Sitting of 27 March 1968

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

    A.E.I. Factories, Woolwich
    Mr. Mayhew: I beg to present a humble Petition signed by 11,704 persons, including the joint trade union committee of A.E.I. representing staff and manual workers of A.E.I., traders, shopkeepers, residents and employees of industry of many London boroughs, Harlow New Town, towns and boroughs in the Home Counties and also Hartlepools, Coventry, Manchester and Rugby.
    The Petition says that the signatories view with alarm the present employment situation in the South-East London area and especially in the London Borough of Greenwich which is also faced with the possible influx of some thousands of workers because of the developments at Thamesmead and Kidbrooke. The petitioners object most strongly to the attitude of the General Electric Company and its decision to close the A.E.I. factories in the Woolwich group and they call upon the Government to take all necessary steps to enable the factories to remain open as telecommunications equipment factories and so retain the present teams of skilled workers.
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your House will give urgent consideration to these matters.
    To lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TRANSPORT

    Heavy Good Vehicles (Quantity Licensing)
    Mr. Derek Pageasked the Minister of Transport what steps she is taking to prevent possible dislocation of industrial
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    development in expanding towns, due to the effect of the 100-mile limit proposed for quantity licensing of heavy goods vehicles.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Morris): There is no ban on heavy lorries going over 100 miles. Unless rail is at least as cheap, speedy and reliable as road, quantity licences will be granted. The system will thus ensure that goods move by the most economic means; this should bring benefits to the places my hon. Friend mentions.
    Mr. Page: Is my hon. Friend aware that transport to and from London to the outlying areas of East Anglia is of the greatest importance to developing industry, and that there have been some fears that firms might be tempted to move inside areas which appear to be less than 100 miles from London? Will he give an assurance that the radius from London which covers King's Lynn rather than road mileage will be counted?
    Mr. Morris: I assure my hon. Friend that there is no ground for anxiety. According to the terms of the Bill, mileage is counted in a straight line, and I understand that King's Lynn is 90 miles from central London. Almost the whole of the area around London would be excluded, and I therefore give my hon. Friend that assurance.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Does not the hon. Gentleman consider, however, that the businessmen of King's Lynn are better at deciding the most economical form of transport?
    Mr. Morris: We firmly believe that, where it is able to offer a competitive service, rail should carry this kind of traffic.

    National Freight Corporation
    Mr. Websterasked the Minister of Transport what is her estimate of the National Freight Corporation's profit or losses for 1968 to 1969 and 1969 to 1970.
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): We expect the National Freight Corporation to be capable of operating on a financially viable basis from the outset, but it must be for the Corporation itself to make detailed revenue forecasts.
    Mr. Webster: What will be the yearly cost of this new bureaucracy?
    Mr. Swingler: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. We are discussing some of these matters in detail on the Transport Bill, but these are assets already in existence which are being transferred to the National Freight Corporation. For example, where they hold assets of the Transport Holding Company, it will be for the managers of the new concern to make the most successful financial results from their opportunities

    Cars (Removal Charges)
    Mr. Danceasked the Minister of Transport why, in fixing the charge for the removal of abandoned vehicles and those illegally or obstructively parked, she made no distinction between the deliberate intent to abandon permanently and the temporary and inadvertent nuisance caused in the other cases.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neil Carmichael): The law distinguishes between these offences and provides widely different penalties for them. The removal charge is intended only to cover the cost of removing the vehicle, and this is unaffected by the intention of the person leaving it.
    Mr. Dance: Yes, but would the hon. Gentleman not agree that it appears that the owners of badly parked cars are now subsidising the owners of vehicles deliberately left on the public highway?
    Mr. Carmichael: No, Sir. The Public Accounts Committee had looked into this and it was suggested that the cost of removals should be increased to the present rate of, I think, £4 10s. in London and Birmingham and £4 elsewhere except motorways. The charge is intended to cover the actual cost of removal of the vehicle and while occasionally a "non-runner" is more expensive to remove than a "runner," there is sometimes great difficulty with a "runner" because it has an anti-theft device.
    Mr. Mapp: But will my hon. Friend try to even out the varying charges in the same town for police removal, which is separate from local authority removal? May we at least have some uniformity here?
    Mr. Carmichael: I will look into this. I think that there is a distinction between the police and the local authority, in that the latter may know that certain vehicles are completely abandoned, whereas the police are merely removing a vehicle which is an obstruction. There is a difference.

    Thames Lighterage Industry
    Mr. Alan Lee Williamsasked the Minister of Transport whether she is now in a position to make a statement on the progress of the discussions she is having on the question of an inquiry into the Thames lighterage industry.
    Mr. Swingler: As I have explained to my hon. Friend, we have examined his suggestion for an independent inquiry into the lighterage trade, but have concluded that it would not only cut across investigations now in progress into particular aspects but might also inhibit action on the most urgent problems facing the trade.
    Mr. Williams: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's reply and the consideration which he has given to my Motion on the subject, but would he not agree that it would be rather dangerous to leave the future of the Thames lighterage industry to the new Ports Authority, because, if it is anything like the present P.L.A., it will be anti-lighterage? Would he use his good offices in the near future to discuss with both sides the short-term as well as the long-term problems of the industry?
    Mr. Swingler: Yes, Sir. I am prepared to do that. In fact, one of our reasons for not accepting my hon. Friend's suggestion for an independent inquiry is that we think that more progress could be made by direct discussions with the port authorities and those responsible for the lighterage trade. I should be glad to consider any proposals where we can help.

    Tyre Failure
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Minister of Transport what investigations her department is carrying out into the reduction in tyre failure and increased safety produced by filling tyres with nitrogen; and what steps she is taking

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    to develop the use of nitrogen-filled tyres.
    Mr. Carmichael: We are seeking more information on the basis of reports, originating in America, that nitrogen filling of tyres might reduce tyre failures. At present we have no evidence to suggest that this is likely to be an effective and practical means of making tyres safer.
    Mr. Roberts: But would my hon. Friend not accept that the American experiments suggested that, once internal oxidation is reduced, the rate of tyre failure falls appreciably and that there is no suggestion that the cost of nitrogen filling of tyres would be prohibited?
    Mr. Carmichael: There has been a suggestion from America that nitrogen filling of tyres would reduce the oxidation of the rubber, but at present we are making only preliminary inquiries to see how effective this may be. If those inquiries prove hopeful, we will institute some research. As to tyres and tyre safety, the new Regulations introduced by my right hon. Friend which come into effect on 1st April are a practical step in this direction.

    Cars (Child Passengers)
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Minister of Transport what steps her Department is taking to encourage drivers to carry children in the rear seats of cars and to develop and extend the use of rear-seat harnesses for children.
    The Minister of Transport (Mrs. Barbara Castle): I am including special publicity on television about this in my road safety campaign for this summer. I am also considering how best it can be emphasised more widely as part of our efforts to reduce accidents, particularly to children.
    Mr. Roberts: Would my right hon. Friend accept that, while the House welcomes this, 70 per cent. of serious accidents could have been avoided by the use of children's harness in rear seats, which is now available, and that this is a matter of urgency? Is she aware that some countries, like Italy, are introducing legislation to prevent children from being carried in the front seats of cars?
    Mrs. Castle: I am well aware of the risks which parents take with their children's lives in the practice of having the children in the front seats—sometimes even a baby on a mother's lap. I am very anxious to discourage this. This is why we are making a special feature of this matter in the publicity campaign which we will launch on a wide scale this summer.

    Passenger Transport Authorities (Bournemouth)
    Mr. Cordleasked the Minister of Transport when Bournemouth will be affected by her proposals to set up Passenger Transport Authorities throughout the country.
    Mr. Swingler: As my right hon. Friend said in the White Paper on Public Transport and Traffic, we will consider the establishment of Passenger Transport Authorities outside the conurbations when the future shape of local government is clearer.
    Mr. Cordle: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that people who use public transport on the South Coast would prefer the Minister to concentrate on improving British Rail commuter services rather than introducing these authorities, with an inevitable increase in fares and a burden on the rates?
    Mr. Swingler: There is no inevitable increase in fares. The main purpose of establishing these authorities is to get the co-ordination and greater efficiency which I imagine the hon. Member wishes to see. But, meantime, matters are being investigated by the regional passenger transport co-ordinating committees of the Planning Councils. If the hon. Gentleman has any problems, I suggest that he puts them to those committees.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Conservative-controlled Southampton council has welcomed the new Passenger Transport Authority for the area?

    Transport Bill
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Transport how many representations and letters she has received to date against the Transport Bill.
    Mr, Edward M. Taylorasked the Minister of Transport how many communications have been received by her Department since 1st January, 1968, on the Transport Bill; and what percentage of this total gave support to the provisions of the Bill.
    Mrs. Castle: In view of the expensive campaign against the Bill conducted by the Conservative Party and other groups, it is not surprising that I have received a large number of letters, many in a standard form, protesting against the Bill. They include some hundreds of copies of a largely incomprehensible coupon from a newspaper. I have, however, without any prompting, also received many letters supporting the Bill generally, although some of these have criticised specific provisions.
    Mr. Ridsdale: How many of them have protested against the disastrous rise in costs? For example, does the right hon. Lady think it right for a small shipbuilder in East Anglia to pay a levy of £400 in going from East Anglia to Manchester when the boat is being exported? What is she doing about this matter?
    Mrs. Castle: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman keeps a little more abreast of the news. Obviously he is referring to parts of the Bill which are no longer in it.
    Mr. James Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the most critical road hauliers are the inefficient ones and that among the industrialists in Scotland there is now general acceptance of the Bill as recently modified?
    Mrs. Castle: I think that there is now a growing appreciation by the road haulage industry that many of the wild attacks which have been made on the Bill are totally insubstantiable. I am confident that as the Bill comes into operation these absurd, exaggerated fears will die away and that the benefits of the Bill will be appreciated, even by road hauliers.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Following on the right hon. Lady's swallowing of her own words, could she tell us the cost of printing the standard reply to the many standard and non-standard letters?
    Mrs. Castle: Far from there being a standard reply, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that very great care has been taken by my Department to circulate in reply,
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    even to the coupons from the newspapers, the full details of the Bill, because the industry is doing itself harm by continuing to repeat complete misstatements of the position under the Bill.
    Mr. Eadieasked the Minister of Transport (1) how many professional associations in Scotland have submitted written observations to her on the provisions of the Transport Bill; and if she will list them;
    (2) how many local government authorities in Scotland have submitted to her written observations on the provisions of the Transport Bill.
    Mrs. Castle: I have received a number of letters on the Bill from professional associations and local authorities in Scotland, but they are not separately filed and I could not justify the cost of separating them out and listing them.
    Mr. Eadie: Can my right hon. Friend inform the House whether trade unions in Scotland have been favourable to the Bill, since their members represent a very big part of the vote and of the interest in the Bill? Could she further tell the House whether this will give the local authorities the opportunity to provide a first-class service in the interests of the people of the respective areas?
    Mrs. Castle: Yes. Certainly the trade unions in Scotland have welcomed the Bill, and the Scottish T.U.C. has gone out of its way to say how big an improvement this will make both in the level of public transport and in the conditions of their members. As for the local authorities, on the whole their comments have been favourable to the Bill, and the establishment of the Scottish Transport Group is one of the biggest steps we could take to see that public transport in Scotland is under the control of local communities.
    Mr. Peter Walker: In view of the fact that the right hon. Lady considered, when she was proposing the abnormal loads and wear and tear taxes, that there was a real need to relieve Scotland of some of the £33 million involved, what relief does she consider Scotland will need from the extra £60 million of motor vehicle licences and fuel tax?
    Mrs. Castle: The hon. Member is aware that special representations were

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    made from Scotland about the abnormal load charges. It was this which was the fear of industry in Scotland which has to carry these abnormal loads rather long distances. It was for that reason that I agreed to consider the exemption of the development areas, having Scotland very much in mind. In view of the fact that the Chancellor was imposing certain financial burdens on the road haulage industry in his Budget, I represented to him that the abnormal loads charge should be dropped, and I am very glad to say he agreed.
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Minister of Transport what representations she has received from interests in the Highlands and Islands relating to proposals in the Transport Bill; and what reply she has sent.
    Mrs. Castle: I have had a number of representations from hon. and right hon. Members, local authorities, firms and individuals, mainly about the proposals in Parts V and VI of the Bill. In replying and my Department have explained how these proposals will operate in the Highlands and Islands; but of course as the hon. Member knows I am not now proceeding with Part IV of the Bill.
    Mr. Campbell: Is the Minister aware that the Highland Development Board has recommended that the Islands be exempted from quantity licensing, and that local authorities in the Highlands are worried about the effects of the Government's proposals? Is she further aware that none of these public bodies is a member of the Road Haulage Association?
    Mrs. Castle: I am aware that the local authorities of the Highlands and Islands have accepted and, indeed, welcome the majority of the Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—as well they might, in view of the financial assistance that the Government are giving for the first time to rural transport and in view of the other grants included in the Bill to help public transport in areas of this kind. As regards quantity licensing, it has been explained time and again, particularly to areas like the Highlands and Islands, that, where there are no rail services available, the quantity licensing proposals will not affect the road transport provisions.
    Mr. Maclennan: While recognising that there are many aspects of the Bill which will be particularly beneficial to the Highlands, including those which my right hon. Friend has just mentioned, may I ask whether she is aware that there is concern in the remoter parts of the Highlands which are not served by rail services that the profitability of companies which are based on these parts is dependent to some extent on back loads from the south, and that if their requests for quantity licences are opposed by British Railways, it might have an extremely serious effect on them?
    Mrs. Castle: But I would assure my hon. Friend that where there are no rail services, quite clearly British Railways will not object, let alone be successful in objecting, to applications for road licences. It is a total misrepresentation of the purposes of the Bill to suggest, as some have, that quantity licensing will hit areas which have not got a good rail service. Obviously those areas will not be affected.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Will the Minister take note of her hon. Friend's point that these firms depend on return loads for which, under her system, they will be unable to obtain quantity licences?
    Mrs. Castle: It does not follow that there will be no licences for back loads. There are controls about back loads under the existing provisions. In fact, my provisions are a considerable liberalisation of the present quantity control. The problems of back loads will be considered on their merits by the independent licensing authorities.
    Mr. G. Campbellasked the Minister of Transport what representations she has received from industry in Scotland on proposals in the Transport Bill; and what reply she has sent.
    Mrs. Castle: I have received representations from organisations and firms in Scotland about various aspects of the Transport Bill. In each case I have sent an appropriate reply.
    Mr. Campbell: Does the Minister realise that, however generous the licensing authority may be—and she has just indicated that they will be generous in certain areas—industry in Scotland, quite apart from road hauliers, views with profound anxiety the delays of several

    1517
    weeks involved in the application procedures, because 100 miles is a normal distance in Scotland and not a long one?
    Mrs. Castle: The delays of several weeks again are purely pieces of mythology. It depends entirely on whether the Railways Board issues an objection to an application at all. As Mr. Johnson, the Chairman of the Railways Board, has made clear, British Railways intend to be extremely co-operative and flexible in this matter and in many cases there will not be any objection.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: The Minister seems to view all representations on this matter through rose-coloured spectacles and takes to herself only those parts of them which support her case. Is she aware that industry in Scotland feels threatened by the impact of this legislation on the most important part of its industrial position in the country, namely, transport costs?
    Mrs. Castle: I know that there have been anxieties, particularly about the abnormal load charge. Far from refusing to listen to representations, I have listened, and have said that they would have to be considered. I said that in areas like Scotland there was a case for the reconsideration of the abnormal loads charge. I agreed to reconsider it. It has now been dropped. I can only say that the fears about the effects of quantity licensing have been deliberately whipped up by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.

    Perth and Angus Fruit Growers Limited (Representations)
    Mr. Buchanan-Smithasked the Minister of Transport what representations she has had from Perth and Angus Fruit Growers Limited regarding the road transport White Paper; and what reply she has sent.
    Mr. John Morris: The Perth and Angus Fruit Growers Limited wrote about the possible effect of the road transport proposals on the carriage of perishable goods. I am sending the hon. Member a copy of our reply.
    Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, in order to get flexibility and quality of service in the fruit trade, growers depend very much
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    on road transport? In view of his right hon. Friend's assurances about and defences of the Transport Bill, can he assure these growers that they will not suffer extra costs and restrictions in providing the services that they are able to offer?
    Mr. Morris: We are only concerned with the quantity licensing of lorries over 16 tons gross weight. If British Railways wish to object to an application, their criteria for doing so are that they can offer as good a service on the grounds of speed, reliability and cost. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Clause 71 allows licensing authorities to grant short-term quantity licences immediately if required.
    Mr. Webster: In the case of an emergency involving perishable goods, how does the hon. Gentleman fit in a fortnight's delay when applying for a quantity licence?
    Mr. Morris: There is no 14-day delay. If the hon. Gentleman knows anything about licensing, he will know that over the years licensing authorities have been able to take speedy action in emergencies if necessary over the telephone.

    Passenger Transport, Nottingham Area
    Mr. Gardnerasked the Minister of Transport when she expects to receive the report from the East Midlands Economic Planning Council on future passenger transport needs in the Nottingham area.
    Mr. Swingler: I understand that the Council is not preparing a separate report on passenger transport needs in the region but will deal with it as part of a general report which should be ready later in the year.
    Mr. Gardner: But is my right hon. Friend aware of the growing and continuing concern about the inadequacy of passenger transport in the Nottingham area following the closure of certain railway stations and the failure to provide adequate bus services? Would he not advise his right hon. Friend to designate the area for a P.T.A.?
    Mr. Swingler: The latter part of my hon. Friend's question will be considered by my right hon. Friend at a later date.

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    I am aware of the urgency of this problem. We shall shortly be receiving the Planning Council's Report, which will deal with Nottingham's passenger transport needs. But my hon. Friend will be aware that the counties and county boroughs of Nottingham and Derby have now put in hand a separate study of their own to go into the whole question. Out of that, I hope that we shall get effective proposals for co-ordination.

    Road Developments (Compensation Payments)
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Minister of Transport whether she will give an assurance that the owners of houses in Bowring Park Road, Liverpool, that will not be purchased to make room for the South Lancashire Motorway, will be adequately compensated for the loss in the value of their property caused by the recommendation of her Department's North-West Road Construction Unit.
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Minister of Transport whether she will seek powers to enable her to make good the loss to owners of houses deleteriously affected by new road developments.
    Mr. Swingler: My right hon. Friend has received representations about the compensation law in relation to highways and these are being studied.
    Mr. Tilney: Will the Minister bear in mind that once an urban motorway is planned a blight descends on the whole area? Many people have invested all their savings in these houses. Will the hon. Gentleman consider getting the district valuer to determine a pre-development price so that the houses can be bought by the local authority?
    Mr. Swingler: We are aware of the problems to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention. We have now received an extremely complex document from the Chartered Land Societies and representations from others. These are now being studied by the appropriate Government Departments. As soon as we have the results of the study my right hon. Friend will make a statement.

    Motor Cyclists (Learner Drivers)
    Mr. Macdonaldasked the Minister of Transport whether she has by now received the views of local authorities on
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    the Report of the Working Party on the Training of Learner Motor-Cyclists; and if she will make a sattement on the development of the training scheme now operated by the Royal Automobile Club/ Auto Cycle Union.
    Mr. Swingler: The last of the replies from the local authority associations was received earlier this month, and we are now considering their views.
    Mr. Macdonald: Does my hon. Friend agree that few acts could do more to improve road safety than improvements in the training of learner motor-cyclists? Is it not, therefore, urgent to repay the painstaking zeal of those who drew up the report with great speed in coming to a conclusion about these replies?
    Mr. Swingler: Yes. My right hon. Friend is extremely anxious to make progress on the proposals which she has put forward. We shall be talking to the local authorities about them, and I hope that we shall rapidly reach a consensus and get action.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of the Minister's justifiable onslaught on noise from four-wheeled vehicles, may I ask whether the hon. Gentleman can say to what extent local authorities have expressed any opinions on the noise made by motor cycles and whether some encouragement can be given to abate the nuisance?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a question about the training of learner motorcyclists.
    Mr. Swingler: The subject that the hon. Gentleman has raised is covered by regulations introduced by my right hon. Friend.

    Reflective Number Plates
    Mr. Danceasked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the success of the use of reflective number plates on cars, she will consider taking steps to make their use obligatory; and whether she will make a statement.
    Mr. Carmichael: No, Sir. More evidence of their road safety value is needed before considering whether their use should be made compulsory.
    Mr. Dance: Is the Minister aware that in my part of the country local road safety people and the police recommend that reflective number plates are extremely valuable? Will he, therefore, make a start by making their use obligatory on commercial vehicles which at present normally have extremely bad number plates?
    Mr. Carmichael: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that in the White Paper on Road Safety my right hon. Friend suggested that road safety measures should be looked at in terms of their cost effectiveness. While the signs about the idea of illuminated number plates are encouraging, it is felt that a period of about two years should be allowed for any new device to operate, before deciding whether it is the best way to spend the money to ensure road safety.

    Breath-Testing Devices
    Mr. Archerasked the Minister of Transport whether she will introduce legislation to ensure that no breath-testing device is exhibited or advertised for sale to the public unless it bears a clear warning that it provides only an approximate indication, and that the alcohol content of blood can rise after the last drink is taken.
    Mrs. Castle: I understand that these points are already covered in a Code of Rules recently issued by the Advertising Standards Authority.
    Mr. Archer: Will my right hon. Friend take steps to publicise these rules and does not she agree that many of the existing "get-ups" are calculated to make people think that they have beaten the breathalyser, and this is very dangerous?
    Mrs. Castle: I agree with my hon. Friend that any attempt to encourage self-testing is to be deplored. I think that the firms concerned are complying with the Authority's code.

  ROADS

    A47 Road (Traffic Flow)
    Mr. Derek Pageasked the Minister of Transport whether she will take steps to expedite the flow of traffic along the
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    A47 road at its junction with the entrance to the Hardwick Road industrial estate.
    Mr. Carmichael: It is expected that an improved junction, designed to facilitate turning movements, will be completed and in use next month.
    Mr. Page: Is my hon. Friend aware that the blockages at this junction already mean delays of 25 minutes or half an hour even in the winter months and that in the summer delays with holiday traffic are absolutely intolerable? Will he continue to keep a close eye on the need for improvements?
    Mr. Carmichael: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend is keeping a close eye on this matter. As my hon. Friend is aware, the King's Lynn southern bypass, which is the real long-term solution to this problem, is hoped to be available in the early 1970s, and we hope that it will take about half the through traffic which now passes across the junction.

    Prospect Road, Hythe
    Mr. Costainasked the Minister of Transport if, having regard to town centre traffic problems in Hythe, she will arrange for a scheme to widen Prospect Road to make it suitable for two-way traffic to be prepared, with estimates of cost, and include such a scheme in her present road programme.
    Mr. Carmichael: Proposals for widening Prospect Road to make it suitable for two-way traffic have been agreed in principle. The work is to be carried out in stages, the first of which is estimated to cost £30,000 and expected to start shortly. Further stages, each complete in itself, will be prepared and programmed by the divisional road engineer as funds permit.
    Mr. Costain: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the first £30,000 is just for pulling down premises to make access for large loads to the Dungeness Power Station, which has very little effect on Hythe? Could he expedite the rest of the work which is necessary?
    Mr. Carmichael: The road, as planned, does not warrant a high priority in the national roads scheme and it is believed

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    that, if progress is made on sections of the road as and when funds become available to the divisional road engineer and those sections are made to comply with the final envisaged road, this would be the best way to tackle the problem which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

    A1 Road (South Mimms-Welwyn)
    Sir R. Russellasked the Minister of Transport when the single carriageway sections of the A1 between South Mimms and Welwyn will be converted to dual carriageway.
    Mr. Carmichael: There are two short sections still to be dualled—one as a motorway. Preparatory work, including the statutory processes, still have to be completed on each scheme. We cannot give firm dates, but we hope work will start on both sections in the early 1970s.
    Sir R. Russell: Since the hon. Gentleman told me seven weeks ago in answer to a Question that the traffic flow on this section of single carriageway is greater than that on the motorway dual section North of it, is it not ridiculous to leave this section as one bottleneck in the A1 between London and the North of England?
    Mr. Carmichael: We are of course pressing ahead and that is why this is included in the scheme and we hope that it will be started in the early 1970s. The choice of the best line has presented practical difficulties: there are engineering and economic factors involved, also amenity considerations. That brought in National Trust park interests, residents at Ayot Green and others, which caused a delay. This is always a difficulty when people have an important right to demand that amenity be considered, but it holds up the programme which the Ministry intends to get ahead with.

    Dovercourt-Harwich Bypass
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Minister of Transport whether she will make a further statement about the date when work will begin on the Dovercourt-Harwich Bypass.
    Mr. Swingler: This scheme is in the principal road preparation list and decisions on its construction will depend on the progress made by the Essex County
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    Council, as highway authority, in preparing the details of the scheme.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he continually stalls about when this road will be begun? As a considerable amount of traffic is going for export, will he do his best to see that it is done fairly soon?
    Mr. Swingler: Far from stalling, my right hon. Friend has approved this scheme for preparation. It now depends on how quickly the highway authority can prepare details of the scheme. We are well aware of the problem here and this scheme will be committed to the programme as rapidly as possible. One thing which we have done in the mean time is to get on with the improvement to the A.604 over an eight-mile stretch.

    East-West Motorway Routes
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Transport what progress she is making with the survey of the East-West Motorway routes, particularly between South Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and Cheshire and Lancashire; and whether she will publish a White Paper.
    Mr. Swingler: We are at present considering a report on the study of trans-Pennine traffic movement carried out under the agency of West Riding County Council. My right hon. Friend hopes to be in a position to reach a decision on future strategy and priorities for the improvement of trans-Pennine communications after consultation with local authorities and other interested bodies. She does not propose to publish a White Paper.
    Mr. Osborn: May we have some infomation as to when we shall know what route has been chosen and what decision has been made as the construction of good east-west communications is urgent? Both sides are grey areas.
    Mr. Swingler: I appreciate the feeling of urgency on the part of those concerned. Copies of this report have only recently been sent to local authorities. The next stage is for us to enter into consultations and to get all the views of the local authorities. As soon thereafter as possible my right hon. Friend will issue a statement about the conclusions which we have made.
    Mr. Peter M. Jackson: Would my hon. Friend agree that it would be highly desirable that such a route should avoid the Peak District National Park?

    M1-M6 (Link)
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Transport when she expects the link between the M1 and M6 motorways to be completed.
    Mrs. Castle: By the end of 1971.

    Road Schemes
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Transport (1) whether she will take steps to expedite decisions on the line of future road schemes, especially by-passes, so that local planning authorities can give prompt decisions on development plans;
    (2) whether she will take action to obviate the delays in fixing the lines of future road schemes and in informing local planning authorities, so as to enable the latter to settle planning applications without delay.
    Mr. Swingler: The lines of future trunk roads are fixed as expeditiously as possible in accordance with the statutory procedures laid down in the Highways Act, 1959. Local planning authorities are consulted and kept fully informed.
    Mr. Digby: Yes, but is the Minister aware that the indecision of her Ministry is holding up the development of many alternative routes, particularly bypasses, and that this is having a very frustrating and annoying effect? Will she take real steps to hurry up the decision?
    Mr. Swingler: I am not quite sure to what point the hon. Member is referring, but if it is the case which we have been considering, the planning applications were not referred to the Ministry of Transport at all. I shall certainly be very pleased to look into further details if the hon. Gentleman will give me the cases he has in mind.
    Mr. Brooks: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are examples in my own constituency where there does appear to have been very dilatory action on the part not only of his Ministry but of the Ministry of Housing also? As far as he is concerned, would he consider, as a matter
    1526
    of regular routine, publishing in these cases a full account of the chronology of events which have led to the completion of the major projects?
    Mr. Swingler: If my hon. Friend will supply me with details I will certainly look into them. Obviously we do not want to be responsible for holding up developments or creating red tape in this respect. Both my hon. Friend and other hon. Gentlemen will be aware of the difficulties connected with the forward planning of road schemes and the effect these may have in rendering some land sterile. If my hon. Friend will supply me with details of other land he has in mind I will certainly investigate them thoroughly.

    Bideford Bridge
    Mr. Peter Millsasked the Minister of Transport what progress has been made in the negotiations between the Bideford Bridge Trustees and her Department on the transfer of Bideford Bridge to her control.
    Mr. Carmichael: As we have already announced, negotiations with the trustees have been successfully concluded. The trustees have relinquished all their interests in the bridge and we have assumed full and sole responsibility and control.
    Statutory processes have still to be followed before the terms of transfer of these functions are confirmed. Then we intend to assume title in the bridge.
    Mr. Mills: While welcoming this decision—and I am sure it is the right one—now that the Ministry of Transport will have control of this bridge, will it look into the possibility of raising the weight limits so that heavier lorries may use the repaired bridge?
    Mr. Carmichael: This is being looked into, and it is hoped that the weight limit, which is restricted just now, will be increased to allow traffic as it was before the damage to the bridge was caused.
    Mr. Peter Millsasked the Minister of Transport, in view of the need for a new bridge at Bideford, what progress has been made in the review of priorities for this area.
    Mr. Carmichael: Priorities were reviewed when communications across the

    1527
    river were severed. Repairing the existing bridge offered a quick and effective means of restoring traffic flow: advancing the priority of a new bridge did not. We shall continue to keep the matter under review.
    Mr. Mills: Yes, but surely the Minister would agree that the ultimate solution in this area is a new bridge to deal with local traffic and the whole of the difficult problem of traffic in North Devon. Will he advance the plans as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Carmichael: If there had been restrictions on the bridge there would have been need for the advancing of the priority, but without any restrictions on the existing bridge it is not felt that advanced priority for a new bridge in this area would necessarily be beneficial for the special roads in the South-West, or fair to the rest of the country.

    Kingswood Junction, Bilbrook
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Minister of Transport when she expects to have the report of the traffic investigation for the area covering Kingswood Junction, Bilbrook, Staffordshire.
    Mr. Swingler: The report on this investigation, which covers the whole question of communications between the Wellington / Oakengates / Dawley complex and the Wolverhampton / Birmingham area, is expected by the end of this year.
    Mr. Montgomery: Is the Minister aware that "by the end of this year" is a very long way ahead? Is the Ministry really prepared just to sit back and wait till a serious accident happens at this spot, which is causing very great concern to local people? Will he take no action at all?
    Mr. Swingler: I think the hon. Member may know that some important changes in road communications are going to take place involving the expenditure of many millions of pounds. In view of that, we want, of course, to get the best possible technical advice as to how this should be done, and, in the meantime, to take no action which would prejudice road improvements which are to take place in this area. That is the reason for the delay. If in the meantime there is any action we can take to meet matters, we will certainly take it.

    Lloyds Hill, Penn
    Mr. Montgomeryasked the Minister of Transport when road improvements at Lloyds Hill, Penn, Staffordshire, are likely to take place.
    Mr. Swingler: A detailed scheme has been prepared and a decision on its inclusion in the firm programme will be taken when an accurate cost estimate is available.
    Mr. Montgomery: Could the Minister give any date, approximately, when this is likely to be decided, because this is a very dangerous bottleneck, as I am sure he is aware, which causes tremendous inconvenience to all the people of this area?
    Mr. Swingler: Yes, I am aware of the need for urgent action in this respect. We are waiting for the district valuer's report and cost estimates. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that action will follow immediately.

    M4 Motorway
    Mr. Berryasked the Minister of Transport when work will start on the parts of the M4 on which agreement by all the interested authorities as to the siting has been reached.
    Mr. Carmichael: We expect to start construction in 1969 on the whole of the 71-mile length between Tormarton and Winnersh for which the route has been fixed.
    Mr. Berry: Could the Minister not consider starting, in 1968 even, all of the road except the 6¼ miles he told me about last time, and would he not agree that the link up of the two halves of the M4 is of equal importance with the M1 and M6 link up, the two most important roads being built in this country at the present time?
    Mr. Carmichael: Yes, but we are now dealing with the side road orders and these orders have been published for the length at Tormarton and Winnersh, and objections may be forthcoming, and until these side road orders have been completely cleared it is impossible to start to complete the road.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the town of Reading is almost completely blocked every

    1529
    day by the very heavy traffic to and from Wales and the South-West and London, and if so could not work be started on the road from Winnersh south of Reading to provide a by-pass at Reading for this heavy traffic?
    Mr. Carmichael: There are these difficulties, as I said to the hon. Member, of public inquiry and the side roads and the difficulties of getting authority to go through, but if there are increased difficulties in Reading because of the construction of these roads, and the delayed construction, special traffic arrangements will be made to try to get the traffic away from Reading.

    Motorway Service Areas (Overnight Accommodation)
    Mr. Gardnerasked the Minister of Transport what proposals she has for the provision of overnight accommodation at motorway service areas.
    Mr. Swingler: Motorway service areas are designed for the needs of short stay users. We have no plans to provide overnight sleeping accommodation.
    Mr. Gardner: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is an increasing need for this kind of accommodation both for transport drivers who have to lay up in inclement weather and, particularly on the M1, for the very many continental tourists who use it? Could not the areas allocated for services but not currently used for this purpose be put to more profitable use?
    Mr. Swingler: The motorway service areas have been designed, in terms of their parking facilities, for the short stay user. We do not desire people to occupy the spaces for long periods. My hon. Friend's Question is really a matter for the industry providing hotels and hostels. If he cares to draw my attention to particular needs and areas in this respect, I will consider what action can be taken.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing about the difficulty of obtaining planning permission for motels along the motorways or near to them?
    Mr. Swingler: I am not aware that there are great difficulties. I know of some motels which have been constructed quite near to and accessible to motor
    1530
    ways. Again, if the hon. Gentleman cares to draw my attention to particular cases, I will investigate them.

    M5 Motorway
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Minister of Transport when she now expects Tewkesbury will be completely bypassed by the M5.
    Mr. Carmichael: By December, 1970.
    Mr. Ridley: Can the hon. Gentleman say why there has been such a long delay in getting the tenders ready for the section from Bredon Bridge to Eastington? Secondly, will he undertake to see that the motorway is completed by the end of 1970, as has been promised?
    Mr. Carmichael: There have been delays largely because of the many objections to the proposals for the alteration of side roads, footpaths, and so on, in the draft Section 13 Order for the Bredon Bridge to Eastington length, including a statutory objection from the Gloucester County Council. These take some time to be met and discussed. Every effort will be made to meet the date already promised, but it will depend on the seeing through of these objections and the possible accommodation of objectors.

    A40 Road (Stokenchurch-Wheatley Bypass)
    Mr. Luardasked the Minister of Transport when work will begin on the improvement of the A40 between Stoken-church and the Wheatley bypass.
    Mr. Carmichael: Preparatory work is in progress for a new motorway to relieve the A40 between Stokenchurch and the Wheatley Bypass. Construction will depend on the completion of the statutory procedures and availability of funds.
    Mr. Luard: Bearing in mind that traffic on this section of the route is building up all the time and that much of the benefit of the other sections of motorway which have been constructed are wasted while this section is in its present condition, can my hon. Friend give an assurance that work will start at the earliest possible moment?
    Mr. Carmichael: I can assure my hon. Friend that work will start at the earliest

    1531
    possible moment, but there are difficulties in the part of the country through which it is proposed that this road should go. There is a route, for instance, across the Chiltern Escarpment which presents great difficulty and is likely to be highly controversial from the point of view of amenity.

    Oxford (Northern Bypass)
    Mr. Luardasked the Minister of Transport when work will begin on the proposed improvements to the Oxford northern bypass.
    Mr. Carmichael: As soon as practicable after we have made the necessary Orders under the Highways Act, 1959, objections to which we are now endeavouring to resolve.
    Mr. Luard: While everybody would wish householders affected by the proposal to have every chance of making statutory objections, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the people of Oxford have been waiting for over 10 years for these improvements to be made? May I express the hope that the improvements will start as early as possible?
    Mr. Carmichael: It is hoped that if the objections can be resolved and there is no public inquiry it may be possible to start work at the end of this year.
    Mr. Lane: Can the hon. Gentleman expedite the statutory processes for the new Chesterton Bridge Road in Cambridge, about which I am in correspondence with him?
    Mr. Carmichael: The statutory processes are not easy to expedite if one wishes to give citizens and local authorities the very desirable right to defend the amenities of the countryside.

    Pedestrian Crossing, Carshalton High Street
    Captain W. Elliotasked the Minister of Transport what answer she has sent to the Sutton Council in reply to their request that a pedestrian crossing be provided in Carshalton High Street.
    Mr. Swingler: Our correspondence has been with the Greater London Council which is the highway authority. It has advised the Department that failing road
    1532
    widening and the provision of a central refuge, it considers than an X-way pedestrian crossing would be the most suitable facility here.
    The results of the X-way pedestrian crossing experiment are at present being considered and the Council has therefore been asked to hold this matter over pending a decision about the future of this type of crossing. We hope to make an announcement about this shortly.
    Captain Elliot: In view of the longstanding demand for this crossing, which is essential, will the hon. Gentleman do all that he can to speed up the matter?
    Mr. Swingler: I hope that very shortly we shall have reached a conclusion about the future of the X-way pedestrian crossing. We have this recommendation from the highway authority, and as soon as the matter has been cleared I promise to notify the hon. Gentleman of our decision.

  RAILWAYS

    Finance
    Mr. David Websterasked the Minister of Transport what is her estimate of British Railways profits or losses for 1967 to 1968, 1968 to 1969 and 1969 to 1970.
    Mrs. Castle: The deficit of the British Railways Board in 1967 was £153 million, and I estimate the 1968 deficit at about £152 million. In 1969, I hope that the Board will be able at least to break even within the new financial framework provided by the Transport Bill.
    Mr. Webster: Is the Minister aware that presenting a £60 million debt to the ratepayers and writing off £1,250 million commencing capital debt makes these figures completely "phoney"?
    Mrs. Castle: I could not accept that for a moment. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not realise what a tough challenge we are giving to the Railways Board in the Transport Bill. As from next January, it will be expected to break even and there will be no more deficit financing. It is a tough challenge in which the whole House should support British Railways.
    Mr. Ronald Atkins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if she paid attention to the suggestions of hon. Members opposite and did not transfer traffic to the railways, the deficit would be much higher still and the ratepayer would suffer?
    Mrs. Castle: I entirely agree that the inconsistencies in the Opposition's transport policy beggar description.

    Capital Works (Expenditure)
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Minister of Transport what has been the total sum expended by British Railways on capital works since 1950.
    Mr. John Morris: About £1,754 million on railway investment.
    Mr. Taylor: In the light of that figure, how can the hon. Gentleman possibly justify writing down the capital debt of British Rail to £300 million in the Transport Bill? Can he wonder that many people consider that he is just using accountancy gymnastics to shuffle the deficit under the rug?
    Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman has got the figure of £300 million wrong. The total value of the assets, including the capital debts, of British Rail is over £700 million. But the writing off of capital, which is urgent and imperative, is a colossal indictment of the gross mismanagement of the control of investment by our predecessors. After all, this is the responsibility of Ministers.

    Electrification Programme (Expenditure)
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Minister of Transport what was the total sum spent by British Railways on the electrification programme in 1967, 1966, 1965 and 1964, respectively; and what is the anticipated capital spending on electrification in 1968.
    Mr. John Morris: £6 million, £20 million, £20 million and £17 million, respectively. The budgeted figure for 1968 is £4 million.
    Mr. Taylor: Is it not short-sighted to cut down so drastically on the electrification programme and at the same time to spend millions of pounds on further nationalisation? Can the hon. Gentle
    1534
    man say when he hopes that the electrification to Glasgow will be completed?
    Mr. Morris: I thought that it was apparent to the hon. Gentleman that it is important that investment should be made in those portions of the railways which are justified. Secondly, it is also important that there should be the fullest possible examination of proposals. Thirdly, there is no proposal before the Minister concerning the electrification to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Fourthly, the hon. Member is well aware when a decision is likely.

    Freight Transport
    Mr. J. H. Osbornasked the Minister of Transport what estimates she has made of the capital expenditure which will be incurred on existing freight depôts, parcel sorting depôts and freight liner depôts between now and 1980 to implement her proposal for reorganising freight transport.
    Mr. John Morris: The proposals for the reorganisation of freight transport in the nationalised sector provide the framework for a more efficient service based on integration and the elimination of wasteful competition. It will be for the National Freight Corporation and the Railways Board to implement these proposals and to make estimates of any capital expenditure required on depôts.
    Mr. Osborn: Is it not absolutely ridiculous to have a Transport Bill without being able to give the Government and the country some estimate of the capital expenditure involved in taking 30 per cent. more freight traffic?
    Mr. Morris: I had always understood that the Opposition's line was that they wished the two organisations to operate commercially. This they will certainly do within the framework of the Transport Bill.

    Carriage of Goods (Survey)
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Minister of Transport what inquiry or survey has recently been made on behalf of her Department with regard to the extent to which trade and industry uses, or is prepared to use, rail transport for the carriage of their goods; on what basis the survey was carried out; and whether its conclusions will be published.
    Mrs. Castle: I assume the hon. Member is referring to a small survey recently carried out in the Midlands by Dr. Sharp, of Leicester University, with the support of my Ministry. The fieldwork has been completed, and a report is being prepared. Publication is expected about the end of April.
    Mr. Cooke: Is this the report from which the right hon. Lady gives the impression all the time that trade and industry are biased against the railways?
    Mrs. Castle: I think that the hon. Gentleman is talking about references in the White Paper to the broader Shipper Survey which has been undertaken.

    Scotland
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Transport what has been the total capital investment in the Scottish Region of British Railways in each of the last five years; what has been the profit or loss in that period; and what are the estimated figures up to 1970.
    Mr. John Morris: For 1963 to 1967 the figures for fixed assets only are £1·9 million, £2·5 million, £4·7 million and £5 million. For 1968 the estimate is £5·5 million Firm figures are not available for later years.
    The Board does not maintain its accounts in such a way that regional financial results can be calculated separately.
    Mr. Hamilton: First, can my hon. Friend say why this is not done; and, secondly, what proportion of that capital investment in the last two or three years has been devoted to the development of freightliner services?
    Mr. Morris: I cannot give the proportion for freightliner development, but my hon. Friend will be aware that we have set up a number of freightliner depots in Scotland and they have been very successful.
    Concerning the proportion of expenditure to the whole, my hon. Friend will be glad to know that the share of Scotland has gone up from 4·5 per cent. in 1963 to 9·6 per cent. in 1967.
    Mr. Hamiltonasked the Minister of Transport what proportion of
    1536
    total rail mileage in Scotland is defined as commercially unprofitable; and how much of this mileage it is her policy to keep open for social reasons.
    Mr. Morris: I understand from the Railways Board that on present indications few, if any, railway passenger services in Scotland are commercially profitable.
    During the course of this year my right hon. Friend will be considering, in respect of each service and in consultation with the Secretary of State, the extent to which she would be justified on social or economic grounds in paying grants to enable the Railways Board to continue operating unremunerative passenger services in Scotland.
    Mr. Hamilton: Is my hon. Friend in a position at this moment to state how much railway mileage has been kept open by the present Government which, under the Beeching proposals supported by the party opposite, would otherwise have been closed, and whether those lines will be subsidised by profitable lines elsewhere?
    Mr. Morris: I cannot give the details without notice, but my hon. Friend will be aware that last March when we published the basic railway network map for the future of 11,000 miles, this was substantially in excess of what would have been the inevitable result of the Beeching proposals; and a large number of railway lines, which would inevitably have gone under the Beeching proposals, were saved specifically by my right hon. Friend's basic railway network map.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The hon. Gentleman's reply referred only to passenger services. What about freight services? To what extent will the iniquitous quantity licensing provisions of the Transport Bill oblige the Government to retain for social purposes freight services which would otherwise have been closed down?
    Mr. Morris: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman wants them retained or not. Our proposals will help the freight system of British Railways. I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands this, although he may have voted against the Transport Bill. The freight lines themselves are matters for British Railways.

  PORTS

    Mooring Buoys
    Sir J. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Transport for what vessels she maintains mooring buoys at an annual cost of £168,000; and why she has increased the number of these buoys from 131 to 141 since 1963, at an increased annual cost of £30,000.
    Mr. Swingler: For ocean-going and smaller merchant ships in a war emergency and for 22 ancillary barges to provide a water supply. Moorings for these barges have been provided since 1963 to secure their safe dispersal. Apart from this, there have been small reduction in the number of other moorings, and the total is now down to 134. The increased cost of maintenance is due entirely to higher wages for seamen and higher prices for materials.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are more of these buoys than there were some years ago and that large numbers of them are used for only a few days in the year. In these circumstances, is not this a waste of money, and would the hon. Gentleman undertake to look into the whole question?
    Mr. Swingler: I have looked into the whole question. I have noticed the number of occasions on which the hon. Gentleman has raised it and on which a predecessor of mine went to considerable trouble to explain the position to him. It would be very difficult to achieve any substantial saving on account of hiring storage space on land which would be required if that is what we resorted to. In any case, those responsible still consider that these moorings are necessary in case of an emergency.

  VICTORIA STREET (CLOSURE)
  Mr. Speaker: I have a short announcement to make to the House concerning one of the Sessional Orders. In connection with the funeral at Westminster Abbey on Friday morning of the late Sir Joseph Simpson, Commissioner of the
  1538
  Metropolitan Police, the police wish to close for a short period, from half-past ten until five past eleven in the morning, the part of Victoria Street from New Scotland Yard to the Abbey. Hon. Members will realise that this is contrary to the Sessional Order, but, in view of the exceptional circumstances, I am prepared to agree to this, and I hope that I shall carry the House with me. For Members who usually use Victoria Street, diversionary routes will be available.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER ACT 1967 (AMENDMENT)
3.32 p.m.
Mr. Evelyn King: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to permit the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate the administrative action taken on behalf of local authorities.
It is a coincidence that, through the agency of Mr. William Hardcastle, a news flash has just announced that some lady is so convinced of the injustice she thinks her local authority has done to her that she has chained herself to the railings of the town hall on the day I seek to introduce this Bill. Whether or not it supports my case, I know nothing of her. It is, however, relevant to what I have to say.
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is very difficult for an hon. Member to address the House against a background of conversation.
Mr. King: It is not irrelevant to what I shall say that an article in The Times on Monday carried banner headlines:
"Parliament no longer able to safeguard freedom."
Today's Leader in The Times declares that the British people
"know themselves to be badly governed."
—[Interruption.] I did not intend that as any party point. In a centre page article in the Evening News last night Professor Vaisey said that
"the constitution is working badly, that the bureaucrats attempt to take short cuts which are alarmingly illiberal."
What I propose is not a cure for all these criticisms, but it is within the context of that sort of criticism. I think that

1539
we would be unwise to pay no heed to the increasing volume of criticism of that sort which comes to us, and I would add that in my view it is more urgent even than it was a year ago. Every hon. Member has a constituent somewhere who is troubled or who has a grievance. Generally constituents go to their Member only when they have tried every other channel and they have failed, and if their will is inadequate, or their voice is too weak, then they must and can only borrow ours, and ours must carry power.
I offer only the general observation that it has never been more necessary than now that the personal link between a constituent and his Member in Parliament should be recognised. On its strength and sympathy much depends, and where it never existed or has snapped, hope fades and Government fails. I assume that it is because many shared that view and wished to increase the ability of hon. Members to respond to grievances that this House passed the Parliamentary Commissioner Act of 1967, of which the Lord President of the Council said it provides a "new and powerful weapon" which we never before possessed. Of course misgivings were expressed. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said Members would not sieve sufficiently what they received, that there would be a "flood of letters" and that a "mass of stuff" would come forward. It is to prophesy. In fact the Parliamentary Commissioner, accorded a staff of 61, has never used that staff, because insufficient cases have come forward. Speaking in 1967 Sir Edward Compton estimated that there might be 6,000 or 7,000 cases a year. In fact, in nine months there have been 1,069 cases, averaging about 1,300 a year, less than one-fifth of what was thought. There has been no mass of stuff. There has been no flood of letters. Two hundred Members have never presented a case.
We must not flatter ourselves by thinking that that was because there were an insufficient number of grievances. It is because, and only because, the Second Schedule of the Act defining the sort of case which the Parliamentary Commissioner could consider was too tightly drawn. There are about 500,000 civil servants open to investigation, and there
1540
are 2¼ million employees of local authorities into whose activities he is forbidden to inquire.
My case in short is that although the Lord President may think that it gives us a weapon which is new and powerful, he has given us one whose range is too short, and whose field of fire is too confined.
What I say to today has a respectable parentage on both sides of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister speaking at Stowmarket advocated—and I am sure he will remember it—the extension of the Parliamentary Commissioner's powers to the field of local authorities. The Lord President said something very similar. Both I know also link with that the view that local authorities might well appoint, and indeed manage, their own ombudsman, or parliamentary commissioner, or whatever he be called. But whether or not this is a good thing and I have my doubts what is clear is that it has not happened. No local authority has done anything of that kind. I think that one or two local authorities have a public relations officer whose powers have been slightly extended, and it is part of my case that unless the House takes some action of the kind that I have indicated it will not happen.
It forms no part of my case that local authorities on the whole are prone to corruption—the reverse is the case. They are served by honourable and upright men. But having said that, it is unrealistic to suppose that among 1,450 local authorities, spending £3,000 million worth of public money much of it voted by Parliament, there is never neglect, or delay, or incompetence, or turpitude. That is not what my mail reveals. It would be tempting to quote scandals, and I intend to resist that temptation. But there are builders and developers who sit on committees. There have been unpleasant cases. There are building inspectors who take a bottle of whisky at Christmas, and perhaps a little more. And whether or not these things happen, it is certain that a large proportion of our constituents think they happen.
I remember that during the summer I ventured to write a 1,300 word article in the Telegraph. I was appalled, not so much by the volume of the correspondence that it provoked, but by the nature

1541
of the allegations that were made. I am happy to believe that many of those allegations would not have stood up to investigation, but what is important is that the people who made them were convinced that they would, and were convinced also that there was no adequate remedy.
Perhaps I might quote one case. I hasten to add that it did not occur in Dorset.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Some hon. Members are indulging in sustained conversation. It is not fair to the House or to the hon. Member who is speaking.
Mr. King: It was the case of an applicant who sought to remodel a building and made a planning application. It was unfortunate that the planning officer inspected the wrong building and then refused the application. Nevertheless, the refusal was persisted in, the local authority suggesting that, although the wrong building had ben inspected, had they inspected the right one, the result would have been the same. I have my doubts, but whether or not the result would have been the same, I defy any hon. Member to convince that applicant that he was treated fairly. This kind of case requires investigation.
Another, perhaps more distressing, case, that of a mother and child is now on my files. The child is to be separated from the mother and committed to the care of the local authority under a fit person order. I am not satisfied with the evidence upon which that was done, but I cannot know. Nor is there any easy
1542
method of forcing the investigation which I would like. It is relevant that there are 70,000 children in care. The responsibility is heavy.
Many people, and their number is growing, increasingly doubt the effectiveness of the democratic processes in which all of us believe, and they feel anger because they occasionally detect or think they detect injustice, and because they feel remote from a bureaucracy which, whether local or national, having once taken a decision, even if a wrong one, can be obstinate and immovable. Anything which we can do, any action we can take, to make them feel that this is not so and that there are real, strong links between Member and constituent, that we have power to expose injustice, wherever it occurs and however seldom it occurs—that is the action which we should take. In that spirit, I ask leave to introduce the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Evelyn King, Sir J. Foster, Mr. Bessell, Mr. R. J. Mitchell, Mr. Rossi, Mr. Dean, Mr. Grant, Mr. Murton, Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop, and Mr. Marks.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER ACT 1967 (AMENDMENT)
  PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER ACT 1967 (AMENDMENT)
  Bill to permit the Parliamentary Commissioner to investigate the administrative action taken on behalf of local authorities, presented accordingly and read the First time to be read a Second time upon Friday, 24th May, an dto be printed. [Bill 116.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
  Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.
  Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 89 (Consolidated Fund Bills), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

  RHODESIA
  3.54 p.m.
  Mr. Speaker: Before we move on to the debate on Rhodesia, I must announce that I have selected the Amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and some of his right hon. Friends but have not selected the Amendment in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) and some of his hon. Friends.
  Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: On a point of order. It will not have escaped your attention, Mr. Speaker, that when the Business for today was announced by the Leader of the House last Thursday it was announced as being a debate on Rhodesia which would arise on a Motion for the Adjournment. It will also not have escaped your notice that the right hon. Gentleman has not vouchsafed to us any further Business statement amending that statement last Thursday.
  Nevertheless, this morning, for the first time, there appeared under the heading of the Orders of the Day a Motion in the name of the Prime Minister which, for the last few days, has appeared only under the general group of Early Day Motions. In those circumstances, I seek your guidance on two points—first, whether, in your great experience of the House, there are any precedents for a change of Business of this kind by the Government of the day without any notice from the Leader of the House to the House and when the external circumstances have shown no particular change
  1544
  since Business was announced on the preceding Thursday.
  Second, what protection do hon. Members on the back benches on both sides have from having the Business, at possibly great inconvenience to them, changed without any notice until they see the Order Paper on a particular morning? This seems, with respect, to raise the question of what you can do, Mr. Speaker, as the ultimate protector of hon. Members on the back benches on both sides when Business is treated in what is, in my submission, a wholly unprecedented, oppressive and unfair manner.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct when he says that it had not escaped my notice that there had been a change in the form in which we are to debate the subject of Rhodesia. But any criticism of the change on the Order Paper is something which the right hon. Gentleman must level at other sources than Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker has no control over the way in which Motions and various items of business are placed on the Order Paper.
  Mr. John Peyton: Further to that point of order. The trouble which many of us find ourselves in is that this arrangement was cooked up at the last moment between the two Front Benches—that they obviously have a measure of agreement. It is hon. Members on the back benches on both sides who have the right to complain. The main Motion today is a new one, at least technically, in that it appears for the first time without the name of the right hon. Member for Belper (Mr. George Brown). The fact that it is a new Motion makes it an undesirable precedent for the future.
  The Amendment in the names of my right hon. Friends, with which I do not quarrel, has also appeared for the first time today. The rest of us, who thought that we were listening to a genuine announcement of Business by the Leader of the House last Thursday, have been totally misled. With very great respect to what you said just now, Mr. Speaker, we can look only to you, because we know from bitter experience that it is useless to look to the Leader of the House.
  Mr. Speaker: I sincerely hope that whenever necessary back benchers will

  1545
  appeal to Mr. Speaker to protect them against the tyranny of the two Front Benches, but I am afraid that that does not arise on this day. We are to discuss a matter which, apparently, the whole House wants to discuss. We are concerned at the moment merely about the form which the discussion shall take, and the form is not a matter for Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. E. Shinwell: Further to that point of order. Is it not true that for several days—indeed, for several weeks—Her Majesty's Opposition have been demanding a debate on Rhodesia? What are they complaining about now?
  Mr. Speaker: I think that we should now proceed. We have a very grave debate before us. I hope that we shall now come to it and leave procedural matters.
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): I am aware that, in addressing their remarks to you, Mr. Speaker, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen were really suggesting that an error had been made by the Leader of the House in the Business statement. I will reply to them with the same courtesy which they showed me.
  Whether this is a change substantial enough to require a statement is a very nice question which I have carefully considered. With deference to you, Mr. Speaker, I think that I am right in saying that it will make no difference to the scope of the debate. I was aware yesterday that there was a great deal of Private Members' Business and that we did not want a long discussion on this change. If hon. Members opposite would like to have a Business statement now instead of yesterday, I am prepared to discuss it now and to say that the change was made for what in my view would be the convenience of, I agree, the first two speakers, but that it did not justify a Business statement and the kind of discussion which we have on a Business statement.
  Mr. Speaker: I hope that we can now leave it and proceed to the grave matters of today's debate.
  3.51 p.m.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): I beg to move,
  1546
  That this House declares its abhorrence of the executions carried out in Rhodesia on 6th March, 1968, on the instructions of the illegal régime in defiance of the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy; condemns the action of the illegal régime in denying the reprieved men the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and condemns the executions as constituting a denial of justice and a grave breach of the rule of law.
  This debate takes place in the shadow of the illegal executions carried out by the régime in Salisbury. It takes place, too, in the fear of many more such executions which those men have shown that they would not scruple to carry out. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in all parts of the House showed their deep sense of revulsion and abhorrence when the first illegal hangings took place. But the debate takes place, too, against a background of anger and passion among the peoples and Governments of a score of Commonwealth countries and at the United Nations of four times that number, every nation of the developing, emergent world and others besides.
  It will be entirely to misconceive some of the great issues which 28 months of illegality and oppression, and now these executions, have focused into the spotlight of the world stage if any of us in the House seek for one moment to disregard the strength of these passions, or if there is any tendency to make light of what these issues and these passions could mean for the future, indeed, for the survival, of the Commonwealth, or for Britain's standing and influence in the world.
  The danger is that if we even appear to be condoning illegality and oppression on the ground that those responsible for illegality and oppression have white skins, Britain will be driven further and further in the eyes of the world into an apparent identification with a minority of countries whose actions have been repeatedly condemned by the whole civilised world.
  My right hon. Friends and I and many others in the House have pointed out that these men were duly convicted of murder and sentenced by the courts of Rhodesia at a time when Rhodesia was in a state of constitutional legality. We all of us have deplored the resort to force and violence and murder. But, in the eyes of their fellow Africans, these are freedom fighters and we must recognise that—
  Mr. John Biggs-Davison rose—
  The Prime Minister:—the way they were done to death has transformed them in African eyes into martyrs and not murderers. However deplorable the use of violence and the killing of innocent victims—
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  The Prime Minister: I am sorry; I want to cover a great deal of ground this afternoon. I have been asked to state the Government's position on this matter.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Words will be spoken today with which hon. Members on the other side will strongly disagree. I hope that we can hear them.
  The Prime Minister: When I have given more of the Government's position, if points require elucidation, I shall be glad to give way.
  However deplorable the use of violence and the killing of innocent victims, it is one of the oldest laws in history that, where there is no democracy to provide for the counting of heads, men denied those rights and brutalised by oppression inevitably turn to violence as what they believe, however wrongly, to be their only way to obtain their rights.
  We may, as we have, condemn this latest wave of disruption and violence, but every one of us knew that illegal action, the decision by the then legal Government of Rhodesia by its own action to place itself outside and beyond the law, would inevitably lead to violence. In a far-sighted and very firm warning sent to the then Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia by the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys)—and hon. Members will find this in Cmnd. 2807 of November 1965—the right hon. Gentleman warned of intensified subversion if a U.D.I. were taken by the régime. The point was clearly made and made in terms.
  We cannot, therefore, discuss this issue today as though it were purely a matter for Britain and a small European minority in Rhodesia. From the earliest phase of this crisis, from the debate which
  1548
  took place the very day after the illegal declaration of independence, we have stressed—and the House knows—that, whatever Britain's responsibilities—and they are our responsibilities—this issue is one of world concern; and that action and those that have followed have been unequivocally branded by the United Nations as a threat to peace. So they are. [Interruption.]
  The House will not easily ignore the warnings of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home)—and I remember his similar warning when he was Prime Minister—of the growing Communist infiltration in African countries, an infiltration made more dangerous because of the new emergence of competitive Communism between Russia and China, particularly in Africa, but also more widely. Communism abhors a vacuum and competitive Communism thrives on a vacuum. If, therefore, the only contribution of the House at this time of high and unrestrained passion throughout the Commonwealth is to regard the members of the régime in Rhodesia—[Interruption.]—I shall not respond to the interruptions—
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: The right hon. Gentleman promised to give way.
  The Prime Minister: I said that I would give way when I had said a great deal more than the hon. Gentleman has so far allowed me to say. I want all hon. Members—I hope that they will accept this—to recognise that today we are debating the lives of hundreds of British citizens, white and African, and the liberties of 4 million British citizens, and in that circumstance I refuse to respond to the kind of interruption which some hon. Members think appropriate.
  If at this time of high and undeniable passion in the Commonwealth, whatever hon. Members may say, the only contribution of the House is to regard the members of the régime in Rhodesia as though they were an erring rural district council which had fallen foul of the district auditor, or that all that we can debate today is the nice calculations of two seats less or two seats more on the A roll, or if we talk lightly of entrusting absolute power and cloaking it in the garb of legality to men who have not only rejected the rule of law, but have

  1549
  in these past days openly and provocatively flouted the law as established here and in Rhodesia, if that is to be the tenor of our debate, the House will invite not only the dangers which I have outlined for the Commonwealth and for the United Nations, we shall invite not only the great dangers, which both sides of the House clearly recognise, of an uncontainable conflagration in Southern Africa, with the increased dangers of Communist infiltration, we shall invite from the great majority of the Commonwealth and the United Nations not only their censure, but their contempt, and we shall deserve that contempt.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) knows that the right hon. Gentleman is not giving way at the moment. Mr. Prime Minister.
  The Prime Minister: But if the House—
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  Hon. Members: Name him.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: On a point of order.
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: The Prime Minister said that he would give way to elucidate points.
  The Prime Minister: I thought that the hon. Gentleman was rising on a point of order; that is why I sat down.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Chigwell must contain himself.
  The Prime Minister: But if this House debates what has happened in this wider context with a full sense of our responsibilities and in the wider context of a world now dominated, as the Commonwealth is dominated, by problems of race and colour, we for our part—the Government and this House—have the right to ask that in the United Nations, and more widely, whatever the passions and extravagance of language which recent years have evoked, cool counsels should prevail, thereby leading to wise and constructive, and, above all, effective courses of action.
  1550
  This is the first time since the debate which followed the rejection of the "Tiger" proposals more than 15 months ago that this House has debated Rhodesia. It is right, therefore, that we should seek to take stock and learn the lesson of all that has happened and, despite our own anger and shock at the recent actions of the régime, to see the whole issue in the perspective, not only of the two years and more of illegality, but also of all that has led up to it. I have referred to the warnings given by our predecessors to the then Government of Rhodesia, warnings that were firm and clear and, to any but men obsessed by power-seeking racialism, warnings which would have been compelling. Every action we have taken since U.D.I. has been fully in accordance with these warnings and events have fully borne out how right those warnings were.
  If we have had our own disappointments—and I think particularly of the hopes expressed at the Lagos Conference—those disappointments are as nothing to the failure of Mr. Smith to achieve his aim. U.D.I., he said, would be a "nine-days' wonder". [Interruption.] I have referred to that and will do so again. I want hon. Members to address themselves seriously to this. Mr. Smith said that U.D.I. would be "a nine-days' wonder" and his main purpose was to encourage investment from other countries to enable the Rhodesian economy, which had stagnated under the 1961 Constitution, to go forward rapidly. He was confident of widespread recognition by other nations.
  As I told him on H.M.S. "Tiger", none of these things has happened. The nine days has lengthened into the weeks and months of which I spoke at Lagos—and rightly spoke on the information available—and has lengthened from weeks and months into years. Not one single country has recognised the régime. Investment capital has virtually dried up. But in a different sense things have not stood still in Rhodesia. Intensified measures of oppression, of the deprivation of freedom without trial, intensified censorship, manipulation of broadcasting evoking the methods of Hitler and Goebbels of a generation ago, although with the added power of television. New measures of racial segregation, new laws driving to a new and intensified form of

  1551
  apartheid, attempts to dictate to the courts culminating in the flouting of the rule of law by an affidavit from Lardner Burke, self-styled "Minister of Justice", which stated that even if the Rhodesian Appellate Court granted an appeal in these capital cases to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, he and his hangmen would ignore any decision of the Privy Council and go ahead with their evil purpose.
  This is what has happened and, whatever differences there may have been in this House over these past two years, I cannot believe that any single hon. or right hon. Member would for one moment lend the authority of his support to the actions of Lardner Burke in saying that he would not accept the decision of the Privy Council—certainly not any hon. Member who is a member of the Privy Council. The Privy Council has today granted leave to appeal in the main constitutional case. I therefore cannot comment on the decision taken by the Rhodesian courts, nor on the application for an injunction following the Royal decision to grant a reprieve. Regarding the reprieve, I think the House will have noticed with renewed disgust the contemptuous cynicism with which Mr. Smith referred last Saturday to the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and also to the advice tendered by the Commonwealth Secretary, advice subsequently accepted as right by the leaders of all parties in this House, but which Mr. Smith did not accept.
  It is right to consider for one moment whether we should set the recent developments in Rhodesia against a test which this House, the whole House, has accepted, the test of the six principles which have been the touchstone of the policies of successive Governments here in Britain. Sometimes we refer to five and sometimes to six principles. Let me remind the House that I added a sixth principle as a reassurance to white settlers about the situation when ultimate majority rule is reached, however long deferred it might be. I repeatedly made it clear that many years are involved before majority rule and years based on achievement and co-operation between the races, not on an arbitrary clock or calendar time.
  1552
  My proposal blocking European minority which I put forward on "Tiger" was also designed to give effect to this principle so that after majority rule they would still have this protection, Mr. Smith agreed to this on H.M.S. "Tiger", and it has remained as one of the features of the "Tiger" constitution which has not been called into question, as a further guarantee because of the unique history of Rhodesia in our whole record of decolonisation. Because of the way in which that history has made Rhodesia a world issue, I also proposed on "Tiger" that in the permanent constitution after independence and even after majority rule, which, as I said, would not follow until many more years had passed, there should be the safeguard of a continuing right of appeal to the Privy Council as well as the safeguard of enshrining the constitutional agreement in a treaty between our two countries registered at the United Nations.
  Clearly, in terms of any permanent settlement to be concluded between Her Majesty's Government and any legal Government of Rhodesia, we must discuss the constitution on the terms of the principles endorsed by two successive Governments and insisted on by Parliament as a condition of any future settlement. This must be recognised; no settlement is legal or has any force or any capability of international recognition which has not been approved by this Parliament, and no British Government could submit proposals for a settlement which failed to honour in spirit as well as in letter the principles we have all approved.
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire recently returned from Southern Rhodesia with certain suggestions worked out between him and Mr. Smith on a personal basis. I have said in the House that the right hon. Gentleman's visit was in more ways than one extremely useful. He warned the régime against hopes that had been fostered there of an early election in this country, or indeed against any hopes of what might be the position even at an election held at the normal time. He described hopes which had been irresponsibly engendered about what his own party might do in the near future. He insisted on constitutionality and, above all, insisted on the five

  1553
  principles. The whole House will endorse the attitude he took in Salisbury.
  The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues and many of my right hon. Friends and I are in some difficulty. Because we are in difficulty it places the House in even greater difficulty, in that for reasons which seem good to the right hon. Gentleman—and I understand them—he has not felt able to agree that either of us should give details to the House of the suggestions he brought back. The difficulty for the House, of course, resulting from this is that whereas the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends clearly believe that those suggestions would fulfil the five principles, we, after the most careful study, believe that they would not, and I told him that. Because of these difficulties, and also because the House must be in a position to judge, I propose to say this, but only this.
  First, I remind the House of the issues which were raised on my right hon. Friend's visit last November. On 12th December, the Commonwealth Secretary told the House that in his talks with Mr. Smith it had become clear that, since "Tiger", Mr. Smith had moved a long way backwards in certain fundamental respects, and this despite statements in Salisbury immediately after "Tiger" to the effect that the proposed constitution had been acceptable to the régime, though not the proposals for returning to legality.
  As my right hon. Friend explained, the first point of departure from the "Tiger" proposals related to an effectively guaranteed blocking minority to prevent constitutional changes which would frustrate the letter and spirit of the agreed terms. In the talks between my right hon. Friend and Mr. Smith, it was clear that my proposal for a Senate—this was the proposal on H.M.S. "Tiger"—with eight elected Africans to ensure a blocking quarter had given way to a proposal by Mr. Smith that the elected Africans in the Senate should be replaced by an equivalent number of hereditary and unrepresentative African chiefs, who are, of course, paid servants of the régime.
  The second area in which Mr. Smith had moved a long way back from the "Tiger" constitution related to cross-voting. Mr. Smith once again proposed that it should be abolished. Cross-voting was one of the very important
  1554
  issues in the Constitution. Hon. Members will note, if they re-read the warnings of the right hon. Member for Streatham when he was Commonwealth Secretary, that he attached the greatest importance to the cross-voting provisions; and so did we on H.M.S. "Tiger". The House will further know not only from my own discussions with Mr. Smith when he was Prime Minister but also from the statements to which I have referred how important cross-voting was and is. When my right hon. Friend was in Salisbury, it was clear that Mr. Smith had turned his back on this proposal.
  The third point of departure from the "Tiger" proposals was Mr. Smith's refusal in his discussions with my right hon. Friend to agree to any provision for constitutional appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. It was in these circumstances, when he returned to this country, that my right hon. Friend made clear to the House that, while we were prepared to consider any second thoughts, what he had heard in Rhodesia provided no basis for even talking about a settlement.
  I come now to the visit of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. I have said that I shall not go into the details of the proposals which he brought back. He has rightly claimed that there has been some movement on the question of the blocking mechanism, but what was suggested to him—I shall not go into details—would not have comprised an effective blocking quarter because it rested on assumptions about the eventual election of Africans under the normal voting procedure, assumptions which we regard as unrealistic.
  We have seen only too well what repressive measures, a total ban on freedom of political discussion and censorship of the Press can mean in the hands of determined men; and this could frustrate any assumptions about elections in that situation. I say simply this. If anyone in Rhodesia is prepared to agree to the principle of the blocking mechanism, then I do not understand why they should not accept an effective blocking quarter now. There are many ways of ensuring it without difficulties for them within the proposals which I made for a Senate which would be clothed with a

  1555
  special right of intervention in constitutional matters. To argue instead for less than a blocking quarter, for a figure which does not add up to a quarter, and to justify this by assumptions about Africans being elected in other ways is, in the Government's view, unrealistic.
  The House will have noted the interpretation put by Rhodesian circles on the suggestions discussed with the right hon. Gentleman. In its issue of Monday, 18th March, the correspondent of The Times said:
  "…enough has emerged to make it clear that the two men"—
  Mr. Smith and the right hon. Gentle-man—
  "concentrated on the problem of fashioning a constitutional device which would give the British an assurance on their first principle of guaranteeing progress towards majority rule, while leaving the present Rhodesian electorate with control over the pace of the progress."
  This is what is understood in Rhodesia. I know that the right hon. Gentleman does not so understand it, but that is what they understand. But this braking mechanism, to which Rhodesia Front leaders have always reverted, in my experience—they have always gone back to insist on it—invoking as it does the right—and Mr. Smith has frequently insisted on this right—to hold back, to delay, to brake progress towards majority rule by methods of their own choosing, is not only a breach of the first principle, namely, guaranteed and unimpeded progress towards majority rule, but it would be a flagrant breach of the second principle, which provides that there must be guarantees against retrogressive amendment of the Constitution.
  This morning I saw another newspaper which claimed, probably rightly, inside information from Rhodesia on this question, and the report interprets the recent talks in these words:
  "They agreed that Mr. Smith would drop his demands for whites to be able to vote on black voters' rolls, and Britain would drop its demand that a bloc of Africans in Parliament would have certain powers of veto."
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: There is not a word of truth in that newspaper statement.
  The Prime Minister: I am delighted to hear that. It was not my interpretation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The
  1556
  House must decide. I have had enough experience of dealing with Mr. Smith to know what I am talking about in these matters. The House will hear exactly what the facts are. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I have agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that we shall not give details of the figures. [HON. MEMBERS: "Frightened?"] I am certainly not frightened, and neither is the right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that we can leave the two Front Benches to argue this matter out together.
  The Prime Minister: For reasons which seemed good to the right hon. Gentleman, and which I understand, I do not think that it would help in this or in any situation to go into the figures, but I am entitled, since right hon. Members opposite have said that they think that it provides a basis for a settlement in accordance with the principles, to say why we think that it does not—I have already said that—and to give some more reasons as I go further.
  Whatever optimism the right hon. Gentleman felt when he came back—and it was very qualified optimism—is very different from the accounts being spread in Rhodesia to their friends by the Rhodesian régime. I remember from my own experience on "Tiger" and on the experience of others of my right hon. Friends, that one can sometimes get Mr. Smith dangling the chance of an agreement, but he then goes back and is overthrown by his colleagues. I urge the House, therefore, not to be too optimistic. That is why I read out those important statements of what the Rhodesia Front is putting out to The Times and to other newspapers. It is what they themselves are saying in Rhodesia to The Times and to newspapers which have been very friendly to them. I think that the House is entitled to judge these matters if we have to vote tonight. It will have to judge not on what the right hon. Gentleman thinks but on what Mr. Smith and his colleagues think. I agree that the right hon. Gentleman has not himself agreed to it, but that is what they think it means.
  On cross-voting, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there has been some advance from the extreme position taken up by Mr. Smith last November, and,

  1557
  certainly, in other circumstances, this could have been further discussed. But there is still a clear refusal to consider any external safeguard for the constitution such as a right of appeal to the Privy Council. The events of recent weeks have shown how important a right of appeal to the Privy Council is. In all that the régime has done, it has never, so far, gone to such lengths as in its rejection of the rule of law and the authority of the highest court laid down by the Constitution of Rhodesia. There is not an hon. Member who will justify what it has done in that connection.
  These actions, therefore, and what is being said to justify them, are, I fear, a pretty brutal commentary on the spirit which the right hon. Gentleman thought he saw on his visit. But more than that. They are a warning. I remind the House that it has been the proposal of successive British Governments, our predecessors and ourselves, to grant Rhodesia independence on the basis of Minority rule—this was offered up to U.D.I.—with only provision for the ultimate achievement of majority rule. This proposal is unique in the history of the conversion of Empire into Commonwealth—unique, at least, in the whole period following the granting of independence to South Africa. There were reasons why successive Governments considered that this exception was appropriate. One main reason was the 40 years of virtually total self-government in Southern Rhodesia since 1923.
  But a grant of independence on unique terms of this kind must mean not only that the agreed constitution must be proof against tampering and frustration but also that the men to whom it is to be entrusted must be worthy of that trust. The rejection of the external guarantee of the Privy Council, the continued equivocation on the blocking quarter, but, above all, the events of the past three weeks, have shown that ultimate power in Rhodesia lies today in men to whom we would not entrust any constitution which requires acceptance of the sanctity of the rule of law and of the human rights which have permeated our constitution and all constitutions based on it. These men, after all, were entrusted with the 1961 Constitution. They overturned it. They were entrusted with constitutional safeguards in that Constitution and they were provided with a watch-dog in the form of the Constitu
  1558
  tional Council, which, as we all know, was manned by sincere and honourable men but with grossly inadequate powers. Even so, in the past few weeks that Constitutional Council has been flouted.
  During my talks with him on H.M.S. "Tiger", as the House knows, Mr. Smith admitted to me that he had lied to the Governor a day or two before U.D.I. in order to obtain the grant of emergency powers, when the conditions under the law which had to exist to justify emergency powers did not exist, and when, as Mr. Smith admitted to me and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, his purpose was to secure those powers for U.D.I., a purpose he had denied when the Governor challenged him on this point.
  In a wider sense, everything that underlies the rule of law as we know it has been subverted and perverted by these men. Detention without trial, the use of spies and agents provocateurs, and the maintenance of a régime of fear in African villages—on Mr. Smith's own admission to me. The manipulation of broadcasting. The Press censorship—I understand that the Press has not been allowed to publish photographs of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, or for that matter the former Commonwealth Secretary, talking to the Governor. Reports of statements in this House have been selectively printed, under orders of the censorship, and the process of selection has transcended Party alignments in this House. We have all suffered at one time or another—or most of us have. Even reports of their own soi-disant Parliament can be censored. All this constitutes what the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, in common with the leaders of the other two major parties, has rightly described as a "police State". Therefore, having paid tribute to what the right hon. Gentleman sought to achieve and, to an extent, did achieve in Salisbury, I counsel the House to be wary about accepting optimism as a result of his visit.
  So far I have referred only to those principles, those terms of the "Tiger" constitution, which are directly relevant to guaranteed and unimpeded progress to majority rule. But I must remind the House that we have always attached importance—all of us—to the third and fourth principles relating to equality of

  1559
  rights between Europeans and Africans. On this my predecessor issued a very strong warning four years ago relating to the Land Apportionment Act. The House will be aware of the very grave developments over the past two years in this area of Rhodesian life. In particular, the régime purported to pass a Municipal Amendment Act in 1967, which enables the municipalities to run their parks, places of public recreation, and so on, on racially discriminatory lines. This so-called Act was passed although the Constitutional Council reported that the Measure would derogate from the Declaration of Rights, which is written into the Rhodesian Constitution.
  The régime has also indicated that measures will be taken that will bear upon the coloured and Asian communities, which, up to now, have not been subject to the disabilities of the Africans under the Land Apportionment Act, extending them from the Africans to the coloured and Asian communities. This is to be achieved under the Property Owners (Residential Protection) Bill, as it is called, which proposes that residents should be able to petition in such a way as to ensure that an area becomes designated for one race only. That is not all. The régime has been pressing ahead with other discriminatory measures. In the Salisbury area, African families are being broken up today because of the so-called African (Urban Areas) Accommodation and Registration Act, which is now being applied so as to prevent the families of African servants from living in the European residential areas of the capital.
  I must also say a word about education. When the right hon. Gentleman was Prime Minister, fighting then, as we have fought, to prevent a U.D.I., he made a generous offer to provide from the British Exchequer substantial sums of money to expand and speed African education so as to advance the date by which Africans could qualify for a vote under the 1961 Constitution. I think that he told the House at the time that that was his policy, and we supported it. The proposal turned out to be singularly uninteresting to the Rhodesian Front Government. In my talks with Mr. Smith before U.D.I. I reverted to it, but he said that he would oppose any deliberate acceleration of educational advance if
  1560
  it had that effect on the number of Africans qualified to vote. He subsequently told me that he would be more likely to hold back educational development if the Africans looked like getting the vote too fast.
  When I went to Salisbury I took my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development, with plans and authority to discuss with the appropriate Rhodesian authorities substantial aid for education. He was frozen out during the talks. They were not interested. After my return from Salisbury, Lardner Burke expressed the Rhodesian attitude in a discussion with my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in terms even more direct than the words Mr. Smith used in his talks with me.
  The régime has sought to make some play with its concern for African education. But its target for full secondary education for African children is far lower than that of other, much poorer, countries to the north of Rhodesia, and the fees in African schools represent a higher percentage of average African earnings than is the case for those in European schools. About 10 times as much is spent by the Administration on educating a European child as on educating an African child, and it has been reliably estimated that the 120,000 African and 5,000 European children who entered primary school in 1966—a ratio of 24 to 1—would produce the same number of university entrants from each race in 13 years' time: the number of entrants would be equal in absolute numbers, even though the disparity in the numbers of school children is 24 to 1.
  More recently, hon. Members will have read reports that the régime has ordered European schools to seek the permission of the Ministry of Education, so called, before playing in sports fixtures with nonwhite teams or teams of mixed race. That is a sombre story of the prospects facing the majority of Rhodesian children. These issues are directly contained in the third and fourth principles, to which the House has given its full support.
  It is not only a question of opportunity when Africans and Europeans are at school. That certainly means that much natural talent remains untrained, but even trained Africans find great difficulty in obtaining employment in Rhodesia.

  1561
  Social and other pressures have tended in recent years to reverse the trend which was developing at one time towards the employment of Africans in worthwhile and responsible jobs in Rhodesia. I have met Africans there—and this trend is developing on a much worse scale—qualified accountants who were not allowed to practise and had to do an outdoor job, pushing advertising circulars through letter boxes. This is a very sad comment on the present situation, and one which must be weighed by hon. Members before they decide whether we can trust these men to carry out any principles embodied in a legal settlement.
  I come to the decision—
  An Hon. Member: What is the alternative?
  The Prime Minister: I shall try to deal with that.
  The decision facing the House today is what Britain should now do in the light of 28 months of illegality and of the situation created by the illegal hangings. Whatever decision we take here must be justified not only in Britain but in the world. We have said that Rhodesia is our responsibility. In Commonwealth Conference and in the United Nations this is accepted, although it is then frequently turned against us, with the demand that Britain should solve the problem once and for all by a recourse to force, by a recourse to the police action which they are never slow to remind us was invariably taken whenever Africans or Asians rebelled against the authority of Britain and sought to subvert established British law.
  This demand is understandable, and it will be heard with increasing volume at this time. But it is, and always has been, the view of Her Majesty's Government that, whatever the theoretical or legal position, the use of force to impose a constitutional settlement would be wrong.
  Mr. John Lee: Why?
  The Prime Minister: The House has been told—[,Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will treat this subject with the seriousness it deserves. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee) has
  1562
  asked me why the use of force would be wrong. It is the same question which about 20 Commonwealth Prime Ministers are asking. It is a serious question and deserves an answer, and I am going to answer. It certainly does not deserve the kind of frivolity we have just witnessed.
  I have said that we have always taken the view that the use of force to impose a constitutional settlement would be wrong. The House has been told on previous occasions what would be involved, and last Friday my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence re-emphasised all that has been said. The House must recognise, as must those who feel that a policy of force would be right, that this would not be a police action or an exercise in counter-subversion. It is no fault of this Government or of our immediate predecessors that, uniquely among non-independent members of the Commonwealth, Rhodesia has had for 40 years her own forces, under the command of the local authorities and heavily permeated by racialist doctrine. At a time when passions run high in Southern Africa, let no one underrate the danger that the use of force would escalate into a conflagration which could spread across the entire continent.
  Even if this danger could be averted, there can be little doubt that Britain would find herself confronted by a situation of physical destruction and racial bitterness in Rhodesia which, for years to come, would frustrate the hopes and prospects of the very people we are trying to help.
  The other alternative which has been put forward insidiously outside the House, and even sometimes in it, is that we should simply surrender and, by positive act of this House or by abdication, allow independence and sovereignty to pass to a group of men driven on by a racialist ideology whose tenets they uphold by means of oppression and barbarism. The issue today—[Interruption.]—I am giving the House the facts, and every right hon. and hon. Member knows in his heart that they are the facts—is whether we should have what is called negotiations. Before I come to that, let me remind the House of the whole story of our contact with the régime, not only before but since U.D.I.
  In January 1966, after the Lagos Conference, I authorised my right hon. Friend

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  the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), then the Commonwealth Secretary, to visit Salisbury. He left my aircraft at Lusaka for this purpose. That was two months after U.D.I. He was refused access to Salisbury except under conditions that no right hon. and hon. Member of this House would have asked him to tolerate.
  The House will also remember the soundings at official level during the summer of 1966—the so-called "talks about talks". After eight days of debate at the Commonwealth Conference—debate in which feelings ran very high because we were insisting on our right to make a final effort at a settlement with the régime—my noble Friend, Lord Aylestone, then the Commonwealth Secretary, immediately flew to Salisbury. Every proposition he put there was turned down with contempt. There was no disposition even to discuss any settlement based on the principles.
  As the time was running out against the Commonwealth and United Nations deadlines, I decided that my noble Friend should go to Salisbury again, however hopeless it looked, and this visit led at the eleventh hour—indeed, later—to a sign of sufficient apparent willingness to move as to justify, it seemed to me, the "Tiger" talks. These talks were held on the clear assurance given by Mr. Smith that he would have power to settle when we got on board ship.
  As soon as we got to the discussions, however, he went back on that assurance and said that he could not agree to any settlement without the approval of his colleagues. We agreed that he should seek to get this by telegram. A few hours later, he said that he must take the document back and carry it through in Salisbury. I reluctantly agreed to this provided that, if talks continued on the "Tiger", before he left he should himself either reject the proposals or agree to commend them to his colleagues. He agreed, but finally left the ship refusing to say whether or not he would commend them to his colleagues. The results of our experience of these men, both before and after U.D.I., do not justify any optimism arising from any tactical move on the part of Mr. Smith without any guarantee that he can deliver.
  1564
  Tonight, from what we have been told, hon. Members must stand up and be counted. I want to make it clear—and here at least I shall, I think, carry the House with me—that Her Majesty's Government will not now or at any time commend to this House a settlement which fails to give effect to the principles which we, from the moment we took office, and right hon. Gentlemen opposite before that, have insisted must be the position. Neither shall we be prepared to agree to any such settlement, purely on the basis of a legal form of words, without satisfactory guarantees about the trust which would be required in the character and integrity of those to whom the fulfilment of the agreement was entrusted.
  This was why the "Tiger" settlement which we were prepared to commend to the House not only provided—[Interruption.]—I am trying to say that we cannot trust, even if there were a legal agreement, men like Lardner Burke and Dupont to carry it out. I would be very surprised if right hon. Members opposite were now to subscribe to the doctrine that they could do so after the flouting of the rights of the Privy Council, of which both they and I are members.
  I was saying that we must insist both on knowing who we are dealing with and on the letter of the agreement. The "Tiger" settlement we were prepared to commend to the House not only provided for a legal framework for a new Rhodesia, including external guarantees and the procedure for a return to legality, but also required clear and unequivocal action, which Mr. Smith said he was then ready to concede—he told my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and me that he was only too ready to concede it—making it clear beyond doubt that those to whom power was to be entrusted had broken with racialism.
  That was our position, and it remains so today. We cannot entrust a document, however carefully legally drafted, to men where trust is required in carrying it out if they are men who have not clearly broken with racialism, and I hope that no hon. Member will propose that we should. I should be amazed to think that anyone would choose to advocate the abandonment of all we have stood for at the very moment when the illegal

  1565
  regime has openly defied the rights of the courts and the Prerogative of the Crown.
  Rejecting the use of force, as I do, rejecting the very thought of surrender, as I do, we are left with a third course, admittedly unsatisfactory and costly, although its cost to us has been greatly exaggerated. This is the use of sanctions. I propose to deal with this before I say where we stand on this.
  The sanctions policy was accepted by the House on 12th November, 1965. It was accepted by all three parties. At various times thereafter proposals to tighten sanctions led to controversy, even divisions, but, as the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition reminded us two or three weeks ago, his party has supported us throughout on sanctions.
  Our early hopes that sanctions would make such an impact as rapidly to bring Rhodesia back to constitutionality have been disappointed. But equally so have the boasts of the régime that sanctions would have no effect. On the contrary, they have had and are having a powerful effect, a crippling effect, on important sectors of the Rhodesian economy, most of all on the farming community, which provide the sinews for the Rhodesia Front. It would be unrealistic to begin to claim that this effect on its economy—a very real effect—has had the political consequences either of overthrowing the régime or of achieving a change of heart on its part; or, indeed, of that happening to enough of the régime to make it change its course of action. It would be unrealistic to pretend that this is in sight.
  The House knows the difficulties against which sanctions have been operating. Rhodesia has no coastline and the principal routes along which its trade moves lie in countries which, while they do not recognise the régime, have a great deal of sympathy with it. We are frequently told in the House that every nation except Britain is stealing from us the trade we have cut off. This is not true. There have been, and there will be, evasions, some of them based on unscrupulous, under-the-counter deals and falsified certificates of origin, but the amount of trade has fallen off very sharply indeed since the United Nations 15 months ago endorsed a system of man
  1566
  datory sanctions over a very wide range of commodities. I will not weary the House by giving the figures. Perhaps my hon. Friend will give them later.
  Some statements made in the House have attributed a degree of cynicism, even deceit, to other Governments in this matter of sanctions. In fact, so far as the great majority of countries is concerned, swift action has been taken to follow up alleged evasions of the sanctions. One of the biggest difficulties lies in oil, where we had reason to think at the time of the Lagos Conference that the sanctions would be rapidly effective. The Beira pipeline is closed and Umtali has not refined a drop of oil for two and a quarter years. However, both crude oil and refined products still flow freely into Lourenco Marques, and from there some reach Rhodesia. The problem is that Lourenco Marques is the point of entry not only for large parts of Mozambique but also for Botswana, Swaziland and a considerable part of the Northern Transvaal. The House will know of the transport complications where the railway crosses and recrosses the frontier. This has enabled not only the Portuguese and South African authorities but also the oil suppliers using Lourenco Marques to disclaim responsibility for what goes through to Rhodesia.
  This whole sanctions problem will have to be tackled with renewed determination and it will be the central issue in many speeches at the United Nations—[Interruption.]—and in the Commonwealth; I trust that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not scoff at that. I do not underrate the difficulties here. I must again tell the House that we have warned our Commonwealth colleagues and all concerned at the United Nations that we cannot accept unwise proposals which would involve a head-on confrontation with South Africa that could rapidly escalate on a scale and in a manner which could do irreparable harm, not only to Rhodesia and South Africa, but to the whole of Southern Africa.
  Proposals on these lines do not and cannot provide the answer. But, equally, countries which, against the condemnation of the whole civilised world, continue to frustrate mandatory sanctions agreed upon at the U.N. will place themselves in

  1567
  increasing difficulty. The Rhodesian régime would be ill-advised to feel that such countries as South Africa and Portugal will thank them for creating and aggravating this situation.
  At a time when the U.N. is seized of this matter—[Interruption.] this is an extremely difficult time—it would be wrong for me to go further, except to say this. The House should know that Her Majesty's Government, rejecting the use of force, rejecting proposals designed to extend the use of sanctions beyond Rhodesia on to other countries, are prepared to agree to a tightening and extension of mandatory sanctions so as to block up existing loopholes, to support measures which will ensure that other U.N. Members apply sanctions as rigorously as we have done, and to co-operate in all appropriate measures to bring home to the Rhodesians their isolated position in the world. To this end we shall support comprehensive mandatory sanctions on all trade with Rhodesia, and we shall agree to join in examining other proposals aimed at the effective outlawry of the régime and of all those in Rhodesia who hope to make its continuing existence possible.
  We shall therefore go forward at the U.N. on the lines I have just indicated. However, this does not mean that we are not prepared to have talks with any responsible persons in Rhodesia who are prepared to discuss with us a settlement on the basis of our agreed principles—people, that is, who can be trusted beyond the letter of a legal agreement to make these principles effective. We shall be prepared to talk, be it soon or later, when those conditions exist. We are not using the word "never", which I think was once used, but there cannot be—
  Sir Cyril Osborne rose—
  The Prime Minister: I must continue.
  Mr. R. T. Paget rose—
  The Prime Minister: I indicated earlier that I would give way to my hon. and learned Friend.
  Mr. Paget: My right hon. Friend spoke earlier of what he described as contempt for the rule of law. Does he know any instance in history in which a rebel Gov
  1568
  ernment exercising de facto authority within its area has consented to appeals being brought from that area to the courts of the Power against which it was rebelling?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. and learned Friend will recognise that, of course, to accept his premise that this is a de facto Government would mean that I would have to give an opinion on the very issue on which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has this morning allowed an appeal. It would, therefore, be highly improper of me to accept my hon. and learned Friend's premise. I do know that throughout British history no authority, and nobody purporting to exercise such authority, has refused to allow an appeal to the highest court provided under the Constitution. Still less have people who have claimed to be a Government threatened the courts by saying that they would not allow that appeal and would deny the ultimate supreme court, whatever it is, the right of access to all the documents in the case.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  The Prime Minister: I do not know of any case where a man like Lardner Burke, and this applies throughout British history, has said—
  Sir Knox Cunningham: What about going back to George Washington?
  The Prime Minister: For the hon. and learned Gentleman to compare Lardner Burke with George Washington reveals what his standards are.
  I was dealing with the important intervention of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton. When one has a man who says that whatever the Judicial Committee says he will still go on and hang them, then I believe that there is not an hon. Member in this House who could for a moment defend that.
  Sir C. Osborne rose—
  The Prime Minister: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but then I must complete my speech.
  Sir C. Osborne: The Prime Minister said that he would not deal with the men in charge of Rhodesia at the moment, but that he would deal with

  1569
  honourable men whom he could trust. How can these alternate men emerge? Two months ago I was in Rhodesia—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and I assure the Prime Minister that the more moderate men with whom he wants to deal told me that they could not come forward while sanctions were against them. That being so, how will the right hon. Gentleman be able to deal with the sort of men with whom he wishes to deal?
  The Prime Minister: They dare not come forward, white or African, as long as a police state is in force. I have just said—and perhaps this will help to answer the hon. Gentleman's question—that we are not using the word "never". I am saying that there cannot be talks with the Lardner Burkes, with the Duponts, with racialists who rejected every settlement proposed before and after U.D.I., including the "Tiger" Constitution—and who have now compounded their record of illegality under the Constitution by this flouting of the rule of law. Nor, in present circumstances, could there be any profit in talking to Mr. Smith. [Interruption.] It is significant that, when the right hon. Gentleman talked to him, he was able to give no guarantee that any proposals he made or endorsed would be more likely to be accepted than those which he took back from the "Tiger".
  Hon. Members will have their own views as to whether Mr. Smith—[Interruption.]—so often we have had from Mr. Smith the statement that he is prepared to agree to something, but this has been overthrown by his colleagues—himself is as much a racialist as his most powerful colleagues, or whether he is merely their prisoner and their front man. Whichever it may be, a great deal has changed in the weeks since the right hon. Gentleman was in Salisbury, and we are not going to talk in the shadow of the gallows.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  The Prime Minister: Neither is there any profit—[Interruption.]—I am very surprised if right hon. Gentlemen really have changed their minds so much on this since they were in office. It was one of the most shocking things which any of us have had to live through.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  The Prime Minister: I am sorry: I have given way a number of times. Most of the questions which are being put to me I can answer by finishing my speech, because I want to come to something which I have been asked in some of the seated interruptions.
  Neither is there any profit in present circumstances in the suggestion which is sometimes advanced by right hon. and hon. Members that for problems which have proved to be problems not of constitutional amendment or of give and take in negotiations but of fundamental truths, of objectives, of principles, even of creed—that a way might be found around these problems by invoking the mediation of a Commonwealth statesman or group of statesmen. This has been rejected by Mr. Smith every time that we have put it forward. We proposed it before U.D.I. My noble Friend the then Commonwealth Secretary put forward in the autumn of 1966 a series of alternative proposals for a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Mission, a Commonwealth Constitutional Mission, a Privy Councillors' Mission from this Parliament, and a Privy Councillor's Mission from the Commonwealth. All of these were rejected with contempt, as were any proposals for Commonwealth participation in the consequential actions arising under "Tiger".
  The Governor, to whose courage and steadfastness all of us in the House pay tribute, especially in these past weeks, knows that we shall always be ready to consider the possibility of a settlement on the basis of our agreed principles, which include, of course, the fifth principle, which I have not mentioned today, of acceptability to the people of Rhodesia as a whole—a principle with which the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir A. Douglas-Home) was concerned when in office and, recently, in Salisbury. The House will insist that a settlement which is based ultimately on trust can be made only with people who can be trusted to make it effective. The Governor is there and is authorised to pursue any meaningful development which satisfies these principles and the necessary requirements of trust. If and when, at any time, soon or late, he should so report, that will be the time for decision.
  The Governor knows that we have never slammed the door, and neither shall

  1571
  we slam it—[Hon. Members: "Oh."]—I spent a long time giving the record of what initiatives we have taken. We have never slammed the doors. They were slammed by the rejection of the rule of law and of the Royal Prerogative three weeks ago—and I am sorry to find that hon. Gentlemen from what is supposed to be a constitutional Party, support those who have so openly flouted the rule of law—
  Mr. Biggs-Davison rose—
  The Prime Minister: So this is where we stand on negotiations—
  Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles: On a point of order. As this is a debate on which passions run very high, is it in accordance with the customs or traditions of the House for the Prime Minister of Great Britain to refer to prominent men in other countries, whether he agrees with them or not, in such emotive terms as "racialists"?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): The hon. and gallant Member knows perfectly well that that is not a point of order.
  The Prime Minister: That is not a point of order but a point of fact, and the people whom I have called racialists would be insulted if I did not think that they were.
  This is a debate of very great moment. Whatever the difficulties, however long the haul, we shall discharge our responsibilities. I would deeply regret it if this debate were to end with a Division on party lines, because all of us have to remember, particularly after these past weeks, that in our hands, as I have said, rest hundreds of lives in Rhodesia and the liberties of four million more. Therefore, what we do here and at the United Nations in seeking to restrain understandable passions from taking charge and leading to imprudent or even dangerous courses of action in the Commonwealth or elsewhere; what we do here will have a profound effect on the contribution which we and all of us here can make to the peace of a continent.
  In a wider sense, I think that it will be taken as a manifest of this country's determination to accept all the implications of the rôle which, from 1947 on
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  wards, we here decided, in different parties and successive Governments, that Britain, by helping her dependent territories to an honourable and non-racial independence, should play in reshaping the world community of the future.
  4.56 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Heath: I beg to move, to leave out from House ' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  'while condemning all acts of violence and terrorism, regrets the circumstances under which three Africans were executed in Rhodesia on 6th March, 1968, and calls on Her Majesty's Government to make a further attempt to achieve a negotiated settlement in order to discharge Britain's responsibility to peoples of all races in Rhodesia'.
  As the Prime Minister has remarked, it is now two and a half years, all but a few days, since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia and, in my judgment, this is the moment to take a cool look at the situation and to make as clear as possible an appraisal of it. When the Government said that they would review the situation after the events of the weekend of 3rd March, many of us hoped that it was this cool appraisal which they would make. So long as this debate was on the Adjournment, there was a possibility, at any rate, of a realistic and constructive debate and of meeting the Prime Minister's wish that there should not be a Division at the end.
  But the Prime Minister has chosen to stage this debate on a highly-charged and emotional issue, and to stage it on a Motion which, besides being contentious—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—it omits all mention of the acts of violence leading to the murders of the victims and deals only with the past, and is absolutely negative about the future. That is the reason why it is contentious and why I refused to sign it when the Prime Minister first invited me to do so. We were hoping for a cool, dispassionate appraisal to advise the House. I would only say this about the Prime Minister's speech: on one of the gravest issues facing this country today, the right hon. Gentleman was at his worst.
  I want to make only a brief analysis of the situation and offer the House an assessment, and then to discuss the various courses which are now open to the Government. The time is appropriate, not only because of the long period which

  1573
  has elapsed since U.D.I., but because the exercise of the Queen's Prerogative of Mercy in the case of the Africans sentenced to death has been shown to be completely ineffective.
  This has dramatically illuminated the real situation existing between Britain and Rhodesia today. This was clearly pointed out by Lord Caradon in his speech to the Security Council of the United Nations on 19th March, when he said:
  "It has very a bitter experience in recent weeks to live with the hard fact that while my country has constitutional responsibility for Rhodesia so far we have not been able to stop actions so clearly illegal and so brutally inhuman."
  This reflects very clearly the reality of the situation which Her Majesty's Government are continually refusing to face. The writ of the Queen as advised by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs does not run in Rhodesia, and neither does any decision of Her Majesty's Government in the Parliament at Westminster.
  I want to deal with this legal situation from a layman's point of view, but before doing so I want to put one specific question to the Secretary of State about the use of the Queen's Prerogative of Mercy. There will no doubt be much argument in the debate about this, as there has been in Rhodesia, as well as in this country. I want the Secretary of State to answer the specific question: was the Governor asked, before any recommendation was made to Her Majesty the Queen, as to whether or not in all the circumstances then existing he advised a reprieve? Was he asked that question before the Secretary of State made up his mind or gave any advice to Her Majesty? I am not asking whether the Government was in agreement. I wish to know clearly whether the Governor was asked that specific question. I know what the Secretary of State has said in the House. It was not a clear answer to my question, and I would like that answer when the right hon. Gentleman winds up tonight.
  I want to make my own position clear on this. Whatever the constitutional argument may be, at the time that Her Majesty exercised her Prerogative of Mercy I personally wished that Mr. Smith and his colleagues would accept
  1574
  that recommendation, because of all the wider circumstances involved. I therefore regret the circumstances in which the Africans were executed in Salisbury.
  The fact that the Queen's Prerogative was not observed in Rhodesia has been condemned here as breaking the rule of law. But what the Prime Minister has not discussed, what nobody has debated here, and what the Attorney-General has given the House no advice upon, is what exactly is the rule of law in Rhodesia today. The Prime Minister said in his speech—the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) was touching very closely on this—that this matter is now sub judice. Very well; let us respect the fact that it is sub judice as a result of today's decision. If it is sub judice, I would suggest that the Prime Minister is already pre-judging the issue in his Motion and in everything he has said in a very heated and intemperate speech.
  I do not wish to discuss the issue in detail, for the same reasons, but I want to pose the problem because it has now become a very genuine and serious one. The courts in Rhodesia have come to the conclusion that Mr. Smith's Administration is the de facto Government of Rhodesia. Perhaps after two and a half years this is not surprising. The Prime Minister told the courts right at the beginning, on the day after U.D.I., that they should exercise their own judgment in these matters. He will well remember the statement. It was one in which he advised the police and the judges that they should carry on and should decide for themselves whether the matter was illegal in the course of their duty. That is what the courts have done. In the course of that they have decided that the régime in Rhodesia is the de facto Government.
  But they have gone further than that, I find it rather odious that those whom Her Majesty's Government have instructed in this way and have since commended for the way in which they have carried on their duties in the courts should now be repudiated by the Prime Minister and the members of the Government when they reach a decision which is not to the liking of Her Majesty's Government. The courts have since in effect followed the 1965 Constitution of Mr. Smith's régime. That is what the courts

  1575
  have done—not in the constitutional issue of deciding that Mr. Smith's was the de facto régime, but in the decisions on the murder cases, in which they have in fact followed the 1965 Constitution.
  I suggest to the Prime Minister and to the House that it is misleading and serves no purpose in trying to deal with this grave problem to try to personalise this on the basis of one person—Mr. Lardner Burke. The only way in which to deal with this is to look at what the courts themselves have decided. They have now been very clear in their decisions. What is also clear in the action which has been taken by Mr. Smith's régime is that the régime can point to the courts' decisions as justifying it in each of these respects.
  This surely poses a very fundamental constitutional issue, because, as I said at Question Time the other day, the clash is no longer one between the British Government and the régime. It is a clash between the British Government and the courts established under the 1961 Constitution in Rhodesia. The problem was posed by one of the judges in the constitutional issue very clearly when he said:
  "This court, however, in my view, sits, if it sits at all, under the sovereign power of the Rhodesian Government, and, for the reasons given in my judgment, must apply the provisions of the 1965 Constitution."
  He went on to sum it up by saying that the courts here might take one decision and the courts in Rhodesia another:
  "Judged, however, by reference to the legal norm under which each court operates, each would be correct."
  This is not the judgment of the court. It is the judgment of one judge who posed the problem which can arise and which the Government and the House may in due course have to face.
  Sir Dingle Foot: That was said in the course of a minority judgment which did not represent the view of the court.
  Mr. Heath: That is exactly what I said. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I said that I was quoting the remarks of one of the judges. I have been quite clear about the constitutional position, that the judges found that it was a de facto régime and, in making the judicial decisions on the
  1576
  murders, they have been following the 1965 Constitution. The Government should now recognise this problem which has arisen. We have had to deal with this in other countries. It is because we ourselves as a country are involved in this one that apparently the Government find it impossible even to discuss the issue or to recognise it.
  I want to look at British policy over the last two and a half years. The Prime Minister said in the first debate that each action should be judged on its merits. The merits are whether or not it helps Rhodesia to achieve a constitutional position. The purpose of that is to safeguard the rights of all races in Rhodesia and, if possible, achieve a multi-racial state. That is the definition on which each action taken and proposed by the Government should be judged.
  The main instrument of the policy has been sanctions—at first voluntary, then mandatory and, as the Prime Minister has just said, now to be extended. How can one appraise this? Sanctions have affected the Rhodesian economy. They have slowed the rate of growth. They can never bring down the Rhodesian economy, for a variety of reasons. First, Rhodesia can house itself, feed itself, clothe itself, light and heat itself. For that reason, the economy can never be brought down. Furthermore, it is becoming more self-sufficient in its own organisation. Thirdly, it will always be supported in the ultimate event by both South Africa and Portugal. For these reasons, the Rhodesian economy can never be brought down. In the course of this, great damage has been done to our position. Let us recognise this in the appraisal. It has cost us probably £200 million on our balance of payments and is very damaging to sterling. [Interruption.] The Government have never been prepared to give us detailed statistics on this. If they want to argue another figure, let them give the detailed statistics. Hon. Members are entitled to say that the cost does not matter, but they must take the cost into the appraisal.
  Mr. Stanley Orme: The right hon. Gentleman voted for sanctions.
  Mr. Heath: Yes, for the reasons I am coming to.
  It can never bring the Rhodesian economy down. Indeed, that was not

  1577
  the purpose of those of us on this side of the House, and it never has been. The purpose was to bring about a negotiation, and that can be the only justification for the policy of sanctions which the Government are pursuing.
  But there is a positive side to this aspect. Sanctions—and this must be recognised—have stiffened the spirit of Rhodesia and strengthened its resistance. There can be absolutely no doubt about that. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the Africans?"] Including most of the Africans. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]
  Mr. Andrew Faulds: Absolute nonsense.
  Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to produce any evidence he can that the majority of Africans want to overthrow the régime. Let him try and do it.
  Mr. David Winnick rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) must restrain himself.
  Mr. Philip Noel-Baker rose—
  Mr. Heath: The reason why they have—
  Mr. Winnick: Disgusting.
  Mr. Philip Noel-Baker rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Leader of the Opposition has not given way.
  Hon. Members: Why not?
  Mr. Heath: I will tell the House why not. I am endeavouring to make a comparatively short speech which will enable other hon. Members to take part in the debate.
  Mr. Faulds: Cannot you do better than this? One or two of you have more ability.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) must conduct himself properly.
  Mr. Heath: The Rhodesian spirit has been strengthened because sanctions have failed to achieve what many people thought was the objective of the Prime Minister, and that was to crack the
  1578
  economy and probably the régime. This, after 2½ years, sanctions have failed to do. The second reason is that other countries are not observing sanctions because they have concluded that the régime is there to stay and, therefore, they are trading with it. These are facts which, however unpleasant they may be, must be recognised if a sensible policy is to be followed.
  What about the impact of this policy on the other countries of Africa, particularly in the Commonwealth between Her Majesty's Government and most of the other African countries are almost uniformly bad. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I will say why. Strangely enough, the Government have managed achieve a situaton in which the Prime Minister and Mr. Smith are equally suspect of President Kaunda and every other Africa leader.
  The Prime Minister: The reason for our difficulties with the Commonwealth is that we, with the support of the right hon. Gentleman, have refused to use force. If we were prepared to use force, which we are not, it would transform the situation, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it.
  Mr. Heath: The reason is that the Prime Minister told the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference that this matter would be settled in weeks, not months. Other countries formulated their policy on this. People established their personal position on it, and never was a prediction more falsified.
  One thing is all-important now in the relationship with the Commonwealth countries, and it is that the Prime Minister and the Government should tell them frankly what the real position is and what policy Her Majesty's Government will pursue.
  The Prime Minister: Surrender?
  Mr. Heath: If the Prime Minister wishes to follow that policy, let him tell them so frankly. What I am saying is that he should give them a realistic assessment and let them know what it is.
  Let us discuss the possibilities before the Government. The first is to carry on their present path in the hope that something will happen but, in fact, seeing no clear way out. They know that the present policy cannot bring down the Rhodesian economy, nor, after two and

  1579
  a half years, has it toppled the régime. To carry on with the present policy will not achieve the Government's purposes or the purposes which I have described as being the test for each piece of action.
  The present policy is damaging to the United Kingdom and to Rhodesia. It is expensive to us, and each fresh incident demonstrates the complete ineffectiveness of British policy and the complete powerlessness of Her Majesty's Government. Thus, it incurs the odium of everybody who is directly or indirectly involved, and it saps the spirit of the British people here and their morale. Surely it must now dawn on the Prime Minister that it is not Mr. Smith who is incurring odium for what happened in Salisbury during the weekend of 3rd March; it is the Prime Minister and his colleagues in Her Majesty's Government and Britain. They are the people incurring the odium because of the ineffectiveness of British policy.
  The second policy which the Government can follow is the one which the Prime Minister has indicated but of which he has given us no details—to try to strengthen the present policy of mandatory sanctions. What effect would this have? All it would do is harden Rhodesian spirit further. It would have no effect in other countries. Her Majesty's Government know full well—the Prime Minister reiterated it today—that as long as South Africa remains outside, economic sanctions cannot be effective. Her Majesty's Government are not prepared to blockade South Africa either economically or militarily. If they were prepared to do so, they are incapable of carrying through the operation. The United States certainly would not assist them at a time when they have a major war on their hands. Therefore, it must be faced that as long as South Africa and Portugal are outside this, the economic blockade cannot be made effective and any further United Nations action which the Prime Minister is now suggesting will be futile and will deceive, or attempt to deceive, other African leaders, and they will know it full well.
  The third course is to try to settle by the use of force and impose a new constitution. Many hon. Members opposite would like to see this policy carried through. The Prime Minister has always
  1580
  rejected it. Sometimes there have been doubts about how firmly he was sticking to his statements. I accept that he has never intended to use force to impose a constitutional settlement. The Secretary of State for Defence made this plain last Friday night. [Interruption.] I am dealing with this matter because it has been discussed on the benches opposite and very fully discussed in The Guardian in a leading editorial. I am therefore right to pose it as a possible course of action.
  The Secretary of State for Defence has also made it plain that if it were attempted it could not be carried through as a policy. Therefore, the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway and the Press have had their answer. With great respect to the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Whitaker), who wrote a letter today, and the Prime Minister, there is no comparable situation—and other African countries know this—when we are still the Government of a country and have forces in situ and dealing with a situation in Rhodesia, where we are not the Government as far as all practical affairs are concerned, and where we do not have forces in situ. There is no comparison whatever.
  Mr. Ben Whitaker: Are the right hon. Gentleman's objections purely logistic, or because he is a pacifist, or because of the racial composition of the Smith régime? Which is his objection to force?
  Mr. Heath: My objection is that to try to use force would create chaos and disaster. I said that in the very early debates on Rhodesia. It would lead to civil war between Europeans, between Africans and between all the people in Rhodesia. I noted the Prime Minister's reasons for this, for not going in for the use of force and the invasion of Rhodesia, but I also believe that the Government have not got the power to carry it through.
  A fourth possible course of action is to hand the problem over to the United Nations in its entirety, and that one has been discussed, but what would the United Nations be able to do? They would not be able to be effective. If they tried Congo tactics they would produce a Congo situation, and surely nobody in this House wants to see the United Nations creating a Congo situation there.

  1581
  There is a fifth course, which is, to wash our hands of the whole problem—this also the Prime Minister mentioned—refuse to hand it over to the United Nations and, if the United Nations tried to intervene through the Security Council, to use the British veto against it. That is the fifth course. They would then be entirely on their own. That is a possible solution. I, personally, would greatly regret to see it happen, because Rhodesia would then become a republic, all British influence would be lost, and Rhodesia would move further towards South Africa and apartheid. We should then not have achieved any of our objectives in safeguarding rights in Rhodesia, and therefore I reject this as a possible course.
  For all these reasons I come to the one which the Prime Minister has rejected, and that is, to make further attempts at negotiation which—
  Mr. Winnick: Why not just surrender? It is easier.
  Mr. Heath:—in fact has always been the only Practicable and sensible way of settling this problem. What I condemn the Government for—I do not want to go over the details of past history—is that they have not created the conditions for successful negotiations. I fully agree that they have not always been helped by the situation in Salisbury. In fact both sides have failed to bridge the gulf of suspicion which divides them. That is the hard fact today. What we on this side of the House believe is that the Government ought to begin further attempts at negotiations now.
  In my view, the recent negotiations make it even more necessary and more urgent that there should be an attempt to resolve this problem, and everything which the Prime Minister has said today in criticism of the régime makes it more urgent and more necessary to try to resolve this problem. The onus must rest with the Government as the major Power.
  The Prime Minister has been saying a very large number of condemnatory things about the régime today. He has just been shouting at me across the Table. On 7th December, 1965, the then Commonwealth. Secretary said that
  "… we cannot deal with Smith in any way because he is not a man to be trusted."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 385.]
  1582
  On 25th January, 1966, the Prime Minister said:
  "Rhodesia's future course cannot be negotiated with the régime which illegally claims to govern the country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th January, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 40.]
  In the summer of 1966, directly after the election, talks were begun by the Prime Minister at official level with the régime. In November, 1966, the then Commonwealth Secretary visited Salisbury in order to carry on talks with the régime. In December 1966, the Prime Minister took the leader of the régime on board H.M.S. "Tiger" to negotiate with him. But then, after the collapse of the "Tiger" talks, on 2nd February, 1967, the Prime Minister said that
  "… it is no good at all entering into discussions with Mr. Smith on this subject … "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd February, 1967; Vol. 740. c. 764.]
  But in June, 1967, he sent Lord Alport to Salisbury to carry on talks with Mr. Smith. In July, 1967, he arranged for talks through the Governor, and in November, 1967, the Commonwealth Secretary himself went to Salisbury to carry on talks with Mr. Smith and the régime. Then we had the weekend of 3rd March, and afterwards the Prime Minister said:
  "After this recent breach of the rule of law, this flouting of the rule of law, I should have thought it quite impossible to talk to the men who have flouted the rule of law in that way."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th March, 1968; Vol. 760, c. 1620.]
  Today he has heaped insult upon insult upon them. What can be more humiliating for this country than for the Prime Minister to keep on heaping insults on them and saying it is impossible to talk to the men and then two months go by and he tries to negotiate a settlement?
  What we have heard today has been very objectionable from the point of view of trying to get another negotiated settlement going. We do know that the Prime Minister will overturn at a moment's notice any arrangement for further talks in Salisbury with Mr. Smith.
  The Prime Minister: We have had official talks, and I myself have had talks with Mr. Smith, when we received pretty clear signals that he was prepared to head up a Government not racially based—those were the signals we had—and his own promise, that he ratted on, to get rid of the racialist members of his

  1583
  régime. We have had that in the past. We have been prepared to have negotiations. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, we have not been prepared to negotiate a surrender to a police State.
  Mr. Heath: The Prime Minister knows that is absolutely untrue and completely unworthy of him. What makes us despair of the Prime Minister ever being able to negotiate a settlement is exactly this degree of distortion and deceit which he injects into every speech which he makes in this House on Rhodesia.
  My right hon. Friend came back from Salisbury with certain proposals from Mr. Smith to the Prime Minister and the question was whether this provided a basis for further attempts at negotiation. The Commonwealth Secretary mentioned three points to the House, the blocking quarter, an appeal to the Constitutional Commission, and cross-voting. As the Prime Minister has indicated, my right hon. Friend brought back proposals which dealt with each of these points.
  What we have always regretted about the Commonwealth Secretary is that he comes back from Salisbury, makes a statement to the House—which they indicated they thought a breach of confidence—and sets out the position as being the final position. It is now quite clear, whatever view the Government may take of the adequacy of the new proposals, that the comments made by the Commonwealth Secretary were not the final position. That is absolutely clear and cannot be denied.
  What I put to the Prime Minister and the Government is this, that even though they may take the attitude that the new proposals do not in all respects meet the three requirements, they do provide a basis for further negotiation by the Commonwealth Secretary to try to secure agreement on those requirements, and this is what matters for every negotiation. Time and again we have heard from the Prime Minister in this House that in every other situation he is prepared for negotiations. The House has only to recall Vietnam and the words he has spoken on that to know that, in these circumstances, he is prepared to press every single issue to try to find a way round or to find the answer. What we have never understood is why he will not adopt the same atti
  1584
  tude to trying to find the solution to the problem of Rhodesia.
  The Prime Minister himself has emphasised the five principles, and the object of my right hon. Friend's discussions was to see that the five principles were implemented. Of course, they could be implemented in a variety of ways. The Prime Minister knows that. He has said himself that the Government are prepared to try to find ways of implementing the five principles. Details were brought back by my right hon. Friend.
  Sanctions should remain on until the completion of the negotiations, and Mr. Smith's régime should retain their present position, in the same way as Her Majesty's Government do, in their view, in the five principles. Any new or revised constitution should then be put to the people of Rhodesia under the fifth principle by a Royal Commission, as was previously agreed, and the Royal Commission should have the conditions which it wishes, with both sides retaining their present positions.
  That is a perfectly tenable negotiating basis—
  The Prime Minister: All that was agreed on "Tiger".
  Mr. Heath: The Prime Minister says that all that was agreed on "Tiger"—
  The Prime Minister:—and turned down.
  Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman need not be quite so testy about this.
  If a constitution is approved and recommended by the Royal Commission, then Rhodesia should move over straight away to the new constitution after it has been approved by the British Parliament. This is what I meant when I said that Rhodesia should move on to a new legality and not an old legality. It is a position which the Prime Minister has always pretended not to understand. It is hopeless to try to force Rhodesia back on to her pre-U.D.I. status. She must move forward to a new legality negotiated between Her Majesty's Government and Mr. Smith's régime, and it must then be put to the people of Rhodesia. If the people of Rhodesia rejected the new constitution, the situation could not be worse than it is at the moment—
  Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Complete surrender.
  Mr. Heath: I am sorry that on this occasion the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) has closed his mind to any practical common-sense approach.
  Mr. Mendelson rose—
  Mr. Heath: No, I will not give way.
  Mr. Faulds: The right hon. Gentleman referred to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Mendelson rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Heath: If the constitution is approved, then the Prime Minister has the substantial change in circumstances that he wants to enable him to go to the Commonwealth to call off Nibmar and to the United Nations for the removal of sanctions.
  However, I want to say this to him. There are certain favourable factors for negotiations which he would do well not to underestimate. It is true that Rhodesia wants to get rid of sanctions because of the effect that they have been having—[Hon. Members: "Oh"]—which I have stated to the House in my appraisal, if only hon. Gentlemen opposite would listen. Secondly, Rhodesia wants new investment. She is getting some and will always get some from South Africa. Thirdly, a vast number of Rhodesians want a proper relationship with the United Kingdom. There is a fourth favourable factor, which is that South Africa wants to see the problem removed. She will support Rhodesia, but she wants to see the problem removed for a variety of reasons, including the one that she wants to establish better relations on a wider basis with the African countries.
  These inducements to negotiation are far stronger than are threats of Soviet intervention, which I must say to the Prime Minister that no one here or in Rhodesia gives the serious attention that he does. Nor do they believe that the action of freedom fighters will be more than an irritation to the Rhodesian Government.
  Mr. Faulds: Wait and see.
  Mr. Heath: Those who read the very detailed and carefully prepared articles in The Times recently will have seen a very
  1586
  full assessment of these movements in Africa, particularly as they affect Rhodesia.
  Very well. Let us form our assessment on this basis. I repeat that the inducements to a satisfactory negotiation are there, and it is far better to use those inducements than the threats which we have heard this afternoon from the Prime Minister.
  For all those reasons, therefore, we urge Her Majesty's Government to make a further attempt at negotiation, because all the alternatives are worse. The difficulties are undeniably great, but so is the prize, if it can be achieved, for this country, for Rhodesia and for the continent of Africa. No considerations of sectional interest or personal vanity must be allowed to stand in its way.
  5.36 p.m.
  Dr. David Kerr: We listened spellbound to the words of the Leader of the Opposition, that nearly fictitious character in Parliamentary history. His account of the legal implications of what has happened in Rhodesia will have thrilled us all. I am sure, too, that it will have convinced us that, in future, he would be advised to take more dinners in the Middle Temple and fewer at the National Sporting Club. His interpretation of the constitutional position left me, a layman, gasping at the ignorance that one man could display in so short a time.
  He went on to ask, most impertinently, for evidence of African views. One notes in passing that he has no difficulty in interpreting the views of Europeans in Rhodesia and of claiming to act as their spokesman. We have noted all this. Above all, some of us are given to wonder what is the new rôle of the Leader of the Opposition who appears to be bent on undermining any type of constitutional advance between this Parliament and the Rhodesian Parliament, if it ever comes into existence as a democratic institution.
  I am prepared to hazard a guess about the evidence for which he asks. One of the unfortunate aspects of the recent African tour made by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) was his total failure to meet and acquaint himself with the views of those who hold other than Government views, whether in Rhodesia or in South Africa.
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I do not want to waste the time of the House, but I saw the representatives of all races in South Africa. In Rhodesia I met the African members of the Opposition—
  Mr. Faulds: A lot of good they are.
  Dr. Kerr: We are aware that the right hon. Gentleman had conversations with Mr. Matzudu, the Leader of the Opposition in Rhodesia. However, we on this side of the House do not regard him as being a representative of any opposition to the Government's policies. Along with the other chiefs in the Rhodesian Parliament, he is the servant and not the opponent of the Smith régime.
  As to the contacts that the right hon. Gentleman may have made in South Africa, I was there shortly after he left and I can only speak with regret of the failure of the South African Press to report any useful contacts and, moreover, to say with the utmost condemnation that the right hon. Gentleman's excursion into the matter of South West Africa was one of the biggest disasters in statesmanship in Africa for many years.
  It seems a quite unwarranted intrusion on the potential rights of the International Court of Justice, if it were taken there, and of the United Nations which is now considering the matter. It is a pity that the right hon. Gentleman ventured on to this subject. I can only report to the House that his views on South-West Africa did a great deal of harm to the cause of justice there and gave a great deal of support to the South African Government. That is a matter for great regret.
  Mr. Faulds: Disgraceful. [Laughter.] Yes, you can giggle, you little girl. It is disgraceful. Go back to Roedean, you little giggler.
  Dr. Kerr: The occasion is too serious to be dealt with in anything but a responsible manner, and I hope that this will be the case on both sides.
  The fact that I have referred to South Africa is not without some significance. While we spotlight Rhodesia, we are failing to recognise the true facts of the situation if we do not appreciate that we are dealing with the growth of South African power.
  My right hon. Friend made, I thought, a curious remark about Communism
  1588
  abhorring a vacuum, but competitive Communism welcoming it. I confess that I did not follow it. In any case, as the Leader of the Opposition said, this is perhaps of less importance. What is of great importance is the growth of South African dominance. South Africa is supplying investment capital to Rhodesia, and South Africa's frontier at the northern border of Rhodesia with Zambia is where we should be looking.
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire in a curiously mixed article in the Spectator made one staggering claim. He suggested that if Rhodesia were to become independent as a non-racial State, it would be the first non-racial State in Central Africa. How could he extend so gratuitous an insult to Zambia? Zambia is the first nonracial state in South or Central Africa. It is a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman's voyages of discovery in South Africa did not take him within the borders of Zambia from where he would have been able to report African views to his right hon. Friend.
  The feeble suggestions which the Leader of the Opposition has placed before us today as the basis for further action to solve the Rhodesian crisis are already rejected by the African countries in and out of the Commonwealth. I would not put it higher than hazarding a guess about African opinion in Rhodesia, because it is a bit hard to come by. But it is not the slightest bit of use the Leader of the Opposition challenging my right hon. Friend to produce evidence. Let him produce evidence about the views of Africans which he claims to know and to express. We have no confidence in this claim.
  On the basis of my recent visit to Africa, I am bound to report despairingly that the African view—a substantial, informed, committed, emotional, but, above all, a moral view—is to repudiate any further hint of negotiation with that group of gangsters in Salisbury who, at best, have been described by my right hon. Friend today as liars and, at slightly less than best, could be justifiably regarded as murderers.
  This is the situation in Africa, not Rhodesia. As long as we keep pinpointing the situation in Rhodesia and forget that it is happening in the context of Africa as a whole, we are liable to be misled.

  1589
  We have heard reports today of the speeches of the Zambian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Kamanga, at the United Nations. In discussions with representatives in Zambia, including Mr. Kamanga, I was left in no doubt about their conviction of the need for the use of force. It was not an African; it was a white diplomat, a man of great experience and authority in Zambia, who, in discussing the problem, said to me that in order to regain control of the Rhodesian crisis it would be necessary to regain the levers of power and, to regain the levers of power, there was now no alternative but the use of military force.
  As a professional coward, I do not advocate the use of force, but we have gone beyond the point where we can any longer cling to the statement that we will never in any circumstances use force. We can no longer say that. Equally, it is no use my right hon. Friend delineating as he hopefully does, between Lardner Burke or Dupont as the criminals and Ian Smith as the innocent misled by his wicked compatriots. This is not the true situation. The fact is that Ian Smith is as guilty as anybody.
  Mr. James Johnson: Have we said that we would never use force? I understood the Prime Minister to have said that given conditions of civil war inside this territory in future we would then intervene. Is this not so?
  Dr. Kerr: I was coming to this point. The one qalification that we have made about using force was that in the circumstances of the breakdown of law and order we would intervene. The first question which springs so readily to one's lips is: how do we define the breakdown of law and order?
  Has not my right hon. Friend been describing precisely that in careful legally defined terms? Can there be any more clear and unobjectionable description of a breakdown of law and order than what we have witnessed over the hanging of the convicted men? I go along with the Leader of the Opposition that they did commit heinous crimes and that they had been found guilty constitutionally. But it is the failure to observe constitutional and legal processes which we are condemning in the Motion put before
  1590
  the House by my right hon. Friend. By implication, it is precisely that refusal to abide by legal processes which the Leader of the Opposition is condoning in his evidently sincere and deeply felt regret at the deaths of three Africans and the hint of the deaths of many more.
  Zambia is in a most delicate position standing, as it does—the nut in the nutcrackers—between the growing affluent prosperity and advance of South African dominance to the South and the developing countries of Africa to the North and East. When my right hon. Friend and the Leader of the Opposition talk about the possibilities of civil war and armed conflict between African and African or European and European as a result of British intervention, they are blinding themselves not merely to the possibility, but to the probability, that precisely those things will happen within the measurable future unless this country accepts the responsibility, which it claims, and takes more urgent, decisive and positive steps to end this totally unacceptable situation.
  We talk about the white liberals in Rhodesia. Who are the white liberals in Rhodesia to whom we are expected to look for an alternative Government?
  A few weeks ago we were talking of Sir Hugh Beadle—that shabby disgrace to a proud profession. He was regarded as the voice of Rhodesian liberalism. He was rejected. He was, quite properly, thrown out of his cottage in the grounds of the Governor's residence. He should never have been there in the first place.
  I want to know why the Rhodesian judges, who have abandoned their legal qualifications by surrendering politically to the régime, are still regarded as being appointed by Her Majesty The Queen. Why have they not been deprived of their warrant?
  Where are the liberal white Rhodesians? I know that they exist, because I am in touch with them. But I also know that their opportunities to come together to find a spokesman to represent a liberal point of view are denied them. They are denied by a Rhodesian régime which is hell-bent on following the same disastrous neo-Fascist methods which the South African Government, to my despair, have pursued, and are pursuing, successfully in South Africa.

  1591
  The fragmentation of the South African liberal Opposition is a matter for us all to consider with concern. The failure to communicate between European and African in South Africa is a matter for us all to consider with anxiety. Is this what we are going to permit to happen in Rhodesia? What kind of negotiations does the right hon. Gentleman expect us to indulge in which could avoid the fate of South Africa, and the Africans in South Africa, and above all, which would satisfy interested African opinion in the developing countries? These are the problems to which the right hon. Gentleman has not provided any answer.
  If there is to be an alternative programme, it must be along the lines which my right hon. Friend was commending to us this afternoon, and it must go further. What he said this afternoon does not go far enough. We must make clear that in certain circumstances we may have to face the inevitability of using force. This may happen—and I would regret it as much as anybody in this House—outside the possibility of law and order breaking down. Let us suppose that comprehensive mandatory sanctions, and the isolation of Rhodesian communications, were to lead to the downfall of the Smith régime. What would come in its place? Is there any possibility open to any kind of political organisation to take its place? Clearly there is none. I do not hear a word of dissent to show that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite think otherwise. If there is no alternative Government, what alternative will there be to a British military presence and a British Government of some sort?
  One of the most alarming experiences that I had during the last few weeks was to hear not merely the rejection of Britain's offers of help and friendship in Africa, but the suggestion that Britain's motives are now so suspect that the intervention of a British military force in Rhodesia might occasion opposition from the Africans on the suspicion that we were there to protect white interests, and not to defend African progress. This is the most terrible condemnation of our supine attitude over the last two and a half years, whatever the reasons and excuses we may have thought justified to put forward for this action or inaction. This is the difference now from the situa
  1592
  tion which we faced two and a half years ago when we made the undeniable mistake of saying that we would not use force. It is late, very late, to withdraw that now, but it is still not too late for Britain to rescue herself in Africa.
  We have to go beyond that. There must be a clear statement that under no circumstances will we negotiate with Smith, or with any other member of the Rhodesian régime as at present constituted. We must immediately isolate Rhodesia by all methods open to us, all methods short of the use of force. It is still open for us to do much more, and it is a matter of great concern to me and to many of my hon. Friends that there should remain so much more which is still open to us. Why have not we done it long since? Why have we not covered this credibility gap more successfully by turning the screw as hard, and as fast, and as urgently as we possibly could?
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: One of the most serious things which would be open to us to do would be to withdraw all medical supplies. Would the hon. Gentleman advocate that?
  Dr. Kerr: I am aware of the humane calls on medical supplies, and on medical resources. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if the concern of the Rhodesian régime is to preserve its medical supplies and medical resources, and, above all—and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be with me on this—to extend them equally to the Africans who are not able to enjoy them at the moment, and for whom the hon. Gentleman fails significantly to express so much concern, then all the Rhodesian régime has to do is to return to legality. We do not have to make use of these things. It is not this Government and this Parliament who are rebelling, it is Smith and his friends, and every time somebody comes up with a challenge of that vacuous sort let him bear that in mind.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: What is the answer?
  Dr. Kerr: I am giving the answers. Isolate the Rhodesian régime, and conduct a political campaign in this country to make sure that people like the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) are shown up in their support for the Rhodesian Front in the ways they are expressing so agitatedly in this

  1593
  House. The wind of change has not begun to lift the hem of his dress. We hope that it will still blow a gale.
  We need not confine ourselves to a political campaign in this country. We should conduct a political campaign at the United Nations, if for no other reason than to restore Britain's integrity in the eyes of so many member countries. We need a political campaign in those countries which today, despite the assurances of my right hon. Friend, are by implication, if not overtly, accepting sanction busting as a good way of conducting policy by other means. We need, too, to conduct a much more vocal and active programme in this country against those firms and individuals who are known to be guilty of breaking sanctions. This is a programme which we can follow. It would at least convince some of our doubting friends, and justifiably so, that we mean business.
  We need, above all, to institute, if we can, immediate defence talks with Zambia, whose position is of the most delicate and dangerous kind. We need to clothe that with sufficient plausibility to assure the Zambian Government that we are not trying to pull a fast one, and merely talking for the sake of talking. We need to show that we mean what we say.
  Lastly, I think we have to recognise the dubious position in which this country now finds itself in Africa. This is not the assertion of my private opinion culled from the columns of the Guardian or The Times. It is the result of four weeks in Africa, of talking to Africans, of talking to opposition leaders and of talking to well-informed people. I am left with the profound conviction that if there were a change in the Rhodesian situation Britain would need to seek help from other countries to restore some kind of social structure in a broken down Rhodesia. My view is that we should expect to call upon a group of other countries, possibly through the United Nations, possibly individually, a group made up, if they were willing, of Canada, India, Norway, and a country from the Organisation of African Unity.
  The purpose of this consortium would be five-fold. First, it would have the responsibility, which this country might not be able to carry out, of guaranteeing the lives of Africans and Europeans in
  1594
  Rhodesia. It would have the responsibility of ensuring political freedom for all groups in Rhodesia. It would have the responsibility of maintaining the social structure in that country. More than that, it would have the immediate responsibility of assisting the development of Rhodesia. Lastly, and by no means the least important, it would have the over-riding responsibility of promoting rapid African emancipation. I am appalled that my right hon. Friend can still speak of the need for many years to pass before there can be full African emancipation in Rhodesia. If this does not run counter to the proud history to which we often refer when talking about the way in which we have broken up our Empire and made it into a Commonwealth, I know of nothing which does. There is no need now to talk about many years passing before Rhodesia is emancipated fully.
  Time is running out. Britain, let us face it, is despised and rejected, and the attitude which is now prevalent towards Britain and Britons is being extended to Europeans and other whites. We do not have to fool ourselves that racialism prevails only among white races. There are racists of other colours, too, and they derive sustenance, support, and encouragement from racial attitudes expressed by white people in this country. We do not want to promote that. We want to see the development of a non-racial society in Rhodesia.
  Above all, Britain's rôle in the future can only be as the bridge between the two worlds of the industrial West and the developing countries. At this moment we are seeing the supports of that bridge being swept away by a tiny régime with a white population no greater than in my borough of Wandsworth. It is holding to ransom one of the richest and one of the most powerful states in the industrial world, Great Britain. I do not want this to continue, but to pretend that inactivity or a little more activity is an alternative to a thorough-going solution to the problem is merely to surrender to an ugly situation.
  6.0 p.m.
  Mr. R. H. Turton: I found the speech of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) more palatable than that of the Prime Minister. Although he defended the use

  1595
  of force against Rhodesia, although, though a doctor, he would deny them medical supplies, and although he appeared to contemplate fighting against South Africa, at least he did not treat condemned murderers as if they were freedom fighters. That was the most shameful remark in an absolutely shameful speech by the Prime Minister. I would start by reminding the House—
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. George Thomson): I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be fair in his representation of the Prime Minister's speech. The Prime Minister did not describe condemned murderers as freedom fighters—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] No one did. What he did was give the House a description of how these condemned murderers seemed to be freedom fighters in the eyes of Africans.
  Mr. Turton: I have always admired the Secretary of State's intense loyalty to the Government and the Prime Minister. We all heard the Prime Minister and I took a careful note of what he said and it is right, after what he said, that the House should be reminded of the facts of the case.
  The facts in the first two appeals were as follows. The deceased, Mr. Oberholtzer, and his wife and small daughter were driving along a road one evening when they reached a road block constructed by the appellants, assisted by at least two others. The deceased got out to see whether he could remove it and so secure a passage. Immediately, he was attacked by the appellants and two others with stones and knives. He received about 16 stab wounds in all, nine of which were in the head and neck and two in the trunk. His skull was fractured in four places, apparently from blows with stones.
  The car, in which the deceased's wife and child were, was also attacked. Stones were thrown at it, the windows were smashed, and the deceased's wife was hit in the face with a stone. Petrol bombs were thrown into the vehicle, petrol was thrown over the vehicle and into the face of the deceased's wife. Although dying at the time, the deceased managed to get into the car, start it, and force a way through the road block. In his dying condition, however, he lost control and the
  1596
  car overturned. The appellants pursued the car and, when they reached it, threw lighted matches into the car in an attempt to set it on fire. Had they succeeded, there is little doubt that the deceased's wife and child would have been burned to death, as the wife was pinned down by the deceased's body.
  At this moment, however, a Mr. and Mrs. Martindale arrived on the scene from the opposite direction and the appellants fled. The Martindales succeeded in extricating Mr. and Mrs. Oberholtzer and the child from the car, but by this time Mr. Oberholtzer was dead.
  That is the crime which has changed the Government's policies towards negotiation—
  Mr. Thomson indicated dissent.
  Mr. Turton: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but instead of a Motion for the Adjournment on which he could have discussed the possibilities of negotiations, we have a Motion directed specifically to these three cases of men who were reprieved. I would ask the House to remember that these cases did not happen after U.D.I. but well before. The men were convicted on 14th December, 1964, and their appeals were heard on 19th March, 1965. In August, before the Commonwealth Secretary was continuing his negotiations, the determination on whether the Royal Prerogative should be exercised was taken and, of the six murderers then under sentence, these three had their appeals for clemency refused, and the other three were granted. I am bringing this out because it is wrong that this country should change its policy because of the failure of the Smith régime exercise the Prerogative.
  As I understand it, the Royal Prerogative was, by Article 49 of the 1961 Constitution, expressly delegated to the Governor. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not only answer the questions of my right hon. Friend but will also make it clear how, if the Prerogative was delegated to the Governor, whom we recognise as being Sir Humphrey Gibbs, it could be possible for him to advise Her Majesty on the facts of the case? Would he also tell us—
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order. In 1948, one of the

  1597
  present Speaker's illustrious predecessors ruled at, wherever a colonial Governor was given by this House the right to use the Royal Prerogative to extend mercy to condemned men, there still remained with the Queen a reserve power, upon which her Ministers in this House could exercise their right to advise the Queen.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remember the Ruling perfectly well; I was here at the time. But what the hon. Gentleman is saying does not involve a point of order.
  Mr. Lyon: In my submission it does, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in the sense that what the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) is saying is a challenge to that Ruling of a former Speaker, a challenge which should be made by way of Motion and not by way of argument.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. I remember the 1948 Ruling. The facts of that case were quite dissimilar to the subject now under debate. It is open to the right hon. Gentleman, in this debate, to pursue the argument which he is putting to the House.
  Mr. Turton: I am surprised that the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) should wish to prevent expression of the case in opposition to that of the Prime Minister.
  I hope that the Secretary of State will not only give this information but will make it clear whether he, before he gave that advice to Her Majesty, had received the observations and recommendations of the trial judge, which were made in this case, I believe, on 19th March, 1965. This is pertinent because, if the Prerogative is to be exercised, those recommendations should be available so as to outline the background of the crime of which these men were guilty—
  Mr. Paget: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is wrong on a point of fact. The Prerogative is here given not to the Governor of Rhodesia but to the Government of Rhodesia, which takes it right outside the Ruling referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon), which was a colonial Ruling. This is not a colonial one: it is an exact parallel with Canada or Australia.
  Mr. Turton: I thought that it was delegated, by Article 49 of the 1961 Constitution, to the Governor of Rhodesia, but if the hon. and learned Member has a different point of view, with his knowledge of the law, no doubt he will put it forward.
  So that we may know the facts before the end of the debate, I want to raise another point about the Prerogative. I recall that in August, 1947, the late Mr. Creech Jones, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, said:
  "The normal practice of the Secretary of State for the Colonies is not himself to intervene in an individual case and not to advise His Majesty to intervene. There would be most unfortunate results if the Secretary of State followed any other course. First, it would be necessary for him to consider fully the facts of each case and all the considerations which bore upon it. That is a matter of great difficulty in London remote from the scene of the crime …"
  This is one of the difficulties on this issue of the prerogative of mercy because we are remote from the scene of the crime. Here in England, apart from a Sunday excursion to Grosvenor Square and the occasional murder, fortunately violence is rare. In Africa things are very different. Clemency has not been shown in other African countries.
  I regret that the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central has not remained in his place for even five minutes following the end of his speech. Perhaps that shows how customs in this House are altering with the passage of time.
  I have in mind what happened in Zambia at the time of the Lumpa rising. Our record, for example, when dealing with the Mau Mau rising in Kenya, was very different. One should also consider what happened in Uganda. People are committing organised gang murder. The facts appear so different when looking at them from the quiet of the Commonwealth Relations Office in Whitehall.
  While I have never liked the idea of men being executed so long after their crimes were committed, that is not the view held in Africa. Nor is it the view held in the United States. Nevertheless, I cannot believe that that difference is itself a justification for a change of policy in the matter we are discussing.
  It is odd that this issue of the prerogative of mercy did not arise on 25th August, when the decision was first made.

  1599
  Instead, it arose late in March, not on the initiative of somebody in Rhodesia, not on the instructions of the legal advisers of the condemned men, but from a solicitor in London, who made his approach direct to the Commonwealth Secretary. He must bear a great deal of responsibility because he must have known that there was no more likely way of sparking off this great discord between Her Majesty's Government and the Smith régime than the action which he took.
  I still believe that there is a possibility of a settlement being reached in this dispute. The Prime Minister said today that he will not negotiate. I wish that he would put that as an issue to the nation at a General Election. The people are worried about this continuing disagreement between Britain and Rhodesia—not that they believe that those in Rhodesia were wise in their illegal declaration of independence. They believe that the Government have acted in a way which is driving Britain and Rhodesia further apart and that we are merely encouraging the extremists, both in Rhodesia and here. This is the main reason for the Prime Minister's change of policy. He now wants to placate the Left wing because of the difficult economic situation. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) went to Central Africa and returned with what appeared to be the possibility of a settlement, the Prime Minister made it impossible for that settlement to proceed.
  I notice that when the Commonwealth Secretary gave the results of his mission to Rhodesia he did not make it clear that he had promised the Rhodesian Government that he would take their proposals back and then give them a considered answer. That came out in a speech made by Mr. Smith on 1st February of this year to the Rhodesian Parliament. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give the details of his undertaking arrived at with Mr. Smith and will say whether there should not have been a considered reply from Her Majesty's Government to the proposals on the "Tiger" constitution made by Mr. Smith. It has been alleged that the right hon. Gentleman did not fulfil an undertaking which he gave to the Smith régime.
  Mr. George Thomson: I will reply to the right hon. Gentleman immediately. I have a high regard for him and I suggest, therefore, that he might do me the credit of accepting my word—this is an old challenge—rather than quote Mr. Smith across the Floor of the House. The undertaking I gave to Mr. Smith was recorded publicly in the communiqué published at the end of our discussions. I gave no undertaking in confidence and I did not break my word to Mr. Smith.
  Mr. Turton: I assume that the right hon. Gentleman is saying that he gave no undertaking to give a considered reply to certain proposals. This is material, because I believe that a settlement on the lines of the "Tiger" constitution is still possible. I equally believe that it was wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to cut off those negotiations at this point. Although he feels that he has carried out whatever undertakings were given, there appears to have been a misunderstanding between him and Mr. Smith.
  Mr. George Thomson: If the right hon. Gentleman is telling me that I made an error of judgment in making the statement I did to the House on 12th December and in not seeking to carry on the negotiations, then I accept that as a matter of his judgment, although I disagree with him. But if he is charging me with having broken my word—the charge which Mr. Smith keeps making—then I deny that completely.
  Mr. Turton: I of course accept the right hon. Gentleman's word and I would indeed regard it as an error of judgment, particularly since I believe that had the negotiations gone on we would have got near to a settlement.
  We must try to prevent this issue from going further in the direction of favouring the extremists. There is a basis for an agreement. I have never believed that it could be reached only on the basis of the "Tiger" constitution and I recall that when speaking in a debate on 8th December, 1966, I suggested that any negotiations of this kind must be backed up by a promise on the part of Her Majesty's Government to give a matching contribution for education and development in Rhodesia. This would be valuable not merely because it would be an act of generosity and Christianity on

  1601
  our part but because it would show that we not only believe in a multi-racial community but are perfectly ready to make sacrifices to achieve that end.
  I also believe it would be in itself a way of keeping a continuing hold on the progress in Rhodesia towards a multiracial community. At the moment sanctions have cost us something like £200 million. We should make an offer to Rhodesia that we will put up £25 million a year towards secondary education and development. If the Rhodesians do not accept it, let us see by every means in our power—I condemn the Press censorship in Rhodesia as strongly as any hon. Member on either side of the House—that that fact is known to all in Rhodesia.
  I believe this is a solution. It is no good merely giving secondary education; we have to give secondary education and development. What is the good of educating men unless they have jobs? I beg the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a great respect, to consider very carefully again the possibility of making an offer on those lines together with continuing negotiation on the five principles. It may be that this venture in the present circumstances, after the Prime Minister's speech, may not succeed, but I think we have to persevere to that end and not drive the Rhodesians to the policy of apartheid which a minority of their present Government want, a minority who have shown that desire by breaking with Mr. Smith so recently.
  I beg the Government to think again. I believe the Prime Minister's speech today will have done incalculable harm. I greatly regret that this will, I believe, make the path of peace in Africa harder than it was yesterday.
  6.22 p.m.
  Mr. E. Shinwell: If the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Melton (Mr. Turton) had paid a visit to the Library of this House and studied some aspects of British political history, he would not have referred to the freedom fighters in his rather peculiar fashion. He would have discovered that in the year 1916, during the Irish Rebellion many were accused of committing murders on a vast scale but they were subsequently described as freedom fighters and their names are still revered in Southern Ireland because of their activities.
  1602
  He would also have discovered, if he had been unaware of the fact, that those who executed Charles I were subsequently described as freedom fighters. Men who are forced by circumstances over which they have no control to engage in violence, men who otherwise would be peaceful, ought not to be accused of being murderers but are entitled to some consideration because of the violence that preceded the circumstances which compelled them to act as they did. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, although somewhat venerable, will find a little time to study those aspects of British political history.
  Of course we do not condone these murders. Nobody on this side of the House has done other than condemn violence in Rhodesia, but the violence in Rhodesia has not been peculiar to the Africans. The white extremists have been responsible for provoking violence among the Africans. Hon. Members opposite can shake their heads until they fall off, but they will not convince me to the contrary. [An HON. MEMBER: "We would not notice any difference."]
  What is the charge against the Prime Minister? The right hon. Gentleman condemned the Prime Minister because of what he said this afternoon, but in my judgment his speech was better than that of the right hon. Gentleman. From experience in this House, I say that the Prime Minister's speech was one of the most realistic ever made in this assembly. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] It was a statement of fact; there was no romance about it. What is more, it was divested—this cannot be said of the speeches of many hon and right hon. Members opposite—of prejudice.
  What was the charge levelled against my right hon. Friend by the Leader of the Opposition? The Leader of the Opposition began his speech by indulging in some legal subtleties. I have no doubt that the legal gentry in this House will continue the argument along those lines—whether the Privy Council was justified in expecting that the justiciary in Rhodesia should make application and whether Her Majesty was justified in responding, undoubtedly to a submission by the Government, and because of the circumstances, and suggest a reprieve. These are legal subtleties completely irrelevant and immaterial to what the debate is about.

  1603
  Let us have no more pretence from hon. Members opposite. There are honourable exceptions, of course, but the majority of hon. Members opposite are in favour of Ian Smith and of the illegal régime. Let there be no mistake about that—[Interruption.]—and never mind about interruptions. They do not matter.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Shinwell: No, I am not giving way. I am not attacking the hon. Member; if I did he would be sorry for himself. I do not want to speak for long, but if I have interruptions I am bound to continue for longer than I intend. Of course hon. Members opposite do not like my language, but it is about time that these things were said in this House.
  The Leader of the Opposition charged the Prime Minister—this was the gravamen of his charge—that my right hon. Friend had repeatedly said, "I can't agree with Mr. Smith, but nevertheless I am ready to engage in negotiations with him." The Prime Minister, I am bound to say, is possessed of far more tolerance than I am or than many of my colleagues. He even displayed compassion for Mr. Smith and that is assuming a great deal in the circumstances.
  Anyway, how did this trouble begin? Not a word has been said about that this afternoon. It began with Mr. Smith, and no one knows that better than the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) for whom I have the highest regard. I believe—and because i believe it I say it in this Assembly—that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire is anxious, probably desperately anxious, to find a solution for this very intricate problem. I do not condemn him for going to Africa seeking a solution. But one does not find a solution merely by talking as the Leader of the Opposition did today and saying that we must proceed with negotiations. That is just a generalisation. On what basis? So far as many hon. Members opposite are concerned, and a few right hon. Members, too—some neither right nor honourable, if I may say so—there are very few who ought to talk much about this business or about the Commonwealth. The hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), who is the re
  1604
  presentative of this country at Commonwealth conferences, ought to say very little. But that is another story. I shall come back to it some other time.
  What was the charge against the Prime Minister? He sought negotiations. He failed. He wanted legality in Rhodesia. So did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. So did the Leader of the Opposition. I am not sure that the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) did not seek legality in Rhodesia, too. But there are varying interpretations of legality. There is the Tory version, and there is the Labour version. I prefer the Labour version. There is something which ought to be said about some hon. Members opposite—whether it ought to be said or not, I shall say it—and particularly about the hon. Member for Haltemprice (Mr. Wall). If it were not unparliamentary, I should regard him as the British Herr Himmler. That is a correct description—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Even in the conditional form, the right hon. Gentleman must not say it.
  Mr. Shinwell: If it is unparliamentary, I withdraw it. I could use the name Goebbels, or something like that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I have withdrawn. I shall put it another way. The hon. Gentleman is an associate of the extreme Right in Rhodesia. We all know that. Is the hon. Member for Haltemprice concerned about legality in Rhodesia? No. He is in favour of the supremacy of a section of the Europeans in Rhodesia. As for the Africans, what do they matter?
  I leave that now because it does not matter much what we say to the other side. Hon. Members opposite are impervious to logic and sound argument. I shall now say something to my hon. Friends for a change, and it is about time it was said. Some of them want to use force. Two years ago, I went to the Commonwealth conference, and no one was subjected to more criticism from the Africans than I was. The hon. Member for Essex, South-East knows that; he was there. They attacked me bitterly. They said that I was the representative of the British Government. I was nothing of the sort. I was merely a delegate from the United Kingdom branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the leader of an all-party delegation.

  1605
  They said that we must use force, I said that that was nonsense. The British Government were against it.
  Now, I find some of my hon. Friends in favour of using force. One of them said to me the other day—I shall not mention his geographical position in the House—that he would be ready to go out and fight. "Really?" I said, "What capacity have you got for fighting?" He said that he had once trained as a parachutist, and I told him that that would not be very much value. But he was ready to go. One remarkable facet of this situation is that most of those who are demanding force want us to reduce our defence expenditure. If I may say so, with all their belligerence and bellicosity, some of them could not knock the skin off a rice pudding.
  I have never been a pacifist. I believe in defence—everyone knows I do—although I believe also in a reduction in defence expenditure and want to see our defence forces used primarily and exclusively for our security. The idea of sending a force to Rhodesia to enter into conflict with white Europeans is unmitigated and unadulterated rubbish. The sooner we forget about it the better.
  Mr. John Lee rose—
  Mr. Shinwell: I was not accusing my hon. Friend in particular. It was a general accusation. But I can understand the sentiment which provokes this demand. We feel strongly about these things. Sometimes, I feel strongly about some of the violence which occurs in this country. When I hear of some old lady who has been coshed, I feel that I would like to strangle the person responsible. Sometimes, my mind oscillates on the subject of capital punishment because my sentiments and passions are aroused, and I become almost violent. I hope the House will excuse that piece of autobiography. That is how I feel, and I can understand why some of my hon. Friends think along those lines.
  But let us be realistic. We could do something to help Africans in Africa, our coloured friends. We might provide them with arms. Honestly, I should not object. If they want to have a go at the Rhodesians, let them have a go. I should not object to that. I realise that that is
  1606
  not acceptable here. We are all pacifists, so we do not accept ideas like that. But, whether my suggestion is acceptable or not, that is what will happen one day. This is the danger. It is not a matter of passing resolutions, condemnatory or laudatory of either side. In these conditions in Africa, one fine day there will be a blood bath of the most violent character. That is what apartheid leads to in the long run. It may not happen in my time, but it will happen in the time of many younger Members of this assembly. I deplore it. I regard it not as a possibility, but as a probability, and I deplore it.
  I come back to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, who has now returned. I do not complain about his absence a little earlier, though I understand that there was a complaint about his absence the other day. While he was out, I had referred to his legal subtleties, the question whether the Privy Council should have been consulted, whether Her Majesty was rightly consulted, and whether everything was done according to legal punctilio. We shall hear a great deal about that after I have spoken, no doubt. I come to the point. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Let us try to find a solution. Let us proceed with negotiations. The Prime Minister has not done enough in the past 2½ years." I have already said that my right hon. Friend has been far too tolerant, too patient, even, perhaps, too resilient. I do not believe that anybody has ever tried harder to find a solution, and I am very unhappy and disturbed that no solution is in sight.
  The Leader of the Opposition says, "Let us proceed with negotiations." On what basis? The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the five principles, and I hope that that will be noted. We did not postulate the five principles; they were postulated by the previous Tory Government. I understand what is in the right hon. Gentleman's mind about this—it is a question of how to interpret the five principles. If they are interpreted to satisfy Mr. Smith they will obviously not satisfy the Government, and I wonder whether they would satisfy the right hon. Gentleman. In his view, sanctions have been ineffective and are no longer of much value. The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton said the real loss

  1607
  to us is about £200 million since the trouble started.
  The question is whether we are to allow Mr. Smith to have his own way. That is the issue. There is almost desperate anxiety to find a solution to the problem and end this troublesome affair, which is no good for the Commonwealth, Rhodesia or this country. To let Mr. Smith get his own way means that we shall not get legality in Rhodesia and obtain a fair crack of the whip for the coloured people of Rhodesia, which is, after all, what we are striving for.
  When the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire returned from Africa I met him in the Lobby, and it is not disclosing a confidential discussion to say that he was kind enough to tell me that what we need in Africa is a multi-racial situation. He wants that and so do we all, except some hon. Members opposite who do not believe in that philosophy. How are we to get it? I do not believe that an immediate solution is in sight.
  Of course, proceed with negotiations, but let it be clearly understood on behalf of this assembly that we do not condone violence in Rhodesia, whoever may be responsible for it, and we are anxious for a multi-racial State in Rhodesia, and even anxious to protect and safeguard the white Europeans there. Some day they may need protection. That is our anxiety. At the same time let us understand that we cannot afford to allow Mr. Smith to have his own way.
  Unless we divest ourselves of prejudices on this issue, then the other side prove they are in favour of Mr. Smith. We are in favour of the Prime Minister, all the more so because of the venomous, vicious and despicable attacks made on him in recent months. Nobody has the right to object to criticism in public life, but there is a limit to it, and I warn the other side that if it is allowed to go too far—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I speak for myself. I indulge in criticism, but I can also recognise ability and high quality even among some right hon. and hon. Members opposite. One hon. Member—I forget his constituency—was nodding his head this way and that. I except him from what I have just said. Criticism is not objectionable. Indeed, it is very
  1608
  often a correction of the Executive. I indulge in it myself, and rightly so, but there is a limit. If hon. Members opposite believe that they will win the next election and that because of their criticism they will get rid of the Prime Minister, they are making a mistake. They will discover that at the next election.
  The right hon. Member for Barnet said—[Interruption.] It is no use interrupting me, because I cannot hear it anyway. The right hon. Member for Barnet is a very amusing character. He would be a very great man if he were not so lazy. Much quality resides in him, but now he has passed it on to industry and finance. That is what right hon. Members opposite do. Immediately they are out of Government they go to jobs in the City.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We are debating Rhodesia.
  Mr. Shinwell: I just said that in passing, Mr. Speaker. Anyway, I withdraw the remark. The right hon. Gentleman is not looking for a job in the City. [An HON. MEMBER: "He has got it."] The issue tonight is clear. It is between Ian Smith on the other side of the House and Prime Minister on this side; I stand by the Prime Minister.
  6.47 p.m.
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The whole House always enjoys the vigour of the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), and I am grateful to him for what he said about me. He is able impartially to distribute his blows to friends and foe alike, although I gather that all the rice puddings were on the other side of the House. He also seemed to be rather scathing about the speech of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon. He said that one cannot find a solution just by talking, but I respectfully remind him that one cannot find a solution unless one does talk. Therefore, I was glad to hear him say at the end of his speech that we should proceed with negotiations. I hope that in my few remarks I may be able to show him the way.
  I wish that the debate had been on the Adjournment. We could then have had a much more objective debate and, I would have hoped, a very different

  1609
  speech from that which the Prime Minister delivered. But, the Motion having been put down on the Order Paper, it was inevitable that we should table our Amendment because, although emotions have been stirred and stretched—perfectly properly, because this is a human assembly—by the failure to commute to a life sentence the death penalty for three Africans, that must not blind the House to the fact that there are other issues, involving deep moral judgments, that cannot be separated from a debate on Rhodesia at this time.
  They concern, all of them, the ability of Britain to discharge her responsibility to all races in Rhodesia. There are such questions, for example, as what is to be the future of the four million Africans who have to live in that country in the future. Is the goal of a multi-racial State in Central Africa to be abandoned? Is there to be any attempt to embody in the constitution clauses which will enable the Africans to make unimpeded progress on to a common roll with Europeans? Is that all to go?
  Above all, are we to abandon any attempt to ensure that this great area of the continent should be a place where people of all races can go about their business in peace? Or are we to acquiesce and do nothing while it becomes a cockpit for guerrilla warfare, while the frontier hardens into an armed barrier on the Zambesi between black African-dominated to the North and white African-dominated to the South? These are the great moral issues and great judgments which the House has to make today.
  In my view, the future of peace and war in Africa very largely hangs on whether Britain and Rhodesia can achieve an honourable settlement of their dispute or whether they finally part in anger. The stakes are very high and there is little time left in which to win the prize.
  My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition analysed the situation and the possibilities which lie before this House and the country. We could, as he said, turn the other way and wash our hands of the problem. It looks at though that might be the melancholy result. But let every hon. Member understand that that simply means an end of Britain discharging her responsibilities to anybody.
  There are, therefore, two ways, and, it seems to me, only two ways, in which
  1610
  a solution can be sought to this dispute. There is, first, the Government's line—that is, by pressure exerted through the sanctions we in this country can try to induce a change in the political mood in Rhodesia. I am bound to report to the House that, on the evidence I collected both in Rhodesia and in South Africa from those best placed to know, there is no chance whatever that sanctions can bring about a political change in any foreseeable time-scale—none whatever.
  That sanctions are having a certain economic impact is true. All the smaller tobacco farmers are having to switch into other and less profitable crops. Petrol is expensive but one can get as much as one can pay for. The quality of textiles and clothing is lower. Capital investment is not what it was and certainly not what is could be if there were to be a settlement. Import controls have to be maintained by the Government of Rhodesia in order that their budget may be balanced. All that is true.
  But neither any one of these nor all together, nor any extension of sanctions which might be devised in the United Nations, can prevent the Rhodesians from making both ends meet economically or can lower the high standard of living which is enjoyed by Europeans in that country. This fact had better be faced by the House.
  Finally, of course, South Africa, although intensely unhappy that there is not a settlement, will not allow Rhodesia to collapse. The hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) is not here, but I say to the Prime Minister that, if he had seen, as I saw in South Africa, the lengths to which Afro-Asian countries go to expand trade with South Africa and the devices they are using to do it, in full knowledge that a proportion of it is going straight to Rhodesia, he would realise how futile the present operations are in the Assembly of the United Nations.
  Paradoxically enough, the only useful function which sanctions now have is in the context of a mere negotiated settlement. The majority of Rhodesians—of this I am certain and in this, too, Mr. Smith would acquiesce—feel that the clean way to arrive at agreement is for U.D.I. to run on one hand and for sanctions to run on the other while a settlement is being worked out and while the

  1611
  opinion is tested; and then, by simultaneous action, sanctions would be dropped, U.D.I. would be dropped and independence on an agreed constitution substituted by an Act of Her Majesty's Government. That is the clean way in which to use sanctions. Unless there is a settlement in the near future, sanctions will be totally useless to produce a political result. On all the evidence, then, I must conclude from what I have learned in Africa that the first of the possible solutions I have mentioned—sanctions—cannot succeed.
  I would like to tell the House the nature of my approach to Mr. Smith on the second of the possible courses—a negotiated settlement. I told Mr. Smith that if he was earnestly seeking an agreement he must be prepared to renew negotiations with the present British Government. I said that I was not interested in talking to him about what a Conservative Government might do at some future date. The matter is too urgent and, therefore, I said to him that he must be prepared to negotiate with the present British Government.
  I told him that, in my judgment, based on what I had heard in Rhodesia and South Africa and what I knew here, the majority in Rhodesia and Britain thought that the political solution reached on H.M.S. "Tiger" was fair—I refer to the political section of the "Tiger" agreement, not the interim arrangements. I said that therefore we must try to concentrate on trying to eliminate as far as we could the three differences following the "Tiger" talks as they were defined by the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs to this House some months ago.
  That was my general approach to Mr. Smith. The particular one was that I said that what is known colloquially as the blocking mechanism was the essence of the matter as far as the differences were concerned. I did not see how Parliament as a whole could accept a proposal that entrenching clauses, written into the constitution for the purpose of securing the minimum rights of Africans now and of Europeans later, should be controlled by chiefs. I told him that straight. Therefore, I concluded that my task, as I saw it with him, was to find a formula on these matters in which the
  1612
  rights of the Africans under the constitution would be genuinely entrenched by what is commonly understood to be a genuine blocking mechanism.
  Finally, I said that a member of the Opposition could not negotiate and, therefore, I would like any proposals made by Mr. Smith to be in the form of proposals from him to the present Prime Minister here. Because I had a suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman might not believe Mr. Smith's words, I asked Mr. Smith to take the proposals after we had agreed them to his Cabinet colleagues and to let me know if they agreed them, too. The following morning, I received a message to say that the document was totally acceptable. The proposals were, therefore, in such a form as could be given to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister as proposals from Mr. Smith.
  I hope that even those hon. Members who see no virtue in negotiations at all will agree that, in this approach to Mr. Smith, I was scrupulously fair and impartial. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman quoted a certain version of what I might or might not have said to Mr. Smith. I was rather sharp in my reply. I have not seen in any newspaper an accurate or anywhere near accurate account of what the proposals were. That is just as well. In my belief, what I deliberately call the blocking mechanism worked out between Mr. Smith and myself in the presence of the Governor and Sir Hugh Beadle went a very long way to making the blocking mechanism formula satisfactory.
  The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to his view. He said—and he is right here—that, to some extent, this depended on certain assumptions and that electoral processes must be gone through before independence becomes a fact.
  There is one addition which, had I thought of it, would have made these proposals absolutely cast iron. I have described them as satisfactory, but this would have made them absolutely cast-iron. I do not think, and I have no reason whatever to believe, that I could not have negotiated it then with Mr. Smith and I have absolutely no reason to believe that I could not do so now if so required.

  1613
  So I think that the blocking mechanism could be made intact. On cross-voting, agreement would be easy. I am not sure about appeal to the Privy Council. I rather think that this would be rejected, but the argument would certainly be worth resuming. It is worth remembering that appeal on these constitutional matters in the Commonwealth is now used by only one Commonwealth country and that is Canada. The rest rely on their own appellate machinery.
  The Prime Minister: I do not want there to be any misunderstanding about our interchange this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman has just suggested that, because I quoted certain newspapers, I was indicating that that was what I thought the right hon. Gentleman had said in Rhodesia. I know exactly what he said, because he was good enough to inform my right hon. Friend and myself. I am in no doubt about that. I quoted these newspapers to show the brief being put out there as to what the régime thinks it means. I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman spoke exactly as he has spoken to the House this evening.
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I am obliged to the Prime Minister. I was concerned because I thought that it might have been unfair to a certain newspaper, and no newspaper has got anywhere the mark about the proposals which I made, which were far better than anything I have seen in any newspaper. I hope that the House will forgive me for not disclosing further details, as the Prime Minister did not. I am tempted to do so in order to dispel doubts, but I have seen so many negotiations wrecked by premature disclosure that I would rather withhold details for the moment. These dangers are particularly acute in a small country where politics are personalised, as in Rhodesia. I would be content to say to the Commonwealth Secretary in particular that I believe that if I had had him and the Lord Chancellor with me in Salisbury a fortnight ago, the chances of signing a complete settlement would have been very high. If the hangings had not intervened, the Government could not conceivably have avoided renewing contact with Mr. Smith.
  I have not claimed that these proposals would necessarily bring success. I am not entitled to do that. If one is not in charge of the negotiations oneself, one is
  1614
  not entitled to say that they would succeed. I can say only that I have tried in this matter to help with complete objectivity. I say to the Commonwealth Secretary that if I can assist in any way in future in clarifying these proposals, or carrying them forward, the right hon. Gentleman knows that no party consideration would be involved at all and that I am entirely and disinterestedly at his service.
  The Prime Minister's arguments today were all directed to saying that he could not deal with men such as these in the Government of Salisbury today. Many people have said that kind of thing and have had to eat their words. Some hon. Members opposite—and the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central was one—have rather questioned my right or ability to talk about these African affairs. Perhaps I shall be forgiven if I remind them of two other occasions when I have tried to co-operate with the party opposite to find solutions in Africa. The Socialist Party in the House of Commons will remember that it refused to allow Seretse Khama to go back to Africa. It was left to me as Commonwealth Secretary to send him back. I understood that situation and I think that decision was right. There was a second occasion. I invited the right hon. Gentleman the late Mr. Gaitskell to join in the Monckton Commission on Rhodesia. I believe that if the Socialist Party had lent its authority to that Commission at that time, today we might not be facing this situation at all and that racialism would never have been driven into the corner of the Federation in Southern Rhodesia as it has been. The Socialists refused their co-operation. This time the stakes are very much higher and the future is peace or war in Africa. I hope very much that the right hon. Gentleman and hon. Gentlemen opposite will ponder long and deep before they throw away a third and a final chance.
  It is because I profoundly believe, after having talked to Mr. Smith and others in Salisbury, that, on the basis of the proposals I brought forward, negotiations could be reopened, that I myself will find no difficulty whatever in voting for our Amendment, because I believe it embodies the feeling of the great majority of the people in this country and in Rhodesia, too.
  7.5 p.m.
  Mr. Philip Noel-Baker: I wish to start my brief remarks by saying that many of my hon. Friends will agree with the sentiments of the exordium of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home). I happen to be one of his political opponents who consider that in his brief tenure of office as Prime Minister he rendered considerable service to the nation, his party and the House. I listened to him this afternoon not only with respect but with admiration, and I pay tribute to what he did in Salisbury not long ago.
  Nevertheless, it seems to me, as it seemed to me while listening to the Leader of the Opposition, that what right hon. Gentlemen opposite are really asking us to do, both in their Amendment and in their speeches, is to recognise the Smith régime as the Government of Southern Rhodesia, to allow it to go on governing that land and to negotiate with it as such. They ask us to do that in spite of the sad experiences which my right hon. Friends have had with Mr. Smith, in spite of the advance towards apartheid of which the Prime Minister spoke this afternoon. I cannot think that that policy is right. I understood the Leader of the Opposition—I did not take down his words—to say that we must recognise Mr. Smith because the policy of sanctions had failed.
  Mr. Heath indicated dissent.
  Mr. Noel-Baker: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head; I withdraw that allegation. I want to talk about the policy of sanctions, because I regard it as a matter of the highest importance in the conduct of international affairs. Peaceful action, without the use of force, by means of economic, political, social and financial pressure ought to be an instrument of tremendous power in the hands of the international community against any Government that commits aggression.
  Many hon. Members opposite have always said that sanctions fail, that sanctions are no good. Many of them said it in October, 1965. I am sorry to think that in the past it has been true that Conservative Governments of this country have helped to make sanctions fail. I remember the
  1616
  very first case when they ought to have been used, in October, 1931, when Mr. Stimson of the United States proposed sanctions against Japan over Manchuria, and Sir John Simon, speaking for the so-called National Government, slapped him in the face. I remember how over Abyssinia, when the very feeble economic sanctions which were put on against Mussolini might have succeeded, it was a British Foreign Minister who called them off. Up to now, the sanctions against Rhodesia have not failed.
  I venture to say that if it had not been for sanctions Smith would have won a total victory, which he has not won. I venture to say that in Rhodesia today there is, among large sections of the people, a very serious situation. About 80 per cent. of the farmers are not only bankrupt, they are irrecoverably bankrupt. They have overdrafts to their bankers that they will never be able to pay. They cannot finance their current operations.
  Only yesterday in The Times one could read the statement of Mr. Tim Mitchell, the chairman of the Rhodesian National Farmers' Union, that the situation was catastrophic, that the Government offer of 22d. a lb. for tobacco as a subsidy was ludicrous, that almost none of the farmers would be able to reap their crops, that the Smith régime was "planning chaos". If the farmers are bankrupt, the rural shopkeepers will soon go bankrupt and the African workers will soon be unemployed. The situation is very grave indeed.
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire and the Leader of the Opposition both said that other nations who ought to be helping us to apply the sanctions have been expanding their Rhodesian trade. I want to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State something that he might do to rectify that situation. He ought to go to the Security Council and not suggest what Lord Caradon proposed last week, private consultations about further action which could be taken but instead let him have a public debate. Let him bring the delegates of these other nations to the table to answer for the action of their nationals and their Governments in allowing these disloyal tradings to go on. If he would have it out in public with them, he would find that the Security Council

  1617
  was an instrument of tremendous power, and he might do very much to make the present sanctions far more effective.
  Like my other hon. Friends I want him to do more. I would like him to go to the Security Council and propose that it should make a decision under Article 41 of the Charter that the full sanctions of that Article should now be applied by members of the U.N. It is a very strong Article It says:
  "The Security Council may decide about what measures, not involving the use of armed force, are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the members of the U.N. to apply such measures. These may include a complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other methods of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."
  Can anyone doubt that if all those measures were taken, if the Universal Postal Union, the Universal Telegraphic Union, refused all communications to Rhodesia, that the difficulties of illegal trade would be very greatly increased? Can we doubt that if there were no aircraft going to Rhodesia, if no one could come out of the country, and they could get no visitors from abroad, that this would not bring tremendous moral pressure upon all the people there, particularly on the Europeans with close connections with this country? I would like my right hon. Friend to propose this measure. He should not say, as was said after the meeting in Lancaster House the other day of the Commonwealth Sanctions Committee, that we might perhaps, accept a Security Council initiative. Let him go and propose it. Let the Council, let the Commonwealth, let the world see that we mean business.
  Let him go and propose it himself, with the great authority of his office and with the Cabinet behind him. Then, let him go from the Security Council to the General Assembly, which will very shortly be in session, to discuss a much less important matter—the non-proliferation treaty, which has been gestated for so long in that odd committee in Geneva. Let him go to the General Assembly and let him call on it to endwise the Security Council decision and demand that every one of the members of the United Nations shall carry it out.
  1618
  There are other things about which I would have liked to speak. We ought certainly to give Zambia all the support that we possibly can. I would like to give it a larger sum than it has been offered—the offer is quite inadequate for its economic needs. If we could enable it to break its trading relations with Rhodesia, what would that mean to Rhodesia now? I would like to see the R.A.F. go back to Zambia. My hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) was right when he said that we ought to consider defence arrangements in case there is armed attack by South Africa or Rhodesia upon Zambian soil.
  In mentioning all these things, I urge upon my right hon. Friend—for whose career I have great admiration and in whose future I place great hope—that at this moment the fate of the Commonwealth is at stake. The Commonwealth may still be the greatest force in international affairs, if all its members stand together for the true principles upon which international peace and order can be built. But if we fail today the Commonwealth will smash; and it will smash if we take the advice tendered to us in the Amendment put down by the Tory Party.
  7.17 p.m.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I do not know whether I am right in thinking that this is the first occasion that the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) has addressed the House since his recent illness. I believe that it is. Apart from welcoming him back, we can be in no doubt that he is fully restored to vigour. He has made, if I may respectfully say so, one of the best speeches that I have ever heard him make in this House, with every word of which I find myself in wholehearted agreement.
  For that reason I shall be shorter than I would otherwise have been, because the right hon. Gentleman has covered many of the points I would have raised. May I also say, with respect to the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), that his speech has obviously transformed this debate. He has put forward arguments to which the House would wish to give the most careful consideration. He has raised the level of the debate to a much

  1619
  higher plane than it was on hitherto. We do not know the details, but I would say that if we are merely dealing with a "braking" mechanism, or if we are dealing with a numerical ratio between, for example, the strength of the African representation in the Lower House and in the projected Senate, the unhappy experience suffered by a Liberal Government in regard to South Africa must not be overlooked.
  We genuinely believed at the time of granting independence to that country that there was an adequate blocking mechanism. We have lived to see this eroded, and that is why I as a Liberal, realising that we were wrong in the trust that we placed then, want to be doubly sure that it will not happen again. As I say, we are at a disadvantage, in that we do not know the details.
  Although I obviously respect the right hon. Gentleman's prognosis as to the likelihood of a successful negotiation, I cannot have enormous hope, in view of the hopes which have been born and which have died within a matter of hours. In view of the "Tiger" talks, in view of the circumstances in which the original declaration of emergency was obtained from the Governor, in view of the sharp move towards repressive legislation and apartheid, and as there are now people resigning in Rhodesia because they think that Mr. Smith is too liberal, I would find it very difficult to be convinced that there was a possibility of a settlement.
  All that a blocking mechanism does is to give some guarantee against future repressive legislation. It gives no power to repeal existing repressive legislation. This is something which the present Rhodesia Front has shown no indication that it is prepared to do.
  If I commend the speech of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, I did not find that that of the Leader of the Opposition came up to the same standard. The Leader of the Opposition was cast today more in the role of Sir Edward Carson, the only difference being that Sir Edward Carson supported the prospect of a rebellion and the right hon. Gentleman has shown a faint heart in resisting one which has taken place. I thought that the reference to the minority judgment—to the judge
  1620
  who was in the minority—was a somewhat tendentious way of suggesting that possibly there might be a greater element of legality, something slightly less noxious, in the act of rebellion. No deductions or conclusions were drawn. It was just mentioned in passing. It was not a hit and run. It was a touch and shuffle.
  The right hon. Gentleman then told us that sanctions would not work to bring down the régime and that apparently they had even stiffened the African attitude. I wonder whether the Leader of the Opposition regrets that he failed to divide the House when all those lists of sanctions were agreed upon.
  I think that the right hon. Gentleman's most devastating criticism of the régime was his statement that we had not always been helped by Salisbury. That was the under-statement of the century. However, we have not been given one reason why, in the right hon. Gentleman's view, talks are now likely to be possible. The only suggestion was that it might be more possible if the Prime Minister were slightly politer in his tone of address. We had the suggestion of a Royal Commission, but this was put up to the Rhodesia Front at the time of the "Tiger" and was rejected. There is no evidence that that proposal would commend itself more to the régime today than it did then.
  There have been times in our history—I think particularly of the 1930s—when people were perhaps more optimistic about the chances of successful talks and negotiations, although political realism surely must have indicated that such was not possible.
  The right hon. Gentleman said this on 10th December, 1965, and the Prime Minister referred to it in passing:
  "the whole House abhors the aspects of the police State which have been and which are being introduced into Rhodesia today … that is abhorrent to the whole British people."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1965; Vol. 722, c. 775.]
  I hope that those conditions are not less abhorrent to the right hon. Gentleman today than they were then. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not now feel able more readily to make terms with those police methods than he did then.
  If I make a charge against the Tory Party, it is that on this occasion it is being politically naïve.

  1621
  Why is the issue of Rhodesia important? I do not think that there is any harm in reminding ourselves of its enormous importance. It is not that this is merely the last of our imperial responsibilities and that the pride and susceptibility of this country would be wounded, although there may be those who have that response. It is that, were there ever to be a Third World War, it would be on the basis of the clash of colour and not of ideology. Of that I am convinced. It would be the black races and the yellow races against the white races. The fact that the white races happen to be economically superior is yet another reason for the distrust which is growing and widening between the two.
  In the Commonwealth, for all its imperfections, the political genius of the people of Britain has helped to create the one organisation in the world in which people of every colour, of every creed, from every Continent, can sit down together in terms of complete equality and relative trust. The whole of the Rhodesia rebellion is a direct and fundamental challenge to that principle, because it is based upon the claim of the right of permanent supremacy of a small white minority. That is why it is vital—not for any reasons of pride, but because this is a challenge to the whole basis on which the Commonwealth has been built up—that Britain, which has had a great imperial history, should ensure that this is not a rebellion which is allowed to succeed.
  George Washington has been mentioned. The issues in America were quite different. They were people who wanted the right to rule themselves. It was not the right of a small minority to rule the majority of the population. There is no comparison between the two rebellions.
  Mr. Paget: In those days were not the Indians in the majority?
  Mr. Thorpe: Whether that comment is as pertinent to the contemporary argument as some comments which the hon. and learned Gentleman makes I do not know. If the Indians were in the majority, I deplore the way in which they were almost exterminated and subsequently put into reserves, if that gives the hon. and learned Gentleman any comfort. I now pass on.
  1622
  If the Tory Party is being naive, I think that the great problem with the Government is that they have for too long been divorced from the realities of the situation. They have for far too long sheltered behind legal technicalities, such as talking about the possibility of an injunction by the Privy Council and the fact that the Government of Rhodesia is clothed in the person of the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs. It is this very technicality and divorcement from reality which has been one of the reasons why we have not been more effective in dealing with this situation.
  The party of which I have the honour to be a member has backed the Government right along the line, because we believe, as passionately as any right hon. or hon. Member opposite, that this evil régime must be brought down. There is no back sliding on this bench, however unpopular our view may be amongst certain racialists in this country.
  There is no doubt that the time has now come to say to the Government that we all know that there was insufficient contingency planning. It was six weeks before a radio was put in the Governor's house. We all know that there was no effective planning of sanctions. We all know that when one Minister took over four months after the oil sanctions began there was a memorandum saying, "Oil sanctions are working effectively". We all know that in 1965 contingency planning was put up to the Prime Minister as to how a small mobile force could have been put in under the control of the Governor. That was rejected. I agree that the use of force is now impractical. Personally, I believe that if there had been 1,500 troops in Zambia, they could have been moved at one hour's notice and put under the Governor's control, and we should not have had U.D.I. If we did have U.D.I., the problem would have been solved in hours.
  I also believe that in September, 1966, the destruction of the railway line in the Malvernia Desert, which I accept could have been repaired in days or weeks, could have been done without any risk to life or limb and would have made quite plain to the world our intention to make sanctions work. It would have been a political gesture. I now believe that that is impractical because oil is getting in from many sources and there

  1623
  is probably 18 months' supply, but I believe that that would have been right at the time.
  Viscount Lambton: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether he is still in favour of using force against Rhodesia?
  Mr. Thorpe: The noble Lord was not listening. I said that I believed that in September, 1966, the destruction of the railway line in the Malvernia Desert, which was then the only means by which oil was getting into Rhodesia, would politically have been a convincing act by this Government and this country to prove that we did not intend to see sanctions bust. I do not believe that it is now practical, for the two reasons which I gave: first, there is an 18 months' supply of oil, and, secondly, it is getting in by 11 or 12 different routes.
  Viscount Lambton: Anywhere.
  Mr. Thorpe: Since I was referring in the context of September, 1966, only to one railway line in one malaria-infested desert, it follows that my remarks relate to that alone. If this has the unfortunate effect of clearing the record for the Tory Party, I am sorry that it should be given the blinding light of truth.
  There is no doubt that sanctions have had an effect on tobacco and on sugar, in particular. But equally there is no doubt that to date they have been a failure in inducing a change of political heart. Anyone who has doubts should read the remarkable article in the Observer on 17th March indicating the nature and extent of the breaches. I want sanctions to be effective. I believe that they can be effective. But if they are not the United Nations will fail just as much as this country will fail. I hope that I am wrong in thinking that the instructions given to Lord Caradon are that he must yield slowly. I should like to see the noble Lord take an initiative rather along the lines suggested by the right hon. Member for Derby, South.
  We must now tackle the realities of the situation. I am not sure that the time has not come to end the appointment of the Governor, who has been in an impossible position which he has faced with great dignity and great courage. I am not sure that we should not give up the pretence of having diplomatic mis
  1624
  sions here in London and in Salisbury. We should admit that we have tried and that to date we have failed and that we are prepared to co-operate far more closely with the United Nations in the application of Article 41, particularly for passports, travel and telecommunications.
  There are six major oil-exporting countries in the world. Are we to say that it is impossible for the oil-exporting countries to be faced with a set of alternatives: either supplying oil to 119 or 120 countries, or supplying oil to Rhodesia and those countries which are currently breaching sanctions? I believe that this could be applied commodity by commodity, but particularly with oil. If it cannot be applied, it follows that those who are loudest in their protestations at the United Nations are not willing to back up their protestations with practical action. We should say frankly to them that that is the issue and that that is the challenge to them.
  This is the way in which to tackle sanctions. The Prime Minister is right in saying that this country alone cannot economically have a confrontation with South Africa. The trouble is that the Prime Minister, who normally keeps all his options open, has been very careful to tell everyone in Rhodesia in advance what he will not do. But, by the same token, I very much doubt whether South Africa would be prepared to take on economically the 120 nations of the United Nations.
  There is one thing which must be said in South Africa's favour—and no one can say that I am an apologist for this régime: South Africa has not yet broken any international law or obligation, save for the question of South West Africa, which is still, in a sense, sub judice and will be referred to the International Court. That might be the first breach. We wait and see.
  Mr. Frank Hooley: The sending of South African troops and police to British territory is a breach of international law and order.
  Mr. Thorpe: That is a matter of law. I would certainly say that it was a breach of international relations and probably a breach of British sovereignty. Incidentally, I would add to those who say that

  1625
  there is no breakdown in law and order that it is significant that the forces in Rhodesia today are not thought adequate to deal with the incursions across her frontier by those who come from African and other countries. That is a very significant point.
  If the Government enforce sanctions but make it perfectly plain that we can do so only if the nations which are loudest in their protestations are prepared to back their protests with practical embargo action at the United Nations, this régime ultimately will be brought to its senses. If we fail—and it may be that the state of international relations is so fragile that it is not possible to achieve such international co-operation, which would be a tragedy—not only do we fail, but the prospect of a non-racial society in Africa goes and the United Nations will stand condemned.
  That is why this is an important matter. That is why it is tragic that the Opposition cannot see it in that light. That is why, although the Government's Motion is a declaration of their feelings about the hangings and cannot be said to be an expression of policy for the future which has been sadly lacking in this debate, my hon. Friends and I will vote with the Government tonight.
  7.37 p.m.
  Mr. A. Woodburn: I speak in this debate as a member of the British public. I do not profess to be a specialist in African affairs. However, I have been a Member of the House during the conduct of negotiations with the Rhodesian Government.
  We are sometimes apt to forget that the origin of this matter was that the Rhodesian Government asked this country, while the Conservative Party was in power, to give it independence. The Conservative Government, following the British tradition, was willing to give Rhodesia independence on condition that she produced a constitution which would provide for unimpeded progress towards majority rule for the Africans.
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), who made such a statesmanlike speech today—and he deserves great credit for his approach to the whole problem—was in the position of asking what
  1626
  guarantees could be given that there would be unimpeded progress towards African rule. Although the Conservative Government, under his guidance, did their best to get guarantees, the situation broke down because no one could find any way of guaranteeing unimpeded progress to African majority rule. It was recognised that the Rhodesian Government might give such a promise and that once they achieved independence they might go back on it and do what they liked.
  If Mr. Smith and his Government had not asked for independence to be granted technically by this country, they could have gone on ruling Rhodesia until something interrupted their progress, and this crisis would never have arisen. So the crisis did not arise, as the Leader of the Opposition seems to think, because the present Prime Minister did something to Rhodesia. The crisis arose because the Rhodesian Government could not satisfy the Conservative Government that they had any plan for unimpeded progress towards majority rule, and this present Labour Government inherited this problem and inherited the solution which was put forward by the Conservatives in their time.
  It is despicably mean of the Leader of the Opposition to manipulate and twist the facts to pin blame on the Prime Minister. I think it is part of a Tory campaign, which started two years ago, to bring the Prime Minister into disrepute as far as possible, and I really think it is quite wrong to use a crisis of the present kind as a political weapon against the present Government here, even though the present Government may have made mistakes.
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire approached this matter in an amicable manner. He went out to Rhodesia and did his best to bring about some solution, to try to get an answer to the problem, which he had when he was in charge of it as a Minister, and that is, to find what guarantees there can be for unimpeded progress to rule by the Africans.
  I think we are all inclined to see this matter as one between blacks and whites. We have to realise first of all that a small number of white people running a country like Rhodesia have a terrific problem to educate 4 million Africans. The cost of doing that, and the time necessary for

  1627
  it, nobody has actually contemplated, and, therefore, as the Prime Minister made clear today, everybody recognises that this is a matter of years. When I was out in Kenya I discussed this with the people there. They realised that because this education had been absent in the past there is not a large number of people in Rhodesia capable at the moment of taking an effective part in government and they realised that it is a process of education. It is quite right that, if any settlement is come to, the British Government must help very greatly in providing means of educating this great nation of Africans.
  I was distressed to hear Mr. Smith address a meeting in Rhodesia and practically say that as far as he was concerned it would not be in his lifetime; he practically said that it would be over his dead body that the Africans would come to power and that the white people of Rhodesia must fight to maintain their heritage. Is it suggested that the British Government, this or any other, should condone that, by recognising a Government who refuse even to contemplate unimpeded progress towards majority rule? We must exercise a great deal of common sense about this.
  It is also said that there is a problem of negotiation, but some day we will have to negotiate with somebody in Rhodesia. I agree that there is no point in laying down hard and fast rules that we should never negotiate. That means surrendering and giving up the ghost and saying Rhodesia can do what it likes. Therefore, some day there must be negotiation with somebody in Rhodesia if this problem is ever to be settled.
  Conservative leaders, a great many of them, and the right hon. Gentleman is the latest of them, have gone to Rhodesia. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, went to Rhodesia, Lord Alport went to Rhodesia, a great many hon. Gentlemen have gone to Rhodesia, and while they all come back and say a settlement could be provided, none of them has come back and shown how it could be provided on the conditions which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire postulated when he was in government and also insisted on when he
  1628
  was there. Nobody got any satisfaction from Mr. Smith or anybody there until the right hon. Gentleman went on his last visit, and then there was no possibility of agreement.
  Some of my hon. Friends suggest that we should use force. When the Kenyan people asked me about this I said that the one problem we faced in this country was to get a settlement which did not make things worse for the people of Rhodesia at the end. If we use force and overcome the whites, what do we leave to the Africans but a desert? We do not want to destroy the economy of Rhodesia. Even people who advocate sanctions are not advocating that we should bring the Smith Regime to its knees and destroy the economy of Rhodesia, because that would be no service to the 4 million Africans who have got to live in Rhodesia.
  Therefore, we are trying in the most humane way possible to bring pressure on the so-called Government of Rhodesia to produce some plans which will satisfy not only us but the world—the world, because, after all, America has a stake in this, India has a stake in this, every coloured nation has as much interest in a settlement as we have ourselves. None of the visiting statesmen and none of the visiting Members of Parliament has brought back from the Smith régime any proposal at all which has gone any way to satisfying public opinion in the world that they have a plan for the conduct of Rhodesia in a way which fits with modern moral principles and humanitarian government.
  I was surprised that the Leader of the Opposition reproached the Prime Minister for not negotiating and trying to bring about negotiations, and then should sneer at him because he had tried on six occasions to get negotiations with Mr. Smith. As the Prime Minister pointed out, if Mr. Smith and his Government have any proposals to put forward they can go along and consult the Governor, who is a friend of his, and who is as interested in bringing Rhodesia to a position of success as is any other Rhodesian. Why not go to the Governor? If Mr. Smith has any proposition which will satisfy the people as a whole, the whole world will be satisfied.
  Does anybody in his senses think that the Prime Minister is not anxious to get the problem solved? We have inherited

  1629
  a balance of payments problem, we have inherited, on the side, so to speak, the Vietnam issue, and we have inherited Rhodesia. Does anybody think this present Government have not enough problems of their own, without wanting to perpetuate this one? Obviously, the Government are desperately anxious to find a solution to the Rhodesian problem. They have tried all these times, they have asked other people to help, but nobody has come back with a solution, and for the Leader of the Opposition to use this crisis for a party battle and to try to pin something on the Prime Minister is so ridiculous that it does not merit examination.
  I am proud of three speeches which we have heard, one by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker), another by the Leader of the Liberal Party, and the other by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. They have put this debate on a dignified basis, and treated it as a serious matter, and not as a political tennis match. l hope that that approach will be continued in this debate and that hon. Members will treat this problem solemnly, with responsibility.
  The only alternative to sanctions would be to use force. If one wishes to bring pressure to bear on anyone, one uses force or sanctions. The statesmen of the world have considered the problem of trying to get an enforced peace and international decisions. They have tried to avoid the necessity of war, and they have reached the conclusion that the only way to do it is to bring economic pressure to bear by means of sanctions.
  I do not believe that the sanctions are not working. We are told that it has taken two and a half years for them to bite. However, if we had put in an army, how long would that have taken? After all, we put an army into Kuwait to put down a riot, and it was there for nearly 90 years. We put an army into Egypt, and it was there for generations. Our experience has been that it is very easy to land an army somewhere, but it is another matter when it comes to bringing it out.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: What about 1939?
  Mr. Woodburn: It took us six years to clear up the mess in Europe. We went in to save Poland. At the end of the day, we had not saved Poland and a whole empire had been destroyed in the process. This idea of sending along a few "policemen" to knock a few heads together does not solve the problem.
  It might take far longer than two and a half years to find by force a solution to the Rhodesian problem, especially if we got embroiled with South Africa. There is always the chance that we might fail, and that would not help anyone, including the United Nations. The Africans are keen to make use of force, but it is interesting to note that they have not made much sacrifice to bring down Rhodesia. Dr. Banda, for example, takes the view that it is no good ruining his country to make a gesture against Rhodesia. The Africans are beginning to realise the facts of life. If these two and a half years have done anything at all, they have taught some of the African nations that the problem is not so easy of solution as they at first thought.
  However, all these legal matters are beside the point, and people can battle about them for as long as they like. I am not seriously worried about the legal issues surrounding the condemned men. In all rebellions, people are tried, sentenced and executed. It has happened in every colony which has been emancipated. Progress cannot be held up because one or two people lose their lives. On the other hand, it is no good sacrificing thousands of lives for the sake of legal technicalities. Though we are right in condemning Rhodesia for not acting legally in the matter, obviously settlement of the Rhodesian problem cannot be held up on a point of this kind.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: But this is not just a legal technicality. It is a matter of whether Mr. Smith and the Rhodesia Front can be trusted to implement any settlement after power has passed into their hands legally. That is what it is all about.
  Mr. Woodburn: It may be that my hon. Friend was not here when I started my speech. That was exactly the point that I made at the beginning. It is the point on which negotiations by the previous Government broke down. The question now is how guarantees can be given. In

  1631
  the long run, once Rhodesia has independence, we shall be as powerless to interfere with them as we are at the moment. There is no settlement of that problem, and I agree that it is the crux of the matter. It is the point on which all negotiations have broken down.
  All that I meant was that, whether or not these men appealed to the Privy Council, the problem would have remained. It would be better if the Opposition, instead of trying to blame this Government for Mr. Smith and the problem that they passed on to us, devoted their attention to solving the real problem, which is how to get a settlement in Rhodesia which gives unimpeded progress towards majority rule.
  If Mr. Smith and his so-called Government can produce an answer to that question no one in this House will object to Her Majesty's Government reaching agreement with him. However, Mr. Smith and his colleagues have not agreed to any method by which this could be guaranteed to the world. Instead, they get everyone round about them to come here and put up all sorts of pleas to negotiate, as if the blame was ours. But the answer to the problem does not lie here. It lies in Salisbury. If the Salisbury Government went to the Governor tomorrow and said, "We are ready to come to an agreement to guarantee unimpeded progress towards majority rule", the sanctions would be withdrawn and independence would be granted to them legally.
  The question lies not here but in Salisbury, and the answer can be decided tomorrow if they show a willingness and anxiety to come to an agreement.
  7.56 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald Bell: I can at least agree with one part of the speech by the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn). He said that this debate should not be a political tennis match. But whose fault is it that some of it has been reduced to the level of a political tennis match, if it is not the Prime Minister's? If this had been the debate which we expected yesterday, taking place on the Motion for the Adjournment, and if it had been initiated by the Prime Minister in a speech of reasonable moderation—
  Mr. Cyril Bence: It was.
  Mr. Bell: I am speaking rather late in the evening, so I will not express my astonishment at that intervention. If it had been, we might have had a useful and constructive debate about where we should go from here. As it was, I am astonished at the moderation of all the succeeding speakers after the start that we were given by the Prime Minister. In particular, the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) was one of the utmost value to anyone who puts a solution to the problems in Africa above scoring party and partisan points.
  I want to get on quickly to the main theme of my speech. I am conscious that I am the first hon. Member to be called who is not a Privy Councillor, and it is right that I should try to condense my remarks.
  I felt that the phrases used by the Prime Minister and by the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) were not conducive to the maintenance of law and order in Central Africa. It is all very well, for example, for the right hon. Member for Easington to say that the men who were hanged were freedom fighters. It is all very well for him to say in one of his effective but careful phrases that they would be regarded by their fellow Africans as freedom fighters. How is one to keep law and order in a country at any time if the impression is created that anyone committing a crime with a political motive is in a different category and ought not to expect the appropriate punishment for the crime? In long retrospect, people may pass judgments of that kind but, for the time being, if society is to keep its fabric intact, it must treat crimes for what they are and not ask whether the motivation was political, or partly political, or what inflamed the passion which caused the crime.
  Mr. Frank Judd: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Bell: I had better not, simply in the interests of other hon. Members. [Interruption.] There is always room for a difference of opinion about the merits of an argument.
  I fear that the reason why the Early Day Motion was put on the Order Paper

  1633
  for today was because the Prime Minister wanted to raise the temperature of the debate. I think I know why he wanted to raise it. He wanted to raise it for internal reasons of the party opposite. He is in difficulty with his Left-wing over many other policies—the incomes policy, Vietnam, Commonwealth immigration and other matters—and Rhodesia is the only concession at the moment that he is making to them. This, in part, accounts for the quite astonishing viciousness of his opening speech today, allied to the fact that he is not proposing to give them very much.
  We all talk of settlement, and I think that we all want settlement. What I hoped might result from today's debate, and what I hope might still result from it, despite the absurdity of it now, perhaps because of my right hon. Friend's speech, is that it may become possible for the Prime Minister to reach a settlement and commend it successfully to his party. That, as I see it, is the real nature of the operation which faces us all. I do not believe that there is any genuine difficulty in finding a settlement between the Prime Minister and the Government in Salisbury. The fact that my right hon. Friend was able to get so close to it illustrates that.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Anyone can get a settlement. The question is the terms of the settlement. Will they be acceptable within the six principles by any independent criteria? That is the real issue. The difficulty about the right hon. Gentleman's proposals is that we do not know what the terms would have been. It may be that he could get a settlement on his terms, but would they be acceptable?
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I insisted that they must be within the six principles, and in my judgment they are.
  Mr. Bell: My right hon. Friend has answered that intervention. I was making the single point, which I do not want to go through again, that the valuable contribution of this debate might have been to give a better understanding to certain hon. Members opposite—not all—of the desirability of a settlement, so that it would become acceptable to them, despite their many other differences with the Prime Minister at the present time.
  1634
  I feel that it is particularly dangerous to stoke up this Rhodesia issue. Africa is to dangerous for party games at the present time. I was very glad that the Prime Minister spoke of the Communist infiltration into Africa, because so often when it is mentioned it is heard with cynicism. But for what other purpose are China and Russia incurring expenditure in Africa and the Indian Ocean? Perhaps if I alone had said it—and it was in my notes to say it anyway—it might have been greeted with scepticism, but because the Prime Minister spoke of the competition that is going on in Africa between those two great States this point may be more acceptable to hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  Let those whose bowels yearn for peace in Vietnam and war in Rhodesia reflect that almost every so-called freedom fighter in Africa is trained by one of the Communist Powers and that a fair number—I will not put it higher—of African politicians are in Communist pay—
  Mr. Judd: How many?
  Mr. Bell: I do not know how many. Dar-es-Salaam is recognised and acknowledged to be the headquarters and shop window of Communism in Africa. My judgment on these issues is not moulded by the existence of the Communist menace in Africa, but it should dispose us all to moderation and, above all, to calm.
  Some hon. Members have come rushing into this business rather late in the day. I do not believe that they see the matter in true perspective. This "illegality", which is chanted like a refrain, is the least important bit of the problem. Here I disagree with the right hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn), who said that we should pay no attention to the legal point. I would gladly agree with him that the Prime Minister has based his whole case on illegality. Twice a week at Question Time and in every paragraph of his speech today it was illegality, illegality, the rule of law, and illegality. The whole of his case has been based upon this. Although he bases his case on this it is a trivial part of the whole matter. If we pass an Act in this Parliament we can make anything illegal so that, concerning our domestic discussions, it is illegal. We could make the President and the Government of the United States an illegal régime by an Act

  1635
  of this Parliament, but it would not get us any further than being rude to the Equator.
  The truth is that half the member countries of the United Nations are ruled by illegal régimes. Twenty are based upon revolutions which have taken place in the last four years. Two are based on revolutions against the British Crown. Thirty-seven are minority régimes, and a few are controlled by racial minorities. Only a handful practise any real democracy. None of this worries us. We recognise them all, and recognise them immediately. One can go on, because as a year passes another crop of revolutions comes along and keeps the figures approximately correct. In terms of nations, "illegality" is meaningless.
  What Government can trace its true pedigree back through more than two generations I suppose that Britain, with 280 years, is the longest of them all. This insistence on illegality is no more than the Prime Minister's usual technique of trying to put a half-nelson here at home on anyone who dares to challenge him. He hoped to frighten people into silence with words like "treason" and "traitor".
  The truth behind it all is that a monstrous and tragic injustice is being perpetrated in the name of all sorts of inapplicable principles. Is is said that Rhodesia must have a multi-racial society, that it must have that mighty quick, and that we in Britain are the best judges of all this. I find that very rich.
  We ruled a vast Empire which stretched round the world. We still rule some bits of it, and we have given independence to the rest. Nowhere did we construct, nowhere did we leave behind, a multi-racial society. We ruled beneficently, fairly, and efficiently, but we ruled as an imperial race, and when we left we handed over power to another indigenous race. We never melted into those we ruled. Unlike the Portuguese, or the French, or even, sometimes, the Dutch, we do not mix freely. We are the least miscible people in the world. How strange that we, who have not so much failed as never been interested in a mixed society, should operate sanctions, with warships and aeroplanes, in support of our claim to an expertise which we never showed in action.
  1636
  But that is not all. If we look through all the proud list of lands that we ruled, we find only one where a British multiracial society spontaneously rooted and grew and prospered, and not by our prescription, but of its own will, and that solitary paragon is Southern Rhodesia.
  Sir George Sinclair: What about New Zealand?
  Mr. Bell: I think that the Maoris are rather a trivial minority there.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"]—I mean numerically. Where else do we find real democracy in a multi-racial society in Africa, or indeed in the world? Yet, by some visitation of lunacy, we whose judgment on this is almost valueless, are applying sanctions against Rhodesia, whose record is the best.
  It is not that I think the Westminster system of democracy is exactly the heaven-sent message of this country to Africa. It has not exactly succeeded where we have exported it, and it is open to question whether precise equality of adult votes will work in Britain, where we have had it for 17 years. This week I am beginning to have more confidence in it, but to impose it by force on this generation in Africa is really preposterous.
  If we want a multi-racial society in Africa, there is one absolute and indispensable rule which has to be followed, and that is that we keep the political temperature low. Given a low temperature, a multi-racial experiment can work. Raise the temperature, and we are bound to fail. That is why I regarded the breakdown of Federation as one of the greatest tragedies of the post-war history of Africa.
  This is what our debate ought to be about, but unfortunately the Prime Minister put his Motion down, and with reluctance I turn briefly to the immediate matters in it. So long as this foolish and unnecessary squabble lasts, there will be no shortage of incidents to inflame relations between us. I am sorry that we have to spend time discussing the hanging of the three violent and savage criminals whose crimes certainly merited condign punishment.
  It is said that the rule of law is outraged. So far as I am concerned, anyone who advances that proposition has

  1637
  to prove his case very strictly, for on the face of it the rule of law is vindicated when the just sentence of a proper court is carried out. These men were convicted of murder.
  Mr. Paul B. Rose rose—
  Mr. Bell: I think not. These men were convicted of murder before independence.
  Mr. Rose: After three years.
  Mr. Bell: No, before three years. They were convicted of murder under a law and by courts recognised by this country, and the convictions were upheld on appeal. The subsequent delays were due to technical arguments, quite largely at the suit of the convicted men, about the competence of the subsequent régime in Rhodesia to carry out the sentence of the courts. On that I will only say that if the de facto Government of any country is not to carry out proper sentences of proper courts, I cannot see much rule of law surviving.
  Some point was made about my right hon. Friend referring to a minority judgment, but I think that he was referring only to it because the phraseology was convenient. It is quite clear that all the judges held that the execution of this sentence was proper. The judgment said:
  "The judgment of all five judges in the 'Constitutional Case' stressed the interests of society in maintaining legal continuity the maintaining and enforcing of law and the punishing of criminals … These judgments in the Constitutional Case' are decisive authority for holding that the present Government"—
  that is in Rhodesia—
  "has the lawful right to ensure that death sentences properly imposed by this court are carried out."
  It was clearly held by the judges that the execution of those sentences was lawful. After all, what is the relevant difference between hanging and imprisonment? Each is the execution of a sentence. If we recognise the régime for one, as we have done by commuting, we must recognise it for the other. The judgment goes on to say:
  "Two judges held that the present Government was entitled to do anything which the 1965 Constitution permitted it to do … Two judges decided that the present Government could lawfully do anything which its predecessors could lawfully have done under the
  1638
  1961 Constitution. A majority of four of the five judges, therefore, held that the present Government could lawfully do anything which its predecessors could lawfully have done."
  That was the decision of the Court of Appeal of Rhodesia, a court recognised by Her Majesty's Government here as a competent court of jurisdiction, and therefore the execution of those sentences was on the face of it perfectly lawful.
  Then it was said, I think by the Prime Minister, that they were denied their right of appeal to the Privy Council. This is what the Motion says. I think that there has been a slip of the pen. There was no right of appeal to the Privy Council. That was explicitly held in the Court of Rhodesia, which applied well-known 'principles of law. What was refused was a stay of yet another four months while the convicted men asked leave of the Privy Council if they might appeal. The Court of Appeal refused that application, and the reasons are set out clearly in the judgment. One may agree or disagree with those reasons, but there is no question of the rule of law not having been observed.
  Finally, there is the question of the exercise of the Royal Prerogative in the matter of the reprieves. This again went before the Court of Appeal in Rhodesia, which held quite explicitly that the 1961 Constitution being based not on a prerogative Order in Council here, but on a Statute of the United Kingdom Parliament, in accordance with the accepted authorities exhausted the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by vesting it in the Governor. Where a Statute controls the exercise of the Prerogative, the courts have jurisdiction to consider its scope and the normal decision has been that, where the exercise of the Prerogative was controlled by Statute, that is the total exercise of it which is allowed.
  So the Court of Appeal held that there was no residual Prerogative in Her Majesty. Again, one may agree or disagree with that unanimous finding of the Rhodesian court, but this is a court recognised by the Government and Parliament of the United Kingdom as administering a jurisdiction on behalf of Her Majesty in Rhodesia. Therefore, everything, at every point, has been lawfully done.
  I emphasise this, because the Prime Minister's whole case rested on the illegality. He asked, "How can you talk

  1639
  with people who behave in this way? How can you trust people who push aside the rule of law?" But he gave no instance of the rule of law having been set aside—
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The hon. and learned Member is a member of the Bar. If, in this country, the Home Secretary were to send an affidavit to the Court of Appeal to say that he would not respect the judgment of the House of Lords, and if the Court of Appeal were to act on that affidavit, is the hon. and learned Gentleman saying that the rule of law would have been preserved in this country?
  Mr. Bell: That is not what happened. What happened is that a country which had broken away and established a de facto Government said that it would not recognise a court outside that country. Whether that is a valid action or not depends on whether it is a valid de facto Government. But the courts in Rhodesia which we recognise have held that it is a valid de facto Government. I understand that, from today, that is subject to an appeal to the Privy Council and therefore sub judice, but, until today, this was the decision of that valid court. Therefore, everything has been done in accordance with the rule of law and the whole of the Prime Minister's case falls to the ground.
  One would be tempted to go into the Prime Minister's selectivity when he talks about the rule of law and sanctions. When I raised objections to the validity of sanctions, as applied against Rhodesia, under Article 2(7) and all the other paragraphs in the United Nations Charter, he got very vexed and talked about legalism. He is not interested in technicalities—they are "barren legalism"—but if he thinks that there is a technicality on his side, he is the greatest champion that we have ever found of the rule of law.
  I greatly fear that, on the Rhodesian side, there is legality and on the British Government's side there is illegality. Of course, there must be faults on both sides, but considering the historical background, which everyone knows is the true version of history, and the legal analysis—as the Prime Minister challenged us to do—I must say that the balance of
  1640
  error lies on the side of the British Government, and that, therefore, it is doubly incumbent upon us to restart negotiations to find a settlement of this totally unnecessary dispute between two parts of the British people. One can only hope that this fratricidal quarrel will soon be solved and that we can return to the amicable relations which are natural to us and which we always enjoyed until about four years ago.
  8.25 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Bottomley: There is one thing, apparently, upon which we are all agreed. Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition have all stressed the gravity of this subject. It is my judgment that the way in which this rebellion is ended will determine the future of the Commonwealth and the relations between the West and the non-Communist world, and may even sow the seed of a race war unless it is settled properly.
  My right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have shown themselves ready to consider any reasonable solution. This must be one, of course, which is compatible with the dignity and aspirations of all the peoples of Rhodesia, which means a settlement which is acceptable to the people as a whole—to all racial groups.
  This means that we are firmly committed to the five principles laid down by the predecessors of the 1964 Labour Government. It was my privilege then, to be shadow Commonwealth Secretary, and when Mr. Smith came to London in September, 1964, I went to a dinner party at No. 10 Downing Street. It was a difficult occasion for the then Prime Minister, and indeed for us all, but I credited him for the way he handled that situation. Subsequently, he concluded that he had reached a settlement with Mr. Smith and that only the final communiqué had to be issued. On the point of issue, however, Mr. Smith ran away: he could not be found and he then went back on his word—not for the first or the last time. I would ask the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) what makes him change his mind and think that Mr. Smith will behave differently today?

  1641
  Mr. Smith perpetuates the myth that successive British Governments have never negotiated in good faith. I can, of course, speak about this with some authority. I said that I had been Shadow Commonwealth Secretary. The then Commonwealth Secretary, the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys), cooperated with me and I gave him all the support that I could to see that the five principles were fully met and implemented. I therefore found it easy, when I became Secretary of State, to follow that line.
  In due course, after Mr. Smith had agreed that I could meet the African national leaders, the Lord Chancellor and I went out to Rhodesia. Like the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, we, too, got an understanding with Mr. Smith. We did this in good faith, as we thought Mr. Smith had done. But subsequently he retracted. Therefore, Mr. Smith deserves, I think, a rebuke, which I once gave in this House, and which I now recognise was not as Parliamentary as it might have been.
  No one has tried harder than the Prime Minister to reach a settlement of this problem If anyone has any doubts, he should read the documents and records of the meetings. They have all bean published in a White Paper so that right hon. and hon. Members may study them. Let those who have any difficulties in understanding the present situation remember that this Parliament controls the Prime Minister and the Government and they are subject to our will. There is no censorship, there is complete freedom of speech, and therefore, what the Prime Minister said is known by all and receives close attention by hon. Members on both sides. Mr. Smith and his friends never have to go through that.
  I do not think there is any likelihood of reaching a settlement with Mr. Smith except on his terms. He and his colleagues have made it plain time and again that they will accept no settlement which does not allow them to control the pace of advance of the Africans. This means that the illegal régime would have unchecked control over the pace of African advance; it would make them the judge and jury in their own case. Many of them have vested interests in ensuring that the Africans never govern
  1642
  Rhodesia and a good many of them have said this quite openly.
  How could we trust people like this to work for progress towards African majority rule? The simple issue of principle is whether the Africans will be permitted to exercise a political right which, in time, will give them a chance to enjoy what we have in this country, majority rule. As the Prime Minister said, most of us envisage a period of preparation for African participation in Government. This is all that Mr. Smith has been asked to put in hand and not to impede progress towards majority rule. This he and his friends will not do.
  Some say that we should recognise the illegal régime and hand over power. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition got very near to saying that today. That is why he got more cheers from his reactionary supporters than he has ever got before. Those who take the line of least resistance should be reminded—as they have been by the Prime Minister and others—that in that country are all the trappings of a police State. People are detained for lengthy periods without trial, others are given savage sentences for what to us are trivial offences, the Press is heavily censored, radio and television are used exclusively for putting over the propaganda of the Rhodesia Front and academic freedom is contained to prevent freedom of speech. For people to be detained without trial for an indefinite period is not my idea of the British way of life. Nor is it my idea of our way of life to subject people of different colour to humiliation and often to inhuman conditions.
  The administration in Rhodesia has entrenched and made more severe the Land Apportionment Act. This was strongly condemned by the Rhodesian Constitutional Council. Much of the land for the Africans has been overworked and overgrazed for years. The areas they occupy are overcrowded. The Prime Minister referred to education in that country and pointed out that 10 times as much money is spent on educating a European child as is spent on educating an African child.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman says, probably correctly, that 10 times more is spent on educating a European child. Can he say what this means in

  1643
  absolute terms? In other words, is that a higher or lower amount than is spent in this country? Is he therefore suggesting that the standard of education offered to European children in Rhodesia should be dramatically reduced, so making it much lower than the standard applying in Europe generally?
  Mr. Bottomley: No. I am saying that as a result of this expenditure of 10 times more on European children, African children, instead of getting secondary education, are condemned to primary education. This is deliberately done because it means that the primarily educated are useful only to do the menial jobs which the Europeans want them to do.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Bottomley: Several hon. Members still wish to speak in the debate, so I will not give way.
  The African township is often referred to as a model. Like other hon. Members, I have seen it. In some parts as many as 10 people occupy one room. The average income for a European in Rhodesia is £1,300 a year. The African averages £130, and that includes housing, uniform and food. Every European who has the skill and capital deserves congratulations for the enterprise and the effort he has put into it, but his efforts would have been quite profitless had there not been a large reserve of cheap African labour. Shame on those who are prepared to sell out and to shut their eyes to these facts.
  I am bound to say that I cannot go along with some of my hon. Friends who advocate the use of force. If force were used there would be chaos, certainly it would result in the destruction of one of the wealthiest areas of Africa. I believe in time Africans would say, "Why was a peaceful attempt not made to get a settlement rather than all our wealth being destroyed for decades to come?". It would not be stretching the matter too far to say that once a conflict started it could develop into another Vietnam.
  But I am not one who would rule out force in any circumstances. What we have
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  to do now is what I have always believed in and always advocated, and that is to apply sanctions fully and effectively. Even with what I consider to be a half-hearted effort, Rhodesian exports are down 36 per cent. and incomes are down 10 per cent. Tobacco, which was the main export, is now a burden on the economy. Recently Mr. Heaurtley, President of the Tobacco Farmers' Union, said that the limit had been reached on sacrifices.
  Today we read in the papers that Mr. Mitchell, President of the National Farmers' Union, is also complaining and grumbling about the economic situation. Mr. Perry, President of the Rhodesian Federation of Industries, said something which I shall quote because it is censored in Rhodesia. It should be known as widely as possible everywhere. He said that
  "the most significant feature of the economic siege was its increasing intensity. Rhodesia had to discard her traditional economic policy of expanding world markets for her primary produce and its secondary industries. There could be no denying that the result of sanctions had affected all sections of society with varying degrees of hardship and this had tended to stultify overall economic growth."
  The right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire said that starvation would not drive these people to enter negotiations. I think that is true of the true Rhodesian. Let us record that the true Rhodesians are the ones who were born there. It is among them that we find the most liberal elements. We should remember that in 1939 there were 30,000 of them. Today the other 200,000 are substantially men and women who went from this country because they were afraid to face up to the rigours we all had to face as a consequence of the war. The other element is among Afrikaaners who also went out. These are the reactionary elements which are making negotiations difficult. Winston Field was reasonable, and Smith on his own and not a prisoner of this kind of people would be reasonable. He would have got an agreement with the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire, the Prime Minister and indeed with the Lord Chancellor and me, if he had been allowed to do so.
  There are reports, of course, that sanctions are not working because Italy, France, Germany, Japan and perhaps

  1645
  some other countries are breaching the United Nations decisions. This is where I think the Security Council should be supported in its application of comprehensive mandatory sanctions. It is right—and I was glad to hear it today—that the Government are to give that support. South Africa and Portugal of course back Rhodesia and help it considerably. Portugal has nearly doubled its trade with Rhodesia from what was going on before. South Africa has said that it would carry on normal trade and South Africans tend to abide by international law and I think they tried to conduct normal trade relations, but the pressures were too strong, and the trade expanded. However, we read in the Sunday Telegraph last weekend that South African industrialists are now saying that too many Rhodesian exports are coming into their country, and they are calling for restrictions on trade with Rhodesia. In any case, South Africa does not want to put itself in a position where its own economy is weakened for a lost cause. Even in the case of South Africa, we may find that there is much more response than we imagine.
  Portugal, not so. I hope that the other countries of the world, particularly the Asian and African countries, will put the maximum pressure on Portugal to stop its breaking of sanctions.
  What is at stake in Rhodesia? It is not a matter simply of horse trading or minor concessions. We are considering here a great moral question of the widest international importance. Are 4 million Africans to be allowed to have a say in the running of their country, or is a handful of Europeans to rule them for an indefinite period, using increasingly repressive measures to do so? I warned Mr. Smith that he might be able to keep the Africans down for his lifetime but he should consider what would happen to his children as a result of the policy he was pursuing. Eventually the majority will rule. If they are denied peaceful progress to power—here I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell)—they will use force. They will have no choice. This is the lesson of history.
  For us in this country, it is a matter of honour. We have led the world in bringing peoples of all races and colours
  1646
  to independence and in helping to create multi-racial societies. This has been the British mission for the past three decades. We cannot allow this mission to be frustrated by a handful of intolerant fanatics, fanatics in a discredited doctrine of white supremacy who live in a world 50 years out of date. I make this appeal to many hon. Members opposite who, I know, share these sentiments with me. If they go into their Division Lobby tonight, it will be an indication to Mr. Smith that he can carry on his policy. If, on the other hand, they refrain or they vote with the Government, that will be the surest way by which the illegal régime in Rhodesia will be brought to an end.
  8.42 p.m.
  Sir George Sinclair: Many tributes have been paid to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) for his intervention in Rhodesia a few weeks ago. It has opened up the possibility of continuing the pattern of talks which had got so near to success on H.M.S. "Tiger". What we know of my right hon. Friend's talks—it is right that the details should not be revealed while there is still any chance at all of negotiations being resumed—is that of the three major diversions from the pattern agreed in the "Tiger" talks two had been fairly satisfactorily resolved. There remained the third, the question of appeal to the Privy Council.
  I am convinced that, with the future of over 4 million Africans and 250,000 Europeans in Rhodesia at issue, it is wrong not to take any opportunity there may be of resuming negotiations which are as near as that to the pattern which the Prime Minister himself regarded as acceptable in the "Tiger" talks and found compatible with the principles accepted by both sides of the House of Commons. That would be turning our backs on perhaps the last opportunity we may have of getting on some sort of terms with the régime in Rhodesia and having some say there. After a settlement we should hope to be able to help in bringing about better relationships between the minority and the Africans and, to offer again to pump money into education and technical services to help get development going again.

  1647
  What are the alternatives? We can carry on with sanctions. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said today that they should remain, and that was endorsed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. I do not believe that they have been without effect. I think that they are some of the background reasons why the Smith régime is prepared to nibble again at negotiations. It wants outside recognition. It wants capital from outside to begin flowing into Rhodesia again, and it wants to be able to market its goods world-wide and build up its standard of living again.
  It is not comfortable to live with sanctions. It can be done, but I believe that the régime would be very glad to obtain recognition and get rid of sanctions. That is an incentive to have another go at negotiations. Otherwise, I do not see why, if it knows it can live through sanctions, it should come again and accept proposals which it knows to be near the pattern already accepted by the Prime Minister on behalf of the British Government. Therefore, I hope that the Minister of State will make one last plea to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs not to slam the door tonight, as the Prime Minister seemed to slam it by the names he called the régime in Rhodesia, and to try to find ways of reopening negotiations.
  There are many of us on both sides of the House who abhor the régime and its practices in Rhodesia. There are many of us on this side of the House who hate seeing the growing limitation on African opportunities in Rhodesia. But what are the alternatives to negotiation? Both major parties have ruled out force, and I doubt whether the third party has much force to deploy. If one rules out force, what are the alternatives? They have been argued here today. One can keep on sanctions and one might try—vainly, I believe—to step them up.
  The only course that provides real hope before a republic is declared is to resume negotiations. We know that there is a great deal of common ground which has been established and declared after the "Tiger" talks, to be common ground. We know that proposals near to that common ground have been sent to the Prime Minister for consideration in the name of the régime in Rhodesia. It is
  1648
  very wrong to turn one's back on that. It is a very narrow hope. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire did not put it much higher than that. He said that it was a hope, but it was not an expectation, and he gave this opportunity to the Prime Minister. He had made it by a personal intervention—
  Mr. John Lee rose—
  Sir G. Sinclair: I regret I cannot give way.
  I believe that it is right for the Prime Minister to seize the opportunity. If he does not, he will have let down this country and let down the cause of peace in Africa. Otherwise I do not see what course Rhodesia is likely to take other than to slip nearer and nearer to a full system of apartheid, which many of us abhor so much when we see it in other countries to the south.
  Let the Prime Minister take this last chance and see whether he cannot resume negotiations, however much he may dislike the régime. Many times we have had to negotiate with people with whom we have fought and, indeed, who have had the blood of our compatriots on their hands. But that is not the point. While there is a hope, and there is only one hope, the right hon. Gentleman should take it and use it. If the Government give no indication that they will try and reopen negotiations on the basis of the chance given to the Prime Minister in this missive from Rhodesia, I am sure that I and many who think like me on this side of the House will vote for our party's Amendment.
  8.56 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Judd: To anyone with a sense of historical perspective, it is clear that the issue confronting us in Rhodesia is perhaps historically the greatest facing the Government. I hope in the time available to substantiate that claim. I believe that, struggle as we may, we cannot escape from the historical, legal and moral responsibilities which confront every right hon. and hon. Member.
  It seems to me that there are two aspects to the Rhodesian crisis. First, there is the immediate situation within Rhodesia. In that situation, we have watched with distress the erosion of civil

  1649
  rights and the establishment of the machinery of a ruthless police State. A simple reading of history reveals that, in any society where the majority of the people, albeit through articulate minority leadership, becomes aware of the political rights which they are being denied, it is only a matter of time before change comes.
  Mr. Percy Grieve rose—
  Mr. Judd: I cannot give way. There is not enough time.
  Where change is resisted, the form of change is usually the most violent. All of us who care for the people of Rhodesia as a whole must see part of our responsibility as saving the white population from the fate it is making inevitable for itself.
  The second aspect of the crisis is its symbolical significance in the international community. If there is one fundamental political truth which challenges us all in the international community, it is the growing gap between the privileged minority, to which we belong, and the under-privileged majority—a gap which, underlined by race, may introduce in international politics tensions and passions which will make recent international political developments mild by comparison.
  The Government, in their stand on two issues recently, have demonstrated their concern on this front. They resisted a great deal of popular and public pressure, in our economic difficulties, to cut our overseas aid and development programme beyond the impact of devaluation. They also resisted the pressures to sell arms to South Africa. Both these firm stands on principle show the Government's understanding of what is at stake.
  Recently, following the hangings, we have not seen a traumatic change in the situation in Rhodesia. They have simply confirmed the deterioration which has taken place. Until the last visit to Rhodesia by the Commonwealth Secretary a certain sad paradox confronted the Government. On the one hand, they wished to embark upon a firm policy of economic sanctions, hoping that this would bring the régime to its senses, but at the same time it was obvious that they wished to avoid doing anything which might finally and irrevocably slam the door on the possibility and prospect of a negotiated settlement.
  1650
  For many of us on this side of the House there was a sense of relief at our having been freed from this dilemma when the Commonwealth Secretary re turned from his last visit, because we recognised then, as he recognised, that there was no prospect of a settlement with Smith and his régime on the basis of the six principles.
  I do not doubt the sincerity of those involved in recent probings in Salisbury, but, as has been said tonight, I fear that in history they may be seen to have been politically naïve, because the fundamental issue which now confronts us is the fundamental issue of trust. Many hon. Members on this side of the House are now convinced that, whatever technical guarantees can be negotiated, there can be no question of a settlement in confidence with Smith, because we fear that any such settlement could be brushed on one side on some trumped up excuse at the first opportunity once we were off the scene.
  Taking stock of the situation, I would say that there were three judgments which we could possibly make tonight. First, we could say, if we so wished, that it was hopeless and that Smith had won. This would be an irresponsible desertion of political leadership.
  Secondly, we could say that we recognised how much was at stake in terms of our international standing and that we must now play for an honourable defeat. The temptations of that course are much greater than some of us recognise, and it is most important that the Government recognise that to settle for what they believe to be an honourable defeat would be a disastrous trend. It would be disastrous because it would be a transparent decision to the whole international community who would see exactly what we had done. Furthermore, having sought the support of the international community of the United Nations, we might do irreparable damage to the United Nations by having demonstrated, as it were, that it was impossible to cope with this situation.
  The final possibility is that we must decide, because of all the issues at stake, that we have to do everything possible to achieve the downfall of the present régime.
  Sir C. Osborne: War?
  Mr. Judd: In deciding that we must do everything practicable and possible, we must recognise the price of failure.
  Sir C. Osborne: A second Congo.
  Mr. Judd: The price of failure would have two parts. First, we would inevitably see an extension of the activities of the freedom fighters, activities which have already commenced in Rhodesia. If we fail by other means, undoubtedly the people who feel passionately about the rights and the political liberties at stake will take the situation increasingly into their own hands.
  There were some strange remarks this evening from the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). I cannot understand how it is possible for us to look at the freedom fighters of Southern Africa in any different way and with any less respect from the way we looked at the resistance movement in France during the war, or at the Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956.
  Mr. Ian Lloyd rose—
  Mr. Faulds: Sit down, you Smithite.
  Mr. Judd: My right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Defence, speaking in this House on 30th July, 1962, said that there could be no doubt that if the Africans in Southern Rhodesia did take to violence to achieve their ends, although it might be crushed that year, as the Algerians were crushed by France when they rose in 1946, the final outcome of the story would no longer remain in doubt. My right hon. Friend was speaking truthfully on that occasion, with great soundness of judgment, and his remarks are equally applicable at this stage.
  The second price of failure will be a devastating lesson for the future prospects of international order. If the international community, combining its activities, is unable to deal effectively with this small country and this puny racialist regime, what hope can there ever be of effective international action to maintain the principles of international order in the international community?
  In going forward for practical action at this stage we first have to accept that, whether we like it or not, our credibility is at stake. Our credibility in Britain is at stake and we have to demonstrate to our
  1652
  own people and the people of the international community, as well as the people of Rhodesia, our sincerity and determination to succeed. If we are to do this we must consider the application of psychological pressures, the cutting of communications and a public education campaign the like of which we have not yet seen.
  I welcome the speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister this afternoon, because he was at pains to spell out why we were making a stand against the Rhodesian régime, and what was unacceptable about the regime. We need to put a good deal more energy and time into explaining to the world, as well as to the people in Britain, exactly what is abhorrent about the whole standard of the Government in Rhodesia.
  In terms of immediate action I suggest that, to demonstrate our earnestness, the Foreign Secretary should go to the United Nations at the earliest possible opportunity. When there he should not wait to respond passively to a suggestion by any other representatives that we should have a policy of compulsory mandatory sanctions. He should put forward the proposal for such sanctions, and to make them effective he should put forward proposals to internationalise the supervision of sanctions and to effectively internationalise, through the International Secretariat of the United Nations, the investigation of sanction-breaking.
  We would all be deceiving ourselves if we did not accept that the policy of mandatory international sanctions involves a readiness to police those sanctions effectively. We would also have to embark upon contingency planning for what we were to do as an international community if we achieved our objective, which would be the downfall of the regime. To supplement this action, we should be putting forward proposals on international action to cut communications with the régime, to hamper travel abroad by citizens of Rhodesia and, in a practical sense, we could immediately be considering an international training programme to prepare the Africans to take over responsibility at the first opportunity for the running of the country, when we move away from the present illegal régime.
  An essential aspect of this programme must be to demonstrate internationally

  1653
  our support for Zambia in its exposed position. We ought to reconsider whether it is not possible at this stage to give her support in establishing the Tanzam Railway, instead of putting her into the hands of the Chinese, who are only too happy to exploit tensions in the area. As was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), we must also investigate defence agreements with Zambia on an international basis.
  In all this I know that the sceptics will say that what will undermine any effective international action is the possibility of Portugal and South Africa determining to avoid co-operation in the imposition of compulsory mandatory sanctions. I cannot accept that we and the international community can be held to ransom by Portugal. We could certainly put pressure on that country if we so wished. There is no earthly reason why we should not threaten to boycott imports from Portugal if she refused to co-operate in the policy.
  On South Africa itself, I believe that there is not always the need for the despondency and defeatism which are reflected in the House. I believe that in South Africa there is an element of realism and that South Africa has come to the point at which she feels it necessary to support the Rhodesian régime more actively than she did for two years because she feels that the international community is not serious in its intention of dealing effectively with the illegal regime. If we were to demonstrate effective international concern on this issue, there is every reason to believe that some of the political leaders in South Africa would not be anxious to extend their already difficult problems of security by buoying up the illegal régime in that new situation.
  We can discuss at great length the legal technicalities of the situation in Rhodesia, but I think that we must remember our profound responsibility before world opinion tonight. We can boil this down into quite human terms which could be understood by the whole electorate in Britain if we so wished. Every citizen in prison without proper trial in Rhodesia, every prisoner executed in defiance of the Queen and the rule of law, every freedom fighter mown down by security
  1654
  forces, every grieving mother, young widow or orphan, white or black, every innocent civilian killed or maimed, is our responsibility in the House tonight.
  More significant still than this, for the future of the international community we have the responsibility of demonstrating our determination that the values of justice, freedom and decency on which our society is based have no racial limitations whatsoever. On the night of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in a broadcast to the nation, said:
  "At this anxious time I hope that no one in Rhodesia will feel that Britain has forgotten them or that we are prepared to yield up the trusteeship which is ours—trusteeship for the welfare of all the peoples of Rhodesia. Whatever the cost to us, we shall honour that trusteeship until we can bring the people of Rhodesia, under God, once again, back to their true allegiance, back to the rule of law, and forward to their true destiny in the family of nations."
  My right hon. Friend spoke that night for all that is best in British political life. We know perfectly well that, if the will is there, we can succeed. What we are debating tonight is the will.
  9.8 p.m.
  Mr. Gilbert Longden: The hon. Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) will forgive me if I do not follow him, because I have, it so happens, a slightly different point of view from that which has been expressed on either side tonight and I have only five minutes in which to deploy it.
  The Prime Minister has only himself to blame if there is a Division at the end of the debate. He asks us to stand up and be counted on a Motion which expresses abhorrence for the perfectly legal execution of three brutal murderers. I, for one, am not disposed to do that. They were properly convicted of brutal crimes. As we have heard from my right hon. Friend, the delay was due entirely to their being allowed to explore every avenue of appeal. Mr. Lardner Burke was guilty of gross contempt in pronouncing that the sentences would be carried out whatever the appeal court said; but, as he is a member of an illegal Government, why be surprised if he acts illegally? If the Prime Minister was prepared to talk before the hangings, I

  1655
  can see no reason on earth why he should not talk now.
  I expressed my point of view in a letter which the Daily Telegraph was good enough to publish two days ago. I have had an immense number of letters all expressing support for my view. I am afraid that as a result of a typographical error in this morning's leader in the Daily Telegraph I shall have another flood of letters, in which case I shall ask the Daily Telegraph to answer them.
  I believe that there are four courses open to this country: first, force; secondly, mandatory sanctions universally applied by the United Nations; thirdly, to renew negotiations; and, fourthly, to let Rhodesia go her own way as an independent State outside the Commonwealth.
  I think that only some Liberal and left-wing pacificists advocate force. I think that on every ground it must be ruled out as a practical policy. It would have only one good effect: it might or it might not bring down Mr. Smith; it would certainly bring down Her Majesty's Government. For mandatory sanctions to succeed—and, were they to do so, would the people we are trying to help benefit?—every member of the United Nations would have genuinely to support them and the prolonged blockade of the whole of Southern Africa which would be essential if they were to succeed. I do not believe for a moment that those conditions would be fulfilled, and I therefore trust that Her Majesty's Government will veto any such resolution.
  If, then, we cannot achieve our aim by compulsion, will further persuasion achieve it? I am afraid—and this is where I differ from some of my right hon. Friends, and this is the one reservation in the letters in reply to mine—that I have never believed, and I do not believe, that the Rhodesia Front would honour a settlement based on the Six Principles. As the Prime Minister told the House on 20th January, 1967:
  "The tragedy was that when"
  Mr. Smith returned from the "Tiger" talks
  "he was not able to make effective … the agreement which we had reached because he was under the control of some very strong extremists …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 19th January, 1967; Vol. 739, c. 649.]
  1656
  I believe that, largely due to sanctions, Mr. Smith now has the backing of most moderate opinion, black and white, in Rhodesia. But I would defer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), who has just returned from Rhodesia and who has recently met Rhodesians of all opinions, if he considers that I am being unjust to Rhodesians and that the six principles have some chance of acceptance, not only now, but also after independence when, ex hypothesi, an independent Government could tear them up just as other Governments have done before them.
  I would welcome renewed negotiations. But it would mean abandoning sanctions first, in my view, and that Her Majesty's Government has no intention of doing. I am therefore compelled to ask whether the time has come for us to confess failure and let Rhodesia pursue her own path outside the Commonwealth. We are losing valuable trade to foreign competitors who defy the United Nations. We are ruining Zambia. We are encouraging inter-racial war in Africa and, I believe, for no other purpose than to satisfy people here and in New York who will not see, or do not care if they do see, that life for the ordinary man and woman of all races in Rhodesia is more peaceful and prosperous than in most of the so-called freed ex-African colonies and who make no complaint when the rule of law is mocked in their own country.
  We are told that we are contemplating handing over British Honduras to Guatemala, the Falkland Islands to the Argentine, and so on. so that it would not be all that bad to hand over the Africans to Mr. Smith. The Commonwealth would break up, but States which wish to remain in it and yet break off relations with its founder member and which do not practise the principles for which it essentially stands, are, in my view, like Rhodesia, better out of it.
  We have done our best within the limits of the politically practicable, and we have failed, as we failed, although we went to war to try to succeed, to save Poland from totalitarianism and restore the Baltic States to independence. It is still power which counts in the world, and since we no longer have the power to effect their objectives we have sensibly shed responsibility for them. Were the

  1657
  Government now to shed further responsibility for Rhodesia and to be big enough to confess defeat I believe they would only be basing themselves on one of the most valuable foundations of policy; that is, common sense.
  9.15 p.m.
  Mr. Reginald Maudling: This is, of course, a very important debate, and many speeches have been made from both sides of the House. I am very well aware that many more hon. Members would have liked to have taken part. For that reason, and because two weighty speeches have already been made from this Front Bench I thought it right this evening to confine myself to a rather brief winding up, in the course of which I intend to do one thing only, and that is crystallise the issues upon which we shall be voting this evening if the Government are not prepared to accept our Amendment, because if they will not accept our Amendment, then vote we must and shall do.
  Let me first get one thing out of the way. It has been suggested by more than one speaker, including the right hon. Member the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), that this is a dispute between this side of the House supporting Mr. Smith, and that side supporting the Prime Minister. This is just not true. We have made it clear from this side of the House on more than one occasion from the beginning that we deplored the Unilateral Declaration of Independence as an act of folly which has brought very grave consequences on many peoples, here and in Africa. I myself have said on more than one occasion that I deplored the weakness which Mr. Smith showed after the "Tiger" consultations, and we have all on this side of the House deplored on more than one occasion many of the tendencies in recent legislation in Rhodesia. Let there be no doubt about this. It is on the record. It must not be distorted.
  At the same time we condemn the Prime Minister for the mistakes which he has made in this matter. I think his initial mistake was totally to under-estimate the temper of the people in Rhodesia, when he said that sanctions would work in weeks, not months. I do not mention that merely to make a party point, but because it from the start not
  1658
  only undermined the confidence of other countries in us but also showed a total misunderstanding of the realities of power and development and sentiment in Rhodesia.
  Secondly, we thought that the Prime Minister made a great error—and we voted against the Government on this—in referring the matter to the United Nations and asking for mandatory sanctions. We said at the time that to do this would merely consolidate behind Mr. Smith opinion which otherwise might be of a more liberal and progressive character. Every bit of evidence since then has proved how right we were; every bit of evidence has proved that the effect of United Nations sanctions has been to consolidate, absolutely rocklike, behind Mr. Smith a variety of opinion which otherwise would have been quite different.
  Our third criticism of the Prime Minister is for embracing the principle of Nibmar. He embraced a principle which, he really must know—I think he has shown he does—if adhered to, would make any settlement totally unnegotiable. These are the three criticisms we make of the Prime Minister.
  But this dispute has become too much personalised. We must get away from this. I think that there are many people inside and outside this House who would say that it would be a tragedy if a settlement of this dispute were deferred while two rather insecure men bickered with each other at a distance apart of 5,000 miles. I believe that this is an opinion which is widely held. I say that because I believe it to be true and for no other reason.
  I turn now to the Amendment on which we shall vote this evening. There are three elements in it, and those who vote against it are voting against those three elements.
  The first condemns
  "all acts of violence and terrorism".
  I hope that the whole House condemns them, whether they be acts deplored by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, or whether they be committed by people who come across the frontiers with weapons in their hands and killing in their minds. Is there anyone here in this House who does not deplore those acts of violence and terrorism?
  Mr. John Lee rose—
  Hon. Members: Yes, go on. Get up.
  Mr. Lee: I do not deplore those acts at all.
  Mr. Faulds rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We have had an orderly debate so far. We do not want any acts of violence here.
  Mr. Faulds: The right hon. Gentleman asked the question, and presumably he wants an answer.
  Mr. Maudling: We know the views of the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) and we know now how many of his hon. Friends share them. But the bulk of hon. Members will condemn all acts of violence and terrorism—[Interruption.] The second part—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Faulds) must restrain himself.
  Mr. Maudling: This is a very grave matter. The second part of our Amendment
  "regrets the circumstances under which three Africans were executed".
  I regret, as I am sure we all do, the refusal of the appeal to the Privy Council. I regret, as I am sure we all do, that the Prerogative of Mercy was spurned. I also regret the circumstances in which those crimes were committed, because those facts must be borne in mind on both sides of the House. However, I am sure that no one on either side will disagree with our Amendment in regretting those circumstances.
  There remains only one point which could possibly divide the House this evening. It is our words where we call
  "on Her Majesty's Government to make a further attempt to achieve a negotiated settlement in order to discharge Britain's responsibility to peoples of all races in Rhodesia."
  I emphasise again that the only reason for voting against our Amendment could be because the Government do not intend to make any further attempt to achieve a negotiated settlement.
  Let us be clear on this. If the Government vote against our Amendment, they are voting against an attempt to make a
  1660
  negotiated settlement. It is there on the Order Paper, and it cannot be denied.
  What are the alternatives to another attempt at negotiation? First, there is force. Practically speaking, I think that that is rejected by everyone. Today, the Prime Minister rejected it, and in the past he has always said that he would not use force to achieve a constitutional settlement. Today, he has gone further and said that he would oppose the use of force by others. He is right in ruling out that alternative.
  The other possibility is that we throw in our hands, saying, "We cannot do anything. We have not the power or authority. We will abandon sanctions and let the thing go." That would be abandoning our responsibility. If we throw in our hand, all hope of further negotiations is lost. So I rule out that course as well. Then, perhaps, we could carry on, as the Government may intend, hoping that something will happen. That would be a tragedy, because there are explosive forces building up all the time. One sees accounts of armaments coming into Tanzania. One sees the dangers of the armed division across the Zambesi. Just to sit back and do nothing would be an abrogation of the responsibility of this Parliament and this country.
  There remain two other courses. First, to try tougher sanctions, which I suspect is what the Government may have in mind. I believe that this would be a disastrous failure. We have seen that sanctions have not achieved the objective of bringing a political change in Rhodesia. Nor will they. All the evidence shows that sanctions, even if intensified, would only bring a little more suffering—more to the Africans than the Europeans probably—and certainly would not bring about a political change in Rhodesia.
  The Prime Minister this afternoon made it absolutely clear that in his judgment—and in this connection I agree with him—to try to push sanctions to the point of destroying the economy of Rhodesia would merely embroil us with the whole of Southern Africa, and this, he rightly said, we cannot afford to, and will not, do. Therefore, it seems to me that any attempt to have total mandatory sanctions is bound to fail and will produce damage rather than progress.

  1661
  We are left with one course, which is further negotiations—[Interruption.]—I am trying—
  Mr. Faulds rose—
  Hon. Members: Sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is obviously not giving way. Mr. Maudling.
  Mr. Maudling: I am trying very briefly to analyse the alternatives on this essential point of negotiation. I have dealt with four other possibilities, which are before the House. We are saying in our Amendment that there should be further negotiation, and anyone who votes against it is voting against negotiation.
  What reasons can the Government give for voting against negotiation? There are two. First, they might say, "We cannot negotiate with Mr. Smith", and, secondly, they might say, "We cannot negotiate because there is no basis."
  Let us take the first one. Is this the Prime Minister's argument? Is he really saying that he cannot negotiate with Mr. Smith?
  The Prime Minister: What I said was that we cannot negotiate with any authorities or purported authorities in Rhodesia until they have broken with racialism.
  Mr. Maudling: That is not good enough. I ask the Prime Minister: can he or can he not negotiate with Mr. Smith? If he says—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]—if he says that he cannot negotiate with Mr. Smith he cannot negotiate at all, because there is no alternative.
  The Prime Minister: The position is exactly as it was at the time of the "Tiger" talks when Mr. Smith agreed to free himself of being a prisoner of the racialists. We are prepared to deal with anyone who is not a prisoner of the racialists. The right hon. Gentleman will remember that he and his party voted against the whole of that Resolution, including deploring the "Tiger" agreement and supporting the racialist régime for rejecting it.
  Mr. Maudling: But since the breakdown of the "Tiger" agreement, the Prime Minister has negotiated with Mr. Smith through the Commonwealth Secretary. Has he not? Is he unwilling to
  1662
  do it now? This is not good enough. It is clear that it is only with the régime that negotiation can take place, because there is no alternative, as the Prime Minister knows perfectly well. The only other argument is to say that no solution is possible. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) has demolished any possible Government argument along that line.
  The three outstanding points on the "Tiger" constitution are well known. The fundamental one is the existence of a genuine blocking mechanism, and my right hon. Friend's proposals which he conveyed to the Prime Minister, clearly provided a genuine blocking mechanism. The Prime Minister may not agree. This is a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of negotiation. The Prime Minister said this afternoon that these proposals were useful, that they represented a definite move forward by Mr. Smith. If that is so, why are they not a basis for negotiation? No one, least of all my right hon. Friend is saying that these represent the final answer. What we are saying is that they are a basis for negotiation, and only the most bigoted and irresponsible Prime Minister could resist the opportunity afforded by them.
  Let me sum up what we are voting for this evening, and what the Government will be voting against. We are condemning all acts of violence and terrorism. We regret the circumstances under which the Africans were executed. We are saying that the only point on which there is any possible disagreement between the two sides of the House is that we say that this is the time for negotiation. If the Government vote against this, they will be voting against negotiation, and for chaos.
  9.31 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. George Thomson): I should like to give a reasoned reply to the argument with which the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) ended his speech, namely, the substance of the Opposition Amendment, but before I come to that there is, I think, one initial comment that I should make on it.
  I was aware, though I regretted it, that the Opposition wanted to divide against the Government on the right course to

  1663
  follow at this stage of the Rhodesian rebellion, but I had hoped that they would have been able to put their views as an addendum to the original Early Day Motion which attracted 188 signatures from this side of the House and from the Liberal Party. I had hoped that the House might at least have joined in expressing its abhorrence of the illegal executions. I would have thought that that was the least the Opposition could do under the circumstances. Instead, they have moved to erase the expression of abhorrence and to replace it with a wishy-washy phrase quoted by the right hon. Gentleman
  "regrets the circumstances under which three Africans were executed …"
  That phrase could mean anything or nothing, and that presumably is exactly what it is supposed to mean. It is all things to all men, so that the right hon. Member for Barnet can go into the same Lobby as the hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell).
  I shall come to the main part of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, but he asked one direct question which I should like to answer. He asked whether I had sought the Governor's advice on the petitions for mercy. The position when the petitions were submitted was that I had already received an expression of the Governor's views on the desirability of the condemned men seeking the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. The Leader of the Opposition very correctly did not seek to get from me exactly what the Governor's views were. I think it is better that they should remain confidential. It is only that I wish to protect the Governor, not to shelter behind him. When the petitions were subsequently received, I was faced with the duty of deciding what advice to tender on them. I knew the Governor's views, and I hope the House will understand what I mean when I say that it was not necessary to seek them at that point of time, though I kept in continuous consultation with him throughout that weekend.
  The right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Mr. Turton) also asked a direct question which I should like to answer. He asked how there could be a Preroga
  1664
  tive which I could advise the Queen to exercise when the Prerogative had been expressly delegated to the Governor under section 49 of the 1961 Constitution. With respect, I have to tell the right hon. and learned Member that he is wrong about this. Section 49 of the 1961 Constitution is in exactly the same terms as corresponding provisions in other colonial constitutions. It has always been accepted as the law—and here I speak as a layman. It is so stated in Halsbury's Laws of England, and it was stated in the House by one of my distinguished predecessors, Mr. Creech Jones on 11th August, 1947, and it has never been disputed that this still needs a residual Prerogative in Her Majesty's hands to be exercised on the advice of the appropriate United Kingdom Minister—
  Mr. Ronald Bell rose—
  Mr. Thomson: I do not want to give way at this stage, with respect. Coming down to the—
  Mr. Bell rose—
  Mr. Thomson: No, I would rather not give way—HON. MEMBERS: Give way.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is obviously not giving way—[Interruption.]—Order. We must let the debate proceed.
  Mr. Thomson: This is a serious and grave debate. There have been three Front Bench speeches from the Opposition, although the last one was kept short, and I have a lot to say which I will seek to give to the House, if hon. Members will listen to it.
  What I want to make clear in the substance of this discussion is that it was not Her Majesty's Government who initiated the present crisis. We did not arrange for the appeals of the condemned men to be heard at the time that they were heard, or for the judgment to be given at the time that it was given or for the decision on the fate of the three men to be taken at the time that it was taken. In deciding that they would ignore the decision of the Privy Council, in dismissing the exercise of the Queen's Prerogative as a political act by the United Kingdom Government and in deciding that the men would hang in spite of it, it was

  1665
  the régime in Rhodesia, acting deliberately and only after careful thought, which did it.
  In his recent broadcast, Mr. Smith said that the support that the hanged men had received from certain Western countries "… has certainly come as a shock." Nothing better illustrates the isolation of the régime from the realities of the world in which they live, their ignorance of the major problems of the century and their insensitiveness to world opinion. Cut off though they are, Mr. Smith and his colleagues must still have known and calculated the effect of their actions on the prospect of a settlement with this country.
  It must be baffling to all those of good will in this country—they are on both sides of the House—who deeply and genuinely wish to see a just settlement, that the régime should have acted in this deliberate way at the very time that Mr. Smith had given to the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) the new proposals. I want to come to the speech of the right hon. Member and to draw a sharp distinction between his speech and that of the Leader of the Opposition.
  I would like to pay tribute to the disinterested way in which the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire dealt with his visit to Salisbury and to thank him for the offer which he made at the end of his speech of further help if the occasion arises. I therefore want to explain to him why I do not think that this opportunity is available to us in present circumstances—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] I feel bound to speculate whether men who have behaved in the way that I have just described the régime as behaving really want a settlement. Mr. Smith and his colleagues are full of professions to want an agreed settlement with Britain for their own internal reasons, but they keep forgetting it and behaving in a way which is wholly contradictory to those professions.
  It is striking that, in Mr. Smith's long apologia on Southern Rhodesian television at the weekend—his contribution, in a sense to this debate, as I think it was probably meant—he did not once refer to the visit to Salisbury of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire. Nor did he refer once to the
  1666
  proposals which he himself had given the right hon. Member to bring back here. I think that Mr. Smith's—[Interruption.]—I would have thought that, if these proposals were sincerely meant by Mr. Smith and were to have the weight attached to them that the Opposition are now, in difficult circumstances, seeking to attach to them, it would have been expected that Mr. Smith would at least have made some mention of them in what was a very long speech.
  I say this without gladness, because I am as deeply interested as the right hon. Gentleman and anybody else in the House to get a settlement. It would be the most glittering prize that any Commonwealth Secretary of this country could obtain. But Mr. Smith's significant silence is the best evidence that the optimism of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire and his hon. Friends about the possibility of a settlement does not have the foundations on which they seek to rest it.
  When the history of the Rhodesia dispute comes to be written, it will show that it has throughout been Her Majesty's Government—successive Governments of this country—who, refusing to abandon their principles, have made efforts to find a way out of the impasse, with a lack of corresponding effort on the Rhodesian side. I am bound to say that I deplore the character of the attacks made in this debate on the speech of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, because nobody in Britain has done more—[Interruption.]—more often—[Interruption.]—and has shown greater ingenuity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—in seeking a just settlement of the Rhodesia problem.
  We in this country have sympathised with the fears of the European minority as well as with the aspirations of the African majority, but all too many of the Europeans in Rhodesia have throughout taken a narrow and parochial view of their own problems. The aim of Her Majesty's Government has always been, and still is, to reach a just and honourable settlement—[HON. MEMBERS: "How?"]—which will, as far as possible, take accounts of the interests of all concerned.
  When I went to Salisbury last November I did so in a genuine attempt to see whether grounds for such a settlement existed. My task there, as I explained

  1667
  to the people I met, both in Rhodesia and the African countries surrounding it, was to find out whether there was some substantial and guaranteed change in the position which would justify us reviewing our policy with our Commonwealth partners. In other words, what was needed before we could hope to make progress was Mr. Smith's agreement to some sort of what I have called in the past "Tiger"-plus. As the House knows, what was put to me were proposals which were "Tiger"-minus on a substantial scale and in fundamental matters.
  With respect to the efforts of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire—and I paid tribute to his contribution—the proposals which he recently brought back from Salisbury, although they represented some change, were—and it is important that the House should register this—still definitely "Tiger"minus.
  The suggestion of the Opposition appears to be that time is short and that we should seize the opportunity of reaching a settlement with the illegal régime—however bad the terms and however inconsistent they may be with our principles and pledges—before they purport to buttress their so-called independence by proclaiming a republic. This is the line that Mr. Smith has been taking in his pronouncements. We should not fall into his trap.
  Of course, a purported declaration of a republic would complicate some of our problems, but there is nothing irrevocable about that. The régime is an illegal one and it would not become more legal by declaring it a republic. If they do so, the declaration will be invalid. Whatever may be thought in Rhodesia, it will not lead to international recognition of the régime or lessen Rhodesia's isolation.
  I turn to the action which we propose to take—as the right hon. Member for Barnet put it; the further strengthening of United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia. As the Prime Minister told the House, we are ready to explore, with other countries, the imposing of comprehensive mandatory sanctions on trade with Rhodesia. In deciding the best way to do this, what we shall do is apply the test of what is practical and effective
  1668
  in terms of increasing the pressures on the illegal régime. [Interruption.] I have always taken the view that sanctions which look attractive but prove impracticable and sanctions which sound attractive in speeches in this House and at the United Nations but prove ineffective in practice only help the illegal regime. I am, therefore, not interested in that sort of thing, particularly—and this point was well made by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party—since they reduce the credibility of the United Nations as an institution which we should have very much in mind.
  As I told the Commonwealth Sanctions Committee, no other country does more in the field of sanctions than the United Kingdom. I do not claim any special virtue for this. It is Britain's duty to do it. We have a special legal responsibility for the Rhodesian problem, but everyone else has the same moral responsibility as Britain to see that sanctions succeed. There is one simple way in which sanctions could be significantly improved. If the general membership of the United Nations were to apply sanctions and supervise the activities of some of their business firms as well as Britain does, the impact of sanctions would be substantially and significantly increased. On the other hand, so long as the anxiety of Commonwealth countries about sanctions-breaking exist, we seek practical ways to make them effective both for United Nations and for Commonwealth countries.
  The Opposition have strongly opposed the extension of sanctions during this debate. I wonder if they have considered that they are only getting themselves more into the posture of protecting Rhodesians from the consequences of the rebellion than protecting British interests. If they are not interested in the United Nations, are they interested in British interests? Britain already applies comprehensive sanctions. If the United Nations makes mandatory sanctions comprehensive, it will help to compel other countries to come up to Britain's level and impose a ban on their own direct exports to Rhodesia. [HON. MEMBERS: "Come off it."] I did not see the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) present during the whole debate. He is one of the hon. Members shouting "Come off it." I am not giving way. He is fond

  1669
  of asking me questions when I am drawing attention to the fact—
  Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: On a point of order. Has the right hon. Gentleman any right on earth to make a statement such as that when I have been present except for the two hours for dinner?
  Mr. Thomson: I hope that it was a good dinner. I want to—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We had better get back from Shipley to Rhodesia.
  Mr. Thomson: I wanted to make a comparatively harmless, and I thought even acceptable, remark to hon. Members opposite that since they complain to me a great deal that we have sacrificed our former export markets in Rhodesia to commercial competitors through sanctions, they might have given us some support when we are proposing arrangements which will remove this disadvantage to our exporters. I am not seeking to argue that comprehensive mandatory sanctions will produce a sudden economic pressure on the régime and will bring about an immediate change in attitudes. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are you doing?"] I will tell the House if hon. Members will be patient for a moment. I think mandatory sanctions will add in a real sense to the impact, and they will bring home to Rhodesia the determination of the international community to see this thing through. They will expose for anyone with eyes to see in Rhodesia that the régime is creating for its country a sterile and stagnant position of isolation.
  In that sense the comprehensive mandatory sanctions should add significantly to the psychological pressures in Rhodesia. As the Prime Minister said, Mr. Smith first prophesied that the illegal declaration of independence would be a nine days' wonder. The worthlessness of that boast by Mr. Smith—[Interruption.]—I wish that some people would show some sympathy for this country and a little less sympathy for—[Interruption.] The worthlessness of that boast was quickly exposed. Behind the curtain of his censorship he has been propagating—I saw evidence of this in Rhodesia—the idea that sanctions are a three-year wonder. In a few more months, so the regime's story goes, the world will grow
  1670
  weary of sanctions, Rhodesia's expansion will be restored, and its recognition will gradually follow. Comprehensive mandatory sanctions will destroy that piece of smug self-deception. They will show that, however long the path of rebellion may be, it leads not to prosperity and recognition but only to a sad and sorry cul-de-sac, an economic dead end.
  I think that everyone in the House, sometimes from conflicting points of view, shares deep emotions about what has been happening in Rhodesia over recent weeks and what has happened there over a number of years now. Many of us in the House feel strongly about the hangings which have taken place and those which, we must recognise, may lie ahead. I endorse absolutely what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire said—my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley) made the same point—that we must approach this from an overriding concern for what is best for all the peoples of Rhodesia as a whole. It is natural that, in such harrowing circumstances, there should be a passionate desire to do something quickly to end this tragic situation. There is the human feeling which we all share, that, because the Rhodesia problem is so intolerable, there must be some magic or immediate solution to it. But life is not like that, as we all know, both privately and publicly. We often have to put up with evil because we do not have the power to end it quickly. Equally, the fact that we cannot end an evil situation is no argument for acquiescence in it. This is really the point I make to the self-styled realists whom one finds in different quarters of the House.
  I shall tell the House plainly and, I am afraid, pretty bluntly what my own assessment of the situation is. It can be summed up in three words—no short cuts. First, there is no short cut inside Rhodesia itself. The European minority there must come to realise that it will never flourish securely so long as its attitude is exclusive. But we cannot, on the evidence of the last year or two, expect that this will be a short process. Equally, as was said by the Prime Minister and by the right hon. Member for Barnet, force is not a short cut to a solution either. I shall not go over the arguments, which, I think, are pretty generally

  1671
  accepted by an overwhelming majority in the House.
  To the handful in the House—I am sorry that the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) is among them—who now advocate surrender, I say that this is a short cut only to dishonour and disaster for Britain. Apart from its sheer immorality, it would have the most serious effects on our interests in many parts of the world. It would be the end of the Commonwealth. It would put in peril the livelihood of many in British communities in emergent nations, communities which are more numerous in total than the European minority in Rhodesia.
  The considerations which I have just outlined in relation to a policy of surrender apply in large degree also to the suggestion made in the Opposition Amendment, the suggestion that, despite the illegal hangings behind us and, perhaps, ahead of us, we should set off now to Salisbury to do a deal with those who are responsible for this situation. Both the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire and his right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet are former Secretaries of State in the Commonwealth and colonial fields. They must know the realities which the British Government face over these hangings. Indeed, in his earlier public statements at the time of the hangings, the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire appeared to recognise them.
  They must know that to seek to negotiate with the régime in a situation which the régime itself, and no one else, has created would do British influence and British interests immense damage throughout the world. Moreover, it would do this at the very moment when the Security Council was drafting its Resolution, wiping out overnight our influence at the United Nations not only on Rhodesia but on a wide range of issues.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker), whom we are all glad to see back in his place and who made a notable speech, was absolutely right when he said that the Conservative Amendment would tear the Commonwealth apart. I can only conclude sadly that the Opposition do not mind tonight if they divide the Com
  1672
  monwealth so long as they can unite the Conservatives.
  I was astonished and shocked by the Leader of the Opposition's speech this afternoon. It was a very different speech from those of his right hon. Friends the Members for Kinross and West Perthshire and Barnet. He said that he did not wish to get heated. It might have been better for him to get a little heated, because the trouble with the right hon. Gentleman is that he never gets heated about the right things. He gets heated about trivialities and misses the main issues. That is the only possible explanation—I am anxious to be charitable—for some of the strange assertions from him today.
  The right hon. Gentleman appeared to claim that the African population were largely on Mr. Smith's side in Rhodesia today. What on earth is the meaning of that kind of assertion in what is a police State? And who was one of the earliest to describe it as a police State, before many of the forms of repression which there are today? The right hon. Gentleman himself, in a much more responsible and notable speech than he made this afternoon.
  I am sorry to say this, but I think that today we heard from the Leader of the Opposition one of the most appeasement-minded speeches in the House since Munich. Fortunately for the good name of Britain throughout the world, the party opposite is not the Government today. I believe that after reflection the right hon. Gentleman will one day come to feel pretty ashamed of that speech. He argued that we should go ahead and negotiate now, in the situation which I have already described. He added that Britain was powerless, and that sanctions could not succeed. What is he seriously urging us to negotiate about? I listened carefully, and pretty miserably, to his speech. From this side of the House it sounded as though my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) was absolutely right and that the Leader of the Opposition and the party opposite, with their Amendment, are urging us to negotiate about surrender to Smith.
  Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman, for whom all of us have had a high degree of respect in the past, knows that

  1673
  he has grotesquely distorted everything I said.
  Mr. Thomson: I do not think that I am being unfair to the right hon. Gentleman. I do not enjoy saying what I am saying to him. I shall give one more example. The right hon. Gentleman this afternoon quoted certain comments with regard to judges. It is a pity, if he felt it necessary to quote one of the minority judgments—and that the most extreme judgment—in favour of the régime, that he did not also refer to the other minority judgment by Mr. Justice Fieldsend, who categorically refused to hold that the régime was a de facto Government. This was merely typical of a number of points in the speech which led me to make the remarks I have made.
  I conclude by returning to what the right hon. Member for Kinross and West
  Perthshire said. I accept that our aim tonight is to decide the best way to discharge our responsibility to all races in Rhodesia. The right hon. Gentleman explained—and I accept his sincerity in the matter—that he believes that it would be in the best interests of the 4 million Africans in Rhodesia to entrust them to Mr. Smith and his present colleagues. I believe that this would be widely and rightly regarded in this country and throughout the world as a betrayal of our obligations to those 4 million Africans. On this basis, which is the essential difference between the points of view of the two sides of the House, we shall be glad to go into the Lobby tonight.
  Question put, That the Amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 237, Noes 331.

  Division No. 101.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Hawkins, Paul

  Allason, Janes (Hemel Hempstead)

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Hay, John

  Astor, John

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Awdry, Daniel

  Dance, James

  Heseltine, Michael

  Baker, W. H. K.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Balniel, Lord

  Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)

  Hiley, Joseph

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)

  Hill, J. E. B.

  Batsford, Brian

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Beamish, Col, Sir Tufton

  Doughty, Charles

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Bell, Ronald

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Holland, Philip

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hordern, Peter

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. & Fhm)

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Hornby, Richard

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Eden, Sir John

  Howell, David (Guildford)

  Biffen, John

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Hunt, John

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Emery, Peter

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Eyre, Reginald

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Blaker, Peter

  Farr, John

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Boardman, Tom

  Fisher, Nigel

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Body, Richard

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Fortescue, Tim

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John

  Foster, Sir John

  Jopling, Michael

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

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

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Braine, Bernard

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Brewis, John

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt. -Col. Sir Walter

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Kimball, Marcus

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Kirk, Peter

  Bryan, Paul

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Kitson, Timothy

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N & M)

  Goodhart, Philip

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Buck, Antony (Colchester)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Lamboton, Viscount

  Burden, F. A.

  Gower, Raymond

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Campbell, Gordon

  Grant, Anthony

  Lane, David

  Carlisle, Mark

  Grant-Ferris, R.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Grieve, Percy

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

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

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Gurden, Harold

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

  Clark, Henry

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Cooke, Robert

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Loveys, W. H.

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Hamilton, Lord (Fermanagh)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Cordle, John

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  MacArthur, Ian

  Corfield, F. V.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Costain, A. P.

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

  McMaster, Stanley

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Sir Oliver

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)

  Crouch, David

  Hastings, Stephen

  Maddan, Martin

  Maginnis, John E.

  Percival, Ian

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Peyton, John

  Tapsell, Peter

  Marten, Neil

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

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

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Mawby, Ray

  Pounder, Ratton

  Teeling, Sir William

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Temple, John M.

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

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Tilney, John

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Pym, Francis

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Monro, Hector

  Ronton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Wall, Patrick

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Walters, Dennis

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Murton, Oscar

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Webster, David

  Neave, Airey

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Royle, Anthony

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Nott, John

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Scott, Nicholas

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Sharples, Richard

  Worsley, Marcus

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

  Wright, Esmond

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Silvester, Frederick

  Wylie, N. R.

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Younger, Hn. George

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Smith, John

  Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)

  Stainton, Keith

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Peel, John

  Stodart, Anthony

  Mr. R. W. Elliott and

  Mr. Jasper More.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Conlan, Bernard

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Albu, Austen

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Gardner, Tony

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Garrett, W. E.

  Alldritt, Walter

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Ginsburg, David

  Allen, Scholefield

  Cronin, John

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.

  Anderson, Donald

  Crosland, Rt, Hn. Anthony

  Gourlay, Harry

  Archer, Peter

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Gregory, Arnold

  Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Grey, Charles (Durham)

  Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

  Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Barnes, Michael

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Barnett, Joel

  Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J,

  Baxter, William

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Beaney, Alan

  Delargy, Hugh

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Bence, Cyril

  Dell, Edmund

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Dempsey, James

  Hamling, William

  Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)

  Dewar, Donald

  Hannan, William

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

  Harper, Joseph

  Binns, John

  Dickens, James

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Bishop, E. S.

  Dobson, Ray

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Blackburn, F,

  Doig, Peter

  Haseldine, Norman

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Driberg, Tom

  Hattersley, Roy

  Boardman, H. (Leigh)

  Dunn, James A.

  Hazell, Bert

  Booth, Albert

  Dunnett, Jack

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Boston, Terence

  Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Eadie, Alex

  Henig, Stanley

  Boyden, James

  Edelman, Maurice

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Hilton, W. S.

  Bradley, Tom

  Ellis, John

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  English, Michael

  Hooley, Frank

  Brooks, Edwin

  Ennals, David

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Ensor, David

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

  Evans, Gwynfor (C'marthen)

  Howie, W.

  Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)

  Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)

  Hoy, James

  Buchan, Norman

  Ewing, Mrs. Winifred

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Hughes, Emrys (Ayrshire, S.)

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Finch, Harold

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Hunter, Adam

  Cant, R. B.

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Hynd, John

  Carmichael, Neil

  Foley, Maurice

  Irvine, Sir Arthur

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Foot, Rt. Hn. Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)

  Chapman, Donald

  Ford, Ben

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Coe, Denis

  Fowler, Gerry

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Coleman, Donald

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Concannon, J. D.

  Freeson, Reginald

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

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Milne, Edward (Blyth)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

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

  Molloy, William

  Short, Rt. Hn. Edward(N 'c' tle-u-Tyne)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Moonman, Eric

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

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

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Judd, Frank

  Moyle, Roland

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Kelley, Richard

  Murray, Albert

  Slater, Joseph

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Neal, Harold

  Small, William

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

  Newens, Stan

  Snow, Julian

  Kerr, Russell (Feltham)

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

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Lawson, George

  Norwood, Christopher

  Steel, David (Roxburgh)

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Oakes, Gordon

  Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Ledger, Ron

  Ogden, Eric

  Stewart, Rt. Hn, Michael

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  O'Malley, Brian

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)

  Oram, Albert E.

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Lee, John (Reading)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Swain, Thomas

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Orme, Stanley

  Swingler, Stephen

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Symonds, J. B.

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)

  Taverne, Dick

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Owen, Will (Morpeth)

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Padley, Walter

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. George

  Lipton, Marcus

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Palmer, Arthur

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Luard, Evan

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Tinn, James

  Lubbock, Eric

  Park, Trevor

  Tomney, Frank

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Parkin, Ben (Paddington, N.)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

  Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)

  Varley, Eric G.

  McBride, Neil

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

  McCann, John

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  MacColl, James

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Pentland, Norman

  Wallace, George

  Macdonald, A. H.

  Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

  Watkins, David (Consett)

  Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

  Watkins, Tudor (Brecon & Radnor)

  McGuire, Michael

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.

  Weitzman, David

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)

  Wellbeloved, James

  Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ross&Crom'ty)

  Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Whitaker, Ben

  Mackie, John

  Probert, Arthur

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Mackintosh, John P.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Whitlock, William

  Maclennan, Robert

  Randall, Harry

  Wilkins, W. A.

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Rankin, John

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Rees, Merlyn

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)

  Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

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

  Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)

  Willis, Rt. Hn. George

  Manuel, Archie

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Mapp, Charles

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P 'c' as)

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Marks, Kenneth

  Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)

  Winnick, David

  Marquand, David

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Winstanley, Dr. M. P.

  Mason, Rt. Hn, Roy

  Roebuck, Roy

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Maxwell, Robert

  Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

  Woof, Robert

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Rose, Paul

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Yates, Victor

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Ryan, John

  Millan, Bruce

  Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Sheldon, Robert

  Mr. Charles R. Morris and

  Mr. Alan Fitch.

  Main Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House declares its abhorrence of the executions carried out in Rhodesia on 6th March, 1968, on the instructions of the illegal régime in defiance of the exercise of
  the Royal Prerogative of Mercy; condemns the action of the illegal régime in denying the reprieved men the right of appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; and condemns the executions as constituting a denial of justice and a grave breach of the rule of law.

  RHODESIA

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Ordered,
    That the Proceedings on the New Towns (Scotland) Bill [Lords] may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[The Prime Minister.]

  POLICE (TEESSIDE)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the Teesside (Amendment) Order 1968, dated 1st March, 1968, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th March, be approved.—[Mr. Skeffington.]
  10.18 p.m.
  Mr. Timothy Kitson: I want to say a few words of thanks to the Minister for changing the position which obtained six months ago. All of us in the North Riding and on Teesside are delighted that the amalgamation which was originally intended has not been proceeded with. I have received over a hundred constituency letters opposing the amalgamation which was originally proposed. When hon. Members on both sides met the Home Secretary and put the problems of the area to him, fortunately he took the point, and we are very grateful that the position has been changed.
  I want to ask only two questions. First, how many members of the North Riding police force and, secondly, how many members of the Durham police force are expected to be transferred to Teesside?
  I am sure that I speak on behalf of all my constituents and of people on Teesside and North Riding when I say that we are extremely grateful for the Government's changed attitude. In the words of one of my senior constituents, uttered after Members on both sides had been to see the Home Secretary and he had changed his mind, "Democracy still works in the House of Commons".
  10.20 p.m.
  Mr. James Tinn: I join the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. (Mr. Kitson) in welcoming the Order and thanking the Home Secretary for the changed decision. One can understand his reluctance, because it must have seemed to him that, by altering his original decision for the amalgamation of the
  1680
  Teesside police force with that of the North Riding, he was opening the floodgates for similar requests from other forces. However, this was neither an exercise in parochialism by the local authorities which strongly resisted the original proposed amalgamation, nor an exercise by Members on both sides of the House who strongly urged him to change his decision. It was an example of cooperation between back bench Members on both sides and of democracy in operation in that the Home Secretary saw the points of the argument and yielded to them.
  It is worth noting that the inquiry which the Home Secretary set up found that the Teesside police force would have been viable, and the original proposed amalgamation resulted from difficulties originating in Hull rather than on Teesside or in the North Riding.
  It would seem that the new force will get off to a fine start. Morale appears to be high. I expect that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to give a reassuring reply to the question of the hon. Member for Richmond on recruitment. All the signs are that this will be very satisfactory. All members of the old Middlesbrough force are staying on. There is a very satisfactory rate of transfer to the new authority from the affected areas in the North Riding.
  Perhaps the coming into being of the new Teesside authority on Monday next week is slightly marred for the police force by the unfortunate illness of the chief constable elect, whom we all hope to see swiftly back in his place.
  As the House sat late last night, I have tried to be brief, as I always try to be. I simply wish to join in with what I am sure will be a general welcome for the Order on Teesside and for the flexibility of Ministers which made it possible.
  10.24 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Bottomley: As the one who took the lead in getting going the talks which have led to the Order, I, too, should like to take the opportunity of thanking the then Home Secretary—now the Chancellor of the Exchequer—and the Under-Secretary of State who made the coming into being of this Order possible. But

  1681
  it was the present Home Secretary who had to take the decision, and for that the people of Teesside genuinely thank him.
  10.25 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Arthur Skeffington): I am sure that it is very gratifying to all those concerned that all these bouquets should have been thrown to the Ministries, and particularly to the Home Department, which are responsible for the substance of this Order. The Order itself refers to the fact that there is an alteration of areas, but in fact this is really only the consequence of the Order which the House passed on 10th March last year. The provisions about the police were deliberately left out then because at that time the Home Office was looking towards a rather larger compulsory amalgamation. But after representations were made by the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Kitson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Bottomley), my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Tinn) and others, second thoughts were had about this matter.
  There was an inquiry and eventually it was decided, on a quite voluntary basis, and with full agreement of everybody, that the proposals made by the police authorities of the North and East Ridings and of York for their voluntary amalgamation should go ahead and, very exceptionally, that the force should be retained for the new borough which is coming into elective effect in a few days' time.
  This has seemed very satisfactory and very welcome. I am very glad to have heard what has been said and shall pass it on to the Department concerned. I am here only because this in the normal way would have been dealt with by a separate Order or have been provided for in the original Order. This is really entirely a Home Office matter. I am sure the House will have observed that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department is present. Any points which may be made which are
  1682
  really matters for his Department will be dealt with by him. The points made by the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks., are matters for the Home Office.
  Mr. Graham Page: This is just the point on which I wished to intervene, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has taken from his hon. Friends the bouquets for this Order, but why has it been made by the Minister of Housing and Local Government rather than by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Police Act, 1964? It seems a rather peculiar way of doing it, and I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will explain to the House why it was chosen to do it this way.
  Mr. Skeffington: It is perfectly possible under general legislation to include provision for the transfer of police. This is done in areas which are being amalgamated voluntarily, but where a new authority is being set up it has to be subject to a special Order.
  I have the figures the hon. Gentleman for Richmond, Yorks., asked for about the numbers being transferred. I understand that, there will be about 350 transferred to the new authority from Middlesbrough, 175 from Durham, and 200 from the North Riding. These are approximate figures. I hope I shall not be tied down to great detail, but that is broadly the picture.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Teesside (Amendment) Order 1968, dated 1st March, 1968, a copy of which was laid before this House on 5th March, be approved.

  POLICE (TEESSIDE)

    NEW TOWNS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]
    Considered in Committee, reported without Amendment.
    Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

  PROCEDURE
  Motion made and Question proposed,
  That a Select Committee be appointed to consider whether any change is desirable in the number of the periods into which the sittings of the House are customarily divided within the Parliamentary Session, and in the times at which such periods should begin and end; and whether the financial year ought to be the same as the calendar year.—[Mr. Fitch.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  It being after Ten o'clock, and objection being taken to further proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS(SERVICES)
  Question, That the Committee do consist of seventeen Members, put and agreed to.—[Mr. Fitch.]
  Motion made and Question proposed,
  That Mr. Frank Hooley be added to the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services).—[Mr. Fitch.]
  Hon. Members: Object.
  It being after Ten o'clock, and objection being taken to further proceeding, the debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

  CHILDREN'S OFFICERS SCOTLAND
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]
  10.31 p.m.
  Mr. William Hannan: I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the problems of the recruitment and training of children's officers, particularly in Scotland. It is exactly 20 years since the then Labour Government, following the Clyde Report on Homeless Children, found time in 1948, in a busy legislative session, programme, to introduce one of their best Measures, the Children Act, which required local authorities to appoint a committee from their membership and also a chief officer.
  The responsibilities of those committees and their officers are extremely compre
  1684
  hensive. Among them are the duties to organise and manage the children's department itself, to investigate every application for any child to be received into the care of the local authority, particularly deprived children or those in need of care, to maintain each child until he is 18, to provide a substitute home, whether foster or otherwise, and to inspect those homes from time to time. They have also the duty to provide, maintain and administer residential establishments to suit the various needs and ages of the children, and to restore such children to their parents when the local authority and the parents themselves agree that this should be done.
  Recognising the need for an adequate number of skilled staff to discharge this wide variety of duties, I asked the Secretary of State for Scotland on 6th December last year what proposals he had for the recruiting and training of child care offiecrs. He said that recruitment was a matter for the local authorities primarily and that there were six courses at universities providing training for residential care and tive courses for training child care officers in the field.
  It is in the latter category of officers that I am more interested. The answer suggested that the existing situation was reasonably satisfactory, but, expressed as it was, that information was not factually correct, and created a very different impresison from the actual situation, as I have since discovered.
  My conclusion is that over all the years since 1950 until comparatively recently child care in Scotland has been generally under developed in staffing, in training, in case work and in the provision of accommodation for children. That is not to say that the kind of accommodation in which the children are at present housed is inadequate, or of a slum character or that they are not well looked after by local authorities. It casts no slur upon them, but it is not in accordance with the ideals pinpointed and set out in the 1948 Act. For example, it is quite common for an officer to have a case load of over 100 children in contrast with the case load of 50 recommended by the Morrison Committee. In such circumstances it is often a difficult choice for a children's officer to make whether to give the necessary time to a child with critical personal problems or

  1685
  to carry out the normal statutory visits to children with few or no immediate difficulties.
  Can my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland confirm that from all five courses for children's officers in the field the total output in 1967 was only 23, of whom 14 took up posts in Scottish local authority departments and voluntary organisations and the remaining nine left Scotland? It would be wrong to assume that the relatively few Scottish students from these courses constituted the total number. I understand that Edinburgh and Dundee accept a large proportion of English students. None of us would be critical of that, but I ask my hon. Friend how many English students have been at those universities at any convenient date. Is it the case that all five students produced in Edinburgh left Scotland for work elsewhere? I hope my hon. Friend will agree that that is not satisfactory. Is he considering proposals to attract and keep such students in Scotland?
  Not until 1960 or 1961 was the first course of this kind set up at a Scottish university. How many students have taken the general course at Aberdeen with child care as one of the options? The Scottish Advisory Council on Child Care Officers did not appoint its training committee until November, 1965, 15 years after the passing of the Act. If ever there were a justifiable case for using the phrase "Thirteen wasted years" under a certain Administration, it is this. There has been great neglect in this matter in a very important field which will become more important in future with the introduction of impending legislation. This will set a special example of progressive thinking for Great Britain and many countries in Europe. The universities and Moray House and Jordanhill Colleges lead to the award of the "Letter of Recognition of Central Council for Child Care", but it is surprising that that award comes from the Home Office in England. With the progressive outlook in Scotland, why cannot this or a similar award be made in Scotland?
  Apparently the authority which permits the establishment of this course leading to the Letter of Recognition is the Training Committee of the Central Advisory
  1686
  Council in Child Care, which is in London. Is there any Scottish representation on this body? If not, it means that the standards of qualification are left to be decided by a completely English body. Apart from urging the Minister to consider this matter, in view of the impending legislation, he may consider it valuable to have the Training Committee of the Scottish Advisory Council in Child Care to award its own qualifications.
  I am informed that the University of Strathclyde has met with some difficulty in starting a course, although no fewer than 10 graduate students had indicated their intention to take it. That number would have been more than that achieved by all the other training agencies in 1967. Without going into this matter in detail—if my hon. Friend does not have the information perhaps he will inquire into the matter and let me know—I trust that this complaint will be investigated.
  I regret that the tutor of the Jordon-hill Training College died last year. This created a problem at the college and the date of restarting the course was uncertain. The Scottish Education Department has not helped matters by being unclear in what has been said. Eventually a date towards the end of January was indicated for the restarting of the course. What is the latest position? The students were not advised of the position; nor have mature students at the college been advised whether they have passed their examinations. This must mean a lack of liaison between the local authorities and university tutors of schools of social studies, and no central planning for the division and management of the scarce practical work placements.
  Can more use be made of central institutions, as well as the universities and colleges? Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the universities are showing the necessary sense of urgency and have the spare capacity to train the necessary numbers? Or is it his view that there are too few students for the number of courses available? What establishment has the Department in mind for each category, for child officers in the field and for homes? Is it 60, as I have been informed, remembering that this figure must be set against a net increase of 14 trained last year? We should be told what the

  1687
  appropriate annual demand for field officers is likely to be.
  Recruitment is of great importance. What steps are being taken to advertise centrally? My hon. Friend will recognise that unless an adequate supply of able recruits is obtained, the new Bill on social work which is about to be considered in the House will be an impotent testimonial to our lack of preparation. Indeed, it will be a nonsense.
  It is more difficult to recruit qualified officers in Scotland because of the better salaries, lower case loads and better conditions—such as the provision of transport facilities—in England. This is partly the reason for the difference between the weekly administrative costs per child in Scotland and in England. For example, the figures are 15s. 4d. per child in Scotland and 35s. ld. in England, an extraordinary difference of 20s.
  The ratio of child care officers to children in care in England is more than twice that applying in Scotland. In Glasgow in particular and in Scotland in general—although experience varies from one local authority to another—the case load is 100 and more. Comparable figures are: in Birmingham, 25 to 30; Liverpool, 40 to 45; and Manchester, 30 to 45.
  Because of the lack of staff, many children must have remained in homes because of lack of effort or opportunity to find foster parents and they have been denied the right to close family life, sharing joys, sorrows, love and affection. The duty to return some of these children under the 1948 Act to their parents when opportunity presents itself may have passed them by. It is too often the case that far from planned placements taking place, with the needs of the individual child considered, the officer is only too glad to find a home at all with a bed.
  The salaries paid by local authorities in Scotland to these officers have never been such as to attract staff of the right quality. I understand that 12 local authorities employ part time or one single children's officer. I sometimes feel that a new definition of "neglect" or even of "deprivation" is needed. Formerly, this meant failure to provide adequate food, clothing and shelter. But children can be deprived of love, companionship, interest and the feeling of being wanted.
  1688
  I have no doubt that there are many potential delinquents and problem parents among these children. Many of them are illegitimate or from broken homes. To neglect or fail to do what we can to meet their emotional needs at this stage, or even to intensify them, will be gross folly, and society will continue to pay a heavy price in vagrancy, delinquency, vandalism and a continuing deterioration in the quality of life.
  10.47 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Millan): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important subject. In view of his eloquence at the close of his speech, it is not necessary for me to emphasise the great importance of the work children's officers and their staffs do in this very difficult and also potentially very rewarding field.
  I am conscious of the fact that local authorities in Scotland have considerable difficulties in recruiting adequate numbers of professionally trained staff for their children's departments. My hon. Friend has raised a large number of questions and I shall do my best to answer them. Perhaps I can begin by giving him some figures for the present establishment of child care field officers, which is the kind of staff which interests him most, as compared with the number in post.
  The establishment is 276 full-time child care workers and the number in post is 250. There are thus 26 full-time vacancies. But we know that establishments do not necessarily represent the real need. So long as there is shortage of staff available, there is a tendency for the local authorities, which know the difficulties of recruiting additional staff, not to bring their establishments up to what one would consider to be a desirable and realistic level. Therefore, these figures disguise an even more acute shortage of child care staff employed by local authorities. We have a considerable problem here.
  It is in that context that one must put the present arrangements for the training of these officers, the developments of the last few years and developments envisaged for the future. The first course for these officers in Scotland was established in 1960 and since then four more have been established. It so happens that, because of the death of one of the

  1689
  teachers at Jordanhill, which my hon. Friend mentioned, there has been a temporary suspension of the course there, but I am glad to be able to tell him that the college hopes to restart the course in the autumn of this year.
  Up to the present, the output from these courses has been very disappointing in terms of total numbers. However, I am glad to say that there now seems to be a real indication that the numbers are growing. The output in 1966 was only nine, but in 1967 it rose to 23. Once all the existing courses are fully in operation, which may take until about 1970, the annual output from them should increase to about 50. In addition, plans are well advanced for three additional courses, which should take in their first students at the beginning of the 1968–69 session, that is, a course at Glasgow University, a course at Robert Gordon's Institute of Technology in Aberdeen, and a course at the Moray House College of Education.
  Once these courses are fully operative, it is estimated that total output of students should rise by a further 25 to about 75 by 1971, which would be a considerable improvement on the present position.
  Achievement of that figure of 75 will call for a considerable effort, and we need to have a number something like that to provide an adequate supply to make up for present deficiencies and to give us the expanded service which we all want. One of the limiting factors is a shortage of placements in local authority children's departments and elsewhere for students undergoing practical training. This is where we need the good will and cooperation of the employers of child care staff. They must accept that, where they are fortunate enough to have trained and experienced staff who are suitable to act as supervisors of students, they should see that their staffing arrangements allow these staff time to do that work, notwithstanding the immediate needs of the service. Another important factor is that local authorities must be willing to second suitable staff for the training courses which are at present available and to appoint their own training officers to deal with in-service training and staff development.
  My hon. Friend mentioned one unfortunate feature of Scottish training arrangements, flat a number of the students
  1690
  are not themselves Scots. This is not in itself at all unfortunate, but the fact is that a number of Scottish students have taken up posts elsewhere than in Scotland. There is a two-way traffic here, and one must not underestimate the contribution, and particularly the potential contribution, which can be made by people coming from south of the Border to take up posts in Scotland. I hope that this movement will receive a considerable stimulus when the Social Work (Scotland) Bill now before the other place becomes law.
  Nevertheless, it has been true, unfortunately, that many students we have turned out in the past have taken up posts elsewhere. Of the 23 I mentioned as the output in 1967, 13 took up employment in Scotland and the other ten went elsewhere. Obviously, we are very anxious to improve upon this situation, but it can only be done, when the total supply is a good deal higher than it is at present, and when the children's departments themselves, then being more adequately staffed, are able to provide additional career opportunities which will make employment in Scotland more attractive than it is today.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) said that the ratio was one officer to 100 in Scotland, one officer to 25 in Birmingham and one to 35 in Manchester. If Scotland brings itself up to full establishment, will the proportion be pro rata to the English, or will there still be a discrepancy?
  Mr. Millan: It is difficult to make precise comparisons about case loads. It is generally recognised that case loads in Scotland taken as a whole are too high at present. But it is misleading to look at the average Scottish or English figure. One has to compare one local authority with another. I would rest on saying that it is true that in many parts of Scotland case loads are too high. My hon. Friend who, like me, represents a constituency in Glasgow, will know that the Glasgow position is particularly difficult. This is another illustration of the need for a considerable increase in the numbers and output of trained students, providing better placements for them and generally building up children's officers' departments in Scottish local authorities, which

  1691
  is what we are trying to do. There must be many parts of England where case loads are too high, and we want a general raising of the standards.
  My hon. Friend mentioned the fact that it is the Central Training Council, which is basically an English organisation, which provides the letter of recognition for students. Without going into detail, I ought just to say that the reason for this is largely historical, but I appreciate that as courses develop and we begin to increase the output of child care officers in Scotland, the present position will become increasingly anomalous. We are having discussions with the Home Office about the current arrangements. In dealing with this we must remember that the Social Work (Scotland) Bill by itself will make considerable changes in the background against which we must consider the training arrangements not only for child care officers, but for those in social work generally. Therefore, it would be unwise to make too hasty changes until we are a good deal clearer about the training position generally.
  That is even more true when one considers that there will almost certainly be changes south of the Border as well, particularly if any Government legislation follows the recommendations of the Report of the Seebohm Committee, which, I understand, although it is an English and not a Scottish matter, may be received some time this year. The whole subject of training will have to be considered again.
  One advantage of the present situation is that one has a qualification which is equally recognised in England and Scotland, and, whatever we may do in future, we shall want to see that there is reciprocal recognition, because to have demarcation lines on qualifications between one part of the United Kingdom and
  1692
  another would be a very unfortunate development.
  The important question is whether the present system is in any way frustrating the development of courses in Scotland, and I am able to say, despite what my hon. Friend said about the courses at Strathclyde University, that that is not my understanding and appreciation of the position. It has not done anything which has prevented the development of courses in Scotland, as the figures which I have quoted demonstrate. Our own relationships with the Central Training Council have been very happy.
  My hon. Friend also briefly mentioned courses for residential staff. I promise that I shall answer in detail any points which I have not yet had the chance of taking up with my hon. Friend, but I should like to say in conclusion that similarly there is a need not for just increasing the number of residential staff—because one hopes that the eventual development will be that residential accommodation will be less needed—but also to increase the numbers who are professionally trained. Courses for residential staff are being developed in Scotland and there are a number of new courses which we hope to start very soon.
  All in all, therefore, we recognise the extreme importance of the work. We recognise that it depends essentially on having adequate numbers of well-trained staff. There have been and still are deficiencies in Scotland, but the position has improved over the past few years, and the developments which we see at present should lead to a further improvement. We have a long way to go, but we have now made a sufficient improvement to give us a good starting point for the further improvements which we shall need over the next few years.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'clock.

ROADS
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  Social Work (Scotland) Bill
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WALES
  Rate Rebates, Newport
  Rate Rebates, Newport
  Improvement Grants, Newport
  Improvement Grants, Newport

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon

TELEPHONE SERVICE ON MANUAL EXCHANGES
2.35 p.m.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: 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 subscribers on manual telephone exchanges are no longer advised when there is no reply to a number called, and if so whether they will consider telling the public of this change in policy.]
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: No, my Lords. Subscribers on manual exchanges are still advised if the number called does not reply. There has however been a slight change of procedure. If a call is made to a number on which the caller can hear the ringing tone the operator does not now intervene until after about two minutes, when she tells the caller that there is no reply. If a call is one on which the caller cannot hear the ringing tone, the old procedure still stands and the operator intervenes at frequent intervals to tell the caller what is happening. All emergency calls are supervised throughout. My right honourable friend the Postmaster General does not think this slight change of procedure warrants any general publicity. He considers that callers generally are sufficiently familiar with the significance of the ringing tone. However, if the noble Lord knows of any particular difficulty my right honourable friend will be happy to look into it.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that reply, may I ask him one supplementary ques-
990
tion? Does the new procedure for calls with a ringing tone carry the risk that if the subscriber abandons his call before the operator advises him that there is no reply, he may be charged with that call?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, ineffective calls are not charged. If there were any doubt, the benefit would be given to the customer.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: My Lords, would the noble Lord consider advising the public of this by including a short slip with the next subscriber's account?
LORD HILTON OF UPTON: My Lords, that seems to be something new, and I am not sure whether my right honourable friend has considered it. It seems to me that it would not be very difficult to insert a slip in a telephone account, and I will certainly bring to my right honourable friend's attention the suggestion made by the noble Lord.

FUTURE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS
2.38 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: 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 they will give an undertaking that the wishes of the people of the Falkland Islands will be paramount in deciding whether or not sovereignty over the Islands should be transferred.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CHALFONT): My Lords, as the noble Lord may be aware, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made a Statement this morning in another place about the Anglo-Argentine talks on the Falkland Islands. In the course of that Statement he confirmed that Her Majesty's Government's object in conducting these talks was to secure a satisfactory and lasting modus vivendi between the Falkland Islands and Argentina, and that Her Majesty's Government have thought it right in pursuance of this objective that the question of sovereignty should be discussed in these talks.

991
Her Majesty's Government believe that a transfer of sovereignty could be considered only as part of an agreement which would secure a permanently satisfactory relationship between the Islands and Argentina, and one which would fully safeguard the special rights of the Islanders. That is one condition. The cession of sovereignty could be considered only as part of an agreement of this nature. While the power to decide over a transfer of sovereignty lies with Her Majesty's Government, they would agree to such a cession first on the condition I have mentioned, that it must be part of an agreement fully satisfactory in other respects, and, secondly, only if it were clear to us, to Her Majesty's Government, that the Islanders themselves regarded such an agreement as satisfactory to their interests.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that I imagine the answer to my Question is, Yes? If so, I cannot think why on earth the noble Lord did not say so before. He gave a number of very ambiguous answers ten days ago when we discussed this problem. If the answer is, Yes—as I take it to be from what he said—is he aware that we on this side think it a very good thing that we pursued the policy; otherwise, the answer might not have been so satisfactory?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I cannot accept the implication in the last few words of what the noble Lord has said. Neither can I be responsible for what he infers from my answer. My answer was not, Yes. My answer was delivered in clear, carefully chosen words to indicate what I mean and what Her Majesty's Government mean. Furthermore, may I say that while I regret that I was not able earlier to give the assurance and to make the Statement that I have made today in your Lordships' House, as the noble Lord will be aware this was the subject of confidential negotiations with another sovereign State. I am happy to be able to give the noble Lord the assurance that I have given him this afternoon.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, presumably the noble Lord was trying to answer my Question, and the answer is either Yes or No. Is the answer, Yes or No?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the fact that the noble Lord now puts the question in a simple form does not make it a simple question. This is a highly complicated Question and I am not prepared to answer Questions in your Lordships' House with a simple Yes or No. The Question has been asked. I have answered it in words that I have carefully chosen to convey my meaning. I hope that my meaning is clear.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what method will be adopted to ascertain the precise wishes of the Islanders in this matter?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, there is another Question on this specific point later this afternoon in your Lordships' House. Perhaps the noble Lord will allow me to answer it fully when that Question is put.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I refer to this Question? Is it not a fact that the coyness of the Government in this matter is leading to further suspicion? Would it not be better to make a really clear statement in clear terms?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I suggest that the statement I have made is in the clearest possible terms and is quite unequivocal. The words have been carefully chosen to be clear, and they are clear. I cannot believe that Her Majesty's Government should be required to answer every question put to them with a simple Yes or No. What I have said seems to me to indicate exactly what the policy of Her Majesty's Government is. I cannot believe that this will lead to any distress or suspicion anywhere. I hope that it has in fact cleared away suspicion.
LORD OAKSHOTT: My Lords, does the noble Lord recall that about ten days ago, in answering a Question on this subject, he said three times that the Government were following the principle of consultation and consent? Would the noble Lord tell the House, if "consent" does not mean the agreement of the people of the Falkland Islands, what on earth it does mean?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the principle of consultation and consent, which I endorsed in my previous Answer, was, as the noble Lord will know, a quotation from or a reference to a statement

993
made by our representative at the United Nations. I endorsed his sentiments and his statement then and I endorse them now; and if the noble Lord will study my Answer carefully he will see that there is no conflict between what I have said and what Lord Caradon said at the United Nations.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, the Minister used the phrase "permanently satisfactory". May I ask: permanently satisfactory to whom? And if the settlement is to be permanently satisfactory to the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, why were they not represented at these talks?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, to answer the last part of that supplementary question first, the representation of the Falkland Islanders at these talks is, of course, not relevant. Her Majesty's Government are responsible for the sovereignty of these Islands, and we are responsible for the negotiations with the Government of the Argentine following upon the United Nations resolution. I used the phrase "a permanently satisfactory relationship", and I went on to say that one of our conditions would be
"if it were clear to us, to Her Majesty's Government, that the Islanders themselves regarded such an agreement as satisfactory to their interests".
Of course, they would have to be satisfactory to us as well, and I think that answers the noble Lord's question.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I have just one more go, because I really am confused about what the noble Lord is saying? Would he not agree that the views of the Falkland Islanders are of the greatest importance in this matter? Would he therefore tell me and tell the House whether, if the Falkland Islanders do not wish for sovereignty to be transferred to the Argentine, it will or will not be transferred?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, let me agree first that we do regard the wishes of the Falkland Islanders in this matter as being extremely important, and indeed we regard their interests in this matter as paramount. All I can say in specific answer to the noble Lord's question is what I said before: that one of our conditions would be
"if it were clear to us, to Her Majesty's Government, that the Islanders themselves regarded
994
such an agreement as satisfactory to their interests".
I can think of no clearer English than that.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that Her Majesty's Government have clearly departed from Lord Caradon's pledge before the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1965, when the noble Lord said that the people of that territory "are not to be bartered"? Can he explain why Her Majesty's Government have changed in that respect?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think that if the noble Lord will study again what Lord Caradon said at the General Assembly in 1965—incidentally, he made another statement about this subject in 1967, which I think is more relevant, but let us go back to 1965—he will see that he said:
"There can be no question of negotiating the issue of sovereignty and signing away the whole destinies of people over their heads. The people of these territories are not to be betrayed or bartered".
My Lords, they will not be bartered and they will not be betrayed.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government a question which I have asked on previous occasions? Have not Her Majesty's Government gone against the experience of all the world hitherto, which has been that to admit a question on a matter of title is to weaken that title? And was that not practically admitted by the noble Lord himself on the previous occasion, in his remarks about "relinquishing a degree of sovereignty"?
LORD CHALFONT: No, my Lords. My remark about relinquishing a degree of sovereignty to international bodies was a remark designed to show what happens when nations join organisations like the United Nations and automatically thereby relinquish absolute sovereignty, in part, to that Organisation. It had nothing to do with the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. I dissent completely from the noble Lord's proposition that to discuss sovereignty with someone is to weaken one's claim or to give sovereignty away.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, is it not a fact that the Argentine has no legal claim whatsoever to these Islands? Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord

995
whether the United Nations has not in this matter flaunted its indifference to International Law, to the human rights of the inhabitants and to the provisions of the Charter?
LORD CHALFONT: No, my Lords, the United Nations has of course done no such thing. If the noble Lord will study the United Nations resolution he will see that all it did was to invite this Government to enter into discussions with the Government of the Argentine—an invitation which we accepted. There is no question of flouting human rights in this respect.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord on this matter? Did he not say in a supplementary answer that the wishes of the Islanders were exceedingly important and that the Government regarded their interests as being paramount? Does that mean that the Government are going to be the judge of what their interests are, despite their own wishes?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the legal question of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands resides with Her Majesty's Government. It will be for Her Majesty's Government to negotiate and arrive at decisions with the Argentine Government. We shall do so on the basis of the two principles I have already outlined, and I think the House will not want to be wearied by having them repeated again—because that is all I should do. But when we come to make agreement with the Government of the Argentine, when these decisions have been made they will of course be published and will be subject to debate in both Houses of Parliament, in the other place and in your Lordships' House. There is no question of bartering over the heads of anybody here. All I have said is that we regard the wishes of the Islanders as being of great importance; and, of course, we have studied those wishes constantly in the course of the negotiations. There is continuing consultation all the time with the Governor of the Falkland Islands about this matter; and, as I say, in all this we shall regard their interests as paramount.
LORD ROWLEY: My Lords—
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, I wish only to intervene. I think we have had a fair go at this Question—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No, no!
LORD SHEPHERD: I hoped that that would be the feeling of the House. There has been a fairly large number of supplementaries, and it is possible that we are entering into a debate. The House well knows that if it is wished to explore this matter further, there are other means by which it can be explored in depth. I would therefore suggest that we should move to the next Question. There is, after all, another Question later on the same subject.

CIVIL DEFENCE WAR READINESS
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: 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 what is their estimate of the time needed to restore Civil Defence to a state of readiness for war, if the decision to do so should be taken:

(a) Now;

(b) In three months' time;

(c) In six months' time;

(d) In a year's time.]

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the time required to restore Civil Defence to its present state of readiness would depend on many factors, including the urgency of the need and the climate of opinion then existing. Once the voluntary services have been disbanded, the recall of existing trained members, the reestablishment of their formations and the re-issue of equipment would take some weeks; and as time goes on, this period will lengthen. Other Civil Defence measures could be resumed more quickly. I do not think the period required would differ significantly within the time scale to which the Question relates.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for

997
his disconcerting Answer. May I ask whether he has consulted the chief civil defence officers in the counties as to what their opinions would be in relation to the Answer to my Question? If so, what is the consensus of their opinions? If they have not been asked, why not?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we have had a number of consultations with the local authority associations whose members are employers of the chief civil defence officers of the counties and we are fully aware of their views on this matter.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, does the noble Lord appreciate that many people would infer that the intention to disband the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service has been taken without due consideration of the risks involved?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, we have had full consideration of the risks involved in this decision. This is one of the most important matters which we shall be debating in a few minutes' time on the Motion to be moved by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, would not my noble friend agree that the local authority associations are dissatisfied with the position simply with respect to the financial provisions? Will not the Government reconsider the whole question of the relatively small amount of money required to keep some basic organisation going?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the disagreement with the local authorities' associations, so far as it exists, is on a comparatively narrow front in respect to the inadequacy of the sum of £1 million which it is proposed to find from Treasury funds for their continuing functions under Civil Defence. This is one of the matters which is still under consideration with them.

FUTURE OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS
2.54 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: 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 they will now hold, under independent supervision, a plebiscite for the people of the Falkland Isles by which they can make known their wishes in regard to remaining under British Government rule or that of the Argentine Government.]
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do not believe that it is necessary to hold any plebiscite at present in the Falkland Islands to make known the wishes of the population. We are inclined to think that the community is too small for it to be necessary to hold a plebiscite in order to ascertain the Islanders' views. As I have already said in another answer to-day, the power to decide on the future of the Falkland Islands belongs to Her Majesty's Government. We intend to exercise this power in full consultation with the Falkland Islanders but we see this consultation as a continuing process. However, it is too early at the moment to establish definitely the full details of this process in the future.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, arising out of that reply, may I take it that the noble Lord might answer Yes or No to this suggestion: that Her Majesty's Government are already satisfied that it is the overwhelming wish of the Falkland Islanders to remain British subjects?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord. "Yeses" and "Noes" are not going to be in great profusion this afternoon, I fear. This is not only a question of the Falkland Islanders' remaining British subjects but a question of the future pf the territory of the Falkland Islands, as well. There are two questions at issue here. We are fully aware, I think—and I believe the House will be fully aware—of the wishes of the Falkland Islanders in this matter. We have had a good

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opportunity to hear the views of some of the Islanders, and we have been in the closest consultation with the Governor. We are convinced that we are aware of what the Falkland Islanders want.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, accepting at once what the Minister has said, if Her Majesty's Government are already aware of the overwhelming feelings of the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands, may I ask how they reconcile the negotiations with the Argentine with Article 1, paragraph 2, of the United Nations Charter which is:
"To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples;"
Surely they should have shut down at once any talks with the Argentine—for we know the Argentine views—if they also wish to stand by that element in the Charter.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am sorry, but I cannot accept this doctrine. We must bear in mind that the population and resources of the Falkland Islands, for which we are responsible, are inadequate for anything like full independence and that the Falkland Islanders really cannot bear the final responsibility for deciding on the future of the territory which they inhabit. That is another matter. This responsibility belongs to Her Majesty's Government. We shall exercise that responsibility in full consultation with the Falkland Islanders.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, does not this mean that the wishes of the Falkland Islanders are going to be completely subordinated to what Her Majesty's Government think are their best interests. Is this democracy or—
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think it would be foolish of me to try to put any gloss on what I have already said, if what I have already said does not indicate that the wishes of the Falkland Islanders are going to play a large part—
A NOBLE LORD: Are paramount.
LORD CHALFONT: The interests of the Falkland Islanders are paramount. We shall take full account of their
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wishes in what we do with regard to the negotiations with the Government of the Argentine. Once again, may I say—and I hope that this will clear up any lingering doubts—that one of the two principles that we should bear in mind in these negotiations is that the cession of sovereignty will take place only after it is known to Her Majesty's Government that the people of the Falkland Islands themselves regard such an agreement as satisfactory to their interests. I believe that makes the matter quite clear.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that each successive answer he gives makes us on this side distrust him and the Government, and their motives, even more?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am sorry if that is so. I regret it very much indeed. I think I had better say that we are engaged at the moment in these negotiations with the Government of the Argentine. I sympathise very much with those noble Lords who have the interests of the Falkland Islands very much at heart. We ourselves have them very much at heart. I cannot believe that the answers I have given can possibly have increased any suspicion that noble Lords may have, for I have given the same answers every time—and I shall not be giving different ones, however long noble Lords on the other side keep on at me. The fact is that I have said that we shall not cede sovereignty unless we are satisfied that the Islanders themselves regard the agreement in which sovereignty would be ceded as satisfactory to their interests. I cannot believe that noble Lords would expect me, or would want me, to go any further.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, may I ask one question? If it is indeed true, as the noble Lord has said, that the wishes of the Islanders are to be paramount, what is the purpose of the negotiations with the Argentine Government?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, with all possible respect the Question that is on the Order Paper is about a plebiscite. If I may suggest so very humbly to the noble Marquess, we seem to be going back to the first Question. I fully recognise the feelings, the strong feelings in the House. But we have been at this for some time and we have a long debate

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to follow. If we could consider very carefully what my noble friend has said, if his words were studied, I think that a different point of view might be taken on the other side. If, having done that, noble Lords opposite wished to have a debate, perhaps we could consult through the usual channels. I am sure that we could so arrange it.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, may I ask one question about the plebiscite? Is it not the fact that the Argentine Government are against the holding of a plebiscite in the Falkland Islands? Is not that the reason, rather than the small number of the Islanders, why Her Majesty's Government will not consider such a plebiscite?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, the reasons that I have stated why we do not consider it necessary to hold a plebiscite are the real reasons. What views are held by the Argentine Government, and what views they have expressed in their discussions with us, must remain, so far as I am concerned, confidential. The reasons I have given are the real reasons.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I ask a question, for clarification? The noble Lord said that it was for Her Majesty's Government to decide whether or not they transferred sovereignty. My question to him is this: does he say they can do this without the consent of the British Parliament?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No.
LORD CHALFONT: No, my Lords; of course I said no such thing, and I would never say any such thing.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, if Her Majesty's Government agreed to the procedure of holding a plebiscite in the case of Gibraltar, with such emphatic results—I ask this question merely for information—why are they not agreed on following a parallel procedure in the case of the Falkland Islands?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I have not said that they are opposed to this; all I have said is that it is too early to decide on the exact processes of consultation.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I accept the suggestion of the noble Lord that we should not pursue this matter at an undue length now, provided there is to be a debate upon this subject in the reasonably near future. But I should like to ask one important interim question. As the Minister of State is constitutionally incorrect in saying that the Government cannot cede sovereignty without the approval of Parliament—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
LORD MOLSON: Wait a minute! Since he is incorrect on a constitutional point in making that statement, can we have an assurance that the Government will not themselves enter into any agreement with the Argentine which would have that effect before a debate has taken place on the subject in this House?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I have already made that quite clear. I should not dream of entering into a discussion with the noble Lord on constitutional law, but the answer to the question was meant to indicate something that I indicated earlier: that when the negotiations with the Argentine have reached the stage of agreement with them, that agreement will be published, and will be subject to debate by Parliament.
LORD VIVIAN: My Lords, may I, finally, ask the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, whether he was able to view the B.B.C. 1 programme "24 Hours" on Monday last?
LORD BOWLES: Why should he? He is very busy.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I fear the answer is, No. This may indicate some awful dereliction of duty on my part, but I was in fact elsewhere at the time.
LORD VIVIAN: My Lords, may I ask if I may hand—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Order!
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords I appeal to the House and to the noble Lord, Lord Vivian. This is Question Time. If he wishes to give my noble friend a piece of paper, there are other places and other means by which he may do so. My Lords, I would suggest that we ought now to proceed to other business.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES COMMITTEE
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Lord Shepherd be appointed a member of the Committee.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CIVIL DEFENCE POLICY
3.3 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE EARL JELLICOE rose to call attention to the damaging effects of Her Majesty's Government's policy towards Civil Defence; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, your Lordships last debated this question a bare 12 months ago, and important though Civil Defence may be, it is perhaps not one of your Lordships' favourite perennials. I am very conscious that there are a number of speakers who wish to take part in the debate and who have a more intimate and detailed knowledge of Civil Defence than I. There is the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, who initiated your Lordships' debate with a highly informed speech last year. There is the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield who has made very distinguished contributions over a long time on the subject of Civil Defence. There is the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, who, as all your Lordships will agree, has made a unique contribution in this field. There is the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who in his forty months at the Home Office has very clearly given a great deal of thought and attention and dedication to this subject. Perhaps the noble Lord may feel that some of the things I may say in opening this debate are aimed at him. If so, I can assure him that he is mistaken in my target. Such darts as I may throw are aimed not at the noble Lord opposite but at his Government. Then, my Lords, there is my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor who will be winding up the debate from this side of the House. Over many years in Government he has paid very close attention to this matter, and his responsibilities
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have brought him very close to it. May I add how glad I am that my noble friend Lord Long is making his maiden speech to-day on this subject.
My Lords, I make no apology for initiating this debate to-day. At the very least the Government owe us a full explanation of what lies behind their sudden change of front on this matter of Civil Defence—a far fuller explanation than the nation has yet received. I was worried about some of the decisions and some of the implications of those decisions which the Government took last year. I was worried about the cuts in the Civil Defence Corps. They seemed to me gravely to impair the value of the Corps as an essential link in the chain of emergency communications between Government and people. I was concerned, too—and I think this concern ran through much of your Lordships' debate last year—about the overall cuts in the Civil Defence budget. They seemed to me to come very close to the bone of credibility. Nevertheless, I think there were discernible in our national Civil Defence policy—model late 1966—certain strands of policy common to most of us, to both Government and Opposition.
I think most of us would agree that, of the advanced industrial nations, this country is perhaps uniquely open to nuclear attack and uniquely vulnerable to its effects. Yet most of us, I believe, accepted the view of the then Home Secretary that although we could not contemplate a nuclear attack without the most horrific consequences, it was nevertheless right for us to maintain a Civil Defence organisation on at least the scale then envisaged, and that it would be quite wrong for any Government not to do so.
Last year the Government talked of our Civil Defence preparations as constituting a fairly small insurance premium, and rightly so, my Lords, in my view. The premium which they were then prepared to pay, or to ask us to pay, was a good deal lower than that on which we had insisted in the early 1960s. But I should be the first to grant that this is an exceedingly difficult area of judgment. It is no easy matter to decide whether the premium should cost, say, £30 million a year, or £25 million or £20 million. In any event, a few brief months ago the Government were to all appearances

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firmly committed to the view that we needed, as an insurance against the almost unthinkable, to maintain in being, trained and ready for quick activation, a structure of emergency controls—a decentralised "Shadow" Government if you will—straight from the regions, down through the sub-regions, and thence via the local authorities to the smaller sector and control posts. All this, my Lords, backed and in large part manned by a still substantial Civil Defence Corps.
One could legitimately argue whether the Government had got their sums right here. But on the need for a skeleton of emergency government and administration, backed by a substantial and trained voluntary reserve, most of us I think were agreed. I would put it somewhat higher. I would claim that in the event of, and in the aftermath of, the almost unthinkable, a nuclear attack upon these islands, our very survival as a nation, the ability of our society, desolated and diminished though it might be, to pull itself up from the bottomless pit of nuclear horror and to recreate in these islands a society in some recognised civilised form would in the last resort turn upon the prior existence of some structure of decentralised emergency administration, practised in peace time, adequately manned, reasonably, not lavishly, equipped and ready to be activated at the drop of a hat. I do not wish to minimise by one iota the horror which would follow a nuclear attack. It is almost unthinkable, and so are the casualties. Nevertheless, human life in these Islands, almost certainly in substantial numbers, would survive that attack; but without prior planning, without the prior laying down of some basis of emergency government, that human life would almost certainly be lived out in terms of stark barbarism.
I have initiated this debate because I believe that the new emasculated policy of Civil Defence announced by the Prime Minister on January 16 threatens to shatter this structure, possibly beyond repair. Last year it was trimmed to a dangerous degree. It is difficult to see how it can survive this year's amputations, given the reduction of our preparations to a care and maintenance basis, given the cut of nearly 90 per cent. proposed in local authority expenditure and
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given the proposed extinction of the three voluntary forces on which so much has hinged, the T. & A.V.R. III, the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Civil Defence Corps.
I must confess that I was unprepared and taken aback by these proposed amputations. Perhaps that was a little innocent of me; perhaps I and others should have been forewarned. Because for anyone who has followed the continuing downward spiral of the Government's defence policies, the pattern is only too ominously familiar. First, soon after their assumption of power, the announcement that our home defence policies were to be subjected to searching review. Then months of silence, suspicion and uncertainty. Then, in February two years ago, a semi-progress report and a pause for further consultation and further uncertainty. Then, at the end of that year, 1966, the unveiling, with all due ceremony, of the new home defence policy, the policy which was debated in your Lordships' House twelve months ago.
In that debate we were given the most careful and explicit assurances about the Government's attachment to a Civil Defence policy which would be both viable and credible. We were told that the new policy was the outcome of searching scientific assessment and we were given an implied assurance of stability. This was the home defence review to end all home defence reviews—at least until 1970. That is what we were told. What is more important, that is what all those in this country who are concerned with Civil Defence, professionals and amateurs alike, were told. The Civil Defence Corps, for example, could have read in last year's Defence White Paper that
"the new role of the Corps will be of great importance—"
and that
"there will be a continuing need—
mark the adjective!—
"to attract people of high quality with qualities of leadership."
I remember that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh was a little anxious about some of those assurances, especially as they might affect the county of Devon. Nevertheless, the noble Lord,

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Lord Hughes, winding up for the Government was quick to assure him, and I quote the noble Lord's words:
"… with the zeal which the Devon authority have for civil defence, they will find that in a year or two from now the worst of their fears were groundless, even some of their minor fears were groundless, and that they will be given the opportunity of creating or maintaining as good an organisation as they ever had in the past."
I wonder what that authority thinks now. We were told, too, this time by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that in the event of a nuclear attack the police could count upon the "invaluable" support of the 23,000 men in the T. & A.V.R.III. We were told that we should have their support,
"which would be so badly needed for the maintenance of law and order."
Perhaps we should have been forewarned. With the benefit of hindsight, and accustomed as we are now becoming to this Government's vocabulary, we realise that those words amounted to a sentence of death. In any event they were pronounced and, within ten months, without consultation—again a rather familiar pattern—and without a word of appreciation, the three voluntary organisations, the Corps, the Auxiliary Firemen and the Territorials, were told that they were to be snuffed out. Only the Royal Observer Corps, beneath the umbrella of the Ministry of Defence, and the W.R.V.S., behind the sure shield of Swanborough, are to survive.
Given these assurances which were extended to us, and I recognise that they were extended in good faith, only a year ago, we are surely entitled to ask the Government how they justify their total volte face. What justification do they advance? There is, of course, the argument from economy. I appreciate, as we all must these days, the force of it. Even after the slimming diet of 1966, there may still have been a pound or two of excess flesh here and there to be worked off the body of our Civil Defence forces. But Mr. Callaghan's contribution to the general misery, as he has termed it, of not more than £7 million a year, can hardly be represented as a very meaty offering to his successor in No. 11. And, truth be told, the Government have not themselves
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leaned particularly heavily on the purely economic argument.
Their main claim, their main justification, as I have understood it, for these cuts, would seem to be that the likelihood of nuclear war has been so materially reduced that we can now afford to run down our Civil Defence preparations. That, at least, was the burden of Mr. Callaghan's case in the debate on this subject in another place last month. Now I would agree that tension between East and West in Europe may have diminished. I would agree that a nuclear nonproliferation treaty may be concluded, albeit with some significant absentees. But do the Government really claim that the change in the international climate between March, 1967, and March, 1968, is so great that it can justify our putting our Civil Defence preparations more or less on ice? Are they really prepared to take out so small an insurance against nuclear war through miscalculation or mischance?
I find the Government's claim here very hard to accept. Looking back some thirty years, when I was thirty years younger, I recall something of what I felt then. I should have thought it quite unthinkable then, in 1938, that within a few years one would have witnessed Belsen and Buchenwald, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty or no nuclear non-proliferation treaty, I myself prefer to base our Civil Defence preparations on the sombre words which President Kennedy spoke to the United Nations General Assembly in September, 1961. The late President then stated:
"Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear Sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, miscalculation or madness."
My Lords, whatever Mr. Callaghan may now say, the world in which we live is not "simple, safe and reassuring". In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, in our defence debate only a few weeks ago, it is "complicated, dangerous and frightening". It is not a world in which the Government are entitled to gamble with our Civil Defence preparations. All in all, I cannot escape the conclusion that the real reason for the dismantling of our preparations is really purely financial, and that this justification of diminished

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tension has been "cooked up" afterwards.
The question remains as to whether the preparations based on the new policy are, to use Lord Stonham's twin criteria, viable and credible. I must confess to the greatest possible doubts on this score. Because we have a long list of speakers, I shall only outline some of my major reservations. I am glad that the Government have decided to retain the warning and monitoring organisation, and with it the Royal Observer Corps. However, I understand—I may be wrong about this—that the Corps, with its vital network of monitoring posts, is being reduced. Can the noble Lord explain to us the rationale behind this proposed reduction?
I am greatly disturbed about the essential control structure which will remain after the new amputations. To function effectively this structure, this skeleton machinery of government, depends upon three absolutely vital elements: really good communications, good training and a good reserve of voluntary manpower. As I see it, all three of those essentials—there are others—will be missing. I have been puzzled, ever since the reorganisation of the Army Reserve Forces, as to how the signal squadrons, on which the higher echelons in the Civil Defence network so much depended, could be replaced, given the disappearance of the Territorial signal squadrons. Now, with the demise of the Corps and its network of communications, I am even more puzzled how good communications throughout the control machinery can be properly maintained.
As for training, the doctrine, as I understood it, hitherto was that the whole machinery would need to react at short notice. To be able to do so, quite clearly demands a high standard of training. But now the Staff College at Sunningdale is to be closed, and I very much regret this. Now the Civil Defence directors within the regions are, I gather, to be withdrawn—and from what I saw of their work in my short period at the Home Office I should have thought that they were quite essential spurs to preparations within the regions. Moreover, given the proposed allocations of cash to the local authorities in the future, I cannot see how they can be possibly expected to train their people properly. For example, in one region
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quite close to here there are eight major local authorities, counties and county boroughs. In the future, as things stand at present, only two of those major local authorities will be able to afford or e full-time civil defence officer. The more we run down the voluntary forces, the more we need to depend on professional full-time emergency planning; and I do not see how this can possibly be done by part-timers.
Finally, on the good reserve of voluntary manpower, in Civil Defence Circular No. 1, issued only 14 months ago, we read that:
"the principal task of the Corps will be o help to provide an official control system."
It was quite clear from reading, that circular how much the Corps was needed. It was quite unclear how an efficient control system could operate without it. It is equally unclear to me how the police forces could, in an emergency, do without the help which T. & A.V.R. III could have given. This force was described, as I have sad, by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, only a year ago as invaluable. Those of your Lordships who know your chief constable will know how much the police force were counting on it in an emergency. But now, unless it can be preserved, or some part of it, at the eleventh hour as a result of the noble Duke's efforts, it too will vanish.
The noble Lord may reply that I have missed the point in all this, in that the new policy is based on the new theory that we shall have plenty of warning. According to the Government's new theory, an international crisis will not blow up out of a clear sky: it will come upon us slowly and at our convenience; we shall, conveniently, have plenty of time to react and, if necessary, to reactivate our Civil Defence operations. Frankly, I find this a puzzling and disputable doctrine. The Cuban crisis would seem to point the other way. That came cut of a clear international sky. In any event, this doctrine is totally incompatible with what the Government were telling only four months ago. I have in my hand Civil Defence Industrial Bulletin No. 4, issued in September, 1967. In that one reads:
"All these plans have been prepared on the thinking that there may be only a very short time in which to take final precautions, so that a high degree of readiness is essential."

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Have the Government, in fact, gone back on that doctrine; and, if so, what was that searching review, what were all those scientific assessments, about?
However, accepting for the sake of argument this disputable doctrine, I would ask: do the Government really think that once they have stood down the Civil Defence they can stand it up again? Let us assume that a crisis blows up gradually. Do the Government really think that they will have the will to put everything back into reverse and to reactivate the whole machine? Is it not rather more likely that they at least would shrink from such action, since it might cause, or be held to cause, alarm and despondency, and might indeed be held to be provocative? And even assuming that they decided to bring our preparations up to a reasonable pitch of efficiency, how long would this take them? We had, I thought, a rather careful Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, on this point to a Question earlier this afternoon. I would only remind your Lordships that when Civil Defence was reactivated in, I think, 1948 it took some three years to establish the Civil Defence Corps—and that at a time when A.R.P. had been wound up for only three years. For all these reasons, even accepting the Government's assumptions—which I do not—I cannot grant them that their proposed preparations are either viable or credible.
My Lords, in my Motion I refer to the damaging effects of the Government's new policy. I have sought to demonstrate why I hold this new policy to be without justification, and why I hold this new structure of Civil Defence to be neither credible nor viable. In short, should nuclear war, the unthinkable, come upon us, I believe that this new semi-policy means that the balance for this country would be tilted against a survival of our society in any recognisable form.
I hold, also, that this new policy involves dangers for our peace-time society. The Civil Defence movement in this country has depended to an enormous extent on the volunteers who have been caught up within it. These volunteers, both men and women, have been prepared to give a great deal of time to Civil Defence; to duties which, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, well knows, are
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often pretty humdrum, often discharged in rather squalid conditions, and often with very little encouragement from their neighbours or from Governments. There will, of course, still be a place in the Civil Defence field for some volunteers and some voluntary organisations. At the same time, many thousands of volunteers, both men and women, have been cruelly disabused. Given what they were told only a year ago by the Government, I think it is fair to say that they have been led up the garden path and then abandoned.
The volunteer can give so much, my Lords, to our society—above all, enthusiasm, variety and experimentation: and these qualities, I would hold, have never been more important in our society than they are to-day. But the volunteer and the voluntary spirit both need nurturing, and I very much fear that the Government, in their handling of the Civil Defence movement, may have broken a spring of voluntary effort which may be difficult to repair, and the repercussions of which may extend outside the sphere of civil defence. I find this particularly sad since, with a little more thought, a little more imagination, a little more cash, and perhaps a little more willingness to tap the springs of voluntary effort, the Government might have created out of the movement which they are disbanding a new Civil Defence organisation geared mainly to peace-time emergencies. When I was at the Home Office I was enormously impressed by the desire of the Civil Defence Corps progressively to enter this sort of field. We all know how much Civil Defence volunteers have done in emergencies, natural disasters, in this country and abroad.
I believe myself a scheme could have been worked out, and could still be worked out, to meet this desire for voluntary service. I am not incapable of elaborating it in detail, although perhaps until we know the fate of the T. & A.V.R. III it would be unwise to try to do so. I strongly hold that a new national voluntary organisation of this sort, with a modicum of Government support, would have a great appeal, and perhaps, my Lords, a very special appeal to young people, especially if it could contain some Ever-Ready element—sections available at short notice for deployment to cope with foreign emergencies. Hardly a month goes by when we

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do not read of some great national disaster overseas. I think it would be a good thing for this country, and it would meet a desire for service from many young people of both sexes if, when such a disaster occurred, we were able to offer immediate assistance from teams of well-trained and equipped young people. I hope the Government will look at this possibility. I hope that they will give it serious, immediate and high-level attention. With good will, they might be able to salvage something from the wreck which they are making of the organisation which they are now proposing to disband. I beg to move for Papers.
3.32 p.m.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, I must start, I think, by declaring an interest. Of a kind. During the war I was a Regional Commissioner and, more recently, after the death of Lord Waverley, who, among his manifold public services, had from 1924 onwards played such an important part in ensuring that this country had a capable Civil Defence organisation, I succeeded him as President of the Civil Defence Officers' Association, a position which I still hold. Your Lordships must discount anything I shall say to the extent that you think I am prejudiced by these associations. My prejudice—and I am prejudiced—is, I confess, a very much more personal one, and perhaps a prejudice which some of your Lordships may share. I admit to being wholly prejudiced against being left totally unprotected against the risk of an attack which may cost me my life.
When, two or three weeks ago, we discussed the curtailment of expenditure on the police forces, the noble Lord who is going to reply for the Government in a few minutes' time, quite rightly and fairly made some play with the fact that I had conceded that heavy reductions had to be made in public expenditure at this time, and we, all of us no doubt, had some pet activity or service of our own which we should want to protect from the cold winds of economy. I do not resile for one moment from that proposition. I said then, and I still think now, that the cuts which were made in January were totally inadequate to their purpose. Indeed, for the most part, and in totality, they were not cuts at all, but mere reductions in a massive increase in public
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expenditure which was contemplated and planned for by the Government. So, I am entirely in agreement with the noble Lord that heavy cuts ought to and must be made in public expenditure.
Where I join issue with the noble Lord, is in this curious theory that every Department of State must contribute to these cuts. Is this not very great nonsense? This is not a kind of whip-round. This is not a sort of "Harold's benefit" in which every activity of State, no matter how vital, has to put something into the hat in order to compensate for the calamities into which we have been led. Any fool can make a cut across the board. It requires wise and responsible government to assess what are the vital needs of the nation, and then to put them in the correct order of priority. I suggest that in this matter the Government have signally failed. If the noble Lord were to challenge me—and I am sure he will not—I could at once give him a list of cuts which would save up to a hundredfold this miserable economy on Civil Defence, and save it, I think, with much more social and economic advantage to the State.
If we were considering now the mere reduction of what the noble Earl described as an insurance premium—I do not myself like this analogy—but if we were considering the mere reduction of an insurance premium in respect of a service which was still to be maintained, I would entirely agree that, heavy as the cuts were a year ago, substantial savings could still be made in the administration of Civil Defence. Certainly, if the Home Department had been exercising a more jealous and vigilant scrutiny, costs could have been greatly reduced. But we are not considering that at all. What we are considering at this time is not some saving on a service which is going to be retained, but the complete dismemberment of a service—a defence service—which had hitherto been thought vital to the survival of this country.
It is quite true, as the noble Earl has said, that some premises and equipment—not most, but some—are to be retained on a care and maintenance basis, but only those, as I understand it, which cannot be disposed of. Already, a working party has been set up to dispose of that which can be disposed of, and no doubt, as has happened on previous

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occasions, the vehicles and the rest of it that can be sold will be sold at break-up prices.
Will the noble Lord when he comes to reply, tell us precisely what is to be retained on a care and maintenance basis? It is true, as the noble Earl has said, that the warning and monitoring organisation and the Observer Corps are to be kept, and no doubt the telephone instruments and wires of the control system are not going to be violently torn out. But the skilled operators who maintain the main and local controls will be lacking. All the Regional Directors of Civil Defence, all their staffs, are being sacked. The Home Office will be left in a position of having to communicate direct with something over 180 local authorities who have direct responsibilities in Civil Defence matters. But, on the other hand, the Civil Defence Department at Horseferry Road is being broken up.
Will the noble Lord tell us, when he comes to reply, how the whole system of regional government in an emergency, the whole co-ordination of our home defences, our civil defences, are to operate if at an early stage of an attack—as might unfortunately happen—whatever Department remains the Home Office itself is rendered hors de combat, and the regional officers are not in post? The equipment of the control system will, no doubt, be there, but in fact there will be nobody left to control. When the Observer Corps give their warning of imminent attack, or fall-out conditions, there will be no one to give it to, no one to help, to guide, to instruct, to discipline the uninstructed and, no doubt, panic-stricken public. What is going to happen, will the noble Lord tell us, to the 2,000 graduates who were trained as scientific intelligence officers in order to help in regard to these fall-out problems?
Not long ago the noble Lord the Minister of State said this to the Civil Defence Corps:
"It is incontestable that the greatest dividends in the saving of life and suffering would come from precautionary measures which could be taken in the short period of intense activity between the declaration of an emergency and the actual attack. Amongst these would be dispersal and precautions and advice to the public about fall-out. Your greatest initial task"—
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said the noble Lord to the Civil Defence Corps, which is now all to be swept away—
"will be the prevention of panic through the conveyance of information".
Will the noble Lord say what the Government thought, if they thought at all, would be the use of the monitoring system and the Observer Corps if there were no trained and disciplined body of men available to take the action which those warnings required? It is a complete illusion to suggest that we shall be left with any sort of nucleus around which a new Civil Defence organisation could be quickly built up. The local authorities are to be allowed to spend on such arrangements as they are to be permitted to retain no more than £500,000 a year: a sum rather less, I think, than the increase in the expenditure during the current year of that splendid Department to which we owe so much, the Department of Economic Affairs; and, of course, only a fraction of the total cost of that Department.
Hitherto in this country, and I think in every country which has pretended to have any defence system at all—I do not mean Civil Defence; any general defence system at all—Civil Defence has been regarded as an integral part of military defence. In Russia, according to The Times two or three weeks ago, the whole arrangements for Civil Defence are under review, because they have recognised a greater degree of vulnerability than they had previously thought existed. They are laying special emphasis on shelter—I suppose that means fall-out shelter arrangements. In NATO it is now considered necessary to appoint a Civil Defence Adviser. In Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, and in Sweden they have a form of compulsory service for Civil Defence. Britain alone is dismantling its Civil Defence.
I venture to suggest that this really makes the whole of our military defence arrangements completely illusory. They are based on the second-strike theory that we could survive a nuclear attack and still be able to deliver a crippling blow at our enemy. But, as the noble Lord the Minister of State himself made clear not very long ago, there is no possibility of our survival if in fact our Civil Defence does not exist. The credibility of our whole defence programme,

1017
on which we are spending £2,300-odd million a year, is destroyed by this comparatively negligible saving on the Civil Defence arrangements here at home.
The noble Earl has referred to the Home Defence Review, published, I think, at the end of 1965. After two years of study, the Government announced their policy upon it. Economy at that time was very much in point; everything was looked at in terms of cost effectiveness and the Government statement said this, if I may quote:
"But the country's economic circumstances are also very relevant—there is a limit to the resources which it would be right to devote to these preparations. Every measure that is adopted must be worth what it costs. And if an attack were to come there might be no more than a very short period during which precautions could be authorised: this limits the value of any measures which cannot be maintained in a high state of readiness."
That is this Government's own answer to this Government's "mothball" policy of care and maintenance. Up to, I think, last November, we were working on a state of preparedness of 24 to 72 hours. The Government statement went on:
"Some assumptions must be made as to the time which would be available for taking overt Civil Defence preparations before an attack started. The current assessment is that there might be only a very short period".
Then this statement was made, which is as relevant to-day as it was then in regard to the theory that international tension would build up slowly and we should have plenty of time to re-establish the system of Civil Defence:
"The fact that the attack had been preceded by a period of international tension"—
this is the Government's own statement—
"is not relevant since there might be strong arguments against taking overt steps during such a period since the making of open preparations might in itself accelerate the deterioration in international relations"
That is the answer to this new theory that the Government are putting forward now—the Government's own answer to it.
I gather that we are now assuming a state of preparedness of many months instead of a few hours—six months, twelve months. I do not know what the period is, but certainly six months is the one that has been talked about in official circles. If that were the case, it might of course put a different complexion
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upon things, although I venture to suggest that at least a year would be required to reassemble any credible Civil Defence organisation. I ask the noble Lord, as the noble Earl asked him: What has happened during the last few months—it is not a year—to suggest that this period of preparedness, which the noble Lord only a few months ago said would be very short, would in fact now be quite long, and indeed that the preparation of Civil Defence arrangements during that period would not now be likely to lead to a deterioration in the international situation, and would therefore not—as was previously thought—be a step which we should be completely inhibited against taking during that critical period? What has happened?
Is it not the fact now that the Soviet Union are deploying 40 divisions in Europe, fully armed, fully ready for immediate attack? Is it not the fact that in the last few months they have built up significant naval strength in the Mediterranean? Is it not the fact that the Chinese are now capable of significant nuclear activity? What has happened that enables the Government to say now, if indeed they say it, that the period of preparedness would in fact be longer? Is it recent events in Israel and the Middle East that have led Her Majesty's Government's present advisers to think that there would be a longer period of preparedness before any attack took place? Surely the whole of military history during this nuclear age suggests that the important and likely thing is surprise attack.
The noble Lord said in answer to one of the questions put to him this afternoon that full consideration had been given to the risks involved. I ask the noble Lord to say whether the Chiefs of Staff had advised that Civil Defence could be safely disbanded. And I suggest to the noble Lord that the action and policy of the Government have been decided upon against all professional advice. May I quote again from what the noble Lord the Minister of State said?—and I am quoting him only because what he said represents in this House, at all events, the policy of the Government, and I can quote no one else. He said:
"The long period of waiting"—

1019
the noble Lord was referring here to the home defence review period—
"was a period of frustration and anxiety for us all. But it was worth it because the January circular made sense in terms of a viable, efficient Civil Defence Corps. You may remember me saying that if it did not I would not remain a Minister."
I do not for a moment quote that remark to taunt the noble Lord with not having resigned. I have great personal regard for the noble Lord, whom I have known for a very long time. It would have been complete nonsense for the noble Lord to resign on this matter of policy when those higher up, whose policy this really was, continued to cling to office; and nobody would suggest that he should have resigned. As for other resignations, the old honourable practice, that a Minister—even a Prime Minister—should resign if the policies to which he had pledged himself came crashing about his head, has remained in abeyance for some few years past.
The reason why I remind the noble Lord and the House of that statement is that it emphasised, and was intended to emphasise in perhaps a rather dramatic way, the importance which the Government at that time, not long ago, attached to the Civil Defence Corps. These are his own words, added in his own fair hand, to the script which I have here with me now:
"Together we have ensured the future of Civil Defence: that is the important thing."
My Lords, that was nine months ago. I ask the noble Lord what has happened during that interesting period to make it less important—and I now use the language of his immediate superior—that:
"The Government must take reasonable steps to safeguard its people in peace and war, and this we intend to do. Anything else would be an abdication of responsibility."
At one time I hoped, as the noble Lord knows, that it might be possible to save something out of this wreck. I hoped that it might at least be possible to save the Civil Defence Corps, or some substantial part of it, without bounty, with the minimum of training or exercising, so that each local authority could at least have at its disposal a reserve, manned with its own officers and corps volunteers. And I hoped that, in order to maintain at least some degree of viable
1020
and co-ordinated planning, there would be, on paper—I do not mean more than that—actual nominations right down the line, for the whole of the control system, and that each local authority on whom lie legal obligations in regard to civil defence would be allowed to retain at least one senior emergency officer.
I had hoped, as I say, that these things would be possible. But I am not going to elaborate on that aspect because it seems all too obvious that the Government have intended to face Parliament, and the people, with a fait accompli without the possibility of discussion. On the Order Paper of this House for tomorrow there are the very Orders confirming the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service. Those Orders were put down before your Lordships' views upon the matter could possibly have been heard, still less considered. This is yet another example of this form of government by contempt to which we are getting so accustomed nowadays. There was not a word of consultation, before the Government policy was announced, with the local authorities concerned, with the Civil Defence Corps, or with any of those engaged in the work of Civil Defence. I ask the noble Lord to say if this information is wrong. There have been various consultations since, explaining to the local authorities how little money they are going to have; but not a word about whether these arrangements would be at all possible.
Also there was not a word of thanks to the volunteers whose services, I venture to think, were so important, not only in regard to our defences but from the social point of view. At the Staff College on the Friday after the announcement had been made in Parliament orders were received to cancel a course for 120 people who were to arrive on the following Sunday, and all the directing staff were told that they had to leave by the end of March. Again there was not a word of thanks. At Fallowfield and the other Civil Defence schools the unestablished staff of instructors—who were quite numerous—were sacked. Some of them have been offered derisory appointments as temporary clerical assistants elsewhere. At Easingwold, the one school which has been retained, the secretary has been downgraded. Any private employer

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who dealt with his staff in that way would rightly be condemned.
Many other noble Lords wish to speak and so I will say nothing about the useful services—indeed, many people thought them vital services—which the Auxiliary Fire Service and the Civil Defence Corps render in time of peace. The Auxiliary Fire Service has probably saved far more than its costs in assisting the regular brigades in time of peace. I say nothing about the arrangements at the Polaris bases, at Dounreay and the other atomic stations, where the Civil Defence Corps are closely involved in what should be done in the event of any unhappy accident occurring there. Perhaps the noble Lord will deal with those matters, for they are of great importance during times of peace. But the real importance of this matter, of course, is that the people are to be left defenceless in time of war.
My Lords, I may have spoken with a little bitterness—I do not know. I have certainly spoken with some disillusionment about this devious and incompetent Government for which so many of us had great hopes only a few years ago. But what they are doing now, as it seems to me, is cynically leaving the civil population of this country helpless if attack should come. Only nine weeks or so ago—perhaps a little more than that, but after the devaluation, after the "great leap forward" as the Lord President of the Council described it—the noble Lord said this:
"Whatever happens to us as individuals, we are planning to ensure the survival of many millions of men, women and children who, but for us, would die."—
He was talking to the Civil Defence Corps, and in a splendid phrase he said:
"We are planning the survival of Britain".
What are the Government planning now? What, except an abdication of the responsibilities which only a few months ago the Home Secretary said no responsible Government in this country could ever abdicate?
3.58 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I welcome this debate, and in particular the invitation of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, to give a full explanation of the Government's decision about the level of our Civil Defence activities in present circumstances. In the course of my speech I shall endeavour not only to do that but
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to answer particularly the points made by the noble Earl, and some of those which have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross.
I would only say, in the first instance, that an example of the responsible nature of the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, was when he invited me to challenge him on the fact that he could tell me cuts which could be made in Government expenditure one-hundredfold times as great as the present one. We are considering to-day a cut of £20 million in Government expenditure on Civil Defence. One hundredfold times that figure would be £2,000 million. I can only say if that is so, the noble Lord departed from Government service far too soon. I think that is the level and the mark of the validity of many of the things the noble Lord said, and I reject at once the suggestion which was implicit in the speech of the noble Lord that the Government's decision deprives the country of all Civil Defence. We have decided to reduce Civil Defence expenditure, not to abandon civil defence. The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, asks whether we have consulted the authorities to see if Civil Defence can be safely disbanded. We have not disbanded it. We are proposing at the end of this month to disband the Civil Defence Corps of some 75,000 volunteers and the A.F.S. of some 14,000 volunteers. They are going. All else remains, as I shall endeavour to explain.
The noble Lord also said that Britain alone is dismantling its civil defence. He would have been telling the truth if he had said that Britain alone in the countries of Europe has a volunteer Civil Defence. It is true that we are disbanding our volunteers, but we shall then be in the same position as our European partners in NATO, because they have no volunteer civil defence corps. The noble Lord may shake his head as much as he likes; I am stating the facts. Not this year, but next year and in subsequent years when the full reductions have been made, we shall still be spending more per head of population on Civil Defence in this country than some of the main European countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said that he was prejudiced against being totally unprotected. So am I, and I am prejudiced with regard to Civil Defence

1023
and Civil Defence workers. The Civil Defence Corps and its members know that they need no thanks from me, because every time I have met them over the last 42 months I have thanked them for their services, their services without parallel. It is a special kind of service you need, a special kind of people in Civil Defence, because they are continuously prepared to meet the need which all of us hope will never arise, and you need a special kind of people for that. My special interest and prejudice is not just of 40 months' duration as a Minister, but of more than 30 years' duration as a person.
I have said many times, and it is true, that Civil Defence could do much to mitigate the effects of a nuclear attack on this country; that it could save a great many lives, millions of lives, that would otherwise be lost, and that it would help to ensure the subsequent survival of the nation. I have also said that until we can say that all danger of nuclear attack has disappeared it is the duty of every Government to make Civil Defence preparations. I do not retract one word of those statements. So I can accept anything the noble Lord quotes with equanimity, because those statements were true then and, so far as I am concerned, they are true now. I have also said, and this the noble Lord did not read out, that in spending money on Civil Defence the Government are paying an insurance premium, and that the size of the premium must be related to the risk involved and to the capacity of the nation to pay. I now want to explain, in response to the noble Earl's invitation, what we are getting for the reduced premium and how far it covers the risk involved.
As to the risk of a nuclear attack on these Islands, the signs are encouraging. We believe—and this is the view of not only the British Government but also the NATO allies—that the risk or nuclear war has diminished. It is difficult to conceive of any rational Government resorting to the use of these terrible weapons, knowing the fearful risks to its own people from the reprisals which would follow. Moreover, there is real evidence from recent experience in the Middle East—we read a different lesson from that; it was not a nuclear war which started suddenly in the Middle East—and in Vietnam that the Soviet Union and the United States are determined to avoid a con-
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frontation in a war situation, and so long as the United States is committed to the defence of Europe in NATO there is good reason to suppose that there will be no direct conflict in that theatre either. The NATO alliance relies on its ability to devastate the Soviet bloc with nuclear weapons, even after it has been attacked, to deter the Soviet Government from attacking NATO countries.
That said, I reaffirm that the risk of nuclear war cannot be entirely excluded until general disarmament has become a reality. Here, again, there are encouraging signs. The 1963 Treaty banning tests of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water was a first step in that direction. More recently the tabling of a complete treaty text by the co-Chairmen of the 18-Nation Disarmament Committee in Geneva in January marked a further and very significant step forward in the progress towards a non-proliferation agreement on nuclear weapons. This joint action by the two major nuclear Powers gives real hope for the future, and we all pray that the conclusion of a non-proliferation Treaty will lead to effective nuclear arms control and later to general disarmament.
But I must acknowledge frankly that even then we cannot, as the noble Earl said, completely exclude the danger of accident or miscalculation. What I say is that the danger has lessened enough to permit us, at a time of extreme financial stringency, to look more closely than ever before at the size of our insurance premium, and that is what the Government have done in deciding to place home defence on a care and maintenance basis, because they believe that the risk of a nuclear war does not in our present circumstances justify home defence expenditure on the scale of recent years.
On the previously existing basis the annual expenditure on Civil Defence would have amounted in a year or two to about £27 million. The effect of our decision will be to reduce this by 1969–70 and later years to between £7 million and £8 million. That is the £20 million reduction I quoted just now. We can do a very great deal with this £7 million or £8 million. It will enable us to preserve the essential elements of our existing preparations, the control system, early warning and essential planning, so that greater activity can be resumed if that should

1025
become necessary. Physical assets with an operational value are being preserved, and training will be continued at the level necessary to preserve existing knowledge and techniques.
No one appreciates more than I do the great services rendered by the members of the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service, and no one regrets more than I the necessity to disband them. I know how grievous is the disappointment to volunteers in all parts of the country. I suppose I must have received about 200 letters written to M.P.s on behalf of units in their own areas, so I am fully aware of this disappointment, which I share with them. But I am bound to say that if we are to make substantial economies—which noble Lords opposite are constantly and rightly pressing for—it can be done in this field only through the disbandment of the volunteer services.
The most expensive part of any war preparations is the maintenance of forces in being even where, as in these services, the time and effort of volunteers is freely given. A standing body, even of part-time volunteers, must necessarily cost a considerable sum of money. For example, training is very costly and it cannot be "once for all"; there must be a constant influx of new members, refresher courses and so on. I am not saying that such expense may not be clearly justified if there is a pressing danger requiring first call on our resources. But this is not at present the case. We came to the conclusion that the economies announced in December, 1966, were the largest we could make consistently with keeping alive the volunteer bodies. And it would not have been possible further to reduce their size and capability without prejudicing their existence as viable forces. The decision, therefore, was between continuing them at that level of expenditure or the decision we have taken.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him, but as a matter of clarification may I ask him whether, when he uses the pronoun "we", he is speaking for the Government or for the Home Office?
LORD STONHAM: I was speaking for the Government, and I understood that in this House when a Minister, referring
1026
to Government policy, uses the prefix "we" he does not mean anything regal about it, either; he means Her Majesty's Government. The point was that the maintenance of these voluntary forces in a constant state of readiness was a premium that the Government decided they could no longer afford. These volunteers have been in being not only in recent years. It is not only now that we owe them a great debt, but through more than a quarter of a century.
We know, too, that the reduction in Civil Defence will lead to drastic reduction in the major element of cost, one that causes me great concern, the numbers of local authority staff employed full-time on Civil Defence duties, a fine body of people, of whom there are about 2,400 engaged in this country. I am glad to know that local authorities are being as helpful as they possibly can be about offering alternative employment to as many of these Civil Defence employees as they can reasonably absorb. To safeguard the financial position of those who lose their jobs, we have made compensation arrangements on the Crombie scale, similar to the relatively generous ones made for staff displaced as a result of the reorganisation of local government.
I was particularly grieved to hear what I regarded as the grossly inaccurate statement made without evidence this afternoon by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, about what we are doing in our Civil Defence establishments which are to be closed. I have taken the greatest possible care with regard to staff who are redundant in their jobs. I know of none who, as the noble Lord says, is being "chucked on the scrapheap". I have sent establishment officers down to every one of our centres and up to Taymouth Castle, and I know of none who is being treated in this way. Ten days ago I was even down at Easingwold, which is only over the wall from Fallowfield, and was then told that there were about five others. I met Colonel Batchelor, the chairman—perhaps the noble Lord would let me finish what I am saying. I feel most deeply in regard to all the staff concerned in these matters. I have taken the greatest care about them, and I asked the question, "Are there any left?" The answer was, "Well, we have some four or five whom we should like to employ here."—that was at the centre I was then

1027
Opening—" but they are waiting to see about the position in regard to their own jobs." Now I will give way.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, of course Easingwold is one place that is to remain. I suggest to the noble Lord that he should inform himself a little better about what is going on in the other Civil Defence schools.
LORD BESWICK: Withdraw!
LORD SHAWCROSS: I was quoting from a letter I received only yesterday from an official high up in these schools. I am not going to name him, obviously.
LORD BESWICK: Why not?
LORD SHAWCROSS: For obvious reasons.
LORD BESWICK: One letter!
LORD SHAWCROSS: One letter from an official very well known to the noble Lord, a considerable authority in matters of Civil Defence, who said that the unestablished officers—I use the word "unestablished" because, of course, you cannot sack the established officers—were given notice at the Civil Defence schools that they were to leave by the end of March, some of them being offered, I said, derisory appointments as temporary clerical assistants.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have given the facts as I know them. So far as the establishment at Easingwold is concerned, of course, that is being continued. I was talking of Fallowfield at that time where, of course, the commandant will become commandant of Easingwold to replace the present commandant who is retiring upon reaching retirement age. With regard to these general arrangements for compensation, it is intended that they shall apply retrospectively to any persons who become redundant after the Prime Minister's Statement of January 16, provided that the redundancy can be said to be attributable to these measures.
As regards the Auxiliary Fire Service, there are some 250 full-time officers employed on organisation and training, but we expect that every one will be absorbed into the regular brigades. Some noble Lords and a number of members of the A.F.S. have disputed the statement I made recently in reply to a Question,
1028
that the A.F.S. had no peace-time firefighting responsibilities. I should like therefore to set out the facts in greater detail. Fire authorities are empowered by the regulations to enrol members of the Auxiliary Fire Service solely for the purposes of Civil Defence, and the service of auxiliaries in peace time is expressly limited to "such duties as are desirable for training", which confirms what I said.
Before the regulations were made, consultation took place with representatives of the local authorities and the Fire Brigades' Union, as a result of which strict conditions were laid down by the Home Office about the circumstances in which auxiliaries might volunteer for training by performing stand-by duties and by accompanying regular firemen to peace-time fires. The main condition was that no auxiliaries should be employed in substitution for a regular fireman to provide fire cover in peace time. Peace-time fire cover is the responsibility of regular fire brigades, and fire authorities have a duty under the Fire Service Acts to provide an adequate and properly equipped brigade to meet efficiently all normal requirements. I know, of course, that volunteers within the A.F.S. can volunteer for stand-by duties, and some 2,500 out of the 14,000 A.F.S. have done so, and sometimes go out to fires. But such training activities are additional to the work of the regular brigade which they in no way replace.
I should like to add my small tribute to the work of the men of the A.F.S. and the enthusiasm they displayed in taking part in these activities and the help which they have also given. But it would be wrong for anyone to suggest that the disbandment of the Auxiliary Fire Service will reduce the ability of the regular fire service to meet the demands made upon it. Although the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps and the A.F.S. will reduce the Civil Defence responsibilities of local authorities, they still have important responsibilities. Our intention is that local authorities should continue Civil Defence planning at the level needed to enable more active preparations to be resumed. We are now discussing with the Associations how this should best be done within the small amount of money that will be available.

1029
In addition, local authorities will maintain existing operational control buildings and their communications. This concerns a question which the noble Lord asked me. The whole of the existing operational control buildings and their communications from sub-regional Government level downwards will be maintained, because these are absolutely essential to the core, as it were, of the vital system of Civil Defence control at various levels of government, including the plans for regional government, a system which is being retained on a care and maintenance basis.
The Home Office and other Government Departments will continue to provide local authorities with support and guidance. It is untrue to suggest that the Home Office control over Civil Defence is being completely abolished and destroyed. Of course, the numbers of personnel engaged on this work at the Home Office have not been reduced, but they will be reduced as there is less work to do. But there is no intention whatever of abandoning this zone. It is obvious if we are spending £7 million or £8 million a year that there could not be any abandonment of central responsibility and administrative responsibility.
LORD SHAWCROSS: May I, for clarification, ask the noble Lord whether the Civil Defence organisation at Horse-ferry Road is to be maintained?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I mean that a Civil Defence Department will be maintained. At present, as the noble Lord may be aware, there is a Civil Defence Division. I cannot say what the size of the administrative unit will eventually be, but there will be a continuing and separate unit of the Home Office in charge of Civil Defence.
I have mentioned training facilities at Easingwold, in Yorkshire. It is here that senior staff of local authorities will be able to discuss Civil Defence planning with officers of central departments and essential services and industries. Also, selected members of the staff of local authorities will receive background and refresher training to maintain a knowledge of specialist Civil Defence skills, techniques and procedures, including the use of radiac instruments, control duties and communications practice and procedures. This is going on. In addition—and I attach great importance to this—
1030
we hope to maintain in local authority employ a nucleus of scientific officers who can be kept up to date by periodical attendance at short refresher training courses. In this and in other ways we shall preserve an absolutely essential foundation on which the reactivation of scientific teams could be built up.
The continuing responsibilities of the local authorities will include making and maintaining plans to keep their own administrative machine working in war. Such plans will have to provide for the setting up at the appropriate time of an emergency committee of the authority, and for arranging machinery for executive action in circumstances in which normal local authority procedures would not be practicable. The senior officers of authorities will have to make plans to carry on in war the essential services which are the responsibility of the local authorities in peace, and also some services for which there is no peace-time counterpart, such as the setting up of emergency feeding centres and the general care of homeless people.
The burden of local authority responsibility in war would be considerable, but so are the size and range of the resources of local authorities. The Civil Defence Corps formed but a small part of the resources of skilled staff to be found in their various departments. A great fund of expertise still resides in various local authority departments to discharge Civil Defence responsibilities, and it will be for local authorities to make plans in peace time to ensure that there is knowledge within their organisation of the problems that might face them and to see that their resources are fully used to the best advantage in war. Such planning is not easy, since there are so many imponderables, but what we are asking is that local authorities should continue to develop them, in consultation with Government Departments and essential industries and services, without spending money on actual physical preparations, which run up the costs. Local authority expenditure on the maintenance of the volunteer forces and the costs of the supporting administration has run at about £8 million a year, some three-quarters of which was met by the Exchequer. Under our proposals this total will be reduced in two years' time to about £1 million a year.

1031
Even after the disbandment of the volunteer services, the country will still have considerable physical and human assets for use in the event of war. I ask your Lordships to realise that we are talking about 89,000 people—marvellous, valuably trained volunteers—who are being disbanded. The rest are there. What I am now drawing attention to is the rest, not only in terms of physical assets but in terms of human assets as well. The police, for example, will continue to have special responsibilities in emergencies, both in peace and in war, and will maintain planning and training to cope with them. The regular fire service will continue emergency planning, and there will still be central training at the Fire Service Training College at Moreton-in-Marsh. This will be given to selected officers of fire brigades in order to keep alive the doctrines which have been developed for the organisation and deployment of the emergency fire services in war. There are adequate stocks of emergency fire service equipment, and they will be retained in store for future use if necessary. There are also extensive continuing plans by Government Departments and essential industries and services—for example, for broadcasting, water and food supply, ports and shipping.
The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said that in present circumstances if there were an emergency people would not know. I am sure that he is aware of the present plans in existing circumstances for informing people by television, by radio and by all other means. These plans, of course, will continue intact. So far as that warning is concerned, there is no change at all. The noble Lord will also be aware of the very valid reasons why we do not give warnings of this kind now. We shall be preserving completely the Warning and Monitoring Organisation, which includes the Royal Observer Corps, which is also being retained. I was asked about the extent to which this Corps would be reduced. In regard to the number of Royal Observer Corps personnel, as distinct from establishment, the reduction will be some 34 per cent. But we are certain that, with the reconstruction and reorganisation that we have made, there will be a full warning system to the public of an imminent attack with nuclear weapons and, subsequently, warning from 24,000 warning points through-
1032
out the country of the presence of radioactive fall-out. That is to say, there will be the same number of warning points and still the same period of time, which, as noble Lords will be aware, was less than a minute. The system will also be able to provide more detailed information about where bombs have dropped and about fall-out to a number of operational services both civil and military.
The main capital cost of this organisation has already been met—buildings, equipment and communications are virtually complete—and it can quickly be brought to operational readiness. It requires a substantial degree of technical skill, the preservation of which is more complex than in most other fields. That is why it is being retained. In the Government's view, it would be an unacceptable risk to dismantle this organisation. These resources which I have mentioned as being retained and continued add up to a formidable total. They could be activated quickly and ensure that we could raise the level of Civil Defence preparations rapidly if necessary.
The noble Earl this afternoon spoke of the factors which would mean a lengthening in the process of reactivation. If the emergency came fifteen or twenty years from now, obviously one would not be able to reassemble the same personnel, but the reactivation period would also depend on the acuteness of the emergency and on the decision of the Government of the time. We have many volunteers who are continuing to serve. I am glad to say that the W.R.V.S., which is now predominantly concerned with peace-time activities, will retain its home defence functions and will be continuing with emergency welfare training, which is relevant to peace time as to war, and with their valuable one-in-five scheme. In a war emergency the whole resources of W.R.V.S. would be available for civil defence.
It is natural that most of the comment has been about the Civil Defence Corps and the A.F.S., but I should perhaps remind noble Lords that over the years Government Departments, and essential industries and services, have been developing plans and physical preparations to improve their capacity to operate under war conditions, and these plans are closely linked with the Civil Defence control structure, which is being maintained.

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These have at all times been an important element in the control structure. For example, plans and preparations have been made for broadcasting, for water and food supply, fuel and power, inland transport and ports and shipping. These plans will be kept up to date, and existing physical assets maintained. But I am not yet in a position to say what effect the Government's decision will have on Civil Defence in industrial establishments—most of which, incidentally, are Government establishments or nationalised industries. These matters are being considered and we hope to be able to make a statement before long.
Over the years we have built up substantial stocks of equipment. Much of this was specially designed for Civil Defence purposes—radiac, radio sets, special vehicles and so on; and these items will be preserved. Other equipment, such as ordinary vans and vehicles, used by the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service, which could easily be purchased from normal production or requisitioned if needed, will be taken into use by other services or disposed of, because it is no good keeping ordinary vehicles in stock and just storing them. If there is no use for them it is best to sell them. But if they are specialised vehicles they are being retained, as we are retaining bulk stocks of food, oil and medical supplies.
Since the Prime Minister's statement on January 16, I have received many letters suggesting that some means should be found to continue the volunteer forces without official support or financial help. Both individually and collectively in local units members of the Civil Defence Corps and the A.F.S. have offered to serve without bounty or other direct payment. I have been very glad to see the spirit shown in these representations, and I should have been glad to lend official encouragement, but in the light of our decision that public expenditure on the Corps should be terminated there are obvious and, indeed, insuperable difficulties about offering Government support or encouragement to the various schemes that have been suggested. It is the costs of administration and the expenditure on premises and equipment, rather than direct payments, which account for the major part of the cost.
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There have been suggestions that members might continue to meet socially and, perhaps, do a limited amount of training. We do not want to discourage these efforts, but training could be very costly indeed and that would defeat the original objective. The noble Earl suggested some kind of national rescue service. Of course, the Government have considered, and are indeed considering, matters of that kind, but if he meant a national service added all over the country to existing services, both professional and volunteer, which are available to deal with peace-time emergencies and which deal with them very well indeed, then I am afraid that could be just as costly as the present system which is being disbanded. But these ideas are being very carefully considered.
With regard to the volunteers in the Civil Defence Corps and the A.F.S. who are so anxious to give their services—and I am anxious that they should be able to give them—I would mention the other existing organisations where many of them would be extremely welcome—the British Red Cross, the St. John Ambulance Brigade, the W.R.V.S. and the Special Constabulary—and where they would be doing work very similar to that which they have been doing in the Corps, or analogous to it.
With regard to special peace-time disasters, it is certainly true that the Civil Defence Corps and the A.F.S. have readily come forward when they have occurred, and the country has good reason to be grateful for their help. But there is no real evidence to suggest that the existing regular services and the peace-time volunteer bodies are inadequate to deal with disasters when they occur. However, as I said, we are continuously examining this problem.
One point which I want to make clear is with regard to the storage of Civil Defence equipment. The noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, will be interested in this as it has special reference to Devon. There are occasions when Civil Defence equipment has been of great use in rescue operations, such as in floods. There was recently an incident with a bridge in Devon, when Civil Defence rescue equipment was very useful indeed. What we want with this equipment is to make it readily and easily available all over the country

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when required. Our main plan, therefore, is to place it in the forty or more Home Office depôts which we have spread over the country, so that no single depôt will be so very far away from a particular incident.
We are endeavouring to create a special procedure through the police, so that in an emergency—I am now visualising a peace-time emergency—this equipment can be available without red tape, if it will help. Burt, exceptionally, if local authorities want to purchase Government-owned equipment to retain for peace-time emergency use, then provided it is not specialised equipment which we must retain for Civil Defence we shall be glad to consider letting them have it.
The Government regret that it has been necessary to take what I regard as the painful course of accepting a lower state of readiness in our Civil Defence preparations, but I hope that this decision will not be misunderstood. We have not abdicated our responsibilities. We have retained the essentials. We are preserving existing assets—equipment, control premises and communications; and both central and local government, and essential industries and services, will continue with planning. Our object will be to identify those items on which we must move quickly if an emergency seems likely to arise, and to ensure a coherent approach to the job by all the authorities and interests concerned.
It is very far from being the Government's view that Civil Defence as a whole is useless, or that the particular activities we have suspended were without value. It is rather a question of the level at which we can maintain our activities at the present time, bearing in mind both the financial situation and the risk of war involving an attack upon our territory. The Government believe that in all the circumstances we have struck the right balance for the present situation.
VISCOUNT STONEHAVEN: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes his speech, would he help me? I should like to know what would happen in my own county, where I think we shall be left with one man, or possibly three, in the whole county, in the event of an accidental nuclear attack—which is always a possibility.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should really find it impossible to deal with questions about a single county. I shall be very glad to look into the matter and to write to the noble Viscount. He spoke of one man or possibly three, but I imagine he can only mean Civil Defence officers. I should have thought it just was not possible, even in Scotland, for there to be any county which did not still have, through its local authority, a very sizeable number of persons with Civil Defence duties.
LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask a question about the redundancy payment which was mentioned? Will this come out of Government funds or out of monies which will be allocated to counties?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the local authorities are likely to want 100 per cent. from Exchequer funds. But it will come as to 75 per cent. from Exchequer funds and 25 per cent. from local authority funds, if present plans go through. Since this question has been asked, I would mention that the pension rights of redundant Civil Defence officers are preserved. If they do not obtain other employment they will receive, as it were, interim pensions until they have reached normal pension age. These will be according to their age and length of service, and in the case of a man of 55 with 30 years' service will amount to £1,000 a year until he gets his normal pension. They are not being thrown completely out into the cold.
4.40 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD:My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will correct me if I am wrong, but I understood him to say that the Government were keeping Civil Defence but were disbanding 89,000 volunteers, 75,000 of them in Civil Defence and 14,000 in the A.F.S. I am not one who has ever taken any public part in political life, and I am not proposing. I hope, to make a political speech this afternoon, but I think I voice the opinion of many men in the street when I say that we have a fear that a terrible mistake has been made and that, on a cloudy and dark day, this mistake might prove to be irreparable. Because what we are considering are these appalling conditions of fear and panic, and the only hope of

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reducing fear and panic in a situation which we find hard to imagine is the existence of a large number of trained people who know what to do themselves and who can tell other people quite clearly what to do. That is why I think this mistake may prove to be a very serious one.
My Lords, I should like to declare my own particular interest in this matter, because I have worked in this field now for a number of years. When the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, was Home Secretary, he called together a committee, and he asked me to serve on it. The purpose of that committee was to consider the role of the clergy in war; and that meant the part that the clergy of all denominations in the country might play in the terrible conditions of which we are thinking to-day. What could they do to help people spiritually, and also to assist in the keeping up of morale? This committee, so far as the Churches were concerned, represented all denominations, and the Jews were also members of it. We met a number of times at the Home Office under the chairmanship of one of the senior members of the Home Office staff. After our meetings, we produced a report which was subsequently printed at the end of 1964.
But then the Government changed, and the new Government decided not to issue that report. Naturally, from the personal point of view, I was sorry about that decision, because we had put an awful lot of work into the matter and I think we had tried to say something which was worth while. But I have no particular complaint because, after all, the Government had a perfect right, which I do not dispute for a moment, not to publish that report if they felt it was not desirable to do so. Nevertheless, this has meant that over the years I have been in very close touch with the Civil Defence organisation in one way or another; and, as a matter of fact, I was to have been one of the speakers at the Civil Defence conference this summer at Scarborough—which conference, of course, has now been called off.
Going back to those days on the committee, when we were considering the possibility of nuclear attack and what could be done in those awful circumstances, the whole basis of the committee's work was that Civil Defence was worth
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while. Nobody suggested that the destruction would be such that there would be, as it were, a clean sweep of the whole population. We were assured that the basis of our work was that there would be many survivors, and that what we needed was a number of people who, by their expert knowledge, could really be of help in those circumstances. While it was accepted that the destruction would be awful, it was not accepted that there would be no one left to help. This, of course, is where the trained Civil Defence worker came into the picture, and we were told again and again that the trained Civil Defence volunteer was the person who was vital in this sector.
My Lords, speaking as one who has, as I say, worked a good deal in this sector, I am bound to say with what regret I see that to a very large extent the volunteer element has now gone. I entirely accept, of course, what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, that the Government are keeping a Civil Defence structure. But the loss of these volunteers, I think, may be disastrous. The step is such a serious one to take that I cannot believe that the Government's decision is based on purely financial considerations. I noticed that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, said that he thought, taking it by and large, that it must be for that reason. I cannot believe that the Government, in order to save this amount of money, would sweep this away unless they had other very good reasons for thinking it was now safe to do so. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, say that the Government feel that the risk of nuclear attack on this country is less than it was; and we have also heard it said, or have read it in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the debates in another place, that apparently it is thought that there would be a longer period of warning. Of course, I have no inside knowledge of international affairs at all: I merely read my newspaper day by day. I can only say that I hope and pray that the Government are right in saying that the risk of war is less. Now when we come to the matter of the length of time for which we might have warning of Possible disaster, I take it—and I think it has been said this afternoon—this means that the Civil Defence volunteers could then be reactivated and that the organisation could become fully operational in that

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way. I would suggest, frankly, that this policy is not "on".
When the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, spoke of 30 years ago, I cast my mind back to those days. That was just before Munich. I found myself then vicar of a church in Southampton, and Southampton, of course, was a town which realised that if there was a war it would probably "catch it," as eventually it did. In those days before Munich I was in close touch with what was known then as the A.R.P. I personally went round a number of streets in my parish and took the gasmasks to the people, and helped them to fit them on. I remember doing that in house after house for days on end.
I remember that morale was not very good. To start with, the gasmasks did not look particularly attractive, and I was fitting them on to women and children, a number of whom were afraid about what might be going to happen very shortly. That was just for gas. When you think of the fear that could be conjured up by an announcement by the Government that the international situation was such that it was now being considered wise to reactivate the Civil Defence Corps, I would suggest, my Lords, that the morale of the country in many ways would drop like a stone and that fear would walk the streets. I think that this policy frankly is not "on". It is not practical; and I think that that must be recognised.
Reference has already been made to the work which the Civil Defence Corps are doing in time of peace. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said just now that there was no evidence that even if this volunteer work stopped the other organisations could not adequately cope with the various disasters that might occur. That is fair enough; they may be able to do so. All I know, as a result of a number of inquiries I have made and of personal experience, too, is that the Civil Defence workers have been of invaluable assistance time and time again, and I think they would have been greatly missed if they had not been there. My diocese covers practically the entire county of Staffordshire and the northern half of Shropshire, and I have therefore been in touch with the Civil Defence organisers for both counties. They have told me about the number of incidents at
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which members of the Corps have helped. It has all along been said by the Government that these activities in regard to disasters were a valuable part of the training of members of the Civil Defence Corps.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, would the right reverend Prelate say when this has always been said, by which Government and by which Minister? I cannot recall any such statement.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LICHFIELD:My Lords, I quite accept what the noble Lord has said. It may not have been this particular Government. All I can say is that I understand from some of the Civil Defence organisers themselves that this was regarded as a practical part of the training of Civil Defence workers. I think we should accept it as a very valuable and practical activity.
In regard to my own diocese, I went not long ago to the scene of the Hixon rail disaster, shortly after it occurred, as that was in my diocese. Whom did I meet there, among others? I met voluntary workers of all kinds, assisting the police; but the Civil Defence people were there. Let me give an illustration of the incidents at which they have helped recently. They have helped people whose houses were flooded by rising rivers; recently they have assisted considerably in regard to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease; they have helped the elderly, as in the case of a 'flu epidemic a few years ago; they have assisted at fires; they have assisted when there has been damage as a result of storm and tempest; they have given help at road accidents and in the collapse of buildings. Those are just illustrations of what I mean. I suggest that we are going to miss their help because these people know their stuff. They are trained and have been most valuable. I am bound to say, too, as we are talking about volunteers, that they have found it very hard to understand how the disbandment of volunteers is going to save the nation all that money.
My Lords, I turn now to the role of the clergy in these matters; because, I would repeat, they have been called on in the past to consider most carefully what we can do. As we know, sometimes the Church can be written off as not being particularly relevant to the modern situation. But when you come to consider the matter, you find that in almost any

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locality the person who will be known by the greatest number of people is probably the parson, because he lives among his people in the community in which he works and is there all the time. I believe that this man, if used properly, could be of the greatest assistance in these terrible circumstances which we are considering. Very definitely that was the case in the A.R.P. days of the last war. I entirely accept that the situation that we are dealing with to-day is something quite different; but I say that when you have great danger it is the familiar person, the one who is known, who will be of the greatest help because people, through their knowledge of him, trust him.
As a result of the work of the committee which the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, called together, and to which I have referred, we arranged in diocese after diocese that the clergy should go for a short course of training in Civil Defence. The intention was not that they should themselves be Civil Defence workers in the Corps but that they should be trained in order to do their own work properly and really be of help in these circumstances. The Civil Defence organisers welcomed this idea and we have had some splendid gatherings. All I can say is that I am bitterly sorry that all this is coming to an end. In my speech I have tried to show how the man in the street reacts to this decision. I am afraid of it; I think that a risk is being run. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said that many of these volunteers might find suitable work in organisations such as the Special Constabulary. They may, my Lords; but they have received a considerable blow to their morale; it will take them time to adjust themselves, and I think that a great deal of the desire to serve the community is being lost.
I have mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, several times in my speech. I should not like to end without saying, if I may do so without presumption (and I hope that he will take it in the spirit in which I say it) that I felt sorry for him this afternoon. I know how hard he has worked for Civil Defence, and with what sincerity. I know that we are grateful to him for what he has done. That is why I felt that he was in a difficult position this afternoon. I hope that he will not take my words amiss.
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I want to end by saying that if there is any new organisation of this kind called into being I greatly hope that, as was done in the past, the clergy will he asked to play their part in it. I honestly believe that we can be of real help; for if ever there is humanitarian work this is it. I have no time whatever for those people who say we ought not to indulge in Civil Defence because that might be a provocation to people who might be our enemies. I have no time for that argument, and I notice that it has not been used by the Government this afternoon. It is a humanitarian work. But, above all, so far as the Church is concerned—and this I thought as I listened to Prayers this afternoon when we prayed for the peace and tranquillity of the Realm—what we have to do is really to lead the nation constantly in prayer to Almighty God that the appalling disasters we have been contemplating in our debate this afternoon may, by His Grace, never happen.
4.57 p.m.
VISCOUNT LONG: My Lords, in rising to make my maiden speech, I do so not as a member of the Civil Defence organisation but as one who, in past years, has seen how hard these men and women who join the Civil Defence have worked to build it up to what it is to-day. Not one of us really ever wants to discuss or to know anything about a nuclear bomb or a nuclear guided missile, or to know how it goes off or why it does so—or anything about it. Nevertheless, the situation now is that they are available as instruments of war, and since the last war we have had to re-form the Civil Defence to make quite certain that after one of these bombs had exploded or after one of these instruments were let loose on mankind, there would be somebody in the background to help those who survived. There are to-day more and more countries who have these wretched instruments of war. I do not believe for a moment that Russia will ever use one; but I fear that in a few years' time some smaller country—or even China—might be tempted to use such a weapon.
In these last few years Civil Defence has got right down to the basic facts of survival and rescue. It is on these two words, survival and rescue, that they have worked. With these watchwords in view, they have tried so to organise the various departments in the county councils that

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if one of these weapons were used the engineers, the architects, the medical profession and so on, would have an organised part to play. That was the first line of attack for the Civil Defence in order to get support. For a long time they did not get very far, but gradually over the past few years people have begun to come forward from the county councils to produce an agenda for studying the role of their departments in a nuclear war. This was only part of the organisation. There were also the water boards, the electricity undertakings, food and transport—all these different parts of ordinary life—to be organised on paper. The necessity for such organisation has taken a long time to sink into the ordinary person's mind. I think it is a great tragedy that the Civil Defence is to be abandoned by the Government at this moment when they have done so much in building up their own departments, training and organising, and administering and bringing in departments in ordinary life. I think this is a great tragedy.
My Lords, Civil Defence, having been organised by people in different county council departments and by people in the rural areas, is now finished. The work of those people who were brought together is finished. If you tried to reform Civil Defence, I do not believe that those people would ever come forward to help again. They seem to be demoralised by the thought that, having got the departments going, all of a sudden, by the stroke of a pen, the end came, and they were told, "You are finished."
There are other things I should have liked to mention, but I am not allowed to be controversial in a maiden speech. I gather there is to be a minimum requirement for starting Civil Defence now. It may be organised by one, two or three people. But where will the county councils stand regarding equipment which has to go back to Government depôts? Who will organise this? Will it be a Government man in a Government Department? I understand that the equipment, or most of it, is to be sold. How much of it is to be sold? Is it just the trailers and lorries or does it include uniforms, spades and all that sort of thing? It would be no use selling some of the equipment and not the rest.
My Lords, I should like to think that this was the last in a line of wretched
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debates which we have had recently. We have debated the Royal Air Force, aircraft carriers, the Regular Army and the Territorial Army. Now we are debating Civil Defence. There was a time when we could say that we went to the conference table fully armed and with a measure of security behind us. But it appears to me that we have now become a little more "naked". Even worse than that, with Civil Defence gone, the public will look more like skinned rabbits than anything else.
5.3 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, to me falls the pleasant duty of thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Long, for the speech which he has just made. I wonder whether, like other noble Lords—and certainly like noble Ladies—he felt any apprehension before he made his speech. I know that the noble Viscount is proficient at gliding and I wonder whether the test of a first glide compares with the test of a first speech in your Lordships' House. I know that the noble Viscount could not have achieved his first glide better than he achieved his first speech. I hope that from his point of view, as well as ours, we shall have the opportunity of hearing him again, and we shall enjoy that as much as we have enjoyed hearing him to-day. I should like to extend to the noble Viscount my congratulations and good wishes and to say that if he feels anything like I felt after making my maiden speech, he must be longing to go out and have a good drink.
My Lords, because of the variety of the subjects which have been touched on by various noble Lords, and because we want to keep this debate as brief as we can, my contribution will be based entirely on the voluntary service angle of this problem. As a very long term member of Civil Defence, I should like to start by paying tribute to all those who have done such splendid work for Civil Defence. The number of men and women concerned is not very large in proportion to the population of the country—it is just over 1 per cent. or 1½ per cent—but their contribution has been magnificent and tremendous. They have, as I know well, served quietly and without glamour. They have made a very varied and valuable contribution to the life of the nation. Their example, as noble Lords have indicated in their

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speeches, has been an extremely and a specially valuable one.
I think that a specific tribute should be paid to those who have carried responsibility at local and at regional levels; those who have laboured tirelessly to establish a method of training—and that training has been second to none. A tribute is due to those who have handled the Staff College and the schools with imagination and great success, and especially to the Civil Defence officers at local authority level. A tribute should also be paid to the specialist instructors. These have been of great variety and they had difficulties to meet when originally concentrating on what should be taught; what the content of their teaching should be; and in comparing the technical and the practical, the theoretical and the long-term vision.
Less obvious, my Lords, but equally important are the administrative staff, and a tribute should be paid to them. The boredom of the background work has been tremendous, and one of the biggest tributes should go to the indefatigable local organisers. Naturally, from my point of view and from the vantage point which I have held for many years, I feel that I should like my own prime tribute to go to the ever-ready and devoted volunteer; those who gave of their time and skill, and sacrificed Saturdays and Sundays to undertake boring, routine jobs—everybody likes doing the nice jobs, but it is the boring things which are such a nuisance—and submitted to various forms of training, many of which were not always to their taste but had to be undertaken in order to qualify themselves for one thing only. I think, my Lords, that this has been lost sight of occasionally in our deliberations. They qualified themselves to serve the locality, of course, in respect of nuclear attack but also to serve it in other ways. This, fundamentally, must be the thing to which we must hold, this readiness to serve the nation; and the example of this service must not be lost. All of us are agreed on that. I beg the volunteers, men and women, to continue to give of their service not counting the cost for the strengthening of their own community.
There can be no question at all that cuts, whenever they come, are dreadfully distressing. There is no one who would contradict that. The axe is the cruellest
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of weapons and it is easy for us all to look for countless implications in regard to how it is used and upon whom it falls. But because we are a great nation, and because we intend to remain a great nation, we have to convince the rest of the world that to-day, as a body and as individuals, we are prepared to accept the difficulties, and that every one of us has to play a part, whatever may be cur own private and very painful feelings.
My Lords, I speak as the oldest of all of you in this House in respect to Civil Defence, and one of the oldest in the whole of Great Britain in the service of Civil Defence. I worked in Civil Defence when it was called A.R.P. before the last world war. It changed from A.R.P. to Civil Defence soon after the war started. Since then many people have forgotten what the initials A.R.P. stood for. That is a very long stretch of years, and naturally I am deeply saddened and profoundly moved by the turn of events. But I understand some of the difficulties which all of is will have to meet.
Among all those who have devoted so much to Civil Defence for so Ion; there must be a great number who originally joined Civil Defence, not became they chose it but because of a sense of duty to serve the community. Throughout all these years volunteers have joined Civil Defence for that reason, not just as a choice, and they will be the men and women who will remain always of inestimable value to the community. They have given their services not for a political or other reason but because they believe that the country needed them; and they will be prepared to serve the community in future.
Obviously the men will find new openings, first and very obviously in the Special Constabulary. There is day-to-day work to do in it, and this always keeps volunteers much more interested in what they are doing. The men also can find an opening in the work of St. John Ambulance Brigade, and anybody who has watched those men on duty know well the value of their services. They can also join the British Red Cross Society and, if it be not out of order and in spite of the fact that I am a woman, I promise a very real welcome to both male and female—and perhaps, being a woman, a greater welcome to

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the male—in the W.R.V.S., where we carry through to-day a much greater responsibility for emergency work at local authority level than has ever been carried by one body before.
I do not know how many of your Lordships have taken the trouble to train in Civil Defence. Of necessity, because I am so deeply immersed in the subject, I have known those who take a deep interest, but the proportion is low, not merely in your Lordships' House but throughout the whole country. Because the few are doing the job, the many have relied on them. I believe that in future this is the thing we have to examine. If we are going to serve the nation we must undertake, each one of us, to play our own part, in the whole.
For in an emergency, let us make no mistake that what will be required in days to come will be the preparedness of the whole nation, not of only a small proportion, so that if there be a tragedy that tragedy can be met by each individual person playing his or her part, not on a paid or "press-gang" basis but as a voluntary part of the whole, in the same way as members in a family would act together to meet a trouble. But we should be able to do that much better if we had prepared ourselves for it.
The Service to which I belong will redouble its energies in emergency welfare training, not only for our own numbers—and the number is very large—but for all those who wish to be trained, whether they join the Service or not, so that there will be readiness among the people because they have informed themselves through such training. I am absolutely sure that the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the British Red Cross will be doing the same thing in their specialised fields. Those fields are of paramount importance to the nation. And in every case this work will be done quietly on a simple, workaday, useful and practical basis at local level. Those volunteers who can no longer give their time and energy to Civil Defence can join any of these voluntary bodies to help in any sort of disaster.
In discussing this question, whether here or elsewhere, we accept that the strength of this country has been the contribution of the volunteer as an individual within the framework of the whole, and
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one of the most valuable attributes, not only of the character of the individual but of the character of the nation, has been the involvement of the nation as a whole in this type of service. I believe, as do countless others, that the great things of this land will never be achieved by the genius of the few, but are always accomplished by the faithfulness of the many.
5.16 p.m.
LORD THURLOW: My Lords, I should like to start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Long most heartily on his admirable maiden speech. I remember many years ago being annoyed at being defeated in a valuable declamation competition by his first cousin, his father's predecessor, and a friend of mine who was killed in the war. Obviously the ability in declamation and public speaking runs in the family. I hope that we shall hear my noble friend frequently, and we are very glad to welcome him to-day. Secondly, I should like to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, because I shall have to leave before the end of the debate. In the fifteen years that I have been a Member of your Lordships' House, during which I have spoken on many occasions, I have never had to do this before, but I have a longstanding engagement, and I am sorry that I shall have to leave about six o'clock.
I cannot claim the long experience in Civil Defence of some noble Lords, particularly of the noble Baroness who has just spoken, but for three years I was chairman of a Civil Defence region. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, who was the head of a Civil Defence region and I can speak as one who was a little lower down in the scale. I have also attended the Staff College as a student, and have even lectured at Easingwold on Civil Defence. I took over my appointment when military, Territorial Army and Civil Defence boundaries were so arranged that they coincided exactly; and a very tidy and efficient organisation came out of it. I am very sad that so much of this is now to be lost. As we have heard, many of the thousands of men in the Civil Defence organisation are there and carry on this work as part of their own jobs; and I was glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that they are to be retained. Of course, the police force and

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fire service are there. But where we are doubtful is whether, if such a ghastly tragedy should occur, they would be able to cope properly or expand in time to deal with the problem. It seems sad that the volunteers, who were paid very little, if anything at all, have to be disbanded purely because of the cost of their training.
The local authorities come into the matter more than ever, and I should like to ask the noble Lord (I apologise for not giving him notice) a question. I would revert to the speech I made in our Civil Defence debate on March 22, when I discussed the Ministry of Education circular in which it was stated that in the planning stage it would be necessary to earmark educational premises that would be needed for specified Civil Defence purposes and that under the Civil Defence Emergency Feeding Regulations emergency feeding authorities, county councils and county boroughs are required to prepare plans for the emergency feeding of the civil population. I should be grateful if in winding up the noble Lord could let us know what effect these new cuts will have on this plan which was started up not very long ago. As I say, I have not given him notice of this question, but perhaps he will kindly let me know the answer, because the point is rather interesting.
When the disbandment of the A.V.R. III was announced a number of officers in Civil Defence appointments told me they felt that the backbone of the organisation was broken, and they thought that that was perhaps why the Government were forced to put the organisation on something that was not much better than a care-and-maintenance basis. I should like to endorse what the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said. I, too, simply fail to see how the organisation can work under the new set-up, because previously the command and control was run by the regional headquarters. Nearly all the full-time staff on the exercises were Territorial soldiers, and the transport was produced by the Territorial Army. So, although the monitoring system may be continuing, and the Observer Corps, you will lose this tremendously important centre of the organisation; and then you come down to the devoted volunteers, the clergy and others who are still there on the ground.
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I am very worried as to whether it will be possible to build up an organisation of this sort. Do not let us forget, however, that a great deal has been done, that the most expensive part of the national network has been completed, with the local centres, communications and special equipment. I sincerely hope that this will not be thrown away, and that the items of equipment will be maintained in good condition. I hope that volunteers will be invited to come forward to learn Civil Defence duties and to keep a shadow organisation alive. Only a comparatively small number of energetic and intelligent people are required, such as those who already do so much unpaid work in local affairs throughout the country. But many of those who have been connected with A.R.P. and Civil Defence are getting elderly, and we need younger people to take their places. I should like to endorse again, as I did in the last debate, what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield said about the assistance that can be given by the clergy.
In addition, a vast amount of planning has been done, as I know personally. Complete schemes are in existence in every region and sub-region, and these must be kept up to date. Surely that is not a difficult or expensive job. I believe that in the past the W.R.V.S. were given £900,000 a year from the Government for the Civil Defence side of their work. Can the Minister, when he winds up, say whether this sum will still be available, and, if so, how it will be used in future?
It is terribly depressing to all of us who have worked hard to produce a really efficient national organisation to see it cut to ribbons. In spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, I know that there is a great deal of apprehension among the Civil Defence officers who will now be redundant. I hope that the Government will be very generous. I thought I understood the Minister to say that no one would be redundant, but I know that local authorities have not enough money to keep the whole of the existing senior staffs available. Although possibly generous pensions can be given to people who have served for thirty years, there are very few in the organisation who have served as long as that. Also, a great many took on the jobs

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thinking that they had a reasonable career in front of them, whereas if they had known that their jobs would fold up under them they would not have gone into it at all, because now they are too old to get anything else. One wonders whether they will be able to survive on a gratuity or a pension for perhaps ten years' work. We shall watch carefully what emerges, but I am afraid that personally I am very doubtful about the outcome.
5.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT YOUNGER OF LECKIE: My Lords, after all that has been said in the debate so far there is no need for me to cover a wide range of subjects, and I propose to confine my remarks entirely to the problems of the local authorities consequent on the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that this decision was a great disappointment. That, of course, is the understatement of the year. In actual fact, I am afraid there is a good deal of indignation and dismay; and I suggest to your Lordships that it is not felt without good reason.
When we had this reorganisation about a year ago, as a result of the 1966 Review, it was a bitter blow. I think that some noble Lords who have spoken to-day have not realised that ever since then we have had no rescue section, no welfare section and no first-aid section. So we were reduced to very small proportions. A reasoned argument was produced, and as the matter had been studied for what we considered to be an inordinate time we accepted, by and large, that this was a sad but necessary evil. But it was represented to us, as has been said to-day, as the minimum viable standard of Civil Defence; and nothing I have heard to-day convinces me that the minimum viable standard is any lower now than it was then.
I deduce from that, as some other noble Lords have done, that the present cuts are purely financial. We all fully realise the urgency of financial cuts, but surely we are not going to be bankrupt for ever. If the reason for these cuts is financial, as I maintain it is, then that is a short-term problem. I think that we are entitled to ask the Government to ensure that such cuts as are made to meet
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that short-term problem are not such as to compromise our ability to recover and reactivate the service to a somewhat higher level as and when the opportunity may arise or as circumstances may require.
I should have thought the implication of that from the very start was that the Civil Defence Corps should have been put into suspended animation, if that was necessary, but should not have been disbanded. It seems an absolutely pointless decision to disband it, and when the Government themselves admit that reactivation is at the back of their minds as a possibility in the future. I was very surprised to hear the noble Lord. Lord Stonham, suggest that the responsibilities of local authorities for Civil Defence would in this way be greatly reduced. This is a very doubtful argument. I think, to explain it, I should say what in my opinion has been the way in which this local government Civil Defence has worked.
I know that it is impossible to generalise about local authorities, but there is a general average of how this works. In the local authority the officials and elected members of the civil defence committee normally exercise the local authority's responsibilities on their behalf. But under them, on their own staff, they have had the full-time Civil Defence officers who have also provided their link with the volunteers. I think that in most cases a very sensible and economical local arrangement has been reached between the official side and the volunteers as to who does what. By and large, the local authority, quite naturally, controls and authorises expenditure, provides buildings, equipment and staff, and does its best to meet the reasonable requests of the Civil Defence Corps for assistance, usually through the civil defence officer. In addition, many authorities give most valuable personal encouragement to the volunteers.
One thing the local authority does not do, in my experience; it does not exercise any initiative in these matters. The initiative for training, for planning, for operations, comes from the Corps, or from the civil defence officer, and it receives the backing of the local authority civil defence committee—and very good many of these committees are. So it will be perceived that by diminishing the

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Civil Defence Corps, which means also diminishing the number of civil defence officers, you are going to lose your initiative, unless some active steps are taken to find it somewhere else. So far from this being a relief to local authorities, I believe that, if this new set-up is to be credible at all, the responsibilities of local government officials, and all the elected members on the civil defence committee will have to be very much greater than they have been in the past. I have known many departments in authorities where not a single official has ever been trained in Civil Defence. I knew at one time of a civil defence committee of which not one single member has ever attended a course, even when one was arranged for them. So I do not want your Lordships to suppose that the loss of the Civil Defence Corps is just a marginal loss—certainly at local authority level it is not.
Moreover, there were always some functions which the local authority staffs attempted to fulfil, but which they do not now attempt to fulfil. One has already been mentioned—the scientific intelligence. I am delighted to hear that provision is to be made to maintain some staff, at least, of trained scientists, as these people can measure and predict the course of fall-out in an emergency, without which all the efforts of the local authorities, and indeed of the central authorities, too, might only lead to vast and unimaginable casualties.
There is one other function, which has been mentioned to-day, and that is communications and control. It is easy to talk glibly about communications and control. I should like to say what, in my understanding, they actually comprise. These establishments, which have been kept on a care-and-maintenance basis, are on the whole the rather higher level of controls, and a year ago Lord Stonham told us that after twenty years of Civil Defence preparations, there were one-third of these in existence in England and Wales; and two-thirds in Scotland. Your Lordships can draw your own conclusions from that statement. I do not know whether it presents a true picture. If not, I hope that the noble Lord will say so. But that is what he told us. The others, presumably, would have to be improvised. But it means they have not got, for instance, private telephone wires, tele-printer circuits, if they need them. Then
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there are the control posts, what used to be called wardens' posts. After the last reorganisation, I do not think it was ever contemplated that it would be possible for local authority staffs to man those. What is supposed to happen to them? They do not exist, they are only earmarked in peace time for use in war.
I should not like your Lordships to go away with the idea that a ready-made complete system of Civil Defence control exists, because in my experience it does not. There is still a great deal of work to do. On the other hand, you will remember that in the last change, a year ago, it was proposed that the higher controls which do exist should in future be manned by local government staffs. That is an excellent idea, but I saw very little sign of its being adequately implemented. There appeared to be no intention whatever of giving these people sufficient training. If anybody thinks that the running of these controls consists of seconding half a dozen typists from the town clerk's office, all I can say is that he "has another think coming."
These controls are complete control operations rooms, signal offices, information rooms, exactly as many of your Lordships will have been familiar with, either in the Services or in Home Defence. They require not only trained staff but they require the staff to be regularly exercised, and if any noble Lord has had to operate a wireless net with inexperienced operators he will know how useless it is—you might as well not be there. The idea of training local government staffs has, of course, never got off the ground, and it will not now do so. But there are in existence fully trained staffs of volunteers for these controls, and they are going to be spent. I cannot see the point of that at all.
My third point is this: no scheme will be of any use, or credible in any way, unless it provides some system whereby it can be expanded if there is a sudden crisis. I do not care whether it is a six months, six weeks or six days crisis; when you are dealing with local authorities covering the whole length and breadth of the United Kingdom, and you have to have expansion in every one of those authorities, I can see absolutely no way of doing so except by calling for volunteers, and it is useless to call for volunteers if you have nowhere to train them. Where are we to find

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anyone to train them? There is no sign of provision for this in the organisation, and not a single person who would be a trained Civil Defence instructor. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, did not say whether any Civil Defence officers are to be kept at all. I have heard rumours that one is to be kept here and there, either on a part-time basis, or a shared basis, between authorities, but even so there will be nobody there to train new recruits coming in, unless the existing trained members of the Civil Defence Corps are kept in existence in some form or other. They will become a wasting asset. The suggestion I would put forward is that even supposing the Corps is disbanded to-morrow, the Government ought to give very serious consideration to a scheme whereby, perhaps in two years' time when the long slog the Chancellor has promised us is over, it will be possible to reactivate to some extent the proposals which were made to us a year ago by pulling back any of the highly-trained Civil Defence volunteers we can get, and using them to build up, perhaps on a small scale, some new volunteer element, whatever you may call it, to perform the functions for the local authorities which I have already described. If that is to be done successfully, I think something must be said to the volunteers either now or very soon to indicate that such a plan is under consideration and will be worth waiting for.
I do not want to keep the House too long, but it may be that I am the only Member, or one of the few Members of the House, who is still a voluntary Civil Defence worker—at least for the next three or four days. So I hope your Lordships will not take it amiss if I say a word or two about the Corps. Some very sensible things have been said about it already by various speakers, but I should like to say something about it also. I am not technically a member of the Corps, so I am not really congratulating myself. But it would have been my job, in the event of a nuclear attack, to deploy these people in support of their local authorities. Therefore, I think your Lordships will realise that I have not been able to afford to look at them through rose-tinted spectacles. I have been in that position now for some six years, and I can only say that I have
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the greatest confidence that that Corps would have given an extremely good account of itself. if I ask myself, "Why?", it is quite difficult to say.
The Corps is made up of a very good cross-section of the people of this country. It comprises people of all ages, from 17 to 70, and of both sexes; I should think it contains people from every known occupation and social class, and every one of them is doing a job for which his or her natural background specially suits him. As has been said already, some of them are not particularly glamorous jobs. The fact of the matter is that these conditions have produced a degree of enthusiasm, I could almost say dedication, which is both very heartening and very surprising. I think your Lordships will agree that spontaneous enthusiasm of this sort is a very infectious thing, and I have no doubt that in the dreadful conditions which we are contemplating—and one should remember that these conditions might well make the civil conditions in Vietnam look like a Sunday school picnic—the effect on the morale of the public of these people, whom they know, doing their very ordinary job without much fuss or trouble, dressed in a uniform they could recognise, would have been tremendous; and without public morale, my Lords, the chances of our survival as a nation would really be very poor indeed.
Therefore I cannot conceal the fact that I think this decision to disband the Corps is both unsound and unnecessary. I think it is not too late to think of some way of overcoming some of the worst effects of it. I urge Her Majesty's Government to do two things: to make sure, first, that their arrangements for peace-time planning, of which I may say I have very grave suspicions, are in fact realistic and will be done by somebody who knows his job and whose first priority is to do it; and, secondly, that the organisation that is set up would be capable of expansion within a reasonable time.
5.44 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I must first of all apologise to both Front Benches because I am afraid that I have to go to Central Hall, Westminster, to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of votes for women. After all, I should not be here if the people

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concerned had not done the job 50 years ago. I should like, if I may, to draw your Lordships' attention to a personal experience of mine. However, before I do that, may I say that in looking back thirty years I have had the privilege and pleasure of serving under both the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, and the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, and during seven years of that time I was heavily involved in Civil Defence on the South Coast.
I should like to give your Lordships from personal experience an illustration, which I think is better at this stage than a speech about details, of the dangers I feel we are laying up for ourselves in the future in passing this Bill. I was asked in 1962 to undertake a Commonwealth tour of lectures in India, Pakistan and Ceylon. I arrived in Delhi on the day of the cease-fire of the war which had been provoked by China. I do not think that ever since Independence Day had we been so popular in India as we were at that moment, because we had so rapidly come to her aid in her time of need, and never, I fear, have we been so unpopular as we are at the present moment.
On my arrival at the High Commission I found a message from the present Prime Minister, who was then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, asking me to scrap my hardworked five lectures which I had prepared, and to spend my time lecturing and broadcasting on Civil Defence. Fortunately, in my very young days I was a Girl Guide. Your Lordships know that our motto is, "Be Prepared", and I had a shrewd idea that something of this sort might happen, and therefore, although my own experience of Civil Defence was obviously very much out of date, I had taken some of the most modern leaflets out with me. It did not take me long to realise how totally unprepared Delhi was for any form of air attack. It was wholly unprotected, open to the sky, densely populated, and with no expertise whatever as to how to deal with a possible disaster. A few trenches had been dug in the sandy ground, which were rapidly being blown away or used as latrines. The population were desperately anxious to know what to do, and there was nobody with any experience to tell them. For all they knew, the war might start again and
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escalate and disaster descend from a very clear blue sky.
The obvious thing was to get an expert out immediately from our Civil Defence headquarters, and I had some conference with the newly appointed Controller for Delhi, an excellent man with great difficulties in front of him, and I attended some lectures with him. To illustrate his sort of problem, I remember that at a lecture he had explained how to put out a fire with a sack half filled with sand, when a voice came from the back of the room and said, "Where do I find the sack? Where do I find the sand? And who is going to lift it?" My friend the Controller turned to me and said, "You see the type of difficulties I am up against". I have talked of this Delhi position because I think it brings home—at least, it brings home to me—the dangers we are laying up for ourselves in the future in passing this Bill.
At present there are in Britain generations who have been through two wars or at any rate one, and together with the present Civil Defence set-up we have a great store of experience and knowledge in this country to fall back on if a sudden disaster should overtake us. But my generation is passing away; our children are getting very much older. They went through the last war, but our grandchildren know nothing of war or Civil Defence at all. Are we sure, therefore, in passing this Bill, that it is right to leave this younger generation to face the future in a state of total ignorance, such ignorance as I found in Delhi? I feel that in doing this we are betraying a trust.
I know that the Bill says that there will be "care and maintenance", but from investigations which I have made in the county with which I am familiar I find that in 1979 the allowance from the Government for this purpose will be £2,500, which, of course, I suppose might be enough to rent a store and pay for the mileage to inspect it. I know also that the Home Office have agreed that the county councils should have a small nucleus of fully trained staff among their officers, and suitable equipment—all, I suppose, on £2,500 a year. But supposing that at the outbreak of a disaster all these officials at central office, County Hall, were killed in one swoop. Where should we be then?

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I feel strongly with the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, that what is needed, as well as a concentrated number of expert officials, is a widespread knowledge of simple, necessary precautions throughout the population in the towns and village by village. It is more likely that, with any luck, some of the villages will survive than the towns, and it is surely possible, as the noble Lord, Lord Younger, has just said, that something can be saved from the present situation.
I will make one simple suggestion which has not been made to date: that instruction should be given in the top classes of schools and in the universities, and encouragement given to the young people there to join the St. John Ambulance Brigade, the Red Cross, the Special Police Constabulary, the W.R.V.S., and so on. I am quite certain that there is so much good will and knowledge in the country that Her Majesty's Government should look at this position again. Even if we put equipment in cold storage, could we not find some means of allowing this voluntary good will to carry on in a simple way, as I think people are perfectly willing to do, so that at least we may ensure that our grandchildren do not face the situation which I found in Delhi, and that by these steps we may try to secure the survival of a small fraction of the civilisation of this country if it happens to have to face the ultimate disaster.
5.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I feel a great sense of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Jellicoe for initiating this debate, which I believe is of more importance than perhaps some noble Lords have realised. My noble friend made this evident in his own speech, on which I will not further comment, but I will comment briefly on the excellent maiden speech of my noble kinsman, Lord Long. His was a valuable contribution to our debate. The third bouquet I have to hand out is somewhat upside down. It is to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, because I wish to take up straight away a point which he made in his speech and which was that when we have abandoned—or, if he does not like that word, "run down"—our system of Civil Defence, we shall then be in the same position as
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other European countries because we are the only country in Europe which has a voluntary system of Civil Defence. The premise is true; the conclusion is, to say the least of it, doubtful. The difference between this country and other European countries is that we have a voluntary system whereas other countries have an integrated system which is not subject to running down but is part of the normal forces of the country. That is the position on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and therefore their Civil Defence services remain in force. Indeed, this was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, in his speech.
Various noble Lords have spoken, and will speak, by virtue of the authority of a connection with one or other part of Civil Defence, and they will be listened to with respect. I have no such authority. I have never been, and am not, connected with Civil Defence in any way. Therefore, what I have to say—and the reason why I mention this will be obvious—is not prejudiced in the smallest degree by any kind of bias. I speak solely as one of the millions of "defended"—or "undefended", as the case may be.
With regard to the question of the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service I wish to make one point, which has been made before, but it has not been emphasised. In fact, the point was made by my noble kinsman, Lord Long, just now. This is a volunteer force, and when volunteers are sent away after years of devoted work for which they neither receive nor desire any reward at all, and are told that they are not wanted, they have a tendency not to come back. It is quite idle for anyone to suppose that once a force of this kind is dispersed it will be there in being, scattered throughout the country but ready to come up at the next call of the bugle or penny whistle when the Government may choose to call. Ministers make a great mistake if they deceive themselves into thinking that fair words of tribute put out at the time of saying "Goodbye" cut any ice at all, because they do not.
Nor does this sort of thing, said by the Home Secretary:
"There is nothing stopping the offer of voluntary services either in this field or in others".

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In the next column the Minister says that offers in this field, though they may be made, cannot be accepted, which rather spoils the effect. However, he goes on to say:
"if volunteers wish to offer their services, there are such invaluable institutions as the Red Cross; I have mentioned already the W.R.V.S.; there is St. John Ambulance Brigade."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 29/2/68; col. 1803.]
That is doubtless true, just as it is true that when the football season ends the cricket season begins; which is all right for such footballers as happen to be keen on cricket but is not much good for those who are not. In passing, I think that what we really need is a national emergency corps, with T. & A.V.R. III incorporated in it as its para-military wing; but that is another question.
I now turn to the question of county staffs. The Civil Defence Act 1948 is not to be repealed, which is an important point, and this means that the statutory obligations of county councils remain obligations for the care of the homeless and injured, feeding the population, the maintenance of the control system and the training and planning required for all these things. But Civil Defence staffs are to be cut. By how much can they be cut? I have no great field of knowledge of this subject, but in my own county of West Sussex, for which I have some information given to me, the Civil Defence Officer considers that the absolute basic minimum with which he would be able to operate at all would be two Civil Defence officers and a shorthand typist. He calculates that the minimum cost on which any kind of system could be run would be about £7,500 a year. That is the basic minimum, both in personnel and in money, without which it is not considered that the county council could undertake to carry out its statutory responsibilities.
As noble Lords have heard, the Home Office has offered to contribute about £2,500 a year, which is a third of the absolute minimum estimated, and is just under one-fiftieth of the corresponding contribution for the year 1967–68. So it appears that the Home Office is refusing to give the county enough money to carry out its statutory obligations. That suggests to me two questions: first, is the Home Office proposing to make cuts in its
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own budget by shifting the burden on to local authorities; and, secondly, if not, why and how do the Government become entitled to withhold the money necessary for the implementing of an Act of Parliament? This may be an ignorant question but it is not a polemical one.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, may I just answer the noble Earl on that point? We are to consider four Civil Defence Regulations to-morrow which will have an effect on the present responsibility of local authorities in respect of Civil Defence and which I think will provide the answer to the noble Earl's question. The other point I would make is that when I mentioned £1 million of continuing expenditure from 1969–70 onwards, that was Exchequer expenditure, and any rate-borne expenditure is of course related to that.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I accept his words and leave it at that. I should like to return to the question of the disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service, and the first point I make is that it has not happened yet. The statement made by the Home Secretary in another place on the 29th of last month was—this is a familiar enough quotation by now:
"The intention is to disband the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service on the 31st March.".
That is next Monday. But even that statement given by the Home Secretary is not complete. To complete it it should have these additional words:
"If both Houses of Parliament so approve".
So noble Lords will be pleased, I hope, to bear in mind—and I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for helping me to plug this home—that tomorrow is the day, and I beg noble Lords to keep that in mind during the rest of my remarks and the rest of this debate, because I think it has vital relevance to the debate.
Now I ask how and on what justification the Government have arrived at their policies for Civil Defence. There is apparently no deception about this. They are cutting Civil Defence in order to save money. However, there is a good deal more to it than that. No one will gainsay that the safety of the people is the responsibility of the Government,

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but whether or not the running down of the means of discharging that responsibility is justified depends on three factors; the magnitude of the risk to be faced, if any; the amount of warning that may be expected of the approach of war; and the capacity for reconstituting the defence in face of the threat. Those have to be considered both separately and in conjunction with one another.
It is accepted that the risk of general war in Europe, which is taken to mean nuclear war within a matter of weeks, has greatly receded, and I believe it has, but nobody says that the danger has disappeared; indeed, the whole of NATO strategy is based firmly on the belief that it has not. It is all very well for the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and others to talk about encouraging signs, but one does not abandon one's defences simply on the strength of encouraging signs. It is hardly enough. Nor does anyone know for certain what such a risk, if it came, might entail; that is to say, in terms of catastrophic events within the United Kingdom itself.
It might be a thermo-nuclear saturation attack which would be the end for us; we should not bother about it any more. Or it might be one or two lesser strikes, causing great devastation but demanding the whole of the emergency services the country could provide. Or it might conceivably be a single rocket, falling who knows where, either as the result of a mistake, an accident, or even conceivably the egregious folly of some madman in a submarine. In short, the magnitude of the calamity that might befall is beyond calculation, but is in any case vastly too great to be ignored. This truth is reflected in the Government's wise decision to keep in being the Royal Observer Corps; though it must be remarked that observers are useless if there is nobody for them to report to and nobody to act on their reports.
That brings us to the second of the three factors, the amount of warning that might be expected of the approach of war. This is a matter of strategic and political appreciation, and the Government's conclusion is that international tensions have by now relaxed to a point from which they will take a long, or at any rate a longer, time to deteriorate again into a likelihood of war—in other
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words, long warning. As the Home Secretary himself has put it:
"Cuba blew up very quickly. It is now possible to form a judgment that future crises are likely to be longer in developing than that was".—[col. 1800.]
That may well be true, though, heaven knows!, it is not saying much.
But what I will not accept as true is the idea that such a judgment is totally reliable. To argue that we shall probably get long or longer warning of the approach of war is one thing; to take that probability as justification for dismantling most of our defences is quite another. Except in one circumstance: we should be justified in dismantling if we could be certain that, be the warning long or short, we should still be able to reconstitute the defences in time to meet the threat before the warning time ran out. It was in order to test the Government's feeling on this particular point that I put down my Starred Question this afternoon, which elicited the replies from the noble Lord which your Lordships heard. It was described by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe as a careful reply, and indeed it was, I am bound to say—I have no wish to be anything but fair to the noble Lord in this. I think it amounted to the fact that he really did not know, and that was the answer I expected. Nor am I being the least unfair to the noble Lord, because that is in fact what the Home Secretary said on February 29 in another place: nobody does know. It is all very well to say it will depend on the acuteness of the danger and the swiftness with which we react, and things of that kind. That is hardly the point. What we want to know is how long it will take.
The Government do not know. The Government apparently have not even asked the Civil Defence officers. That is the task of the Home Office. I cannot go round asking all the Civil Defence officers and I am afraid I have asked only two. So far as I can make out, there is likely to be nobody in a position of authority on that level who is prepared to say that once the Civil Defence Corps and A.F.S. have run down, which the Government say will take a year to complete, it will be possible to revive them to a state of war in less than another year—some say six months; but six months depends on the idea that

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they will not have been completely run down. With complete run down in a year from now they need another year to revive them. How many noble Lords, inside or outside the Government, are prepared to stand up and say now that in March, 1969, we shall be able to say with certainty that there will be no war before March, 1970? Is it possible? No, my Lords, it is not.
I submit that the conclusion is inescapable. I will state it in the form of a question, and I should like to put it to the Government in these words. If you do not know that the time needed to reconstitute Civil Defence to a state of readiness for war will be shorter than the warning you will receive of the approach of war, then on what facts did you base the politico-strategic appreciation you have put forward in support of your intention to disband the Civil Defence services? I shall be very much interested to hear if anyone can give me a sensible answer to that question. It is my contention that these cuts forming part of the Government's post devaluation policy were proposed by them with little or no assessment of the risks involved.
This brings me to the part of the story I find horrifying; I chose the word deliberately and I repeat it—horrifying. Noble Lords may remember, perhaps, that I interrupted, I hope not rudely, the noble Lord when he was speaking to ask him whether he was speaking for the Government or the Home Office, and I think he thought it was a rather stupid or perhaps impertinent question. I had a particular reason, because, as I will reveal to those of your Lordships who have not yet discovered it, whereas the noble Lord was saying that "we", meaning the Government, had come to the conclusion that Civil Defence had to be cut down for certain financial reasons, the Home Secretary himself has announced in another place that in fact the Government came to no such decision at all; it was come to by the Home Office. This is a matter of some importance.
Persons whose common sense is greater than their fund of political knowledge might suppose that a Government, when faced with a need to reduce expenditure on all fronts, will proceed in an orderly, rational way; that is to say, will arrange
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all its expenditures in various fields in order of priorities and make its reductions in accordance with the priorities right across the board, to use the more or less meaningless cliché of the moment. Thus it might consider, for example, how the nationalisation of transport stood in relation to the school-leaving age and apply the axe according to how it thought the priorities stood between the two. I, too, once thought that that, being the sensible and efficient approach, would be the one employed by Governments. It was with a shock of disillusion I came to realise how naive I had been. But perhaps there might still be some noble Lords who do not know that Governments do not work in that way; they do not consider Government expenditure as a whole, they consider it Department by Department, Ministry by Ministry, and each Minister is called upon to make what contribution he thinks his Department can best afford.
So it was in this case. The Home Secretary was required to make a "contribution" or, in his own words, a "forced levy". He had to cut something. So what could he afford to cut? He decided that he could not afford to cut down on the police, on security in prisons, on the children's services, on immigration officers, on Home Office staff or on various Home Office services. So down came the chopper on Civil Defence. There, my Lords, is the answer to the suggestion that Civil Defence has been cut because the Government decided that they could not afford it. No such thing, I am sorry to say.
I am not making this up, I assure your Lordships. I take it from Mr. Callaghan's own speech in the Civil Defence debate in another place on February 29, and you will find it in columns 1793 to 1795 of the OFFICIAL REPORT. In reading that Report I was encouraged to learn that there must be at least one honourable gentleman as politically naive as myself, for he asked the Home Secretary whether he could not have tried to persuade his colleagues to make economies at the expense of the Transport Bill and the Transport Holdings Bill. Here is the answer that he received—I quote from col. 1794:
"I am referring to the contribution that I was asked to make to this general misery to which we were all subjected "—

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that is not bad for the former Chancellor of the Exchequer!—
"and I had to consider this within my own responsibility.…One cannot get support in Cabinet if one says to the Cabinet, 'I will not do anything, but what about him or her?' One has to look at one's own field, and that was what I had to do. I had to look at what contribution I could make."
I ask you to note the words:
"One cannot get support in Cabinet…"
Could there well be a more gross indictment of the attitude of Cabinet Ministers towards the people who appointed them to power? Is it any wonder that the whole process of government has come to be regarded with derision and cynicism if not with actual contempt?
I do not hurl these strictures in the teeth of the Labour Government alone; it is part of the whole basis of government in general—and my authority for saying that is to be found in the speech by the right honourable and learned Member for St. Marylebone in the same debate. But I do not believe that any Government has ever before carried the system to the point of making the defences of the nation into a sacrifice to be exacted from one Cabinet Minister by all the others.
When those whom we have entrusted with the conduct of our affairs behave in this internecine way, we may be excused, I think, for a tendency to wonder whose side they are on, apart from being each on his own side. All politics are a battle, but when you get to the Cabinet it is jungle warfare. That is not an original remark, so I cannot claim it. It was made to me quite recently by one who has been through the whole political mill, Cabinet and all, and emerged more greatly respected and with higher honours than most. But it is worth repeating:
"All politics are a battle, but when you get to the Cabinet it's jungle warfare."
Do your Lordships really think that the forced abrogation of the Home Secretary's responsibility towards the nation is compensated for in some way by the fact that the Minister of Transport has "contributed" some reduction in the roads programme? Or do you think, as I do, that it is dangerously, even wickedly, irresponsible to let one Ministry dismantle our defences against disaster while another more than offsets the saving made
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by squandering millions of our money on buying buses that are already running?
As my noble friend Lord Jellicoe said a few days ago, the Government are gambling on no war. They are gambling money against lives, and both the money and the lives are ours. But remember again, they have not done it yet. They have announced that they mean to do it, and they have already begun the running down of Civil Defence without bothering to ask for the approval of Parliament. They have not waited for that. But the fact is, as your Lordships know from the Order Paper, that the question of whether the Civil Defence services and the Auxiliary Fire Service are to be disbanded or not, is for your Lordships to decide. The matter will be decided here, in this Chamber, and in the Division Lobby to-morrow afternoon, when we are asked to approve these revocation orders. What will you say, my Lords? Will you approve or disapprove? If there be any noble Lord who remains in doubt beyond the end of this debate, I would beg that he address himself most earnestly to the question of making up his mind, for the time of decision is less than a day and a night away.
6.16 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I have one small specific point only to make, and I shall be relatively brief. My noble friend Lord Jellicoe, to whom I, like the rest of your Lordships, am most grateful for giving us this opportunity to debate Civil Defence, has expressed with his usual clarity and conviction the views of those of us on this side of the House as to the damaging effects of the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards Civil Defence and the dangers of disbanding the Civil Defence Corps. That case has been amplified by a great many of your Lordships with considerable experience, and I could not possibly add to it.
The particular reason why I wish to speak is that I am proud to be the Prior of the Order of St. John in Wales, and the St. John Ambulance Brigade have worked closely with the Civil Defence Corps over a great many years. In fact, as your Lordships will recall, at the recent review of Civil Defence responsibilities about a year ago, the whole of the first aid side of Civil Defence was

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entrusted to the Red Cross and St. John organisations.
Not only have we closely worked with Civil Defence on planning for emergencies in the event of hostilities, but as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield said, in his well-informed speech, the Civil Defence Corps has played an outstanding role in many civil disasters. He mentioned one or two in regard to Staffordshire. May I just mention one in Wales which your Lordships will remember well?—the disaster at Aberfan. The Civil Defence heavy rescue squads did an immense job of work in that disaster, and the St. John Ambulance Brigade were there, as indeed were a great many other statutory and voluntary bodies. But in particular, obviously, a disaster of this sort called upon the expert knowledge of the Civil Defence Corps. It is possible to argue that nuclear war is a relatively remote possibility, but unfortunately peace-time disasters occur with horrifying frequency, and we shall certainly miss the existence of the Civil Defence Corps on these occasions.
The noble Baroness, Lady Swan-borough, spoke of the sense of duty to the community shown by these volunteers and the importance of preserving it. I do not wish to blow the St. John trumpet too loud, nor to wave the banner of Wales too vigorously, but I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that I think the St. John Ambulance Brigade in Wales have shown a useful initiative in offering to absorb whole units of Civil Defence volunteers should the Government go ahead with their policy, as seems likely. Various Civil Defence units have expressed a desire to continue in being on a voluntary basis and, provided they are willing to train in first aid, they can be taken into the St. John Ambulance Brigade, which will offer them a uniformed and disciplined organisation in which they can continue to give invaluable service. From what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said about these and similar arrangements, I take it that this kind of effort would have the approval of Her Majesty's Government.
The main reason for my intervention in this debate is to tell your Lordships that another organisation, one that is of considerable importance to this country,
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is very desperately affected by these economy cuts—I refer to the National Hospital Service Reserve. This Reserve is part of Civil Defence and is threatened with extinction as part of the Civil Defence organisation. Even more than the Civil Defence Corps as a whole, the National Hospital Service Reserve has proved invaluable in time of peace. Again and again at times of crisis, when there have been staff shortages at hospitals, or epidemics, or disasters, the N.H.S.R. has come to the rescue of the Hospital Service. In a recent 'flu epidemic in Cardiff, the nursing service was decimated and the hospitals called on their N.H.S.R. members to fill the gap. Yet unless something is done, this invaluable service will disappear.
In all, there are 60,800 members of the N.H.S.R.—4,500 of them qualified nurses, and 56,300 nursing auxiliaries. We have been talking in terms of 89,000 volunteers in the Civil Defence Corps and Auxiliary Fire Service. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the members of the National Hospital Service Reserve comprise two-thirds of the figure of Civil Defence volunteers. About 25 per cent. of them are at present working in hospitals, training or gaining experience, and they are therefore very much a part of the present manpower of the hospitals. I wonder how the hospitals will fare without them.
Of this total force of volunteers, over 40 per cent. have been recruited through the voluntary societies, the Red Cross and the Order of St. John. In fact in Wales the figure is even higher—just under 50 per cent. These members from the voluntary societies are, of course, volunteers. They are not paid for their work. They receive out-of-pocket expenses; the uniform is supplied to them, and they are reimbursed for their travel expenses. But they give their services free. How invaluable it is to the Hospital Service to have this volunteer reserve for so little expenditure!
It seems that while the Government have decided to abolish the Civil Defence Corps, and with it the National Hospital Service Reserve, the Ministry of Health are most concerned about the future. The Ministry issued a statement on March 20 this year in which they anticipated that hospital authorities may wish to retain the National Hospital Service Reserve to

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provide help in peace-time emergencies. To quote one sentence from the circular:
"Hospital Management Committees will therefore be invited to organise the Reserve on a local basis according to their own needs"—
and these are the important words—
"and from within their existing financial resources, since additional funds will not be available."
My Lords, how are the hospital management committees expected to find these funds? I know of no hospital management committee with funds to spare. When this Reserve is acknowledged to be useful and required, it is ridiculous to throw the financial burden on to the local hospital management committees who are already on stringent budgets for revenue expenditure. The Government are speaking with two voices. With one voice they say that there will be no more money for the N.H.S.R., and with another voice the Ministry of Health say that this Reserve is of the greatest value and that hospital management committees should endeavour to continue with it. But it is a derogation of responsibility for the Government to say that the Reserve should continue, yet not be prepared to find the money.
I would ask the Government, and the noble Lord who is to reply, what are the figures involved in the National Hospital Service Reserve. We have been speaking in this debate about a saving of £20 million over the whole of Civil Defence. What part of that whole saving is made up by the cuts in the N.H.S.R.? In view of the need for this reserve, is it really a worthwhile economy? Will the Government please give us a complete picture of their view of the future of the N.H.S.R.? They owe it to the many dedicated members who have given such wonderful service to the nation in the past.
6.27 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, it is a great pleasure for me to take part in a debate which has been started by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe. Although he is probably unaware of it, this is the second time that I have followed him into action. On the previous occasion he descended into Greece from the air, as commander of a force whose name suggests aquatic sports, the Special Boat Service, to have a crack at the Germans.
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It was a curious affair in which the R.A.F. Regiment went in a landing craft and the Navy arrived in a jeep and the Long Range Desert Group put barbed wire along the perimeter of a landing strip. It is pleasant to be engaged with the noble Earl again.
I should like, in his absence, to congratulate the noble Viscount, Lord Long, on his maiden speech. It suggested to me an idea which I shall propound a little later in my speech. It is also a pleasure and honour for me to speak in a debate in which the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, has taken part. I will take up his offer of criticising him for prejudice, but before I do so I should like to say that from my lowly point of view he is a public figure, far away from "the madding crowd", outstanding for his impartiality and sense of justice. When I hear him speak I always say to myself, "I wish I could speak as well as that man". However, to-day may I say, with all respect, that I thought he was a little hard on the Government in this debate, which is a conflict between two sides, when he jibed at them for general economic incompetence. Perhaps he would agree with me that the economic situation is deep-rooted. I remember writing an article when Mr. Thorneycroft, as he then was, resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I wrote the article in support of Lord Thorneycroft, for which an editor paid me a sum of £25, which I do not usually get for my articles. I think that since the noble Lord's elevation he has explained the situation and attributed some blame and some share of responsibility for the economic malaise to his own Party as well as to the Labour Party. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, will not devastate me, but perhaps he will agree.
LORD SHAWCROSS: I do indeed.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: A great deal of the debate has centred on the Civil Defence Corps. I myself retired from that body in 1958. I am here to speak about civil defence, quite apart from the Civil Defence Corps as such. I would start, as did the noble Earl, with a comparison with 1938 when I was secretary to a number of War Office Committees. They were concerned with mobilisation, defending ports abroad, and the air defence of Great Britain. Our

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period was divided between pre-Munich and post-Munich. Before the Munich crisis nothing was attainable. We slaved and toiled in vain. The Treasury said, "No". Deputations came protesting against our intention to nut an antiaircraft gun near them. I remember one local authority said that it would break their windows and reduce rateable values. A hospital board said that it would disturb the patients. A group of allotment holders said that it would diminish the nation's food supply if we took their cabbage patches, which of course it would. That was the spirit. When Munich came there was a change overnight. Everything came our way and everybody wanted our guns. Even the Navy came along and said, "What is your programme regarding the defence of Plymouth?". Our programme was, in fact, nil. We had no programme. The Navy were the first do-it-yourself people. We never thought they would come to us. However, that was the difference.
The remarks of the noble Viscount, Lord Long, about the danger of other Powers and nuclear proliferation, reminded me that it seems that the Soviet Union and the United States are moving towards some kind of pact, perhaps having in view China with 1,000 million people in the year 2,000, and the possibility that in order to gain world power she might accept 300 million casualties. But I cannot help reminding myself, also, that what started Munich was a certain madness, with a detonating factor in subjugated Germans. The Germans are a powerful, dangerous, military people. I think they are very delightful people as well, but that is one of their characteristics. There is now in the subjugated portions of Eastern Europe to-day a spirit of getting rid of the chains, and if that were to spread with great intensity to East Germany I am not sure that there would not be the same kind of madness. The Germans have nothing to lose but their lives, so let them be united. I am not sure that the Soviet Union would accept that, and I am not sure that in certain circumstances the United States would not be virtually compelled to come in on the side of unity. I can see an extremely dangerous situation blowing up within a matter of months or weeks.
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As in 1938, active defence missiles are still directed against the bases of the other side. In 1938 we knew that those missiles would reach this country but we also knew, or thought we knew, that they were incapable of effecting the subjugation of this country without the physical invasion of troops. To-day, in 1968, we know that missiles can reach between the Soviet Union and the United States, and that a decision is more than likely to come in a thermo-nuclear war without any invasion. We know that the strike may be against peoples and property, as well as against missile bases. I think it is correct to say—and I have been studying the American scientists, because there seems to be a shortage of books on the subject written in this country—that there would no longer be mobilisation of labour and war production, and people would be hostages and so would property. The war effort of the industrial population would be quite irrelevant, because the war would be over before they could produce a further stick.
The civil defence mission, as I see it—and I do not mean the Civil Defence Corps, I mean the task of civil defence—does not necessarily mean having civilians in the corps. There could be military. The mission is the defence of our people against missiles which the active defences cannot possibly stop. We know they cannot stop them. In order to know what we are in for, I think we should look at the scale of the attack. It is depressing to look at some of the scientific papers produced in America, where it is stated as a fact that the two super-Powers have missiles aimed at this moment against the missile bases of the other; that in all probability every town exceeding 100,000 is covered by other missiles capable of destroying it or effecting major destruction; and that this destruction can be now inflicted by one country upon the other—that is, the Soviet Union on the United States, as well as the other way round—and upon us, regardless of the final outcome, regardless of civil defence, and no matter who strikes first.
It seems that in dealing with this problem quite a number of people have been bemused by the word "Armageddon". The Daily Telegraph weekend magazine of March 15 had an article which was

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quite interesting, and which had the title "Countdown to Armageddon". It does not seem, however, that total destruction is within the capacity of man. Total annihilation by human beings is remote, as also is the ability to provide contamination which cannot be decontaminated. That has not been done yet. Even supposing, if the Soviet Union engaged in a war with the United States and ourselves as three nuclear Powers, that the result was 300 million dead, as it could be if we accept the scientific estimates, that is not Armageddon. It is 10 per cent. of the world's population. It would make a mere dent in the population explosion. The world would go on. Asians now barred by the various Commonwealth Immigration Acts would follow up on the decontamination of Strontium 90 and fill the spaces. They would not envy the dead. They might not even regret them. The loss of those two great white Powers would be an irrelevancy in history—a 10 per cent. incident, and that is all.
It has been said how vulnerable we are, but nothing has been said to explain how we are vulnerable. It seems to me that one should make a brief study of the vital statistics. In population we are 52 million against 184 million in the United States, or, I should say, on the same side, and there are 209 million in the Soviet Union. On the question of ability to manœuvre—elbow room—if our capacity is measured as one, it is 30 in the United States and 100 in the Soviet Union. On the time factor, it would seem that a destruction of, say, 25 cities in all three countries could take place simultaneously, no side being able to stop it, in a space of between 4 to 80 minutes so far as this country is concerned, and 16 to, say, 320 minutes in the case of the United States and the Soviet Union. We are terribly vulnerable by comparison. One city alone, London, with its conurbation, houses about 10 per cent. of our population. By comparison, Washington houses a mere one-third of 1 per cent. of the United States, Moscow 2½ per cent. of the population of Russia. Whether it is 25 cities, 9 or 1, all of them, I feel sure, could be destroyed in a matter of minutes from now. We are in a very unfavourable position. It would seem that we might have a choice one day to be either, on the old maxim, "Red or dead".
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But suppose that if we have no Civil Defence 50 per cent. of our structures would be destroyed and 50 per cent. of our people, but that if we have a substantial measure of Civil Defence it will be 10 per cent. of our people destroyed and 50 per cent. of our structures, as before. I think Civil Defence has no capacity to reduce physical destruction of buildings. Suppose we are in this position. Are we not exposed to tremendous blackmail? Suppose they decide to swap cities—1, 9 or 25—or they decide, alternatively, to put down dirty bombs at ground level, with fall-out spreading all over the country, entirely unprotected. It seems to me that so long as we go about armed with nuclear weapons we cannot fairly expose our people without any shield in the matter of Civil Defence. I have no competence to decide whether the existing Civil Defence Corps is the best or not. I have for 12 years thought it was entirely inadequate. I feel that we are moving towards the possibility of leading our people into a war with no possibility whatever of victory but with either the certainty of vast damage or of being made the subject of blackmail without any adequate protection to ensure the only possible thing that really makes any difference in the end—the survival of people.
6.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, I should like first to thank the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, for bringing this subject to your Lordships' notice to-day; and I think that the results of the debate should amply repay him for what he has done. I believe the decision to abandon or greatly reduce the Civil Defence Service could be said to be largely a political and not an economic one. I say this because I believe that the savings which may be made by this action are so relatively insignificant compared with the total savings the Government have been discussing that it could be said that some of these cuts have been made to appease certain pacifist elements in the Labour Party. It is therefore not so easy to argue this case as logically as one should. There is also very much confusion, I think, as to how much money is likely to be saved. It depends on what is meant by Civil Defence. The best estimate that I have been able to obtain is that perhaps £6 million or £8 million

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might be saved. If this sum is regarded as an insurance premium, which is what it is, it must be a very cheap form of insurance indeed.
However, I do not want to talk to-day about the economic aspects or about the political, the strategic or the nuclear aspects. Those aspects of the subject have been very well and properly covered by those more competent to deal with them than myself. I should like to confine my remarks to two totally different aspects, which are as follows. First, the point which has concerned me greatly is the manner in which these cuts were announced. The Civil Defence Corps have been trained on the basis that they would receive 72 hours' warning of any disaster. They did not, in their own case, get even four minutes' warning. They awoke to see in the newspaper that their jobs, if they were officials, or, if they were volunteers, their spare-time services, were to disappear. In my own part of the world we are sensitive, although we are well used to redundancies and unemployment, and I think I can safely leave to your Lordships' imagination what these people thought when they heard the news. I do not think they were particularly grateful that the Government should sugar the pill by wrapping it up with a theory that suddenly it had been discovered that six months' notice was going to be received before anything happened.
Far worse, perhaps, even than the discourteous and unnecessarily brutal way in which it was done I believe was the continued uncertainty created in the Civil Defence Corps itself and in those responsible for it. All that we really know is that Civil Defence as we know it or have known it stops on Sunday night. What will remain after that is still largely unknown in detail. It is difficult to know what precisely will happen to some of the equipment, the premises, and so on, and what exactly "care and maintenance" means. I do not think that those responsible for administering these services have had nearly enough detailed instructions as to the Government's precise intentions. We can only hope that they may soon arrive.
We have heard to-day from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that the figure of £1 million will be available for the future of the Civil Defence services, but I under-
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stand that a quarter of this £1 million is likely to be reserved for compensation to those officers of the service who have lost their jobs. I am also led to believe that a further £150,000 is being retained by the Government for expenditure on behalf of other Government Departments. We do not know what this means, but to my mind it shows that even the figure of £1 million is not in itself true. It would appear that not more than £500,000 will be available for the future of this service. I believe that about £30,000 is going to be left for the whole of the North of England in the future, which is totally inadequate for any service at all.
I should like to refer mainly, if I may, to the local authority aspect of Civil Defence. I would emphasise that I speak personally, that these are my own personal views. The county council of which I have the honour at the moment to be chairman has over many years built up an extremely active, very efficient and very worth while Civil Defence department, housed in modern and spacious headquarters, with over 900 volunteers available. We now have to face the task of dismantling most of this service and we do so with the greatest regret. What concerns me really is that the Home Secretary said in another place on February 29:
"I must emphasise that … local authorities will have continuing civil defence responsibilities …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, col. 1805; 29/2/68.]
That looks to me very much like another attempt to put the cost of running Civil Defence on to the local authorities—a tendency we have noticed frequently lately, to pass the baby and the bill together to the local authorities. No doubt local authorities will also have to bear the blame should there be no Civil Defence if and when the balloon goes up. The Government have made it quite clear that it is their intention to abolish their responsibilities. It is no good saying that we are dismantling or disbanding things, or what we are not doing. The fact of the matter is that if this takes place the Government will have completely abolished the Civil Defence services, and local authorities will have to take them on.
I believe that local authorities will be willing to keep some form of Civil Defence going if only because there is one aspect of Civil Defence which is

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often overlooked and which has not really been touched on very much to-day, and that is its use, in which it has been very valuable, in civil disasters. I do not refer to the major events about which we have all read, such as the "Torrey Canyon" affair or Aberfan. These we know all about. I am referring to the much smaller, everyday happenings which go wrong. In my own county in the last four years the Civil Defence Corps have had to help with no fewer than 22 cases of floods, where people and property have had to be rescued on one river, the latest case no more than four days ago. In another river valley there have been serious floods with much damage to property, and on one occasion some 350 children and old persons were rescued by the Civil Defence Corps. We have also suffered the disasters of a train crash and a blizzard, during a search in which two shepherds lost their lives. These are acts of God, and they will go on, whatever this or any other Government do. We cannot in any case control them. In many cases the police may not be able to cope with these things on a large enough scale. They are magnificent in doing what they can, but it is more than possible that the help which they have freely asked for from the Civil Defence in the past will be something for which they will badly feel the need in the future. I am very concerned lest this service should be lost to us.
These series of national disasters, such as earthquakes and the Aberfan disaster, are, thank Heaven! very rare in this country; but they will occur in the future. I firmly believe that it is going to be the duty of a local authority to have some service which can be called out to help, because, as I say, the Government have completely abolished their responsibilities towards it. Financing this service is going to be no easier for local government than for central Government. We shall not find it easy to set up such an organisation and pay for it: but I think it would be a justifiable use of our resources. The situation is now worse with the decline in the Regular and Territorial Armies.
I believe, as has already been mentioned by the noble Earl in his speech at
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the beginning of the debate, that the time has now definitely come when we must make a real effort to amalgamate the Civil Defence Corps with the T. & A.V.R. III. They should be formed into one body which is able to cope with disasters such as I have mentioned, which may face us anywhere at any time. It is not only necessary to have a trained headquarters and sub-unit headquarters, which can be quite small and relatively inexpensive, it is also necessary to have available a large body of volunteers, at all levels and in all districts. The permanent headquarters will thus be able, with the help of the police or the local radio, or by whatever means may be necessary, to call out volunteers at short notice. These volunteers will need to be provided with minimal forms of transport and equipment.
I do not know what such a force would cost; but it seems reasonable to expect the ratepayers to contribute perhaps half the amount required. But what is more important than the cost, I believe, is that the Government should give such a scheme recognition and encouragement and every sort of official backing: because without this, the volunteers will not come forward. Furthermore, it is obvious that larger units than our existing local government units could well be combined to make this idea worthwhile. I have in mind, for example, the co-operation of the county borough with the surrounding county council. In this way the existing spirit of volunteering, which is so strong in this country and which has been so disastrously disregarded by the Government recently, could be preserved on the basis of having a really worthwhile task to do and not—as has been freely admitted—as in the past, an unrealistic task to train for.
I personally should like to see such a scheme organised on military lines. Whether the Territorial Army, the T. & A.V.R. III, should take over Civil Defence or vice versa is a matter on which I should not like to judge. I believe that it would be of value to use the existing body of Territorial soldiers and also the traditions of the various Territorial regiments which are now in such grave danger of extinction. The Auxiliary Fire Service, whose passing we all regret, could also be included in this new body.

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It is true that the various voluntary societies such as the Red Cross, the St. John Ambulance Brigade and the W.R.V.S., which have done such great work in this country, can in many places undertake some of the tasks I have been talking about; but they do not exist everywhere. Again, the special constabulary can well be expected to help in some cases. These bodies are all extremely valuable and could play an essential part. But to my mind, what is more important is that they should be co-ordinated and directed by a properly run headquarters, which would see that they were in the right place at the right time. I believe that such a course would be welcomed by the volunteers themselves. They could easily be organised before the Civil Defence force and the T & A.V.R. III disappear. But once you have lost the volunteers who have so loyally supported many previous Governments for years—and who might even support this Government, if they felt they could trust it—you can never build up the force again. I believe that to have thrown this volunteer spirit out of the window may well be one of the greatest sins which future generations will lay at the door of this Government.
6.55 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, when, a year ago, we discussed this subject, the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, ended his excellent speech by complaining that mine was (I think his words were) the only "hostile speech." If my speech was hostile when mutilation was threatened, I cannot imagine what it is going to be now that murder is promised. If I may elaborate on the noble Lord's speech—and it has been referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe—it is interesting to note what he said. The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, said:
"While I am quite certain that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, will not go away from this debate to-night with all his fears allayed, I am satisfied that, with the zeal the Devon authority have for Civil Defence, they will find that in a year or two from now the worst of their fears were groundless, that even some of their minor fears were groundless, and that they will be given the opportunity of creating and maintaining as good an organisation as they have ever had in the past."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/3/67, col. 840.]
My Lords, my main criticism of the Government is a general one. It is that, in addition to other things, they have devalued voluntary service which up to
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now has been the backbone of this country. I would generalise further by saying that to my mind this is the biggest crime of all. Let me declare my interest. Apart from a somewhat tenuous and indirect connection with local Civil Defence to which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has twice referred in this House, I happen to have the honour to be the Honorary Colonel of one of the T. & A.V.R. III regiments about to be abolished. I was chided by a noble friend and neighbour for not supporting the Government on the Statement which announced that my regiment was to be abolished; but I am sure that he will realise (as will all noble Lords who have served in a military organisation or in a para-military Civil Defence organisation) that that was more than flesh and blood could stand. It is on this point, the treatment of so many decent and patriotic human beings, that I am most irate.
On the subject of T. & A.V.R. III, I do not think we can do better than to quote the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who said in the debate to which I have referred earlier:
"In the maintenance of law and order the police will have … the invaluable assistance of the 23,000 men of the Territorial Army Volunteer Reserve III."—[col. 790]
They say where I come from, "Not if the present mob have their way!" In regard to this matter of law and order, I make no apology for repeating to your Lordships my experience in Los Angeles just after the racial riots there. I think this is an apposite subject to refer to for a moment. When I was photographing the smouldering ruins, my negro taxi-driver said, "I reckon you got something like this building up in your country". He added, "I hope you've got a good National Guard". As your Lordships know, the American National Guard is equivalent to our Territorial Army. I would also have added: a good auxiliary fire service; a good rescue service; a good W.V.S.; and all those other things which up to now we have considered to be Civil Defence. But the main thing to cope with those situations, I think, is to have the equivalent of a National Guard, the Territorial Army, to defend those services when they are doing their job. I do not really feel that the Government can put their hands on their hearts and

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say, "We are never going to be faced with race troubles in this country".
My Lords, I turn now to one of the main Civil Defence functions, or what they have been to date: that of trying to save as many lives as possible after a nuclear attack. I reject completely the pacifist line that we should all be wiped out, and therefore that we should "Eat, drink and be merry; for to-morrow you may die." The three basic and cardinal virtues on which I was brought up were Faith, Hope and Charity. It seems to me that if you are going to give up Civil Defence, you are "chucking away" Hope. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who said on March 22 last year:
"Under nuclear attack, Civil Defence means nothing less than the maintenance, at all levels, of the whole machinery of government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22/3/67, c. 786.]
If you throw away that you throw away hope. And I applauded the noble Lord when he said that he gave place to nobody in his belief:
"that an efficient Civil Defence is a vital necessity …"—[Col. 783.]
In the debate in another place great play was made of the improvement in international relations. I cannot agree. Surely history has shown that great conflicts have grown out of small incidents—be it a "Jenkins Ear" or the murder of a distant princeling. Surely, my Lords, with the Middle East on the boil, the greatest factor in the danger to our world to-day is that the Russian fleet is now in the Mediterranean; and now, of course, probably rushing into the Gulf to fill the vacuum which we are leaving. These are things which this country has been trying to prevent for hundreds of years. Therefore, I think that to say that the improvement in relations is such that we can afford to relax our guard is illogical. Even if the Russians honestly turned friendly—and Cuba showed that they would never miss what they considered an easy trick—there are two other countries in the world who are not members of a non-proliferation treaty and who do not seem to like us very much. They have nuclear weapons and rocketry.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, was so right when he said at the Annual Conference at Scarborough:
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"It is incontestable that the greatest dividends in the saving of life and suffering would come from precautionary measures which could be taken in the short period of intense activity between the declaration of an emergency and the actual nuclear attack."
No Civil Defence, no measures. At the same Conference, the noble Lord went even further. He said:
"It is a truism for those involved in Civil Defence that in the face of nuclear attack, co-operation between all Services, departments and authorities will be vital. But this truism can only be converted into practical reality by constant study, careful planning and effective training in peace time."
Surely, that is the one thing you are now doing away with. The noble Lord went on to say:
"One of the principles we have applied to our future Home Defence preparations is that plans wherever possible should be based on peace-time service. This stems from the assumption that the period available for preparations might be very short."
I cannot see anything wrong in that, except that the Government are not now carrying out what they suggest.
My Lords, it also seems that we are now the sole NATO country whose Government has cynically abandoned any attempt to provide for the protection of the civil population—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: —on the arrogant assumption that another war is unlikely to affect this country. I have heard people state that this is not so. But the only truth is that we are abolishing voluntarily Civil Defence.
To conclude, I take up the point with which I began. My main hostility to the Government arises from their treatment of the volunteers. In Devon, many have served for 20 years; no fewer than 312 hold the medal awarded for over 15 years' service. Their answer to the Government's immediate order for disbandment of the national Civil Defence Corps has been to form themselves into the "Devon Emergency Volunteers", a body 800 strong. These are men loyal to the State. If the Government will no longer provide for them, they are prepared to "do it themselves" until such time as official recognition is restored. It would be history repeating itself for us, for in 1852 a local doctor in Exeter started the Volunteer movement, in spite of the politicians of the day; and that

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took another four years to get recognition. We are now praying that the county council will back us up on April 18.
My Lords, I was going to make one more quotation but I will not, because I am very sorry for the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. It has been referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shawcross. To end, speaking from my experience I say that the volunteers are fed up with the crocodile tears of Ministers and they cynically disbelieve any of the soft-soaping tributes given to their past service—given generally with one hand while they are slapped in the face with a wet haddock by the other.
7.5 p.m.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, this seems to me to have been quite the most one-sided debate that I have attended in your Lordships' House. I am given to the thought that the reason for it is that Her Majesty's Government have not a leg to stand on. I am rather surprised that none of their supporters has helped them even with a wooden leg; and so, unfortunately for those Ministers responsible, they have to take the full weight of criticism—and some of it has been pretty brutal. Many noble Lords have to-day declared an interest, and it is a fact that I am still a member of the Civil Defence Corps, though a very bad one, and recently I have been an absentee. But I am not going to declare an interest, my Lords, because I gather that one declares an interest if one receives money, and I have given quite enough time to Civil Defence without receiving a penny for it. I think I got an exercise book. I did not expect a penny, and so I do not think that I need declare my interest.
My excuse for addressing your Lordships is that for a number of years I took part, in a very junior capacity, in Civil Defence. I used to attend lectures at our local centre in South-West Scotland, in the County of Kirkcudbright. Our local centre was in the market town of Castle Douglas. I went along, with five or six other people who were being trained to be part of a headquarters section that was to be set up. In that part of the world we were somewhat behind-hand. I gather that in other parts, particularly in England, Civil Defence was much better organised.
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At that time, which was about five years ago, we had no permanent headquarters in Castle Douglas, and we were permitted to use the town hall for lectures. All the gentlemen being trained for the headquarters section, including myself, were farmers. The nearest to Castle Douglas lived eight miles away and the furthest lived 25 miles away. It was fondly supposed that in the event of a nuclear attack we should present ourselves there in order to organise the people who were already in Castle Douglas. In my junior position I pointed out, with some diffidence, the disadvantages of this set-up and tried to suggest that the headquarters section should be formed from residents in Castle Douglas, and that farmers would be better employed as wardens, or in the field elsewhere. I was courteously told that it would all work out in the long run. Well, my Lords, it did not. I attended lectures for three years running, and the third year, when I turned up, we were getting the same lectures, starting from the beginning, as we had been having in the first year. As I had quite a lot to do, running a farm and coming to your Lordships' House, and other duties, I am ashamed to say that I gave up attending the lectures. I realise that I should not have done so; but I did.
There is no going back. That is evident because, inadequate as were our preparations then, they are now, I suppose, going to be almost non-existent. It is true that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that there is still something in existence, but so far as nuclear war is concerned, unless we get about three years' warning preparations will be non-existent. However, as I have shown, a lack of proper concern for Civil Defence does not seem to me to be peculiar to this Government. The last Government, in my opinion, did not do enough about ensuring that it was efficient, adequate and, above all, operational. Had the Cuba crisis resulted in a nuclear war, whatever the state of preparedness may have been in other parts of the country, in my part of South-West Scotland there was very little organisation ready to cope with an emergency. There were the police, the T.A. and the W.R.V.S., and I am glad to note that we still have the police and the W.R.V.S.
It may be said that in an area such as that in which I live, a completely rural

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area, there is no need to worry about nuclear attack; that no sane Government is going to waste a nuclear bomb on an area of bogs, mountains and fields. It seems to me, however, that for that very reason areas such as Galloway are in a position to do something, and Civil Defence should have a high priority there. Galloway lies 70 miles south of Glasgow, and roughly 50 miles west of Carlisle—that is, two hours' driving from Glasgow, and one and half hours from Carlisle. There is a lot of talk about the evacuation of people from the big cities, but if they get three hours' warning they are going to evacuate themselves, without waiting for organised people to come round in buses and collect them by numbers from their houses.
It is possible that Galloway and other wild areas, like parts of Yorkshire and Argyll, would be flooded with refugees. What are we going to do with them when they get there? So far as I know, there are not, and never were, adequate preparations to receive, house and feed them. There are no fallout shelters in the whole area, so far as I know, and one of the dangers to which such areas are certainly exposed is fallout. I do not remember the exact figures for radiation half-life, and all we were taught, but I understand that if people can be kept under cover, in proper fallout shelters, for roughly seven days, they stand a chance. I do not put it much higher than that. Perhaps the noble Lord who is to reply can explain what is to be done with all these refugees who are likely to land up in the wilder parts and what preparations have been made for this.
Very few people who have worked in the Civil Defence expected or received any money for their services. Certainly there were expense and uniform allowances, but these amounted to very little. People certainly did not volunteer for the money; they volunteered because they considered it a high privilege to be allowed to serve their country. They were, and are, prepared to go to considerable trouble and sacrifice in order to serve the Queen and the British people. Her Majesty's Government do not want their services. This is what it seems like, and this is what the people feel. They feel that the Government are prepared to
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"dish out" O.B.Es to people who wreck the British policeman's Sunday, yet those who wish to give their services to the nation are told that they are not wanted. I know that this is not what the Government feel and mean (I wonder sometimes what they do mean), and I am sure that none of the Ministers in this House means this. But this is the impression that people are getting, and it is hard for them to avoid the conclusion that the Government are not interested in the survival of the British people.
Not long ago, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which, surprisingly, has not been mentioned to-day, made Civil Defence a particular object of spiteful attack and derision. The logic of their attitude was unclear, but so far as one can see these people are not guided by logic, unless it is a logic of a peculiarly sinister kind. Civil Defence workers were not going to launch the bombs, but were merely taking such practical steps as they could to protect the British people in the event of their being landed. C.N.D. supporters took exception to this perfectly proper desire to prevent as much death and suffering as could be prevented. They may well consider that their moment of triumph has now arrived. Should Polaris be abandoned, their cup of rejoicing will doubtless be full, for then Britain will be quite defenceless against her foes and totally dependent on the U.S.A., against which country the C.N.D. and kindred organisations are now launching a campaign of almost unpredecented abuse and vilification. Should the U.S.A., understandably, decide that they have enough to do to defend themselves and their own interests, where should we be then? Britain would be like a fat, overfed slug waiting for somebody to stamp on it.
There is a strong impression in the country that Her Majesty's Government are content to allow this to happen. As I have said, I cannot myself believe that they are, and I hope and pray that I am right. They have already changed their minds over Stansted, and I beg them to reconsider, before it is too late, their decision about Civil Defence. Stansted is important, but beside Civil Defence it is insignificant. Concern for the survival of the British people is the first duty of the British Government and of the British Parliament. If they fail in

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their duty, then the condemnation which will fall upon them will be justly merited.
7.15 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, in the few words I wish to address to your Lordships to-night I should like to look at the financial side. Having served for nine years on the Suffolk County Council, I know a little about the problems. I am no longer on the council and I speak entirely for myself, but during the last few weeks I have talked with officials and tried to bring myself up to date for this debate, I very much deplore the cutting down of financial aid to local authorities to carry out duties on Civil Defence. In the year 1966–67, the County Council of West Suffolk spent £36,000 on its Civil Defence. Last year, in view of the financial position, they prepared estimates cut down to £31,000. Then there was the Prime Minister's announcement on January 16 that the whole Civil Defence was to be put on a care and maintenance basis and only planning staff was to be kept in operational centres. The County Council put in a revised estimate of £6,000, of which, as your Lordships will know, 75 per cent. is paid by the central Government. Since then they have been told that they can have only £2,000, plus £800 for the operational centre.
We have nearly completed a new wing to our county offices, and in that wing is the new operational centre. When there is only £2,800 to spend—in passing I should say that Suffolk is a small county of some 143,000 people and can afford only one planning officer and not a high level one at that—this allows hardly any money for keeping the staff trained, and will not allow any money at all for weekend operations. I cannot see the use of keeping a planning staff of one or two men unless we can test plans and have some training. I said to the County Clerk last week, and he consulted the Civil Defence officer, "What sort of money do you think you could do with to put on minimum training?" Because the volunteers are there and they want to go on. The whole Eastern Area is an efficient organisation. The reply was. "if we could have £6,000 or £7,000, we could keep things ticking over and do perhaps one or two exercises a year".
We have been told by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to-day that there will probably be £1 million for the local
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authorities to spend. Then the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, said that some of this would have to go for compensation for displaced staff and some would be kept by the central Government, so that the actual amount left to spend would be only half a million. That was confirmed by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who was very worried about it. I think it is a tremendous mistake that the Government cannot produce more than £1 million to keep this wonderful voluntary spirit going. I agree very much with what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield said to-day, that we are taking a great risk in this country in not providing at any rate the minimum service. If you are going to put it only on a care and maintenance basis, without any training at all—and the training may cost another £1 million or so—I think you are taking a grave risk.
Once the volunteers go, then it is extremely difficult to get them back again. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that the specialist vehicles will be kept, and we are glad of that, because we have spent a good deal of money in the county on beautiful buildings for these vehicles. But once the ordinary vehicles have been sold, if there is an emergency it will be extremely difficult to get vehicles. I was in the Territorial Army before the war, and I well know that when we went out at the beginning of the war we were terribly short of vehicles; and a great many were requisitioned. I think it is a great mistake, if you are going to keep an organisation in being, to sell off its valuable equipment. The Fire Service equipment, also, is going to be abandoned. I had the honour to serve on the joint authority of the Suffolk Fire Authority for seven years, and I know a little about this. We built many new fire stations in the area, and attached to those fire stations were very good extensions for Home Office auxiliary fire engines. I hope that they will not all be sold off, because they have at times played an important part when there have been major fires and there have not been enough fire engines. They have had permission to use these machines and the personnel. And we gave the personnel very good training.
I hope that the Government at this late hour—we have had no opportunity to debate it before—will have second

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thoughts and, if they are going to keep some form of voluntary service going, will allow local authorities a little more money. The local authorities are very concerned, and strong representations have been made to the C.C.A. about it. I hope that the Government will try at this late hour to give a little more money to keep the service on a little better footing than they are proposing at the moment.
7.22 p.m.
LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, when I was in the Army I learned, among other things, that within the framework of an appreciation one considered the factors affecting a problem and then made a decision. But over the last year or two it seems that we have had our decisions, and the factors have been left to suit those decisions, just as the settled policy of 1967 has been altered to suit the decisions. I was horrified to hear the view that the Civil Defence can be re-formed within a short period of time. I hope the Government do not really believe that, because once the volunteers have gone they will be lost. But even if they could be gathered together, they could not be trained quickly; and even if they could be trained quickly, it would more likely than not be impossible to re-form the Civil Defence, because it would constitute overt preparations which would be politically and diplomatically almost impossible.
I should like to say a word about the redundancy payment. The local authorities are suffering under reduced grants and increased costs, such as, for example, those involved by the Transport Bill. I feel that this is a case where the redundancy payment should be entirely met by the Government, and not by local authorities.
I should like to know details about the proposals for the use of the regular police and fire services for any emergency, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, suggested would happen. If there is an emergency, whether it is a civil catastrophe or a nuclear bomb, I cannot see that the police will be able to drop their existing jobs to go off and deal with it. They will be needed so much the more for their own jobs. I cannot see that this is a practical solution.
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Then there is the question of the equipment. Some vehicles are to be sold, and the specialist vehicles are to be kept and used by local authority personnel for individual catastrophes. This seems to me nonsense, because they cannot be maintained properly, and they simply will not work. One might just as well sell them, rather than keep them until they fall to bits, which inevitably they will do unless they are properly looked after by permanent Civil Defence people. The same goes for the use of local authority personnel in a catastrophe. I think it is envisaged that they should be trained and used in certain catastrophes. The jobs of the local authorities will suffer if their staff are to be taken to deal with these happenings. I feel that the Government plans are totally unrealistic in this regard, and I have never been less convinced by an argument put over by the Government.
I want to say just a word in support of my noble friend Lord Ridley, who suggested that the Civil Defence should be amalgamated in one form or another with the Territorials. This is an excellent idea, but I hope that there will be consultation with the Civil Defence and the Territorials before it happens, rather than afterwards.
7.26 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, this has been a tragic debate, a tragic day for the Government and a tragic day for the country by reason of a decision of this dying Government. But let us see how far we can agree on anything. I trust we can all agree that it has been a debate notable for some outstanding speeches, and particularly I should like to mention the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Long, who addressed us with knowledge, as well as with sincerity and fluency. I have no doubt that we shall enjoy many similar thoughtful contributions from him in future days.
I think, also, I shall find everybody at one with me when I pay tribute to the moving speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, in honour of voluntary public service by the British people locally and nationally. I particularly noted the remarks of my noble friend Lord Ridley, when he said that one of the most fatal things that the Government may have done in this whole unhappy

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business is to strike a vital blow at voluntary service. In her speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, went back to the last war, and indeed before that. The noble Baroness and I both know how vastly the practical content of Civil Defence has changed over the years since then. Yet I thought that she, and most particularly the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield, penetrated to the heart of what we are debating to-day. Whatever form a future war may take, a Civil Defence organisation is imperative if we are to maintain the morale of the public under attack, and uphold their confidence.
If there is a next war—which we all pray there will not be—we must recognise that there will be no one to fulfil that responsibility, because of this Government's decision. The 90,000 volunteers are being stood down by the Government this weekend. The local authorities have been told by the Government that their 2,000 full-time Civil Defence staffs are to be dispersed as quickly as possible, which disposes of any possibility of quickly rebuilding Civil Defence. We must bear in mind always what the Government themselves said in their circular of January, 1967:
"If, against all probability, an attack were to be made there might be only a very short time for overt precautions and emergency plans must reflect this."
The plans which the Government have now announced do not reflect that at all. They assume that there will be a long period of preparation, a long period at some point in which the Government will have to announce, as the right reverend Prelate pertinently pointed out, that Civil Defence is to be resuscitated, thereby creating the maximum of anxiety in the civilian population at the prospect of another war.
One of the reasons, I fancy, why not a single supporter of the Government on their own Benches has risen to defend their policy is that the Government's most recent announcement on policy can be repudiated at every point by quotations from their own previous statements about Civil Defence and its necessity. The speech of the noble Baroness took me back 27 years to the winter of 1940–41, when I had the honour of representing, in another place, the constituency of West Lewisham; one of those
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constantly afflicted by bombing in that winter. I witnessed the saving of life by the then Civil Defence workers; I witnessed the maintaining of morale; I visited rest centres the morning after a bad night's "blitz," where one met people who were obviously very shaken in nerve, but alive, those who knew what the Civil Defence people had done. Everybody knows that in a future war the situations and the processes of saving life and keeping up morale would be wholly different. The effective point for this debate is that in the view of this Government, no preparations apparently are to be made to perform that essential function at all. I say that because nobody believes that under the Government's present proposals an effective Civil Defence Corps could be reconstituted sufficiently quickly in an emergency.
Civil Defence has hitherto been thought of by successive Governments as essential to the structure of our military power. If we had no effective Civil Defence, it would be known to the world that we could not risk becoming involved in a major war because our whole population would die. So our protests and our military power could be disregarded with impunity by a potential aggressor. I should have thought that we had had too much experience in the past of the false ideas foreign countries sometimes obtain about this country's purpose, through getting the notion that we are not in earnest. An effective Civil Defence organisation could not prevent millions of casualties; that is agreed between us all. The best scientific advice, unless it has changed within the past few weeks, is that it would save the lives of millions who would otherwise die, after the nuclear exchanges were over. In other words, effective Civil Defence preparations are essential, both to make our deterrent power credible, and to save millions of lives from the holocaust, should it take place. Without effective nation-wide Civil Defence, nuclear war would be likely to mean that the British race in this island would be wiped out. I say that deliberately, and I believe that scientific advisers would bear it out. With effective Civil Defence, a sufficient part of the British race would survive to enable us gradually and painfully to build again. Most of the world overseas—whatever they might say—would lament it if the British race in

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Britain wholly ceased to exist. This Government—already so unpopular in the country—have decided to gamble with the future of the race.
I appreciate the difficulty of Home Office Ministers. At the demand of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they are now put in the position of defending here, and in another place, a policy which I am sure they abhor, a policy which they know to be unsound and wrong. There is much talk in the newspapers and elsewhere just now about defects in our Parliamentary structure and procedures. One change that I for my part would bring about is to make Treasury Ministers directly answerable to Parliament for policies which the Treasury has forced upon resisting departments. I say that, having been twice a Treasury Minister myself. I have also been Home Secretary, and I should have resigned that post rather than surrender the efficacy of Civil Defence at the demand of any Chancellor of the Exchequer. As it is, the Home Secretary and his Cabinet colleagues are taking the guilt upon themselves for imperilling the future of the British race; and every man who accepts the post of Home Secretary knows that he is becoming head of the Department which is held responsible at all levels for the safety of the public.
To-night, from a position of some loneliness, the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is to reply. I say "some loneliness" because it cannot have escaped him that the Government have not had a single defender, except his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who has with great sincerity sought to make a case for a policy which must be utterly distasteful to him. The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will please the House if he can now tell us that local authorities will be authorised by the Government to spend enough money to maintain a small Civil Defence staff, and to carry out adequate training for that small staff. They clearly cannot do that on the £1 million that has been allotted to them, reduced by £250,000 for redundancy payments. Indeed, it would not surprise me to hear that all the local authorities which individually and collectively have made representations to the Government since this policy was sprung on them on January 16, have made it clear that the Govern-
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ment's own ideas cannot possibly be carried into practical effect, unless the local authorities are authorised to maintain sufficient staffs.
The noble Lord will also please the House if he can say that the Government are going to support, at some small financial cost, the continuation of the voluntary spirit in some new and wholly unpaid organisation. Both those assurances are the assurances which, as a result of this debate, it is clear your Lordships desire to hear from the Government. Both of them would mean changes in Government policy. I grant the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, that he may not be authorised, without consultation with his seniors, to announce those changes. I think your Lordships would forgive him if he said that he would go to senior Ministers and recommend that those changes should be made. Then we should be saving something from this wreck. But, otherwise, I am bound to tell the Government Front Bench that their policy is not credible to anybody but themselves.
If the noble Lord cannot help the House in this way, at least we shall look to him—because as a Minister he is in an international position—to tell us which other countries, exposed to the possibilities of nuclear war, have thought it safe to ravage the effectiveness of their Civil Defence workers as this Government are doing in Britain. We urge him to explain to us here in Parliament what sudden improvement, what marked easing of tension, the Government of which he is a member now perceive in the international situation—I shall be grateful to have his attention—to justify him in defending to Parliament a cut of 70 per cent. in Civil Defence expenditure, when only 12 months ago his Government were saying that Civil Defence had already been cut down to "the most economical basis". I am quoting from the Statement made by the Home Secretary, and repeated in your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Bowles, on December 14, 1966:
"The Government believe that by carrying out the measures I have indicated they will retain on the most economical basis a pattern of civil defence preparation which, if there were a nuclear attack on this country, would enable many millions of lives to be saved".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 1673.]

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They defended the considerable cuts they were making then on the ground that they had carried out a systematic examination and had reduced the structure of Civil Defence to "the most economical basis." Presumably in their own minds those words, "the most economical basis", had some meaning. Yet here they now are reducing "the most economical basis" by another 70 per cent., which leaves it at nothing effective at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, will have to bear in mind also that just 12 months ago, on March 22, 1967, the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said:
"We have made a scientific assessment of the situation, subject to constant review and consideration, and what I am now putting before your Lordships is our best assessment of what should be done and of the instruments which should be created to meet the situation envisaged".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 794.]
That assessment is now being cut by 70 per cent. Later on in the same speech the noble Lord said:
"The price of all this is certainly the cheapest and one of the most important insurance premiums of which I have knowledge. And it has only been made possible by the selfless devotion of an army of volunteers, who year in year out train and equip themselves to face a dreadful emergency that we all pray will never happen. They deserve well of their country". [col. 797.]
Now these very volunteers, on whom a year ago everything was said to depend, are having all Government aid withdrawn from them. I would remind the Government Front Bench that elsewhere in that same speech the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said:
"….no one can say that all danger of a nuclear attack has disappeared, and until we can say that with certainty no Government worthy of the name could leave its people helpless in the aftermath of such a disaster". [col. 784.]
Can the Government say with certainty that all danger of a nuclear attack has now disappeared? Of course they cannot. Then let it be known, let it be known to the country, that this is the Government that have decided to leave their people "helpless in the aftermath of such a disaster".
7.44 p.m.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I begin by offering my congratulations to the noble Viscount, Lord Long, on his maiden speech? I hope that we shall hear him often again. I understand from
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the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, that his sport is gliding. I hope he will follow the pattern of his sport and rise to great heights in your Lordships' House, although it will not be, if his speech to-night was a reliable guide, on the currents of hot air which are so necessary to his sport and which he may have noticed are not always absent from the Palace of Westminster.
There was one point the noble Viscount raised in his speech which I think he would want me to answer directly, if he is not already satisfied about it, and that was his question about the equipment of the Civil Defence organisation. I think it has been made clear, but I should like to make it clear again, that no essential piece of specialised Civil Defence equipment will be disposed of. The equipment that will be sold will be the non-specialised type—lorries, and so on. It might also be interesting to him to know that, so far as uniforms and personal equipment of Civil Defence and fire personnel are concerned, they will be given to the members concerned. There is, of course, no question of selling this equipment.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield made, I thought, a most moving and impressive contribution to this debate. It was not, of course, a speech that he could expect the Front Bench to be entirely pleased with, but I would assure him that our gratitude for the work he did on that Committee to which he referred was not diminished in any way by the fact that in the end it was decided not to publish the report. I can assure him that in our minds, if we should ever face the awful catastrophe of nuclear war—something which I, like him, hope will never happen—we see in that situation the immensely valuable part the clergy will play, a part that was reflected in the report produced by his Committee.
I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, would not be here for the winding up. He apologised for that earlier on. I realise that there are times when noble Lords cannot stay to the end of debates. However, perhaps in the light of the fact that he asked two specific questions I might answer them, simply for information and for the Record. He spoke first about the earmarking of educational premises for emergency feeding,

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and so on. The information I have for him on this point is that the earmarking of premises for war-time use generally will continue. If, as he indicated in an earlier debate, he has in mind the extent to which local authorities have earmarked schools, the answer is, as Lord Hughes said during that same debate, that we could find the answer to this statistical question only by circulating the local authorities for details. We did not feel that the statistical information was important enough to do that, so I have to ask the noble Lord to accept that that detailed information is not available.
So far as the financing of the W.R.V.S. is concerned (another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow), the W.R.V.S. will continue to receive their grant of about £900,000 a year towards their administrative expenses, subject to a small cut of £50,000. As their value for peace-time purposes is the main justification for maintaining them—although they would, of course, be valuable in war time as well—this cost will no longer be treated as home defence expenditure. The noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, made one very interesting suggestion in the course of her speech, when she asked why we could not start simple courses at schools and universities and provide a safety valve—perhaps that is the wrong word: an outlet—for voluntary effort in this way. We will certainly look at this suggestion and see whether there is any future practical value in it.
The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, made one or two points about the National Hospital Service Reserve. I can only say that his facts are absolutely correct. The Service has been running at a cost of about £100,000 a year. It does not seem unreasonable to us, bearing in mind the peace-time value of this service, which we acknowledge, that hospital authorities now should bear from their ordinary allocation this comparatively small sum as a contribution to, a share in, helping to solve our present financial difficulties. And if the N.H.S.R. is to be kept for its peace-time value—and that is the main reason for keeping it—it seems to us reasonable that it should be financed on a peace-time basis.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, would the noble Lord allow me to inter-
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vene? Could not the Government treat it rather in the same way as they are evidently going to treat the W.R.V.S., and carry the same expenditure, which is only £100,000 a year, on another Vote?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I think that is, in effect, what is happening. This money comes from us all in one way or another, and in effect this is happening to the hospital service.
The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who seems, if I understood his speech aright, to come from a rather unusually wet part of the country, made a number of remarks about the political rather than the economic nature of the Civil Defence reductions. This is a distinction that I am afraid I have always failed to appreciate fully. I failed even more when he went on to speak of abandoning Civil Defence to please the pacifist elements in the Labour Party. This leaves me absolutely baffled. If we wanted to go in for this mythical exercise of pleasing the pacifist elements in the Labour Party, I cannot imagine any less suitable way of doing it than by making big reductions in a peaceful and passive defence force. This kind of argument leaves me puzzled about the basis on which the noble Viscount has criticised the policy of the Government.
He went on to make a constructive suggestion about the amalgamation of the Civil Defence force and T. & A.V.R. III. I think the idea was that it should be used for peace-time disaster duties. In our view, there would be no point in doing this; indeed, it would be impracticable, because, as he knows, the T. & A.V.R. III was a military force which could not be put under the command of local authorities or chief fire officers, as the Civil Defence Corps was. Nor are its personnel suitable for the functions involved: they are not trained in welfare, rescue work, contact with the public, and so on. So I am afraid that this suggestion, interesting as it was, is not one that would have any practical value.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive me for interrupting him again, what I should like to see happen is for the three or four voluntary bodies which exist to be combined into one worthwhile force. That was what I was suggesting.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount.
Perhaps I may now pass on to the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough. He gave us a short dissertation on the nature of a military appreciation. I was in the Army, too, and if the noble Lord believes that in the Army, in an appreciation, factors really come before conclusions, then he will believe anything. I was in two Staff Colleges, and it was my experience that nearly always in the Army the conclusions are reached first, and the factors are then written in to fit. But he has forgotten one important thing, which is that in an appreciation, even if it is done in the right way, even before the factors and the courses and the plan, there comes the aim; and it is the aim of this exercise with which the Government are concerned, and I hope to be able to show, in the course of the next few minutes, the kind of aim that we have had in mind in making these reductions.
Before doing that I should like to mention briefly two other speeches: that of the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chud-leigh—who I think was rather unusually unkind, especially when he told us that our thanks and our crocodile tears were not wanted by the people who were unfortunately being deprived of their pastime, in some cases, and of their official appointments, in others. Up to now we have always been criticised—again I think unjustly—for not thanking people when we have had to make these reductions in the Civil Defence force and the Armed Forces. The noble Lords who criticise us cannot have it both ways: either they must concentrate their criticism on us for thanking these people, or must do so for not thanking them.
I should like to mention briefly the noble Lord who absented himself from the Civil Defence organisation and who now complains that it has disappeared in his absence. He spoke of refugees in wilder parts of the country, and made one or two glancing blows at subjects like the half-life of fissile material, and I cannot help feeling that he might profitably have stayed a little longer in the Civil Defence organisation.
LORD BELHAVEN AND STENTON: My Lords, perhaps I may say that I would have stayed a little longer, but
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the organisation was so bad that I thought it was up to Her Majesty's Government to make it better. As a junior member of the organisation I Could do nothing.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I appreciate the noble Lord's point. It just seemed to me that it was not a good reason for criticising the Government for removing the Civil Defence organisation.
Generally speaking, some of this debate about the Government's Defence policy has been complicated by some curious arguments about the strategic context of the Civil Defence organisation. One strange argument was put forward in its most extreme form in a recent debate in another place, but was reflected once or twice to-day. It is that the whole argument for reducing Civil Defence expenditure is really a dark plot to persuade the Government to abandon their own nuclear weapons. The first step, it is said in this curious proposition, was to make Britain's civil defence useless. This, in the confused world of the people putting forward this argument, is based on the proposition that if Britain does not have a Civil Defence Force, the credibility of its own nuclear weapons is thereby weakened. This was a point which I thought was reflected in some of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, in what I thought was, for him, an unusually bitter and intemperate speech. I am not quite sure whether he is getting the full gist of my remarks at the moment.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, if the noble Lord will forgive my interrupting him, the practice of the House of course requires me to listen intently to everything the noble Lord says, but it does not insist on my watching him while he clutches at straws.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, it is 30–15, I think. But I seriously suggest that the noble Lord's speech was most bitter and intemperate for such an experienced advocate. However, I will go back to a consideration of the thinking, rather than to the presentation of it. Some of the things which have been said, here and elsewhere, are really an awful warning against the dangers of getting this sort of general debate about Civil Defence involved in complicated strategic analysis and arguments, especially when one does not always

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understand properly what they mean. To revert to the argument that the removal of the Civil Defence organisation damages the credibility of our own nuclear weapons, it is argued by the more sophisticated students of this kind of debate that elaborate Civil Defence precautions in themselves weaken the so-called credibility of the nuclear deterrent. That might lead its advocates to repeat the arguments raised in regard to inciting rival Powers to multiply their own weapons in order to saturate the defences which have been erected, and that the possible end of such an arms race is an attack, delivered with so little warning that most of the population would be caught outside their shelters anyway. It can be argued that the preparation of an elaborate Civil Defence organisation is more appropriate to a country which is prepared to launch a surprise nuclear attack itself than one seeking to deter a potential enemy from such an attack.
My Lords, I put forward these rather esoteric arguments, not to endorse them or to defend them, but simply to indicate that once we are led into the strange half-world of academic strategic analysis about nuclear attack it is possible to prove almost anything that one wants to prove. Indeed, someone mentioned the preoccupation of the Soviet Union with Civil Defence. In answer to that I can quote from two extremely eminent Soviet experts, Marshal Malinovsky, who described Civil Defence shelters as graves and coffins prepared in advance for the civilian population, and Marshal Sokolovsky, who in his book on Soviet military strategy—in which, incidentally, it is notable that in the second edition references to Civil Defence have been removed from the first version of the book—has indicated that Civil Defence is valid only in a country which is big enough, has wide enough acres, to keep its Civil Defence organisations outside the main centres of population and to bring them in after a nuclear attack. I think noble Lords would agree, on Marshal Sokolovsky's argument alone, that that kind of Civil Defence organisation would hardly be appropriate to an Island like ours. I make these points to show that for every argument which is produced in this strange world of analysis another can be produced to refute it.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I am sure Marshal Sokolovsky's views are very interesting, but what your Lordships would like to hear is the present Government's view. For many years it was the view of successive Governments, so far as I know, that an effective Civil Defence organisation in this country was necessary to make the nuclear deterrent credible. Is the professional advice the Government receives now, and their assessment of it, to the contrary?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, if the noble Lord will be patient, I will come in a very few minutes to the Government's view of these matters. I thought it fair and right that, having been attacked on the basis of some rather abstruse strategic analysis by other people, I should at least put forward some refuting argument.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, if the noble Lord wishes to pursue that line, is it not right to say that the criticisms of the two Soviet Marshals to which he referred were directed against the inadequacy of Civil Defence in the Western countries? Is it not also right that recently the Soviet military authorities have in fact altered their whole strategy about Civil Defence and are now attaching very much greater importance to it, involving—since the noble Lord mentioned the point—production of fallout shelters?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, so far as the second point is concerned, there is a change in Soviet policy about Civil Defence. The exact significance of it I would not presume to pronounce upon at the moment. I do not think we have enough evidence to say exactly what it is. So far as the question about Marshals Malinovsky and Sokolovsky are concerned, certainly Malinovsky was not complaining about inadequacy in Western Civil Defence.
LORD SHAWCROSS: Not complaining—threatening.
LORD CHALFONT: He was talking about the uselessness in the Soviet Union of having deep shelter programmes. However, I think it is too late to get involved in that kind of argument. I hope noble Lords will accept with me that this is not a problem designed to occupy the minds of the ever-growing army of amateur strategic analysts. It is a problem of the survival of human beings, and I agree with anyone who

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says that no Government has the right to be cavalier about this matter and no Government, indeed, can afford to let itself be distracted from this serious problem by half-baked strategic theorising. That is the point I have been trying to make.
Let us look for a moment, before I outline the policy of the Government, at the sort of thing that would happen if this country were the target of a nuclear attack. We have all heard the vivid metaphors and similar images about the comparative power of nuclear weapons—the great megaton game people like to play. We know, for example, that in the three-week artillery bombardment before the Somme offensive of 1915 the British expended ·05 of a megaton of high explosive, a megaton being the equivalent of 1 million tons of T.N.T. In the whole of the Second World War the equivalent of six megatons were used, and those killed 43 million people. What we are talking about now, for example, is Russian striking power of something of the order of 10,000 megatons, and if you add the indirect effects of nuclear bombing it becomes almost impossible to assess the effect in a reasonable or intelligent way.
A recent so-called war game, a naval war game, demonstrated that eight of the modern Polaris submarines at battle stations could kill on their own 35 million Russians. The destructive capacity of a weapon of that kind, if you apply it to the circumstances of a small, highly populated community like ours, needs no prolonged analysis from me. On the other hand, it is right that I should draw the attention of noble Lords to a detailed study that has recently been made in the United Nations about this problem. The United Nations Secretary-General's Report, which was submitted to the General Assembly at the end of last year, outlined some of the effects of the use of nuclear weapons in war, and the study showed that the scale of physical destruction would be so great that there is no basis of experience which could serve to describe the sort of thing that would happen, the instantaneous transformation of vast living cities into seas of blazing rubble.
I will not go into the whole appalling picture that this Report paints; I should merely like to say that they said in one
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paragraph of this Report that the whole life of a great city of, say, 1 million inhabitants with an area of about 250 square kilometres would be completely disrupted by death, injury, destruction and fire following the ground burst explosion of one single megaton bomb, and the problems confronting the community would be immeasurably greater than anything experienced in the Second World War. I merely make these points. I do not accuse noble Lords opposite or anyone of putting this forward as a serious argument, but I hope no one will suggest, with the experience or lessons of the Second World War, that Civil Defence or any other kind of defence in the Second World War is remotely relevant to the problems we should face if subjected to nuclear attack.
We could, I suppose, prepare against that kind of contingency. We could prepare against nuclear attack. We could prepare against all-out nuclear attack. It has been said that in the case of the United States, for example, it would take ten years for civilisation to return to normal after an all-out nuclear attack. If we wanted to prepare fully against that kind of possibility we should have to alter our whole manner of life; let there be no doubt about that. Of course it would be theoretically possible, at enormous expense, to disappear underground completely, live like troglodytes for the rest of time in the hope that an enemy's missiles could not seek us out there. No one, presumably, would suggest that.
This is not to say that we should therefore throw up our hands and say that the whole problem is too awful and difficult and we must stop thinking about it. That is not the way. It is not to say that any responsible Government can contemplate policies based on the argument that a nuclear attack, especially a surprise one, would be so destructive that there is no point in trying to do anything about it. That is not what we are doing. What we must do, and are doing, is once again to apply the basic principle of assessing our priorities in an intelligent and rational way. We must ask ourselves how much of our resources are to be applied to reducing the possibility of attack, reducing it by political and military means, and how much should we apply to limiting the damage if these military and political measures should

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fail. We must, in doing this, assess the constantly changing nature of the military threat against us.
But this is of defence we are talking—deterrence and defence—and we must put the whole of this matter of defence and deterrence into an even wider context, and decide how much of our limited national resources we can apply to them without damaging the whole quality of life of our people. It has been said before in your Lordships' House, and it will bear saying again, that while the Government are, of course, responsible, and must be, for the security and safety of these Islands and the people in them, it is no good assuring that safety and security at the cost of constantly lowered standards of education, health and living standards in general. These are matters of priorities always, and that is the Government's job.
Some interest has been expressed about the effect of the decision that we have taken on our readiness to meet a nuclear attack and on what that state of readiness should be. Neither I nor the Government want to evade these questions, which I fully admit are crucial to any decision on the level of defence preparation. I fully accept, also, that because of the intangible nature of many of the factors, there can be no absolute certainty as to the answers. No one can be absolutely convinced of anything in this sphere. That is a dilemma which all Governments must continually face.
We recognise, quite frankly, that in consequence of these economies we shall lose something. Obviously this must be so; a price always has to be paid. Part of this price, which we do not attempt to conceal, is that we shall be less ready to face a nuclear attack at short notice, if one should come, than we were before. There is no attempt to slide out of that. What we had to decide was whether this was, in the circumstances, an acceptable risk. To answer this, we must first consider what we have lost and what we have kept. In order to do that, we have first to look at the nature of the threat that faces us. For some years, we have planned on having the country on a war footing in a matter of a few days. If we are to cover all requirements the only way of accomplishing this is to have a large number of people continuously
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trained and exercised. The disappearance of this is what noble Lords have complained about to-night. This costs a great deal of money.
But there are good reasons to believe, in spite of the points that have been made by noble Lords opposite, that we do not now need to think on such a short time-scale. There has been a gradual, but undeniable, improvement in international relations over the past few years. Of course the Government do not rule out the possibility of a future deterioration in these relations, but they do not believe that such a deterioration would happen overnight, or even over a few days. Of course it might be said, indeed it has been said, that even so we should not take any risks at all. But whatever we do we take risks. Indeed, it may be argued, and will be argued, that by devoting money to defence measures at all at a time of financial stringency, we also take risks. This is the balance of priority. It is the duty of Governments to balance these dangers, and this is what we are trying to do.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, made much of this question of the length of warning. I would remind him that it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to rationalise a measure that has been taken for some other reason. Far from it. This question of the length of warning is a concept that has been formulated, together with us, by the Governments of NATO as a whole, by NATO Ministers, and perhaps a quotation that the noble Lord will recognise makes this clear. The NATO Ministers approved last December the recognition:
"That we should receive timely, possibly prolonged warning of any change in the political situation that might make war in Europe more likely."
Admittedly, it is speculative whether voluntary organisations could be raised to their present strength in the time which would be available in this warning period; but it is reasonable to suppose, I think, that a good deal could be done in Civil Defence generally.
I am not arguing here that the international situation has suddenly improved, that there has been some great spectacular improvement. But the difference between the position even last year, in 1967, and now is not a spectacular change in the international situation, it is a change

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in our ability to make resources available for all the things that we should like to make resources available for. But in spite of that, there has been a gradual improvement in the international situation. If noble Lords think back to Cuba or, before that, to the Berlin crisis of 1961, I think they will agree that the change has been considerable and substantial, even radical. Admittedly, as my noble friend Lord Stonham has said, the danger of war has not completely disappeared; but in this, as in all other aspects of life—I make this point again, because it is the motif of what I have to say—risks may have to be taken, and it is the business of Government to balance those risks and those dangers.
The noble Lord, Lord Brooke, asked me to comment on his implication that we are the only country cutting Civil Defence expenditure in this way. He used, I thought, some rather highly coloured phrases when he said that we were "abandoning the population to the dangers of nuclear attack." I do not think that is true as I shall point out in a moment. But I should simply like to say. on the question of other countries, since they have been brought up—I would not have mentioned them otherwise—that the Government of Canada has recently made a 40 per cent. reduction in its Civil Defence budget; and when we talk of NATO countries in Europe, let us take just one country, one of the most powerful countries in Europe, the Republic of France, which spends now per head of its population less on Civil Defence than we shall be spending in 1969–70 after all our cuts have been made. So if noble Lords are going to bring other countries into play in this argument, I would ask them to accept that there are countries that spend less on Civil Defence than we do, and countries that are at this time, and for the same reasons as we, making considerable cuts in their Civil Defence budgets.
May I spend just a few seconds on the question of the state of readiness that we are in fact keeping in this country. It has been suggested openly to-day in your Lordships' House that by disbanding the Civil Defence Corps and the Auxiliary Fire Service we are abandoning Civil Defence. As I have just said, a number of highly coloured phrases have been used to describe this alleged process. But it is not a process at all. It is far from
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the truth. Valuable though these two organisations were, they were only a part of Civil Defence, in the sense in which the term is ordinarily and accurately used. By "Civil Defence" we mean defence measures by civilian organisations or, to put it another way, measures to enable the whole civilian organisation of the country to prepare for attack, fir the appalling stresses of nuclear attack, if it should come.
Most countries—I think I must emphasise this point, in the light of some of the things that have been said to-day—including many of our NATO allies have no voluntary services at all in their Civil Defence organisations. But no one has suggested that they have no Civil Defence measures. Indeed, the opposite argument has just been presented. In fact, our casualty prevention measures are not much reduced because, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke will certainly know, as well as anybody, these depend partly on advice to the public and partly on warning. We are retaining our previous means to give advice to the public on what to do, by radio and television broadcasts; and, as has already been said, we are keeping the warning and monitoring organisation; so we are in a position to give warning and advice, although it must be admitted again that we are making some economies even here.
Secondly, we are keeping the war preparations of the regular peace-time services. The police and the fire service are retaining their war plans. We are keeping extensive stockpiles of supplies and equipment. We are preserving in local authorities a basic knowledge, admittedly, among a few officers, of the facts about nuclear warfare to enable them to help the survivors of the initial attack, should it ever come.
I believe that the point on scientific help and knowledge has already been adequately made, and I will not take up your Lordships' time on that point. I think I should spend a little time on an important point that was brought up by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, the question of the control system, about which he was severely critical. Among the more important physical aspects which are to be preserved are the buildings already completed or in the course of erection for the control system, and the existing system of special communications. This, of course, as he

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said—he made a big point on this—is incomplete, and we do not think that the present financial situation justifies us in incurring the capital expenditure which would be needed to complete it. This we admit. But even so it should not be underestimated. By far the greater part of the sub-regional control—threequarters in fact—are operational, as are one third of the county and county borough controls and sub-controls. Other local authorities would be able to improvise some form of control should the need arise. The disbandment of the Civil Defence Corps does not affect the manning of sub-regional controls, since the staff for these will in any case be drawn from the permanent staff of the police, the fire service, public utilities and Government Departments.
The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, made a point about the links between local authorities and the public. I will be perfectly frank with the noble Lord and with the House and say that I believe that the loss of this link between the local authority headquarters and the general public previously provided by the Civil Defence Corps is the main sacrifice which we have had to make in making these reductions in expenditure. I do not attempt to hide that fact from Lord Shawcross or from your Lordships' House.
LORD SHAWCROSS: My Lords, did the noble Lord say that the Regional Controllers would be retained?
LORD CHALFONT: The Regional Controllers? Yes.
I will now come to the question of the continuation of the voluntary services in another form. This was another point which has cropped up again and again in speeches in your Lordships' House this afternoon. We have had many suggestions that former members of the Civil Defence Corps or the Auxiliary Fire Service might keep some voluntary activity after the Corps and the A.F.S. have been disbanded. I want to say straight away that the Government are grateful for the sense of public spirit which has inspired these proposals. If this is a purely voluntary activity, not making any demands on the Exchequer, we should not want in any way to impede this, but, indeed, would encourage it. But it is fair to say that one is bound
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to see serious difficulties in their undertaking any training of a practical kind. Training requires special equipment and special resources, and this, in turn, must run up expenses. Although I do not want to spend too much time on one particular point, I should like to make the general point about the question of voluntary service. The point is that voluntary service cannot be carried on for nothing. However public-spirited people may be when they volunteer their services, if they are going to be trained in anything useful, the training and the provision of equipment all cost money. I am afraid, as I have said before, and shall no doubt say again, that we have not the money to do all the things we should like to do.
I have detained your Lordships' House far too long. Sometimes emotions tend to run high when one is discussing voluntary service. Of course, the primary responsibility of Government is to ensure the security and survival of this country and its people. The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, quoted me as saying that the world is a dangerous and frightening place—incidentally, I see that he is quoted in the evening newspapers as having said that himself. I willingly make him a present of that graphic phrase! Indeed, the world is a dangerous and frightening place—so dangerous that we must ask ourselves whether the sort of security thinking, defence thinking, Civil Defence thinking, which was valid in the days before Los Alamos and Hiroshima is any longer valid. I wish to make one final quotation from the United Nations document to which I referred earlier.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: My Lords, I am reluctant to interrupt, but nobody in the whole course of this debate has argued that the pre-1945 Civil Defence thinking has relevance to the situation to-day. What we want to understand from the Government is how it is that what they described as a scientific assessment of the lowest possible economic basis for Civil Defence carried out by them between 1965 and 1967 has apparently now become entirely invalid.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, I am being interrupted a great deal, but I will take the noble Lord up on that point. While nobody has argued that 1945 thinking is relevant to modern problems, I

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am making the point, which may be highly subjective but about which I am convinced, that many things which have been said in your Lordships' House this afternoon betray a 1945 type of thinking. As for what has happened since 1967, I believe that I have made the point with the greatest frankness. What has changed is our ability to pay for everything we should like to have. This is one of the simple facts of life, and one of the reasons why we have had to make some choices of priorities which are as displeasing to us as to noble Lords opposite.
I should, however, like to make this quotation from this United Nations pamphlet. It asks the question how can security best be assured in the light of the threat of nuclear attack. It says in answer to this question a number of things, but, incidentally, it does not (I make no great point of this) mention Civil Defence anywhere. What it says is this:
"The solution of the problem of ensuring security cannot be found in an increase of the number of States possessing nuclear weapons or indeed in the retention of nuclear weapons by the Powers currently possessing them. An agreement to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons as recommended by the United Nations would therefore be a powerful step in the right direction, as would also an agreement on the reduction of existing nuclear arsenals. Security for all countries of the world must be sought through the elimination of all stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the banning of their use by way of general and complete disarmament."
This is not as irrelevant, my Lords, as it may at first sound. The fact that matters is that in a nuclear world the only real security for any of us lies not in nuclear deterrents, not in military defence, and not in Civil Defence. It lies eventually and ultimately in disarmament. It is to this aim that the Government are fully committed.
In the meantime we must, of course, be responsible for the safety of our people in this dangerous and unstable world; but we must also be responsible for the quality of their lives in general. We must decide how much of our effort is devoted to reducing the likelihood of an attack upon us and how much we should devote to limiting the damage if we should be attacked. These are two of the priorities which we have to face. The whole panoply of defence must be considered in a much wider context. If we did all that we want to do, if we were
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to try to produce a perfect defence for these islands, a perfect military defence and a perfect civil defence, I expect that we could do it, but it would cost so great a proportion of our national resources that there would be virtually nothing left for anything else. We have had to decide on our priorities.
We believe that our decision to reduce expenditure on Civil Defence is the right one. We regret that it has been necessary. We do not pretend for one moment that nothing of value has been lost. But whatever reductions a Government make in public expenditure, somebody is going to be hurt—that is in the nature of things. Seen from the point of view of those who have been closely engaged in Civil Defence work, cuts in Civil Defence loom large and hurt most. For others, cuts in education loom larger. For some it is the Health Service; for others the Territorial Army, the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. And everyone who is hurt, thank God!, can make his voice heard in this country. But I believe that if we take this matter, as it should be taken, in the widest context, there will be general agreement that although, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, implies in his Motion for Papers, we have had to suffer the loss of a valuable service, a service which we should have preferred to keep, there will be general agreement that, given our economic position, the changes in the international situation, the nature of the military threat to the Islands and the other urgent calls on our limited resources, the Government's decision on Civil Defence is the right one.
In conclusion, I should like to remonstrate again with the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, who in the course of his pungent speech said that any fool can make cuts across the board. If I can adopt the noble Lord's own idiom, I would say that any fool can indulge in purely destructive criticism. "It requires", he went on, "wisdom and responsible government to assess what are the vital needs of the nation, and then to put them in the correct order of priorities". That, my Lords, is what we are doing.
8.29 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, and for the constructive criticisms which I think one and all have

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made of the Government's policies. Also, I should like to congratulate my noble friend Lord Long on his maiden speech. There is little for me to say now, save to lament the Government's decisions and to hope that many people—more, perhaps, than normally read our Hansard—will read the severe and stinging indictments which we have heard this afternoon of the gambles, the deliberate risks (if I may once again borrow a phrase from the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont) which the Government have taken in this sphere, and not least the speech of my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor.
I would still urge noble Lords opposite to take back to their Departments at least the proposal that sufficient funds should be made available to local authorities to enable them to maintain a minimum of professional Civil Defence staffs. I would also urge them to recommend that some new form of unpaid voluntary service, which would obviously make some small demand upon the Exchequer, should be considered, even though I must confess that I found Lord Chalfont's first reactions to these proposals severely discouraging. Given the run of this debate, I am almost tempted to insist upon my Motion to see what happens. However, I shall resist the temptation, and accordingly I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911, and read 1a.
EXPORT GUARANTEES BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, without amendment, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
FIREARMS BILL [H.L.]
Reported from the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, with Amendments, and recommitted to a Committee of the Whole House.
  ELECTRIC FIRES: SAFETY STANDARDS
  ELECTRIC FIRES: SAFETY STANDARDS