unexpected quarter. A Sunday newspaper said:
    "We are quietly informed in a time of growing economic depression that £1,838 million is to be extracted from our pockets for defence spending next year. An increase of £117 million.
    In spite of Mr. Thorneycroft's bland assurance that all he does is the best that any man could do for us, I'll make a prophesy.
    It is that most of the £1,838 million will be wasted and we shall end the year as defenceless as we began it."
    That was written by a gentleman called John Gordon. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite may laugh, but that paragraph crystallises a great deal of common sense, and there is a growing tendency among people to ask whether we are getting our money's worth.
    I am glad to see the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) present, because I should like an explanation from him. During the debate on the Nassau Agreement he said:
    "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 …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 30th January, 1963, Vol. 670, c. 1072.]
    That statement perturbed me and I had a sleepless night, so on 6th February, 1963, I put a Question to the chief authority, the Minister. Having heard that statement by the hon. Member for Macclesfield, to whose views I have learned to listen with great attention, I thought that there was a mistake. The hon. Member has gone up in the world. I understand that he is now Chairman of the Conservative Defence Committee. He has gone higher than I have, because I have never got as high as that in the Labour Party. When I do, no doubt there will be a different story.
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    The Minister, in reply to my Question, said:
    "The morale of Bomber Command, like the morale of the Royal Air Force as a whole, remains at its usual high level. Leaders and crews are aware that today and in the future they will have a vital part to play in the defence of the country."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT. 6th February, 1963, Vol. 671, c. 75.]
    According to the Minister the morale is going up and up, and according to the hon. Member for Macclesfield it is going down and down. What is a layman to think about it?
    Mr. Dudley Williams: It is staying level.
    Mr. Hughes: We are paying £500 million for something which is depreciating, and so I put a question mark against it. If these authorities on this subject disagree so violently about this, I am not enthusiastic about paying this large sum of money. I am, however, inclined to accept the view of the hon. Member for Macclesfield, because the Ministry is concerned about the morale of the Royal Air Force.
    A fortnight ago two airmen were court-martialled and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment and discharged from Her Majesty's Forces with ignominy. I do not worry about that, because I was similarly discharged myself, but what sort of state of affairs does this reveal in the Royal Air Force? These two airmen wrote a letter to a paper called Peace News. They were innocents. They were not plotters, engaged in a terrible plot to destroy the morale of the Royal Air Force, because they wrote to a paper which is read by all the security officers in Britain, who are under the delusion that it is a Communist paper. They said that they wanted a branch of C.N.D. in the Royal Air Force.
    They were obviously innocents. They might just as well have given themselves up to Scotland Yard as written that letter to Peace News. But what did the Air Minister do? He court-martialled them. Instead of saying, "These people are a liability; out they go!" he sentenced them to eight months' imprisonment. As a result, the taxpayer must provide board and lodging for these young innocents for the next eight months. An action like that could only be taken by a very jumpy Minister. I suggest that

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    he should reconsider this case and say, "These fellows are of absolutely no use to the Royal Air Force. Why should we leave them in gaol for another eight months?"
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Can the hon. Member tell me under which Vote the maintenance of these two airmen will be paid for during the next eight months?
    Mr. Hughes: I am amazed to hear that the hon. Member does not understand the Estimates. These airmen were paid by the Royal Air Force. The Minister responsible for approving the court-martial sentence is sitting on the Government Front Bench now. I am surprised that that question should come—
    Mr. Dudley Williams Mr. Dudley Williams rose—
    Mr. Hughes: I am now dealing with the intelligent Member on the back benches. I am surprised that that question should come from an hon. Member who has made such an interesting speech. Now I will come lower down in the ranks, and ask what the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) wants to say.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: I agree with the hon. Member that these airmen were being paid for by the Royal Air Force, but they are not now being kept by the Royal Air Force, or paid by it. In those circumstances, what has this to do with the Air Estimates?
    Mr. Paget: Would they come under the heading of "non-effective services"?
    Mr. Hughes: I presume that the Royal Air Force has a military detention camp somewhere. At any rate, until the end of the eight months these men are still recognised as members of the Royal Air Force. They are not discharged with ignominy until the end of that period.
    Mr. Dudley Williams: Yes, they are.
    Mr. Hughes: All right; the hon. Member has had his say.
    Now lot us consider the basic assumptions that underlie the whole debate. We are to have this great deterrent, Whom do we want to deter? Presumably we want to deter the Russians from coming to this country and establishing Communism. That fundamental theory needs to be examined more closely. We all
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    know that the idea is that the Russian targets are the industrial centres and military installations in this country, and that we have similar targets in Russia. But the Russians would not need to concentrate on those targets if this country had not become America's chief base in Western Europe. It is because we have become the centre of a potential attack upon the Soviet Union that all the attention of the Soviet Union air marshals is devoted to us.
    In his opening speech the Minister spoke with awe of Marshal Malinovsky. I do not know what Marshal Malinovsky is up to. I do not like Marshal Malinovsky, and I do not like the tremendous power of destruction that is vested in the Soviet Air Force. The argument is that we need to have this deterrent to prevent the Russian Air Force attacking us because of some original sin of the Russians. The Russians do not make a target of countries which are not a menace to them. I do not suppose that they have rockets directed towards Southern Ireland.
    The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) has an Amendment on the Order Paper to reduce Vote A by 1,000 men, which I regard with some degree of unmitigated enthusiasm. He is angry about the treatment of Short Bros. and Harland and is prepared to have 1,000 men taken out of the Royal Air Force tomorrow. That is a form of direct action which any shop steward in Short Bros. and Harland would look upon with dismay.
    This country becomes one of the most dangerous parts of the world because we have a dangerous foreign policy. I do not want to upset the occupants of the Government Front Bench, but, if we were a neutral country—I hope they have not subsided in horror—we would not become involved in this enormous expenditure.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Ronald Russell): The hon. Member is now rather straying from the Estimates and discussing foreign policy.
    Mr. Hughes: I am trying to anticipate and to be a little helpful to the hon. Member for Belfast, East in connection with his Amendment.
    During the last twelve or fourteen years in which the hon. Member for

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    Macclesfield and I have debated across the Floor of this Chamber an enormous amount has been spent from our national resources in men, money and material on the wrong kind of aircraft. I am an enthusiastic supporter of civil aviation. I believe that if one fraction of the money we have spent on the Air Estimates over the last ten years had been devoted to civil aviation we would have built up something which would be a real asset in our present precarious economic situation in the world. We may go on with the ruinous arms race and spend next year £2,000 million and have further big bills until it is so economically crippling that when we have a Labour Government in office a Conservative Opposition will be saying, "For goodness' sake cut down this sum." 'That is a possibility.
    If a Labour Government came into office next year and presented a bill of £2.000 million for defence and a bill of £600 million or £700 million for the Royal Air Force, one of the most ruthless critics would be the hon. Member for Macclesfield, who would be asking, "What is the money to be spent on?".
    The sooner we overhaul this expenditure the better. The sooner we say to the Service chiefs that we have to cut down this expenditure in the interests of our national economy the sooner we shall do something for the permanent interests of the people. I see expenditure on science wasted on something which is economically futile and which can result only in our drifting along behind the scientific advance of the rest of the world. While we are spending these enormous sums of money in this way other countries are investing big sums in permanent creative industry. Sooner or later—not because of arguments of mine or of my hon. Friends, but because of the shear force of events and the pressure of public opinion—the Government will be forced to abandon this policy, which is not in the real interests of the people of the country.
    9.30 p.m.
    Mr. W. R. van Straubenzee: All hon. Members must have been exceedingly glad to see the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) in his place, because they knew that if he caught your eye, Mr. Russell, they
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    would be in for a treat, and indeed they were. I was delighted to be here, because I was told, on what authority I cannot recall, that in view of his past activities the hon. Member was on the short list for the headmastership of Eton.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: I would have made a good job of it, too.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Inevitably the debate has been dominated by the cancellation of the Skybolt missile since the Committee last met to discuss the Air Estimates. I do not want to add much to that discussion, because we have been here already for six hours. I should like to put it on record, however, that rightly or wrongly, I backed a certain course of action on that occasion. I am not allowed to develop now the fact that I am a stalwart and firm believer in an independent deterrent for this country, and I am a trenchant critic, though regretfully, of the decision to take Polaris.
    I do not criticise it on the ground that once we get it it will not be independent, but I shall rest content only when we have actually laid our hands on it. I believe that the decisions were an amalgam, because it is probably true that for even so great an economy as that of the United States the problem of tax reduction, the provision of conventional weapons, and these weapons, plus getting into space in a very big way, was proving too great a burden.
    I share the views, which have been much better expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) than I can put, them, that there were policy implications in what our American friends did, and I think that we ought to have learned that lesson. But this is past history and we move on, though there is a small lesson for the hon. Member for South Ayrshire. On that occasion, be it right or wrong, but with no relish whatsoever, I voted against my own party on a three-line Whip.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Very good.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: But the difference between the hon. Member and myself is that I am still a member of my party, with the Whip. I did not have the Whip removed from me for that independent action, whereas the hon. Member for South Ayrshire is in the

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    lonely, naked position of finding himself not a member of his party, in company with his present neighbour on the bench opposite, the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot). I am proud to belong to a party in which we have a measure of freedom and yet retain the right to the Whip.
    Mr. Paget: Does the hon. Member realise that what he is telling us reduces somewhat the gallantry of his action?
    Mr. van Straubenzee: No, I do not think so, because at the time I did not necessarily have reason to suppose that I would retain the Whip, and I am sure that the hon. and learned Member does not question the sincerity of my action.
    The trouble with speaking at this stage of the debate is that everything that one had intended to say has been said. As the debate has proceeded and I have continued to tear up my notes I have felt increasingly dismal. But knowing how difficult it is to catch your eye, Mr. Russell, I made a note of two matters which I trusted would not be mentioned. Fortunately, no reference has been made to them. I propose, therefore, to detain the Committee for a few minutes on them. They are both matters of detail and are far removed from the great issues which we have been discussing.
    I draw attention to the first quite unashamedly, for a reason which I shall explain. It is contained on page 79 of the Memorandum accompanying the Defence White Paper and deals with meteorology. My reason for drawing attention to it is that during the year which we are discussing the Meteorological Office has completed its move to the new town of Bracknell in my constituency, which obviously means that I have been able to understand much more than I could before the immense ramifications of the work of meteorology with reference to the Air Force in particular and to affairs in general.
    It has caused a major change in my thinking habits. I do not know whether I am the only member of this Committee to do so, but in previous years when I have heard the B.B.C. announce that the day would be fine and cloudless I have invariably taken my umbrella. Now that the Meterological Office is in my con-
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    stituency I shall defend it vigorously against all possible critics.
    It is relevant to note that on page 79 it is stated that for the second successive year the recruitment of honours graduates as scientific officers has been satisfactory. When one remembers how very short we are of competent and highly qualified persons, this is something which the Secretary of State can take considerable pride in. The Meteorological Office is also able to report that all the available positions for scientific assistants have been filled for the first time since the war. This, too, is most encouraging in view of the grave shortage of highly qualified technical personnel.
    I also draw attention to the immense demand for the services of the Meteorological Office. This is something which I must confess I had not understood until I went round the Office. It has answered 750,000 inquiries in the past year, an increase of 20 per cent. over the previous year. Its services are used by industry and commerce generally, and also by farming.
    That leads me to a question which arises out of this. In paragraph 112 there is a tentative feeler towards long-range climate forecasting. Can my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State assist us by telling us a little more about what the R.A.F. has in mind here? There is reference to a weather forecast map for a 24-hour period, but I should be interested in the possibilities of further experiments in that direction.
    We must realise that the difficulties which will arise from this will not be technical but political. Suppose we get to the stage when it is possible to forecast the weather through the Meteorological Office accurately for six months ahead. I can see the very gravest political difficulties in so doing. Suppose the Meteorological Office, coming directly under the Royal Air Force, were to say that this summer a wise Englishman should have his holiday in England and not go, for example, to France—perhaps that is an unhappy thought.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: He will not go there, anyway.
    Mr. van Staraubenzee: I think that perhaps Germany would be more in keeping with the mood at the present time.

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    Supposing the forecast dissuaded English people from going to Germany for the summer holidays, then the ambassadors of other countries would immediately come forward and complain bitterly. Though I make the point lightly, the political problems of long-range weather forecasting have not been properly thought out, though the advantages to our economy are very obvious.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: They might forecast polling day.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Certainly, one of the things which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister might take into account would be forecasting for polling day. Incidentally, it could also have appalling ramifications on cricket, because it would mean that every cricket captain would go into action with a long-range forecaster at his elbow and his tactics would be entirely different if he knew that a downpour was expected in two hours. It might take away the fun from our cricket, even if the results of the recent Test matches in Australia have not already done so.
    Mr. Paget: It might also discourage M. Bidault's next visit.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Whether that would be desirable I would not wish to say.
    I do not want to appear unduly lighthearted about this, although the subject is perhaps not so grave by comparison with all the other services we are talking about. Nevertheless, it does occupy one and a half pages of the Memorandum, and the Meteorological Office undertakes an immense amount of work on behalf of the country. Bracknell is one of the four centres in the country for the exchange of data and information, and it is all of immense importance to the R.A.F. It is one of the hidden, unknown ways in which the R.A.F. is contributing to the general welfare of the country and for which, incidentally, we are being asked to pay.
    I turn to a different matter which arises from paragraph 84. I have always been fascinated by the problem of training and, because of that, I took advantage of the opportunity of paying a visit to Cranwell
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    to see the training methods being employed to train some of the future officers of the R.A.F. I say "some" because I realise that Cranwell is not the only source of obtaining our future officers. I am encouraged, from my visit and the Report, to think that the entry is up, and I say this to my right hon. Friend in common with other hon. Members who have mentioned this, that no Service could look after its guests more pleasantly or ensure that it was made possible for us to see everything. However, the Report is frank and states that still more entrants are desired.
    I asked myself when there why it was that we were not getting entrants in what might be considered sufficient numbers. I know that the number is increasing, but not as fast as Cranwell wants. One of my objects tonight is to beat the Cranwell drum. I really have no R.A.F. connection, for I was a soldier during my war service. I have a deep respect for the Air Force, so long as the Army takes preference in almost everything, but beyond that I have no axe to grind. I do not believe that any young man today could have a finer start in life than training at Cranwell.
    I do not think that hon. Members fully appreciate the uniquely fine facilities we have provided in recent years for these young men in training. I do not think that I have ever seen finer swimming baths—with the exception, perhaps, of Sandhurst—and finer gymnastic facilities. There are modern buildings, recently constructed, and the whole thing represents a fine story of what this nation has poured into training and research at Cranwell.
    I was interested to learn that my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams)—and I regret that he is not at present in his place—was a product of Cranwell. That alone must commend itself to the Committee, although Cranwell is doing even more. As hon. Members will have gathered. I have wished to draw attention to the work of Cranwell, both to the Committee and to the country.
    In this connection, I came away from my visit feeling that Cranwell benefits from being small, in contrast to Sandhurst. I make no criticism of Sandhurst; indeed, it is in my constituency and I

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    have a deep respect for its work—different work, of course, from that of Cranwell. I was impressed by the personal relationship between those training and those under training; not only the detailed knowledge of the Cadets by the senior members of the staff, but the general relationship between them, which is important during the training period. I believe that that comes, at least in part, from its small size. Thus, if we are going to be thinking in radical terms about Service integration, I very much hope that we will watch the question of the size of establishments when we are training our future officers.
    If I were trying to get a sense of community into the Services I would not start at the brigadier level but at the cadet level. I would be tempted, if I could manage it, particularly now syllabuses are so broad, to see if I could do a lot of my training for the three Services in one or more places instead of spread out under individual arms, as at present, for these things must start very young.
    This may seem a detail, perhaps, but when I was there, Cranwell, quite rightly, was cock-a-hoop at the sporting trophies they had brought back from Sandhurst. It happened to be their year. I respect this, and certainly we do not want to discourage that feeling. But from the beginning, this kind of inter-Service rivalry, friendly rivalry, of course, is built up and there may be something to be said—I do not know whether thought is going along these lines—for training officers of more than one Service at one place for at least part of their training. If that happens, I hope that my right hon. Friend will resist temptations to put them together in one very large place. If he is asked to share training with other Services, I hope that he will draw sharp attention to the advantages which Cranwell gives as a small establishment, small in these terms.
    My second question is, "Who trains the trainers?" The training of men is one of the most fascinating things which one can undertake and is highly skilled. To use a gunner's expression, we take tremendous care to calibrate the trainers who teach flying. I was impressed beyond measure by the care which is taken at Cranwell with those training cadets
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    learning to fly. Are we paying as much attention to that part of the training which is not flying training? This is no criticism of any of the officers concerned, but I had the impression that in a comparatively short tour of duty some considerable part at the start was wasted while officers found their feet. I wonder whether we ought not to look more closely at our arrangements for training the trainers.
    I realise that there is always thought going on about it, but my third question is whether my right hon. Friend is satisfied that at the moment he has got right the balance between the academic and the Service training. This is very difficult at Cranwell because of the specialist nature of the flying training. However, interesting changes are taking place on these lines at Sandhurst, where, roughly speaking, one starts and ends the training militarily, but in the middle is more or less an undergraduate. This system is producing results.
    Cranwell has a different problem. It has a course of three years instead of two and a higher academic standard and the difficulties of carrying through the flying training on time. But I am bound to say that it struck me that we were trying to get through an enormous amount academically in only three years. One is always revising one's ideas about this and we are always rethinking our training methods, but is my right hon. Friend satisfied that Cranwell in this respect is at least up to, if not ahead of, modern thought?
    We are training something of immense value. It was brought home to me with a jolt when I looked at Cranwell's boxing board which stopped five years ago. I was told that cadets had been prevented from boxing at Cranwell because of the immense value of each cadet. Subject to correction, I think that it costs £60,000 to train one cadet at Cranwell, an enormous figure. The cadets are so valuable that they cannot be allowed to take part in a sport in which their faces are a target, for if something goes wrong, substantial sums of money have gone west.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: That will suit Baroness Summerskill.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Perhaps she should be the commandant for a while and tidy the place up.

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    I draw the Committee's attention to the importance which the Report attaches to cadet forces in recruiting. It comes out very clearly in paragraphs 92 to 94. With some modest experience, I would say that the Air Force is ahead of the other Services in looking after its cadets. Admittedly, it has a shop window of excitement and I am interested to see that it is moving into gliding. Many hon. Members will have constituents enthusiastically taking opportunities for gliding. But there is sometimes a feeling that this is just small boys playing about. I think they should be remembered as an important source of recruitment. I know that is so in my area, and I do not believe that time spent in encouraging Service officers to back the cadets would be wasted.
    I make no apology for drawing attention to detailed matters such as the Meteorological Office, which has not had a mention so far, and the importance of Cranwell. My object is to draw the attention of the public to the remarkable facilities there and the high standard of the work which is done. Overweighing it all, obviously, is the whole question of the morale of the force to which these young men are training to belong. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was being perfectly frank, and one cannot accuse him of being less than frank in his speech, about the blow that the cancellation of the Skybolt project caused to the Royal Air Force. I imagine that it must have been his major thought when this happened to make certain so far as lay in his power that those serving in Bomber Command, particularly, should not lose heart and feel that they would become a sort of glorified transport command.
    Only today in the Press I saw arresting advertisements designed to catch the eye of the potential young recruit and dealing with the question of whether the Air Force have a future after Skybolt. I am sure that that is the right way to approach intelligent young men of the kind we are trying to recruit. It is perfectly obvious that there is a major rôle for the Air Force in the future. It was outlined in a fascinating manner earlier, and with a technical skill that I cannot match, by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, and reference was made
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    to the way in which the Air Force of the future is to work.
    It has to be said that we shall not recruit persons if they get it fixed in their mind that they are going into a force which is to be truncated, and of which half is to go to the Army and half to the Navy. I am wholeheartedly behind reorganisation defence-wise as announced in our debate on defence. I am certain that it is the right move. But I am equally convinced of the wisdom of the case made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air, that air power will be effective only if it is concentrated in an effective air force rather than scattered about in penny packets. It may well be that when the reorganisation takes place, some of the fierce defences of particular air empires will require that slight air of unreality which they have at the present time.
    If anything, I as an outside observer would be in favour of concentrating more under the control of the Air Force rather than taking anything away. But all this means that both technically and reorganisation-wise the future of the Air Force is assured and any person going into it will be going into a very modern and up-to-date force with a great future. If that message goes out from our lengthy discussions, however poorly they have been attended, it will prove a valuable result.
    9.54 p.m.
    Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Your attention, Sir William, has been drawn to the Amendment on the Order Paper in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark). When I put down the Amendment it was my intention to express the great dissatisfaction felt by my constituents in the firm of Short Bros and Harland, not so much about the decision to place the order for the OR351 with the Hawker-Siddeley Group as with the decision, and the announcement by my right hon. Friend, that no part of the design work on that project would go to Short Bros, and that it was likely that no further orders would be placed for the Belfast air freighter.
    Short Bros has a fine modern factory. Many hon. Members who have visited my constituency have been to the factory, and they have been very welcome. It

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    has 1½, million square feet of modern floor space, with an aerodrome on its doorstep and a waterway up the side where aircraft carriers can unload directly to the factory the planes which they carry for refit. This decision means that no further orders involving design work will be placed in this factory. This may well cause the running down of the design staff there and place the future of the entire works in jeopardy.
    However, it was not my intention, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes), to reduce the number of men in the Royal Air Force. For this reason, having drawn the attention of the Committee to the dissatisfaction about this matter, I prefer to deal with the main issue tonight rather than to move my Amendment.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Does not the hon. Gentleman propose to move his Amendment? Am I not to have the pleasure of supporting it?
    Mr. McMaster: The hon. Gentleman said that no one would be more amazed and dismayed than the shop stewards in my constituency if the number of men in the Royal Air Force were reduced, and I think that he was right. Therefore, the only practical way of expressing dissatisfaction being to vote for a reduction, I do not intend to press the Amendment. Instead, I intend to speak on the general subject of the Air Estimates and on the Motion before the Committee.
    I must make it clear that I have a strong constituency interest in this matter. Many hon. Members on both sides, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), have made strong speeches on this subject. I apologise in advance to the Committee if I overlap what has been said. As this matter concerns my constituency, and although I have been called towards the end of the debate, I feel entitled to restate part of the arguments.
    I wish, first, to comment on the Air Estimates as they appear in this rather thin Defence White Paper. It has been criticised in earlier debates for being thin. I have compared it with Defence White Papers over the last three or four years, and I do not find this one very much thinner than any of those. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air referred to the different functions
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    of the Royal Air Force which are set out at the bottom of page 67 of the Defence White Paper.
    I do not intend to address any remarks to the first three topics—air defence, tactical strike and Bomber Command—which have been adequately covered in the White Paper. However, no clear line of policy is expressed in this document. In particular, there is no policy about operational requirements designed to keep the aircraft industry fully occupied.. I draw particular attention to the fact that Coastal Command and the Shackletons, which have served it so well for so long, must be nearing the end of their life.
    I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to deal with this problem of the life of the Shackleton Coastal Command aircraft. It can be seen from the awarding of the 0R351 contract that, although the first plans were formulated and the first requirement issued in 1960. the decision has now only just been taken to order the aircraft. I do not expect that it will be in production and service for at least another seven years. It takes about ten years to produce a new plane.
    It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Committee report Progress.
    Ordered,
    That this day the Business of Supply may be taken after Ten o'clock and shall be exempted from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House) for Two hours after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. H. Fraser.]
    Supply again considered in Committee.
    Mr. McMaster: As I was saying, it now takes, or appears to take, about ten years between the initial decision to order a new aircraft and bringing the aircraft into service. I should like my right hon. Friend to deal with this point. Paragraph 15 of the section of the White Paper dealing with the Royal Air Force says this:
    "Studies are also in progress of the characteristics required in a replacement for the Shackleton."
    Does my right hon. Friend think that this admirable aircraft, which has been modernised, can still be expected to be in service in ten years' time? Should not steps be taken immediately to set plans on foot for its replacement?

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    I was glad to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton suggest that this contract might be given to Short Bros. and Harland, because this would be a new project completely divorced from the considerations of the Belfast, which has attracted so much comment from both sides of the Committee. It would be a new project which the design staff there could take on as well as they have taken on projects in the past. One such project I have in mind is the variable geometry aircraft, in which Short Bros and Harland acted as the pioneers, a project which has now been adopted in the United States.
    Another I have in mind is the multi-jet vertical take-off and landing aircraft, which has been referred to frequently tonight. Short Bros. and Harland successfully pioneered this project which, I might say in passing, has been mentioned in every White Paper during the last three or four years. It is also mentioned in this year's White Paper as being the thing of the future. However, regrettably the secrets and advances gained in the multi-jet version, which is most suitable for heavy aircraft, have been given away deliberately to France and Germany. I should like to know why this country has lost the lead in this field.
    I have digressed from the main trend of my argument, which is that a little more planning of the requirements and the devotion of a little more thought to the requirements might be of considerable assistance to the aircraft industry. It might well be said that this is a job for the Minister of Aviation. Indeed, I put this point to my right hon. Friend. He told me that requirements are a matter for the Secretary of State of State for Air; they are not for the Ministry of Aviation, which simply does the ordering.
    This is a fine example of "passing the buck", if ever there was one. If it is true, however, the Secretary of State for Air should take into consideration not simply the requirements of the R.A.F., which, as one can understand, are perhaps for fast jet aircraft, but also other factors, such as social needs, the needs of the aviation industry as a whole, and the requirement of the aircraft itself. The R.A.F. might not like to do much troop transporting. The
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    R.A.F. might prefer to fly fast jet aircraft rather than the slower, heavier, bigger and more cumbersome planes which have to move about the world transporting soldiers and their equipment. This might be work which did not interest the Air Force so much.
    We have heard a lot of very imaginative talk about sub-orbital flight. This catches the imagination of the Committee, but the donkey work still remains to be done. For planes to do the transporting, and planes like the Shackleton going out over the oceans on reconnaissance we require something quite different from the fast jet. I am told that one of the great advantages of the Shackleton is that it is a rather slow aircraft with a long range; it can perform its vital function because of these qualities.
    If the defence needs of the country are now to be met, as a result of Nassau, not by Skyholt and the V-bomber force but by the Polaris submarine, will it not be necessary to protect our Polaris submarines? Would not the Polaris submarine, which is, perhaps, more vulnerable to counter-submarine attack by a hunter-killer, be best protected by aircraft such as the Shackleton, or the Shackleton replacement? Could not such an aircraft do a great deal in protecting our few—only six or seven—vital Polaris submarines, detecting the presence of a hunter-killer submarine and getting rid of that menace?
    I turn now to the freighter aircraft requirement. We have been told about the order for 10 Belfasts. This order is inadequate. I have no personal experience of this, because I have not been in the aircraft industry myself, but I am told that an aircraft is not like a motor car, which can be serviced every six months, or once a year, if it is new. An aircraft must be checked and serviced quite regularly and for considerable periods. I understand that, in fact, it spends about a quarter of its life being serviced.
    If this is so, one in four aeroplanes is on the ground being checked and not available for service at any one time. In the ordinary way, also, with wear and tear and the occasional unfortunate accident to equipment, one of the 10 Belfasts may be out of action because of damage. Thus, we shall have only

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    five or six of these aircraft available at one time to meet an emergency. Does my right hon. Friend consider that this is really sufficient to meat the strategic requirement of carrying equipment all over the world?
    I recognise that, with the VC.10s in use, the Belfast will not be required to carry troops, or, I hope, not many troops. But one very big advantage of the Belfast is its tremendous size. It can carry all manner of equipment, from, at one end of the scale, the Chieftain tank to a great variety of missiles, or even four helicopters in its hold, at the other.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air will pay attention to this problem of the requirement for more strategic freighter aircraft so that the Royal Air Force can properly fulfil its function of carrying equipment all over the world. If more are to be ordered, I suggest that some of the ideas which have been put forward by the company should be investigated.
    For instance, the present aircraft could be extended. I am told that the present 10 will be delivered with a version of the Tyne turbo-prop engine with 16 ft. propellers and that an improvement could be made to use 18 ft. propellers, thus extending the range and pay-load.
    There is the better project still, which appeals to me, of a new engine developed by Rolls-Royce—having visited Rolls-Royce recently I know how the company would welcome this—the Tyne V turbo-prop, which would take a 20 ft. propeller, greatly extending the Belfast in the way that any good plane can be extended from the very first project to the more developed version. If that is not acceptable to my right hon. Friend for reasons of money and if he is interested in the jet versions, I believe that the firm has put forward a suggestion, using the existing fuselage and existing wing and jet configuration, for building and developing, within six or seven years, a jet version of the Belfast air freighter. Surely by the time such a plane could be built and in service there would be a very real need for such a large strategic freighter.
    I have heard criticism of this plane in the House on the ground that it is too big. I would, however, direct my
    784
    right hon. Friend's attention to progress in America where the size of freighter aircraft is getting larger every year and by their standards the Belfast is quite a small plane. It has, as was mentioned in relation to the Hawker-Siddeley plane, been tailor made to meet the requirements of the Army, which, I am told, is very satisfied with the specifications of this plane. I should not like to see my right hon. Friend just abandoning it, as he appears to have decided to do, but giving further thought to the usefulness of another four or five of these great aircraft.
    Another suggested use is as a tanker aircraft. Much attention has been given in the White Paper to use of tanker aircraft. It would extend the range of the TSR2, which has been the subject of debate this afternoon. At the moment, we use, among other aircraft, the Valiant for this purpose. Is it wise or sensible to use a jet bomber for a purpose like that? Would it not be much better to use a heavy freighter plane that could carry more fuel than even the Valiant as an airborne tanker?
    This underlines another point in respect of a freighter such as the Belfast—its tremendous versatility. It has been suggested that the OR351, that is, the Hawker plane which is the WG681, which is to be built, will probably not be in service for at least seven or eight years and that some of these additional Belfasts could be used to fill the gap. This was referred to earlier. I think that there will obviously be a gap between the ordinary expected life of the Hastings and the Beverleys, which have been very fine planes but which are now getting rather old and can hardly be expected to last many more years before they fall to pieces.
    My right hon. Friend said that this version of the Belfast would take as long to deliver as it would to deliver the Hawker plane. I made inquiries on this point and I am told that that is not quite true. When the OR351 was originally put up to Short Brothers and Harland it suggested developing a plane with a new Tyne V engine. The Tyne V would take two or three years to develop and it is true that if this special version with blown wings was developed it would probably take as long as the Hawker.

    785
    More recently, I am told, the firm put forward yet another suggestion for a version based upon the existing 18 ft. propeller engine. This aircraft could be delivered almost immediately together with the 10 Belfasts which are nearing completion, one of which is being pressure tested in the water tank and another of which I have seen recently in the hangar. Its engines are beside it and it is in the final stage of preparedness for its trial flights.
    If an order were given for a few of these machines, not only could they fill the gap but they would be useful to the Army, because they have a much greater range than the Hawker aircraft and the WG681 and would probably have a useful life of between ten and fifteen years and would supplement the existing order for the Hawker aircraft. This is a matter which I should like my right hon. Friend to consider with the other points I have made concerning the strategic version of this aircraft.
    I can summarise what I have said by asking my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to cast a little light on this problem. It has caused great anxiety to the people in Short Bros. They would like to know whether this firm, in my constituency, has any future. The design team has been built up carefully and more than half of it are local men who were trained in our technical college or
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    university under a scheme sponsored by the company. It is a tremendous asset to an area like Northern Ireland with its heavy unemployment.
    If my right hon. Friend is advised to reject the arguments which I have tried to put forward for the Belfast either as a strategic machine or as an interim tactical freighter, and if he is advised that the Hawker machine will meet the entire requirement, will he consider setting up a second production line for the Hawker 'plane in Belfast, where there are magnificent facilities? This has been done before for the Canberra, which was built in Belfast, for the Britannia and even for the Comet. There have been second production lines in Northern Ireland. It would help us in Northern Ireland if, instead of simply making parts for the Hawker machine, we could adopt the more satisfactory solution of having a production line for the WG681.
    It has been suggested that we need about 50 of these aircraft. It will take a considerable time to produce them if the task is left entirely to Whitworth Gloster. Perhaps, therefore, it will be possible to produce some of them in Northern Ireland.
    These are the points which I wanted to put to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench and I hope that I will get an answer to some of them tonight.
    10.13 p.m.
    Mr. John Mackie: I am sure that the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) will forgive me if I do not follow his technical and constituency speech, but I am disappointed that he did not decide to press his Motion after the generous help that was offered to him by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). The two hon. Members would have made a nice combination acting as Tellers.
    I am tempted to enter the debate by two points raised by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee). The first was his reference to the meteorological services. The hon. Member widened the field by getting into the realms of cricket, holidays in Germany, and M. Bidault. I do not follow how he was able to do so, but your predecessor, Sir William, did not stop the hon. Member, and, therefore, I presume that he was in order.
    I was intrigued by the hon. Member's final remarks when he listed the benefits derived from the meteorological services by various bodies and he finished by saying "and, incidentally, farming". Farming is the biggest industry in the country and the one that benefits most by good meteorological services. It depends entirely upon the weather.
    I should like to pay tribute to the help that the meteorological services of the Air Force give to agriculture. I use them a great deal, particularly in the north-east of Scotland. At Dyce, we have an excellent service. We can telephone at any hour of the day or night and get either a long-term or a short-term forecast. which is extremely valuable. Like the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, I am appalled at the amount of money that is spent on the Royal Air Force. I have no knowledge of whether it is necessary or not, but we are not charged for this service, and I do not begrudge some of the money that goes into it.
    The other point made by the hon. Member for Wokingham was about Cranwell, which made me think of the number of airmen to whom I have given lifts on the road between my farm in Lincoln and my farm in Essex, which includes the Cranwell area. I am sorry that the
    788
    Minister has left the Front Bench, because three years ago when he was in charge of the Army Estimates I raised the same subject, the under-employment, not of the actual flying people, or the people in the Army who pull the triggers, but the "odd bods" who make up the pay and do all the servicing work in the Services. I am certain that they are under-employed.
    In my constituency I have given lifts to numerous airmen from the various airfields with which East Anglia is liberally sprinkled. I have picked them up on a Friday afternoon, or Friday morning, and taken them back on the Monday morning. I have asked when they start work on the Monday morning and what time they get off on the Friday afternoon, and the answer invariably has been, "Oh, we are not busy on Friday afternoon or Monday morning; we only do half a man's job". I am therefore satisfied that in the servicing of the Services there is a fantastic amount of under-employment.
    Mr. Anthony Kershaw: Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that if there were over-employment in peace time it would be impossible to expand those services in time of emergency?
    Mr. Mackie: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is right. It is because of this under-employment in peace time that we need so many more men in war time.
    Mr. Kershaw indicated dissent.
    Mr. Mackie: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the fact is that in the Services men get into the routine of being under-employed. By comparison, in industry one man does about two or three times the work done by a man in the Forces, with the result that when war comes, which God forbid it will again, the Services carry on in their old way and need an enormous number of men. If men in the Services in peace time were trained to do a full-time job, we would have much more efficient Services.
    My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire was not being funny when he said that it might not be a bad idea if Dr. Beeching were let loose in the Armed Services to see where he could make savings, as he has done on the railways. In fact, I think that it would have been more profitable to the country if he had first been let loose in the Services and then on the railways.

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    I suggest to the powers that be on the Front Bench opposite that they should give careful attention to just how underemployed Service men are. As I say, having given many Service men lifts between Aberdeen and London, and having talked seriously to them, I am convinced that they are seriously underemployed, and that there is tremendous scope for saving work in the servicing of the three Services, and I hope that right hon. Gentlemen opposite will pay attention to this.
    10.24 p.m.
    Mr. Brian Harrison: I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene in this debate, and I shall try to conclude what I have to say in about six or seven minutes.
    First, I welcome the fact that the Royal Air Force is to be amalgamated with the other three Services and, in addition, with part of the Ministry of Aviation. I welcome that as much as I disapprove of the way in which my right hon. Friend presented this to the House, which I thought was treating the House with complete disdain in not mentioning it in the White Paper but suddenly revealing it at the Dispatch Box to divert attention from the lack of a defence policy.
    The amalgamation will ultimately lead to greater efficiency in the Fighting Services, and I hope very much that whilst the Services will work together the Royal Air Force, and of course the other Services too, will remain as individual Services within the whole organisation. I hope most emphatically that the Chief of Air Staff will not have another Service man over him between him and the Minister of Defence. It is most important that the Chief of Air Staff should have direct access to and work directly with the Minister of Defence.
    I welcome the fact that the deterrent at present carried by the Royal Air Force is now integrated to a greater degree in N.A.T.O. This is a desirable step in the move away from an independent deterrent, which is eminently desirable. The more we can get the Air Force deterrent integrated with our allies the more I shall be satisfied. At the same time, the case for the Royal Air Force, or for anybody else, is not advanced in any way by the
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    sort of advertisement that appeared in the Economist last weekend, in which the Air League tried to persuade the Government to give the Royal Air Force a further deterrent after the expiry of the useful life of the present one, which is carried by the V-bombers.
    I do not believe that the TSR2 will become useful as a deterrent—not because I do not think that it is the most wonderful aircraft that has ever been designed—
    Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;
    Committee counted, and, 40 Members being present—
    Mr. Harrison: Before that interruption, I was referring to the TSR2. It seems to me to be the most wonderful aircraft, and of its type to be probably as great in design as the Spitfire was in the early thirties. But it is a fabulously expensive aircraft. I shall be surprised if we are economically able to bring it into service unless some of our other allies agree to purchase it. I hope that my right hon. Friend and the Government will consider that point very carefully.
    Mr. Eden: My hon. Friend may be aware that the Australian Government are extremely interested in this aircraft. Perhaps he can use his good offices to further their interest.
    Mr. Harrison: I very much hope that the Australian Government will examine the TSR2 and that there will not be a repetition of what happened in the case of Mysteres, which the Australian Government could have obtained with Rolls Royce engines. For rather shortsighted reasons of trade they decided not to. I hope that the Australian Government will follow up the progress of this aircraft and consider the possibilities of purchase in a favourable and sensible light.
    On a completely different point: I wonder whether my hon. Friend can tell the Committee why on earth mountain rescue teams should be provided by the Royal Air Force. It seems completely incongruous. One could understand their being run by the Army or the Commandos, or something of that sort, but

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    I hope that neither my hon. Friend nor any other Members will do anything to belittle the exceptional job which is done by the R.A.F. mountain rescue teams. I myself have had cause to feel a lot safer when mountain walking because of the existence of these teams. I wish to pay a tribute to their work, and I hope that even if no logical reason can be found for them being provided by the R.A.F.—and I myself cannot think of one—they will continue to be maintained by that Service.
    Mr. H. Fraser: Per ardua ad astra.
    10.31 p.m.
    Mr. Victor Goodhew: I intervene at this late stage to make three short points, and, in so doing, to express my surprise that the Opposition, whose duty it is rather than that of Government supporters to inquire into the way in which the Supply accounts are spent, should be so poorly represented in the debate and, apart from the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie), should have dropped out of the debate some time ago.
    I assure the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) that I approach this subject not as an expert but rather as the watchdog of the taxpayer. One must bear in mind that Probably the prime interest of the taxpayers, or of the majority of them, is that the Government should see that they are well defended, and it is in seeing that they are well defended that I am anxious we should ensure that the money is well spent.
    I was most impressed by a passage in the Statement on Defence, in paragraph 20 on page 69, which ends:
    "But only aircraft are flexible enough to meet the world-wide commitments of the Royal Air Force, by reason of the speed with which they can be redeployed and their ability to use both nuclear and conventional weapons with the accuracy required."
    If one substituted the words "Great Britain for" "Royal Air Force", one would sum up the whole essence of the need to maintain an airborne deterrent.
    Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. B. Harrison), I am firmly convinced that, although there may be a rôle for Polaris submarines in the years to come, the airborne deterrent will return as the main deterrent force maintained by
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    this country. This being so, I am glad that it has been found that the TSR2. which has been referred to so often and which is such a splendid aircraft, has been developed in a way which will enable it to carry out a stratetgic as well as a tactical rôle. I hope that this country, in view of this fact, will not drop out of the missile business. The question has been raised whether we should develop a Skybolt of our own. Even if we cannot do that at once, I hope we shall continue research and development so that we can still be in the race and, if ever we are forced to rely on our own resources, we shall not be found without missiles of our own. Therefore, my second point is that we should try to keep Britain in the missile business so that we are able to be independent should that be necessary in the future.
    Another point is whether, in spite of the shot-gun marriages in the aircraft industry, we have always managed to produce the aircraft we need with the greatest speed and economy. I tried to take part in the debate on this subject last year, because at that time there was a project for the R.A.F. in the form of a short-range transport aircraft and the decision had to be taken whether it should be the Dart Herald made by Handley Page in my constituency, or the Avro 748. I was convinced then, and I still am, that the Dart Herald was the aircraft best suited to the R.A.F. Furthermore, it could be produced more quickly than the Avro 748 because the aircraft engines, the Darts, were already in service, whereas engines for the Avro 748 still have to be developed. We are waiting for the Avro 748, and we have lost time and have had to spend a great deal more money developing special engines.
    "I fear that we may make the same mistake over the P1154. I understand that we have to have a specially developed engine made by Bristol Siddeley for this aircraft, and that it will take a considerable time to develop and will cost a great deal of money—probably £20 million. I understand that this aircraft could be fitted with two Rolls Royce Spey engines. These engines have been in use for some time and would therefore have much longer periods between maintenance and overhaul. Furthermore, there would be no development charges and there would be the additional safety

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    factor of having twin engines instead of a single engine.
    I hope that, just because a decision was taken originally to have the P1154 and Hawkers and Bristol Siddeleys are in the the same group, we shall not find ourselves having to wait a long time for this aircraft because a special engine has to be developed. I hope that we shall not have to spend a great deal of money developing engines when we could have a satisfactory aircraft much sooner and cheaper. I have always maintained that it is the duty of the Minister of Aviation to see that the Services get the aircraft they want and get them as quickly and as cheaply as possible. I hope that this will be borne in mind with the P1154 and that the question of the Rolls Royce Spey engines will be explored rather than abiding by a decision which has been taken but could be adjusted.
    I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the manner in which the Estimates have been presented. I am sure that all hon. Members welcome the fact that, in spite of amalgamation that lie ahead of the Services concerned, the R.A.F. is still a very fine service of which we can all be proud.
    10.38 p.m.
    Mr. Roy Mason: This has been one of the most interesting and wide-ranging debates on the Air Estimates we have had for many years. Prior to 1960, quite often the debate used to collapse about 9 or 10 o'clock in the evening because of lack of interest in the subject. In the period, 1960, 1961 and 1962, sometimes due to the provocative speech of the Secretary of State for Air in introducing the Estimates, we had a debate concerned solely with the strategy and strength of the nuclear deterrent and the V-bomber force. Now, for the first time for many years, we have been able to focus attention on many other matters which affect the Royal Air Force. The debate brought in the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie), who talked about the meteorological services of the Air Ministry and about the future of Cranwell, subjects which are rarely debated on the Estimates.
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    When the Secretary of State for Air was introducing the Estimates today I had a queer feeling that we were going through "Prospect II" again. At that time, three or four years ago, the Minister of Defence had given an indication in a Defence White Paper that the missile era was upon us and that manned bombers were in danger. The marshals of the Royal Air Force banded together and formed "Prospect", the conference to which I have referred, and made a stand in favour of the manned bomber. We seem to be going through that phase once more, and the Secretary of State in his introduction of the Estimates seemed to be feeling it very much.
    We now seem to have a switch, to what may be a £400 million contract, from the aircraft industry and its missiles to the shipbuilding yards and Polaris. He seemed to indicate that he was worried about the future of manned aircraft, and throughout the debate hon. Members on both sides of the House, and particularly hon. and gallant Members who are ex-members of the Royal Air Force, true to the Force, seemed very much concerned about what the future of the Force might be.
    I congratulate the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) on his contribution. He is a former member of the R.A.F., and is particularly interested in the aircraft industry. Too often in this Chamber, whether in debates On defence as a whole or in debates on the Service Estimates, too many people, because of their own inclinations or their service in a particular Force, clamour for more for that Force and do not think of defence as a whole. But the hon. Member for Macclesfield frankly supported a unified force, and indeed hinted that it was his idea ten years ago. If more of those who are interested in their own Service took this broader view we might have a better defence policy emanating from the Government.
    The hon. Member for Macclesfield and the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) spoke about the future of an air-space plane. The Russians and the Americans are already spending vast sums of money on this venture. I doubt whether we can go it alone on this. There seems to be only one champion of this type of aircraft and he

    795
    is the Minister of Aviation, who mentioned it in passing when the Air Estimates were introduced last year, who made a speech about it at a dinner of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors last year, and who mentioned it in the defence debate this week. He is the only person on the Government benches who has talked about it so far. But I agree with the hon. Member for Orpington that vast sums of money would have to be spent on it, and from our point of view it would be far too costly.
    The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) said that missiles would diminish in importance and manned aircraft would have a greater future. I still think that manned aircraft have a long and great future, but the hon. Member must not underestimate the growth of missiles in defence. Our own air defences are rapidly becoming dependent upon the Bloodhound and most of our garrisons abroad will have it in due course.
    I condemn the typical R.A.F. speech of the kind we had from the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Turner). He was worried about the Polaris decision and the Nassau Agreement, and he emphasised again and again the need to tell all that there is still a future for manned aircraft. But the hon. Member did highlight one of the causes of concern about the future of the Royal Air Force, and that is the gap not between the end of the V-bomber force and the introduction of Polaris but the strategic freight aircraft gap. Although a decision may have been taken about the Armstrong Whitworth 681, it is doubtful whether this will be in service by 1968. I agree with the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) that it may well not be in service before 1970. In view of the fact that the Belfast aircraft have been ordered and are in production, if a few more were ordered to try and bridge this gap that might well lower production costs as well.
    The hon. Member for Woolwich, West chastised this side of the Committee because, he said, we too often ask too many questions about missiles and the strength of the deterrent. But if he has taken note of what has happened in the last ten years—the failure of Blue Streak and Blue Steel and the failure to get Skybolt—he should be supporting our point of view
    796
    and should be probing more, and he would get rid of the idea that the mystique of a weapon really puzzles or deters a potential aggressor.
    I congratulate the Secretary of State on giving more detailed information on the R.A.F. mercy flights. Some months ago I put down a Question about these flights. There is no point in the R.A.F. spending vast sums of money on these mercy missions and then being reluctant or too modest to tell the people about them. I see that he has put in an extended passage about these flights in the Memorandum this year, and I applaud his decision.
    Nearly every branch of the R.A.F. is invariably, at some time or other, involved in these operations. Apart from giving them a satisfying and positive rôle to play in putting their training to a useful and merciful purpose, they are building up a great fund of good will for Britain—and this is all the more welcome since we have seen that good will damaged in so many ways in the last few years. Some of the operations tend to rectify the balance. Indeed, the effect goes further in some instances where these missions have been flown—in Pakistan, Tanganyika and Kenya, for example. By this work, the image of our nation as portrayed by the R.A.F. has led to a greater feeling of succour and security among those who have been helped. No one in this country will quibble about the cost, for this is a practical demonstration, in many ways, of the war against want, disease and catastrophe.
    Paragraph 42 states that 250 aeromedical flights were made during the year bringing Service men back to the United Kingdom for treatment for serious illness and injury. The right hon. Gentleman has been questioned many times about also bringing home the bodies of Service men who have died in the Middle East or the Far East. I understand that in these aero-medical flights, over 950 Service men were brought home for treatment.
    This is an excellent service. We have eleven Comets, twenty-three Britannias and forty-eight Hastings on regular movement from this country to North Africa and on to Aden, Gan and Singapore. Why, then, cannot the right hon. Gentleman see that the bodies of dead Service men who died in the Middle East and the Far East are brought home if their relatives wish it?

    797
    The British Army of the Rhine is not affected by this. The trooping to Germany is done in the main by British United Airways, and there is very little movement of troops to Germany by Transport Command, which is concentrated on movements to the Middle East and the Far East. During the twelve months under review, 35 Service men died in the Middle East and 31 in the Far East. Since these flights by Transport Command are made regularly, and it brought home 950 sick Service men last year, I submit that the bodies of those who have died out there could also be brought home. The cost is estimated at about £9,000.
    I reelise that certain problems arise in tropical countries, but most of them could be overcome if the Ministry really wanted to do this. Many countries already do what I am suggesting and fly their deceased Service men, widows and effects home immediately. That applies to Belgium; France brought home all her Servicemen killed in Algeria and the United States have been doing it for a considerable time. The Netherlands are changing their policy on this matter and Portugal make the necessary arrangements. I hope, therefore, that during these Estimates debates the right hon. Gentleman will have conversations with the Secretary of State for Air to see what sympathetic consideration can be given to this aspect.
    While on the subject of overseas stations, some of them must be causing anxiety to the Air Ministry. In Singapore, for example, the services and works departments are manned mainly by people on the island, generally Chinese, who are subject to political influences. If there is pressure from the Chinese mainland, particularly on this work force, there is no telling whether the efficiency of the Forces will be impaired. We have already had a disturbing period in Cyprus, and in Kenya we are under some political pressure. Aden is subject to pressure as well.
    I am referring, of course, mainly to political pressures from nearby and not-so-friendly nations. I mention this because I want to highlight the position of Gan, a staging station en route to the Far East. This was, of course, really an experiment by the Air Ministry. As far as I know, the area is free from the
    798
    political pressures and influences I have been discussing, and I have been impressed with its development. Perhaps the Under-Secretary is able to say to what extent—in terms of cost, operational efficiency and morale—this small island station in the middle of the Indian Ocean has been successful. I applaud the fact that the men stationed there are on a twelve month tour, and I regret that more of our men stationed abroad are not on the same tour basis, particularly in tropical countries, for tours of that length seem to be enjoyed by the Servicemen.
    The right hon. Gentleman and his Department are also to be congratulated on having kept a relatively clean state in Germany with the Second Tactical Air Force during some anxious periods when our Servicemen proved a little too boisterous for the Germans. This has been due to the facilities provided on the station, and the men seem to be quite happy and content and have come out of these skirmishes quite well, so to speak.
    I would like to draw attention to paragraphs 84, 87, 88 and 89 of the Statement. The Committee will note that in paragraph 84 reference is made to the fact that recruitment of air electronic officers was slightly below the desired rate. Paragraph 87 refers to the continuing need for more professionally qualified engineers and paragraph 88 points out that in the education branch it has not been easy to recruit scientists and technologists and that there is need for more full career entrants who are graduates or who have professional qualifications. Paragraph 89 states:
    "There is a temporary deficiency in certain trades, notably the Wireless and Teleprinter Operators. …"
    The sentiments expressed in that quotation seem to extend over the whole range of R.A.F. activities, but the paragraph adds:
    "These shortages do not seriously impair operational efficiency."
    However, such shortages must impair efficiency to some extent. What does he mean by "seriously impairing operational efficiency"? It is bound to have some effect. The right hon. Gentleman must be concerned about this point. It is very odd—because they take up so much of the Report, stretching out over a whole page—that he did not mention

    799
    the matter. If the shortages are evident now, I suggest that it will become more difficult to solve the problem in the future. There is bound to be an increasing use of radar in defence. Our air defence system will soon rely completely on missiles. There will be the V-bombers and the Electric Lightnings with their complicated packs of electronic equipment. The Royal Air Force is bound to be in keen competition with the Atomic Energy Authority in the recruitment of scientists, technicians, engineers and professional teachers. It is bound to be in competition with industry, and soon there will be keener competition between the R.A.F. and the Navy, which is also short of technicians for its missile equipment. With the advent of Polaris there will be greater competition.
    Only a week or two ago the First Lord of the Admiralty said that one of the difficulties would be to get technicians and skilled men for the Navy both to build the submarines and to man them. There is no need to mention that the United States of America is taking same of our top scientists and engineers. I wish to ask the Secretary of State how the R.A.F. is to solve this problem caused by a shortage of technical manpower. There are few sciences today which are advancing as fast as aviation, and it will certainly impair the operational efficiency of the R.A.F. if we cannot solve this problem.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) referred to paragraph 28 of the Report and noted with glee, as did all hon. Members on this side of the Committee, that the Thor weapons are now being dismantled. What a costly mistake that proved to be. It was a weapon system which never fitted into our second strike or non-aggressive defence policy. It has proved a constant irritation and a provocative posture and was particularly annoying to those countries at which the missiles were aimed. They provided a legitimate reason for anti-nuclear demonstrations in this country. It was defensible to talk about a second strike parallel or V-bombers. But we could not and we never did defend the aggressive first strike Thor weapons. And we on this side of the Committee are pleased to see them go. There is no telling what
    800
    has been the total cost caused by the need for Service and civil police to check the many demonstrations which have taken place over the past two or three years, and which were in the main sparked off by the presence of these weapons.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: One of the first of the demonstrations took place in my constituency, and I am able to tell the hon. Gentleman that when we checked up to find out how many of my constituents took part in the demonstration we found that it was seven out of a total of 300.
    Mr. Mason: That is immaterial. The people were incensed by this type of missile being stationed in the country and they did not just come from the hon. Gentleman's constituency to demonstrate. The thing was nationwide, and consequently demonstrators came from various parts of the country. We know that it has been a costly venture. The weapons are being dismantled according to agreement. They have been in the country for five years and the agreement was for a period from 1958 to 1963. The cost to the Air Ministry of keeping them in this country must have amounted to between £30 million and £40 million.
    I do not know to what extent the Air Ministry has considered this point. We have spent large sums of money on training Royal Air Force crews in the use of Thor weapons. Could not some of them have been kept and taken to Woomera? Could not Royal Air Force personnel have assisted in using them for peaceful air ventures? I do not know whether the Air Ministry has any intention of keeping any of them. This point is worth considering.
    I turn to a more provocative note contained in the Estimates. I refer to the future of the TSR2. A number of hon. Members on both sides have referred to this. The Secretary of State will undoubtedly be aware that this has been subject to argument over the past four or five years. Four years ago I intervened in the debate and talked about the future of the N.A. 39, which became the Buccaneer, and tried to inform the House of Commons of the fact that for an extra £10 million the Royal Air Force could have had that. The N.A. 39, converted for Royal Air

    801
    Force purposes, would not have been in service. However, the Service wanted its own aircraft. Since then there has been a change in policy. Where there were twenty aircraft doing various jobs for the Navy and the Royal Air Force, we are now trying to find aircraft which can do jobs for both Services. However, at that time the Royal Air Force wanted its own. So it decided to go ahead for the TSR2.
    The original estimate was for about £60 million, but the aircraft industry is now talking about a £400 million programme to do it. The original design was, as the title indicates, tactical, strike and reconnaissance. It is now tactical, strike and strategic, as well as reconnaissance. The Vulcan test-bed accident must obviously have retarded the development of this aircraft. On top of that, apart from trying to change it from a tactical weapon to a strategic weapon, apart from the retardation which must have taken place because of the Vulcan test bed accident, we are now talking about a new mystery weapon system as well. Therefore, the Secretary of State cannot say with any certainty when this will be introduced to the force or when the aircraft will fly. The accident, the change in rôle, and the weapon system are all fairly recent events. Consequently, the introduction of the plane is bound to be retarded.
    Paragraph 5 of the Estimates say that the TSR2 is to have a strategic nuclear punch. The Committee is entitled to know a little more about this. I have my suspicions that this will be similar to the tactical nuclear punch which the Canberras have in Germany. Those of us who have toured the Second Tactical Air Force know that the Canberras are the Q.Rs—the quick reaction aircraft—which are ready bombed up twenty-four hours a day. They would be ready for take-off if not hit after the first strike. It would appear to me that the TSR2 will be equipped with a similar system and will operate in the same way as the Canberras are expected to operate in Europe—that is, to fly fast and low, to rise and lob, and to escape the blast if they possibly can.
    It appears to me that the crews of the Canberras and possibly of the
    802
    TSR2s are suicide squads. It is up to the Under-Secretary when he replies this evening to try to get this doubt out of our minds. The Canberras in Europe are expected to fly low. They are quite old aircraft. They are not very fast. To deliver their nuclear weapons they have to rise and come within the radar detection, lob what is a conventional bomb, and then try to turn back and escape the blast. They are continually practising this. It is very doubtful if any of these aircrews would escape. The TSR2 was designed on similar lines. Its tactical rôle was to get underneath the door of the enemy's defences, to fly faster than the Canberra—it was originally designed as the replacement for the Canberra and not for the V-bomber—and to rise and deliver its nuclear load. Again, it will be subject to radar detection once it rises. As far as we can gather, because we know nothing about the new weapon system of the TSR2, it will adopt the same technique of rising, lobbing a bomb a few miles and hoping that it can turn back and escape the nuclear blast. Therefore, in replying to the debate, the Under-Secretary needs to try to remove our doubts and fears that the TSR2s, like the Canberras in Europe, will be suicide squads.
    After much delay, we are having introduced into the Service the Blue Steel rocket. It has been the subject of great criticism by the Public Accounts Committee, especially concerning cost. The last available figure from the Comptroller and Auditor General, when the Report was issued in September, 1960, was that this weapon was costing £60 million. That was two years ago. It did not come into the Service until December, 1962, so, no doubt, it has cost far more than that.
    The current version, as far as one can gather, has a range of 150 miles. The Secretary of State was challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale about part of the Blue Steel project being cancelled. It would appear that there was to be an extended version that might be stretched out to 400 miles' range. Do we understand that this has been scrapped? Is it the intention, with a view to bridging the gap between the end of the V-bomber's effective life and the introduction of Polaris, that this 400-mile Blue Steel should be in service?

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    Even when the Vulcans are armed with a 400-mile Blue Steel, let alone the 150-mile version, they can still be intercepted by the Russian Fiddler interceptor fighter operating well beyond the ground-based radar. Blue Steel, like Skybolt, was said to be essential. If the Vulcans were to be the proper air missile launcher that the Secretary of State wishes them to be, Skybolt would give them safety because of its 1,000-mile range. This would have allowed them to be outside radar coverage and fighter interception.
    Therefore, when we look at our weapon systems and our aircraft that are in operation and we consider the effectiveness of the deterrent, the position can be summed up like this. If we use the Royal Air Force in its retaliatory rôle—not in an aggressive strike rôle—after the first aggressive strike has taken place against it, we have in Europe the Second Tactical Air Force, At the airfields that escape the first strike, we would have the Q.R.A.s ready to go. As I have said, however, they would fly at low level. There would be no turning back once they had left, because beyond a certain range they could not be contacted. They would have predetermined targets and would be using the primitive bomb-lobbing technique. They are rather old, rather slow aircraft and would be operating these suicidal methods.
    Then we have the V-bomber force, armed mainly with free-falling nuclear bombs. They would be subjected, first, to the outer perimeter fighter interception. The few which escape would be subjected to radar coverage and missile interception. It is pure conjecture how many of the Vulcans and Victors would get through. Thirdly, we have a few Vulcans armed with Blue Steel. It would he an advantage if they could stand off their targets at 1,000 miles, but Blue Steel has a range of only 150 miles. In answer to some hon. Gentlemen opposite, the deterrent, to be effective, has to be credible, and this would not appear to be credible to many who see it from abroad.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: If the hon. Gentleman says that Skybolt is essential to enable V-bombers not to be suicide squads, would the Labour Party have adopted Skybolt without the Americans ordering it? If they would have done,
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    how does that tie up with their policy that they do not believe in Britain having an independent nuclear deterrent?
    Mr. Mason: I was talking about the differences between Skybolt and Blue Steel, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have stated time and again, and indeed I emphasised it last year when I appeared at this Box on the Air Estimates, that we were in favour of the tapering off of the independent British nuclear deterrent and would not have taken these measures on the pretence, which hon. Gentlemen opposite are obviously still doing, of giving the V-bomber further life, because every time we attempt to do it it proves more costly. We are not independent of American intervention, and, what is more, it is harming the aircraft industry in this country more than hon. Gentlemen opposite are willing to recognise.
    The Secretary of State for Air is asking for more than £500 million. This has been an interesting and wide-ranging debate, and we want to give the Under-Secretary of State for Air time to answer most of the questions which have been asked. It is many years since we have had this opportunity, and we want to give the hon. Gentleman time to deal fully with the subject. We have had no adequate explanation of the rôle, the range, or the strategic capabilities of the TSR2. We are not satisfied about whether the Government intend to go ahead to keep their independent deterrent; we are not satisfied about whether the gap can be bridged between the end of the effective life of the V-bombers and the introduction of the Polaris submarines; and, finally, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would address himself to the serious shortage in the Force of technical and specialist Airmen. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will go some way towards answering the queries we have raised and allay our concern on the matters I have mentioned.
    11.13 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Julian Ridsdale): I am sure everyone is very glad that although, sadly, there is no Yorkshireman at this Box this year, there is at least a Yorkshire-man at the Opposition Box.
    The hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) raised two questions which I should like to answer at once. First,

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    the repatriation of bodies. The hon. Member asked what we are going to do about Service men who die overseas. As he knows, the Service Departments have been reviewing the matter, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War will make a statement shortly.
    On the question of Gan, I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman that the air base is working very well.
    The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) paid some compliments to the Royal Air Force, for which I thank him. He posed a number of questions. The one I should like to answer first concerns the gap in Transport Command, to which a number of other hon. Members also referred. The AW681 will enter service in the later 'sixties to replace the Hastings and the Beverley. It has been suggested that there will be a gap between the termination of the service of these aircraft and the advent of the AW681. This is not the case. There will not be a gap. The Hastings and Beverley force will continue to operate until their orderly replacement by the AW681.
    Hon. Members have suggested that we should have replaced the Hastings and the Beverley sooner, but we have to make a sensible balance in the use of our resources. As the Hastings and Beverley will still have plenty of useful life in them it would be wasteful to replace them with anything else but the AW681, which is an excellent aircraft, capable of extended development far into the seventies.
    Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member has not grasped the point. It is not merely that there is a gap because we need to replace the Hastings and Beverleys; there is a gross inadequacy in air lift—especially strategic freight lift—in the Royal Air Force. There is not merely a gap; there is an enormous hole, and we want that to be plugged. We cannot talk about global responsibilities unless we can carry a little freight around the world.
    Mr. Ridsdale: I shall be dealing with that question at a later stage in my speech, if I have time and am not interrupted too much. I hope to reply to some other questions in the course of my speech, if there is time.
    To some of the ruder things which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park said, I reply by saying that I realise that he is spokesman for the Opposition, and has to
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    justify his position. But I found him unduly pessimistic in his portrayal of the Royal Air Force's rôle and the weapons that it has at its disposal today. We have been chided about the TSR2, but I feel it a little odd to be chided about the strategic range of that aircraft by a number of hon. Members opposite, and especially by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), a Member of the Liberal Party, which is opposed to the nuclear deterrent.
    Some of the Opposition's criticism was destructive and questionable—indeed, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park was almost the twenty-questions master himself. He asked me 17 questions without prior notice, and the hon. Member for Orpington asked about half that number. It was quite a change to find my hon. Friends so constructive, imaginative and progressive. My hon. Friends the Members for Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey) and the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), asked some questions about space, and the hon. Member for Orpington tacked on some questions about this subject. The hon. Member for Barnsley was not so optimistic about space.
    Mr. Lubbock Mr. Lubbock rose—
    Mr. Ridsdale: I ask the hon. Member for Orpington to be liberal with my time. He has asked me several questions, and I hope that I shall be able to answer some of them.
    Mr. Lubbock: I only wanted to say that I did not tack on any questions to those asked by the hon. Members for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) and Macclesfield (Sir A. V. Harvey). I tried to correct the misapprehension under which they appeared to be labouring.
    Mr. Mulley: This is a very serious point. The purpose of the debate is to approve the proposals which the Government have put before us for spending £500 million. The suggestion that we have to give prior notice to raise questions on the Air Estimates debate, and should not otherwise ask questions, but merely make constructive proposals, is a novel constitutional doctrine. Is this part of the reorganisation? The hon. Member need not worry about the time; he has 50 minutes in which to reply, and I hope that he will answer all the questions.
    Mr. Ridsdale: I shall do my best to answer the questions. I am sorry if the

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    hon. Member for Sheffield, Park was irritated by the remarks I made about his being the twenty-questions master.
    I now turn to the subject of space. For some time the Air Ministry has been thinking about the broad question of the way in which space might influence our future military doctrine. In this we have been greatly helped by the studies carried out jointly with the Ministry of Aviation during the past year. Our long-term ideas are now becoming clear, and we should soon be in a position to offer our advice to the Ministry of Defence. Meanwhile it is essential that we begin to gain practical experience, and for a variety of reasons we believe that satellite communications systems offer the most suitable starting point. We hope, however, that we shall be able to make some definite advance in the fairly near future.
    Hon. Members will remember that the Minister of Aviation dealt with the subject of space vehicles in the defence debate on 6th March, when he drew particular attention to Farnborough's work on new materials and the problems of manned sub-orbital flights at speeds of Mach 14. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely spoke of speeds above Mach 14. I should like to assure hon. Members that the Air Ministry space staff, if I may so call them, are in close touch with all this work and keep its military implications under constant survey, although we have, of course, not yet reached the point at which decisions to proceed with military hardware could be sustained.
    My right hon. Friend in the course of his excellent speech dealt with aircraft and weapons, and I think that when hon. Members reread it they will find that it answers many of the questions that have been raised. As Under-Secretary, I am chiefly concerned with manpower and personnel. The accent in the Royal Air Force today, thank heavens, is still on the human factor, on airmen and aircrew personnel. I am sure, as far as I can see into the future, that there will always be a need for aircrew, for air personnel and fliers.
    This was particularly underlined by the experienced review by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Sir N. Hulbert). For those who fly today I am certain that there is as good and as ex-
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    citing a career as any so far achieved in the history of the Royal Air Force, especially with the space challenge coming so quickly before us. I cannot overestimate the importance of getting this over to those who are thinking of taking up flying with the R.A.F. as their career. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for the Isle of Ely and for Woolwich, West (Mr. Turner) for the way in which they stressed the importance of manned aircraft.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee), in a witty and interesting speech, spoke some prophetic words about the weather and long-term forecasting. I would remind him that long-term forecasting is for the moment far from an exact science, but I thank him for the wise words which he spoke about Cranwell—
    Mr. Eden: May I interrupt my hon. Friends? He will be aware of the proposal to establish a N.A.T.O. meteorological centre. Would he examine that proposal further in his Department and give serious consideration to active British participation in it?
    Mr. Ridsdale: Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion. It will certainly be noted by me and my Department. I hope that we shall be able to do something constructive about it.
    I now come to the very important question of the position of Cranwell. I am pleased to be able to tell the Committee that the 1962 entries to Cranwell exceed those of 1961. But the standards that we require are high. The difficulty is that we are competing for the same quality of young men who would choose to go to university. It we are to get the right officer material we must be able to show that the Royal Air Force has a vital future. No one need have any doubts about the quality of training given at Cranwell, although I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham that I am not complacent about the words he has spoken. It is a first-class training, not only in the lecture room, but in all the activities important to the development of ability and character. I doubt that any young man in the country, whether he goes to university or not, gets a better all-round training than we give to the office cadet at Cranwell.

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    I should like to say a word about something which has not been mentioned in this debate. That is the position of university air squadrons, because, besides Cranwell, it is to the universities that we look for a valuable source of our officer supply. The university air squadrons continue to provide recruits in good numbers. In 1962 we had 53 entrants for aircrew training from this source. These squadrons do an excellent job in attracting graduates and provide a vital link between the universities and the Royal Air Force. We find the entrants who have been trained particularly valuable because of their high quality and because their wastage rate in lying training is low. We are doing everything we can to encourage this valuable source of entry.
    We are in touch with the university authorities on plans for forming a new squadron in Wales. My right hon. Friend's Memorandum outlines the details of the new university scheme for the general duties branch and technical branches. Candidates who get these scholarships will not go to the R.A.F. College, but this does not replace the normal Henlow and Cranwell cadetships, which will continue to be of vital importance. The new scheme is additional to this. I was very pleased to hear what was said about cadets as a valuable source of recruitment. Certainly the Combined Cadet Force and the A.T.C. are valuable corps which we shall do all we can to support.
    I come to direct entry recruiting, which in 1962 went well. The improvement in 1961 was maintained. The target for navigators was met. Pilots and electronics officers were only slightly short of target. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park and my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield raised questions about this. We recruited 92 per cent. of our target far pilots and 95 per cent. for A.E.O.s. How far one achieves the target does not depend only on numbers recruited; depends as a whole on success in training. Here, I am glad to say, wastage in training has been falling recently. The manning of the future Air Force is not being prejudiced by these small shortfalls; in fact, we had a better out-turn for both pilots and A.E.O.s. and recently the A.E.O.s. have not only been reaching their target but exceeding it.
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    Basic flying schools were filled during 1962. There was a backlog of entrants from 1961 and good recruiting in 1962. On present trends the schools should be full this year. I am sure that this improvement we have made in recruiting means that we are attracting the best young men into what is an exciting and worth-while career combining adventure and service. Recruitment has been generally successful for ground branch officers. I have taken a note of what the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park and the hon. Member for Barnsley said about shortage in certain trades. We have a shortage in wireless and teleprinter operators, pilots and nursing attendants, but in general the targets have been met and the quality is satisfactory.
    We expect no difficulty in meeting future requirements for the ground trades. The numbers which we shall need in the future will be extremely small because of increased efficiency, the closing of the Thor stations, which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) was so delighted about, and because the increased proportion of men on long-term engagements has resulted in reduced turnover and intakes.
    Mr. Mulley: Which trades are still difficult, and are there any trades in which an airman is prohibited from buying his discharge? Could the hon. Gentleman answer a simple question? He must have the figures at his finger tips, because he is in charge of manpower matters. How many airmen are in the queue of people who are applying for discharge as Parliamentary candidates?
    Mr. Ridsdale: I was coming to the subject of Parliamentary candidates later.
    Mr. Mulley: I will wait.
    Mr. Ridsdale: The trades short are wireless and teleprinter operators, police, and nursing attendants. The numbers short are not great but they are enough at the moment to make it necessary for us to refuse discharge by purchase in these trades.
    As to the numbers in the Royal Air Force, to which the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park also referred, perhaps I can start by taking the 1958 White Paper which authorised the Royal Air Force to recruit up to 135,000 men on Regular terms. The then strength was 193,000,

    811
    of which 47,000 were National Service men. Though our objective was 135,000 we have found that we can carry on with a much smaller number. Our strength on 1st April, 1963, will be 130,000 and we estimate that our strength on 1st April, 1964, will be 126,000. It is not, therefore, that we cannot recruit enough men. The Thor rundown is having its effect but, most important, we are making a better use of manpower. This is my answer to the question which was raised in a rather red herringish sort of way by the hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Mackie), who wanted a Dr. Beeching to come and run the manpower of the Royal Air Force.
    Mr. Mackie: What is "red herringish" about Dr. Beeching?
    Mr. Ridsdale: We have been making a far better use of manpower. Undoubtedly the biggest single factor in making use of manpower has been the departure of the National Service men. I should like to pay tribute to the wonderful work they have done in the Royal Air Force. Nevertheless, our training commitments, because of the rundown of National Service men, have been greatly reduced. This is one of the rewards of having an all-Regular Service.
    We are also watching the reorganisation of manpower and in the last five years we have closed over 20 main stations and in the near future we shall close nine main stations and 15 other sites. All these closures have been notified. We have saved over 300 posts in headquarters organisation and have closed a complete Command and several group headquarters.
    We have also been paying particular attention to work study, which has now been employed in the Air Force for six years. The present emphasis is on achieving the best use of available manpower by ensuring that recommended improvements are introduced as widely as possible and improving the quality of management at all levels within the Service.
    Nevertheless, during the past year the activities of the 220 Service and civilian personnel established for work study have resulted in the saving of almost 500 Service and civilian posts. This brings the total of posts so far saved up to
    812
    2,000. For example, we have used work study in signal units by doubling the traffic employed over the network. In one recruiting depot we have saved 70 men by altering the method of procedure, and by introducing a new streamlined delivery system we have been able to save 700 man hours per aircraft on the Provost and as many as 1,880 man hours per aircraft on the Hastings. As a further reward, these aircraft have been made available earlier than they would have been under the old system.
    By improving the organisation of ground radio servicing, we have been able to save 68 posts and to reduce some of the remaining posts from skilled and semi-skilled manpower. In our aim to economise on Service manpower, because it is a costly item, we have been doing what we can to get civilianisation moving in the R.A.F. Usually, the cost of a civilian is very much less than the cost of an airman, in some cases about half.
    The replacement of airmen by civilians in many thousands has therefore led to substantial economies. Civilian contractors have taken over complete tasks. The catering for six stations has been taken over by civilian catering contractors, for instance, and in the first and second line servicing of non-operational units, nine stations and six university air squadrons have been taken over in this way.
    Ail this is a continuing process. By 1st April, 1966, we expect to have civilianised some 13,500 posts since 1st April, 1958. The rate of change is, however, inevitably slowing down, since the main areas where civilian manning is possible have now been covered. Nevertheless, during 1963–64 we expect to change some 360 posts over to civilian manning.
    But we have also been looking at training activities as well, and during the last 12 months we have cancelled no fewer than 100 courses, nearly all of them post-graduate courses for airmen dealing with new types of equipment. Many have been closed because it is now the policy to train a nucleus of airmen in the handling of new equipment so that they can give on-the-job training to others.
    We have also been looking at posts of tradesmen and are doing what we can to improve and broaden the levels of

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    skill. This will be one of the objectives of the new trade structure referred to by my right hon. Friend. This structure will improve both the levels of skill and of supervision. By using work study, by civilianisation, and by keeping constant watch on reorganisation and training activities, we are always on the alert for ways to ensure better use of valuable manpower.
    I think that this is the answer to the hon. Member for Enfield, East when he says that we have been under-employing people in the R.A.F.
    Mr. Mackie: What I said has proved not to be a "red herring". The hon. Gentleman has listed the savings that have been made and has admitted that far more can be made. My point was valid.
    Mr. Ridsdale: I must leave that to be judged by the Committee and by others.
    My right hon. Friend said that I would make a short statement about works organisation. On 1st April the work responsibilities of the Service Departments will be transferred to the Ministry of Public Building and Works. I should like, therefore, to pay tribute to the loyal and devoted service which the Air Ministry Works Department has given to the R.A.F. since it first came into being as a civilian-manned organisation in 1919.
    During this long association an excellent spirit of co-operation has always existed between the Services and the Works Department and I am sure that this will be fully maintained under the new arrangements. Until the change, the R.A.F. commands will have held certain delegated financial and contractual powers to enable them to undertake their own minor services, and it has been decided that the same principles of delegation should apply in future. These powers will be vested in the Command works officers who will exercise them on behalf of commanders in chief. For urgent operational work which may have to be undertaken in emergency conditions, we will continue to rely on the Airfield Construction Branch. At the moment that branch is doing excellent work in support of R.A.F. units in Brunei.
    I come now to some of the questions which have been posed during the
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    debate. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked my right hon. Friend about the percentage of our total expenditure on aircraft and equipment devoted to the various commands. The figures, which have already been given by my right hon. Friend, were 35 per cent. for Bomber Command, 25 per cent. for Fighter Command and 10 per cent. for Transport Command. The balance of the expenditure was divided between 10 other commands, the main recipients being 6 per cent. to Flying Training Command, 5 per cent. each for R.A.F. Germany and the Near East and 4 per cent. for Coastal Command and the Far East Air Force. Smaller proportions went to the Middle East, Signals, Maintenance and Technical Training Commands.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park and my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) asked about the Shackletons and when they would he replaced. It is made clear in the Memorandum that we are studying the characteristics required for such a replacement. However, it will be several years before this replacement arrives in Coastal Command. Meanwhile, the Shackleton is being modernised. Indeed, the improving of this aircraft is a continuous process and it will continue to give excellent service for many years to come.
    I was asked to give details of the improvements that have been made in submarine detection methods. I cannot give these for security reasons, but I can say that a continuous process of modernisation applies here also and that the application of the results of basic research into this matter is in constant process. I have flown in a Shackleton on a submarine hunt. It is a wonderful aircraft giving first-class service in the R.A.F.
    Mr. B. Harrison: Does this mean that the safety of Polaris will be jeopardised?
    Mr. Ridsdale: The safety of Polaris depends on whether we have more scientific investigation in regard to the detection of submarines under the sea.
    I was asked if the Belfast was our only strategic freighter on order, and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park thought that it was. That is not quite right, for our VC.10s will have a dual

    815
    freighter and passenger capability. They will take 100 troops more than 4,000 miles and they can also be used for cargo if necessary. It would not be right to introduce further varieties of such aircraft and—
    Mr. Mulley: What will be the pay load over 4,000 miles?
    Mr. Ridsdale: —I will take note of that question and let the hon. Gentleman know within the grounds of security.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East suggested that we should consider the requirements for strategic freighters, and particularly whether we might order more than the ten Belfast aircraft now under contract. In one sense any air force would welcome additional aircraft. But the Armed Forces must cut their coats according to their cloth. We have carefully calculated our requirements for strategic transport and these will be met by the 10 Belfasts and the 11 VC.10s which will be entering the Service in the mid-1960s. My hon. Friend asked about the future of the design staff at Short Bros. and he made a number of suggestions about future employment for the members of that staff. He will recognise that this is primarily a question for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation, and the other day my right hon. Friend explained that a substantial share of the production work on the Hastings/ Beverley replacement would be sub-contracted to Shorts. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will also consider the other suggestions made by my hon. Friend.
    The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked about the Argosies for the Far East—
    Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Gentleman has not answered my question about the size of the fuselage openings in the AW681 in relation to the Belfast.
    Mr. Ridsdale: As that is a very technical question, I will, within the bounds of security, send details to the hon. Gentleman.
    The Argosy squadron for the Far East is forming in the United Kingdom and it will be in the Far East in a few months to reinforce the present complement of Hastings, Beverleys and Vallettas. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked
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    about air trooping and the relative cost compared with sea trooping. Air trooping arrangements are going well. We are saving the Services much money and time. For example, a man can travel to Singapore in one day by air instead of the three weeks that it used to take on a troopship, and the passage costs less than half. In respect of other destinations the relative saving in money is even greater, and the saving in time not less striking.
    I promised to answer questions about Parliamentary candidates. There were 11 airmen who wished to contest the Parliamentary elections, five at Colne Valley and six at Rotherham. They asked to be discharged. Nine of these requests have been rejected on the advice of the Committee which was set up, and the other two airmen are still to be interviewed.
    I was asked whether the TSR2 is to be used for support or strategic bombing. It is intended first as a tactical strike weapon including attack with nuclear weapons and secondly for reconnaissance including battlefield surveillance. It will also be used in a strategic rôle. It is a supersonic aircraft able to carry nuclear conventional weapons and will enable us to maintain an effective military presence in Europe and elswehere and to participate in a limited war from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. We could not do these things unless we had an aircraft that could strike at the enemy's strength and neutralise it at its bases. We also want the TSR2 to provide the reconnaissance required for the Army and for tactical operations.
    Mr. M. Foot: Can the hon. Gentleman inform the Committee whether it will be in service before the late 'seventies?
    Mr. Ridsdale: If the hon. Gentleman reads HANSARD, he will be able to check that point. There are a number of other questions which I could answer.
    Mr. Mason: Surely the Committee is entitled to know whether the weapon system of the TSR2 is to be what is now termed the conventional nuclear bomb or whether it is to be armed with a missile or a rocket to give it strategic range.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Unfortunately, the Russians also pay attention to what one says in this debate.
    There are a number of other questions which I could deal with, but the hour is rather late. If any hon. Members are not

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    satisfied with the answers I have given, I hope they will write to me. I should be only too willing to answer them or see them and talk to them about some of the questions which have been raised in the debate.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In the defence debate I tried to get my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation to comment on the question of the length of time that Service officers who are to be concerned with research and development are to serve in their Department. My right hon. Friend having passed the whole question over to the Secretary of State for Air, I should be grateful to have an answer on that point from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.
    Mr. Ridsdale: I have been asked what we have done about the recommendation of the Gibb-Zuckerman Report that the tours of duty of senior officers in operational requirements appointments should be urgently reviewed by the Board of Admiralty, the Army Council and the Air Council. We in the Air Ministry took careful note of this recommendation, to which we are not unsympathetic. Unfortunately, it is not without its difficulties. It raises problems, for example, in achieving the balanced career involving experience in a variety of staff and command appointments which is necessary to bring senior officers to the highest posts.
    May I end by making a reference to that great airman, Lord Trenchard? I am sure that if he were alive today he would be reminding the country of the battles he fought in the 1920s and the 1930s to keep a separate air arm. Russia and America have their separate air arms. So must we. That is why I welcome the proposals for reorganisation which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence has produced, for they visualise the maintenance of a separate air arm. If we did otherwise, we should be ignoring the scientific revolution and the vast expertise which is needed to sustain an efficient air arm. We should be ignoring the lesson of the 1920s and the 1930s, when for the sake of economy we starved our forces and failed to see the pattern that warfare in the future would take. We would be ignoring the price we paid in the war for such short-sightedness.
    "The greatest asset of air power is its flexibility, and this enables it to be switched quickly from one objective to another in the theatre of
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    operations. So long as this is realised then the whole weight of the available air power can be used in selected areas in turn; this concentrated use of the air striking force is a battle-winning factor of the first importance."
    That advice on the tactical use of air power was given by one of our great wartime commanders—a soldier, not an airman, Field Marshal Montgomery. We would ignore it at our peril. It applies equally to the strategic use of air power today.
    With those thoughts I commend the Air Estimates to the Committee.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That a number of Officers, Airmen and Airwomen, not exceeding 148,000, all ranks, be maintained for Air Force Service, during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964.
    Resolution to be reported.
    Report to be received Tomorrow; Committee to sit again Tomorrow.

ELECTRICITY (POWER LINES,SWALEDALE)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]
11.55 p.m.
Mr. Timothy Kitson: I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the question of electricity lines in Swaledale. Briefly, the position is that the North Eastern Electricity Board was asked to prepare a scheme to supply 12 farms with electricity in the parish of Muker above the village of Keld. This the board did and the cost of the scheme, which was agreed by the farmers, was about £11,000, the board meeting 75 per cent. of the cost.
Some of the farmers, anticipating early connection to the mains, wired their farms in preparation for supply. I should explain that they are hill farms situated at 1,200–1,500 ft., at the top of Swaledale. They produce mostly sheep and milk, in very difficult circumstances. The conditions in which the farming is carried out could fairly be described as rugged, not merely in a winter such as the one we have just experienced, but at all times.
Swaledale is situated in the Yorkshire Dales National Park area and it is as attractive as anything to be found in our

819
National Park areas. I go so far as to say that Narrow Dale is as beautiful as any part of Britain.
The North Eastern Electricity Board submitted the scheme to the Yorkshire Dales National Parks Planning Committee, which, after consultation with the Yorkshire Dales Joint Advisory Committee and the National Parks Commission, indicated to the North Eastern Electricity Board that it was prepared to approve the scheme on the understanding that the line should be placed underground from its commencement at Keld to its junction at Hoggarth's Farm. In other words, it was suggested that 3,000 yards of the 9,300-yd. scheme should be underground.
The electricity board has since indicated that the additional cost, estimated at about £15,000, would fall on the consumers, the board itself being unable to justify the additional cost. Of course, these small sheep farmers cannot meet this bill, and why should they? Because they live in a National Park area, it is quite wrong to ask the 12 farmers to meet the cost of preserving a national amenity which is being protected for the benefit of the nation as a whole. It is idiotic to suggest that it is their responsibility to find the extra money. Indeed, what would the National Parks look like if we were to deny to those who live in them the amenities to which, we would all agree, they are entitled and if we drove those who live there out of the park area? I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that farming nowadays with hurricane lamps is not much fun.
It is, however, only fair to say that the Yorkshire Dales National Park Planning Committee has run into some unfair criticism. It is the committee's duty to preserve the beauty of Swaledale and other parts of the area. So far, the committee has been very reasonable. It has asked for only a negligible amount of electricity lines to be put underground in the area for which it is responsible. Indeed, it has allowed for 22 miles of electricity line to be brought overhead all the way up Swaledale from Richmond.
At Wain Wath Force, however, the dale is narrow and the poles would have to be situated on top of a lovely
820
cliff face. When Post Office lines were brought to the area, the Post Office, at the request of the county planning officer, put the lines underground at the Department's expense. The question arises: who will meet the additional cost? I tabled a Question to the Minister of Housing and Local Government asking whether he would
"take steps to create a fund for the purpose of meeting additional expenditure incurred by consumers wishing for normal amenities in a national parks area, where the National Parks Committee desire to preserve national beauty."
The reply I received was
"No."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th February, 1963, Vol. 671, c. 78–9.
When I asked my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power whether he would introduce legislation to ensure that where, at the behest of the National Parks Committee, electricity supply lines are placed underground the consequent additional cost should not fall on the consumers, the answer, again, was "No". Subsequently, my right hon. Friend wrote to me and said:
"In the particular circumstances of a farmer in a national park, I think we have to recognise that the expense is incurred in providing a service to an individual consumer. Consumers in other areas of natural beauty would no doubt think it unfair if the Boards gave consumers in national parks special treatment. The Boards may also feel that it would be unfair to spread the additional cost over their other consumers."
I have a letter from the Lake District National Park which explains that in the North Western Electricity Board area what I am asking for does, in fact, happen. The letter says:
"…since the introduction of the zoning system by the North Western Electricity Board it has not been the practice of that Board to refuse to lay a line, however unremunerative, if its proper phase in the zoning programme has been reached, and the Electricity Board do not require any increased capital contribution from the consumers on account of the line having been laid underground instead of overhead, whether the undergrounding was carried out by decision of the Electricity Board or at the request or suggestion of the Planning Authority or other local authority, or by direction of the Minister."
Surely, if one of the Minister's electricity boards does this he must feel bound to instruct his other boards to ensure that those living in a National Park area should have the same treatment.
The Minister, in his letter to me, also suggested that the prospective consumers

821
should take their case to the consumers' consultative committee. But the danger, I understand, is that the North Eastern Electricity Board might, and probably would, abandon the scheme if it lost its case, and then we would be back where we started. The board has intimated to the county council that it would lose interest if the lines had to be placed underground, and it is doubtful whether the board will appeal to the Minister against the county council's decision.
There does not appear to be any requirement in the Electricity Act that any one scheme should be self-supporting, and the Act expressly requires the board to have due regard for local amenities. I have been up Swaledale. In fact, I went up towards the end of January, when there was about 3 ft. of snow. I went up with two local county councillors, Mr. Sunter and Mr. Metcalfe, to look at the site, and it is very difficult to resite those poles. I dare say it could be done, and if it can, I hope that my hon. Friend will say that the board will be prepared to meet the additional cost if a way can be found to do this.
I do not wish to be too critical of the North Eastern Electricity Board because I realise the difficulties which this scheme presents, but as I see it the Minister of Power is now the only person who can solve the problem. My hon. Friend represents Yeovil and perhaps he will understand the difficulties of farmers who have to turn out at six o'clock in the morning and grope about trying to milk their cows. I know that he will treat this matter sympathetically.
Finally, I would point out that recently the Minister of Agriculture gave a grant of about £5,300 in respect of a scheme costing about £16,000 to improve the road up from Hoggarth's Farm to Raven's Seat. Six of the farms that have applied for the electricity supply were joined by this road, so at least the Minister of Agriculture recognises the importance of these properties. It would not be easy to get a Ministry grant unless these were viable properties. They are not properties that are likely to become uninhabited in the near future, if the proper amenities are provided. In some way we must get an electricity supply up to these properties.
12.5 a.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power (Mr. John Peyton): My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson) has made a very eloquent plea on behalf of farmers in Swaledale who are in urgent need of electricity. I would not complain at all about the way in which he has made his plea; indeed, he has been very reasonable and most restrained. He has rightly claimed that Swaledale is at least as beautiful as any other part of Great Britain. Perhaps, in passing, I may congratulate him on the fact that he referred to the beauties of the countryside, consistently and with justification, without once mentioning the horrible word "amenity ".
My hon. Friend referred to his previous approach to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing, and suggested that a special fund should be set up for preserving, or making it easy to preserve, the beauties of the National Parks. He must continue to pursue that line with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing, since it is not one upon which I am competent to give him an answer.
My hon. Friend referred to a letter he had received from my right hon. Friend, and suggested that it was some-how wrong that the costs should fall on the consumer. My right hon. Friend's letter was right in pointing out that there was nobody else upon whom they could fairly fall, at least without his going into the other field—with which I have already dealt—of a special fund.
I am not for a moment seeking to challenge or deny what he said about those who want and need electricity—especially the people who have gone to the expense and inconvenience of wiring their houses and are at the moment condemned to farming with hurricane lamps, a lot which I by no means envy. I accept that if the line is to be put underground at the extra cost to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention—and I do not challenge his figures—it would be a very heavy burden for such people as he has in mind.
My hon. Friend referred to the position of the board in this matter, but I must point out that although the board is undoubtedly under a duty to have consideration for the natural beauty of

823
the countryside, it also has certain other duties put upon it by Statute. It has, for instance, a duty to cheapen supplies. It has a duty to cover its costs out of revenue, and a duty to give no undue preference to any one class or section of its customers. These duties in some cases undoubtedly create some conflict and a very real problem for the board to solve, and I am certain that this board would be only too willing to solve it if it were easy to do so. My hon. Friend was perfectly fair. He never accused the board of being obstinate or difficult or obstructive; but I hope he will accept that this is a very difficult problem for the board.
When faced with uneconomic connections, what is the right course for the board to follow? I think that it can fairly be claimed that this board falls over backwards to make things easier for the new customer. In this case, beyond paying for the costs of the backbone main, which the board automatically does, it is also willing to contribute about £300 per connection. This is going well beyond the limits of what could strictly be described as commercial. I do not think it can be claimed or suggested that this board is ungenerous or unreasonable to the new would-be customer. Here the board is faced with a very severe problem. The total original cost was £9,500, of which £6,500 was to be contributed by the board, leaving a contribution of between £160 and £170 per farm.
As my hon. Friend has mentioned, there came a subsequent requirement that a section of the line should be put underground. This raised the total cost from £9,500 to £26,000. Taking away the board's original contribution of £6,500, this raised the individual contribution to £1,180 which I quite agree is a great deal of money which those concerned could not economically afford. It is quite impossible. I accept that. My hon. Friend said that there was no reason why they should pay. The difficulty is that it is very hard to see what good reason there is for anyone else to pay.
Mr. Kitson: I do not see that this argument could apply to this area when one considers what is happening in the north western region. In the north western region the board pays these
824
additional costs when it is asked to put the line underground. It feels that in those circumstances it is its responsibility to do so. The Lake District National Park area is no different from the Yorkshire Dales National Park area.
Mr. Peyton: I imagine that my hon. Friend is referring to the case of Borrow-dale. The circumstances are rather different. The cost per connection in Borrowdale was very much lower. It was about £240 with overhead lines compared with £430 here, but the most relevant figure is£415 with lines put underground, as against nearly £1,200 which is involved here. That is a very considerable difference in finance. My hon. Friend is wrong in suggesting—and I have checked this point most carefully—that the north western regional board has a special fund for such purposes.
There is one other difference which I was coming to because it is important. In that case, the matter was taken to the consultative council, with a very satisfactory outcome. In this case, as my hon. Friend made clear, the matter has not yet been raised with the consultative council. I very much hope that my hon. Friend will use his influence with those concerned to urge this course, because I do not believe that anything could be lost by taking that step. As he is probably aware, it is not open to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power to intervene in this matter unless and until a complaint is brought to him either by the Electricity Council or by the consultative council as an appeal from the decision of the Electricity Council. My hon. Friend should consider this carefully and perhaps suggest it to his constituents.
I should make clear that if, as a result of any action on the part of the planning authority, alternative proposals are brought forward, I have no doubt whatever that the board would be quite willing to look at any such proposals. I am satisfied that there is no desire on the part of the board to be obstructive or difficult in any way. The dilemma and the difficulties stem entirely from the fact that it wishes to comply with statutory duties and to be fair to all classes of consumer without favouring one class unduly.
I am sure that it would be right for me to remind my hon. Friend that the electricity boards are autonomous bodies

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which have a commercial job to do. They must run their business according to the best commercial standards. If there are slight variations in practice between one board and another that is not a matter which should cause surprise for the boards have difficult problems to deal with in different areas. They are autonomous and have every right to run their business—subject to the statutes under which they operate—according to their best judgment.
I have noted very carefully the points made by my hon. Friend and I do not
826
doubt that the board itself will give due weight to all the arguments he has very fairly and reasonably put. While I realise that the answer which I am giving is necessarily somewhat negative, I hope that my hon. Friend will not impute either to me, to my right hon. Friend or to the board any lack of sympathy in regard to his constituents.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Twelve o'clock.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Thames Flood Barrier
  Thames Flood Barrier
  National Parks (Long-distance Routes)
  National Parks (Long-distance Routes)
  Pennine Way
  Pennine Way
  Office Building (Railway Land)
  Office Building (Railway Land)
  Planning Appeal, Hull
  Planning Appeal, Hull
  Rates (Payment by Instalments)
  Rates (Payment by Instalments)
HOUSING
  Immigrants
  Immigrants
  Hull
  Hull
  Unoccupied Properties (Rates)
  Unoccupied Properties (Rates)
  Land, Leicester
  Land, Leicester
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Development Districts
  Development Districts
  Hire Purchase
  Hire Purchase
  Phthalic Anhydride and Pentaerythritol
  Phthalic Anhydride and Pentaerythritol
  Thorne
  Thorne
  Local Employment Act
  Local Employment Act
  North-East (Factories)
  North-East (Factories)
  Common Market Countries (Visit)
  Common Market Countries (Visit)
  Hillington Factory, Glasgow
  Hillington Factory, Glasgow
  Eastern Bloc Countries
  Eastern Bloc Countries
  Czechoslovakia
  Czechoslovakia
  Consumer Council (Chairmanship)
  Consumer Council (Chairmanship)
  Aberdeen
  Aberdeen
  Developing Firms, Scotland
  Developing Firms, Scotland
  Chemicals (Tariffs)
  Chemicals (Tariffs)
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Schedule A
  Schedule A
  Duty-free Stores (North Sea Trawlers)
  Duty-free Stores (North Sea Trawlers)
  National Incomes Commission (University Salaries)
  National Incomes Commission (University Salaries)
  Arts Council (Grants)
  Arts Council (Grants)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Gas (Underground Storage)
  Gas (Underground Storage)
  Pipelines
  Pipelines
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Jury Service (Committee)
  Jury Service (Committee)
  Fireworks
  Fireworks
  M. Georges Bidault
  M. Georges Bidault
EDUCATION
  Teachers, East Ham (Communications)
  Teachers, East Ham (Communications)
  School Building Programme
  School Building Programme
  Sandwich Courses
  Sandwich Courses
  Commonwealth Exchange Schemes
  Commonwealth Exchange Schemes
  Commonwealth Teachers
  Commonwealth Teachers
  Research Projects
  Research Projects
EMPLOYMENT
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Unemployment
  Unemployment
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
  Whitehaven and Cleator Moor
ROYAL AIR FORCE
  Sentenced Service Men
  Sentenced Service Men
  GENERAL DE GAULLE
  GENERAL DE GAULLE
  COMMONWEALTH TRADE
  COMMONWEALTH TRADE
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Welfare Foods (Whitehaven and Cleator Moor)
  Welfare Foods (Whitehaven and Cleator Moor)
NORTH EAST
  West Cumberland
  West Cumberland
PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS
  Government Departments (London Office Accommodation)
  Government Departments (London Office Accommodation)
  Nos. 10–12, Downing Street and Treasury
  Nos. 10–12, Downing Street and Treasury
  Banqueting House, Whitehall
  Banqueting House, Whitehall
BRITISH ARMY
  Deceased Service Men (United Kingdom Burial)
  Deceased Service Men (United Kingdom Burial)
TRANSPORT
  Road Tanker Vehicles
  Road Tanker Vehicles
  Vehicles (Lighting Equipment)
  Vehicles (Lighting Equipment)

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

PETITION FROM DARTMOOR PRISONER
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I beg leave to present a Petition from Kenneth Edward Holmes, at present detained in Her Majesty's Prison at Dartmoor.
Petition presented, and ordered to lie on the Table.

WATER RESOURCES BILL [H.L.]
3.5 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to signify to the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Water Resources Bill, has consented to place Her Majesty's interest so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I rise formally to move the Third Reading. I think that any debate which your Lordships may think necessary on the merits of the Bill might more appropriately take place on the later Motion, That the Bill do now pass, and that the Third Reading might deal solely with the Amendments on the Marshalled List. I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be read 3ª.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Bill read 3ª.
Clause 17 [Gauges and records kept by other persons]:
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS): My Lords, this Amendment continues an undertaking given orginally to the noble Lord, Lord Cawley, and as a result of further consideration of the matter it has been decided that gauges installed for temporary purposes are unlikely to produce information of value to the river authority and that there is no reason why prior notice of their installation and notice of the place where records, if any, are to be kept should be given to them. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 25, at end insert—
("Provided that this subsection shall not apply to any gauge which is removed at or before the end of the period of twenty-eight days beginning with the date on which it is installed.")—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 24 [Exceptions from general restrictions]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, this Amendment and the next go together. The general purpose of them is to extend the exemptions from licensing afforded by Clause 24 in order to cover effectively abstractions made as part of or in consequence of land drainage, mining, engineering, building and similar operations and transfers of water in the course of or resulting from operations by navigation, conservancy and harbour authorities. The need for the Amendment arises because the provisions of subsections (3) and (4) of Clause 24 are in parts too restrictive as they stand. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 10, leave out from ("household") to first ("the") in line 16 and insert—
("(4) The restriction imposed by subsection (1) of the last preceding section does not apply to any abstraction of water from a source of supply—

(a) in the course of, or resulting from, any operations for purposes of land drainage, or

(b) in so far as the abstraction (where it does not fall within the preceding paragraph) is necessary to prevent interference with any mining, quarrying, engineering, building or other operations (whether under-ground or on the surface) or to prevent damage to works resulting from any such operations.

521
(5) In the case of any abstraction of water from underground strata which falls within subsection (3) or subsection (4) of this section").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 22, leave out from ("to") to end of line 31 and insert ("any transfer of water from one inland water to another in the course of, or resulting from, any operations carried out by a navigation authority, harbour authority or conservancy authority in the performance of their functions as such an authority").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, this Amendment, which has been suggested by the Federation of British Industries, extends the exemption to work done for the purpose of testing fire fighting apparatus and anything done in the course of training and practice in the use of such apparatus. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 23, line 33, leave out from ("for") to end of line 34 and insert ("fire-fighting purposes (within the meaning of the Fire Services Act 1947) or for the purpose of testing apparatus used for those purposes or of training or practice in the use of such apparatus.").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 26 [Protected rights to abstract water]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 25, line 6, leave out ("24 (3) (a) or 24 (3) (b)"') and insert ("or section 24 (3)").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 33 [Entitlement to licence of right]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, at the Report stage the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, put down a rather similar Amendment, which he did not in fact move because it was part of a group of five and we had the discussion on the first one. It appears that there is a case for making some provision to secure that an abstraction made in complete disregard of the licensing provisions of Clause 14 shall not entitle the person making such abstraction to a licence of right under
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Clause 33. I therefore beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 31, line 44, at end insert—
("(3) For the purposes of this section, and of sections 34 and 35 of this Act, no account shall be taken of any water abstracted in contravention of section 14(5) of the Water Act 1945 (which restricts the abstraction of underground water in areas to which that section is applied).").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 42 [Proposal by river authority to revoke or vary licence]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment, I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 38, line 29, leave out ("authorises abstraction from") and insert ("relates to").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE moved, after Clause 60 to insert the following new clause:
Special charges in respect of spray irrigation
".—(1) Where a person (in this section referred to as 'the applicant') is for the time being the holder of a licence under this Act to abstract water, and in accordance with the provisions of the licence (in this section referred to as 'the relevant licence')—

(a) the water is to be used on land of which the applicant is the occupier, and

(b) the purposes for which water abstracted in pursuance of the licence is to be used consist of or include spray irrigation,

the applicant, either before or after the coming into operation of a charging scheme prepared by the river authority, may apply to the river authority to make an agreement with him under this section, and, subject to the following provisions of this section, the river authority may make such an agreement accordingly.
(2) During any period for which an agreement under this section is in force, charges shall be payable by the applicant to the river authority in respect of the relevant licence, in so far as it relates to water authorised to be abstracted and used on the relevant land, as follows, that is to say—

(a) basic charges calculated in accordance with the agreement by reference to the quantity of water authorised to be so abstracted and used from time to time in pursuance of the licence, and

(b) supplementary charges calculated in accordance with the agreement by reference to the quantity of water which is measured or assessed as being abstracted from time to time by or on behalf of the applicant from the source of supply to which the relevant licence relates for use on the relevant land.

(3) In determining whether to make an agreement with the applicant under this section, and

523
in determining the charges to be leviable under such an agreement, the river authority shall have regard to the extent to which, in any year within the period proposed to be specified in the agreement as the period for which it is made, the quantity of water referred to in paragraph (a) of the last preceding subsection is likely to exceed the quantity referred to in paragraph (b) of that subsection.
(4) The period specified in an agreement under this section as the period for which it is made shall mot be less than five years.
(5) An agreement under this section shall remain in force until the occurrence of whichever of the following events first occurs, that is to say—

(a) the period specified in the agreement, as mentioned in the last preceding subsection, comes to an end;

(b) the relevant licence expires or is revoked;

(c) the applicant ceases to be the occupier of the relevant land, or, if he has previously ceased to be the occupier of a part or parts of that land, ceases to be the occupier of the remainder of it;

(d) the agreement is terminated under the next following subsection.

(6) At any time while an agreement under this section is in force, the applicant may apply to the river authority to terminate the agreement; and if on any such application the river authority are satisfied that, by reason of any change of circumstances since the agreement was made, it ought to be terminated, the river authority may terminate the agreement, either unconditionally or subject to such conditions (whether as to any payment to be made by the applicant or otherwise) as the river authority and the applicant may agree.
(7) The provisions of subsections (3) to (5) of section 58 of this Act shall have effect in relation to applications and to the exercise of powers under this section as they have effect in relation to applications and to the exercise of powers under that section, as if in those provisions any reference to the making of an agreement or to the terms of an agreement included a reference to the termination of an agreement or to the conditions subject to which an agreement is to be terminated, as the case may be.
(8) Where the relevant licence authorises water abstracted in pursuance of the licence to be used on the relevant land for purposes which include spray irrigation and other purposes,—

(a) any agreement made under this section shall provide for apportioning, as between those purposes respectively, the quantity referred to in paragraph (a) and the quantity referred to in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of this section;

(b) subsection (2) of this section shall have effect as if in each of those paragraphs the reference to the quantity of water therein mentioned were a reference to so much of that quantity as in accordance with the agreement is opportioned to the purpose of spray irrigation;

524

(c) in subsection (3) of this section any reference to either of those paragraphs shall be construed as a reference to that paragraph as modified by paragraph (b) of this subsection; and

(d) subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act other than this section, charges shall be leviable in accordance with any charging scheme for the time being in force in respect of so much of the quantity referred to in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of this section as in accordance with the agreement is apportioned to purposes other than spray irrigation.

(9) Subject to the last preceding subsection, where an agreement under this section is in force, then in so far as the relevant licence relates to water authorised to be abstracted and. used on the relevant land, the provisions of this section shall have effect notwithstanding anything contained in any other provision of this Part of this Act or in any charging scheme; but—

(a) nothing in this section or in any agreement made thereunder shall affect the operation of any other provision of this Part of this Act or of any charging scheme in relation to a licence in so far as it authorises water abstracted in pursuance of the licence to be used on any land other than the relevant land, and

(b) nothing in this section or in any such agreement shall affect the operation of section 55 of this Act.

(10) An application under subsection (1) of this section may be made by a person who has applied for, but is not yet the holder of, a licence under this Act to abstract water; and, in relation to an application so made or to an agreement made on such an application,—

(a) the reference in that subsection to the provisions of the relevant licence shall be construed as a reference to the proposals contained in the application for a licence, and

(b) any other reference in this section to the relevant licence shall be construed as a reference to any licence granted to the applicant in pursuance of the last-mentioned application or in pursuance of an appeal consequential upon the last-mentioned application.

(11) In this section 'the relevant land' means the land on which the relevant licence, as for the time being in force, authorises water abstracted in pursuance of the licence to be used for purposes which consist of or include spray irrigation, and 'year' means a period of twelve months beginning with the date on which an agreement under this section comes or is proposed to come into force or beginning with an anniversary of that date."
The noble Earl said: My Lords, during the Report stage I said that we hoped to devise a scheme for an alternative charging system for the spray irrigator which would strike a reasonable balance between the requirements of that spray irrigator, the revenue of the river authority and the vagaries of our

525
charming climate. It is our belief that the scheme embodied in the new clause which I am now moving does strike that reasonable balance.
This is an important Amendment, and even at this late stage of the Bill I think your Lordships would expect me to say a few words on it. The essence of the new clause is that it enables a river authority to make an agreement with a spray irrigator providing that for a period specified in the agreement (which period is to be not less than five years) the charges payable in respect of the abstraction authorised by his licence shall be in two parts. The first would be a basic charge calculated by reference to the quantity authorised to be abstracted. The second part would be a supplementary charge calculated by reference to the quantity of water actually abstracted.
The spray irrigator, like the statutory undertaker, has become a familiar figure to your Lordships as a result of our discussions on this Bill. Consequently, the reasons for this Amendment will be apparent to you. The basic reason, of course, is due to the possibility—I think I would correct that and say the probability—that in many years a spray irrigator will in practice require very much less water than the maximum amount which he has obtained a licence to abstract and which will represent his need in a dry year. At an earlier stage of our discussion the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, who throughout has made such notable contributions to our consideration of this Bill, quoted figures to show that the average demand of the spray irrigator in the East Midlands over a period of five years might not exceed a half of the total peak demand for which he had sought a licence.
Moreover the fluctuations in demand are entirely outside the abstracter's control. They stem from the vagaries of what until this winter we thought was the temperate British climate. Spray irrigation needs are in fact inextricably linked with rainfall or the absence of it. That is why we considered that these new provisions should be quite clearly restricted to abstractions for that purpose—namely, spray irrigation. I would grant that there may well be other abstractions which vary with the weather. In hot weather we need more water to water our gardens, or to slake our thirsts with beer or
526
bitter lemon, and to make ice-cream or coca-cola. But in no case is the fluctuation of demand so extreme—from zero up to maximum peak—or so unpredictable as it is in the case of spray irrigation. Hence this new clause.
I do not propose to take your Lordships through the maze of its various subsections, but I should like to refer to one—namely, subsection (4). That subsection provides, subject to subsections (5) and (6), that any agreement must last at least five years. On Report the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barn-burgh, suggested that we might settle for a three, rather than a five, year period. With, I suspect, his tongue in his cheek and with an old adage in his mind, he was kind enough to credit me with good intentions. As always, he was, of course, quite right; and perhaps I should just explain, given those good intentions, why we have opted for five years. This period has been chosen as the minimum period for an agreement in the belief that it will be fair to both licence-holder and river authority. A shorter period is likely to be much too short to produce anything approaching a reasonably representative experience of the English climate. Five years is also, I might mention, the period during which a charging scheme under this Bill ought to remain without amendment.
My Lords, the technique of spray irrigation is likely to become increasingly important in the future, at least in the drier parts of these Islands. It is our belief that the new clause should assist those who wish to increase agricultural productivity in this way. It is also our belief that it does no undue violence to the main structure of the charging system which we are writing into this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 60 insert the said new clause.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
3.17 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, the noble Earl quite rightly called the attention of the House to the fact that this Amendment fulfils an undertaking which was given during Committee. Although the Amendment is long and complicated, I think it not unfair to paraphrase it, and to say that the real essence of the clause is in subsections (1) and (2). Subsection

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(2) provides the new principle for charging. I think the House ought to face the fact that a basic charge is to be levied with reference to the amount of water authorised to be abstracted, and a supplementary charge on the actual amount of water abstracted. We had considerable discussion during the Committee stage on the charging scheme, and I submit that the fact that the Government feel that it is necessary to introduce the Amendment strengthens the case that I put to the Committee on a number of occasions, that there ought to be a new look at the charging scheme as a whole.
It is not unusual for Members who are in Opposition to twit the Government with changing their mind and breaking the principles which they have set down. I do not think it is unfair to paraphrase the general assumption which the Government have adopted during the whole of our Committee stage: first of all, that all abstracters must pay both in respect of past abstractions and future abstractions because all will benefit, and that there are no special dispensations. The second point on which they hung their policy was that the charge must be based upon the quantity authorised to be abstracted, since the river authority must plan on the basis of the maximum demand that can be made on the river, and the cost of any works that must be operated according to the maximum amount that any abstracter is entitled to take.
On the Report stage I again twitted the noble Earl with the fact that he had broken that principle in respect to canals, concerning which special arrangements were made. The new clause for spray irrigators breaks down not only the first principle on which the Government have hung their charges scheme, but also the second principle, that charges are to be based upon the amount of water abstracted.
There appears to be no good reason why the principle of charging according to the abstraction authorised should not be broken down. If there is sound reason, then surely there is no necessity for this alternative method of charging to be restricted to spray irrigators. I do not object to their having this special facility, but I suggest that there is no basic reason why it should be restricted to them. For
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example, there are water undertakers who make peak demands at certain times of the year who will be bound to obtain licences on the basis of their maximum abstraction. It is difficult to understand why spray irrigators should be treated differently from other abstracters.
The new clause tabled by the Government again raises the question whether the whole charging scheme should not be revised. The suggested clause rather goes against the principle of the Report of the Central Advisory Water Sub-Committee on water charges which for a considerable period was chaired by the present Minister and, after he became a Minister, Mr. John Cochran took over from him. I would draw the attention of the noble Earl to Chapter IX of that Report under the heading "Water used for other purposes", paragraphs 55 and 56. The whole basis of that chapter is the fact that, when resources are low, these special abstracters are generally required, in order that demand should be able to be met, to undertake considerable work in the way of conservation. If the abstraction is going to take place when resources are low and if they have to provide the works in order to get the necessary reserves to meet that period, it is fair and reasonable, I think, that those who demand the creation of a reserve should pay for that reserve to be created. The fact that they do not want it when resources are plentiful applies to many other people. The Water Resources Advisory Committee Report refers to boarding-house keepers at the seaside, to canning factories and others. The same principle could apply all the way through. The real point is that this is giving a special feature to agriculture and to spray irrigation.
3.22 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, one can understand that the inflexibility of Clause 56 (2) has led Her Majesty's Government to propose this new clause, involving a new principle with a two-part charging scheme. But why, as the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren asked, should it be available only to one class of abstracter? I recognise that the needs of spray irrigation are great, but so are the needs of certain users in industry—I have in mind the amount of cooling water that is used. Although this statement may not accord with what my

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noble friend Lord Jellicoe said, I think it was said in the course of a symposium which took place in London last year that the needs of spray irrigation in, say, 20 years would equal those of industry and the water undertakers. It therefore seems that there will be extensive demand, and that in the years to come the needs of spray irrigation on the question of quantity will be in keeping with those of industry.
I would therefore ask my noble friend when he comes to reply—because I should like to have this on record—whether Her Majesty's Government would be prepared to have another look at this, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, so that these provisions could be extended to other users of water in order to provide an equitable measure of relief in appropriate circumstances where the actual quantity is less than the authorised quantity, thus avoiding hardship to other abstracters. One can appreciate that spray irrigators may have had cause to complain of hardship before this clause was introduced, but other users might well be in a similar position.
3.24 p.m.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, there is just one point to which neither the noble Earl nor my noble friend referred, and which, I think, must have prompted the noble Earl to produce this new clause. I, personally, welcome it for at least one reason, and that is that the Bill, as now drafted, gives the supplier of water the right, on appropriate occasions, to reduce the quantity of water already decided upon and bargained for, when there is a long period of dry weather. It would not be convenient for the water supplier to continue to allow the maximum to be taken by a number of sprays in large fields during that sort of period. I think everybody would agree that the supplier must have the right to limit quantities taken by those large sprays; it is right that the supplier should have the power upon such occasions to limit the quantity of water taken.
It is equally fair that if the man is denied the right to take the quantity of water originally bargained for, he ought not to have to pay the maximum amount of charge. This new clause at all events takes care of that. Although, there may
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be genuine substance in my noble friend's case that this is changing the principle, it would be grossly unfair to leave these suppliers in a position where they could enter into a bargain with a sprayer for him to take so much water for five years and then, on occasions when it suits the supplier, could cut off the supplies because the season is a dry one. In all, therefore, I think the clause is well-merited, and I congratulate the noble Earl upon having produced it.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I argued at some length during our Committee stage why we felt the principle should be maintained that the charging system as a whole should be based on the principle that the charge should be levied on the quantity of water authorised to be abstracted rather than on quantities actually abstracted or on some two-tier system as embodied in the present Amendment. I personally still feel convinced that in general that principle is right and should be maintained, because if we go over to a system of charging on quantities actually abstracted, or to a two-tier system over the whole field, we shall, in my view, be making the position of the new river authorities almost impossible. They will have no firm basis upon which to plan, because they will be quite uncertain of what their revenue in general is going to be.
I must say that I am a little surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, and the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, have taken exception to the Amendment which I have just moved. I am surprised because I did foreshadow at Report stage what is now in this Amendment, and, so far as I can remember, there was no protest during our Report stage along the lines we have just heard. I do not wish to make too much of that point, but I did give due notice of the main lines of the Amendment which I have just moved.
That Amendment, of course, is the result of our attention to the arguments which I think were very powerfully deployed by the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, on behalf of the very special position of the spray irrigator. I tried to show, in introducing this Amendment, why we thought the spray irrigator did in fact stand in a very special position in this respect, in that with no other

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abstracter is the variation between what he is authorised to abstract and what he may abstract so extreme or so unpredictable as it is in the case of the spray irrigator. I claimed that there were good reasons, which I still think remain, why an exception to this general principle should be made on behalf of the spray irrigator. I would also point out, if I may, in amplification of what the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, has said, that so far as I know no other abstracter is in the specially unfavourable position of the spray irrigator, as shown in subsection (2) of Clause 44, in that he may have the quantity which he is authorised to draw cut off in times of drought. That does not apply to other types of abstracters.
All that said, my Lords, I would merely add, without in any way wishing to tie the hands of my colleagues in another place, and without holding out any promise whatsoever that we shall depart from the principle of charging embodied in the Bill as it now stands, that I hope your Lordships will agree to this Amendment with my assurance that, subject to those two conditions, we shall of course examine the points which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, and my noble friend Lord Merrivale.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 78 [Reserve funds of river authorities]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, the next Amendment is drafting. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 70. line 33, leave out ("(d)") and insert ("(e)").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 97 [Protection of duty of statutory water undertakers to supply water for domestic purposes]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, the next three Amendments go together, and your Lordships will notice that Nos. 11 and 12 are consequential upon No. 10. The purpose of that Amendment is to give effect to my acceptance in principle of an Amendment put down at the Report stage by the noble Lord,
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Lord Lindgren, and my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 86, line 41, leave out from ("provide") to end of line 42 and insert ("supplies of water to which this section applies.
(2) This section applies to the following supplies of water, that is to say—

(a) a supply of water for domestic purposes, and

(b) a supply of water for any such purpose as is mentioned in section 32 or section 37 of Schedule 3 to the Water Act 1945 (which relate respectively to supplies for extinguishing fires and to supplies for cleansing sewers, drains and highways and for similar purposes).")

Page 86, line 43, leave out ("the preceding subsection") and insert ("subsection (1) of this section")
Page 87, line 13, leave out from ("provide") to end of line 14 and insert ("supplies of water to which this section applies").—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 111 [Validity of decisions of Minister and proceedings relating thereto]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, this Amendment is consequential upon Amendment No. 8, which your Lordships approved a moment or two ago. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 98, line 17, at end insert—
("(5) Any reference in this section to section 58 (4) of this Act shall be construed as including a reference to the said section 58 (4) as applied by any other provision of this Act.")—(Earl Jellicoe.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Clause 120 [Provisions as to Rivers Esk and Tweed]:
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, this Amendment and the following Amendment are linked, and I suggest that they might conveniently be taken together. Clause 120 deals with the application of the Bill to the two major Border rivers, the Esk and the Tweed. Subsection (3) (b) of Clause 120 says that the provisions of the Bill relating to the new functions of the river authorities are not to apply to so much of any inland water as
"is part of the River Esk at a point where either of the banks of that river is in Scotland."
There are other tributaries of that river which also need to be dealt with, and

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there is also the River Sark, part of which is bisected along its length by the boundary between England and Scotland. These Amendments extend Clause 120 (3) (b) to cover these other rivers. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 104, line 16, after ("Esk") insert ("or of the River Sark or of any tributary stream of the River Esk or the River Sark")
Page 104, line 17, leave out ("that river") and insert ("either of those rivers or of any such tributary stream").—(Earl Jellicoe)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
Clause 126 [Interpretation]:
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 16, 17 and 18 are simply a question of inserting in the Interpretation Clause the necessary definitions of conservancy, harbour and navigational authorities, these terms having been inserted in many places during the Report stage. I beg to move.
Amendments moved—
Page 109, line 41, at end insert—
("'conservancy authority' means a person or body of persons (whether corporate or unincorporate) having a duty or power imposed or conferred by or under an enactment to conserve, maintain or improve the navigation of a tidal water, and not being a navigation authority or a harbour authority.")
Page 110, line 8, at end insert—
("'harbour authority' means a person or body of persons (whether corporate or unincorporate) who, not being a navigation authority, is or are a harbour authority as defined by section 3 (5) of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act 1955.")
Page 110, line 47, at end insert—
("'navigation authority' means a person or body of persons (whether corporate or unincorporate) having a duty or power imposed or conferred by or under an enactment to manage or maintain a canal, whether navigable or not, or to manage or maintain an inland navigation other than a canal, whether natural or artificial and whether tidal or not.")—(Lord Hastings.)
On Question, Amendments agreed to.
An Amendment (privilege) made.
3.38 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass. I do not intend to delay your Lordships very long, for I believe that most noble Lords will feel that after the twelve days which we have spent in examining and amending the Water Resources Bill it is hardly necessary to indulge in a lengthy discourse. There are, however,
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two matters which I should like to mention. First, I would refer to a few of the changes which have been made in the Bill as a result of your Lordships' efforts. Secondly, I want to say a further word about the charging schemes under the Bill which have caused a certain amount of anxiety in some quarters, as we have heard again this afternoon. Your Lordships will remember that a promise was given during the Report stage that something more specific would be said at Third Reading about the sort of charges that were likely to be made by river authorities in the performance of their new functions.
During our discussions great attention was very properly paid to the role of the Water Resources Board. Although the House accepted the Government's advice that the duties of the Board should not be extended to cover the transferred functions of a river authority, the Government have acceded to demands that the Board should be concerned with securing the proper use of water resources, with economy in the use of water, with questions of quality as well as quantity and, where appropriate, with the de-salting of water as a means of augmenting resources. The Government are confident that the Water Resources Board can, under the Bill as amended, become the forward-looking, energetic and effective central authority on which so much stress has been laid.
Noble Lords who have taken a particular interest in the problem of amenity—that is, a very large proportion of your Lordships' House—have, I believe, been very largely satisfied by the Amendments which have been made to the Bill in order to safeguard the natural beauty of the countryside. A number of Amendments have been made to meet the legitimate requirements of the farming community and of those concerned with land drainage. Only a few moments ago an Amendment was inserted into the Bill to help solve the special problems, in relation to charges, of those farmers who need to abstract water for spray irrigation.
Several points raised by those noble Lords interested in statutory water undertakers have been met, with consequent improvements in the Bill, and in particular the Government have done their best to allay the anxieties of water undertakers

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in so far as their statutory obligations for the public supply are concerned. We also claim that the interests of industry are well protected in the structure of the Bill, but certain points bearing upon its operation have been raised here and in consultation outside. To some of these—for example, the manner of settling the terms of licences of right—industry attaches very great importance, and they merit, and are receiving, the closest consideration. It is recognised that the whole enterprise of an industrial abstracter may depend upon the same continuance of present supplies. Further consideration of this particular problem is likely to be given in another place, as well as of other matters outstanding which have not finally been resolved in your Lordships' House.
Now, my Lords, I will turn to this question of charges, and will give some figures which I hope may be useful. It may be helpful if I preface what I have to say on this by reminding your Lordships that four main classes of expenditure are likely to be incurred by river authorities on their new functions. First will be expenditure on day-to-day management—the hydrometric work, the running of the licensing system and, of course, the establishment costs. Next will come small-scale conservation works—small improvements and maintenance works, installation of gauges, observation boreholes and the like. The third class of expenditure will be in respect of major conservation works, reservoirs, aqueducts and the working of schemes for artificial recharge of underground aquifers. Finally, something must be allowed for building up the reserve and replacement funds for which this Bill provides.
Now the river authorities will not be undertaking major works without some clear evidence of need and a clear indication of who is to benefit. The cost of them will, so far as possible, be apportioned among those who so benefit. It is, I am sure, generally accepted by the major users of water, whether it be industry or the public water supply undertakers, that such an apportionment is the right way of proceeding. They would not object to carrying their proper share of the cost of necessary works of this sort, as they would have to do, directly or
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indirectly, if there were no river authority in the picture.
The capital cost of these large-scale works can be very high; but it should be understood that the works most likely to be built by river authorities—river regulating reservoirs—make water available at an extremely low cost per thousand gallons. Thus, the Tryweryn dam will cost about £2½ million—with another £500,000 to be added on account of associated and ancillary works. For an expenditure of something over £3 million, Liverpool Corporation will be able to abstract 65 million gallons a day from the River Dee just above Chester at a cost of something like 1½d. per thousand gallons. This is not, of course, the cost to consumers, for the water must be pumped 25 miles from the point of abstraction to Liverpool and treated, before being put into public supply. But it shows the low cost of making the water available by river regulating works.
Take another case: the reservoir to be constructed under the Clywedog Reservoir Joint Authority Bill, which was being discussed in your Lordships' House a few days ago. If approved, this proposed reservoir will cost about £4½ million. It will regulate the flow of the River Severn, and will enable an additional 100 million gallons per day to be taken from the Severn at various points along its course by the participating authorities. Costs at the point of abstraction will range from less than a ½d. to 1¼d. per thousand gallons. By any standards this is cheap water, and the price should be no deterrent to anyone whose needs are to be met by a river regulating scheme. Of course, the figures that I quote relate to steady abstraction throughout the year. Spasmodic reliance on the reservoir in dry times only would mean a greater cost per thousand gallons taken. So much for major works.
That leaves three other sorts of expenditure—day-to-day running costs, minor works, and contributions to reserve and replacement funds—to be carried by the general charging schemes under the Bill. The level of charges likely to be necessary under such schemes is a matter of keen interest to noble Lords and to those who will be affected by the operation of the Bill. If this statement is somewhat lengthy, I hope that noble

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Lords will excuse it, because I think the House is very interested in this particular matter. It is not possible at this stage to be precise about the amount of expenditure for purposes other than major works, as requirements will vary from one river authority to another, for each has different problems to meet. But, making allowance for these widely different circumstances, annual expenditure of river authorities other than that on major works may well rise after a time, when a water conservation effort has developed on a pretty substantial scale, to something in the range of £65,000 to £150,000 a year. That is the best estimate we can make at the moment.
In the same way, it is not possible at this stage—six years before charging schemes come into force—to be categoric about charges for any particular abstraction in any particular area, but some broad conclusions can be drawn from the available material. Such material as there is to give a lead has all been carefully examined by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. It consists primarily of the Hydrological Surveys conducted by the Ministry, but also includes information about industrial water use collected under the ægis of the Central Advisory Water Committee, and in other contexts of the Ministry's work. Let us assume expenditure of the order I have just mentioned as having to be carried by the general charges: then, for surface water, charges ranging from a fraction of a penny per thousand gallons for water taken and returned virtually undiminished in quantity and quality, to a few pence for water entirely consumed, would suffice. For water from natural reserves underground, an appropriate charge would be of the order of a farthing to a halfpenny per thousand gallons. It will cost more, of course, where steps have to be taken to boost the underground reserves by artificial means.
I think it will be helpful if I illustrate what these charges mean in total sums paid by individual abstracters. Two million gallons per day at a halfpenny per 1,000 gallons would amount to £1,500 per year. At one-tenth of a penny, it would be £300 per year. A brewery taking, say, 400,000 gallons per day from underground, none of which is returned to the source, would pay, at a farthing per thousand gallons, about £150 a year. A water undertaking taking 7 million
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gallons per day for consumption within the area of the river authority would pay, at a penny per thousand gallons, about £10,500 annually. These figures are illustrative only. But if applied to the Severn area or the Essex Rivers area, for each of which there already exists a Hydrological Survey, charges of this order would produce an income adequate to carry an annual expenditure to be incurred by a river authority of well over £100,000.
This charge of one penny per thousand gallons for river water can be set in perspective by referring to an actual example of charges for the taking of such water—from the Thames. Payments are made to the Thames Conservancy by the Metropolitan Water Board and by other statutory water undertakings amounting altogether to £300,000 per year. This represents a charge of between six-tenths of a penny and one and three-tenths pence for every thousand gallons, according to the abstraction in question.
My Lords, I do not claim great precision for any of the estimates of future expenditure which I have given, nor do I say that the levels of charges which I have foreshadowed as providing adequate income for the river authorities' new functions are more than an illustration of what the position may be. Nevertheless, I hope that they will be reassuring to those who have regarded the future in this respect with a good deal of pessimism. I do not think it can justifiably be said that charges of this sort will be so burdensome as to price water conservation, or the abstracter's products, out of the market. Equally there is no doubt that expenditure of this order must be met if the management of our water resources is to function on a sound basis. That is all I have to say about the charging scheme.
All in all, my Lords, I believe that this Bill is a good Bill and a fair Bill, and moreover, I also believe that it will prove to be an effective Bill. If your Lordships agree that this is so, then, for my part, I have no hesitation in sharing the credit, which I believe may be claimed by Her Majesty's Government, with your Lordships' House and in particular with those noble Lords in all quarters of the House who have worked so hard, so constructively, and with such good will in order to make an already good Bill an even

539
better one. And, if I may, I should like, before sitting down, to thank the two noble Lords who with myself formed the Government team; my noble friend, Lord St. Oswald, for his valuable support in matters agricultural; and my noble friend, Lord Jellicoe, without whose inspiring leadership, I freely confess, I should have at times felt very lost. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Hastings.)
3.51 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, the Bill emerges at the Third Reading in principle, fundamentally, as it reached this House. One does not complain too much about that because, after all, the Government are the Government and it is their right to make decisions, but we have had considerable discussion and a large number of Amendments have been placed on the Order Paper. It would therefore be churlish not to appreciate the fact that many of those Amendments have been accepted in principle by the Government and given effect to in Amendments which they have subsequently placed on the Order Paper. From this side of the House I would express our appreciation to the Ministers who have been in charge of the Bill, not only for their courtesy, which, of course, we have come to expect from them, but for the manner in which they have dealt with Amendments.
Fundamentally we are legislators. We consider legislation. We are not practical people who are giving effect to that legislation in the field. Sometimes it has been pointed out to me by those who have the responsibility in the outside world that they have some difficulty in understanding what Ministers and Parliament meant when they brought legislation before the House. The detailed discussions in Parliament, and sometimes the detailed opposition that has been made by Ministers against Amendments, have meant that those who have the responsibility for administering this Bill will be far clearer about the Government's intentions than they otherwise would have been. This leads to a far more effective administration of this Bill.
There is, however, one point on which I am still fundamentally in opposition to the Government, and that is the reference
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made by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, to the Water Resources Board. I am still uncertain (as are many of my colleagues on this side of the House and as are, I think, most of those associated with water—the statutory water undertakers or those in industry) as to whether or not the Water Resources Board will have sufficient power to do the job that they really ought to do. The river authorities have been given some very real and extended powers and I take the view that many of those powers ought to have been centralised in the Water Resources Board.
Perhaps I may give one example. At the moment the control of underground water supplies lies with the Minister of Housing and Local Government under Section 14 of the 1945 Water Act. Under this Bill, of course, it goes to the river boards in the area and the central authority no longer exists. The control of water resources strictly within the river authority area is doubtless adequate for local problems. But the vital question to my mind is how water is to be moved from one river basin to another. This is clearly one of the major problems which face a country such as ours in which we have a very heavy concentration of population and where, in fact, we have a wet side and a dry side. Unfortunately it is true (though perhaps I should not have said "unfortunately") that in many of the drier areas we have great concentrations of population such as we have in South-East England. Therefore, this complete freedom of movement from one river authority to another is essential if we are to get fluidity of supplies and the maximum supplies available in the area in which the water is required. I think it is a major policy matter, or should be one, in dealing with national water resources.
In any event, I take the view that we shall have to have a grid for water supply in exactly the same way as we have a grid for electricity supply. To my mind, that is the only way in which we are likely to get the heavy flow of water from where it is to where it is required. It is my view that it is not easy to see how that is to come about under this Bill. It may well be, in practice, that the Water Resources Board will be able to plan for the conveyance of water, but it is doubtful under the Bill, as I see it, whether they will

541
have the power to ensure that their plan is given effect. Having said that, I must, at least, admit that the establishment of the Water Resources Board is a very big step forward. It is a welcome step forward, although it does not go as far as I and my colleagues should like. Much will depend on the chairman and members of the Board itself. If they are strong, then they are perhaps likely to give themselves the "teeth" which the Bill does not have.
For a while I was associated with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and I know, of course, that as a centralised Ministry they had control of water resources and supply in this country for very many years. It seems to me that there will be a tendency on the part of the Minister not to give up that long-held authority which they have had over water resources and not to hand it over to the statutory water undertakings.
There is another practical problem, I believe, so far as this Bill is concerned: while it deals with supply and distribution, we have not under this Bill dealt with the problem of economy in the use of water. Perhaps the weather of the last few weeks has brought to many people in this country the realisation of how valuable water is, because of the effect of the weather on the availability of their water supplies. But I think much more could be done, not only in water conservation, but in getting ready for the problems of a dry summer and the availability of supplies in areas of concentrated population and problems of the reduction in the waste of water. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to the cost of water. It is so cheap that I have a strong suspicion that industry considers that it is not necessary for it to be as economical in its use as it could and should be. It is not a question of cheapness but of the availability of supply, and it behoves all sections of the community to be economical in the use of water.
Industry could do much by the re-use of water, and I am certain that the statutory water undertakings would be only too pleased for industry to consult with their experts in order to obtain an improvement here. This is equally true of agriculture and of domestic consumption. Would is be daring of me to suggest that our plumbing system is antiquated? We have only to think of the past few weeks to be reminded of this. There
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ought to be a review not only of the plumbing system but also of its protection: because many hundreds of thousands of gallons of water have been lost over the past few weeks as a result of inadequate plumbing protection. We should also look at the bye-laws governing public health, which were established under that wonderful Act—wonderful for the period—the Public Health Act, 1875. We have gone a long way since then, but in many areas the general regulations have not been amended since they were first put into force. I think that we ought to look at these in order to see whether we can reduce the use of water, without affecting public health in any way, by the elimination of tanks in roofs and unnecessary flushing tanks in lavatories, which we have in some parts of the country.
In accepting this Bill on Third Reading, I think that it has been improved. I should have liked to see it a much stronger Bill, but because of the general problems confronting the Government, they have been a little afraid of their shadows and they have not had the courage to do the things they ought to have done. But I conclude by expressing our deep appreciation of the manner in which the Bill has been handled by the Ministers in charge, and of the concessions they have made to us, which I hope will improve the Bill and lessen the work which will be necessary for the House of Commons to do.
4.4 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords, while I endorse wholeheartedly most of what the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, has said, there are one or two other aspects of the two cardinal points in his remarks—namely, organisation and charging—to which I should like to refer briefly. At the outset, however, I must refer to the Water Resources Board. I listened carefully to the statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings. Anything I say, I am afraid, must be conditioned by my study of it, but I hope that I do not sound churlish when I say that I was not altogether reassured by what he said in that regard. If I heard him aright, he stressed the fact that the Water Resources Board would be an effective, forward-looking instrument. I am afraid that one of the criticisms some of us have had is that I there is too much emphasis on the forward-looking

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and too little on the power to act.
I feel that the Water Resources Board should be able to ensure that the broad plan, as approved by the Minister, is efficiently and economically carried out. When it comes to the problem of the transfer of water from one river authority area to another, for the Board merely to have power, under Clause 12 (3)
"… to encourage and assist river authorities in the formulation of such plans"
is not sufficient. It would seem that, without waiting for fresh legislation, it would be a great help if there could be written into this Bill, without in any way derogating from the authority of the Minister, power for the Board, acting under the Minister, to co-ordinate the action of the river authorities in regard to their new functions. In that connection, I must confess that I am still convinced that the fewer river authorities, within reason, there are, the better will be the organisation and the more efficient its working.
The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, in the discussion in Committee of Schedule 1, gave a full explanation of the reasons why the Government, at this point of time, did not wish to go further in the direction of amalgamating river board areas than is proposed in the Bill as it stands. This very important question will no doubt he further debated in another place, but let me take this opportunity, for the record, of adding my support to the arguments adduced in the first instance by the Proudman Committee and supplemented by several noble Lords in speaking on this Bill, that the number of river authorities should be substantially reduced below that specified in the Bill as it stands. I may be wrong in this, but I believe that a good deal of the opposition raised to the merging of the areas of two or more river boards into one river authority rests on a belief that in such cases the boards themselves will be merged. I cannot see that happening in any little sense, because the important work the river boards do will still have to be done and it can be done on a river board basis and, one would have thought, desirably only by people who have been doing it and have the local knowledge and experience. They may
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be co-ordinated by the river authority and surely they can in some way be represented on that authority.
As has been said before, the authority could well have three committees—a water conservation committee, a river boards committee and a finance committee. It would seem to be a good thing if such matters were determined so far as possible in the light of experience. That was one of the reasons —there may be others, but with time so short I will not develop them now—why I have always felt that it would make sense if the Government could be persuaded not to institute all the river authorities on the same day but for there to be an interval of one year, or perhaps two, between the instituting of the first batch and the instituting of the last. I do not think there would be any great difficulty, because in the meantime the preparation of the hydrometric scheme, the assessment of minimum flow, and so on, could well be done by the river boards in areas where river authorities had not been established.
As regards charging schemes, here again I look forward to an opportunity to study what the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said, but, by and large, he seemed to indicate that the Government subscribed to the principle, which many of us feel to be vital, that the cost of new works should be predominantly, and if possible wholly, borne by those who directly benefit. I hope I am right in saying that. It is most important, and we were glad to hear it. On that basis, as I think the noble Lord indicated, the standing charges of the river authority should not be a very significant sum per 1,000 gallons.
There are two aspects of this to which I might refer. Many of the key works we are talking about, which arise particularly in these charging schemes for implementing a direct abstraction, will be a duplication or extension of works that have previously been executed by the abstracter, whether it be a statutory water undertaking or an industrial firm. The work has to be approved by the river authority, whether it arises from the authority's initiation or at the request of the abstracter. But the abstracter is vitally interested in the cost of the resultant supply. The river authority is obviously interested in having the work done as economically and

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efficiently as possible. Therefore, I submit that the authority should not, merely as a matter of principle, undertake work that can be done better by the abstracter himself. There may be a danger (I do not suggest that this will happen) that river authorities will build up unnecessarily large staffs to do the planning and supervising work that could be carried out by the abstracter.
My last point relates to simplification and, therefore, economy arising on the inclusion in the charging schemes (as they will have to be included) of the costs of transferring from one river authority's area to another. That transfer can be arranged only with the approval of the Water Resources Board and the river authorities concerned. But assuming the necessary approvals have been given, in so far as the transfer is related to the particular need, then the charge should be agreed between the abstracter in question and the river authority in the area from which the water comes.
In many cases the arrangements for defraying the cost could well be made on the basis of a bulk supply contract directly negotiated, on the one hand, by the supply authorities in the receiving area, and, on the other, by the river authority in the area from which the water comes. In that way the cost of the necessary works in both areas would be covered and would be borne by those receiving the water. Neither in the receiving area nor in the area from which the water comes would the river authorities have to spread the cost of those new works over all users, whether or not they benefited directly from the work. That may seem to be a point of detail, but I think it illustrates a procedure that is not covered in the Bill, as it stands, and might well prove both simple and economic. In conclusion, may I add my tribute to the courtesy with which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, and the noble Lords, Lord Hastings and Lord St. Oswald, have listened to and, so far as possible, dealt with the many points of detail raised on the Committee stage?
4.14 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, in view of the Motion on the Order Paper to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, I propose to be brief, and first of all I would convey the regrets of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross
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that he cannot be here to-day. He has asked me to thank the Government on his behalf for so kindly meeting his points with regard to amenity questions. I should like to take up one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, regarding the need for economy in the use of water by industry. I agree with that. But I think I am right in saying that industry is very conscious of this necessity and, so far as certain applications are concerned, water is re-used or re-circulated as much as forty times. I think one can say, therefore, that there is economy in industry.
Before this Bill leaves for another place, I should like to stress that, so far as industry is concerned, there have been practically no changes in regard to minimum acceptable flows, licensing, charging schemes and consultations. This makes me feel that industry in this context definitely has not a parent Minister. I was sorry to see the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, leave his place a short time ago, because I was hoping he would pass this view on to his right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. On February 12 [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 246 (No. 38), col. 900] my noble friend Lord Hastings said, in reply to an Amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Albemarle—and I believe he reiterated the assurance to-day—that the noble Earl could be assured that the Minister of Housing and Local Government would make adequate provision to look after the interests of industrial water users.
My noble friend Lord Hastings also said on that occasion that his right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government had consulted with the President of the Board of Trade regarding the appointment of an appropriate representative, and the result of their discussion was that it was felt that somebody not familiar with industry in general, but more concerned with the use of industrial water, would be the more suitable nominee. It is my humble contention that the Board of Trade should be brought into these further discussions. If I understood my noble friend aright when he spoke this afternoon, he said that there were to be further discussions on the question of industrial water, but I did not hear him say that they would be with the Board of Trade. I think it has become increasingly clear that industry in this context requires a parent Minister

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to fight for its rights and also with a view to obtaining concessions similar to those made to statutory water undertakers and to agriculture.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: Hear, hear!
LORD MERRIVALE: There seems to be every indication that industry will pay the piper but will have little to say about the tune. For instance, appeals on minimum acceptable flows, should there be any objection on the part of statutory agricultural bodies are now to go jointly to the Minister of Housing and Local Government and to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I think this shows to what extent parent Ministers can influence a Government decision.
Industry's biggest immediate problem is still in connection with licences of right and the safeguarding of the abstraction of water to the same extent as in the past. Therefore I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hastings for having elucidated a little this question of charges to industry. I feel, however, like my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, that it is something which industry will have to study carefully on reading Hansard. There is a feeling within industry that in effect the Minister of Housing and Local Government still does not have the necessary information on this question of the industrial use of water, having regard to the complexity of the problems involved. That is why it is felt that the President of the Board of Trade would be a highly satisfactory person to bring into this question.
For the Record, I should like to rectify a statement I made on February 14 last [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 246 (No. 40), col. 1069] regarding the amount of water used by industry in America per ton of finished steel. I said that the figure was 600,000 gallons, when it should have been 60,000 gallons. I apologise for that, but it was due to a typographical error in the information supplied me and not to any fault of mine. However, I think one should remember that Belgian industry uses over double that amount. I am saying that because I feel it stresses the fact that the relationship between water consumption and weight of similar products is not simple and affects costs. Also on that day I quoted the figure of
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one penny per thousand gallons. That would seem to be the average figure mentioned to-day by my noble friend Lord Hastings. If one takes into account present consumption by industry at that cost, it would represent approximately a figure of £3 million per annum to industry, which is not insignificant. My Lords, those are the few remarks I wish to make on this Motion, and I should like to thank my noble friends for the kindness they have shown and also for the way in which they have tried to meet, so far as they could, the points put to them by Back-Benchers on this side of the House.
4.23 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, on the Question, That the Bill do now pass, I wish to draw attention to the legislative process in which this House, together with another place, plays an important part. It is not widely realised, I suspect, that the process of amendment of Parliamentary Bills is never ending. Before ever a Bill sees the light of day it may be that, within the Department, it goes through ten, twenty or even more editions before being presented to Parliament. The Civil Service, the Ministers concerned, and particularly that little-known public servant, the Parliamentary draftsman, to whom our country and Parliament, in particular, are enormously indebted for the work they do behind the scenes without public knowledge, do work of very great value. The Bill comes to one of the Houses of Parliament, where it has a Second Reading, a Committee stage, which may be heavy or light, a Report stage and a Third Reading. In your Lordships' House Amendments are eligible (as we have seen to-day), even sometimes of substance, on the Third Reading of the Bill. Therefore, it is a long process.
The point to which I wish to draw attention is that some people object to there being two Houses of Parliament. They believe their views are progressive, and I quite understand their feelings. But if there were not two Houses of Parliament, the output of legislation would inevitably be much less than it is. From some points of view that would be a good thing. I have some views about this Session. I could easily eliminate at any rate one great measure. When I was Leader of the House of Commons.

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one of things which impressed me was that if there were no Second Chamber—which we call the House of Lords—then that great programme of legislative output could never have been achieved. While we have been considering the Water Resources Bill here, another place has been considering other Bills, one of them, unhappily, drawn from the same curious Government Department as this Bill. So two Bills from the same Department are before Parliament at the same time. Work is being done down the corridor, and work is being done here. That is a great economy tin the use of time.
May I pay my respects and compliments to my noble friend Lord Lindgren for the considerable amount of work he has put into the Bill, on Committee and Report stages in particular, assisted as he has been by my noble friends Lord Williams of Barnburgh and Lord Champion? The Ministers themselves, of course, have had a hard time wrestling with their briefs and arguments that have been advanced. It has meant an enormous amount of work. I should like to point out that if there were no Second Chamber the legislative process would be more difficult. If this House, with all its perfections—and, let me add, its imperfections—did not exist (it is not perfect, and I should like to see some composition changes: I do not want changes in its powers, because it has its virtues) the capacity to handle Bills and tidy them up would be greatly curtailed. This Bill will go to the House of Commons in a relatively tidy shape, so far as we know. It will not prevent further Amendments being made, but an enormous amount of the work has already been done.
If we had not this Second Chamber we should have to invent another stage, if not two more stages, in the House of Commons, in order to get the necessary detailed examination of Bills; because it is very important that Bills should be word perfect before they become Acts of Parliament, otherwise there could be all sorts of trouble in the courts; as we have seen, an enormous amount of examination has to be made. I would say, therefore, that this institution is time-saving. It is a good Chamber at revision, and it does the work in a businesslike way.
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I have never forgotten a Road Traffic Bill which I, as Minister of Transport, introduced in another place in 1930. They took four months on Committee stage and there were columns of argument on the same Amendment, principally with the aim of obstructing not that Bill but a Bill which was coming after it. When that Bill came here, what impressed me was that the late Lord Russell, who was my Parliamentary Secretary, would get up and resist an Amendment moved in about half a column of Hansard. In answer to the Amendment he would get up and say. "My Lords, this Amendment really will not do," and in about a quarter of column of Hansard would tell the House why. Almost certainly the noble Lord who moved the Amendment would get up and say, "My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw." It did me good to see that going on at this speed. They nearly killed me in another place on that Bill, whereas here it went with expedition. As I say the House of Lords is a timesaving institution. It contributes to the perfect drafting and wording of Bills; and so, to quote the words of Sir Alan Herbert, in his play Big Ben:
"There's a lot to be said for the Lords!"
4.30 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I intervene for a short time this afternoon. Those of us who were particularly concerned with the Amendments in connection with the preservation of natural beauty felt that we had received more concessions on this Bill than we have ever previously had, and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, agreed to express our appreciation. It is true that the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has apologised for his inability to be here, but as I have been very much concerned with this problem I felt that I should like to mention the matter specifically on behalf particularly of those noble Lords who have been concerned with it. I did not think earlier that I should be able to get here in time.
The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to the Amendments which the Government had put down in answer to the pressure on them, and indicated that they regarded the Amendments as a very important part of the improvements

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which have been effected in the Bill. Certainly we feel strongly that that is so. It is not long since these Bills used to come up with no provision for amenity clauses or anything of the kind. I am very glad to see here to-day the noble Viscount, Lord Mills, who helped us on the first occasion, not many years ago, with the Electricity Act. When the Transport Bill came up it was singularly deficient, and this Bill also was far from being as good as it might have been.
Noble Lords in all parts of the House are now very sensitive to these matters, and we have been gratified at the amount of support we have been getting, and also to find the growing sensitivity of the Government in regard to these matters. We can only hope that this sensitivity will increase as time goes on, because these matters are now very much more in the eyes of the public than they were a short time ago, and it is essential that Parliament should take them in hand. My noble friend and leader in past times has just referred to the valuable work which can be done in many ways in this House in connection with these Bills, and this is one particular side which can perhaps be particularly well undertaken here. I hope your Lordships will forgive me for making these few observations at this stage of the Bill and for again expressing our sincere gratitude, particularly to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who we know has these matters very much at heart, and who we feel deserves perhaps a particular pat on the back for the interest which he has taken and the help he has given to us.
4.33 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am sure you will now wish to cast this Bill off down the river on its voyage to another place without further ado, and I therefore propose to duck the closing salvoes of noble Lords regarding such various matters as the strength of the Water Resources Board, a national water grid, water economy, the number of river authorities, the staggering of their birthdays, the future charging system, the effect of this Bill on industry, the bicameral system of Government, flushing tanks and toilets and so on. However, I am sure that my colleagues in another place will wish to give due attention to those remarks.
However, before we take final leave
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of this stage of the Bill, I wish just to endorse what my noble friend Lord Hastings has said. This is not a dramatic measure. Nevertheless, it is a necessary and important one, and I would claim that its importance has been fully reflected in the very thorough attention which it has received during its passage through your Lordships' House. I am personally very grateful to my noble colleagues, to my noble friend Lord St. Oswald and to my noble friend Lord Hastings, for all they have done to keep the Bill, with its virtues, and me, without mine, unblemished and on the rails. I am also most grateful to those noble Lords—Lords Labour, Lords Liberal, Lords Tory, Lords neuter, Lords industrial, Lords bucolic, and, last but not least, the Lordly undertakers in this House—who have contributed so much to our discussions on this often technical but never dry subject.
I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, and other noble Lords for their very generous remarks to-day. In concluding I would say two things: first, how particularly grateful I and my colleagues are to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, who has led for the Labour Opposition on this Bill, for the constructive, informed and sometimes valid criticisms which he has brought to bear throughout; and secondly, that I would endorse very warmly the wise words which have just fallen from the lips of the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

THE PORRITT REPORT ON MEDICAL SERVICES
4.38 p.m.
LORD AMULREE LORD AMULREE rose to call the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the Review of Medical Services in Great Britain (Porritt Committee); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have been thinking for a long time of putting down a Motion on the National Health Service for debate in your Lordships' House, but there appeared to be no particular reason for putting such a Motion down until the Report of the Porritt Review Committee was published, which was not so very long ago. That seemed to me to be an occasion upon which I could hang, as it were, a debate in which I could make some references to

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my feelings about the National Health Service.
The first thing I should like to say is that the Porritt Committee is, I think, the first body of entirely medical opinion which has considered the National Health Service and has published a Report. The Committee was quite a large one. It consisted of 44 doctors and was representative of the various Royal Colleges both in England and in Scotland and of bodies like the British Medical Association. Most of these bodies, if not all, were represented upon the Committee by their President for the time being, so one can fairly say that it represents what a good deal of the informed medical opinion feels about the National Health Service at the present time. What they have issued in the form of this document is a general review of circumstances as they are now. They have come to some conclusions from their review and they have made recommendations for certain changes which might be made in the future. They have made a number of recommendations, with some of which I agree entirely and with some I do not agree; therefore it is not my purpose to try to support the complete Report but, as I said before, rather to take the Report as a basis for a general discussion about some matters concerning the Service.
The Porritt Review Committee say that the basic concept of a National Health Service is fundamentally sound and is acceptable to the vast majority of the medical profession. With that I would entirely agree, and I think I should be right in saying that such a concept is acceptable to the vast majority of your Lordships' House. When the National Health Service was first founded, however, it appeared that it was a Service superimposed upon others which already existed rather than an attempt to absorb all the services dealing with health into one big Service which would deal with every branch of medicine in the country.
For example, there are at the present time nine Government Departments who supply a health service of some sort. I refer to the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Home Office, the Ministry of Pensions, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and one or two more—I will not bother your Lordships with all the
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details. There are various branches of health service which do not come under the National Health Service. I refer to the occupational health services, the industrial health services. The first is possibly a matter on which the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, may have something to say, because he has far more experience of occupational health than I have myself. But it seems to me that it might be an advantage if these services could in some way be combined. I am not going to say they should be carried out by the same people. I am not going to say they should all be run in exactly the same kind of way. But it seems to me that if you are going to have the Ministry of Health running the National Health Service, that should be the focal point for all the health services in the country. In that way one would probably economise in the use of manpower—and I mean both men and women doctors; one would probably economise financially, which is quite an important point; and one would certainly save a good deal of overlapping of work, which again is something well worth considering.
The National Health Service was really based upon two existing props and a third one which was made especially for it. The two existing props were the preventive and social medicine side, which were the province of the local authorities, and the general practitioner or family doctor side, based on the old National Health Insurance Scheme. The side which had no prop was the hospital service. That, I think, is what has led to the formation of the tripartite system, as it is called, with one body doing the preventive and social side, one body looking after general practitioners and one looking after the hospital service. That has led once again to a certain amount of disagreement and suspicion—I will not go so far as to say a certain amount of hostility, but a certain amount of difficulty between the various branches of the Service.
The Porritt Report recommends that these branches of the Service should all be brought together under a series of Area Hospital Boards which would be based upon the general hospital for certain areas. That sounds, on the face of it, a rather attractive, agreeable idea: but when one comes to think of it I am not sure it is really a practical idea,

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certainly not from the point of view of the debate I am initiating now, because it would mean to a great extent a redrafting or re-writing of our present system of local government, which is more than I want to suggest should occur at the present time. That is one of the many difficulties. I do not want to pursue that line any further, but I do not think that at the present time it is a practical idea.
But there is one way in which I think a start might be made towards adopting a more rational method for dealing with the local authority side of the Service, and that is by combining the departments of health and welfare into one, which might, for the want of some better name, be called the social department. I merely suggest that as a name which occurs to me at the moment, but there might well be some better one. Porritt suggests that there should be a department of social health based upon the general hospital where these Area Boards are to be themselves based. But if it were to be combined with the hospital side, that, it seems to me, would be making too much of a hospital matter of the whole thing; whereas the idea is to try to make people think of the Health Service as based not entirely on people going to hospital but on their not going to hospital—on treating them before they get to the hospital stage. Therefore, I do not recommend making the hospital the central prop of the complete Service.
That advantage would be gained from combining the health and welfare departments can, I think, be drawn from the fact that under the Local Government Act, 1958, local authorities with more than 60,000 people were allowed to combine their two departments, in the sense that they could make the medical officer of health the chairman of both departments, of welfare and of health. That system has been adopted by most, if not all, local authorities of that size, and at the same time by quite a number of county boroughs and county councils. Many of the burghs in Scotland have done the same thing, although as they work under a different Act of Parliament, things are not quite comparable. I am sure that if that could be done, if the two departments could be joined together,
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it would be more successful than at the present time; because it is practically impossible to make a real distinction between health and welfare. You probably have people on the far extremes of both services in regard to whom you can say that their work is either health or welfare; but you have an enormous number of people in the middle where it is very difficult to decide on which side of the fence they should come.
I think it was a pity that in both the National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act that particular question was not recognised, and that those two very important Acts of Parliament tended to run in parallel rather than to come together from time to time; because, as we were all taught at school, the essence of parallel lines is that they never meet but go on to infinity. That, I think, has been a great mistake. Indeed, I once upon a time tried to get this matter elucidated in your Lordships' House. In 1959 I put down an Unstarred Question with this end in view. Unfortunately, we got nowhere in that discussion, which confirmed, I believe, that you really cannot separate health from welfare.
One of the points that the Porritt Committee make—they go a little further than I have gone now—is the great importance now of integrating social medicine, family doctoring and hospital practice. There, of course, nobody would agree more than I myself, and I am sure that the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government would agree too. I do not want to pursue that point any further, but I would say a word or two about the general practitioner side of the Service. What we are told when we are talking about the Health Service is that the general practitioner is far and away the most important person; that if it were not for him it would break down; that he is the kingpin, and such phrases as that. But when one comes to see what has been done for the poor fellow, one wonders whether that is merely a form of words and whether it has been put into force as strongly as it might be; because in many parts of the country general practitioners still feel cut off from the hospital and suspicious of the local authority. Both of these feelings go back a long way in history.
I do not want to go into some of the unfortunate causes that have led to this feeling, but it is one which has certainly been in existence for a long time. The point about a good general practitioner is that he does not want to be merely a signpost to the hospital: you come to your doctor, you go to the hospital. That is not what the practice should be, and few really good general practitioners want that to be so. Unfortunately, more and more people are being transferred direct to hospital, with the effect that the hospitals are fuller than they have been before and are becoming rather overburdened with work.
One wonders what is the reason for all this. There are a number of reasons, some of which I think could be prevented, though some of them probably could not: because the science or art of medicine has greatly improved and expanded over the last ten, fifteen or twenty years, and there are to-day greater facilities than hitherto for diagnosis and for treatment, all of which puts a greater demand on the work of the hospital. At the same time, the number of doctors has become smaller and they are being given a good deal of work to do which is not necessarily strictly medical.
To move on from that point, do we really know what number of doctors we need, first, at the present time, and, secondly, in, say, 25 years' time? A Committee which was set up under the chairmanship of a former Minister of Health, Sir Henry Willink reported some years ago that the number of doctors needed might decrease rather than increase. As a result of that, a certain number of medical schools cut down the number of students they took in. I think that most of them have now realised that that was a mistake, that that Committee was mistaken in its views, and that the number of doctors we have now is too small. The shortage was not really apparent until about four or five years ago, but I think I am right in saying that as time goes along it is becoming more and more apparent. Therefore one wonders whether it would not be a sensible move to have a general practitioner advisory sub-committee of the Central Health Service Council, which would be able to report on the work and practice of the general practitioner and upon what should be the ideal size of such a practice.
We have a certain idea about what should be the size of a practice, but I think that, of necessity, the right size will vary in different parts of the country. Probably in most parts of the country the practitioners' lists are still too large, although one must say straight away that the cutting down of lists to a more workable size does not necessarily mean in every case a better clinical practice—although in quite a number of cases that will be the result. One of the difficulties, of course, is that under the present capitation system if we reduce the particular number of patients on a doctor's list it means he will suffer a fairly substantial reduction in income. That, I think, is something to be deplored, not only because I am a doctor myself but because I think it is a bad thing that people's incomes should be reduced: they should be given a reasonable income for the work that they do. It has been suggested that there might be some other method of remuneration over the capitation fee. There has been a good deal of discussion about that proposal but, so far as I know, no system, apart from the capitation fee, has been worked out which it is thought would prove more successful than the capitation fee. So I think that the capitation fee has probably got to stay.
In the event of our needing more doctors where are they to come from? The present medical schools are, for the most part, working to capacity. They might be able to take a few more students, but not a great number, because there is a definite limit to the number of young men and women who can be taught in a class, especially on, the pre-clinical side. One wonders why none of the proposed new universities has a proposed medical faculty. One would have thought that some of the universities which are situated in fairly thickly populated parts of the country could well take a part and include among their faculties a small medical school. Possibly this is a matter for the University Grants Committee—and we know that at the present time that Committee is not feeling too kindly disposed towards distributing money. But I firmly suggest that one or two more medical schools are urgently required.
Another question also has arisen. It has not been talked about much lately,

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but about two years ago there was a good deal of talk about the number of young doctors who emigrated. Finding that they could not get work in England, or because they did not like the work in England, they left the country. I believe that somebody once said that between one-quarter and one-fifth of the doctors emigrated. I know that it is a difficult figure to estimate, but I wonder whether the Minister has figures which would reveal the real number. Certainly from the experience of my own school, so far as we can work it out, the proportion is nowhere near as large as that; it is about 6 or 7 per cent. of those who qualified, not, as was said in other cases, 15 to 20 per cent.
We should also bear in mind that, in a number of cases, those who emigrated did so, perhaps, for only a year or two, and then came back again. I am sure that is a practice to be encouraged. It is one way we have of spreading British medical knowledge and skill among the under-developed countries. I personally should be extremely sorry if the number of doctors who emigrated for a short time were to drop, because I believe they are doing fine work in spreading their knowledge in other countries. At the same time, one hears people say that if it were not for the people who come here from the Commonwealth countries, the National Health Service could not run. That comment does not worry me at all, either, because it seems to me that we are doing our duty properly by these young people from other countries, in allowing or encouraging them to come here, so that they can work and be trained here, and then go back to their own countries and spread the good learning and knowledge which they have got from people over here.
There is another point about the practitioner to which I should like briefly to refer. Quite a number of general practitioners prefer to work in groups of four or five, rather than to be entirely single-handed. They find that if they work in groups they can afford to run a much more satisfactory practice; they can have reasonable premises to see patients; they can keep a certain number of secretarial assistants and receptionists, and others—like nurses, health visitors and midwives—to assist them in their
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work. But I think that requires a practice of about 10,000 patients, which certainly means having four doctors.
I gather that one of the troubles in this connection is that it is extremely difficult for doctors to find suitable premises in which to practise. In the old days people practised from their own houses, with the dining room or the drawing room being used as a consulting room, and that sort of thing; but if one is going to have four doctors in a practice this is not practicable. Not only is it difficult to find suitable premises, but I am told that at the same time it is difficult to borrow money from the building societies for such premises. The premises are no good for any other purpose, and building societies prefer to lend money for ordinary houses rather than those which have been changed into consulting rooms and rooms for doctors to practise in.
Another point is this. If doctors are going to be encouraged to have working for them secretaries, receptionists, health visitors, nurses, and so forth, they will probably have to pay more for the staff they employ themselves as the salaries outside increase. A number of them find that they cannot afford to employ these people. Would it be possible to make some kind of extra-financial provision for the expenses of doctors in view of the increasing amounts of money needed to run a practice of this type? I am sure that if one could get more group practices one would cut down the referring of patients to hospital, with a consequent saving in the number of hospital beds needed. I am sure this would be a great advantage to the National Health Service in general. The hospitals could be of great assistance to the general practitioners in giving them more facilities than they do now in the way of X-ray photographs and pathological investigation, without the patients necessarily having to be referred to one of the consultants at the hospital. This would also have the advantage of not adding to the long queue of out-patients in the hospital.
There are several ways in which practitioners can be assisted. I will quote one or two examples which I have come across quite near London. There is a big centre in Peckham—it was the old Pioneer Health Centre before the war—which has now become the general

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practitioner centre for South-East London, to which general practitioners can send patients for X-rays and pathological investigation. They can perform a certain amount of minor surgery there; they can send their patients to have their injuries dressed, and can get a certain amount of simple physiotherapy carried out. This takes a big burden off the hospital service. These are patients who do not really need to go to hospital, and this system encourages the general practitioner, with the aid of this centre, to treat his patients himself. There is a further service, though not on such a big scale, in the Borough of Ealing, where much good work is being done by the local authority in providing a centre to which doctors can send patients for physiotherapy and other forms of treatment. This, again, is a great advantage to the doctors themselves.
Before I move from the general practitioners, I should like to put in a good word for trying to retain some of the general practitioner hospitals which it is intended to get rid of under the ten or fifteen year Plan. The reasons for retaining these hospitals have been given on numerous occasions; I do not want to elaborate them too much now. There are really two important reasons. One is that it is very good indeed for general practitioners to have a hospital of their own, where they can take care of their patients, and where they can meet their colleagues so that they do not feel they are working in complete isolation from the other practitioners in their part of the world. At the same time it would make more use of part-time nursing staff than if the hospitals were merely to be concentrated in one big district hospital. Furthermore, it would be appreciated by the patients and their relatives, who would not need to travel such long distances to reach hospital. Supposing there were some real objection to retaining these hospitals under the Regional Hospital system, would it not be possible for them to be transferred to the Executive Council so that they could be general practitioner hospitals in the true sense of the word and not part of the whole Regional Board system? I feel this is a point which is really well worth considering. I should like to ask the Minister to what extent the various branches of the profession were consulted
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on the ten-year Hospital Plan, apart from the Central Health Services Advisory Council, which was obviously consulted.
Then a question in parenthesis. Would it not be possible for hospitals to be given some sort of transport of their own? At the moment the ambulance service is run entirely by local authorities. The local authorities, broadly speaking, do their job very well, but I work in the London County Council area and we experience great trouble in dealing with elderly patients who come up, say, for physiotherapy once or twice a week in the afternoon, most of whom have got to be brought by ambulance. This work usually finishes at 4 or 5 o'clock, but frequently patients have to wait until 7.30, 8 o'clock, in some cases even 9 o'clock before the ambulance can pick them up and take them home again. This means that the staff of the department must also stay there, and it means that the patients are kept waiting there, which is discouraging for them. Could not some change be made in the rule that transport must be entirely under local authorities? Could not the hospitals in future be allowed a limited amount of their own transport?
I should like to see the general practitioners as directors, as it were, of what one might call the public health services, with the local authorities—or whatever would be the appropriate body—seconding to, or deploying in, their service a large number of the nurses, health visitors, and social workers who at present work entirely for the local authority. I know that this has been done in a number of areas, and where it has been done well it has worked with great success. If that were done it might be possible to reduce the number of workers who go round visiting people in their homes. One problem in the past has been that there have been large numbers of people, some employed by the local authority and some by other bodies, who have visited people in their homes, and this has been rather confusing to some of the homes. The more unscrupulous families have played one visitor against another.
I wonder whether something could not be done about combining some of these services into one. I put forward

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these ideas rather tentatively, but, for example, could not the health visitors and the social workers be combined? I know we have just passed a Bill dealing with the training of more social workers, but perhaps we should think again, and make some other arrangement of that service. Would it be possible to co-ordinate more with the nursing service? Should the social workers be given some nursing training, not to the extent of being State registered nurses, but rather more than the ordinary Red Cross training for nurses, or something like that? If that were done, they could become of great assistance to the general practitioners, to whom they could be attached. That, I think, would be one way whereby the local authority side and the general practitioner side could be brought very much closer together, and work could be done for the mutual benefit of the two. At the same time, I think that a certain amount of staff could be saved, with a saving in money, too.
My Lords, before I sit down (I am afraid that I am keeping your Lordships a very long time) I should like to refer to my own particular subject; that is, the care of the elderly people. I agree that the crying need for these people is to keep them at home as long as one possibly can, with as many services to assist them as is humanly possible. But I wonder whether the time is coming when we shall be able to get many more people to assist them in their homes. The other day I was looking at the Report of the London County Council and I was rather shocked at the figures which I saw for home-helps—and these people are really fundamental in keeping a single, old, frail person in his or her home.
What I found, rather to my surprise, was that between 1957 and 1961 the number of home-helps had gone up by only about 500. It occurred to me that maybe the supply is tending to dry up, and that we shall not get enough suitable women to take on that job. It may, therefore, be necessary—much as I deplore the idea—to think more of arranging suitable accommodation in communal homes for some elderly people, or of some other means of preventing them from becoming sick and becoming a charge (I do not mean
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a financial charge, but a moral charge) upon members of the community. That leads me to another question that I should like to ask the Minister: whether he has any idea of the total number of beds required for old people in the country. I do not mean the total number of hospital beds, but the total number of beds required for those in need of some kind of care, whether it is mental care, physical care or medical care. I wonder whether there are figures for that, too.
Then I think that something might be done to provide some sort of clinics for old people, rather on the lines of the old maternity and child welfare clinics, possibly staffed by a general practitioner, where old people, or not so old people—young-old people, if you like to put it in that way—who would not want to call in their general practitioner, could go and consult about various problems. I merely put that forward as an idea, but I think it might be worth looking into.
I would also ask the Minister whether it would be possible to transfer back to the hospital service the accommodation which is available for infirm and elderly people under Part III of the National Assistance Act, because at present it is very difficult, to get a normal though frail old person transferred from hospital to accommodation under Part III. I wonder whether it would be an improvement if that could be encouraged and brought about. I know that the subject has not been thought about very much until now, but it seems to me that that might be one way of solving the difficulty.
Another thing which might help would be to make the housing lists of local authorities a trifle more flexible. On several occasions I have heard about people who live by themselves on the top floor of a two or three-storey building and who could cope with life quite well if they lived on the ground floor. But because of the housing list and their place on that list it is almost impossible to get them moved quickly up the list. I do not want for a moment to suggest that people should be "jumping the queue", right, left and centre. But it seems to me that an exception might well be made in the case of a fairly frail person living on the top floor, who cannot manage but

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who could live an independent life on the ground floor. It does seem to me rather silly if that person cannot move to the ground floor, because she is No. 452 on the housing list instead of being No. 2. Perhaps the attention of local authorities could be drawn to that point, so that some change might be made there.
My Lords, I have been speaking far too long, but there are just two other points to which I should like to refer before I sit down. There is the body which was rather well described in the Lancet as the "greater medical profession," which consists of all those people who are of such enormous assistance to the doctors at the present time—physiotherapists, occupational therapists, almoners, and many others. Their numbers are nowhere near enough to go round, and their pay is not all that it should be. I know that we have discussed this matter in your Lordships' House on many occasions, but I should like to mention it once more, because I think it is something of great importance with which we shall have to come to grips fairly soon, or the supply will just dry up.
Before I sit down I would make two suggestions to Her Majesty's Government. One is that the Health Service should be far more decentralised than it is at the present time. At the present time, we have the hierarchy, on the hospital side, of the hospital management committee, Regional Hospital Board and Ministry of Health. That journey up there and back again takes quite a long time, wastes a great deal of energy, and frays a good many tempers. When the Health Service was being debated we were told, if I remember aright, that though centralisation was essential at the start, the time would come when a cerain amount of decentralisation would occur. I wonder whether that time has now come, and whether, if decentralisation cannot yet occur, we really need this further tripartite system of the management committee, Regional Hospital Board and Ministry of Health.
The other point I wish to suggest, which may seem a minor one after what I have said, concerns the composition of the Central Health Services Council. I wonder whether that could not be a body elected by the profession, or containing
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a number of elected members, rather than a body nominated by the Minister. If such a change were made, I think it might give great encouragement to the profession; and it would not, I think, lead to any diminution in the quality of the work the Council did. My Lords, I have taken up far more of your Lordships' time than I usually do when I address you. I beg to move for Papers.
5.20 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am quite sure that we should all like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for putting this Motion on the Paper and so enabling us to debate a very interesting Report. I agree with him that one cannot approve of all its proposals, or disapprove of them all; but this review—and it is a very long review—nevertheless stimulates thought among those of us who are very anxious about this subject, and who have only one objective, which is to improve the National Health Service. I must confess that, by the time I had read this document (as I say, it is a very long one), I was very sorry for the chairman, because he apparently sought and received so much advice from so many quarters that, in endeavouring to please everybody, he arrived at some conclusions which tend to cancel each other out.
I always believe that, in a Report of this kind, one should never try to compromise on matters of principle. That is absolutely fatal, because by the time people who are interested in it and who read it arrive at the end they are not quite sure precisely what kind of service the authors intend to establish. I must confess that, to me, the Report seemed finally to be speaking with two voices—the voice of Jekyll and the voice of Hyde. Dr. Jekyll pronounces with wisdom, experience, humanity and knowledge; and then, suddenly, Mr. Hyde pops in his little ugly head with some mean little suggestion. For instance, Dr. Jekyll announces that the Gallop Poll reveals that people believe that the concept of the National Health Service is sound. Mr. Hyde—a hireling, I suspect, of the Fellowship for Freedom in Medicine, which is a very small, reactionary body (I am glad the noble Lord smiles) representative of only a small number of doctors—in this guise, whispers,

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"The doctors should, when possible, be in direct financial relationship with the patient rather than with the State, thus strenghening the bond beween doctor and patient while weakening the power of the Government over the medical profession." Can it be in the interests of the patient—let us say, one suffering from some mental disability—to feel that the strong bond between himself and the doctor is a financial one?
Then, again, it is suggested that the drug bill of nearly £100 million should be increased by providing drugs for private patients on the same terms as those for National Health Service patients. Of course, if this were done it would inevitably undermine the whole structure of the National Health Service, because it would thereby establish two categories of patients within the service. I do hope that noble Lords realise that this is entirely different from approving of private patients who go to the doctor as a private patient, take their prescriptions and go to the chemist. The suggestion here is that the prescription, E.C.10, which is provided under the National Health Service, should be given to one patient free, but that a charge should be made by the doctor if he gives it to somebody else. Now this would introduce such discrimination that it would, I believe—I do not think this is an overstatement—undermine the whole principle of the National Health Service.
Now these various suggestions to increase the financial interest of the doctor hardly accord with the evidence before us that both the doctor and the patient are, under the National Health Service, faring well. The Committee tell us in the Report that the doctor has retained his clinical freedom and that the very small number of formal complaints by the public against the doctors is one indication of the public's general satisfaction with the service. I have said that this Committee is speaking with two voices. On the one hand they say that, and then, in paragraph 116, it is suggested
"that the possible advantages of a direct contribution by the patient should be the subject of continuing study."
It is to be regretted that the 44 people responsible for this Report, mostly doctors—if the noble Lord looks through the 44 names I think he will find that
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they are not all qualified doctors of medicine, but that most of them are doctors—seem to have forgotten that one reason, as I recall it, almost the primary reason, for the introduction of the National Health Service was to include the mothers, the children and the aged. If a financial contribution is now demanded from these particular categories, they would inevitably tend to avoid obtaining medical advice in the early stages. That is what happened in the poorest parts when we had children dying from bronchial pneumonia following measles. It was because the mothers could not afford, out of the housekeeping allowance, even a small contribution to the doctor. They said, "This is only measles", and they waited for the rash to go, but the cough continued and the child developed bronchial pneumonia. Look at the statistics to-day. These women can now obtain medical treatment for their children at an early stage of their illness, and the result is that the change in our morbidity statistics in this field is absolutely spectacular. I do ask the noble Lord, when he comes to reply, to give us the assurance that we shall not go back to the stage when these particular categories were asked to make a financial contribution.
I welcome the suggestion that the family doctor's maximum list of patients should be reduced from 3,500 to 2,500. Although the noble Lord said that, if this were done, he did not think it would mean that the patient would necessarily have more attention and that the doctor would perhaps take more trouble in the clinical field, I confess that I welcome this proposal, particularly in the interests of the doctor. For the same reason, I am pleased that it is quoted again that the "properly organised emergency deputising services" in large cities are not frowned upon.
There are so few family doctors to-day. There are not enough family doctors for the whole nation. Their occupation hazard is coronory thrombosis, and their expectation of life is one of the shortest in the community. I believe that the longest is for a minister in the Church of England, and I believe the shortest is to be found for some people in the breweries. The doctor of medicine, one would think, with his knowledge, would have a long expectation of life. But not

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at all, my Lords. The pressure upon him—physical, mental and intellectual—is such that his expectation of life is not very long. I would ask the House to consider whether the time has not come when the doctor should cease to be the only worker in the country expected to do day and night shifts. That is why I welcome the paragraph on the emergency deputising services. I think that certainly his conditions of service must be reviewed more carefully if we are to receive good recruits for medicine. That is why I should give more consideration to the establishment of health centres.
The noble Lord spoke just now about the corner house, with its drawing room and dining room—the kind of place in which I was brought up—which was converted into the home and the surgery and the waiting room. These big, old Victorian houses were absolutely ideal in which to conduct a general practice for the neighbourhood, but they are no more. He was of course quite right in what he said about the building associations and the banks, which are not prepared to make big advances for colossal museums, as they think they are, which are converted by the doctor and afterwards, of course, are of no use for family residence. I think the answer to this is health centres, and I am very sorry that health centres have been dismissed as they have. Again, the noble Lord spoke about the payment of the general practitioner. He thought that the capitation method was not the right one. Again, I really think that perhaps the whole question of a salaried service should be reviewed. It functions very well in many other countries which have a health service equal to ours.
Now we come to the shortage of doctors and medical students. This has been emphasised, but in view of the demand by able girls for places in medical schools the statement in this document that
"Few of any walks of life have so much to offer the able young man as medicine"
will astonish many of us. I suppose that this Freudian lapse should not surprise many of us who will already have observed that this survey was conducted by a Committee of 44 individuals, of whom only one was a woman, to examine a service in which about 75 per cent. of
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those employed are women. The noble Lord reminded us just now of the "greater medical profession", of these wonderful women, the psychiatric social service workers, the workers in what we have called "the professions supplementary to medicine" (this is a clumsy term and I should have preferred "the larger medical service"), and we find that all are women. Yet this document has been compiled about a great women's service by 43 men and one woman. No doubt this attitude accounts for the failure to direct attention to the diehard attitude of the London medical schools, which still attach more importance to sex than to ability.
I would remind noble Lords that we are discussing the shortage of doctors. In the North of England, North of the Wash, the hospitals cannot be conducted without immigrants to this country. In many wards the men and women, not necessarily doctors but helpers, find it difficult to speak English. Yet of the London medical schools to-day only one admits more than 15 per cent. of women. We are told that there is a shortage. We all know this. There is a deplorable shortage. The Willink Committee was entirely wrong. I hope that now the medical schools, when able young women go to them, will recognise that they can be first-class doctors irrespective of their sex. No noble Lord who looked at television last night would have minded having an anæsthetic given him by the women anæsthetists who were then shown. But the diehard medical schools say 15 per cent. and no more.
I was very glad that the noble Lord spoke about preventive medicine. Of course the Porritt Committee are quite right, and there should be a reorientation of service from curative to preventive medicine. Nobody would dissent from that. But I find it difficult to reconcile this proposition with the establishment of Area Health Boards. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, who reminded us of the variety of Government Departments concerned with preventive medicine, with housing, welfare and the children's service. As I read it, if these Area Health Boards were set up they would be entirely divorced from these welfare departments which it is so necessary to amalgamate with the strictly health service.

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I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, when he was talking about social workers and the health workers—he did not call it a team—who are sometimes attached to certain general practitioners. It is the well-organised team of domiciliary health workers which should be in the van of preventive medicine. They know what is happening in the family; they know who is sick; they know who needs help, and they know where to send some individual for that help. If successive Ministers of Health had taken more action in this field, we should not be told in this review that the facilities for the chronic sick and elderly are inadequate in every respect. I thought the noble Lord, Lord Amulree (as we all know, he devotes his life to the geriatric service), was very kind in not emphasising those parts of this review which related to his particular field of work, though he reminded noble Lords that the service for the chronic sick and elderly is inadequate in every respect.
Might I remind noble Lords who were at the unemployment debate only a fortnight ago that I said then that in the North-East of England where the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, spent some of his time, are large numbers of able young men who have the aptitude to serve in our welfare service if only we could recruit them. They could be given work immediately. The need is great and, as the noble Lord has said, we could bring them into some of these teams to care for elderly men neglected in their homes. In the North-East in a short time we could establish a first-class geriatric service. This was my suggestion in the unemployment debate a fortnight ago. The noble Earl, Lord Dundee, who answered regarded it as so stupid that he did not devote one sentence or one word to it.
A fortnight later we come to this House to debate another Report which reveals the desperate need for able young men and women—not necessarily with high educational ability, but able in other respects, willing, kindly, cheerful, and prepared to help in a team where there is a desperate need for them. Yet the Government Departments work on the subject in such a watertight manner that while unemployment is rife in one area and is dealt with in one Department, yet another Department introduces a Report
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—or at least gave its blessing to its being debated—which shows there is a great demand for labour.
Now I come to another aspect of the work. The Report states that
"the closer association between general medicine and psychiatry will we confidently expect, lead to a raising of psychiatric standards."
Well, my Lords, we all agree with that. We welcome it. Nevertheless, out of 44 members of the Committee—mostly doctors—there were very few psychiatrists.
A NOBLE LORD: My Lords, I think there were three.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: There were only three psychiatrists out of 44 doctors. Does this omission indicate, strikingly, the fundamental attitude of general medicine towards sickness of the mind? I believe that while we permit the people of this country to become pill addicts in the interests of the pharmaceutical industry we tend to ignore the crucial problems of psychogenic disorders. Therefore much more attention must be paid to the teaching of psychotherapy in our medical schools.
Now I come to the tripartite administration of the Health Service. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, entirely on that aspect. Of course, one cannot really complain, and I do not complain, in so far as it is our attitude—the British way—to deal with matters in a piecemeal fashion. We are completely pragmatic in our approach to many of our services. We find out if something works and if it works we set up a committee to administer it. After a time we find it has been a little haphazard, but nevertheless the rest of the world admires us for this pragmatic approach and for being not so doctrinaire as some other countries. But the time has come when the whole thing must be revised.
The criticism of the tripartite administration is well justified, particularly with regard to the maternity services; and the Porritt Committee mention the maternity services as illustrating their point. We are reminded that some maternity hospitals are so overcrowded and understaffed that they are compelled to discharge mothers within a few days of delivery. I read somewhere a little while ago that in some hospitals mothers were

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being discharged after 48 hours. We must remember that when a poor mother is discharged, she does not go to a home where there is somebody to wait on her, but often it is necessary for her to sit in bed and conduct the housekeeping from there. Although, from a medical point of view, a stay in hospital may not be necessary, a mother may not be ready mentally to grapple with household problems, and she deserves and needs a rest mentally, if not physically.
In support of the Porritt Committee's adverse comments on the maternity service, I would remind your Lordships of the findings of the perinatal mortality survey conducted under the auspices of the National Birthday Trust. Every year there are 25,000 babies born in Britain who are either stillborn or die in the first week of their lives. It is significant that the death rate of babies in the professional classes is half that of the rate in the class of unskilled labour. When the noble Lord comes to reply I hope he will deal with perinatal mortality and not with the infantile death rate, which is a different thing. I am glad to learn that a conference is being held in Friends' House on this subject, in which eminent obstetricians, of whom Professor Nixon is one, will speak.
The Cranbrook Report on Maternity Services recommended that all women having their first babies should be delivered in hospital. Yet one-third of the women having their first babies are booked for their confinements outside hospital. In the year ended March, 1962, over 4,000 women were admitted to London hospitals as obstetrical emergencies—that is, after labour had started—an increase of 20 per cent. over the previous year. This reveals that in London more and more women have to go into labour before proper arrangements are made for their delivery.
I say deliberately that to-day the women of this country have only a second-class maternity service. The figures I have given and the conditions I have described are evidence of this. The pressure on the available accommodation in hospitals is so great that the limited number of overworked and underpaid midwives are subjected to an intolerable pressure. It has been said over and over again—by the Porritt Committee, by the Cranbrook
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Committee, in this House and in another place in one debate after another (though perhaps in years past your Lordships did not talk so much about maternity as we do now)—that midwives are overworked and underpaid. At the moment, the question is sub judice, I understand, because the midwives are before the industrial court. It is grossly unfair for people who have no pressure groups to be called upon to do this invaluable work and still be exploited by the community.
While I am speaking on the maternity service, I would remind the House that while other countries have taken action since the thalidomide tragedy to protect their mothers and children against the consumption of inadequately tested drugs, the Minister of Health has done nothing but set up a Committee. Last week in another place, he was again asked what was being done to protect people against these inadequately tested drugs and he said that he was still waiting for a report from a Committee. The United States took action, the Scandinavian countries took action and the German Government took action, but in this country tranquil-lising drugs are still sold and advertised as the proper thing to give women in the early months of pregnancy. Yet eminent physicians have said that women would be safer without any drugs in the early months of their pregnancy.
I can in this debate deal with only a few aspects of this Report which must be limited. I welcome the unequivocal statement in paragraph 607 that
"… basically the concept of a comprehensive health service is sound"
and that in general it
"… has proved of great benefit to the community".
On the other hand, it is a little naïve for the authors to plead that the Service should be kept out of politics, having regard to the fact that when the Labour Government introduced the National Health Service it was voted against on Second and Third Readings. In the course of the last eleven years, it has been necessary again and again for the Opposition to draw the attention of both Houses to the condition of hospitals, the shortage of staff of all kinds, the long waiting lists, and the low pay of nurses and midwives and in the larger profession of medicine. This review highlights these

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things and calls for improvement. I can only say to the authors that while we thank all 44 of them—43 men and one woman—who have given their time and energy to produce this survey, the improvements they would like to see introduced can be expedited only by an active and ever-vigilant Opposition.
5.48 p.m.
LORD BRAIN: My Lords, the Report of the Porritt Committee covers such a wide field that it is impossible to deal with more than a small part of it, and I propose to concentrate on the question of medical research. But, first, I should like to make one general comment. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said about how striking and satisfactory it is that this Committee—I was going to call it broadly representative, but perhaps, after what the noble Lady said, I should not—has reached the conclusion that basically the conception of a comprehensive National Health Service is sound.
The Committee did not have a great deal to say about research, because, as it pointed out, its remit did not extend to the scientific aspect of medicine. Nevertheless, it emphasised, and rightly, that
"… research is so vital to the development of the nation's medical services, …"
and added this:
"From our study of the existing arrangements for the co-ordination of research, we have concluded that basically they are now working well within the financial limits imposed. However, it is impossible to judge how much research potential has been lost through lack of adequate funds."
These are the points which I wish to discuss.
There is a good deal of dissatisfaction with the state of medical research in this country, and it is those with the greatest authority and experience in this field who are the most vocal. Our organisation of medical research illustrates in the highest degree our national genius for interdepartmental complexity and divided responsibility. To discover how it works is a work of research in itself, and it is this which makes a diagnosis of the cause difficult and makes it possible for those who are responsible to point to individual parts of the system, which admittedly are working very well, without paying due regard to the picture
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as a whole. Everyone, I think, will agree that we may well be proud of the Medical Research Council. It can point with satisfaction to its expanding budget, to the excellent work done in its units, and, as the noble Viscount the Minister for Science said in this House last Wednesday, to the Nobel Prizewinners, fostered by the Council. This is a justifiable pride. But, as every gardener's wife knows, it is possible to win prizes for lilies and yet to be short of potatoes. It is the shortage to which I want to draw attention.
The present organisation of medical research as a whole is such that an élite is fostered, but there is too little encouragement for promising young doctors to go into it; and if they do go in, so many obstacles are put in their way that many give up, and those who persevere have to battle with unnecessary frustrations. It has always been the policy of the Medical Research Council to use the greater part of its resources to pay for the management of its own units and to be highly selective in its award of grants to other applicants. I do not criticise this policy which, it may be claimed, continues to yield excellent results. But I want to look at its consequences. In the year 1960–61 the current expenditure of the Medical Research Council amounted to £4,600,000. Out of this sum, the amount which it spent on temporary grants and training awards—that is, to workers outside its own units—was £424,000, or 9·2 per cent. of its total budget. There are two kinds of research workers who may receive temporary grants from the Medical Research Council: there are groups working in a university department, to whom the grant is made in the first instance for five years, and there are individual workers, whose grant is usually made for three years. So the £424,000 which was spent on temporary grants in that year was not all available for new research projects, because some of it went in continuance of existing grants. Hence, if we leave out of account what the Medical Research Council spends on its own units, the amount it spends on groups or individuals wishing to start new research in a single year is about £100,000, out of an annual budget which is now over £5 million.

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But, having been selected, what has this type of research worker to look forward to? If he is an individual with a three-year grant he has no security beyond the three years, and at the end of that time he must show that what he has done justifies the continuance of his grant. With groups working in the university the position is somewhat different. At the end of five years, by an arrangement made between the University Grants Committee and the Medical Research Council, the university concerned will be asked whether it is prepared to take over the responsibility for the group and to assess the priority of the takeover in terms of its other commitments. Here, then, two elements of uncertainty enter into the picture: the research group has to prove its worth to the university, and the university has to have enough money to take it over. The Clinical Research Board can point to a gratifying increase in the amount of money which it is devoting to clinical research, but here again, outside its own units, the policy with regard to the individual research worker is the same as that of the Medical Research Council. He has no security for more than a few years ahead.
There are many young doctors who start their medical careers imbued with a sense of scientific inquiry. While holding junior posts they have opportunities for research, but they do not want to devote their whole career to nothing but research. They may perhaps want to become consultants, but to go on doing research at the same time. Very often the quality of the research they have already done is an important factor in securing for them a consultant post. But what encouragement or opportunity does the young consultant receive to go on doing the research of which he has shown himself capable? There are a small number of medical schools which have adopted the far-seeing policy of providing additional sessions for research as an integral part of their new consultant appointments. But these are still a minority, and this policy, if generally implemented, would mean more money from the universities. Elsewhere, all the young consultant can do is to apply for a grant from the Medical Research Council or the Clinical Research Board, which neither will guarantee for more than a few years.
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And even if he could get such a grant, only too often the hospital has not the laboratory accommodation or the technical assistance which he would need. What happens? Instead of doing research, he can get another consultant appointment at another hospital, and he will then have a contract which will last until he is 65, and will not only give him security but, like his original appointment, render him eligible for a distinction award. Is it surprising that in such circumstances research gets left behind?
I know that there is held to be a good reason for the cautious policy which requires grants to be frequently reviewed and which makes hospital boards reluctant to give sessions for research as well as for clinical work. Superficially this caution looks prudent. Who can tell, it is said, that a man who is doing good research at 30 will still be doing it at 40, or even 50? Is there not a danger that we shall waste a lot of money if we encourage peple to take up research who may not continue to deliver the goods? The noble Viscount the Minister for Science, in the debate in this House last Wednesday said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 247 (No. 46) col. 95]:
"It is easier to waste public money on science than on almost any other subject."
But in scientific research, as every scientist knows, you cannot always predict results, and you must be prepared to risk wasting money, if that is what you call it. For only by encouraging and supporting considerable numbers of scientific workers, by an act of faith if you like, will you create the conditions in which, not only by scientific judgment, but sometimes also by good fortune, great discoveries are made.
On December 4 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science, in reply to a Question in another place made this statement [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 668 (No. 26) col. 1121]:
"It is untrue to suggest that greater progress in finding the causes of cancer would necessarily be made by the mere expenditure of money. If money in research is not to be wasted, there must be first-class men with first-class ideas"—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: And women.
LORD BRAIN: I am still quoting—
"who must then be supported. I do not believe that there are any such projects in this field which are not being supported either by the Medical Research Council or by the voluntary bodies."
My Lords, I believe this to be a dangerous fallacy, and I would ask: how does the Parliamentary Secretary know? By choosing first-class men with first-class ideas you may run a department with the maximum economy. But in research, as elsewhere, the spirit bloweth where it listeth, and it sometimes happens that a man turns out to be first-class only ex post facto. Fleming discovered penicillin as a result of a happy accident. He could not have put down on paper in advance any ground for thinking that he was going to discover it. Besides, much valuable work is done by research workers who would not claim to be individually distinguished. It is not wasteful to support them. And if a clinician wants to continue to do research work part-time, it should not be impossible to arrange for him at a later date, if he finds that he can do no more, to give it up in exchange for a further clinical appointment.
I now come to the part played by the universities in medical research. I began by drawing attention to the complexity of our arrangements for the promotion of research in this country, and I should like to say at this point that, in spite of its drawbacks, I think it is a very good thing that medical research is not the responsibility of any single body. The universities may have the opportunity of doing things which the Medical Research Council, by its nature and organisation, cannot do; and the independent private research organisations also play a vital part. Incidentally, may I at this point put in a good word for the pharmaceutical firms? In some ways they are not very popular just now, but they do make a most important contribution to medical research, particularly in a field and of a kind which no other body would be likely to undertake.
Of course, it is only to a limited extent that one can generalise about the part played by the universities in medical research at the present time. But I think it is a safe generalisation to say that for a long time they have had far too little money to devote to it. Forty years ago, after the First World War, when the
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medical professorial units were first founded, there was a considerable amount of accommodation, and the problem was to find and train up the right people. Now, with all the growth of the technological side of medicine, and the enormous development of medical research, the problem of accommodation is an important limiting factor. One university department, for example, with an international reputation, which started 40 years ago with ten research workers and about the same number of technicians, now has 60 research workers and over 100 technicians in the same space. There can be few, if any, medical schools which are not seriously hampered by the lack of space for research facilities, and particularly space for clinical research which needs to be done in the immediate neighbourhood of the wards. If some schools are not even asking for the space they need, I suspect that it is because they have become completely disheartened by the financial stringency adopted in respect of university expansion in recent years; and the recent rejection by the Treasury of the University Grants Committee's recommendations in this respect was a blow from which the universities have not yet recovered.
I could quote many instances of our research deficiencies in the university field, but I will mention only one. As Professor McMichael pointed out in The Times the other day, we have only one professorial Chair in Virology in this country. Virology is concerned with the vast range of diseases caused by viruses, including poliomyelitis, influenza and the common cold. But, more than that, the study of viruses is throwing light on heredity, cancer and the nature of life itself. I know that good work is being done in this field elsewhere, including M.R.C. units, but it is not being adequately fertilised at the university level. We ought to be leading the world in virology; instead, as Professor McMichael pointed out, we depend on the United States of America for our Salk and Sabin vaccine for poliomyelitis, products of their inadequate high school education.
There is another reason why it is important that the universities should be encouraged to play a much larger part in promoting medical research. Medical research has a vital part to play in medical education. If universities ever came to

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be regarded merely as teaching institutions they would lose half their educational value. It is essential to the education of both the undergraduate and the post-graduate student that they should be brought up in an atmosphere in which positive contributions are being made to knowledge and there is a spirit of critical inquiry alive. This can happen only if active research is going on in the medical schools. There will be some research workers who devote their whole time to research, and others who will combine with teaching. What matters is that the student should have the opportunity of seeing research at first hand, and that research workers and teachers should meet over lunch or a cup of coffee.
As the Porritt Committee Report says:
"We cannot escape the conclusion that the medical faculties of British universities are now lagging considerably behind those of many comparable countries in respect of research facilities, accommodation and available teachers … Unless the Government provides the funds to facilitate research and expand accommodation in our medical schools, universities will be unable to recruit all the staff they need, and in a time of world shortage we must expect to see many of our most able doctors absorbed into other countries"—
which, of course, is happening. Not only that, but we shall cease to attract to our shores the cream of the post-graduate students from all over the world who in the past have come not only because of our reputation as teachers, but also because of our outstanding contributions to research. Only the universities can implement the educational value of research. Apart from its units which happen to be housed in universities, the Medical Research Council can make no contribution to this. Indeed, its influence operates in the opposite direction because, by isolating leading research workers in its own institutions, it withdraws them from the teaching life of the universities.
My Lords, it is inescapable that we cannot develop medical research properly, especially in the universities, without more money. I have said how much we owe to the big charitable funds and generous individual donors, but it cannot be right that heads of departments should have to spend so much of their time begging for money from private sources in order that research may be begun, or even continued. One London post-graduate hospital, in addition to recurrent grants from the
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U.G.C. and the M.R.C., receives money from no fewer than 30 private charities and individuals. What I have said about medicine is true of dental surgery, too. Excellent work is being done in the field of research, but while we spend £50 million a year on dental surgery, in the form of treatment, we spend a comparatively meagre amount on research. Dental colleagues need better facilities and more encouragement to take up research as a career.
So far I have said nothing about the Ministers. The Minister of Health at present has little direct responsibility for research but, just as he must provide facilities for medical teaching, he is concerned, with the U.G.C, with questions of accommodation for research in teaching hospitals. I suspect that his negotiations are directed mainly to making sure that the U.G.C. pay for it. In the Regional Hospital Board hospitals a little research goes on, and it is said that there is little application for the funds which the Board can allot for this purpose. That is not surprising, because, on the whole, effective research does not spring up sporadically: it grows in an atmosphere where it is cultivated; and that atmosphere does not exist in most Regional Hospital Board hospitals; nor have they the accommodation for it; nor have most Regional Hospital Board consultants the time.
I hope that special attention will be paid to the need for both education and research in Regional Hospital Board hospitals and especially in the new district hospitals. I know the Minister is very sympathetic to developments in post-graduate education in this field, but I would emphasise that research is as important for education there as elsewhere. At present, Regional Hospital Board hospitals in general have no link with the universities, though Birmingham's new plans are setting an excellent example of this. The material for research in Regional Hospital Board hospitals is very large, and I hope that future plans will provide for space, equipment and salaries. To sum up, I know that, given the opportunities, the accommodation and the equipment, we can hold our own in the field of medical research, and education, with any other country in the world. But we are not now getting the opportunities we deserve. We all know the reasons for this, but I hope that we may be honest about it and not pretend that we do not really need more money for

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medical research because we have not the workers to spend it on.
The Times Review of Industry and Technology, published this month, contains a survey by Mr. Brian Abel Smith of the health expenditure in seven countries, including England and Wales and the United States. I will not go into details, but a comparison which comes out of it is that, according to his estimate, we in this country spend on education and research £33 million a year, and the United States £207 million a year. Taking into account the difference in the population, this means that the United States is spending about twice as much per head of the population on medical research and teaching as we are. As the noble Lord, Lord Todd, said in this House in the debate last Wednesday [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 247 (No. 46) col. 129]:
"… if we want to spend money on anything like the American scale the first thing we have to do is to increase our gross national product."
I do not question the desirability of that, but it does not exclude another possibility. We might have a different sense of priorities and spend more on medical and scientific research and, indeed, on our universities in general, even if we have to spend less on some other things.
6.10 p.m.
The LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD: My Lords, I should like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for bringing this subject to our attention to-day, because it seems to me that at this particular juncture of the National Health Service it was an excellent thing that this distinguished body of people should have taken this long, critical look at the medical services of Great Britain; and I am very thankful that it is being debated in this House. I feel, as one who is not an expert in these matters, that I ought in a sense to apologise for taking part in this debate, but it is a fact that, apart from the trained workers in this field, I suppose there is no one who is more closely in touch with the sick people of the land than a minister of religion. One of his primary pastoral duties is to visit the sick and, therefore, we do get a pretty good idea of the sort of opinion that people have about the way in which they are treated.
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I therefore ask myself what it is that the ordinary person wants and needs in regard to possible illness. He needs, first, to feel that if he or any member of his family is overtaken by illness he will be able to get skilled attention. Second, he needs to feel that he can get this without being ruined financially; and, thirdly, in a free country such as ours he desires to go to a doctor of his own choice. Under the National Health Service these needs are basically met. As has already been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, no one to-day need fear that they cannot get medical treatment on the ground of expense; everyone can get it. All of us have our own doctor, on whose list we are; and the Executive Council has a duty to see that everybody is fixed up with a doctor. So, when the Porritt Committee state that in its view the National Health Service is approved by the people of this land, there is no doubt in my mind whatever that they are 100 per cent. right. I think it has conferred great benefits on our people. I know that there are certain aspects of the National Health Service which can be misused, but, after all, that is part of the moral issue which faces the nation and I think it has to be viewed on that ground.
What is also needed in the National Health Service is that the people who work in it should be content. They must be able to do their job in reasonable freedom and decent conditions and must feel that they have been given a fair deal in regard to both their status and remuneration. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, made some amusing remarks in regard to the lip service that may be paid to the phrase that the general practitioner is the lynch-pin of the whole Service; but, as he himself pointed out, in actual fact that remains true, because it is the general practitioner more than anybody else who is in touch with the general public at the first moment of the development of illness, and it is he who has to decide what illness is serious and what is not. I therefore welcome this opportunity of saying that, in my view, having talked it over as I have done with many people, the vast majority of these people in this land are very grateful to their general practitioner for what he does for them.

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I notice that in conclusion No. 50 the Committee find little ground for the allegation that the G.P. is conscious of a loss of status. I have often discussed this with a number of my medical friends and I would, with all respect, beg leave to ask if there is not possibly a sense in which the general practitioner is feeling that he has lost a certain status. I think there is some evidence that not all the general practitioners are particularly happy at the present time, and it may be that some are feeling that their position vis-à-vis the consultant is not quite what they wish it to be. If so, are there not means by which real partnership in every sense of the word between the consultant and the general practitioner can still be further strengthened?
May I say how much I welcome the stress in the Report that the general practitioners should have full opportunities of playing a part in hospital work? This is already done to a much greater extent than is sometimes realised. In the Birmingham region, the one with which I am personally most acquainted, one-third of our general practitioners have some kind of hospital post, which is a very large number. But, again, in talking with some of my medical friends, I have heard it suggested that it would be desirable and helpful if there could be more traffic the other way. Just as it is encouraged that general practitioners should go into hospitals and work there, can consultants come out more and discuss with the general practitioners their problems, and work with them? Here I speak as a layman. I cannot venture an opinion on a professional matter such as this. But for the Service to work absolutely satisfactorily obviously the fullest fellowship between consultants; and general practitioners is vital.
It seemed to me, therefore, that presumably this was one of the reasons which led the Porritt Committee to suggest the idea of the area health board. As the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, at first sight this must be a very attractive idea. In the whole National Health Service the fewer watertight compartments there are the better, but I hope I may be permitted to make one or two observations on the proposal and, in so doing, I want to turn to the question of hospitals. In conjunction with the Ministry of Health one of the chief
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duties of the Regional Hospital Board is to plan the set-up of the future hospitals. I would suggest that to do this adequately it must be in charge of an extensive area if it is really to get a broad sweep into its planning.
But if the area health board is to be responsible, as it is, for practically all the aspects of the Health Service, if it is to be in charge of such a wide area, what would follow? Just think of the enormous amount of detailed running of services that would come its way. From the point of view of detailed administration, surely the area health board should not cover too big an area; but if its area is reduced for that reason, what of the planning of the hospitals? I would further suggest that to scrap almost the entire present administrative set-up would be a very drastic step to take. The present bodies—the hospital services, executive councils, and the health authorities of the local authorities—might be prepared to give up some of their functions or even to die if there was a great benefit thereby caused. But will the benefits conferred by centralised control really justify the upheaval? Only comparatively recently have the existing bodies been able to plan ahead. Until then they had been adjusting themselves to carry their heavy loads. Forward plans are now being made which are broad in scope and these will improve and rationalise the services which are being given. I would suggest that a major administrative upheaval now might well delay those plans.
Further, I think we ought to consider the relationship of the teaching hospital with the rest. The Committee propose that if area health boards are set up the teaching hospitals should be left outside them. What would be the effect of that? One of the greatest benefits, I think, conferred by the National Health Service has been the upgrading of many of our hospitals. I know that we have a long way to go, but there is no longer now the two-tier system of the voluntary hospital and the rest; and in saying that I am not criticising the old voluntary hospital at all, but I am saying that one of the most encouraging things is to go into some of these hospitals which in the past were rather shocking, and see the way in which they have been improved and the way in which their morale has gone up as a result. This has had an agreeable effect

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on the recruitment of staff in these hospitals.
I would agree that the teaching hospitals must occupy a special position. Their functions demand this, and that is why, very properly, they have their own boards of governors. But I would suggest that if you are not to get an unpleasant kind of dichotomy in the hospital system of the land, while the teaching hospitals must have their special position they should not have an extra special position; and I cannot help feeling that if you have this proposal of an area health board with everything else there and the teaching hospitals outside it, you might get that rather unfortunate division.
I would also suggest to your Lordships that this proposal for the setting up of area health boards might lead to such an upheaval that it would cause a great deal of uncertainty in the working of these services at the present time. It is my privilege to see a good deal of the way in which our official administrators, the salaried men in our staffs, carry out their duties, and I must say how impressed I am with the sense of devotion and vocation with which they do it. I would ask, therefore, is this the moment when they should be disturbed? Further, we ought to consider the effect of this sweeping proposal on those who work voluntarily in this system. I do not think it is generally realised that there are more people who are working voluntarily to-day in our hospital system than ever before. That, I think, gives the lie to the nonsense that is occasionally talked about the whole system being one of bureaucracy.
At this moment I am thinking of the people who are serving on Regional Hospital Boards, hospital management committees, and the like. The composition of these bodies changes gradually from year to year as one-third go out of office each March, and they may return or they may not. But I would feel that normally gradual change in the composition of these bodies is all that is required, for sweeping change can lead to a breakdown in the sense of continuity of the work. Occasionally I would not deny there must be sweeping change. That took place in 1948 on the Appointed Day, when the new committees and
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Boards took over from the old ones. But I would beg leave to doubt whether a similar sweeping change is needed at the present time, and I think that there are many who would agree with me when I say that the relations between the various branches of the National Health Service at the present time are good and they are improving.
Finally, I would just mention one or two things about which I am extremely grateful to this Report for what it has said, because undoubtedly there are certain aspects of the National Health Service which could be improved and which should be improved. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, spoke in a very moving fashion about the maternity services of the land and the need there is for improvement in this direction. May I suggest that one of our chief difficulties is the shortage of practising midwives—not trained midwives, there are a number of those, but practising midwives? I therefore think that if there could be greater co-ordination whereby the local authorities and the hospitals could pool their resources of practising midwives that might considerably help. I think that possibly—here the noble Lord. Lord Amulree, is an authority—that pooling of resources between hospital and local authorities might also help in the matter of geriatrics.
I would also say how grateful I was to the Porritt Committee for what it said in kindly fashion about the value of small hospitals. We know the great district hospital of the future has to come and I suggest it will do great things. It will be the parent hospital for the area and set the tone for the rest and encourage them in their work. But as one who has recently emerged from being a patient in a small hospital, mainly manned by general practitioners but with consultants coming in, I cannot forbear this opportunity to say how grateful I was for the treatment I received and the kindly, friendly atmosphere in such places. I know these small hospitals cannot exist everywhere and they obviously have their limitations, but I believe that they have definite assets and I hope we shall not lose them.
I have had the privilege over the years since the Appointed Day of working very closely with various aspects of the National Health Service. I think the

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Service is something of which our country can be justly proud. I believe it confers social benefits which are of immense value to our people. I am therefore grateful to this distinguished Committee for this careful look they have taken at it, and for the debate to which it has given rise in this House to-day, and I feel that many of us will go back to the work we try in all humility to do, with renewed enthusiasm.
6.25 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to listen to the right reverend Prelate giving us his personal experience of the working of the Health Services in his area: one gets a breath of fresh air and a feeling straight away that he knows exactly what he is talking about from personal experience. He did it as usual to-day, and I agreed with almost everything he said. I am not quite sure that I always enjoy being in a small hospital. If I were due to have my gall-bladder out, I think I should rather go to a bigger one and pick my surgeon rather carefully. But if one is to have something less serious, there is immense advantage in the pleasures and comforts of the small hospital. The practical difficulties which arise are those which come from having so many doctors coming into the small hospital, particularly if it serves a large area and a large number of general practitioners. The nurses have great difficulty in keeping track of the differing instructions which different doctors give; and not all small hospitals are of the standard we should wish them to be.
The other point where I take leave to depart a little from the right reverend Prelate is with regard to what he said about teaching hospitals. Not that I do not agree with his criticism of the possible effects of the area health boards, but I think his criticism is equally valid now: the separation of the teaching hospitals from the Regional Board hospitals is a very real thing, even to-day. It might be a little worse with area health boards, but it is certainly something which already causes some difficulty.
It seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, is going to have a difficult job, when he comes to reply to this debate, because it has already ranged so widely. We cannot blame the noble Lord,
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Lord Amulree, for that, for the Porritt Report ranges so very widely. I felt that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, rather cheated a little, because he took the Report as his text and preached a series of sermons which did not bear any great relation to the text. He made us read the Report, but then, so far as he was concerned, all our work was in vain. The Report is an interesting document, but it is rather odd and peculiar. It was born in the anger and discontent of the Annual Meetings of the British Medical Association in 1956 and 1957. That is what started it off, when there was talk of strikes among doctors. They were all so fed up and furious—mainly on money matters, let it be said—that they decided they would do something about it. Their attitude was that anybody could think up a better National Health Service than the one we had at that time. So they took some steps, and it was a very sensible thing to do.
First of all, they decided to select a distinguished Chairman, and get the Secretary of the B.M.A. to be the Secretary. Then they invited all the professional bodies to nominate possible members, which these bodies did; and then the Chairman and Secretary themselves selected from these nominees the people they would like to serve on the Committee. That is how this Committee came to be appointed. It was a most odd proceeding, and although the Report says at the beginning that it is sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons and so on, it is not really sponsored by them, and I do not think it would claim now to be sponsored by them.
In fact, my Lords, the Report is produced by this group, as my noble friend Baroness Summerskill said, of 43 men and one woman, of whom half are under the age of 50, as a sort of intellectual exercise. That is really what it is, and I am told by my friends who know a lot about this Committee that at first there was a terrific amount of scrapping; they were all at each other's throats; they thought the National Health Service was Terrible and all the rest of it. But as they started to study it, they began to get more and more sensible—which was a healthy thing; they performed a job of self-education. They set out a number of the recommendations in

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the Report—perfectly sensible and reasonable recommendations, though some of them are not properly thought out.
The great majority of these people were practising clinicians. They were weak on administrative experience; they did not know anything about it. They knew little about public health. They had, I think, one representative of industrial medicine, yet they have a most important section on industrial medicine. There was nobody who had run a Regional Hospital Board. There was certainly nobody except doctors—it was a wholly medical Committee. As my noble friend Lady Summerskill said, they were a little weak on psychiatrics. I think they were a little cheeky about psychiatrists; they said that if only psychiatrists were as good as general physicians, how much better everything would be! My experience is rather the reverse: if only practising physicians were as good as some psychiatrists, how much better things would be! But that depends on the kind of people you have on the Committee.
They started off in a state of criticism and they ended up in a state of praise of the National Health Service. My noble friend Lady Summerskill quoted their view, and I do not want to repeat it, but I draw your Lordships' attention to the Gallup Poll survey at the end. It is not a bad piece of work. It contains some most interesting statistical work, including some interesting questions about whether women would prefer to have their babies at home or in hospital. Table 24 shows this interesting fact: that about 30 per cent. of women would prefer to have their baby at home, and about 54 per cent. would prefer it in hospital. This depends on all sorts of factors, as your Lordships know from other sources, but it is worth remembering that a great many women want to have home midwifery for good reasons—perhaps because there is nobody else to look after the home if they are not there, and they can at least keep an eye on things upstairs, where they are, if they have younger children; and perhaps for other reasons.
The Committee started this inquiry in criticism and ended up in praise. But there were two themes running through it. They were concerned, if they possibly could, to concentrate all the health
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services under the Ministry of Health, although they were not absolutely consistent about this. They suggested pulling out the services in industry at present run by the Ministry of Labour and putting them under the Ministry of Health; and they also wanted to pull away all services run by the local authorities, put them under the area health boards and then place them under the Ministry of Health. So really they wanted to get a monopoly of services under the Ministry of Health.
The second theme was the creation of the area health boards. I think they had the germ of a good idea here, and that was that it would be a good thing to bring the general practitioners, the local health authority services, the hospital services and the consultants all together, so that they were all of equal parity and esteem and were all working as one group. But they have not thought it out at all. They have not told us how big an area health board should be; they do not give a clue about this, whether it is to cover 100,000 or 1 million, or 2 million or 3 million population. There is no clue in it as to whether it is to have one major hospital in it, two or four major hospitals—there is nothing here about it. The composition of the boards they never thought out. They did not say whether they are to be appointed by the Minister of Health or elected by various bodies. They have not thought the thing out at all. They have not proposed the size, or the number of people who should comprise the board, and they have not looked at the question of the position of the general practitioner.
Whatever the defects, out tripartite system has the nice advantage that, so far as the general practitioner is concerned, he is a self-governing person. The general practitioners run their own service through their local executive councils, along with the chemists and the dentists and the opticians. Those in the general practitioner service are more self-governing than in any other part of the Service. But, so far as I can see, under these area health boards the general practioner would quickly be subordinated to the medical officers of health and the consultants and hospital services. The Committee have not examined that at all. They have not examined the statutory results of converting the

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medical officer of health into a sort of social medicine physician working for the area health board. If they had done, they would have found that they were faced with a mountainous task in trying to straighten things out.
The difficulty about the work of the medical officer of health is that a lot of it is often dull, but most of it is important. Preventive work is often not exciting because you do not see much happening; it is only when things go wrong that you get a dramatic picture. Yet a lot of the work of the M.O.H. is of that kind. I am not at all sure, just as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said, whether it really is right to put him in with the Hospital Service. But I suspect that one of the attractions was that in the Hospital Service he would be graded as a consultant and would get a better salary. So I think this is ill-thought out and not really practical.
The noble Lord, Lord Brain, spoke about research, and I must say that his was a most interesting speech. I only wish it had been delivered a week ago, when we were debating scientific research, because I tried to say almost exactly the same thing as he did, except that I was speaking about psychiatric research. Every problem I spoke of, every difficulty we had, was reflected in what he said about general medical research. The position is exactly the same vis-à-vis the Medical Research Council. There is the difficulty over getting the universities to create research posts; for junior and more advanced people—they are identical. The time that is wasted over getting money from private charities in order to keep the good work going is deplorable and sad. I agreed with everything he said, and I only hope that his having repeated the argument will have driven it home. The only thing is that, unfortunately, it is not the job of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, to answer on research, unless he is holding a watching brief for the Medical Research Council as well as everything else.
I am going to say only one word more, and that about the proposals in connection with industrial health services made in this Porritt Report. They suggest that the industrial health services have been neglected in the past; and they are quite right. They suggest that that might well be one of the functions of
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the area health boards. They want to see the appointed factory doctors and the medical factory inspectorate transferred to the Ministry of Health. They have not thought at all about the nursing side of industrial medical services which are, from the cost point of view, far the most important. They have not thought about how they should be paid for at all. They make some vague reference to money coming from the area health boards to pay for them, and that the area health boards should play some part in their administration. That is really not good enough because, in my experience, these services are extremely difficult to run. But they are well run where paid for by industry, and I think there is a great deal to be said about making industry pay for them, though it might be nice in some ways if we could have contributions from the Health Service. Nevertheless, there is a lot to be said for them because they are an integral part of industry, and ought to be. Again, the Committee have not thought it through.
Therefore, the impression which this Report has left on me is one of satisfaction that the medical profession should have come so far in its own personal growth and development, but I also have the feeling that perhaps there is not a great deal that is very novel or very important in the Report. It is encouraging that they should have found things far better than they expected to find them, but in so far as they have made constructive suggestions they have not, as I say, thought through their full implications.
6.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT WAVERLEY: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend Lord Amulree for giving us this opportunity of debating the Report. I do not propose to take up much of your Lordships' time to-night. There is, however, one aspect of the Report which I should like briefly to mention. I refer to Chapter 16 and the comments on medical education. Here the Report records the members' conviction that the standard of medical care in any country can be fairly directly equated with the standard and the efficiency of medical education. It expresses anxiety—an anxiety echoed by my noble friend Lord Brain—that this country's medical schools in teaching

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hospitals and universities may be lagging behind those in other comparable countries. The Report urges the Government to provide the necessary money to overcome shortcomings in respect of research, accommodation, and teacher availability. That Her Majesty's Government should indeed strive to undertake greater responsibility in these fields is, I think, right.
There is an aspect of the problem which has not received emphasis, indeed it has not really been mentioned; and it will, I am sure, in the years to come assume an ever-increasing importance. Traditionally in this country a considerable part of medical education has taken place around the bedside. Here are learnt the art of interrogation, the techniques of full and efficient physical examination, and the correct evaluation of such abnormal signs as may be found. All these, despite the enormous expansion of scientific methods of investigation, are still an indispensable part of the full evaluation of the patient.
One of the products of the National Health Act, as I am sure your Lordships will agree, has been the progressive upgrading of the standard of service provided by the Regional Board hospitals. A consequence of this has been that increasing numbers of patients, who in former times would have been referred by their family doctors to teaching centres for investigation and treatment, are admitted to their local district hospitals for this purpose. As one who has the honour to be on the staff of such a hospital, I have over the past decade become increasingly disturbed that so much excellent, indeed one might say indispensable and essential, teaching material is being denied to our medical undergraduates.
I think it likely that, as I am on the staff of a non-teaching hospital, diffidence would have prevented my presuming to mention the question of medical education at all, were it not that one of the most experienced of medical educationists, my noble friend Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, raised just this point when your Lordships debated the Hospital Plan approximately a year ago. My noble friend said on that occasion [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 237, col. 531]:
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"… teaching hospitals are now feeling the draught. They no longer have a sufficiency, either in number or variety, of patients for clinical teaching."
He described how shortly before a board of clinical students of a university hospital had written to him, saying:
"it is generally agreed that there is an increasing insufficiency of teaching material in teaching hospitals because first-class hospitals now supply the needs of patients in their own neighbourhood …"
It was my noble friend's belief, as he put it, that teaching and district general hospitals should walk the path of progress together, and that into district general hospitals students should be admitted, believing, as he did, that district hospitals had a major and indispensable part to play in medical teaching, education and research.
With the views of so distinguished a colleague I most emphatically agree. If patients are no longer arriving at the teaching schools in sufficient variety and number, then inevitably undergraduates must go to the patients. This implies periods of secondment to selected district I general hospitals. The present staff of these hospitals are already too hard-pressed to undertake the additional responsibility and burden of fully supervising their studies and teaching. It would be necessary for clinical tutors, probably of senior registrar grade, to rotate from the teaching centre. They, too, would benefit from the added experience. It would also be necessary, in the planning of the new district hospitals, to provide library, lecture room, laboratory facilities, and so on, for these many young men and women, and, of course, residential accommodation. I hope Her Majesty's Government will give due consideration to the perspective of the whole question of medical education.
6.48 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I would first apologise to the House for not being present, due to a private engagement, when the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, opened this debate. From these Benches I would welcome this debate on a most complex but highly interesting Report—a Report which can hardly be debated in full in one sitting. I hope that when the time comes for the next debate on hospital services or the ten-year

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Hospital Plan the contents of this Report will be carefully studied and the relevant parts incorporated in the Government's proposals. This seems to me to be the best way of implementing the more desirable aspects of this distinguished Report.
Most noble Lords who have taken part in this debate are themselves distinguished persons in the field of medicine, but I take part as a layman whose only claim to do so is serving on a house committee of a children's hospital. May I at this juncture make one criticism of the Report? There seems to me to be no mention of children's hospitals, which play a vital part in the hospital life of this country. I think it is a pity that nothing has been said about the care of children other than the care of subnormal children—though I recognise that that is a very important aspect of our hospital routine. But bearing in mind the recent Ministry of Health recommendation to allow unrestricted visiting in children's wards and in children's hospitals, I am rather surprised that the Report did not have something to say on this score.
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and others, have dwelt on the maternity services. I should like to say just a word about them, because I have toured quite extensively the maternity department of my own local hospital at Epsom. I would bear out much of what the noble Baroness says, because no mother is fit to leave hospital and run a home after only 48 hours' confinement after the birth of a child. I think that at least ten days are needed. Being a father of three young children myself, I have naturally been given views on this, and I think it is fair comment.
This argument is reinforced by the fact that there is an acute shortage of home-helps—certainty in the Surrey area. This means in many cases that a mother who has no relations or close friends living near has to go home and cope not only with the new-born baby and the cooking and other household duties, but probably with other young children as well. This frequently means that the mother develops further complications, leading to a return to hospital and imposing an added burden on the already overworked hospital staffs. So I feel that the Government should pay particular attention to improving maternity services. This is especially true, I believe, in the
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New Towns. I have mentioned this point before, but there are two or three New Towns planned to commence construction shortly, and in these New Towns there will be a preponderance of young people, many of whom will, in time, marry and have families. So it is essential that there should be proper facilities for hospitals, especially new hospitals to be built under the ten-year plan, for this improvement to take place.
May I now say a word about the problem of the smaller hospitals, which is mentioned in paragraph 398 of the Report? I agree that old, small and uneconomic hospitals should be scrapped, but there are many small hospitals, cottage hospitals, especially in rural areas, which do an exceptionally good job. There are also small general hospitals—and may I instance just one, that at Teignmouth in Devon? This is a new hospital, built in 1954; indeed, it is the first completely new National Health hospital to be constructed, because the old building was completely destroyed during the last war by a direct hit from a bomb. So far as I know, this hospital is not scheduled for closure, but I would paint out that it has equipment and amenities of which many London teaching hospitals might well be jealous. If one is going to be ill, or even have a major operation, this is an ideal hospital to enter. It has lovely views of Teignmouth harbour, the most modern operating and X-ray theatres, and it serves a large area. It also precludes the need for many elderly people to travel fifteen miles to Exeter, where there is already, I believe, quite a large waiting list in the city's two rather old, although very well-run, hospitals.
May I now say a word about accident services? It is very necessary, with the increased amount of traffic on the roads, and the ever-increasing number of accidents in the home, to have properly equipped casualty services in our hospitals. Many of the modern ones have these, but a number do not. In one of the daily newspapers recently there was a disturbing story of how in the Grimsby General Hospital a number of drunken people, some of a violent nature, had been admitted for casualty treatment during the evenings, and young girl nurses were frequently asked to look after them. It seems essential that there should be a component of male

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nurses for such work. That case also shows how the casualty departments of these hospitals, particularly at night, are often understaffed. I would ask the Minister to bear this point in mind, and, if necessary, bring it to the attention of the Regional Hospital Boards.
Another small section of this Report deals with the ancillary services—radiographers and physiotherapists. As I understand it, a recent pay award has been granted and is in the process of being implemented. But, even so, salaries are still not adequate. I would say particularly of physiotherapy that recent advances in medicine have made it even more necessary to have fully qualified and sufficient numbers of physiotherapists and especially, I would say, of male physiotherapists, who often have families to support, and frequently very inadequate salaries on which to do it. My Lords, I would conclude as I started, by commending this Report. It is not perfect. To be quite frank, I have not had a chance of reading every single section of it, and I do not suppose many others of your Lordships have, either. But I hope that the Government will study it very seriously, and that when their own ten-year hospital plan comes up for further discussion this Report will be largely taken in conjunction with it.
7.0 p.m.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to this debate. I, like others, am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for putting down this Motion to-day. Many noble Lords have spoken about the amount of reading, and certainly, with a Report of this size, our homework has been quite considerable; but I made a list of the various points, and I thought that, as the debate went on, I should know how many I need not refer to because they had already been referred to by other noble Lords. Some noble Lords, I know, realise the particular interest to me of this Report, because in the days when I was Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health we were doing all the basic work for the Health Service; and I think that never enough praise was given to the late Mr. Ernest Brown for the difficult years he went through then. We began before the Beveridge Committee had reported in
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1942, and we worked on until we produced the White Paper of 1944.
My interest in coming back to the White Paper again was because this idea of an area board is very much in line with some of the proposals in that White Paper of 1944. At that time, as noble Lords know, there was a Coalition Government, and the debate on the White Paper in February, 1944—there was no Division—was an extremely interesting debate. I took the precaution of looking up and re-reading the speech I made then, when I was in another place but geographically in this place, and the points that were brought up then on the subject of a National Health Service. We all agreed from the start, I think, on a National Health Service (inside here it is called a "comprehensive service for all") but the question was: how was it to be organised?
When I read this Report, and particularly that part about the area boards, I came to the conclusion that this Report is a very disappointing one, and it is disappointing for two reasons. The first reason is that, on going through the whole thing, one feels it shows a certain dissatisfaction of the scheme by the authors, but very little suggestion as to how to improve it. In fact, they take one bit after another, put up a suggestion and then say that they do not agree with it. I was interested because I think we have really had something pretty genuine from these people. So often a Report comes out and it is thought that everybody on the Committee believed in every mortal thing, and people do not realise that the members of the Committee had any difficulty in their minds at all. As I say, there was no difference between us, and there is none between them, on a comprehensive Health Service: it is on what sort of a Service that is going to be. That was my first disappointment with this Report.
My second was this. I had always hoped that we might get a less complex method of administration. We have an organisation from the Minister down to the hospitals; we have the general practitioners; we have this council, we have the other; we have committees; we have all the rest of it. It is tremendously complex; what I would call very bulky. I hoped that on this occasion we were going to find that a Committee of people had

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been able to find a simpler method of organisation, a simpler framework for the administration. But as I went on, I jotted down on a piece of paper the various committes and the various boards recommended. You have the area board, and you also have the Regional Board. On we went, through the divisional councils, the department of social health, and so on. I came to the conclusion that, if possible, this was worse, and it was worse for another reason—and I hope that this will not be misunderstood in any way whatever. It seemed to me that more and more of the doctors' time was going to be taken up sitting on committees, councils and boards, when after all, they ought to be using their skill to heal the sick.
It is a very difficult problem, I know. The Committee say that the internal administration of any hospital should be tripartite—medical, nursing and lay—to concentrate on making it harmonious. We all know these things; I knew them very well in the Emergency Hospital Service during the war. Then we find that the chairman is to be the honorary secretary of the medical committee, or one of the consultants. In each case more and more skilled doctors are being taken and used on more and more committees. I am not satisfied that our present set-up is completely right: I was not satisfied, as we said in the debate in 1944, that the White Paper was completely right. That put forward a scheme for a wider, joint board; and a scheme, too, suggesting that the hospitals should not be separated from the other services. It set out that the new joint authority should be charged with preparing an area plan for the Health Service as a whole, not only the hospital service.
Then it set out that it was to be the duty of the joint authorities themselves to secure a complete hospital and consultant service for that area, including sanataria, isolation, mental health services, ambulance and ancillary services. We also kept the maternity hospitals inside the plan of this joint board. I do not believe the idea of different personnel would have been entirely satisfactory, but I do not think we have necessarily found the most satisfactory way yet. This is not surprising: we are dealing with an enormous problem. We are dealing with something which is costing an enormous
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amount of money. It is spread over the entire country, and yet its success depends on the individual doctor looking after the individual patient. There is the big problem we have to face.
Now, my Lords, if we are to deal with this Report, and not, perhaps. with our ideas on a new Health Service (though it would be interesting if every noble Lord would make his suggestions), I must cut out a good many things with which other noble Lords have dealt and with the majority of which I agree, but I should like to say something about rehabilitation, because nobody has yet mentioned that. It is dealt with in paragraph 510. As to rehabilitation or convalescence—call it what you will—I believe that at present there is a big gap. The Report says:
"Rehabilitation is concerned with the recovery phase of illness."
Further down, it says,
"… yet in this phase of illness the patient is left to fend for himself more than in any other".
I am myself absolutely convinced that there is a great deal of truth in that. People naturally come out of hospital very soon these days. Beds are required, and not only in maternity cases. Often it is very difficult for people coming out of hospital; they get depressed and worried. The trouble is psychological as well as physical. Only last week I was inquiring of somebody about a friend of hers, an elderly person who had come out of hospital about six months ago. I asked her how she was, and my friend said, "The operation was entirely successful, but she has never really recovered her health". There is too much of leaving the thing at that stage, to see what help can be given afterwards. That help might be given by the family doctor, in which case there might be more room for the smaller hospitals, so that the family doctor could help the patient when the acute stage was over.
So far as I remember, no noble Lord has yet referred to two parts in the Report, one dealing with private practice and one dealing with private beds in hospitals. I have been trying to get some figures (but I do not think it is really possible to get them) to show how many people are using private practice only, how many are on a doctor's list

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but mostly go to private practice, and how many go between the two. I have figures, but the figures I have are for 1952, and I believe there has been an increase in the number who are going to private practice. As the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has already said, there is a great deal of praise for the work of the general practitioner; and this is right. There is also the feeling that perhaps the standard will not stay as high as it ought to stay. I am sure that in any profession there are the good, the very good and the not so good. I hope that the standard is being sufficiently kept up so that we do not have many of the not so good. Some patients are not finding it so, and are therefore going to private practitioners. They do not take their names off their doctors' lists; they simply go somewhere else.
But I would say that I have nothing but praise for the medical attention I have had under the National Health scheme. Nothing could have been better; there was kindness, skill, attention, and patience, endless patience—and I am one of those people who ask a lot of questions. The standard could not have been better. I have been treated both under the National Health scheme and as a private patient, and I have been struck by the care, attention and patience both of the general practitioner and of the consultants. I believe that they could not have given me better attention. I would say that that happened in Edinburgh, where we find one of the highest standards of medical attention in the world. But perhaps I had better be careful because I might be thought to have some prejudice in favour of the surgeons in Edinburgh. As I had the great honour of being made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. I wish that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, were here. I could tell her that I was the first woman to receive that honour.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, is the noble Lady aware that in Edinburgh and in Scotland there are only two ladies who are practising surgeons? In that way Scotland is very far behind us. They are a Miss Kate Branson and one other.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, if I had been asked the number, I would have said that it was higher; but probably
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the noble Lord knows best. Perhaps they thought it better to help out in England and to bring their extra skill here. But the number of patients who are using private doctors is going up. I cannot get the exact figures.
I should now like to say something on the subject of private beds in hospitals. There is nothing against having them. We find this Report says that the rise in the price of private beds is astronomical. There is a great demand for medium-price beds, but I would ask: what about amenity beds? Are they being fully used? We know there are now various provident associations and that people are insuring so that if they have to have an operation or go into hospital they have their expenses paid. I believe the number in these schemes is over one million. It is moving in that direction. More and more people are wanting that cover. Reading the debate of 1948 on the Second Reading of the National Health Bill, as it then was, I noticed that the late Mr. Aneurin Bevan pointed out that there was no reason at all why people who wanted to pay for extra amenities, such as privacy, should not be allowed to do so. He went on to say that if we had a State theatre one would not charge the same price for all the seats.
I do think that we ought now to do something further for people who want privacy but have not a great deal of money. I would say that this applies particularly now that we have—and I am not against the plan—so many times more visitors coming into the hospitals. It is very tiring for some patients, who perhaps are in pain, if you have this crowd of people in the wards. There are many who, if they could get amenity beds—and I was told that they ought to cost about eight guineas a week—would be glad to pay for that privacy. I should like to ask the Minister: is it the case that there are amenity beds at that price? Is it the case that the amenity beds are not being used? And is it the case that patients are told in the hospitals that if they wish to have amenity beds, or to be in private rooms for the sake of privacy, then they have a chance of obtaining them? I do not believe they are told. I should like to know whether I am right in thinking that.
There are one or two other things I should like to mention but it is too late.

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It has been an extremely interesting debate. We have agreed on a comprehensive Health Service. The first time we had the proposal actually in print was in 1944. We had the Act in 1948. None of us would say it was perfect, but I would say that if people will get together and study the position—even if, as noble Lords have said, this study is not very realistic—then we shall get some improvements, although they may be minor ones. Although I would not say it was perfect, I do not think the time has come, as the right reverend Prelate said, to reorganise the whole Service.
7.18 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH (LORD NEWTON): My Lords, like everyone else taking part in this debate, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for giving us the opportunity of a "free-for-all" on the Health Services of this country—an opportunity afforded, as he must recognise, by the all-embracing comprehension of the Porritt Report. We have had a "free-for-all", but I will not say that the various bits of advice which your Lordships have given me cancel each other out, to use Lady Summerskill's description of some parts of the Porritt Report. I was a little daunted when it became borne in on me that no subject would be out of order in this debate, and I am glad to hear I have the sympathy of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. I am obliged to those of your Lordships who were good enough to warn me of matters that might be raised. But, even so, I fear I shall not be able to deal with all the points if I am not to speak at quite inordinate length, so I may have to reply to some of your Lordships by letter. We have roamed at will over the whole field and I hope the House will not think it unreasonable if I, in my turn, make some observations on my own account.
The Report has been referred by Sir Arthur Porritt to the nine bodies which sponsored the Committee for their views. It would obviously be right to wait for those views, and the House will understand that this limits the extent to which I can comment on the Report's recommendations. However, I can say that we welcome the results of the Gallup Poll organised for the Committee by the Daily Telegraph, which shows that 89
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per cent. of those approached were satisfied with the services they received under the National Health Service. This is something in which we can all take pride, particularly the doctors and nurses and other professions in direct contact with the patient. We welcome, as did the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, the noble Lord, Lord Brain, the right reverend Prelate and all who have spoken, the Committee's concept that a comprehensive National Health Service is sound, and that they have no evidence that patients receive better service under different systems. We welcome the emphasis throughout the Report on a doctor's obligations to his patient and on the importance of clinical freedom. We welcome the emphasis on the importance of adequate services for old people, based on the belief that, wherever possible, they should continue their lives in good health in their own homes.
A number of the Committee's recommendations are already accepted policy—for instance, the encouragement of group practice, which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, supported, the attachment of health visitors to particular group practices, the conception of the domiciliary team, with the family doctor as its clinical leader, and the emphasis throughout the Report on the importance of expanding community care.
The central recommendation is the, creation of area health boards responsible for planning and development. This recommendation was discussed particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, by the right reverend Prelate and by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor. This proposal is not worked out in detail, but certain questions will have to be answered. For instance, will co-ordination between the separate branches of the Service be improved by a system under which the day-to-day administration, as seen by the patient, will be split between four separate subsidiary councils, as well as the local health and welfare authority? Is it an advantage to split the local health service, which it is proposed to put under the area health board, from the welfare services, which would remain under the local welfare authority? Will the consultants in the proposed departments of social health, who are to be recruited from existing medical officers of health, happily

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serve two masters—the local health authority and the area health board? Is it in the national interest to deprive county councils and county borough councils of so large a part of the functions which they now exercise? I feel that the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, would probably answer, "No", to that question. I have taken note of those observations of your Lordships which have a bearing on these questions and the Government will await with interest the views upon them of the sponsors of the Committee.
The proposal of area health boards follows from the Porritt Committee's conclusion on what they call the "artificial tripartite division of the present National Health Service organisation." This was discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. I must say that I was a little surprised that the noble Lady thought it an unsatisfactory arrangement. I think she must have forgotten who was responsible for the National Health Service Act. Unless my recollection is wrong, she herself was a Minister in the Government at the time.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Lord has forgotten that that was 1948, and the noble Lord's Party has been in power for eleven years. Times change.
LORD NEWTON: Certainly, my Lords, but we are talking about something very fundamental—the organisation of the National Health Service. Again, I think that I ought to refrain from comment on what is said in the Report about this in advance of the views of the sponsoring bodies, but I should like to assure your Lordships that we believe that there should be the fullest co-operation between the three branches of the Service.
A recent circular on admission to hospital shows in a practical way how we seek to promote such co-operation. The principles which the circular sets out are generally accepted as good practice, but they need to be known and widely applied. Many patients, especially the elderly and those with some kind of chronic illness or mental disorder, do not need to be admitted to hospital if the domiciliary services of the local authority are effectively mobilised. I am referring
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to the services of the home nurse, the health visitor, the social worker or welfare officer, or the home help. This is why the general practitioner, before he approaches a hospital for the admission of a patient, considers whether the patient, with the help of these services, could be properly cared for outside the hospital, and, if so, he informs the local authority officer concerned.
Again, if the patient is put on the waiting list for admission, the hospital authority will give the general practitioner some indication of the probable date of admission and the general practitioner will often approach the local authority to see what supporting services they can provide meanwhile, if necessary, by an intensive mobilisation of help for a short time. A similarly close interaction between general practitioner, hospital and local authority is called for at the time of a patient's discharge, and a complementary circular on discharge procedures will be going out shortly.
Association between general practice and the local health authority services is quite rapidly becoming closer in a number of ways. For instance, current experiments, which are extending to more and more areas, are basing health visitors on the practices of general practitioners instead of on geographical areas, and we regard this as an important future development. At the same time, there is a growing use by general practitioners of the services of social workers, especially mental welfare officers, to collaborate with them in looking after the patients in their practices. The development of a local health authority service of trained social workers is at present in its earliest stages, as your Lordships will realise, and it would be premature to decide now the most effective way of organising this service, but close collaboration with general practitioners will certainly be a feature.
The home nursing service is, of course, closely linked with general practice and it is always available where treatment requiring nursing skill is prescribed by the general practitioner. I am not at all sure that there is a real need for the formal attachment of a local authority home nurse to an individual or group practice, since close collaboration of the home nurse and the general practitioner

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in respect of individual patients has always existed.
Moreover, I could not agree with any suggestion that, because there may be dangers in having too many people advising a patient, the home nursing service should be expanded at the expense of health visiting. The functions of home nurse and health visitor are quite distinct. The health visitor advises on the health problems of people of all ages in the family setting. She is called in when such advice is needed. Much of her work is in the field of maternity and child welfare, and lies not with sick people but with mothers who need guidance in mothercraft, nutrition, behaviour difficulties and things like that.
The home nurse's work is not advisory but clinical. When treatment requiring nursing skill is prescribed by a doctor, the home nurse, under the doctor's supervision, provides the nursing. At times the health visitor and the home nurse will both be concerned with the same family. But even here their work does not really overlap. Each is essential in her particular sphere, and there is no difficulty in establishing a satisfactory partnership.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, called for the combination of the health and welfare departments of local authorities into what he thought might be called a social department. In recent years, the trend of much development has been to bring local authority health and welfare services so closely together that they can be administered as one for the benefit of the patient. I agree with the noble Lord that there are innumerable cases, particularly among the old, where it is difficult to say where health ends and welfare begins. Our policy is to emphasise in the strongest terms the need for close cooperation between local health and welfare services but to leave it to local authorities themselves to decide how this can best be achieved. Some have chosen to refer their welfare work to the health committee, but the majority still prefer to administer the services under separate health and welfare committees, each with its own chief officer. Whatever machinery they choose to adopt, however, it remains the responsibility of committees, and particularly of officers, to ensure that the health and welfare services work as one. I do not think I can do better than quote
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some remarks of my right honourable friend at the Welfare Conference of Local Authority Associations in March, 1961. He said:
"There is in fact no intelligible boundary line between the services provided under the National Health Service Act and under the National Assistance Act: indeed, the division between the two is probably partly of historical, and partly of accidental, origin; it has little or no contemporary or logical significance. Whatever the illogicalities of the statutory framework, the plain fact is that the health-and-welfare services ought to be in a single entity from the point of view of those whom they serve. What matters is not the Act under which the powers are exercised (so long as the powers are sufficient), nor even the way in which the exercise of the powers is organised by the local authority (so long as The organisation is efficient), but the way in which the powers are applied to the individual or the family in need of help. They should be unaware of any distinctions created by Acts of Parliament or forms of organisation: the whole combination of services should come smoothly into play according to their needs".
Those are the views of my right honourable friend in his own words, and the local authorities are constantly being reminded of them.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked me whether hospitals could not have some ambulances of their own. Since the National Health Service Act came into operation in 1948 the ambulance service, as he knows, has been a local health authority's responsibility. The Guillebaud Committee, which reported in 1956, reviewed the organisation of the service in England and Wales and considered the suggestion that administrative responsibility for its provision should be transferred from the local health authorities to the hospital authorities, and they concluded that the arguments against the transfer of the whole of the ambulance service were decisive. This, too, is our current view.
I now come to the care of the elderly. The services for the elderly fall into four main groups: provision of suitable housing—that is to say, single bedroom dwellings and special flatlets with resident wardens; help in the home; residential care; and hospital care. The aim is to provide and keep all these services in balance so that the needs of the elderly are met in the right way at the right time—and I take this opportunity of reminding the House that the gracious Speech from the Throne forecast the publication

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this Session of the long-term plans of local authorities for the further development of their health and welfare services. I cannot this evening offer any anticipatory comment either in general terms or on the plans of individual authorities. I have, however, noted what the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, said about the desirability of making statistical studies.
As for progress up to date, the House, and particularly my noble friend Lord Auckland, might like to know that between December 31, 1959, and December 31, 1961, the number of home helps (in whole-time equivalents) employed by local authorities in England and Wales rose by 2,000, and the number of households assisted annually by home helps rose from 290,000 to 328,000. As regards residential care, the number of elderly people provided for has been rising steadily in recent years. The total reached 76,000 at the end of 1961. In 1962 some 4,000 new places were provided, which works out at between 75 and 80 every week. The ratio of purpose-built to adapted homes has increased continuously for many years, and it has accelerated quite rapidly in recent years. In 1951, 250 homes were opened, but only 5 were purpose-built; in 1957, 68 homes were opened, of which 26 were purpose-built; in 1961 no fewer than 55 of the 75 homes opened were purpose-built. This, my Lords, is an indication of the increased amount of capital made available for welfare services in the last few years. The current rate of opening of new purpose-built homes is about three a fortnight.
The result of all this development in terms of quality has been impressive. In 1948 almost all the available residential accommodation—some 42,000 places—was in ex-Public Assistance institutions. By the end of 1961 the number of such places had fallen to 34,000, even though the number of elderly people accommodated under Part III of the Act had risen to 76,000. The ratio of new to old will improve with every month that passes, and, indeed, my right honourable friend declared last September:
"We shall not be content unles we can see the end of all the workhouses in a decade, reprieving only such as can be made to give service fully on a level with modern standards and ideas. The rest are a blot and an in-adequacy. They must go."
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While on the subject of local authority provision generally, I should like to tell your Lordships that during recent years training centres for the mentally subnormal have been opened at the rate of about one a week, roughly half of these being additional provision and the other half being replacements of unsatisfactory premises. The number of places in training centres for the mentally subnormal has been increased by some 2,000 or more a year, roughly 1,000 each for children and adults.
Local authorities generally take a sympathetic attitude towards applications for housing made to them by elderly people. They are advised to take into account ill-health as a factor of housing need when it is caused or aggravated by conditions which might be improved by a transfer to other housing. Inability to manage stairs is obviously a material factor. Nobody would claim that elderly people can always obtain a council flat or bungalow as soon as they ask for one. However, public authorities have completed about 250,000 one-bedroom flats and bungalows since the war, and the priority that is being given to the needs of the elderly can be recognised from the fact that one-bedroom dwellings account for about three out of every ten dwellings currently being completed by public authorities in England and Wales.
If any local authority tenant, of whatever age, lives high up in a block of flats he is more likely than not to have the use of a lift. But dwellings provided specifically for elderly people are generally built low. There have been one or two high blocks of old people's flats—which have proved popular—but the general arrangement is that old people's housing is provided as bungalows or in blocks of flats of not more than two storeys, or on the ground and first floors of higher blocks. This is not to say that elderly people can never be found living in the higher flats in local authority blocks. Some may have moved into such flats when they were younger, and may still be there, because they like it. A year or two ago, the Building Research Station undertook a sample survey of old people's dwellings, and, according to a report made last May, four-fifths of the old people they found living on or above the sixth floor preferred to do so. But

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local authorities, practically without exception, are prepared to allow their tenants to transfer from one dwelling to another when the need is proved. Indeed, it is often in the local authority's interest to allow such a transfer, since the flat released may be suitable for a family.
I now move on to medical manpower, about which a number of your Lordships have expressed opinions. The Porritt Report alleges shortage of medical manpower in various fields. Its conclusions are, however, tentative, and it simply makes the point, with which we agree, that the various factors which might lead to shortage should be investigated and analysed. The Report continues with a note of warning, that
"any unjustified increase in the number of doctors could … lead to serious consequences."
Its main recommendation is for the establishment of a mechanism to record the facts of medical manpower to which future studies of need could be related. We have already started on arrangements, in co-operation with the British Medical Association, for improving the collection and recording of factual information. The full benefit of the improved system will not, of course, be seen at once, but the information derived will be of cumulative value as time goes on.
My noble friend Lady Horsbrugh asked me about emigration. An inquiry last year of deans of medical schools indicated that, in the case, of those who have kept in touch with former students, some 4 to 12 per cent. (varying according to the school) of their British graduates in the preceding ten years or so are now established abroad. A study on emigration and other aspects of losses from the pool of medical manpower is being undertaken under the auspices of the Nuffield Trust. More reliable information derived from this study, coupled with the improved method of keeping long-term records, should be available in the fairly new future. It has, of course, always been part of the tradition of this country that a proportion of our doctors should go overseas. I was glad to hear the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, endorse this point also.
He referred to the need for more medical students and more medical schools. In 1961, the Government, made a check of the calculations of the Willink Committee
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for student intake, using information which became available subsequent to the Committee's Report. We did not think that the revised figures were based firmly enough to justify precise new estimates, but we felt satisfied that the prospective demand for medical services would justify a rise in the university intake of pre-clinical students to 10 per cent. above the level recommended by the Willink Committee. We invited the University Grants Committee to consider, with the universities, the effect of such an increase. The universities indicated that this increase could be absorbed in existing schools without loss of standard. In the event, the intake increased in the autumn of 1962 by more than 16 per cent. over the Willink figure, and by more than 14 per cent. over the intake for the year ending July, 1961. Hospital boards have recently been asked to undertake a review of their medical staffing to cover the next five years, and the results of this will be available later this year.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord is of course aware that the Willink Committee figure was a cut of 10 per cent. on the previously existing figure, so that the 10 per cent. was merely a restoration of the cut which had been made by the Willink Committee. Apparently there has been some extra 4 or 6 per cent. over and above that.
LORD NEWTON: The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, can put what interpretation he likes on what I have said. I am sorry he is not pleased by the explanation I have been able to give your Lordships.
LORD TAYLOR: I wanted to make sure what the information was.
LORD NEWTON: If the noble Lord will be good enough to read in Hansard what I have said he will find it clear enough.
In view of the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and of the right reverend Prelate, about the maternity services, I should like to mention that in September of last year the figures of nursing and midwifery staff in National Health Service hospitals in England and Wales showed a continued increase over the previous year in all types of staff, whole-time or part-time. Whole-time staff increased by 5,282, or

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3·2 per cent. This rate of increase was larger than in the two previous years and well above the average for the last six. Part-time staff increased by 7,955, or 16 per cent., which was the highest rate of increase ever recorded.
As regards figures for midwives alone, in the same period September, 1961, to September, 1962, the increases were: whole-time 127; part-time 245, and pupil midwives 185. In view of what the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, said about maternity services I think I ought to say that the number of births has increased and is continuing to increase very rapidly. Hospital authorities are reviewing their building plans in the light of the latest statistics and forecasts and some maternity units will have to be brought forward and given priority over other projects in the building programme. In London, where the pressure is especially heavy, special steps have been taken to make available upwards of 100 extra maternity beds. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, drew attention to the findings of the Gallup Poll about the number of women who preferred to have their confinements at home, because it has saved me the necessity of drawing attention to them myself.
Now a word about general practitioners. The average list of general practitioners in England and Wales has fewer than 2,300 patients. The total number of general practitioners has increased every year since the Health Service began. Apart from 1959–60, when a number of doctors retired on qualifying for a National Health Service pension, this increase has always been greater than the corresponding increase in the population. The real problem exists in "designated" areas—that is, places where there is a sufficient excess of patients over an average of 2,500 per doctor to make it likely that another doctor could develop a practice in that area. The percentage of the population living in such areas has steadily fallen. It was over 50 per cent. in 1952, and in October, 1961, the latest date for which figures are available, it was 17·1 per cent. It has been calculated that the number of extra doctors required to remove the designation in these areas is less than 250; that is, not much over 1 per cent. of the present number of general practitioners.
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The Porritt Report suggests that if doctors could be sure that later in life they would be successful in applying for another practice in an attractive area, they would be more willing to start their careers in an unattractive one. In fact, if a practitioner who had managed successfully a large practice in an industrial town were to apply, say, in his late forties for a rural practice in the South, his experience would make him a very strong candidate, and he might well be successful. But I am not convinced that such considerations as these really deter doctors from starting work in industrial areas. Mobility among general practitioners has probably never been very great, and I think that most doctors would view a practice as being their work throughout their career.
Both noble Baronesses who have addressed your Lordships to-day spoke about private practice, and my noble friend Lady Horsbrugh said she thought the private practice had been growing. I am afraid that we have no information on which to form conclusions about recent changes, if any, in the extent of private practice. On the other hand, there is no evidence to suggest that it is diminishing. The Government certainly attach importance to its continuance. In this connection, I was interested to see that the Gallup Poll showed that, although 41 per cent. of those approached knew that their doctor had private patients, only 9 per cent. thought that his arrangements for his private patients were different from those for his National Health Service patients.
My noble friend Lady Horsbrugh asked me three questions about amenity beds. One of them was: "Are they fully used"? The answer to that is, "No". The second question was: "Are patients told whether amenity beds are available"? The answer to that is, "Yes". Hospital authorities have been advised that if a patient's primary desire is for privacy and quiet beyond what is medically necessary, he should be told of the existence, nature and availability of any amenity beds. The third question was about charges. The charges are prescribed by regulation. They are 24s. a day for accommodation with a single room, and 12s. a day for accommodation in a small ward. If the average daily cost per inpatient is less than 48s. a day then the

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charges are half the daily cost for a single room and a quarter for accomodation in small wards.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, discussed the future of general practitioner hospitals. I am aware that fears have been expressed that the transfer of work from some of the smaller hospitals to the new district general hospitals might mean a lessening of the contribution that general practitioners can give, and wish to give, to the hospital service, but this is not so. As the Hospital Plan says:
"Decisions on the number and location of beds set out in the Plan do not prejudice the question which of these beds or of the hospitals comprising them should be general practitioner beds or general practitioner hospitals."
The Plan, however, specifically envisages general practitioner beds in new maternity units; and, indeed, the new maternity hospital at Birmingham, for which my right honourable friend announced last week an earlier starting date, is planned to include 25 general practitioner beds. Over the next few years developments arising out of the recommendations of the Platt Report on the Medical Staffing Structure in the Hospital Service will deeply affect, and should greatly strengthen, the relationship between general practice and the hospital service. Decisions on the future control of beds, both in the new hospitals which are planned and in the existing hospitals which remain, can best he taken in the light both of these developments and of the outcome of the study being made by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee on the future field of work of general practitioners. Perhaps I should just add here that it has long been our policy that general practitioners should have access to X-ray and pathological departments in hospitals, and, in fact, there are few areas where this is not the case.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked me whether small general practitioner hospitals could be placed under the executive councils. I am very doubtful whether such a transfer—which, incidentally, would require legislation—would be beneficial. Indeed, separation from the main hospital service might be damaging because it would lead to isolation from the main and constantly developing stream of medicine. The point is that the principles governing
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hospital development derive from the staffing, accommodation and equipment needs of hospitals, and not from the nature of the authority administering them.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, gave us the benefit of his great knowledge and experience on industrial medicine—or "occupational medicine", as I think the Porritt Report calls it. He expressed views on the Committee's ideas on the subject, and quite apart from anything else, that lets me out of doing the same thing. I had thought of telling the noble Lord what the Government's policy on this matter is, but I am quite certain he knows it; and, as the hour is getting on, perhaps he would prefer me not to tell him again or at any rate, not to tell him what he knows already.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, told me—and this was very strong—that he did not think it was my busiess to talk about medical research, I feel that I ought to say something about it, because the noble Lord, Lord Brain, gave us the benefit of his views, and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, talked about education. Like the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, I think it is a pity, from Lord Brain's point of view, that he did not make his authoritative contribution in last Wednesday's debate, for he would then have had the benefit of a reply from my noble friend the Minister for Science, instead of from me. Like the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, Lord Brain recognised that my right honourable friend the Minister of Health has but little responsibility.
The Porritt Report, in paragraph 156, criticises the Clinical Research Board for failing to make a sufficient impact or to fulfil its high expectations. The facts are that in the nine years since the Board became responsible for advising the Council the number of clinical research units has risen from 22 to 43, and the total annual expenditure by the Council on clinical research from £400,000 to an estimated figure of over £1,800,000. The noble Lord, Lord Brain, called that a gratifying increase, and I was glad that he did. In addition, the Clinical Research Board has played an important part in the evolution and planning of the Clinical Research Centre, which is a very forward-looking project. This will comprise a comprehensive

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concentration of relevant clinical and para-clinical disciplines and thus facilitate the type of planned collaborative work which is becoming increasingly required to-day. The Centre will be linked with the new district hospital to be built by the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board at Northwick Park, Harrow.
With regard to Lord Brain's observations about the Medical Research Council, I feel that I must point out that the Council's budget has increased steadily over the past ten years, rising from £2 million to nearly £6 million a year. The Council operate with a high degree of independence and allocate their funds in accordance with their own expert scientific judgment. Their standards for the award of research grants are high, but on the average about 85 per cent. of the applicants have been given an award. In addition to support from the Medical Research Council, medical research is financed through the normal university funds available through the University Grants Committee. There is also an increasing allocation within the National Health Service to Hospital Boards for clinical research closely bound up with the treatment of patients.
Financial support comes not only from the State but also from outside sources, from the benefactions of individuals and from foundations like the Nuffield Trust, as well as from organisations in the United States. There are sometimes complaints that the diversity of these sources causes confusion and waste of time among the scientists seeking support, but I believe that no single body is a repository of all wisdom in these matters, and the diversity of support is an assurance against any worthwhile project being overlooked and provides, I believe, the best hope for the outsider, if I may so describe the potential researcher whose qualities have not yet been recognised or developed.
The noble Lord, Lord Brain, also made reference to post-graduate medical education. I think he knows that the various bodies interested were in agreement that there is a need for the development of schemes of post-graduate medical education of a non-academic kind in the non-teaching hospitals. A sum of £250,000 has been made available by the Nuffield
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Provincial Hospitals Trust to promote developments of this kind, and Regional Hospital Boards have been encouraged to seek support for experimental schemes in their areas so that the most fruitful and economic lines of future advance can be determined. A number of Boards are developing schemes, and reports in the autumn of 1962 indicated that good progress was being made. Eight Boards had been granted, or offered, assistance by the Nuffield Trust for specific projects. They include organising lectures, demonstrations and clinical conferences, library facilities and so on. The arrangements being worked out provide for post-graduate education of general practitioners, as well as hospital doctors, and for fellowships for overseas graduates. We are fully in sympathy with the view that the arrangements should include suitable training for young doctors from overseas who are occupying junior posts in the hospital service, and we hope that many such doctors will continue to come here for this kind of training and experience. Further progress reports by Boards are now being called for, and we shall study them with great pleasure.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Brain, and the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, talked about accommodation for research in hospitals. We fully accept the need for improved research facilities and we recognise it in the guidance given to hospital authorities on the design of new and redeveloped hospital buildings. In the district general hospitals of the future, clinical research on patients actually under treatment or investigation may well not call for a great deal of accommodation, since much of the research will be undertaken on patients in the wards. But some extra facilities will be required—for example, in the pathology laboratories; and the necessary provision is being made in current building projects. The Ministry's hospital building note on the pathology department of a district general hospital recommends minimum standards which are very considerably higher than those of the past. Not only does each main section of the department—that is to say, morbid anatomy, hæmatology, chemical pathology and microbiology—have its own laboratories, but provision is also made, where local circumstances demand it, for laboratories required specifically for research. In teaching hospitals, of course, fundamental research is

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undertaken as well as clinical research on patients under treatment or examination. The needs of both types of research have been given full weight in the designs of the new hospitals at Cardiff and Sheffield, and at the Royal Free Hospital, Charing Cross Hospital and St. Thomas's, Bristol.
The last thing I want to do is very briefly to answer the question which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, put to me about what consultation there was with the medical profession about the Hospital Plan. In discussing the Hospital Plan the Porritt Committee say in paragraph 364:
"We understand that there was no consultation with the profession before these plans were announced."
This statement arises from a misunderstanding. The Hospital Plan is in a very real sense the plan of the hospital service as a whole. The plans and proposals of the hospital authorities which it embodied incorporated the thought, the work and the aims of the medical staffs who at every level are integrated into the administration and planning of the Service. Thus the medical view was built into the plan at every stage.
Although I have a great deal more I could say, I think the time has come when your Lordships would wish that I should not do so. I should like again to say haw grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, for giving us all the opportunity to discuss pretty well anything we liked. I certainly have enjoyed the debate. I hope your Lordships have, and I hope that, like me, you have found it valuable.
8.4 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, before asking your Lordships' leave to withdraw my Motion, I should like to thank the
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noble Lord, Lord Newton, for his full reply. I am afraid we must, between us, have given him a great deal of trouble in preparing this reply, because the debate has ranged over an extremely wide field. I am more than grateful for the remarks he has made to me. Some, at the moment, have not been very satisfactory, or have not given me the satisfaction I thought they might, but there are one or two things at which I am very pleased.
I was very interested in what the noble Lord said about the Ministry's views about the health and welfare departments of the local authorities. I was impressed with the figures he gave about accommodation for old people. My only comment on that is that although the increase is large, it is nowhere near large enough. I was pleased at what he said about the consultation that took place before the ten-year plan. I shall certainly bear in mind what he said about re-housing elderly people when the question comes up again in my experience. I shall possibly be able to quote from his speech, which may have some effect on the local authorities with whom I am dealing. Finally, I would thank noble Lords, from all parts of the House, for the help they have given me in this debate, for the contributions they have made to it and for the fact that none of us have said the same thing twice, which shows. I think, what a satisfactory debate it has been. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
House adjourned at six minutes past eight o'clock.