Sitting of 8 March 1966

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  STANDING ORDERS (PRIVATE BUSINESS)
  Ordered,
  That the Amendments to Standing Orders relating to Private Business hereinafter stated in Schedule (A), and that the new Standing Order hereinafter stated in Schedule (B) be made.
  Schedule (A)—Amendments to Standing Orders
  Standing Order 127, leave out lines 11 to 17.
  Standing Order 240, leave out lines 1 to 4 and insert—
  "(1) Every special procedure petition presented to this House shall be presented by being deposited in the Private Bill Office, and Standing Order 192A (Rule for Petitions) shall apply to such petitions."
  Standing Order 244, leave out lines 15 to 18 and insert—
  "(2) Any such counter-petition shall be presented to this House by being deposited in the Private Bill Office, and Standing Order 192A (Rules for Petitions) shall apply to such counter-petitions."
  Schedule (B)—New Standing Order

  Rules for Petitions.

  "192A. Any petition required to be deposited in the

  Private Bill Office shall be prepared and signed
  respecting application of Standing Order No. 31 (Closure of Debate) during Session 1965–66 (1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:—

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  Date when Closure claimed, and by whom

  Question before House or Committee when claimed

  Whether in House or Committee

  Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Speaker or Chairman

  Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

  Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

  and (2) in the Standing Committees under the following heads:—

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Date when Closure claimed, and by whom

  Question before Committee when claimed

  Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Chairman

  Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion

  Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

  —[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  in strict conformity with the rules and orders of the House:
  Provided that a petition shall not be deemed to have been prepared otherwise than in conformity with the said rules and orders by reason only that it has not been written by hand."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR UNOPPOSED RETURNS
  Mr. Speaker: There are eight Notices of Motions for Returns standing on the Order Paper in the name of the Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means. They are entirely formal, consisting of statistics intended to help hon. Members generally. If hon. Members have no objection, I will ask the Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means to move them formally and in that way preserve the maximum time for Questions.

  ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER NO. 9
  Return ordered,
  of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing the definite matter of urgent public importance and the result of any Division taken thereon, during Session 1965–66.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER NO. 31)
  Return ordered,

  PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into the House of Commons and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1965–66:
  Of all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1965–66 were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the Sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills of which the preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed:
  Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1965–66, were referred by the Committee of Selection to Committees on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:
  And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC BILLS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1965–66, showing:

  (1) the number which received the Royal Assent;

  (2) the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but Amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postponed or rejected in either House of Parliament, or the stages which such Bills had reached by the time of the Prorogation or Dissolution.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  PUBLIC PETITIONS
  Return ordered,
  of the number of Public Petitions presented and printed in Session 1965–66 with the total number of signatures in that Session.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  SELECT COMMITTEES
  Return ordered,
  of the Select Committees appointed in Session 1965–66, with the Sub-Committees appointed by them; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and of the Chairman of each; the number of days each met, and the number of days each Member attended; the total expenses of the attendances of witnesses at each Select Committee and Sub-Committee; and the total number of Members who served on Select Committees; together with so much of the same information as is relevant to the Chairmen's Panel and the Court of Referees.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE AND BUSINESS OF SUPPLY
  Return ordered,
  of (1) the days on which the House sat in Session 1965–66, stating for each day the day of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and (2) the days on which Business of Supply was considered.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

  STANDING COMMITTEES
  Return ordered,
  for Session 1965–66, of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the Standing Committees showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills, Estimates and Matters considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of sittings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills, Estimates and Matters considered by a Committee distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing in the case of each Bill, Estimate and Matter, the particular Committee by whom it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered and the number of Members present at each of those sittings.—[The Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  ZAMBIA

    Trade
    Mr. Blakerasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will now state the result of his discussions with the Zambian Government on the improvement of trade between Zambia and Great Britain.
    The Minister of State, Commonwealth Relations Office (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes): I have nothing to add to what my right hon. Friend told the hon. Member on 25th January. The question of encouraging Commonwealth Trade is, of course, to be the subject of discussions by Commonwealth Trade Ministers at their forthcoming meeting.
    Mr. Blaker: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that his right hon. Friend told the House in January that he had made certain proposals to the Government of Zambia which were being discussed? Since it is now about two months since Zambia abolished preferences in our favour, will the hon. Gentleman ensure that these negotiations are pushed forward with great urgency?
    Mr. Hughes: The discussions which my right hon. Friend had with Mr. Wina were principally about Zambia's tariff changes, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that since then there have been many contacts between Zambian and British officials and business men, many arising in the context of Zambia's part in the Rhodesian situation.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that until there is a settlement in Rhodesia there is likely to be grave damage to both the Zambian and the United Kingdom economy?
    Mr. Hughes: Certainly settlement in Rhodesia is desirable not only from Zambia's but Rhodesia's point of view, and the sooner the rebel régime is brought down the better it will be for all concerned.

    Journalists
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Commonwealth Relations
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    whether he is aware of the intention of the President of Zambia to declare British journalists prohibited immigrants; and what protest he is making in the light of the necessity to obtain uncensored information from that country.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I am not aware of any such intention. Two journalists have been expelled from Zambia, one of whom was British. There is no censorship of material sent from Zambia.
    Mr. King: Has not Parliament devoted large sums of money to this country and, if the Press is to be muzzled and reputable British journalists expelled, has the hon. Gentleman made a protest and, if not, does he not think he should do so?
    Mr. Hughes: I have just told the hon. Gentleman that the Press is not being muzzled. It would be quite improper for me to comment on a decision of the Zambian Government. The expulsion of journalists from Zambia is a matter for the Zambian Government to decide. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will keep the matter in proportion.

    Oil Supplies (Airlift Costs)
    Mr. Cooperasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what is the total cost to date of the oil lift to Zambia; and what is the value of oil uplifted.
    The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Arthur Bottomley): The cost of the British civil and Royal Air Force airlifts of oil into Zambia up to 22nd February, the latest date for which figures are at present available, was about £1·7 million. I regret that I cannot elaborate on this information. The United States and Canadian airlifts are the responsibility of those Governments, and I am not of course in a position to give any information about their cost.
    Mr. Cooper: Is not this a disgraceful waste of our national resources? Is it not high time that the Prime Minister overcame his vanity and entered into negotiations with Mr. Smith in order to reach a settlement of this problem?
    Mr. Bottomley: I am sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman thinks it is a

    1881
    waste of this country's time and resources to help a fellow member of the Commonwealth.
    Mr. Ioan L. Evans: Has my right hon. Friend made any estimate of the economic cost to this country if we had not taken the action which has been taken?
    Mr. Bottomley: I cannot answer that without notice.
    Mr. Blaker: In view of the aid we are giving to Zambia, is it not extraordinary that she should have chosen this time to abolish our Commonwealth preference? Do I understand from previous Answers this afternoon that the Government are simply accepting this, or are they attempting to obtain a better trading relationship with Zambia?
    Mr. Bottomley: It is the policy of the Government to get better trading relations with Commonwealth countries, and the forthcoming Commonwealth Trade Minister's Conference will have that in mind.

  RHODESIA

    Information
    Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations by what method information is supplied to him from Rhodesia.
    Mr. Bottomley: We receive information from Rhodesia in several ways, but it would not be in the public interest for me to specify them.
    Mr. King: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that if the Government's Rhodesian policy is now in ruins, as I suggest it is, it is not least because he has consistently received inaccurate and false information about what is happening in that country? Will he accept further that one of the ways in which to avoid that happening is to strengthen the British High Commission in Salisbury, which now consists of a man and a boy and is not capable of doing its job, although that is not its fault?
    Mr. Bottomley: I am very glad to be able to say that I get constant reports from the hon. Gentleman, from many of his hon. Friends, from many of my hon. Friends, from journalists and many other
    1882
    sources. I can assure him that the information which I receive is quite full and authoritative.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will my right hon. Friend be careful about accepting information from Conservative M.P.s who have been brainwashed by the rebels in Rhodesia?
    Sir J. Barlow: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether there is any censorship of letters and cables to and from Rhodesia?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is another question, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is none by the British Government.

    Drug Supplies
    Mr. Henry Clarkasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the restriction of the supply of drugs to Rhodesia, in particular the supply of P.P.D. for inoculations against tuberculosis and rabies vaccine.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: It is Her Majesty's Government's policy to allow medicines, drugs, surgical equipment and veterinary medicines to be supplied to Rhodesia.
    Mr. Clark: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I have information from Rhodesia that drugs, particularly for inoculations against tuberculosis and rabies vaccine, ordered in November and paid for in advance in dollars, have still not been delivered? Would the hon. Gentleman suggest that there is any purpose to be served by someone dying from hydrophobia or for the tuberculosis rate in Rhodesia to be increased? Will he kindly look into this and take action, because it is doing this country's image in Rhodesia no good at all?
    Mr. Hughes: I have just told the hon. Gentleman that there is no embargo on these drugs and that they are passing through freely.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if he will carry this a stage further and look at the arrangements for the financing of the Medical School at Salisbury University, because

    1883
    there is a feeling that we are in some way impeding this, which does our image no good in Rhodesia?
    Mr. Hughes: That is another question, but I shall be very glad to look at it.

    British Companies (Taxation)
    Mr. Boxasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what instructions he proposes to give to British companies operating in Rhodesia regarding the future payment of taxation to the illegal Government.
    Mr. Bottomley: None, Sir.
    Mr. Box: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is the fourth occasion when I have endeavoured to elucidate this information from the Government, even though the Prime Minister said that it was under urgent consideration last December? Is not this further evidence of the utter bankruptcy of the Government's policy on Rhodesia and a possible explanation why it is excluded from their Manifesto?
    Mr. Bottomley: As the hon. Gentleman will know, this is very much a matter of legal interpretation. If he likes to intervene where I would hesitate to do so, he is welcome to attempt it.

    B.B.C. (Broadcasts)
    Mr. Mawbyasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he is aware that broadcasts made to Rhodesia in the British Broadcasting Corporation's Overseas Service by the Zambia Broad casting Corporation contain incitements to murder and sabotage in Rhodesia; whether he will take steps to stop such broadcasts; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Member's Question seems to be based on a misreading of a pamphlet recently circulated by the illegal régime in Rhodesia. This mischievously suggests B.B.C. involvement in or condonation of certain broadcasts in the past from Zambia. I can give a categoric assurance that no B.B.C. programmes, whether broadcast direct or relayed from Zambia, contain or have contained incitements to murder and sabotage. Broadcasts from Zambia are entirely under the control of the Government of that country.
    Mr. Mawby: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his assurance that none of these broadcasts takes place over B.B.C. transmitters. May I ask him why, with all the rumours which have gone on over the past few weeks, he has not found it possible to make a public statement to allay fears before now?
    Mr. Bottomley: A statement confirming what I have said was made. Perhaps on the further evidence I have given today, the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to withdraw or apologise.
    Mr. Shinwell: On a point of order. Is it not customary for an hon. Member making serious allegations of this character to produce evidence? How is it possible to get a Question of this kind past the Table?
    Mr. Speaker: The Question was in order. If it had not been, the Table would have refused it.
    Mr. J. Amery: While accepting the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that the B.B.C. has had nothing to do with this, may I ask him whether he would agree that if we are to give massive aid to Zambia we should insist that they do not incite to murder over their radio while we are supporting them?
    Mr. Bottomley: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will produce evidence to support what he has just said.
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he is aware that the British Broadcasting Corporation's Overseas Service is employing psychological warfare in Central Africa; and if he will stop this being done.
    Mr. Bottomley: The B.B.C. broadcasts to Rhodesia conform with its consistent policy of accuracy and objectivity. It is broadcasting facts to Rhodesia which the illegal régime would much rather the general public there did not know. I welcome and endorse its efforts to bring the truth to the knowledge of Rhodesians, whose local papers, etc., are, as the hon. Member knows, subject to censorship.
    Mr. Wall: Is it not a fact that, although very unwilling, the B.B.C. has become part of the Government's propaganda machine in the assistance which it has given in the past to Zambia Radio

    1885
    and some of the tendentious programmes now going out over Francistown Radio?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is a most improper statement for the hon. Gentleman to make, and I hope that the B.B.C. itself will remonstrate with him.

  KENYA

    British Non-residents (Exchange Control Regulations)
    Mr. Astorasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1) what is the extent of the concessions in the exchange control regulations which have been granted by the Government of Kenya to British non-residents who have left Kenya since 11th June, 1965;
    (2) what representations have been made to the Government of Kenya for concessions in the exchange control regulations to release the capital and income arising therefrom of British non-residents who left Kenya prior to 11th June, 1965.
    Mr. Wallasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what reply he has received from the Kenya Government with regard to the repatriation of the assets of British nationals who left Kenya prior to 11th June, 1965.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The High Commissioner has asked the Kenya Government to extend the concessions granted to United Kingdom citizens emigrating from Kenya after 11th June, 1965, to those United Kingdom citizens who left before that date. A report on the outcome of his representations is awaited. British non-residents who have left Kenya since 11th June, 1965, are free to repatriate all assets on leaving Kenya for good.
    Mr. Astor: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him please to emphasise in his negotiations that many of these people who have returned to this country to retire rely on their savings in Kenya as their sole source of income and that this further restriction is causing hardship?
    Mr. Hughes: Yes, Sir. I think that there are very strong arguments in this case and we shall certainly bear what has been said in mind.
    Mr. Wall: Would the Minister also bear in mind that many of the jobs have
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    been Africanised since independence and this has led to many people having to return to this country? Would he further bear in mind that it is grossly unfair if these people are not allowed to repatriate their money after having spent their working life in Kenya?
    Mr. Hughes: This is a question of bringing pre-11th June section people under the umbrella. This is what we are seeking to do.

  COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

    Emigration Schemes (Private Organisations)
    Mr. Hamlingasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will seek powers to control the operations of private bodies sponsoring the emigration of young persons from the United Kingdom under a contract of service.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: No, Sir. The only private bodies with special schemes for the settlement of young persons in Commonwealth countries are four child migration societies, with which the Government have migration agreements and the Big Brother Movement. None of these bodies require emigrants to sign any contract of service.
    Mr. Hamling: While thanking my hon. Friend for his reply and the courteous way in which he has attended to the case I mentioned, may I ask him to tell the House what arrangements are made to supervise and look after young people who emigrate to Australia under the auspices of the Big Brother Movement?
    Mr. Hughes: The movement strongly impresses upon all young emigrants the need to maintain contact with it, particularly before changing jobs or accommodation, so that the movement can advise. In the farming areas, which are rather remote, there are voluntary representatives of the movement, usually leading members of the local community, to advise and assist.

    Central African Pension Fund
    Rear-Admiral Morgan Gilesasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government about payments to

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    the Central African Pension Fund; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Her Majesty's Government's policy is that payments should continue to be made in accordance with the various instruments concluded at the time of, or shortly after, the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
    Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why this appears not to be happening?
    Mr. Hughes: The responsibility for this—and this is a matter which has been discussed for a long time before the illegal declaration of independence, as the hon. and gallant Member knows—lies primarily with the Rhodesian authorities. Calls on the fund have for some time now exceeded its income, and last summer the trustees asked the authorities in the three territories to assist. The Governments of Zambia and Malawi have been uniformly helpful.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Will the hon. Gentleman consider making a little more information public about this? Although I am not saying that the fault lies solely with Her Majesty's Government here—there are certainly faults on the other side as well—is the Minister aware that this is a matter which needs clearing up and that there is a feeling that we are stopping funds going, although this may be for technical reasons? Will the hon. Gentleman see if there is some way of making the matter clearer?
    Mr. Hughes: We stand by our commitment to contribute 25 per cent. of any necessary replenishments should the present actuarial investigation which is going on reveal a deficit. We shall be very ready to examine any constructive proposals which may be made.

  CYPRUS

    Independence
    Mr. Kilfedderasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether it remains Government policy to guarantee the independence of Cyprus.
    Mr. Bottomley: As a signatory of the 1960 Cyprus Treaties our policy remains to uphold their validity until such time
    1888
    as they are altered by mutual agreement of the parties concerned.
    Mr. Kilfedder: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him to give an assurance that this Government would disapprove of the Greek Government and the President of Cyprus doing anything which would harm the rights of the Turkish minority?
    Mr. Bottomley: This is a matter which is handled by the United Nations. I have no reason to doubt that the proper treatment which should be meted out to nationals is accorded to them in Cyprus.
    Mr. Shinwell: In view of the allegations made about the present Government's intentions to modify or break the Aden Agreement, can we understand from his answer that it is quite customary and constitutional to modify and even break a treaty by mutual consent?
    Mr. Bottomley: No. I have already said that the United Nations is handling this matter. If all of the signatories to the Agreement were to agree that it should end, then this could be done, but only by uninimous consent.
    Mr. J. Amery: If the right hon. Gentleman holds to that Agreement, why did our representative at the United Nations abstain when the matter came before it last year, even though the Americans were not signatories of the Treaty of Guarantee upholding it?
    Mr. Bottomley: That is a different question.

  AUSTRALIA

    British Immigrants
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he is aware of the difficulties caused to British emigrants to Australia due to the incomplete data presented in the United Kingdom by the Australian authorities; and if he will make representations to the Government of Australia to revise their arrangements for providing information to emigrants with a view to avoiding misunderstandings.
    Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I am satisfied and the Australian authorities do everything possible to inform prospective emigrants about

    1889
    conditions in Australia. They are provided with a very wide and detailed range of pamphlets covering various aspects of life in Australia. This information is supplemented by personal explanation at the interviews all applicants for assisted passages and their families have with Australian selection officers, when the intending emigrants can also seek any further information they require.
    Mr. Dempsey: Is my hon. Friend aware that, judging from a number of letters I have received, there is an allegation that the houses and jobs promised do not exist and that there is an obvious misunderstanding on someone's part? Would he clear up this matter as soon as possible so that future emigrants will be aware of the conditions they must accept if they are to emigrate to Australia?
    Mr. Hughes: I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern about this matter, and if he will be good enough to give me details of any cases in which British emigrants claim that they have got into difficulty as a result of a lack of information, I will examine them and, if necessary, discuss them with the Australian authorities.

    DIESEL FUELS: INNER ZONE PUBLISHED PRICES IN PENCE PER GALLON

    1966

    1955

    Wholesale Price

    Tax

    Total Price

    Wholesale Price

    Tax

    Total Price

    DERV fuel

    …

    …

    …

    16·750

    39·0

    55·750

    13·750

    30·0

    43·750

    Gas oil

    …

    …

    …

    15·875

    2·0

    17·875

    13·375

    —

    13·375

    Marine diesel oil

    …

    …

    …

    15·625

    2·0

    17·625

    12·625

    —

    12·625

    Note

    (i) The schedule price for Orkney and Shetland is 1·75d. a gallon more than the Inner Zone Price.

    (ii) These prices are for delivery in bulk in minimum 500 gallon loads. The present prices for oils delivered in barrels is 6d. a gallon extra.

    Electricity (Generation Output)
    Mr. Lubbockasked the Minister of Power if he will estimate the average annual increase in maximum output capacity, megawatts sent out, that will need to be provided by the Central Electricity Generating Board and the South of Scotland Electricity Board over the six years 1970 to 1975, inclusive.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: The Boards' estimate is about 5,000 megawatts.
    Mr. Lubbock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is about five times as much as the annual increase which is being provided by nuclear sources? Would he urgently re-examine the Government's

  MINISTRY OF POWER

    Diesel Fuel (Prices)
    Mr. Grimondasked the Minister of Power what is the price of diesel fuel now; and what it was in 1955.
    The Minister of Power (Mr. Frederick Lee): As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Grimond: Can the Minister say quite briefly what is the order of the increase in price?
    Mr. Lee: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not responsible for prices in the oil industry. But most of the main urban areas in the United Kingdom are classified as inner zones and they have scheduled prices lower than the outer zones. If the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about his constituency, which is one of the outer zones, the prices there are 1¾d. a gallon above inner zone prices.
    Following is the information:
    second nuclear power programme with a view to making an increase in the target of 8,400 megawatts in these years?
    Mr. Lee: As the hon. Gentleman knows, Britain has the largest nuclear power programme of any country in the world. As we said in the White Paper, the figure we gave is subject to review in the light of any new information which we get as we go along.

    North Sea (Oil and Gas Drilling Licences)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Power how many licences he has now granted to drill for oil and gas in

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    the North Sea; how many and which of these operations have failed and been discontinued; and how many and which of these operations are still continuing.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I have granted 37 production licences in addition to the 53 granted by my predecessor. No licences have been surrendered. Under these licences, I have so far given my consent to drill 19 wells, of which eight have been completed, one locating a commercially exploitable gas field. Four wells are being drilled at present and others will be started soon.
    Mr. Hughes: While thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that one of these operations—Sea Gem—has failed disastrously with loss of life? Has he any details to give about that?
    Mr. Lee: The operation has not failed disastrously. In fact, it is a very great success. There was the loss of the Sea Gem, but that will not prevent B.P. from continuing their operations in that particular area.
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Power if he will state the details of each of the licences he has granted to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea; and in how many of them he has provided that the licensees must report progress, success, failure, and profits and losses to him.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I gave the House on 24th November, 1965, particulars of the production licences I have awarded. All licences incorporate the model clauses prescribed in Regulations, which provide that licensees must make monthly and annual returns of progress, including particulars of wells drilled and any petroleum encountered and won. All licensees must pay royalty on oil and gas won and saved and are subject to normal taxation.
    Mr. Hughes: Does not the Minister realise that that is not an answer to the Question on the Order Paper? Will he not give details, facts and figures of the progress or retrogression of these operations?
    Mr. Lee: I would have thought that during the period my hon. and learned Friend has been asking these questions I had given more details on these particular
    1892
    operations than on any other I can think of.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Has the right hon. Gentleman had any further thoughts on putting conditions into licences to protect local authorities from oil pollution when wells of this kind may get out of control?
    Mr. Lee: If the hon. Gentleman looks at the model clauses, he will find that there is an obligation to that effect.

    Gas and Electricity Boards (Food Advertisements)
    Mr. Brian Harrisonasked the Minister of Power if he will give a general direction, in the public interest, to the gas and electricity boards to limit the advertising of imported foods in their showrooms.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: A general direction would not be appropriate on a matter of this kind.
    Mr. Harrison: But does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it does a tremendous lot of harm to these industries and their good relations with the public when Danish bacon and such like things are advertised in farming districts?
    Mr. Lee: The boards make similar arrangements to these with many other advertisers from time to time. This is entirely their business.
    Mr. Peyton: While I agree with the Minister that, in general, it is undesirable for Ministers to interfere in matters of advertising policy, may I ask him whether he thinks that on this occasion the Midlands Board has gone much too far and way beyond what is discreet and reasonable in publicising an imported product? This does not come well from a nationalised industry.
    Mr. Lee: This was not one of the types of advertising which came under the ban. This is purely in showrooms. I do not know that I can discriminate at this stage in relation to any particular type of advertisement, but I will certainly consider the matter.

    Power Cuts (Warnings)
    Mr. Hamlingasked the Minister of Power what has been the result of the further steps he is taking to introduce

    1893
    an early warning system in the event of power cuts so that consumers will not be taken unawares.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: The electricity industry issues general warnings usually in the morning of days when a serious risk of power cuts is foreseen. The industry and my Department have also considered whether last minute warnings could be issued but have concluded that these would not be practicable because the electricity boards must act very quickly to protect plant once the load has reached a certain level.
    Mr. Hamling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that every summer for the last fifteen years we have been told by the power industries that there would be no cuts in the next winter and that every winter for the last 15 years there have been cuts? What will the power industries do this summer not to fall into that trap?
    Mr. Lee: I have described on other occasions the problems of the electricity industry, with a margin of 7 per cent. as against one of 14 per cent. for which it laid out its capital. As my hon. Friend knows, if we were to make absolutely sure that there would not be any shortages, it would mean spending hundreds of millions of £s extra to deal with conditions which arise about twice in a century.

    New Power Stations
    Mr. Palmerasked the Minister of Power if he will make it a condition of his capital sanction for the three or four large new power stations of the conventional type expected to be built on the lower Thames during the next 15 years that the coal and oil industries be allowed to quote prices on fair and equal terms, particularly in relation to quantity and duration of contract over the same period of years.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: Each proposal will be considered on its merits, and, as was made clear in the White Paper on Fuel Policy, Cmnd. 2798, proposals to build oil-fired power stations will receive special scrutiny.
    Mr. Palmer: Has my right hon. Friend studied the evidence given before the Select Committee on Nationalised Indus-
    1894
    tries,
    particularly that of the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Chairman of the National Coal Board on long-term contracts? Does not he think that on this evidence the Coal Board is placed at a serious disadvantage?
    Mr. Lee: I have studied the evidence to which my hon. Friend refers. But the National Coal Board has not approached the Government with any suggestions for amending the Act.
    Mr. Lubbock: Why does the Minister sanction further coal- or oil-fired stations for base-load purposes in view of the fact that the Atomic Energy Authority has developed an advanced gas-cooled reactor which produces electricity cheaper than any conventional fuel?
    Mr. Lee: If we did not sanction any more coal- and oil-fired stations, we should be shockingly short of electricity.

    Nationalised Industries (Manufacturing Powers)
    Mr. Palmerasked the Minister of Power if he will include in the proposed legislation to extend the manufacturing powers of the nationalised industries, provisions to enable the coal, electricity and gas industries to own and operate oil refineries, in order to assist their own finances and to provide the extra home refining capacity now needed according to the White Paper on Fuel Policy. Command Paper No. 2798.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I would invite my hon. Friend to await the terms of the proposed legislation. United Kingdom refining capacity, however, as the White Paper notes, should be adequate as new capacity planned by the oil industry comes on stream.
    Mr. Palmer: Apart from the merit and advantage of extending public ownership on European lines to the oil industry, is there not something to be said for breaking down the rigid demarcation lines between the separate fuel industries?
    Mr. Lee: As my hon. Friend knows, the oil industry is a private industry. If he looks at some of the advantages that we get in the prices of our own oil inland, he will see that a great deal of advantage comes to our economy from the work of the oil companies.

  COAL

    Production and Distribution Costs
    Mr. Roseasked the Minister of Power the comparative increases in costs of coal production and coal distribution during the last 10 years.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: Figures relating to the cost of coal production are given in the National Coal Board Report and Accounts, published yearly. No comprehensive information is available on the cost of coal distribution.
    Mr. Rose: Why are not these figures available? Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the costs of coal distribution have increased disproportionately and that this fact calls for an investigation into the whole organisation of the industry of coal distribution with a view to rationalising it?
    Mr. Lee: My hon. Friend may have seen that we announced yesterday that we had accepted the recommendation of the National Board for Prices and Incomes and that we are having an investigation into distribution costs.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Would not the Minister agree that more important than distribution costs are the regional variations in the price of coal? Can he give an assurance that following his announcement yesterday, housewives in Scotland will not have to pay more than £1 extra per ton for coal?
    Mr. Lee: I cannot see that that arises on this Question.

    Smokeless Fuels
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Power what were the stocks of smokeless fuels in the Yorkshire and East Midland region on 1st March 1966; how they compared with stocks on 1st February and 1st January respectively; what information he has about shortages of supplies during February; and what is the present position.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: Merchants' stocks of all types of solid smokeless fuels in the North Eastern and North Midlands Regions are estimated at about 51,000 tons on 19th February, 1966, compared
    1896
    with 57,400 tons on 22nd January and 73,200 tons on 25th December, 1965. Stocks of gas coke, including premium varieties, held by the North Eastern and East Midlands Gas Boards totalled 60,400 tons on 20th February, 79,700 tons on 23rd January and 96,200 tons on 26th December. Questions about local supplies are matters for the suppliers.
    Mr. Osborn: Can the Minister explain why the Sheffield area has had long delivery times, particularly from the National Coal Board, to retailing organisations and limited choice? Is he aware that his reply does not satisfy many people in the Sheffield area who have had to go without certain smokeless fuels this winter?
    Mr. Lee: As I have said, questions about local supplies are not for me but for the suppliers.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: Would not the Minister agree that the situation has been aggravated by the apparent failure of the Bronowski process for making smokeless fuel and that after many years and the expenditure of many millions of £s, there is practically no end product at all?
    Mr. David Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend aware, regardless of the imputations or implications from the benches opposite, that the distribution people and not the Coal Board are responsible for the shortage?
    Rear-Admiral Morgan Gilesasked the Minister of Power whether, in the public interest, he will give a general direction to the National Coal Board to restrict sales promotion schemes until smokeless fuel supplies are generally available.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) on 22nd February.
    Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles: Does the Minister realise that there is a grave shortage and that local suppliers cannot obtain the supplies they need? In these circumstances, will the right hon. Gentleman consult the National Coal Board as to the wisdom of employing glamorous young ladies to push the sale of this non-existent fuel?
    Mr. Lee: As the hon. and gallant Member knows, we asked the nationalised fuel industries not to do any advertising during a three-month period, and that was quite effective. Supplies of solid smokeless fuels for the open fire—Coalite, Rexco, Cleanglow, Phimax and Gloco—are generally in satisfactory supply.
    Mr. Peyton: Does not the Minister recall that early last year the Coal Board and the distribution industry combined in a large advertising campaign and that promises were made that these fuels would be available, but that production has been extremely disappointing and those promises have nothing like been met.
    Mr. Lee: Demand for boiler fuels has, of course, been at a very high level. One of the chief problems has been that during the freezing weather in January, the washeries were not available. The question is now largely one of getting enough fuel through the washeries. The position is improving rapidly.
    Mr. David Griffiths: Is my right hon. Friend aware once again that the emphasis which is laid by right hon. and hon. Members opposite is not quite correct? Only last week I was dealing with officials of the Coal Board—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must put a supplementary question.
    Mr. Griffiths: I am implying, Mr. Speaker, that the implications which have been made are not correct.
    Mr. Lee: My hon. Friend will know that the successes are not all advertised but that the very few failures always are.

    Coal Industry
    Mr. Peytonasked the Minister of Power if, in view of the evidence given by the Chairman of the National Coal Board to the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, he will state to what extent there will be a deficit this year and to what extent the industry will pay its way.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer I gave on 28th February to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Adam Hunter).
    Mr. Peyton: Would not the Minister agree that that Answer was a miracle of hedging and obscurity? Does he not think that he should not allow his loyalty to the Chairman of the National Coal Board to conceal from himself or from the House that the evidence given by the Chairman to the Select Committee was very misleading?
    Mr. Lee: The Chairman of the National Coal Board must be understood as referring to the position which he expects to appear in the Board's published accounts after credit has been taken for the effect of capital reconstruction. For my part, I have no doubt that Lord Robens was anxious to assist the Select Committee as much as possible by giving his views even on matters of possible controversy.

    Prices
    Sir W. Anstruther-Grayasked the Minister of Power whether, following the report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, he will make a statement with regard to coal prices in Scotland.
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Power whether, in view of the need to attract new industry to Scotland, he will, in the national interest, give a general direction to the National Coal Board not to impose further differential increases in the price of coal there.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) yesterday.
    Sir W. Anstruther-Gray: Is it not a fact that coal prices in Scotland are rising and that this is far from satisfactory from the point of view of coal users?
    Mr. Lee: Rises in prices are always unsatisfactory from the point of view of those who have to buy the commodities. The National Board for Prices and Incomes found the increases in price proposed by the National Coal Board to be in line with both the Board's statutory obligations and the criteria set out in the White Paper on Prices and Incomes Policy.
    Mr. Clark Hutchison: Why should Scottish consumers be penalised by this Socialist Government?
    Mr. Lee: I should have thought that if the people of Britain had been

    1899
    penalised, they were penalised more by the last Government than by the present one. To keep coal prices below cost in some areas means that uneconomic pits have to be kept open far longer. The logic of this probably escapes the hon. Member.
    Mr. Manuel: In connection with the differential increases which are applicable to Scotland, will my right hon. Friend make certain that the work which is going ahead to ensure increased productivity and much less unemployment will not be foiled because of high coal prices operating in many industries?
    Mr. Lee: Without jumping the gun—details of the increased prices have not yet been announced—I would say that they are certainly not confined to Scotland or to any one area. We had better await the announcements.
    Mr. Peyton: Does not the Minister realise that in allowing the National Coal Board to announce these very steep increases in price at this stage, he at least deserves our congratulations for showing a candour which is absent in most of his colleagues?
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Power what will be the increase in the annual cost, based on current rates of consumption, to the electricity supply and gas industries, respectively, of coal consumed, resulting from the recommendations of the 12th Report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes; and what estimate he has made of the effect it will have on the cost of production per unit of gas and electricity, respectively.
    Mr. Frederick Lee: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) yesterday.
    Mr. Osborn: Would not the Minister agree that the increased fuel and energy costs are a burden upon industry? Is it not unfortunate that the increases in price in the steel industry have been held back in spite of an increase in fuel costs?
    Mr. Lee: All increases in price are a burden to some people. We must, however, be realistic. The raw materials
    1900
    and supplies which these industries must get from private enterprise have also risen quite steeply in price.

  TECHNOLOGY

    Hovercraft
    Mr. Currieasked the Minister of Technology what progress is being made in the development of the Hovercraft train; and what contribution his Department is making towards such development.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Mr. Richard Marsh): My right hon. Friend has nothing to add to his reply on 7th December to his hon. Friends the Members for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) and Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson).
    Mr. Currie: Does the hon. Gentleman not think that this most remarkable British invention should be developed in the United Kingdom, rather than allowing by default development to take place by our overseas competitors? Can the hon. Gentleman say how this ties up with his party's promises at the last General Election when we were told so much about the technological development which would take place under a Labour Government?
    Mr. Marsh: I do not think that it is for either the hon. Gentleman or myself to decide whether we have succeeded in that. I am sure that the electorate will do this very convincingly in the very near future. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I bet the cheers will not be on that side of the House then. As for this specific Question, there is an important point here. I think it has to be accepted that Hovercraft trains are not the only method of high-speed transport. At the moment we are looking at the development of Hovercraft trains and Hovercraft Development Ltd., the subsidiary of N.R.D.C., is producing a small scale model of this to see what the advantages are. We are also looking at the possibilities for experimental purposes of a man-carrying vehicle. However, one must bear in mind that this is not the only thing which could provide us with high-speed transport.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Tax Allowances (Handicapped Children)
    Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will seek to grant increased tax relief to the parents of older mentally handicapped children who are receiving industrial or other training.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): I have noted my hon. Friend's suggestion, but I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that expected answer, may I ask him if he will please appreciate that there is a real and genuine anomaly here, and that parents like myself who send their children to university and the parents of unfortunately placed children find themselves at very grave disadvantages when it comes to tax allowances? There is a real anomaly here, and will my right hon. Friend please consider it most carefully in his Budget statement?
    Mr. Diamond: Yes, of course, every one of us would want to consider most sympathetically the circumstances which my hon. Friend has described, but I am not sure that my hon. Friend is fully aware of the circumstances when he refers to the question of advantage and disadvantage. The present position is that an incapacitated child over 16 is treated by the National Assistance Board as a person who may receive assistance in his own right irrespective of his parent's income, and as a result of that, under that scheme, we find it more advantageous—I repeat to my hon. Friend, more advantageous—to the family for the child to receive National Assistance and the parents to receive Income Tax dependent relative allowance than for the parent to receive child allowance.
    Mr. Speaker: The Minister's Supplementary Answer was too long.
    Mr. William Clark: Would the Chief Secretary not agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer made the last Budget statement he is going to make last Tuesday?
    Mr. Diamond: I recollect well that the hon. Member's right hon. Friend referred to his forthcoming Budget statement, but was not prepared to put a shilling on it.

    Flying Clubs
    Mr. Currieasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will now grant some remission in the tax on fuel used by light aircraft belonging to civil flying clubs which devote time and pro vide aircraft for the training of new pilots.
    Mr. Diamond: No, Sir. These clubs receive assistance from the Government in other ways.
    Mr. Currie: Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that for many years ahead airlines will require pilots, and does he not consider that flying clubs provide a most useful service in the training of young pilots? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to have another look at this matter?
    Mr. Diamond: I do not think the hon. Member fully heard my Answer, when I said that these clubs receive assistance from the Government in other ways. There are very many ways, which were described by the then Minister of Aviation in his speech of 4th August, 1965, to which I would refer the hon. Member.

    Corporation Tax (Statutory Undertakings)
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will introduce legislation to relieve statutory undertakings from the additional burden of Corporation Tax imposed by the 1965 Budget.
    Mr. Diamond: No, Sir.
    Mr. Cooke: The citizens of Bristol will be most disappointed with the right hon. Gentleman's Answer, because the right hon. Gentleman has imposed £200,000 extra tax on them every year. Will he do something about it?
    Mr. Diamond: I am sure that the citizens of Bristol take a different view from that of the hon. Member as to what their proper responsibilities are. The citizens of Bristol take the same view as the Public Accounts Committee of this House, that it is wrong that an anomaly

    1903
    should continue to exist as a result of which tax could be deducted from a dividend, the tax reclaimed by the individual taxpayer, and tax not accounted for to the Inland Revenue. It is putting that anomaly right, as the P.A.C. asked that we should do, which accounts for this situation, and it has nothing to do with Corporation Tax—in the sense that any Government would have sought to put it right.

  PRIME MINISTER (SPEECHES)
  Mr. Bryanasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library of the House of Commons a copy of his public speech at the Royal Albert Hall on 29th January about reforming the tax system.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Bryan: Does the Prime Minister recall that at this Labour Party demonstration he described the Opposition's treatement of the Finance Bill as tomfoolery, but that in the House of Commons the Chancellor said that he genuinely thought that the Opposition had done a good job in the interests of everyone? Who is Tom Fool?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I recall very clearly what I said at the Albert Hall. The point the hon. Member has just made was made in the debate last Tuesday. As is our practice, of course, my right hon. Friend always carries through the normal courtesies at the end of the Finance Bill. I am certainly prepared—if the hon. Member will help me—to find another word to substitute for it, if he can find any words adequate to describe the cops and robbers played around Lord North Street after midnight.
  Mr. William Clark: Is the Prime Minister aware that up and down the country they are firmly convinced that the Prime Minister does not like opposition of any kind? Despite the tribute paid by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and despite the plea made by the Minister of State for the Board of Trade during debate on the Companies Bill, does he not think it would be a good idea just for
  1904
  once to show the guts he is always boasting of and be big enough to apologise for that unwarranted attack?
  The Prime Minister: I could not have wanted a better Opposition than the one we have got. What I was referring to at the Albert Hall was the difficulty of getting through Parliament all the very urgent legislation which we now have before us, recalling that the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) said last June that we had no right with a majority of three to try to get through a heavy and controversial programme.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech, about the incomes policy and the balance of payments, to the Overseas Bankers Club at Guildhall on 7th February, 1966.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that on that occasion he said that we were a long way from full realisation of the declaration of intent? In view of the fact that since the declaration of intent was signed earnings have gone up by about 9 per cent. and productivity by about 1 per cent., what does the Labour Party have in mind by "full realisation of the declaration of intent"? Would it involve an actual reduction in productivity?
  The Prime Minister: I pay tribute to the fact that we have got a declaration of intent, which right hon. Gentlemen opposite did not get. I said that we were a long way from full implementation. It took Sweden 20 years. If the hon. Gentleman wants our full plans for the future, I will be very glad to send him a copy of our manifesto.
  Mr. Heath: As the First Secretary was obviously in a state of complete confusion on television last night about the actual facts of this case, could the Prime Minister confirm that the figures are as my hon. Friend has said, that over the year there has been an increase of 1 per cent. in productivity and 9·9 per cent. in earnings? Those were the figures presented to the last N.E.D.C. meeting. In view of his recent public declaration that he wishes to be absolutely frank during the election

  1905
  and push nothing under the carpet, will he now publish the N.E.D.C. document giving those figures?
  The Prime Minister: I will certainly consider publishing that N.E.D.C. document—[Interruption.] No, we are not holding up reports or sweeping things under the carpet. Some day, I will give a long list of the things that we found—[Interruption.]—postal charges, the B.B.C. licence and dozens of others—[Interruption.] Earlier, if you like. But so far as the N.E.D.C. report is concerned, the previous Government always set themselves against publishing these things. I will certainly consider it, and, if it can be published, I will certainly publish it for the right hon. Gentleman and the House.
  Mr. Heath: Would the Prime Minister confirm the figures that I have just given?
  The Prime Minister: On one basis, it was 1 per cent. On another basis, it was 2½ per cent.
  Mr. Gibson-Wattasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of his public speech at the Albert Hall on 29th January on the subject of fiscal reform.
  Mr. William Clarkasked the Prime Minister whether he will place in the Library a copy of his speech at the Albert Hall on 29th January, 1966, dealing with taxation amendments during the Finance (No. 2) Bill, 1965.
  Mr. Alisonasked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library a copy of the public speech on fiscal policy he made at the Royal Albert Hall on 29th January, 1966.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer hon. Members to the answer I gave earlier today to a similar Question by the hon. Member for Howden.
  Mr. Gibson-Watt: In his speech, the right hon. Gentleman referred to an honest, straightforward Budget. Would he now tell us to which of the five Budgets he was referring?
  The Prime Minister: All the financial statements made by my right hon. Friend have been honest, straightforward and opposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite for electoral purposes.
  Mr. Alison: Does the Prime Minister recall that he spoke rather glibly about the exploitation of a narrow majority? Does he recall that the only exploitation of majorities which has taken place in this Parliament has been the exploitation of the great majority of those people who voted against him at the last election? Does he realise that they will vote against him at the next election?
  The Prime Minister: The people will soon have a chance of showing whether they agree with the hon. Gentleman's statement. When I referred to a narrow majority—I have dealt with this but I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was here—I quoted what I thought was an unacceptable statement by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that a Government with a majority of this size should not have the right to introduce a heavy or controversial programme. We reject that view, and we think that this is not going to continue.

  ADEN AND SINGAPORE
  Mr. Kershawasked the Prime Minister when he proposes to visit Aden and Singapore.
  The Prime Minister: I have no present plans for such a visit.
  Mr. Kershaw: Does the Prime Minister recall that not so long ago he said that Aden must be held as a centre of communications and as a centre of peacekeeping operations? Does he not owe an explanation, before he leaves office, to those who have relied upon us, as to why he now wishes to hand them over to Colonel Nasser?
  The Prime Minister: I think the hon. Member had better read what I said—which I will not read, Mr. Speaker. He will find it in col. 1404 of the OFFICIAL REPORT for 17th June, 1964. That was the hon. Member's quotation. I said that we have surely learned our lesson over the years, that bases cannot be held against the wishes of the local government and the local population. I went on to say that when we were the Government we would have a full review to decide our attitude, but that on the information then available it seemed that we should stay in Aden, but we reserved our full right, till we were in office and had full information,

  1907
  to decide whether such a base should be used.
  Mr. Heath: I am sure the Prime Minister will agree with the Secretary of State yesterday that the last Colonial Secretary's attempt to have a conference to arrange freedom or independence for the Federation, which was unsuccessful, was not a final attempt in this matter, and that there will be another conference before final independence for the Federation. If this is so, and the Federation wants the British Government to make a defence agreement with it, and provides the necessary forces, will the Prime Minister, should he still be in office, accept it? Because if we are in office, we would.
  The Prime Minister: This matter was fully dealt with by my right hon. Friend, but I agree with one statement of the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, when he said that the attempt to have a conference which they tried to hold would not be the last one. He said that. We tried with might and main three or four times last year to set up a commission. We had them over to this country, and I myself met all the representatives of the Federation, as well as those of Aden. We tried to agree with them the whole basis on which we could go forward, and the conference broke down entirely.
  Mr. Heath: I must press the Prime Minister. As that conference was not the last and cannot be the last before independence of the Federation, is it not entirely wrong that the decision should have been taken to break faith and to have no defence agreement and no support for the Federation, even if in the future it should want it? The decision has been taken at the wrong time.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. As my right hon. Friend made clear yesterday, there will, of course, be another conference. There will have to be. But we have made it clear in our White Paper that we believe that the best interests of all concerned now will be with carrying out the White Paper and by no longer trying, at an enormous cost which the right hon. Gentleman irresponsibly dismisses, to maintain our presence in Aden if we are not wanted there.

  MINISTER OF LABOUR AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
  Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Prime Minister if he will redefine the responsibilities of the Minister of Labour and the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in regard to industrial relations and the resolving of disputes relating to wages and working conditions in the public and private sectors of industry.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I think that the responsibilities of my right hon. Friends are sufficiently well known.
  Mr. Taylor: Will the Prime Minister not agree that there is a real need to clarify this demarcation problem, because it is almost impossible for the skilled and proved negotiators in the Ministry of Labour to fulfil their tasks effectively when the Minister of Economic Affairs has appointed himself unilaterally as the last resort for wage claims? Will he agree that the problem has been worsened by the absence of specific reference to the Prices and Incomes Bill in the Labour Party manifesto?
  The Prime Minister: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman at all. If it were merely a question of conciliation and arbitration procedures, the hon. Gentleman would be right. But we have set out, I would have thought with the good will of the whole House—and even the party opposite say something about this in their manifesto—to try to get a prices and incomes policy going. That means the Prices and Incomes Board, and that is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State.

  GENERAL ELECTIONS (CANDIDATES' EXPENSES)
  Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister when he will introduce legislation to amend the law about the expenses of candidates at general elections.
  The Prime Minister: I cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech.
  Mr. Marten: In spite of that dreadfully complacent assumption, could the Prime Minister give an assurance that, once he has got the General Election out

  1909
  of the way, he will in fact give support to the project from this side of the House?
  The Prime Minister: I cannot imagine what was meant to be complacent in suggesting that there will be a Queen's Speech in the latter part of April, which obviously I cannot anticipate. So far as this proposition is concerned—and there are two or three others which have come forward from the Electoral Conference presided over by yourself, Mr. Speaker—so far as these propositions are concerned and many others which may come as a result of considering the representations to the Conference, I think we had better wait and see what recommendations we get from it and then consider what is the best way to deal with it in the matter of legislation.
  Mr. Lubbock: Can the Prime Minister say when he anticipates that a further report of the Conference presided over by you, Mr. Speaker, will be published?
  The Prime Minister: I cannot say that I should like notice of that question, but I should. It may be possible to say something in the immediate future, although I may be wrong about that. Certainly anything received by the Government from you, Mr. Speaker, before the end of this Parliament will be made available right away.

  ELECTRICAL PLANT INDUSTRY
  Mr. Peytonasked the Prime Minister if he will transfer responsibility for the heavy electrical plant industry from the Minister of Technology to the Minister of Power.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Peyton: May I ask the Prime Minister why on earth he chooses to put upon the shoulders of this rather odd Department responsibility for an industry in which it has little interest and no knowledge? If on this occasion the Prime Minister can give me both a straight and civil answer I should be as obliged as I would be astounded.
  The Prime Minister: My answer will be more civil than the question. I agree that there is a problem here. I have thought a great deal about it. There is
  1910
  a strong case for having the responsibility for heavy electrical plant in the same Ministry as the one which is responsible for the users of that plant. That was very carefully considered. It had never been done before. It used to be the responsibility of the Board of Trade, until recently. In the end, I was convinced by the arguments that the difficulties of demarcation between the heavy electrical plant industry and other branches of the industry such as electronics research and the many common interests—and, indeed, the firms covering heavy and light plant—were such that they ought to be in one Ministry. Previously it was the Board of Trade. Now it is the Ministry of Technology. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel that that is a civil answer.
  Mr. Palmer: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that such a change will be much disliked by the heavy electrical plant manufacturing industry itself? Does not the question show how much out of touch the Opposition are these days with industrial opinion?
  The Prime Minister: I would not go as far as that because, as I have said, I think that there is a case for it, though on balance I felt that the arguments went the other way. If the hon. Gentleman thinks of some of the firms which are responsible for heavy electrical plant manufacture in the country—some of the very big electrical giants—he will realise that they will also cover some of the most miniature products in the field of computers and things of that kind. It would be quite impossible to decide, for example, that A.E.I., General Electric and the rest should not be in one Ministry.

  VIETNAM
  Mr. Dribergasked the Prime Minister on what dates he received from the President of the United States of America requests that British troops should be committed for service in Vietnam; what replies he returned to these requests; and if he will give an assurance that no British troops, or military advisers or technicians of any kind, will be so committed.
  The Prime Minister: The matter has come up on various occasions in the last

  1911
  eighteen months but President Johnson understands our special rôle as Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference and that we cannot put troops or military advisers into Vietnam.

EXPORT CREDITS GUARANTEE DEPARTMENT (EXTENSION OF CREDIT FACILITIES)
The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Douglas Jay): With permission, I wish to make a statement.
Since 1964 a number of far-reaching improvements have been made in the facilities offered by E.C.G.D. I am happy to announce today two further major extensions of these facilities which should bring immediate additional benefit to a large number of exporters and encourage their search for new business and new markets.
First, a scheme will now be launched to cheapen and simplify the financing of exports in the important field between 30 days and two years. The basis of this scheme at first will be an unconditional guarantee by E.C.G.D. to the banks, of 100 per cent. of a bill of exchange at Bank Rate, with a minimum of 4½ per cent. The banks will not make any additional charge. The exporter will receive cash for his goods by the time of shipment and will be freed from bank recourse from the time when the Bill is accepted.
Secondly, I propose to extend the existing scheme by which E.C.G.D. gives a guarantee to banks which provide finance for exports at a fixed interest rate of 5½ per cent. plus the usual bank charges. At present, the scheme has been limited to a minimum order value of £25,000. E.C.G.D. will now be ready to consider any cases where two years' or more credit has been authorised.
I am circulating a more detailed statement of these two new schemes in the OFFICIAL REPORT. They will both, I believe, bring substantial new assistance to exporters.
Following is the statement:
As a first step the new facility for credit periods between 30 days and two years will apply to credit insured exports where payment is due against a negotiable instrument, for example a bill of exchange or promissory note.
For each insured exporter E.C.G.D. will give the exporter's bank a guarantee covering them up to a stated maximum amount outstanding. The exporter will undertake to make good to the Department any payments which are made to the bank and which are not immediately payable by E.C.G.D. to the exporter under the standard credit insurance policy. To obtain the finance the exporter will apply to his bank in the normal way producing the bills of exchange and supporting evidence of shipment, together with a form of warranty that the transaction is export business eligible under the scheme.
The bank will advance 100 per cent of the principal value of the bill of exchange relating to the shipment charging the exporter interest at bank rate—variable, but with a minimum of 4½ per cent.—until payment is received. Once the buyer has accepted the bill, the bank will look to him for payment, or should he default, to the E.C.G.D. The effect will be that the exporter will have received cash for his export by the time of shipment and will be freed from the risk of bank recourse at an early stage.
The only additional cost to the exporter—beyond the interest—will be the E.C.G.D. charge for the supplementary guarantee. This has been set for the time being at 2s. 6d., yearly per £100 of the guarantee limit. Banks will not make any additional bank charges for the facility.
E.C.G.D. will begin to invite applications from their policy-holders within the next few weeks. It will be a condition of application that the exporter has held standard E.C.G.D. comprehensive cover for at least a year. As the number of exporters concerned is too large for us to take on all applications straight away, E.C.G.D. will first approach those companies conducting the largest volume of insured export business. All eligible firms on E.C.G.D.'s books, however, will be invited to apply as soon as we are ready to deal with their applications.
There is a different set of problems to be tackled where there is no separate negotiable document, such as a bill of exchange, providing evidence of the buyer's indebtedness, in respect of which E.C.G.D. could give its unconditional guarantee. We are continuing discussions about this type of transaction, and hope that a solution may be found which would enable us to extend the advantages of this scheme to transactions where firms are unable to obtain negotiable instruments.
E.C.G.D. are also extending their facility for guarantees to banks under which the banks provide finance at a fixed rate of 5½ per cent. plus appropriate bank charges. These are issued case by case and cover the field of credit terms of two years and upwards and where at present a minimum order value of £25,000 is operative. There may be instances where it is necessary in order to meet credit competition to give two years credit or more for contracts below this value limit. E.C.G.D. will now be prepared, in cases where the banks are agreeable, to consider them for cover under the existing scheme.
Taken together with existing facilities access to special export finance will now be possible over a very wide field of credit business. The new scheme will be available for re-exports, but we are not prepared to extend these guarantees to the financing of merchanting business conducted outside this country with goods not produced in Britain.
The new arrangements will bring immediate benefit to a large number of exporters in many industries and will be a positive encouragement in their search for new customers and new markets. We shall watch with interest the use made of the scheme and be ready to introduce changes if they prove desirable in the light of experience.
Mr. Barber: I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his timing. He describes his proposals as major extensions, and I should like to ask two questions. First, what estimate has the right hon. Gentleman made of the volume of exports which will be covered by these new facilities? Secondly, what is the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of the additional volume of exports which he expects will result from the proposals?
Mr. Jay: The timing of the announcement was determined largely by the banks, which reached agreement on this last week. As to the volume of exports, I would not like to put an exact figure on this, because it is in the future, but it would be some hundreds of millions of pounds.
Sir D. Renton: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what there is about these new facilities which prevented them being introduced until a General Election was to take place?
Mr. Jay: They involved complicated negotiations with the banks which the previous Government found impossible to bring to a successful conclusion.
Mr. Lipton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his very welcome statement today gives the lie to the accusation that we are holding anything back or keeping things under the carpet?
Mr. Jay: Yes, my hon. Friend is right.
Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Is the right hon. Gentleman sure that in introducing this large extension of the powers of the E.C.G.D. at this time he has, in fact, strengthened the staff and capacity of his Department so that it can immediately undertake these new and heavy responsibilities?
Mr. Jay: Yes, Sir, we are sure of this and as soon as further developments are possible we may do even better than this.
Mr. Cooper: Will the right hon. Gentleman give permission for the building of a new shop window in which all the Socialist propaganda can be displayed?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Elucidatory questions seem to have ended. Next statement—Mr. Pannell.
Hon. Members: Where is he?
Mr. Heath: On a point of order. Is not this a very serious situation? Is the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Public Building and Works to be allowed to stand at the election if he has not made his election statement here first?
Mr. Michael Foot: Further to that point of order. Is it not clear that the Opposition complain when Ministers make statements, and when they do not?
Mr. Speaker: The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Cooper: On a point of order. May I draw your attention Sir, to the fact that on the tape at this moment is the published statement which the Minister of Public Building and Works is supposed to be making to the House?
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the House, like the Chair, will listen. I am being addressed on a most interesting point of order.
  Mr. Cooper: Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, the Statement is timed at 1.58 p.m.
  Mr. Speaker: That may be interesting, but it is not a point of order.
  The Question is, That the Bill—
  Mr. Grimond: On a point of order. It appears that the Minister's statement, if made, might have had some constitutional importance because it announces proposals by the Government for which there has been no explanation to the House as to whether they have any authority. There are a number of Ministers still left in the Government. Should not the Government give some reassurance that this matter will be explained to the House before we rise?
  Mr. Speaker: I am certain that the right hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a matter for the Chair. It is a matter for political battle between both sides of the House.
  Mr. Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We recognise the difficulty in which you find yourself, but the Leader of the House is present. This is a very serious matter because, having read a statement which apparently we ought not to have had yet, but which is on the tape, it appears that the Government have been using powers which they have no authority to use.
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Mr. Speaker: The Question is, That the Bill be now read a Second time. Mr. Pannell.
  The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Charles Pannell)rose—
  Sir D. Renton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the fact that you have already called upon the Clerk to read the Orders of the Day? In these circumstances, have we no option but to proceed with them, thus eliminating any further Ministerial statements?
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot have heard what happened. We are on the Orders of the Day. The Question we are discussing is the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, on which it is appropriate for any hon. Member to speak. I called the Minister of Public Building and Works.
  Mr. Pannell rose—
  Mr. Heath: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Do we understand that it will be in order to debate the right hon. Gentleman's statement once he has made it?
  Mr. Speaker: It will be in order to comment on the statement when it is made.
  Mr. Pannell rose—
  Mr. Thorpe: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. At an earlier stage you called the Minister of Public Building and Works to make a statement. That was not sufficient to produce the Minister. Now, at a later stage, we are having the Second Reading of a Bill. Do we take it that this will enable the right hon. Gentleman to make his statement during the debate on the Second Reading?
  Mr. Speaker: The fact that I was unable to produce the Minister at the moment I called him is a matter for nature and not for Mr. Speaker. When I called the Minister the second time, he happened to be here. Mr. Pannell.
  Mr. Pannell rose—
  Mr. Thorpe rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not preventing hon. Gentlemen from raising important points of order, but I remind the House that we have an important defence debate to conclude today.
  Mr. Thorpe: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Following your reply—which, of course, we all accept—if there

  1917
  was any suggestion that any criticism was being directed at you for the non-appearance of the Minister, may I say that far be it from us to question the workings of fate or to visit the transgressions of any Minister on your head.
  Mr. Speaker: The Chair did not need the hon. Gentleman's assurance.
  Brigadier Clarke: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Am I not right in understanding that you called the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill and then the adjourned defence debate? May I remind you that I was on my feet when the House adjourned the debate last night? Am I, therefore, not the first hon. Member entitled to speak today in the resumed debate on defence?
  Mr. Speaker: When we return to the Motion, that will be so. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is correct. But he is now helping to delay the speech which he proposes to make on defence.
  Mr. Pannell rose—
  Mr. Marten: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You said that it was a matter of nature. Can we know whether the Minister was locked in the lavatory?
  Mr. Speaker: I think that the hon. Gentleman will regret that he made that remark. Mr. Pannell.

  BUILDING CONTROL
  Mr. Pannell: I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, if I have inconvenienced you in any way, and to the House. I wish to make a statement about building control.
  My present control springs from the Chancellor's statement of 27th July, in which my right hon. Friend said that we would introduce building licensing for projects over £100,000. Since then I have granted authorisations for a number of urgent and essential projects. I now propose to operate the control in the sense and according to the terms of announcements I have made from time to time during the Committee stage of the Building Control Bill, which it is the Government's intention to reintroduce in the new Parliament. In particular, alterations over £100,000, as well as new work, are included in the scope of the
  1918
  control. I propose to offer detailed guidance to the industry and I am publishing an explanatory memorandum.
  Only 7 per cent. of all new construction work is affected by the control—there are exemptions for housing and industrial projects and for all work in development districts I propose to authorise a sufficient proportion of this work to keep demand and capacity in balance. I shall look at proposals on their merits, bearing in mind local needs and particularly the capacity of the industry in each area. Projects authorised now will affect the load on the industry 15 to 18 months ahead, or even further. It is my firm intention to operate the machinery in such a way that essential work is not held up by lack of capacity. This has happened in the past.
  My purpose is twofold: to avoid overheating in the construction industry while maintaining the full employment which it has enjoyed under this Government.
  Mr. Chichester-Clark: We can hardly call that statement timely, as the statement by the President of the Board of Trade was called. How can the Minister say that the controls spring from the Chancellor's statement of 27th July, which had no legislative authority whatever? Does it not sound like scant regard, if not contempt, for the House of Commons for the right hon. Gentleman to say so?
  Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the retrospective element in the statement is a deplorable example of taking administrative action without statutory authority? Is it not monstrous that a provision which the Standing Committee considering the Building Control Bill decided to omit has been included in the statement—the more so since the right hon. Gentleman himself told us during the proceedings on the Bill that the Opposition had made a better and tidier job at the end of the day?
  Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that there is overheating in the brick industry after yesterday's statement about there being 709 million bricks in stock? Will he now withdraw the suggestion that he made yesterday that I had perpetrated a false innuendo against him on supplementary questions on this matter?
  Mr. Pannell rose—
  Mr. Ridley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Should not the Minister ask leave to speak again?
  Mr. Pannell: I know the Question on which I am speaking and it was my intention to ask leave of the House to speak again.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the House now will take this matter seriously. An accident has happened. It is in order for the House to refuse leave for the Minister to speak again. If that is done, however, he does not answer questions that the House would wish him to answer.
  Mr. Pannell: In reply to the hon. Gentleman's statement about false innuendo, he had better read HANSARD, when he will find that he made an innuendo against me yesterday, when he suggested that I was withholding matters from the House. A careful reading of HANSARD will make that clear. In any case, there is plenty of innuendo in what he has said today.
  I want to make the position perfectly clear on one point. Until the Building Control Bill becomes law I cannot grant licences as such. Anyone starting a project now, however, wants to know whether he will need a licence to complete it once licences can be granted. I am, therefore, giving prior authorisations to urgent projects. There is nothing illegal about starting a project costing over £100,000, but anyone doing so without authorisation does so at his peril. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] He may not get a licence to finish it off. The only person so bold as to do that would be someone silly enough to believe that the party opposite will win the election.
  Mr. Grimond: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May we have your Ruling? I understand that I am entitled to make a speech and not ask a question.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to make a speech if he so wishes, but I think that it would be for the convenience and the sense of the House if first questions were asked of the Minister on what he has said. [Interruption.] Order. I have no power to prevent the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond)
  1920
  from making a speech on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, which we are now discussing, knowing that a defence debate is ahead.
  Mr. Grimond: I am indebted to you, Mr. Speaker.
  This seems to be a matter of some constitutional importance. I hope to make a very short speech, but I would rather phrase it in the form of a speech than as a Question. In the statement referred to by the Minister of Public Building and Works, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the Government would introduce legislation instituting a licensing procedure to govern the starting dates of privately sponsored construction projects to the value of £100,000 or more. He went on to say that the control would be made retrospective to all such projects for which no contracts had been entered into before the time of announcement. It is my contention that the whole of this procedure depends on an Act being passed by Parliament.
  It may be undesirable to have retrospective legislation, but to have retrospective government by announcement is something which hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House—
  Mr. Shinwell rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) must contain himself if the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) does not give way.
  Mr. Grimond: As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman, being a very senior Privy Councillor, will have an opportunity of catching your eye, Mr. Speaker. He must contain himself at least until the election, when he may get into his electioneering form—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am making a very serious point.
  I maintain that the House should spend at least a few moments in considering the situation which now faces us. We shall not have the Act which alone could lend legality to this procedure. The Minister has said that he now proposes to operate the control. He proposes to operate the control according to the announcements which he made from time to time during the Committee stage of

  1921
  the Building Control Bill. I doubt whether there has ever been a statement in this House that a Minister proposed—
  Mr. Shinwell: On a point of order. Would you be good enough, Mr. Speaker, to remind the House, as I am sure that you wish to do, whether we are now on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] That is what I want to know. Are we on the Bill and, if so, may we debate anything we wish?
  Mr. Speaker: I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman knew that we are on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, and that the general opinion which the House had yesterday was that it should be taken formally so that we might continue with what the House regarded, I thought, as an important debate on defence. However, what has happened now is that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) is perfectly in order in raising any matter for which the Government have responsibility.
  Mr. Heath: On a point of order. Is it not plain that we find ourselves in this position because of the incompetence of the Minister of Public Building and Works in not being here to make his statement at the right time, in which case we should have been limited to questions? I hope, therefore, that you, Mr. Speaker, will not in any way try to influence the House against debating this very important constitutional matter.
  Mr. Speaker: The question of the competence or incompetence of any Minister or hon. Member of Parliament is not a matter for the Chair. It is a matter for political discussion. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not want to suggest that the Chair wished in any way to influence the House.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Grimond rose—
  Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order. Was it not quite clear that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, a man who holds a responsible post, suggested that you, Mr. Speaker, were influencing the House once a debate was started?
  Mr. Speaker: I did not take that from what the right hon. Gentleman said.
  Mr. Grimond: I appreciate that there may be some doubt about what is meant by the phrase "operating controls". The Minister has said, since he made his statement that, in his view, anyone can go ahead with a building project which later may be refused a licence, but he has threatened that, if he does go ahead, he may find himself subject to a very severe loss because a licence will not be granted. With all respect to the Minister, I should have thought that this was an improper statement by a Minister, that, though somebody may do something perfectly legally, he may nevertheless suffer very grave financial loss.
  I suggest to the Government that they will have to drop this whole project. I say this with regret, because I was in favour of the Bill and I am in favour of this licensing, but I am more in favour of maintaining the authority of the House of Commons. I am more in favour of maintaining what I regard as being a proper procedure in our government. I believe that, in this, I would have some sympathy from the Minister himself, because he has shown on previous occasions that he is a great stickler for our procedures and for the ability of the House of Commons to ensure that nothing is done retrospectively without authority to the detriment of individual citizens, however much we might think that, in general, had it been done properly, it might have been desirable.
  Mr. Shinwell: On a point of order. Would I be in order, Mr. Speaker, on the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, in addressing the House on the subject of defence? I was hoping to catch your eye and I have a speech ready on this subject. Have I your permission to proceed?
  Mr. Speaker: It is not a question of permission. The right hon. Gentleman would be in order, but I think that he would be running counter to the whole pattern of Parliament if, on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill, he now anticipated a debate which both sides of the House seem to wish should take place on the Motion on Defence.
  Mr. Shinwell: Did it occur to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party that this was likely to happen? Is he so ill-informed of the procedures of the House, after several years of membership? He ought to do his homework before he rises to address the House.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asked me for a Ruling and for my advice. I have given it.
  Mr. Mawby: I do not think—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] This is surely a great constitutional question which we are now discussing. The Minister said that his powers spring from the statement made by the Chancellor last July. In fact, his powers do not spring from that statement, but were sought to be taken as a result of the Chancellor's statement and they were quite properly put into a Bill which, unfortunately, only reached its Committee stage.
  Therefore, the House has given no permission to the Minister to take any steps on these matters. I should like to back up—
  Mr. Woodburn: On a point of order. Would it be in order for me to move to report Progress so that we might have a statement from the Opposition as to whether they are deserting their debate on defence in order to frustrate the House and carry on this debate?
  Mr. Speaker: It is in order for the right hon. Gentleman to move to report Progress. The question is whether the Chair accepts the Motion. The Chair does not.
  Mr. Mawby: I believe that there is a great deal in what the Leader of the Liberal Party has said, that this is a matter in which the Minister is trying to legislate by statement. He is calling upon every builder in this country to take note of the fact that, at this moment, there is nothing illegal in his doing a certain thing, but that, if he does it, he may be at peril, because a future Government may, by this retrospective action, say that he was wrong in taking that action at this moment.
  This is a disgraceful state of affairs. It is something which the House should never allow itself to be a party to. The Minister ought gracefully to withdraw
  1924
  and give notice, if only by an addendum to the Labour Party's election manifesto, that they intend to bring back the Bill next Session if they are returned. This would be the honest and honourable step to take. Otherwise, they will put all those in the country in a particular group who are involved in building in a state of uncertainty, whereby they know that, in law, they are quite in order in taking certain actions, but that notice has been given by the Minister, with no statutory basis at all, that, if the party opposite is returned to office, these actions, which are legally taken today or tomorrow, will be rendered illegal because of some action taken in the future which will have retrospective application.
  I ask the Minister to withdraw from this action which he intends to take.
  Mr. Heath: I said in my intervention on a point of order that this matter raised very grave constitutional issues. I think that by now the whole House will agree with that, at any rate. However important this matter is, we on this side of the House do not want to spend a great deal more time on it, because we want to move on to the defence debate. However, two issues arise from the statement.
  First, the announcement appeared on the tape at 1.58 p.m., before it was made by the Minister here. We have had experience of this before. We deplore it and in the normal way I would ask a member of the Government to look into the reason why it has happened, for this is a discourtesy to the House.
  Secondly, the Minister is operating powers which he does not possess and has never possessed, but which he hoped he would get under a Bill which, because of the date of the General Election, chosen by the Prime Minister, he cannot now have. It therefore seems to be abundantly plain that he cannot possibly operate these powers, not even in the second version which he gave in his supplementary answer and which was in a slightly different form from that in the statement.
  We all know that when we have a Prorogation at the end of a Session any Bills which are not passed are dropped. In all my experience, Ministers have

  1925
  never attempted to operate powers in those Bills or the Bills themselves, but have dropped them. How much more so is that the case when one reaches the Dissolution of Parliament! What the right hon. Gentleman is saying is that the powers which he is trying to exercise purely on the basis of a statement are to be exercised after Parliament is dissolved in the hope that his own party will be returned to power and the Bill itself will then be passed in the form in which he has been handling it in Committee and which he expects it to have. That is entirely unreasonable and a completely unconstitutional position.
  I must, therefore, ask the Leader of the House, who is the senior member of the Government present, to look at the whole of this matter with the utmost care and to consult the Law Officers and the Lord Chancellor to see whether there is any legal justification for the attitude and if there is, for a statement to be made in both Houses giving the legal position. I cannot see any possible justification for the position taken up by the Minister of Public Building and Works.
  We then come to the right hon. Gentleman's statement, in which he said that even if there was no legal justification anybody who embarked on a project of this kind would do so at his peril. This is government of the people by intimidation. We have had it before. We have had intimidation of B.B.C. interviewers and we have heard about intimidation against the publication of information about the economic situation. This is government by intimidation.
  The plain fact is that the Minister has absolutely no right to threaten people with action if his Government be returned. The Leader of the House plainly has no power to sanction a statement such as the right hon. Gentleman has made. I therefore ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to leave the matter as I have put it—that the Leader of the House should consult his legal advisers and tell the House tomorrow whether there is any possible constitutional justification for trying to carry a Bill over the Dissolution of Parliament, or for a Minister to act just on a statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If there is no such power to carry a Bill over Dissolution, then, knowing the integrity of the Leader of
  1926
  the House from past experience of our close working together, I rely on him in confidence to withdraw the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has just made.
  Mr. Speaker: The Question is—
  Hon. Members: Answer.
  Mr. Pannell: I did not wish to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman, but I understood that he wanted to leave the matter so that my right hon. Friend could consider the constitutional position. I shall be only too glad to deal with the matters raised, but I want now to make only one point. We have been moving under these powers—if I can use the word "powers"—since 27th July. Today's statement was intended as no more than an indication to industry of the course of action that things will take [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am afraid that we will not get any further if I am picked up on the precise meaning of every word. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am trying to reply to the Leader of the Opposition.
  I used the word "peril". I regret using an emotive, question-begging word, but it was not meant in that sense in that context. All I am saying is that the industry ought to know on what basis it can proceed in order to get the authorisations. I cannot see very much change in the situation. I have quite frankly stated the position and I have not attempted to duck or evade stating what the correct position is. I will say no more at this stage.
  I understand the constitutional position. I do not yield to the Leader of the Opposition in my respect for the House. I expressed my regret at the beginning—they were not matters within my control. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition wants to leave the matter now so that its constitutional aspects can be considered. If I did not rise at once when the right hon. Gentleman sat down, it was purely because I thought that that was his wish.
  Mr. Heath indicated assent.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.
  Committee Tomorrow.

  DEFENCE
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [7th March]:
  That this House regrets that Her Majesty's Government have announced decisions in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966 (Command Papers Nos. 2901 and 2902) which will impair the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them.
  Question again proposed.
  4.8 p.m.
  Brigadier Terence Clarke: I want to concentrate on the cancellation of the aircraft carrier programme. Ever since the present Government took office, 17 months ago, I have made speeches in Portsmouth and asked Questions in the House, but I have never received anything but an evasive answer about the carrier programme.
  The Government knew very well from the beginning, even from the last General Election, that they were not to build any carriers. It is quite preposterous for the Secretary of State to go on recruiting people to join the Fleet Air Arm. There was an enormous advertisement in the week before he made his statement on the White Paper asking young men to join as airmen in the Royal Navy. Such an advertisement is misleading and makes people believe that they can have a career in the Fleet Air Arm, when, in fact, in 10 years, if a Labour Government are in power, we will not have a carrier. That is probably most unlikely and I hope that these officers and men will have a career in the Fleet Air Arm.
  Land-based aircraft now being bought in the U.S.A. are no substitute for carriers, and the Secretary of State has been advised to this effect by his technical officers. His decision has caused the resignation of Admiral Luce and the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy. We have not yet been told about the Government's technical adviser, but it has been suggested that he did not agree with the Secretary of State.
  Who told the Minister that we could do without carriers is not apparent to anyone except hon. Members opposite. The Minister, in replacing these carriers, has bought a lot of American aircraft on hire purchase and has put a lot of our own men out of employment, and these
  1928
  aircraft are to be paid for by a later generation. He knows that we have no dollars with which to buy them now. He knows the state of this country's finances so far as dollars are concerned. What the bill will be by the time these aircraft are paid for, no one knows.
  Australia has bought some of these F111As and already the bill has gone up by millions. By the time we get the aircraft under hire purchase and have paid the interest they will have become very expensive. They will certainly be a great deal more expensive than these land bases that the Minister talks about. With a land base it is necessary to have at least a battalion of infantry and probably more to guard it. Where will the Minister get the troops? What a lot of money this will cost. For how long will we be allowed to sit in these land bases? If any one of the sheiks in an area where we get a base rattles a sabre a Labour Government will be out of that base as fast as they can go.
  We are already leaving Aden. This will leave an opportunity for Nasser to take our place immediately, and I say here and now that Nasser will do that within a very short time of our leaving. It is quite disgraceful, after all the money that has been spent on Aden. It has cost us millions of pounds to instal married quarters and build harbours and storehouses for our weapons and equipment, and now we are to go away and, incidentally, break a treaty in doing so. It is quite disgraceful, and I am sure that the country, when it comes to 31st March, will remember what the Labour Government have done in the last few weeks and all the "lolly" that they have given out with both hands daily.
  I should like to ask the Minister how many times he has been overseas during the war without an aircraft carrier for his protection. I went on three expeditions, to Norway, North Africa, and then Normandy. On each occasion I reckoned that I would never have got there if it had not been for the aircraft carriers and the air support that we had. I see the Secretary of State for Defence smiling. In Norway, we had no aircraft at all. We had no A.A. guns because the people at that time thought that it was out of range of enemy bombers. It was, in fact, out of range, but the enemy

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  aircraft landed on frozen lakes, ferried up the ammunition and the bombs, and we were bombed within three days of landing at Narvik. We were luckily protected by a carrier; Spitfires were brought from England and were flown on to an air strip later. That gave us our cover.
  I would remind the Minister who, apparently, is so keen on airstrips, that when we eventually evacuated Norway we had to crash all our aircraft on board the carriers. He will probably tell me that the "Valiant" went down in the process. It did, because land-based aircraft were put on to a carrier—aircraft which it was not intended to carry. We could not put up our own reconnaissance aeroplanes and that lost us a ship. Incidentally, we came back from Norway without any protection whatsoever, although we got bombed on the way back, as we did on the way back from Africa, too. It was only good luck that got us through. With a carrier we would have got through without any difficulty at all.
  We are told that carriers are vulnerable to atomic and hydrogen bombs. That may be. So is an airstrip. So is everything else. But, at least, a carrier is mobile, and it can try to escape from the enemy and carry out its rôle of guarding the troops wherever they may be landing. I believe—and I am sure that I am right—that the carrier is capable of carrying a nuclear bomb. Is that why the Labour Party does not like it? Is it because it could carry a nuclear weapon that we are getting rid of the carrier?
  The new Minister of Defence for the Navy is on record as saying that he is against all nuclear weapons. How can a Minister of State for the Navy, who is now in charge of Polaris, take the job when he does not believe in nuclear weapons? I should have thought he would have resigned long before the previous Minister resigned. I like him very much, and I hope that he stays there—just for a fortnight—but his conscience must be hurting him like anything if he does not believe in nuclear weapons and yet he is in charge of Polaris. Does not that worry him at all? He wrote a book in which he described himself as a very ordinary seaman. I suggest that he is a very extraordinary Minister of Defence to stay in office at all.
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  The Minister says that there is plenty of work in the dockyards for the foreseeable future. My worry is that I do not think that the Labour Party can see beyond its nose. I do not know what it calls the foreseeable future. How many apprentices are to be taken on in the dockyards, when in eight to 10 years' time the work will be cut down because there will be no carriers? We were to have a graving dock, but now we are not to have it. These are terribly serious things for the naval dockyards. Has the Minister given the matter thought, or are we to have the Prime Minister coming back some time between now and 31st March, when he sees that he is unpopular, saying that he has changed his mind? If he does so, and he gets back into power, which I do not think he will, he will say "April Fool to you. It is now 1st April and you are not to get any of those things I promised three weeks before the House rose."
  I have made it perfectly clear that I believe this country will be in great danger if we follow the Labour Party's programme of getting rid of carriers. Even if it should get the Prime Minister a vote, I hope that he will change his mind and decide that he and the Secretary of State for Defence were wrong and that these carriers should not go.
  4.17 p.m.
  Mr. Robert Carr: I think that after the stage which we reached in our first day's debate yesterday there are at least four basic facts which have emerged about the Government's White Paper and their defence policy generally.
  The first point seems to me to be that the Government's Defence Review and the decisions which have flowed from it were not required to stop any runaway train of defence expenditure. There was no runaway train. The Conservative Government's defence policy had been achieved year after year by expending a controlled and reducing proportion of our gross national product, and the same applied to our planned expenditure for the future. With the projected increase of £400 million at constant prices by 1969–70, the total would still have been within the same percentage range of the then expanded gross national product.
  What the Government have done is not to stop a train which was out of control,

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  but to take a deliberate decision to catch another train, to cut the proportion of the G.N.P. spent on defence to 6 per cent. by 1969–70. At the same time, however, they have not cut the country's commitments during the same period to a corresponding extent. That is what gives substance to our Motion. It is also what gives substance to the resignation speech of the former Minister of Defence for the Navy. The Secretary of State for Defence has so far utterly failed to rebut that case.
  The second fact which, I think, has been established so far is that the reduction in expenditure is to be achieved not by cutting manpower, but by cutting equipment. This, too, gives basic support to the Motion which is before the House. To quote the former Minister of Defence for the Navy, a cut of
  "one-sixth of the total budget represents much more than one-sixth of the budget for arms, weapons and equipment. It represents a very navy cut in military capabilities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 257.]
  The third basic fact which has been established is that, within our total defence power, the balance will be tipped more in favour of the nuclear component and against the conventional element. This is the exact opposite of what the Labour Party said was required and promised to do before the last election. We do not dissent from it, but the Labour Party has here utterly defaulted on one of the main promises it made to the country. Then the emphasis was on building up our conventional power at the expense of the nuclear. Now, in practice, we have the exact reverse. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Defence did not even attempt to refute the case put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) that the Government intend in future, under this White Paper policy, to maintain an independent British nuclear deterrent outside Europe.
  The fourth basic fact which has been established is that there is still about £100 million worth of the Government's proposed total cut of £400 million which they either cannot or will not account for. Last August, the Secretary of State for Defence accounted for cuts totalling £220 million. He was not at all shy about explaining how those had been arrived at. Yesterday, he accounted for another £80 million, after some pressure from my right
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  hon. Friend. That, he said, was attributable to stopping the carrier. Thus, he has accounted for about £300 million of cuts in all, but that still leaves £100 million, or no less than 25 per cent. of the total, to be accounted for. What are these cuts? Why are the Government so afraid to disclose them?
  The ex-Minister of Defence for the Navy drew the attention of the House to the fact that
  "…not all these things are specified in the Defence White Paper. In the case of the Navy, they are much wider than merely the cancellation of the CVA01, but they are not specified."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 257.]
  What are these cuts? The House and the country deserve to be told, and it is sheer hypocrisy for the Prime Minister and others to go spluttering about the country and the world talking about a great national debate on these matters while hiding under a carpet these basic facts about the nature of what the Government are doing. [An HON. MEMBER: "Open and frank."] "Open and frank" are the words, provided that one can get into the habit, as one has to do with this Government, or reading everything upside down.
  In opening the debate yesterday, my right hon. Friend ranged over the whole subject of defence policy. He exposed in devastating manner the weakness, inconsistency and danger of the Government's proposals. In my speech, at the beginning of our second day, I shall concentrate on a much narrower front, namely, the vital importance, in our view on this side of the House, of Britain maintaining an independent capability in two senses. First, in the sense of maintaining a structure of forces and equipment which enables us as a country to play our chosen rôle in a wide variety of circumstances and areas of the world, which it would be rash to forecast, at least in detail, with too rigid a certainty too far ahead. Secondly, in the sense of maintaining an independent, industrial and technological capability to produce, if not all, at least a wide range of modern sophisticated weapons and equipment in partnership with our closest neighbours in Europe, without dependence on the United States.
  Those are the two themes to which I shall address myself. They are what

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  Britain needs. They are what Europe needs. In the long run, they are what the United States needs, as well. We believe that Anglo-American and European-American partnership are the essential foundations of peace and freedom in the world, but if that bond is to be strong, tough and enduring—this is the vital point which the party opposite seems entirely to ignore or to forget—if we and Europe are to give support to America as well as receiving support from America, the relationship in the long run must be one of real partnership and not of resentful subservience. We in Europe must not become military, industrial and technological satellites of the United States. But this is the very direction in which we are being led at the moment, willy-nilly, by the Prime Minister and the Government. We know it. Our friends in Europe know it and fear it, too. It is a trend which must be reversed, not only in our interests but in the interests of Europe, of the United States and of peace and freedom throughout the world.
  Many people would agree that Britain's rôle in the world should be more and more a peace-keeping one. The White Paper assumes that
  "Britain will not undertake major operations of war except in co-operation with allies."
  Many people might agree with that, too, if they could be given sufficient confidence in Governments' possessing the necessary clairvoyance to detect what is or is not a major war in embryo. But is the F111 plus the V-bomber and island base philosophy a peace-keeping concept? Is it not more a way in which to play an auxiliary rôle in someone else's major war? Does it really provide much independent capability? Is not the mixed land base and carrier concept much more in line with a peace-keeping rôle?
  The Secretary of State for Defence cited the East African Army mutinies of 1964 as an example of the type of operation in which Britain might be involved. But was not the presence of a carrier close to the East Coast of Africa an important element in that operation?
  Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: Will not we still have commando carriers of the type used in the Indian Ocean in the next decade?
  Mr. Carr: How do we give them cover? My right hon. Friend dealt with this very point yesterday. Could the same cover, had it been required either on the ground or by a commando carrier, have been provided by supersonic bombers from a base hundreds if not 1,000 or more miles away and able to spend perhaps only a few minutes over the target? An aircraft carrier was essential.
  What about the application of sanctions against Rhodesia? Whatever we may think about the rights and wrongs of that, is it not a fact that seaborne aircraft are essential to supervise their enforcement at this very moment? Is it not possible that right hon. and hon. Members opposite at least may wish to do something similar in the 1970s in similar circumstances? How is this sort of thing to be coped with with F111s and V-bombers dashing about the place at supersonic speeds from land bases 1,000 or 2,000 miles away?
  In his famous, or infamous, speech at Plymouth during the last election campaign, the Prime Minister laid much stress on the importance of stronger naval power and on the importance of mobility, and he made much play of the way our existing carrier force was overstretched. Was that speech of the Prime Minister just cynical, dishonest vote-catching in a naval dockyard town? The Government's present policy certainly suggests that the worst of all interpretations should be put upon it. I wonder whether the Prime Minister will pay another visit to Plymouth in this election and talk to the same audience. Incidentally, I wonder whether he will arrange for another message to be sent in his name to the ex-TSR2 workers and other aircraft workers in Preston. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) would like to know.
  Or perhaps the Prime Minister's gimmickry is so superb that he is using it this time for patriotic reasons and not just to fool the British electorate. Perhaps the TSR2 has not been cancelled at all, and we may find in the next week or two, is to be brought out of mothballs and resurrected. If such a miraculous bit of illusionism could take place, I suppose that we on this side of the House would welcome it.

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  But if the Government's new policy is to become the order of the day and is to carry any conviction, there are at least two points on which we have no information at the moment and on which we must have some. First, what about a surface-to-surface guided weapon for use against missile firing ships? We are told in the White Paper that one is to be developed—in paragraph 2 on page 9 of Part I. But what is it, and when? It is not included in this year's research and development programme on pages 46 and 47 of Part II of the White Paper. Yet, as my right hon. Friend pointed out yesterday, it must take years, probably a decade, to develop to the production and service stage, by which time there will have been a gap between the cessation of the carriers and this weapon coming into service.
  As to the second essential bit of information that we must have, we must be told something about the location of the land or island bases on which the strike reconnaissance aircraft are to be based and how they will be defended and maintained and at what cost. Unless we are given more details of this sort of thing it is impossible to form any judgment about some of the so-called reasoning which appears in the White Paper.
  I turn to aircraft. I want to go straight to what the White Paper describes as the operational and industrial core of our long-term aircraft programme, namely, the Anglo-French variable geometry project. We strongly support this project, and we urge speed, the utmost speed; otherwise, the United States will beat us to it.
  The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Frederick Mulley): I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would convey this very strong message, which I endorse, to his right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), because if anyone did anything to damage the project yesterday it was the right hon. Gentleman, in his speech, which made the case for buying more F111s and threw everything but the kitchen sink at the variable geometry concept.
  Mr. Carr: As we all discover from time to time, it is better sometimes to
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  think first and speak afterwards, and this is one of those occasions for the right hon. Gentleman. If anything has done anything to damage the project, it is the confusing, muddling, contradictory announcements that he and his right hon. Friend have been making about the project over the last year. I will give chapter and verse for it. There cannot be utmost speed until the Government of the day know what it is they want this aircraft to do and to be. How can our French colleagues have any confidence in them until they know that? They are in confusion, as was shown by the Press conference given by no less a person than the Chief of the French Air Staff as recently as 25th February.
  What is the purpose? Let the House look at paragraph 8 on pages 10 and 11 of Part I of the White Paper. There we are told that the key to our deterrent power is the strike reconnaissance capacity from a distance. This has been, and still is, the rôle of the Canberra. But the Canberra, we are told, cannot safely continue after 1970. By the mid-1970s, we are told, the Anglo-French VG should begin to take over this rôle. The Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft is, therefore, now clearly presented as the ultimate Canberra replacement. But in his statement on 17th May, 1965—about 10 months ago—on the Anglo-French memorandum, the Secretary of State for Defence said, clearly, that the Anglo-French variable geometry project would be a replacement for some or all of the Buccaneer, the Lightning and the Phantom.
  The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey): I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman intended to mislead the House, but he undoubtedly did by quoting the sentence incorrectly. The sentence to which he refers said that by the 1970s we intend that the Anglo-French VG aircraft should begin to take over this and other rôles. I repeat "and other rôles"; and the other rôles are the ones to which the right hon. Gentleman is just about to refer.
  Mr. Carr: That is interesting, and I will pursue it, but it does not invalidate what I am saying at the moment, that this is presented to the House as the ultimate Canberra replacement.
  Mr. Healey: Among other rôles.
  Mr. Carr: We will examine these other rôles in a few moments, because, as I shall demonstrate also to the House, there is great confusion between the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend about the other rôles.
  At that time there was not a mention of the Canberra in relation to the variable geometry project. That is an entirely different proposition. It is no wonder that our French friends, as I have just said and illustrated, are confused. But there it is. Whatever else it may be in addition—and I realise that there are the other rôles—the Anglo-French VG project is now presented as the ultimate Canberra replacement.
  The interim Canberra replacement is to be provided in two parts, the first part by the 50 F111As and the second part, in the strike rôle only, by the V-bombers. Incidentally, as an ex-professional metallurgist I hope that the Government have considered sufficiently carefully the fatigue risks of these aircraft at this late stage in their life, flying in the very testing conditions of low level, and that they will not run into any trouble about them.
  Mr. Healey: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we benefit greatly from the low-level testing undertaken by the previous Government, which subjected the aircraft to infinitely more difficult conditions than those we anticipate for them in the rôle suggested.
  Mr. Carr: I am delighted to have that assurance.
  It would seem clear from the White Paper that when this interim period is over the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft will replace the functions of either or both of the F111 and the V-bomber. But the Minister of Aviation last night said categorically that it would not be a replacement for the F111. He said equally categorically that it would be a replacement for the V-bombers. I would not be at all surprised if our French friends are surprised when they suddenly hear that the Anglo-French variable geometry project is suddenly being cast in the rôle of a successor to the Victor and the Vulcan. [Interruption.]
  I may not know much about aircraft, but after what has been said in this debate I have a shrewd suspicion that I know pretty well as much as the right
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  hon. Gentleman. He said that it was definitely to be a replacement for the V-bomber. It would seem, therefore, that the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft can, in the Government's mind, replace almost every fighting aircraft with one exception, and that exception is the F111A. I will come back to that in a moment. It can replace the Lightning the Buccaneer, the Phantom and the V-bomber. This is very curious.
  Apart from everything else, what is the range of this aircraft to be? The original Canberra replacement was to be the TSR2, of long range. When the Government cancelled the TSR2 the favoured substitute was obviously the F111, and one of its most praised characteristics was its long range. Indeed, one of the technical arguments used, for example, against the alternative of the Spey/Mirage was its lack of range. The V-bomber, which is to share the interim Canberra rôle, also has long range.
  All through, therefore, range has been emphasised as a key characteristic. But what is the potential range of this Anglo-French VG project? By comparison it is a small aircraft. We understand that it weighs about 40,000 lb., compared with the roughly 80,000 lb. of the F111. This means that its range must be about half that of the F111, or certainly not more than two-thirds.
  Mr. Healey: Three-quarters.
  Mr. Carr: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is three-quarters. Its fuel carrying capacity must, of course, depend on what else it carries, in which case its weapon and equipment-carrying capacity must also be smaller. I admit that the range must be the function of the combination of the fuel it carries and the weight of weapons and equipment, but it undeniably has a considerably shorter range than any of the aircraft of the Canberra rôle which it is supposed to be replacing.
  It looks to be essentially what the Government first said it was in explaining the Anglo-French memorandum, namely, a replacement for one or all of the Lightnings, Buccaneers, and Phantoms, rather than a suitable substitute for the TSR2, the F111, or the V-bomber force. It is a most extraordinary bit of agility to transform this aircraft and make it appear suitable for other than its original purposes.

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  But that is not the end of the confusion. If hon. Members will look at paragraph 14 on page 12 of Part I of the White Paper, under the heading "Fighter and Ground Attack Aircraft", they will see that
  "We shall later be taking a strike version of the Anglo-French Jaguar in order to release Phantoms to replace the Lightning."
  So, according to the White Paper, Jaguars will replace Phantoms, and Phantoms will replace the Lightnings. But according to the Minister of Aviation, in his speech last night,
  "Our intention is to use the VG aircraft to replace the Phantom in the strike role, releasing the Phantom from that role in order to replace the Lightning."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1862.]
  These two statements seem rather difficult to reconcile. Perhaps the answer to this mystery can be disclosed to us tonight. This whole tale of mystery and imagination must be clarified.
  I now want to say a few words about the F111, because the mystery that I have been talking about now affects the rôle of this aircraft as well. The categorical statement made last night by the Minister of Aviation, to which I have referred, that the VG aircraft is complementary to the F111 and is in no sense a replacement, clearly implies that there are some rôles which only the F111 will be able to fulfil once the V-bombers have gone. The House should be told what these rôles are. Are they long-distance reconnaissance rôles in Asia? If so, where and what are they? Are they to go to the borders of China, and so forth? Is another of those rôles a strategic strike rôle? Is this, perhaps, an independent British nuclear deterrent outside Europe? The House should be told what these special rôles are.
  If the F111 has these unique rôles, which cannot be filled by anything else on the stocks, how can we get by with only 50 of these aircraft? Is this not inevitably only a first instalment? If that is the logical conclusion, or at least the likely outcome, would it not be far franker—to use a popular word—to tell the House of Commons so?
  I now turn to the implications of the Government's policy for the aircraft industry. This is the other part of my
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  theme—the vital need to maintain a technological capability independent of the United States. From the production point of view the aircraft industry now looks to be fairly well provided for for the next few years, but the list of aircraft at the beginning of paragraph 17, on page 12 of Part I of the White Paper, is mainly a hotch-potchery of obsolescent aircraft. For the one really advanced plane—I suppose that we can call it an advanced plane, although it is now five years since it first flew—the P1127, or the Kestrel, there is still no production order. No indication has been given the House as to how large that order will be, or when it will be placed. When are we to get that settled, and be given that information?
  As for the major new projects for the future, the industry now has its joint share with France in the Jaguar and the VG projects. These are most welcome and valuable, and I want to make it clear that my hon. Friends and I agree about that. But, equally, we want to make it clear that they are not enough, on their own, to provide a balanced future programme of sufficient weight to ensure the maintenance of a substantial and technically advanced aircraft industry in this country. The Government are fooling themselves and the country if they think otherwise.
  I want to put three further questions about future aircraft projects which the Government must answer. First, what is to succeed the American C130 as a transport aircraft? That aircraft is already becoming obsolescent. Secondly, what is to be the airborne early warning aircraft of the future—the successor to the Gannet? Thirdly, what about our new helicopter requirements? If those gaps were all to be filled by American aircraft it would be disastrous. We would not have the basis for a technologically advanced substantial aircraft industry for the future such as the Government claim to wish to see, and which we certainly wish to see.
  Until those questions, as well as a number of those on the civil side—which we cannot discuss today—have been answered in terms predominantly, even if not entirely, of Anglo-European projects, the yawning vacuum created by the Government's cancellations last year cannot begin to be adequately filled, nor

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  can we be said to be moving away from the danger of technological dependence on the United States.
  From the national point of view the folly of the Government's "across the board" cancellations of last year is shown by the price that we are paying for not having the TSR2. Here I must correct the misleading figures given last night by the Minister of Aviation. He said that the capital cost of taking 50 F111As amounted to £190 million, made up of £150 million for the aircraft themselves and £40 million for cancellation charges on the TSR2.
  Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) asked me to correct or confirm a group of figures, and I gave the figure of £190 million only in response to questions posed to me by him. The capital cost of the F111A has been given to the House of many occasions by my right hon. Friend. It is £2½ million basic unit cost.
  Mr. Carr: I only hope that when history unfolds we shall find that the new ceiling is £2·5 million and not £28 million. We will accept £2·5 million for the purpose of this discussion.
  Mr. J. T. Price: We should have some rough agreement on figures at least if we are to disregard ideas and interpretations. Let us have the figures right. Yesterday, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) addressed the House from the Front Bench on the basis of his own calculations, and quoted the figure of £5 million per unit. It was when he was shot down on that point that he began to wobble all over the place.
  Mr. Carr: The hon. Gentleman should be patient. I am trying to establish these figures. I accept that the Minister of Aviation had no intention of misleading the House, and I hope that I did not suggest that he so intended. But let us see where—if we are looking at the matter in total—the figures that we were talking about last night were false.
  According to the Comptroller and Audtior General, the cancellation charges for the TSR2 will be not £40 million, but £70 million. In addition, £125 million was spent on the TSR2 prior to cancellation. One must add this total nugatory
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  expenditure on the TSR2—in other words, £195 million—in order to get a full picture, and the total cost of obtaining 50 Fill As after having cancelled the TSR2 is thus not £190 million, but £345 million. That is a very different figure, and it explains to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), if he divides that figure by 50, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West knew what he was talking about.
  Mr. John Binns: Would the right hon. Member tell us what 50 TSR2 aircraft would have cost?
  Mr. Carr: If the hon. Member will be a little patient, I will tell him.
  I will accept the figure given by the Minister in winding up the debate last night—£450 million for 50 aircraft. That is the Minister's own calculation and I do not wish to dispute it. We thus have £345 million for the F111A and £450 million for the same number of TSR2s. For this difference of £105 million, spread over 10 years or more, we have disrupted the aircraft industry, we have given up very valuable technological fall-out and we have added a great burden to our balance of payments. We suggest that these penalties are far greater than the £10 million or less of savings per annum which have been achieved.
  Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Gentleman made a serious allegation. He said that we have added to our balance-of-payments problems. I must infer from that that he does not accept the word of the American Government that they will make a full purchase such as I explained last night, or that he has no faith in the capability of British industry to sell the goods to the Americans.
  Mr. Carr: If the right hon. Gentleman is a little patient I will come to that before I conclude.
  There are some remaining points which I want to make about the aircraft industry, because we on this side of the House want to press again three of the matters which I raised in the debate on the Plowden Report. The first concerns contract procedure, which is central to the problem of getting value for money and speed of decision. The statement on this subject by the Minister of Aviation last week showed deplorably slow progress.

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  It is more than 12 months since he had the Lang Report in his hands. After more than 12 months the Government have just rejected one of its main recommendations and are only just getting round to serious negotiations with industry on another. This is deplorably slow progress.
  The second point is the relaxation of security, which I raised in the debate on the Plowden Report. I said then that we in this country were burrowing about like moles. Let me say at once that this is not a party point, because I accept that the present Government are not using security more than other Governments have used it in the past.
  Mr. Mulley: We have given more information.
  Mr. Carr: I will even accept that in a limited way. Indeed, I hope that we may look on this as a House of Commons matter. Other points are bound to be in debate between us, but I particularly want this to be a House of Commons and not a party political issue. Why cannot we have our security arrangements relaxed to American standards, so that the British Parliament and public may join in informed discussion and constructive criticism to the same extent as our colleagues in the United States are able to do? I want to put again before the Government a plea that they should look at this matter.
  The third point which I want to stress again, and which I raised in the debate on the Plowden Report, is controversial, particularly in view of today's publication: we reaffirm that we reject utterly the nationalisation, in whole or in part, of the aircraft industry. To embark on nationalisation in this moment of history, of all times, will cause endless delay and distraction just at a time when urgency and speed are important. I sincerely trust that if, contrary to all expectations, the Labour Party is returned to power, it will be as dilatory in carrying out that promise as, in this Parliament, thank goodness, it has been dilatory in carrying out its promise to nationalise steel.
  Lastly, I want to say a few words about maintaining our general industrial capability. This is raised by the Government's policy as to how we offset
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  the enormous dollar cost of the "Buy American" policy which they have been operating. We have no confidence in the Government's easy optimism about the practical effects of the assurances which they have obtained from the United States. Of course, these were given in good faith by the United States Government, but I have heard Ministers opposite say how difficult it is to convert an agreement which one can reach in Washington into industrial terms when the American industrial lobbies begin to operate in Washington.
  This is not all. According to the right hon. Gentleman, last night, more than half of the commitment is to sell to third countries—not sales to the United States at all. This is not good enough. I hope that we should have got those third country sales in any event. We ought to offset a purchase of American equipment on this scale with sales to the United States, and nothing else should be acceptable to the House.
  But even if the assurances were to lead to extra sales in the United States—and I emphasise the word "extra"; we must not take into account all our sales to the United States, for they are not negligible in any event—the nature of the goods sold is also extremely important. It would be fatal to the long-term interests of this country to import from the United States products of the most advanced technologies while we export in payment to the United States merely the products of old technologies, such as old-type, unsophisticated ships. It would also be fatal to pay by exporting not the products of our advanced technological knowledge but the very technological "know-how" itself.
  The danger of this—and a direct result of the Government's aircraft cancellations—is now upon us. We see it in the setting up in Britain by the American Lockheed Aircraft Corporation of Comprehensive Designers Incorporated. This firm is seeking to recruit to work for Lockheed in this country several hundred of our aircraft designers, offering salaries about 30 per cent. above British rates and seeking to export the product of their design skills to feed the American technological effort. Here, indeed, is a brain drain with a vengeance. I was told only this morning

  1945
  that last week the British Aircraft Corporation lost 16 of its design team and that about three-quarters of them went into the service of Comprehensive Designers Incorporated.
  In conclusion, my theme has been the maintenance of Britain's capability. We on this side of the House do not believe that Britain can "go it alone". We do not deceive ourselves with nostalgic dreams of past glories. We accept the desirability, indeed the inevitability, of interdependence. But we are determined that it shall be the genuine interdependence of allies and not the subservient relationship of auxiliaries. We know that this requires a steady advance towards the integration of Britain with Europe in economic, technological, military and political terms. If there is to be a healthy and lasting partnership with the United States, we have in modern conditions to mobilise the old world to redress the balance of the new.
  We are convinced that the Government's present defence policies are, in practice, obstructing, not assisting, that vital progress. It is for that reason—in addition to the others so devastatingly propounded yesterday by my right hon. Friend—that we censure the Government with all the power that we can command.
  5.0 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): The Motion we are debating complains that the Government's defence policy will
  "…impair the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them."
  In view of that phrase, I had expected—indeed, we had all expected—that we would have heard rather more from right hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench about their assessment of those duties.
  Missing from this debate has been any assessment, any description by them of what should be the foreign commitments and general position in the world of this country. And without that, of course, their criticisms of defence policy are a set of disparate pieces with no real force or compulsion in the argument. Indeed, any attempt to examine the question of what this country's position in the world should be was left by the Front Bench opposite to the Liberal Party, in the person of the hon. and learned Member for
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  Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), who I am sorry to see is not with us this afternoon because I will be referring later to his speech.
  Would it be unfair to speculate as to the reason for this omission in the argument? It may be that, after the speech which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) made at Brighton some time ago, it was felt that his view about the position of this country in the world involved so sweeping a setting aside of any rôle for us in the area commonly described as east of Suez that there would not be agreement between him and his right hon. Friends if he pressed his own doctrine. At any rate, is not this silence so remarkable when it is known that there are these important differences of opinion among leading members of the party opposite as to what the duties assigned to our forces should be?
  Still more remarkable, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence pointed out, has been the absence among the speakers from the benches opposite of any of the former Ministers of Defence. There were nine of them—nine discordant muses, each singing a different song. Three of them remain in the House, but not one of them has been chosen to call upon his wide knowledge and experience in order to help the House in assessing the Government's programme. It therefore fell to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West to open the debate yesterday and to apply his own military knowledge to the problem.
  I am bound to say that it was not entirely equal to the task. It was very unfair of the party opposite to put him up on a Motion talking about the duties assigned to our forces when they know that he differs from many of them on what those duties should be and when he had not had the advantage that some of them have had; of being able to collect the military expertise through experience in office.
  Thus it was that we found the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West putting forward the proposition that when one is able to reduce the number of men required overseas, it was, he argued, of no value unless one disbanded the forces—omitting absolutely the vital point in the whole planning of our

  1947
  defences; that it is essential to reduce the pressure put on the men today by having to spend too much of their time overseas. This getting rid of overstretch, as it is called, should be a major object of defence policy. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was not even aware that it was a necessary object of policy.
  We have already had the argument about his uncertainties as to the cost of the F111A aircraft. Perhaps what the House has not noticed is that the right hon. Gentleman gave us yesterday figures of the comparative weights of the F111A aircraft and the variable geometry aircraft, which made the F111 five times as heavy.
  Mr. Healey: He said 80 tons.
  Mr. Stewart: Yes, for the variable geometry aircraft. The common multiplier is, I understand, no more than two, but the right hon. Gentleman was not aware of that.
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Would the right hon. Gentleman say in what circumstances the weight of the new French variable geometry in the form the Government happen at the moment to be imagining it has yet been announced?
  Mr. Stewart: It was announced yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman himself. He gave the figures for the two aircraft respectively as 80 tons—which, I am told, is about twice what it should be—and the other 15 or 16 tons, making a multiplier of five whereas a multiplier of something like two would have been accurate.
  Mr. Healey: The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) got it right today.
  Mr. Stewart: The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) knows. The two of them, between them, must sort it out. Why was the party opposite not prepared to put up at least one of the three ex-Ministers of Defence they have available? Why is none of them even here this afternoon? To have put up two right hon. Gentlemen who disagree with each other on a simple point of fact is not treating the House seriously.
  There was also the argument about the length of life of an F111 aircraft.
  1948
  That arose when discussing the question whether it was a replacement, or whether, after a certain number of years to come, we would have the variable geometry aircraft. It was painfully apparent during that argument that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was not aware for how long an aircraft normally remains in use. There was his further advice to us that if we decide to leave the Aden base we should not tell anyone about the decision. Setting aside for the moment the dubious morality of that advice, it should have been apparent to somebody who could have called on so many ex-Ministers of Defence to advise him that that was not a practical proposition; that if one decided that one would leave in 1968 one must begin to take, almost at once, actions which would make what one intended to do apparent.
  Later in his speech the right hon. Gentleman referred to an aircraft carrier as being under construction, when it has not yet been put out to tender. Further, both he and the right hon. Member for Mitcham urged the complaint that we were concentrating too heavily on nuclear as distinct from conventional forces. In fact, the nuclear element in our arms expenditure, which is at present about 5½ per cent., will be about 2 per cent. by the end of the period under consideration in this review. Therefore, it seems that the Opposition, in presenting their case, for internal party reasons—
  Mr. R. Carr: Before the right hon. Gentleman proceeds, would he not agree, if the percentage which he has just given is the case—and I am not now arguing on that score—that that will be the position because the Polaris purchases will have been completed, but that it does not indicate any less dependence on nuclear weapons? Is it not the case that an important purchasing phase will be over when these things are in operation?
  Mr. Stewart: That is a different point from the one that was originally being made. The party opposite has come here not only keeping silent for internal party reasons on the question of what we want forces for, but has come singularly ill-briefed on the military questions with which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence dealt effectively and with which he will be dealing again when replying to the debate.

  1949
  If I may say this to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest, it is not everyone who can speak for one and a quarter hours and maintain an average of one major error every 10 minutes throughout the length of that speech. One is bound to ask why, with these qualifications, was he not one of the Tory Ministers of Defence?
  I turn now to the questions of what are the foreign policy assumptions of defence—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I quite understand why hon. Gentlemen opposite do not wish me to pursue the line of argument I have been pursuing so far.
  Let us now consider the great question which underlies the whole thing. What are the foreign policy assumptions that should underlie any defence preparations? There is one—
  Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I am trying to follow the Foreign Secretary. Does he intend to argue today that in 1970 our defence expenditure will not be limited to the ceiling of £2,000 million originally fixed, but, instead, will be related to our world commitments and our world rôle? Is that what he will say?
  Mr. Stewart: I was about to answer that question. The very first point I want to make on the relation of foreign policy and defence is this. When considering foreign policy and defence there is a third factor one must immediately bring into the argument, namely, the strength of the country's economy. One reason why, when planning defence ahead, we must say, "This is the figure to which we intend to plan" is that, if we fail to do so, we will land ourselves in expenditure and be subjected to industrial stresses which will mean that our defence does not work out right, and that the general weakness of the economy and the consequent weakness of the currency prevents us from having an effective say in the councils of the world.
  It is no good the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) shaking his head, unless he seeks to advocate that one should first draw up an ideal list of all the things one would like to do and all the weapons one would like to have and spend without limit. One must grasp the fact that the idea behind the Defence
  1950
  Review of a proper balance between what the country's duties are and what its resources are is central to the whole argument—
  Mr. Cranky Onslow: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain whether he is saying that the phrase "what the nation can afford" is not, in his view, a subjective assumption, but something absolute?
  Mr. Stewart: I have been trying to explain all the time that it cannot be an absolute. We have to weigh up the country's resources, its position in the world and the importance of not overstraining our economy. The figure we get at the end is the result of those three co-ordinates. But the point I make is that we have to get to a figure in the end. We have to make the decision. The weakness of the Opposition is that they seem to be arguing either that we should not have any figure to work to at all, or that even if one should it ought to be some other, unspecified, figure than that in the White Paper. That, I do not find convincing—
  Mr. Onslow rose—
  Mr. Stewart: If the hon. Member has something to say, he may catch Mr. Speaker's eye later.
  The record of the Opposition on this subject is not good. It came out in exchanges yesterday that they first estimated what the defence expenditure was to be in certain future years. Then they found that the expenditure was running away with their estimates, and then, even after that, they found that they could not spend the money, so they claimed credit for that. That meant an upset to the economy, because defence is not only a matter of money; it affects industries vitally important to exports. They caused all that industrial upset and have not, in the end, produced the amount of defence they planned to produce.
  It is to get away from that situation that we have decided—and this is having taken all the factors into consideration—the figure for which it is right to plan. To plan for what duties? I should mention, first of all, our general duty in the world as a member of the United Nations. That includes, of course, in part, the particular commitment we have made of

  1951
  being willing to make logistic support available to the United Nations peacekeeping force.
  But the matter goes much further than that. We are not only a member of the United Nations; we are a Permanent Member of the Security Council. The maintenance of that position is bound up with the assumption that we recognise ourselves to be not, indeed, one of the giant Powers in the kind of world we are now in, but one of the very considerable Powers in the world. I do not think that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, when he was pleading for a far more restricted rôle for us, had set that against our position as a Permanent Member of the Security Council of the United Nations.
  I think, therefore, that we have to start—indeed, it is necessary both to start and end—by reminding ourselves that if we are not one of the great giant States that have emerged in the twentieth century we still are a very considerable Power, and must continue to discharge responsibilities commensurate with that status.
  That, clearly, is not something that we can do alone. It was apparent from the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West that he did not really like allies at all—particularly, I am sorry to say, he showed a dislike for the United States. But his right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham saw the danger there, and began to move into a slightly more civilised frame of mind—
  Mr. Powell: Civilised?
  Mr. Stewart: Yes, I was not applying the remark to the right hon. Gentleman, but to his right hon. Friend.
  It will be agreed that we cannot perform our proper function in the world without allies; and that one of the things we must have account of in defence is our duties as a member of the Atlantic Alliance—
  Mr. Julian Amery: And east of Suez?
  Mr. Stewart: I am coming to that. I did say "one of the things". I shall be glad to talk of east of Suez—more glad, perhaps, than some of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends—later on.
  1952
  I think that it is agreed that this country does, and ought to, stand foursquare by N.A.T.O.; and that we recognise that N.A.T.O. cannot be effective if it is merely an exchange of promises between Governments to give each other help in certain emergencies. It cannot be effective unless it has an integrated defence structure to which we contribute. But if that arrangement in N.A.T.O. was to continue, it was important to solve at any rate one problem—that of the foreign exchange costs of our forces in Germany.
  I should remind the House that this Government have already made considerable progress in that direction. When this Government came in, there was only an agreement requiring the German Government to help as far as possible. We have already obtained an agreement which secured a definite figure of £54 million for 1966–67 and an immediate payment of £42 million on account of sums falling due at the end of this month. I stress that fact because we have had some advice from right hon. and hon. Members opposite as to how to strike bargains with allies. If we compare the bargain we managed to strike in the offset agreement with what the Opposition previously managed in that field it will be apparent that it would not be wise for us to go to them for advice on this topic.
  I must add, however, that despite the offset agreement, we can say that it is right to maintain our ground forces in Germany at about their existing level provided some means are found of meeting the foreign exchange costs. The progress we made in the offset agreement is something that has to be carried further.
  The other point I want to make about N.A.T.O. is that the size of the N.A.T.O. forces in Europe is a matter for the members of the allies to settle. It is open to us to remove forces from Europe temporarily to meet certain situations overseas, but it is in our interest and that of our N.A.T.O. allies that both we and they should know where we are. That was why it was necessary, as has been done in this review, to look carefully at our commitments elsewhere so that we shall know with more precision in the future than in the past exactly what is the part we can play in N.A.T.O. In regard to our N.A.T.O. commitments the object, and I believe the result, of

  1953
  the Defence Review is to establish more clearly and plainly what the commitments of this country are and to establish firmly our capacity to meet them.
  I want to move further eastwards, to the Middle East. I believe that our main object of policy there should be the maintenance of stability. I want to illustrate that particularly in regard to the policy we have been pursuing towards small States in the Persian Gulf. There was, I think, good reason for anxiety—there is good reason for anxiety—that if, suddenly, British influence and responsibilities disappeared there we would have an extremely disturbed situation which might interrupt the flow of oil and which might be damaging to our economy and the economy of many other countries.
  What we can do in that area to preserve stability admittedly is something that benefits not us alone. A number of other countries benefit from it and do not take part in the performance of the duty, but it benefits us to such an extent that it would be foolish for that or any other reason for us to throw the duty aside.
  But, looking further ahead, this object of our policy that these States should progressively be more able to stand up in the modern world is partly a matter of getting them to co-operate more fully with each other. That they are now doing more fully than ever before. It is partly a matter of getting them to take part in the various agencies of the United Nations. That, I trust, we shall be able to do. We are in the process, as it were, of moving from a previous century to a newer kind of world. Our task is to see both that that movement is carried out and that we do not restrict it by mere lack of vision, but, also that we do not prevent it by running away and leaving a disturbed situation and a vacuum of power.
  That is why the proposals concerning the Gulf are in the Defence Review, but if that is a purpose, the main purpose, of our policy in the Middle East, to help maintain such stability as will enable the peoples there to work out their own future, it is not and ought not to be an object of our policy, the prime object of our policy, to seek deliberately to take sides in disputes that occur in this whole
  1954
  Middle Eastern area. I think that it was a failure to grasp that that caused right hon. Members of the Front Bench opposite to try to link up the decision about Aden with events in the Yemen.
  We are not concerned here with trying to provide a sort of confrontation to President Nasser. The direct question which those who speak of this matter in the way in which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West spoke of it have to answer is this—in what way does it help the position between the United Arab Republic and ourselves for us to try to maintain in Aden a base which we do not need for our own purposes and which the people there do not want us to have?
  I do not believe that this makes sense on either a military or a political basis. I am bound to ask again, by what token does the party opposite imagine that it is qualified to give advice as to how to deal with President Nasser, because its actions caused him to be more hostile to this country than he had ever been before and, at the same time, gave him a position of greater prestige in the Middle East than he had ever had before?
  Mr. Anthony Royle rose—
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing rose—
  Mr. Stewart: We are not going to accept advice from them as to how to handle this particular problem.
  Mr. A. Royle rose—
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing rose—
  Mr. Stewart: The point in which hon. Members on both sides of the House are interested is the defence position of the State of Southern Arabia when it becomes independent.
  Mr. A. Royle: Is it not true that President Nasser has broken off diplomatic relations with the present Government?
  Mr. Stewart: That is certainly so, yes. I do not quite see what moral the hon. Member is trying to draw. Is he suggesting that if we altered the content of the Defence White Paper and decided that we were going to stay in Aden this

  1955
  would promote the resumption of relations there?
  Mr. A. Royle rose—
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing rose—
  Mr. Stewart: One at a time.
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: If the right hon. Member says that our decision announced in the Defence White Paper to leave Aden had no effect on Nasser, how does he explain President Nasser's speech at Cairo University on 22nd February, when he said, of Aden:
  "There was an announcement today that Britain had decided to grant independence in 1968. Well then, we shall stay there"—
  in the Yemen—
  "until after 1968."
  Mr. Stewart: This is a matter for Arab politics.
  I say again, does the hon. Member say that we ought for that reason to have maintained the decision to stay in Aden against our needs, against the wishes of the people concerned, and contributing nothing to better understanding between this country and the United Arab Republic?
  I was saying that the point which I think interests hon. Members on both sides of the House is the position of the State of Southern Arabia when it becomes independent. We are anxious that it should be able to—
  Mr. Nigel Fisher rose—
  Mr. Stewart: No. I do not want to take too long.
  Mr. Fisher rose—
  Mr. Stewart: No. I am not giving way. I want to make it clear—in any case I am in the middle of a particular statement which perhaps the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) had better listen to.
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Mr. Stewart.
  Mr. Stewart: In the negotiations which must ensue about this matter we shall seek to ensure that a reasonable proportion of the aid Great Britain will give will be spent on strengthening the Federal
  1956
  Regular Army and the Federal Guard. As an immediate measure we are arranging for the equipment of the Federal Regular Army with 81 mm. mortars. [Interruption.] I notice a surprising willingness now on the part of hon. Members opposite to discuss foreign affairs. That might have been better shown on the previous day, at the beginning of the debate.
  I trust that if any of them catch Mr. Speaker's eye they will pursue the full implications of the criticisms they are now making, because the real implication of this is that Britain should try to exercise in the Middle East the position of an arbiter or controller which, if it ever had any merits, is certainly not an historical possibility today. It is that which the party opposite so consistently fails to realise.
  Moving further East still, to the part over which most of the argument has been concerned, the Far East, I wish to refer to two of the things which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest said at Brighton. They were very carefully worded, but, if they were more than platitudes or a philosophic essay, they point inevitably to the direction that this country should not have a rôle in that part of the world. For example, he says:
  "However much we may do to safeguard and reassure the new independent countries in Asia and Africa, the eventual limits of Russian and Chinese advance in these directions will be fixed by a balance of forces which will itself be Asiatic and African."
  I believe that "Asian" is the word more commonly used today, but that was the word which I understand the right hon. Gentleman used. That can be set forward as a sort of general philosophic pronouncement, but if it means anything at all in terms of what was intended to be a major speech on defence the implication is that this is not something in which we can have a hand.
  I think that we have to ask ourselves: is it maintained that what happens to Australia or New Zealand in the 1970s is something in which we in this country have no interest? It seemed to me that the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, when he set forward his pronouncement about what our rôle east of Suez should or should not be, had never asked himself that question.

  1957
  Then there is the second passage from the speech of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West:
  "We have to reckon with the harsh fact that the attainment of this eventual equilibrium of force"—
  that is in Asia—
  "may at some point be delayed rather than hastened by a Western military presence."
  It begins by being a harsh fact. Later on it is something that may at some point be delayed rather than hastened. Does the right hon. Gentleman want a Western military presence in the Far East or not? That is the question which anyone reading this sentence will naturally have presented to him and he will not find an answer, but the implication is that the right hon. Gentleman is thinking in the direction of there being no military presence there at all.
  If that is not what the right hon. Gentleman means, I think that the House now, and perhaps the people to whom the right hon. Gentleman spoke then, are entitled to have this rather elegantly phrased piece of philosophy more carefully explained to them. If the right hon. Gentleman is telling us that in his view there ought not to be a Western military presence in the Far East, and that was also the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery, that is a wrong judgment. It is wrong for this reason above all: it is difficult to prophesy in advance what the situation in the Far East in the 1970s will be. What I am sure would be wrong would be for us to take a decision now which would make it certain that whatever was happening in the Far East then we could in no way influence it, and that is what not having an east of Suez rôle is. [Interruption.] I am answering the right hon. Gentleman's anti-east of Suez personality at the moment. I will come to his pro-carriers personality a little later on. It is very difficult, when dealing with the right hon. Gentleman, at the same time—in a theological phrase—to distinguish the persons accurately and not confuse the substance.
  I say that it would be wrong for us to take a decision now which would mean that whatever is happening in the Far East in the 1970s we can have no influence over it. This means interdependence with our allies. It would be quite useless to suppose that we could
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  play a rôle of this kind alone. I am sorry that in order to give some sort of tang to the rather heavy pudding with which we were served up yesterday an anti-American sauce should have been poured on it, and I was glad that the right hon. Member for Mitcham today to some extent modified this. But there are some Members opposite, and the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Hugh Fraser) is one, who recognise that we must work with allies. He is anxious that we should do so rather more and he spoke of the need of developing S.E.A.T.O. and of reconsidering our position with our allies in the Far East.
  Not long after I assumed my present responsibility I attended the S.E.A.T.O. Conference, at that time being held in London. I hope that very shortly I shall be seeing the Secretary-General, and before long I shall be going to the next conference of S.E.A.T.O. held on the other side of the world, this time in Canberra. I would remind the right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone that this is a continuing process of consultation with our allies in S.E.A.T.O. It may be that the opportunity will arise in the House for the right hon. Member to develop more fully in what directions he thinks S.E.A.T.O. ought to develop, but he is mistaken if he thinks that we do not realise that there is need for constant study and the keeping up to date of our policy with our allies in the Far East. The right hon. Member earned the gratitude of the whole House yesterday by speaking for only five minutes. If at some future time he is able to address the House on this matter it will be interesting to see what proposals he has in mind.
  It is in connection with a rôle in the Far East together with allies that one has to consider the two instruments of policy about which there has been so much argument—the F111A and the aircraft carrier. I believe that while it would be absurd to talk about our pursuing a rôle in the Far East single-handed, it is also necessary that we should make it clear that such presence as we can put in is credible to our allies and will make them willing to take common counsel with us. The importance of the F111A, in my judgment, was that no alternative aircraft has been proposed which would have the effectiveness that would cause anyone to believe that we

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  were serious about the rôle in the Far East with our allies if we did not have that aircraft. Conversely, if we decided that we would not have this aircraft that would be a decision wrong in one direction—a decision to give up being a considerable Power.
  But a decision to keep carriers in the form put forward by the party opposite would have been an error in the other direction—that of pretending to a gigantic scale of resources and power that we cannot exercise. I say that, for this reason: in the arguments about carriers one thing which those who criticise the Government have failed to consider is the question of how many. If they are really to be worth having at all, we have to think in terms of five or six, and I do not think that that has been in the minds of all hon. and gallant Members opposite who have spoken about carriers. I do not think that the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke), whom we miss at the moment, when he spoke about carriers at the beginning of this afternoon's proceedings, had grasped quite how much is involved. It has to be said that carriers on the scale of five or six and a comparable enlargement of the rest of our defence budget would pose a quite impossible burden. If we were a very great Power which could manage carriers on the scale where they ended up with something like effective force, then it would be a sensible argument to advance. As it is, the weakness of the whole argument is that it involves pretending to be a giant.
  Our policy is that we should try to see this country in proper proportion and proper perspective, not pretending to a gigantic stature which we do not have, but by no means minimising the very considerable and great rôle in the world which we can play. That is a rôle to be played, I hope, very much in diplomacy and in conciliation, but it is a rôle which also has to be played by accepting defence responsibilities commensurate with our power, and that is what underlies the defence review.
  We have the Opposition with no firm or united judgment among themselves about what our position in the world should be, no sound knowledge even of the military facts and possibilities and an unhappy attempt to disguise these
  1960
  deficiencies by unfriendly remarks about our allies. In view of that, I trust that the House will reject their Motion.
  5.41 p.m.
  Mr. Julian Amery:
  "The shrill and querulous note of the eunuchs' advice dominated their counsels".
  So wrote the historian Gibbon about one of the less fortunate Cabinet meetings of the Byzantine Empire, and I am bound to say that the right hon. Gentleman's speech brought that quotation back to my mind. He spoke in lofty terms about discharging our responsibilities in the Persian Gulf and the Far East, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the policy outlined in the White Paper is a policy of abdication.
  We are to get out of our main base on the Western side of the Indian Ocean in 1968; and it is emerging more and more clearly that when the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Defence went to Washington and Canberra his initial bid was to get out of Singapore by 1970. The idea was to fall back on a flimsy screen of small islands from which not Britain would operate, but, which would serve as staging posts for the United States, or perhaps the United Nations. Fortunately, the Americans and the Australians were robust enough to kill his withdrawal from Singapore. Unfortunately, there was no one to speak for Aden in these matters.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary, until the publication of the White Paper, had done sterling work for the defence of British interests in the Middle East. He had worked very hard with the Minister of State to improve our relations with Saudi Arabia. He had stood by our commitments in the Persian Gulf. He had had the courage to allow his colleague the Colonial Secretary to suspend the Aden Constitution when the Minister of State was actually in Cairo. All this was very praiseworthy, but all the effort to build up stability in the Middle East is now sabotaged by the action of the Secretary of State for Defence in announcing the decision to withdraw from Aden. And it is to Aden that I want to turn.
  We have in Aden today—for we have it still—the third most important port in the world, coming second only to London and New York in the turn-round of ships

  1961
  which go through it. There is a major airfield, an important refinery, very significant workshops, good accommodation—largely air conditions and built for the troops at great expense—excellent training grounds and, above all, a major stockpile which enables us to pack a heavy punch, if we should need to, anywhere in the western part of the Indian Ocean.
  The value of the base has been proved more than once. We based our operations in Muscat on it. We organised the safety of Kuwait from it. We prevented the expansion of the three East African mutinies from it. The Secretary of State for Defence said yesterday that we did not need that base to carry out our commitments outside South Arabia. I wonder whether he is right. I do not know how without Aden he will be able to go to the help of our numerous Commonwealth partners in East and Central Africa. I am not quite clear how in a real emergency he will be able to help the Persian Gulf.
  It is all very well to talk about reproviding facilities in Bahrein. If they were to be reprovided on anything like the Aden scale, the cost would be enormous. But even then, there are no training grounds in Bahrein, and anyone who has had anything to do with it will know the danger of sending unacclimatised troops to the Persian Gulf. We had to do it once for Muscat and we lost several lives in the process. Nor can we be sure of sending troops by air across the air barrier, for we have to have over-flying rights to do so, and anyone acquainted with the Kuwait or even the Jordan operation will know that those are not to be taken for granted. Small islands like Bahrein or Masira or others in the Indian Ocean can be a useful supplement to bases like Aden or Singapore. They can be likened to fixed aircraft carriers. But they are no substitute for real bases with their workshops, port facilities and important stockpiles. They have political problems, too, as the Maldive Islands have shown.
  Can we afford to weaken Britain's military power in the Middle East at this juncture? The interests at stake are vast. I should not like to try to measure the value of the investments which we have in the Persian Gulf, whether the original
  1962
  value, the replacement value, or the future value. They must amount to several thousands of millions of pounds in the oil industry alone. Very important trade goes along with them. The Secretary of State said that we were concerned with maintaining stability. Of course we are, and unless stability is maintained, these interests can be in mortal danger.
  Who threatens these interests? Is there any doubt in any of our minds that they are threatened by Colonel Nasser's régime and his allies? Let us have no illusions on this subject. The right hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that the present Egyptian Government is our sworn enemy. The other day I had the advantage of a talk with Mr. Heikal when he visited London. I would not normally speak of a private conversation, but he has written two articles about it himself in the Egyptian Press. I asked, "Are you going to stop shooting our friends and soldiers in Aden?". He said "No". I respect his frankness but let no one deny that these people are our foes.
  Why did they go into the Yemen? What were they after? Why did they send 60,000 troops there? Is not the answer clear enough? They went there to subvert Saudi Arabia and reach through to the Persian Gulf and put their hands on the oil. This is the very real threat with which not only Egypt is involved. The Yemen operations, as both right hon. Gentlemen opposite know well, were closely supported by the Soviet Union. Soviet pilots flew many of the planes, both transport planes and in bombing attacks.
  It so happened that the adventure turned sour on Colonel Nasser. The people of the Yemen rose up against the invaders and the other Arab States turned against him over it. The Algerian Government was changed. Only Iraq stayed with him and Iraq was committed to a war with the Kurds.
  When he was Colonial Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood) and the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State at the Foreign Office also played their part in weakening Colonel Nasser's position by standing up to him over the future of Aden. He found himself defeated in the mountains, isolated in the Arab world, unsuccessful in Aden and with American aid being cut. So he came, almost on

  1963
  his knees, to King Faisal and concluded the Jeddah agreement under which he was to withdraw his troops.
  Now the Government are to save him, to get him out of the difficulty into which he landed himself. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of Colonel Nasser in terms of appeasement never used before the war. He asked why should we stay in Aden to make trouble for ourselves with the U.A.R? He will get no gratitude for leaving. Colonel Nasser's immediate reaction—the same night—was to say, "Very well we shall stay in the Yemen until the British go". The right hon. Gentleman would be very mistaken if he thought that the terrorism, mounted from the Yemen against us in Aden, was going to stop. On the contrary as my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) pointed out yesterday, every day has brought new instances of terrorism since the White Paper was published.
  It will not stop at Aden; it will follow the right hon. Gentleman to Bahrein. Already Cairo Radio is turning on the heat in Bahrein.
  The right hon. Gentleman is not merely weakening our ability to defend the Persian Gulf by going out of Aden, he is actually increasing the ability of our main opponent to attack our interests in the Gulf. He is strengthening our enemies and strengthening the opportunities of the Soviet Union and the Chinese to back up the Egyptians in this adventure. Both Soviet and Chinese are in the Yemen today and they will be in Aden tomorrow if we go from Aden while the Egyptians remain in the Yemen. Make no mistake about it, it is the Egyptians who are going to fill the vacuum that we create.
  Why are we going? We are told that it is to save money. The sums are not very large because we shall have to re-provide some of the facilities and pay many of the troops when we take them away. Nor is there any great pressure upon us to go. The local government wants us to stay—the Government of the Aden Federation. The Saudi Arabian Government have made no secret in any discussions, official or unofficial, that they would like us to stay. Our Persian allies want us to stay.
  1964
  In so many of the post-war years in the Middle East we and the Americans have been on different sides. They have made many difficulties for us. This is not the case where Aden is concerned. I happened to be staying with the Aramco Oil Company last year and I found everyone there unanimous in saying that the British presence in Aden protected their interests just as much as ours. The Americans have learned something so far as the Persian Gulf is concerned. There was no pressure from them on us to go.
  We shall save a few million pounds but not much when one thinks of the size of the interests and the trade at stake and what would happen to them if Nasser took over. We should remember what happened to British investments in Egypt before the Suez Canal operation and immediately afterwards. I do not want to dwell upon that, but we should also recall that the Shell Company installations were taken over only two years ago. Egypt's policy of confiscation involved not only British and French interests, but the interests of other Western countries.
  Look at what has happened in Iraq. The oil company has not spent one penny on new development on the Iraq oilfields because of the restrictive policies adopted by Iraqi Governments since the 1958 revolution. Yet in every other oil-bearing country in the Middle East there has been enormous new investment. Why should Nasser or his Iraqi allies act any differently in the Persian Gulf, if they were to get there to the way in which they have acted in their own countries?
  It is hard to find a parallel for the ineptitude which the Government have shown over the subject of Aden. But even worse than their ineptitude has been their dishonour.
  The States of what used to be called the West Aden Protectorate sought British protection of their own accord. We did not conquer them or impose ourselves upon them. They came to us and asked to be protected. In 1959 we persuaded them to merge into a federation. They made it a condition then that the protection which had been extended to them individually should be extended to them collectively and that was done. In 1964 we discussed with

  1965
  the Federation the question of independence. The Federal Government said that it would welcome independence in 1968 or before, provided that we continued to extend protection to it after independence. This assurance was given on paper and signed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), then Commonwealth Secretary. I understand that shortly after this the leaders of the Federal Government saw the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who was then Leader of the Opposition. I believe that he told them at that meeting that he would stand by any agreement they reached with the British Government of the day. [HON. MEMBERS: "What a hope."]
  I further understand that after the present Government came into power the High Commissioner, Sir Kennedy Trevaskis assured the Federal Government that the new British Government—the Labour Government—would stand by the pledges given. We have good reason to believe that when the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Defence went to Aden in June of last year he also gave assurances on more than one occasion to the Ministers of the Federal Government that we would honour the pledges to which we were committed. I do not blame him for saying it—it is very difficult when one is asked "Are you going to keep your word?" to say "No." I can quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman gave the pledge. But the fact that he gave it is evidence that he recognised its existence.
  Mr. Healey: What I said to the Federal Ministers when I was in Aden in June is that we would honour our treaty commitments. I dealt with this in speaking yesterday. I also made it clear to them that we had no interest in staying in a base in Aden against the will of the local population. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, this is important. I gave this warning in case staying there involved us in using so many troops to hold the base that we would be unable to use troops from it. I also pointed out that we would wish to discuss the question of the future of the base with representatives of the Federation as a whole, either after the independent State came into existence or before.
  Mr. Amery: I am quite content that the right hon. Gentleman should confirm what I say—that he would stand by the pledges that had been given. Yesterday the right hon. Gentleman sought to tell us that the only commitment we had was to a conference. He even went so far as to say that the commitment had been fulfilled by our unsuccessful attempts to hold that conference. Does this mean that the promise to give independence to Aden is not to be fulfilled because we have not held a conference about it yet? The right hon. Gentleman should remember that he is the Defence Minister of Britain and that British Ministers, of whatever political party, do not wriggle out of a commitment by weasel worded interpretations of this kind.
  The commitment given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham is a clear commitment. It is not a commitment to a conference, it is a commitment on the one hand to give independence and on the other to maintain protection after independence has been given. I happen to believe that we ought to keep a strong base in Aden. The right hon. Gentleman has made it plain that he does not think that we need a strong base. For the sake of argument I am prepared to concede that point, but we can still maintain a presence there. We can maintain an airfield and certain facilities to enable us to discharge the commitment which we freely entered into with the Federal Government of South Arabia.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that the local population do not want a base. As far as I know this is completely untrue. There is an answer to this from the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies who says quite categorically, in the OFFICIAL REPORT issued today, that since the White Paper was published the Federal Government have again asked us to maintain a defence agreement to protect them against external aggression. The right hon. Gentleman says that the people of Aden do not want us there. The newspaper reports, for what they are worth, have been saying very categorically that there is great disturbance and great anxiety at the news that we may be going. [An HON. MEMBER: "The news was welcomed in Aden."]

  1967
  Not in the Press reports I was reading. Of course there has been some terrorism but the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale, when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary have said time and again that the terrorism was foreign inspired, foreign organised, based in the Yemen, actuated by Egyptian radio, and was not local in origin.
  Mr. Fisher: Would my right hon. Friend allow me a moment to supplement the point he is making, since both right hon. Gentlemen in their speeches declined to give way? As someone who has some experience of this matter, may I confirm what my right hon. Friend has said. When I was last in Aden, in the summer of 1964, every person I saw, not only in the Federation but in Aden, and of all political complexions, told me that they wished us to stay in Aden. They said it privately because they did not dare to say it publicly in view of the intimidation from General Nasser's henchman. That was their private opinion, and there was no exception among all the people I spoke to in Aden. I am sure it is still the opinion today.
  Mr. Amery: I can certainly confirm from my subsequent visit what my hon. Friend has said. The same thing was said to me by many regarded as opponents of this country.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it most deplorable that his hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) should have revealed private conversations which were obviously intended to be private for the very purpose which the hon. Gentleman gave, that it might lay people open to intimidation?
  Mr. Amery: It does not seem to me that my hon. Friend revealed any identities. Besides, when we are in a crisis of affairs like this, it is only right and fair that the House should know what opinion in Aden is and not receive a travesty of it from Ministers.
  Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Defence said that the kind of commitment which my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham entered into was not appro- 1968
  priate to relations between independent States. I think that I understood the right hon. Gentleman aright.
  Mr. Healey: No. I referred to the treaties.
  Mr. Amery: The commitment to protect was not appropriate. But the fact remains that the Ministers of the Federal Government made it a condition of undertaking independence in 1968 that we should protect them—and no wonder. There were 60,000 Egyptian troops on their frontier, waging aggressive war in the Yemen, within less than 100 miles of Aden town itself. The Foreign Secretary talked about equipping the Federal Army with mortars. The Egyptians have MiG aircraft, tanks, 60,000 troops and Russian and Chinese advisers. What kind of balance of power is this?
  The Secretary of State for Defence boasted yesterday that his Government were prepared to undertake unpopular policies involving even "breaking with old friends". He means in this case "ratting" on solemn pledges. It is no use the right hon. Gentleman wriggling about this. It is no use his trying to represent that the Government of South Arabia has changed. The Federal Government remains the same, with virtually the same personnel, nearly two years later. It is true that the Aden Government has changed. But Aden is only one State in the Federation. The right hon. Gentleman will be ratting on his pledges. He will be handing over our friends to the mercies of the Egyptians who have bombed the people of the Yemen and have murdered, raped and pillaged across the Yemen countryside.
  The House cannot possibly leave the matter where it stands today, even if we are on the verge of an election. It is a terrible thing to weaken Britain's military power in the Middle East at this stage. But it is far, far worse to break our word. If the Government weaken our power, they will diminish our influence. If they break our word, we shall lose our friends altogether. We shall not only lose the confidence of our friends; we shall end by losing faith in ourselves.
  The right hon. Gentleman is not the first Minister of Defence in our history to show ineptitude. We have had that before. But,

  1969
  according to my researches, he is the first British Minister of Defence to break a pledge and to bring dishonour on himself and our country. There is still time for him to repair the mistakes he has made. This House is a very generous body, even on the verge of an election. I am not concerned to score a party point on this issue. If the right hon. Gentleman, when he winds up, will tell us that he recognises that the pledge was made, that it stands and that he and his colleagues will consider seriously how best to honour it, then let the issue be set aside. But, if not, let us put the issue squarely before the people. They may not know much about the politics of South Arabia, but they know what it means to "rat", to "welsh" and to break one's word.
  6.5 p.m.
  Mr. E. Shinwell: The right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery) has proved, at any rate to his own satisfaction, that President Nasser is not only our potential but our active enemy. That is the case he has made out. I am bound to say that his case is cogent and, to some extent, logical. I want to venture a reply to his argument.
  The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that, unless we protect Aden, presumably for many years to come, that territory will be at the mercy of President Nasser and the United Arab Republic. The right hon. Gentleman went further. He directed attention, and probably quite rightly, to the situation in Bahrain where there is a possibility of turbulence because of the efforts of President Nasser. We are therefore faced with two potentially dangerous situations—one in Aden and one in Bahrain—affecting the whole of the Persian Gulf and imperilling our vital oil supplies. That is the case which the right hon. Gentleman made out.
  What is the answer to it? In order to protect Aden for many years to come against the forces at the disposal of President Nasser and the weapons available to him, which were mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, and in order to protect our oil supplies in the Persian Gulf against sabotage and treachery by President Nasser and some of his friends, we require in Aden, not a token force, not merely an airfield, but vast forces highly equipped for that purpose. With- 1970
  out them it would be impossible to maintain our military position in those territories.
  Mr. J. Amery rose—
  Mr. Shinwell: Before I give way to the right hon. Gentleman, because he is anxious to intervene, I would remind him of another occasion when action was taken against President Nasser during the Suez crisis when our forces were much weightier and much better equipped than they are now. We had vast manpower at our disposal. Nevertheless, we failed. On that occasion, I ventured on a line of policy which differed from that of the rest of my colleagues because, quite rightly, in my judgment—I would not withdraw a single word of what I said then—I appreciated the possibility of an attack by President Nasser and some of the other countries available to him. Under our tripartite treaty, which remains in being, I called on the then British Government—not a Labour Government but a Tory Government—to use all their efforts to prevent President Nasser from committing an act of aggression against the newly formed State of Israel.
  What happened? In the military sphere, why have we never published General Keighley's dispatches? Why not disclose the fact, available to some of us at the time and since, that it took six weeks after a decision was reached by Sir Anthony Aden, now Lord Avon, to dispatch forces because, before they arrived at the scene of operations, no landing craft were available and we were not in a position to undertake an operation of that kind? That was the situation then. And yet the right hon. Gentleman has been arguing, forcibly and apparently logically, that we should now remain in Aden and take precautions in Bahrain and in the Persian Gulf with such forces as are now available to us to deal with that possible menace.
  I want to say to the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues and to the House in general that if the intention is to contain President Nasser, we have quite a variety of containments in our programme.
  Mr. Healey: Does my right hon. Friend recall that on that occasion the British Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Defence Minister made statements in

  1971
  the House about the fact that they had not colluded with the Israelis, which have since been proved to be untrue, and, furthermore, that they broke a solemn pledge, having signed the United Nations Charter, in taking the action which they took?
  Mr. Shinwell: I am obliged to my right hon. Friend. What he has said fortifies my contention.
  We now have a financial programme for military purposes which exceeds in small measure £2,000 million annually. With a new aircraft carrier or a number of new aircraft carriers, with the sophisticated weapons that the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) demanded during his speech this afternoon and all the aircraft which would be required to deal with operations by an aggressor or in confrontation in the future with Indonesia when President Sukarno recovers from his present troubles, it would not be £2,000 million but something of the nature of £3,000 million. There is no attempt on the part of right hon. Members opposite to deny this. If they were to do so, it would be a complete travesty of the facts of the situation.
  I have wondered since the beginning of this debate what it is all about. What was the purpose of the debate? Certainly Aden is not an election issue. If we go to the hustings to argue that we should retain our base in Aden, I doubt whether it would mean the advantage of a half a dozen votes in any constituency, certainly not in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Preston, North, who cannot afford to lose any votes. I wish him no harm, but if he is absent from the next Parliament I shall bear it with fortitude. That is all I shall say.
  What is the debate all about? I should like to say this to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). It appeared to me that yesterday he indulged in a series of trivialities that cluttered up a lot of metaphysical and abstruse abstractions, much of it incomprehensible to me. While the right hon. Gentleman was speaking, I reminded myself of my reading when younger about theological matters, strange as it may seem, when I learned about the efforts of the theologians of the period to
  1972
  prove beyond any possibility of doubt that six angels could dance on the point of a needle. The right hon. Gentleman, if he will allow me to say so, or even if he does not, is an example of atavism. He is a complete throwback to the Middle Ages.
  Consider what the right hon. Gentleman was demanding yesterday. He was demanding that we should provide ourselves with sophisticated and modern equipment to undertake operations east of Suez in the Indian Ocean. Against whom? Who is the possible enemy? How are we to deal with an enemy if one emerges? Something was said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs about the absence of past Ministers of Defence in this debate. I am not at all surprised, because if they had appeared we could have thrown in their teeth a variety of White Papers, all of which I have still in my possession, which prove conclusively that over and over again they had abandoned the conventional approach in military affairs in favour of the nuclear deterrent.
  If there is any doubt about what I have just said, perhaps I might be permitted to quote from the White Paper—and there are many other White Papers—issued by the Minister of Defence in 1958. That White Paper dealt with the possibility of Russian aggression and attention was drawn to the fact, so far as it was known to be a fact, of the vast number of divisions at the disposal of the Soviet Union, vast numbers of aircraft and the like. What did the then Minister of Defence say to the House? It was this:
  "The West, on the other hand, relies for its defence primarily upon the deterrent effect of its vast stockpile of nuclear weapons and its capacity to deliver them. The democratic Western nations will never start a war against Russia. But it must be well understood that, if Russia were to launch a major attack on them, even with conventional forces only, they would have to hit back with strategic nuclear weapons."
  The conclusion was drawn that
  "In fact, the strategy of N.A.T.O. is based on the frank recognition that a full-scale Soviet attack could not be repelled without resort to a massive nuclear bombardment of the sources of power in Russia. In that event, the rôle of the allied defence forces in Europe would be to hold the front for the time needed to allow the effects of the nuclear counter-offensive to make themselves felt."

  1973
  The conventional approach was completely abandoned—it was sunk without trace—in favour of the nuclear deterrent. The assumption was that if those circumstances should arise, the nuclear weapon would be brought into operation. I am not arguing whether it would have been effective. I doubt whether it would have been, but that is irrelevant to what we are discussing today.
  Now, however, we have an approach to the conventional weapon, a conventional content in our military approach. This is something quite different. Take, for example, the demand for an aircraft carrier. Does anyone really believe that an additional carrier east of Suez operating in the Indian Ocean would enhance our military prestige in that part of the world?
  I will give the answer. The right hon. Member for Preston, North, apparently, is aware of it, although he ought to be. Between 1945 and 1951 a pact was agreed between the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Not with Great Britain. In the A.N.Z.U.S. Pact, in which the three countries agreed to make themselves responsible for defence east of Suez, we were not included. I protested at the time. I cannot divulge Cabinet secrets—that would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act—but I was against the exclusion of Great Britain. I thought we should have been included in that Pact, but we were not. Whether it was because of the decision of the United States or whether it was in agreement with Australia or New Zealand, I am unable to say. But that was the situation then, and it is the situation now. We have accepted certain responsibilities in that part of the world, but for the purposes of active defence against aggression, of whatever sort or kind, it was contemplated that Great Britain should not be responsible but that the United States, in combination with Australia and New Zealand, should be responsible, and that is the situation. Therefore, what contribution can we make unless, as I have ventured to say, we increase our military contribution from £2,000 million annually to £3,000 million at the very least?
  I understand the position of the naval chiefs, and I can understand the position of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). I have had
  1974
  some experience of the Service Departments—from way back in 1929, and in 1947 to 1950, and as Minister of Defence onwards to 1951—and I know what they do. The Navy can get away with almost everything. It hardly has to ask: it is the silent Service. It gets what it wants, perhaps in a subterranean or a submarine fashion, but it gets what it wants, unlike the Army and the Air Force. The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Sir Ian Orr-Ewing) from the days when he was at the Air Ministry and wanted to get what the Air Force wanted, knows that, in contrast with the soldiers and airmen, the naval chiefs could get what they wanted.
  I had experience of it when we promoted the three-year rearmament programme in 1950. It was decided to ask the Chiefs of Staff to take into account calculated risks and determine what the expenditure would be if we wanted to operate over a three-year period. They came along with a programme of £6,000 million, which we reduced to £4,750 million. Then we went out and the Churchill Government reappeared. What happened? The Churchill Government, a Conservative Government, reduced the figure from £4,750 million to a much lower figure. They thought that £4,750 million was too much. By the way, it was a ceiling figure, that £4,750 million, and even the lower figure agreed by the Conservative Government was a ceiling figure. It was a target figure.
  I cannot understand all this hullaballoo which has been going on, this argument of the last day or so, about having a target figure when, in fact, every Service Department ever since I became connected with this House always has had a target figure. The hon. Member for Hendon, North, who was formerly also at the Admiralty, knows about these things. He is very well aware of them. What is all this talk about having a target figure? It is quite wrong. We have to proceed on certain assumptions. How can we tell what will happen in future? Of course we cannot tell what will happen in future, but, whether in the military sphere or the social sphere, we have targets, and I cannot understand why this should be used as a charge against the Labour Government.
  What is all the row about? I venture to suggest that it is this. The Leader of the Opposition conceived the notion, no

  1975
  doubt in consultation with his colleagues—perhaps even without them—that it would be useful just before the election to have a defence debate. Why? Not because defence is reckoned to be a primary issue at the election. Of course it will not be, except, perhaps, in a few constituencies like Portsmouth, but not throughout the length and breadth of the country. The country is much more concerned about domestic affairs. Not that we are against promoting security. I know that some of my colleagues, whose integrity I do not doubt for a single moment, quite sincerely are against defence, but the Labour Party accepts the need for a measure of defence in order to maintain security so far as that is possible. But it was obvious what the Leader of the Opposition's intention was. It was to have a debate on defence in order to create something in the nature of an explosion in the ranks of the Labour Party. The Opposition seemed to believe that if the defence issue were raised we should be at loggerheads with one another, at one another's throats, all quarrelling with one another. But there has been hardly a word of protest. Of course there has not. This is a united party—and we shall be united at the coming election—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."]—in contrast to the disunity which is manifest on the other side.
  I shall not repeat what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has said about the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West but I am bound to say that it was my impression some months ago when he made that famous speech about military expenditure, military requirements, that he said that it seemed to be unnecessary to occupy in a military sense territory east of Suez. I thought he really meant it. That was my impression. Perhaps he did mean it. Perhaps it is difficult to understand the right hon. Gentleman. I have sometimes thought so myself. However, that is my impression.
  I will tell him what may appear to him very strange. Some of my colleagues—my hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) sitting beside me and two or three others—approached me, as Chairman of the Parliamentary Party, and asked that I should do what I could to arrange a debate on precisely
  1976
  the subject which they thought the right hon. Gentleman was interested in, namely getting out from east of Suez. He said we were spending too much—that is what I think the right hon. Gentleman said—and that we do not require to be there. Let me deal for a minute or two with that. Whether my right hon. Friend is right or wrong, whether the right hon. Gentleman opposite is right or wrong, is at the moment irrelevant.
  What is the situation in that area? We talk about the possibility of some further confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia. I have sometimes wondered whether that is really likely. In any event, it seems less likely than it was some months ago. I do not think President Sukarno is in a strong enough position to engage in active confrontation with Malaysia. Besides, if there were in any case a further confrontation is it not the responsibility in large measure of New Zealand and Australia? Or can it be—I merely ask the question—that Australia is not so keen to engage in military confrontation with Indonesia? For, after all, there are 100 million potential customers in Indonesia, and it would be rather more to the advantage of Australia and its people to persuade Indonesia to buy Australia goods and manufactures in return for imports from Indonesia, to engage in peaceful affairs, in a peaceful atmosphere of co-existence, than to engage in a military confrontation. Strangely enough, though a battalion of Australian troops has been sent to Vietnam I am not aware that a great deal has been done by Australia in relation to the confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia—a squadron of aircraft, perhaps two squadrons of aircraft, but not more than that.
  I feel keenly about the situation there and I will tell hon. Members why. Last week one of my constituents, a soldier, in the Durham Light Infantry, was killed in Sarawak. It was desired to bring his body back home, but, of course, the War Office could not agree to that, for reason which are well known to me. He had a brother there, in the same regiment. Two of my constituents were there. One was killed and the other brought home on compassionate leave because of the condition of his parents. So I am interested in what is going on out there.

  1977
  The right hon. Gentleman was speaking about Aden as if the situation there was peaceful, with hardly any turbulence. Every day there is sabotage. Bombs are thrown, and almost every day someone associated with the British Forces is treacherously murdered; members of their families are ill-treated and sometimes disposed of in the same fashion. It is no use pretending that it will be easy for us in Aden.
  I make no apology for speaking at this length, because I had to listen yesterday to a speech from the right hon. Gentleman which lasted 1¼ hours. That seemed to me to be going a bit too far.
  On the subject of commitments, surely the right hon. Gentleman is not so naive as to think that this is the first time that any British Government have defaulted on their commitments. I cannot argue with any great knowledge about whether this commitment was legal and constitutional and one which must be maintained for ever. I do not know, and I will not go into that. It may be that the right hon. Gentleman was right. But let me tell him that there was a time when Anthony Eden, now Lord Avon, agreed as a member of a Conservative Government that we should commit four full divisions to N.A.T.O. I thought at the time that it was stupid. I had to point out that while we were to be committed to four full divisions, the French were not committed to anything. I have always been suspicious of the French in their relations with N.A.T.O., and now General de Gaulle has decided to depart altogether from N.A.T.O., except in a kind of loose association, I think that my attitude about the French defection from N.A.T.O. has been vindicated.
  That is what happened. Four divisions were to be committed to N.A.T.O. But have we had four divisions there since? Of course not.
  Mr. J. Amery rose—
  Mr. Shinwell: I will finish my sentence, and then the right hon. Gentleman can intervene. We have about 50,000 men there now, and now and again we take them out because we require them elsewhere. There was a definite treaty signed and sealed, and it has been broken time and again. There is no reason why a treaty, in the light of the circumstances
  1978
  prevailing at the time, should not, if necessary, be modified and even broken.
  Mr. J. Amery: Surely the right hon. Gentleman, with his encyclopædic knowledge of these problems stretching back over many years, will remember that we obtained the consent and the approval of our partners in the Western European Union when we ran down the number of troops in Europe below the promised total.
  Mr. Shinwell: I am not arguing about that. The right hon. Gentleman may be right. It may be that we have to rely upon the terms and content of that agreement. But I would say that when a time comes and we have not the resources, circumstances may change and the commitment become impossible. In the light of what the right hon. Gentleman has himself argued about the menace of President Nasser, with his huge forces and vast array of weapons possibly gained from Chinese or Russian sources, the sooner that we get out of Aden, the better I shall like it.
  If there is to be further trouble east of Suez or in the Indian Ocean, it seems to me that we shall have to ask the United States, with Australia and New Zealand to implement the pact they agreed upon between 1945 and 1951. I am not suggesting that our rôle should be abandoned completely in that part of the world. Of course we are concerned about Singapore and Malaysia. We accepted that commitment, and we have to stand by it. We are standing by it, with 50,000 troops there. What more do right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite want?
  In any event, one more aircraft carrier will not make much difference, any more than one swallow makes a summer. It is merely a gimmick on the part of right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Their intention is quite clear. It is to create an explosion in our ranks, whereas, in fact, all they have been able to do is to produce a damp squib.
  6.35 p.m.
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: I am delighted to follow the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). He has probably attended twice as many defence debates as I have, and I am sure

  1979
  he will remember that we always have a defence debate at the beginning of March. Just because the Prime Minister has decided to have a General Election, we should be going back on our duty to the nation if we did not devote two days to discussing this revolutionary White Paper on Defence which has come before us. Perhaps he is thinking too much of the forthcoming election when he suggests that the debate has been fixed to secure a division within his own ranks.
  I should have liked to discuss the position of the aircraft industry, in which my constituency is considerably interested, but I know that there are a number of hon. Members who wish to speak and so I shall confine myself to the two subjects of Aden and the aircraft carrier.
  When the Foreign Secretary opened the debate today, I was interested to hear him refer to Aden and say that he wanted stability in the Middle East, implying that somehow our evacuation of Aden would secure that end. One of his themes was that we were not wanted in Aden, but that has been completely exposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), my right hon. Friend for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) and my hon. Friend for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). It is quite clear that the majority of people in Aden want us there to give them security after they have become independent.
  The second argument that the right hon. Gentleman used was that we do not need Aden, and that worries me particularly because I am concerned about repercussions in the Middle East from the lack of stability arising out of the decision which has been announced.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to our troubles in Aden, and he mentioned the murders that occur daily. Every one acknowledges that the bombs and the murders, in particular the murder of the Speaker, are incited from Radio Cairo, from Nasser and from across the border in Yemen.
  The build-up of Egyptian forces in the Yemen has been mounting over the years. In 1962, Nasser had 3,000 troops there, at a time when the United States
  1980
  said that they would give official recognition to Republican forces in the Yemen if Nasser withdrew his troops. He agreed to withdraw them. However, by December, 1962, the build-up had reached 17,000. By the spring of 1963 it had reached 25,000; by 1964 it was 55,000; and today it is 68,000. I venture to wonder what would happen if we had 68,000 troops fighting in someone else's country. I imagine that the debates in the United Nations would be unending.
  Those are the two standards of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) spoke some years ago. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North said, in the summer of 1965, the Egyptian troops were in real trouble, having suffered an ignominious defeat. King Faisal was approached, and an arrangement was made between King Faisal and Nasser at Jeddah that there should be a cease fire. Nasser agreed at a subsequent 25-a-side conference in November of last year to start to withdraw his troops, and it was agreed that they would be gone within ten months of last December, which would take us to September 1966. But not one single solider has left the country.
  Now we have given an injection of life into that discredited dictator, lifting him up from the dust and giving him an excuse to go back on agreements. Yet, somehow, the Foreign Secretary has the effrontery to come to the House and say that it adds to stability in the Middle East. I cannot imagine that any nation in the Middle East thinks that this decision is acting in favour of stability.
  What is so interesting is that there was an immediate reaction in Egypt. There was the usual leak in the national papers, I think in an article by Chapman Pincher. I could understand the Government's difficulties if they had not been so vociferous about the leaks which came from our Government. I remember the Prime Minister, in what we did not think was a characteristic speech, making a personal attack on my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North calling him an incompetent and incontinent Minister. Those were the days when we had not learned to understand these personal abuses which the Prime Minister has made such a characteristic feature of his régime. The Government have

  1981
  not succeeded in preventing the leaks. If anything, they have increased, and we learned in the Daily Express of the 16th February that Aden was to be evacuated. I believe that this was a last-minute panic measure to try to get down to the budget which they had fixed.
  Curiously enough, the next day Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, the U.A.R. Vice-President, made a speech in which he said that as a result of this decision they were going to prolong the stay of the Egyptian forces in the Yemen, and this was confirmed by Radio Cairo on the 19th.
  We then had the quotation to which I referred in an intervention, when, on the 22nd February, the day on which the White Paper came out, President Nasser, speaking at Cairo University, said of Aden:
  "There was an announcement today that Britain had decided to grant independence in 1968. Well then, we shall stay there"—
  meaning the Yemen—
  "until after 1968".
  The Foreign Secretary thinks that the decision to go is adding to the stability of the Middle East, when in fact exactly the opposite is the truth.
  The Government have provided the Egyptians with an excuse to go back on agreements with Saudi Arabia which would have added to the stability of the Middle East. It cannot be in our interests to have 68,000 of Nasser's troops on the borders of Aden, and the sooner they go the better. This blood transfusion which has been given to Nasser may make it more worth while for the Communists, probably the Russians, but it may be the Chinese, to back Nasser further. The tanks which he uses in his invasion of the Yemen are Russian. The aircraft are Russian. The napalm bombs are Russian. The high explosive and chemical bombs are Russian. The bazookas are Russian, and he has many Russian technicians and advisers to help with his troops.
  Some people may wonder how it is possible to sustain an immense force of 68,000 troops in an under-developed country, where communications are poor. Perhaps they have forgotten that in recent years Russia has built a formidable deep water port at the southern end of the Red Sea at Hodeida, and that alongside the port there is a modern airfield. If we
  1982
  evacuate Aden, I presume that we will also evacuate Perim, the old coaling station at the south end of the Red Sea. If the vacuum which we create in Aden is not filled by Nasser and his backers, there will be in that area a ready-made deep water port which could form a useful base for the communist world. They have always wanted a base on the bridge between the Middle East and Africa so that, when they got the chance, they could stoke up the anxieties, the sabotage, and the subversion which is taking place all over Africa, and which is adding to the confusion in that desperately unhappy continent.
  Over the years Nasser has shown that he can control the Suez Canal at will. Despite constant resolutions by the United Nations, he has denied the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping, and he is still doing so. Why, therefore, should we offer to evacuate our base at the southern end of the Red Sea and make the whole passage of the Red Sea through the Suez Canal even more vulnerable?
  I am not casting my mind back to the nineteenth century. I am not one of those who think in terms of the nineteenth century. I am being realistic when I say that the trade of the free world, and, incidentally, the military and logistic supplies to all our troops east of Suez, needs to go through the Suez Canal and through the Red Sea. Can it therefore be in the interests of the international trade of the Western nations to evacuate Aden and leave a vacuum, and leave this Russian port of Hodeida which could easily be manned up and become a thorn in the side of the West?
  There was an alternative route, at least for oil supplies, which was secured as a result of the Israel's Sinai campaign. That was the route which passed Aden and Perim, up the Red Sea, through the straits of Tiran and up to Akaba, where the pipelines could be enlarged to carry oil supplies to Mediterranean ports. This is a useful alternative, but this, too, would go if we handed over this linch-pin, this position at the southern end of the Red Sea. It will go if we rat on our undertakings to that part of the world.
  I believe that Nasser is the Dean of Overseas Adventurers in the Middle East. I believe that he is militarily discredited,

  1983
  and I think that it would be very unwise indeed if the Government did not, as my right hon. Friend suggested, think very deeply, even at this late stage, about the evacuation of Aden, because it must cause trouble. As Nasser's prestige went down, so tension in the Middle East was going down. We were beginning to get an element of modus vivendi and relative peace between Israel and her Arab neighbours. This decision will give new life to Nasser, and will, I am sure, add to instability in the Middle East.
  I want now to deal with the other argument used by the Foreign Secretary and by the Minister of Defence, namely, that we do not need Aden. Apart from our treaty obligations, which are very considerable, can they really say that we do not want Aden? If we have considerable troops committed east of Suez, and if we have Singapore at the eastern periphery of this area, do we really not want some sort of base at the western end of this vast expanse of ocean? Can we really afford to give up an area which is a base not only for the Army but for the Royal Air Force and for the Royal Navy? It has workshops and underground armament stores which stretch deep into the hills of Aden. It has facilities for re-victualling and restoring our ships. Can all this be given up with any safety at all?
  It was amazing to hear the Minister of Defence say yesterday that in spite of all the troubles in the past we were apparently not going to have trouble in the future. Every time he says that he can bring troops back from the Caribbean, or from East Africa, he is putting a bigger load on the Royal Navy. The Navy cannot operate east of Suez, or support an Air Force or Army, unless it has a base of reasonable proportions from which to operate, and I do not believe that it is economic to try to provide a base at Bahrain. In Aden there are air-conditioned barracks, workshops, radar defence, and in fact everything that we need. Why bow down to appease the terrorists who are being stimulated and activated by Nasser?
  I ask the Government to think again, even at this late stage. Let us make two conditions about moving out. Let us say, first, that we will leave Aden if the local people want us to do so. This
  1984
  would be after a fair and not a biased vote. Secondly, let us say that we will leave Aden if its retention is not essential to meet our commitments east of Suez. I believe that under both those headings it will be found that we should stay there.
  I propose now to say a word about aircraft carriers, because this is the big issue in this debate. I am not a dyed-in-the-wool, blue water, type. I was in the Royal Air Force for six years. For two years I was Under-Secretary of State for Air—and I am glad to see my successor in his place—and then I spent five years on the Board of Admiralty, answering for the Royal Navy in this House. So I should be able to be reasonably objective about the issue.
  My biggest concern is the atmosphere of quarrelling created between the R.A.F. and the Navy. As the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) said, this arose because of the £2,000 million target. This was fixed as an immovable and un-negotiable target before commitments were considered. It instantly started quarrels as to how much each Service was to get within the target.
  During my seven years in the two Ministries, it was my desire, perhaps unsuccessfully fulfilled, to try to draw these two great Services together and not to divide them in quarrelsome conflicts of this type. I had this hope because I was fortunate enough to serve with Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John. He was the first Fleet Air Arm pilot to become First Sea Lord, and his personality and ability confirmed me in my hope that perhaps this would be an appropriate time to draw the two Services together, particularly as Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Thomas Pike headed the R.A.F. and he was a good friend as well.
  I hoped that the time was propitious because a new generation of aircraft carriers was contemplated. We were thinking about designs. Moreover, we were coming to the phase of the vertical take-off aircraft and thought that possibly a common aircraft for the Navy and the Air Force was feasible. For these very good reasons, as well as for reasons of sentiment, I hoped that we would see the two Services drawn together. Unfortunately, the common aircraft, the P1154, fell by the wayside. The operational requirements of the two staffs became too divergent and it was decided

  1985
  that the P1154 would be used by the R.A.F. and the Phantom by the Navy. This was unfortunate, but operational requirements must take priority.
  I remind myself, however, that the Phantom was developed in the United States for the U.S. Navy, and it was only some good head-bashing by Mr. Robert McNamara that forced the U.S. Air Force to accept it, for it was loth to do so. It has the Phantom now, however, and I understand that it is delighted with the aircraft. If we are to have a common aircraft in future, there will have to be tough dealing by the two Service Ministers and the Defence Secretary if such an aircraft is to be accepted by both Services.
  Then we considered the size of the new carrier. It was clear, at least in my mind, that the Buccaneer would be the last aircraft that we could afford to develop specifically for one Service, particularly for the Navy. Our production requirements were too small to justify the costs specifically for that task. The question arose of buying United States aircraft.
  Of course, the American carrier fleet is so very much bigger than ours. The largest units are the ships of the 84,000-ton Forrestal class. They are far bigger ships than we could afford to operate. We realised that we might find that their aircraft were more suitable for their own carriers than for ours. Alternatively, therefore, we could develop a joint aircraft for the use of both the Royal Navy and the R.A.F.
  I was mindful of the fact that other nations had small carriers and were looking for suitable aircraft for them. The Dutch have a carrier and the French have a carrier force, including bigger vessels, the 31,000-ton Clemenceau and Foch. The Indian Navy has the Vikrant and Australia has the 22-000-ton Melbourne. Canada has the similar Bonaventure. All these nations were feeling some financial pinch and looking for aircraft to operate from these relatively small carriers which would be cheap, economic and effective.
  Of course, I recognise that a large carrier is more efficient. It can have a much bigger punch. It is more economic. On a value analysis, I am sure the choice would fall on a bigger carrier. But I always feared that in going for the best we might lose the good—and I also had in
  1986
  mind that there might at some time in future be a Labour Government and that that Labour Government would go in for defence economies as they did in the 1929–31 period. I felt, therefore, that a smaller carrier would have a better chance of survival, and even at this stage I urge the Government to re-examine the proposition to see whether it is possible to have a smaller carrier, perhaps of about 35,000 tons. But why does the Minister of Defence for the Army laugh?
  The Minister of Defence for the Army (Mr. G. W. Reynolds): I laugh because the hon. Gentleman is putting exactly the argument that I put to him when I was in Opposition and he was responsible for the Navy on this Front Bench. He then tore me to ribbons. Why has he changed his mind?
  Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: I said at the time that there was no question that a 53,000-ton carrier would be best but that it would be expensive, and that in view of the estimated cost we might have to accept something less than the best. That is a perfectly logical argument.
  I come now to the question of developing a jet aircraft suitable for a carrier of this type. That leads on to the Anglo-French swing-wing aircraft. I wonder whether this cannot be produced as a common aircraft for the Navy and the R.A.F. and used from our existing carriers, at least the bigger ships. Would it not also be useful to bring the aircraft forward from the forecast date of 1975? There seems to be no sense of urgency about it—although it is difficult to find any sense of urgency in any aircraft programme by the Government. The French say that they will produce the aircraft in 1972–73 for their own use. If they can produce it for themselves in that year, why cannot we have it earlier than 1975?
  I want to reinforce my plea for the carrier by mentioning some of the uses to which such a vessel is put. Do the Defence Secretary and the Foreign Secretary believe that we are thinking in terms of five or six carriers? There have been innumerable incidents—the Minister of Defence for the Navy has quoted me a list—since the end of the war when our forces have been involved.
  Since the end of the war, British troops have been involved in 41 incidents. In

  1987
  the last seven years, there have been seven such incidents in which they needed a carrier to cover their operations. In 1958, a British carrier supported United States operations in the Lebanon. In the same year, our troops in Jordan were getting carrier support. In 1960 carriers operated against the rebellion in the Aden Protectorate, flying most valuable sorties. In 1961 and 1962 there were threats to Kuwait and carriers were involved. In 1962, also, we started the anti-piracy patrols off Indonesia and here again a carrier was used. In December, 1962, the armed rebellion against the formation of Malaysia broke out and again a carrier was used. In 1964 a carrier was again used in response to a call for help by President Nyerere.
  In each of these incidents, a carrier proved absolutely invaluable. How is it that the Defence Secretary seems to think, with all the uncertainties and restlessness in the world, that by 1975 we shall never be called on again to have a military operation in which a carrier will be needed?
  I shall not use the full arguments for a carrier because they were so ably put by the hon. Member for Woolwich, East and anyone can look up his speech. I have heard it said that, somehow, a strip of concrete can be substituted for carrier. But this involves not just 2,000 or 3,000 yards of concrete. A successful land air base must have land systems, lights, sophisticated navigational aids, radar defences, anti-aircraft defences, armament workshops, electronic workshops, ground defences and all the infra-structure necessary to support them, that is to say, the personnel, the feeding arrangements, the barracks and accommodation, the hospitals and all that is necessary. All these facilities are wrapped up in a carrier. As the Americans have found, if one is fighting a counter-insurgent war, as they are in Vietnam, it is very much easier to defend a carrier standing off the coast that it is to defend an air base which may be surrounded by Vietcong, mortars and suffer sabotage from plastic bombs.
  For all these reasons, I believe that we are right to support a carrier, and I hope that when the Secretary of State winds up in his second speech—perhaps he will be given notes, since he is not here—he will think seriously again about evacuate-
  1988
  ing the Aden base and again consider the future of our carrier programme.
  One of the serious and disastrous casualties was the First Sea Lord, and I should like to add my tribute to what was said by the hon. Member for Woolwich, East. The Board of Admiralty, after most careful thought, came to the conclusion that an extra carrier was necessary—not five or six, but one extra carrier—to carry us through to the end of the 1980s, by which time we might have vertical take-off aircraft and the present form of carrier might be outdated.
  The Government should think again about carriers and come to the Box this evening and to say that they will think about the future of the Aden base.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that 30 or 40 hon. Members, who have been sitting right through the debate on both days, wish to speak. I hope that hon. Members who are called will remember that.
  7.2 p.m.
  Mr. K. Zilliacus: I hope that the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Sir Ian Orr-Ewing) will forgive me if I only indirectly and later on refer to his speech, as I want to raise some rather wider issues.
  Listening to this debate, as to previous defence debates, I thought that it seemed to be largely a contest between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, with the big black crow of nuclear annihilation spreading its sable wings unnoticed over their busy little heads. The framework of this defence debate should have been, but has not been, what the Prime Minister, then still Leader of the Opposition, said in September, 1963, at Scarborough:
  "The strength, the solvency, the influence of Britain, which some still think depends upon nostalgic illusions or upon nuclear posturings—these things are going to depend for the remainder of this century to a unique extent on the speed with which we come to terms with the world of change."
  I think that we are failing to do that.
  This whole defence debate and the Defence White Paper are shot through with nostalgic illusions and nuclear and world military power hankerings and posturings. We are failing to keep pace

  1989
  with our changing world. There is a difference of degree between the two sides on this, as on other things, but I wish that right hon. Members on my own side of the House were a little more forward looking than they are.
  The most depressing thing about the debate is the assumption on both sides that we shall go on indefinitely, for years and years, with the greatest, costliest and deadliest arms race in history. It will not work out like that. I remember vividly what a very great statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, said about three years before the last world war. On 23rd April, 1936, in this House he said:
  "I cannot believe that, after armaments in all countries have reached a towering height, they will settle down and continue at a hideous level…and that that will be for many years a normal feature of the world's routine. Whatever happens, I do not believe that will. Europe "—
  today, we would say, "the world"—
  "is approaching a climax…Either there will be a melting of hearts and a joining of hands between great nations which will set out upon realising the glorious age of prosperity and freedom which is now within the grasp of the millions of toiling people, or there will be an explosion and a catastrophe the course of which no imagination can measure, and beyond which no human eye can see."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd April, 1936; Vol. 311, c. 339.]
  That is the perspective in which we ought to see this arms race. The emphasis should be on how to end it and on how to reach agreement with the other side. It has been said again and again in our Defence White Papers that there is no such thing as defence of this country against a nuclear attack. The only defence is to prevent a war breaking out and the only way to prevent a war breaking out is to reach a settlement on outstanding issues with the other side.
  The idea that one can prevent a war breaking out by piling up more and more weapons and getting ready to use them at the drop of the hat is an exploded fallacy of which humanity has had too much tragic experience to repeat today, when nuclear weapons have made it literally deadly.
  Nevertheless, there is a residual difference, say 10 per cent. difference, between the two sides—to the advantage of this side of the House. On this side, at least, the Government have become dimly aware at long last of the impact
  1990
  on our economy and on our social services of defence expenditure. They have put a firm ceiling on that expenditure and made a beginning on cutting military commitments. The ceiling is still much too high and the cuts in our commitments are much too small. But at any rate this compares favourably with the idea of the Opposition, which, so far as I can understand it, is that the sky is the limit in defence expenditure and that we must stick to all our commitments, regardless of the impact on the economy or the social services.
  There is another difference. We have at least laid down in the Defence White Paper that defence should be the servant and not the master of foreign policy. This is a very important principle. So far, it has not been applied, but at any rate it has been stated on this side whereas the other side is equally clear that war preparations come first and peace comes next to last.
  I would refer to the statement by the Leader of the Opposition on 14th December, when he asked my right hon. Friend:
  "Will the Prime Minister now give an assurance…that the measures necessary for the nuclear defence of the West will take priority over other political measures, such as the obtaining of a non-proliferation agreement?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th December, 1965; Vol 722, c. 1082.]
  The right hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Soames), in the defence debate on 20th December, took the same line. This means saying that we must get on with strengthening the military alliances, even though that means sacrificing the chances of reaching agreement with the other side which could obviate the necessity for the alliances by bringing about disarmament and political settlement. That seems to me to be putting the cart before the horse or standing reality on its head. It is a thoroughly wrong and pernicious principle.
  I welcome the ceiling of £2,000 million, calculated in terms of 1964 prices, but the Government themselves have admitted that that is nothing like enough. On 26th October, 1964, within 10 days of taking office, the Government issued a White Paper on the economic situation which pointed out that, even if and when the increase in the gross national product reached 4 per cent. a year, the resulting revenues would not be sufficient to pay

  1991
  for the economic and social programme of the Government and that, in order to find the necessary means to pay for that programme, we should have to spend less on unproductive purposes such as armaments and more for socially and economically productive purposes.
  In other words, the Government said in 1964 that we should have to go below the level of £2,000 million, calculated at current prices, that year, in order to pay for our social and economic policies, even after we had achieved a rate of increase of 4 per cent. a year in the gross national product. We have achieved only 2½ per cent., and yet the Government have abandoned the idea of going below the £2,000 million level and have taken modest pride in the fact that they have succeeded in pegging the budget at that level calculated on 1964 prices. In present money prices it has risen, as it did last year.
  That is the vital fact, and the pressure of it will be felt increasingly as the year wears on and as the years wear on. We shall have to go further in this respect—much further—and we shall have to make corresponding cuts in commitments.
  The reason why the burden is so intolerably heavy was given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence when he was in Australia recently. It is that we are spending nearly as much of our gross national income on defence as are the Americans; we are spending 7·1 per cent. to the Americans' 7·7 per cent. We are spending twice as large a proportion on our defence budget on overseas military commitments as are the Americans.
  These are staggering facts, and the reason for them was stated quite clearly on 16th December, 1964 by the Prime Minister when he said:
  "The problem we are facing derives from the fact that alone in the world—apart from the United States and the U.S.S.R.—we are trying to maintain three rôles. There is the strategic nuclear rôle. There is our conventional rôle within N.A.T.O….and there is our world rôle…."
  The last was our east of Suez rôle, which the Prime Minister, rather optimistically as it turned out, went on to say:
  "no one in this House or indeed in the country will wish us to give up or call into
  1992
  question."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1964; Vol. 704, c. 421.]
  It has been called into question pretty vigorously by a large part of the Labour Party, by the Liberal Party and by a considerable section of the Press.
  He went on to say that this world rôle, east of Suez, accounted for our presence at the top table and our influence in world affairs generally. Frankly, all that it has done so far is to earn us a seat under the top table in Washington and a raspberry in Moscow. The more we try to make ourselves a world military Power, the more we become politically a negligible quantity, because we are achieving this pretence only at the cost of total subservience to the United States. That is not winning us any plaudits or any prestige.
  Why are we taking this line? Why have the Government, in effect, gone back on the principle which they laid down in the Defence White Paper that defence must be the servant of foreign policy? Take the case of Western Germany. In 1963 it was declared twice in the House that it was the unalterable policy of the Labour Party in all circumstances to refuse to accept any share by Western Germany in responsibility for taking decisions on the use of nuclear weapons, as well, of course, as "no German finger on the nuclear trigger". That, it was said, was because it would prove an insuperable obstacle to reaching agreement with the Soviet Union on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and other matters.
  We then reversed that policy. Ever since we have been tinkering with the idea of finding some way of admitting Germany, either formally or really—we should like it to be formally and the Germans would like their hands on the hardware—in spite of the fact that precisely the consequence predicted has duly presented itself and it has made impossible an agreement with the Soviet Union. The reason for all that was to try to preserve or to strengthen N.A.T.O. We have here a clear case of sacrificing policies on which we could reach agreement in order to preserve the military alliance, which in that way is becoming an end in itself.

  1993
  We find the reason for this in the Defence White Paper which reads
  "…we regard the continuation of the North Atlantic Alliance as vital to our survival."
  If that is so, or if the Government believe that it is so, naturally they have to sacrifice everything to that consideration. But the price which we have to pay is total subservience to the United States.
  We have had a good deal of talk on both sides of the House to the effect that we want to be allies but not auxiliaries. I have no use for military alliances or power politics, but at least I understand the rules of the game, and the whole point is that in a military alliance the ally which has nearly all the military power takes the vital decisions. The United States has 98 per cent. of the military power in the alliance—the nuclear power—and the United States takes all the life and death decisions single-handed, because the use of nuclear weapons requires a decision in a matter of hours, sometimes even minutes, and there is no room for consultation between allies. One ally must take the decisions, and that ally is the United States. Those are the facts of the situation, and it is unrealistic to the last degree to go on saying that we must stick to this alliance come what may but to pretend that we can have any independence in that situation. We cannot have it, we never have had it, and we never shall have it.
  The price which we pay for that subservience is to abandon our own policy for making peace. This has been shown in Europe. I have given one example, and another is the shelving of policies of disengagement and of creating a nuclear-free zone. The Labour Government came into power with a mandate to carry out a policy in Europe on which we could easily have reached agreement with the Soviet Union. Our proposals were within negotiating distance of those of the Soviet Union. We have abandoned those policies and created this deadlock, which keeps our troops in the B.A.O.R. and prolongs and perpetuates the arms race, in order to preserve the alliance. If anybody else sees any sense in that, I certainly do not.
  The worst feature of the situation is that on this basis we cannot do more than temporarily check the rising defence costs. After all, Conservative Governments have more than once tried to hold
  1994
  down defence costs and these have inexorably burst the bounds imposed upon them and gone on increasing. We cannot take part in a race and mark time, and we cannot stop this arms race unless we put something in its place besides subservience to the United States in an alliance in which we are very much the weaker Power.
  We find part of the explanation, I think—and it illustrates what we are up against, not only this Government but all Governments—in the terrifying fact about the arms race that it engenders its own momentum. One gets a vast body of assumptions, traditions, vested interests, machinery, jobs and plans all running on and on so that in the end, as Lord Chalfont said in a television interview the other day, it becomes self-perpetuating and an end in itself.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence gave vivid expression to his realisation of this in his speech in the Defence Debate on 3rd March of last year when he began by saying:
  "…taking over responsibility for Britain's defence policy last October was like being pitchforked into the cab of a runaway train."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd March, 1965; Vol. 707, c. 1328.]
  Even at that he was flattering our position in the arms race and in the alliance. The real position was stated by President Johnson's adviser, Mr. McGeorge Bundy, in the Sunday Times of 4th July, when he said:
  "In the final analysis, the United States is the engine of mankind and the rest of the world is the train".
  That reduces us to the rôle, at best, of passengers and, at worst, of being in the baggage van. At any rate, we are certainly not in the cab. The most terrifying thing is how people get used to almost anything. We are just rolling on and on in this condition of helplessness—in this vast and terrifying piling up of the means of destroying the whole human race over and over again, with nobody really bothering.
  The First World War is where I came in, so to speak. I am one of the few hon. Members left in the House who saw active service in that war. I was so impressed by what I saw and heard that I studied the history of how we got into it. I was also, as a League of Nations official in Geneva, able to study

  1995
  how we gradually muddled into the Second World War. The overwhelming impression I got was of the helplessness of statesmen, working on their own assumptions and traditions, not being able to get on top of the situation but being impelled by blind forces which they could neither understand nor control—rather like the phrase in Hardy's The Dynasts:
  "Spirit of the Pities:
  Why prompts the Will so senseless—shaped a doing?
  Spirit of the years:
  I have told thee that it works unwittingly As one possessed not judging."
  Somehow we must get on top of this and not allow the situation to go on and on until our fate overtakes us and we have the auto da fe of the human race by its leaders. We have been on the wrong track since the end of the war, because then we went back to the exploded fallacy that the balance of power is the way to preserve peace. This is where it has led us today—and tomorrow it may land us in a world war.
  The alternative is, of course, the one that was stated in moving and dramatic language at the close of the last defence debate when, winding up for the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said that the only answer to nuclear weapons was a world authority based on moral principles acceptable to the peoples of both sides. He added that collective security in the traditional sense, disarmament agreements and so on, were good but not enough.
  The foundation of that world authority is the United Nations and we must put our energy, will, purpose and policies into transferring the mutual relations of the great Powers from the balance of power, as expressed in the rival military alliances, to their common obligations, purposes and principles in the U.N. Charter.
  It should be remembered that the U.N. Charter was not drafted by idealists or cranks but by the world's leading statesmen in the light of the experience of two world wars. As the United Nations Secretary-General has repeatedly said, the only thing wrong with the U.N. is that the leading Governments refuse to use it, to take their stand on their obligations in
  1996
  the Charter, to conduct their policies in accordance with its principles and purposes and to use its machinery. This is where we should make a start. We should subordinate military alliances to the obligations of the Charter, as we are pledged to do under Article 103 of the latter. That would immediately open the way to drastic cuts or sharing of our defence costs and commitments.
  If one takes the U.N. Charter seriously and interprets it honestly one must start by saying that the Charter rules out the use of force or the threat of force as a means of imposing one's will in a dispute. And that, of course, rules out negotiating from strength, which is how defence is understood under N.A.T.O. and the other military alliances. It also means that one does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, even under the guise of defending them against Communist subversion or against so-called indirect or internal aggression, infiltration or whatever it might be called. A lot of phrases have been invented to justify armed intervention in the internal affairs of countries. But if one takes the U.N. Charter seriously, one must rule out that kind of activity, which is the only realistic course today, because once one starts on policies which are not in accordance with the Charter there is no end to them.
  We must apply the principle laid down in the Defence White Paper that defence should be the servant and not the master of foreign policy. That means that we should not abandon our policies for making peace for the sake of preserving our military alliances. On the contrary, we should remember that in N.A.T.O. the collective defence obligation is not unconditional and unlimited but applies only in cases of unprovoked aggression.
  We have a perfect legal and moral right to tell our allies that unless they come to terms with us on a basis of negotiation with the other side and so long as they pursue policies which we regard as provocative, we will bring home our forces in B.A.O.R. and demobilise them. We should not allow S.H.A.P.E. to be exported from France and brought to this country unless we have got our allies to agree with us on a basis of settlement in Europe, because it is intolerable that we should have policies on which we could reach agreement with the Soviet Union which would enable us

  1997
  to wind up both the Warsaw and N.A.T.O. alliances and bring home our forces, but that we must keep our forces there at vast expense merely to underwrite the refusal of our allies to agree to a basis of settlement which we consider reasonable. We must put this to them, remembering that we could do it and, at the same time, be acting in accordance with the U.N. Charter and on our own principle of making defence the servant of foreign policy.
  In the Far East we should make it clear that the American war in Vietnam is contrary to the U.N. Charter, as undoubtedly it is. We should also say that we stand for working out Far Eastern settlements through the U. N., with China in her place in the Security Council, and that we will have no truck with American policies of so-called containing Communism or China, because those policies involve the use of force contrary to the Charter.
  We should be giving an active lead in seeking political settlements on that basis. The moment we took that kind of independent line we would be in a position to seek settlements, such as a conciliation between India and China, the Maphilindo solution of the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation and the winding up of the Singapore base. Similarly, in the Middle East it is not for us to try unilaterally to ensure stability.
  Yesterday my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence posed the question whether our military presence east of Suez would be of value. His words were:
  "…whether…Britain by her military presence outside Europe can…make a useful contribution to peace and stability in areas which are in the throes of revolutionary change…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1780.]
  Frankly, I have the deepest suspicion of the use of the phrase "peace and stability" in that context. It is the new euphemism for trying to prop up reactionary Governments against which their own populations have turned. I agree with what Aneurin Bevan said long ago—that it is not Britain's business to put down revolutions or fight Communism in other people's countries. It is also contrary to the Charter.
  Labour's policy, and it is a reasonable and sound policy, is that we should look to getting our oil out of the Middle East
  1998
  and our tin and rubber out of Malaysia by ordinary commercial arrangements, and not by force or threat of force. Any peace-keeping to be done should be done by an international police force set up through the United Nations. But we cannot do that until we have reached political settlements that will transfer the relations of the Powers to the Charter and wind up the rival alliances. We cannot have it both ways—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I hope that he will respond to the appeal I made. There are many hon. Members who wish to take part in the debate.
  Mr. Zilliacus: I was coming to my peroration, Mr. Speaker.
  What we should stand for, and that is our world rôle, is to be the first major Power to repudiate the incalculable risk of H-bomb power politics and take the calculated risk of basing its international relations on the Charter, giving a lead for peace, and finding unity of purpose with the whole Commonwealth through the Charter, because the Charter is the only treaty that binds us all together in a common code. We are no longer a first-class military Power. But we could be a first-class political Power and a first-class force for peace, and I hope that in the great national debate that is now to take place on these issues, that will be the image of Britain's purpose and position in the world which will gain the suffrages of our people.
  7.34 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Kershaw: We all recognise the sincerity which the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Zilliacus) brings to his speech on defence each year. If I differ from him in thinking that we are likely to be able to effect a great peace-keeping activity by operating from a basis of absolute military incompetence, he must accept that a great many other hon. Members also think so. If that were possible, I think that the United Nations, or India or some other country which has no military capability, would have been able to effect the changes which the hon. Member so sincerely—as we all do—wishes to see.
  My complaint against the White Paper on this occasion is that after the fanfare with which it came out—and we have

  1999
  been looking forward to it now for almost 18 months—it raises more doubts than it gives answers. In the first place, it raises the doubt whether the forces we are to have will have the ability to perform the tasks which the Government will lay upon them. I say that, first, because of the reductions in armaments announced, in terms, in the White Paper. I say it in the second place because of the reductions which are concealed by the White Paper—and of which, indeed, we might not have heard at all had it not been for the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). When one hears also from him of a cut of one-sixth which will fall only on the "teeth" arms—and that is quite apparent if one looks at the tables at the back of Part II of the Defence White Paper—one must feel that the efficiency of our Armed Forces will be most seriously reduced by the proposals before us.
  Thirdly, I agree that the precipitate decision to abandon Aden—and as that has been so closely argued this afternoon I shall not go into any detail now—must diminish our capability of performing our tasks in that part of the world. There was at one time some suggestion that islands in the Indian Ocean might serve some purpose—might substitute, to some extent, for the facilities we were about to lose in Aden. That, if ever persisted in, is a ridiculous assumption.
  I understand that the chief island in the British Indian Ocean territories so designated for defence purposes is Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia has a maximum height above sea level of about 5 ft. For three months of the year it is subject to hurricanes, for another three months it is flooded, there is no fresh water, and it is mainly a mango swamp. It is obviously not a very desirable or easy place on which to put an important base. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Sir Ian Orr-Ewing) has also pointed out that any sort of base must be quite elaborate—a mere concrete strip is no good. The other island, Aldabra, is occasionally more than about 5 ft. above sea level—the sand sometimes drifts to 50 ft. There, again, there is no fresh water, and no anchorage. It is not a desirable base.
  2000
  The Defence White Paper has also cast most serious doubts on the willingness of the British Government to fulfil tasks which we nevertheless have. The Government's decision shows an unwillingness to support Aden. Paragraph 15 of the White Paper states categorically that whilst we are willing to play some sort of part in Europe we do not intend to stay there unless the exchange costs are met—by which I suppose we mean that all the exchange costs are to be met by our allies.
  This is a most extraordinary position to take up; that we shall incur no expenditure whatever across the exchanges for our forces there—which admittedly serve our purpose, otherwise we would not have them there. Are we to pay nothing at all? If that is the intention, I very much doubt whether our allies will readily agree. We know the difficulty we have had so far in getting agreements on these lines.
  It is a very unfortunate statement, I think, because one of the ways in which we can get closer to Europe is by a sharing of military capabilities and responsibility. Using the military position to get closer to Europe is most important at the present time, and I believe that the pronouncement in the White Paper that we are prepared to stay in Europe only whilst our allies are prepared to pay our bills, must limit once again the possibility of this Government, at any rate, drawing closer to Europe.
  Paragraph 19 casts most serious doubts on our willingness to take part in any operations in the rest of the world. We have said that we will only take part in operations with allies in certain conditions, which can easily be imagined to be those in which we are operating very closely with the United States. We will now be operating, as has been said by my hon. Friends, more or less as an auxiliary to the United States. Do we really keep our military forces for that purpose? The United States is our greatest ally, and I wish to keep that position, but only political union can justify the complete abandonment of control for our defence policy. I do not believe that our forces ought to be raised, or kept, for a policy like that.
  What sort of forces do we want? We want forces which can exert military

  2001
  power in any part of the world where our trading interests are threatened and which can protect our trade. These we must have as a world trading Power. What sort of forces can do that? We must not assume in trying to choose the type of forces we want that we shall for ever have to be in the east of Suez area. The phrase, which I believe was coined by the present Prime Minister, has rather bedevilled our discussions on this White Paper. We want forces flexible enough to operate in any part of the world without large fixed bases, which I concede are necessary at present in that part of the world.
  They ought to operate preferably with allies, but if necessary without. I do not think we ought to lose sight of the fact that the purpose of a military force is to fight. The Navy is not a sort of ferry service for the Army. Nor is it a flag-showing extension of the Board of Trade. Nor are our troops a sort of uniformed force of probation officers who go round teaching developing countries how to behave. In the last resort our forces must be able to win battles.
  I am prepared to believe that an extra aircraft carrier to add to our fleet may not be for ever necessary. It is a technical question from time to time of the weapons we should have to achieve a fighting force. I do say, however, that on the evidence put before the House today the carrier is the answer, not only for today but for tomorrow. It may well be that the situation will change, but so far as we can see at the moment by depriving ourselves in the 'seventies from having a carrier force we are depriving ourselves of forces which can have military influence.
  Assuming that when the time comes the carrier force is worn out or is no longer useful in the conditions of those days, what is being done to replace it? We heard from the Secretary of State yesterday that there were movements towards a small surface-to-surface missile. Clearly a missile is the next step, but why did he use the adjective "small"? How small is it to be? Rival fleets have surface-to-surface missiles with a range of 200 miles. If the missile is not one with at least near that range it will not be much good. As we have made practically no progress with surface-to-surface missiles—the practical difficulties of
  2002
  which are well known—it seems that we risk having a huge gap in defence after carriers are not used and before we have our own missiles which can protect our naval vessels which I take it we shall still keep.
  So we shall have a missile when we can invent it. To guess and hope that it will be efficacious before we have taken any step to fill that gap is taking risks with the defence of this country which no Government ought to take. I do not see that the Fills can perform a rôle of flexibility which at the moment a carrier can. Of course I see their usefulness, and it would be desirable from the purely military point of view to have both, but they cannot fulfil a police rôle, nor can they maintain a military presence such as the carrier can.
  In the situation which we may be in during the next decade we may find them very limited in their capability to fulfil a rôle of any size. Even if we build up a base on some of the islands to which I have referred, I believe that operating from those islands to the mainland of Asia would be comparable to trying to stop the Anzio landing from Biggin Hill and having no other landing place in between those places. That is not sensible.
  We have had discussion about how much these aeroplanes cost, but there is no doubt at all that they cost a great many millions of money. I am told that today fast modern aircraft are being shot down with comparatively primitive weapons in Vietnam. If we have an aircraft costing £5 million or £2½ million —although I believe they will cost much more—that is too much money to put into one weapon of defence. We had better keep it in the garage and polish it. If it is to be shot down by a rifle bullet it is not a very useful weapon to employ.
  The White Paper does not provide forces to carry out the tasks appropriate to this country. The spirit of the White Paper is unfortunate. It does not devote itself to the interests of defence, nor even define those interests with precision. It sets out to save money. That is a desirable thing in some Government While Papers, but it is not the theme which should run through a White Paper on Defence. Of course we are all interested in saving money, but that that should be the theme of this White Paper is wrong.

  2003
  All our forces are under strength and all our commitments are kept. We have given notice that we shall not wish after a short time—and that we shall not be able to so so—to fulfil our commitments. We confess our weakness but at the same time, at the behest of our most powerful ally, we have bought colossally expensive aircraft at very severe cost to our own industry. It seems that these aircraft can be used, because of their great value, only in a nuclear rôle, which I do not think we would want them to fulfil. At the same time the White Paper insists that conventional forces shall be cut down.
  As a result I believe that our forces will be more inefficient than they are now. The White Paper gives no impetus or opportunity to join Europe which in the long run is essential to the military status and safety of this country. These proposals do great damage to our own industry. This Government have caused great harm and will cause a great deal more if they are allowed to go on. I hope that the House will reject this White Paper.
  7.47 p.m.
  Mr. John Binns: I wish to speak about the Defence Review in rather more general terms than we have had so far. We have had a tremendous amount of criticism from hon. Members opposite, but that criticism has been confined to fairly narrow channels. We have heard much about strategy and very little about economics. It is about time that this House and the country began to realise that the defence problems which face Britain at the moment are just as much economic as strategic.
  In this Defence White Paper my right hon. Friend has at last dealt with both those problems in a most purposeful manner. I start by congratulating him on the best Defence Review the House has had for a long time. For the first time in this White Paper a Minister has been prepared to get to grips with the unpalatable decisions which need to be taken if we are to fulfil the main objects set out in the first paragraph of the White Paper. None of us on this side of the House would, I am quite sure, disagree with those objects, which are: to relieve the strain imposed on the economy by
  2004
  the tremendous cost of the defence programme we inherited from the previous Government, and to shape a new defence posture for the 'seventies more in keeping with what the country can afford.
  We would be wise to try to recognise clearly what the exercise was that the Government instructed the Minister to carry out. This was not an exercise in unilateral disarmament. This Government have always argued against disarmament on a unilateral basis. This does not mean that the Government are not fully committed to world disarmament, because of course they are. Indeed we can claim to have the one Government in the world which has appointed a Minister for Disarmament who is at the constant call of any Power or group of Powers prepared to come to a conference table and discuss methods of disarmament. Furthermore, he spends most of his time trying to probe and create opportunities for this kind of exercise.
  Although I appreciate fully the desires of some of my hon. Friends to cut our commitments and to reduce the defence expenditure in a far more drastic manner than the Minister has been able to achieve in this Review, I find myself forced to agree with my right hon. Friends in the Government that the only way to bring about the cuts in arms expenditure which all of us would like is on a multilateral basis by international agreement. The purpose of the Review is set out clearly in Chapter I. It is to put the future defence policy of Britain on a sound economic basis. My right hon. Friend is the first Minister of Defence who has tried to do this. I would say in answer to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Kershaw) that one of the reasons why we have had to wait for so long for this Review was that we had to wait for the findings of the N.E.D.C., which set the target for the gross national product over the next ten years, before a decision could be made as to what percentage of that product should be allocated to defence.
  This is where my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) absolutely misses the point of the Defence Review when he argues that it is wrong for the Government to fix a target of £2,000 million before deciding what our defence rôle should be in different parts of the world. It is the duty

  2005
  of any sound Government to decide what it can afford to spend before it embarks on any spending spree on new and costly weapons. If hon. and right hon. Members opposite had adopted this attitude when they were in power I believe that tremendous savings could have been made in defence expenditure and the hundreds of millions of pounds would not have been spent on rocketry projects which were abandoned before they left the ground and. in many cases, before they left the drawing board.
  Once a decision has been taken on what a country can afford to spend, there is room for argument on what commitments we shall retain or abandon, and in fixing our military role the Minister has been most realistic. He has left us in a position to fulfil our commitments to N.A.T.O. and other alliances and at the same time make the splendid contribution which we are making to United Nations obligations in different parts of the world. My right hon. Friend states clearly in the Review that it is the major aim of British policy to help the United Nations to take on more and more responsibility for peace-keeping in years to come.
  Our commitments to N.A.T.O. had to be brought within the financial limits set by the Government and this entailed serious thinking. I had to do some serious thinking about it, in particular because it meant that we had to consider the position of the British Army of the Rhine. While my right hon. Friend has decided that we should maintain these ground forces on the Rhine at the existing level for the time being, he has wisely added the proviso that this is dependent upon some means being found to meet the foreign exchange costs of this force.
  Perhaps the greatest criticism of the Review, from both sides of the House, has been of its attitude towards our commitments east of Suez. Here again I think that my right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I believe that hon. Members opposite would agree, when he says that it is in this area that the greatest danger to peace may lie in the next decade, and if peace in this area is to be threatened it is almost certain that some of our Commonwealth partners may become directly involved. For this reason it is not easy to abandon all our com-
  2006
  mitments in the area, as some of my hon. Friends would like us to do. I should dearly love to join in the call to abandon all our commitments east of Suez, but when one reads the White Paper and one thinks about it common sense must prevail.
  I am forced to the conclusion that my right hon. Friend has done the right thing when he says that we will not abandon all our commitments, but that we will not enter into any further commitments and that we will not become involved in any conflagration in this area in future unless it is under the auspices of the United Nations or has tremendous support from our allies. I am also satisfied, having read the White Paper, that it is the Government's intention to carry out a phased disengagement in that part of the world, and that that is the only way in which we can withdraw.
  Chapter 3 of the Review deals with the equipment of our forces to meet the commitments which I have mentioned, but for me the White Paper deals adequately with the part which the Navy will play in the 1970s. It is not my job tonight to argue the case for or against having another aircraft carrier. I am sure that that will be dealt with in the Government's reply to the debate. But the replacement of the Canberra aircraft gave me cause for serious thinking, and until I read the White Paper I had a sneaking regard for the Spey/Mirage aircraft. One must accept the argument in the White Paper, however, that this aircraft, neither in performance nor in delivery dates, can fill the bill. If that argument is accepted it is only sound common sense to buy a limited number of Fill As from the United States. The arrangements made by the Government to cover some of the dollar costs by reciprocal exports justifies this decision. My support of this decision, however, is based firmly on my right hon. Friend's promise that by the mid-1970s we shall have some of the Anglo-French variable-geometry aircraft and that we shall bring them into operation.
  I have come to the conclusion that this is perhaps the best Defence White Paper ever presented to the House, but this does not mean that it does everything that I should like to see done, and I would commend to my right hon. Friend one or

  2007
  two issues on which it might be beneficial to have some second thoughts. First, the integrated Ministry of Defence seems to be increasing its staff at a rather alarming rate. Already, it boasts more staff than the former three Service Departments put together, and it is costing about £30 million a year. Perhaps the Minister would care to have a closer look at this and make sure that there is no empire-building going on in his Department. My right hon. Friend might also do a little streamlining among the top brass of the Services. The latest active lists show that we have 73 admirals, 121 generals and 98 air marshals. I do not think that it would be impertinent to suggest that the same methods be adopted for the Services as were adopted for the railwaymen, which was simply that when one cut down operational services one had to cut down on staff. The Services lists look a trifle top-heavy for the streamlined defence set-up envisaged in the White Paper. I think that there is room here for a little selective pruning.
  Finally, I ask my right hon. Friend to look again at the position of the British Army of the Rhine. Does he feel absolutely convinced of the need to keep this force at its present strength? Even if his proviso on foreign exchange is met, the maintenance of this force creates a considerable amount of manpower stretch. I think that it would be advisable to cut the force quite drastically, particularly in view of the recruitment difficulties which the Services are now experiencing.
  Finally, I believe that no one will dissent when I say that real world power and authority in this day and age depend as much on economic stability and expansion as upon military efficiency. The White Paper tries to line up both. Our military effectiveness is brought into line and made dependent upon our economic growth, and I am sure that this is the road to true greatness for this country.
  8.0 p.m.
  Mr. Nigel Fisher: I do not altogether agree with the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Binns) in his emphasis exclusively upon the economic aspect of the Defence Review. It is certainly one very important factor, but it should not be considered to be the only factor.
  2008
  The Government have made two fundamental errors in their Review and many important consequential ones. The first was to announce what they were going to spend on defence—the arbitrary figure of £2,000 million—before the Review had begun and before they had decided what they would spend it on. The second was to base their whole policy on this financial requirement, irrespective of their existing commitments and undertakings.
  Defence policy must be dependent upon foreign policy and cannot be dictated solely by economic policy. If so, I should have thought that the first thing to do was to negotiate a genuine integration of the alliance and to work out with our friends, especially the Americans, the appropriate defence responsibilities of each within the framework of our joint foreign policy objectives. I have the authority of the First Secretary of State for this proposition, for in 1962 he said in the House that if one was directing one's policy according to one's purse, it was almost certain that the policy would be wrong.
  I want to speak only very briefly and on only one aspect of the Defence Review—the withdrawal from Aden, of which I have some personal knowledge because of my responsibility, under my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), for the undertaking given to the Federation of South Arabia by the previous Government. My right hon. Friend and I signed the Report of the 1964 Conference on behalf of the British Government and we agree at that Conference to work out with the Federal Government, which, after all, is responsible for the defence of the Federation, arrangements for retaining the base and for assisting in the defence of the Federation after its independence in 1968. I do not quite understand the position of the Secretary of State for Defence. Does he regard that undertaking as a scrap of paper to be torn up in order to save money?
  I want for a moment to go back to the reasons why the Federal Government of South Arabia considered that we were fully committed—not only the previous but the present Government. In the summer of 1964, when Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister said:
  "Aden must be held as an important base both for communications and as a centre for

  2009
  peace-keeping operations. Whatever measures are necessary to this end must be taken."
  A month later, he said:
  "We need Aden as an essential centre for peace-keeping operations in a wide area around it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th June, 1964; Vol. 696, c. 1405.]
  When the new Government had taken office, I wanted to make sure that they still upheld the view which the right hon. Gentleman had expressed and so on 30th November, 1964, I asked the Secretary of State for Defence what the policy of the Government was towards the retention of the Aden base. He replied that it was the policy of the Government to retain the base. In a supplementary question, I said that this decision would be very welcome to the people of Aden and South Arabia who recognised that while we had strong strategic reasons for wishing to remain in Aden and for retaining the base, they also had very strong economic reasons for wishing us to do so. In his reply to that supplementary question, the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "I believe that this is indeed the case."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1964; Vol. 703, c. 10.]
  Of course it is.
  In an intervention earlier, I mentioned that when I was last in Aden, in the summer of 1964, everyone told me that they wanted us to stay. Of course it was not said publicly, because of the pressures from Nasser, from Egypt, and from the so-called Movement of Liberation in the Republican Yemen and because of the terrorism which even at that time was an intimidating factor. But everyone said this to me privately, even the nationalist politicians in Aden.
  Yet the Government base their whole case for withdrawing from Aden on the proposition—and they are not very specific about whether they are speaking of Aden State or of all the Federal States—that the people do not want us in Aden. I assure the Minister of Defence for the Army, who is doing me the courtesy of taking a few notes to give to his right hon. Friend, that that is not the case. It is an inaccurate and misleading version of the views of the people in that part of the world.
  During the same month, November, 1964, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham pointed out yesterday,
  2010
  our High Commissioner in Aden was authorised to assure the Federal Government that the British Government would honour our commitments in South Arabia and, as has already been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), in June, the Secretary of State for Defence himself repeated this assurance in Aden. On 2nd February, this year, only a month ago, the right hon. Gentleman said in Australia:
  "We have no intention of ratting on any of our commitments. We intend to remain, and shall remain, fully capable of carrying out all the commitments we have at the present time in the Far East, the Middle East and in Africa."
  So, over a period of 18 months, the commitment to South Arabia was made absolutely clear and it would indeed be difficult to find an obligation so fully underwritten by successive Governments.
  Yet, in his statement to the House on 22nd February, the right hon. Gentleman claimed that in withdrawing from Aden he was not defaulting on Britain's commitments to her allies and partners in the Commonwealth; and he excused himself for that betrayal of the Federation—and that is what it amounts to—with the ridiculous assertion that our undertaking had been given to a government in South Arabia which had now ceased to exist. I do not know what relevance that is supposed to have. In any case, as we all know now, it was quite untrue, as the right hon. Gentleman was forced humiliatingly to admit in a personal statement the following day.
  This is a pathetic but also a disgraceful story of bad faith. As the Daily Telegraph pointed out in its leader of 23rd February, it is a cynical contradiction of the right hon. Gentleman's own claim that his defence savings have been effected without defaulting on commitments to our allies.
  I should like to put a few questions to the Government. Do they now accept any obligation of any kind to South Arabia, even without retaining the Aden base? If so, do they realise that the distance from Bahrein to Aden by the most direct route is 1,000 miles? Do they think that they can sustain the Federation against an attack from the Yemen at that range? Will the Government go on paying, as we have done hitherto, for the Federal Army, or do they think

  2011
  it right to launch South Arabia into independence without adequate defence against external aggression? Do they realise that this policy means that President Nasser, who is not a friend of this country, will now remain in the Yemen and will take over Aden when we leave in 1968? He has already said so. Do the Government realise that four years fighting by the Royalists in the Yemen will now be thrown away and that President Nasser will be presented, on a plate, with a glittering prize, much more glittering than the Yemen, which he has not earned and to which he is quite unentitled?
  Is it for this sort of policy, now revealed by the Defence Review, that British soldiers lost their lives in the Radfan? I saw them fighting there two years ago. Is it for this that British soldiers are now losing their lives in the streets of Aden? Did the right hon. Gentleman realise that this policy would inevitablv mean the breakup of the South Arabian Federation and the complete betrayal of our friends there who trusted our word? Were all these factors taken fully into account before deciding on this aspect of defence policy?
  To sum up the right hon. Gentleman either deliberately defaulted on a clear undertaking to South Arabia, given by my right hon. Friend and myself in 1964, or he took an absolutely major policy decision, without even bothering to ascertain what our existing commitments were. Those are the only two alternatives with which this House is faced. In either case, in my submission, he is unfit to occupy his high office. But I do not call for his resignation at this time, the British electorate will see to that on 31st March.
  8.10 p.m.
  Sir Geoffrey de Freitas: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) referred to our use of Aden after independence and put many questions to the Minister. I, too, shall be putting questions to the Minister about what happens after we leave Aden, but they will not be the same questions. I want to refer to two points which the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Sir Ian Orr-Ewing) raised. He referred to the fact that Nasser had issued a statement saying that he was keeping his troops in the Yemen because of our White Paper.
  2012
  The hon. Gentleman said that that was the fault of the White Paper and that Nasser would proclaim that it was a victory for himself.
  Anyone who knows what is happening in the Middle East today knows that Nasser is keeping his troops in the Yemen because he does not dare to bring them home. If he did, it is likely that he would be looking for a villa in Switzerland, Guinea or Mali. That is the reason. It has nothing to do with our White Paper. We have a great deal of power, but not as much as that. It is quite simply because these troops have been defeated and grown increasingly hostile to Nasser's régime.
  The hon. Gentleman also referred to the drawing together of the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy. He spoke of the many years which he had spent on the Air Council and the Board of Admiralty. I spent some years on the Air Council, too. There do not seem to be sufficient signs of an integration of these two services. The fact that they are not close enough is evidenced by the resignation of my right hon. Friend for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). If there had been this integration he would surely not have felt such a particular responsibility for the Royal Navy. I regard that as a sign that all is not as well as it should be in the integration of the Services, certainly in the Ministry itself.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) ended with a plea for economic, political and military integration with Europe. I am all in favour of economic and political integration with Europe, but I am extremely worried about military integration, especially as he referred to this in the context of it providing a balance to the United States. He referred to bringing in the Old World to redress the balance of the New. Some explanation is required when this argument is used on the Opposition Front Bench at a time when N.A.T.O. is so much under attack by General de Gaulle. Since 1949 all British governments have consistently followed the policy of standing for the integration of the armed forces with all our allies, including the Canadians and Americans. At the various meetings, such as the W.E.U. and the N.A.T.O. Parliamentarians Conference, it has been only the French delegates belonging to the Gaullist

  2013
  party who have not advocated the integration of all military forces in N.A.T.O. Yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Warbey) asked the Secretary of State for Defence:
  "wonder whether my right hon. Friend would say why we should engage in any military operations at all in Asia in the 1970s."
  The Minister replied:
  "I will say very simply. If the capacity to engage in small-scale military operations can prevent large-scale disaster, as undoubtedly it did when we intervened under the previous Government in East Africa in 1964, it is well worth a people with any sense of international responsibility paying something to be able to do it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1782.]
  The operations in 1964 were a successful small-scale intervention which undoubtedly prevented a large-scale disaster with great loss of life. I want my right hon. Friend to say something about what would happen in the next decade if we were again asked by Commonwealth African Governments to protect them. It has been said that if we gave up the Aden base we could not again provide the troops required at short notice, as we did two years ago. I believe that we can, but I would like to hear the Minister explain it. Apart from the economic and political considerations which have been made as to why we should give up the base, there is a sound military one, but I should like to be satisfied about it and hear it developed.
  Is it not a fact that the new generation of R.A.F. transport aircraft and the Strategic Reserve of the Army in Britain make Aden unnecessary? The results are something like this. If we assume that it took X hours to transport a battalion group to Kenya from Aden two years ago it would take less time to transport a similar group to Kenya from the United Kingdom when we have left Aden. This would be so even if we could not fly the direct north-south route and had to come in either west to east or north-east to south-west. In other words, if we begin to think in terms of a Strategic Reserve in Britain, highly mobilised with very fast big modern R.A.F. transport, do not we get this result?
  A lot of hon. Members and people outside have been speaking as if the Navy will cease to exist. Besides having a Strategic Reserve in Britain ready to
  2014
  move and with a capability to move, will not we have a very mobile Navy with Royal Marine Commandoes? The chitchat about the carrier seems to have blinded many people to the fact that commando carriers capable of landing Royal Marines by helicopter will be available to do it just as they did two years ago. Is it not a fact that they will be available to do this job in similar conditions to those which prevailed two years ago in East Africa?
  Commander Anthony Courtney: Is not the fallacy of the hon. Gentleman's argument the fact that the commando ships—they are not known as carriers—do not carry fixed-wing aircraft and, therefore, are unable to provide their own air cover?
  Sir G. de Freitas: That point was raised earlier in the debate. I am assuming that the conditions would be similar to those which prevailed two years ago. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State purposely qualified the matter. He referred to small scale military operations to prevent a large scale disaster. I am not suggesting, and he was not suggesting, that this type of equipment could be used in anything more than a small scale military operation to prevent a large scale disaster. After all, everybody recognises that a small scale operation did succeed in similar circumstances in 1964.
  To sum up, although we are a European power and our destiny lies in Europe, we cannot overnight forget our imperial past. For the ten years after independence, we have a duty to these new African countries, our former colonies, to protect them if they ask us to do so and if that involves only a small scale operation to prevent a large scale disaster. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to answer this question: in the next decade, would we be able to repeat what we did in a similar operation two years ago?
  8.22 p.m.
  Sir Richard Glyn: The hon. Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas) made a number of extremely interesting points, at least one of which was important. I want to repeat his question to the Secretary of State about whether the new generation of transport aircraft enables us to be sure that a

  2015
  strategic reserve force located in Europe, probably in Britain, could carry out tasks such as dealing with an emergency in East Africa—a task which was successfully achieved in 1964.
  The hon. Gentleman asked whether, despite over-flying limitations, which I am sure he will agree are likely to become more acute, the new generation of transport aircraft could carry a battalion group to the East African or Aden area. I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider whether that would not be sending a boy to do a man's job. The essence of these actions is that they should be quickly successful, and I think that it would be extremely ill advised to launch less than a brigade group on a task like that, or, if one battalion were launched, it would be unwise to do so if the rest of the brigade group were not available at very short notice.
  The point about the Aden base is that it is more than a base. It carries reserves of heavy equipment, tanks, guns, antitank weapons and transport. The question which should be answered is whether a brigade group, with all its heavy weapons and equipment, could be carried by the new generation of transport aircraft, and, if so, what would a new generation of transport aircraft cost? To carry that amount of equipment, ammunition and fuel would need a great number of very big aircraft, which would cost a great deal. Even then, at the last minute, a change in over-flying restrictions might leave us with the alternatives of intruding upon another country's air space against its wish or not carrying out our commitment.
  Attention has been focussed upon this debate not only because it is the last clash before the General Election, but also by the extraordinary circumstance of the joint resignation of the senior Minister for the Navy and of the First Sea Lord. It is, I think, the first time in living memory that two such resignations have come together on a point of principle in opposition to the declared policy of the Government.
  We all admired the gallant personal statement of the former Minister of Defence for the Navy, from which I propose to quote one sentence, with which, I think, both sides of the House will be in entire agreement. Speaking
  2016
  of minor operations, the hon. Gentleman said:
  "Nor can we be sure that the minor operations which we undertake alone do not escalate…we do if they do escalate? Either we can withdraw and leave in the lurch those whom we have gone to help, which would be dishourable, or we can ask our troops to go on fighting…the resources necessary to enable them to get victory, which would be more dishourable still."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 261.]
  That principle was stated with regard to small incidents outside Europe, but I suggest that the same principle applies entirely to N.A.T.O., to Europe and to B.A.O.R. This country must never place our troops under an obligation to fight in circumstances in which we have not given them the equipment and material to enable them to win. In other words, we must not order them to fight when we have so neglected equipping them that they are certain to be defeated.
  I turn now to a statement made by the Secretary of State for Defence on 16th December. He had been talking about the Soviet nuclear capacity, and he said:
  "…we know that the Soviet Union has 735 medium-range ballistic missiles targeted at this moment on targets in Britain and on the Continental members of the Alliance, as well as thousands of smaller-yield, shorter-range nuclear weapons."
  By the latter, the right hon. Gentleman must have referred to what are sometimes called tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons.
  Talking about B.A.O.R. the right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
  "…these are facts, not theories: if both sides use tactical atomic weapons, we should need about 50 per cent. more men in N.A.T.O. in order to fight for more than a few days against the Soviet forces; but, if neither side use nuclear weapons…That would mean at least twice as many men as N.A.T.O. has at present"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 1592.]
  If those words are given their ordinary meaning, they prove that our forces in B.A.O.R., equipped as they are at present, cannot hold back an attack by Soviet forces for more than two or three days.
  Of course, the same problem affects every N.A.T.O. nation involved in European defence. It affects all our allies, and our allies are meeting this problem in two ways. Some of them are increasing their conventional reserves; some of them

  2017
  are re-equipping with better tactical nuclear weapons. Some are doing both. We alone, as far as I am aware, of all the N.A.T.O. countries with any major defensive task in Europe, are doing neither. We are not only not increasing our reserves, but the Government's policy towards our major reserve, the Territorial Army, has had the effect of entirely disheartening and dispiriting it and therefore making it altogether less efficient.
  Also, their policy, if carried out, will have one very serious effect. It will make it virtually impossible for this country to build up a large conventional force again, if that were to be required for any reason. A modern unit, be it a battalion, a regiment, or what you will, is an extremely complicated team of technicians who have not only to be individualy trained to a very high level but have to be brought to work together—like a football team or a great orchestra. If that is not done they will not be effective in battle.
  The best way in which a new unit can be created is by forming a cadre from an existing unit, and the cadre has to have very high-class people, mostly recommended for promotion, and must include technicians and specialists in every skill which the unit has to have. Quite candidly, with our present commitments and with our present Regular force I do not believe there is in the British Army a single Regular unit which, with its present commitments, could throw off a cadre adequate to form a new unit. Of course, if we have four or five years something might be done but not in two or three years. It would take ten years to restore the Territorial Army to its present level.
  The Territorial soldier is a well-trained soldier. One has only to remember 1938 when suddenly, the Territorial Army was ordered to double its size and the Territorial Army units had to be split. Those split Territorial units were fighting surprisingly soon and surprisingly well.
  I am sorry that the Minister of Defence for the Army is not with us at the moment, for had he been I think he would have confirmed that a battery of Territorial artillery took part in a N.A.T.O. exercise last autumn when it astonished the regular forces of America,
  2018
  Germany, Turkey and other N.A.T.O. countries which had the utmost difficulty in believing that these Territorials were not regular soldiers. This unit, like many others, of our Territorial Army is quite up to the standard of training of the forces of some of our N.A.T.O. allies, whose armies consist, very largely, of short-term conscripts.
  So, instead of doing as other of our allies are doing, instead of strengthening our reserves and building up our tactical nuclear capacity, this Government have done the reverse in both cases. I asked the Secretary of State for Defence about nuclear weapons for B.A.O.R. on 28th February. He told me they had three, the entirely obsolete Corporal which, he says, is being withdrawn this year without replacement, the Honest John, and the 8-inch howitzer, both almost as old as the Corporal, although the right hon. Gentleman says that they will continue in service into the 1970s. Long before that they will be quite the oldest and least battle-worthy tactical nuclear weapons in the whole of N.A.T.O. But we were going to have a new method of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon to protect B.A.O.R. That was one of the requirements for the TSR2, which was designed partly to fill that gap which the previous Government saw was going to occur.
  The present Government have scrapped that new modern system of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon. They are scrapping the old Corporal not a day too soon, and B.A.O.R., of all the forces in N.A.T.O., is going to have to hang on with virtually no reserves and with these obsolescent methods of delivering tactical nuclear warheads which, incidentally, are American-owned and which we cannot use without their consent. The TSR2 would have had a British nuclear weapon which we should have been free to use without reference to the Americans. That is the position in which the British Government have put our troops in B.A.O.R.
  There are other hon. Members who wish to speak. I do not wish to detain the House, because I have made my point. I just want to ask the Secretary of State for Defence to say whether the Government have any plan to introduce a new tactical nuclear weapon for the defence of B.A.O.R. on the lines which all our

  2019
  N.A.T.O. allies are advancing, or whether I am right in thinking that they are going to hope that these obsolescent weapons—Honest John and the howitzer—will continue to be battle-worthy into the 1970s, as was indicated to me in an Answer on 28th February.
  If that be the case, then I say that the Government are doing exactly what the ex-Minister of Defence for the Navy said Britain must never do. They are asking our soldiers to fight without giving them the necessary resources to enable them to win. In other words, they are ordering them to fight in circumstances where the Secretary of State for Defence himself said they cannot possibly hold out for more than a few days. That is quite the most shocking admission that I, for one, have ever heard from the Government benches.
  8.37 p.m.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: I would not presume to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Sir Richard Glyn) to the full extent that I might, because I have never pursued a military career and could not challenge some of his propositions. However, as an engineer, I recognise straight away that the building up of a force quickly in this modern age is far more difficult to do than it was 50 years ago.
  My only experience of the Army was obtained between 1912 and 1917. By 1917 I had become a bombardier in the school cadet corps of the Royal Horse Artillery. We had beautiful uniforms, some splendid Irish cobs, and some nice little field guns and limbers. We had a wonderful time during the First World War, and the only consolation that I had about the war ending when it did was that I was told that a subaltern's expectation of life in France was two and a half hours, and that, as a result of the war ending, I could hope to reach the age of 65, which I shall do in a short time.
  That was my only experience of the war, but one thing that I have learned is that the technological development of engines of war has been such that there is no individual nation in Europe, including ourselves, with a wide enough industrial base to be able to engage in war as a sovereign nation. I believe that it is impossible. This is one reason why I hope that before many years have passed
  2020
  I shall see Britain merged into the Common Market. I want to see a united Europe by which we can defend our European civilisation from a European base.
  I recognise that we have to take the F111 to fill a serious gap. I do not want to blame anyone for this decision, because I do not believe that our technological base is strong enough to enable us to equip modern armies. To think of competing with the Americans is out of the question. It is a pity that our co-operation with France did not begin 10 years ago. Had it done so, we might not today have had to take the F111. We might have had an Anglo-French service which could have sustained us.
  I remember the arguments over the FN rifle and the Swedish anti-tank gun. Our industrial base is not large enough to meet all our needs. During the First World War our agricultural base was too narrow, and we nearly starved. During the last war our industrial base was too narrow, and we had to depend on land-lease. Europe must learn this lesson. If Germany, France, Britain, Belgium, Holland, Italy and the other nations of Europe are to have viable economies and are to be a strong defensive force against any outside force, from wherever it comes, they can achieve this only by unification. This is why I am so keen on Britain going into the Common Market.
  I represent a constituency and live in a part of the country where shipbuilding is the major industry. The Navy is of great concern to us all who live near the Clyde. I suppose that no Britisher lives more than 100 miles from the sea. Our naval traditions go back over 1,000 years, and I suppose the Navy is in every man's blood. We would not be true to ourselves if we did not have some nostalgia for the Navy. During the 15 years that I have been in this House I have heard squabbles between the admirals and the brigadiers, but I am sure that in the smoking room afterwards they have all recognised the great service which the Navy provides.
  I am shocked when I read Press reports and hear extracts from speeches in the House to the effect that, because we are not going to build this aircraft carrier, the Navy is finished. In his 1958 White Paper, and in his speech

  2021
  in the House on 26th February, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) made it clear that aircraft carriers—which at that time, with their aircraft, would cost more than £100 million each; and they would cost a lot more now—could no longer fulfil the rôle that we would expect of them in any part of the world. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman still holds that view, but the Tory Party manifesto does not agree with him. Eight years ago the right hon. Gentleman said that the aircraft carrier was "cut". The Tory Party manifesto says that if the Tories are returned to power they will build it.
  Mr. Powell: If the hon. Gentleman looks into it more carefully, he will find that the context in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) was speaking was the hypothesis of the carrier as a base for the strategic bomber.
  Mr. Bence: That may be so. But I do not know how the concept of a carrier in the Far East could be any other today. I am surprised that, according to the Opposition, the situation has so changed from the day when the right hon. Member for Streatham could rule out carriers on grounds of the expenditure of £100 million. He said that it would be too expensive an instrument for the tactic for which it would be used. I do not think that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has added anything to the argument posed by the right hon. Member for Streatham with the statement that the Conservatives, if returned to power, will build a carrier.
  Mr. Powell: Surely the hon. Gentleman realises that the discussion today is about a carrier not as a base for the launching of strategic bombers but as the means of having strike and interceptor aircraft.
  Mr. Bence: I presume, in the context in which it was discussed in 1958, that it could have been used for the same purpose then. Surely the carrier was ruled out then because of expense, no matter what purpose it was to be used for. It is easy to say that it would be built for a different purpose now, but I do not believe that that purpose will ever be necessary.
  The defence agreement between the United States, Australia and New Zea-
  2022
  land is such that I do not believe that it will be necessary for us to provide a carrier for the Far East for strike purposes. If conditions arose calling for the use of such resources, I am sure that, as a result of the agreement between Australia, New Zealand and the United States, they too would be drawn in.
  I do not believe that our shipbuilding or aircraft industries form a big enough base for such a concept. British industry is short of skilled men and technicians. We still have a deficiency in the balance of payments. On every side the cry goes up that we are not earning our living in the world. The more we put our energies into sustaining an industrial base designed to defend us against all possibilities of war, the more we weaken our capacity to build the technology and science that we need to earn our living.
  I do not believe that we should live in the second half of the 20th century on the idea of indulging in military or naval or air research and development for military purposes, inheriting a sort of overspill from Europe in the process. That sort of thing happened in the past but it cannot be done today.
  We must make a great drive forward in our civil industry. That is vital in order to sustain our standard of living. No one would like more than I to sustain a wonderful defence system to protect Britain. I am old enough to have a nostalgia for "Rule, Britannia" and all that. I can understand that romantic idea. But we cannot do it in the second part of this century. Our competitive position has been gravely weakened because we have tried to do too much. We have been too generous to our allies by making too big a contribution.
  I feel that my country, which I love—I think most of us do—is making a contribution greater than in the past and I have reached the stage when I feel that that contribution is weakening our capacity to earn our living. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will hold the same position in the next five-year Parliament, because he is one of the best and most effective Secretaries of State for Defence that I have heard in the 15 years that I have been here. I hope that he will continue to ensure that, in our contribution to the defence of Western

  2023
  civilisation and culture—this is what is entailed: not just the defence of this island—in our defence White Papers in the years to follow, we shall make it clear to our friends that we will give them all we can in help and assistance, but that we shall not bankrupt ourselves in the process.
  If we carry on and try to act defensively or to arm ourselves in the manner which we have done over more than 100 years, the diversion of our scientists and technologists into that work and away from our commercial industrial services will be such that we will not overcome the serious trade problems with which we are faced.
  8.56 p.m.
  Mr. John Hay: The debate which is now moving into its final stages is the last major clash—apart from any repercussions of the contretemps of the Minister of Works this afternoon—that we shall have in this Parliament. At this late stage, I do not want to detain the House with any detailed examination of the arguments on the White Paper, except to say that what is at stake between the two sides of the House is an entirely different concept of the problem of defence. I understand that the Government and the party which supports them take the view that defence should be regarded from the point of setting a target in cash and then making sure that the commitments and the equipment with which our Service men have to discharge those commitments are trimmed to fit.
  On the other hand, we on this side take the view that we must look first at our commitments and make sure that our Service men have the equipment to discharge the obligations which are voluntarily assumed by the country or which have been imposed upon it by its geographical position, its history or its economic obligations.
  I do not want to go over our various commitments. It has been apparent from the debate that the major part of our commitments is in the area east of Suez. This is not new: it has grown up over the years. That area is, of course, a highly expensive area in which to operate, and is a very long distance from this country. I believe that we are
  2024
  wrong—certainly the Government are wrong—to regard the discharge of our obligations and commitments in that part of the world as something which must be kept below a certain fixed ceiling.
  It is a matter of record that our expenditure on defence during the past 10 years or so has fluctuated between 8 per cent. and 6½ per cent. of the gross national product, but what has not been said in the debate is the extent to which the gross national product itself, of which defence spending is a percentage, has grown. In 1951, the gross national product of this country was £13,000 million; in 1964, it was £29,000 million. If one assumes that the share of the G.N.P. taken by defence is an average of about 7 per cent.—in fact, in the last year of Conservative Administration it was substantially less—that works out at about 14s. 3d. per person a week. Yet every person, statistically, spends approximately 18s. 1d. per week on drink and tobacco. I therefore hope that even at this late stage I may put these figures to the House to indicate that the whole question of defence spending and whether we adjust it up or down by a fraction of a percentage should be kept very much in perspective.
  I wish that I had had the opportunity of speaking earlier because I should have liked to say a good deal about the major decision of the Defence White Paper—the decision not to proceed with the building of the new aircraft carrier. In his resignation speech the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) set out very fully the various reasons why this country in the years ahead must have the flexibility and the strike ability and the protective ability for the remainder of the Fleet which only an aircraft carrier force can provide.
  In that speech he pointed out to the House how the alternative of land bases is not a suitable and satisfactory substitute. No mention has been made in the debate—I do not know whether the Secretary of State will deal with it in his winding-up speech—about the cost which the Government propose to incur in respect of providing the bases from which the air strike of the F111As will be deployed. We should very much like to know how much the Government will

  2025
  have to spend in the years ahead to do the job which would be done by the carrier force which they are murdering.
  I deprecate very much the Government's decision about the aircraft carrier, not least because I am certain that the effect upon the morale of the Fleet Air Arm will be very bad indeed. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say, as he said yesterday, that the motto for the Fleet Air Arm henceforth will be "Business as usual." Does he have any conception whatever of the conditions under which members of the Fleet Air Arm work and live in the aircraft carriers east of Suez? If he does, he should understand that, with no future ahead of them except a slow lingering death by 1975 or thereabouts, many, if not most, of these able young men will put up with these conditions no longer. They will not see their future relegated to the realm of helicopter ferry pilots. They want to see a Navy of which they are proud having an important rôle in the years ahead.
  May I ask a question about the Admiralty Board? The hon. Member for Woolwich, East resigned and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce, felt obliged to retire prematurely at great personal expense and loss. But the hon. Member who now occupies the post of Minister to the Navy is here, and I ask what was the view of the remainder of the Board of Admiralty. We have had no indication whatever why the hon. Member himself decided to remain in office. If he were privy to all the decisions and the arguments, I should have thought that he would have resigned with his political chief. Instead of that, he remains in office and moves up to the first position of Minister for the Navy. I hope that in his winding-up speech the Secretary of State will tell us what was the view about this of the remainder of the Admiralty Board. With so grave a decision having been taken, one would perhaps have expected that the whole of the Admiralty Board would resign. In fact they did not. I can understand that the Service members felt that they had a duty to discharge, but I should like to know about the position of the hon. Member who is now Minister for the Navy.
  The Minister of Defence for the Navy (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu): Like every other member of the Navy Board, I put
  2026
  the single Service case for carriers as hard as I could, along with the Minister who was my predecessor. But I take the view that these decisions cannot be taken on a single Service basis. The whole point of having a Minister of Defence is that this should be decided on a national basis. It has been done, I accept the decision, and so does the Navy.
  Mr. Hay: The Minister has expressed his point of view, but it is one with which I could not agree. Fortunately, he need not put up with it for very long because I have no doubt that he will not be in that position for long. And when, after 31st March, we form a Government again, I assure the nation and the Navy that, having ordered all the long-lead items for the aircraft carrier, we can reverse this decision and put right the grievous wrong that has been done.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Reginald Maudling: The debate has been taking place on an Opposition Motion regretting
  "…that Her Majesty's Government have announced decisions in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966…which will impair the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them."
  Having listened to the debate these two days, I feel that the Motion should commend itself to the House in general. I certainly hope that it will commend itself to the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), because the impairing of "the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them" was, I think, the main theme of the statement which he recently made to the House. I hope, therefore, that we shall have his support. Certainly the charge that "the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them" has been impaired has not been answered by any Minister who has so far taken part in the debate. The Foreign Secretary made a rather perfunctory speech this afternoon, and the Secretary of State for Defence made a rather frivolous one yesterday. Neither of them endeavoured to reply to this fundamental criticism that the decisions which the Government have taken and announced and the decisions which they have taken and apparently not announced together are impairing "the ability of our forces to carry out the duties required of them". The Foreign Secretary gave a review of

  2027
  our commitments. I agreed with much of what he said. He rightly stressed the importance of N.A.T.O., and I particularly agreed with him about the importance of maintaining the integrated command structure of N.A.T.O. Over the next few years this is going to be of the greatest importance. There are threats to N.A.T.O. which we must recognise, and they must be combated.
  It will be generally agreed that the structure of N.A.T.O. must be changed, because in the years since it was first formed there have been two basic changes; first, there has been a change in the relative economic strength of the European and North American partners to the Alliance, which should be recognised in the shape and form of the Alliance, and, secondly—but no less important—the threat to the Western world, which has been contained in Europe largely by reason of the existence of N.A.T.O., has shifted from Europe to Asia. It will, I believe, be generally agreed that this shift in the area of threat should be recognised in the structure of the Alliance and in the contribution which the various allied countries make to the well-being, health and strength of our Alliance.
  To that extent, I agreed with what the Foreign Secretary said. Where I did not agree—where I fundamentally disagree with him and his colleagues—is on the question of Aden, which was raised today most strongly and eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Sir Ian Orr-Ewing) and my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). I say seriously to the Foreign Secretary that he is totally underestimating the effect on British interests of the announcement made about Aden in the White Paper.
  I speak with a little personal knowledge of this subject. I was in the Middle East when the White Paper appeared, and I can tell the Foreign Secretary without any doubt at all that this announcement of our withdrawal of our forces from Aden caused alarm to our friends there and caused joy to those who are less friendly. This announcement cast serious doubt on our ability—and, more
  2028
  important, on our willingness—to maintain our commitments to support and help our friends in the Middle East. A Government spokesman in this debate has rightly emphasised how important it is for us to maintain our position in, for example, the Gulf, but when we make this announcement about Aden in the way we did we cannot fail to undermine our own position in that part of the world.
  It is really no good talking of building up forces in Bahrein as an alternative—no good at all. The base in Aden, the facilities there, the stocks there, have enabled us to operate when necessary and highly desirable in the national interest in Muscat, Kuwait and East Africa, at the request of people there and in the interests of this country. We cannot possibly hope to do the same things from a base in Bahrein. This, surely, is a military fact that cannot be overlooked.
  The second point is that the threat to our interests in the Gulf is not purely military but political as well, and signs of weakness, signs of hesitation, signs of running away from commitments—above all—on the part of Her Majesty's Government are bound to undermine our position in the Gulf. That has already taken place. We find proof of this in the first reaction from Cairo. Cairo Radio straightaway said: "We've won. We said the British would go from Aden, and now we have won." All the people I have met in the Middle East during the last week or so have asked, "Do you realise what a propaganda weapon your Government have given Cairo Nationalists?"
  The second reaction was that Nasser announced that he would stay in the Yemen until 1968—just at a time when his aggression there had been brought to a standstill, and when there was a real hope of settlement there, and a real hope, throughout the Middle East, I am quite certain, of an Egyptian withdrawal from the Yemen. All this has been brought to an end immediately, clearly and definitely, by the Government's White Paper and their announcement on Aden.
  More serious, possibly, than that is the breach of the undertaking given. This subject has been mentioned once or twice, and I hope that it will be answered by the Minister this evening—because I must

  2029
  tell the right hon. Gentleman that his answer yesterday was wholly inadequate. At the Conference held in 1964 with the Federation of Southern Arabia, the following agreement was reached. The White Paper—Cmnd. 2414—states:
  "The delegates asked that Britain should agree to independence for the Federation, while continuing thereafter to assist in its defence. They requested that as soon as practicable the British Government should convene a conference for the purposes of fixing a date for independence not later than 1968, and of concluding a Defence Agreement under which Britain would retain her military base in Aden for the defence of the Federation and the fulfilment of her world-wide responsibilities. The Secretary of State announced the agreement of the British Government to this request."
  Nothing could be more clear, nothing could be more definite. And it is this commitment from which the Government are now attempting to resile.
  The Secretary of State made a miserable attempt to deal with this problem. Of course, he did not really understand it anyhow; he had to explain that in a statement some days ago in the House. He tried to explain it on two grounds. The first was that the only commitment of Britain was to convene a conference. This was a quibble wholly unworthy of a British Cabinet Minister. If our commitment was only to convene a conference and the conference failed, what has happened to independence? Is that on? No date for independence? I am sure the Minister himself knows perfectly well that the argument was unworthy of him and was wholly incapable of carrying any conviction whatever.
  Secondly, he asked, "Would we, the Opposition, remain in Aden against the wishes of the local people?" That is the reddest of red herrings. The point is that they want us to stay there and we are committed to stay there if they want us. The answer given by his colleagues shows that the Federation of Southern Arabia is asking us to stay to defend them. This Government have unilaterally announced Britain's determination to disappear from Aden willy-nilly in 1968, wholly regardless of the commitments we have made. I say, therefore, that the change the Government have made in their policy towards Aden is a breaking of Britain's pledges and a damage to British interests throughout the Middle East which will
  2030
  have far-reaching and very serious consequences indeed.
  I turn now to the actual defence proposals. I think the major error the Government have made is to fix a ceiling of expenditure for a particular year, and to fix it definitely and to hold to it as if it were the Ark of the Covenant. This has been well described a little while ago when it was said that:
  "…it is not our defence needs that are directing our defence policy. In the main, it is cost. It is money and economics. It has been emphasised everywhere that if one is directing one's policy according to one's purse it is almost certain that the policy will be wrong."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th March, 1962; Vol. 655, c. 315.]
  That was said a little time ago by the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs. I think that for once he was right.
  Mr. Robert Maxwell rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Maxwell: I am very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way.
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): The right hon. Gentleman has given way. I hope the House will allow the hon. Member to speak.
  Mr. Maxwell: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Since the former Administration did not fix a ceiling on expenditure and its policies were a failure—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]—why does the right hon. Gentleman now object when this Administration say that we must fix our defence expenditure equal to the amount that we as a country can afford?
  Mr. Maudling: I thought I was quite safe in giving way to the hon. Member. It is quite wrong either to say that economics can put a limited and definite ceiling on defence expenditure or to say that defence expenditure must be met regardless of the economic consequences. We must have balance in these matters, precisely what the party opposite is failing to do. It is very sensible to set a target as we set a target on defence expenditure. [An HON. MEMBER: "And

  2031
  never met it"] We never met it? We reduced year by year the percentage spent on defence. The Chancellor has spoken about the runaway train and runaway defence expenditure—
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Hear, hear.
  Mr. Maudling: The Prime Minister says "hear, hear". He has not been in this debate and does not know what it is all about. Does he realise that for several years past under Conservative Government the percentage of the national product spent on defence has been going steadily down? He does not realise; he is asking.
  The Prime Minister: I realise that the then Conservative Prime Minister in 1956 talked about reducing military expenditure by £700 million, but two years later they set a target which, if they had remained in office, would have been exceeded by £900 million.
  Mr. Maudling: That is a pretty poor one even before a General Election. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] The fact, which the Prime Minister made no attempt to deny, is that under the Conservative Government the proportion of national income spent on defence was going down. The right hon. Gentleman does not try to deny it, because he dare not. It is true.
  This Government set themselves a target of reducing expenditure on defence by the equivalent of £400 million in real terms in 1969–70, and the mistake which I think they have made and which has become quite apparent recently is, first, in fixing such a rigid target and, second, in applying it to a particular year. The result has been, firstly, that the savings which they claim are to a large extent illusory, and, secondly, that the results of the savings which they have made have been to damage our forces, to impair their efficiency and to deal a very serious blow to the British aircraft industry. These are the consequences of their policy.
  Let us look at the £400 million savings which the Secretary of State tells us about. I hope that in winding up the debate tonight he will specify how this total of £400 million is arrived at. He
  2032
  has not done so so far. He produced £220 on 5th August, and for the remaining £180 million—
  Mr. Healey: £80 million on the carrier.
  Mr. Maudling: Perhaps the remaining £100 million will come in the right hon. Gentleman's next speech.
  On these figures, the biggest saving which he claimed in his August statement was the buying of American instead of British aircraft. I have to say frankly that we do not accept the Government's figures. They have been weaving a cocoon of figures. This is the whole problem. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. C. Carr) made it quite clear that in the case of the F111A the only saving is about £10 million or £11 million a year, which by coincidence is exactly the same amount as the additional cost of the Civil Service since the Government came into power. The dollar cost is a very serious matter. The Defence Review says:
  "We have taken steps to ensure that the foreign exchange cost of the F111A will be fully offset by the sales of British equipment."
  I do not believe that a more inaccurate statement has ever been contained in a Government Paper. It is absolute nonsense. In the Statement it is said that the offsetting of this cost, which I think is 725 million dollars, will arise when British firms will be able to compete without discrimination. They will have
  "the opportunity to tender for the construction of naval auxiliaries to the value of some 50 million dollars".
  Is this ensuring the payment?
  The whole gaff was blown yesterday by the Minister of Aviation. He gave the whole show away. He said that the total dollar cost over the period would be 725 million dollars and he added:
  "…we have the argument of the United States that it will over the period buy directly British equipment to the value of 325 million dollars…"—
  That is completely in conflict with the White Paper. One says that British firms will be able to tender, and the other says that the United States Government have guaranteed to buy 325 million dollars worth. Which is right? I hope that the Secretary of State can tell us. The other 400 million dollars will apparently

  2033
  arise from American co-operation with us
  "in sales to third countries, at least of a kind similar to that we have recently arranged with Saudi Arabia…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1966; Vol. 725, c. 1861.]
  The offsetting of 725 million dollars of American aircraft purchases can be done only if we sell an additional 725 million dollars' worth of British equipment which we would not otherwise have sold. The sale to Saudi Arabia of 400 million dollars' worth is a great triumph of a British industry in competition with the Americans, not co-operation with them. We will sell British aircraft across the world if they are what the world wants at: prices the world will pay, and no amount of American co-operation will make any difference. The argument of right hon. Gentlemen opposite is the most bogus I have ever heard, even from the present Government. I must ask the Sectary of State in his reply to make it absolutely clear how he can justify the statement that we have taken steps to ensure that the foreign exchange cost of the F111A will be fully offset by sales of British equipment. In other words, he must show that 725 million dollars' worth of British equipment will be sold abroad which would not otherwise have been sold. He has not got a chance of proving that.
  In his other economies in August there was the cut of the fifth Polaris submarine, offset, I would guess, by putting into the programme of additional hunter-killers. I do not know how much the offset is. There was also £20 million on the Territorial Army, and already part of that has been eroded. How much more will be eroded before the election campaign is over we do not know. Then there was £35 million which he would save through rephasing; as he said, very honestly, the sort of thing which happens in any year. Finally, he was to save £20 million by not paying for the American aircraft which are to be delivered in the year. This is a very strange form of economy. He will merely pay more interest and someone else will be allowed some years later to pay for them—it will not be him, but that, of course, is another matter.
  So much for the £220 million of economies. What about the remaining £180 million? This is a matter on which
  2034
  the House is entitled to a very clear and definite statement from the right hon. Gentleman. How is this £180 million reached? The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday rather casually that £80 million would come from the ending of the carrier programme. Surely he will specify how that £80 million is reached. What is involved? What are the other economies?
  In his statement the other day, the hon. Member for Woolwich, East said quite clearly that other cuts had been planned by the Government in the Defence Estimates which were not included in the Defence Review. What are they? Do they amount to £100 million? The hon. Member for Woolwich, East knows what they are and the Secretary of State knows what they are. Why should not the House know what they are?
  What is the right hon. Gentleman's forecast of manpower? In August he was saying that to reach the total of economies which he had in mind there must be a smaller total of manpower in the Services. Yesterday he said the opposite. Yesterday he made it quite clear that any reductions in manpower in some parts of the world would be compensated be additional availability in manpower in the home reserves or elsewhere. Which is true? In August he said that there would be less manpower and yesterday he said that there would be no less manpower. What is the figure on which the Government are working and what targets do they have for the strength of our Forces in 1969–70?
  The more one looks at these economies of £400 million the more apparent it is that the first £220 million of economies which were announced are bogus and the more it is apparent that the Government are unwilling in any way to disclose the effect on our Services and our defence of the further economies which they are planning but which are not included in their Defence Review.
  The question of the carriers is, of course, a major issue in a debate of this kind, and I hope that the Secretary of State will today answer the arguments about the non-availability of carriers which have been put forward from many sources. There was the argument very cogently put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, Southwest (Mr. Powell) about the need to

  2035
  maintain over ships at sea, or ships on offensive operations, continuous, intimate and effective air cover, which can be done only over a relatively small area by aircraft operating from shore bases.
  There are many points made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woolwich, East in his statement. He gave four major reasons why carriers are essential for operations east of Suez. If the right hon. Gentleman does not agree with my right hon. Friend, and with his right hon. Friend, perhaps he may agree with the Prime Minister, who said in his speech at Plymouth during the election—[Interruption.] I wonder if he is going to go back to Plymouth this time. He dilated about the importance of the aircraft carriers and what a pity it was that we did not have more of them. He promised a big, expanding naval building programme. I hope the Secretary of State will answer the Prime Minister if he will not answer his own colleague or my right hon. Friend.
  Turning to the F111s. There are to be 50. What are those 50 to be used for? About ten of that 50 are to be for training anyway. What is the rate of obsolescence, the rate of write-off? How can this force of 50 aircraft begin to perform the tasks that the staffs have envisaged in the past will need 100 to 150 aircraft? Where will they operate from? How will one get the sophisticated electronic and radar environment which is quite essential for the operation of modern aircraft of this kind?
  The Secretary of State has not begun to explain, but he must explain how this force of 50 aircraft will operate, how it will be credible in modern circumstances. What is intended for the variable geometry aircraft? We learn now it is to replace the Lightning, the Phantom and the V-bomber. It really is a most remarkable aircraft if it can perform all of those functions at the same time. What about the successor to the C130 or the future of the airborne early warning aircraft? What about the new helicopter programme? None of these things have been mentioned during this debate, yet the Government are asked to reply to a Motion which says quite clearly that the effect of their policy is to impair the ability of our forces to carry out the duties imposed upon them. There has
  2036
  been no attempt whatever to reply to that argument.
  This is the last major debate of this Parliament, so it might not be inappropriate to finish up with one or two references to the election plans of the party opposite in this matter of defence. Last time they said that they would embark upon a new initiative in the realm of disarmament. What has happened? We have a Minister of Disarmament, an admirable man, and one can say fairly of the noble Lord that the only disarming thing about him is his personal manner. He has achieved nothing. [HON. MEMBERS: "Cheap"]
  We were told that the hon. Members were going to abandon nuclear weapons. The Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy was very strong about having nothing to do with nuclear weapons. This has not happened. We still have the deterrent and we still have the independent deterrent. They have no chance of internationalising it with the A.N.F. in Europe. Who they are going to internationalise it with east of Suez I cannot imagine. We were told that they were going to place emphasis on building up the conventional forces, and on more naval building. Exactly the opposite has happened. All of these things were said about disarmament at the election, about nuclear weapons and about conventional forces. The whole way through the performance of this Government has been precisely the opposite of what they led the electorate to expect in this matter as in all other questions. That is why I move.
  9.29 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey): I hope that the House will give me leave to speak again, because I have been asked a large number of questions both from the Front and back benches of the party opposite, and I would like to reply to as many as I can. Inevitably the debate has been influenced by the knowledge of an impending election, and a number of party points have been made on both sides. I do not complain about that. I thought that we had a first-rate knockabout speech from the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), and I imagine that after the election many of his hon. and right hon. Friends will be putting up the sticker: "Don't blame me, I voted Maudling."

  2037
  It is worthwhile, if we are to treat this problem with the seriousness it deserves—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—to remind ourselves that we are discussing the most vital element in our national life, the key not only to our foreign policy, but perhaps to our survival and to that of the world as a whole. In deciding, as we have been deciding in the Defence Review, how our forces are to be organised and equipped in the 1970s, we have to try to look 10 or 20 years ahead. I do not deny to the House that this is a difficult and chancy business. May I take just two examples. In 10 years, China will have a population of 1,000 million, and probably a massive nuclear capability. But none of us can say today what will be China's relations with ourselves, with the United States or with the Soviet Union.
  Take a major problem for Britain in defence and foreign policy—Indonesia. This country has become a major military Power in the short space of three years through the supply by the Soviet Union of items of equipment which are more advanced than any we possess. But we cannot be sure whether the Soviet Union will continue to supply Indonesia with this type of equipment, and we cannot be sure what Indonesia's policy will be towards us or her neighbours in 10 years. Yet some decisions must be taken by a Government, and by this Government now, whatever ceiling of defence expenditure is decided on, if we are to have forces appropriate to support any rôle by Britain in the world in 10 years' time.
  The Foreign Secretary today gave a general account, and was quite honest about the uncertainties in his account, of how we on this side of the House see Britain's rôle in the world in the 1970s and the part which armed force should play in supporting that rôle. The only thing which I would add to his account is that the Government recognise the capital importance for Britain of organising very much closer co-operation with the Commonwealth overseas in defence than we succeeded in organising at any time in the last 15 years. I hope that the Opposition, or most Members opposite at any rate, will welcome the progress made by Her Majesty's Government in the talks which have recently been taking place in Canberra with the Australian and New Zealand Governments in this field.
  2038
  Against this background of the rôle which Britain has to perform, I have to work out with my colleagues what sort of military operations are likely to make political sense in the 1970s, and then I have to work out with my advisers in the Ministry of Defence what sort of forces and weapons will be appropriate for those operations. I can do so only if I try to make a detailed picture of specific operations in specific places against specific enemies armed with specific weapons. I confess that this is itself an extremely difficult and chancy business, but there is no other way to get value for money. If we are not to spend more than we can afford and get less than we need and fail to play as large a rôle as we could and should in world affairs, we must tackle the defence problem of forces and equipment in this way.
  I think that one of the differences between the Government and many who have criticised them during this debate is that many people, quite rightly, have great feeling and strong emotions about certain types of military units and about certain weapons, be it the carrier or F111A aircraft. But no Government with any sense of responsibility to the British people can afford to treat any weapon or type of unit as a sacred cow.
  We must always test the value of a particular weapon or unit against whether any operational situation is likely to arise in which it will be indispensable. If such situations are unlikely or can be avoided, that weapon or type of force is not good value for money. This means a fundamental change in many of the habits which have been common in Governments of all parties in the past in deciding upon weapons. It means, for example, that we must give up the idea that the right weapon is always the best which the state of the art can produce at any particular time.
  We were criticised earlier in the debate for cancelling the HS681. That aircraft, when finally produced, would have had a remarkable short take-off and landing performance. The fact is, however, that when one looks specifically at the operations which might have to be carried out, one finds that airfields have been multiplying like rabbits all round the world, and that one does not need this type of capability. One can, therefore,

  2039
  afford to buy three aircraft for the price of one HS681 and get those aircraft five years earlier than we would have got the HS681. I ask the right hon. Member for Barnet, because I know that he takes these problems seriously, to recognise that, by buying the Hercules transport aircraft, we have enormously increased the capability of the Royal Air Force in a way which could not have been done or afforded if we had kept to the programme of the previous Administration.
  The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) made a thoughtful and moderate speech this afternoon in which he dealt mainly with the further aircraft decisions which have since been taken. I will try to answer some of the points that were made by the right hon. Gentleman and which have been repeated by the right hon. Member for Barnet.
  I was grateful for the kind words of the right hon. Member for Mitcham about the enormous increase in the amount of information about aircraft performance, price and numbers which the present Government have given in their White Paper this year. This is the first year in which the House has been given any figures of performance, price or numbers of future military combat aircraft. It has made the argument a great deal more worthwhile and relevant, and I shall try to increase the amount of information which is given to the House in future.
  A great deal of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was based, however, upon a genuine misunderstanding about the enormous increase in performance and flexibility, particularly range and pay-load, which is offered by the next generation of aircraft which we are now buying. It is a fact that the next generation of aircraft like the F111A, the Phantom and the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft will be able to fulfil a much larger number of rôles than any of their predecessors. This means that it is no longer possible to talk about one of the new aircraft as simply a replacement for one existing aircraft. It can be a replacement, not for one, but for three or even four.
  The Phantom, which the last Government decided to buy for dollars and without getting any offset agreement with the
  2040
  United States when that decision was made, is an aircraft with a superb performance as a fighter-interceptor, as a strike aircraft and in ground support. Let me tell the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) that the Phantom aircraft can give ground support to troops operating 200 miles away from its base with a very substantial continuous air patrol capability—not, as the right hon. Gentleman tried to suggest yesterday, simply across the Thames or across the Channel.
  Like the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke) I participated in several combined operations during the last world war. With the Phantom, it would have been possible to give support to the landing at Salerno from bases in Sicily or North Africa. For that reason and, because of the enormous capability of the F111 aircraft in range and payload, we concluded that many of the features which made the carrier indispensable in the past made it no longer so indispensable now.
  A word about the F111A and the number we are buying. The first question we had to decide when we tried to form an estimate of what our military tasks would be in the 1970s was whether we needed an aircraft at all with the degree of sophistication of the TSR2 or the F111A. We decided we must have some—not, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mitcham suggested this afternoon, simply as a contribution to an integrated allied force, although, indeed, they would be particularly useful in this capacity since both our major allies in the Far East, Australia and the United States, are also to be equipped with the F111A—but essentially as a conventional deterrent against intervention by others in peacekeeping tasks which we were carrying out. In the reconnaissance rôle the F111A can give us early warning of an enemy's intentions, and the importance of that was well illustrated by the fact that warning of the military build-up in Cyprus two years ago was achieved by aerial reconnaissance and the Americans' warning of the Russian missile build-up in Cuba was achieved in the same way. This is the first requirement—reconnaissance. The other requirement—the strike rôle—is to deter the enemy's intervention by ensuring he knows we have

  2041
  the capability, if needed, to destroy his offensive forces.
  But the question was, how many, with these peculiarly sophisticated capabilities, with vastly supersonic speed at high level, with supersonic speed at ground level and with a sophisticated nav-attack system, we were likely to need in the part of the world where we might face this type of problem, namely, the Far East. We came to the conclusion that we did not need the 158 aircraft—the TSR2—which were in the programme of the last Government and which would have cost £1,200 million and that we could manage with 50 F111A at £280 million. I am talking now about what is called the functional cost over 10 years; namely, the whole of the production, research, and development costs, spares, servicing and operation. We came to the conclusion that we could use the V-bombers for strike against less well defended or less distant targets. We concluded this on the basis of the most careful working out of specific scenarios of conflict in specific areas, which is the only way in which one can these days manage to calculate these requirements accurately.
  Sir Arthur Vere Harvey: In dealing with the cost of this aircraft would the right hon. Gentleman say what the overall cost of the three different American types will be over 10 years with spares?
  Mr. Healey: I will see how far I can get with that later on, but I must be allowed to make my own speech in my own way. I shall spend my speech largely answering questions which have been asked.
  A number of questions were asked, and also by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnet about where these aircraft will be based. Essentially, most of these aircraft will be based in Singapore. We intend putting our main bases in the Far East so long as we are able to retain them on conditions which are acceptable to us. If we are required to leave Singapore—if it does not make sense to stay there—then, of course, we shall keep them in Australia. We shall also keep some Fills in Britain, partly for training, and partly in order to be able to rotate their aircrew properly. But I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that, in addition to the main base where these Fills will be kept in the Far East,
  2042
  we shall also have minor bases in Bahrain, Masirah and in Gan, and if we are working with the Australians, in Darwin and the Cocos, which will give us extraordinarily wide coverage of the whole Middle East and Southern Asia and East Africa. In addition to that, since these aircraft have an extremely good short take-off performance from rough airfields, there are very few parts of the world through which we would not be able to stage and from which we would not be able to operate them in case of need.
  I want now to say a word or two about the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft.
  Mr. Powell: Before leaving the F111A and the question of a purchase limited to 50, could the right hon. Gentleman indicate upon what annual wastage he is working in forecasting his requirements?
  Mr. Healey: I cannot indicate that. What I can tell the right hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I am being asked questions by the Opposition to which they always refused to provide answers when they were in power. I am trying to answer those questions so far as I think it is wise to do so in the interests of the security of our forces.
  These aircraft will enable us to maintain three or four squadrons, depending on how we propose to operate them. Of the 50, there will be three or four squadrons, and half of them will be able to operate for reconnaissance, if we so wish, and it will only take six hours to put a reconnaissance pod into an aircraft which is otherwise required for strike.
  Mr. Powell rose—
  Mr. Healey: Please let me get on. [Interruption.] I was interrupted 40 times in my speech yesterday, and I do not propose to be deflected from answering questions which have been put to me by further interruptions tonight.
  Turning to the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft, on which I was asked many questions, that can be used both for interception and for strike. But the best indication that I can give of its performance is that, although it will weigh only about half as much as the F111A—not one-fifth, as the right hon. Gentleman said yesterday—it will have three-quarters of the range with its maximum

  2043
  payload. Again, for obvious reasons, I cannot go into more detail on the exact range and payload.
  Now I pass to the issue which has been the main one in the debate, the question of the carrier programme. One hon. Member reminded us today that the Prime Minister said two years ago that our carrier force was overstretched. He was right. But at that time we had a force of five carriers. Today we have a force of four, which will reduce very shortly to three, and it will be inoperable altogether by 1975 unless we build one new aircraft carrier.
  I ask the House to face the facts on the carrier programme. Three carriers are all that we can afford through the 1970s, and, as I understand it, the right hon. Gentleman is not proposing that we should have a force of more than three. He is proposing to build one new carrier. In fact, the Navy could not man more than four carriers in the 1970s—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense"] That is the view of the Admiralty Board. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is the view of the Admiralty Board that we cannot man more than four carriers in the 1970s.
  It appears that very few right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have taken the trouble to reflect on what I said yesterday. I pointed out that the operational performance that one gets from a three-carrier fleet in the Far East, which is the only part of the world where it is necessary even under existing conditions, is very limited indeed. But the cost is enormous. The strike capability of one of the carriers, which will be the only carrier in the Far East for some of the time, is only seven Buccaneers—the equivalent of three F111As. But the cost of the force is £140 million a year.
  All that the Opposition are suggesting is that they would build one more carrier, but that would only extend the life of the force by five years to 1980. It would cost £500 million extra over the next 10 years, and would only give us any operational return from 1973 to 1975.
  Dr. Wyndham Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Healey: No. I was asked several questions—
  Dr. Wyndham Davies: Will the right hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member should know by now that if the hon. Member who has the Floor does not give way the hon. Member who wishes to intervene must resume his seat.
  Dr. Wyndham Davies rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman cannot contain himself, I shall have to ask him to leave the Chamber.
  Mr. Healey: I was asked several questions today and also by the right hon. Gentleman yesterday, about what provision the Government were making to increase our conventional capability. Let me reply to that. First, the Royal Navy is getting a tremendous new range of ships. I listed them in my speech yesterday, and, indeed, they are in the White Paper. The Royal Air Force is getting the largest injection of new aircraft that it has had for about 15 years. The Army is getting the Chieftain, new artillery, new armoured personnel carriers, lightweight rifles and equipment for the Far East; and, to answer the right hon. Gentleman, it now has 180 helicopters, which will increase to 300 in the next two years.
  Mr. J. Amery: Nonsense.
  Mr. Healey: The figures for this were given in a reply to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden), and if the right hon. Gentleman takes the trouble to read that Answer, he will see what nonsense he is talking.
  When our tasks are reduced as we have planned to reduce them, these forces will be able to do all the jobs that we shall retain, without the overstretch from which our forces have been suffering in recent years. To summarise the capability of our forces, we shall be able to carry out all our treaty commitments, particularly those for N.A.T.O., CENTO and S.E.A.T.O. To answer my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas), we shall be able to carry out a large range of peace-keeping tasks like that in East Africa two years ago, entirely on our own, while maintaining a powerful deterrent against intervention by others while we are carrying them out, and we shall

  2045
  also be able to make a powerful contribution to allied operations if we so decide.
  The House cannot complain that we have not given it a clear picture of our capability and our tasks, but the Opposition has given us no picture whatever of what they think we ought to do, or what forces we should have to do it with, or what they will cost. It was staggering to me that the Opposition should have chosen to put up the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West and the right hon. Member for Mitcham to cover exactly the same ground in two speeches last night and this afternoon, but to put up nobody to talk about Britain's rôle in the world and our defence forces in the Far East.
  When the Opposition asked for this debate, we hoped and expected that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) would spell out what he meant by the speech he made at Brighton, what the answers were that he thought were implied by his question; but all that we got from him was a carefully ambiguous statement about the Opposition's intentions on Aden and Chauvinistic anti-American propaganda, which is the only consistent thing in the right hon. Gentleman's defence policy since I first discussed it with him in 1954, when he was in favour of leaving N.A.T.O. and concentrating on helping the French in Indo-China.
  Mr. Maudling: Before the right hon. Gentleman finishes talking about Government policy, will he answer the important question about the £100 million of additional defence cuts not specified in the White Paper?
  Mr. Healey: I will. All the cuts that we make in tasks except in the Far East will not lead to any reduction in the total amount of equipment or manpower that we have in the Forces; but, as I indicated yesterday, we plan, when confrontation is brought to an end—and I agree with what was said by the right hon. Gentleman recently on this—that it must be a major objective to reduce the level of our forces in the Far East to that once planned by the previous Government before confrontation began; when we are able to reduce our deployment in the Far East to that level—we shall make further
  2046
  reductions in equipment and manpower which will save the additional £100 million. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Hon. Members opposite cannot have it both ways. They cannot at the same time tell us that it is impossible to take any decisions about the size or equipment of our forces in ten years' time and ask us to define in public precisely how we expect the size of our forces and their equipment to develop. I confess frankly, that although we know precisely how we plan to cut our tasks, we cannot be certain that we shall succeed. Nor could any Government be certain.
  I will give the House an example. The previous Government planned their defence policy in 1962 on a concept of intervention which will be familiar to the many ex-Defence Ministers opposite. But, in fact, that concept did not foresee the fact that we would be engaged in operations in South Arabia, Malaysia and Cyprus in 1965. We believe that it is essential to leave some scope for a variety of possible adjustments in our Forces. The additional saving of £100 million represents only 4 per cent. of the total budget—4 per cent. of our total capability.
  Let me now turn to the position taken up by the Opposition.
  Mr. Heath rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Healey: We have had nothing about policy from the right hon. and hon. Members opposite. We have had no indication of what their planned expenditure would be. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This has been an orderly debate so far. I hope that the Opposition will give the Front Bench of the Government the same attention that was given its own speaker.
  Mr, Healey rose—
  Mr. Heath rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Ted Lead bitter: Chuck him out.
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Healey: I know that the Opposition do not want to hear this, but the

  2047
  country will. We have had no indication of what they would spend on defence in the 1970s. [Interruption.] But we have heard that they would build a new aircraft carrier. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Shinwell: And the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) wants to be Prime Minister.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Both sides of the House are letting themselves down.
  Mr. Healey: A new carrier would cost £500 million over the next ten years. In other words, over the next five years it would cost the whole of the £250 million that the right hon. Gentleman said his new manifesto proposals would add
  to taxes. The defence proposals alone of the Opposition would cost four times as much as the cost they attribute to the 131 items of expenditures they have put forward in their manifesto. I ask the House to reject the Motion.
  Mr. William Whitelaw Mr. William Whitelaw (Penrith and The Border) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. From now on any demonstration is against the Chair.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question put accordingly:—
  The House divided: Ayes 283, Noes 297.

  Division No. 39.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Agnew, Commander Sir Peter

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Gurden, Harold

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Cordle, John

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Corfield, F. V.

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Costain, A. P.

  Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Hamilton, M. (Salisbury)

  Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Astor, John

  Crawley, Aidan

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Crowder, F. P.

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Baker, W. H. K.

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Balniel, Lord

  Curran, Charles

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Harvey Anderson, Miss

  Barlow, Sir John

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hastings, Stephen

  Batsford, Brian

  Dance, James

  Hawkins, Paul

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr)

  Hay, John

  Bell, Ronald

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Dean, Paul

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Hendry, Forbes

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Doughty, Charles

  Hiley, Joseph

  Biffen, John

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

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

  Biggs-Davison, John

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Eden, Sir John

  Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Blaker, Peter

  Emery, Peter

  Hopkins, Alan

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Hordern, Peter

  Box, Donald

  Eyre, Reginald

  Hornby, Richard

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.

  Farr, John

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Fell, Anthony

  Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)

  Braine, Bernard

  Fisher, Nigel

  Hunt, John (Bromley)

  Brewis, John

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen)

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Foster, Sir John

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Jennings, J. C.

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Johnson Smith, G. (East Grinstead)

  Bryan, Paul

  Gammans, Lady

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Gardner, Edward

  Jopling, Michael

  Buck, Antony

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Burden, F. A.

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Buxton, Ronald

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Campbell, Gordon

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Carlisle, Mark

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Kimball, Marcus

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Goodhart, Philip

  Kirk, Peter

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Goodhew, Victor

  Kitson, Timothy

  Chataway, Christopher

  Gower, Raymond

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Grant, Anthony

  Lambton, Viscount

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Grieve, Percy

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Cooke, Robert

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Cooper, A. E.

  Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)

  Litchfield, Capt. John

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

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Talbot, John E.

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Longbottom, Charles

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Page, R. Graham (Crosby)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Loveys, W. H.

  Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

  Teeling, Sir William

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Percival, Ian

  Temple, John M.

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Peyton, John

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  MacArthur, Ian

  Pickthorn, Rt. Hn. Sir Kenneth

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Conway)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Pounder, Rafton

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon. S.)

  McMaster, Stanley

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Maddan, Martin

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Maginnis, John E.

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Maitland, Sir John

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Sir Martin

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Marten, Neil

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Mathew, Robert

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Maude, Angus

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Walder, David (High Peak)

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Mawby, Ray

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Walker-Smith., At. Hn. Sir Derek

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Wall, Patrick

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

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Walters, Dennis

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Roots, William

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Royle, Anthony

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Webster, David

  Mitchell, David

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Monro, Hector

  Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

  Whitelaw, William

  More, Jasper

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)

  Morgan, W. G.

  Sharples, Richard

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Shepherd, William

  Wise, A. R.

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

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

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Murton, Oscar

  Smith, John

  Woodhouse, Hon. Christopher

  Neave, Airey

  Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Soames, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Wylie, N. R.

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Stanley, Hn. Richard

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Nugent, Rt. Hn. Sir Richard

  Stodart, Anthony

  Younger, Hn. George

  Onslow, Cranley

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Mr. McLaren and Mr. Pym.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Chapman, Donald

  Floud, Bernard

  Albu, Austen

  Coleman, Donald

  Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Alldritt, Walter

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Ford, Ben

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Cousins, Rt. Hn. Frank

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Freeson, Reginald

  Atkinson, Norman

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

  Cronin, John

  Garrett, W. E.

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Grossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.

  Garrow, Alex

  Barnett, Joel

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Ginsburg, David

  Baxter, William

  Dalyell, Tam

  Gourlay, Harry

  Beaney, Alan

  Darling, George

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Bence, Cyril

  Davies, C. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Gregory, Arnold

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Grey, Charles

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Binns, John

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Bishop, E. S.

  de Freitas, Sir Geoffrey

  Griffiths, Will (M'chester, Exchange)

  Blackburn, F.

  Dell, Edmund

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Dempsey, James

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Boardman, H.

  Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

  Hale, Leslie

  Boston, Terence

  Doig, Peter

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

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

  Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

  Hamling, William (Woolwich, w.)

  Boyden, James

  Dunn, James A.

  Hannan, William

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Dunnett, Jack

  Harper, Joseph

  Bradley, Tom

  Edelman, Maurice

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Hattereley, Roy

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  English, Michael

  Hazell, Bert

  Brown, Hugh, D. (Glasgow, Provan)

  Ennals, David

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & Fbury)

  Ensor, David

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Buchan, Norman (Renfrewshire, w.)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Buchanan, Richard

  Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley)

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Finch, Harold (Bedwellty)

  Holman, Percy

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

  Horner, John

  Carmichael, Neil

  Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Howarth, Robert L. (Bolton, E.)

  2050

  2051

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Mellish, Robert

  Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)

  Howie, W.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)

  Hoy, James

  Millan, Bruce

  Silkin, S. C. (Camberwell, Dulwich)

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Molloy, William

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline)

  Monslow, Walter

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

  Small, William

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Snow, Julian

  Jackson, Colin

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick (SheffieldPk)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Janner, sir Barnett

  Murray, Albert

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Neal, Harold

  Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St. P'cras, S.)

  Newens, Stan

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Stonehouse, John

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)

  Stones, William

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Norwood, Christopher

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

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Stross, SirBarnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Ogden, Eric

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Swain, Thomas

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)

  Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham, S.)

  Swingler, Stephen

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Symonds, J. B.

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Orme, Stanley

  Taverne, Dick

  Kelley, Richard

  Oswald, Thomas

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Owen, Will

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Padley, Walter

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Palmer, Arthur

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Ledger, Ron

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Tomney, Frank

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Tuck, Raphael

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Park, Trevor (Derbyshire, S. E.)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Parker, John

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Wallace, George

  Lipton, Marcus

  Pentland, Norman

  Warbey, William

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Watkins, Tudor

  Loughlin, Charles

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Weitzman, David

  Lubbock, Eric

  Prentice, R. E.

  Wellbeloved, James

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  McBride, Neil

  Probert, Arthur

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  McCann, J.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Whitlock, William

  MacColl, James

  Randall, Harry

  Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

  MacDermot, Niall

  Rankin, John

  Wilkins, W. A.

  McGuire, Michael

  Redhead, Edward

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  McInnes, James

  Rees, Merlyn

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Mackie, John (Enfield, E.)

  Richard, Ivor

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  McLeavy, Frank

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

  MacMillan, Malcolm

  Roberts, Coronwy (Caernarvon)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. K. (St. Pancras. N.)

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

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

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Woof, Robert

  Manuel, Archie

  Rose, Paul B.

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Mapp, Charles

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Marsh, Richard

  Rowland, Christopher

  Zilliacus, K.

  Mason, Roy

  Sheldon, Robert

  Maxwell, Robert

  Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Shore, Peter (Stepney)

  Mr. Sydney Trying and Mr. Lawson.

  CENSORSHIP OF PLAYS
  10.15 p.m.
  Mr. Michael Foot: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to abolish the censorship of plays.
  The right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) said at the end of the last debate that he thought that it was the last important debate of this Parliament. He had obviously not studied the Order Paper, and seen the Bill whose introduction I have just moved. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman, however, that I thought that in his speech he uncovered unsuspected political qualities—most of us thought that the only thing he had to hide was an economic crisis. I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman has left the Chamber, because whatever he may have thought about other matters I am sure that he would have been willing to support me in this one. I hope that I will have the support of the whole House. This Parliament has passed a number of Bills of a libertarian character carrying into law reforms that have been pressed for over many generations, and I hope that the same spirit will be shown towards my Bill tonight.
  Some may think I am optimistic in hoping that I shall get the whole Bill through Parliament in the remaining period of this Parliament, but Parliament can do anything it wishes. If the enthusiasm for this Bill is as I suspect, the Government could give me support tomorrow and we could have the whole matter finished, and so end this Parliament on a very happy note.
  My Bill would abolish the censorship of plays. I know that this matter has been debated in another place, and that when it was debated there the proposition was made that an inquiry should be instituted into the whole question. In another place the Government indicated that they supported that proposition. Some people may have thought that, in view of that decision in another place, it was hardly worth my seeking to introduce this Measure under the Ten-Minute Rule. Indeed, that was my view until very recently, but I have been reading, as I dare say some other hon. Members have, reports in the papers of the prosecution that has been taking place against the English Stage Company.
  2054
  I fully understand that it would be improper for me to comment on the details of that case, as it is obviously a matter for the courts to decide. Nevertheless, it underlines the necessity for my Bill. It strengthens the case for my Bill, because anyone who examines what has occurred—I do not mean as to the rights and wrongs of the case or how it should be decided, but anyone who examines the surrounding circumstances of the case—will see how it greatly strengthens my plea for the abolition of the censorship.
  The Home Office has, on a number of occasions, indicated to the House and the country—we are all well aware of it—that our police forces are greatly strained. Yet in the past two or three months, according to information revealed in the court, quite a number of our policemen have been recruited as snoopers to go to see the play "Saved", which is the one under prosecution, and the other play by John Osborne, "A Patriot For Me", to see whether the law was being abided by or whether a breach was taking place. Quite large forces, according to this information, have been used in this way.
  Anyone who reads the reports which appeared in the newspapers this morning about what occurred in the court yesterday—I am not referring to the matter which the court had to determine—would see that there was quite an event in the history of the English theatre. Sir Laurence Olivier, who is, I suppose, accepted as the greatest actor of our day, went to the court to give evidence about the activities of the English Stage Company, which is being prosecuted. As reported in The Guardian this morning:
  "The English Stage Company, Sir Laurence said, with the English Stage Society which was its support group, had without any question been of the most extraordinary, vital value in the last 10 years. 'Its office and its delight', he said, and the words rolled out, 'is to take risks on talent.'
  He named the dramatists it had discovered or encouraged—Arden, Brecht, Lessing, Osborne, and Wesker among them—the players who were grateful to it—Finney, O'Toole, Stevens, Plowright, Tushingham and others—and then he came to himself. The company had altered the colour and tone of his career at a time when he was becoming a bit more staid and a bit more predictable and he would be for ever grateful."
  It was a very moving tribute paid by the most distinguished actor in the country. Yet, under the law as it stands, it is

  2055
  precisely those kinds of companies that are most likely, according to the evidence of the past 30 or 40 years, to be subject to prosecution.
  I could go through the whole list, but the time taken would be longer than 10 minutes, of all the famous playwrights who have been subjected to this form of censorship, going right back to the time when it was first introduced. Henry Fielding was driven from writing for the theatre by the operation of the censorship. Bernard Shaw's career was almost ended by the operation of censorship. The play killed by the censorship in his early days, "Mrs. Warren's Profession", could not be seen in this country until 30 years later. Today the latest play of the greatest dramatist we have, John Osborne, could not be shown to everyone according to the law. The company for which he produces plays is now subject to prosecution in the courts.
  I do not believe that anyone who believes in freedom could defend this situation. I know that there are many elaborae arguments which say that this form of censorship may constitute a protection against other insidious forms of censorship. Such arguments were made in another place. All could be argued on further stages of my Bill whether tonight, tomorrow night, or Thursday. All these matters could be dealt with expeditiously. What people forget is that no other country in the Western world insists on having a pre-showing censorship—no other country except Spain, which is not exactly the best of examples in any respect, and certainly not in this.
  Therefore, I hope that the House will be prepared to give me leave to introduce this Bill. If by any chance I am not able to carry it through all its stages, I promise that I shall introduce it at the earliest possible time in the next Parliament, particularly as I understand from those making bets that my chances of winning in Ebbw Vale are 10,000 to 1. That is a great load off my mind. At a very early date in the next Parliament, if this Motion is not carried tonight, I shall seek to introduce it again. If it is said that it is not appropriate to introduce such a Bill at this time, because of the inquiry which is taking place, I shall take steps to get the inquiry to speed its investigations.
  2056
  Although I am gratified that the Government have moved sufficiently far to accept the proposal for an inquiry, and that is an advance on anything that we had from the previous Government, it does not alter the fact that almost exactly 50 years ago there was another investigation into this matter which made recommendations to the Parliament of that day. It was the Liberal Government of 1909 and unfortunately nothing was done. The recommendation then was that we should do away with compulsory censorship and make it permissive, which was the view expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the present Solicitor-General when he introduced a Bill of this character. We could take that course and my Bill might be prepared to accommodate such a proposition.
  When we consider that 50 years ago the whole of this matter was examined and the recommendation was made that compulsory censorship should be abolished and that nothing effective was done from that day to this, I am sure that nobody will quarrel with my intention to speed up this inquiry and make sure that it comes to a proper conclusion. If it comes to the conclusion which I advocate, I shall be only too eager to assist the Government or anybody else to get a Measure through, but if by any chance investigation reaches deadlock the Bill which I seek leave to introduce will be ready to be introduced at once.
  When the Government come back after the election there will be a number of measures to be introduced. [An HON. MEMBER: "Steel."] Yes, I think that we shall get that. It may be the first. The Government have shown in this Parliament that they are prepared to see that other Measures which affect small numbers of the population but which are still important will be introduced. I am seeking to assist the playwrights, the most important people in the theatre and incidentally not only important to the theatre. Anyone who examines the history of the past few years will see the great liberalising effect which John Osborne has had on the national life, and anybody who reads our literature will see the contribution that has been made by our playwrights. It is monstrous that our playwrights, the best in the Western world, are subject to a censorship not exceeded anywhere else in the Western world except Spain.
  10.27 p.m.
  Mr. William Shepherd: I rise to oppose the Motion.
  Whilst I congratulate the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) on the manner in which he moved the Motion, I cannot congratulate him on the choice of subject. The hon. Member seems fated in his Bills. The last Bill that he sought to introduce under the Ten-Minute Rule was a Bill to complain about the high price of sparking plugs, and the sparking plug was the one thing which cost the same postwar as it cost prewar. Now the hon. Member asks the leave of the House to abolish the censorship when, by the present liberal interpretation of our censorship rules, which have almost banished family entertainment from the West End theatre. I certainly cannot congratulate the hon. Member on his choice of subjects.
  It is true that the hon. Member can have some little fun with the institution and he can say, as Bernard Shaw said, that the idea of censorship was to prevent criticism of current concepts and of the Establishment. I am all in favour of the most violent criticism of current concepts and of the Establishment, as it is at present established, and I have no wish to diminish the extent to which there is complete freedom of expression within reasonable limits.
  The most remarkable thing about the hon. Gentleman's speech was that he put forward an instance which was against and not in favour of his case. If we accept what the hon. Gentleman says and abolish the censorship concept and put nothing in its place, the police force will be faced with the unenviable task of prosecuting on the ground of obscenity such plays as it thinks necessary. It so happens that in the case to which the hon. Gentleman referred—and I shall not mention it, because I think that to do so at all would be questionable—there were special circumstances which brought the police into the prosecution. Normally, such a matter would be dealt with not by the police, but by means of permission being granted by the Lord Chamberlain.
  If the hon. Gentleman had his way and was successful in changing the law in the manner which he has suggested, the net result would be that the police would be saddled with the responsibility of deciding which plays were suitable for pub-
  2058
  lic consumption. I cannot think of any body of men less suited to perform that task than the police, and, with their present preoccupations, it would be ludicrous to impose this additional burden upon them.
  The hon. Gentleman has spoken, as have all hon. Members who have suggested this change, in somewhat critical terms of theatre managements, but a theatre management at least can say that it is nearest to the public, certainly much nearer than the author is. If the hon. Gentleman had his way, theatre managements would be in the situation of producing plays without any guidance of any authority such as they now obtain from the Lord Chamberlain, and, if it were a certain type of play, they would run the risk of intervention by the police. I cannot think that this can conceivably be in the interests of those who produce plays, or in the interests of the standards of plays.
  I said that I thought that there was enough licence in plays already, and I certainly believe that to be true. Indeed, I think that we have coarsened by the liberality of our present censorship arrangements the standard of production in the West End and elsewhere. While one might accept some more liberal treatment, it must be remembered that the veneer of civilisation is extremely thin and that life can easily be coarsened in a most disagreeable manner.
  I remind the House that not so many years ago the greatest crime in human history was perpetrated in Germany and that there still remain those people who are prepared to lower standards to an abysmal level. Standards have been lowered to an abysmal level in the West End of London in recent years, one man being sent to gaol for four years because of the performance which he put on.
  If we allow completely unregulated presentations of plays, those individuals who want to exploit for personal gain those lower standards will be able to do so. It is absolutely necessary to have some form of control and, above all, guidance for those who have the job of producing plays and taking the financial risk involved in putting them on.
  I agree that it would be very desirable to look at the existing institution. It works extraordinarily well, but it is an

  2059
  easy butt for criticism. It is an old-fashioned, historic concept and it may well be that it is not entirely suited to its purpose, although I do not for a moment complain about its standards. Easily the best thing the hon. Gentleman can do is to get on with his election, forget about the Bill and be good enough to withdraw it.
  Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring
  2060
  in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business), and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Michael Foot and Mr. St. John-Stevas.

  CENSORSHIP OF PLAYS
  Bill to abolish the censorship of plays presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. [Bill 83.]

  TEACHING HOSPITAL (WESSEX REGION)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Howie.]
  10.35 p.m.
  Mr. David Price: I wish to raise tonight the question of the need for a teaching hospital and medical school in the Wessex Region. This is a matter which I have endeavoured to raise by the method of Parliamentary Question. I wish to make it clear that I have not been put up to this by Southampton University, which would be the beneficiary if a decision to provide such an establishment were made. It is clearly perfectly capable of arguing its own case before the appropriate authorities, principally the University Grants Committee. I raise the question on other, but I think, equally important grounds.
  Firstly I contend that the Wessex Hospital Region is unique in not having its own teaching hospital and medical school. I must qualify this by saying that until recently one could say that the East Anglian Region was in the same position, but I understand that steps are being taken in the case of Cambridge which will in effect make it a full medical school. I shall argue that the development of our hospital services within our region suffers from the absence of a medical school and teaching hospital. My second ground is that the Wessex Region and Southampton University are uniquely placed to provide one of the new medical schools, which is needed nationally.
  I do not want to hold the Minister too closely to proposals which he made when he spoke from the Box in opposition, but he once expressed the view that four new medical schools were needed. I would not argue the precise number. Certainly I would agree that further medical schools are necessary. I would, thirdly, contend that Wessex can provide a new teaching hospital, and a new medical school quicker and cheaper than any other region in the country.
  Many of us in Wessex feel that the absence of a teaching hospital frustrates the achievement of the very highest level of service to our community which the
  2062
  right hon. Gentleman would expect us to provide. We have a number of reasons for this view.
  A university medical school serves as the intellectual centre which attracts doctors of the highest calibre in a region. This is particularly true of a great provincial university like our own in Southampton, which, in many other realms, is trying to orientate itself round the needs of our region and is not, as was once the danger with some of the newer universities, simply rather a pale blueprint of Oxford, Cambridge and London.
  We are striking out in a pattern of our own. The standards of good practice which permeate from a medical school to the periphery of the hospitals in the region are important. The dynamism in medicine and progress in medical practice depends upon active, continuing pursuit of research. Initiation and planning of research devolve upon the appropriate professorial units in the university's medical school.
  Apart from teaching undergraduates, medical schools have an equally responsible rôle in providing continuing education for qualified doctors in general practice and public health, to give two instances. The Medical Officer of the County of Hampshire, part of which I have the honour to represent, has been particularly forward looking in working with our general practitioners to the extent that every general practice partnership has district nurses and midwives permanently allocated. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would be in favour of such moves. I have been a beneficiary as a patient myself. Our own general practice is now in the general practice centre which has been set up at Hythe by the cottage hospital with considerable support from the county. This is a development of which, I am sure, the Minister approves. On all sides, we would agree that this is the way that many of us would like to see general practice develop. I believe that the presence of a medical school in one's region would assist the integration of general practice with the hospital service.
  Fourthly, a medical school has an equally important impact on nursing standards throughout a region. The presence of a medical school has always

  2063
  proved an incentive to nursing recruitment. I will not develop that theme, however, otherwise I might become a little Freudian in my argument.
  Fifthly, a medical school identifies itself with the area in which it is situated. In some degree at least, it is able to mould its development to the medical needs of the population at large in the region.
  The Wessex Region comprises a population of over 2 million people living in central southern England and the Isle of Wight. The Ministry of Health has been infinitely more intelligent than other Departments in recognising the distinctive features of central southern England and does not lump us with London and put us into a vast south-eastern region of 17–18 million people, which is far too big to make any sense in terms of the new concept of regionalism.
  We are a rapidly growing area. In Hampshire, we have one of the fastest rates of increase, for example, in school population. I contend that on our own merits, we deserve a medical school. The Wessex Regional Hospital Board's plan for building two new large hospitals, in Southampton is admirably suited to meet the needs of a teaching hospital. The 1,800 or so high-quality acute beds planned in this programme would clearly support a medical school of economic size whatever changes may take place in the medical curriculum.
  My second reason is the uniqueness of Wessex viewed nationally for a new medical school. The University of Southampton already possesses the academic infrastructure for a medical school. It is capable of providing most, if not all, of the pre-clinical courses. Equally, a considerable amount of fairly high-level postgraduate work is being undertaken. In the physiology and biochemistry department of the university, we are taking in 36 honours B.Sc. undergraduates a year. We have 38 postgraduate students taking a three-year course in research and we have an academic staff of a professor, a reader, eight lecturers and three post-doctoral fellows. In the attendant zoology department, we take in 20 honours B.Sc. undergraduates a year and 12 postgraduate students on research. There is an
  2064
  academic staff of a professor, a reader, eight lecturers and two post-doctoral fellows.
  The research programmes which are being operated jointly between the university and the hospital board indicate both the academic quality of what is available in the region and the good spirit of co-operation between the hospital service and the university. I need point only to studies on induced hypothermia and extra-corporeal circulation which are being undertaken in the university, as well as research in micro-anatomy and physiology of the kidney, and research in audiology.
  An advanced medical education programme at postgraduate level is organised by the Wessex Regional Board and supported by the university. These courses include general vocational training which is given to medical graduates during their pre-registration period, special vocational training for consultant status, including courses for primary and final F.F.A.R.C.S. and F.R.C.S., M.R.C.P. revision, pathology revision and continuing education for established doctors. In other words, we do pre-clinical work, postgraduate work and vocational work. All that we lack is the authority and Exchequer support to do the clinical work.
  I am not taking this up as merely a local issue. In the need for more medical training facilities throughout the country, I believe that we are uniquely placed to provide a new medical school. Furthermore, if the decision were in our favour, the university and the teaching hospital would work with the hospital and the doctors of the region as a whole. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, not only is excellent work going on in Southampton. I need only mention the cardiac unit at the chest hospital, and the work of international repute which is carried on in Portsmouth, and that the Wessex Regional School of Psychiatry has been opened recently at Knowle, near Fareham. I think there is a very strong case for saying that the quality of the work in our region is unique in a region without a medical school.
  My third reason very simply is that there is every indication that we could start a new medical school quicker and cheaper than anywhere else in Britain,

  2065
  and I should have thought that this would have appealed not only to the right hon. Gentleman but to his colleagues the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall not detain the House by going into the financial details but I am sure that if the right hon. Gentleman's Department were to investigate—it may have done—the financial consequences of such a decision the right hon. Gentleman would find that it would be the cheapest, and certainly the quickest in terms of admitting medical undergraduates at the earliest possible date.
  I have only one fear, which is that—though my espionage system is not always as good as that of some others—the decision may go to Hull because of North versus South politics. I hope I am wrong. I shall be delighted if the right hon. Gentleman can disabuse my fear and assure me that my information is wrong.
  My final plea is this. Even if the right hen. Gentleman feels he must defer making any decision because he has been pressed by the Chancellor on financial grounds, I would seriously counsel him to make the decision so that everyone knows what is going to happen, even though he may have to defer for a year or two the implementation of the decision. He will appreciate that, from the planning point of view, we must know in making our development schemes, both for hospitals in the region and in the university, whether we are really going to get a medical school and a teaching hospital or not. I very much hope that the decision will be in our favour.
  10.47 p.m.
  Sir John Fletcher-Cooke: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) for allowing me a few minutes in which to speak, and I am also grateful to the Minister. The first point I would make, from a rather different approach than to my hon. Friend, is that, in a sense, the Wessex Region already has a medical training school. As my hon. Friend clearly explained, we have provision for general vocational training and specialist vocational training, and, indeed, for the teaching of established doctors—that is to say, courses for doctors who have been prac-
  2066
  tising for many years and who attend to keep abreast of recent developments. When one takes the whole of that as a complex the only thing we are missing is the undergraduate stage, the pre-clinical and clinical training of medical students. I should, therefore, like to put forward the case on this basis of, as it were, filling the gap.
  As to the postgraduate training which is going on, the Minister will certainly be aware that there are nine postgraduate training centres in the region, of which two are in Southampton itself; and that they have received capital grants totalling £120,000, of which over one-quarter has come from the Nuffield Foundation. I understand that the annual running costs of these centres amount to some £16,000. In other words, this work is being done throughout the region on a fairly substantial basis. Furthermore, the fact that this postgraduate training is spread throughout the region means that it is brought much closer to the doctors themselves since they are, naturally, spread throughout the region, both in general practice and in hospitals. As my hon. Friend has said, these centres are providing medical education for doctors at all stages of development in medicine.
  In the minute that is left to me, I do not want to elaborate on the fact, which he has stressed, that there are already a number of pre-clinical facilities available at the university. But I should like to point out that the Ministry of Health has, I understand, already agreed in principle to the expenditure of some £13 million on two hospitals in Southampton up to 1979—that is, the Southampton General and the Royal South Hants—covering a whole variety of facilities and improvements into which I need not enter. But quite obviously, if these hospitals are going to be used as teaching hospitals, it is vital that a decision should be taken as soon as possible so that the planning of these improvements can take this into account.
  There are other reasons why an early decision, at least in principle, is required. The first one, to which my hon. Friend referred, is that there is a large body of responsible opinion which believes that Southampton could get off the ground in this matter quicker than anywhere else. I have been told that if Southampton

  2067
  were to receive the go ahead now, it could be teaching before Nottingham, which got the go ahead three years ago.
  Again, the existing teaching hospitals which are linked with the Wessex Region—St. Thomas's, Westminster and St. George's—are themselves so busy that they are inevitably finding it difficult to maintain close links with hospital development in the Wessex Region.
  I would also point out that there is a tendency for teaching hospitals in London, where the links with the Wessex Region now are, to suggest to their young doctors, when they feel they should go away for two years' experience elsewhere, that possibly they might go elsewhere in the South-West Metropolitan Region, let us say to Guildford, because then they could do two years there without moving from the homes that they have established in London; in other words, they could commute. If they went to Southampton, they would not be able to do that.
  Junior hospital staff who aspire to become consultants, are not attracted to Southamtpon because they feel that they will be cut off from a teaching hospital; this is another reason, if Southampton and the Wessex area are to attract good junior hospital staff, for a teaching hospital there.
  I understand that the Minister himself has encouraged the teaching hospitals in London to increase the number of medical students that they take in. That is quite understandable, but it is far more expensive for medical students to live and work in London. If, therefore, it is possible, as I hope it will be, for a decision in principle to be taken very soon that we should fill in our medical education scheme by the establishment of an undergraduate training centre, I believe that the cost to students and, therefore, to the Exchequer would be less than if they were doing their training in London.
  10.54 p.m.
  The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) has raised tonight, in what I think was a most persuasive manner, the need for a teaching hospital in the Wessex Region, and he has been supported by his hon. Friend
  2068
  the Member for Southampton, Test (Sir J. Fletcher-Cooke).
  He has developed his argument in support of the establishment of a medical school in the region, and that is perfectly reasonable, because one could hardly imagine a teaching hospital without an associated medical school.
  Perhaps I might take a moment or two to explain to the House where the responsibility lies for providing teaching facilities for medical students. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is for the University Grants Committee in the first instance to advise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on whether and where new medical schools should be set up. In doing so, it consults closely with the health departments. My own immediate responsibility is to provide whatever facilities are needed for clinical teaching and research for the medical school and its associated hospital. But it will, I trust, be clear to everyone that unless and until a decision is made to establish a medical school in the Wessex Region, the need for a teaching hospital as such does not arise.
  There are several universities which have expressed a lively interest in establishing new medical schools. In arriving at decisions on where new schools should be set up, I can assure both hon. Members that regard will be had, amongst the many factors to be considered, to the hospital facilities which are already available, or can be made available, for clinical teaching. The hon. Member for Eastleigh has sought tonight to demonstrate that so far as hospital services in the Wessex Region are concerned, the potential is there, and I would not dissent from this view.
  The hon. Gentleman also referred to the national need for more doctors, and for new schools to be set up generally, and that one of them should be in the Wessex Region. Certainly we have too few doctors, and the rate at which they are currently being produced is still too low. Both these deplorable facts stem directly from the policies pursued by the party opposite when in Government, but I do not want to go into a political argument at this stage. Matters are nevertheless improving. I do not say that they are improving fast enough—we must not forget that it takes between five

  2069
  and six years for a doctor to qualify—but they are nevertheless improving. In 1964 the output of British based doctors was 1,511, the lowest figure for many years, last year it rose to 1,618, and we expect the numbers qualifying each year to go on increasing until by 1969 the output will be over 2,000 a year. The intake last autumn was 2,283 British based students.
  But that is still not enough to meet our needs, and it is for this reason that the Government have recently announced that the U.G.C. is making provision, in the revised university building programme, for medical schools building which will increase the number of pre-clinical places by a further 500, allowing an increased intake of 250 a year, or over a 10 per cent. increase. Work on these schemes is expected to begin this year and next, and will take the form of expanding existing schools.
  That reflects a decision by the U.G.C. to devote in the next two years a significant part of the total money available for investment in university expansion to the provision of more medical student places. The schemes which are being selected are those which can provide, within the resources available, the greatest number of additional places in the shortest possible time, and they will result in an increase in the intake which is in total the equivalent of at least three new medical schools. I rather thought that the figure I mentioned when in Opposition was at least three.
  Mr. David Price: I think it was four.
  Mr. Robinson: At any rate, we have the equivalent of at least three coming along.
  The House will apreciate that this is a field in which the Royal Commission on Medical Education, whose appointment was announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister last July, will be taking a very close interest, because its terms of reference are not only to review medical education, but also
  "to consider what changes may be needed in the pattern, number, nature and location of the institutions providing medical education."
  The Commission is already hard at work, and we look forward to its report in due course, but it will be clear from what has been said that the Government
  2070
  are abiding by their declared intention, made public at the time the Royal Commission was appointed, that the appointment of the Royal Commission should not of itself delay the immediate measures needed to increase the number of doctors. We have already taken a substantial step towards bridging the gap between the need for, and the supply of, doctors, and the U.G.C. is currently carrying out a review of the scope for further expansion at existing medical schools which might be undertaken after the programme which I have just mentioned has been put in hand and also exploring the possibilities of additional new medical schools.
  Before I turn to the special position of the Wessex Region, perhaps I can say a few words about the dual rôle of the teaching hospital—treating the sick and providing facilities for teaching medical students. The traditional view of medical education used to place special emphasis on the rôle in teaching and research which was played by the teaching hospital.
  There was at first a tendency for the patients admitted to the teaching hospitals to be those whose treatment contributed particularly to the purposes of medical education. So, too, with the 14 hospital regions created at the start of the National Health Service, each linked with an important university centre, there was a tendency for highly-specialised treatment in such fields as neurology, and neuro-surgery, radiotherapy and thoracic surgery to be concentrated where teaching facilities were also to be found, and it was from these centres that the influence of this specialised work was disseminated.
  In the past, this brought allegations of a bias in the teaching hospitals in favour of the interesting as against the routine cases. More recently it has become clear that changes are taking place in the whole underlying concept of what constitutes medical education. This can be seen in the marriage of treatment and teaching with district services provided by undergraduate teaching hospitals for the surrounding community.
  I am sure that this is good for teaching because it calls for close contact with the life of the community. It is good for the students, so many of whom, we hope, will serve as general practitioners. It is

  2071
  good for them to see the ordinary day-to-day maladies of a cross-section of the population. It is also good for research which needs to have access to a community and which itself will increasingly be based on epidemiology and social and psychological factors which affect the cause and treatment of disease.
  It is within this context that I want to look at the special position of the Wessex Region. At the start of the National Health Service, the area was part of a very large region administered by the South-West Metropolitan Regional Board. This arrangement came in for heavy criticism by the Select Committee on Estimates in 1951. The Committee felt that the area was too large for any board to cover. This was despite the degree of delegation which had been embarked upon. In its recommendation the Committee came down clearly in favour of spliting the region into two. That was not done immediately. There was further delegation, but even that did not still the pressure for a separate region for Wessex.
  The hon. Member for Eastleigh wrote to my Department in 1957 saying:
  "There is no reason why the present academic association with the University of London and with the Medical Schools of St. Thomas's, Westminster and St. George's hospitals should not be maintained."
  I must be fair, however and agree that he added:
  "Furthermore, there is, I believe, the prospect that in the future a Medical School might be set up at the University of Southampton."
  In due course the Wessex Region was created and it is important to remember that there was close consultation with the University of London and the three medical schools I have mentioned. They all agreed that the academic association with the new region should be preserved. It is right that I should pay tribute to the services these schools and teaching hospitals have provided, not only in the teaching links but also in specialised treatment for patients in the Wessex Region.
  2072
  It would be wrong, therefore, to think that there has been any failure either to provide the essential teaching links with the region or the treatment required by patients. The hon. Member mentioned a number of developments going on in the Region and to some extent I think he destroyed the other leg of his case, which was that there was an intellectual isolation in the region in the absence of a medical school. I do not think that this is true.
  The hon. Member for Test mentioned the medical centres which have been opened in recent years in the area and this shows that lively development is going on despite the absence of a teaching hospital.
  I have only time to add that there are in the region many courses of instruction for young doctors wishing to sit for a variety of diploma examinations. But I hope I have said enough to demonstrate the extent of medical education in the region, the availability of a comprehensive service to patients at district general hospitals and the development of those specialised regional services which, in the old days, could perhaps have been provided only at a teaching hospital.
  I refer again to the current review of facilities for medical education and I assure the hon. Members that, in that review, the arguments advanced tonight in favour of a new medical school and teaching hospital in the region will not be overlooked. Perhaps I can point out to the hon. Member for that his espionage was not as good as he thought. I can assure him that no decision has been taken, apart from the Nottingham decision, to set up an additional school either at Hull or anywhere else at this moment. But again I assure him that all the arguments put forward tonight will be carefully taken into account.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Eleven o'clock.

ZAMBIA
  Oil (Airlift)
  Oil (Airlift)
COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS
  Diplomatic Relations
  Diplomatic Relations
MALAYSIA
  Indonesia (Confrontation)
  Indonesia (Confrontation)
RHODESIA
  Oil
  Oil
  B.B.C. Broadcasts
  B.B.C. Broadcasts
GHANA
  Government (Recognition)
  Government (Recognition)
  British Citizens
  British Citizens
CYPRUS
  Treaty Relations
  Treaty Relations
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Boiler Fuels
  Boiler Fuels
  North Sea Drilling Rigs (Safety Instructions)
  North Sea Drilling Rigs (Safety Instructions)
  Power Stations (Sales of Coal Ash)
  Power Stations (Sales of Coal Ash)
  Oil Industry (State Interest and Control)
  Oil Industry (State Interest and Control)
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  Ghana (Civil Service Pensioners)
  Ghana (Civil Service Pensioners)
  Ceylon (Pensioners' Widows)
  Ceylon (Pensioners' Widows)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Overseas Car Tests (Foreign Currency)
  Overseas Car Tests (Foreign Currency)
  Road Fund Licence
  Road Fund Licence
  Non-Industrial Civil Servants
  Non-Industrial Civil Servants
  Retired Civil Servants (Government Appointments)
  Retired Civil Servants (Government Appointments)
  Overseas Borrowing
  Overseas Borrowing
  Casinos (Rateable Values)
  Casinos (Rateable Values)
  Civil Service
  Civil Service
  Rhodesian Residents (Pensions and Insurance Payments)
  Rhodesian Residents (Pensions and Insurance Payments)
  Post-War Credits
  Post-War Credits
  Personal Savings
  Personal Savings
  Non-Industrial Civil Servants
  Non-Industrial Civil Servants
  Dollar Securities
  Dollar Securities
  Prime Minister's Office and Treasury (Staff Pay)
  Prime Minister's Office and Treasury (Staff Pay)
  Bank of England (Directors)
  Bank of England (Directors)
  Rhodesian Loan Stock
  Rhodesian Loan Stock
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Swindon (Expansion)
  Swindon (Expansion)
  Rate Rebate Scheme (Liverpool)
  Rate Rebate Scheme (Liverpool)
  Housing Subsidies (Liverpool)
  Housing Subsidies (Liverpool)
  Westmorland (Local Government Commission's Conclusions)
  Westmorland (Local Government Commission's Conclusions)
  Disused Sand and Gravel Pits
  Disused Sand and Gravel Pits
  Mains Water Schemes, Dorset (Delay)
  Mains Water Schemes, Dorset (Delay)
  Sewerage Schemes, Dorset (Delay)
  Sewerage Schemes, Dorset (Delay)
  Environmental Field (Research)
  Environmental Field (Research)
HOUSING
  Mortgages (New Proposals)
  Mortgages (New Proposals)
ROADS
  A45 Road (Dual Carriageway)
  A45 Road (Dual Carriageway)
  Oxfordshire
  Oxfordshire
  Rectory Lane, Loughton (Pedestrian Crossings and Guard Rails)
  Rectory Lane, Loughton (Pedestrian Crossings and Guard Rails)
  A66 Road (Accidents)
  A66 Road (Accidents)
  Road Schemes (Dorset)
  Road Schemes (Dorset)
TRANSPORT
  70 m.p.h. Limit
  70 m.p.h. Limit
  Carriers (Licensing System)
  Carriers (Licensing System)
  Drink and Driving
  Drink and Driving
  A51 Trunk Road (Speed Limit)
  A51 Trunk Road (Speed Limit)
  Road Fund Licences
  Road Fund Licences
RAILWAYS
  Oswestry-Gobowen Line
  Oswestry-Gobowen Line
  East Suffolk Line
  East Suffolk Line
SHIPPING
  Uskmouth
  Uskmouth
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
  Rates
  Rates
  South-East Economic Planning Council (Official Secrets Act)
  South-East Economic Planning Council (Official Secrets Act)
  Railway Stations (Cycle Storage)
  Railway Stations (Cycle Storage)
  Coal Prices (Scotland)
  Coal Prices (Scotland)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Royal Malta Artillery
  Royal Malta Artillery
  Home Defence Force
  Home Defence Force
  F111 Aircraft
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  Personnel (Staff Duties)
  Personnel (Staff Duties)
  N.A.T.O. Headquarters
  N.A.T.O. Headquarters
  Drill Halls (Dorset)
  Drill Halls (Dorset)
  Territorial Army
  Territorial Army
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  Armed Forces (Establishment)
  R.A.F. (Zambia)
  R.A.F. (Zambia)
  Regular Recruiting
  Regular Recruiting
MINISTRY OF LABOUR
  Hull Docks (Unofficial Strikes)
  Hull Docks (Unofficial Strikes)
  Unemployment, Liverpool
  Unemployment, Liverpool
  Scotland
  Scotland
  Index of Retail Prices
  Index of Retail Prices
LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES
  Leasehold Enfranchisement
  Leasehold Enfranchisement
GIBRALTAR
  British Sovereignty
  British Sovereignty
  INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY
  INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTIVITY
  RHODESIA
  RHODESIA
  VIETNAM
  VIETNAM
  CABINET MINISTERS (SPEECHES)
  CABINET MINISTERS (SPEECHES)
  PRIME MINISTER (OFFICIAL VISITS)
  PRIME MINISTER (OFFICIAL VISITS)
  MR. GERALD BROOKE
  MR. GERALD BROOKE
  GOODS AND EQUIPMENT (PURCHASES)
  GOODS AND EQUIPMENT (PURCHASES)
  WOMEN (LEGAL DISQUALIFICATIONS)
  WOMEN (LEGAL DISQUALIFICATIONS)
  10, DOWNING STREET (SECURITY RULES AND PROCEDURES)
  10, DOWNING STREET (SECURITY RULES AND PROCEDURES)
  RAILWAYS (PAY DISPUTE)
  RAILWAYS (PAY DISPUTE)
  WHITE PAPERS
  WHITE PAPERS
  SOVIET NUCLEAR TEST
  SOVIET NUCLEAR TEST
  NORTHERN IRELAND (VISIT BY H.M. THE QUEEN)
  NORTHERN IRELAND (VISIT BY H.M. THE QUEEN)
  COMMONWEALTH FAMINE RELIEF OPERATION
  COMMONWEALTH FAMINE RELIEF OPERATION
  CRAFTS COUNCIL (GRANT)
  CRAFTS COUNCIL (GRANT)
  PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS (RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES)
  PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS (RESTRICTIVE PRACTICES)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Investment Incentives
  Investment Incentives
  Republic of Ireland (Trading Agreements)
  Republic of Ireland (Trading Agreements)
  Milk
  Milk
  Dairy Cows
  Dairy Cows
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Private Pilots (Financial Assistance)
  Private Pilots (Financial Assistance)
  Comet Aircraft (Maritime Use)
  Comet Aircraft (Maritime Use)
  Houses, London Airport Area (Soundproofing)
  Houses, London Airport Area (Soundproofing)
  Establishment, Spadeadam (Programme)
  Establishment, Spadeadam (Programme)
  Eurocontrol Organisation (Report)
  Eurocontrol Organisation (Report)
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Youth Service Activities (Birmingham)
  Youth Service Activities (Birmingham)
  Students (Passes, Withdrawals and Failures)
  Students (Passes, Withdrawals and Failures)
  Aintree Racecourse and Grand National
  Aintree Racecourse and Grand National
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Health Checks (Centres)
  Health Checks (Centres)
  Deaths from Drowning
  Deaths from Drowning
  Patients and Doctors
  Patients and Doctors
  Books in Large Print (Publication)
  Books in Large Print (Publication)
HOSPITALS
  Dorchester District Hospital
  Dorchester District Hospital
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Convicted Persons (Free Pardons)
  Convicted Persons (Free Pardons)
  Gambling Debts
  Gambling Debts
  Election Dates (Betting)
  Election Dates (Betting)
  Territorial Army
  Territorial Army
  Complaints Against the Police
  Complaints Against the Police
  HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING STAFF
  HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING STAFF
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  National Assistance
  National Assistance
TELEPHONE SERVICE
  Buckhurst Hill, Loughton and Hainault
  Buckhurst Hill, Loughton and Hainault
SCOTLAND
  Hospitals (Senior Registrars)
  Hospitals (Senior Registrars)
  Teachers' Salaries (Prices and Incomes Board's Report)
  Teachers' Salaries (Prices and Incomes Board's Report)
  Cervical Cancer Screening Service (The Highlands)
  Cervical Cancer Screening Service (The Highlands)
  Health Centres, The Highlands
  Health Centres, The Highlands
  Farm Improvement Scheme (Applications for Grant)
  Farm Improvement Scheme (Applications for Grant)
  Technical College, Buchan
  Technical College, Buchan
  Health Education (Cohen Committee's Recommendations)
  Health Education (Cohen Committee's Recommendations)
TECHNOLOGY
  Computers (Design Standards)
  Computers (Design Standards)
  Atomic Energy Authority
  Atomic Energy Authority
  Dounreay Experimental Reactor Station
  Dounreay Experimental Reactor Station
  Electricity and Gas Boards (Plant and Equipment)
  Electricity and Gas Boards (Plant and Equipment)
  Electrolytic and Mineral Extraction Processes
  Electrolytic and Mineral Extraction Processes
  Minister's Visit to the U.S.S.R.
  Minister's Visit to the U.S.S.R.
BOARD OF TRADE
  Timber
  Timber
  Accounts
  Accounts
  Livestock, Cereals and Agricultural Machinery (Exports to Europe)
  Livestock, Cereals and Agricultural Machinery (Exports to Europe)
  Rhodesia
  Rhodesia
  Local Employment Acts (Assistance)
  Local Employment Acts (Assistance)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The EARL OF LISTOWEL on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich

THE EUROPEAN LAUNCHER DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION
2.35 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, I beg to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will give an assurance that they have no intention of opting out of the ELDO (European Launcher Development Organisation) programme.]
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, we are in the process of reviewing progress on the ELDO initial programme and the plans for possible further programmes. A conference at ministerial level is to be held as soon as practicable, at which decisions will be taken regarding the future of the Organisation. There are many considerations involved, and I cannot anticipate the decisions that we and our partners may reach.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for that Answer. Could he tell us, since I understand there was a ministerial meeting proposed for March, whether that has been postponed?
LORD SHACKLETON: Yes, my Lords; that has been postponed.

MILK BOTTLES: CAPACITY MARKING
2.36 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any, and if so what, action was taken before July 31, 1965 to forestall the subsequent widespread flouting of the will of Parliament, as expressed in 1963 legislation requiring pint milk bottles to carry capacity markings.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, widespread contraventions of this requirement were not to be expected, nor have the Board of Trade any reason to think that they have occurred. No special action was taken to forestall them. I have some milk bottles with me if the noble Lord would like to see them.
LORD AIREDALE: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Baroness for that Answer. Would she deny my assertion last week that the offences are running at the rate of about one million a day? And is the true answer to this question that Homer nodded?
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lady could give me some information. Could she confirm that the marking of milk bottles is the chief item in the Liberal Manifesto?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Your Lordships will appreciate that I have not yet had time to study all the Manifestos.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, at a suitable moment after 3.30 my noble friend Lord Brown will be making a Statement on the extension of E.C.G.D. guarantees to banks.
LORD ALPORT.My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether this will be the last instalment of the Socialist Election Manifesto or whether we may expect more Statements relevant to it on successive days?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, Government Business continues and will certainly continue up to March 31.

THE DEFENCE ESTIMATES
2.40 p m.
LORD SHACKLETON LORD SHACKLETON rose to move, That this House approves the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966.[Cmnd. 2901 and 2902.] The noble Lord said: My Lords, in rising to move this Motion, I am very conscious that this is an exceedingly important debate which is bound to be very far-reaching, and I fear it will not be possible, even though I shall be speaking at some length, for me to cover all the many issues that confront us to-day. Indeed having been living in the midst of the Defence Review practically from the day the present Government came into office, my problem is to identify those principal issues which are of concern to us all and deal with them adequately.
I hope, therefore, that the House and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will acquit me of any discourtesy or desire to avoid issues if I leave certain matters to my colleagues who will be speaking later in the debate, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, who will deal with the particular issue of Aden with which, in his ministerial capacity, he has been so intimately concerned. I am sure that no one will wish to make the arduous task he has been concerned with more difficult. To-morrow my noble friend Lord Shepherd will open and will deal with a wide range of issues particularly those affecting the Army and the position of the Reserves; I fear therefore that I shall say very little to-day on the subject of the Reserves. Finally, my noble friend Lord Longford will wind up to-morrow night.
We have now reached the end of the most intensive review of our defence programme which has ever taken place in peace time, and the results were published in Part I of the Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1966.The Government have sought subsequently by means of Statements and answers to questions to give further information. The reasons for undertaking the Review were, first, that the defence programme which we inherited from the previous Government would have grown from £2,000 million in 1964–65 to £2,400 million, at constant prices, in 1969–70, which in the opinion of the Government was more than we could afford if the economy was to be
950
placed on a sound basis. I should have added that there were some very erratic peaks in the long-term costings which follow throughout all of the ten years' long-term costing period.
Secondly, the programme planned was, in some areas, such as that of aircraft production, far removed from reality in its forecasts. Thirdly, the fact that the commitments which this defence programme was intended to meet were a mixture of those relevant to Britain's present-day position in the world and irrelevant hangovers from the past; and, finally, because the tasks which these commitments imposed on our Forces demanded far too much of them and would inevitably result—and indeed are resulting—in conditions of service prejudicial to the happiness of our Servicemen and to voluntary recruitment.
It was, I understand, the object of the Conservative Government to hold defence expenditure at about 7 per cent, of the gross national product. This they had achieved in the last few years of their administration by two means. First, there was the 1957 decision to do away with National Service, which meant that by the early 1960s the Regular Armed Forces were about 400,000 strong, compared with almost twice that number a few years before. Secondly, there was the frequent cancellation of projects too light-heartedly entered into and too laxly controlled. Blue Streak, Blue Water and the naval version of the P 1154 are among the outstanding examples of the "Go-Stop" policy which spilled over from the central management of the economy into every aspect of administration. So it came about that we inherited forces which were overstretched in some respects, and dangerously under-equipped and yet were costing the nation about 7 per cent, of the gross national product, a figure considerably higher than that allotted to defence by any of our European trade competitors.
Here perhaps I should say that I have been rather surprised to hear recent criticisms from the Opposition about the fact that we have a target for defence expenditure. We have a National Plan and defence has its share of national expenditure. Anyone concerned with any organisation of any kind, whether it is in business or Government, knows that it is necessary to have certain financial

951
targets if one is to avoid bankruptcy. Looking at the White Paper of 1963 this appeared, so far as the public sector is concerned, to have been an embryonic National Plan. If the figures therein were intended to be meaningful, then the forecast for defence expenditure for four years ahead was fulfilling the same purpose as our own target for 1969–70 of £2,000 million at 1964 prices.
What this boils down to, therefore, is that there should not be any argument of principle about the need to plan or otherwise, but simply about whether defence should take 6 per cent. or 7 per cent. of national resources. Moreover, there were two other things about the programme. First, it contained within itself the seeds of cost growth on at least four ambitious and, some of them, extravagant projects in the aircraft field. There was the TSR 2, the R.A.F. version of the P 1154 the HS 681 and a maritime aircraft project known as OR 357. My Lords, it left no room for European co-operation. Secondly, it was clear that, because of the over-ambitious requirements which had been laid down for these aircraft, none—apart possibly from the TSR 2—was going to be available for service at the time when they were required. The programme was not only too expensive, and worked out with too little consideration of the commitments which it was supposed to meet, but it was also going to be far too late in time.
It is no use having a defence effort larger than the national economy is able to bear, because economic and military strength must go hand in hand; otherwise, the weakness of one will inevitably undermine the strength of the other. Defence expenditure, besides being larger than that of other European countries with resources comparable to our own, was also placing on us a burden of foreign exchange expenditure of the order of £300 million a year, which was proportionately far greater than that carried by the other country most involved in the foreign field, the United States. Internally, the resources spent on research and development and production for the Forces were diverting skilled manpower from critical sectors of the economy, such as engineering, to which we would have to look for an improvement in our balance of payments position.
My Lords, as a result of the Defence Review we have already gone a long way towards reducing the impact of defence expenditure on the economy, and we can now see our way ahead to 1970, by when we expect the proportion of the gross national product taken by defence to have reduced to about 6 per cent., with only a very marginal reduction in our capabilities. At the same time, we can see the way to an appreciable reduction in the burden of foreign exchange expenditure, and the greater part of these reductions will have been brought about by getting better value for money without affecting the fighting capabilities of the Services. In some respects, indeed, bearing in mind the time-scale of the programme which we have inherited, our military capability will be increased in 1970 by the changes which we have brought about.
I do not want to make too much play with the fashionable term, "cost-effectiveness" with which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, like myself, is all too familiar. Cost-effectiveness means the systematic examination and comparison of alternative courses of action or weapon systems. It is not itself an "Open Sesame" or a universal panacea. It is a means of clarifying certain areas and producing largely objective information to reduce the amount of intuition and judgment which decision-making demands. I should, however, like to draw attention to two of the Annexes at the back of Part II of the Statement on the Defence Estimates:Annex D, showing the functional costing of the defence programme as a whole, and Annex H, which shows the attribution of costs by geographical areas. By pressing ahead with this functional costing system which the previous Government started—and very valuable it has been to the present Government—we have been able to have at our service in the course of the Defence Review figures presented in far more varied and more meaningful ways than has ever been possible in the past.
This also gives me the opportunity to say, in passing, that we are extremely pleased that the Government have been able to make public in this way a great deal more information about defence expenditure than our predecessors ever did. I hope, however, that the natural tendency to concentrate on Part I of the

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Statement (and I shall, I fear, concentrate mainly on it) on the Defence Estimates will not altogether draw attention away from Part II, which is in itself quite a revolutionary document. There may be further opportunities later on in the year to debate it in more detail. For many years, while on the Benches opposite, we pressed for more information about defence, and we have now taken the first opportunity of providing it, both in the White Paper and since.
In summarising the Defence Review, there is a danger of dealing in watertight compartments with equipment and the commitments which that equipment is designed to meet. Although I must, at one stage or another of my speech, be dealing with either equipment or commitments, it should be borne in mind that decisions on the one are incomplete without reference to the other. Since, however, defence is a servant of foreign policy and not its master—this, at least, is a point on which everybody will be agreed —let me set the stage by dealing first with this question of commitments.
The Defence Review had to evaluate what sort of military capability made political sense. We decided to reduce our commitments in a number of areas across the world, and so far as I am aware there has been no dissent from those decisions, except in the case of the Middle East, and possibly on the Far Eastern issue. I am conscious that, in addition to the Conservative Amendment, there is a Liberal Amendment which we shall be discussing—an ingenious one—which will enable both the Conservative and Labour Parties to judge how united the Liberals are among themselves on this matter, but I shall leave it to my successors to deal with the Amendment, with its subtle implications, at a later stage.
In the Far East, we have said that we will continue to maintain a military presence, but WO will reduce our forces as soon as we can. We plan to retain forces in Malaysia and Singapore, but we recognise that this may not be acceptable for all time. This will be a matter of hard fact, rather than of choice. We have begun discussions with Australia about the possibility of maintaining forces there. Our main hope is that confrontation can be brought to an end and our forces reduced. But, whatever the size
954
of our forces, and wherever they are based in the Far East, I wish no one to doubt that they will make a powerful contribution to the defence of our interests and those of our Commonwealth partners and other peaceful peoples.
In the Middle East, we plan to withdraw from Aden after South Arabia becomes independent, and we shall fulfil our obligations in the Persian Gulf area by increasing our forces there. Some time in the future, no doubt, our forces may cease to be required in the Persian Gulf, but until that time comes we must honour our existing obligations. In regard to Aden, let me say categorically that the Government are convinced that they are legally and morally justified in withdrawing from our base in Aden. However, my noble friend Lord Beswick will have more to say later on this subject.
In reducing our commitments, as the White Paper shows, reductions will be made in Aden, the High Commission Territories and the Caribbean, and in our tasks in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, and this will lead to a lessening of the undue strain which has been placed on the resources of all three Services. Paragraphs 5 to 8 of Part I of the Defence White Paper give some idea of the strain involved, a strain which, although it is common to all three Services, has hit the Army hardest of all. For example, during 1965, as many as ten infantry battalions from this country were overseas on emergency tours at one time, and we have also had to draw on B.A.O.R. and Malta for this purpose. Indeed, infantry battalions in this country for a three-year tour have seldom stayed longer than twelve months at a time. So much for the success of the previous Government in matching commitments to capacities!
In future, not only will there be more units available for emergency tour purposes as we reduce our commitments, but there will be fewer areas in which emergencies will arise and for which we remain responsible. Emergency requirements, of course, will never disappear entirely, and the Army expect emergency tours as part of their job; but we are aiming at a position where infantry units in this country will have a reasonable expectation of completing a tour at home undisturbed, which is certainly not the case to-day. If I may refer to one unit

955
with which I am particularly concerned, the R.A.F. Regiment, the fact is that they rarely spend more than six months in this country before they are called upon to go overseas again.
I will not now argue the question whether we should maintain commitments at all and whether we should contribute to the peace-keeping of the world. I appreciate that there are those who would prefer this country to withdraw entirely from these obligations, but I think that the great majority of your Lordships will recognise that we are playing a part of great importance in maintaining the peace of the world, and though we should wish to see the United Nations in a state to organise these particular peace-keeping operations, I am sure that it is our duty, not only to ourselves but also to the rest of the world, that we should play our part, even though it involves some cost.
Let me turn to the question of equipment. I am going to concentrate on the two major and most controversial questions, in relation to both the R.A.F. and the Royal Navy—namely, the F 111 and the carrier. At this point, let me make clear that in these controversies the F 111 and the carrier have never themselves been alternatives. But I shall deal with that more fully later. Your Lordships will have noted that paragraph 8 of Section III of Part I of the Defence White Paper states:
" The key to the deterrent power of our armed forces is our ability to obtain early warning of an enemy's intentions through reconnaissance and to strike at his offensive forces from a distance in case of need. This rôle has been assigned to the Canberra aircraft since the early 1950s; this aircraft cannot safely continue after 1970."
I am afraid that I must go into this question of the Canberra replacement at some length, because there has been so much discussion, some of it inevitably ill-informed because information had not been given, and I think it might be helpful to the House if I set out in some detail the alternatives before us.
It is important to be clear about the tasks the aircraft has to perform. We were not—and I would stress this to your Lordships—looking for a strategic nuclear bomber. We were looking for an aircraft which, first, would be able to provide reconnaissance information.
Such information is essential militarily and also politically. Second, we were looking for an aircraft which could act as a conventional deterrent. Thirdly, we were looking for an aircraft which could protect our forces by tactical strike against airfields and military installations. Let me say, in passing, so that no one will think that I am deceiving, that the F 111, like every aircraft flying to-day in this rôle, is capable of having a nuclear capability, but we do not want it for that purpose. Our contribution to world peace and stability demands that we must have reconnaissance facilities and the ability to protect our forces from attack.
Another important factor in our choice was the time scale. I have already told your Lordships that the Canberra must be replaced by 1970. We hope that the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft will enter service by the middle 1970s—and I shall have more to say about this aircraft later. There is thus a period following the cancellation of the TSR 2 of about five years in which there would be a gap in our capabilities, and it is this period in particular which we have had to consider. It was vital that the chosen aircraft should enter service on time, because any delay would prejudice also our ability to afford the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft. We had also to ensure that the aircraft we selected was not being produced in such small numbers that our purchase—like a purchase of the TSR 2—would be hopelessly uneconomic. There were three possible contenders; the Buccaneer 2, the Spey-Mirage and the F 111.
The Buccaneer 2 would have required an improved radar and navigation attack system and other changes. It is basically designed to tackle shipping or coastal targets. It does not, and could not, have the reconnaissance capability that the R.A.F. and the other Armed Forces require. Excellent though the Buccaneer 2 is in its present rôle of maritime strike, it would have required development for the R.A.F.'s purposes, and this could not have been completed until well beyond 1970. Nor could it have met the reconnaissance requirement. Its performance would be such that far more Buccaneers would have been required than F11ls to do any given job. Therefore, although its unit cost

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would be less than that of the F 111 the total cost of a Buccaneer 2 would have been greater. Moreover, whatever advantages British industry would have derived from the production of Buccaneers for the R.A.F., there would be no new advanced field of technology involved—unlike the task of building the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft.
I now turn to the Spey-Mirage. I apologise for going into detail, but I know that many of your Lordships are interested specifically in these aircraft. I would first point out, as your Lordships know, that the Spey-Mirage does not exist. The Mirage in service in France was originally designed as a high-level nuclear aircraft. The Mirage aircraft, let me say straight away, is a very fine aircraft; but to turn it into a low-level aircraft with a conventional rôle would have involved major airframe changes and a comparatively new weapons system and to introduce the Spey would have involved further development. The conventional strike rôle is also much more demanding of radar and navigational attack systems than the nuclear rôle; and hence new radar and new navigational attack systems would have had to have been fitted. A considerable amount of redesign would have been required involving large costs. And even after all that, the aircraft would have been deficient (I hope the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, who I know has been interested in this, will accept this from me) in range, and particularly in runway performance, especially in hot countries; and it was the considered view of our experts that it could not possibly have entered service by the required date. The Spey-Mirage would have been economic only if large numbers had been built. Had this been so, again the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft would have been prejudiced. Furthermore, most of the work would have been done in France—apart from the engine; and the French Government, as has been pointed out, have said that they do not wish to buy the Spey-Mirage.
Before I leave this subject, I should like to say something on the comparative costs of the TSR 2 and the F 111A, because it was on the subject of cost that the TSR 2 fell by the wayside. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, will recall that in the past my noble friend Lord Shep-
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herd and he frequently got into what we called the "numbers game" when they discussed the strength of the Army. We have never been able to get into the "numbers game" in regard to aircraft and costs, because the previous Government never gave any information at all. We have thought it right to give figures on costs, on the American buy, in particular, and numbers, so that Parliament could judge the basis of our decisions.
This is a complicated subject, but it is not as complicated as might be inferred from certain correspondence which has appeared in The Times.When compared to the arithmetical ability of the two members of the Opposition concerned, Sir Alec Douglas-Home with his box of matches was a positive whizz-kid. The trouble is that those who have ventured into this difficult but not impossible field will always confuse running costs, which include support costs of all kinds, with capital costs. I hope that the House will now accept the figures that I am about to give. The basic cost of the F 111A is £2·1 million. This is also the ceiling price which we have negotiated. There is therefore a definite limit to what we may be called upon to spend. With modifications required to fit the aircraft for its specific R.A.F. tasks, the unit cost will be about £2½ million.
The next major cost figure is the programme cost—in other words, the cost of the R.A.F. version, plus running costs over a ten-year period. The programme cost of the F 111 is £280 million. On the same basis, the programme costs for 50 TSR 2s would have been £570 million. This gives a saving of about £300 million. On both sides I have excluded the £165 million for cancellation payments on the TSR 2. In other words, you can either add them to them both, or leave them out. For 110 TSR 2s the programme costs—and again I stress programme costs, which include running costs—would have been more than £900 million, and for 158 TSR 2s more than £1,200 million. Against this financial background, the only economic thing to do, inevitable and sad though it was, was to cancel the TSR 2, the cost of which was still escalating. If any noble Lords wish to study this matter further they should read the remarks of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the Civil Appropriation Acounts for 1964, where the full

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details of the cost of the TSR 2 are set out.
Let me now deal with the dollar question. It was, of course, the previous Government who committed this country to extensive purchases of dollar equipment, both Polaris weapons and Phantoms. I must point out that they did not obtain any offset arrangement. The really striking thing about the arrangements that we have been able to enter into in regard to the F 111 is that we should be able to offset the whole of the dollar costs, amounting to £260 million, both by co-operative sales to third parties and by direct purchases by the United States. I do not think that there is yet full appreciation of the magnitude of the opportunities in this field which now lie before us.
A major obstacle to selling defence equipment to the United States has been the existence of a number of artificial barriers, in particular, the 50 per cent. rule. Mr. McNamara has now agreed to waive this over a wide range of selected equipments, and it is up to us and to industry, in full competition, to effect the necessary sales. A target has been negotiated, and is part of the agreement we have entered into, and there is provision for discussions on the progress that is being made towards reaching that target. A particularly valuable part of this wide-ranging agreement is the opening for the provision of naval vessels to the United States.
The extra dollar cost of the whole aircraft and Polaris programme, assuming that we fulfil our opportunities under the F 111 agreement, is only £165 million over the £410 million to which the previous Government had already committed us, and about which they had never told anyone in detail. The F 111 meets the R.A.F. requirements. Twelve aircraft are already flying, and it is due to to enter squadron service with the United States Air Force in January, 1967. A considerable number have been ordered, and we expect more U.S. orders to follow.
There have been development troubles —I will not deny this. But these are not unusual with new aircraft, and present indications are that they have been, and are being, tackled effectively. We shall have all 50 aircraft we have ordered
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delivered by January, 1970. We think we have a very good buy in the F 111. We have a ceiling unit price; we have performance guarantees. Spares will be made available on the same basis as those for the United States Air Force. The F 111 is a most economic way of meeting our requirements. It makes military sense, and it is also compatible with our long-term programme for the British aircraft industry, and with the effective development of the Anglo-French variable geometry aircraft.
Let me turn now to other aircraft very briefly. I have concentrated on the F 111 simply because of its importance and because of the amount of controversy it has aroused. There are other new aircraft with important rôles to play. We have ordered 66 C 130s, and they will be entering service next year. This is an extremely versatile and useful transport. I had the opportunity of flying in a C 130 on a fourteen-hour flight over large areas of Arctic Canada and Greenland, and the crew comfort, the shirt-sleeve comfort, which the United States build into their flight decks is very striking. Its performance on the most primitive air strips was impressive. The Government have also ordered the Phantom for the Royal Air Force. We plan to have about 200 shared between the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The Phantom will be employed, together with the P 1127, to fulfil the rôle which had been in mind for the P 1154. It will arrive a great deal earlier than the P 1154.
Incidentally, the dollar cost at which the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, planned buying Phantoms for the Navy can be revealed now at over £200 million in dollars. The P 1127 is under development for the Royal Air Force, and we are determined to maintain our national stake in this new area of aircraft development. Its V.T.O.L. capability will confer great military advantages. But I would remind your Lordships that there is more to the P 1127 than a vertical take-off capacity. Its short take-off capability, from very short strips indeed, is probably its greatest strength, and its performance is far superior to that of the Hunter.
Another aircraft we have ordered (and I hesitate again to mention it) is, of course, the Shackleton replacement. About 38 to 40 will come into the R.A.F. in a few years' time, the culmination, if

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I may say so, of many years of speeches demanding a Shackleton replacement. Finally, I would repeat the importance that we attach to the new Anglo-French projects—the Jaguar and the variable geometry aircraft. Work on these two aircraft is proceeding. The Jaguar will be needed, both as a trainer and as a strike aircraft; and the V.G. aircraft will be used in the strike rôle, and may be used in other rôles. Let me say that it is ludicrous to suggest, as has been suggested, that the V.G. aircraft does not exist, even on the back of an envelope. A lot of preliminary design work is going on to allow us to agree detailed definition with the French. Its potentialities are well understood, and it will certainly be a formidable and more advanced aircraft than the F 111, which will of course be complementary to it. Considerable numbers of both aircraft will be required.
It is no idle phrase—and I think it is very important in relation to Anglo-French co-operation that we should recognise this—to say that these aircraft are the cornerstone of our future military aircraft policy. It is a challenging, flexible, and exciting project. This is in addition to a large number of aircraft, such as the Lightning, Belfast, VC 10, Andover, and many other aircraft, which I shall not take up the time of the House by mentioning but which will be coming into service. We have a coherent and a balanced equipment programme, and the prospects for the Royal Air Force are strong. It has a vital rôle to play in our national defence policy, and it is not immodest to claim that it is now getting the aircraft it requires to fulfil that rôle, at a price infinitely less than that which would have been the case if we had carried through the previous Government's programme.
Let me turn now to one of the most difficult decisions which we had to face in the Defence Review in relation to the future programme for the Royal Navy, which was the future carrier programme. May I again stress that in our Defence Review there was at no time any question of our making a choice between the F 111 and the aircraft carrier. We decided that we needed the F 111 for the protection of all three Services. The basic issue with regard to the aircraft carrier was whether we needed to start a new
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generation of aircraft carriers which would last until about 2000 A.D. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, inferred, when talking about the CVA 01 in a previous debate, that it would be likely to last until 1990 or 2000 A.D. Let me say that there have been for many years more than one view on the value of carriers, and this controversy has gone on in Parliament and in the Defence Department, certainly under the days of the previous Administration.
I will not go into the vexed question as to whether carrier-based air power is an extension of sea power over the sea, or merely a different aspect of air power, for however we call it the value of aircraft in maritime operations is fully accepted. The question we have to ask ourselves, and the question the Government had to ask themselves, was what was the most cost-effective way of achieving our ends. It is worth recalling the circumstances, or the scenarios, as we call them to-day, in which air power was exercised during the last war. There was, first, from our point of view, the preeminent importance of the protection of our shipping, our lifeline, from the menace of the U-boat—the wolf packs particularly—and enemy land-based air power, Focke Wulfs or whatever they were, out of range of our own land-based air power; and I stress the words "out of range". Many of your Lordships will recall, and some will have experienced, those critical days of the Battle of the Atlantic. The problem at all times was to provide the essential protection from the U-boat wolf packs which lay in wait for our convoys.
Until 1943, the gap in the Atlantic could not be filled by land-based air power alone, and carriers, Mac ships, and other forms of seaborne aircraft, played a crucial and gallant part in those desperate battles. But when the very long-range Liberators came along the situation was eased. There is no question but that to-day land-based aircraft with their enormously increased range over virtually any sea route that we are likely to use, will play a vital part, along with rotary wing aircraft and other naval weapons, in the task of anti-submarine protection. Let me also emphasise (because it is right that we should recognise this) that there were other occasions at Taranto and on the convoy

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routes to Russia where carriers played an absolutely vital part. Of course, the other areas where carriers were decisive were in the great battles in the Pacific against other carrier air power.
Let me now deal with the history of the carrier since the war. As noble Lords know, there has not been a single new carrier built or laid down since 1944, 22 years ago—a point of fundamental importance. As the White Paper made clear, Royal Navy carriers have been, and are, the most important offensive element in the Royal Navy to-day, and they have contributed importantly to its naval presence over a very wide range. Indeed. Royal Navy carriers operated off Korea, as part of the total U.N. air strike force, in circumstances where, let us admit, no maritime threat existed, but on no other occasion since the war, other than at Suez—which is hardly the sort of operation we should wish to repeat—have they provided more than a bonus. I am now giving facts. I do not seek in any way to depreciate the part the carriers have played and the gallantry and efficiency of their air crews.
However, Kuwait has frequently been mentioned. But at Kuwait in 1961 the carrier H.M.S. "Victorious" did not, and was not planned to, arrive until nine days after the operation began, and during that period air defence and strike forces were land-based. In East Africa in 1964 a carrier was certainly employed but not in her primary rôle: she mounted the helicopter assault force, and in fact acted as a commando ship. In Zambia the carrier certainly provided a naval presence. But she could not effectively have operated in providing an air defence system in Zambia unless land-based aircraft had already flown in all the necessary equipment, and particularly the radar environment.
It is the Commando ship, sometimes called the Commando carrier, which is the type of ship we need to-day. But we are not merely concerned with to-day; we are concerned with the situation in 1970, and indeed in 1975. Land-based air power will have enormously increased its range and, as I mentioned, for close-support anti-submarine operations there will be a large number of helicopters equipped with the latest anti-submarine devices. Our studies showed that the air-
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craft carrier was an expensive way of providing air power, that it was vulnerable, and that its aircraft were limited by range and weapon load when operating against land targets. There was only one military environment in which a carrier appeared to be essential the landing or withdrawal of troops against sophisticated opposition outside the range of land-based air cover. And, for other reasons, we doubted whether we should have the military capability to sustain such an operation.
Moreover, I must point out that the previous Government had made no provision for new carriers. CVA 01 had been announced, but its keel had not been laid.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I know the noble Lord does not want to misrepresent facts. That really is not true. There was a perfectly good plan laid down, which would have meant the carrier being ordered this spring.
LORD SHACKLETON: I do not in the least wish to be unfair, but the fact is that the previous Government did not order CVA 01. There were designs. I chose my words very carefully. It is perfectly true that no provision has been made, and indeed no carriers have been laid down in the last twenty years. If the Conservatives believed in carriers, why were they just keeping the CVA 01 option open? Perhaps I may quote from the 1962 White Paper, paragraph 62:
" Looking further ahead existing aircraft carriers will be coming to the end of their lives, starting with H.M.S. "Victorious" in about 1970. It is difficult to forecast with certainty what our requirements for this type of ship ten to fifteen years ahead will be."
This is comparable to the statement in the 1957 Defence White Paper, that the future of the Navy was uncertain, as it was under the previous Government. But let me be fair to the noble Lord and add that they said
" As it takes no less than nine years to plan, build and work up a carrier, the Government have decided to put the necessary design work in hand."
Was this indecision because the Conservatives realised when they were in office that CVA 01 was not itself the end of the story? Was it that they were aware that CVA 02 and CVA 03 would have had to follow in the early 1970s and that a replacement aircraft for the Buccaneer

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would have been needed? Was it because they know that, while the cost of maintaining a three-carrier force over the next ten years would be the staggering sum of £1.400 million, the cost of keeping a similar sized force going for the ten years, up to the year 2000 A.D., would have been even greater?
If we had decided to build CVA 01 we should have found ourselves in the latter part of the 1970s with the three-carrier force of which only one could have been on station, say in the Far East, at the same time with another one available at 15 days steaming—and even that not always available, for there would have been at least two months in each year when there would be only one carrier. This carrier might well have been H.M.S. "Hermes" carrying the strike force of only seven Buccaneers. So, for the whole expenditure of £1,400 million, we should have had readily available to take part in operations a capability not more than that of two F 111s.
I acknowledge that a viable carrier force could make sense, but to be militarily effective—and this is the hard fact—a carrier force would need to be considerably more than three carriers. But the cost, even of a three-carrier force, is far greater than is justified by the military tasks our forces will have to perform and the limitations imposed by the smallness of its numbers. Consequently, we came to the conclusion that we should run down our existing carrier force over a period which would cover the re-equipment of the Royal Air Force with longer range aircraft and the Royal Navy with new ships and new missile systems.
Those who say that the disappearance of the carrier after 1975 is the end of the Royal Navy as a force capable of global operation are doing the Royal Navy a great disservice. The Navy will have a vital rôle to play in the future. Commando carriers and assault ships will be available to assist the Army wherever required. The Polaris submarines will provide our contribution to the nuclear deterrent, as we still hope, in an international force; and a force of nuclear hunter-killer submarines is being built up. The Navy will have converted "Tiger"-class cruisers with anti-submarine helicopters; it will have the new Type 82 destroyer; it will be equipped with a surface-to-surface missile. Indeed its
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hunter submarine capability will be, if anything, greater and certainly better deployed. This will mean that the Navy will continue to play a key role in our national defence policy.
Moreover, the Fleet Air Arm will not cease to exist when its fixed-wing aircraft eventually phase out. Already about half the total number of Naval aviators are flying rotary-winged aircraft; and the need for modern helicopters, and for the men to fly them and maintain them, will increase as the years go by. And to those dismal prophets, I would say one other word. From time to time the Services are bound to suffer blows. To many people the phasing out of the carrier was no surprise. The Navy, I have no doubt, will take this in its stride. If I may speak for my own Service, the Royal Air Force has taken a few knocks in the past. Even ignoring the lunacy of the 1957 White Paper, the previous Government took away from Bomber Command its strategic nuclear deterrent rôle and on another occasion they decimated Fighter Command. Yet the future prospects of the Royal Air Force look stronger than ever. So I hope the message will go out from this House that we have faith and hope in the future of the Royal Navy.
I well remember in our Defence debate in your Lordships' House two years ago the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, saying that defence policy should be judged by its success in meeting the demands required by a foreign policy. The previous Government's success was rather limited, now that the real figures, not stretched and over-strained, have been shown, but having participated in the most thorough-going and detailed Defence Review I have no doubt that our defence policy will now be tailored to the demands of our foreign policy. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on that occasion also asked whether the forces at the disposal of the Government would be adequate and adequately trained and equipped for the need. As a result of the Defence Review I have been left in no doubt that, without the new programme which my right honourable friend has instituted, our forces would not have been provided with the equipment they required for their task, or in time. This is the claim we make: that our forces will in future be matched with

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our commitments in the most cost-effective manner.
If it is claimed that our military forces will be insufficient to meet our commitments, this could have been true had we not taken urgent steps to re-equip and to reduce the almost intolerable burden of stress and strain which the previous Administration put upon our Armed Forces. If the Conservative Party think they could do better, then I think we must ask them to explain how this might be done. We do not know where Mr. Enoch Powell stands. We do not know whether the Commonwealth is a gigantic hoax. Nor do we know how many on the other side of the House or in the Conservative Party wish for a withdrawal East of Suez. Mr. Enoch Powell is rather coy about it himself. I should be interested to know now what the Opposition have to say on certain matters: for instance, in relation to the future of the Territorial Army. It is my impression that the Government's proposals for the Army Volunteer Reserve and the Home Defence Force give better value for money, and consequently meet the defence needs of the country much better, and are therefore generally acceptable to those who take a realistic view of this matter. I hope noble Lords who may still wish to criticise the Government's plans will have regard to the opinions of those who will in fact have to carry them out in the Territorial Army.
LORD OGMOREM: My Lords, as one of those tremendously interested in the Territorial Army, I may tell the noble Lord that we have not had the Government's opinions yet, so we cannot judge. We have not yet had any details from the Government.
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Lord may not have had any opinions, but the Government have, because the Government have been in constant conversation with them.
LORD OGMORE: The noble Lord cannot make allegations like that—
LORD SHACKLETON: The noble Lord really must control himself. I do not know whether he has put his name down to speak. I have already said that my noble friend Lord Shepherd will be dealing at length with this subject, and
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the noble Lord will have plenty of opportunities to interrupt him. He has got more excitable since he got on to the Liberal Benches.
In particular, we should like to know what figures the Conservative Party consider appropriate for defence spending in the 1970s. We reckon that we are agreed that some limit is necessary. Would they propose to order not one carrier, or would there be in fact a new generation of carriers? I think we have shown that one new carrier does not make military sense. We should like to know how many there would be, and how they propose to man them, and, furthermore, how they are going to pay for them and what else in the national Budget will have to go. I hope, whatever else is said in the House to-day, that we shall not be treated to some of the rather anti-American remarks that have been emanating from the Party opposite, but not in this House. If the Opposition have a defence policy, I, for one, should like to know what it is. They may have forgotten their arithmetic, but they have not been out of office so long that they can have forgotten what the issues are, and if they have anything constructive to say let them say it. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House approves the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966(Cmmd. 2901 and 2902.)—(Lord Shackleton.)
3.34 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON LORD CARRINGTON rose to move, as an Amendment to the Motion, to leave out all the words after "House" and to insert instead: "regrets that the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966 shows that there has been no real attempt to match military resources to political commitments, and fears that the policy announced will lead to a growing gap between our commitments and our ability to meet them ". The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name on the Order Paper. The House will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for the way in which he introduced the debate, and for the care which he has taken, though I must say that I thought that towards the end the speech deteriorated a little and got a bit shrill. But I imagine that on April 1, as the noble Lord leaves the Ministry of Defence for the last time,

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knowing the regard in which the Royal Air Force holds him, there will be some regret at the electorate's decision that there should be an immediate Shackleton replacement.
Of course this White Paper is wholly unacceptable to those who sit on these Benches. I shall try to explain why. But first perhaps it is worth pointing out that if an outside observer were to look at the statements on defence policy made by the Labour Party when in Opposition—
LORD SHACKLETON: Not again!
LORD CARRINGTON: It is rather embarrassing, but you are going to hear it. If an outside observer were to look at the statements on defence policy made by the Labour Party when in Opposition, and compare them with those made now, in Government he—this outside observer—might be rather surprised. Our memories are not so short that we do not recollect the statements of the Prime Minister and other Ministers that a Labour Government would concentrate on our conventional forces; that the nuclear deterrent was wasteful and expensive; that the Nassau Agreement would be re-negotiated; that the Atlantic Nuclear Force was to be negotiated and set up within NATO; that our conventional forces would be greatly strengthened, and, in particular, that they were in favour of a larger Navy.
My Lords, none of these things has happened. We still retain our independent nuclear deterrent; the Government are proceeding with the construction of four Polaris submarines; the Nassau Agreement has not been re-negotiated. Not that I am criticising the Government in this: I am delighted that they have seen the powerful and overwhelming arguments which led Sir Alec Douglas-Home and the Conservative Party to initiate and maintain the nuclear policy which the Labour Party have so carefully and rightly followed. Perhaps we may at a later stage of this debate get a courteous acknowledgement of that from the Leader of the House. After all, they used to be very rude to Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
The A.N.F. has not emerged—not that anybody ever thought it would, as it was so transparently a device to appease the Left Wing of the Labour Party. I must say that I was astonished to hear the
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Prime Minister refer to it at Question Time the other day, and to see that it is mentioned again in the Labour Party Manifesto. I thought it was to be left to die decently, if unmourned, alongside the other gimmicks which had outlived their usefulness. Our conventional forces have not increased. In fact the reverse has been the case; and certainly the Royal Navy has not grown in strength. I was re-reading the other day a speech made by the Prime Minister at Plymouth in September, 1964. He said:
" I wish that the world were such that I did not have to say this, but I believe we shall need an expanded naval shipbuilding programme. How are we going to pay for it? Out of the savings made through stopping the wasteful expenditure on the politically inspired nuclear programme."
We know they did not do that. There has been no sign of an expanded naval programme; not one single ship has been laid down, or ordered, which was not in the programme left by the Conservative Party.
It was interesting to note in the Prime Minister's speech what importance he attached to the aircraft carrier force. Quite a large part of it was devoted to criticisms that aircraft carriers had not been available when needed, and drawing the conclusion that the number we had were so few that it was taking dangerous risks with our defences. He ended by saying:
" I believe, and I state this with all the sincerity at my command, that I believe our reappraisal of defence policies, with our emphasis on the rôle of the Navy's regular job, will provide better security, better assurances for the future than the vacillations of Tory defence policy."
My Lords, I tremble to contemplate what will happen to the Services when the Prime Minister speaks on defence without all the sincerity at his command. The Army and the Royal Air Force must be keeping their fingers crossed that Aldershot and Bomber Command are not on the Prime Minister's list of speaking engagements.
We have also seen drastic proposals to cut down our reserve forces and the Territorial Army, about which some of my noble friends will, I have no doubt, be speaking, and speaking with greater knowledge. For the same reason as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I cannot deal with everything, and there are other matters I want to talk about. All I

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will say is this: that I am glad, at any rate, that the pressure which we exerted in this House has to some extent modified the Government's proposals—proposals which could in no sense be said to be in keeping with the promises of increased conventional forces made at the time of the last Election, which ignored home defence and were announced in complete isolation from the results of the Defence Review. Perhaps I should have added to my Amendment that it was a pity that no real attempt had been made to match military resources with political commitments and no attempt whatever to match performance to promises.
As soon as the Government were elected, they announced with a fanfare of trumpets that they intended to hold a comprehensive Defence Review. We are now debating the results of that Review. I have no quarrel with the need to have a Defence Review. Every new Minister and every new Government must necessarily undertake one. But what we do quarrel with are the terms under which that Review was undertaken. The Minister of Defence and the Government announced in advance of the Review that in 1970 we should be spending no more than the equivalent of £2,000 million at 1964 prices—in other words, an arbitrary ceiling, and not a target, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton rather disingenuously suggested in his speech; a ceiling on the amount of money which could be spent on defence. That sum was not related to our commitments or to the arms, the aircraft or the ships which it was necessary to have to discharge those commitments, or to the cost of the weapons. Of course money must be a vital consideration when a Defence Review is undertaken, and I shall have more to say on that later, but it must be wrong, if a genuine Review is intended, to set a ceiling which overrides all the other factors involved—national safety, national commitments and national honour.
I do not imagine that noble Lords opposite will agree with this quotation—I think perhaps it goes too far, but there is some truth in it. It is this:
" It has been emphasised everywhere that if one is directing one's policies—and this refers to defence policy—according to one's purse, it is almost certain that the policy will be wrong."
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That is an extract, and a fair one, from a speech made by Mr. George Brown in another place in 1962. But that of course was in what one might call his "blue period". Since then he has pretty well boxed the spectrum, if one can do such an unkind thing to a spectrum.
In our Defence debate last April, I suggested to the House that the only way in which it is possible genuinely to save money on defence is by cutting commitments. There is no other way of doing it. I believe this to be indisputably true. The decisions announced in the White Paper do not indicate that the Government are intending to cut commitments. The commitments which disappear are trivial in the extreme in so far as the saving of money is concerned. And if noble Lords opposite should say to me "Aden", I would answer this: that although Aden in a sense is a commitment, perhaps in an even larger sense it is a means whereby we can discharge our commitments in the Middle East, and help to do so in the Far East. I do not think that anybody would deny that, without Aden, it will be more difficult to meet our obligations in the Persian Gulf and in Kuwait, if ever that need should arise. And not long ago, in June 1964, the Prime Minister was saying how vital Aden was to our peacekeeping operations and our communications.
Here I must say that I view with dismay the decision to announce in advance that we do not intend to have a base in Aden from 1968 onwards: first, because I think it is foolish in the extreme to advertise in advance your intention to create a military vacuum. Such an announcement can only tend to encourage those whose interests are opposed to ours.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me? Would he explain to the House how you can shift 40,000 tons of supplies and stores from Aden without announcing something in advance?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, that is quite a different thing from announcing in the Defence White Paper that you do not intend to have any military presence in Aden in 1968.With

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what relish must that decision have been received by President Nasser, bogged down, as he was, and is, with 60,000 or more troops in the Yemen! Already he is, as we have seen, claiming that our withdrawal from Aden is a direct result of his Yemen intervention. With what dismay and anger it must have been received by the Sheikhs and Rulers in the Persian Gulf, who rely for their protection on Britain and on Britain's undertaking! And with what astonishment it must have been received by the Government of the South Arabian Federation, to whom an undertaking had been expressly given that, should they wish after independence to retain British protection we would be prepared to defend them—an undertaking of which it seems Mr. Healey was in total ignorance! All these, my Lords, are serious reasons. But I feel bound to say, and to say plainly, that to break an undertaking of this kind is something which no British Government should do, and no British Government should be allowed to get away with. By their decision to withdraw from Aden, it seems to me that they have not only reduced their capabilities but dishonoured their word. I do not, therefore, see that it is possible for the Government to say that they have greatly reduced their commitments.
The second big decision they have taken is not to continue the Fleet Air Arm carriers after the life of the carriers now afloat. This decision is justified in paragraph 4 on Page 10 of the White Paper, which says:
" Experience and study have shown that only one type of operation exists for which carriers and carrier-borne aircraft would be indispensable: that is the landing, or withdrawal, of troops against sophisticated opposition outside the range of land-based air cover ".
Then the White Paper goes on to say that we could not do this alone in the 1970s.
Even if that were true—and I do not believe it is true—the certainty with which the Government assert that we shall not want to do this thing in the 1970s fills me with alarm. Britain, the White Paper says in another place, will not accept an obligation to provide another country with military assistance unless it is prepared to provide us with the facilities that we need. But might
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it not be in our vital interests to do just that? Might we not want to do it? Might it not be outside the power of the country asking us for our assistance to provide these facilities? In how many countries in South East Asia could we find the necessary facilities in which the F 111s could operate? How many countries have airfields with adequate runways, the necessary air-conditioned workshops for the maintenance of the highly sophisticated equipment of these aircraft? How many countries have the necessary storage space for the fuel and ammunition? Might not the request for help have come too late for such facilities as existed to be still in friendly hands? Those, surely, are a few of the questions which one can bring to mind. Maritime airpower is dependent on none of these things.
A statement such as that in the White Paper must greatly limit our capability of military intervention. One might really ask the Government at this point whether they have seriously considered the implication of those words upon the whole structure of the Royal Navy. If we do not intend to undertake operations of this sort, why do we continue with the commando ships, and why have we just commissioned an assault ship and are carrying on building another one, if the operations for which they were expressly designed are no longer to be undertaken? What are these ships for? Why do we continue with them'? Perhaps the noble Earl the Leader of the House, in his speech to-morrow evening, or the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, will give some answer to these puzzling questions.
I served for a good many years, one way and another, in Defence Departments, and if I learned only one thing it was this: it is a grave mistake to predict with too much certainty and assurance what is going to happen in ten years' time, and dogmatically to lay down conditions which must be satisfied before Britain should intervene. Of course one must try to look into the future. Of course one must do one's best to forecast what the world will be like and the sort of operations which are likely to take place. But, in the end—and this is really important—our forces must be organised and equipped in such a way that they are flexible and mobile enough to deal with the unexpected. To say in advance that you

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will do A, B and C and that in no circumstances will you do D, E and F is, in my view, asking for trouble. I remember that when we were discussing the earlier programme in the days of the Conservative Government we did an exercise on the number of incidents and alarms which had involved the Armed Forces since 1945. In very few of the forty or so incidents had anybody foreseen the likelihood or possibility of British intervention. In most of these cases with which I was associated, the very first question asked by the current Minister of Defence was, "Where are the aircraft carriers?"
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, could the noble Lord give some examples, and could he tell us where the aircraft carriers were?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I could give some examples. The noble Lord will know of the incidents which took place from 1951 to 1965—he mentioned some himself. In all those cases the aircraft carriers were in one way or another of vital importance to the task which we carried out. The Services were always having to meet the unexpected, and in order to ensure that they could continue to do so it was our intention and our purpose that they should be equipped so that they could be both mobile and flexible. There is no doubt that the decision to restrict any British intervention, unless supported by the Americans—which is really what the sentence means—to within the range of a land air base, greatly narrows the areas of the world, much more than the Government have admitted, in which Britain could usefully intervene and reduces the capability of our Armed Forces, except in certain fairly narrow areas.
No doubt anything I say about the carrier force will be looked upon as gravely suspect. But let me say this. When I became First Lord in 1959, I started with no particular prejudice in favour of aircraft carriers, and with no particular bias in favour of the Royal Navy as opposed to any other Service. But the longer I stayed at the Admiralty and the longer I studied the problems which faced us East of Suez, the more convinced I became that, if we were really serious in our stated intentions East of Suez, it would not be possible for us to discharge our commitments without mari-
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time air power provided by the aircraft carrier. I do not know of anyone in the Royal Navy who would want to keep the Fleet Air Arm just for the sake of having a large and impressive Navy. Nobody wants to go to the admittedly big expense of a carrier force unless it is absolutely necessary. If the Government decided that they had no commitments East of Suez, and that a global war in which it was necessary to maintain our sea communications was out of the question, then there would be no case for an aircraft carrier. But this is not what the Government have decided. On the contrary, they have expressly acknowledged our commitments and declared their intention to remain a military power in South-East Asia.
I have said that I do not believe it possible to discharge these commitments without maritime air power. I am comforted to think that that view is shared not only by the Admiralty Board and its professional Naval officers, but also by all the political heads of the Navy, whether Conservative or Labour. I hope noble Lords opposite will read Mr. Mayhew's speech again, for he sets out very clearly and starkly the fundamental mistake the Government have made. In any intervention which takes place East of Suez it will always be necessary for the Royal Navy initially to convey the Army to the area of action and to maintain it with supplies. On the way there, and when it arrives, it will be necessary for the force to be protected with strike aircraft, fighter aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft. According to the White Paper, all this can be done by the Royal Air Force. I do not for one moment doubt that the Royal Air Force will do their very best, but I just do not believe that it is going to be possible. There is no suggestion in the White Paper that the strength of the Royal Air Force is to be increased. Indeed, the F 111s, so few in number, are going to be supplemented by V-bombers whose capabilities in the early 1970s must begin to be called into question later on by the Anglo-French Swing-wing aircraft.
Is it really practicable to think that, as well as doing the job which it does now, without any additional strength the Royal Air Force can take on the entire work of the Fleet Air Arm—strike, fighter, airborne, early warning and reconnaissance? If this is so, why not get rid

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of the carriers now? Why go on until the 1970s and spend perhaps £30 million on modernising the "Ark Royal", and a great many millions more on refitting the other carriers to enable them to continue their job? What miracle is going to happen in 1975 which is suddenly going to render the Fleet Air Arm totally unnecessary? The conscious decision was taken after the war that for its strike capability the Royal Navy would rely upon the aircraft and not upon a surface-to-surface weapon. I do not believe it is realistic—and we did studies on this when I was at the Admiralty—to substitute for the striking power of the aircraft a comprehensive range of surface-to-surface missiles. Of course, it would be possible, given the money and the time, but it would entail an enormous amount of fundamental research and development, new ships would almost certainly have to be built, and the cost would be probably as much as a whole fleet of new carriers. In any event, the loss of flexibility would not make it worth while, since aircraft have certain very obvious advantages over the missile.
It follows from this—and the Government have confirmed it—that there is only a proposal to equip the Royal Navy with a small-range surface-to-surface weapon. This small weapon will be the only strike capability which the Royal Navy has under its control, other than the existing guns with their very limited range. Upon this they will have to rely to deal with such possible weapons as the Komar-class Russian ships—small, fast vessels which have a guided missile with a range of some seventeen miles—weapons which have been sold or given to a number of countries, some of them our potential enemies. I do not know how the Royal Navy will deal with this sort of situation, unless it has within its own control weapons which are capable of dealing with threats of that magnitude. Is it really feasible to imagine that in the middle of a limited war operation on land and sea land-based aircraft will be able to deal with the day-to-day, hour by hour, minute by minute requirements of the Fleet? I just do not believe it is possible. The Government, by their decision not to continue with the Fleet Air Arm, have in one blow removed the eyes of the Navy, removed all its teeth and cut off the hands which it uses for self-defence.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt the noble Lord. I hope that he is not saying that it is the end of the Fleet Air Arm. It is merely the fixed-wing element.
LORD CARRINGTON: I hope the noble Lord will do me the courtesy of paying careful attention to what I am saying.
LORD SHACKLETON: You did say that it would be the end of the Fleet Air Arm.
LORD CARRINGTON: I beg the noble Lord's pardon; I am so sorry. I was referring to not continuing with the fixed-wing element of the Fleet Air Arm. At the same time this decision has greatly lessened the chances of proper strike and fighter protection being given to the Army in circumstances which, in spite of what the Government say, may well arise in the future. We on these Benches have decided that we would go ahead with the construction of this cancelled aircraft carrier because we believe that in 1966 it is much too early to make these definite statements about what is to happen in 1975. We believe that not to continue now would be taking a risk which is quite unacceptable at this stage.
Already there have been criticisms that what the Conservatives propose will cost too much money. Mr. Callaghan, in a flight of fancy, talked about runaway prices. The prices have not been runaway. In 1956 we were spending 8·1 per cent. of the gross national product on defence; in 1959 we were spending 7·1 per cent.; and in the last two years of Conservative Government we were spending 6·6 and 6·5 per cent. There is nothing runaway there. Indeed, it becomes ill for Mr. Healey to talk about 1s. 6d. on the income tax, when over the years of Conservative Government income tax and other taxes were greatly reduced, whilst in the 500 days of Labour Government and their five Budgets taxation has been greatly increased.
We believe that it is possible to finance our Defence programme at or about the current percentage of the gross national product, and we who sit on this side of the House maintain that it is in our national safety and in our national interests to do so, because our national interests are at stake. We do not see

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any reason why this expenditure should now present greater difficulty than it did in the past. Of course, all of us want to see greater prosperity at home. That is why all of us, regardless of Party, are in politics. We want to improve the standard of life of the people of this country, but those of us who sit on these Benches do not want to do it at the expense of national safety and our honour and our standing in the world.
My indictment of the Government is this. They have fixed an arbitrary ceiling of defence cost, unrelated to our defence and political commitments. They have not cut our commitments, but they have cut our military capability. They are pretending that we can discharge our obligations with this reduced military strength. This is a false prospectus. It is often said that at Election time the electorate is not interested in anything other than that which most nearly touches its personal welfare. I personally believe that there are very many people in this country who consider that our national safety and our national interests are of paramount importance. To-morrow your Lordships will be given an opportunity of giving them a lead. I hope you will condemn the Government's Defence policy, and condemn it decisively. I beg to move my Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Leave out all the words after (" House ") and insert (" regrets that the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966 shows that there has been no real attempt to match military resources to political commitments, and fears that the policy announced will lead to a growing gap between our commitments and our ability to meet them ").—(Lord Carrington.)

EXPORT CREDIT GUARANTEES
4.3 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): My Lords, with permission, I will repeat a Statement which has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade. The Statement is as follows:
" Since 1964 a number of far-reaching improvements have been made in the facilities offered by
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E.C.G.D. I am happy to announce to-day two further major extensions of these facilities which should bring immediate additional benefit to a large number of exporters and encourage their search for new business and new markets.
" First, a scheme will now be launched to cheapen and simplify the financing of exports in the important field between 30 days and two years. The basis of this scheme at first will be an unconditional guarantee by E.C.G.D. to the banks, of 100 per cent. of a bill of exchange at bank rate, with a minimum of 4½ per cent. The banks will not make any additional charge. The exporter will receive cash for his goods by the time of shipment and will be freed from bank recourse from the time when the Bill is accepted.
" Secondly, I propose to extend the existing scheme by which E.C.G.D. gives a guarantee to banks which provide finance for exports at a fixed interest rate of 5½ per cent., plus the usual bank charges. At present the scheme has been limited to a minimum order value of £25,000. E.C.G.D. will now be ready to consider any cases where two years or more credit has been authorised. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a more detailed Statement of these two new schemes. They will both, I believe, bring substantial new assistance to exporters."
[Following is the detailed statement referred to by Lord Brown]:
E.C.G.D. Guarantees to Banks
As a first step the new facility for credit periods between 30 days and two years will apply to credit insured exports where payment is due against a negotiable instrument, for example a bill of exchange or promissory note.
For each insured exporter E.C.G.D. will give the exporter's bank a guarantee covering them up to a stated maximum amount outstanding. The exporter will undertake to make good to the Department any payments which are made to the bank and which are not immediately payable by E.C.G.D. to the exporter under the standard credit insurance policy. To obtain the finance the exporter will apply to his bank in the normal way producing the bills of exchange and supporting evidence of shipment, together with a form of warranty that the transaction is export business eligible under the scheme.
The bank will advance 100 per cent. of the principal value of the bill of exchange relating to the shipment charging the exporter

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interest at bank rate (variable, but with a minimum of 4½ per cent.) until payment is received. Once the buyer has accepted the bill, the bank will look to him for payment, or should be default, to the E.C.G.D. The effect will be that the exporter will have received cash for his export by the time of shipment and will be freed from the risk of bank recourse at an early stage.
The only additional cost to the exporter (beyond the interest) will be the E.C.G.D. charge for the supplementary guarantee. This has been set for the time being at 2s. 6d., yearly, per £100 of the guarantee limit. Banks will not make any additional bank charges for the facility.
E.C.G.D. will begin to invite applications from their policy-holders within the next few weeks. It will be a condition of application that the exporter has held standard E.C.G.D. comprehensive cover for at least a year. As the number of exporters concerned is too large for us to lake on all applications straight away, E.C.G.D. will first approach those companies conducting the largest volume of insured export business. All eligible firms on E.C.G.D.s books however will be invited to apply as soon as we are ready to deal with their applications.
There is a different set of problems to be tackled where there is no separate negotiable document, such as a bill of exchange, providing evidence of the buyer's indebtedness, in respect of which E.C.G.D. could give its unconditional guarantee. We are continuing discussions about this type of transaction, and hope that a solution may be found which would enable us to extend the advantages of this scheme to transactions where firms are unable to obtain negotiable instruments.
E.C.G.D. are also extending their facility for Guarantees to Banks under which the banks provide finance at a fixed rate of 5½ per cent. plus appropriate bank charges. These are issued case by case and cover the field of credit terms of two years and upwards and where at present a minimum order value of £25,000 is operative. There may be instances where it is necessary in order to meet credit competition to give two years' credit or more for contracts below this value limit. E.C.G.D. will now be prepared, in cases where the banks are agreeable, to consider them for cover under the existing scheme.
Taken together with existing facilities access to special export finance will now be possible over a very wide field of credit business. The new scheme will be available for re-exports, but we are not prepared to extend these guarantees to the financing of merchanting business conducted outside this country with goods not produced in Britain.
The new arrangements will bring immediate benefit to a large number of exporters in many industries and will be a positive encouragement in their search for new customers and new markets. We shall watch with interest the use made of the scheme and be ready to introduce changes if they prove desirable in the light of experience.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords would wish me to thank the noble Lord for having read out that Statement. It is somewhat complicated in its terms but is of great importance to those engaged in exporting; and, at the same time, it provides yet another example of the way in which the banks and City institutions are playing a full part in Britain's export drive. Whilst we shall obviously require an opportunity of studying the detailed Statement which is being circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT, may I ask the noble Lord two questions? First of all, has this extension of the facilities received the wholehearted approval of the Advisory Council to the E.C.G.D.? Secondly, will these extensions be self-supporting financially, or will they be subsidised by the other operations of the Department?
LORD BROWN: My Lords, the Advisory Council has approved. Actuarial calculations which have been made lead to the belief that these extensions will be self-supporting. But the noble Lord will understand that this is a somewhat speculative matter, dealing with a form of insurance which has not been attempted before, and it is a matter of hope rather than certainty.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: I am very grateful to the noble Lord.

THE DEFENCE ESTIMATES
4.6 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD GLADWYN LORD GLADWYN rose to move, as an Amendment to the Amendment, to leave out "military resources to political commitments" and insert "political commitments to military resources". The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Rea, which you have before you and which I now have the honour formally to move, is intended to represent clearly the broad Liberal attitude towards defence. In moving it, may I first of all apologise most sincerely for missing the first few minutes of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the substance of which, however, was of course communicated to me.
It is now nearly a year since I developed in a general way the Liberal

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defence policy, and as your Lordships may remember it was received with incredulity on the part of the Tories and with some derision on the part of the Government. More recently I asked the Government, after they had at long last published their Defence Review, whether our real choice was not between becoming an effective European, or an increasingly ineffective world, Power. Nor, I suggested, did I see any particular reason why we, alone among the medium-sized Powers, should voluntarily assume any individual peace-keeping mission. Here, again, the Government's attitude was one, frankly, of derision. My policy, said the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, certainly appealed to some people in the House and in the country—he admitted that—but it did not, as he saw it, represent the views of the other two political Parties, nor did he think that it wholly represented the views of my own Party.
Well, my Lords, for the other two Parties I obviously cannot speak. Both, with the sole and laudable—though, it is feared, momentary—exception of the Shadow Tory Minister of Defence are, as it seems to us, dangerously off the rails. But the Liberal Party, I can assure the noble Lord—I believe that he again reverted to this at the beginning of his speech—really is united on this issue, and we feel that our policy, if it is properly explained, may make an important appeal to the people of this country. So let me, in the short time at my disposal, once again try to set forth exactly what that policy is.
The policy is based on the initial and fundamental assumption that we are no longer a world Power in our own right, and, therefore, are incapable of undertaking any peace-keeping mission of any importance except in close association with, and in fact—let us not disguise the fact—acting as an auxiliary of, the United States of America. Those are the facts.
The reason for this, as we see it, is twofold. In the first place, contrary to the instinctive belief of many people in this country, the British Empire really has ceased to exist and can in no political sense—I repeat, in no political sense—be said to have been replaced by the Commonwealth. In the second place, we just
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do not have the resources to play anything except a secondary rôle. What is the point, my Lords, of contemplating even the continuing expenditure of £2,000 million a year at 1964 prices, which is the policy of the Government, when the important fraction of this sum which represents foreign exchange has to be borrowed from a consortium of international bankers? It is just no good scraping around and producing just, but obviously not quite, enough money to justify some pretensions to a world r ôle and to what the Prime Minister is always referring to as "a place at the Top Table". We must simply recognise that the fundamental assumption of the Government in their Review is wrong, and start again in our estimate of the situation.
Now it is often alleged that whether we can afford a world rôle or not is entirely, or very largely, irrelevant. We are, it seems, in honour bound to honour what are always referred to as our "commitments" all over the world. My Lords, this seems to us here to be a fatal word. As normally interpreted, it means, obviously, something that engages you absolutely and from which you cannot possibly escape. But this is simply not so as regards the vast majority of engagements which we at present have to defend any particular State, other than our general obligations under the United Nations, our specific ones under the North Atlantic Treaty and W.E.U., the very much vaguer and less binding ones contained in the SEATO and CENTO Treaties and, of course, our moral obligations to give aid and comfort to any Commonwealth country.
Thus (to go into details for a moment), with perhaps the rather doubtful exception, as I understand it, of the Sheikdom of Fujairah, we have no legal obligation to defend the Arab rulers of the Trucial Coast under the Treaty of 1853 if we should find it impossible or undesirable to do so. I am told that, in the case of Qatar, under a Treaty of 1916 we should apparently have to defend the Sheikh from attacks by sea, though possibly, I believe, under the 1935 Treaty we might be expected to give some additional support by air. But as regards Muscat and Oman, we have no obligations of any kind—any more, really, than for Kuwait, although here, it is true, we expressed

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in 1961 our "readiness" to defend that State if our support was ever requested. But, my Lords, it is very doubtful whether it would ever be requested, because Kuwait is now, happily, a member of the United Nations.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment to say that he would surely agree that Kuwait is absolutely vital to this country?
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I do not know what the noble Lord means by "absolutely vital". I am coming to the point about oil later, if the noble Lord will wait. To go back to my general observations, in Libya, at any rate, our engagements, such as they are, can hardly apply any more in the existing circumstances of the Arab League, and so on; and, of course, we can clear out of our Cyprus base at any moment, if we thought it desirable to do so, without, as I understand it, breaking any Treaty.
As regards Aden, where the Government, as we see it, have as last seen the light (as we recommended, in fact, last April), we have now abandoned our "commitment", whatever that commitment was—it is the subject of dispute between the two Parties, as I understand it; but, I repeat whatever the commitment was, we have in fact now abandoned it—which only shows that if you feel impelled to do something of the kind you find adequate reasons for doing it. Indeed, the Review itself contains the admission, if one reads it, that we must relinquish some of our present commitments. That is what it says. Only in Bahrein have we a definite Middle Eastern obligation, under a Treaty of 1851—renewed, it is true, 100 years later—to protect (I believe these are the words) the Sheikh's domains "in the same way as we would protect our own territories". One would have thought that a Treaty of that age, like our famous Treaty with Portugal, which could not, as we all know, be applied over Goa, might in the last resort be subject to some kind of Statute of Limitations.
My Lords, I suggest that all this emphasis on "commitments" in the whole area of the Middle East is largely double-talk; and so, to a large extent, are the prophecies of the disaster which would befall us and, indeed, the world (still, I
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think, the official view of the Government) if we gradually, after the evacuation of Aden, reduced and eventually abolished our establishments in Bahrein and in the Gulf. An appalled Lord Chalfont, in the debate last April, said that the adoption of the Liberal policy would—and I quote the noble Lord—" leave whole areas of the world in chaos ". If this is so, then the present Government will be responsible, obviously, for "chaos" in South Arabia. But, my Lords, it really is not so. Leaving the countries concerned to work out their own destinies is much more likely in the end to produce order than chaos. Indeed, the sensible thing for us to do, surely, would be to try here and now to prepare for the situation which would follow on our gradual withdrawal from the Gulf by working towards what the Tory Shadow Minister of Defence has very properly called an Asiatic balance of forces. For instance, the Ruler of Saudi Arabia could very well, as I believe, assume early responsibility for the defence of the Trucial Sheikhdoms, and even of Bahrein. Why not? This might very well reinforce him against any insidious designs on his own territories on the part of the Ruler of Egypt.
The Shah of Persia and the Ruler of Iraq might, I suppose, one day come to blows. It is regrettably possible, although not inevitable. But is this really likely to be prevented by our own small presence in Bahrein? If we are going to act as a sort of permanent deterrent in this whole area, we shall want far more in the way of forces than we can possibly afford; and even then we shall probably only be sitting on the safety valve. If, on the other hand, it is only a "presence" that is necessary, then why not reduce our garrison at Bahrein to a platoon or two? And might it not even be argued that such presence might anyway result merely in an expensive involvement in local hostilities which we might, if we had got out, have avoided? If, regrettably, some local war does break out it seems, on the whole, probable, especially if all the major Powers are firmly opposed to it, that it will probably be settled in much the same way as the recent unfortunate hostilities between India and Pakistan were settled; namely, by some outside pressure or mediation, or possibly by some action on the part of the United Nations. But what will certainly not

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happen, we believe, is any incursion of the Russians into the North of the area of the Middle East. For that, after all, would almost certainly call into question what has been called the "delicate balance of terror."
As for oil (and I will deal here with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby; though he may or may not agree with me) I think that the local rulers, whoever they are, or whoever they may be, will have to sell the oil to the West or not at all; and if there should, regrettably, be any disturbances, that might conceivably affect the supplies of oil to the West temporarily, well, this could happen whether we are present militarily in the Persian Gulf or not.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I sincerely apologise for again interrupting, but the noble Lord surely realises, in view of what he is saying, that we stopped the threatened invasion of Kuwait by Iraq with the forces we had available at that time in Bahrein. They were not large but they were enough to do the job.
LORD GLADWYN: Yes, my Lords, we did; but the situation was totally different then. Kuwait is now a member of the United Nations, and the whole situation has changed. It is unlikely, in these circumstances, that the Ruler would apply to us. I can assure your Lordships that the situation has changed. We could do things then that we are, I believe, unable to do now.
Apart from this, we could continue to play some part if we so desired in the rather murky policies of the Middle East by, for instance, supplying arms to one side or the other. But what is basically wanted, I am sure, is more diplomacy and less gunboat mentality. Our present attitude towards this area is an echo of the past. Let the Government continue in the path they have now happily begun to tread in the Middle East—no doubt, partly as a result of representations from these Benches—and they will soon find it possible to make further great savings and to reduce the mystic figure of £2,000 million per annum which, as Mr. Mayhew rightly said in another place, they have so arbitrarily and so unnecessarily selected.
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Our only other outstanding commitment, as I believe, is Malaysia. Here we have an obligation to defend the new Federation, which, rightly or wrongly, we insisted on establishing even though it has been partly disrupted by the departure of Singapore. The Liberal Party, in spite of what people have said, in spite of misrepresentations, has never maintained that we should simply repudiate this obligation. Still less is it suggested that we should not continue to play some part of the general defence of South-East Asia in accordance with some plan agreed with the Americans and also with the Australians. But we have to face the fact that it may not, in practice, be possible for us much longer to retain the facilities of the great base in Singapore. If that happens it will be quite impossible to maintain our large army at present stationed in the island and jungles of Borneo.
Here again, I think, the emphasis should be much more on diplomacy and on the way we play our cards, with the object of ending the famous confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia rather than on the deployment of large conventional forces. Much will depend on the issue of the war in Vietnam and the extent to which it is really thought that the Chinese are bent on, or would be successful in pursuing, an aggressive policy. What in principle we ought to contemplate is some early and fairly heavy reduction in our forces in South-East Asia and in all the elaborate machinery necessary to support them at a distance of thousands of miles.
With this background we may perhaps approach the next question which, as we know, caused a split in the Cabinet and the resignation of the First Sea Lord. From what I have said, it should be apparent that the Liberal Party warmly supports the ex-Minister of the Navy in his second (and what I venture to regard, from what he said, as his major) reason for resigning; namely, that much less money ought to be spent East of Suez if, as seems inevitable, we cannot afford to maintain any effective independent presence there. If this is so, and if the new carrier is to be scrapped, may not one legitimately ask what exactly is going to be the purpose of the enormously expensive F 111s? If the Persian Gulf is evacuated—and I maintain, rightly or

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wrongly, that whatever the Government say now, it fairly shortly will be evacuated —these aeroplanes will presumably operate East of Suez only from Singapore or, I dare say, from some base to be constructed in the North of Australia. For the rest, they will obviously be based in the United Kingdom.
Surely, it would be better if, instead of attempting to despatch them to Australia, in case of need, right round by South Africa, their communications should lie over North Canada and Guam. If this is going to be their rôle, it is not obvious, to me, at any rate, why there should be such insistence on maximum range and the need for a very short take-off. Seeing that there would be very great advantages, from the point of view of our relations with France and of our development of our own aeronautical industry, in so doing there might have been a case—although I recognise the force of what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said to the contrary in his speech—for buying the new Mirages, equipped with British engines. If our basic policy were altered, there might indeed still be a case for so doing. After all, if we do evacuate the Middle East, and if we are taking part in the defence of South-East Asia only in a secondary capacity, we are, by the force of things, primarily a European Power and should, if possible, build up our forces on some European foundation.
The same principles apply to our nuclear forces. If they are not abandoned altogether, our four nuclear submarines, with Polaris missiles, will have to be maintained as a separate and independent British force—and we all know that at one time, as the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, pointed out, it was loudly proclaimed that this was one of the things the Government would never do—or this force must be merged in some, at the moment rather improbable, NATO multinational or multilateral force; or they could eventually form the nucleus of a European, or some European, contribution to the Western Alliance. I should have thought, I must say, that the last solution would be the best if, in fact, we are going into Europe. But if a real European Political Community is ever formed, it will be for the Europeans collectively to decide what they want to do with the British and,
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indeed, with the French nuclear potential, or whether they want, collectively, to continue it in any form at all.
What is certain, my Lords, is that our nuclear force could not in practice be employed or threatened anywhere outside the European area—and even there only when, and if, Europe is formed politically—except with the prior consent of the Americans. What is the point therefore of sending aeroplanes with a nuclear capacity, still less nuclear bombs, to the Far East? Exactly whom are these bombers going to threaten, and where? Do we really think that the nations in these confused regions look any more to Britain for comfort and physical support? In any case, should we not accept what seems to be an obvious fact; namely, that if we ever do want to play any world rôle, it can now be only as a part of a United Western Europe? I think I have said enough to indicate the main lines on which we say that the present Government's defence policy is not only dangerous but quite unrealistic.
My Lords, everyone admits that the present Minister of Defence is a very able man, and we must certainly recognise that he has made some very welcome economies, by streamlining procedures, suppressing redundancies and so on, as explained in the Review. But, like so many great personalities of our time with a Marxist background, Mr. Healey carries a Marshal's baton in his knapsack, and I am afraid that he has been unduly impressed by the splendour and efficiency of that enormous "Sacred Cow", The Ministry of Defence. As for the Prime Minister, who not so long ago, you may remember, my Lords, declared that our frontier was on the Himalayas, I really do hope that, at any rate after the Election, he will not try to muscle into the top table all the time, but seek rather more of the company of the younger dons. I am sure that he and the present very able Minister of Defence (if they come into power for a second time, and are successful, as we all hope they will be, in aligning this country with our European neighbours) could very well have a new shot at a modern and efficient streamlined defence policy which would save us the useless expenditure of many hundreds of millions of pounds a year.

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In conclusion, my Lords, if I am not going on too long, I should like to put in one plea in this connection for a measure of constitutional reform. It does seem to me, with great respect, that it is the height of folly, and the reverse of democracy, that the Defence Review published last month should be adopted after one or two short debates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. A document which commits us to an expenditure of no less than £10,000 million is, after all, something in which informed people in this country ought to take a very great interest; and it is indeed sad when we hear that the first effort to consider it in another place had to be postponed because of the overriding necessity of investigating some alleged irregularity by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in the development at Islington of a property known as the Packington Estates, and that the second should be overshadowed by what are I am afraid, essentially electoral considerations.
It has become more and more obvious, I believe, that the suggestion which I ventured to make to your Lordships as long ago as January 15, 1964, namely, that the House of Commons should, if possible, be reduced in numbers and divided up into various commissions—one of which would obviously be devoted to Defence—is the right one. It is strange—it would certainly seem strange to a visitor from Mars— that we should be about the only democracy in which really important matters with which the Government deal should not be the subject of any informed Parliamentary scrutiny. In America the Executive and its officers are subjected to long, searching inquiries by Senate Commissions; and the eventual policy is the product of what really is "a great national debate".
It is, I fear, not the slightest good for our Prime Minister to say that there must be such a debate on defence, as he does, when all he means, apparently, is that there should be an intensive study within the Government machine going on for months or years which is in no way subjected to outside criticism; and then the results are, so to speak, thrown at Parliament simply to "take it or leave it". This is another matter in which the Liberal Party feels itself well in advance of the two existing Parties, and
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I hope that in this sector, as in that of defence itself, there will, perhaps on a Liberal initiative, be substantial progress after the General Election. I therefore, my Lords, beg to move the official Liberal Amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Rea.
Amendment to Amendment moved—
Leave out (" military resources to political commitments ") and insert (" political commitments to military resources ").—(Lord Gladwyn.)
4.35 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, our debate comes roughly half-way between the publication of this year's Defence White Paper and a General Election. Before I get on to the latter, let me address myself for a very few moments to the former, which is what we are supposed to be debating. This year's White Paper seems to me to present a great improvement over any former Defence White Paper ever published in this country, to the extent that it contains many more figures than have ever appeared before. Part II of it is a new departure, and one which I think both Houses of Parliament should warmly welcome. We are, for the first time, beginning to get those elements, the difficulty of obtaining which was so plangently lamented by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. a moment ago. On the other hand, I believe that there is still a long way to go in what one might call the political discussion before getting down to hard figures.
I noticed that Mr. McNamara's annual Defence Statement to Congress this year contained 31 pages headed, "An Assessment of the International Situation as it bears on Military Policy and Postures"—a rather precise and good description; whereas our own White Paper still contained only four pages on Britain's military rôle—a less sophisticated and articulated concept by a long way. May we hope that next year the Government will give as much increase in political analysis as they have already in costing figures and other figures.
Before leaving the White Paper, let me also welcome—it is the kind of thing which is forgotten in the hurly-burly of Parliamentary debate—the appearance in the White Paper, amplified by subsequent announcements, of a system of cross-linking between the Ministry of

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Defence and the universities; the creation of posts in the universities into which serving officers and civil servants can go for a couple of years, and the creation of a permanent Defence Review section inside the Ministry of Defence, which will be staffed partly by academics on leave of absence from universities. I believe that this is a profoundly beneficial departure.
It is nice to feel for once that the Labour Government is a party of moderation; a kind of half-way stage in British politics between the nostalgia and militarism of the Conservative Right and the Little Englandism and the withdrawal-to-the-white-cliffs-ism of the extreme Liberal Left. How pleasant to be outflanked, and how unfamiliar! Long may it continue, because I believe that in this matter, as in most, the central position is the best one from which to guide the destinies of the country.
My Lords, let me turn now to some objections to the White Paper raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with his customary charm and his customary vivacity, but, I think, with more than his customary sense of nostalgia. It seemed to me that he is to be blamed in not having quoted chapter and verse for the forty occasions when he found that when something blew up Conservative Ministers of Defence asked first, "Where are the carriers?" I was struck by the fact that my noble friend, Lord Shackle-ton, did give chapter and verse for five major "shemozzles" East of Suez, where, he was able to tell us, carriers had not been more than a bonus, and had not been able to carry out any function which could not have been carried out by other elements of military force. I think that the Opposition case on this point suffers from a lack of concrete detail compared with the case put by the Government in this carrier discussion.
I was also struck by the fact that although the Conservative Government—and how right they were!—kept the option of building a carrier open, and although—and how right they were!—they made extensive studies of how a carrier should be built, if it were to be built, yet, one must notice, in thirteen years, in three General Elections and in the time of God knows how many successive Ministers of Defence, in point of fact the decision to build the carrier was not taken. Now
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along comes a Labour Government who inherit the situation. A decision has to be taken. The Government take a decision not to build a carrier and immediately, wham! Straight into the Election Manifesto: a major attack in both Houses of Parliament: "Why did you not build this carrier?" Emotive language is used: "You are cutting off the teeth, the hands, the eyes, the ears, the nose, and God knows what else, of the Navy." It immediately became—must we really think that it is entirely a matter of the assessment of the true good of this country, or perhaps believe that electoral considerations may come in?— a key issue between the Government and the Opposition.
The key phrase in the Defence White Paper on this carrier issue is that the carriers would be needed only for the landing or withdrawal of troops outside land-based cover against sophisticated opposition. Let me make two points. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, asked what the assault ships were for. If we do not need carriers to do that, do we need assault ships to do it? We shall hear what they are for from Ministers later in the debate in the most clear and concrete terms available. In the meantime, I should have thought that they are to make it possible to Ian troops inside land-based air cover, or outside, against unsophisticated opposition. This seems to me to be a sufficient reason to keep them going and to build them, as we are doing.
Let me ask another question of the Opposition. Since they do not disagree with the assessment that we need carriers only for this type of operation, and since they maintain that it is wrong to have no more carriers in the 'seventies what is the kind of operation of landing troops outside land-based air cover against sophisticated opposition they envisage? What do they mean? Do they mean going back into Malaysia after we have left it? Do they mean trying to liberate India or Burma from China? Do they mean trying to drive the Egyptian Army out of Royalist Yemen? Let us have one simple case, and then we shall see the true colours under which this policy is sailing. I think it would also be fairer if the Conservative Party were not to talk about one carrier, but about three

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carriers. I think it is agreed by all that we need three to keep one in the Indian Ocean at all. We should also bear in mind the rather startling fact that the United States have thirteen or fifteen carriers and also find it necessary, even to carry on its present level of military presence in the Pacific Ocean, to build and continue to build large airfields on land. I put this forward as a kind of footnote, to suggest that even the United States find that carriers are by no means enough and regards them as a sort of bonus, though on a vastly greater scale than we do in this country.
I now turn to Aden. This appears to be a nasty little electoral row blowing up. As I understand the story, Mr. Duncan Sandys in 1964 agreed with the request of the Government of the South Arabian Federation to call a Conference in order to arrange for independence in 1968 and for a defence agreement involving the continuation of the British base. It is not clear from the text so far quoted whether this British base was to continue after independence in 1968, but we may assume that it was. I understand that the present Government tried and failed to convene such a conference. The Government of the Federation of South Arabia would not come. The next thing that happened was that the Government of South Arabia changed and the new Government does not want a British base after independence in 1968. I understand from the White Paper that the British Government do not want, and find no purpose for, a military base in Aden after 1968. We are invited by the Tories, then, to accept the situation where we must maintain a base which we do not need, in spite of the hot opposition of the people who happen to live there and do not want it, because of an undertaking by Mr. Duncan Sandys to a Government which fell a year ago.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord absolutely certain of this? Is he not confusing the Government of Aden with the Government of South Arabia?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I understand that the conference at which the
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undertaking was made by Mr. Duncan Sandys contained representatives of both. However, I willingly defer on details to the noble Lord. But I will stick to my point. We want to know if the Conservatives are going to insist on our having a base for which the Government of the day have decided there is no military need, in a country where the people do not want it.
Let me touch on a point made by Mr. Powell in another place yesterday. He seems to be laying the violence in Aden—he said there has been violence every day since this announcement was made—at the door of the present Government and their announcement. If I understood him correctly, and I hope I did not, this would be an unworthy line to take. There has been violence in Aden for two or three years now, mostly committed by people who have said, "Britain, get out and take your base away", and the present violence is coming from those who are saying now, "We are glad you are taking your base away, but please take it away tomorrow, not in 1968". The Conservative pledge to hang on to the base in Aden should fill noble Lords on these Benches with optimism. It seems to be the kind of pledge that could have been made only if you are perfectly certain that you are going to lose an Election, so strange is the policy which lies behind it.
Now, may I touch on the argument of the runaway train? The noble Lord and his colleague in another place yesterday made great play with the fact that the proportion of the G.N.P. had been decreasing or remaining steady over recent years. So it has. If I understand my noble friend's case aright, it is not that the proportion of the G.N.P. has been going up; it is that when they came into office, they found a situation where it appeared certain that, without cuts, the proportion of the G.N.P. would go up between now and 1970. With modern weapon systems with a lead-time of ten years, we simple cannot say that we shall keep it down. We have to make cuts now, if we want to avoid a rising expense pattern in four, five or ten years' time. For this reason I think that it would be quite wrong for the Party Opposite to take refuge in the phrase, "some remote year". We have to look very carefully at precisely which remote year, and if

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we find that things in the present plan do involve an unacceptable increase, then they have to be cut now. The fact that the proportion of the G.N.P. has not yet gone up in no way contradicts this point.
The Conservative defence policy appears to be at this moment: more submarines than the present Government are committed to buying; regret at the cancellation of the TSR 2, though they are not going so far as to say it should be started up again—I think that would be impossible; three carriers—£1,400 million; more Navy, more Territorial Army, more reserves. It seems to me that one cannot advance all these claims simultaneously (at the moment, they amount to more than the plans which the present Government found when they came in) without giving some indication of what part of the Budget the money is going to be lopped off or, if not, in what form of taxation it is to be levied.
A complaint of the Conservative Party against the present Government is that their new defence policy binds us hand and foot to the United States. Again, this is emotive language. We may regard our alliance as close and beneficial or as one in which we are bound hand and foot. If we are indeed bound hand and foot, would it not he right to say that these bonds began to be tightened sharply at the time of the Nassau Agreement, through the history of the Skybolt and Polaris since then? We have indeed been in a close alliance with the United States, which we do not regret. But if anything was being bound hand and foot, that was. The Nassau Agreement and the handling of policy in the weeks succeeding it were clearly the cause of the breakdown in our negotiations to enter the Common Market. It is striking that the Minister who was most involved in those negotiations and in carrying them so far forward and who nearly reached success, should have found it possible to remain in the Government after all hope had been torpedoed by the other side of the Conservative Government of that time.
I think that the Opposition want us to be able to "go it alone" in the world, the same as they did when they were in office. I think that what lies behind the complaints against the White Paper is the wish to be able to take bigger and
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more frequent military steps on our own, without any ally, in the Indian Ocean, and who knows where else. It seems to me that this policy contradicts two things. One is the statement made by the present spokesman on defence affairs in the Conservative Party at Brighton, not so long ago, when he appeared to wish to get out of Asia and the Indian Ocean and leave security in those parts to local balances. The other is that there is a technological arms race; that reconnaissance is going to be increasingly carried out by satellites, and we have not got any; and that it is going to be a world containing anti-ballistic missile systems, which will fundamentally change the balance of forces throughout the world. This is not the sort of world in which any nation, except super-Powers, can keep the capacity to "go it alone" anywhere around the place.
It is for this reason that I welcome especially the three limitations, which I believe are the most fundamental thing in our White Paper, placed henceforth on British defence policy; namely, that we shall not again engage in military operations without allies; that we shall not again maintain military bases in any part of the world where their presence is unwelcome to the indigenous population; and that we shall not again undertake to give military aid to countries which do not give us facilities to do so in time. For all these reasons, I hope that to-morrow night, when the House comes to vote—and I regret that I shall not be able to be here—it will reject both of the Amendments and pass the Motion as originally tabled.
4.52 p.m.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, I should like to associate myself with what my noble Leader has said this afternoon on the major aspects of the Defence Review. T suppose that the Army has come off fairly lightly, though since the Government have done nothing about strengthening the conventional forces, it is hard to see how our troops will cease to be over-stretched for a long time to come. Much of the White Paper which deals with specific Army problems is, I am glad to see, a continuation of some admirable plans and ideas started by the previous Government.
I intend this afternoon to speak mainly about the Reserve Forces, but before

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doing so, I should like to ask one question on a paragraph in the White Paper. Paragraph 21 of Part I of the Statement on the Defence Estimates reports that:
" We shall make substantial economies in our contingents in Cyprus and Malta ".
As regards Malta, Article 6 of the Malta Agreement says:
" The Government of the United Kingdom will consult the Government of Malta when major changes in the British Forces in Malta which might have significant effects on the defence or economy of Malta are contemplated."
If the Government are considering cutting down our forces in Malta, I would remind them that the rundown of the forces there, mainly the Navy, is still going on, and the island is still trying to absorb the manpower that is being thrown up from this and will have to continue to do so for some time to come. Though many steps have been taken by the Malta Government to bring in light industries and to increase the tourist attractions, the Maltese economy has not yet recovered sufficiently to absorb a further blow. So I hope that the Government will appreciate the need for the longest possible phasing out of any further reductions there. I would mention that in the last five years a large amount of money has been spent on modernising the British barracks and accommodation in the island, and it would be a great pity if that were wasted as well.
There is no mention of the Royal Malta Artillery in the White Paper. Can we take it that there will continue to be a place for them in the British Army, as in the past? These units have given long and faithful service, and I should like to be assured—and I know they would—that the careers and prospects of officers and men will continue.
As regards the Reserve Forces, I do not want to appear ungrateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, particularly after the nice reference he made to me, in the last debate we had on this subject, on the part I had played in the past; but in their dealings with the Territorial Army I would liken the Government to a doctor who tells a patient who is feeling a bit run down that he has only a year to live, with the obvious effect on the patient's morale, and on his next
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visit, says with a beaming smile to the patient, "I have wonderful news for you. You are not going to die. But to keep you alive we are going to perform a small operation: we are going to cut off both your arms and your legs. After that you will be able to carry on your valuable work for the country with energy and enthusiasm." I am not saying that the patient does not require a thorough overhaul. But the doctor's pronouncement has had a terribly bad effect on his morale, and though I was greatly relieved at the doctor's second opinion, I wonder whether the patient will recover. I think he needs a little more of what the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, kindly called the Thurlow Plan. In order to help his recovery I should like to make one or two suggestions—suitable medicines that could be prescribed.
The success of the Forces in attracting volunteers will entirely depend on a worthwhile rôle which is understood by the public. The proposed one of giving support to the police in the event of nuclear attack is insufficient. It must also include rôles which are understood by potential volunteers to be real military ones: to support the Regular Army; to repel invasion; anti-parachutist and anti-sabotage operations; and to be a basis for expansion of the national Army in an unforeseen emergency. I know that the Minister of State for the Army said in the House of Commons that the Defence Forces will also be used to engage enemy forces if they are in this country, but he has not stressed this, and he has left the impression throughout the country that the contemplated Territorial force is to be a kind of combination of a rather indifferent Home Guard and a second-rate second line of the police force.
I know that the Government want their scheme to be a success, but they have not got it over to the Territorial Army. I have spoken to a lot of Territorials since our last debate, and I am convinced that this is the case. After the initial enthusiasm of volunteers from the present Territorial Army has subsided, it is doubtful whether either the Army Volunteer Reserve or the Home Defence Force battalions will attract the recruits they need unless they are mutually supported. The closest possible affiliation consistent

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with the different rôles of the two forces that are planned—the Army Volunteer Reserve and the Territorial Force—must be established.
It has already been announced that they may probably share drillhalls, and this is a good thing. But I believe that we should go further than this. I believe that there should be a unit of both A.V.R. and the new Territorial Force under the same commanding officer. I cannot see how enough volunteers will be found for the A.V.R. unless it has a second tier from which to draw—the second tier that my noble and gallant friend Lord Montgomery of Alamein told us about in a Defence debate when we discussed this subject before. I believe that a combined unit would achieve this. It does not matter whether the uniforms are different, or if the A.V.R. have a better uniform than the Territorial Force. It does not matter if the equipment is different. It will encourage men in the Territorial Force to aspire to join the A.V.R., and that is the first priority needed to keep up strength.
Of course, there will be men in the A.V.R. who after a little while cannot undertake the commitments of that force. You do not want to lose them, and they are more likely to join the Territorial Force if it is part of their own unit, than if they have to go off and join a strange unit. Later, they may be able to take up their commitments in the A.V.R. again. I am sure that the Government have not appreciated this fact sufficiently. The noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, cannot speak to-day, as he and his Council of the Territorial and Auxiliary Forces Association have been entrusted by the Government with the difficult task of working out the details of the scheme within the financial limitations put upon them. But if he were here, I know he would say that this close link between the two Forces is essential for the success of the scheme.
There is an unfortunate feeling among thinking Territorials that the Government are against any military force, and will not mind if the Defence Force is a failure. I do not myself believe this to be true, but whether it is true or not, the Defence Force must be seen to be an effective military force, or it will fail. I believe that the right answer may cost a little
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more than the £3 million, but if you try to do this sort of thing on the cheap you will not get enough men for either the A.V.R. or the Territorial Force.
Another suggestion I have concerns the Yeomanry. Under the present scheme, I think that only the equivalent of one Yeomanry regiment is to be retained, at least in its traditional rôle. I need not declare a personal or sentimental interest, since, naturally, as a Regular infantry officer I have never served in the Yeomanry. But as Assistant Military Secretary in Palestine in 1940, I saw a great deal of numerous Yeomanry regiments who came out with the First Cavalry Division. What struck me about them was that they have three great qualities developed to a high degree. They have a very high standard of leadership among their officers; they have a highly developed sympathy in the relationship between the officers and the troopers, and they have remarkable versatility. This last, I remember, was demonstrated at one moment when, because of shortages of specialists and personnel, squadrons of the same regiment took on such diverse duties as horse cavalry, searchlights, coastal guns and conversion to armour, all within the same regiment at the same time.
Many Members of your Lordships' House have served in the Yeomanry, and will know that these regiments were always ready to do anything. On one occasion it was my duty to ask for volunteers for the first parachute force ever set up in 1941. I received the names of one or two officers from all the battalions and regiments, but I received from the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry the nominal roll of officers. I queried this, but was told by the adjutant that the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry always volunteered for every job they were asked to volunteer for. The list was headed by the commanding officer, the late Lord Yarborough, who was then aged 52. Surely, some more characteristic rôle for the Yeomanry can be found within the Territorial Force or the A.V.R., for they have given such great proof of their value in the past. I am glad that I am being followed by my old friend Lord Barnard, who is commanding officer of a Yeomanry Regiment, and who is making his maiden speech to-day.

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I would once again put in a plea for the Territorial W.R.A.C. There are bound to be numerous clerical jobs, such as those of storemen, cooks and stewards in the A.V.R., as well as in the Territorial Force, which they could do, and this would leave the men to concentrate on their training for their specialised rôle. They could be integrated into units under the unit commander. Would the Government look at this suggestion? I am sure that it is a practical and an economic proposition that the already trained and disciplined W.R.A.C. Territorials should undertake the routine administrative duties in both forces.
My last point concerns the cadets. I am very nervous that the Army Cadet Forces will be seriously affected by the reorganisation of the Territorial Army. I hope that the Government will give careful attention to this problem and, when the plan for the reorganisation is completed, will study the effect in each part of the country on the A.C.F. units and make provisions and, if necessary, alterations accordingly. The noble Lord. Lord Robertson of Oakridge, who cannot be in his place this afternoon, is very keen on this. As he cannot be here, he asked me to express his concern on this problem.
5.7 p.m.
LORD BARNARD: My Lords, may I crave the indulgence of your Lordships on my first address to your Lordships' House? I must declare my interest, to the extent that I am a serving Territorial soldier, and I command a regiment in the Yeomanry, the Royal Armoured Corps. I appreciate the announcements made last February that a Home Defence Force was to be formed, because clearly we knew at that time that the large majority of the Yeomanry regiments were to go, together with a good deal of the Royal Artillery and the Infantry. This saving hand from extinction was something for which most of us were grateful.
The Home Defence Force should also be able to give some sort of opening to people in rural areas who wish to serve but, because of the way in which the A.V.R. is organised, or may be organised, on large towns, would not have such an opportunity. Incidentally, I hope that it will not be long before what I am
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now calling the Home Defence Force is given a name of some greater permanence. I believe that most people would like it to be associated with the word "Territorial". In spite of the fairly long time which has passed during the various negotiations about the Reserve Army, I must to some extent contradict the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, upon the question of morale. I find in the North-East, from where I come, that the hard core of the Territorial Army has pretty good morale, and has stood up to an awful lot rather well.
As a commanding officer I perhaps should not over stress too many details of problems which present themselves in the Home Defence Force but I should like to mention some of the more obvious difficulties which this new rôle may present. Certainly the primary need seems to be, as the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, has said, that it should be worth while, and also that this Force should be part of the Army. I believe it is agreed that the various units in this Force will in most cases, and where possible, be identified separately, being of the same name and with most of the same people and the same badges and traditions as they have now as units in the Territorial Army. I am sure that this must be so. A link should be kept with the Regular Army. Already close ties exist between the Regular and Territorial Armies which are valuable to both; and if, at first, it is difficult to tie up those links, let us hope that they will not be severed, so that at a later stage it will be possible to strengthen them. I am sure the Yeomanry units would hate to lose their connection with the Royal Armoured Corps. Certainly volunteers will want to train as soldiers, whatever else they may be asked to do; and though the level of training in this respect may not at first be high, at least a basis will be laid from which a fully trained soldier could be produced in a short time.
However, I am sure that it would be a good policy to allow volunteers to go on Army courses, as they do now, because with the amount of training time which would be available, so far as we know, I cannot see that people can be trained up to N.C.O. standard without going away and doing training elsewhere. It seems inevitable, because of the amount

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of money available, that we are going to be very short of equipment and permanent staff, but perhaps I might make one point here. I should like to ask that consideration he given to the administration, and particularly whether it is thought that volunteer quartermasters and quartermaster sergeants are enough. I cannot think that such a system will work adequately, when one knows the vast amount of work already done by these people on the permanent staff. The whole pattern of civilian employment being as it is, with volunteers sometimes able to spare more time and sometimes less, it seems to me that it would make it appallingly hard for them to do the detailed work, of which I have given an example, just when it was wanted.
My Lords, I think I have said quite enough. I have found it extremely difficult to speak on this occasion, perhaps partly because of my restrictions through being a serving soldier and partly because, at the same time, I have some passion about my subject.
5.15 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, one of the agreeable consequences of being moved up in the list of speakers is that I have the privilege of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Barnard, on his maiden speech. I am sure the whole House will be in agreement with me when I say we much enjoyed his contribution, and personally I was impressed by the way he refused to be rushed into any unnecessary criticism of this side of the House because he preferred to stick to the facts. I only wish that, drawing also upon his experience in the Royal Air Force, he had been able to comment as well on the recent changes which have taken place in the re-equipment of the Service in which he and I had the privilege of serving.
My Lords, this debate has covered a wide area. Already many points have been raised, but I propose to confine myself to dealing with one subject, and one subject only. It is a subject with which in recent weeks I have been somewhat intimately connected. I refer to Aden. Much has been said about Aden, and not all of it, I am afraid, has been calculated to help the work out there. Therefore, I thought it would be to the advantage of the House, and possibly outside, if I set down for the record the facts of and the
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background to the recent decision which has been taken about our base there.
As many will know, the facilities in Aden over the years have been built up for a variety of purposes. Some of those purposes have gone, others have changed or are changing, and the equipment which we now have at our disposal, and especially the long-range transport aircraft which are coming along, have changed completely the environment in which at one time it was advisable to have our facilities in that part of the Middle East. If we accept the limitations which are set out in the Defence Review when deciding our commitments outside Europe, there can be no question that the decision to terminate our base in Aden is correct. The limitations were that our tasks outside Europe should not impose an unacceptable strain on our over-stretched forces; should not bear too heavily on our domestic economy or on our reserves of foreign exchange; and, finally, there must be no attempt to maintain defence facilities in an independent country against its wishes.
So far as I know, no one has controverted these conditions. But, not for the first time, an Opposition has accepted a proposition in general and attacked its application in particular. In this case we have the challenge to the decisions taken on Aden. Moreover, it is suggested that in some way we are going back on undertakings previously given and are indeed breaking obligations solemnly entered into on behalf of this country by previous Administrations. This is a serious charge and it must be considered carefully. Earlier in the day the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was content to refer, rather vaguely I thought, to "undertakings". But those who have made this charge elsewhere have pointed to the Treaties of Friendship and Protection of 1959 and 1963 which we have with the Federation of South Arabia, and in another place Mr. Duncan Sandys, a former Colonial Secretary, has called attention to the undertakings which he gave in 1964 and which were recorded in the White Paper published in July, 1964.
In regard to the Treaties, it is true that there was no provision for unilateral abrogation, but the whole content of those Treaties renders them inappropriate once the Federation achieves independence. We are advised that they are

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inconsistent with independence and will inevitably be terminated as part of the process leading to independence. That is the legal advice we are given. Speaking as a layman, I cannot really see how anyone can seriously maintain that an obligation to protect a dependent territory can be construed as an undertaking to defend an independent nation.
More weight, however, has been given to the undertaking said to have been entered into at the Constitutional Conference of 1964. I should like to read to your Lordships the relevant paragraph, paragraph 38, of the White Paper which reported that Conference. It states:
" The delegates asked that Britain should agree to independence for the Federation while continuing thereafter to assist in its defence. They requested that as soon as practicable the British Government should convene a Conference for the purposes of fixing a date for independence not later than 1968, and of concluding a Defence Agreement under which Britain would retain her military base in Aden for the defence of the Federation and the fulfilment of her world-wide responsibilities. The Secretary of State announced the agreement of the British Government to this request."
It will be seen that the request to which the Secretary of State announced his agreement was that as soon as practicable the British Government should convene a conference for two purposes, one of which, I agree, was for the negotiation of a defence agreement.
To claim, as some appear to do, that this paragraph has the binding force of a solemn treaty is surely to allow prejudice to cloud reason completely, and I am amazed that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, should stand at that Box this afternoon and allow himself to talk about dishonourable conduct, if he is basing himself upon that paragraph. There was the promise to call a conference. It is not for me to say what was in the mind of the then Colonial Secretary when he emphasised that a conference to discuss defence would be necessary, but it is clear, from the whole tenor of his remarks at the time, that he had in mind the importance to us of the Aden base. This is borne out by the phrase in the paragraph which underlines that the military base in Aden was "for the fulfilment of her world-wide responsibilities", which clearly was put in at the insistence of Mr. Sandys. And, indeed, this is borne out
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by the remark he made on June 1 the following year, when he referred to the fact that the military base in Aden must be retained; that is, in our interest, to enable us to fulfil our world-wide responsibilities as he saw them. In the event, the conference envisaged in the White Paper was never held, and not even the wildest or most prejudiced critic of the present Administration could suggest that it was the fault of Her Majesty's Government that the conference was not held.
Possibly it may be useful and help to get this matter in its proper perspective if I put on record the immediate background to this conference. Talks about the possibility of a federation of the various States around Aden and in the hinterland of South Arabia were begun in 1953, and the establishment of the Federation of Arab Amirates of the South, as it was then called, in 1959, was a hopeful beginning of the process under which the small States of South Arabia which had accepted British protection in the 19th or early 20th centuries could advance together in unity towards independent nationhood. There were six founder States in that year, 1959. By 1966 there were 17, including the Colony of Aden which joined the Federation in 1963.
When the present Government took office, which was shortly after the conference to which reference has been made, no one could have tried harder than my right honourable friend Mr. Greenwood to convene the first of the conferences envisaged in the White Paper. Almost the first thing which the new Colonial Secretary did was to visit South Arabia, and there he announced that as soon as the local Governments were ready the conference would be held. In December, 1964, he secured all-round agreement to a conference to be held in March, 1965. In the event it proved absolutely impossible to get the local leaders round the conference table, not from any lack of trying on our part but because they would not agree among themselves about the conditions under which they would come. In the process, the Aden Government resigned and a new Government was formed under Mr. Makkawi.
It has been suggested that the signatories to the Report of the 1964 Conference can be identified with the membership of the present Government of the

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South Arabian Federation. In fact the signatories include members of the then Aden Government, and since the 1964 Conference it has been difficult, to put it mildly, to secure from the Adeni politicians any constructive co-operation at all.
My right honourable friend, following the failure to assemble the conference in March, 1965, tried to make progress by appointing a Constitutional Commission for South Arabia, the purpose of which would have been to recommend the most generally acceptable course of future constitutional development for the area. This initiative was also frustrated by the Adeni politicians, and, indeed, the Commissioners were declared by the Aden Government to be prohibited immigrants and were denied the opportunity even to visit the territory. Despite all these frustrations, my right honourable friend again went to South Arabia last July to try to make further progress. The most to which he could secure agreement was for a working party to draw up an agenda for a conference, but even this proved too ambitious an objective, and the working party broke up with nothing achieved.
From that regrettable disarray it emerged that, although the Federal Ministers themselves were willing to co-operate, the other delegations insisted that progress could he made only if Her Majesty's Government first agreed to accept in toto the resolutions adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1963. Those resolutions, I would remind your Lordships, reaffirm the right of the peoples of the territory to self-determination and to freedom from colonial rule. They considered that the maintenance of the military base in Aden is prejudicial to the security of the region and that its early removal was therefore desirable; and finally the resolutions recommended that the people of Aden and the Aden Protectorate should be allowed to exercise their right to self-determination with regard to their future.
Clearly, it would have been irresponsible for Her Majesty's Government to accept without qualification this resolution of the U.N., but in fact in substance there has never been any real collision between the policy of the present Government and the essentials of that U.N. declaration. We have agreed that there should be independence for the country.
1010
We had always agreed that there should be constitutional reform, and that this must be a matter for agreement between the peoples of the territories themselves. In June of last year the Prime Minister made it clear that our policy in these matters should be based upon the proposition that
" no base is militarily or morally defensible unless it has the support of the people in the territory in which it is sited."
Nevertheless, we have had to contend in Aden, and in the States of the hinterland, with violence, terrorism, assassination and attempts generally to undermine the economic development of the country and to make the preservation of law and order impossible. I know that it has long been the convention to describe all nationalist movements as being terrorist, and I have been as impatient as any when the efforts of basically patriotic people to achieve freedom for their country are described in this way. Nevertheless, it can be said that here in Aden and in the Federation we are faced with a violence which is organised and financed from outside; which is largely undertaken by mercenaries; which has struck at quite innocent people in a despicable and cowardly way, and which in any case is not needed in order to achieve independence, since this has from the beginning been quite definitely and clearly offered as the immediate end of political development.
It is against this kind of background that the decision to terminate our base in Aden was taken in the context of our general review of defence. And here perhaps I may take a little more of your Lordships' time to say something about the objective which earlier British Governments set themselves—
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, if the noble Lord has left this question of the pledge, I am bound to say that what he has said seems to me to be unsatisfactory. The pledge is fairly specific in the words that he has read out, but no doubt we shall not agree on this. May I ask the noble Lord just two questions? First of all, will he confirm, or deny, that the present British Government confirmed to the British High Commissioner in Aden that we would carry out these pledges? Secondly, could he confirm, or deny, that the Secretary of State for Defence, when he was in Aden last June,

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personally assured the Federal Government that they could trust the British Government to fulfil and honour all their obligations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have heard these quotations before. I have no knowledge of the circumstances in which they may or may not have been made. Certainly, there is nothing on the record. But the fact is, of course, that up to quite recently—let us face it—it had been accepted that the base in Aden was to remain. Of' course, if the base had remained in Aden it would have been in Our interests, as Mr. Sandys has said, to have sonic continuing defence agreement although the country may be politically independent. Whatever was said was tied to the presence of a British base. There has never been any undertaking on the termination of the base facilities, to continue a defence agreement.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again but, as I understood it he was saying earlier that one of the criteria for staying in a base of this kind was whether or not there was opposition from the local inhabitants. He then went on to say that in his view this was not genuine nationalism, but had all been instigated—his words were "the violence was financed and organised from outside". So he is not arguing at the present time that the reason for leaving the Aden base is because all the inhabitants, or a large proportion of the inhabitants, of Aden wish to see us go.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am saying, I think, more than one thing. I have made quite a long speech. I noticed the noble Lord taking down what I was saying at the time about violence. It is perfectly true, in my view, and in the view of our Intelligence people, that the violence itself is instigated, organised and financed from outside. But it does not mean to say that the people of Aden, or a great proportion of them, nationalist in outlook, would not like to see the base go, even though they themselves may not be throwing the grenades. That I think is the distinction which I was trying to indicate.
I was going on to say something about the objective which earlier British Gov-
1012
ernments set themselves, of trying to establish this new united and independent Arab State. There are some, possibly in this country, certainly in Cairo, and in certain less well-disposed delegations in the United Nations, who seek to dismiss the whole objective as an exercise in tricky British diplomacy, designed simply to serve our defence interests by creating a buffer State around the great military installations of Aden. Even if this were the only reason there could still be no genuine cause for criticism, for surely stability, law and order in a territory, is infinitely preferable to intertribal feuding and the wretched waste of precious resources which lawlessness entails.
But that was not the only motivation. The truth is that most of the British officials who serve in that area, of all grades and ranks, became as much personally involved in the constructive effort to build up the economic strength and political unity of this part of Arabia as any of the local population. I should like to take this opportunity of paying a tribute to all those, in the administrative offices of AlIttihad and Aden, and in the austere, often uncomfortable and sometimes physically dangerous posts in the hinterland, who have served this developing Federation. Theirs is a quite disinterested, worthy ambition to see the area achieve nationhood as a new independent Republic of South Arabia. They saw this growth of the Federation as something which gave reality to the natural expression of the Arab desire for unity and the wish of related people to stand together as a unit in the modern world. Much has been done in the Federation, most of it under the guidance of British officials and a great deal of it financed by the British taxpayer—wells, irrigation projects, schools, hospitals, and the establishment of Federal forces designed to maintain law and order. The fact that so much more remains to be done is a measure of the primitive ground on which the work had to be started. The immediate question, however, is what we are doing to help deal with the problems which inevitably will arise in South Arabia when the new Government is assuming the responsibilities of independence and facing the difficulties which inevitably will arise on the termination of our base.

1013
First of all, about the constitutional position. Although the attempt to get the Federal and the Adeni Ministers in conference together to agree to proposals for a new Constitution has failed, the Federal Government themselves invited two constitutional experts, Sir Gawain Bell and Sir Ralph Hone, to draft a Constitution suitable for application to the whole of the Protectorate. Their work has now been completed. Their report, with the draft Constitution, has been submitted to the Federal Government and has been widely and favourably commented upon by the Press in this country and elsewhere. It is a progressive document. The initial reaction in the Federation is favourable. Decisions upon the Constitution are, of course, largely the responsibility of the Federal Government, but it is desirable, it seems to us, that the broad outlines, at any rate, should be accepted both by Aden, on the one side, and by the three Eastern Protectorates, on the other side of the Federation.
We are glad, therefore, that welcome has been given to a proposal which is now being considered, that there should be a form of election appropriate to the different areas, to establish a representative organ which would have the responsibility of considering in detail the constitutional proposals drawn up by the experts. We hope that after consideration, with amendments if so required, there would be a recommendation from this representative organ which would be acceptable to Aden, to the other sixteen States within the Federation, and to the three Eastern Protectorates so far not federated. If constitutional progress can be made in this way, we shall, incidentally, have met almost completely another of the principal requirements of the United Nations resolution.
We recognise that there will be economic consequences for Aden arising from our decision to leave the base. We have already arranged for the Secretary of State's Economic Adviser to visit Aden and to examine the situation on the spot, in the light of the decision about the base, and to make recommendations as to the steps which could practicably be taken by the authorities in Aden to withstand the undoubted shock of the withdrawal of some £14 million a year purchasing power which was previously injected by the presence of the British base.
1014
Moreover, with the authority of the Government, I have already told the Federal Supreme Council that we recognise that they will continue to be in need of external financial assistance for some time after independence. The scale, form and extent of that assistance to be given by Her Majesty's Government will be decided in the normal way nearer the time of independence. We recognise that this aid will also have to take account of the Federal Government's need to continue to make financial provision for the Federal forces.
When I met the Federal Supreme Council we had discussions on a quite friendly and confidential basis. I am bound to say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that I would not for one moment have considered discussing matters with them as to future constitutional arrangements without telling them of our decision about the base. I must say that I cannot understand how he can suggest that the decision should be taken to quit the base in two years' time, and yet tell no one in the area what we are going to do.
LORD CARRINGTON: I did not say that at all.
LORD BESWICK: I cannot see what purpose can be served by these charges of bad faith and dishonouring of agreements. They will certainly not help the morale of the Servicemen, who are doing a difficult job in far from favourable conditions in Arabia. Nor will such charges make any easier the task of those who have to plan the withdrawal. I cannot see that they will help those political leaders in South Arabia who are determined to see through to success the effort to achieve a new Federation of South Arabia. Enough damage is being done to our name by the Voice of Cairo. I do not think that it should be added to by anyone in either House.
5.40 p.m.
LORD TEYNHAM: My Lords, I do not propose to follow the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, on Aden, although I think that in many ways it is a great pity that we are proposing to vacate it. However, I will leave other noble Lords to deal with that matter. I should like in the first place to congratulate Her Majesty's Government on the full details which they have given in their White Paper. On the other hand, there are a number of

1015
anomalies, and perhaps the most glaring appears in the Defence Estimates, on page 27, paragraph 21. It reads:
"The aircraft carrier is the most important element of the Fleet…"
Yet on page 9 of The Defence Review, paragraph 3, it is laid down that we shall not build a new carrier force. Her Majesty's Government cannot have it both ways: it is not possible. Perhaps the noble Lord who has set down the Motion to-day can elucidate this point.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I thought I did so. I repeated what was in the White Paper. This is a simple matter of fact. It is the most important unit or type of offensive power in the Royal Navy to-day. The reasons for not continuing it after 1975 have also been given.
LORD TEYNHAM: Yes, my Lords, but if the Government think that it is the most important item in the Fleet, then why do away with it'? On page 9 of The Defence Review reference is made, in paragraph 2, to our amphibious fleet, commando ships and assault ships which, it is said,
" will greatly strengthen our forces outside Europe."
How can these forces operate without air cover, which in most cases can only be provided by fleet carriers? Are we never going to learn the lessons of the last war? How often in the last war did shore-based fighter protection fail to turn up, and as a result how many ships and sailors were lost unnecessarily? That is quite true. I am not one of those tied to the idea that we must have a large carrier fleet with all its expensive and sophisticated radar equipment. Why not smaller and cheaper vessels with simpler and cheaper equipment and vertical takeoff aircraft, the control of which can well be carried out by the carriers' attendant frigates?
This Defence Review again brings into strong relief the question of the eventual integration of the three Services—certainly of the Navy and the Air Force. Fighter Command, Coastal Command, Transport Command, Training and Technical Training Command could all be absorbed in the other two Services. If this were accomplished, we should be left with Bomber Command. Surely it
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is not necessary to retain a separate Service to operate a handful of F 111As. I should like to make it quite clear that this plan is not a battle between the demands of the Navy and of the Air Force. In fact, a distinguished Air Marshal wrote to the Press only recently on these lines and asked if we could continue to justify the retention of a service which, as the years go by, will become more and more an expensive luxury. Her Majesty's Government, of whatever complexion, will have to grasp this nettle sooner rather than later, when undoubtedly a great deal of money could be saved in Defence.
On this side of the House we are not asking for increased expenditure on Defence. What we are asking is that the 6½ to 7 per cent. of the gross national income laid down for Defence expenditure by the last Conservative Government should be retained and not reduced to 6 per cent. or 5½ per cent. as foreshadowed by the present Government. Incidentally, when the Conservative Government were in power, I think I am correct in saying that the 6½ to 7 per cent. was sufficient to allow for the gradual rebuilding of our carrier fleet, and all the necessary plans had been prepared for the work to go out to tender, when this plan was overtaken by events. It was unfortunate that certain sections of the Press tried to highlight a supposed battle between the Navy and the Air Force over the carrier fleet, and I think that in one case it was suggested that the Navy wanted carriers merely for prestige purposes. I wonder if your Lordships are aware that the Council of the Air League are in favour of carriers and sent a telegram to the Minister of State for Air and also to the Prime Minister to that effect.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? I never received this telegram, and I checked with the Air League and found that no official telegram was sent.
LORD TEYNHAM: I shall be delighted to send confirmation to the noble Lord as soon as possible. I cannot understand how Her Majesty's Government can lay down a fixed expenditure on Defence without looking at their commitments first and then determining the amount of money required to honour them. When ewe talk about Defence, presumably we

1017
mean defence of world peace in the cold war, which is still very much with us. If our foreign policy is to be unchanged, how can we maintain our commitments when, in the words of Her Majesty's Government, our Services are stretched to their limits and beyond, without proper financial provision. The first paragraph on page 4 of The Defence Review says that
" Defence must be the servant of foreign policy, not its master."
I am sure this is quite true, but how does Her Majesty's Government intend to implement this statement without proper provision for defence? Perhaps Her Majesty's Government can indicate what commitments they propose to give up in addition to Aden to meet the fixed sum to be spent on defence, and at the same time lighten the burden now falling on our defence services. In the days of Hitler what he wanted was all guns and no butter. What this Government want is all butter and very few guns.
The trouble with this Defence Review and Estimates is that it is trying to compromise the loss of the aircraft carriers by proposing a number of new types of aircraft, ships and missile systems to fill sonic of the gaps which the disappearance of carriers will leave. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government if these new types have been properly costed. And, what is more, they may or may not be successful. I suggest that it is highly likely that they will cost a good deal more than the savings from the cancelling of aircraft carriers. I hope that all your Lordships who have the wellbeing of the Services at heart and wish to give the men the proper tools for the job will vote for the Amendment.
The fact is that the decision not to employ carriers after 1975 will in fact deprive the Fleet of its main armament, without the provision of any effective substitute against surface attack outside the range of shore-based aircraft. This means that the Navy will be unable to defend not only itself but also our vast merchant shipping fleet against the existing forces of our enemies. I understand the Chamber of Shipping is very concerned about the omission from The Defence Review of any specific reference to the importance of defending our merchant shipping or to the means of
1018
achieving that defence. Perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply for Her Majesty's Government could deal with this matter. I consider the Defence White Paper a very disappointing one, and it will not produce the forces which we require.
5.50 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate to hear the opening speeches, but I was engaged outside on North-East affairs. However, I should like to congratulate my fellow countryman from Durham, Lord Barnard, on his maiden speech. He and I come from the same county and I knew his father. He made a very good speech, and I hope we shall hear him again often in this House.
I should also like to congratulate the Government, after getting power in 1964, on carrying out a far-reaching investigation of our defence needs in the next twenty years. We have for years been carrying a great strain upon our economy, especially over the last sixteen years, and something like £25,000 million has been spent. Whatever disagreement there is about our future rôle in the world, it is apparent to everyone that we cannot carry, year after year, the ever-increasing costs which defence is imposing on our economy. I consider that the Government are correct in stating that they will not undertake major operations of war except in co-operation with allies. Going it alone, by ourselves, in the future is not possible. While I recognise that it is necessary at all times, in the world as it is, for us to have a defence to defend our shores, we must ever be seeking to get disarmament in the world and to strengthen the United Nations as an instrument for peace-keeping.
The burden of my speech to-day is concerned with the Navy and its carrier force. I was never an officer in the Navy I was an A.B., and the only time I was on the quarter-deck was when I was tried for misdemeanour. I served in the submarines, I was trained in the C-boats, and I served on the H-boats and the L-boats. I was also in the Ml, which was then an experimental boat, and it had a 12-in. gun for'ard and went down off the coast of Portland Bill in 1921. During my time as an M.P.

1019
I went away on the A-boats, especially in the "Anchorite", to see the use of "snorts" and radar, and was also in a NATO exercise. In 1961 I was invited by the American Navy to go to sea in a nuclear submarine, the "Nautilus", and, therefore, I have been able to judge the new submarines against the old.
I say, quite frankly, that I consider that, in the context of a war in the future, the Government are taking the right lines in relation to the carrier force. If there should ever be a war in the future—and I hope we shall never have another one—the nuclear submarine will be supreme at sea, and surface ships will have a very difficult time against the submarine killer that we know today. It is rather significant that Russia, a great country, has no aircraft carriers at all, but it has many submarines and a large number of them are nuclear driven.
The basic issue is whether in the 1970s the Government need to start on a new generation of aircraft carriers to last till the year 2000. Of course, there are secondary issues, such as the timing of any transfer of responsibility, the need for one extra carrier for the interim period, and the new ships and weapons for the Navy of the future. The Defence Minister has made it quite clear that the issue was never one of a choice between the carrier and the F 111, and it has been after searching investigation that the Government have decided that some land-based tactical strike reconnaissance aircraft are needed for the protection of all three Services.
Since the end of the last war the British carrier force has remained that which was built or laid down by the end of the last war. Apart from the general contribution which it makes to the Navy as a presence, what has been the carriers' range of activity? In the Korean war the Royal Navy carriers operated as a part of the Far East Fleet, as a contribution to the total United Nations air strike forces. While aircraft undertook strikes against land targets, the ships themselves were at that time operating in an area where no maritime threat existed, particularly so far as submarines were concerned. In essence, this was a sensible use of the military forces at our disposal. It did
1020
not represent a task which could be carried out only by carrier-borne aircraft.
At Suez—and I hope we shall never have an operation like that again—the Royal Navy aircraft carriers played an effective part in the operation. In Kuwait in 1961 the carrier "Victorious" did not, and was not planned to, arrive till pine days after the operation began, and during that period air defence and strike forces were land-based. In East Africa in 1964 a carrier was employed, but not in a primary ôle. She mounted the helicopter assault forces in a Commando role. In Zambia it was a convenience to use the aircraft carrier as a naval presence, but once it became necessary to establish an air defence system on land we could not have done this job from a carrier.
It is the Commando ship (often wrongly called a "carrier") that is now, and will be increasingly in the years ahead, the type we need. In 1964 our Government discovered that we had inherited a position in which no new carriers had been laid down in the previous twenty years, and no action had been taken in any of their Defence Budgets by the critics on the Conservative Benches, either to reshape the Royal Navy or to provide for an effective renewal of any of the carrier forces.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would disagree with me that the first modern carrier, "Ark Royal", was finished in 1955; that the second. "Victorious", was completely rebuilt in 1958; that the third modern carrier, "Hermes", was completed in 1959; that "Eagle" was completely modernised in 1964; and that "Centaur" was completely refitted in 1961? These are the most modern carriers on the sea at the present time.
LORD BLYTON: I think the noble Earl had better look up his history again, because I went very closely into this. No carriers have been built since the end of the last war. Some may have been reconditioned, but never built. Although the CVA.01 had been announced, its keel was never laid. In the Tories' Election Manifesto they say that they will build one; but the fact remains that, although they promised one when they were in Government, it has never left the drawing board.

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In the circumstances in which we took office, the Government have had to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the aircraft carrier in the context of a wasting carrier force, our likely future commitments and the level of defence expenditure that we, as a nation, can sustain. The Defence Review has confirmed that the aircraft carrier is inherently a most expensive way of providing air power. With a three-carrier force, only one can be kept permanently in the Indian Ocean; and I am given to understand that the cost over the next ten years will be in the range of £1,400 million. The carrier will be increasingly vulnerable, as new weapons are developed and as more nuclear submarines are built. If the carrier's aircraft are used against land targets, they are limited by the range and the weapon-load; consequently, a great many more aircraft would be needed to equate with a land-based capability.
My Lords, all these disadvantages of operational capability and cost effectiveness might have to be accepted if it could be demonstrated that there was a likely, essential, long-term task which could he fulfilled by the carrier, even after allowing for the greatly increased performance of the forthcoming generation of land-based aircraft. In a large war with one of the great nations, these huge ships like carriers will be sitting ducks for nuclear submarines. These submarines—and I have been in them—travel at great speeds at great depths; they can turn in their own length under the sea; the men in them can live for weeks under the sea without having to surface; their speed under water is something like 25 knots; they manufacture, under the sea, their own oxygen; and, with their new weapons, these submarines will be killers, so far as carriers are concerned, in future wars. In the years ahead the Navy will have to face the fact that, in major wars, the submarine will he the most important part of our Royal Navy. It is not on huge ships such as carriers that we have to concentrate, but on getting a large nuclear submarine navy with many of the new weapons that are available to us to-day.
Paragraph 37 of the Defence White Paper defines the one military environment in which a carrier could, in the future, be essential. That is the landing
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of troops against a sophisticated opposition outside the range of land-based air cover. Even if we had the carriers, it is doubtful whether we should have the military capability to sustain such an operation. In any case, there is no political justification at all for planning on having the capability to undertake an operation of this type. If in the future we are going to be involved East of Suez in an operation against a sophisticated opposition, it will be done either under a treaty obligation or at the invitation of a friend or ally, and in both cases land-based facilities will be available to us or we shall be supported by other countries.
It is suggested by the admirals and those who love these great ships on the ocean that there is another essential rôle for the carrier, which is in the protection of our national merchant shipping routes. As an old A.B., I would say to the admirals and the captains that this is quite unrealistic. For example, at any one time there are 300 United Kingdom ships in the Indian Ocean. A small carrier force which could guarantee to provide only one carrier in this area could, by itself, do only a limited amount to protect this shipping. There would still be naval and land-based air forces available to discharge this task in the unlikely event that it could be identified and isolated from the mass of world maritime shipping in this area.
Therefore, I see no case at all for the reprovision of this most expensive ship; and I consider that the Government are absolutely right to make the best use of the equipment now at our disposal over the next few years, during which time they can both reshape our forces and adjust our commitments abroad. The Government have decided on the re-equipment of our existing carriers with a limited number of advanced aircraft, like the "Phantoms" and the "Buccaneers", which will give us a worthwhile supplement to our military strength pending the re-equipment of the R.A.F. with longer-range aircraft and the Royal Navy with new ships, submarines and new missile systems.
Now, however, in this context, the Conservatives are demanding another carrier. There has not been one for twenty years. Why did they not build

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one during their thirteen years of office, if they were so keen about this carrier force and if they thought it was so important to us? The facts are that we could not order a new carrier until now because the design studies which Mr. Thorneycroft authorised two years ago are only just completed. If we ordered it now we could not get it until 1973. Now the Party opposite are saying we must have it. Is it to be paid for by an import levy or by reducing deficiency payments to farmers and putting the cost on the housewife? Because it must be paid for.
Why are the Government attacked on this issue? This attack by the Tories in the context of the Election seems a little hypocritical to me. I saw many Ministers of Defence during my twenty years in the House of Commons; there was a new one nearly every year during the thirteen years the Conservatives were in power. This is what Mr. Duncan Sandys, the then Minister of Defence, said in the House of Commons on February 26, 1958, on the question of aircraft carriers:
" We have no aircraft carriers large enough to operate the long-range bombers which would be needed for an effective strike operation.We—
that is the Tory Government—
" really could not contemplate building more and bigger carriers which, with their aircraft, would cost over £100 million each."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 583, col. 388; 26/2/58.]
This statement was based on 1958 prices. Now the Tories are fighting for a carrier at 1966 prices, a carrier which is going to be of no use in future wars. I cannot understand the enthusiasm for a new carrier to-day, in view of what the Minister of Defence said in 1958. But perhaps it is to encourage the Naval towns to vote Tory in the next Election.
My Lords, in my final remarks I want to speak about the future of the Navy. I have a love for the Navy, having served in it as a boy. I joined the Navy when I was 16½ years old, having put down my age as 18, and went into submarines. The whole of my speech to-night is actuated by my desire to promote the best interests of the Navy and the best interests of the defence of my native land. I believe the future of the Navy lies in the gradual rundown of the Fleet Air Arm so as to
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make it possible to safeguard the future of those officers and ratings at present operating in fixed-wing naval aircraft. Some will see the end of their engagements; others will have to be offered alternative employment. It may shock officers of the Navy, but I see nothing wrong in this. The miners and railwaymen have had to face a similar situation because of the technological changes that have taken place in their industries. The Royal Navy will have to face these changes in the same way as my people are facing changes in the mines to-day.
I say that these changes should not cause any alarm in the Navy because it will still have a very important part to play in the future in the nation's defence. Royal Marine commando carriers and assault ships will still be available, with their helicopters, to assist the Army whenever required; the four Polaris submarines will take over from the Royal Air Force the responsibility of providing Britain's contribution to the Western nuclear deterrent; the Government intend to build up the force of nuclear-driven hunter-killer submarines; and antisubmarine helicopters will operate from the converted Tiger class cruisers and the ships that will succeed them. The Navy is to be equipped with short-range surface-to-surface missiles to give it a strike power against any enemy missile-firing craft. This, and the new Type 82 destroyer, equipped with surface-to-air and antisubmarine guided weapons, will enable the Navy to hold its own against any ships likely to be in service, and will combine with the shore-based aircraft of the R.A.F. to ensure protection for the Fleet against attack in the 1970s. The present force of carriers, as I have said, are all over twenty years old. In considering whether large expenditure should be undertaken to renew this force, we must examine whether the military case for the carrier will remain as strong in the future as it has been in the past. I do not believe that new aircraft carriers are essential in the long term for Britain's rôle in the world.
My Lords, I have tried to make clear that the Royal Navy will be properly equipped for the major rôle it now fulfils and which it will have to fulfil in the future. It is wrong to think that, because the decision on the carrier has been taken, the Navy is demoralised.

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There are many officers and men in the Navy who know that the day of the large carrier is gone. I know that there were admirals who fought for the Dreadnoughts and who will now fight for the carriers; they like these big ships for prestige reasons. But in this day of change, I know also those dedicated supporters of the carrier who have recognised (and told me so) that the carriers sooner or later would have to go. The carrier as a weapon has been with us for fifty years. The existing carrier force will remain operational for as long as possible, until its life end in 1975. Meanwhile I plead for a reshaping of the Navy in order to provide an effective maritime force, without carriers, in the future. It is because I think the Government are absolutely right on this issue that I shall support them in the Lobbies.
6.19 p.m.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords, I rise to support the Amendment moved by my noble Leader. I fully agree with the arguments he advanced, but, like the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, I think I found some things in these two White Papers to praise: their clarity of exposition and the fullness of the information given—although admittedly in some respects it might have been fuller. Reading between the lines, I think it is clear that some very useful measures of reorganisation have been effected. Moreover, it cannot he disputed that in the preparation of Estimates for the next financial year the Government must have regard to available income, as well as to expenditure and, where possible, relate departmental expenditure to the long-term plan of the economy.
Equally, the main features of our defence policy should be part of a long-term plan related to the best assumptions that can be made of political and technological developments. Indeed, if the basic assumptions on which this Review and the Estimates are framed had been sound, criticism could surely have been confined to points of detail. I am afraid, however, that I am far from convinced that the basic assumptions are sound, and consequently I should like for the main part to examine these assumptions and, secondarily, to refer to two points which, though of comparative detail, seem to me of particular importance.
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The statement at the beginning of the Review that
" Military strength is of little value if it is achieved at the expense of economic health "
has an impressive ring. As an aphorism it has been praised by many Press commentators, but to my mind it is a very dangerous half-truth. "Military strength in this context is surely a relative term. From the defence or negative point of view, we must be strong enough to discourage aggression. From the positive angle we must be strong enough militarily to fulfil our commitments and to protect our essential interests overseas. My Lords, "strong enough" surely does not mean as strong as we can afford to be if we do all the other things we should like to do, but rather that we should be as strong as we have to be to do the things that we ought to do.
It may well be that the major Powers of the world are now more alive than ever they were to the futility of a large-scale war; that they are more afraid, and rightly so, of the economic and social consequences, whatever the military outcome. Moreover, it is inevitable in the circumstances of to-day that Western civilisation should look to the United States as the principal provider of the insurance against a calculated large-scale attack with world domination as its objective. But even though in the area of potential world-scale aggression the outlook has become much less unsettled than it was, human nature being what it is, throughout the world there are, and so far as I can see there always will be, trouble spots where local conflict may easily assume menacing proportions if not quickly contained.
In Part II of the Review we are told:
"Defence must be the servant of foreign policy, not its master."
Again a fine-sounding phrase; but again, I think, a half-truth. For the clear inference from the Review is that, in part at least, our foreign policy is contained by what we can afford for defence after what are assumed to be prior charges are met. The Review says, as indeed is incontrovertible, that we must be ready to continue living in a world in which the United Nations has not yet assumed effective responsibility for keeping the peace and the arms race has not yet been halted. Our NATO obligations are clear, and there

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Is, I think, no argument about that. Out-side NATO, however, paragraphs 17 and 18 of the Review give good reasons for our continuing to do what, in paragraph 19, is blandly stated to be to some extent beyond our capabilities. This, my Lords, strikes at the very root of our political and economic existence as a. nation; and to my mind the danger of it is nowhere better illustrated than in our declared intention to abandon the Aden base.
We have heard a great deal about Aden this afternoon. I have done a. certain Amount of research into the subject, and I was prepared to talk at some length about it. I have listened with the closest attention to the very comprehensive statement made by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. I am quite satisfied that the Government believe that honour is satisfied, from their point of view, because they have tried—though they failed—to get together a conference of the Southern Arabian Confederation and the Adeni Government. My Lords, I am afraid that I do not find myself in agreement that there is the end of the matter so for as obligation is concerned.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, quoted Article 38. It is perfectly clear that the commitment there, the undertaking, was to convene a conference for the purposes of fixing a date for independence not later than 1968 and of concluding a defence agreement. That is the quotation which the noble Lord read, and one accepts that. I do not think that he himself specifically used the argument — though it has been used in another place—that the obligation to convene a conference and the obligation to conclude a defence agreement in this context are two quite different things. I can understand that point of view, but I find it very difficult to agree with it, and I am not prepared to accept (and I hope that this House will not be prepared to do so) that one attempt in March, 1965, and the setting up thereafter of a working party are the end of the matter, so far as our obligation is concerned.
There is one rather curious thing which I find very difficult to understand. If we tried, and genuinely tried, as I am sure we did, to get these people together and to have a conference, and then failed, why is it that the Government blandly state in the White paper that we are abandoning this base; and the words
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used apparently do not relate to this attempt to convene a conference. I quote from the Defence White Paper, and I am sure the noble Lord will recognise the quotation:
" South Arabia is due to become independent by 1968, and we do not think it appropriate that we should maintain defence facilities there after that happens. We therefore intend to withdraw our forces from the Aden base at that time, and we have so informed the Federal Government. We shall be able to fulfil our remaining obligations in the Middle East by making a small increase in our forces stationed in the persian Gulf."
That is a thousand miles away. My Lords, I find this very difficult to understand.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord will allow me to interrupt him for one moment. I quite agree with him that if we pulled out our own forces they would still be left with a defence problem, and this I have discussed with the Federal Supreme Council. I have put to them the point that if we attempt further to assist them with our forces we shall never be able to extricate ourselves. The answer which I suggested to them, And which I suggest to noble Lords, is that their own forces should be put into a posture which would enable them to maintain law and order on the frontier; and it is in the attempt to put their defence forces into a more balanced position that we consider our obligation now lies.
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords. I appreciate that, and I am sure the noble Lord will also appreciate that to have made this announcement at this time does seem to be issuing a rather warm invitation to Nasser and some of the others.
This question of the agreement has not been specifically referred to to-day, but I believe it is of interest, and perhaps I might be allowed to read a letter from the former High Commissioner in Aden, Mr Trevaskis. Which he wrote to The Times newspaper on, I think, February 28 He said this:
" When the Federal Government asked for independence they coupled it with a request for the conclusion of a defence agreement with Britain, knowing that, with 65,000 Egyptian troops standing on their borders, independence without defence would be a mockery "
"In 1964 when granting this request for independence, Mr. Duncan sandys, then Colonial Secretary, gave the Federal Government

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a solemn assurance that a defence agreement would be concluded to provide continuing British protection.
"To launch South Arabia into independence without assuring it of any adequate means of defence against external aggression would be an act of bad faith and cynical irresponsibility."
I hope that your Lordships will accept that as evidence that both here and in Aden, in the mind of the Colonial Secretary at the time and in the mind of our High Commissioner at Aden, the understanding was that we had given a solemn undertaking to maintain our base there after 1968.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, does the noble Lord really think that that assurance, in so far as it was an assurance—and I have read out the terms of the agreed report—would have been given had the Administration then decided that our own base was no longer necessary?
LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE: My Lords, I think that that is rather a hypothetical question, because I have not seen any evidence that the Administration there do not want us. I take it that the noble Lord was referring to the potential Administration of the new Republic, and not the Adeni Government that happen to be in power at any particular moment and have objected to this. If the people there do not want us, then consistently with the policy advocated in the White Paper, it would be difficult for us to maintain ourselves there; but I do not think that that condition has yet been fulfilled.
The other question that arises is whether this is a good thing. Assuming that we are not wanted out of Aden, is it a good thing that we should leave it? I think that if we do leave, it will be a considerable political and economic disaster. My noble Leader referred to the speech of the Prime Minister of June 17, 1964 I looked this up in the OFFICIAL REPORT and thought that he gave a very fair statement of the argument. He was speaking then, of course, as Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Wilson said:
" So far as one can see, we need Aden as an essential centre for peace-keeping operations in a wide area around it, and as the right honourable Member for Enfield, West (Mr. fain Macleod) said, it is an essential staging-post in our communications with the East, particularly India and also Malaysia, to whose support against external aggression we
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are as fully committed as are the Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 696, col. 1405.]
I will not labour this point, but I think that I am justified in saying that, unless we are prepared to think again on this crucial issue the damage to our political and economic interests will be very real. Is this an example of defence being a servant of foreign policy and not its master?
My second point of comparative detail, on which I shall speak briefly, relates to the Army and its Reserves. The Army has to carry a great part of the responsibility in meeting our Defence commitments, and in most cases it is the Army that has to meet the first impact of local disturbances and endeavour to contain them. According to Chapter IX, paragraph 19, of the White Paper the Army is only slightly below the authorised strength; yet it is common knowledge that the authorised strength is such that there is very little reserve from which to draw troops required to cope with unexpected local conflict.
There has been some suggestion that the Government have in mind to cut the authorised strength of 195,000 at April 1, 1966, to 165,000. The noble Earl who is to reply to this debate will be able to assure the House, I hone, that this suggestion is not well-founded. But even on the existing figure, which is just below 165,000, the Army clearly requires more reserves than can be provided by the Emergency Reserve and the Ever-Readies. The proposals relating to the Territorial Army and the Army Volunteer Reserve touch on this. There is a brief reference to these proposals in paragraph 19 of Chapter III of the Review, and the plans therein referred to, as announced by Mr. Reynolds in another place on February 2,meet some of the arguments that were raised against the original proposals, which involved simply the elimination of the Territorial Army as we know it. These original proposals are referred to in some detail in paragraphs 39 and 40 of the second White Paper (Cmd. 2902). I must here declare an interest, in that in World War I served in the Territorial Army.
Although the latest plans have yet to be fully examined and debated, I submit that it would not be right, in a general debate such as this, that their existence,

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indicating the Government's present intention, should be ignored. They would seem to me to involve the creation out of the existing Territorial Army of two quite separate forces—on the one hand, the Home Defence Force, nominally of 28.000 men, recruited and trained on a Territorial basis and, on the other hand, the Army Volunteer Reserve, of some 50,000 men. I was glad indeed to hear the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, speak on this subject and I agree in all that he said about the necessity for a very close link between those two branches, if the separation is made. May I also add my tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Barnard, whose maiden speech I heard with the greatest of pleasure?
The existing Territorial Army would obviously be initially the main source of recruitment for the A.V.R. I venture to suggest that, after the initial dichotomy, it is going to be very hard to maintain the A.V.R. at anything like its planned strength. There are two obvious difficulties, as I see it. The first is that while the obligation for attendance is to be the same as it was for the Territorial Army, the training is to be week-end training for the Reserve, and this is certainly in many cases a long way away from the place of work and not so convenient as existing arrangements for training with the Territorial Army. Secondly, the call-out liability for the A.V.R. is less clear than it was for the Territorial Army. The possible "occasions" have not been clearly defined, but it is only natural to conclude from the general argument which has been advanced for this force that, with our Regular Army overstretched, as it is, to meet existing commitments, the occasional localised trouble, of which recent experience has given plenty of examples, could involve quite frequent call-outs on the part of the Reserve, such call-outs lasting perhaps up to six months. This is a difficult obligation for most men in regular employment.
My personal opinion is that these two factors would be deterrents which would outweigh the attractions of the proposed call-out bounty, and that recruitment for the new A.V.R. would not be easy, I should imagine, from the experience of the existing Territorial Army, however sympathetic the attitude of employers might he. This is obviously not the time
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to argue this matter in detail, but I thought it right to mention these points to indicate that, much as one would welcome, in preference to the original proposals, the retention of something of the Territorial Army organisation, with its local and regimental associations, there are some aspects of the proposals, particularly as regards the A.V.R., which require very careful consideration.
In conclusion, I should like to revert to my main theme: the basic assumptions. The Defence Review as a whole illustrates convincingly to me that our resources of men and material are overstretched in relation to our commitments and essential needs. The disposition set out in these Estimates may be in general a reasonable way of allocating 6·6 per cent. of our gross national product to-day and 6 per cent. of what we expect our gross national product to be in 1969 –70. But what is the basis on which these percentages are fixed? Is the real meaning of the phrase "economic health" the things that people would like to afford and are told by the Government they can have? Are we really to regard improvements in our standard of living as a first priority, or is our standard of living to be what we can earn? Do we really believe that reliefs to mortgage holders are going to be paid for by a betting tax? Or is not the prospective revenue from the betting tax just as much required to meet the costs of the abolition of prescription charges and the higher drug bill, which together look like rising in this fiscal year by some £40 million or £50 million, or twice the cost estimated fifteen months ago? Or, if we are prepared to accept this strange idea of the revenue from one form of taxation being set against a particular item of expenditure, could not the revenue from the betting tax be used to help pay for the retention of our base in Aden, which I think costs £35 million a year?
I am in danger, however, of embarking on an argument about the national economy which was more appropriate to the debate in your Lordships' House three weeks ago. Therefore, I will not pursue that line to-day, except to make this final point. I believe—and I think my noble friend Lord Carrington said much the same thing—that there are many people in this country who would give the essential needs of defence first priority, and

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would be appalled to think that it could be regarded as a kind of residuary legatee. Some remember all too vividly our unpreparedness in the past. And there are others among the younger generation who, through their own military service or the experience of their friends, have some understanding of the issues at stake. If, my Lords, it could be shown, as I believe it could, that our military strength in men and material is being allowed to drop below the minimum at which it ought to stand, and all because an arbitrary limit of £2,000 million had been set as being all we could afford for defence, mid if another 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. on that bill were going to make, as it well might, a really significant difference, then I believe that there are many who would be prepared to forgo for a time some of the prospective additional benefits now being dangled before their eyes. As I see it, my Lords, in their own long-term interests, as well as in the immediate interests of the country, they would be well advised to do so.
6.43 p.m.
LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, is not in his place, because, like him, and like some other noble Lords, I went to sea at the age of 16, I spent a great deal of my time in submarines, and I was in trouble on the quarterdeck. I am only sorry that I did not meet the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, there. Perhaps we can put that right in the future, though not, I hope, on the quarterdeck.
I will not detain your Lordships for long this evening, as your Lordships will be familiar with the arguments for and against the salient points in the Statement. They have been set out in the White Paper itself; they have been well covered by the Press, and they have been argued in your Lordships' House this afternoon. I want to comment on only two points, both of which, in my view, threaten the Navy's future; and in so commenting, I should like your Lordships to know that I spent a great deal of my Service life working with the Royal Air Force. I was in Britain's first aircraft carrier, where, of course, all our flying was done by the Royal Air Force. I served at Bomber Command Headquarters at the beginning of the war, and for two years during the war I worked closely with Coastal Command. So I think, with all
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modesty, I can claim to know and appreciate the vital and substantial rôle played by the R.A.F. in assisting the Navy to keep control of our sea communications. I may be biased towards the Navy, but certainly not at the expense of the R.A.F.
In passing, may I say how much I agree with the suggestion I have heard recently that the title of Coastal Command might be changed to Maritime Air Command? This sounds to me to be much more descriptive. Having said that, I would add that it came as a disturbing and unpleasant shock to read of the decision to cut the carrier programme—the ships and aircraft that have been the teeth of the Navy for a generation. This is more particularly so as it was only about four months ago, if I remember rightly, that we were given to understand that we might get two more new carriers. Over the years we have cut our naval forces out of all recognition. Battleships have gone—there were 40 of them in my early days; cruisers have virtually gone; the bases at Burmuda, Malta, Trincomalee and Hong Kong have gone; the Grand Harbour at Malta is empty. Now the carriers are on their way out, and Aden is to go. As a consequence, we shall shortly be left with a Fleet consisting of destroyers, frigates, submarines and an incomplete amphibious force. The main armament of these destroyers, frigates and submarines gives them an antisubmarine capability, and not very much more; and, improvement though this is, it is not enough. The Fleet, as has been pointed out already, cannot, for instance, do without strike aircraft for amphibious operations in the more remote areas. And even within F 111 range, support may be 1,000 miles away—a disturbing thought for the soldier in the jungle who may be pinned down until that support arrives.
Surely it is not very realistic to suggest that allies will always be able and willing to provide just what carrier help we need at the precise moment that we need to have it. Before long we are going to be left without the flexibility and versatility of the carrier-borne aircraft, and we shall be dependent on airfields that experience has shown we may have to give up for political reasons. The White Paper says that in 1973 our remaining commitments will not require the new CVA 01 carrier. As my noble friend Lord Carrington has said, how can we say that in seven years'

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time we shall not need that carrier, that mobile airfield that we could move at short notice to any position on the oceans of the world?
Of course, there are limits to what we can afford, and it is vital that we should get our priorities right. I imagine that nobody would argue if one put the safety of these islands as top priority; and this, from the maritime angle, means the safety of our lifeline across the Atlantic. With this we must surely couple the safety for our seaborne oil supplies from the Persian Gulf. If either of these were interrupted, we should in a very short time be at the mercy of an enemy. We still have one of the biggest merchant fleets in the world, and it still has to be protected if we are to survive. These two lifelines, then, are my top priority, and our insurance premium must, I believe, cover this risk.
In order to protect those lifelines I should have thought that we should want large numbers of anti-submarine vessels, backed by the helicopters of the converted "Tiger" class; and we should want aircraft that can operate anywhere on those lifelines, no matter what airfields may be denied us. And we should also want the bases at Singapore, Simonstown and Aden. I may be told that I am arguing on a basis of conditions that existed in the last war, and that we are never again going to fight on those lines. It may be that we shall not, but all I would say is this: Why has Russia built her vast submarine fleet, and why is she now adding to it? And why have we, quite rightly in my view, built a number of highly complex and successful destroyers and frigates? And why are we now embarking on a programme of expensive nuclear submarines, one of whose primary roles is anti-submarine? Surely, it is because we believe that we may have to deal with those Russian submarines.
From the air point of view, if the F 111 can cover these lifelines, well and good. But if we are to have no carriers, shore-based aircraft must be there to deal with Russia's powerful fleet of cruisers. We should perhaps be unlucky if these got loose in the Indian Ocean, but it is certainly a possibility that they may break out into the Atlantic. Whatever way you look at it, it seems to me that those
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50 F 111 aircraft have an awful lot of sea to cover, more particularly when you remember that they will not all be serviceable at the same time. I suppose the Government could send the "Dreadnought" and her sister ships after them, but for a long time to come we shall have very few of these, and, in any case, these really splendid submarines have not, so far as I know, any weapon more effective or alarming than the old torpedo.
And while I am talking about carriers, do not let us forget their peace-time role, for, after all, we still, thank goodness!, spend more of our time at peace than at war. The quick and effective dealing with brush fire situations, and those minor incidents where the presence of one of Her Majesty's larger warships can so effectively resolve an explosive situation; the landing of the ship's band to play in the village square and of the ship's football team to play the local side, has more than once solved our problems with a minimum of disturbance and expense. The F 111 may be a fine aircraft, but it is not suited to that sort of role; nor, for that matter, is the submarine. Do not let us forget, either, that once we give up our carriers they are gone for a generation or, much more likely, for ever. The design teams will be dispersed, the Fleet Air Arm will lose the art of taking off and landing at night and in foul weather, and the Navy as a whole is bound to lose much of its enthusiasm and appeal, with a resultant fall in re-engagement figures.
Let us remember what our carriers have done in the past, what they and, indeed, the whole Navy may have to do in the future, and let us retain the invaluable ability to send a self-contained force any-where on the oceans of the world at any time without, perhaps, having to borrow a carrier or two from France, Holland or the United States. If we cannot afford four carriers, then I suggest we should somehow make ourselves afford two, simply to keep the art alive. Two will not, of course, suffice for war-time requirements, but they will be something and they may in the meantime save more peace-time brush fires. It seems to me that we are once more in grave danger of running down the Fleet so far in peacetime that if and when war comes it cannot possibly fulfil our minimum requirements. There is nothing new about this,

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of course. We have done it time and time again; but cannot we ever learn this lesson, and call a halt to the rundown before it is too late?
To end, may I turn for a moment to the important matter of personnel?—and I am referring in the main to naval personnel. Paragraph 29, on page 72 of the White Paper, gives some highly significant and disturbing information. It makes it horribly clear that the re-engagement rate of naval personnel is far below requirements and that the position is still deteriorating. We are told, quite rightly I am sure, that the two main causes of this are probably the overstretch of our forces and the long periods of separation from families. We are also told of some immediate steps that are being taken in an endeavour to improve the position. I feel sure that something drastic will have to be done if we are not to reach the position where we have ships that can no longer be manned. Though pay is, of course, one of the ways of attracting people, I do not believe it is the answer in this instance. By and large, the present rates of pay are good and reasonable. What we have to do is to ease the strain and keep the families together. At present there is no doubt whatever that the Navy is over-stretched. In war time, we all accept long and continuous periods at sea, long hours in harbour on maintenance work, and so on; but it is peace time now, and the sailor rightly looks forward to reasonable periods in harbour and reasonable time off to get ashore. On the whole, he often does not get it.
At present the hulk of the ships of the Fleet are on what is called General Service Commission, which means, in effect, that the ships do not do more than a year abroad at a stretch, and they then return home for some months. During the period abroad no provision is made for families to join them. lf, by chance, anyone can afford to get his family out, there are no married quarters, no medical services, no overseas allowances and, indeed, no facilities whatever; and the sailor very naturally dislikes this, gets fed up, and wants to leave.
How are we to remedy this? I see in paragraph 19, on page 7 of the White Paper, there are set out some general limitations that it is now intended to put on our requirements outside Europe.
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First, we are not to undertake major operations except in co-operation with allies. Surely, this has been our policy for years. Is it not for this reason that we are members of NATO, CENTO and SEATO? And are not the Malaysians our allies in the confrontation with Indonesia? Secondly, we are not to provide military assistance to a country unless it provides us with the facilities we need to make such assistance effective in time. What is there new in this? Surely, the Government would hardly enter into new commitments unless our intervention was likely to be effective. Finally, we are not to maintain defence facilities in any independent country against its wishes. Surely we have learned this lesson long ago, and experience has shown that there is in fact no other sensible course. I am left with the feeling that, though the general limitations may stop our commitments from increasing, they will not have any marked effect in reducing them.
By way of further reducing commitments, the White Paper also indicates that we are to give up Aden and leave Guinea and Libya before long, and that we are to reduce numbers in Cyprus and Malta. From the naval point of view, these all sound very small deductions, and will save the Fleet an insignificant amount of work and foreign service, I should myself have thought that we should have to find some more substantial saving, perhaps by reducing in the Far East. If this could be done, it would, incidentally, save some of the large fuel bill that is now incurred in getting ships home 8,000 miles before their year abroad on General Service Commission expires. As for the family side of this important business, could not this be solved—and solved it has to be, somehow—by putting ships on local foreign service instead of on General Service Commission? This would, in effect, mean paying for families to join their husbands abroad, providing them with married quarters, medical supplies, overseas allowances, and so on. It would, in fact, put them more on a footing with the Army and the R.A.F., and it would mean that they could, and would, stay happily abroad for two or three years on end and, incidentally, save more of the big fuel bill incurred in getting ships home annually to give the crews their spell at home. This will all cost money but I can see no alternative if

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we are to keep our small Fleet properly manned and the Navy an efficient and contented Service.
7.1 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF ABERDEEN AND TEMAIR: My Lords, in case there may be some confusion owing to the change in the order of speakers, I must explain that my noble friend Lord Balerno very kindly arranged to change places with me in the list of speakers. I hope he will not think it too personal if I just remark that, during the First War, he was for a time the junior subaltern of the battalion which I commanded, and in the Second War he commanded that battalion.
I venture to address your Lordships because what little experience I have I gained because I was first a member of a volunteer battalion, many years ago, and then when the 1914–18 War came I was able to join what was called "the new armies", and at the end of it, as I explained, I was in command of a battalion. The point on which I take so much pride, and which I think is of importance, is that I was in the same regiment the whole time.
I feel that the White Paper which was published in December (Cmnd. 285) was, in a way, a prelude to the Papers that we are debating to-day. The first paragraph in that White Paper started with a tribute to the performance of the Territorial Army, and then the second paragraph begins:
" Tradition has played a large part in the history of our Armed Forces and is a valuable asset, but we must not allow ourselves to be fettered by it."
I should have preferred that last sentence to read:
" But we must see that nothing is done to diminish or discourage it."
When most of the British Army's regiments were formed during the eighteenth century (I think that statement is fairly accurate), I believe they were named after the counties in which they were formed as their recruiting area, and history and traditions are based on those names and their achievements through the years in different wars. In Scotland, and particularly in the Highlands, the names given were not the counties, but the names of the clans in the recruiting area for each of those regiments. The result was that they inherited the loyalty
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and assurance of those clans in action, and that was immediately adopted by the regiments without any difficulty at all, and has continued to this day.
I should like to give some examples. Before each war the Army has always been looked upon as something quite inefficient which could not possibly do anything at all. Before the Battle of Waterloo the Army was referred to as "infamous". But what happened? It was a pretty tight run affair, as we know. The Guards held Huogomont, because they never give way, and they made possible a little later on the famous charge by the Scots Greys with the Gordon Highlanders hanging on to their stirrups and their pipes playing. A hundred and fifty years afterwards, last year, there was a celebration on the field of battle; and I am sure the noble Earl the Leader of the House would agree with me, if he were here, that as representatives of each regiment which took part in the battle marched on to the field, with their colours, one could feel that pride of regiment and strength of morale.
That was a long time ago and some people may say, "Well, it is atavistic balderdash". Then let us go forward a hundred years and three months from the time of the Battle of Waterloo. At the Battle of Loos we had Highlanders. We had a Scottish division, part of the "New Army" as it was called, dubbed "Regulars", and there was a division composed of men who, less than a year before, had been civilians; they had never had anything to do with the Army. At the beginning, of course, there was great impatience because we were afraid the war would be over before we could get out there. There they were in their trenches, as a defence point, and at the moment of attack they moved forward in perfect order, with perfect discipline, again with the pipes playing, and they completely overwhelmed the fully-trained conscripts with whom they were dealing, in spite of losses, on the same scale as at Waterloo. That sort of thing went on throughout the war, but that was a not-able example of achievement through morale and pride of regiment, because each of those regiments felt themselves to be part of the original regiment, in just the same way as the Territorials still feel themselves to be.

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In my opinion—and I think we all agree with this—it is very important that our allies should realise that this spirit exists. Indeed they have taken pride in it and they have been impressed. Later on in that war that same division was in action alongside a French division, and after the battle was over the French division was so impressed that they at once put up a stone monument on the spot where the furthest forward Highlander had fallen, and they put an inscription on that which really testified to their admiration. It should be kept perpetually before our allies what that spirit means. There is a town in Belgium which our Highland Battalian relieved, in 1918, at the time of the Armistice. We stayed there for some time, and the town came to admire the spirit of the Highlanders and they have kept in touch with us ever since. This summer they are going to have a ceremony in memory of what happened, and there will be an exchange of Colours.
What a terrible shock it would be to them if they were told that that Territorial battalion was reduced or diminished or even ceased to exist! The noble and gallant Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, in a recent speech here reminded us that all our wars have been fought in other peoples' countries; and it is so, of course. But on each occasion from Napoleonic times measures have been taken for the defence of this country, and so it must always be. During the last war we had such bodies as the Home Guard; but what every one felt was that they were really part of defence.
As I understand it, the proposal now is that the arrangements for defence should be carried out by little sections of people who are not part of any regiment. I hope many of your Lordships have seen the letters in The Times signed by several of us who have a very special interest in the Highlands as a home of which we are proud, and there in the Highlands there is the highest rate of recruiting per head of population anywhere. They are full of enthusiasm and they feel part of these regiments, whether it is as Volunteers, Territorials or part of the main regiment. We had last year a celebration, again a 50th Anniversary, of the Battle of Loos, and that spirit was still alive and will continue to be so. We
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feel, many of us, that the present proposals for Highland defence are quite inadequate. It is, many people think, a spot where invasion might be attempted. I may be wrong in this, but so far as I can make out it means reducing the Territorial battalions to a few small companies scattered about, without any drill halls and without a local population feeling that they are all part of it. Of course everything must be done to make the defence of this country adequate if we should ever be invaded. It is here that the need is greatest. But it must be borne in mind that, whatever defence arrangements are made, the end must be victory as usual.
7.13 p.m.
THE EARL OF COURTOWN: My Lords, I intend to confine my remarks to-night to the Reserve Army. We had a debate on this subject in the House last November, and since then we have had the Government Statement of February 2 on the establishment of a Home Defence Force, which is referred to in the Defence Review. We know now that discussions are going on, but although there have been some leaks, whether deliberate or otherwise, to certain newspapers, we do not know much beyond that. I found myself very much in agreement with what the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, said earlier in this debate. The Government announcement on February 2 met some of our doubts regarding the success of the future Reserve Force, but not all of them by any means, and I want to concentrate to-night just on two, but important, points.
The first is the need for flexibility in the design of the Reserve Army. It has been mentioned several times in this debate how one does not know what the situation is going to be in a few years' time. In the November debate the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, said that he had learned in his long military life that only one thing is certain in war and that is that everything is uncertain. Therefore, clearly we do not know what the situation is going to be in five years' time, or what the requirements are going to be in five years' time; still less do we know what the situation is going to be in ten years' time. I think everybody agrees that the present Reserve Forces require some change, but

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the impression has been given by many people, not, I may say, to-day in this debate, that the Territorial Army, which was formed in 1908, has gone on ever since more or less without change. That is not at all correct. I have been mixed up with it for a great many years now—more years than I like to remember. One thing that comes home to one is that every five years the Territorial Army has been reorganised. This has certainly happened since the last war and it also happened before the war. The danger is that those reshaping the Reserve Forces think that they are reshaping them for all time, and do not realise that within five years they will have to be reshaped again.
The Government have based their plans in the light of their present view that a general emergency would involve the threat of nuclear war and nothing else. Yet in the Defence Review it is stated:
" NATO's experience over the last decade suggests that the danger of deliberate war in Europe at any level is small as long as the potential aggressor believes that this is likely to lead to a nuclear response."
Later it goes on to say that:
" In recent years the threat to peace has been far greater outside Europe than within it."
There are differences of opinion, clearly, about what form future emergencies may take and what the threats may be, but I think one thing is certain, and that is that we do not know what the main threat will be in five or ten years' time.
Although I agree that the Territorial Army requires change and that it is not in line with present needs, yet it has shown great flexibility in the past. It has dealt with entirely Volunteer arrangements and it has dealt with National Service; many units have changed their rôles, and although they might not have liked it at the time they have got down to work well in the new rôle given to them. Surely, therefore, our main objectives in reshaping the Reserve Forces must be first to shape them to meet the requirements of the time, and that is what the Government is trying to do, but, secondly—and this is just as important—to ensure that they can be reshaped again in five years' time to meet the changed requirements which will undoubtedly arise then.
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This is one of my main objections to the Government's original plan as first announced. It was destroying the basis on which any future reorganisation could be carried out. In other words, it was destroying the flexibility which is given at present by the basis on which it is spread nation wide and can be developed to meet widely changing requirements. We do not know what the Government's revised plan is yet, or whether this flexible basis is going to be maintained. We have had the announcement about the Home Defence Force, but it is vital that there should be a close link between this Force and the Army Volunteer Reserve if this requirement of flexibility, and I may say many other requirements, are going to be met.
The second point I wish to make is with regard to recruiting, as the whole design for the Reserve Force will be meaningless if we cannot recruit the men to fill it. My experience with the Army Reserves is almost entirely in London, and what I say about this is, I believe, true of London; the extent to which it is true of other parts of the country I do not know, but I strongly suspect they are very similar. Those who join the Territorial Army join because they have a strong military bent, but rather a different type of bent from those who join the Regular Army as a full-time profession. But quite a number find that they like it. When they join the Territorial Army they like the Army life, and they transfer and become Regular soldiers.
This military bent in the case of the Territorial soldier can be broken down into three parts: first, a general liking for adventure; second, a feeling that he is doing a worthwhile and stimulating job for the benefit of the country as a whole and, third, a desire for a sense of comradeship and a feeling of belonging to a unit or group with standards of efficiency, tradition and comradeship. I would say that few join for what can be got out of it from a material point of view. If they want to make money they can, at any rate in London, get part-time evening jobs without any difficulty at all, in which they earn far more and get far more material income than is to be had from the Territorial Army.
I am not decrying the idea of the bounty, because I think it is not unimportant, especially when various pressures are brought on a man to leave—pressures

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from home or from his girl friend, or from some other influences. The amount of time a man can give to the Reserve Forces and the call-up obligations which he can accept varies from time to time. A young man may join the Territorial Army and at that time may have no other obligation. He may be extremely keen. Then comes the pressure from his employer, or his feeling towards his own career that he must take up some form of part-time education. He then carries on with his training in the Territorial Army, but at times before examinations he has to work hard every evening, and he finds that he cannot spend his time on the Territorial Army. Also, he starts to get interested in girls and gets married, and then there may be other influences. It is therefore possible that the pressure from his employer and of his future career affect the amount of time which he can spend on the Territorial Army.
A young man who is working hard to make a career may find it difficult to accept the Ever-Ready type of commitment in which he can he called up for six months at a time. I think the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, referred to this, and I think it is a problem which all employers will have to deal with in relation to what encouragement they are going to give to people who can be called up at short notice in that way. Employers accept the idea that if there is a major emergency a lot of their young men will go; but this type of Ever-Ready commitment brings new problems. If, therefore, we are going to maintain the Ever-Readies, or any other force which is going to be called up and be able to be dovetailed in the Regular units at short notice, we must have a wide basis for recruitment. Only a small proportion of those who accept the Reserve commitment can take on the additional Ever-Ready obligation; and if we are to get the numbers we require they must be spread over the country as a whole. As I read the first. White Paper on the Reserve Force, it seemed to me that we were going to have far fewer Territorial Army centres, and yet we were going to require more men undertaking the Ever-Ready type of commitment. I think we are going to have great difficulty in getting them.
Then there must be an atmosphere in which people can switch from one type
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of commitment to another. I have illustrated already how a young man's commitments change as time goes on, and I feel we want a situation in which he can join, say, a Home Defence Force (or whatever that part of the Reserve Forces is going to be called), and after he has reached a certain standard of training, he can transfer to a force with more urgent commitments; and then, when he gets married and possibly has children, he need not be lost altogether but can transfer back again to the Home Defence part of his unit, or, it may be, a different unit allied to it, and carry on and do excellent service there.
I mentioned the sense of adventure as one of the factors which encourage recruitment. The White Paper on the Reorganisation of the Army Reserve envisaged that most of the reduction in strength of the Territorial Army was to be in the combatant arms. Nineteen out of twenty regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps were to be disbanded, as well as 41 out of 45 of the Royal Artillery, and in the Infantry 86 battalions were to be reduced to 12. There is to be more emphasis on the logistic units. This, I think, will cause a problem in recruitment, because the sense of adventure which takes a person into the Territorial Army does not easily lead him to join one of the less glamorous types of unit.
Play has been made with the argument that the Army Emergency Reserve is proportionately as well recruited as the Territorial Army, and that consists largely of logistic units; but it consists, in the main, of people who do the same sort of work in civilian life as they would do in the Army, and therefore this is quite a different matter from recruiting people for, say, laundry companies or general hospitals.
I referred in the debate in November to the fact that when in the mid-fifties we tried to recruit a number of mobile Defence Corps battalions, Army Emergency Reserve, it was a failure. I think the main reason why the Army Emergency Reserve recruits well is due to the particular trades which it recruits. I would urge, too, that there should not be cheeseparing in relation to bands. Apart from their usefulness in advertising and therefore in recruitment, a military

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band is, I think, an invaluable means of forging a link between the Army, whether Regular or Reserve, and the general public. With so few people in uniform nowadays, this is perhaps the only contact that the general public has with the Army. It is the only way by which it recognises the Army. However, it emerges that if we are to get the right men into the Reserve Army there must be ability to interchange between the Army Reserve proper and the Home Defence force. This must be closely linked together with a basic training which is similar for both types of force.
Finally, it is most important that the Government should come out with a clear policy for the Reserve Forces and one which takes due account of all the factors involved, both short and long term. It would be easy to make play with the changes in thinking which seem to have taken place in the Ministry of Defence, but I find it heartening that people will change their minds, and will admit that they are changing their minds. Above all, the Reserve Forces do not want to become a political issue. In many years of involvement with the Territorial Army, I never remember a Party political argument or debate taking place in any headquarters. In fact, one did not know what were the politics of the people with whom one was serving. Enormous harm has been done to the Territorial Army by the uncertainty and argument over the last few months, and this is reflected in the falling off in numbers. The Government now have to make up their mind, not only on what I hope will, and must, be a workable solution, but then also on embarking on a major campaign to give the reorganised Reserve Forces a clear object in life and one which will fit in with the short and long term requirements of the country.
7.29 p.m.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, in the narrow frame in which this Motion and the Amendments are set, I prefer the Motion and will support it. But I confess to a profound sense of unreality about a great deal of what has been said to-day, and it may be that there are others in your Lordships' House who share this sense of unreality. I am quite sure that, whatever may be our reactions to many of
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the phrases uttered and the sentiments expressed, if these phrases are widely canvassed and ventilated outside your Lordships' House an even greater sense of unreality may well be occasioned.
I have jotted down many of the statements which have been made, more or less dogmatically. One was that the noble and gallant Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, is reported to have said that we have fought all our wars on other people's territories. If there are any Cavaliers and Roundheads who are still in their graves, I feel sure that they will rebut that charge. And I know many splendid people in the Church where I work who feel very strongly that the last war was definitely fought in their own territory in the blitz, and caused the destruction of their own houses. That statement is, of course, sheer nonsense. When, for instance, it is said as an accusation against the Government that their intention is all butter and very few guns, what in the name of God is wrong with that? That would seem to me to be a thoroughly admirable intention for any Government which invites the people of any country to support it.
What is the average man likely to think when we seem to be so concerned about the preservation in 1975 of an aircraft carrier, and a further provision that such aircraft carriers will still be viable in the year 2000? Is he not likely to say that anybody who engages in this kind of debate would be better served in devoting his time to trying to bring about the time when there will be no need for any aircraft carriers in 1975, let alone the year 2000? And might he not well think that, if we are in possession of these weapons for very much longer, according to my noble friend Lord Snow the probability of their accidental use, with catastrophic results, is almost as great as the possibility of their intentional use? One could go on with this list, but on the whole I can better employ the short time during which I seek to delay your Lordships with one other reference—the fact that this debate is concerned with the possibility that in the future we shall have to deal with Russian submarines. I do not think one could convince anybody outside this House that, if we had to deal with Russian submarines, or had to deal with Russia, there would be any eventuality from such an excursion into madness but the total destruction, not only

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of our life in these islands but very largely of the life that goes on in the world as we know it to-day.
I believe that this sense of unreality springs from an ignorance of or a refusal to face the underlying principles that should have characterised this debate. If it is true that we are "bunker-minded" —and this is certainly true of a great deal that has been said in the House this afternoon—it is because we have ignored two fundamental questions. One question that has been totally ignored is the moral appropriateness, if one is considering defence, of the use of mass violence at all. The other very considerable question, to which the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, adverted most competently (and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord King-Hall, will be dealing with it as well), is whether or not it is a practical policy to consider defence in terms of mass violence, considering the conditions under which that kind of defence will have to be carried out. I will speak to these propositions briefly.
I make no secret of it, and I make no apology, particularly in a country which is officially Christian, for the fact that I am a pacifist. I shall not argue the pacifist case, but I should be untrue to myself if I did not witness to it or testify to it, and I propose to do just that. I have no right to expect from the Episcopal Bench a chorus of "Hallelujahs" as I make this point, but I might perhaps wish for an occasional "Amen", which has not been forthcoming—not for the reason that it is the only conception that can be given to the New Testament to take the pacifist position, but to remind myself (and I would have been happy to remind my Episcopal brethren) that none other than the immortal Dr. Temple said that the pacifist position is a reasonable one and an inference from the gospel which is justifiable. I believe it to be true. I believe the whole apparatus of violence to be morally wrong. I am further convinced that if we could personalise the issues with which we are dealing we should see in much greater clarity that they are totally wrong.
May I invite your Lordships to do a simple exercise? What is the difference between putting a baby on the fire and putting the fire on the baby? Surely the answer is, the anonymity of 25,000 feet. If an airman were compelled to see the
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effect of his napalm bomb on a child, I do not believe that he would, for any cause, throw that child upon the fire or put fire upon that child. Ecclesiastically and morally, I believe that in many cases, and particularly in the case of modern war or modern defence, the cure is invariably morally worse than the disease itself. All the more so, when we have heard nothing in this debate whatsoever, except in the most general terms and in occasional references to Russia, of the possible or certain enemy to which we have to look with fear, and for which we have to prepare with violence.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? Are we to assume from his remarks that if this country were attacked, not necessarily by Russia, but by any totalitarian aggressor, the line he would prefer would be just to allow them to come in, shake them all by the hand, and allow them to take over the government of this country?
LORD SOPER: That is altogether too simple and facetious an alternative. I could answer that if the Russians marched up Kingsway we would invite them into the Kingsway Hall and give them Methodist tea, which has a greatly cathartic effect. But that is a trivial answer to a fundamental question. I will seek to answer it fundamentally: yes, I believe, as a practising Christian, particularly as each year I come nearer to Good Friday, that whatever the consequences it would be morally wrong for me to seek to withstand by such means even a Russian invasion. I would therefore seek, by the Grace of God, not to do it myself, and to invite others not to do it as well.
I well realise that there are profound dangers in such a statement. I only ask your Lordships to accept my own sincerity in saying it. I have looked at the question not only emotionally and from the point of theology, but also from the point of view of practical affairs to which I will make further reference later. I would add here one word which may be of interest. It is not necessarily true that a Communist invasion would destroy the liberty of those who preferred pacifically to resist it rather than to resist it by force of arms. The example in 1956 of the insurrection, whatever

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may be the methods by which it was conducted, of Hungarian boys who had no other experience but that of a Communist dictatorship is a marvellous tribute to the eternal qualities of freedom which are not extirpated even by the most violent of totalitarian régimes.
May I now return to the testimony? As this is official by a Christian country, it is relevant to a debate on defence that the pacifist position should at least be declared. But I believe that what is morally wrong—and I believe that war, under any conditions, is morally wrong—can never be politically right. I know that politics is the art of the possible and that compromise is inevitable and that is a much neglected part of Christian thinking. But if the idea is prevalent that by the use of the weapons we have—aircraft carriers or no—we could prevent the invasion by the Chinese of any place East of Suez, then we are, it seems to me, talking in Cloud Cuckoo-land. I much prefer the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, to which I listened with great interest, that diplomacy, rather than violence, is the only viable instrument Whereby these controversial and dangerous matters should be resolved.
Furthermore, I would present to your Lordships what seems to me to be an incontrovertible case: that the true answer to those people who now opt for Communism is that if you and I were in the similar economic condition in which they find themselves, East of Suez or South of Suez, we, too, should opt for Communism. Therefore, instead of putting our meagre resources into this violent expenditure on weapons which will become out of date before they are obsolete, how much better would be the plan of applying ourselves to a wholesale attempt to feed, clothe and nourish those whose only reason for turning to the violence and totalitarianism of Communism is that in many respects they have no option otherwise!
Finally, if we are considering nuclear war, I would respectfully suggest to your Lordships that we are talking in an asylum rather than in any respectable and reasonable place. The sheer concept of what nuclear war means is beclouded by words like "second-strike retaliatory action", "massive riposte" or "con-
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ditioned riposte". Sooner or later, we become bemused by these words, and fail to see that the only option we have is to prevent a nuclear war starting; because if it did start, there would be no calculable end to it, except, as I see it, a large-scale destruction of life as we know it.
I want to refer, therefore, to the one argument advanced for the nuclear deterrent—that it deters. My Lords, I do not believe for one moment that it does, and we have the classic example of what happened in Cuba; for the salient fact about Cuba is that Mr. Kennedy was not deterred. This is a chilling fact, and one that I can never escape when I am invited to believe that no country would embark upon nuclear war, because of the absolute deterrent, and because of the knowledge that if it did so embark it would involve itself in indescribable destruction. Mr. Kennedy was within half-an-hour of taking that risk. It so happened that Mr. Khrushchev was not.
If I had to believe that this world was a game of poker, then I should have to remove this collar and would take no further part in any responsible debate. But I do not believe that. I believe that it is basically a reasonable world. Therefore, in paying my tribute to the faith which I hold, I believe that this Defence debate should begin with the recognition that those who take the sword can perish by it, and should end with the declaration that if we were prepared—and this country is peculiarly suited to make this adventure—totally to disarm, we should then possibly lead the world into those very avenues and pathways of peace to which we all look and for which we all hope.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I have listened with great fascination, as I always do, to the noble Lord, Lord Soper. I wonder whether he can explain to me, in one sentence, why he is voting for the Government and not with Lord Gladwyn.
LORD SOPER: Because, on balance, I believe that the Government's position is the right one.
LORD CARRINGTON: You did not say so.
LORD SOPER: I said so at the beginning of what I had to say.
LORD CARRINGTON: Not in your speech.
LORD SOPER: I thought I said it right at the beginning. There is a conflict here. Perhaps I was inaudible at that point. Let me say it now at the end of my speech. I believe that a small crumb is better than no bread, and though I regard this as not even half a loaf, I prefer the Government's position to those which are alternative to it.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, perhaps I might say that I hope the noble Lord will not vote for the Liberal Amendment on pacifist grounds, because the Liberal Amendment does not, of course, contemplate complete pacifism.
7.44 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, I am now following the noble and reverend Lord, and I have to descend, I am afraid, to a lower level, but I promise not to mention the word "Russia". I should like to remind the noble Lord, however, of one point. There are quite a number of us who, having gone through a war as I have and been a prisoner, probably dislike war just as much as he does.
I, like the last few speakers, confine my points to the Reserve Army, and I can assure your Lordships that I shall be very brief as I do not intend to repeat what I said during the last debate in your Lordships' House on this very vital issue, especially as since then the Government have been wise enough to retreat from the position of ultimate folly to which certain of their advisers had pushed them. I refer, of course, to the original intention to abolish the Territorial Army and with it all pretence of any viable home security. For these wiser counsels we are grateful to many in your Lordships' House, but a large measure of gratitude must go to a significant section of the informed public, not by any means confined to the supporters of any one political Party. That is more than can be said for some people in the other place. We speak in almost complete ignorance as to the distribution and other important details of the T.A. defence arm, and I hope that Her Majesty's Government will consider carefully the many points, and very valuable points, that have been raised in this debate.
I intend to confine my points to two only. I hope that the Minister does not
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overlook the horrible possibility of a limited nuclear attack carried out on certain strategic targets, with a follow-up by airborne troops into uncontaminated areas where they could build up with the object of taking over all or part of the country. Surely, unless we are dealing with a maniac or someone who has made a horrible mistake, an enemy would not want to take over a complete desert. Our very limited Regular forces will be mostly scattered over the world's surface, as they are to-day, leaving a comparatively small number concentrated in exactly those areas most likely to be among the nuclear targets. Surely the answer to that is the dispersal of the Territorial force in the areas unlikely to be subject to direct nuclear attack. They would then be in a position to give maximum aid to the stricken areas and, if properly armed, to contain an airborne attack.
Finally, my Lords, is a separate command for the Army Volunteer Reserve and the T.A. a good idea? I very much doubt it. My experience as a Regular, as a Territorial and as a member of a T.A. and Auxiliary Forces Association has impressed upon me the supreme value of the T.A. as a recruiting agency for the Regular Army. I believe sincerely that by splitting and dividing the three forces the essential co-operation will be lost and that recruitment will suffer a severe and permanent setback. The harm already done to morale and recruitment by the recent unfortunate interlude, could, and should best, be repaired by the closest possible tie-up between the T.A., and A.V.R. and the Regular Army.
7.48 p.m.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, my ultimate conception of the perfect world society is very much the same as that of my noble friend Lord Soper, but I am afraid that I approach my target by a somewhat more circuitous route. A few months ago when we discussed this question of the Territorial Army I found it my duty, unhappily I must say, to point out to my friends on the Front Bench that I thought the Ministers had made a mistake. I said that I felt it was contrary to all conceptions of strategy through the ages to leave our home base undefended. I suggested that, in the possible event of a nuclear war, we should require a well-disciplined and lightly

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armed force in this country, and I thought it was rather a pity to spurn the proffered services of a number of public-spirited men who wanted to help their country. Moreover, though I think I said at the time that the idea of the new Reserve was a very fine one, I felt rather that these cuts in the basic T.A. organisation might dry up the reservoir from which we expected the recruits to the new Reserve to flow.
But now I want to give credit to my friends in the Government, for having considered the criticisms that we made here on the last occasion, and for having brought forward this new scheme which allows the Territorial Army to soldier on. I have spoken to quite a number of my Territorial Army friends, and they agree that the new scheme will work. True, many of them say that it does not give them all that they wanted. Nevertheless, they mean to show that it will, and they mean to see that it does work. Only this morning I received from my own county T.A. Association a copy of orders that have been issued to all their commanding officers. There is a spirit of enthusiasm running through those orders from the first line to the last. They speak of making the training "purposeful, interesting and of a competitive nature".
It is very good to see that quite a large number of the units, with their local affiliations, are going to remain in existence, instead of the previous conception of organisation which meant that whole tracts of the country would be left without a single T.A. unit and that such units as there were would be concentrated in some of the big centres of population. It is good to see, also, that an adequate number of drill halls will remain; and it is good to see that the new organisation will be big enough to give good men the chances of promotion.
I think myself—and I find that many of my friends think along the same lines —that the men attach very considerable importance to preserving an association with their county regiment, to preserving the right to use their old cap badges, and so on. These are sentimental matters, but sentiment plays a very great part in the esprit de corps which is necessary in any military or paramilitary organisation. It is a fact, of course, that many of the
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soldiers in the new T.A. will be soldiers of a different kind from what they were in the old organisation and what they are at this present moment. I can well understand that there will be no real rôle for artillery units in the new organisation, but I am not quite so sure about the yeomanry. I think that, even in the cleaning-up and home defence rôle which we envisage in the possible event of a nuclear attack, there might well be room for yeomanry regiments, mounted in armoured cars, travelling quickly from one part of the country to another. But, apart from all these considerations, the T.A. men are still going to be soldiers, and that is going to please them very much indeed.
As I said before, some of my friends would have liked to see a slightly larger establishment for this new organisation; and some of them would have liked to see a closer integration between the home defence units and the new-style reservists. They feel that that would have made the flow of reservists from the T.A. units into the Reserve an easier matter than it is likely to be now, when the organisations are to be self-contained and somewhat separate. They think that young men, having had a taste of the Home Defence Force, might want to take on a more responsible rôle, and therefore enrol in the reservist part of the organisation. They think, also, that many of the reservists, having served their time on the Reserve, or having got married or encountered some other kind of disaster, might like to carry on soldiering, not with the stern commitment of the Reserve organisation but in one of the home defence units; and it is suggested to me that there would be a two-way flow between the two kinds of bodies. However, I recognise that there is an argument in favour of the two-tier organisation because the rôles of the two tiers are to be different; their training is to be different and their weapons are to be different. When all is said and done, the reservists are an integral part of the Regular Army, and if we tried to integrate them perhaps both of them would suffer rather than benefit. So, if the experts are agreed on the two-tier system, I would support it.
But I want to mention to the Minister a point to which many people in the T.A. attach a good deal of importance. I

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think that the two tiers should be linked as closely as possible socially and in a sense of comradeship, and by using the same drill halls, because I want them to feel that they are all members of the same branch of the family. In any case, my Lords, there was a general realisation throughout the T.A. that some measure or reorganisation had to come, and most of the people among whom I move have a feeling of relief that they are now going to get this new lease of life. I think the country as a whole will feel happier now that it has a home defence army—perhaps a small one, but a home defence army—which, we hope, will never have to be used.
I hope the Minister, while he is working out the details, will give some attention to two subsidiary matters, not basically important but of interest to people in the T.A. The first is that I hope the Government will maintain and foster the Army Cadet Force. This is a fine body of young people. They get a taste of responsibility and discipline: they do not go around smashing kiosks and doping themselves in coffee bars. They have a spirit of adventure inculcated in them, and they get an outlet for that spirit. All those things, I think, are good in these days when we are so seriously troubled by juvenile delinquents. I should like to see the T.A. units act as "uncles" to units of the cadet corps. I think this would be to the benefit of them both. So I hope there will be a close link there. Secondly, I hope that the Minister will not overlook the position of women in the Territorial Army. Women are useful in many spheres of human endeavour, and in the Territorial Army they have done a tip-top job. They like it, and they want to carry on with it—and the men in the T.A. want them to carry on with it, as well.
Finally, on this point, I am glad to see that the Territorial Army associations are to be kept in being. It may well be that there will not be so many of them as there have been in the past; it may well be that certain county associations will have to be amalgamated. But I think it is a very good thing indeed that they should continue in existence, because they are most useful in recruiting and they have a great influence with employers in their areas who, but for their approach, might not feel inclined
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to give men the option of time off that enrolment in the T.A. necessitates. Having left those few points for the Minister to consider, I want to congratulate the Government on the courage they have shown in changing their mind. I think it shows an appreciation of our democratic processes: I think it is a sign of bigness. I would personally thank my noble friend Lord Shackleton for the very close attention that he has given to all representations that have been made to him.
Now, my Lords, I want to say a word or so about these aircraft carriers, because they seemed to constitute the gravamen of the indictment that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, laid against the Government. I want to pay tribute, of course, to the affection which the noble Lord feels for the Royal Navy—but something more than affection is needed. There has got to be sound judgment; there has got to be efficiency; there has got to be a willingness to look forward as well as to look backward. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, sounded more like an Election address rather than a scientific appraisal of our defence needs in the next decade. I do not agree that in matters of defence the judgment of the Conservatives is always right. I know it is one of those things that we are always led to believe, but I do not think the facts bear out that theory.
My Lords, in their thirteen years of office they did not organise the defence of this country on an efficient basis. They spent far too much—over £25,000 million —and got too little for it. Look at the way they mounted that attack on Suez—an attack with which I did not agree, but which was not, anyway, a masterpiece of military strategy when they did carry it out. Then look at the way their judgment was so often wrong on defence matters. Let us have a few specimen headlines from the Press during the three years from 1960 to 1963. Here is one of the headlines:
" Blue Streak written off—Unsuitable for defence—£33 million rocket will be scrapped".
Then, another heading:
" Blue Water scrapped by Cabinet—.£30 million write-off."
And another:
" Abandoned air projects cost over £250 million."
Then let us look at that story of the TSR 2 plane, where the costs soared. It

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was to cost £80 million in 1959; it was to be £137 million in 1962; it was to be £200 million in 1963; it was to be £260 million in 1964. And we finished up with an estimated cost of £600 million. No wonder it was scrapped by the present Government! It ought to have been scrapped long ago.
Let us look at the Defence White Paper, of 1957, still in the days when a Conservative Government, the masters of military strategy, were directing our affairs. Their main proposal then was for scrapping the Fighter Command of the R.A.F. Fortunately, that decision was reversed. But I think these few examples show that you cannot accept the dictum that the Conservatives, in matters where national defence are concerned, are always right. The truth is that they do not really take defence seriously. During their thirteen years they had nine different Ministers of Defence. As soon as one started in the job he either resigned, or was shifted or shunted. No wonder we did not get any thoughtful continuity in defence matters.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington (probably because he was a little nervous about his own Government's record in the matter of carriers), went off course for a few minutes and dealt a few political backhanders to the present Government. Let us look at them. He said that we (the Labour Members) used to be rude to Sir Alec. But I never noticed any ultra-politeness on the part of the Conservative Party as a whole towards Sir Alec. Anyway, it was not we who cut his throat; it was the other side. They probably realise that they have made a mistake. Nevertheless, we have not been rude to Sir Alec. We rather liked him; we thought that we could win Elections if he continued to lead the Tory Party. Then the noble Lord made play about Mr. Wilson's speech at Plymouth. But the noble Lord did not go on to say that this very Government is going to have an aircraft carrier completely refitted at Devonport Dockyard; so there will he work for the naval employees at Plymouth for years ahead.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: He said that we should have a new aircraft carrier. That is very different from a refitted aircraft carrier.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I am dealing with the specific points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in which he suggested that the dockyard workers had been basely betrayed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. I was trying to show that it was not so.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: He did not suggest that. He merely doubted the defence policy of the Prime Minister.
LORD LEATHERLAND: I gathered that he doubted the defence policy of the Prime Minister; just as I doubt the defence policy of the noble Lord. But I have produced more evidence than he to show that reason for doubt exists.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, also went on to say with what relish the Aden announcement would be received by President Nasser. I do not know what respect President Nasser has for the present Government; but we did not have to humiliate ourselves as the Tories did a few years ago. I am sorry that at one stage of his speech the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, belittled the ability of the R.A.F. to play a certain part in our national defence. I look upon the R.A.F. as a proud and efficient force, and it is not rendering a very good service to the nation to belittle the ability of that force in the eyes of the public. But perhaps this is not unexpected, as the noble Lord's own Government tried, in the 1957 White Paper, to abolish half of the R.A.F. It shows that they have rather an unbalanced view in defence matters.
Part II of the Defence White Paper which is before us—which appears, appropriately, in red covers, but perhaps that is fortuitous—pays tribute to the part that aircraft carriers can play. That is why we are refitting "Ark Royal." But that is in 1966, and perhaps in the early years of the 1970s. But any carrier laid down now would not be seaworthy until 1975. By that time we should have a new generation of rockets, a new generation of killer-submarines—and we all know how many hundreds of these the Russians have at the moment—so that an aircraft carrier laid down now and completed in ten years' time would probably be quite useless by the time it was ready to go to sea. A kind of Pearl Harbour attack by the sophisticated weapons of those days could send it

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down, with all its planes, in a very few minutes.
By 1975, of course, we shall have long-distance planes able to do the job for which the aircraft carrier is supposed to be needed. They will do that job just as efficiently, and certainly far more economically. But in 1966 the aircraft carriers are very useful indeed. They are the very heart of any naval fleet; but our present strength allows fewer than we really need to base a full aircraft carrier strategy in the various oceans of the world. Why is that? Who is to blame? Surely it is because the Conservatives, in thirteen years of office, did not lay down one single aircraft carrier. Those carriers would be sailing with the Fleet to-day had they done so. If it is desirable that we should have more aircraft carriers, then they themselves should have built them. They did not. They now blame us for not doing something which they did not do themselves. I went to look at Jane's Fighting Ships.This is what it says in the latest issue:
"It is not generally realised that no new aircraft carriers have been laid down in the United Kingdom for twenty years: that is, since the end of the Second World War. It is now nearly eight years since it was officially given out that the Royal Navy would require a new aircraft carrier in operation by 1970."
The "eight years ago" that is mentioned in that quotation is the year 1957. A carrier takes up to ten years to build. So they should have been laid down in 1957, if they were to be ready by 1967; or laid down in 1960 if they were to be ready for 1970. But we had nothing but stalling from the Conservative Government year after year.
Let us look at 1959. In the debate on the White Paper the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, the then First Lord, said:
"I do not think I can he expected to say exactly what ships we are going to have over the next three or four years. All I can say is that the number of ships will remain virtually unchanged in the categories which are most important, the aircraft carriers and escort vessels."
We move on to 1961, in the Defence White Paper debate. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, then said:
" In the Admiralty we are discussing "—
that is the word, "discussing"—not building—
" plans for a new ship—a new design—a new concept. That ship will still be operational nearly thirty years from now, We are
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faced with the not very easy problem of deciding what the world will look like in thirty years' time. The aircraft carrier of to-day is so far removed from the carrier of even fifteen years ago as to be an entirely different weapon of war."
We all agree with that. But the stalling was still going on.
Later, in the 1961 Defence Debate, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said:
" Lord Ashbourne is making the case for increasing the size of the carrier fleet. This would be very welcome, but with our limited resources we must rely at present largely on rapid reinforcement from the area West of Suez."
Lord Ashbourne was asking for an extra carrier East of Suez. Later in the same debate the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said:
"These ships are going to be extremely expensive, as indeed are the aircraft to put in them, and before we decide what to build and when to build it we must be quite certain we have it right."
So the stalling went on. In 1962 the White Paper on Defence said:
"There is no need to order a new aircraft carrier yet, but the necessary design work has been put in hand."
Then, in 1963, when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was moving the Statement on Defence, he said:
" The future of the aircraft carrier is only one facet of a careful examination which will be carried out during the next few months into the rule of the Navy during the 1970s."
He went on:
" Obviously I cannot anticipate the outcome of that review … but the decisions eventually made will be made on their merits …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 247, col. 772; 13/3/63.]
We all know that reviews take a long time. We have heard that from the other side of the House very often during the last sixteen months. But the stalling still went on. Six years had passed since that original statement from the Admiralty saying that a carrier was needed.
We move on again to a later period in 1963, on the occasion of the debate on the Queen's Speech when the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was replying to my noble friend Lord Shackleton, who had moved a Resolution condemning the Government then for not having a sound defence policy—a very wise Motion for my noble friend to move. On that occasion the noble Lord, Lord Carrington said:
"… it is also obvious that there can be no effective foreign policy except one which

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is based on a sound national economy … Any British Government, therefore, is faced with a series of interlocking decisions in formulating its defence policy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Vol. 253, col. 232; 19/11/63.]
We shall all agree with that. He went on to say that it is
"necessary to determine what proportion of the gross national product can be allocated to defence. Any defence policy which placed an excessive strain on the national economy would be self-defeating."
And so say all of us! But the stalling about the aircraft carrier still went on. If the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, wants now to spend more on defence, I think that he must tell us where he would get the money. Would it be by increasing taxes, or by reducing the services of the Welfare State? It has to be one of those two—unless, again, the noble Lord is going to abolish the Air Force as his Government tried to do in 1957.
The noble Lord gave a number of quotations. I am going to give one more, and it will be the last. It is from the words of Admiral B. B. Schofield in the current issue of the Army Quarterly.Admiral Schofield is known to everyone as an authority on naval affairs. He states:
" If instead of the £300 million spent on the development of the TSR 2, the programme for the construction of four new carriers costing approximately the same amount had been approved, the British maritime forces would be in a far better position to carry out their task than they are to-day."
He went on to speak of the
" uncertainty which for far too long has surrounded the future of the Royal Navy's carriers."
That, of course, deals with the far too long period when a Conservative Government were in office and did not build any carriers—and now they are blaming us for not building them. If those carriers had been built at that time they would have been useful in the present generation, which is a generation in which carriers most certainly are useful. They would not have been carriers which would not be completed until the next generation, by which time the fighting ability of carriers must be far more of a doubtful question.
So, my Lords, it comes down to this—does it not?—that the Conservatives dallied for thirteen years. They thought about the difficulty of getting the right designs that could face the 1980s. They talked about not over-straining the economy.
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They stalled and quibbled and they did not lay down the keel of a single new aircraft carrier. After those thirteen years of neglect they have no right to condemn us. The people who ought to be in the dock are themselves. And I thank your Lordships for having been so generous as to listen to me for so long.
8.14 p.m.
LORD ST. JUST: My Lords, I do not pretend to be a great expert on defence matters, but having had personal experience in the last war for some three years I have always retained a lively interest in defence matters. It seems to me impossible to set defence apart in a realm of its own, and this has been made abundantly clear this afternoon. Defence must be the servant of foreign policy. Basically, we are a trading nation and our foreign policy is involved on this basis. This becomes more apparent every day. We see the importance of commercial attachés in Embassies abroad, and even the status of our Foreign Secretary on his visit to South America. This is right and proper, and no one complains about it. So the "servant" must always stand nearby the "master", and therefore it would be very close to the trading States and the trade routes.
I wish to turn for a moment to a subject about which we have heard a great deal this afternoon: that is, the Navy. I think it has been made abundantly clear that if a carrier force is to be kept, it has to be virtually three to four carriers in strength. I think it very difficult for anyone, unless he is a great expert on purely naval matters, to be able to get completely clear in his mind what are the arguments for and against. The only point which I would put forward has already been stated this afternoon: that the Government thinking on this seems to be slightly contrary to American policy. The British Navy has led in the field of carrier design over the question of the angled deck and the sophisticated radar system. It strikes me as somewhat extraordinary, with the large commitments which we have in the world, especially East of Suez, that this decision should have been made.
I was very glad to hear what was said about the position of the Fleet Air Arm, that it will not be completely run down and that the only question relates to the fixed-wing element. It seems to me, if

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we are to retain our commitments East of Suez, that unless we produce an aircraft in the near future which is capable of flying gigantic distances, either carriers will have to be maintained, or we shall find ourselves in the position of having to build airfields on the various coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. If the policy is to hand over more responsibility to Australia that would be a slightly different matter, but I cannot believe that Australia could take on more than certain commitments, and I cannot see America taking on the whole responsibility for the Far East.
My Lords, I should like to touch on two points which have been mentioned this afternoon. One was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Ashbourne, regarding the morale of the Navy. I am quite convinced that there is still a great deal in the point about contact on the level of naval crews, regardless of what type of craft it may be. I am certain that if we got naval crews ashore in a local area where there might be a mild disturbance, it would be proved, as has always been said, that whether it be British seamen, airmen or soldiers, they are the best ambassadors in the world. The noble Lord, Lord Blyton, mentioned that Russia was not bothering about carriers and was concentrating entirely on submarines. But the geographical position of Russia is slightly different from that of this country which is an island. We have sea communications which we must keep open at all times.
I wish now to turn to the question of the Army. There is a reference in the Defence Review to the Chieftain tank with its 120 millimetre gun. Scientists have been working on this tank for a lone time and I understand that it is about the finest tank in the world. I hope that within a short time it will be possible to get these tanks out to our serving units.
I myself was a Greenjacket. This is going slightly back down memory lane, but I think it covers the problem of morale. After the War, my regiment was disbanded, first into one battalion and then completely. Then a first battalion was raised again, and a second. But when this goes on, all the best officers are lost. They go to Staff appointments and when the time comes to raise another battalion it takes months to collect officers again. I think the noble and gallant
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Field Marshal, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, was the first who produced the idea of the brigade. It took a certain amount of time, naturally, to settle down, but it has worked out exceedingly well. The brigade has at least three battalions and a depôt to draw from, so that battalions can be kept up to strength and the regiment does not lose its officers.
I would end by saying that I am certain that if we are to continue to keep the Services up to strength on a voluntary system, a continuity of policy must be kept going. I know that this is not always easy, but I am certain that it is the basis of all morale in the Services. If endless change in the rôle of any one Service takes place, morale must suffer and obviously the Services will be faced with more and more officers and men coming in on a short-term basis and not fulfilling their full time. The change in the rôle of the Navy is a shattering idea, especially to an island people such as ourselves. In war, whether nuclear or localised, the first thought that jumps to the mind of any islander is the maintenance and protection of our shipping lanes.
8.23 p.m.
LORD AMPTHILL: My Lords, the usual channels, for whom I have the greatest regard and affection, have got into the habit of putting me down to speak in what we call in the Navy the Dog Watch, but in fact we are largely through the Dog and inside the First Bell of the First Watch. As your Lordships know, the First Watch goes on till midnight, but I do not propose to occupy the whole of the First Watch with my remarks.
My purpose in rising to-day is to give support to the Amendment in the name of my noble friend and leader, Lord Carrington. I will try to indicate why I do so as briefly as I can. I hope that your Lordships will hear with me if I devote most of my remarks to naval matters, and will understand that this does not mean that I am happy about the Army and the Air Force aspects of this White Paper. I am not. I wish to speak briefly. Moreover, many noble Lords—and there are still some to come—are far more capable and qualified than I am to speak on Army and Air Force matters.
We have had a long and interesting debate. On purely naval matters I find

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myself in complete agreement with what my noble friend Lord Ashbourne said, and, on more general aspects, with what my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve said, and I will refrain, so far as I can, from covering the same ground.
Command Papers 2901 and 2902, which we are debating to-night, have had a period of gestation amounting to elephantine proportions. I would make no particular complaint of this, if at the end of the day it produced something worth while, but, in my view, this is just what it has not done. I cannot say that the final result is a surprise to me or to anyone else. For weeks past we have had a series of leaks, inspired or otherwise, but on the whole quite remarkably accurate. I cannot find in these White Papers how much the Ministry of Defence spend on security, but, however much or however little, it does not prevent that edifice from leaking like a colander.
Although not altogether surprised, I must confess to strong feelings of disappointment, particularly where naval matters are concerned, because I remember very well the speech of the right honourable gentleman the present Prime Minister when he spoke in Plymouth just before the last General Election. In asking himself the rhetorical question: "Why do I stress the rôle of the Navy?", he gave his own answer: "Because it has a key rôle in our defence strategy". With this answer, I am, of course, in complete agreement. It must be one of the rare occasions when I find myself in agreement with anything the Prime Minister has said. However, I agree with that wholeheartedly. As your Lordships will know, whenever I have ventured to address your Lordships' House in a Defence debate, I have always made it clear that in my opinion the safety, honour and welfare of this country depends, always has depended and always will depend, upon a faithful and dogged pursuit of a maritime strategy. In this, the Royal Navy cannot avoid playing the leading rôle, though of course it must be, and normally is, supported by the R.A.F. and the Army.
Therefore, when I read the Prime Minister's speech at Plymouth before he came into office, with all his talk of increased naval strength, I said to myself, "We have a real convert here. The West
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Country air, with its strong naval flavour, has done him good. Perhaps he has heard Drake's Drum." Now we have the White Paper. It is clear that neither he nor any member of his Government, with only one notable exception, has heard Drake's Drum. They may have heard the Liverpool Beat and the boom of a voice no longer with us, but one thing is most clear—they have not heard Drake's Drum.
It is clear from the White Papers, or so it seems to me, that Her Majesty's Government have chosen to ignore the one basic truth which was so clearly stated in the Defence White Paper for 1962 (Command 1639). Paragraph 26, which I apologise for quoting again, but in my view it is fundamental to any thinking on the defence problem, says:
" The ability to assure free movement by sea at the right time and place remains of fundamental importance to these islands. Indeed, the sea may, in certain circumstances, be the one open highway for strategic movement free of international political hindrance. To discharge this responsibility ".
The White Paper went on to say,
" we need a balanced and versatile fleet capable of bringing force to hear under the sea, on the surface, and in the air."
I hope that when the noble Earl comes to reply for Her Majesty's Government he will be able to tell us that the Government accept this statement which I have just quoted as a basic truth which must colour all our defence thinking and planning. At the same time, will the noble Earl who is to reply also tell us that they appreciate that movement by sea is of fundamental importance to us not only for strategic and tactical reasons but also to ensure the actual provisioning of these islands, even on a seige basis. Fifty per cent. of our food and 90 per cent. of our raw materials is brought in by sea. We are even more dependent on sea transport to-day than we were 50 years ago, or even 25 years ago.
In our last Defence debate, which happened to take place on November 11 (the fact was very much in my mind, because on that date in 1918 we made arrangements to receive, I think it was, 400 surrendered U-boats at Harwich), I ventured to remind your Lordships that twice in most of our lifetimes we had seen this country brought to the verge of defeat

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by the enemy's attack on our sea communications—by U-boats, aircraft, mines and surface raiders. To-day our potential enemies can muster a submarine force infinitely more powerful than anything produced by the Germans in either world war. In fact, the Russian submarine force is already twice the size of that in service with the United States Navy. I am quite certain that this force will be at sea at its war stations, not just East of Suez but in all the oceans of the world. This is what it has been built for. The Russians have done their homework on the history of the last two wars.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Soper (he is no longer with us), deprecates any mention of Russia, I would remind him that there are many evil men around in this world to-day, and if they have the weapons they will be strongly tempted to use them if they can see an advantage right at their hand. Moreover, these Russian submarines would be well placed to make an immediate attack on the enormous mass of vital shipping sailing to and from this country. They would also—and if I were the Russian Naval Commander-in-Chief I would make sure that they did—have all these mysterious atolls, where F 111 As are going to land and kill, pinpointed, and before war broke out most of them would be out of action in one way or another.
The Royal Navy has a major rôle to play in combating these enemy submarines, surface raiders and aircraft. Other noble Lords have referred to the provisions for this duty indicated in the White Paper, and I do not propose to waste your Lordships' time by going over them again. Frigates and destroyers are necessary, and, in my view, aircraft carriers: but I will come back to aircraft carriers later on. Before that, I should like to mention Coastal Command, a service of which I have always had a very high opinion, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, knows, and about which I have constantly spoken in these debates. Coastal Command is absolutely necessary to give the Navy strong support in the anti-submarine rôle. I agree with my noble friend Lord Ashbourne that this force would be more suitably called Maritime Command, and I hope that perhaps our voices may persuade the Government to do just this. However, it has been given only marginal space in the
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White Paper—five lines under the heading "Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft ". Surely this force has an offensive rôle, as well. Although we are told that the ageing Shackleton Mark Its are to be replaced by a version of the Comet especially developed for the maritime rôle, I understood from the debate on the aircraft industry last week (I may have got it wrong) that only 50 of these aircraft are to be ordered; and to-day, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton (I am not sure that it was), put the figure at 38 to 40. Perhaps we may be given the correct figure. I think that this, with the ageing Shackletons, will give us a pathetically small force for what should be described as Maritime Command.
Before I leave what I have described in previous debates as the Cinderella of the Service, I should like to make one suggestion which I would ask the Government to consider. I raised this point in a Defence debate three or four years ago, but I think it is even more urgent to-day. With the diminishing numbers of bases, for one reason or another, with present engines and present techniques, I feel somehow that it is worth having a look at flying boats. They do not need aerodromes, and in the maritime field they proved themselves in the last war—the Catalina's to a great extent—and I cannot help feeling that the 1966 version of the Catalina might be quite a good aircraft for the purposes we have in mind.
Another important element in our antisubmarine forces is the nuclear-powered controlled submarine—the so-called hunter-killers. I searched the White Paper when I first received it from the Printed Paper Office to try to find out what the Government's plans were. Of course, we have the "Dreadnought", and three others building; and I think I am right now if I say that, following on the Answer to a Question in another place, yet another of these nuclear-powered controlled submarines is to be laid down, though it did not say quite when. Personally, I think that it is absolutely necessary, and that we should now embark on steadily replacing our conventional submarines with the nuclear-powered submarines. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, that they are magnificent ships. Like him I was trained in a "C" class submarine, with 2,500 gallons of

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petrol underneath one—not a very nice shipmate. I also served in "Ls" and "Es", as he did. Therefore, I have a great fellow feeling for him as a fellow-submariner, but I cannot agree with all his remarks about aircraft carriers.
Before I leave the question of nuclear-powered submarines, I would point out that the White Paper says that
" nuclear power propulsion has revolutionised the submarine; that it is the greatest advance in warships since sail was superseded by steam."
I think it is high time that we realised that nuclear power has not only revolutionised submarines; it is more than on the verge of revolutionising other warships. Therefore, I am disappointed that the White Paper makes no reference to what is being done about nuclear power in general for naval vessels. Is it that Her Majesty's Government agree with the First Lord of the Admiralty of 1828, Lord Melville, who said:
" Their Lordships feel it their bounden duty to discourage to the utmost of their ability the employment of steam vessels as they consider the introduction of steam is calculated to strike a fatal blow at the supremacy of Empire."
f course, Lord Melville was operating like this Government, on the score of purely political expediency. He realised that the introduction of steam vessels would involve him in an expensive building programme to replace the wooden walls which had served us so well at Trafalgar. I hope that Her Majesty's Government do not take that view about nuclear power, and that when the noble Earl comes to reply for the Government we can hear something of their thinking on this matter.
Now I must briefly refer to aircraft carriers, because I do not believe that the balanced and versatile Fleet we require is complete without aircraft carriers. I will not detain your Lordships for long, because time is getting on, but I must tell you that, shortly after the White Paper was published, I received a letter from an American naval friend with whom I served during the war. He wrote quite spontaneously—I received the letter about a week ago—and said:
" I am impelled to write to commiserate with you and the Royal Navy on the Government decision to substitute F 111s for a carrier East of Suez. I have not seen a copy of the
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whole paper—only newspaper reports—and hence do not know what the argumentation "—
a lovely American word!—
" has been—probably very technical. But now, having done a good deal of work on that area, the decision makes no sense to me unless there is an undisclosed agreement that the United States will provide relevant naval power as required on a contingency basis. Nothing I am aware of makes a plane of the F 111 type, backed by an airborne strategic reserve, of any strategic value in that area, and of very doubtful tactical value."
This officer, who has only recently retired, has been engaged until recently on special Staff studies in great depth for the United States Navy, a duty for which he is particularly well equipped. I do not want to say more than that, because I do not want to identify him too closely. But I am quite prepared to disclose his name to any noble Lord who is interested. It is clear that this American naval friend of mine is not voicing only a personal view, since the Pentagon has recently decided to order more carriers. Like my United States naval friend, I do not know what the "argumentation" has been in the Ministry of Defence. Like him, I can imagine that it was highly technical. But, unlike him (or perhaps he is too polite to say so), I suspect that it was very woolly.
I do not propose to stray into that jungle. Like him, the decision makes no sense to me, and I am reinforced in that view by the admirable letter from Admiral of the Fleet Sir Caspar John which was printed in The Times of March 3. I personally agree with every word of that letter and feel certain that most thinking people would. I do not propose to quote the letter at length, but I will, with your Lordships' permission, quote the last paragraph, which says:
" In my experience there are some things better done from the sea and some things better done from shore. I believe that an enlightened combination of Naval and Air Force talents would see to it that the country got the fullest practical value for the money it spends on its tactical air power."
Those, my Lords, are my sentiments; and I shall come back in a moment to that aspect.
Before I read the Admiral's letter—and let me say now that I have never had the privilege of meeting him—I made a note to ask Her Majesty's Government, in the course of this debate, what had happened to the Templer Committee

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report. In his letter, Sir Caspar John says:
" This committee produced what was, in my opinion, a thoroughly workmanlike report, which I judge would have resulted in a practical get-together of these two great Services with a welcome end to the time and energy-consuming controversies which have bedevilled their relationship for so long, and made decisions on their future so difficult."
When the noble Earl comes to reply for Her Majesty's Government, perhaps he will be good enough to tell us—in fact, I think we should have an answer—what has happened to this report. Has it been suppressed or pigeon-holed; and, if so, why? It seems to me a very strange omission from the White Paper we are debating to-night that there is no reference at all to the report of this very experienced and highly qualified committee.
But there are many strange things about this White Paper. Long before it was published —and, indeed, in some cases even before it could have got under way —many snap decisions were taken: cancellation of the TSR 2; cancellation of the fifth Polaris armed submarine, and reorganisation of the Territorial Army. Mercifully, the original scheme for this has been scrapped, largely due to pressure from all sides of this House and in the country at large. I have a horrid suspicion, amounting to a certainty, that this unsatisfactory and woolly-thinking White Paper conceals intentions to make further cuts in our armed strength. It is for these, and many other reasons, that I support my noble friend's Amendment.
Moreover, how can we have any confidence in this Government's handling of our defence when they are headed by our present Prime Minister? The right honourable gentleman, speaking at Plymouth on September 27, 1964, with what he was pleased to describe as "all the sincerity at his command" said:
" The Royal Navy is not adequate for out needs; it has been run down to a dangerous extent."
My Lords, that was not true at the time. The Royal Navy was in fact on the way to being built up to a very satisfactory level. But even had it been true, what have the present Government done about it? The only way I can describe it is in the expression generally used by sailors—the name of a sweet lady, to describe their preserved meat. The Prime Minister's statement may well come true, if this Government remain in office much
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longer. However, I am certain that this great maritime nation will hear Drake's Drum, loud and clear, very soon indeed—on March 31 in fact—and then they will drum, not the Dons up Channel but this Socialist Government out of office.
8.51 p.m.
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: My Lords, I do not propose to detain your Lordships for long. We have been listening to a debate of some eighteen speakers and there are still six to come, so I will do my best to be brief. I am sorry that both the last speakers from the opposite Benches did not find an opportunity to refer to the very telling speech we had immediately before, from my noble friend Lord Leatherland, who in fact gave in advance the answers to the points being made by the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, in his speech. I myself thought that my noble friend Lord Leatherland had produced a very fine speech which noble Lords might well have referred to, and I hope they will read it, for the answers to their questions, to-morrow in Hansard.Also I am surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who I am glad to see with us, did not find the noble Lord, Lord Leather-land, sufficiently challenging to rise to some of his statements.
I should like to start my speech this evening by referring to one of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in his speech this afternoon. He seemed to be thoroughly dismayed—in fact I think he used the word "dismayed" —that the Government should be so audacious as to start off with a fixed target for their Defence budget. He thought it was almost impossible that a Government should control their defence by establishing the figure of £2,000 million and then deriving all their policy and all their decisions from that one figure. Yet the noble Lord, Lord Leatherland, quoted a passage where the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, himself said, in one of his previous speeches, that this was the way to proceed with a Defence budget. I do not find this at all strange. From these Benches we have continually heard speeches by noble Lords who have complained about the escalation in our defence costs. We have all the time noticed, and almost come to expect, that once you fix a target for a defence policy you have to be most careful to prevent

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this from escalating. We are in fact establishing a figure of £2,000 million at 1964 prices to control our Defence spending. Already Defence spending is above £2,000 million at present-day prices, and we have introduced a form of control and we intend to follow that through.
I personally find this document which we are discussing to-day,The Defence Review,a form of controlled disarmament. I hope that as each Review comes forward each year, as we are promised, this disarmament through our Defence budget will continue, because there is no more unpopular feature of our Budget—and I say this at a time not only when there is an Election in the air but when in fact we are shortly to have a Budget—than the costs which Defence assumes. Your Lordships may not realise that something like 5s. 4d. in every pound of tax collected goes in Defence. Some one-quarter of our total Budget in this country goes in paying for Defence. Think what we could do with all this money in building houses, in building hospitals, in making roads, in building schools, factories, and the rest. These are the things on which we should in fact be spending our money, instead of which we have been hotly debating to-day whether we should have more, or many more, aircraft carriers.
I am certain that if in fact noble Lords opposite wish to make the subject of Defence a plank in their Election platform, they may come unstuck. The Prime Minister, after all, has welcomed the idea of having a great debate on Defence, so he is not going to be the least bit worried if in fact noble Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, in his final remarks, want to open an Election discussion on this issue. I think in fact the result would be very different from that envisaged in his last remark.
We do not insist on reckless reductions in the budget for Defence. We are not anxious to disregard our national security or our national commitments. We recognise that those are there and in this wicked world they have to be faced; but, my Lords, it seemed to me that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, this afternoon talked about "Defence without honour". It seemed that he had assumed, from reading this Defence White Paper, that we were in fact totally regardless of the commitments entered into by our
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Government and we were quite ready to dishonour what had been undertaken previously. He talked about our failing to keep our promises in Defence. I felt there was quite a smell of the hustings about this. May I say that in the past I have had close contact with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in the leafy lanes of Bucks at previous Elections when I was contesting a seat in another place, and many enjoyable encounters we had; but there is no such particular dishonour in our defence policy; there is no such neglect of our national commitments.
This Defence Review which we presented to the House and to the country took some sixteen months to produce. Was this time wasted? Was it to be expected that the thousands of hours which senior civil servants, chiefs of staff and the Cabinet put into this Review were going to be wasted? Would it not be impossible to think of this work without accepting some changes, particularly in the policy of the Government as previously laid down? I really think that if noble Lords were being fair they would recognise that this White Paper is a matter for congratulation because this is the first time that this House has been presented with a new type of defence statement, a new type of White Paper (true, it is red), and this is the first time that we now know where we are really going in the matter of Defence. This is surely a matter for congratulation. My right honourable friend the Minister for Defence, my noble friend his colleague, and my other colleagues really do deserve the thanks of this House; not the sort of carping criticism, if I may say so, which they have had from the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon.
It was obvious that to achieve a reduction to £2.000 million per annum my right honourable friend and my noble friend and his other colleagues had to challenge three things. It was obvious that they had to challenge every policy that we have had for defence and foreign policy. It was obvious we had to challenge every commitment we had; it was obvious we had to challenge every weapon we had. And this was why noble Lords opposite sometimes felt this Review was taking so long. Of course it was taking so long, because these challenges were at work,

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and either the Government had to renew their faith or eliminate the waste they found.
It has been obvious that since the last War, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn said this afternoon, we are no longer a world power. It is no use pretending we are, and it is no use trying to spend up to our past glorious days in an attempt to satisfy our ego. We in this country must satisfy ourselves, as for many years, even before the War, we satisfied ourselves, that we are engaged in a policy of collective security. Our Defence policy must be based on the threefold policy of NATO, of CENTO and of SEATO. There can be no getting away from that. To-day I have often felt we were at sea in more ways than one when we spoke as though we were going to face a great, independent holocaust and we had to be prepared for it. Never again shall we fight an independent war. We believe in, and we must trust in, collective security. Therefore anything outside those three policies must be thoroughly examined. It is for this reason, after examination, that Aden has to go. Noble Lords may regret it, but in fact it will go by 1968. Notice has therefore been given. And Cyprus and Malta will be greatly reduced; they will have to find protection in the various international arrangements which will be set up for them or are set up, and they must have time and notice to do so.
Why should all this dismay the noble Lord, Lord Carrington? He says we are creating a power vacuum. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, showed that the time has really come when we must drop many of our commitments which are not legally based and for which in fact we could not establish a legal standing. I found the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, had the right attitude in many of the points which he raised. In fact, I could go a long way with his speech. His was a much better approach, if I may say so, than that of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who was going to decide the military commitments and then spend accordingly. Surely the reverse of that is the truth. I believe we cannot go on much longer trying to cling to an East of Suez policy, certainly not after the confrontation in Malaysia ceases. I feel that the time will then be ripe when we
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must withdraw from an East of Suez policy.
Thirdly, I say we must eliminate obsolete weapons wherever we find them. That is what the Defence Review does. That is why the aircraft carrier programme has come under serious scrutiny; and we have heard so much about the carrier programme this afternoon that I do not wish to add to it. The aircraft carrier is not, and nobody should pretend it is, a modern weapon. As I think one of my noble friends said this afternoon, it is a sitting duck; there are very few rôles left to it and its cost effectiveness is impossibly high. I really cannot see that within the next five to ten years the carrier programme will justify the cost as it is phased out.
I well remember that during the War there was a case for the aircraft carrier. My noble friend Lord Shackleton said this afternoon that during the War, when he was in Coastal Command, he well remembers the Battle of the Gap, the Battle of the Atlantic, when we were faced with that ugly area in the Atlantic where the U-boat ran amuck, and when the operations boards in my Operations room at the Admiralty and other Commands often during those dark years showed black. Every black spot was the sinking of a ship, and sometimes we had over 200 a day. That was entirely due to the fact that we did not have the protection in the Atlantic because our Navy and our aircraft could not give it. My noble friend said that in 1943 there came the Liberator and, as we all know, those who fought in the Battle of the Atlantic, it was then that the gap began to be closed. It was then that the days of the aircraft carrier were numbered.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? Why, if this is true, do the Government intend to keep the aircraft carriers till 1975?
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: I think it is obvious to noble Lords that they have to be phased out. They cannot be immediately closed down. This would be a costly operation. It would be putting an end to the Royal Navy, which none of us intend should happen. Now it is obvious that land-based aircraft can cover the world. With the introduction of the F 111—and it has not come yet—the noble Lord knows the cover can be more

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effective than ever before. We are going through a phase of reappraisal and it is none too soon. The Board of Admiralty may feel hurt. The Royal Navy may no longer be the Senior Service, and it is not easy for noble Lords opposite, so many of whom have given service in the Navy, to accept that. I think that the R.A.F. is now assuming the rôle once held by the Navy. The noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, gave a generous compliment to Coastal Command. I believe that Coastal Command is probably taking over much of the rôle of the Navy in our nearby waters; that is, at least until the Polaris submarine comes into its own in the early 1970s. Then, of course, the nuclear weapons will be more easily distributed at sea. When that happens, a new type of Navy may have a rôle to play.
While other countries—with the single, and we hope only temporary, exception of the United States, due to Vietnam—are reducing their defence budgets, it is obvious that we should not be increasing ours. It is for this reason that I applaud the decision taken by Her Majesty's Government to keep a tight rein on our defence spending.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord—he is most kind to give way. He says that there are now land-based aircraft which can cover the world. But in order to operate the land-based aircraft it is necessary to have land bases. Are we quite certain that we can find them when we want them?
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: My Lords, the noble Lord is making the mistake which I mentioned earlier. He is assuming that we carry out a unilateral defence. We do no such thing. This system in which we are employed is, in fact, a collective security, and it is up to us to see that NATO, SEATO and CENTO provide such bases throughout the world. As I say, it would be quite wrong of us, in view of the reduction in armaments and defence budgets throughout the world, to be spending more. The Defence Review shows us the way to cut down on defence spending. For that reason, if for none other, I believe that it should be warmly welcomed by this House.
9.10 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF AILSA: My Lords, I had proposed to confine my
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remarks to the Reserve Forces, but having heard a few of the comments made regarding carriers and other aspects of our defence, I would ask your Lordships' indulgence if I make some comments. I have an interest, as I am a serving member of the Territorial Army. During some of the courses in connection with the Territorial Army I have been instructed on affairs concerning this country and its adventures overseas. Out of this, and from general knowledge, I have come to the conclusion that our Regular Forces have been engaged in war, of some sort or another, ever since 1945. During this time they have conducted several emergency operations in areas for which they were not prepared. Owing to the greater use of air power they have been able to use aircraft to the fullest advantage. So far every time they have been particularly lucky in having a major airfield from which to work. The people concerned have themselves admitted that one of these days they will come across the situation in which they find themselves opposed by an Air Force able to meet ours. That, I regret to say, poses the 64-dollar question. And they do not know the answer to it. Even to-day, they do not know whether they have the weapons to withstand such a force.
Before I turn to the Reserve Forces, upon which I wish to say more, I would tell one other short story, which is concerned with the same subject. About eighteen months ago, I was on a course during which we had a long and erudite lecture and discussion on how to use air power to feed the forward troops right up on the battlefield. It was a most interesting lecture. We were all spellbound by it. At the end, the lecturer turned on the lights, switched off his equipment, and asked, "Are there any questions?" A few Brigadiers and Generals asked a few intelligent questions, and then one humble major (it was not I) put up his hand and said, "Forgive me if I ask this question, but how did the helicopters get there?" The lecturer looked around and said, "I will ask the Chief Instructor to answer that question." The Chief Instructor looked around and said, "That is a fine question. I do not know the answer." So far they have flown off aircraft carriers. I will leave your Lordships to work that one out. The only other comment I want to make,

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having listened to the last speaker, is that I should have thought that each and every one of us in this country would be prepared to pay 5s. 10d. in the pound for the defence and honour of this country.
I will now turn to the Territorial Army and its proposed reorganisation. This is what I came to speak about, and I do not wish to go further into the other aspects. We have all heard of the proposed reorganisation, and I would urge whatever Government we may have in the future to implement whatever suggestions they have fairly quickly. We have been for 21 months in a state of uncertainty, and this is a long time to ask people to continue working with uncertainty as to their future. The Government are very quick to point the finger at any private industry which does not behave itself, but by their handling of the reorganisation of the Reserve Forces they have shown that, whatever else is taught in the Socialist schools, man management is certainly not. It all has to do with the way in which it has been put across. With regard to the Army Volunteer Reserve, the way in which it has been put across has had a good reception. So far as the Home Defence Force is concerned, although we know what is intended, we have not had sufficient details to be able to put it across to the soldiers. We are hoping for the best.
I should like now to refer to two vital points which must be looked into. The first concerns the employees of the Territorial Army associations; the second the employers of the men whom we hope to get. To take first the employees, while it is true to say that most Territorial units have some idea, though perhaps a vague one, as to what their future may be, the employees on whom we rely to carry out our administration have no idea at all. In their White Paper the Government hinted that there would be a redundancy scheme, but the employees have heard nothing more than that. If they cease to carry out their jobs—which they well may be driven to do, not because of any disloyalty to us, but because their families may be so affected that they cannot stay—then it will be impossible to implant the Government's ideas. Therefore I would urge that something should be done for those who wish to stay on, and that they should at least get a cash bounty or something of the sort.
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The implications are that such a redundancy scheme would be based on that which is applied in the London Government area. It may have been perfectly adequate for London Government, but it does not appear to be adequate for the employees of the territorial associations. London is a large area, a close-knit community, and a person who moves from one district to another does not have very great problems. But the people to whom I refer are faced with the decision about going from Scotland to work either in Wales or in Ireland. This in many cases is unthinkable and to my mind it is unreasonable to expect them to do so.
The man concerned should be able to get a job somewhere within a reasonable distance of his home. The employees feel that they may be offered a job in the Civil Service well away from their own homes, and that if they do not take it, because it cuts across their family ties, they will be debarred from receiving any redundancy compensation. This is certainly the basis of their fears. I hope that such people will be reassured that if they stay in the Service they will be suitably recompensed, and that any redundancy scheme will be practicable and one which they could accept. I do not mean that they should get a job necessarily in the same town, but certainly it should be within a reasonable distance from their families. The suggestions as they stand are unacceptable. The employees are very worried, and if they cease to carry out their obligations the Territorial Army associations will be unable to stop them, and this will be a very difficult hurdle to get over.
May I now turn to the position of the employers? If one wishes to get recruits to the Army Volunteer Reserve one needs first to get the confidence of the men's employers. All praise is due to the employers up to the present for the efforts which have been made at association or unit level, for they have co-operated admirably. The employers know from reading their newspapers that there has been a change. They think that the Territorial Army as such is ending, but we want to get the men from them, and we want the employers' good will. We want the Army Volunteer Reserve to succeed, but it will not succeed without the good will of the employers. May I just remind your

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Lordships that when you are dealing with the Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, you are dealing with the most complex machine there is, and that is a human being, and if you can make him work in the best way then you have done your job.
9.21 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, he would be a presumptuous and daring subaltern who did not at once accede to the request of his commanding officer, even of 50 years ago; and the more so when that commanding officer is also a Chief of the Clan to which he owes allegiance. It is for that reason that I have exchanged places in the batting list with the noble Marquess, Lord Aberdeen and Temair.
I would welcome the Government's decision to have a second tier of the Territorial force, or whatever it is to be called, but possibly for a reason which is somewhat different from that which they give. I would regard this second tier as forming a basis for expansion in the case of emergency, and I think it ought to be regarded as such from the beginning. The Volunteer who joined in 1859—the great beginnings of the Volunteer movement—joined for home defence alone. But forty years later, in the Boer War, the Volunteer Force formed a very useful emergency corps upon which the Army could be expanded, and was expanded, and it was the lessons from the Boer War which impelled Haldane, with the advice of Haig, to form the Territorial Force, as it became in 1908.
But I suppose that at the moment we must think of this home defence rôle of the second tier, and we must take this opportunity of taking a fresh look at the whole problem. I am glad to think that the noble Duke, the Duke of Norfolk, is at the present time engaged in consultation with the Council of the T.A. Associations and with the Ministry of Defence on this point. It would be wrong to assume too much, or to make too many guesses about what is going to come out of it, but there are some points which I should like to make.
First, I think that this home defence force must be coterminous with the Civil Defence arrangements for the country, and that its command structure must
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fit into this also. I think also that each group of three companies—which I believe may be called a battalion—must be commanded by a volunteer. After all, the liability of this second tier is something like one week's camp, nine evenings and two weekends, and I think a volunteer officer, if he is sufficiently interested to become a volunteer, can easily spare the amount of time necessary for the supervision of 300 men organised in three companies.
Another point which I should like to make is that I think that the military hierarchy for this second tier should be as small as possible. After all, there is little for them to do but supervise training. I should like to consider the military hierarchy which has developed in the Territorial Army since the war, whose development is in part the cause of this great inquisition at the present moment. Before 1939 you had a brigade commander, with practically no staff but a clerk, commanding three infantry battalions and supervising their training. When the Territorial Army was doubled, the same brigade commander, with one staff officer, was able to command those battalions, in which there could be over 4,000 officers and men. It was done with economy, and I think it was done with efficiency, as events in 1939 and 1940 proved.
I very much question whether, even in this new second-tier proposal, there is a full-time job for a Regular Army officer looking after three battalions, and I would suggest that this job could possibly be combined with that of regimental colonel, which is already in existence. I would agree with all that other noble Lords have said about the integration of the defence force with the Army Volunteer Reserve. There needs to be close association; but I think the Army Volunteer Reserve will probably normally have to be commanded by a Regular officer, a Regular colonel, although this should not imply that he will also command the battalions of the second tier—the Territorial force, or whatever it is to be called.
I submit that the Reserve Forces must never again be used primarily to enlarge the career structure of officers of the Regular Army. To do so is to run away from the real problem. We must face the fact that only relatively few officers are

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required beyond 45 years of age, and that it is not the object of the Army Reserve to enable elderly officers to extend their service by five years or so. If there is no honest job to be done, it is much better to get the Regular officer out young, after twenty years of service. I think there will always be jobs in civilian life for the 40 or 45 year olds provided that they have some qualification when they go into the Army or have acquired some qualification while in the Army, such as a university degree. This, I think, is in consonance with the declared aims of the Defence Review.
I welcome the Report by the Committee, which is quoted in the Review, regarding the increased importance of the recruitment of officers from the universities and the increased flow at graduate level from the Service colleges—not only in science and engineering but also, as the Defence Review says, in the humanities. We read there that at the present moment there are 36 officers reading for arts degrees. I would suggest to those responsible that they might put a little bit more emphasis on the newly-developing faculties at universities of social sciences. The university graduate schemes which have come into existence during the past few years are making progress. I noticed from the Defence Review that they were not making progress so far as the Navy was concerned. My own observation is that they are making the greatest progress in the air, and I attribute this in no small measure to the very high standard of officer that the Royal Air Force sends to the university, to the leadership that they display to the students who join the air squadron and to their open-mindedness in dealing with those students who come at a later stage wanting to join the Service.
The other good thing which again stems from the Tory Government but has not been turned down by the present Government—in fact, it has been pushed forward —is the creation of cadetships at the universities, cadetships to come to the univertities with a pledge to join the chosen Service afterwards I would submit that these cadets must be looked after carefully while they are at the university. The medical and dental cadetships are going to be the salvation of the medical side of the three Services. We must realise that the Services are competing with industry
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for precisely the same type of young man and that industry can offer perhaps more glittering rewards than the Services can ever offer. I was very interested in the way in which the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, referred to the opportunity of adventure and comradeship drawing men into the Services. This is precisely what draws so many students towards the Services, and this is what the Services have to offer in competition with industry.
I suggest that another inducement that can be added is an early pension, with the opportunity that offers for a young man who is not going to get great promotion in the Services to make a fresh start in life. I wonder how many of those officers who were selected for permanent commissions during the last War and whose time is now running out have found it difficult to get suitable jobs. Most of them did not have university degrees. I believe that most of them have been willingly snapped up by employers.
The other and final point I wish to make about the Defence Review is on the paragraph about higher defence studies. A committee has reported on the higher defence studies, and this is most intriguing. There is mention of the creation of up to six fellowships for the Services and for Ministry of Defence civil servants at the universities. To balance that, there is the creation of lectureships or senior lectureships in certain universities. I think the good work that has been done by Professor Michael Howard of London University shows how useful this suggestion can become and how important it is to have independent thinking of the highest quality and of integrity directed to the problems of defence as well as to the other problems which face the nation. Not only will it be a good thing that a proportion of the officers of the three Services should he graduates in the humanities; but it will, I suggest, be even more important that a proportion of the civil servants in the Ministry of Defence should have graduated in defence studies.
9.32 p.m.
LORD KING-HALL: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, referred to me in his speech, I feel that I should make it quite clear that although my

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views on defence are certainly not orthodox, I am certainly not a pacifist, and that if a mob attempted to invade this Chamber I should be delighted to place such small amount of violence as I may possess alongside the noble Lord, Lord Ampthill, and once more to be associated with him as in submarines in 1918. I do not object at all to the use of appropriate violence in appropriate circumstances.
My Lords, we read on page 1 of the Review that the purpose of the Defence Review is "to shape a new defence posture for the 1970s ". This word "posture" means a position in relation to circumstances. Therefore what matters above all else is that our defence thinking should be related to a correct appreciation of the circumstances as they exist to-day and in the foreseeable future. If the analysis of the circumstances which I am about to submit briefly to your Lordships is correct, this new posture does not take into account these new circumstances. In a way, it is only a cut-price version of the old posture suitable for the pre-nuclear age. We still intend to claim membership of the club of great military Powers, but at a kind of reduced subscription rate, as might be appropriate for country members of a club. The only issue between the Government and the Opposition is, I think, that the latter claim we are really trying to do too much on the cheap. They do not differ, broadly speaking, over the nature of the new posture in principle, and they do not really differ about the circumstances to which this posture is to be related. I hope to show your Lordships that within the last 25 years a number of new developments have taken place, some of which have never occurred before in the history of mankind, and they radically altered the circumstances which have to be taken into account when we are doing our defence planning.
There is one circumstance which has not altered: it is that man's highest loyalty is still to the sovereign State, and the relations between those sovereign States is expressed through power politics. Power is the decisive factor in political disputes between these States. Although power can be moral and economic, I think it a fact that from time immemorial the most significant component of power in the power politics formula has been
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one's capacity to bring physical violence to bear on the enemy. But in August, 1945, there was a blinding flash over Hiroshima as nuclear energy was used for the first time to produce military violence. I submit, my Lords, that that bomb did very much more than destroy Hiroshima; it dealt a mortal blow at the supremacy of physical violence in the context of power politics. I remember writing on August 16 of that year:
"Total war—large-scale national war—is no longer meaningful in power politics."
Physical violence had become so violent that it had become useless, and I think that is the most revolutionary event which has ever happened in human history.
It is therefore hardly surprising, I think, considering the rapidity with which it has taken place, that most people find it very difficult to appreciate the immense significance of this event, because in order to do that one has to break through a thought barrier in defence thinking and realise that circumstances which have been facts and truths for centuries have now suddenly become non-facts. It is very hard to abandon the worship of one sacred cow; it is still more difficult to abandon the worship of a herd of them. Yet, my Lords, even before the nuclear weapon came on the scene there were signs that conventional violence was becoming, to put it mildly, inconveniently destructive. I recall Sir Winston Churchill saying to me in another place in 1945, "This bombing of Germany is all very well, but where are we going to live when we get there? "—a very practical remark, as one would expect from him.
Furthermore, the destructive effects of modern conventional war are so great that although in World War I we thought we were going to be able to make the Germans pay for the war, it was never suggested during World War II that this could possibly be done. Although it was accepted that we could make no economic gain because of the immense destructive force that we had to use in order to achieve our political aim and get rid of Hitler, I still think it would have surprised a good many people if, in 1945, they had been told that twenty years later we were going to ask the Germans to buy arms to help us With our balance of payments.

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I have already referred to the changes which nuclear development has brought about in reducing the significance of physical violence capacity in the formula of power politics. There are recent developments which also require us to take a new look at what power now consists of. It is not very easy to find the right phrase for one of the new factors that I should like to mention, but I am calling it mass opinion. In the old days, when the issue had been settled by the professional fighting men the views of the civil population were really not of very much account. They accepted the result. They had lost the war. But since World War II, we have discovered that the possession of overwhelming military power—in violent form, that is—does not always produce the total victory it used to do. We have discovered that bases overseas, if the surrounding population is hostile, tend to become concentration camps. We found in Cyprus and Palestine, the French found in Indonesia and Algeria, and I rather suspect that the United States are finding in Vietnam, that physical violence is not enough to deal with those situations in which guerrillas and terrorists, using relatively low-level violence, have widespread support among the people.
Linked up with this new importance in defence problems of the influence of mass opinion is also the technique of nonviolent resistance, which was used successfully by the Norwegian teachers in Word War II and adopted by the negroes in the United States of America. I think that this is a form of power of which we are going to hear more in the future. If ever the Bantu in the Republic of South Africa were able to organise themselves so as to withdraw their labour on any large scale, the South African Government would be pretty helpless, notwithstanding the preponderant amount of physical violence it would have.
In the same field of thought of modern developments is the problem of occupying enemy territory. When my noble friend Lord Chalfont was appointed to his present post, I ventured to write to him and say that he had better take a lease of a villa in Geneva, because of the large number of meetings there would be. I also suggested that he should set
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up some committees to see whether some of the ideas which have hitherto been accepted in defence thinking as gospel were still valid. One of those questions which I think needs looking not is whether or not one sophisticated country can effectively and profitably occupy another. We have twice occupied Germany in my lifetime and I think we were very glad to get out of the place.
There is another new factor in the question of what power is in power politics to-day. When we think of the United States in the ordinary terms of power, we note that, for example, the U.S.A. has 2,600 nuclear warheads in its strategic alert forces, an increase of 300 per cent. in the last five years, and that 7,000 tactical aircraft could be mobilised in 90 days. But, due to the population explosion in Asia and the world food shortage, it looks as if the only sources of supply to prevent widespread famine will soon be in the North American continent. I am not suggesting for a moment that the generous-hearted Americans would ever use this power in a blackmailing manner, but it is a power in power politics, and so is the foreign aid given to emergent nations.
If to help economic development in poor countries is to assist in preserving international peace, then—I mention this as an aside—it is about time that some Western European Powers bore a larger share of this international charity. Economic aid and the cost of military measures to keep peace are two sides of the same coin. The Defence Review says that:
" military strength is of little value if it is achieved at the expense of economic health."
I should prefer to say that economic health makes it possible to exercise power in power politics by the discriminatory use of economic resources.
One of the difficulties which confronts defence planners at this time is that although, as I have endeavoured to show, the whole picture of the circumstances in which we must take a brand new look at defence has changed, and is changing pretty rapidly, there is still, as it were, a hangover from the pre-nuclear age, and this, of course, is the circumstance with which the Defence Paper is chiefly concerned. So, even if one rejects the accuracy of what I have tried to outline as being some of the

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new factors which we must take into account, there are some questions to be asked about old-fashioned Defence policy as described in the Review, particularly about our policy East of Suez.
It is essential in defence matters that one should be clear about one's object. From the moment one arrives at the Defence College to the moment one leaves, it is rammed home that one must be clear about what our defence policy is. What, I ask, are we trying to defend East of Suez? Against whom are we trying to defend whatever it is? I accept at once that certainly at this time we have a moral obligation to defend Malaysia against Indonesian confrontation, but I think this should be for a limited period, and that we should look at it from that point of view. So far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned, I think they know very well that for their security against serious aggression they must depend on the United States. I do not think we are capable of giving India any worthwhile defence if she were seriously attacked by China. I do not believe for one moment that China wants to invade India. The menace in India, it seems to me, is that democracy may collapse; and no doubt China would do its best to encourage that process. I do not think that any military strength that we have would be of much use there, whereas economic aid might be very useful indeed.
I am glad that we are leaving Aden, but I will not burden your Lordships with detailed reasons for that. And I am against the idea that we should be committed for much longer to our Persian Gulf commitment. Here I am in agreement with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn. We must be careful that in the next ten years we do not find ourselves suporting rather out-of-date forms of Government against popular movements. As to the west of the Indian Ocean, I am not clear what our commitments are to the ex-Colonial Commonwealth countries. If, for example, we open our newspapers and read that in some Central African State there has been acoup which has perhaps been only partially successful, are we committed to send in forces to help one side in what may be a civil war? I am only asking the question. If Nkrumah, for instance,
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had been in Ghana, instead of being imprudent enough to leave his country, and the revolt there had not been 100 per cent. successful, could he have called on us immediately to send in a couple of battalions?—that is, of course, if he had not already broken off diplomatic relations. I do not know whether there is an answer to that question.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, I happen to have the answer to that question available, and I look forward to giving it to-morrow. I only intervene now to say, if I may, without impertinence, what an extraordinarily interesting speech the noble Lord is making, and what a demonstration it is of the fact that, however late a speech is made in your Lordships' House, it commands the attention of the Whole House if it is of the quality demonstrated by the noble Lord.
LORD KING-HALL: I must say that I am completely thrown off my stroke by this most flattering intervention. I thank the noble Earl very much. I shall now endeavour to get my feet down on the ground again. To put it shortly, I think it is best, broadly speaking, to leave these emerging nations to sort out their own problems, and I hope that, if they get into a lot of trouble doing it, the United Nations will have enough authority and strength, backed by us, to intervene. I am coming hack to the United Nations in a moment.
In short, I am in favour, broadly speaking, of reducing our commitments East of Suez as rapidly as possible, proper notice being given to those concerned. I realise that this means a detachment from what appears to be our commitment to give moral support (I do not think it could amount to much more) to American policy in that area. But I sincerely believe that our American friends are making a mistake in their policy towards China, in trying to contain China by military means, and our association with them makes it harder for us to work towards getting China into the United Nations. I believe that it is in the interests of the Americans themselves that we should have a certain detachment and independence in our approach to the Chinese problem.

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Your Lordships may be thinking that you are listening to what, when I was a boy, was called "Little Englander" (I remember my first recollection was of seeing a pro-Boer being chased down the streets of Margate and having rotten eggs thrown at him: I asked my nurse what it was all about, and she said, "He is a Little Englander"), and that I am advocating in effect a posture of neutralism, analogous perhaps to that of Sweden. I assure your Lordships that that is not at all my idea of the future of Britain. I believe that we are a great nation, and the problem before us is how to be a great Power in the world when it is obvious that if great Power status and influence depend upon the amount of violence capacity one has, we are just not in the hunt. On February 3, 1966, the Minister of Defence said in Australia:
"The most important conclusion we have come to "—
he was referring to the Defence Review—
" is that we do intend to remain in a military sense a world Power."
I believe that to be quite impossible if the words "military sense" mean the size and strength of our Armed Forces.
As I have tried to indicate earlier in these remarks, a whole series of developments have taken place which have dethroned the capacity to exercise physical violence from its previously and immemorially dominant position in power politics, the most important of those developments, of course, being the nuclear weapon, now, I greatly fear, likely to proliferate as we await the explosion of the French hydrogen bomb in the Pacific. My thinking in this matter leads me to believe that it has been a most providential event from the point of view of Britain, that at the moment in history when, due to the growth of the United States and Russia, it was obvious we could no longer compete in the possession of violence capacity, the nuclear weapon and the other factors I have mentioned have combined greatly to lessen the significance of violence as an element in power politics.
How, then, should we exploit this state of affairs for the benefit and greatness of our country? The Defence Review, Chapter II, paragraph 4, says:
" it remains a major aim of British policy to enable the United Nations to take on more "—
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peace-keeping—
" in the years to come ".
Time is in very short supply and the statement in the Defence Review says:
" Britain is already making a major contribution to the United Nations forces in Cyprus and has offered further units for logistic support of a United Nations force, whenever this is required …".
That statement does not seem to me to be a very striking or substantial contribution to what is described officially as a major aim of our policy.
As I see the shape of things to come over the next twenty years I believe—I deeply regret to have to say it—that mankind will destroy itself if it persists in the idea that international disputes are to be settled by military force, now that this is becoming more and more nuclear in character. It is a type of violence likely to be used tactically, as well as strategically; and if used tactically it will surely escalate. The alternative is to make a supreme effort to strengthen the United Nations before it is too late. I therefore want Britatin to inaugurate a defence policy which, from the political point of view, is as revolutionary politically as the tendency and application of nuclear energy to military purposes has been revolutionary in the material field.
I have two proposals to put forward. The first one is so modest that I do not think anyone can object to it. My first suggestion is that the Defence Review is based on the assumption that physical violence is still the chief element in power politics. I should like the Government to set up a Royal Commission, or an analogous body, to examine the whole question of defence in the nuclear age, and in the changing circumstances, such as the growth of the importance of mass opinion, which I have mentioned. Of course, such an inquiry would also look into the pros and cons of non-violent resistance.
My second proposal—I know that I am asking perhaps for the moon—is that Her Majesty's Government should say here and now that, as a major contribution towards strengthening the United Nations, which must become the world's peacekeeping authority, we intend to create what I call a United Nations Aid Service. I must not weary your Lordships for the last five minutes I propose to speak by going into any details of this body, but in

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outline it will be composed of three brigades, one in North America, one stationed in Europe and one in the Far East. Each brigade would consist of technicians of all kinds—engineers, doctors and so forth—and a small contingent of troops conventionally armed.
This force would have its own ships and aircraft. I think each brigade might consist of perhaps 10,000 men and women; but the essence of my proposal is that Great Britain would initially finance and equip this aid service, which would be open to volunteers from all nations, and we would renounce national political control thereof. It would be at the disposal of the United Nations as a comprehensively equipped,—highly mobile body, available to deal with great natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and so on, or with peace-keeping operations. Its personnel would be U.N. servants on long-term contracts. Having launched the idea from this country, I should hope that other nations would then join in, but I want Great Britain to have the credit of starting it up. I am well aware that many people will say, "That is a lot of airy-fairy nonsense; never anything like that before in world history". My Lords, the nuclear bomb had not been heard of 25 years ago and now makes nonsense of traditional pre-nuclear defence ideas.
I notice the Defence Review says that we must satisfy non-nuclear members of the Alliance that
"nuclear weapons will or will not be used in accordance with the needs of the Alliance as a whole ".
On March 4, 1965, Mr. Hogg said in another place that in a nuclear exchange
"The Russians and Americans, after having suffered immeasurable damage, might after a fashion survive. I do not know. But one thing I do know and that is we would not survive ".
In reply to this, the Secretary of Defence said that Mr. Hogg understood these facts. He knew that if we ever loosed off this weapon, life on this island would be extinct in three days. Therefore, I cannot concede any circumstances in which it would be needful to the Western Alliance to use nuclear weapons. But the horrible fact is that the development of the tactical nuclear weapon is leading
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to a situation in which nuclear weapons are becoming looked upon as conventional weapons. Mankind is living under the darkening shadow of an unprecedented disaster. There is hope that it can be avoided if one nation of importance is prepared to break out of this vicious circle by taking a dramatic move away from the concept of the use of national military forces to settle international disputes. It is a move which would give hope to mankind and might be a step in the direction towards the ultimate goal of World Government.
I am on record in books and elsewhere as advocating that, on grounds of both expediency and morality, Great Britain, unilaterally if need be, should abandon the use of nuclear energy for military purposes. I realise that this seems absolute lunacy to those who, from my point of view, are still on the wrong side of the thought barrier in thinking about defence in the nuclear age. It is for this reason, in seeking measures which do not too violently upset conventional thought about defence problems, that I ask that Great Britain should be the nation to make a substantial move forward into policies and a posture appropriate to the nuclear age, by inaugurating what I have called the United Nations Aid Service.
We are often told that the British people have lost a sense of purpose. Let our purpose be to throw all our weight and influence behind the task of strengthening the U.N. Let this be the spearhead of our new defence posture, and let us take as our guide line Milton's words when he wrote:
" Let not England forget her precedence in teaching the nations how to live."
Were he alive to-day, he might write "teaching the nations how to survive". Let us show the world that we can be a great nation and exercise beneficial power without possessing the immense violence capacity which, to my way of thinking, is still erroneously considered to be the principal element in power politics.
9.59 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, it is late and I shall be very brief. There are, however, one or two points I wish to bring forward, and they are rather diverse ones. First of all, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, whether the negotiations over the new constitution of

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the Southern Arabian States were carried out with the knowledge of the local Rulers that the Aden base was going to be given up. Otherwise, if they did not know, it strikes me, and probably strikes them, that they were negotiating under false premises.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if the negotiations on the constitution to which the noble Lord refers means the constitutional proposals of Hone and Bell, the answer is that they had the Report from Hone and Bell with the new constitutional proposals in one week and the news about the base in the following week.
EARL FORTESCUE: I thank the noble Earl. Turning to the Territorial Army, or whatever it is going to be called in the future, I must say I do not think recruiting is ever likely to go well if the force is going to be largely tagging along behind the police and the anti-bomb organisations. In order to get good Territorial recruiting they must be made to feel that they are part of the sharp end; they must be well armed; and it must be brought home to them that they really have a rôle in home defence.
On the matter of home defence, I question whether the present proposal is anything like adequate. I do not wish to make any helpful suggestions to the Russians or anybody else, but it occurs to me that if a potentially hostile nation wanted to have a go at England it would be perfectly easy to extract the strategic reserve from this country and then we should have no troops on the ground at all, except a few depots which would not be in the first instance organised or very war-worthy. Troops on the ground strike me as absolutely essential. Otherwise we shall not need an atom bomb to subdue us, and if two or three airborne divisions were flown in they could take over the whole country. I think it is necessary to have far more troops on the ground, even if only partially trained, as Territorials must be. An under-armed infantry
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would not be a suitable component, and the force should include a large proportion of armoured cars and some guns.
There is one point on which I should like, with great deference, to question the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, and that is his suggestion that a Territorial W.R.A.C. should be embodied in the proposed battalions. My own experience is that it is worth a great deal for a unit to know and realise that it is in a position to go to war on mobilisation, self-sufficient. Instead of embodying the W.R.A.C. to do the cooking and the clerking and that sort of thing, I would suggest what my own regiment did before the war. We enlisted time-expired Regulars, sergeant cooks and quartermaster sergeants, and made them storemen, for which they got a house and a small increase in their pensions; then, on mobilisation and when we went to camp the storemen became sergeant cooks and quartermaster sergeants. Finally I should like to record how much pleasure I have, as an old Yeomanry Commanding Officer, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Barnard, on a first-class maiden speech.
LORD DENHAM: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Selkirk, I beg to move that this debate be now adjourned.
Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Denham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL
Returned from the Commons, with the Amendments agreed to.

WHITLEY BAY PIER BILL [H.L.]
Committed to a Select Committee.
House adjourned at five minutes past ten o'clock.